Brunelleschi, Lacan, Le Corbusier The Invention of Perspective

Reading through the Mirror: Brunelleschi, Lacan, Le Corbusier: The Invention of Perspective
and the Post-Freudian Eye/I

Author(s): Lorens Holm
Source: Assemblage, No. 18 (Aug., 1992), pp. 20-39
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171204
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Holm
Lorens
Reading
Through
Brunelleschi, Lacan,
LorensHolm was educated at the

Universityof Wales and at Harvard
University.He was until recentlyassistant
professorof architectureat Washington
Universityin St. Louis, where he cofounded and codirected the school of
architecture'ssummer programin Rome.
He is currentlyworkingwith David Davis
Associates on an addition to the Sheldon
Concert Hall in St. Louis.
Assemblage 18 @1992 by the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology
The
Invention
and
the
of
the
Mirror:
Le
Corbusier
Perspective
Post-Freudian Eye/I
In The FourFundamentalConceptsof
Psychoanalysis,JacquesLacanuses the
schema of a doubled, invertedtriangleto
map what he calls "the geometral structure of the scopic field."The same diagram describesthe positions of the mirror,
picture,viewer,and baptisteryin Filippo
Brunelleschi'sdemonstrationof one-point
perspective,as recordedby his biographer,
Manetti, in The Life of Brunelleschi.This
suggests that there may be strongeraffinities than expected between the classical
theories of perceptionand representation
that were instituted by the invention of
perspective,on the one hand, and the
post-Freudianreconstructionof the subject that is usuallytaken to marka break
from these theories, on the other. This
paperwill trace the similaritybetween the
diagrams.It will discuss their implication
for Lacan'ssubject of perception,for
Brunelleschi'sdemonstration,and for the
classicalepisteme in which it is embedded.
It will then projectthese insights onto the
workof Le Corbusier.For this similarity
has a significantbearingon recent critical
study of Le Corbusierthat employs the
Lacanianconcepts of the eye and the gaze.
Brunelleschi: The Mirror:

The Subject Reflected
It is a matter of speculationhow Brunelleschi invented one-point perspectiveas a
pictorialform, or even how he appreciated
its value. Likemost origins,this one seems
to be irretrievable.But Manetti outlines
the experiment.' Brunel-leschi painted
the view of the baptisteryfrom the portal
of the Florencecathedral.He then drilled
a small hole through the painted panel so
that someone standingbehind it and
looking through the hole could see the
painting reflectedback at him with a small
mirror.Manetti saysthat the hole was
located at that spot on the image of the
baptisterywhere the viewer'seyes would
be directedwere he looking at the scene
that Brunelleschi'simage records;in other
words,the eye was fixed at the vanishing
point. Brunelleschisilveredthe panel
above the skylineso that it would reflect
the realsky,whose moving clouds would
give an even greaterillusion of reality.
Samuel Edgertonspeculatesthat for his
demonstrationBrunelleschiplacedhis
viewerwhere he had stood to paint the
picture:the viewerwould first see a reflec-
21
Narcissus,who was changed
And so I believe that Pippo
I think it worthwhileto
into a flower,accordingto
di Ser Brunelleschothe
bring [the conception of the
the poets, was the inventor
Florentine found the way
mirrorstage] again to your
of painting. Since painting is
to make this plan [linear
attention,... for the light it
alreadythe flowerof every
perspective] which truly was
sheds on the formation of
art, the storyof Narcissusis
a subtle and beautiful thing,
the I as we experience it in
most to the point. What else
which he discoveredthrough
psychoanalysis.It is an
can you call painting but a
consideringwhat a mirror
experience that leads us to
similarembracingwith art of
shows to you.
oppose any philosophy
what is presented on the
Antonio Averlino Filarete,
directly issuing from the
surfaceof the water in the
Treatise on Architecture,ca. 1460
Cogito.
fountain?
Jacques Lacan,
"The MirrorStage," 1949
Leon Battista Alberti,

