Deconstructivism

Why déconstruire architecture?

It seems a priori absurd, even contradictory, to want déconstruire what belongs to the field of construction. The buildings are regarded as the achievement and the result of a whole step of work. But the architecture deconstructivist which continues in the Nineties has good reasons to be, seemingly, unreasonable. Leaning walls, inclined grounds, posts of skew, inclined windows, these buildings which seem to have undergone the earth tremors are well the result of a work thought on behalf of the Architecte S.

The purpose of this article is to clear up the steps of the architects who took part in the development of a research on the decomposition of spaces in a post-modern context.

In 1988 Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley organize an exposure to the museum MOMA with New York entitled: “deconstructivist architecture”. The public discovers the junction of work, since the years 80, of the architects: Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Coop-Himmelb (L) with the, Bernard Tschumi. Indeed, their similar approach which results in the use of the same register of forms nonconventional and destabilizing, made them gather not to celebrate the emergence of a new style, but to present very close tendencies coming from various parts of the world Western. The architects or other experts discover a news post modernity there drawing with the sources of the modernism and borrowing the geometry of the constructivists. This explosion of forms reflects the freedom of the virtuosos able to give birth to from as strong works on the plastic level as intellectual.

Of what the déconstruction consists

The deconstructivism is thus a qualifier set up by the art critics according to certain quite specific criteria. But before that it should be recalled that the déconstruction is a method of analysis of the literary and philosophical texts set up by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. Nevertheless, if this term does not belong solely to J.Derrida, he guides our comprehension in “52 aphorisms for a foreword”.

Architecture was often a metaphor of philosophy, but the déconstruction would not be an architecture nor even an architectural metaphor. It is not presented as a closed system, but rather like a questioning. She does not conclude but opens doors of reflection. She does not complete concepts but the analysis. It is an interminable comment on the texts, the languages and the concepts of philosophy.

The déconstruction is a “suspended text”. She does not seek the foundations of the visible parts of the building. She attacks the causes which lead origin to the linear end of way, and this because she considers that both cohabit permanently. Its work consists of a reading of fine towards the origin and vice versa. This back and forth pass of the reading becomes a philosophy with work, a work of writing which continues the reading.

The déconstruction is a not negative but productive criticism. “the déconstruction is inventive or it is not (…) its step engages an assertion. ”. She wants to invent the impossible one, “to even reinvent the invention, another, to invent what did not appear possible. (…) To give place to the other, to let come the other. I say well to let come because if the other it is what is not invented, the initiative or déconstructive inventiveness can only consist to open, décloturer, to destabilize structures of preclusion to leave the passage to the other”.

It is thus a critical reading of the philosophical texts that J.Derrida proposes. In order to seize and to restore sequences of thought, it practiced the “parallel assembly” on certain passages which the writers produced. Two texts are placed side by side, one on the page of left another on the page of right-hand side. By this set of comparisons which the reader carries out it reconstitutes of the systems of thought and raises certain contradictions.

The déconstruction does not propose only one literary analysis, they are texts with whole share. The writing of J.Derrida is indebted research on the language of S. Freud. That Ci made speak its patients in order to find the indices which reveal the origins of their disorders deeply buried in their unconscious. In the déconstruction it applied this method of analysis and of interpretation of the speech to the philosophical texts to emphasize the repressed ideas, the avoided subjects, which could have contradicted the coherence of the speech of the author. Under the smooth and well built arguments, he seeks in the rhetorical figures and the subjects avoided to show that no theory is absolutely coherent, logical or whole. It is thus about a technique which aims at recomposing literary works but delivered influence of the author, according to another rules of the game that which initially produced them.

Déconstruction and architecture

The déconstruction is thus contrary to constructions which support closed philosophical systems or completed works. The déconstruction is a space which opens, a state of space open to the reflections, the transformations. It is an opportunity of building a “different” space. In the Nineties the deconstructivism term applied to architecture does not represent a movement or a style and is not synonymous either with destruction or demolition. Via processes of decomposition the originators express in their buildings contradictions, the dilemmas or the conflicts of the city, reflections of the company and the culture current. These complex situations are exposed through an expressive formal research. The forms are thought in order to reveal and not to dissimulate, they have the capacity to disturb the usual way to perceive the space configurations.

