The Body, Bodies and the Body Without Organs:

Philosophy and Architecture from Merleau-Ponty and Holl, to Deleuze and Lynn

Chris Bamborough

Architecture Level 3

Tutor: Tilo Amhoff

Introduction

In the book The Eyes of the Skin Juhani Pallasmaa highlighted what he felt was the loss of human senses involved in designing architectural spaces due to an overemphasis on the visual in western culture. His convincing argument expressed serious concerns about the rise of the computer in architectural design accusing it of creating a distance between the maker and object, and in doing so removing the haptic contact in design1. In 1996, when Pallasmaa’s book was published, the computer was already becoming a regular addition to Architectural practice, which today is seen as a necessity for the majority of architects. Despite its popularity, its influence is hotly debated within architectural discourse; it is either destroying the ancient art of drawing, or enabling architecture to explore exciting new virtual ground. The Eyes of the Skin is now in its second edition (2005) suggesting that once again the importance of the body and human senses in architecture is being raised as Architecture becomes more and more digitised. For this dissertation I Initially embarked on research into architectural theory regarding the human body and its senses, with the aim of comparing it to the work of Architects who were exploring the capabilities of the computer, to see if Pallasmaa’s concerns were valid. By studying Greg Lynn projects I wished to identify how he used “the body” within his purely digital architecture and compare his approach with Phenomenology, the philosophy Pallasmaa thoroughly cites as a way of understanding through perception by the body. I was specifically concerned with analysing Greg Lynn’s architecture in relation to Maurice

1 Juni Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin p 12 - 13

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Part 1 -The Body 5 Phenomenology Body and Architecture A Phenomenology of Architecture Body Horizon

Part II - Bodies, and the Body without Organs 15 A new Body De-stratification of Body Architectural bodies (Blobs and Skeletons) Body Exterior

Part III - Individual Body of Work 30

Conclusion 35

Bibliography 39

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significantly the evolution in the treatment of “the body” in architectural theory over the last 30 years. The main intention of this dissertation is to highlight and explain the change in the treatment of the body in Philosophy and Architecture, by chronologically considering each stage in the philosophical development and the resulting architectural manifestations. In order to do this I investigate two contemporary architects who exemplify these differing standpoints, they are Steven Holl and Greg Lynn. In the first chapter “The body” I consider Phenomenology as a philosophy, in particular Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s, and its consideration of the human body as the central point of experience and perception in which to understand the world. I continue by tracing its general uptake into the Architectural paradigm, before considering the specific interpretation by Steven Holl. From this I consider Phenomenology’s influence on Architecture, and its success as a theoretical framework. In chapter two “bodies and body without organs” I investigate the philosophy of Giles Deleuze and Feliz Guattari and map and define the transition of their notion of “the body” as a post-structuralist critique to Phenomenology and Structuralism. Through the architectural “bodies” of Greg Lynn I review his architectural interpretations of Deleuze and Guattari’s body, which calls upon their concept of “the body without organs”. In doing so I assess a possible resulting architecture of this model, and endeavour to ascertain Lynn’s success in spatial design. In the last chapter “individual body of work” I compare and contrast a project of Holl and Lynn’s that attempt to achieve the same ends, in order to directly compare their theoretical positions relating to the body.

Merleau-Ponty’s form of Phenomenology, to ultimately ascertain whether Greg Lynn considered the haptic dimension of architecture and create spaces of sensual quality, and if so / not was it as a result of using the computer? In the process of writing the draft however two major and interesting points came to light, the first was that Greg Lynn significantly did not refer to the human body, when using the term body or bodies in his architecture. Instead the body was a metaphorical label for his architectural “forms” thus having no significant relation to Merleau-Ponty’s human bodily perception. I concluded that Lynn was a form finder, concerned with evolution in geometry, meaning that senses were not important for Lynn in his architecture. I identified that the philosophy Greg Lynn uses as his theoretical framework utilised the term “body” in an entirely different manner directing me towards a different philosophy. Two new “body” related terms emerged from the initial draft, that of bodies, and the concept of the “body without organs” both connected to the philosophy of Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Although I found separate sources of research existed for “body”, “bodies” and “body without organs”, I could not identify work that tackled the historical progression in thinking in Philosophy and Architecture, or compared the approaches. Given that this difference in the treatment of “the body”, appears to form conflicting theoretical camps in contemporary architecture, I decided to explore and understand these standpoints within a new dissertation, in particular make sense of the “body without organs” concept. These different treatments of the body raises interesting questions I wish to address concerning contemporary architectural design methods and practice, the development in philosophy of the body, and

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In order to achieve this I embarked on a purely literary based research programme extensively referring to primary and secondary sources from books, journals and magazines. The intention of this dissertation is to provide a historical review of theory exploring the body through studying the critical work of philosophers, architects and theorists. As I was unable to directly experience the examples of the architecture covered, I use them as illustrative tools, not as means in which to provide personal critical analysis.

