Thinking Architecture through the Traits of Extroversion...

International Journal of Contemporary Architecture ”The New ARCH“ Vol. 2, No. 3 (2015) ISSN 2198-7688 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A. Xhambazi: “Thinking Architecture through the Traits of Extroversion and Introversion: Territory as a Question …”, pp. 11–24 11

DOI: 10.14621/tna.20150402

Thinking Architecture through the Traits of Extroversion and Introversion: Territory as a Question of Environmental Orientation and Autonomy

Arta Xhambazi

Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Prishtina

Dardania 6/9 B4, 10000 Prishtina, Kosovo, [email protected] Abstract The paper is a result of a broader research project regarding theoretical groundings of architecture that will hopefully recognize relation between culture, theory and design. The “body” of architecture is understood as a concept defined by the relations of its parts and by its actions and reactions with respect both to its environment milieu and to its internal milieu. Through the traits of introversion and extroversion the “body of architecture” is explored starting from the limits as physical boundaries, continuing further by widening the horizons through different normative position for explaining meaningful environment and finally introducing the issue of “territoriality” and how it is related the to the recent discourse in architecture. The discussion of two different philosophical frameworks toward understanding architecture resulted in reconsidering the notion of boundaries /limits that the traits of introversion and extroversion are linked to. The Territory becomes a concept that overcomes dualities through which introversion and extroversion as vectors of diversity in architecture can be viewed as a single continuum. In this way the question of territory becomes the matter of the autonomy of the architectural body, but at the same time the intensive force that carries it away.

1. Introduction The context of architecture and its discourse in the 21st century recognizes a theoretical meltdown and the vast number of researchers aiming at “an architectural theory”. What becomes evident is that is understandable that a grand theory of architecture is probably a risk and a myth so, a vast number of less detailed terms as mediation, transformation, variation, affordance, territory etc. are used frequently to describe the discipline, process and “buildings” of architecture.

In regard of a human body, the traits “introvert” and “extrovert” are used in the psychology for describing a central dimension of human personality. The terms introversion and extroversion were first popularized by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung [1], an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Extroversion is understood as "the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self" [2] and introversion is "the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life" [3].

So within the analytical psychology the terms tend to describe the human personality, establishing a “Human Body” to whom the terms intro and extra are addressed. In order to apply such notions to architecture the very first questions to be clarified is: What is Architectural Body?

This question is a central issue of the broader research project, which through the “self-reflectance” of architecture tempts to define a whole “the body” as composed from parts, but with its own contradictory elements that are both inside and outside, ordering and disordering. In this research we will refer to the Deleuze concept that the “Body” is defined by the relations of its parts and by its actions and reactions with respect both to its environment milieu and to its internal milieu [4, p.35].

Keywords: Architecture, Territory, Introversion, Extroversion, Autonomy, Heteronomy

Article history: Received: 13 July 2015 Revised: 06 September 2015 Accepted: 12 October 2015



The paper will argue that in order of understanding architecture, its existence and evolution, it’s important to understand its internal milieu consistency (introversion) and what are the relations and actions to its environment (extroversion).

The goal of this research is that through the terms of “introversion” and “extroversion”, to put some light within relations of some parts of the “Body of Architecture” by comprehensive analysis of postmodern theory on meaning and appearing contemporary theories and practices.

In order to do so the questions arise as: What does introversion and extroversion mean in terms of physical appearance of architectural buildings? What do the terms mean within normative positions for explaining meaningful environments? How do those terms relate to the appearing notions of contemporary discourse as mediations or transformation?

For answering these questions firstly, we will narrow the horizons of our research in the terms of physical appearance of architecture. Secondly, the broadening horizons will be discussed in the framework of normative position for explaining meaningful environment. Thirdly, we will enter to some philosophical concerns of Gille Deleuze, questioning the issue of the “territoriality” and how the concept is related to the recent discourse in architecture.

2. The boundaries Architecture undoubtedly manifests with materialization – formal and spatial definition, therefore being introvert or extrovert can be analysed taking into account this aspect of physical appearance. Priority given physical object has a long history taking into the consideration the ancient concept of techno, recognized as the rational basis for the construction of objects, and medieval ideas of the mechanical arts, which considered built forms as utilitarian objects [5]. The discussion led from the 17th century by Perrault, latter by Boulle, Ledoux, and others tended to establish the new language of form based on simple geometrical forms - that would enable people to grasp the purpose and character of buildings. The 19th century introduced the concept of style through which the form was generated due to the objective principles from system, structures and manufacturing techniques. The structural rationalism was furthermore advanced by Viollet-le-Duc which concerned with functional efficiency and the honest expression of structures and materials as the basis of expression of external appearance of forms. From here, latter Luis Sullivan expressed the dictum “form follows function”, whose wide currency in 20th century testifies to the pervasiveness of the of Le Duc’s concept in the context of modern architecture [6].

Despite, historical interest for the architectural form, however it is worth mentioning that when we talk about ancient architecture treaties, we can distinguish that they hardly speak directly for the space, but instead their theory bears upon the physical elements of objects and their reasoning regarding forms. Debate on space began in early 19th century and the 20th century is the one that developed architecture as nonfigurative art and space was exactly a part of this development.

