Yale University, School of Architecture

The Temporary Contemporary

Author(s): Sylvia Lavin
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 34 (2003), pp. 128-135
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1567328
Accessed: 14-07-2015 23:52 UTC
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rchitecture
oWhile this

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as modern,
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it have to
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emphasis
they

of the

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triad
that
the modern
and argued
had neglected
movement
that
is the current
"delight
When modern architecture
fashion."3
it shifted
became
contemporary,
The
away from industrial
allegiance
of
the fortitude
production,
of
and an ethos
engineering,
new
forging
purification,
with
interior
design,
relationships
all
, and above
fashion
decoration,
and designed
the quixotic
pleasures
culture.4
of consumer
obsolescence
of
undertone
the basic
Despite
in Giedion
and of
conflict
of
editors
in the
celebration
both efforts
to periodize
Record,
did so by restricting
modernism
modernism
to architectural
prewar
and dispersing
fixations
postwar
into
decorative
modernism
In other
in the
words,
supplements.
of mid-century
the
rhetoric
logic
come to
modern house
had, by 1954,
be dressed
up in a contemporary

from modern architecture

This
shift
describes
a
to contemporary
style
a specific
historical
phenomenon,
at a certain
condition
that
emerged
definable
moment under
the
circumstances.
speaking,
Loosely
shift
is characterized
by the impact
on the modern movement
of social,
and cultural
economic,
developments
and just
occurring
during
following
World War II.
But the contemporary
a speculative
as such announces

two title pages, both n three languages. The French and German titles
remain consistent. Dix ans d'architecture contemporaine and Ein
yJahrzehntmodermerArchitektur,respectively. The English title
/
appears as A Decade of NewArchitecture in a small typeface on the
/////yv//////
first title page and as A Decade of Contemporary Architecture in a
//////
large typeface on the second title page. The second edition contains
an
//y/////////y
y appendix on the years 1947-1954, which Giedion in his preface
describes as a "supplemental covering" of the "furtherconsolidation of
/ /
/////////^^/
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whole
///
////the
////X
A Treasury of Contemporary Houses Selected by the Editors of
yyyyyyyy/>
//yyy2.
S//yy////yy//// Architectural Record (New York:F.W. Dodge, 1954).

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the prewar

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1951. The second edition,whichappearedin NewYorkin 1954, has
////////////

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been

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///////////////

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3. Emerson Goble, introductionto ibid. v.

///////////
// 'oble,
'ntroductn tpostwar
y////yyyy
4. Still today, common associations with postwar contemporary design
are "heightened expressiveness, broader ranges of color and shape,
and a mood of pleasure rather than austerity."See Lesley Jackson,
Architecture and Interiors of the 1950s (London:
"Contfemporary":
///X Phaidon, 1994).

terrain
not

and a sensibility

historically

Modernism

that

is

determined.

had become contemporary

by

is modern
but the contemporary
1954,
with
sense.
fashion
Today the
difference
between
modern and
being
to but
relates
being
contemporary
exceeds
existed
that
the differences
modern movement
at mid-century.
a
itself
to constitute
understood
fruition
of a historical
the
culminating
development,
timefulness
of classical
eternity
by
it with timelessness.
substituting
a 1945 compilation
Tomorrow's
House,
of
and Henry Wright
Nelson
by George
in
Architectural
Forum, equivalent
to A Treasury
of
many respects
Houses
and often
Contemporary
as a harbinger
of postwar
mistaken
the
enjoined
developments,
actually
Nelson
to be modern.
and
reader
that
architecture
Wright
promised
the
could
end the past
by capturing
"If one were to take
future:
the
the best
best
ideas,
planning
and the best
structural
schemes,
the
have gone into
that
equipment
best
modern houses,
and combine
them
in a single
the
house,
appropriately
result
would
look
like
out
something
tomorrow."6
of the day after
Nelson
and Wright's
injunctions
against
find
no catalogues
("you will
style
of 'styles'
no orations
on
[here],
fashion
good taste"),
against
in houses,
as in
("individuality
is a fundamental
people,
expression
of something
real.
It has nothing
to
do with
fashion"),
against
of all
kinds
("the
specificities
room with no name"),
were efforts
to