Part I - The Body

Phenomenology

Ever since Plato (4th century BC) introduced his thought on the body as separate from the physical world and the soul there have been differing opinions of the importance and relationship of the body in philosophy. It is regarded that it was not until the early 20th century that Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938) tackled the problem of the body and conscious experience. He analysed consciousness as the construction of objective judgements based on experience of phenomena, thus creating the beginning of the philosophical category Phenomenology. Husserl’s theory on perception was scientifically based and proposed that it ultimately involved the body senses, as well as kinaesthetic experiences the body had of its own motility2. Claire Colebrook associates Edmund Husserl’s development of phenomenology with a critical viewing his contemporary modernist systematised life; feeling experience was reduced to a mechanistic, efficient and repetitive movement that forgot animating life3. From this start point philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty critiqued and evolved Phenomenology to generate their own interpretations, in Merleau-Ponty’s case it was to develop an understanding of the world through the experience of phenomena perceived by and to the body’s senses. His book The Phenomenology of Perception, written in 1962, comprehensively details this thinking by viewing the body as subject (not as object as

2 Michael Hammond et al, Understanding Phenomenology, p 153-543 Claire Colebrook, Deleuze: A guide for the perplexed, p 95

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others think of us and what our world is”11.

Body and Architecture

The influence of the human body in architecture can be traced all the way back to the 1st century BC in Vitruvius’s ten books on architecture, “without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in the design of any temple; that is, if there is no precise relation between its members as in the case of those of a well shaped man”12. Georges Teyssot in his introduction to Diller and Scofidio’s book “Flesh” highlights that Vitruvius’s human proportional influence extended through to the 15th century whereby architects such as Alberti, Francesco di Giorgio and Filarete designed in relation to “genuine bodies”13 exploiting the newly invented perspective that focused on the position of the human body. During the architectural reflection that occurred post World War II Steen Eiler Rasmussen critiqued modernist architecture and found it to overly treat the body as rational machine. In Experiencing Architecture, written in 1959, Rasmussen highlighted the need for a consideration of the body’s senses in the design and experience of architecture. In his preface Rasmussen communicated his aspiration to reformulate popular understanding of the architects role as “artist” in response to what he viewed was the loss of experience with over emphasis on aesthetics in modernism14. In this work Rasmussen very clearly maintained that in truly experiencing architecture it was the visual, textural and acoustic abilities of humans that are employed. Although he did not discuss

11 Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception., p 12212 Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture, p 7213 Georges Teyssot, The mutant body of Architecture, in Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Flesh: Architectural probes, p 2214 Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture, p 9 - 14

empiricists or intellectualists thought) describing the body in action and its attitude to the world. Through the study of psychoanalytical cases he approached the “…phenomena of reality by studying perceptual constants”4 creating what Merleau-Ponty labelled a “…philosophy for which the world is always ‘already there’ before reflection begins””5. He understood the human body as, what Christopher Macann encapsulates, an “incarnate form which their self assumes when it ceases to regard itself, first and foremost, as an ego”6. Although all the body’s senses were important to Merleau-Ponty vision was particularly scrutinised in its importance for perception, recognising power could be rendered to the human “gaze” by the way an object was approached and viewed7. He defined the perception of the size / shape / colour of space as directly dependent on bodily situation to the experienced phenomena, the lighting it achieves, the focus of the eye needed and the way the body subject looked8. Merleau-Ponty developed the concept “body schema” which was an understanding of the entire body related to the greater world, a point in which to view the world as one of the objects in that world and perceive the spatiality of the body and its motility9. It meant understanding space as a system of bodily and external spaces which set up a “background against which the object as the goal of our action may stand out or the void in front of which it may come to light”10. For Merleau-Ponty the internal and external exists, and are understood, in relation to the human body and consciousness, the body understands itself through the location and interaction of other such bodies, its spatiality brought into being through action whilst remaining individually significant; “…we are literally what

4 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The phenomenology of perception, p 3485 Ibid., p iv6 Christopher Macann, Four phenomenological philosophers, p 1707 Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, p 77 - 838 Ibid., p 311 ff9 Ibid,. p 113 ff10 Ibid., p 117

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architectural theory he did cite works from architects, such as Alvar Aalto and Frank Lloyd Wright, who were searching for a more tactile and organic architecture to their overtly rational contemporaries at this time. During the 1970s Kent C Bloomer and Charles W Moore would apply Merleau-Ponty’s “body schema” concept, in the form of what they labelled the “body image”, to the study the role of the body and its senses in pre 1970s architecture. Although not mentioning Phenomenology yet Kent C Bloomer and Charles W Moore’s work Body, Memory and Architecture moved to impart the body and perception as a panacea to the failings of modern architecture of which Rasmussen had previously highlighted. The “…specialised architecture, which ignored and excluded the more general function of extending the human self ”15, they argued, needed to look towards how architecture was felt rather than viewed. The “body image” concept, for them, identified the body as the source of the personal world, generating meaning by which the world was experienced, understanding visual encounter from learning through haptic experience16. The post modernist era of architecture in the late twentieth century looked to different intellectual fields for paradigm direction. Philosophy and within it Phenomenology provided a solid grounding in which Architects and theorists could refer, in order to design and critique spaces in relation to the human body. The emergence of “Phenomenology” as a theoretical label within architecture can be traced to, what Neil Leach identifies as, a reaction to previously semiotic-based philosophy in the structuralist movement active post 1960s. It is of the

15 Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Body, Memory and Architecture, p1516 Ibid., p43

opinion of Leach that architects drew upon the ontological potential of Phenomenology to create a deeper symbolic level beyond the codifying capacity of semiology. Phenomenology was thus mobilised as a theoretical framework in the 1980/90s by architects such as Juhani Pallasmaa, and Steven Holl. As stated earlier, in The Eyes of the skin, Juhani Pallasmaa made continuous references to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and argued for the re-discovery of the body and senses in designing space, feeling that society was overly exposed to purely the visual in western culture. In citing Phenomenology of Perception Pallasmaa maintained that human skin is paramount to creating and experiencing successful architecture. The importance of skin for Pallasmaa was that all senses are specialisations of skin tissue, and that all senses are extensions of the tactile sense17. Architecture for Pallasmaa is vital in expressing and relating man’s being in the world through the questioning of human existence in space, he felt an inhumanity in the architecture of the 1970/80s, a result of alienation, detachment and solitude caused by ocularcentrism18.

