Warped Space Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture ‘Anthony Vidler The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, EnglandContents Preface vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Part | Horror Vacui Constructing the Void from Pascal to Feud 17 ‘Agoraphobia Psychopathologies of Urban Space 25 Framing Infinity Le Corbusier, Ayn Rand. and the Idea of “Inetfabie Space” 51 Spaces of Passage ‘The Architecture of Estrangement: Simmel, Kracauer, Benjamin 65 Dead End Street Wialter Benjamin and the Space of Distraction at ‘The Explosion of Space ‘Architecture andthe Flic Imaginary 99 Metropolitan Montage The City as Fils in Kracauer, Benjami, and Eisenstein 111 X Marks the Spot The Exhaustion of Space at the Seene of the Crime 123, Part Home Alone Vito Acconc'’s Public Realm 135, Full House Rachel Whiteread’ Postdomestic casts a Lost in Space Toba Khedoors Architectural Fragments 151 Deep Space/Repressed Memory ‘Mike Kelley's Educational Complex Terminal Transfer Martha Rosler’s Passages 173, Angelus Novus Coop Himmetbiau's Expressionist Utopia 187 Beyond Baroque Eric Owen Moss in Culver City 19: Death Cube “k” The Neoformations of Morphosis ‘Skin and Bones Folded Forms from Leibniz to Lynn Bullding in Empty Spaces Danie! Libeskind and the Postspatia! Void 295 Planets, Comets, Dinosaurs (ond Bugs) Prehistori Subjects/Posthistoric Identities 243 Notes 259underground shrine, id spaciality chat is the incriors at cer ar concext of the pr he Blades House, in ground i entirely re domestic functions scape sites. The pub- ofscapes of the Hy- 3¢ up in great shallow topography” and cre- withthe old in bro- ne iscontinued in the fills of the Diamond s easily above and be- cs characterization of jation in favor of the ld erm them,” Mor- modernism to a form ing the legitimacy of nist avantgarde. In the attempt to recon- exceeded its own self historical conditions ory of deteritorializa In this pace there is kind, for an architec: Skin and Bones Folded Forms from Leibniz to Lynn The House of Folds Iniscxploration of the spatial characteristics of Leibni’ philosophy considered as “baroque.” Gilles Deleuze introduced what has proved to be a provocative formal theme for contemporaty architects: chat of the “fold” or pli, registered both asa material phenomenon —as in the folds of Bernini’ sculprure of Sant “Teresa, For example—and as a metaphysical idea—asin the “fold” that joins the soul to the mind without division. As Deleuze expands on che implications for the fold, and its cognates the plea and the crease, it gains an almost ontological searusasthe defi theoretical and design culture of the 1990s is almose equally secure. In Deleure's of Leiba, the fold is at nd specific, embodied in ob ng characteristic of baroque space and thought: it place inthe terms, as derived from an exceedingly original readit once abstract, disseminated asa trait ofall macter, jects and spaces; immaterial, and elusive in its capacities to join and divide at che same time,and physical and forma in its abilgy to produce shapes, and especialy curved and involuted shapes. This last characteristic has been of especial interest to architects, always searching for the tangible attribute of an abstract thought but itis nota all clear chat folds. inthe sense of folded forms, correspond in any sway to Deleuze’ concep, or eve less to Leibnir’s model, For Leibniz, and also for Deleuze, to say that folds are manifested in “pleats of matce” isnot simply to refer coa crease in a piece of cloth; materi, in these terms, everywhere in the ‘void as wellasin the sold and subjec tothe same forces Folds then exist in space and in time in ching and in ideas, and among cher unique properties is the abil- ity to join all these levels and categories atthe same moment. “To clarify this difficult concept Deleuze sketches whac he calls an “allegory” of chese relations, figured in whar he sees a the "Baroque House”2, ies Deter “amazon baroque (atiooe ep (Pari Editions de Mini, 1988, 7. = Cnaitae baroque - (attra ) imagined by Leibniz. Ie consists of a ground floor, Four windows and a door wide the door approached by a igh of three curved seps. Above isa second story composed of a losed room, wich five small openings in its oor to let in «emanations ftom below. This room, in Deleuze's drawing, is hung with five curtains, “a drapery diversified by folds” cha fill loosely chrough the openings below. Evidently, the five openings below represent the iv senses, the five eur tains theiereeeptors. and the closed upper room kind of mental space, based solidly on che lower physical body. Ina nice touch, Deleuze lightly joins che wo stories with a baroque scrolled motif on one side—the tie berween body and head, so co speak, Thishouse is, for Deleuze, an image of Leibnid’s "great Buroque montage that movesbeeween the lower floor, pierced with windows, and the upper floor, blind and closed, bur on the other hand resonating asf ie werea musical salon translating the visible movements below into sounds up above.”