On Painting and Sculpture, 1435
assemblage 18
the gaze/
tion of the painting;then, the mirror

removed,he would see the realbaptistery
in the same position and relativesize as in
the painting.2
point
object
The mirroris the device of classicalrepresentation. Brunelleschiinvented perspective with the mirror.He identified the
section throughthe pyramidof vision with
the picture plane.Albertiplaced perspective painting- and representationin
general- under the sign of Narcissus.'
Paintingreflectsthe world.The mirror
producesan exact copy:it is the paradigm
and naturalmodel of the projectionof a
three-dimensionalrealityonto a twodimensionalplane.4In his demonstration,
Brunelleschiused the mirroras the standardand proofof the verisimilitudeof his
paintingto the world.In effect, he used
the powerof the mirrorto fold a twodimensionalimage preciselyonto a threedimensionalspace, therebyidentifyingthe
perspectivespace of representationwith
the optical space of perception.
Brunelleschi'sarchitectureaspiredto make
clearthis one-to-one correspondence
between space representedand space
perceived.RudolfWittkowerwritesthat
the naves of San Lorenzoand Santo
Spiritowere designed as centralprojections on the picture plane, for their aesthetic effect depends on seeing the naves
as if the repetitionof orderswere diminishing in proportion,even though we know
that they reallydo not.5 If perspectiveis a
two-dimensionalrepresentationof a threedimensional space, then architecture
becomes the three-dimensionalrepresentation of a two-dimensionalspace, perspective and architecturemirroringeach
other.
of light
image/screen
Picture
the
sbjec0
geometrl
picture
the subject/
geometral poiint
l a. Lacan'soperational montage.
The structureof the scopicfield.
It was in Renaissanceart theorythat the

artistwas first positioned as an interior
subject to an exteriorobject, paralleling
the development of perspectivethat gave
graphicexpressionto these relations.6To
22
I.'.
Holm
virtual
vanishing
point
image/A
Baptistry
0/
mirror V
C
x
v
0
_npa
painted
panel
lb. Brunelleschi'sdemonstration. The

dashed line indicatesthe virtual image of
the mirror.The upper base line is drawn
solid to indicate that the painted image
correspondsto and exactly aligns with the
baptistery.The eye remainsdashed
because it is only an image.'0
this, classicalarchitectureassented. The

standardmetaphorfor the pictureplane is
Alberti'swindow:paintinga pictureis like
opening up a window in a wall (he was
thinkingof fresco), throughwhich one
might see the world.7The subject and
object of perceptionare mediated by the
picture plane - which articulatesthe
three-dimensionalspace of perception
from the two-dimensionalspace of representation - as interiorand exteriorare
mediated by the window.Architecture
never seriouslyquestioned the function of
the thresholdand the position of a subject
inside it." But the mirror'spoweris also to
deceive, to departfrom and distort reality.
It is the device of the fun house and of the
magician. Brunelleschi'sdemonstration
was partscientific experiment,part
smoke-and-mirrors
act.9 The mirrordisthe
of
rupted
image the world,by placing
within it an image of the eye of the perceiver, at the verymoment that perspective became the model of perceptionand
of our relationshipto the world.
Lacan: The Operational Montage:
The Subject Split
The scopic field is the distributionof
relationshipsthat structurethe conscious
subject as the subject of perceptionand
situate it vis-ai-visthe visualworld. Lacan's
diagramof the scopic field - which he
calls an "operationalmontage"- invokes
the powerof the mirrorto double and
reverse.The firsttriangleof the diagram,
Lacanwrites in "Of the Gaze as Objet
Petit a," "is that which, in the geometral
field, puts in our place the subject of
representation,and the second is that
which turns me into a picture.On the
right-handline is situated, then, the apex
of the first triangle,the point of the
geometral subject,and it is on that line
that I, too, turn myself into a picture
under the gaze, which is inscribedat the
23
assemblage 18
dementremarquerdiucrfesparticularitas,dont ie
n
n,'
Fig.
p. 45.
...
\N
IX~~ti
defire icy \vous atlcrtil,
alin
quc vous
en
facies eI'x-
2a. Descartes,diagram of vision from

