Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium vom 24. bis 27. April 2003 in Weimar an der Bauhaus-Universität zum Thema: ‚MediumArchitektur - Zur Krise der Vermittlung

Watson, Victoria

Digitale Bibliothek Thüringen

Architecture and AirVictoria WatsonIt is valid, I think, to see the entire range ofKlein’s work – from the monotone symphony .tohis attempts to fly – as enquirys, of one kind oranother, into the Architecture of the Air (fig. 3). Atthe heart of the Architecture of the Air lies Klein’sintense hostility to ’form‘. For Klein, ’form‘ is thesubstitute for immediacy, imposed by perception.For Klein, the primary vehicle of form’s impositionis line. Klein has invented a mythology of line.Line, like the devil in the myth of Eden, invadesthe state of paradise in which the unreflective soulof humanity lies bathing in the universal soul ofThesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, (2003) Heft 461IntroductionThis paper has been influenced by an event thattook place, some time ago, at the University ofWestminster. A diploma student was trying towrite his dissertation about a funny feeling he clai-med to have had while he stood under the roof ofthe New National Gallery, the one in Berlin. Thestudent said that this was a feeling of space. It wasthe use of the word space that spoiled things, evi-dently causing his tutors to suffer so much em-barassment that they sent the student to see me.I agreed with him, having had a similar feeling my-self, it must have been space. But the strange thingwas, although we agreed, it must have been space,we couldnt really think of anything else to say.This event has always puzzled me, if space isthe medium of architecture then those of us whoare interested in architecture ought to be able totalk about space? This paper is an attempt to thinkabout this feeling of space. I have developed thethinking by placing the roof by Mies van der Rohealongside a roof proposed by Yves Klein. In fact itwas not me who put the two roofs together, it wasKlein. In 1958, during the lecture he gave at theSorbonne Klein said: ”Through all these researchesinto an Art that would lead to immaterialisation,Werner Ruhnau and I came together in the archi-tecture of the air. He was hindered by the last ob-stacle that even a Mies van der Rohe hadn’t beenable to overcome: the roof, the screen that separa-tes us from the sky, from the blue sky.“1By 1958 Mies had built only two clear spanstructures, these were The Farnsworth House(1945–50) and The Crown Hall at IIT (1950–56);but he had projected very many more: The CantorDrive-in Restaurant (1945–46), The 50x50 House(1950–51), The Mannheim National Theatre(1952–53), The Chicago Convention Hall (1953–54), The Bacardi Office Building (1957), and hewas only two years from projecting The Georg-Schafer Museum for Schweinfurt, a project thatwas to transform into The National Gallery in Ber-lin. So, at the time of Klein’s lecture Mies’ clearspan structures must have seemed like new andexciting ideas for what architecture can do.In 1958 my provocative roofs are both fictive,but by 2003 one of them has become a thing; bynow it has been a thing for somewhere in the or-der of 23 years – this is the roof of the NationalGallery in Berlin (fig. 1). The other roof remainsfictive. This fictive roof is the stratum of compres-sed air that is to serve as a covering for the Archi-tecture of the Air, sheltering privileged regions ofnatural terrain from adverse climatic conditions.Beneath the air roof the citizens of Yves Klein’s pa-radise on earth will levitate, playing, naked andunencumbered by embarrassment, on jets of air –they will live in a world that devotes most of itstime to leisure (fig. 2).1 | Mies van der Rohe, New National Gallery Berlin, viewfrom the roof, draw by Victoria Watson2 | Yves Klein, ”Ant 102“, Detailpure colour: ”In the beginning pure colour, theuniversal soul in which the human soul wasbathing in a state of earthly paradise, was maste-red by the invasion of line, imprisoned, compart-mentalised, cut apart, returned to slavery. In thejoy and delirium of its guileful victory, line subju-gated man and imprinted on him in turn itsabstract rhythm.“2Klein claims that he is able to free himself fromthe abstract rhythm of line, to return to the imme-diacy of paradise, the Eden of the universal soul,to bathe in colour that is pure. Klein refers to thistransformation as an assimilation to space:”Through colour, I experience a feeling of comple-te identification with space, I am truly free.