* Or, put in Leibnizian rerms, a igure of che relations berween the material, sensing body ‘on the ground and its “monad’ or soul, ro which ic transmits the knowledge given by its senses. Itself without senses, che monad nevertheless registers theimpulse of the outside world as ic does che inner and innate knowledge with which itis endowed from bith. Deleuze matches this image with others drawn from studies of baroque architecture, and especially che formal analysis of Welflin, whence he derives the idea that che baroque ismarked by a certain numberof material tats: horizontal widening of the lower floor, fattening of che pediment, low and curved stairs that push neo space: mater handled in masses or aggregates, with the ound ing of angles and avoidance of perpendiculars .. spongy cavernous on} shapes, oro constite a vortical form always put into motion by te- newed curbulence. .. matter tends to spillover in spac, to be reconciled wth fluidity ac the same time Ruids themselves are divided inco masses. In other words, an architecture of endless folds. Hete the abstract formalism of Wallin has been used to advantage in order to defineate an architecture of substances and masses, a curved architecture always in viewal motion, an ar- hiteuture of waves and infinite spatial extension, Such a “baroque” had. as we have seen, a powerful influence on the spatial imagery of modernism, and itis dx door rophet of the mor- hot surprising chat a digital decade has seen in Deleure a pt second ping, warping, and complicated curvatures of virwal space:' Constructed eso let in with Five in this way “through” a Wolinian perspective, cransated into architecture openings through the late ninetenth-century reading of a baroque that was in retro cfivecut spect. nore ition of the new psychology of the Body chan ahistorical ae- se, based count, Decures Leibniz emerges as a more complex entity than che seamless textual ecstasy of The Fold leads us to suspect. And indeed. a recurn tothe Leib nstherwo nizian texts from which Deleuze derived his “House” seems o introduce an un- body and expected ruptute in the kinds of swansactions intimated by he Delewzean montage fold—a differene and perhaps more analytically precise model through which pper floor, sve might begin co measure the special ef du pli of the last decade. Deleuze formulated his Leibnizian model from a combination of read. ings. cwo of which were primary. The frst, Leibniz’ celebrated essay the Mo rnadology, desctibed the characteristics and forms of the monadi the second. 4 response in che form of an imaginary dialogue with the British philoso- phe John Locke entitled New say on Human Understanding, includes an sical salon Os, putin ssing body knowledge eaters theImportant modification of Locke's image of the brain as a camera obscura This second tex, which provides so to speak the architectural struccure forthe pleHlouse. is couched in terms of an extended clarification of Locke's dark oom metaphor for discernment. Locke's asvertion seemed rational enough “The understanding is not much unlike a small room [um cabinesenterement bscurin Leibniz’s French] wholly shut fom light, with only some lle open- ings lef o lec in external and visible images; would she images coming into such a dark room but stay cere, an lie s0 orderly aso be found upon oeca- sion, ie would very much resemble the understanding of a man." The spatial settingof the understandings thus pinhole eamcra, only with more chan one forthe purpose of transmicting images (Locke says “pictures” in the original) from the ot ide, and chere seems to be an ordering principle within the box, ready to ine up he images in whar Locke would tetm a chain, ready for the associations, chence ideas and reflections, that constituted the under standing.’ Locke’ camera, like that of perspective artist since Alberti was as sumed (o transmit cealey, clearly and in focus, undistorted and ready for is ‘ransformation into representation. Leibniz accepted this space, but extended ancl adapted ic to his own purposes Ta increase the esemblance we should have to postulate that there isa sereen/cunvas/cutain/membeane [al] in the darkened rooe [le cham dre arcane wo ecive the species les epics. or beings sensible species and that it isot uniform but is diversified by told iversfce pares pls representing items of innate knowledge: and what is more, that this seteen/canvas/cutuin/membrane, being under tension, has a kind of clastcity or active force, and indeed that it act (or reacts) in ways that are adapted both co past folds and to new ones coming from impressions of the species. Thisaction