LaDioptrique.The invisiblesubject.
2b. Brunelleschi,nave of San Lorenzo,

Florence.Classicismidentifies space
perceived and space represented in the
invisiblesubject.
apex of the second triangle." The

"geometralpoint"is where the light rays
focus on the eye, the apex of Alberti's
pyramidof vision. This is the centralpoint
of projectionof the image in the perspective construction.So far Lacan'sdiagram
correspondsto Brunelleschi's.But Lacan
notes that this does not explain the phenomenon of visibility,for a blind person
can conceptualizethe triangulationand
mappingof space by means of optical
relations.12To place the subject in the
visible world,the subject must be both the
punctal receptorof images and also itself
an image. In Lacan'sdiagramthe gaze is
the point of light from which the world
"looksat me." It is that point - necessary
within the syntaxof one-point perspective
- from which the subject, as image, is
projected.The subject is alwaysalso an
image in someone else's picture,a constructionprojectedfrom outside itself.
The conscious subject is determinedby a
split between the eye at the geometral
point and the gaze that fixes the eye in the
visibleworld.It is this reciprocalfunction
of me looking at the worldand the world
looking at me that structuresthe subject
of perceptionand the visible world.The
subject is thus a montage.
Lacanbased this workon an earlierpaper,
"The MirrorStage,"in which he explains
the identity and development of the conscious subject (loosely,the ego) as a function of its projected/reflectedimage (its
other). Lacanarguesthat the veryyoung
child firstbecomes awareof himself as a
discreteand extended individualthrough
his reflectedimage. This is generalizedto
include the image that other people may
have of him, which they projectback to
him in personalinteractions.In either
case, the image is externaland acquired."1
"Inour relationto things, in so faras this
relationis constituted by the way of vision,
and orderedin the figuresof representa-
tion, something slips, passes,is transmitted, ... and is alwaysto some degree
eluded in it - that is what we call the
gaze.""14So Lacandefines the registerof
the imaginaryand the dispositionof the
gaze as absence. The subject, like the
imaginary,is structuredby signification
and absence. "The signifieris the first
markof the subject.""The subject is
determinedby the objeta, which symbolizes "the centrallack of desire,"an object
from which the subjecthas been split by
an originary"mutilation"and that it
desires in orderto be whole again.16 The
objeta is that which can neverbe signified.
In the imaginaryregister,the objeta is
identified with the gaze, the imaginary
object of desire, initiated duringthe mirrorstage, fromwhich the subject (the eye)
remainsalienated."Inthe scopic field, the
gaze is alwaysoutside."'7It marksthe
point in representationat which something appearsto have vanished,a point
lying beyond the visual in the registerof
the real.'"The subject is an effect of the
(ever-frustrated)desire to image what the
visual field alwaysposits as its beyond but
can never represent.
It is not surprisingthat the mirrorshould
play an originaryrole in both classical
representationand the post-Freudian
subject, for both painting and subject
involve the projectionof an image on a
surface.Lacanindeed acknowledgeshis
debt to Renaissanceone-point perspective
painting." Of the numerous points of
convergencebetween Brunelleschi'sand
Lacan'swork,the most pertinent involve
issues of extension. Lacan'sconcept that
consciousnessis a "resist,"a shadowon
the picture of the world,finds its complement in Brunelleschi'seye hole. "Inevery
picture,this centralfield cannot but be
absent, and replacedby a hole - a reflection, in short, of the pupil behind which is
situated the gaze."20Lacan'sworksuggests
24
Holm
that the presenceof the image of the eye

