The Jerusalem project: Some theoretical lines

THE J E R U S A L E M PROJECT, SOME THEORETICAL LINES

PROF. PATRICK HEALY, TU D E L F T / S E N I O R R E S E A R C H E R D E L F T

S C H O O L OF DESIGN / T I T U L A R PROFESSOR OF I N T E R D I S C I P L I

-NARY RESEARCH F I . U

In his essay "Looking into the Folds", Arie Graafland drew attention to what he identified as loss of ground in then current theorising in a r c h i t e c t u r a l and urban discourse. In one sense his appeal was not about some r e t u r n to order, but a strenuous and concerted effort to rethink 'grounding' and ' f r a m i n g ' ; to rethink action and agency for c o n t e m p o r a r y needs. Graafland's p r i m a r y concern was w i t h the loss of a theorising that can make social life intelligible, and with the impulse to make social life b e t t e r Specifically, his focus was urban and architectural discourse w h i c h had, he argued, become in effect placeless because of a twofold move: one the collapse of a r c h i t e c t u r a l theory into design discourse alone, and thus the positing of a fatal a u t o -n o m y a-nd seco-ndly a loss of grou-nd that was ultimately indifferent to location, to the social.'

It is clear that the contemporary theorists w i t h w h o m Graafland is most directly enga-ged, in the sense of an Auseinandersetzung, are Ole B o u m a n , Michael Speaks and Greg Lynn.^ It is also clear that the petering out of p o s t - m o d e r n i s t and deconstructionist positions in architecture had left a v a c u u m in w h i c h new agons for discourse dominance w o u l d be enacted. Bouman's a r g u m e n t s in his introduction to Kas Oosterhuis's w o r k argued that the task of architecture w a s no longer capture of space but a creation of situations that became malleable, reflecting social tendencies. Speaks had d r a w n on the w o r k of Deleuze in Difference and Repetition [especially Chapter IV) in responding to Lynn's Folds, noting the distinction between realisation of the possible - - w h i c h operates by principles of limitation and resemblance, where ultimately nothing new occurs, e s s e n -tially a constant recombination of elements—, and 'actualization of the v i r t u a l ' which ope-rates by difference, divergence and creation. Graafland considers the stakes in the a r g u -m e n t and concludes the way of staling the question is ultimately too abstract, and that in discussing a r c h i t e c t u r a l practise we also

have to mediate philosophical thought to more concrete f o r m s of h u m a n practice and experience.^

What w a s it that initially motivated

Graafland's concerns? It would be fair I think, to suggest that he was suspicious of the way in w h i c h visuality and the non-tactile had through the screen effect of the c o m p u t e r shifted discussion away f r o m the e m b o -died experience, and increasingly treated philosophical reflection as a mere ancilla to operative and f o r m a l procedures, w h i c h were content to register the forces of the social without any conception of ideological critique or actual resistance. The r e m a r k a b l e overlap of this point echoes, even if u n w i t -tingly the extraordinary exchange between Callicles and Socrates in the Gorgias, w h i c h is as m u c h a dialogue about the relation of art and technology as it is about the life of the philosopher and the relationship to the political, w h i c h for Callicles is a mere version of ' m i g h t is right', and w h i c h for Socrates becomes the question specifically addressed to architecture, as to w h e t h e r it made the city any better:

Socrates: Let us suppose, Callicles, we are going to engage in public life, and were encouraging each other to achieve a r c h i t e c t u r a l feats, the building of i m p o r -tant edifices, w a l l s or docks, or t e m p l e s ; ought we first to examine ourselves and discover if we do or do not understand the art of building, and elicit the identity of our teacher? Should w e , or should we not do this?

Callicles: Of course we s h o u l d .

Socrates: Then, in the second place, we should consider this point, w h e t h e r we have ever had the occasion to c o n s t r u c t a private building for ourselves or for any of our friends and w h e t h e r this building was beautiful or ugly And if after c o n -sideration we found that we had sound and f a m o u s teachers, and that in c o l l a -boration with t h e m we had built many

beautiful buildings, and even after g r a d u -ating f r o m their tuition we had continued to erect numerous w o r k s on our own i n i -tiative - - u n d e r these conditions we m i g h t sensibly proceed to public structures. On the other hand, if we were unable to point out o u r instructor, or if we could point out no building at all or only a n u m b e r of w o r t h l e s s edifices, then it would surely be folly to attempt public w o r k s or to urge each other on to t h e i r perpetration. Shall we or s h a l l we not accept these c o n c l u s i -ons? (Gorgias, SiSI'