A Phenomenology of Architecture

Steven Holl who writes the preface to Pallasmaa’s Eyes of the skin, tells a story of his connection to Merleau-Ponty’s writing “directed toward spatial sequence, texture, material and light experienced in architecture”19. In Questions of Perception, of which Pallasmaa and Holl wrote along with Alberto Perez-Gomez, Holl calls for the need to develop a consciousness of perception based on the body’s unique existence in space20. The challenge for his architecture is to stimulate the perception of mental

17 Juni Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin p 1018 Ibid., p 16-1919 Steven Holl, Thin ice, in Juni Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin p 620 Steven Holl, Questions of Perception - Phenomenology of Architecture, in Phenom-

enology of Architecture, p 40

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and physical phenomena, to heighten phenomenal experience perceived through the body while simultaneously expressing meaning. Holl then designs space by analysing the breaking down of experience into partial perceptions, to result in architecture “…initially understood as a series of partial experiences, rather than a totality”21. Holl’s architecture is designed for and around the body and its senses, and he feels that only architecture is capable of simultaneously awakening the senses through space, light, colour, texture, geometry, material and detail. However the body is not the only factor Holl considers, its status shared with considerations of site, circumstance and an organising concept, steered by a metaphorical and narrative approach. Holl’s design methodology follows a similar pattern per project, firstly the programme and site are studied, and from them spatial, light and perspective properties are tested through watercolour drawings22(Fig 1). The unique concepts Holl then conceives and attributes to each project in order to explore the phenomenology of his architecture, however, guarantees unique lines of design enquiry and experiences. An example of this methodology is best illustrated by his design for the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art (1993-98) also known as Kiasma. Initial studies of site and programme were carried out and from them arose the importance of nature within the immediate Helsinki landscape. In considering the addition of the art museum (culture), Holl looked towards Merleau-Ponty and his concept of the Chiasma, an intertwining of culture and nature23. Holl interpreted this as “the criss-crossing of the body through space – like connecting electric currents – joins space,

21 Steven Holl, Questions of Perception - Phenomenology of Architecture, in Phenom-

enology of Architecture, p 4222 For a thorough example of Holl’s methodology see Todd Gannon (ed), Steven Holl

– Simmons hall, Source books on Architecture 5.

23 “Chiasma” is taken from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Intertwining, The Chiasma, as cited by Steven Holl, Parallax, p 38

Fig 1: Spatial, light and perspective testing Source: El Croquis 93, Steven Holl

1996 – 1999,

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body, eye and mind”24. The series of gallery spaces were each conceived of as unique individual experiences created by the unfolding of a series of changing perspectives, transformation of natural light conditions and visual and aural connections to the landscape, creating, in Holl’s words, a “…necessarily a dynamic unfolding phenomena”25(Fig 2). The exterior of Kiasma involves materials that reflect and change with the local conditions to create multiple readings of the buildings skin in relation to the perceiving body’s position (Fig 3). Body Horizon Holl makes extensive narratives of experiences showing his deep consideration for perception and phenomena, which I feel provides a rigorous approach to analytical thought for design. Perception is paramount and Holl sees it as a model for architecture that allows the development of an art of seeing through the whole body. A phenomenology of architecture as proposed by Pallasmaa, and Holl provides an approach that treats the perceiving body as the focus to a way of experiencing and conceiving of space. Its philosophical background provides a strong foundation for a theoretical position within architecture, but is it a flawless attitude? It is highly centred on the human body and for this reason is seen as too self-referential. Neil Leach is critical of Phenomenology in that it has nothing other than itself to legitimise its claims, resulting in epistemological fragility.26He continues to censure Phenomenology’s “tendency to seek authority by slipping into the realm of the ontological” casting doubt onto its success as a reliable universal philosophy. Ian Buchanan and Gregg Lambert identify that, within Phenomenology, thought depends on man’s relationship to the world through their body,

24 Steven Holl, Parallax, p 3825 See Helsinki Museum of Art, in El Croquis 78, Steven Holl 1986 – 1996, p 144 -14726 Neil Leach, Rethinking Architecture, p 84

Fig 2: Kiasma Interiors (Source: El Croquis 93, Steven Holl 1996 – 1999)

Fig 3: Kiasma Exterior (Source: El Croquis 93, Steven Holl 1996 – 1999)

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however it cannot deal with the world’s relationship with the body. This suggests that Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the body is too inward looking, concerned with relationships from, rather than too the body. Although it identifies the physical sensation and interaction of touch, it does not account for other forces between bodies such as psychological or metaphysical ones. Claire Colebrook recognises that the sense of space that Merleau-Ponty advocates, as “a space of man: a world whose sense, truth, order, and geometry must always be presentable for any subject whatever”27. However when considering cultural, historical or ethnographical relativism she demonstrates that Phenomenology is flawed relying upon a general horizon or common world upon which to understand. Phenomenology also advocates a finite body, a direct perception of an infinite representation, which Claire Colebrook believes is naive, she considers a successful philosophy of the body to be one that thinks in the space of man and sense of space allowing for the curving of perceptions and an “unlimited finity”28.