would consist in certain vibrations or oscillations, like those we see when a cord under tension is plucked and gives off some- thing of a musical sound. For nor only do we receive images and traces in the brain, but we form new ones from them when we bring “complex ideas” to mind; and so the screen which represents our brain must be ac- tiveand clastic. This analogy would explain reasonably well what goes on inthe brain.’obscura re for the 2s dark | enough: ile open ming into pon occa The spatial ethan one rein the ple within iain, ready the under ly for its «extended there isa nla cham be species] pr des pls that this sa kind of rays hat are pressions of oscillations ves off some~ es and traces ag “complex 1 must be ac what goes on Leibniz has in this way, considerably complicated the picture space. Rather than accepting the back surface ofthe camera as receiving surface, sanding in, so vo speak for che painter's canwas, he as himself stetched a canvasin the space, asa receptor ofthe images. This screen, moreover, is not the lat picture plane of clasial representation; iis from the star ridged and folded in ways tha depiralteady innate idess. Locke's tabula rasa or white sheet of paper has no place inthis box of miracles. Further, this canvas i in no way a passive i= serament ofthe real’ rather it moves or “oscillates ikea plucked string, 2c- cordingto the nature ofthe images coming in from outside, These movements in turn create now folds in the surface of the screen, tusning it into something like diaphragm, elastic and mobile, a two-dimensional oscilloscope respond ing to the activity of the brain, The brain, meanwhile is tse no stati collec tor of piceues, but act to construct new images our of combinations of those already recived Locke’s camera has here been transformed into a kind of wheezy hurning barel organ furnished internally with stretched diaphragms that give cout a sound in pictures, tone played our soto speak acrss the scared surface ‘of a canvas that has been riven by every picture it has held, and accessible only to the “inhabitant” of the dark room—out brain but also our soul. Or rather than simple “inhabitant” of thst house, the soul would e the dark room, somewhat like a monad: "As for che soul, which is a simple substance or “ions without being extended it represents these various extended) masses and has perceptions of them.” In the Monadelegy Leibniz aifed che formal nature of the monad as entirely internalized: “monads,” he writes, “have no 0 the closed room, windows through which something could enter or leave its a soul has no windows. Its ony furnishing, rouse Bernard Cache’ term, isthac of che sereen, which represents the brain, a pulsating organic substance, “tive and elastic.” “not unified. but diversified by folds. Hence of course Delewze's need to provide a lower story for this univ- able house without windows, one which, with five openings co let in che Five sense impressions, operates a a kind of bodily anteroom to the monadic sul, a filtered way in forthe brain, already innately active, to be fed and renewed from the outside. But this is nor necessarily the Leibnizian solution. which rather than building a baroque house according ro the cules of Wolffinianarchitectonic, chemselves derived from a psychology of bodily projection, prefers tose its monads free in space, unified on the outside, folded on the in side. The enteyway by which impressions reach the screen of the brain is no simple opening; forthe “space” in which Leibnia sets his monadsisitself a thick and full substance, one that at once fils the dark room and consticues is im- pregnabiliey: “We should think of space as full of matter which is inherently fluid, capable of every sort of division and indeed accslly divided and subdi- vided to infinie.” Finally, this fluid space, lke the sereen in the dark room, i never uniform: it t0 “varies fom place to place, because of variations in the ‘extent to which the movements in it run the same way."* {mn this viscous universe, two points of distinction between Leibniz and Deleuze emerge. The first is that Leibniz posis no necessary connection be tseeen the fled sreen and the room in which itis placed. He simply notes that “ie muse be supposed tha in the dark room there a srcen to receive the species.” The canvas, screen, or membrane stretched ikea musical strings thus independent ofits container, There isa hox without openings, and inside chs box an elastic membrane the Folding of which is continuously shifting accord ing to new combinations of received and innate images. Secondly, the charac teristic of the fold” precipitated by these Forees is at once less ambiguous than Delewze would want and more extensively connected tothe relationships he tween inside and out IF the membrane is stetched, and not simply hanging