In his own w o r k Graafland had pointed to a way in which a f r u i t f u l productivity with t r a d i -tion and contemporary theorising could move on, and take responsibility for social and p o l i -t i c a l agency wi-thou-t surrendering -the specific values of the a r c h i t e c t u r a l and urbanistic discourse to the role of acting as a spatial therapy for problems beyond the reach of politicians and concerned social actors. He also provides a concrete corrective and c r i -tique to theorising that s t e m s f r o m a reading of Deleuze which fails to engage with the historical and c o n t e m p o r a r y Deleuze may not have, of course, been w e l l served by the reading of De Landa, as it eclipses the p r o b -l e m by a kind of descriptive fiat of how vecto-r a l fields avecto-re to be constvecto-rued away f vecto-r o m the more consequent issue of genesis and image in m a t e r i a l reality. Again the application w i t h i n a r c h i t e c t u r a l discourse contents itself to think of the a r c h i t e c t u r a l as a capture, in this instance of forces and energies.^ The loss of ground identified by Graafland w a s not just the indifference to location or place, but also a deep loss of the t h r e e - f o l d body of w o r l d , the social and the h u m a n . It is this loss that challenges a l l theorists to reconsider w h e t h e r it is not that the e m p e r o r has no clothing, but rather that the h u m a n being has neither body nor place. In ways w h i c h he freely acknowledges, Graafland d r a w s f r o m the w o r k of David Harvey and Michael Hays to establish w h a t he calls a

' c r i t i c a l t h i r d i n g ' . It is both a critique and w o r k i n g m e t h o d . ' ,

Critical thirding takes the a r c h i t e c t u r a l i m p e -rative as the w o r k of forming and its capacity to identify the f o r m l e s s which it f r a m e s , in the sense that it opens up by the realisation of the l i m i t a t i o n of production the 'hidden s u b l i m e ' within the object, site, place. This is for Graafland an aesthetic affect of the aesthetic ideological instance, in the sense of Althusser, where everything in science and art is ideology and art is how the ideo-logical delivers the affect in the f o r m s of seeing, feeling, and science in the f o r m of concepts. Thus, in considering the shelter project discussed in his book 7776 Socius of

Architecture, Graafland shows that the design

is an example of the 'critical thirding'. For Graafland the realisation of the possible and the actualisation of the v i r t u a l are always related and suggest that the s e m i - a u t o n o m y of the different spheres of the economic and political order at the time in Manhattan might be able to generate some insight into the aesthetic effects of the proposed b u i l d i n g . ' What this m e a n s in practise is his accep-tance t h a t architecture does not have dis-tantial relations to the objects of its thinking, because it is really in the technologies of power w h i c h they are i m m e r s e d and out of w h i c h they deal with specific f o r m s and for-m a t i o n s . Further, in considering cities one may say that the city and the bodies w i t h i n it constitute the Living part of it, but are not compatible entities, which he has shown in his consideration of the homeless in New York and the day labourers in Tokyo, w h i c h exposes in its resistance the city as t r a n s p a -rency and a branding event.

Without raising his voice into p o l e m i c a l falsetto, Graafland is dead set against the branding and experience industry pandering of an architecture w h i c h a f f i r m s sponsors and advertising exigencies, and accepts the dictatorship of other c u l t u r a l forces such as i n f o r m a t i o n and e n t e r t a i n m e n t technologies. The t h r u s t of this critical position is found

also in Hays. But, c r i t i c a l thirding is really an advance on, and via Althusser's notion of instances, where the condition of the pro-duction and absence is the limit case of the aesthetic affect of the aesthetic/ideological event. The instances enjoy relative a u t o n o m y thus economics is not treated as the main relevant category; rather there is an horizon-tal s t r u c t u r e in the economic, political and aesthetic/ideological, instead of a d o m i n a n t vertical relation as b a s e / s u p e r s t r u c t u r e . Instances are thus relational and t e m p o r a l categories. In such a view processes are more f u n d a m e n t a l than things. The city m u s t be read as a layered process of urbanisation and, it might be added, a constant r e w o r -king of the problem of storage and s e c u r i t y Spatial f o r m s are not to be privileged over social process. Graafland pleads f o r a p r a c t i -cal h u m a n i s m and ground for social values in which the false autonomy of design does not eliminate the real production processes of the body of the planet, of the social and the individual.

