The Architecture of the Screen

by Graham Cairns

  It is a reconfiguration of our reading of architecture and film that is potentially of direct relevance to a number of leading architectural practitioners and theorists today. Key amongst this new generation is Greg Lynn, an architect celebrated for his use of computer sequencing to produce biomorphic, folding, pliable and fluid forms. Credited with inventing the term “Blobitecture”, Lynn has argued for an architecture of “animate design”, an architecture whose design process is fundamentally characterised by the dynamic forces of generative computer processing. Defined as “the co-presence of motion and force at the moment of formal conception”, it is central to his methodology and the forms that result.46

  Referencing film in this regard, Lynn suggests that “the cinematic model of space” has tended to separate dynamic and static events and spaces in ways typical of standard architectural thought. Film, he says, “sees motion as a series of frames through a static location”. Reflected in the typical employment of computer modelling in design, the rendering of a “walkthrough” animation that gives a sense of a building’s interior, it is a mindset that only allows for movement to be introduced into architecture, post-design process.47 For Lynn, generative computer sequencing allows “movement” to be a component factor of the form creation process itself and, furthermore, facilitates the production of smoothly blended forms; forms for which the most up-to-date cinematic morphing effects serve as a precedent and analogy.48

  In addition to referencing film however, Lynn repeats the arguments put forward here in a number of other ways. First, in his search for an architecture of folding and fluid spaces, he is explicit. In his 1998 book, Folds, Bodies and Blobs: Collected Essays, he directly rejects the fragmentary and disjunctive approach of Deconstruction in favour of a more fluid conceptualisation of architecture. In making the case for this transition he discusses one of Eisenman’s most important projects, The Wexner Centre for the Arts, Ohio. Normally categorised as “disjunctive” due to a number of fragmentary characteristics, Lynn suggests its equally prevalent “continuous” characteristics, most notably its roof, should lead to it being reframed as a Deleuzian “model of simultaneity”.49

  This explicit referencing of Deleuze is the second way in which we find Lynn echoing the arguments laid out here and it is repeated in Animate Form, published in 2011. In this text, Lynn associates an interest in Deleuze to a whole generation of architects “weary of the representational critiques of Deconstruction” and more in tune with a new age of organic forms or “Blobitecture”.50 What Lynn seems to be hinting at here then, is the consensus around a coherent set of ideas and theories, and the formal similarities in output that are necessary to identify a coherent movement in architecture; a movement we suggest could find its filmic counterpart in the experimental work of the directors such as Figgis, Twyker and Sokurov.

  Less explicitly Deleuzian, but nonetheless centred on the creation of an architecture of the foldable and the pliable, is Lars Spuybroek. Spuybroek returns to Eisenman’s interest in the diagram in the formulation of his own generative process in which the diagram becomes a conceptual input/output device that “swallows, restructures and ejects matter”.51 What his computer-generated diagrams produce is, as with Lynn, malleable and fluid architectural forms in which plans, volumes, floors, screens and surfaces blend. It is an architecture that “rejects conventional mechanistic experience in favour of a more visceral environment in which action, perception and vision are synthesized”.52

  Less associated with Blobitecture, but certainly now fully aligned with its computer-generative processes, is Thom Mayne of Morphosis. Although coming late to the unpredictable generative capabilities of contemporary computer-aided design, the work of Morphosis has recently adapted it to its full potential. Mayne has defined the work of Morphosis as based on “questioning the notion of boundary” and “oscillating between the notion of the inside and outside”. It also questions the idea of “centre and periphery” and what he suggests is its undefinable inverse”.53 In his employment of such terminology, Mayne begins to give a sense of the folding intricacies found in projects such as the University of Cincinnati Recreation Building, 2006, and the New Academic Building, Cooper Union, 2009; projects created using the computer to “manipulate, rescale, stretch, amend, subtract and pry apart single architectural objects” in the creation of a new-generation folded architecture.54

  Other contemporary architects that share these tendencies, to a greater or lesser extent, include the partners of the now defunct Foreign Office Architects. At their most celebrated project, the Yokohama Port Authority building, their design process involved a computer algorithm fed with multiple data streams in the creation of another multiple folded architectural form. It is an architectural typology that they describe as producing “an experience in which whatever direction you walk, you never have the sense of returning to the same spot”.55 In short, they describe it as an architectural experience potentially analogous to the viewing experience of Timecode, Run Lola Run or Russian Ark.

