Bernard Tschumi’s architectural projects are probably best understood in relation to his theoretical writings and ideas, many of which reflect his interest in surrealism and poststructuralism. His sources range from Georges Bataille’s writings on philosophy and eroticism to Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction as a methodology. A review of a few specific adaptations of these ideas for architecture will help us understand the significantly different way in which Tschumi conceived of the nature and purpose of architecture. Three important theoretical concepts include the pleasures of architecture, strategies of disjunction, and “cross-programming.”
The pleasures of architecture, according to Tschumi, are based on the relationships between the physical (body) and the conceptual (mind) rather than the complete absorption of one mode or experience by the other. Two written works, published to accompany the exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (Event-Cities, 21 April–5 July 1994), demonstrate this proposition: one text is a collection of his theoretical essays and the other a book of projects (works from his architecture practice). Event-Cities establishes the duality of theory and practice that allows for dialectical movement between the physical and the conceptual.
The experience of duality (or “in-between”) applies to his architecture as well as his writings. Tschumi relies on the principle of disjunction (a strategy he developed in the 1970s) to reveal the contradictions that exist in architecture between form and function, as well as other oppositions and contradictions. Tschumi argued that habits and conventional assumptions about architecture had to be interrupted or “displaced” in order to make other experiences possible. He employed strategies of shock and defamiliarization to radically shift design paradigms and challenge the viewer.
The theory of disjunction is evident in his critique of the modernist precept that form must follow function. In his explanation of the design for the Parc de la Villette (Paris, 1987–91), for example, Tschumi argued that form and function could ignore or even conflict, and he proceeded to explore this disjunction or rupture by breaking up the space as described in the competition program into volumes placed at the intersections of a superimposed, non-site-specific grid. The volumes were designed as “folies,” a play on the double meaning of the French word folie (madness or mental imbalance) and follies, small pleasure pavilions or ruins popular in 19th-century landscape design. More important, the shape and form of Tschumi’s folies were not determined by specific functions; but rather were ingeniously designed as formal exercises and then modified subsequent to their construction to accommodate specific functions, a process that demonstrated that function could follow form.
Tschumi’s later work continued to explore other strategies of disjunction through disor cross-programming. The opportunities for new architectural experiences made possible by these concepts ranged from the “unclassifiable” or “unprogrammed” spaces of his later projects such as Kansai Airport (Japan, 1988) and Le Fresnoy National Center for the Contemporary Arts (Tourcoing, France, 1992–98) to those heterogeneous projects that encompass multiple uses or functions, such as the Rouen Concert Hall and Exhibition Center in France and the Columbia University Student Center (Alfred Lerner Hall, New York City, 1994–99). He defined “in-between spaces” as inherently ambiguous; they were not dedicated to a single or specific function. This ambiguity provoked the uncanny, the strange, and the unfamiliar in architecture. Heterogeneous spaces contained several normally unrelated functions simultaneously, such as those he illustrated in The Manhattan Transcripts (1981): “the quarter-back tangoes on the skating rink; the battalion skates on the tightrope.” Heterogeneous spaces are not solely determined by function because life exceeds architecture, according to Tschumi. These spaces invited the multiplicity and diversity of a contemporary fragmented culture.
With the Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University, Tschumi attempted to demonstrate these spatial and design principles by containing a series of ramps for circulation between floors, student mailboxes, and several other sitting, standing, and viewing conditions that set up multiple possibilities for social contact.
Shock and disjunction made it possible for subjects to experience and recognize the connections that subjects make between fragments that are artificial and yet habituated in experience and thought. When habits are displaced, new experiences are possible. Tschumi’s goal was to redefine the experience of architecture itself.
JEAN LA MARCHE |