as Deleuze depicts ie (ands ‘curtain’ and nota membrane, itis hard to see how it might oscillate as if being plucked like a stringed insteument) then the folds appeat and disappear on its two-dimensional surface like the striations of a ge ological map thrust into three dimensions. The toile is an interior function, working asa receptor of vectors from outside and asa condenser of traces gen erated from inside, ‘The consequences of these distinctions for “folded” architecture are sig- nificant, especially as designers and theorists have tended ro see the Deleuzean ‘model as an invitation fora rather literal folding of the envelope, a complex curving of the skin, that tends to ignore rather than privilege the interior. Ac- cording to Leibniz, a fold could in no way be replicated simply by the curved surface of a entlike or bloblike structure, and not only because of its external ‘qualities. The Leibnizian fold is in continuous movement, enveloping former folds and creating new ones on the surface of the diaphragm. Secondly, thenulae ithe that and ithe ctrine three: hice o give xperi- ials of| digital modeling and drawing on the observations of Deleuze and Cache, among others, asa way of sidestepping the traditional modernist and postmod- cernist polarities of simplicity/complexiy, harmonylopposition, form/ informe, and, of course, construction/deconstruction. Admittedly somewhat literalized versions of Deleuze’ theory of the “fold” in philosophic discourse have inter- ‘ested those searching for a formal method thar, as Greg Lynn has reiterated in a number of essays, might go beyond the degree zero-sum game of the Wittkower/Rowe nine-square grid.” Such “reductive typologies” are replaced in Lynn's practice by an o -ended set of mathematical/topological experiments that disturb if not replace the formal paradigms of postmodernism. In a series ‘of essays that add up to a mapping of the discursive feld of the architectural informe, Lynn deploys the investigations of nineteenth- and rwenticth-century biologists, morphologists, and mathematicians againse the static geometries of ‘modern and postmodern typologies. Forms are now “proto-geomettic,” “an- exact.” “bloblike," “pliable,” "viscous." Form is no longer canceived of asa geo- metric “original” distorted or broken to incorporate complexity or represent conflict, bu rather seamlessly countercontradictory, a topological surface the ‘movements of which register the synthetic result of forces applied by computer models, as if organieal ly generating new speciesin aspeedup of Darwinian evo- lution Here che metaphorical relations berwecn animation as digital technique and animate asa biological state are, by a proces of conscious literalzation, de ployed inthe sevice ofan architecture that takes its authority rom the inh. ent “italism” of the computergenerated sets. This biotechnological informe differs from the informe of Bail, «ver om atleast thee levels Inthe fst place, where Bataile’s quasi-Darwinian evolutionary expla tion of the architectural monument-—that “morphologi- «al progress" in which the human stood somewhere at an intermediary stage be tween “monkeys and great edifices"—was a deliberate provocation to the hhumanis theorists of the monument as analgiclly proportional to the body, merging che evo into their third logically consistent “simian” form as an at tempt to close the evolution of both the human species and architecture, Lynns spatial morphologies are generated to offer potential evolution co architecture if not co the species: chy seize on the metaphor not to end monumentalty but to change its formal nature, Secondly, while for Bataille the informe was pre- cisely that—a phenomenon entirely resisting any formal categorization—of Reconstruction for a European Capital, ind detailed plans for an offce block (the models of which were phorographed by Man Ray), a public monu- ment, and an apartment building. His cigy, he acknowledges, might well be termed a "Ville Surréaliste.” suitable for Picasso's frescoes and in which Marcel Duchamp would be in charge of the interior design of che apartments—he had, noted Jean, already invented "a door at the same time open and closed." The design of the office block was buile up out of elliptical formulas (P1 (U) for G2 « 0 and G3 = 4) and responded ro what Jean understood as the functional requirements of of entation, light, and at, while che city 28a whole was developed according toa plan thae inscribed its name in leer formed by the lines of office blocks (ic up at night), and that included a labyrinth and gigantic symbolic structures in the form of horses and bodies. “One notes,” he writs, “bridges without any Precise destination, cupolas, spiral pyramids, a mathematical monument con- stant negative curved surface of Euneper, derived from the pseudo-sphere’) Buildings