  Similar traits can be found in the work of MvRdV in projects such as Barendrecht Church, 1993; Sloterpark Swimming Pool, 1994; and the Hasselt Villa, 1996. Not only does MvRdV use complex data sets in the generation of form, but it also produces folding and pliable “landscape” buildings that can merge architectural form with its surroundings.56 It is formally analogous to the terminology of Deleuze and aesthetically analogous to the films mentioned here. It also permits a reading of how we walk through, across and over architecture in ways that recall the viewing of the experimental films of Figgis, Twyker and Sokurov, a continuous, emerging experience that is in a state of continual flux. As with the architecture of Spuybroek, Mayne, FOA and Eisenman, their buildings are hybrid computer generations that echo the fluidity of experience and the potential fluidity of contemporary film.

  Conclusion

  In identifying this “new wave” of architects currently developing their brand of computer-generated and folding architecture, we have attempted to underline an approach to architectural form, and its generation, that sets up possible parallels with an as yet undefined movement in film. Certainly, in both the architectural and filmic spheres, new types of fluid, unpredictable and extremely complex notions of space, time, form and aesthetics have recently emerged, and share important similarities. These new ideas, we suggest, coalesce around themes identifiable in spatial readings of the work of Gilles Deleuze. Consequently, we find ourselves presented with the opportunity to redefine the relationship between film and architecture in new terms, that is, the folding and supple Deleuzian paradigm.

  In order for this possibility to be realised however, it would be necessary to establish one key factor first. It would be necessary to thoroughly transpose the Deleuzian spatio-temporal reading of Figgis’ work we have sketched out here to the world of film more generally. In short, it would be necessary to identify a new genre of film based on this fluid, folding and more loosely controlled approach to representation, narrative and filmic aesthetics. It is precisely this possibility we hinted at the beginning of this paper through the referencing of films such as Russian Ark, Run Lola Run and Zidane: A Twentieth Century Portrait. However, engaging in the exercise of turning our identification of the layered approach to spatio-temporal cinematic constructions, identifiable in these films, into an established genre is beyond the scope of this essay, or indeed, this book. It will be left as a question for future consideration.

  Nevertheless, if this cinematic genre were to develop and go beyond the tentative series of similarities we have identified here, we would be presented with an interesting scenario; a scenario in which recognised movements sharing theoretical, practical and formal characteristics coexist in both the fields of architecture and film. In this scenario, the possibility for film and architecture to enter into new directly influencing and related engagements could establish a completely new terrain on which to consider the relationship between the two. We would be presented with a body of films
and architecture which, as in the incipient days of the medium, potentially galvanise the most creative and challenging forces of architectural theory into radical reconsiderations of conventional practice. We would be presented with a situation in which film could not only offer new strands of thinking within the limits of its own discipline, but could offer radical new concepts, visual metaphors and sources of ideas to the world of architecture. The reawakening of the interplay between our experience of architecture and our perceptions of space on the cinematic screen envisaged by Tschumi could well materialise. Where it would lead is, of course, open to debate.

  Notes

  1For an overview, see: Johnson, Philip and Wigley, Mark. Deconstructivist Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1988; Wigley, Mark. The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt, MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1995.

  2An overview of Eisenman’s work can be found in: Zaera-Polo, Alejandro (ed.). El Croquis. Peter Eisenman, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 1997.

  3Overviews of the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari are available in: Ballantyne, Andrew. Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, Routledge, London, 2007; Colebrook, Claire. Gilles Deleuze, Routledge, London, 2002.

  4See: Menashe, Louis. “Filming Sokurov’s Russian Ark: An Interview with Tilman Büttner”. Cineaste. Vol. XXVIII, Issue 3, 2003. p. 21–23.

  5Schlegel, Hans-Joachim. Russian Ark. Review. Film-dienst. Vol. LVI, Issue 9, 2003. p. 22–23.

  6For an extensive overview of the film, see: Majer O’sickley, Ingeborg. “Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets (Or Does She?): Time and Desire in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run”. Quarterly Review of Film & Video. Vol. 19, 2002. p. 123–131.