Critical thirding is a plea also for g r o u n d . It is then of s o m e consequence as part of the studio w o r k of the Dessau/Delft group repre-sented in this publication in the dimension and configuration of the tasks in hand. The project becomes a genuine testing of the limiting case that Graafland had in mind in his essay and f u r t h e r a real testing of how architects and urbanists can today take a position towards the complex of p r o b l e m s which needs to be outlined and understood.

The question that faces students in a p p r o a -ching urban analysis and proposing any or no intervention remain clearly tied to the paradigm shifts taking place and of w h i c h t h e i r w o r k is inevitably a part; in other words, the shifting of the a n o m a l o u s to challenge the hegemony of the n o r m a l view taken by any and every c o m m u n i t y of researchers as the intellectual ' c o m m o n ground'. A n o t h e r consideration is w h e t h e r analysis is capable of being systematic or r e m a i n s s y m p t o m a t i c .

Working today it is really c r u c i a l to identify at what t i m e the awareness entered that urbanism had become ideological. By this I mean what Lefevbre had in mind w h e n c o m m e n t i n g on the experiments in ' u n i -tary u r b a n i s m ' of the Situationists, whose activities he saw as a direct response to his published research concerns in Critique of

Everyday Life. In a sense the Situationists

were taken by Lefebvre as having abandoned the idea of unitary u r b a n i s m and the task of i n t e r c o m m u n i c a t i o n for different parts of the city; abandoned because it had meaning for historic cities that had to be renewed or t r a n s f o r m e d , but could hardly take account of cities in which there had been explosions into peripheries, literally wild extensions, or s p r a w l developments and s u b u r b s as in Los Angeles and San Francisco.^

Lefebvre reports animated discussions with Debord, who had said u r b a n i s m was beco-ming an ideology: '[Hje was absolutely right. I think the u r b a n i s m codes dates f r o m 1961 in France, and that's the m o m e n t u r b a -n i s m becomes a-n ideology'. If o-ne reads for example the response of Debord and the use of derive as an i n s t r u m e n t of research, then this way of exploring architecture and developments in the urban - - t h e technique of rapid passage t h r o u g h varied ambience, the playfulconstructive behaviour and a w a -reness of psychogeographical effects, since this is c r u c i a l in Debord's view, namely that cities have psychogeographical c o n t o u r s w i t h constant c u r r e n t s , fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit f r o m certain zones--, then the dérive w a s r a n d o m , and required at best s m a l l groups to 'drift' so that ecological and pyschogeogra-phical d i m e n s i o n s w o u l d open up the study of terrain and give place to an e m o t i o n a l d i s o r i -entation. At a m a x i m u m level one could study the city and its s u b u r b s , and at a m i n i m u m level a neighbourhood or even a block of houses. Debord had noted that w h a t counted was, however, the s p a t i a l field as a point of departure, which entailed establishing bases

and calculating directions of penetration. For thiis the study of maps was essential, along w i t h the addition of ecological and pyschogeographical maps and new kinds of mapping.

Lessons drawn f r o m the dérive would enable a drafting of the first surveys of the 'psycho-geographical articulations of a m o d e r n city'. Because it was possible to posit psychogeo-graphical pivot points, one could measure the distances that were actually separating regions of a city which might have little rela-tion to their actual physical distance, and draw up hitherto lacking m a p s ; a mapping w h i c h Debord claims would result in a means to delineate changing architecture and u r b a -n i s m . Debord i-nsists o-n geography eve-n i-n a-n expanded conception of ground, w h i c h beco-mes the identification of psychic a t m o s p h e r e . He insisted that geography w a s the study of the law and effect of environment on the individual, because even the slightest ' d e m y s t i -fied' investigation reveals that the qualitative and quantitatively different influence of diverse 'urban decors' cannot be d e t e r m i n e d solely on the basis of the historical period of a r c h i t e c t u r a l style, m u c h less on the basis of housing conditions. The shock and dis-placement in psychogeography resulted in the understanding of the city not as the great object but as the zone of psychic a t m o s p h e r e . In his text of 1955', Debord had noted that the sudden change of ambience in a street w i t h i n a few meters, the evident division of a city into a zone of distinct psychic a t m o s p h e r e , the path of least resistance that is obvious in aimless s t r o l l s and that has no relation to the physical contour of the t e r r a i n , the appealing or repelling character of certain places, were all phenomena he claimed had been neglec-ted. Debord was in search of a conception of seduction and aesthetic placement to found a new way of life, to harness latent revolutio-nary potential.