Constructivism

The operations of distortion, dislocation or interruption on the structures and the geometry applied by the deconstructivists, are partly transformations used before in visual arts of the Russian but diverted avant-garde of their context of origin. Before the revolution of 1917 in Russia, the forms created by the artists constructivists do not come more than one ordered traditional composition but of an unstable and conflict geometry without axis of hierarchy. After this date before Russian guard rejects traditional beautiful arts to accommodate architecture as medium directly plunged in social reality. That Ci can indeed be used to support revolutionary goals because it is in permanent contact with the population. The dynamism inherent in the formal studies is turned of instability in the structures of V.Tatlin (against-reliefs, tower of the 3rd International one, 1919), A.Rodchenko (drawing for a radio station, 1920) or I.Chernikhov (construction of architectural forms and machine, 1930). But these structures were not carried out and the forms in conflict slipped towards mechanical assemblies surer, similar to those of the machines. The posters of El Lissitzky (Platform of Lenine, 1920) and Altman pose the bases of a new visual culture. The abstract vocabulary of the forms and their setting in space thanks to joining or the plans cut out and joined together sculptures of N.Gabo are as many attempts to fight against static volumes full with the profit depth and a dynamics at the kinetic rate/rhythm.

The movement and the interaction between the forms, the threat of instability, hollow volumes of their mass, as well as the assembly making it possible to reveal complexity and the diversity which the artist can rebuild, are intrinsic topics with the constructivism. They will be re-used like conceptual work tools in architecture deconstructivist. They get the force and the pleasure of the deviance to him which make it possible the creativity to open a closed and immutable system.

Modernism

The modern Mouvement which developed at the same moment diverted by its influence the spirit of the revolutionary projects. This new current was fascinated by the elegant esthetics of functionalism and not by the complex dynamics of the function itself as asserted it the Russian avant-garde. The forms and topics of the modernism voluntarily inspire architecture deconstructivist: industrial buildings similar to machines, abstracted formal register, refusal of the ornament, structural vocabulary (carries to forgery, posts, free Plan, horizontal windows).

The will to let appear the structural components is taken again so as to explore space in a sequential way, as the roof of Coop Himmelblau shows it (Vienna, 1985). The structural vocabulary is as used in such way as it generates interstitial spaces. These spaces not programmed for a function specifies are opened with the fluctuating uses. One can see on this subject the project of residences and the tower of observation of Rem Koolhaas whose statute of the flagstone, from where the turns result, is called in question (Rotterdam, 1982). In projects of large scales, the territory is fragmented in order to question the concepts of traces, inheritance or memory.

Circulation, the course, the passage and the networks are as many forces which organize the projects by means of staircases, of footbridges and other supports of the movement. The scenography which results from this is sometimes dramatized for better doing to seize the inherent instability due to the changes of our time. The many ways set up by B.Tschumi at the Park of the Villette or the crossing of the programming sciences layers of Rem Koolhaas for this same contest, illustrate a will to multiply the points of view on space with large scales. Instead of a single point of view with a tallied prospect, the hearths are distributed so that the spectator moves in all dimensions of his subject of observation. This process had been largely explored by the artists cubists who organized their fabric in order to reveal the various faces of an object under various angles.

Application on an urban scale.

Artificial cities of P.Eisenman.

In four projects, Cannaregio, Berlin, Long Beach and the Villette, P.Eisenman set up of the processes of decomposition. In fact genuine tools operate in the ground and make it possible to handle the significances relating to the concepts of the city. True structuralist operation like described R.Barthes: cutting and fitting. The representations which it uses are directly related to the concept of context. Geographical, historical or discursive context. The drawings are based on a geometrical reading of the place, often starting from charts.

1978.Cannaregio is a criticism of the modern town planning, represented by the hospital of Venice of Le Corbusier.
Operations of tracing and excavation, 1984.Berlin is a critic of the postmodern treatment of the historical centres and primarily of the underground archaeological traces.
Operation of stratification for an artificial architecture, 1986.Long Beach is the criticism of the traditional tradition in which it detects three myths: history (what is timeless), representation (question of the significance) and reason (universal truth).
Operation of scaling, without origin, without end, arbitrary (without voluntary significance), 1988.La the Villette is the synthesis of these 14 years of work.