composed of huge folded planes, emulating tissue: freeways trans- forming themselves ino buildings a monumental ational ibrar (ora union headquarters) buile up inthe form of a kneeling femal tion of the nineteenth-centary vision of the San nonians, completed the picture of a riotous assemblage of biomorphic and mathematical forms that would achieve, a last the “non-Euclidean’ city, When juxtaposed in the same number of LArbitecure d'Aujord hui wich the following articles on "Formes cructural theorist Robert Le Ricolais, and by Jacques Couélle, Jean’sallegoties tok on all the force of a manifesto for a bioarchitecture. Informed by the Bergsonian docttine of “spiritual energy.” and controlled by a precise and meticulous chree- dimensional analysis of biological and machematical form, this new architec- ture merged the psychological with the evolutionary, in such a way as to give the ancient biological analogy scientific support and realization. Such experi ments were thrown into sharper relief tothe prevailing modemist doctrines as they formed the sequel to Le number, “Lespace indicible.” imaginées. Formes concréwes” bythe: on “Larchitecture naturel rbusier’s own introductory article in the same “Macel Jeans fantasies seem to anticipate, inform and philosophy, a num- ber of mote recent projects by architects who have sought to develop a new alliance beoween spatial theory and biotectonics, utilizing the potentials of digjection, the in- fa thick herently d subdi sin the sniz and tion be: ly notes seve the wis thus side this , cord scharac- ous than hips be waging as see how the folds sof a ger junction, aces gen ate sig cleuzea complex erior. Ac: te curved s external 1g former idly, the Leibnizian fold, asan interior mechanism which at once reflects the outside and represents the forces of the inside, is more of a mediating device, a spatial in- strument, than an object acted on from one side or another, Here the nature of Leibnisian space is crucial chick and full, container and contained, it recog nizes no distinctions between the solid and the void, and thence no real divi sion between the inside ofa fold and its outside; the matter out of which a fold {is constiruced is afer all che same maccer as forms the space in the pleat, under the pleat, and berween pleats Animistic Architecture To construct our city we have utilized elements dircetly taken from hu- ‘man anatomy, on one side, and on the other “mathematical objects plastic figurations in thece dimensions, of sometimes threedimensional mathematical problems... Humane or totally cast off-—and by this Finding agin their humanity—these are allegorical forms with which we Propose to construct the architecture of tomorrow... Perhaps these new cities wil palate, to certain degree, psychological catastrophes and others tha prepare humanity fora miserable reconstruction” in its spirit asin its material means Marcel Jean, “Allegorical Architecture,” 1946" Surrealist, save forthe occasional lights of fancy of « Matta or a Dall, gener- ally eschewed concrete expressions of an architecture that might beter remain insubstantial to eeeain its psychic dimensions, its alliance with dreams and drives. In the complex intersection of the animal psychology explored by Roger Caillos and Jacques Lacan and the struccual investigations of biomor- phic theorists such as Raoul Francé and Robert Le Ricolais, however. there ‘emerged a form of architectural uropianism that, ust before the Second World ‘War, proposed a form of “allegorical surrealism” built up out of mathematical topology and psychological fantasy. Such was the project of Marcel Jean, the sur-ealse sympathizer and friend of Man Ray, who first published his “mathe- matical objects” in 1936." After the war, in a direct and amusing critique of Le Corbusier's geometrical metropolis, Jean proposed a hallucinatory land: scape of mathematically and anthtopomorphically derived forms fora “PlanShins ones Lynn's informe is in fact highly formalized. The almost obsessive return to Rowe’ application of Witckower’s Palladian schema to Le Corbusier’ villas seems to admit chat what is being sought is nor so much a nonformal outlet ¢o this perceived geometrical closure, bur more a rejection of the formal- dialectical method on which the analogy rests, in fvor of an allsubsuming "so lution” in formal continuity. Thiedly, the paychodynamics of Batile’s post-surrelist shock tactics, with all the countechumanise overtones of the in- {forme imaged 2s a“gob of spi” or illustrated asa mess of blood on the oor of an abator. and “space” understood as an all-devouring force, breaking down the walls of prisons and cannibaisticaly envisaged asa process wherein “one big fish eat a smaller.” is transformed in Lynnistechnobiologism into the ele gant play of topological mutation according