2.1. Architectural space and its limits

One of the most important works of postmodern thought is "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" of Robert Venturi which was welcomed by the ones who cared for architectural cultural development. This work used together examples from different periods, it emphasised especially Modernism, but the mannerist and baroque corpus constituted the primary matter of Complexity and Contradiction [7]. From this set of buildings Venturi extracted the formal principles characteristic of a complex and contradictory architecture, an architecture whose formal richness invites active interpretation. In regard of contrast “Inside and outside” he states that it can be seen as major manifestation of contradiction in architecture. For him, “designing from the outside in, as well the inside – out, creates necessary tensions, which help make architecture. Since the inside is different from the outside, the wall – the point of change – becomes an architectural event. Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forces of use and space” [7, p.86]. Taking a stand from more phenomenological perspective, von Meiss states that from these tensions architectural space is born, from the relationship between objects or boundaries and from planes which do not themselves have the character of objects, but which define the limits [8].

So, if we consider the wall, Venturi’s point of change and the limits of von Meiss, the windows becomes a sign for human life, an eye of the building allowing one to gaze at the outside world without being seen. The window becomes an architectural element through which one could gaze outside world and by this it becomes an element of extroverted architecture, the one that looks to the outside world. So, one of the fundamental oppositions which makes it possible to distinguish types of architectural space is the fact that they can be either closed – introverted concentrated upon themselves or open - extroverted, centrifugal [8]. Where the mass is more concentrated, the space is more closed. If we want to make the opening of a space toward the exterior, then we tend to create forms with less explicit shapes. The opening of the space is made possible through the reduction of the level of definition and the presence of elements that belong to the interior as well as exterior.



Figure 1. The articulation of a fluid space at the Barcelona Pavilion (drawing by A. Xhambazi) As an example, the articulation of space at the Barcelona Pavilion avoids the presence of an angle by realizing it with glass, and uses walls that extend toward exterior. This really creates spatial tension and compressions that actually results in shaping a building that articulates s fluid space (Figure 1).

What the “window” does, actually its relative sizes help to define the nature of the envelope. The larger the openings become the more they designate the absence of the wall. The notion of the pierced wall diminishes and space opens out. The initial materials of the age of industry as reinforced concrete, steel and glass have made it possible to extend the architectural vocabulary by the elimination of the dependence between structure and opening. The space and façade became liberated and offered the possibility of the new dynamic by the ribbon window, the corner window and the glazed wall which introduced a new spatial dimension consciously exploited during Modern Movement.

2.2. Blurring boundaries

So, formal appearance as has been already noted has always been architectural issue. This because architecture is build and that means “first of all to create, define and limit a portion of land distinct from the rest of the universe and to assign a particular role to it” [8, p.148]. So, architecture as “wall between the inside and the outside becomes the spatial record” [7,

p.86] a geometrical limit that creates the interior and exterior.

Regarding architectural thought, it can be argued that the geometry of architectural form was based through centuries on Euclidean thought and Platonic solids. Even the twentieth century Le Corbusier, in line with these earlier ideas, advocated the use of simple geometric objects that could be easily grasped, in his book Vers une architecture [9]. The cylinder, pyramid, cube, prism and sphere were not only considered as essential forms of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman architecture but, were also universal geometric “primitives” of the digital solid modelling software of the late twentieth century. But it was actually the fifth postulate of Euclidean geometry that opened the realm of non-Euclidian geometries. The first four postulates articulated by Euclid are considered postulates of absolute geometry, but the consequence of the fifth postulate was that through every point there is one and only one line parallel to any other line. Carl Friedrich managed to successfully demonstrate the existence of non-Euclidean geometries and afterwards Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” based on non-Euclidian geometry, powerfully showed how Newtonian physics, based upon Euclidian geometry, failed in considering the essential curvature of space [10].

So if we turn our discussion on contemporary Architecture due to the formal appearance, it can be argued that they represent the visions of man and woman of the end of 20th century. As a result of all the changes and developments happening at the time and



before, at the beginning of 90s Greg Lynn suggested that more than mere motion, animation implies the evolution of a form and its shaping forces; it suggests animalism, animism, growth, actuation, vitality and virtuality and offers examples of new approaches to design that move away from the deconstructivism’s “logic of conflict and contradiction” to develop a “more fluid logic of connectivity” [10]. His concept manifested through “folding,” departed from Euclidean geometry of discrete volumes represented in Cartesian space, and employs topological conception of form and geometry of continuous curves and surfaces. This new approach and ideology was at the heart of architectural critique of 90s that debated along the expression of geometrical appearance of architectural form as “blobs vs boxes” as two diametrical opposition.

So, the 90s were the years when features of topological figures (Figure 2) where transformed to the architectural concepts. Within those complex forms the architectural limits blur within the landscape, while the programs develop without interrupting the continuous surface flow. These conceptions appealed for the aesthetic and technology, in search for the novelty considering the beautiful and marvellous. The digital generative processes are opened new conceptual, formal and tectonic explorations, focused on the emergent and

adaptive properties of form what is emphasizing intentionally the shift from “making” to the “finding” of form.

In the Un-Private Houses, Terence Riley [11] by taking examples of private houses as Cohen’s Torus House, van Berkel’s Mobius House (Figure 2, up), Stephen Perrella’s and Rebeca Carpenter’s Mobius House, Zaera – Polo’s Virtual House (Figure 2 down) states that they all take their primary form and even their names from topological geometries. Such complex geometries resulted as a part of new technologies, new materials and new medium of creation creating possibilities of existence of so many projects that simply could not exist few decades ago. So what is so interesting with topology that has captured the minds of the architects?