27 Claire Colebrook, The space of man: On the specificity of affect, in Ian Buchan and Greg Lambert Deleuze and Space, p18928 Ibid., p190

Part II - Bodies, and The Body without Organs

A new Body

Colebrook, in her book on Giles Deleuze, charts the post-structuralist philosopher’s ideological aims as a reaction to the “impossibility of founding knowledge either on pure experience (phenomenology) or systematic structures (structuralism)29. Deleuze’s main critique of Phenomenology, Colebrook shows, was that it tended to assume a normative or standard model for experience and had to ignore inhuman life. Colebrook demonstrates that Deleuze agrees with Phenomenological thought, in the sense that all experience is intentional or directed beyond itself to what is not itself, in addition Deleuze agreed that consciousness is generated through dynamic life, between inside and outside, self and the world, between experienced lived world and the world lived. However she identifies that Deleuze felt we should not just consider life through experiences, but by accounting for how these relations of experience emerged30. Through the critical analysis of Michel Foucault and in turn Edmund Husserl, Deleuze sought a philosophy through conceptualisations of “difference” and “becoming”, but a difference and becoming “that would not be the becoming of some being”31. Phillip Goodchild recognises that Deleuze ultimately felt the body’s experience was not enough to understand society, to do so the relations, productions and events associated with the experience must also be analysed32. As previously stated Phenomenology relied on a general infinite horizon for theoretical grounding. Where Husserl and

29 Claire Colebrook, Gilles Deleuze, p 2 ff30 Claire Colebrook, Deleuze: A guide for the perplexed, p 116ff31 Claire Colebrook, Gilles Deleuze, p 332 Phillip Goodchild, Deleuze and Guattari: An introduction to the politics of desire, p 82

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Merleau-Ponty judge the world to be experienced through the body and senses, Deleuze views sense as representing potential for other relations and other worlds, discarding humanity as the finite point in the world from which experience is unfolded, as Phenomenology advocates33. Deleuze’s response to the false ordering horizon of Phenomenology was the development of the le pli (the fold) that sought to deal with his understanding of the world’s relationship to the body and its perception34. This concept achieved Claire Colebrook’s “unlimited finity”, as identified above, by locating each perceiving body at the opening of a fold, perception in this way is then curved around and orientated according to the acting body35. Paul A Harris recognises the concept of “the fold” as yielding a different notion of body, a new adaptation between the sensation of the space of the man and space of the world, both related to each other through the interior / exteriority of the fold36. The notion of the fold for Deleuze explained the growth, release, dilation, developing and evolution of organic or inorganic bodies through the unique unfolding of matter.37 Deleuze’s concept of the fold was informed by his earlier re-conceptualisation of the body with collaborating partner Felix Guattari a radical psychoanalyst. Deleuze and Guattari combined to generate radical philosophy in the 1970s and their most significant ideas were publicised through Capitalisme et schizophrenie (Capitalism and Schizophrenia) part 1 Anti – Oedipus (1972) and part 2 A Thousand Plateaus (1980). Within Capitalism and Schizophrenia they demonstrated their innovative understanding of life through the consideration of the inhuman and

33 Claire Colebrook, The Space of man: on the specifity of Affect in Deleuze and Guattari, in Buchanan and Lambert (eds), Deleuze and Space, p 191 - 9334 For further elaboration on “le pli” see chapters The Fold and Having a Body in Giles Deleuze, The Fold

35 Claire Colebrook, The Space of man: on the specifity of Affect in Deleuze and Guattari, in Buchanan and Lambert (eds), Deleuze and Space, p 190ff36 Paul A. Harris, To see with the mind and think through the eye, in Buchanan Lambert (eds), Deleuze and Space, p 4037 Giles Deleuze, The pleats of matter in The Fold, p 8 ff

inorganic. They professed, as Colebrook identifies, that philosophy could only begin to think when it stepped outside its own images of mind, reason and humanity and the human body’s true capabilities could only be understood when the human encountered the inhuman38. Colebrook equates the consideration of the inhuman in their quest to explain the creation of systems from life, setting Deleuze and Guattari apart from other French post-structuralists philosophers of the time who focussed on explaining life constructed through systems39. Andrew Balantyne, in his analysis of Deleuze and Guattari shows that their treatment of the human body is harsh and abrupt, simply a body that “shits and fucks”, engages in processes of production and consumption, has a distinguishable interior and exterior and has diverse connections with itself and its surroundings40. For Deleuze and Guattari the human body is a “desiring machine”; an abstract machine (mechanism), in which an individual’s consciousness is produced from flows of intensities41. Ballantyne shows that Deleuze and Guattari find the same abstract machines in the sub-individual, the individual, the group and the crowd and as such, hold them all equal to the label “body” consisting of multiple bodies or machines42. In addition, the mechanisms are not exclusively corporeal, for Deleuze and Guattari they can exist in an animal(s), a sound(s), a mind or idea and by the same notion can be called a “body”.