to the “natura” permutations of ‘models that indeed “model” nature. Certainly, there isa moment of shock in ‘he assimilation wo architecture of "blobs “that threaten o overrun atertoived and detrritorialized tectonics like a science fiction horror movie.” but tha shock s inevitably blunted by the technical deals of blob construction, or the sheer hyperbeauty of the bloblike iterations of force fields and topographic mappings on the sree Bat if thew site trace of avantgande shock lef in these surfice per -mutacons, even as alk of an “anarchieecture” derived from the pasionate and violent performance ats of Gordon Matta-Clak seems ite more th the in «elles domestication ofa previously unchinkable vent the notion ofan ar chiveture developed out of topologies rather than typologis nevertheless introduces a fndamental rupure into theory if not into practice. For the gen eration of form from the ouside, as envelope or skin, subjected to mathemati- cally generated “force fils,” removes the humanistic subject definitively from all individual consideration. IF che “human” is introduced a a force, iis as movement-—crowd or swarm—and not asa generative instrument in its deed where the eye, and its mental corollary, visual abstraction. stood at the vi- sion point of generative perspective, and thence of clasical space, now all race of optical or bodily accommodation is removed in favor of “an abstraction ‘based on process and movement’; and not the process and movement inherent to cther the eye or the body, but rather one that is genetic, soto speak, co ma chine dynamics.obsessive return ¢0 ¢ Corbusier’ villas nonformal outlet 0 on of the formal all-subsuming"so- amies of Bacaille’s overtones of the i= oad on the floor of, ce, breaking down rocess wherein “one logis into the ele- al” permutations of noment of shock in overrun a terrorized or movie,” but thae construction, or the lls and copogeaphic in these surface per othe passionate and ele more than the in- logis nevertheless practice For the pen jected wo mathemati jot defntively from od asa fore, i is as srumentin tse in cion, stood at the vi al space, now all ace ve of “an abstraction J movement inherent 50 0 speak, to ma- The “inside” of architecture, then, to return co an early theme of Lynn, would not be shaped by occupation or by any other atribute than its pro- foundly residual character—like the fortuitous insides produced, sa, by che ex: 7 like that of the Statue of Liberty. In this sense, the notion of the “death of the subject” rakes on a positive role in the re- cernal necessity co fashion a sh jection of all pretense ro conventional functionalism. If form could never have been precisely calibrated to Function according to the frst biological analogy and with the variously derived cultural-symbolic-patial substitutes in post modernism degenerating into mere seylistic bickering, as Lynn would have it then only abstract, mechanical authority can hold. The ethical imperative shifs from sociopolitical authenticity to formal impartiality. And withthe imputa- ‘ion of animate life o inanimate animation, our own participation in if nocim- perial domination of, the biological proces of evolution i assured. Such an inceriorty for architecture, one “without windows.” to pars pase Kracauee paraphrasing Leibniz, would be perhaps like thac described more than a century ago by Victor Hugo in his image of the monumental ele phane buile of wood and plaster at the Place de fa Bastille during che Napoleonic era. This forry-foor-high “monster,” “blackened by wind and weather” “ponderous, uncouth, almost misshapen monument... endowed with a sore of savage and magnificent gravity.” served as shelter co che steet urchinsof Pari, An elephant from the outside, inside it looked like a great wine barrel, we perhaps the whale of Jonah “a huge skeleron.”"* ‘Along beam overhead, eo which massive side-members were artached at regulae intervals, represented che back-bone and ribs, with plaster stalue sites hanging from them like entrails and everywhere there were great ind the patches of black chat seemed co be alive and had changed their position n the corners were spiders’ webs like dusty diaphragms. He with sudden, startled movements. The litter fallen from the back of the elephant on to its stomach had evened out the concavity of the later 80 that one could walk on it as though on a loos The space inside, then. residual, entirely formed by the dictates of the outer skin, and structured according to the needs of that skin’ support, was‘occupiable, indeed served a conjuncrurally useful purpose—almost functional, in Hugo's derailed description; but it was a space that like a cave of a burrow, ‘was only incidencallyfor human occupation. OF ie Hugo observed: “The un foreseen usefulness of the superfiuous!"