HA/ARCH 213, Section 6

In the past, replication of architecture has been limited. The experience pre-ordained. Words can only describe, not replicate. Images are fixed- their perspectives immutable. Video decides the montage of architecture- robbing the viewer of agency.

Last year, a new medium for visual media was introduced that provides unparalleled immersion and threatens to blur the lines between what we consider to be true, first hand experience and mere imitation. The Oculus Rift is one of many virtual reality headsets now being produced and sold that allow the user to experience visual media through the full range of vision. An individual wearing the headset can tilt, turn and move their eyes to look where they desire. In practice, this grants the agency that other forms of digital replication have lacked. A user can decide to navigate digitally replicated 3d space and control their interaction with it. A fully replicated building could allow users to walk its corridors at their desired pace and along their chosen path.

While this new medium grants agency, it does not achieve full immersion. When using VR (virtual reality) technology, the user is, as of now, forced to remain stationary, sitting or standing as a form of controller is used to navigate the replicated space. A keyboard or joystick may move your avatar through space, however, it lacks the sense of real motion. Your limbs are not moving- you aren’t walking. But your eyes tell you otherwise. The illusion is convincing, though not definite. Walking the halls of Westminster Palace, you feel the weight of the tile floors through your shoes and the give of the wooden floorboards as you travel. In a simulation, if the mind realizes these details are absent, the experience can be disorienting.

The truth is that while we are now closer than ever to meaningful replication of 3d space, the days of the “Holodeck” from Star Trek are still a little ways away. VR technology seems to occupy what is referred to in robotics as “the Uncanny Valley”. The replication is convincing. So much, in fact, that it is momentarily possible to believe the illusion and consider it as a true-to-life experience- something I challenge any other digital replication to achieve.

As Benjamin claims, the aura is undoubtedly disturbed.  There is an enforced opportunity cost of time and energy to bring one’s self to the steps of the Parthenon. A sense of pilgrimage is inherent to visiting buildings and art to observe them in their respective contexts. Value exists in first hand experience. Where VR technology succeeds, though, is in providing the closest thing to reality a computer system can give us, and with all the inherent benefits to portability and convenience that other forms of replication posses.

In spirit of reproduction, architects Mitnick and Roddier experimented in a new way. Approached by a couple Yellow Springs, OH with this old home, Keith and Mireille kept the existing structure of the building but made additions to fit the couples needs. Rather than creating a new structure, they retrofit that which was already historically there to meet the needs of the new owners. A spin on reproduction that both keeps and celebrating the original but reproduces the program and experience. As shown in the later photos, the original  building finds its way in to the interior of the building, using the original structure more as an exterior space. 

This body of work is a creative and intellectual output of reflection upon the work of Walter Benjamin in interaction with this particular class. What I find so successful about this blog is the many connections we drew the material into, both class related and from our own lives. Having the blog in the back of my mind allowed class ideologies, forms, and modes of communication to permeate my thoughts and experiences as I moved through the world, further helping me internalize concepts and see parallels. For that, I appreciate the role this blog has played in my exploration of the class material. 

If you go to Banksy's website right now, you be met with a message against the recent revelations on government spying and the internet. However, if you use the "wayback machine" and go back a little bit, you'll find his gallery as it was before he decided to install the new piece on his website.

As I was scrolling through, I noticed this image. As the heading alleges, this was a piece written by Banksy for the New York Times, in which he expresses his dismay over the perceived 'shyness' of the architecture in question.

Keeping in mind that Banksy is an artist, it is possible that every claim, explicit and implicit (that the skyscraper appears weak to Banksy and he was approached to write an op-ed) could be completely fictional for the sake of this article as a work of art itself. When I first read through the piece, I read it as if he was genuine in his words- that he saw the structure as bland and weak. Therefore, I will respond as if that is the true intent of the piece.

In general, I dislike skyscrapers. Simply because there are too many restrictions placed on them for the sake of practicality. Louis Sullivan outlined that all repeating floors of a tall office building must share the same identity, as to avoid pretentiousness or misrepresentation. While I am in agreement with his treatment of skyscrapers, in many cases this is just boring to me. I don't believe ornamentation is the answer. I'd rather say that the height of a building isn't what excites me, and emphasizing this quality is pointless. If repetition in is the compromise architects must make in order to account for a skyscraper's great height, then I choose to blame practicality height for my distaste.

But this is a building which, for its purpose, demands height. Demands grandness. If One World Trade Center is supposed to carry the spirit of American endurance and the will to perceiver, then of course this building should posses these qualities. But I don't believe this is why it's tall. And I'd have to agree with Banksy. It doesn't seem all that proud either.

The truth of the matter is that this building cannot simply exist as a monument. It must be functional as well. It is and office building, after all. It needs offices- it must support commerce. And this is where I lose respect for it as a monument. 

The buildings that were demolished had no responsibility to monumentality. If they were perceived that way, it was a bonus. The American people weren't relying on it to convey a message of renewal. This one does, and it instead makes compromises because it simply must be practical. It must fulfill the purpose of the buildings that came before it, and appeal to monumentality.

I am the kind of person who would have loved ornamentation. Go ahead, trash the "rules" of the tall office building for this project. Have a spiraling elevator that snakes the surface to the top, and sprawling plazas within that serve public speech and gatherings. Project an American flag onto the side affix crystal Bald Eagles to the ledges! 

Well, maybe not to such an audacious extent. But what I see now is so droll, it leaves me wondering if the opposite extreme would have been so bad.