Again there is the question of historical perspective. One can point to the search f o r a new conception of u r b a n i s m directly to a

Dutch e x e m p l a r Further, one can point to the m a i n s t u m b l i n g block to such a development, u n t i l the late m o d e r n period, as the problem created in Descartes' view of the relation of planning and the city With regard to a notion of the city as a place of radical e n l i g h t e n -m e n t , Jonathan Israel has shown that in the

Tiieological Political Treatise of Spinoza, his

understanding of the city was a n t i m o n a r -chical, democratic and tolerant, w h e r e the value of free speech mediated between a l l contesting interests. Spinoza's text is viewed by Israel as an effort to strengthen individual liberty and liberty of thought in Dutch society t h r o u g h the weakening of Church a u t h o -rity and lowering of the status of t h e o l o g y Spinoza, Israel argues, sought to reinforce individual liberty and f r e e d o m of expres-sion by introducing a new kind of political t h e o r y strongly influenced by Hobbes and Machiavelli, by arguing for a distinctly urban, egalitarian and c o m m e r c i a l type of r e p u b l i -c a n i s m to mobilise a -challenge to the nature of the State, and what it is fon Spinoza has theorised with a view to a State of Israel, as announced in the Preface and directly argued in chapters 18, 19 and 20.'

Descartes has inscribed a much more rigid f u n c t i o n a l i s m in his understanding of the city. This has been studied by Cambien who briefly shows that f r o m a consideration of c o m -m e n t s in Discours de la Iviéthode Descartes has a stated preference for a m a s t e r - b u i l d e r and a good engineer, resulting in a city that is essentially mechanical, where every element is t h o u g h t of as exterior to every other, and juxtaposed in an abstract space.'" Cambier suggest that the u r b a n i s m of Cedra is s t r o n -gly influenced by Descartes, as also the w o r k of Baron Haussmann, Major Pierre-Charles I'Enfant, and Le Corbusier Descartes shows no interest in the 'ethos' of the population, on the analogy that you do not have to be a m a s -t e r linguis-t -to speak, and so -too in -the case where you wanted to invent a new architec-t u r e . (OP Paris, Dunod. 1070 n.20l. Cambier t h i n k s t h a t a descriptive = e m p i r i c a l method

is unable to propose an alternative for the city. The creating of a counter-city cannot be raised in s u c h an analysis. The question of how the abstract voids left in the wake of functionalist conviction can be r e a p p r o p r i -ated, w i t h o u t the street being reduced to a mere vector of movement. Graafland's 'thir-ding' is really a very developed answer to this question.

In one sense the very abstractions towards which the utopie lead result in disorientation for inhabitants. The extreme of mystified m o d e r n i s m , the vast machinery of urban mystifications, can be seen in Las Vegas and Disneyland - - t h e result of the kitsch d r e a m world of c o m m o d i t i e s in Benjamin's sense, mobilised by image and t o u r i s m - - where interior and exterior are dissolved in assuring the subject as being available for the game of m e r c a n t i l i s m and c o n s u m p t i o n . Some of these points are very m u c h in line w i t h Hays and Graafland.

Cambier sees t h a t U t o p i a s requires heteroto-pias, a critical e m p l a c i n g where an elsewhere is found in a here. Graafland's negotiating of the 'absence' and resistance within the urban, especially through the projects he develops, also takes a s i m i l a r view. Cambier is more optimistic, because he t h i n k s t h a t a city can develop an open horizon, even if there is a theologically dense skyline, w h i c h intensifies the experience of living and d w e l -ling. The simple example of chronotopia would be libraries, m u s e u m s , m o n u m e n t s , because they are 'open' to other t i m e s . In cinema and theatre there is an opening out to the latencies of possible experience, and w i t h train stations and public parks an opening to geographies and a s i m u l a c r u m of nature; this also reminding us that our needs for c u l -t u r a l and symbolic expression are a 'second nature'.