* This “superfluous” characteristic of space, a direct resultant of the ab stract generative process, should not be mistaken as evidence for an indictment along traditional humanistic-functionalis lines. This is rather che implacable and inevitable space of the contemporary, post-politieal, post-psychoanalytical subject, a somewhat uid character of the kind outlined inthe preceding chap ter, Formed by the nonteflectivity of screens, immersed in che indeterminate depth oftheir spacial opacity and semitransluceney this subject no doubs feels entirely at home inside che elephant, the dinosaur, che anthill or the viscous blob: as if che subject ieself were at one with che surfaces of its enclose, is body no longer imitated, dissected, or deconstructed by its environment, but now enveloped and dispersed atone and the same time, its own surfaces, inner and outer, mapped by the same processes that generae its multiple outer skins, if any “outer” or “inner” may any longer be distinguished. Perhaps this would be the logical. evolutionary trajectory of the Nicraschean/Corbusian acrobic subject of modernism, frst merging with the ifinities of ineffble space, then synesthetized by the multimedia play on the warped surfaces of the Philips Pavilion, now finally at one with its surroundings. One retoactve interpret sion of the moderist-functionalist fiction would be, ater all. that, architec: ‘rally speaking and despite the claims of humanist perspective, we have been “here.” in the elephant, so ro speak all along, Bur in face we do not have to search for extra-atchitectural examples to ‘make this point in terms of built form, Gilles Deleuze reminds us that this forced separation between inside and outside, this “severing,” was property of the baroque: “Baroque architecture can be defined by this severing of the fi- cade from the inside, of the interior from the exterior, and the autonomy of the interior from the independence of the exterior, but in such conditions that ‘each of the ewo terms thrusts the other forward.” Working out from Wel lin, Deleuze wants the baroque to construct what he sees as an entirely new kind of link/nonlink berween inner and outer, upper and lower, that corre- sponds tothe structure of the Leibnizian monad, “che autonomy of the inside, ‘an inside without an outside,” with “as its correlative the independence of thealmost functional, ke a cave or a burrow, so observed: “The un: ce resultant of the ab- ence for an indictment rather the implacable .post-psychoanalytical in the preceding chap- < in the indeterminate s subject no doubs feels »anthill or the viscous ices of its enclosure its by its environment, but is own surfaces, inner its multiple outer skins, hed. Perhaps this would hean/Corbus sof ineffable space, then | surfaces of the Philips ne retroactive interpret n aerobic after all, that, architec erspective, we have been architectural examples t0 suze reminds us that this vering,” was.a property of sy this severing of the fa sand the autonomy of the tin such conditions that Working out from Wolf: he sees as an entirely new per and lower, that corre- 1e autonomy of the inside, ¢ the independence of the facade, an outside without an inside." The outside may have windows, but they open only to the outside; the inside is lit, bu in such a way chat nothing, ‘canbe seen through the “orifices” shat bring lightin. Joining the wo, as we have seca, isthe fold, a device thar both separates and brings rogether, even asi ar~ ticulates divisions acting as invisible go-berween and visible macter: “the fold affects all materials.” it "becomes expressive matter, with different scales speeds, and different vectors (mountains and waters, papers. fabrics living ts sues, the brain,” and thus “determines and materializes Form.” Here again the architectural metaphor serves philosophy: “the facade-matter goes down below, while che soul-room goes up above. The infinite fold then moves berween the two levels The fold is here a stair, buc one with a complicated kind of redu- pliatve perspectivity—thac of the perspective conundrums of Desargues, & favorite of Deleuze Bur philosophy, as Bernard Cache and others have registered, also serves art and archiceccure: the ev disseminated notion of the baroque emerges in Delewze’s writing as a new model of architecture, one that moves beyond the traditional antinomies of modernism—the implied conflict berween the “bearing principle” and the ‘covering principle.” hetween, as Deleuze hazards, Gropius and Loos—and es ppanding delimitation of Leibniz by che equally tablishes 1 post-Leibnizian house for a new "harmony" of inside and outside But where the modernist “harogue” drew on the spatial ambiguities of its sev- centeenth-century antecedent on behalf of a synthesis between space and time. for Deleuze the new baroque house exists to join animate and inanimate, €0 