By taking examples of private houses Terence Riley makes the connections of between them and broader cultural issues, stating that the most important questions are not technical but philosophical. He showed that these houses have challenged many of dialects calcified around the private house during the nineteenth century as public/private, male/female, nature/culture etc. So, topology takes the challenge further by creation of spatial interconnections rather than spatial distinctions. As this philosophical attitude

Figure 2. Transformation of the topological figures into the concepts of architectural space (drawing by A. Xhambazi)



Figure 3. Contemporary revisions of Mies’s work by Koolhaas and Tschumi: Former with intent of revival of modern principles in the postmodern context and later with reinterpretation of

architecture as a media (diagram by A.Xhambazi) for using single surfaced geometries can be considered non dialectical, then also the differences of what is interior and exterior diminish as any other opposition. The smooth surfaces appeared as blurring the boundaries between the physical appearance of architecture, blurring the notions of physical manifestos of introversion and extroversion, and at the same time creating enormous possibilities for contemporary design. Although in the case of housing design organizational problems could hardly justify complex geometries, the matter of the physical appearance of architectural designs presents broader cultural issues.

Another important thing to note is that, as after every “blob” there is a single sided figure published by Albert Mobius, every box is associated with the cardinal work of Mies van der Rohe. The reappearance of Mies at the end of the century was dramatic and unexpected, because thirty years ago his ideas and modernism in general were considered a spent force. We have great contemporary revisions as Koolhaas’s did in Maison à Bordeaux (Figure 3 – up); Herzog and de Meuron, Koechlin House, Basel (1994) and Bernard Tschumi’s Glass Video Gallery, Netherlands 1990 (Figure 3 – down). They all represent some kind of high European Modernism but still it does not make them Miesian in ideologies (Figure 3). Koolhaas puts Mies in postmodern context, Herzog and de Meuron remind us that the architectonics is a visual and ultimately sensual discipline and only secondarily is a technical one; while Tschumi deconstructs and reformulates the Archetypal Glass house, reminding us that architecture is less material and more media.

Finally, it can be said that from geometrical point of view, contemporary architectural form replaced the singularity by multiplicity and stable by dynamic. The blurred boundaries of geometrical scale actually have a scientific argument also. Bernhard Riemann, due to the concept of curvature of space, established Euclidean

geometry as just a special point on the infinite scale of bending, or folding that produces “flatness” as a manifestation of an equilibrium that is established among various influences producing the curving of space in the first place. The “boxes” and “blobs” as conceptions of space can be understood simply as instances on a sliding scale of formal complexity – a box could be turned into a blob and vice versa by simply varying the parameters of space within which they are defined.

What is said before about geometry of space and the study presented by Terence Riley, does not mean that architectural form expressed through its geometry doesn’t matter, but that the dissimilar forms are not necessarily ideologically oppositional and vice versa. This makes us think that the formal distinctions in architecture are not the most important ones, even though our question about traits of introverted and extroverted architecture can be analysed due the physical appearance of architectural designs.

The important questions remain the ideologies or the theoretical frameworks of understanding and interpretation of architecture itself. When we talk about the blurred boundaries it is not that the only blurred boundaries are the physical ones, but also the ideological ones. Obviously Contemporary Architecture becomes a product of the way of contemporary thinking and “if the problems of Architecture are to be traced to their roots, one should be focused on the thinking and the considerations that inform its production” [12].

3. Realms of inquiry of Architecture

3.1. Extroverted and Introverted thinking At the turn of the century, as Neal Leach put’s it the discipline of architecture has gone through a



metamorphosis, since there is a “clear shift both in the nature of debates within architecture and in its relationship with other academic disciplines. Not only are architects and architectural theorists becoming more and more receptive to the whole domain of cultural theory, but cultural theorists, philosophers, sociologists and many others are now to be found increasingly engaged with questions of architecture and the built environment” [12]. Of course architecture is also interested in this debate, even though sometimes it becomes captured in the mystified philosophical concepts and expressing its self-literary as a physical form.

This interest of architecture to look outside of the discipline comes from the fact it is “seeking self-definition, and for that self-definition it looks outside of itself, to see what others say about it” [13, p.4] or said in another way “for architecture, paradoxical as it may seem, the most complex question is that of self-determination” [14, p.3].

So, along with the physical manifestation of architecture there have always been attempts to describe what constitutes proper architecture. In 1987 Peter Rowe in his book “Design Thinking” [15], gave a range of insight into many theories, and when trying to distinct various normative positions that seek to describe what constitutes a proper architecture, distinguished two realms of inquiry.

− In the first realm of inquiry architecture is seen in relationship to a hypothesized society or interpretation of man’s world. One of fundamental concerns here becomes legitimating architecture with a reference to “nature” or to a set of events that “lie outside the architecture itself” [15, p. 153].

− And in a second realm, architecture is seen in relationship to itself and its constituent elements with the locus of inquiry that of architectural object.

When looking for determinates of Architectural Space, as for “elementary question: What is man and what is his place in space?” [16, p.3], Ahmet Hadrović mentions two parallel and intertwined courses on man’s attempt to:

− Getting to know nature or objectively given realities “in their own merits” where he assumes that there is nature with a predetermined reality where man’s role is essential just as any other living thing’s. (Such teaching greatly feature Eastern Philosophies).