5. Anotherway to articulatethe same historiographical

point,which
constitutessomethingof a digressionin this context,wouldbe to say
that as postwar architecture dispersed into contemporaneity and into
architecture's decorative supplements, it produced a consolidated
view of prewar architecture characterized by strictly architectural
fixations. Despite the differences in the manifest attitude toward the
contemporary in the texts by Giedion and the editors of Record. both
efforts to delimit or at least define the contemporary brought into being
the very modernity with which the contemporary was contrasted. In
other words, it can be said that the modern house was laid bare only
when, by 1954, it had been dressed up in a contemporary style.
6. George Nelson and Henry Wright, Tomorrow'sHouse: How to Plan
Your Post-war Home Now (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1945), 8.
This book is often interpreted as a harbinger of the distinctiveness of
architecture. My argument. however, is that while the book
may contain material often periodized as "postwar,"its theoretical
concerns remain entirely modern and indeed helped constitute the
/,
very modernity with which it is contrasted.

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of
terrain
architectural
is the field
of the
contemporaneity
and the mood of display.
exhibitable
to consider
Therefore,
contemporary
both historically
and
architecture,
is to consider
the
speculatively,
with
the
of architecture
alignment
with
curatorial
and hence
exhibition
to do with
This has little
practice.
or the
either
the institution
the history
of museums;
architecture
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examples
as
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with
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designer,
and with
on exhibit,
architecture
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of museums.
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into
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investigations
such as Philip
curators
Johnson,
and Bernard
Alfred
Barr,
Rudofksy
have had on architecture.
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shield
could

from anything
that
modernity
betray
temporal
Tomorrow's
House,
contingencies.7
would
collapse
they prophesied,
of forever
into
a world
architecture
modern.
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on the other
hand,
of
while
shaped
by the processes
to be with
wanted
modernization,
was a style
time.
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as such by
that
itself
announced
its
temporary
foregrounding
features:
its
decorative
patterns,
its
its
collectibles,
very
stylishness.
architecture
of
Contemporary
zones
of
the 1950s
integrated
into
the cool
and delight
intensity
the
of modernism:
and neutral
spaces
hot corner
window of a postwar
a
Neutra
house
gave to modernism
moment of contemporaneity.8

never
claimed
however,
Modernism,
exhibitionism
as part
architectural
was not
architecture
Contemporary
but rather
of fashion
in
of its
the architecture
regime,
just
The
it as ancillary.
all
constituted
the 1950s
and is not just
claims
architecture
at the moment it is
by contrast,
contemporary,
not because
it
was never
curatorial
built.
The Salk
Institute
practice
as
architecture
not even in 1961,
emphasizes
contemporary,
it dethrones
or because
modern.
On
it was certainly
spectacle,
although
in favor
of the
the architect
Johnson's
the other
hand,
Philip
but because
it
curatorial
ever
Glass
House has perhaps
underdog,
only
a
and makes available
been contemporary.
opens
Contemporaneity
of architecture
dimension
a default;
is not,
nor was it ever,
neglected
where
Curation
itself.
with
it is not synonymous
begins
existing
to end but
is supposed
the present's
architecture
in or representing
is to address
does not.
To curate
differs
essence
and thus
or
of effects,
from Zeitgeist.
the field
unique
fundamentally
of
the treatment
is a
to become
mundane,
Rather,
through
contemporary
of objects,
of decoration,
that
and an ambition
lighting,
project
of beauty,
of geometry,
of an
of surface,
the identification
requires
is to
To curate
of "delight."
that
terrain
activates
architectural
modernism
exhibit
much that
with
time.
the sensibility
of being
architecture
inhibited
and that
of
If modernism
was an architecture
as
identifies
restraint
and inhibition,
historically
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The curator
and
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of

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8. On the corner in Neutra, see Sylvia Lavin, "RichardNeutra and the

I
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x.C_42

x
~33~

and the
the curatorial
Theorizing
begins with
necessarily
contemporary
The endless
the home collection.
of the use of the home as
repetition
from the
a collection
container,
Wunderkammer in the
private
hotel to the
seventeenth-century
of the
Martha Stewart collection
has told
Kmart suburban subdivision,