Local quarters can express the heterotopia of the intimacy of the village: neighbourliness replace blood filiations. The neighbour is the one w h o is near, in t e r m s of p e r s o n a l fee-120 lings. The city is a horizon, and its complex

interweave of meanings can, in this utopie vision, facilitate participated orientation and difference. The city becomes a space of s e n -ses, the senses making sense; it exemplifies its meaning as lived i m m e d i a c y Cambier calls this process a 'dépli du sens', w h i c h in a contemporary city may w e l l j u s t mean the vital reactivation of the resources of d e m o -cracy where sociation, as Graafland has it, comes again to the heart of a l l discussions bearing on the city either ancient or now in the m a k i n g . It s e e m s as if the theory of the city that emerged in that place, known as ' m a k o m ' , 'the place', and mooted by Spinoza, is still, and certainly vis-a-vis the reflec-tions of the group w o r k i n g on the Dessau J e r u s a l e m project, under t h e guidance of Professor Jacoby and Prof. Graafland, have begun a f r u i t f u l and complex w o r k w h e r e thinking s t i l l m a t t e r s .

(tiuJni)tt'::.| ' r n r I h r u '.-.oe A i i c G r a a f l d i i d L o o k i n c i i i i t n t h e F o l d " ; " . I l l

riie

[Milan: L ' A i e e i E d i z i u i i i . 'Ml2\ F o i S p e a k s , G i a a f l . a n d r l r a w ; . ( i n ' F o l r l m q l u w a r d s a n e w A r e l i i l e r i i i i e " , in B e r n n i d C a e h e , E ü i l l i M o v e s , t r a n s A n n e B : i y i i i a n K T - a n i h r i d g e : M I T P r e s s , 19951 F o i G i e ' i j L y n n s e e - A r i i i n a l e F o r m I N e w Y o r k : P r i n . : e l o n A i r I n l e c t u r a l P i e s s , 1 9 9 9 1 A r i e t j i a a l l a n d , a i I. e i l H e t u r l h e r e m p h a s r s e b t h e n e e d foi l i i s l o n c ï t a n d c o n t e n i p o r a i y c o n l e x t , s e e p 1 i 2. P l r i t o , G r j r q i a s , t r a n ' ^ . W C . H e l i n l i o l d I N e w Y o i k : T h e L i b e r a l A i b P i e s s . 1 9 5 2 . I M a n i i e l D e L . i i i d a , I r i l e i i b i v e S c i e n c e & V i r t i . i a l P ' l i i l n : , o p l i y [ L o n d o n : [ j u n t i n u n i n . 2 Ü Ü 2 J U a v i d H a i v c y J u s t i c e , N a t i i i e & t h e G e o q i a p h y r i f D i l f e i e n r e l O x f o i d : B l a e k w e l l , 1 9 9 6 1 , a n d KN. M i c l i a o l H a y s , M o d e r n i s m a n d tli( I ' o s l h o i I i.;!nist S u h i e e t I t S a n i b n d c j e . M i l P r e s s . 19921. G i a a f l a n d , a i t c i L , f). l/ i A . Tlir- j r g n r o e n e ; m l l i i s s e c t i o n a i e l a r g e l y l a k e n h o m t h e | H . i l ) l i s | i e d i n l e i v i e w vvith H e n i i L e f e b v r e , r o n d n c t e d a n d t i a n s l . a t e d by K i i s t i i r R ü s s , p i i n t e c l i n : O c t u h e r , 1 9 7 9 It s d o n l d a l s o I j e n i e n l i o n e d t h a t N i e n w e n f u i i s t r a d l . i e e n t a s c i i n a t e d y'.'iili t h e w o i T ; ot t h e L l u t c h h i s -t o r i a n H i . i i z i i i g a , a n d m d e c ' d -t h e s -t u d y cif -t h e ' N . . i r i e r v s c f i i f l , 1 I K ; S f i i p ot F o c i l s , is a n i i n p o r -l.ant s o u r c e l o i h i e ' l u d i c , a s m I t i e Vv'oi k of E r a s n i u s , In f ^ i a i s e of f o t l y S | j i n o z a , T h e o l o g i c a l • P o l i l it:al T r e a t i s e , o d . J o n a t h a n I s i a e l , tran:-j. J o n a t h a n I s r a e l a n d M i r h d c l S i l v e r t h o i n e | t " , j i i i h i i d g e : C a i ï i L i r i ( l ( | e U n i v e r s i t y P i e s s , 2Üt'J7l. " F o r a K j u n i e n t s a n d c i t a t i o n s l i e r e I a i n d r a w i n g o n A t a i i i C a i n h i e r , Q u ' o s t - c e q o ' n n e vil te''' 1 P a r i s : V n n , 201)51