38 Claire Colebrook, Deleuze: A guide for the perplexed, p 4-539 Ibid., p 140 Andrew Ballantyne, Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, p 3441 For insight into abstract machines see Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand

Plateaus, p 95 ff42 Andrew Ballantyne, Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, p 27

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De-stratification of Body

In A Thousand Plateaus , Deleuze and Guattari explore the human body and its internal and external relation to the world by viewing it as consisting of and being influenced by multiple mechanisms or “abstract machines”. Within this work, they took the word “body” in its broadest sense to mean anything of “formed content” and used this treatment to study the production of what they term “assemblages” through the combination of bodies43. For Deleuze Guattari the bodies in question in the assemblage can change in object and scale; for instance in an example of a feudal assemblage they considered “the body of the earth, the social body, the body of the overlord, vassal and serf, the body of the knight and the horse and their new relation to the stirrup, the weapons and tools assuring a symbiosis of bodies – a whole machinic assemblage”44. In order to gain greater human understanding, Deleuze and Guattari dehumanised the notion of the “body” and revolted against its human organic nature by devising the concept of the Body without Organs (BwO). Developed from the theory of Baruch Spinoza and writings of Antonin Artaud, the BwO was, for Deleuze and Guattari, a way of understanding bodies, the stripping back of any body to its most basic state; a state prior to organisation (of organs) and the body’s transformation into the object (an organism), such as their example of the full egg before hatch45. In their distrust of psychoanalysis, in which they felt reduced everything into phantasies, they studied the schizo to hypothesise the dismantling of self, tearing consciousness away from the subject, the creation of one’s own BwO. The resulting state offers a free

43 Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p 89 44 Ibid., p 9845 Ibid., p 169

body populated only by lines of intensity, free from internal or external influences, a point of 0 stratification or “territorialisation” from which to initiate understanding46. George Teysott recognises that, in the capitalist context of late 20th century society, Deleuze and Guattari envisaged the BwO as an exteriority, perceived through relations, affects and desires; a notion of body that does not hinge on the singularity of each organ, but produces a liberated and libidinal body that is exposed and willing to offer itself up to the inscriptions of power47. For Deleuze and Guattari, the concept of the BwO is intended not just thinking about the human body, it is for any interpreted “body”, for example it has been articulated to understand literature theory, gender studies, politics, geography, technology, virtual reality and even biology. For an example of what the Body without organs means for a designer such as an architect, Andrew Balantyne proposes it as an idealised state, a catatonic body not structured by interactions, responses or concepts present in contemporary society, resulting in a condition “…of creativity where preconceptions are set aside48. My reading of the BwO is that of a practice for comprehension, it forces the thinker to strip the subject or object bare of all meaning and association from which to then study and correctly extrapolate. However the BwO is an unobtainable condition, it forces no presupposition to understanding, “You never reach the body without organs, you can’t reach it, you are forever attaining it, it is a limit”49

46 Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, November 28, 1947: How do you make yourself a body without organs? In A Thousand Plateaus, p 165-18447 Georges Teyssot, The mutant body of Architecture, in Diller and Scofidio, Flesh: Archi-

tectural probes, p 31-3348 Andrew Ballantyne, Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, p 3649 Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, November 28, 1947: How do you make yourself a body without organs? In A Thousand Plateaus, p 166

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Architectural bodies (Blobs and Skeletons)

Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy is particularly significant for the technologically advanced and globalised world we inhabit today. Their philosophy proposes inhuman conditions such as multiple viewpoints and virtual worlds of other possibilities and with the growing popularity and capabilities of computers, it has experienced a significant uptake by architects who practise using digital methods. Peter Zellner, in his review of the current “innovators” in architecture, cites Deleuze as an influence for architects such as Marcus Novak, UN Studio, Ocean and Greg Lynn. They look to design with aspects of Deleuzian thinking, be it the consideration of difference and becoming in the virtual realm, interior / exterior surface of folded bodies, or understanding influences and intensities of a body through abstract machines. Greg Lynn, who designs using purely the computer, incorporates all of these into his architecture and Deleuze’s philosophy forms the basis for all his own theory and architectural research. Greg Lynn studied Philosophy and Architecture at Miami University before working in New York and then setting up his own practice FORM in Los Angeles, all in North America. Ignasi de Sola-Morales, in a presentation taken from the Anybody conference (of which Lynn was a member), highlighted that Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy and “body” is firmly embedded in capitalist culture, being constantly territorialised by the abstract flow of numbers, money and the market50. In looking towards Deleuze, Lynn acknowledges the capitalist culture within which he is designing and looks towards generating architecture

50 Ignasi de Sola-Morales, Absent Bodies, in Cynthia Davidson, Anybody p 23

that understands and responds to contemporary urban life51. Paul A. Harris views Lynn’s architecture as a total adoption of Deleuze’s Philosophy that “…seeks to reconfigure relations between the body and geometry”52 looking for the supple, anexact and deformation to produce what Lynn labels “Animate form”. Harris also acknowledges that Lynn’s re-conceptualisation of the body in his architecture, ”essentially replaces the human form as the basis for spatial types with biological models of morphological change”53. Like Deleuze and Guattari, Lynn’s design and theory looks towards organic systems for his treatment as the “body” as a unified whole and understands the unfolding of life through difference and becoming. In Body Matters Lynn advocates that buildings should behave like bodies that “emerge through process of differentiation, yielding varying degrees of unity based on specific affiliations and mutations”54. Lynn uses the concept of “the fold” to propose architecture that involves a curving of geometry, and new adaptations between multiplicitous bodies and anexact yet rigorous forms creating morphological variation55. In order to understand and produce systems (the Deleuze and Guattari “abstract machine”) for his architectural bodies, during the design process Lynn constructs diagrams that he labels his “abstract machines”. Concrete assemblages are then formed when the virtual diagrammatic relationships of abstract machines are actualised as a technical possibility56. As a consequence Lynn’s notion of the “body” mirrors Deleuze and Guattari’s, whereby it is simply “formed content” expressing the opinion that “any particular body is rejected in favour of