“.3At one with spaceIn his ’Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia‘ –which originally appeared in the surrealist publica-tion Minotaur in 1935 – Roger Callois is exploringthe notion of ’a pure identity with space‘; he doesso by looking toward the tendency, found in cer-tain insects, to mimic their environment (fig. 4).Callois dismisses the idea that mimicry is a form ofself-defence: ”generally speaking, one finds manyremains of mimetic insects in the stomachs of pre-dators. So it should come as no surprise that suchinsects sometimes have other and more effectiveways to protect themselves. Conversely, some spe-cies that are inedible, and thus would have no-thing to fear, are also mimetic. It therefore seemsthat one ought to conclude with Cuénot that thisis an ’epiphenomenon‘ whose ’defensive utilityappears to be nul.‘“4Rather than a mechanism of defense Calloissuggests that mimicry is a luxury – a dangerous lu-xury: ”We are thus dealing with a luxury and evena dangerous luxury, for there are cases in whichmimicry causes the creature to go from bad toworse: geometer-moth caterpillars simulate shootsof shrubbery so well that gardeners cut them withtheir pruning shears. The case of the Phyllia is evensadder: they browse among themselves, takingeach other for real leaves, in such a way that onemight accept the idea of a sort of collective maso-chism leading to mutual homophagy, the simulati-on of the leaf being a provocation to cannibalismin this kind of totem feast.“5Klein predicts a similar cannibalism to be anecessary prelude to the architecture of the air:”We are coming into an anthropophagous era,frightening in appearance only, it will be a prac-tical realization on a universal scale of the famouswords ’he who eats of my flesh and drinks of myblood will live in me and I in him.‘“6Unlike Klein, who seems to promote and topursue his project of assimilation to space withtremendous enthusiasm, for Callois the notion ofassimilation is terrifying: ”To these dispossessedsouls, space seems to be a devouring force. Spacepursues them, encircles them, digests them in agigantic phagocytosis. It ends by replacing them.Then the body separates itself from thought, theindividual breaks the boundary of his skin and oc-cupies the other side of his senses. He tries to lookat himself from any point whatever in space. Hefeels himself becoming space, dark space wherethings cannot be put.“7The difference between Klein’s joyful pursuit ofthe assimilation to space and Callois dread wouldseem to hinge upon vision. The Architecture of theAir promotes a world of clear vision, it is ’floodedwith light and open to the outside‘. For Callois, onthe other hand, the assimilation to space is broughtabout by a failure of vision, and as such it is filledwith darkness (fig. 5).TricksKlein and Callois construct their respective propo-sitions about space by effecting a trick. Callois trickis to project what vision feels like to him into aphenomenon which contradicts his understandingof the purpose of vision; this is the phenomenonof insect mimicry. The disorientation arises whereCallois imagines that what he is seeing can tell himsomething about what it feels like to be the thinghe sees. What Callois thinks he sees is a body thatis insufficiently differentiated as figure against62Thesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, (2003) Heft 43 | Yves Klein, Leap into the Void, 1960 4 | Peppered Mothground; but, bear in mind, it is not the organismwhich fails to distinguish itself from the surroun-ding environment but Callois who fails to see theorganism distinctly. Callois assumes that his failureto distinguish the organism sufficiently is a signthat the organism is suffering a loss of identity;and since Callois feels that clear vision plays an im-portant role in the construction of identity he as-sumes that the insect is suffering a loss of vision,that it cannot see, that it is in the dark, having be-come assimilated to space. For his trick Klein reliesupon preconceptions about the nature of colour.Colour is crucial to the way we understand theworld – but we cannot touch colour. For example,if we were to touch one of Klein’s sponge sculptu-res it would not be the colour we felt but the tex-ture of the sponge and if we closed our eyes itwould make no difference if the sculpture wereIKB, Rose or Gold. Neither can we smell, taste orhear colour; it is only through association that wemay come to suppose that orange has a particulartaste, or that green smells of grass. Colour is aphenomenon of vision; and although we all knowthat vision is useful, very useful – vision is a type ofscanning, facilitating the relay of informationabout the environment to the receptive systemthat is the foundation of perception – neverthelessthere is attached to our understanding of vision ashort-circuit. This short-circuit is caused by a cer-tain bias, this bias tends toward the belief that rea-lity consists in a world of solid bodies. We have atendency to believe that those things which wecan touch are real, while those things we cannottouch are merely partial. In so far as reality is deemed to consist in aworld of solid bodies, then colour can be merely asecondary quality of that world. It is