Page 63 - Studio International - September October 1975

QUESTIONS OF SPACE:

The Pyramid and the Labyrinth

(or the Architectural Paradox)

Bernard Tschumi

1. Most people concerned with nature of the debate, such as politics, and material to be modelled in various ways,
architecture feel some sort of the means that alter the paradox and the history of architecture was seen
disillusion and dismay. None of the altogether (The Pyramid and The as the history of spatial concepts. From
early utopian ideals of the loth Labyrinth). 'The Questions' that the Greek 'power of interacting volumes'
• century has materialised, none of its accompany this text are here to point out to the Roman 'hollowed-out interior
social aims has succeeded. Blurred in a condensed form some of the issues space,' from the modern 'interaction
by reality, the ideals have turned raised by a theory of space.1 between inner and outer space' to the
into redevelopment nightmares and concept of 'transparency,' historians and
the aims into bureaucratic 3. Etymologically, 'defining' space theorists referred to space as some
policies. The split between social means both 'making space distinct 'and three-dimensional lump of matter.
reality and utopian dreams has been `stating the precise nature of space.' To draw a parallel between the
4 total, the gap between economic Much of the current confusion about philosophies of a period and the spatial
constraints and the illusions of all- space can be illustrated by this linguistic concepts of architecture is always
solving technique has been ambiguity. While art and architecture tempting. Never was it done as
absolute. Pointed out by critics who have been essentially concerned with obsessively as during the thirties.
knew the limits of architectural the first sense, philosophy, mathematics Giedeon related Einstein's Relativity
remedies, this historical split has and physics have historically tried to give Theory to cubist painting, and
now been bypassed by recent interpretations to something variously architecture translated the cubist planes
attempts to reformulate the concepts described as 'a material thing in which all into Le Corbusier's Villa Garches.
of architecture. In the process, a new material things are located' or as Despite these space-time concepts, the
split appears. More complex, it is `something subjective with which the notion of space remained a simplistic and
not the symptom of professional mind categorizes things.' Remember : amorphous matter to be defined by its
naivety or economic ignorance, but with Descartes ended the Aristotelian physical boundaries, only to be
the sign of a fundamental question tradition according to which space and categorized by more recent formulations
which seems to lie in the very nature time were 'categories' that enabled the of a linguistic nature. By the late sixties,
of architecture and of its essential classification of 'sensory knowledge.' freed from the technological
element: space. By focusing on Space became absolute. Object before the determinants of the post-war period and
itself, architecture has entered an subject, it dominated senses and bodies aware of recent linguistic studies,
unavoidable paradox that is more by containing them. Was space inherent architects talked about the Square, the
present in space than anywhere else to the totality of what exists ? Such was Street, the Arcade, wondering if these did
— the impossibility of both the question of space, for Spinoza and not constitute a little-known code of
questioning the nature of space and Leibniz. Returning to the old notion of space, with its own syntax and meaning.
at the same time experiencing a category, Kant described space as Did language precede these socio-
spatial praxis. neither matter nor set of objective economic urban spaces, did it accompany
relations between things, but as an ideal them, or even follow them ? Was space
2. I have no intention of reviewing internal structure, an a priori of a condition or a formulation ? To say that
architectural trends and their consciousness, an instrument of language preceded these spaces was
connection with the arts. My general knowledge. Subsequent mathematical certainly not obvious : human activities
emphasis on space rather than on developments on non-Euclidean spaces leave traces that may precede language.
disciplines (such as art, architecture, and their topologies did not eliminate So was there a relationship between space
semiology, etc.) will not be particularly the philosophical discussions. These and language, could one 'read' a space ?
aimed at negating academic reappeared with the widening gap Was there a dialectic between social
categorization. The merging of between abstract spaces and society. But praxis and spatial forms ?
disciplines is too worn a path to provide a space was generally accepted as a`cosa
stimulating itinerary. Instead, I would mentale,' a mental thing, a sort of all- 5. Yet the gap remained between
like to focus attention on the present embracing set with its subsets, such as ideal space (the product of mental
paradox of space and on the nature of its literary space, ideological space and processes) and real space (the product of
terms, trying to indicate how one might psychoanalytical space. the social praxis). Although such a
go beyond this self-contradiction, even if distinction is certainly not ideologically
the answer may prove intolerable. I shall 4. Architecturally, to define space neutral, we shall see that it is in the nature
first recall the historical context of this (ie making space distinct) literally meant of architecture. As a result, the only
paradox. I will then examine (a) those `to determine boundaries.' Space had been successful attempts to bridge this
trends which consider architecture as a rarely discussed by architects before the philosophical gap were those that
thing of the mind, as a dematerialized or beginning of the loth century. But by introduced historical or political concepts
conceptual discipline, with its linguistic 1915, it meant `Raum' with all the such as 'production' in the wide sense it
or morphological variations (The overtones of German aesthetics, with the had in Marx's early texts. Much research
Pyramid); (b) empirical research that notion of Raumempfindung or 'felt in France and in Italy opposed space
concentrates on the senses, on the volume.' By 1923, the idea of felt space `as a pure form' to space 'as a social
experience of space as well as the merged with the idea of composition and product,' space 'as an intermediary' to
relationship between space and praxis became a three-dimensional continuum, space 'as a means of reproduction of the
(The Labyrinth); and (c) the capable of metrical subdivision that mode of production."
contradictory nature of these two terms could be related to academic rules. From This politico-philosophical critique
and the difference between the means of then on, architectural space was had the advantage of giving an all-
escaping the paradox by shifting the consistently seen as a uniformly extended embracing approach to space. avoiding

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