in Brunelleschi'spicture is not a contingency that could be eliminated through
more sophisticatedtechniques but an
inevitableaspect of the visualworld.The
dimensional parametersof the demonstration (the width of the eye hole, the thickness of the panel, the size of the mirror
and its distance from the panel) might be
manipulated,but this would never erase
the eye.21Conversely,Lacan'sconcept of
the split subject- the displacement or
alienation of the subject as site of perception from its own image - finds its literal
analog in the distance that Brunelleschi's
subject must hold the mirrorin orderto
correctlyalign the reflectionwith the
world.Brunelleschi'sand Lacan'swork,
taken together, suggests that the dimensional parametersimposed by the physicality of the visible worldpreventthe total
collapse and erasureof the (image of the
eye)/I.22There is an irreducibledimensionalityand materialityto identity, consciousness,and perceptionthat fixes us in
the worldas an image and yet holds us
separatefrom that image. Consciousness
has dimension.
Lacansaysthat his subject, so constructed
through the image, stands opposed to the
Cartesiancogito, which marksthe center
of the classicalepisteme.23In the Meditations Descarteswould think awayall his
attributesbut thought itself. He would
constructhis psychiclife and the exterior
worldentirelyfrom this unitaryand logically priorpoint of thought and consciousness.24In La Dioptriquethe optical field is
constructedentirelyfrom the point of the
eye. As though his own imagerywere
subconsciouslyto belie the inexorable
logic of his argument,Descartes depicts
the cogito encased in a blackbox, inaccessible to the optic raysthat triangulatethe
space. An additionalperceivingsubject is
positioned outside the box to complete

the circuit of perception,as if a perceiver
were necessaryto perceivethe perceiving
to account for a perceptionthat posits
blindness at its core.25
Brunelleschi'sarchitectureconstructs
Descartes'spredicament.When he came
to build, he similarlyignoredthe implication of the hole in the panel. Conceived as
they are from the central projection,the
naves of his cathedralsposition the subject
as the privilegedbut invisiblepoint from
which the architectureis constructed.
Occupation occurs through the line of
sight. The gesture that classicismmakes
towardthe closureof space aroundthis
unitarypoint of referencesuggeststhe
conceptual collapse of space and the
subject at the geometralpoint. This indicates a fargreatersubversionof classicism
than any of the gesturesof recent architectures towardthe fragmentationof forms
and the multiplicityof framesof reference.
The destructionof classicismseems to lie
in the extreme of fixity:a classicismthat
takes its own devices and representations
to the logical extreme, where absolutely
nothing moves, where stressedto the
limit, they begin to implode. Such destructionwould removethe classicalsubject entirelyfrom classicalarchitectureby
eliminating the subject'sdisplacement
from its image. This absolute degree zero
of architecturewould resemble nothing so
much as Descartes'sblackbox, the contractedworldof the tomb.26
It has taken five hundred yearsto understand the implicationsof Brunelleschi's
mirrorfor the structureof the subject in
the visibleworld.Notwithstandingthe
commentaryof Alberti,Leonardo,Descartes, and other theoristsof representation and perceptionwho have ignoredthe
implicationsof the hole in the panel, the
(image of the eye)/I has mutilated the
worldfrom the moment perspectivewas