in order toharness colour to a reality such as this that colourhas come to be explained in terms of bodies i. e.:as the subjective experience of the impact upon theretina of tiny reverberating bodies – particles.Klein’s ’trick‘ is to play upon this inbuilt bias ofours that favours touch as the verification of reality.One of the key stages in the development ofThe Architecture of the Air is the production of theblue monochrome: a wooden plywood or isorelsupport, covered in velum, which has been pain-ted over with a solution of blue pigment mixedinto a transparent fixative resin. The blue mono-chrome is approximately 56 X 77 centimetres insize. As a single, seamless, undivided tablet ofblue, the blueness of the monochrome seemsstartlingly palpable. Here is blue, not a partial,secondary property of a body but a body-in-itself.I can turn away from the blue monochrome, fullyconfident that its existence persists, here is colour,no longer partial but real. What is so effectiveabout the monochrome is that it makes us feelthat colour is something we can touch, like flesh.But what is curious is that in becoming like fleshcolour must be made to seem as if it exists inde-pendently of vision. In order for colour to seem asif it is substantial, it must be made to seem likesomething which it is not – flesh.  Colour is a phe-nomenon of light; light has no mass – which doesnot mean colour is not real, simply that colour hasno body.But Klein does not stop at giving colour a bo-dy, he also gives colour a soul, this soul he callsspace. Space is the immaterial soul of which colouris the material body. So, between them, Klein andCallois have made two different but similar notionsof space. The former, Klein’s Architecture of theAir involves going up, it is transcendent – heaven;the latter, Callois dark world of insects involvesgoing down, it is descendant – hell. What is com-mon to both notions of space is that they equatespace with a consciousness that has, as it were,been cast adrift, to float in a sea of pure undiffe-rentiated immediacy.The Roof of the Berlin GalleryI would like to suggest that my other roof, the roofof the National Gallery in Berlin, plays a part in theevocation of a very different notion of space. Thisis the sense of something that is artificial, asidefrom nature, something that is man-made. It is theThesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, (2003) Heft 4635 | Buff Tip Mothsense of space evoked by Georges Bataille, the fee-ling of an irreversible difference that seperates theworld of men from the world of animals. I believethat the roof of the New National Gallery may belooked upon as a statement of this difference (fig.6–10). The roof of the New National Gallery could bedescribed as a large steel grid, floating above a rai-sed, artificial ground, gently held in place by eightslender, tapering columns. This grid measures 64.8metres square and its depth is 1.8 meters. The mo-dule of the grid is 3.6 meters. The roof of the gal-lery is 8.4 meters above the surface of the artificialground. The eight columns which support the roofare 8.1 meters high, between the column and theroof is a 30 cm zone in which there is a pin-jointconnection. On all four sides, set back from theedge of the grid by two modules and hanging fromthe grid is a screen, primarily of glass, but sub-divi-ded into panels by a system of fine steel columns;being immured in a wall of transparent glass the64Thesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, (2003) Heft 46–10 | CGEUK: evocations of the National Gallerytinct objects was perhaps its negation) But it hadderived a new significance from the contrast it for-med to the world of things.Bataille suggests that the constitution of thethreshold between the continuous world of ani-mals and the differentiated world of mankind ari-ses through the positing of objects. The positing ofobjects occurs through the human use of tools.What is particular to the tool is that it is subordi-nate to its user and to its user’s ends. The tool hasno value in itself but is given value in relation toan anticipated result – it is useful.Unfortunately – and Bataille sees language asto blame for this aberration – the usefulness of thetool comes to be conflated with the anticipatedresult. Thus the anticipated result is deemed to beof value only in so far as it is useful. This manner ofvaluing gives rise to the absurdity of an endless de-ferral which can only be brought to closure by theequally absurd proposal of an absolute end. In thisrespect it is interesting to recall what Mies has tosay about his interest in clear-span structures, theimplication would seem to be that he regards thespace beneath the roof rather like a tool, not as anend but as an operational means: ”As you see, theentire building is a single large room. We believethat this is the most economical and most practicalway of building today. The purposes for which abuilding is used are constantly changing and wecannot afford to tear down the building each time.That is why we have revised Sullivan’s formula’form follows function‘ and construct a practicaland economical space into which we fit the func-tions.