− Getting to know man, what he is and what he may be, when he assumes that there is man and there is an image formed as a consequence of

external influences. The peak of this teaching is Hegel’s philosophy of dialectic idealism.

If we take into the considerations that talking about architecture is talking about life (and man/woman), by analogy this means that the question of defining architecture and its “Body” could seek:

− Getting to know nature (in our case environment) within objectively given realities and

− Getting to know architecture what she is and what he may be.

We will try to crystalize these positions, which are somehow equivalent to the question of autonomous and heteronomous thinking about architecture, respectively introverted and extroverted thinking in architecture.

3.2. Postmodern dichotomy

Heteronomous architecture The first realm could be considered environmental – extroverted, looking for the truths that lie outside “the body of architecture”. The seek for the substantiation form outside the domain of architecture has tended to look toward human behaviour scientist, social sciences, and production technologies and we refer this extrovertness as natural with in the sense that there is a tendency to describe reality by concepts of “natural phenomena” (Berstein, 1976) and legitimating models of knowledge - natural sciences and formal disciplines as mathematics and logic [15].

Within this realm, Functionalism and Modern Movement are known as complete departures of earlier architectural orientations. The term functionalism was actually coined in order of describing architecture of engineering and planning while being workable, economical and efficient; nerveless it was latter criticized for the lack of qualities such a cosiness, individuality, warmth… etc. The spirit of “form follows function” and the preoccupation with new technologies gave way to the international style. Planning Orthodoxy of the cities emerged with the similar traits to those of modern movement in architecture.

System approaches as empirical systems were at the heart of the “scientific methods” for interpreting man and his world for the design purposes were the concept of model and the activity of operational modelling. For example there was a common use of behavioural models that aimed to characterize the behaviour upon a variety of environmental circumstances. For example Lynch’s on the image of the city gave weight to empirically determined concepts of spatial conception



and the idea of “cognitive mapping” became influential within the urban design.

Rowe, also distinguishes the alternative positions that were developed due to the comprehensive and intense criticism of the empirical orthodoxy idea of theory and the possibility of science of the man. One of these positions was the phenomenological alternative whose objective was to address questions about the essence of the things and Humanist critique who draw the distinction between what is “outward manifestation” of human activity and “inward believe” that indicates directly this activity and structuralism which had similarities with the theoretical ideals of the empirical orthodoxy, but still due to opposition to Cartesian and other mainstream it concerns with the irrational nature of the man.

So, when we speak for the first realm it can be described as a tendency to sustain to deductive systems of theory construction and empirical observation favoured by social sciences, by which the horizon of interpretation and design is designed by a “scientific view” of getting to know nature (and by this to know the man/woman).This realm could be considered environmental – extroverted, looking for the truths that lie outside “the body of architecture”. The seeking for the substantiation form outside the domain of architecture has tended to look toward human behaviour scientist, social sciences and production technologies.

Autonomous architecture Within the second realm there was a tendency for adhering to rhetorical domain of architectural objects and organizing compositional principles. The proposition for Autonomy of Architecture was a notable shift toward the architectural discourse happened after the Second World War, emphasizing the world of “architectural” objects and the use of its elements as the primary design focus. The pluralistic thought of postmodern movement undoubtedly was a reaction to the avant-garde of the modern movement, with its concentration in abstract formalism and the denial of stylistic references or figural qualities.

Within the autonomy, Michael Graves characterized architecture as “invention” that makes up its own “text” from myths and rituals of society – a text that in turn provides impetus to further inventions. This kind of preoccupation is seen as exception since every epoch has had its share of introspective interest in its own constituent elements and their meanings. Looking inward, introverted toward the elements that constitute Architecture itself, the different strategies of interpretation evolved as work on the Language as formal and figural interpretation (Eisenman and Venturi); Bricolage (Colin Rowe) and the Use of Type

(works of brother Krier), which by putting forward grounding on meaning of architectural work dissembled the confidence placed in the doctrine or dictums as “form follows function”. Nevertheless, also within this kind of autonomy, problems of interpretation arise as the questions of the use of “architectural language” or that of confusion of “significance” and “meaning”.

So, this second realm emphasised architectural discourse towards the world of architectural objects referring advocating a kind of autonomous architecture. It is characterized by a tendency for adhering to rhetorical domain of architectural objects as for organizing compositional principles.

3.3. Contemporary environmental orientation

or autonomy? Post Modern Dichotomy, elaborated through the two realms of inquiry can be more crystallized through the analyses of David Gissen [17] for the writings of Reyner Banham and Manfredo Tafuri. As he puts it, Benham advocated the environmental architecture and Tafuri architectural autonomy. Banham called for the architecture that would be a direct outcome of a technical and natural environment, aligning the concept of environment with the resource driven, technological techniques of post-war period, and in our terms extroverted. In the other hand, Tafuri was advocating architecture that was restrained from this given context. For Tafuri architecture was perceived as a humanist discipline and disengagement from the environment was understood as the sum of external pressure (human and natural), refusing to become a tool of expanding economic development, in our terms introverted.