instituted by Brunelleschi'sdemonstration. That is, the image of the eye disrupted the classicalsubject-objectrelation
at its origin.The Lacaniansplit does not
threaten the integrityof the classical
episteme from without; Lacaneffected a
transformationof the classicaltheoryof
perceptionby exploiting a problematicof
its own devices- the mirrorand optical
syntax. Likeall deconstructions,it is alreadyin the subject matter.Thus our
understandingof the classicalepisteme
evolves from an internalcomplexity at its
origin.27The presumedunity and priority
of the subject is a misunderstanding.
It remainsto projectthese findingsonto
architecturein the age of mechanical
reproduction.The importanceof the
photographin Le Corbusier'sdiscourse
and the way that he co-opted the strategies of advertisingand mass-mediaculture
in his practicehave been chartedelsewhere.28Here it may help to imagine,
parenthetically,two of Le Corbusier's
temporaryarchitectures:first, the Pavillon
de l'EspritNouveau and the Ville
Contemporainethat was displayedin it,
which for the purposesof the following
argumentare perhapsbest understoodas a
single project,and second, the exhibition
at the Salon d'Automneof a furnished
model apartmentinterior.Both projects,
in differentways,insist on their status as
images. This insistence sheds light both on
the function of representationin Le
Corbusier'sthought and oeuvreand on the
idea of an architecturethat represents/
reproducesitself. Such an architecture
would providethe counterpartto Lacan's
operationalmontage, involvingthe imageproducingrelationand its inverse;this
architecturewould elucidate Lacan's
imaginaryregister.
25
assemblage 18
L'ESPRIT
M.W
. 'OCH*UWW
11
1,11
T.4
NOUVEAU
Le Corbusier: Toward a
Mirror Architecture
The Ville Contemporainewas a hypothetical city intended to addresscontemporary
urbanproblems.Originallydesigned in
1922 for an exhibition at the Salon d'Automne concernedwith improvementsto
the city of Paris,in 1925 it was published
in L'EspritNouveau28 (the final issue)
and resited in the Pavillonde l'Esprit
Nouveau along with the Plan Voisin de
Paris,a practicalapplicationof the plan
and ideas of the VilledContemporaineto
the renovationof Paris.In 1927 both
projectswere publishedwith extensive
The Pavillon
commentaryin Urbanisme.29
de l'EspritNouveau, built for the Exposition Internationaledes Arts Decoratifs,
showcasedLe Corbusier'sart, furniture,
and variousmodern utensils. By exhibiting the Ville Contemporaineas well, Le
Corbusiertransformedthe pavilioninto a
comprehensivedisplayof decorativearts,
interiordesign, architecture,and urbanism, and so encompassedthe full territory
of what is "proper"to architecture.
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3a. Coverof L'EspritNouveau 28

(January1925). The opening of
the Pavilionde I'EspritNouveau
coincided with the cessation of
publicationof the journal.Around
the same time, LeCorbusier's
architecturepracticetook off. He
seemingly relinquishedthe representation of architecturein two
dimensions for its constructionin
three. The status of the art object
in publications,as an image displaced from its origins, infiltrates,
intentionally or otherwise, Le
Corbusier'sarchitecture.
3b. Entry(side) faqade of the Pavilionde

I'EspritNouveau, a prototype maison en
sdrie. As an assembly-linemachine a
habiter, the pavilionwas to be mechanically reproducedover and over again and
so have the same nonoriginarystatus as
both the objet-types of modern life
displayed within it and its many images
in LeCorbusier'spublications.
4. View of the Pavilionde I'Esprit

Nouveau. The pavilionon the fairgrounds
was both architecture- full-scale,
durable, occupiable, functional - and a
model of architecture- part of a display,
a typical unit, reproducible,involved in
relationswith other images that situated
it visuallywithin the city. Itwas, at once,
an architectureand a representationof
an architecture.Architecturein the
imaginaryregister is a constructionof
two- and three-dimensionalimages. The
classicaldistinction between object and
image is underminedwhen the object
turns out to be an image as well.
26
Holm
5a. Drawingsof the displayfor the Ville

Contemporainediorama.The Ville
Contemporainecame complete with
instructionsfor its "erection,"as if, in the
rarefied realm of the theoretical project,
or mass-mediaadvertising,there were no
distinctionsbetween an object and its
image.30
When the Ville Contemporainewas
resited in the pavilion, in an addition that
was built to accommodate the diorama,
the exchange between architectureand
image intensified. The pavilionwas a
model unit of an immeuble-villablock,
hence a representation.These villas
constituted the urbanfabric of the
modern city. The diorama allowed the
visitorto the pavilionto look through a
stripwindow onto a view of the city at
large, of which the pavilionwas itself a
constitutive fragment.
5b. Section of the diorama in the Pavilion

de I'EspritNouveau
5c. Panoramicview of the PlanVoisinde

Paris.The ville was sited in the pavilion
and the pavilion situated visuallyin the
city.
27
assemblage 18
~Jflhflg.
Cthetus
dP.
Axisvimiajim
Paineof reflecnoun
ZI
'/k~,''
6a. Mirrordiagram.The mirrorplan
providesthe general form of an
architecturethat represents itself. It
contains a symmetryproduced by the
cutting and folding of the mirror,where
the trace of the cut remainsin the plan.
The symmetricalplan has a proper center
that positions an occupant, but here the
line of the mirrorsubvertsthe usual
expectations for occupation.
//
//
I-.
J~ /
/''"
6c. The notation for such an architecture