51 Michael Speaks, Its Out there… The formal limits of the American Avant-garde, in Stephen Perrella (ed) Architectural Design (Profile no 133, Hypersurface Architecture), p 24 ff52 Paul A, Harris, To See with the Mind and Think through the Eye, in Buchan, Lambert (eds), Deleuze and Space, p 4553 Ibid., p 46 54 Greg Lynn, Body matters, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 13755 Greg Lynn, Multiplicitous and inorganic bodies, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 39 ff56 Greg Lynn, Animate Form, p 40

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all bodies in general”.57 The scale of bodies can shift with pack, swarm or crowds of bodies becoming a “multiplicitous” inorganic body with “affiliative” alliances, behaving like a body without organs58. Lynn views his architectural bodies as an alternative to the organic paradigm of the whole body, its multiplicity caused by a two fold deteritorialisation, with loss of internal boundaries allowing external events to influence the interior of the body and the expansion of the interior outward59. The body is thus viewed as an architectural system of spatial organisation that functions as a unified and self-regulating whole such as the ecology of an organism60. George Dodds and Robert Tavernor recognise that Lynn’s architectural interpretation of the Body without Organs describes a perfect mobility of virtual space; space that adapts to newly defined needs as they are discovered61. Through the study of changing exercise posture and Lynn’s design they recognise his rejection of the closed static body. Instead Lynn is concerned with movement and the mutation of bodies in response to forces outside of their influence; in Lynn’s own words an “architecture that adapts to, while influencing, its surroundings”62. Ignasi De Sola-Morales is an advocate of Lynn’s treatment of the body as he feels it “recognises the precariousness of bodies and their objectivised fragmentation, along with the persistent dynamism and energy that nonetheless continue to circulate in them” 63. He discounts theories that do not incorporate this recognition as not representing convincing discourse in the contemporary context. Lynn has pioneered the use of animation software within

57 Greg Lynn, Body Matters, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 13558 Ibid., p 139 ff59 Greg Lynn, Multiplicitous and Inorganic Bodies, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 4460 Greg Lynn, Animate Form, p3361 W Braham and Paul Emmons, Upright or flexible? Exercising posture in modern architecture, in George Dodds and Robert Tavernor (eds) Body and Building: Essays on

the changing relation of body and architecture, p 290-30462 Greg Lynn, Body matters, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 14063 Ignasi de Sola-Morales, Absent Bodies, in Anybody p 24

architecture, sourced from LA’s famous film industry, allowing Lynn to explore the philosophy of Deleuze and generate his architectural bodies through 3D modelling techniques. Forms of continuous surface are produced from techniques to generate topological forms involving spline curves that attempt to achieve the aims highlighted above. I wish to explore two such techniques to describe the creation of some of his architectural projects, they are Isomorphic Polysurfaces (meta ball) and Inverse Kinematics . Meta ball (or also meta clay) modelling use spheres to form blobs, what Lynn describes as a sphere that is influenced by forces64, whose internal forces of attraction and mass work against halo’s of influence, fusion and reflection. In his book Folds, Bodies and Blobs, Greg Lynn eludes that his aim in using meta ball software is to play with the singular / multiplicitous nature of spaces. In his essay Blobs , he describes the outcome of using meta ball modelling as creating bodies organised as a singularity on the exterior, yet distinguished from the holistic by its internal multiplicity65. Lynn treats the meta balls and their resulting space as a body without organs, the complexity of its form dictated by the complexity of information entered into the software programme. This complexity, he argues, creates an increase in visual stimuli for the user produced by a reduction in symmetry66. An example of Lynn’s meta ball modelling can be found in the “Artist Space” produced for a New York gallery in 1995. Blobs were constructed within the computer, shaped by their spheres of influence caused by their location within the gallery space; each sphere having an

64 Greg Lynn, Blobs, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 15765 Ibid., p 16466 Ibid., p 166

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equal force of attraction. The outcome was a single, continuous surface formed by the fusing of blobs (Fig 4). The resulting structure was a negative translation of the surface, using two-dimensional plots from the computer; files cut from vinyl and plastic panels and a continuous skin achieved through a pleated Mylar skin (Fig 5). With Inverse Kinematics Lynn uses the computer to simulate the movement and flow of formal parameters using particles. In studying particles, Lynn calculates the shape of invisible fields of attraction (intensities) through their change in position and shape due to the influence of forces. The resulting architecture exists as a result of these flows and exchanges and looks towards the inorganic pack crowd behaviour of bodies as its theoretical foundation. An example of this methodology is best illustrated by Lynn’s entry for the Port Authority Gateway for New York and New Jersey in 1995. The particle studies provided a visual rendering of the cycles of parameters hypothesised for the site, such as traffic, activity, resources and information over a period of time (Fig 6). Lynn analysed the affiliate alliances of the multiple body pack, which, he states, starts to behave as it were itself an organism / body.67 He argues that rather than at the individual, it is at the multiple level that body alliances stabilise and disperse; the internal and external become folded into one another, the continuous multiplicity of the pack-body, crowd-body68. The resulting interaction of particles generated form that was then to be achieved through a tubular steel frame with a tensile exterior providing enclosure and projection surface69 (Fig 7).