If one puts side the two methods more traditional of tracing and stratification, one can stop on the two others and see what they imply.

The scaling

It is the result of the superposition, of the scaling, rotation and the fragmentation applied to a chart. The new figure cannot be read in opposite direction to find the origin. That is directly addressed to the history perceived like a linear unfolding with its beginnings and its ends. This complexification of deciphering makes conscious of the multitude of possible interpretations of the readings of passed and their subjectivity, even of their arbitrary encouraged by an ideology. This operation is directly drawn from the synchronic linguistics which not analyzes the phenomena in their reports/ratios in a chronological way but like units structured at a given time. In the process of decomposition, the design and perception are not successive: “It is not certain that the final object is the description of its own history. (…) The decomposition rather than to work towards a precise goal starts with the end to find its own limits.”

The excavation

It initially makes it possible P.Eisenman to hang its building with a real or fictitious site. Also, the digging makes it possible to call in question the operation of extrusion because it can be presented like its opposite operation. The axonometry takes a new dimension then because it keeps its aspect of unbounded drawing resulting from the plan and proposes in this case a vacuum rather than full. By taking the example of the “red standing stones”, A.Vidler initially presents these vacuums like tombs and monuments of its series of houses carried out before, a memorial of its preceding experiments. Beyond this interpretation he proposes that these vacuums do not contain a symbolic system not more than one use, but they contain the mark of a posthumous existence of what, formerly, symbolized or be occupied. In this context, these vacuums are the traces of monuments or other buildings which had a strong symbolic system. The problems represented with the Rebirth by two sculptures with the villa of Este in Italy, are posed again: is architecture it resulting from the vacuum created by extraction in the full one or is it an invention materialized by the full one in the vacuum? The excavation is the action to dig, to withdraw to find what was hidden or forgotten. As, the result is as a space was created, to physically live it or by imagination. Lastly, while playing with the ground in its thickness P.Eisenman brings a sensitivity of the matter and concrete space, rather rare in its theoretical work. As in Wexner Center, he is confronted with the concept of experiment of space and will place the man moving in three dimensions. He is not any more in the center but is always present physically.

He calls upon the concept of palimpsest (handwritten on parchment from which one made disappear the writing to write again) to call in question the imaginary history and to point out subjectivity of the choice and about the events in time!

“My projects created what one can call a superposition, that is to say the simultaneous existence of two or three layers formal and historical producing another inventory of fixtures, entirely artificial-a basic hyper-state, having nothing to do with what before was on the site, or could be there, but existing only in the juxtaposition”

Conclusion

The deconstructivists projects in architecture can thus be close to the work of the déconstruction in literature but in a complementary direction rather than parallel. They have their own methods but both explore in their respective discipline of the forgotten or voluntarily keep silent aspects. The projects are not an application of the theory of the déconstruction in literature, they express deconstructivists qualities rather in an emerging context of the modern tradition. The architects approach the questionings of the origins of architecture, the legitimacy of the forms, the reformulation of the concepts. By their research they open new ways with creation, they release spaces of sterile sufficiency and the stylistic opposition to progress.

The deconstructivists projects definitively do not classify the architects who conceived them in a stylistic category. They rather mark a time to recall that these originators took part in a common work on architecture by keeping their architectural language distinctly.

These projects have the capacity to disturb our way of thinking the forms and their functions. To take an element running in the architectural vocabulary: the wall, its provision and its various forms call in question the division of interior and external spaces. The geometry proves to be more complex and the concept of protection or bulk-heading which a part or a built unit gets of is disturbed. Closing is not simply replaced by the opening of the modern free plan, but the wall is put in tension, torn, folded. It does not get any more the feeling of safety by dividing the familiar one from abroad or the interior of outside but all the concept of fence or enclosure is broken up. This process of subversion, beyond any ideology or madness of its creators, shows the multiple possibilities of combination of the architectural vocabulary too often crystallized in traditional architecture.

See too

Reconstructivisme ()

External bonds

Eisenman' S Site
Hadid' S Site

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Zh-yue: 解構主義建築

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