This contemporary Dichotomy continues not only within the writings but with designs also. In one hand we have concepts and designs that are undertaken from theory of environment, so the works are emerging form social and ecological data, but in the other hand we have a new architectural autonomy (mostly digital) that confronts any involution with environment. So, dozens of concepts of postmodern theory appear in contemporary writings and among them the concept of “environment – extrovertness” and the other of “autonomy – introvertness”. The former concept “erects” buildings into the mechanics of its settings, and the at the latter architecture stands as counterpart to its given contexts. This means that the environmentally oriented architecture attempts to emerge from its natural, social and technological contexts and autonomous architecture is answerable to itself alone. “One is about world, and the other is about architecture” and seen from the contemporary position this autonomy can be typified “as architecture’s refusal to integrate into the surrounding conditions of a capitalist world” [17, p.8] at



the time when expanding economy was transforming nature into a resource, urban environments into investments and ideas into consumerist spectacle.

Among the ones that are exploring the new dynamics of contemporary architecture is Ole Bauman by advocating “Unsolicited Architecture” [18] and the reason for practicing it is because it keeps architecture autonomous and autonomy is in the drive and not in the territory. One of his objectives is to aware architects of the boundaries of their profession meaning that to go beyond language, beyond disciplinary frontiers – is the new motto for architectural research. For him the dynamics “affect everything that we consider architecture or architectural: its definition, its mandate, its output, its corpus of knowledge, its education, its inspiration, its legitimacy, its techniques and methods, its social status, its communication” [18, p.83].

In summary, we can say that the latest environmental explorations repeat the problems of the postmodern era with passive acceptance of settings and in the other hand a call for a radical autonomy or a moderated one as Gissen advocates the “strategic category of thought in dialogue with key post-Second World War architectural debates”. According him, the concepts of a territorial architecture attempts to move us out of the traps of either environment or autonomy in their most recent manifestations; meaning that “territory is both an alternative way of working and a space of thinking about architectural things and their socio-natural surroundings” [17, p. 8]. Recently, Idis Turato’s speech for “Designing the Unpredictable” at the recent Conference of Architecture and Environment [19], used the notion of Territory, while presenting his work, the process of the designing and his understanding of architecture. It seemed like it was appropriate notion for describing the overflow of issues regarding the contemporary question of Architecture.

So what are and what is so interesting about the “territories” that Bouman (2009), Gissen (2010) and Turato (2015) talk about?

In order to answer this question we will firstly take into consideration some philosophical influence in architecture and how does this reflect in the discourse of contemporary architecture.

4. Defining the question of territory

4.1. Philosophical influence in architecture From the 17th century onward, Leibniz (1646–1716) to Deleuze (1925–1995), philosophers began to challenge the transcendental tradition in philosophy and the critiques maintained, in one way or another, the fundamental distinction between ideas and matter.

Contemporary approaches to architectural design are influenced and informed by the writings of theorists and philosophers. In the 80s architectural theory, appropriated for the most part from a Continental philosophical tradition and “if one were to glance back through the archive one would discover structuralist or semiologically informed architecture, deconstructivist inspired architecture, and folded architecture, after the motif of the fold discovered by curious architects in Deleuze’s book The Fold: Leibniz and The Baroque” [20, p.110]. The Fold, aimed at describing baroque aesthetic and thought, by representing the Folding as a concept of an ambiguous spatial construct, through the concepts of “a figure and non-figure, an organization and non-organization, which, as a formal metaphor, has led to smooth surfaces and transitional spaces between the interior and the exterior, the building and its site” [10, pp.4] that was presented in the first part of this research.

Deleuze demonstrated a multiplicity of positions, a thousand “plateaus” (Mille Plateaux) [21] from which different provisional constructions are created. The manner is essentially nonlinear, meaning that the realities and events are not organized in orderly succession. Such a conception was adopted by a number of contemporary avant-garde architects to challenge the pervasive linear causality of design thinking. Deleuze offered the conceptual framework of the virtual and the actual. The world according to him is composed of virtual forms and actual forms, where virtual forms are not just ideals detached from reality, but abstract ideas that are not yet actualized. Owing to their abstractness, they can be interpreted in a variety of ways to produce a variety of sensible forms. Even though his work was directed primarily towards processes of thought and not practices of building, “too often his sophisticated theory has been appropriated in a simplistic fashion and translated crudely into a manifesto for complex architectural forms” [12, p.292].

It is not only that the contemporary discourse is influenced by postructuralist writers and the thoughts of French Philosopher Gille Deleuze. Architecture, in order to grasp within generative means of form making which are determined by novel design processes, has turned toward digital tools and rule based procedures, and in particular the investigations are undertaken coupled within the computational realms ant the morphogenetic researches. Still, by contradiction “the risk of such exploration involves the possible evacuation or reification of those elusive and fragile qualities of a life toward which Deleuze has directed our attention” [20, p.110]. Deleuze recognizes that the creation of the system is the only way for one to live-non-systematically, that is far from believe that one might return thought to life and overcome the submission to the system [4, p.5]. In order to understand the



materialistic theories of Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari corpus, some of the terminologies are further discussed in order of revealing the question of territory in architecture.

4.2. Deleuze and assemblage in architecture

Space for Deleuze and Guattarii is “occupied by events or haecceities more than by formed and perceives things” and thus is more a space of affects or sensations than properties [21, p.479]. They offer the opposition between smooth space which has no boundaries and striated space which is structured and organized, where lines and points designate their trajectoriesii. It is important to note that Deleuze and Guattari, have no generalized concept of space; they tend to foreground localized concepts of territoriality over spatiality. Smooth space according them can be perceived in and through striated space, in order to deterritorialise given places.