  7Morrey, Douglas and Dauncey, Hugh. “Quiet Contradictions of Celebrity Zinedine Zidane, Image, Sound, Silence and Fury”. International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 11, Issue 3, SAGE Publications, London, 2008. p. 301–318.

  8Dargis, Manohla. “Portrait of the Artist as a Global Soccer Star”. New York Times: Culture. Film Review, October 23, 2008. p. 10.

  9Wood, Ashley. “Encounters at the Interface: Distributed Attention and Digital Embodiments”. Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Vol. 25, 2008. p. 219–229.

  10For an overview of Robert Altman, see: Zuckoff, Mitchell. Robert Altman: The Oral Biography, Vintage, London, 2010; McGilligan, Patrick. Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 1989.

  11Perez, Gilberto. “Film in Review”. The Yale Review. Vol. 89, Issue 1, January 2001. p. 185–193.

  12Wood, Ashley. “Encounters at the Interface: Distributed Attention and Digital Embodiments”. Ibid. p. 221.

  13See: Hardingham, Samantha and Rattenbury, Kester. Bernard Tschumi: Parc de la Villette: SuperCrit No4, Routledge, London, 2011.

  14Lamont, Michelle. “How to Become a Dominant French Philosopher: The Case of Jacques Derrida”. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 93, No. 3, 1987. p. 602.

  15Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996. p. 121.

  16Tschumi, Bernard. Event-Cities, MIT Press, London, 1994. p. 11.

  17Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction, Ibid. p. 147.

  18Whiteman, John. Investigations in Architecture. Eisenman Studios at GSD: 1983–85, Harvard University Press, New York, 1986. p. 7.

  19Derrida, Jacques. “Deconstruction and the Other” (Interview with Richard Kearney). In: R. Kearny (ed.), Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1984. p. 123.

  20Krauss, Rosalind. “Death of a Hermenutic Phantom: Materialization of the Sign in the Work of Peter Eisenman”. In: Peter Eisenman House of Cards, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987. p. 168.

  21Tafuri, Manfredo. “Peter Eisenman: Meditations of Icarus”. In: Perter Eisenman House of Cards, Ibid. p. 167.

  22Eisenman, Peter. Diagram Diaries, Thames and Hudson, London, 1999. p. 29.

  23Perez, Gilberto. “Film in Review”. The Yale Review. Vol. 89, Issue 1, January 2001. p. 186.

  24Wood, Ashley. “Encounters at the Interface: Distributed Attention and Digital Embodiments”. Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Vol. 25, Issue 3. Taylor Francis, London, 2008. p. 220.

  25Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Phenomenology of Perception, Routledge and Keagan Paul, London, 1962. p. 68.

  26Word, Ashley. “Encounters at the Interface”. Ibid. p. 224.

  27Ray, William. Literary Meaning: From Phenomenology to Deconstruction, Basil Blackwell Ltd., Oxford, 1984. p. 147.

  28Eco, Umberto. The Role of the Reader, Indiana University Press, Indiana, 1979. p. 5.

  29Tschumi, Bernard. The Manhattan Transcripts, Academy Editions, London, 1981. p. 6.

  30Ibid. p. 9.

  31Ibid. p. 10.

  32Tschumi, Bernard. “Parc de la Villette, Paris”. In: A. Papadakis, C. Cooke and A. Benjamin (eds), Deconstruction Omnibus, Rizzoli, New York, 1989. p. 175–181.

  33Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction, MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1997. p. 122.

  34Deleuze, G and Guattari, F. A Thousand Palteaus; Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Continuum, London, 1988. p. 478.

  35Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image, The Anthlone Press, London, 1989. p. 34.

  36Colebrook, Claire. Gilles Deleuze, Routledge, London, 2002. p. 34.

  37Ibid. p. 34.

  38Ballantyne, Andrew. Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, Routledge, London, 2007. p. 50.

  39Ibid. p. 18.

  40Eisenman, Peter. Diagram Diaries, Ibid. p. 29.

  41Eisenman, Peter. “A Conversation with Peter Eisenman”. In: A. Zaera-Polo (ed.), El Croquis. Peter Eisenman, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 1997. p. 13.

  42Eisenman, Peter. In: Alejandro Zaera-Polo (ed.), Interview with Alejandro Zaera-Polo. El Croquis. Peter Eisenman, Ibid. p. 132.