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W_

rxx

Kx

-avin

<- Mies van der Kohe, Ludwig (1886-19Y9). Kesor House, project.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Perspective of living room through south glass
wall. 1937-1941, unbuilt. Graphite and collage of wood veneer and
cut-and-pasted reproduction and photograph and graphite on illustration
board, 30 x 40". Gift of the architect. The Mies van der Rohe Archive
(716.1963).
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

to the
on a mantel
photos
of soap for the bathroom,
insists
on the deployment
curatorial
techniques.
To reconsider
to
relation

architecture

selection
the house
of

in

of the
sensibility
tools
analytic
contemporary
requires
not encumbered
by the traditional
the modern
identification
between
of the
movement
and the techniques
historian.
modern
architectural
the contemporary
requires
Theorizing
architecture's
tools
able
to admit
of curatorial
mobilization
a territory
recognized
techniques,
neither
by the modern movement
nor by its
master
narrators.
itself
is such a tool
curation
Domestic
a divide
because
rather
than police
between
between
art and nonart,
between
shelter
and architecture,
one to
it permits
museum and home,
architecture
and the
consider
If the museum has
of time.
staging
and the
permanent
displays
Kunsthalle
exhibitions,
temporary
shows special
the house
effects,
and
durable
goods,
perishables,
dates.
And while
expiration
of
by the architecture
foregrounded
of its
the house
because
in the twentieth
status
paradigmatic
of the
the implications
century,
of architecture
curatorial
practice
on the domestic
are not dependent
domestic
curation
Rather,
program.
one to consider
most
permits
the very production
of
precisely
architectural
contemporaneity.
the

John Soane
is a well-known
but he has perhaps
more
architect,
if considered
interest
a
today
Inn
curator.
Lincoln's
domestic
Fields
is simultaneously
a home and
it is a
a museum;
or,
rather,
Sir

that
both
structure
houses
and museology.9
Soane
domesticity
much of his
life
assembling
spent
of antiquities,
his
collection
and so
mirrors,
models,
paintings,
as well
as amassing
the
forth,
collection
of buildings
that
houses
The collapsed
these
objects.
and
distinction
between
dwelling
continues
with
the
collecting
today
sense
of ownership
and intimacy
of the John
conveyed
by the curators
seem as
Soane House and Museum-they
much like
inhabitants
as they do
Recent
has
caretakers.
scholarship
on the difference
focused
similarly
between
and private
spheres
public
as well
as
within
the Soane House,
on its
to collecting
relationship
In fact,
Soane
and representation.10
has been re-created
by almost
every
of the
architectural
generation
twentieth
His work has been
century.
for
a patrimony
used to establish
the elimination
of ornament
from
for abstraction,
for
architecture,
for
historicist
postmodernism,
The constant
of Soane is not
but rather
is evidence
accidental,
the mood
of how the house
mobilizes
As the
of contemporaneity.
collections
their
grew and sought
final
had to be
the house
staging,
and revised.
The
continually
updated
architecture
was generated
by the
curatorial
and the
impulse,
continual
of that
presence
impulse
the house
to temporality
and
opens
it to be reinstalled
with
permits
new contemporary
every
imaginary.
Soane was a pack rat-he
was not just
with
a collector
but a compulsive,
in each category
excessive
multiples
of his collection.
The collection
is
but
not precisely
encyclopedic
It did not produce
a
repetitive.
spectacularity.
reinvention

Y. i ne Dasic boane iiterature incluaes uorotny oiroua, olr Jonn

Soane, Architect (London: Faber and Faber, 1984); and Pierre de la
Ruffiniere Du Prey, John Soane: The Making of an Architect (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1982).

of unique
comprehensive
assemblage
within
a class-every
objects
different
kind of capital,
for
His library
was filled
with
example.
several
of the same book,
copies
as the breakfast
room is
just
with many of the same
articulated
kind of mirror.11
The story
of the
house
in part,
the story
of
is,
the proper
for this
finding
place
of things.
As
improper
quantity
Soane acquired
more and more
he needed
more and more
possessions,
to house
them:
not just
for
building
but for display.
As the
storage
collections
became
the
permanent,
became
architecture
temporary,
afflicted
relentless
by an almost
and restaging.
rebuilding
of the house
is a result
The shape
of the collections
and in turn was
called
them with
upon to showcase
Soane developed
an
maximal
effect.
to add a
elaborate
bag of tricks
of characters
and moods to his
range
collection.
the most
Perhaps
of his techniques-in
dramatic
addition
to his experiments
with
sectional
and
lighting,
complexity,
the treatment
devices-was
optical
or rather
of the wall,
of its
surface.
Laminated
at moments,
as in
the Picture-Room,
encrusted
at
as in the Dome, the surface
others,
itself
became
a special
effect.
in utterly
Treated
inconsistent
ways
the house,
it never
creates
through
a predictable
It is in that
system.
sense
that
Soane's
surfaces
are
concerned
with
effect:
they have no
cause.
While
are
legible
they
insofar
effective
as they
deand legibility,
emphasize
causality
the surfaces
also
accentuate
and
dramatize
their
effectiveness.
At
this
moment of heightened
purpose