can be extracted from LeCorbusier's
sketches:the plan evaluates the strip
window.
6b. Mirrornotation. The dotted line

signifies the mirroras a displacedcenter
or displaced
faqade.
6d. The frameless large glass suggests

montage ratherthan perspective.The
window maps a two-dimensional space
onto a three-dimensionalspace.
28
Holm
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7a. Palladio,Palazzo Antonin Antonini,

Udine. A mirrorarchitectureis produced
by cutting and montaging a (randomly
selected) suburbanvilla.
7b. Descartes'stomb. The project

collapses on itself because the center has
been surgicallyremoved. Thisis perhaps
the theoretical limit of classicism.
7c. Immeuble-villa.The project is cut

and aggregated. The facade has been
"modernized."(Thesuburbanvilla is one
of the sources of Le Corbusier'sproject;
that is, the imageryof nature, the
polemic of the parkin the city/the city
in the park.)
29
assemblage 18
8a. Pavilionde I'EspritNouveau as a

mirrorplan fragment. The house is a
machine for viewing images of the city.31
Descartes'seye emerges from its (opened)
black box. Thisarchitectureis incomplete,
suggesting always that there might be
something beyond it to make it whole
again.
8b. Immeuble-villablock as an aggregate

of mirrorfragments. The predicamentof
the fragment is reiterated but never
resolved. So long as the central element
between the symmetricalhalves is a
partition,and not a space, it will never
be whole.32
9a. Palazzo Farnese,Rome, quartered.

The courtyardpalazzo is one of the
formal sources of the perimeter block and
one of the historicalparadigmsof the
urbanfabric.
The Imaginary Interior

The exhibition of dquipementintirieur
d'unehabitationat the Salon d'Automne
in 1929 was another full-scalemodel
architecture.It was an apartmentinterior
- a collection of modern periodroomsin which was displayedfurnituredesigned
by Le Corbusier,Charlotte Perriand,and
PierreJeanneret.In the photographsof the
exhibition that Le Corbusierpublished in
Architecturevivanteand elsewhere,it is
possible to discern,compressedinto the
design of the furnitureand the layout of
the rooms, his discourseon the makingof
space and the conditions for its occupation. Le Corbusier'sinvestigationshave
two trajectories:the "furniture-objects"
(tables,chairs,and so on) that relate
directlyto the human body and the casiers
standards(rectilinearframe-and-panelwall
systems) that relate to enclosure.33
9b. The L-shapedplan of the immeublevillaseems to be a quarterfragment of a

courtyardpalazzo generated by reflecas well
tion. Thissuggests that the
marksthe
as the orthogonal partition,facade,
abandons
trace of the mirror.The
its traditional function offacade
masking interior from exterior;its blankness- its
invisibility- is the cut of the mirror,the
site of montage or reflection.
30
Holm
The chairasserts its objectlike status

as prime occupant of the space, a
replacement for the human: "decorative
arts represent a kind of orthopedics";
"furniture ... as artificial limbs." Le
Corbusier'schairsassume the essential

characteristicsof the human bodies
whose positions they usurp.Likethe
body, each chair is understood visuallyin
terms of the articulationsand trajectories
of its various moving parts.34
10a. Montage of the Salon d'Automne