“9It seems to me that it is in this sense of spaceas an operational means that the proposition: ar-chitecture as space – space as medium, makessense. And the fact that this formulation positsmeans and purposes without an end seems to meto draw this architecture much closer to the airthan does Yves Klein’s charming formulation of anend without means and purposes.Author:Victoria WatsonUniversity of Westminster, LondonNotes:1 Stitch, S.: Yves Klein, Stuttgart, 1994, p. 121.2 Klein, Y.: Selections from The War: A Little Personal Mythology of the Monochrome, in: Houston, RiceUniversity, Institute for the Arts: Yves Klein 1928–1962 a Retrospective, New York, 1982, p. 218.3 Klein, Y.: Selections from The Monochrome Adventure, in: Houston, Rice University, Institute for theArts: Yves Klein 1928-1962 a Retrospective, New York, 1982, p. 220.4 Callois, R.: Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia, in: October, no 31, 1984 p. 25.5 Ibid.6 Klein, Y.: Truth Become Realit, in: Houston, Rice University, Institute for the Arts: Yves Klein 1928–1962 a Retrospective, New York, 1982, p. 231.7 Op. cit., note 4, p. 30. columns seem to be hanging.Within the enclosingscreen of steel and glass and between the horizon-tal surfaces of artificial ground and roof is a vastempty space.This space contains only four things: 1+2: Two identical sets of free standing screens,in english brown oak, are clustered around thesymmetrically placed holes in the slab – throughwhich the stairways lead down into the podium. 3+4: To the back of the space, again symmetri-cally placed, are two identical, rectangular shafts.Clad in panels of green tinos marble, these shaftsappear to reach up to the underside of the steelgrid of the roof – but it is not clear if they touch itor not. The panels of tinos marble are cut to corre-spond to the grid; they mark out a horizontalrhythm that corresponds to the pattern of the floortiles, and a vertical rhythm that divides the spaceunder the roof into nine equal striations.The striation of the space is neither visible orinvisible, rather it is something that is felt. Thethird of these vertical striations is marked too by atransom on the enclosing screen of steel and glass.The surface of the artificial ground exhibits a grid,this is the pattern of the paving slabs. The grid ofthe paving slabs corresponds to the grid of theroof and is connected to it, visually, by the ca-dence of the steel columns that support the enclo-sing glass screen. Within the curtilage of the enclo-sed space each bay of the roof grid is sub-dividedby the ten increments of a black aluminium ceilinggrid. There are lights, set into the blackness of thegrid, which appear like stars. The overall effect ofthis space is of a man-made clearing in a primevalforest. It is this awareness – of something produced byartifice but which is poised on the limit of some-thing more immediate – that invokes the feeling ofan irrevocable difference. This is how Bataille de-scribes this differenceThere is every indication that the first menwere closer than we are to the animal world; theydistinguished the animal from themselves perhaps,but not without a feeling of doubt mixed with ter-ror and longing.The sense of continuity that wemust attribute to animals no longer impressed it-self on the mind unequivocally (the positing of dis-Thesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, (2003) Heft 46566Thesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, (2003) Heft 48 Bataille, G.: Theory of Religion, New York, 1992, p. 35.9 Norberg-Schulz, C.: A Talk With Mies van Der Rohe, in: Neumeyer, F.: The Artless Word: Mies van derRohe on the Building Art MIT, 1991, p. 339.Credits:1 Drawn by Victoria Watson.2 Body imprints and cosmogony with hand-written text Pigment and synthetic resin on paper on can-vas, 263 x 214cm, Tokyo National Museum.3 Photograph by Harry Shunk.4 Peppered Moth, Biston Betularia: ”the amazingly twig-like caterpillar can be either green or brown incolour, and has a number of warts to complete the illusion of a small jointed twig”, Harper Collins:Collins Wild Guide, Butterfles and Moths, London, 1996, p. 158.5 Buff Tip Moth, Phalera Bucephalus: ”It wraps its wings tightly around its body when resting duringthe day and looks amaziingly like a broken twig, making it very hard to spot“ – Harper Collins: CollinsWild Guide, Butterfles and Moths, London, 1996, p. 196.6–10  CGEUK: evocations of The New National Gallery.

Architecture and Air

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Architecture and Air

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