The concept of “territory” avoids easy categorization because [4, p.280]:

− Rather than being a stagnant place maintaining firm borders against outside threat, the territory itself is a flexible site of passage,

− It exists in a state of process whereby it continually passes into something else, and

− Manifests a series of constantly changing heterogeneous elements and circumstances that come together for various reasons at particular times.

An explanatory abstract diagram of the smooth and strained space in architecture is shown in Figure 4 on the left. The same picture on the right adopts the relation of architecture with other disciplines as defined by Julia W. Robinson [22, p.70, Figure.4.2] in order to illustrate the different views on architecture that are as a result of different fields of knowledge.

As shown at the diagrams of Figure 4 and Figure 5, the deterritorialisation should not be understood as the polar opposite of territorialisation or reterritorialisation. In fact, in the way that Deleuze and Guattari describe and use the concept, “deterritorialisation inheres in a territory as its transformative vector; hence, it is tied to the very possibility of change immanent to a given territory” [4, p.69].

In order to overcome the dualistic framework underpinning western philosophy, Deleuze introduces the notions of assemblage that “swing between territorial closure that tends to rest ratify them and a deterritorialising movement that on the contrary connects them with the Cosmos” [21, p.337]. The concept means the processes of arranging, organizing, and fitting together that. Assemblage consists and develops around two axes that are:

Figure 4. Left: The smooth and the strained space in regard of notions or territorialisation deterritorialisation as the vectors of transformation.

Right: The abstract map of horizontal assemblage of architecture with related disciplines (diagram by A. Xhambazi)



Figure 5. The diagram of assemblage in architecture in regard to horizontal axis (of content and expressions) and vertical axis of territorialisation and deterritorialisation (diagram by A. Xhambazi)

− The first, horizontal axe (Figure 4 on the right) where assemblage comprises two segments, content and expression. The first as “machinic assemblage of bodies, of actions and passions, an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another….(and second) a collective assemblage of enunciation, of acts and statements, of incorporeal transformations attributed to bodies” [21, p. 88].

− The vertical axe (shown in Figure 4 on the left and figure 5) has both, “territorial sides, or reterritorialized sides, which stabilize it, and cutting edges of deterritorialisation, which carry it away” [21, p. 88]. Assemblages are presented as complex constellations of objects, bodies, expressions, qualities, and territories that come together for varying periods of time to ideally create new ways of functioning.

Using this concept of assemblage we can rethink the dualism between an introverted and extroverted architecture. An architectural assemblage (or the architectural body) as a dynamic and consistent multiplicity, swings between territorial enclosure (its autonomy, introversion) and the deterritorialising movement in the other (extroversion). This means that architecture as the assemblage “involves both territorial and architectural elements and deterritorialising non-architectural elements” [4, p.21]. For architecture each

“first state line of assemblage” (Figure 5) would present a paradigm, a theory or a design (e.g. Green architecture, computational architecture etc.) that operates in certain fields of knowledge, defines different point of view and has certain belief systems.

Having in mind underlined concepts of materialistic philosophy, we can easily understand the Gissen’s call for a strategy of Territory which “suggests a role for architecture as a strategy of tinkering versus one of accommodation with or refusal of an external techno-natural environment” [17, p. 8]. He resists the notion that nature is “external to architecture and architecture can better emulate or mimic”. According him the modern society, including architecture has reworked all of nature, so what he believes is a new type of architecture that uncovers and projects this reality, doing this through the strategy of Territory. An important element to distinguish here is “the time” which allows territories to expand.

4.3. Territories, boundaries and abstract

machines Toward Defining Architectural Space (ADS) Ahmet Hadrović [16] distinguished three basic components:

− Environment (ADS1) – with natural and social layer



− Man (ADS2) – to whom the notion space is related since it only makes since when it is related to man and

− Boundaries (ADS3) – that actually enclose but they also integrate man in the states of environment.

These components are shown within the Hadrović’s diagram presented at figure 6 on the left. The broadest prerequisite for space’s existence is gained by adding the concept of perspective (ADS4). With these components the conceptual diagram of ADS (figure 6 left) illustrates the “form” of architecture as not defined statically or said in a better way there are multiple states of its portrayal as a result of interactions of components definediii.

We will distinguish the concept of boundaries and perspectives and compare them with the notion of territory, assemblage and deterritorialisation (figure 6) that are discussed previously.

Hadrović, defines boundaries as states controlled in compliance with man’s need, where states are all discovered and undiscovered phenomena in space affecting man. He underlines that “a question inseparable from the nature of boundaries is the question of their scope” [16, p.19] since the boundary can encompass a more or less of man’s needs. This is the reason that a boundary can so turn, from its entirely concrete physical determination, into an immaterial suggestion. Because the boundaries “may be subjectively suggested and observable (from a fixed man’s position) and vice versa: a physically consistent boundary does not have to be observable (from a fixed man’s position)" [16, p.20]. This makes boundaries close

to the notion of territorialisation of Deleuze’s concept of territory and the strained space - a first state line of the assemblage as conceptually presented at figure 6.