67 Greg Lynn, Multiplicitous and inorganic bodies, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 3368 Greg Lynn, Body matters, in Folds, Bodies and Blobs, p 143-14569 Greg Lynn, Animate Form, p 103

Fig 4: Meta ball modelling (Source: Greg Lynn, Animate Form)

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Fig 5: Artist Space (Source: www.glform.com) Fig 6: Inverse Kinematic modelling (Source: www.glform.com)

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Body Exterior

From the lack of critical analysis of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy currently available, it is hard to discuss the merit of their thinking. However I do question the suitability of a complete translation of their ideas into Architecture, as Greg Lynn attempts. In using the computer, Lynn is able to explore the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari through the abstract nature of the virtual and through his research into rapid prototyping and construction methods, Lynn has been able to produce concrete examples of his digital designs. Stan Allen recognises that the computer allows Lynn to concern himself with a “…complex and fluid notion of whole”70 enabling the design of extremely complex spatial systems. However there is debate over whether Lynn’s concrete architecture achieves the same aims attached to his virtual designs and theory. I do not wish to explore this question here but I wish to use it to highlight what Michael Speaks views as the incompatibility of Lynn’s dynamic animation based digital architecture, with the unavoidably static nature of corporeal architecture. Speaks also argues that in studying the exterior conditions of contemporary urban life and treating architectural bodies as a “body without organs”, Lynn designs effectively from the exterior out. In his critique of the American Avant-Garde, Speaks finds Lynn’s quest for the “new” in architecture so strong that he is only able to find it in the generation of form, without stopping to consider the internal qualities and question “what is the essence of architecture”71.

70 Stan Allen, Terminal Velocities: the computer in the design studio, in Practice, Architec-

ture, Technique and Representation, p15571 Michael Speaks, Its Out there… The formal limits of the American Avant-garde, in Stephen Perrella (ed) Architectural Design (Hypersurface Architecture), p 24 ff

Fig 7: Port Authority Renderings (Source: www.glform.com)

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Part III - Individual Body of Work

As has been stated above, the treatment of the body in philosophy has evolved from that of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty; the body of the perceiving human, whose understanding of the world is generated from the experience of phenomena, through to that of Deleuze (via other philosophers) whose body as a folded multiplicity of intensities and machines, existing within any group of matter. The two architects most closely associated to these two contrasting ideologies, as covered above, practice in, and realise, completely different architectures. In order to attempt a direct comparison of Steven Holl and Greg Lynn’s theoretical standpoints, it is possible to look at the problem of customisation for human dwelling. A task both architects have tackled and to an extent made concrete conclusions. For Holl, the problem of “intensity and individuation” stems from his belief that “individual souls are given consideration over mass population”72. Greg Lynn’s contrasting approach, as highlighted above, is that “any particular body is rejected in favour of all bodies in general” meaning that the whole is preferred to the sum of its parts, and approaches individuation through the Deluzian notion of morphological variation. Holl’s attitude is illustrated by his Fukuoka Housing (1991) in Japan, where interior domestic space can be reformed internally by “hinged space” for diurnal, perennial and episodic space use cycles73 (Fig 8). The effect of individuality between apartments is achieved from the adaptability of space and the different colours of hinge creating different

72 Todd Gannon (ed), Steven Holl – Simmons hall, Source books on Architecture 5, p 2373 See Fukuoka Housing, in El Croquis 78, Steven Holl 1986 – 1996, p 94 - 108

Fig 8: Fukuoka Apartments - Hinged Space (Source: www.stevenholl.com)

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lighting effects. Lynn’s Embryological House (1999) aims at customisation through computer modelling and rapid CNC manufacturing; the form generated by the digital parametric modelling of “gastrulated rooms” and deformation from data information generated from the site and climate74. Every resulting “house” is different in shape and in footprint, exhibiting, what Lynn feels, “…a unique range of domestic, spatial, functional, aesthetic and lifestyle constraints”75 (Fig 9). The parametric design of the Embryological house Lynn compares with advance aerospace, auto and product design, which grasp design as a series rather than a single design. However this is where I feel Lynn’s architecture is misguided as these industries cited produce objects to be functionally used or consumed, rather than experienced, as I feel architecture should be. Lynn is of the opinion that Phenomenology is “too focused on individuated interactivity rather than cultural and civic issues”. However it is evident that within the Fukuoka housing complex, Holl’s apartment was the first to start up a community group after residents collected to examine each other’s individual apartments. In considering the experience of the individual, Holl’s approach actually empowered the sum of individuals to collect together as a whole, disproving Lynn’s opinion76. Greg Lynn on the other hand, although unquestionably an innovator of form and production techniques, doesn’t concern himself with the aspects of light, material and detail with which architecture can communicate so much wonder. I feel Holl’s architecture is considerate of the human experience at both the micro and macro scales, a quality I look to explore in my Architectural practice. Lynn’s exploration of the virtual and digital and his passion for

74 See Ann Bergren, The Easier Beauty of Animate Form, Architectural Record p 78 - 8275 Ingeborg M Rocker, Calculus based form: An interview with Greg Lynn, in Mike Silver (ed) Architectural Design, (Programming Cultures), p 88 - 9576 Highlighted by Holl in an interview with Alejandro Zaera in El Croquis 78 Steven Holl

1986 – 1996, p 13

Fig 9: Embryological House (Source: www.glform.com)

Series of dwelling designs (Source: www.glform.com)

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the exterior form, although indicating a new possible world, I feel can only achieve unsuitable solutions in reality and, I predict, inhuman spaces with no aims for inhabitance or experience. In a conversation with Steven Holl, Jeffrey Kipnis suggested that Holl represented the “contemporary” in architecture that looks beneath surface and superficial towards the essential and timeless. Holl agreed and maintained that this was opposed to the “new” which is behold to fashion, taste and style, of which I suspect Greg Lynn guilty of representing77.