I only wish that this building needn't be constrained by practicality. If it had no responsibility to be a functioning office building, we could have had a true symbol of patriotism, not just an executive with a small flag pinned to his suit.

Banksy is supremely topical and seems to know how to engage the public with his art quite well, but the stories he tells and the messages he preaches are the same opinions formed by cursory overview of complex subject matter. For better or for worse, he's very much a voice of the common man. And the common man is exactly who One World Trade Center was intended to satisfy.

Scrolling through Michael Abrahamson's blog I stumbled upon a strange repetition: social interactions on staircases.

Bünzmatt School and Swimming Pool, Wohlen, Switzerland, 1966   (Dolf Schnebli)

Oakland Museum, Oakland, California, 1969   (Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates)

Bankstown Square Shopping Center, Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia, 1960s (Hely, Bell & Horne)

Town Hall & Cultural Center, Koto District, Tokyo, Japan, 1965   (Takeo Sato & Associates)

Prefabricated School, Bissuola, Italy, 1976-79   (Gino Valle)

(Both images) University College, Urbino, Italy, 1958-1976   (Giancarlo De Carlo)

Wassell Randolph Student Alumni Center, University of Memphis, 1960s (Gassner/Nathan/Browne Architects)

It is interesting to think of these images, predominantly taken in educational settings, in comparison to those taken at the Hunstanton School, in which the school is entirely vacant.

What is the impact of human figures in one's understanding of the photograph and place which is photographed? Professor Zimmerman suggested in lecture that photography has had an instrumental role in both the interpretation and creation of architectural forms in the 20th century. I can more easily understand how to navigate the space when figures are present in the photograph. In their absence, I am more aware of the graphic qualities.

"By nature the Photograph... has something tautological about it." (Barthes, Camera Lucida, 5) While the photograph inherently documents reality, it is in turn composed & framed-- it has a rhetorical function.

all images via: fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com

While Plato desires to construct the just city in the Republic, Meyer sees this teleological end through modern means. Both desire a world fundamentally based in rationality. 

Plato feels that it is best to banish the poets (dramatic arts) from the best city. He argues that imitative arts are engaged in a kind of pretense: you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy cultural expressions. This suspension of reasoning is dangerous in that it encourages the lesser parts of our psychology, the appetitive and spirited, by making us take pleasure the (represented) suffering of others.

Meyer in The New World similarly argues that the imitative arts are lesser than the "true" pictures of reality. Their function "considered in relation to the general, collective purpose of society" is harmful-- they distract us from efficiency and constructing the best possible environment. (Forty, Function)

In contrast to Plato & Meyers advocation of the removal of particular art forms, Benjamin critiques art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Art becomes a platform for disseminating political ideology to the distracted masses. Interestingly, both Plato and Meyer promote art as a political means, influencing the behavior of people on a civic or individual level.

In the same form Benjamin makes a political criticism, he is also concerned with the role technical reproduction plays in shaping the aesthetic experience. I’m interested in how Benjamin’s ideas can be mapped onto modernism as an aesthetic and as a point in the history of art and architecture.

modernism :: progress :: mass-produced :: universal :: absolute :: logical :: public

For example, the works to come out of the Bauhaus are in their own way a political aesthetic.

Universal:: appeal in lack of “decoration” and timeless appeal. Follows function and no unnecessary elements

  Aesthetic and artistic ideology, came to be identified with left-ist political views. The minimalist ideal: fuelled by concern for affordability, public access, and essentials.  

  Benjamin is on point in art as a vehicle for meaning, especially during the time of the National Socialists. The political party used art and architecture to convey messages and values of propaganda.

  The Nazi party used these art forms as a vessel for their political messages. Art will almost always permeate the political sphere, but I want to pose a question. Even those artistic works that are specific and full of aura and soul, don’t they have some sort of motivation to convey meaning? What would Benjamin respond to this?

infographwetrust.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/daily-rituals.png

the daily routine of Le Corbusier

   After discussing monuments in class the other day, I took it upon myself to look into what our country believes about national monuments. Originally thinking that the most popular monuments would be The Statue of Liberty or war memorials, I was surprised to find that many of them were National Parks or untouched landscapes. 

   These (natural) monuments can relate to the nine points we were introduced to in quite a few different ways. First, there is a definite link between past and future. The preservation of these landscapes is very important and shows an untouched passage of time. Second, these parks represent a more social/community-based life and gives people more than just functional fulfillment. In these areas people can experience nature without it being tampered with, and get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Although these sites were not originally planned and built around a symbolic experience, they became something symbolic. These places are now looked at as a representation of the conquest of America, and  the relatively new history of this country. 

   On a different note, these monuments can also relate to the Benjamin text. Most of these places I have never actually seen in person. From looking at pictures, these areas seem vast an enormous - but we have to remember that this representation is coming from a camera lens. How am I to know if these places are actually as grand or large as they are presented in a picture? The manipulation and perspective of these images can lead people into believing that these monuments are different than what they actually are. 

A Spanish design firm called Selgas Cano has a glass office in the middle of a forest near Madrid. Partially embedded in the ground, the office has a aerodynamic form and is eye level with the forest floor. The light is natural, making it extremely sustainable. 

This is an interesting take on "the glass office building." I see elements of the Prairie house style as well; natural and organic. 

This building lends of two architectural concepts to combine something new; a type of reproduction of two ways of design and building that already exist, creating a new aura.