see oylvia
i 1. ror a OneTaiscussion oTinis aspect oTboane s IHorary,
Lavin. Quatremere de Quincy and the Invention of a Modem
Language of Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress, 1992),
177-81.

10. On this aspect of Soane, see Helene Furjan, "The Specular

Spectacle of the House of the Collector,"Assemblage 34 (Dec. 1997),
57-92.

,13

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-- House of the Future, P -on and Peter

Smithson (1956-1957).
I--

the surfaces
effects
but

not merely
generate
effects.
And
special
unlike
effects,
ordinary
risk
obsolete,
becoming
lies
that
risk
their

special
effects,
yet in

rj

contemporaneity.
If Soane's
museum was also
a house,
most of Mies van der Rohe's
houses
were also
museums.
The Resor
House
was largely
(1937-1939)
organized
around
works
of art and has been
related
to Mies's
later
specifically
work on museums.12
More important,
the Miesian
house
frames
and
vision:
produces
museological
within
these
from
houses,
everything
to furniture,
is subjected
garbage
to the concentrated
attention
of the
and thus
absorbed
into
museumgoer
the logic
of the museum,
a museum
dedicated
to showing
a permanent
collection.
The conflict
between
Mies and Edith
Farnsworth
can be
framed
as being
about
who would
curate
the exhibition
space
but it was
generated
by the house,
also
a conflict
the
over
of the exhibition
temporalities
itself.13
In the end,
Mies installed
the house
a permanent
by staging
of domesticity,
in which
showing
was permitted.
nothing
temporary
This

museological

is

similarly
solicited
collage.
landscape
view.
The
the

view

does

not

manifest
by the
Pasted

Resor
onto
is

an

eternal

as

realized

present
in
a

The

by

optical
house
into

collapse
the
eternity

modern

reinforced

interest

was
in

the

change,

the

gaze
creates
time

framing
of

display.
the
museum
of

by

single-space

the
on

endlessly
does
not

single

its

window,

change,
The house

change.

time

gaze
and

House
the

painting
landscape
does
not

of

entombing
in the

the

Mies's

_V

Ua

L LI

__

If curatorial
building.14
practice
is a means of opening
architecture
to a discussion
of effects
without
reliance
on phenomenology
or
essentialism-there
has been no
of the essence
of materials
evoking
or the phenomenon
of vision
hereMies must be considered
a master.
His interest
in the effects
of
surfaces
and in their
collective
coordination
is the feature
of his
work that
the most intense
generates
accumulation
of modern atmosphere.15
this
means of
Moreover,
particular
a modernist
mood is what
curating
most radically
Mies's
distinguishes
from Le Corbusier,
who always
remained
less
interested
in the
effects
of surface
than in its
Mies'
legibility.
By the same token,
mood was always
not
modern,
contemporary.
In

contrast

Soane's
special
was interested
in
the uniformity
of
effects,
was best
underscored
by the
In these
single-space
pavilion.
there
is little
pavilions
differentiation
from zone to zone as
all
is absorbed
into
a continuous
set of conditions.
This
is not to
the phenomenon
of the house
say that
is not subject
to change-the
sun
in varying
does
shine
on the
degrees
Farnsworth
House-but
the effects
to constancy.
the
aspire
Similarly,
of the Resor
Photoshop
quality
no real
allows
or
collage
foreground
and creates
instead
background
evenness
and topological
spatial
In other
while
words,
equivalence.
there
are Miesian
there
are
effects,
no Miesian
effects.
The
special
manifold
of his palette
uniformity
for Mies to
of effects
operated
effects,
allover
which

- Living room at the Eames House.

to

Mies

12. un tne Kesor House. Dotn as a container roran art collection ana
in relation to the culture of collecting, see Cammie McAtee, "Alien
#5044325: Mies's First Tripto America," in Mies in America, ed. Phyllis
Lambert (New York:Abrams, 2001), 132-91. Myron Goldsmith said of
Mies in a 1996 interview, "He was very interested in a container,
whether it was glass or partlyglass. a very simple container for all
kinds of things. I think that that was in full swing about the time of the
50 x 50 House and beyond to the end of his life, Bacardi and the Berlin
Museum and the other museum." Cited by Lambert, in Mies in
America. 454.