  43Ibid. p. 12.

  44Ibid. p. 158.

  45Ibid. p. 163.

  46Lynn, Greg. “Animate Form”. In: C. Jencks (ed.), Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture, Wiley-Academy, London, 2006. p. 328.

  47Zellener, Peter. Hybrid Space: New Forms in Digital Architecture, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1999. p. 140.

  48Lynn, Greg. Folds, Bodies and Blobs: Collect Essays, La Lettre volée, Brussels, 1998. p. 110.

  49Ibid. p. 116.

  50Lynn, Greg. Animate Form, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2011. p. 40.

  51Spuybroek, Lars. “Machining Architecture”. In: C. Jencks (ed.), Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture, Ibid. 2006. p. 351.

  52Zellener, Peter. Hybrid Space: New Forms in Digital Architecture, Ibid. p. 112.

  53Spuybroek, Lars. “Machining Architecture”. Ibid. p. 351.

  54Mayne, Thom. “Morphosis: Connected Isolation”. Architectural Monographs. No. 23, Academy Editions, London, 1993. p. 11.

  55Moussavi, Farshid and Zaera-Polo, Alejandro. “Code Remix 2000”. In: C. Jencks (ed.), Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture, Ibid. 2006. p. 338.

  56Levene, Richard and Márquez, Fernando (ed.). “Stacking and Layering”. In: El Croquis: MvRdV, El Croquis Editorial, Madrid, 1997. p. 52, 56 and 118.

  Conclusion

  One of the things that the last essay of this work suggests is that the potential of film as a radical visual language has yet to be extinguished. This situation persists, despite the emergence of ever newer visual technologies as we move forward in the twenty-first century. Indeed, it continues to develop. Film still has the potential to move in new directions, as yet unforeseen. Thus, although it is now a technology of over one hundred years old, film may still offer valuable lessons, ideas and concepts. It may yet remain for some time a fruitful field of architectural enquiry and thought.

  The possibility that film represents a source of inspiration and creativity that has yet to be fully explored, let alone fully exhausted, underlies all the essays in this book. In this sense it is as central to the arguments put forward here as the
concept of “cinematographic space” and its associated themes. These themes have been investigated through a variety of channels: the cinematic review, essays on education, overviews of video art, and examinations of filmic installation. They have also been considered through academic texts and theoretical propositions. Throughout, we have sought to mine ideas found along the line of friction and attraction that is the boundary between these two disciplines.

  It was not the intention of this fragmentary format to offer a single coherent narrative. On the contrary, the format selected has allowed for a diversity of approaches, interests and methodologies to be highlighted. This, we suggest, reflects the fragmentary nature of our cross-disciplinary terrain. The obvious drawback of this approach is its lack of unity, its eschewing of a dominant idea and a potentially random feel. The danger then, is that its various architectural-filmic arguments may have appeared isolated. They may come across as partial and fragmented views on the potential of film to inform architectural practice and theory.

  Its great advantage, however, lies precisely in this montage-type reflection of the field’s diversity; an area of investigation characterised by video, film, installation, architecture and theory. It is hoped that this diverse approach has allowed a number of ideas to emerge, diverge and morph. Furthermore, it is hoped that this has occurred in ways that were not always predictable. The arguments put forward are certainly intended to remain open to further transformation. In this regard, we have attempted to construct a multiple layered series of independent filmic-architectural narratives. They are expected to play off one another and, hopefully, contribute to the complexity inherent to the field.

  This perspective is perhaps more necessary than ever. As pieces of “visioning technologies”, the film camera, the cinema screen, the television set, and all their associated paraphernalia, are now the technologies of one century ago. Today, it is very easy to be drawn into the invariably exciting, dynamic and cutting-edge world of the latest technologies of sight and sensorial interaction. The ideas examined by thinkers such as Paul Virilio, Lev Manovich, William Mitchell and Marcos Novak, to name but a few, all indicate this future. Such thinkers transverse the brave new visual worlds of virtual reality, second-world Internet existences, cyborg “eye technologies” and the digital manipulation of imagery, all in their most radical and newest forms. Importantly, they also muse on how these issues affect, and will come to affect, the architecture of today and tomorrow. In some cases, they also look to the past and the present to understand how this will happen.