fold he one into the other with insistent force. Where once was a “closed * now we have the model “invoked by chapel with imperceprible openings Tony Smith, the scaled eae speeding down the dark high In generating form by means of digital animation sofewarc, Lynn has ex plored the potential image of such an architecture in evocative ways: Thus “House Prototype in Long Island” begins by « multipl-level site analysis that takes account of visual obstacles and destinations, physical forces, movement forces, and the like to produce a composite fieldseape of attractions and repul- sions into which certain protorypical “house” organizations are inserted and warped accordingly. Different values ascribed to different levels of forces produce different distortions: different structures and coverings are cested against interior forces and exterior vectors: he resulting forms ae gridded and i22. Gre yon, Ca By Opera Houre| competition, 1984 Compater-geneates bie iw simplified into skeletal systems; the “prototypes” thus produced reveal, like the Plastic forms of animated cartoon characters all the deformations of pressure and release, On a larger scale, the Cardiff Bay Opera House project literalzes the steas an empry insect shell, a“chrysalis,” out of whieh the new construe tion emerges. This construction is Figured asa “hull,” the voided space of fr. mer waterfone hulhs, with ribs and casing turned over and merged into a system of ovoid forms that, animated as “polyps,” in the final iteration house ‘he functions oF the Opera House, Not unexpectely, che plan of the complex resembles a section through an insect carcass, with head, til, extensions, and attached young, while the model realizes this image in three dimensions, with faised head, pincers, feelers, and the lke. In both of these projects, and in others such as the larvalike Yokohama Pore Terminal, or the pupalike Henie Onstad Kunstsenter installation, the serial implications of “animate” form are described in ways thac demonstrate i potential for producing a “counter- archiectural” morphology that materializes, ina way unattainable throughout the modernise period, all dhe phantoms of the biological analogy. In chesecerms, the apparent “destination” of animate form would be to «construct oro much che folded skin, che severed facade or ewisted bodywork, ‘or the allenclosing interior as an independent and windowless entity, burced reveal like the tations of pressure » project lteralizes the new construc ded space of for. nal merged into a ual iteration house anof the complex il, extensions, and dimensions, with c projects, and in 1 pupalike Henie animate” form are ucing a “eounter- inable throughout logy form would be to wisted bodywork, owless encey, but rather che fold tse. No literal interpretation of folding’ or of material folds whether of fabric, facade, or space can perform she Delewzean/Leibniaian function it would not be so much a question of illustrating complex folds, withll che geometrical rigor of computer-generted images as it would be of| discovering the quivalent “form” that might jain the two floors of the mate- ‘ial and immaterial. Deleuze is clear on this: our monads are no longer closed interiors that contain the entire world: they are opened up, prised open “as if by a par of pliers,” penetrating other monads, rupturing the previous distin. tions berween private and public ike a Cage or Stockhausen performance, a Dubuffe“plastichabitat.” Deleuze’s examples musical (the baroque, he states isthe abstract art par excellence) inthe formulation “Music has stayed at homes what has changed now is the ganization of the home and its nature," but if we substitute “architecture” for “music” the point is clea. The baroque house ‘that Leibniz/Deleuze designed possessed an inside and an outside, the one rorn away from the other, cach independent of the other, and with «wo stories, the fone material, the other spiritual, joined by a stair of infinite folds. A neo- Leibnizian house would not, however, replicate this construction, but would he ion of the point of view over the city von: ‘expand beyond it with partial and intersecting velocities, inco the city. new baroxue, “the same constr tinues to be developed, but now itis neither the same poine of view nor the same city, now that both the fgureand the ground are movement in spaee.”*? {mn this new framing of the neo-baroque house, both the modeenis solution to the monad (Deleuze gives the example of Le Corbusier's chapel at La Tourette) and the postmodernist (one might imagine the gestalt of Rowe's Collage Cty, with its stable imerplay of figure and ground) are supplanted by a folded city, fone where above-ground and below-ground, private inside and public outside are forced into cac other, “overtaking,” in Deleuze’ tems, “monadology with a ‘nomadology