Now, let’s question the notion of perspective (ADS4). We introduced the Deleuze’s notions of deterritorialisation as a movement that inheres in a territory/boundary as its transformative vector and it is tied to the very possibility of change immanent to a given territory /boundary. This makes the notion of perspective tangible to the deterritorialisation by which one leaves the territory and transforms the existing boundaries.

So, when we question the Architectural Body, we are actually attempting to recognize a system of an abstract machine or using Deleuze term “Body without Organs”, as it’s defined through its contents and the inner relations as well the relations of its environment. As this research went from the physical appearance of architectural object to the notion of assemblage in architecture and the question of the territory, we can conclude that “boundaries” of Ahmet Hadrović are the same with “territories” of Gille Deleuze.

Although the above distinguished notions (Figure 6) come from two different ideologies they both offer means of understanding the multiple forms of portrayal of architecture. They also are an argument that even different ideologies, when attempting to answer complex questions of architecture are not necessarily oppositional. In search of what constitutes proper definition of architecture or what constitutes it’s body, no matter in what realms we inquire, or what philosophy strains our thoughts, the results are on the both sides of the same coin.

Figure 6. Comparison of “Spatiality and territoriality”. Conceptual diagram of architecturally defined Space by Ahmet Hadrovć [16, p.75, figure 10] and “Body without

organs” (diagram A.Xhambazi)



Talking account the materialistic thinking, it is worth mentioning that 21st century architecture used the possibility “of the computer programs known as “genetic algorithms”—evolutionary simulations that might replace traditional design methods and result in the “breeding” of new forms” [23, p. 338]. By using genetic algorithms architectural form could be formed and deformed, folded and unfolded due to the concept of an “abstract machine” of Deleuze. With this the signs of creative philosophy began reconfiguring within the discipline and one could argue that the adaption of the generative concepts for the contemporary field of architecture appears to promise so much within the practice of creative ethos. But in seeking to qualify itself through the inner workings of life as conceived through the sciences, architecture has to recognize that it also unavoidably partakes in so many hidden and revealed guiles of power. So, “an ethos of creativity must also allow for the slow time of contemplation, and in the case of architecture the daily rhythms of inhabitation appreciated not in an instrumental fashion but as mundane and simple life.” [20, p. 116].

5. Conclusion Even 21st century manifested a theoretical meltdown, still a vast number of researchers aim at an architectural theory. At the same time a number of less explicit notions are used within the discipline coming from outside the discipline.

In the search of what is inside or outside, formal appearance has always been architectural issue since it presents limits between the interior and the exterior. The research showed that the traits of introversion and extroversion can be analysed due to formal appearance of architecture although the boarder of what is interior and exterior diminishes due to complex geometries of temporary – the forms that could not simply exist few decades ago. Through the topological understandings the discourse “boxes” vs “blobs” resulted in interpretation of those formal conceptions as instances on a sliding scale of formal complexity. By putting forward a question of what is so interesting in topology that captured architects mind, the research showed that the most important questions are not technical and formal but philosophical, since the dissimilar forms are not necessarily ideologically oppositional and vice versa. This makes us think that the formal distinctions in architecture are not the most important ones.

As the research points out that the architecture is the product of our thinking, in regard of the question of “what constitutes a proper architecture”, two realms of inquiry are distinguished within the postmodern period. The first realm tended toward the horizon of interpretation and design by a “scientific view” of

getting to know nature. As such the realm is considered environmental – extroverted, looking for the truths that lie outside “the body of architecture”. The second realm emphasised architectural discourse towards the world of architectural objects advocating a kind of autonomous – introverted architecture, which is characterized by a tendency for adhering to rhetorical domain of architectural objects as for organizing compositional principles. This kind of dichotomy is also evident within the contemporary context. The environmentally oriented architecture is somehow “about world” with an attempt to emerge from its natural, social and technological contexts and autonomous architecture is about architecture and is answerable to itself alone.

Taking stance from the discourse and theories of some contemporary architects, the concept of Territory is presented and elaborated presenting some insights of Deleuze’s conceptions. Using his understanding of “territory” the diagram of assemblage in architecture is produced (Figure 4 and figure 5). Territory becomes a flexible site of passage, a process whereby it continually passes into something else and manifests a series of constantly changing heterogeneous elements and circumstances that come together for various reasons at particular times. Apparently as such the concept of Territory was used by Idis Turato’s at the Conference of Architecture and Environment [19] where the first version of this research was presented [24].

So, Territory as concept overcomes dichotomies. It becomes the matter of the autonomy of the architectural body, but also the intensive forces that carry it away in new territories. The introversion is about the logic, cognition, rhetoric, argumentation and the extroversion is about “expending territories/boundaries” for understanding the mundane life. In this way the Architectural Body becomes close with the concept of assemblage that swings between territorial closure and a deterritorialising movement that connects with the complexity of Architecture. Even the parallelism between two different thinking frameworks (phenomenological and poststructuralist) as discussed at subsection 4.3 showed that when it comes to complex questions of architecture and its body, the results are not necessarily oppositional. This makes us think that is really important to understand the widening horizons of architecture, its expending territories within environmental space. Because of this expansion of territories as a matter of time and intensive forces, the corpus of knowledge, practice, technology, awareness, appear intertwined within the both realms, that of autonomy and environment.