77 Jeffrey Kipnis interview with Steven Holl in El Croqius 93, In search of a poetry of

specifics - Steven Holl 1996 – 1999 p 13

Conclusion

Through the exploration of the changing paradigm of “the body” in modern philosophy, from Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology to Deleuze and Guattari’s Post-structuralism, I aimed to consider and explain their theoretical concepts and development. This prompted me to study the architecture of Steven Holl and Greg Lynn allowing me to explore their interpretation of the philosophical treatments of the body within the architectural field. Steven Holl’s approach of “a phenomenology of architecture” aims to produce spaces that involve the perception of mental and physical phenomena and to heighten phenomenal experience perceived through the body while simultaneously expressing meaning. His approach is heavily influenced by Maurice Merleau-Ponty who’s philosophy (in particular the concept “body schema”) provided the body as central to perceiving and understanding the world. Through the perception of phenomena experienced through the body’s senses, he argued, the interior and exterior space of man could be rendered intelligible. The uptake of Phenomenology into Architecture occurred in the 1980s following disillusionment with structuralist theory and the emergence of critical literature calling for the inclusion of senses in architecture. Initially this was connected to the perceived modernist over treatment of buildings as inhuman machines, however by the end of the 20th century it was due to the overemphasis of the visual in architecture created by the ocularcentrism of capitalist society. Holl’s “Kiasma” building in Finland illustrates how Holl’s approach treats the perceiving body as the focus of experiencing and conceiving of space, by controlling light, sequence, colour,

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texture, geometry, material and detail. The resulting architecture achieves multiple experiences through changing perspectives, transformation of natural light conditions, material colours, reflections and textures and achieving visual and aural connections to the landscape. The central human body subject of Phenomenology, however, is found to be epistemologically fragile by modern day philosophers. Greg Lynn’s theoretical paradigm is based on Giles Deleuze’s post-structuralist philosophy that found Phenomenology to be too inward looking, presupposing a finite body and finite horizon on which to base experience. The thinking of Deleuze, as well as Derrida and Foucault, found Phenomenology to be an unsuccessful approach, concerned only with relationships from without considering towards the body. In the digital methods Lynn utilises to create his architecture, he incorporates a total adoption of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophical response to Phenomenology and Structuralism. Lynn’s virtual and concrete notion of architectural “bodies” as inorganic multiplicities of matter open to forces of deformation and mutation takes inspiration from the concept of “the fold”. The fold reacted to Phenomenology’s finite horizon and provided a new notion of body that treated organic and inorganic matter equally, animated by mechanisms on the interior and exterior of the fold. Within bodies in general these mechanisms, or “abstract machines” provide the forces of influence for action, for the individual it directs perception from experience, for the group it makes up the affiliate alliances of the pack. Deleuze and Guattari’s “body without organs” is an inhumane treatment of the body that provides a practical tool for the understanding of bodies in general. It strives for a body with zero internal or external influence, set without context to provide an idealised state on which to identify systems of power around

a body. Lynn’s digital modelling methods allow him to create inorganic bodies that can be shaped by the simulation of organic evolution. The Meta Ball and Inverse Kinematics methods explored allow Lynn to treat his virtual form as a “body without organs”. Internally multiple yet externally singular form is generated from a state of zero intensity by morphological change through internal / external influences. Lynn’s concrete architecture is found to develop when his abstract machines relate to form a technically feasible “assemblage”. This resulting concrete architecture for Lynn is a complex spatial system, a whole that behaves like the ecology of an organism. The resulting forms propose space that can adapt to the emergence of needs as they arise, by understanding and responding to contemporary urban life. In comparing the two architects over the problem of dwelling customisation, it is evident that Lynn’s previously highlighted obsession with the new and form is an issue. In his Embryological House, his approach to an innovative, consumer type of architecture relies on form as the outcome of new design methods and construction techniques, falling short of questioning the interior and the dwelling’s essence. Holl, on the other hand, in considering the individual’s functional and sensual experiences created a more adaptable solution with clear aims of inhabitation, and means to which a sense of place could be constructed. Unfortunately within this dissertation it hasn’t been possible to experience the architecture of Steven Holl or Greg Lynn first hand and as a result make personal critical analysis and elucidations on their work. To advance the understanding of treatment of the “body” in architecture I would look to analyse examples of their built projects to ascertain the concrete success of their philosophical interpretations. It would be

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most beneficial for Greg Lynn’s architecture, of which I have the greatest number of questions and doubts. In preparation I would speculate that Lynn’s approach is overly philosophical and produces empty architecture, devoid of meaning, that act more as pieces of sculpture or art, whereas Holl achieves complete architecture through the simply help of philosophy rather than as a direct translation. In addition I would also seek to explore further interpretations of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy in architecture to gauge its success. To do this I would propose experiencing and analysing the concrete architecture of Lynn and others inspired by Deleuze, such as Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos (UN Studio), or Lars Spuybroek (NOX) to gain a better understanding of the potential of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy in designing Architectural space.

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