:.-??:??'
'?''i?-1??

modernist
time.
stage
Lacking
the Farnsworth
effects,
special
House is not contemporary.
It was
modern when it was new, remains
modern
and will
be
always
today,
modern.16
the Farnsworth
House is
Although
often
of
cited
as the point
version
of
for the first
departure
the Eames House,
are
the Eameses
better
understood
as the spiritual
heirs

of

undoubtedly
curators:

like

time

to

the

Eames

less
of

1;J. AliCe

House

was

rieaman.

"Lomestic

of
massive

the

Soane
over

changed
his

collections,
more
or

remained
while

interiority

as
the
in

unlike

radically
accommodate

constant

were

largely

which

House,

as

possessions,
had
they

Soane,
But

quantities.17

twist.

for

their

rearranging

compulsive
than
he,
they
more
obsessive

domesticity
consisted

Eameses

which,

with

Soane,
less

Perhaps
collectors

installation

the
in

continuous

uDirerences: taitn

tarnswortnn. Mes

van der Rohe, and the Gendered Body," in Not at Home. ed.
Christopher Reed (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996), 179-92; and
Alice Friedman, "People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth,
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. and Philip Johnson." in Women and the
Making of the Modern House.' A Social and Architectural History (New
York:Abrams. 1998), 126-59.
14. On the single-span building, see Lambert, Mies in America, 423ff.

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Lavin
,f

I.

sLaLe

or

reorgyanizAa-Lio.

i-iC

of "functioning
Eameses' notions
overload"
and "object
decoration"
as keys
are perhaps more important
than
curatorial
to their
strategies
for their
as justifications
Their
house
excessive
collecting.
for an ever-changing
was a stage
series
of exhibitions
linked
conceptually
by a consistent
and
on the provisional
emphasis
view of the surface.
temporary

OUlllte UTI Ie

Vd5tl Il.itdlUUlt

Ull
Ivo

IC

VV

Lime,eC

LilC:

SU1-

ueCb

1s

the
more
of
interior

The
opportunities.
a topology
of exposition,
a continuous
soliciting
reconsideration
of the curatorial
and producing
spectacular
impulse
a permanent
If Mies framed
effects.
the
the Eameses
view,
multiplied
not a view but an
frame to produce
of contemporary
atmosphere
viewing.
of an
Like the relentless
jump cuts
of the
the agitation
MTV video,
into
an
surfaces
made the house
effect.
enormous
special
The most significant
in the production
House's
atmosphere
of
superficiality
surfaces
Although
and
are conceived

IU IUsUil Uo iln

aspctU!

Ul IIoTn

work includes Robin Evans, "Mies van der Rohe's Paradoxical

Symmetries." in Translations from Drawing to Building and Other
Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress, 1997), 233-77; and Rosalind
Krauss, "The Grid, the/Cloud/, and the Detail," in The Presence of
Mies, ed. Detlef Mertins (New York:Princeton Architectural Press.
1994),133-48.
16. Recently Mies has acquired some contemporaneity through the
operations of Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, and others. This

used
technique
of the Eames
is the
and "look"
the surface.
accumulate,
as
exposed

cVUIttlliUi

Prl(

they
thin

WU

LC1U

1st.LL

_L1,

LCLL|aL

in

d Itcly ai1UWa UI eU I Uioatl yuin

their

uctwCecl
LD

l
uVtieWiibe

apparently similar interests in modernism today. Unlike contemporary

architecture, such as that of Kazuyo Sejima, today's neo-modernism is
simply current and mundane. In its disdain for special effects and the
temporality of the provisional and experimental, neo-modern
pragmatism cannot generate a contemporary project.
17. See Pat Kirkham,"Functioning Decoration," in Charles and Ray
Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press. 1995).