As Jung suggested, everyone has both, an extroverted and an introverted side, and the research showed that the use of less explicit notions of contemporary



discourse (e.g. mediation, transformation, assemblage, territory etc.) are probably considering a more expensive autonomy for more considered environment, and vice versa.

This actually opens another question: Why are we in constant search for other theories in Architecture?

The answer might be because theories act as tools toward capturing the smooth space in architecture. They tend to create a system in order to allow the creative ethos to live non-systematically. Problem appears when they grasp within the dictums as “form follows function”, “the architecture of the machine age”, “green architecture” etc., since the meaning of each of the words from the dictionary (nor the syntax of the sentence) does not reveal the other meaning – that of the context of architecture. In the age of theoretical anxiety it is important to “know that” the strained spaces of architecture are a result of intensiveness of its autonomy and heteronomy, rather than “know how” to build strained space whose slave the architecture might become.

Acknowledgement This research is inspired by the lectures at the course “Architecture in Context” and is a segment of a broader project of doctoral thesis under supervision of Prof. Dr. Ahmet Hadrović to whom I express my gratitude.

References [1] Jung, Carl. G., Psychological Types, Collected

Works, Volume 6, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1971 (first published in 1921).

[2] Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Extroversion. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/extroversion , accessed on August, 2015.

[3] Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Introversion. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/introversion , accessed on August, 2015.

[4] Parr, Adam. (Ed.), The Deleuze Dictionary (revised ed.), Edinburg University Press, Edinburg, Scotland, 2010

[5] Moussavi, Farshid. The Function of Form. ACTAR and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Barcelona, Spain and Cambrinidge, Massachusetts, 2009.

[6] Hearn, Fill, Ideas That Shaped Buildings, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2003.

[7] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture (2nd ed.), The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY, 1992.

[8] von Meiss, Pierre, Elements of Architecture: From Form To Place, Spon Press, New York, NY, 2008 (1990 first English ed.).

[9] Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, Dover Publication INC, New York, NY, 1986 (republication of the work originally published in 1931 as translated from thirteenth French edition).

[10] Kolarević, Branko, ed., Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing, Spon Press, New York & London, 2003, p.11.

[11] Riley, Terence, The Un-Private House, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1998.

[12] Leach, Neil, ed., Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Routledge, London and New York, 1997.

[13] Grosz, Elizabeth, Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2001, p.4.

[14] Hadrović, Ahmet, Architecture in Context, Faculty of Architecture in Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosna and Hercegovina, 2011.

[15] Rowe, Peter G., Design Thinking, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1987.

[16] Hadrović, Ahmet, Defining Architectural Space on the model of Oriental Style City House in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia, Faculty of Architecture, Sarajevo, Bosna and Hercegovina, 2006.

[17] Gissen, David, Territory: Architecture beyond Environment, Architectural Design, 80 (3), (2010, May/June), Territory, pp.8-13.

[18] Bouman, Ole, To Go Beyond or Not to Be: Unsolicited Architecture, [interview: Guido, L.], Architectural Design, 79 (1), (2009, Jan/Feb), Theoretical Meltdown, pp. 82-85.

[19] Turato, Idis, Designing the Unpredictable, Keynote Speech at the 2nd International Conference with Exhibition S.ARCH – Environment and Architecture, Budva, Montenegro, 2015.

[20] Frichot, Helen, “Showing vital signs: The work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s creative philosophy in architecture”, Angelaki journal of the theoretical humanities, 1 (1), (2006), Creative philosophy theory and praxis, pp. 109-116, DOI:10.1080/09697250600797971.



[21] Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (11th ed.). (B. Massumi, Trans.), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2005, pp. 474-500.

[22] Robinson, Julia W.,”The form and the structure of architectural knowledge: From practice to discipline” in The Discipline of Architecture, (Eds. Piotrowski, Andrzej & Robinson, Julia W.), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, England, 2001, pp.61-82.

[23] DeLanda, Manuel, “Deleuze and The Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture (2000)” in Rethinking Technology: A reader in Architectural Theory, (Eds. Braham, W. W., Hale, J. A. and Sadar, J. S.), Routledge, London, England, 2007, pp. 388-393.

[24] Xhambazi, Arta, “Introverted and Extroverted Architecture: The question of Territory”, presented at The 2nd International Conference with Exhibition S.ARCH: Environment and Architecture, Budva, Montenegro, 2015, ISBN 978-3-9816624-5-0.

i Deleuze’s detests Hegelianism and is concerned with overcoming dualistic framework underpinning western philosophy (Being/nonbeing, original copy etc.). His philosophy is a materialistic meaning that “the world exists without us” and he recognizes “geology” as the beginning of Non-Human Expressivity, seeking for otherness through the disciplines of geology, chemistry and biology. He applies styles of thinking of evolutionary biologist (the concept of populism – positive idea of variation – difference of variations), thermodynamics (the concept of thermodynamic – intensive forces – intensives differences drive processes) and mathematics (topological thinking – differential calculus - Abstract body map, the connectivity).

ii Consider that the concept of strained space becomes more tangible in regard to architectural objects, since it becomes measurable

iii It is worth to be mentioned that there is a strong influence of phenomenological paradigm, the writings of Heidegger and Norberg-Shultz, what makes us assuming for the essentialist believes

Thinking Architecture through the Traits of Extroversion...

Documents

Transcript of Thinking Architecture through the Traits of Extroversion...