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WVL

work on actual
ideal
the Eameses'
exhibitions,
became
the moving
surface
component
material
filmic
image without
depth
Peter
and Alison
of any kind.
on the other
Smithson,
hand,
the architectural
thickened
surface,
to stage
its
viscous
using
porosity
and
of temporal
effects
a new array
of consumer
the categories
using
to this
end.
The House of
culture
with
its
the Future
(1956-1957),
showroom
stylized
mannequins,
highly
and hip look,
atmosphere,
fully
the delights
and
embraces
fashion
of the postwar
evanescence
the house,
In fact,
house.
along
such as the
with
related
projects
theorizes
a new
House,
Appliance
durations.
of architectural
range
The Smithsons
reframed
explicitly
to the
modernism's
approach
and
of domestic
installation
objects
of surfaces
as
the treatment
and

and

display
became

of the Eames House wa; s

surface
Every
covered
partially
by another
on sofas,
surface:
blankets
rugs on
from
the floor,
paintings
suspended
Each of these
the ceiling.
partial
surfaces
was further
kaleidoscoped
and
number of edges
by an excessive
maximized
windows
frames:
the large
the possible
than minimized
rather
and mullions;
number of frames
why
have only
one square
edge of a rug
and so
will
do better;
when three

'.

Ls

less
and less
to do with
of space
or the
division
of structure
articulation
the proliferation
to do with

*- House of the Future.

, Verner Panton, Visiona 2.

needs
and methods
fashion's
changing
of the
The plasticity
demand."18
to
durable
surface
goods
permitted
become
whatever
poche,
making
of permanence
remained
of the idea
if the
itself
vestigial.
Finally,
of the walls
thickened
surfaces
the house
to consume
permitted
also
consumer
durable
goods,
they
to
gave additional
display
space
aesthetic
of shorter
objects
the
fashion
became
duration.
Extreme
the
means of articulating
primary
field.
The
interior's
visual
of the House of the
inhabitant
Future
is literally
fashioned,
being
of being
in the process
styled,
and
getting
"glamorous"
contemporary.19

AXO NOMETRIC

in
for display
opportunities
modes of
relation
to different
time.
The House of the
measuring
for example,
Future,
engorged
than be left
Rather
appliances.
sink
at
as Le Corbusier's
exposed,
stood
the Villa
isolated,
Savoye
to
monument
as an enduring
worshiped
absorbed
the Smithsons
the future,
and
vacuums,
refrigerators,
walls.
into
malleable
televisions
of consumables
that
The kinds
gave
to the
and dimension
shape

were specifically
and therefore
durable,
temporal,
likened
The car to which
they
goods.
House was not the
the Appliance
timeless,
standard-seeking
but a
of Le Corbusier
automobile
ideal
to annual
subject
temporary
As they wrote,
"The
change.
house
the appliances
gives
appliance
in which
to operate,
areas
definite
the
whilst
the space,
... defining
and
inside
can be stripped-out
or
when owner's
re-equipped
architecture

the furniture
showroom
By the 1960s
of the most
had become
the site
advanced
ideas
of architectural
If architecture
had
contemporaneity.
the
once been called
on to curate
its
contemporary
through
of effective
installation
objects,
architecture
came to be displaced
by
of
that
which
it had once taken
care
Verner
in a kind of Oedipal
play.
2 environment
for
Visiona
Panton's
Fair of 1970
the Cologne
Furniture
69 allow
Visiona
and Joe Colombo's
one to understand
domesticity
of effects
the field
through
deployed
by the temporary
of decorative
installation
objects.
traditional
eliminate
These projects
of modern architecture,
notions
all
the ethical
else
above
lacking
of modernism:
mandate
they have no
no rectitude.
no morale,
depth,
fashion
Instead,
they have intense
the
demonstrate
Such projects
sense.
the surface
of presenting
importance
than
rather
effective
as manifestly
seeks
tectonic
when architecture

19. One criterion that the Smithsons included in their "self-imposed

programme"for the Appliance House was that it "contain a glamour
factor."See Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, "TheAppliance
House," AD (April1958), 177.

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Lavin

we snoula
aematerlalizatlon,
understand
them as symptoms
of the
reorientation
of architecture
toward
a field
of effects.
As Tschumi
on the glass
the house
box,
operated
lost
its
modern building
and turned
an effectively
into
program-free
zone of special
At this
effects.
moment of spectacularization,
the
Glass
Video
its
Gallery
gained
of
to have the "look"
capacity
architecture.
contemporary
This

of continuous
color,
topologies
and animation
eliminate
texture,
any
traditional
"frame"
of vision
and
thus provide
no mechanism
to ensure
that
the viewer
at a
gazes
Without
the
particular
object.
concentrated
of the museumgoer,
gaze
the objects
have no source
of
and provide
none
temporal
stability
to the environment.
a
Instead,
of special
visual
superabundance
effects
a kind of
produces
vision:
not the
diversionary
distraction
of the everyday,
or the
or the banal,
but a visual
mundane,
mode that
is at once diffuse
and
oversaturated.
These
conditions
have been observed
before
and have generally
been
described
in terms
of how they
A good
dematerialize
architecture.
would be the standard
example
of Bernard
Tschumi's
interpretations
Glass
Video
in
built
Gallery
in 1990.
Rather
than
Groningen
the intellectual
accept
legerdemain
that
is required
in order
to argue
in this
that
and light
case,
glass
are not materials
and can cause

r-V.

I UCL i 6U tWU

IJU i2UWbVV9

VIYUV l

is not a mysterious,
or purely
indefinable,
phenomenoIn fact,
the
condition.
logical
herein
described
constitute
projects
a measurable
and even qualifiable
concerned
with
a
body of research
and
set
of issues
particular
an identifiable
generating
palette
of techniques.
Of paramount
has been the de-emphasis
importance
on volume,
the logic
of the plan,
and the ethics
in
of rationalism,
favor
of atmospheres
produced
the curation
of the surface.
through
accumulation,
lamination,
Through
coloration,
decoration,
agitation,
and environmenplastification,
these
surfaces
curated
talization,
effective
moods and, when the
effects
were special,
the
catalyzed
In fact,
it is only
contemporary.
the effect
that
through
theorizing
the mysteries
of the Zeitgeist
can
give
way to a substantive
of the contemporaneity
understanding
and the shared
of,
sensibility
say,
Preston
Scott
Cohen's
Torus House,
and de Meuron's
Ricola
Herzog
house.
and Soane's
Headquarters,
distinct
vocabularies
and
Despite
historical
these
moments,
disparate
marshal
curatorial
projects
in unapologetic
techniques
into
surface
effects.
investigations
Given
these
an effect
strategies,

VtI
1 U-wizL

DI

I I

IIIV

of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations, ed.

WVork

HannahArendt(NewYork:SchockenBooks, 1986), 217-52; Michael

Fried, Absorption and Theatricality:Painting and Beholder in the Age of

Diderot(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1980);and Jeffrey

Kipnis,"TheCunningof Cosmetics,"El Croquis84 (1997), 22-29.

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as a condition
may be understood
is detachable
from the logic
that
of
The greater
the distance
causality.
the cause
between
and the effect,
or
the diminution
the greater
of
of their
the
link,
apperception
the sense
of effectiveness.
greater
The most common technique
of
this
distance
between
producing
and the effect
is distracted
cause
a condition
in which
the
vision,
field
visual
resists
a
becoming
of legibility
screen
it
by making
for attention
to become
impossible
concentrated
and absorbed.20
Thus,
for example,
modernist
transparency
as directly
and causally
appears
to the material
linked
of
properties
the modern movement
made
glass:
into
a magic
tablet
glass
writing
that
rationalized
its
effects.
on the
luminescence,
Contemporary
is an effect
other
whose
hand,
cause
is not immediately
and
visible
would be dissipated
by enhanced
Effects
are dissembling,
legibility.
and contemporary.
provisionary,
effects
are especially
Special
and experimental;
conditional
like
kitchen
an avocado
counter
or a
sense
their
Replicant,
they
demise.
But in
impending
an expiration
date,
incorporating
shelf
however
their
can
life,
short,
vivid.
The Matrix
had
be especially
the hot look of today
until
it
banal
and everyday.
became
Special
thus
curate
effects
contemporaneity
and while
the architecture
itself,
effects
of special
to
yields
a place
in eternity,
it
modernity
for itself
claims
the moment of now.