10b. Side view of a fauteuil basculant
The ultimate container for any type of

object, comparableto the gridded canvas
of the puriststill life.3sThe diagram rivals
the Domino frame as the spatial structure
of a puristarchitecture.The casiers
standardspresent a condensation of Le
Corbusier'swall types and replicateevery
surface, where the surface is a repository
for representations.The extreme juxtaposition and implied equivalence between
surface and space - whether opaque,
reflective, transparent,open framed,
or printed on - suggests a rapid-fire
interaction between space represented
and space perceived. Elsewhere,this has
been called phenomenal and literal
transparency.36
1la. Furnishedliving room in the Salon

d'Automne
11b. Detail of a casierstandard in the

Salon d'Automne
1ic. Diagramfor assembling the metal

sections of a casierstandard
31
assemblage 18
12a-b. The imaginarybathroom/bedroom

wall. If in the Salon d'Automne model
apartment we see the invisiblewall, it is
because it is supposed to be there. This
may be unproblematic,because expected,
in a tableau architecture.But what
happens when the imaginarystatus of
the wall is carriedinto architecture?
13a-b. The imaginarylobby/lounge wall.

Inthe PavilionSuisse,completed in 1932,
three years after the Salon d'Automne
exhibition, the wall is no longer invisible,
but it remains imaginary.The imaginary
wall always playson its ambiguous status
as image, undercutting its abilityto
define a space by enclosing it. The
aesthetic impact of the space depends on
the irresolvablecrisisit provokes at its
edges, between space perceived
(enclosed) and space represented
(image).37
14a-b. The imaginaryfaqade from within.

The living-roomfaqades of the Villas
Savoye and Churchseem to mirrortheir
interiors.Likethe mirrorplaced at the
threshold, the imaginarywall subvertsthe
possibilityof distinguishing interiorand
exterior space.
32
Holm
Le Corbusier: The Camera:

The Subject Represented
Classicism identified space perceived
(eye) with space represented(gaze)
through the agency of the mirror.In the
classicaldiagramderivedfrom optics, the
trianglesare aligned. Lacanuses the mirrorto delaminate them. In his diagram,
they are reversedand superimposedand
cross only at the image/screen.Lacan
realizesthat this is tantamount to disengaging representationfrom the conditions
of perception,which is preciselywhat the
cameradoes: "The gaze is the instrument
... throughwhich I am photo-graphed.
"8
The camerais the modern analog of the
mirror,a latter-daystandardof verisimilitude in representation.The camerais "a
mirrorwith a memory."39It shareswith
the mirrorthe powerto effect an exact
correspondencewith three-dimensional
space as well as the powerto construct,
conflate, and replicate.The camerareplaces the mirrorin Lacan'sthought as he
develops the concept of the gaze, from its
beginnings in "The MirrorStage"to "Of
the Gaze as Objet Petit a." The realm
constructedthrough the camerais one in
which the subject is firstand foremost an
image, and only secondarilya point of
indicates not
perception."Photo-graphed"
only that the subject is inscribedin the
scopic field through the agency of the
gaze, but also that the gaze is relatedto
signification,which is shot throughwith
absence. Brutevision would be a meaningless plenitude. All representationsare
graphic,that is, signifiers,and it is signification that structuresand gives sense to
the visual.The camera,which producesa
graphicimage without the presenceof a
witness, introducesthe possibilitythat the
point by which the image is structuredthe gaze - might markthe site of an
absence.
15a. AlbrechtDurer,Draughtsman
Drawing a Recumbent Woman, 1525. The
perspectivalwindow/veil of reality.
15b. Lee Friedlander,Self-Portrait,Route

9W, New York,1969. The mirror
reflection of reality. Friedlander,like
Lacan,montages the veil and the mirror.
33
assemblage 18
16a. Opening spread of "LesTraces

regulateurs"in Versune architecture.
Delaminationof space perceivedand
space represented.
It is one of the contentions of this paper

that Le Corbusier'sarchitecturalargument
is advancedin the interactionbetween his
photographsand his architecture.The
classicalobject, which purportsto stand
separatefrom and constitute the originof
its image, is complete. But in the imaginaryregister,even the object is an image.
Le Corbusier'sarchitecture,inhabitedby
the attributesof the image, is always
proposingits imaginary- retractedother half. His interiorspaces seem to
provokea continuous and irresolvable
exchange between space perceivedand
space represented(which are never quite
identical as they are in the classicalinterior).There is a correspondingsplit in the
(image of the eye)/I - within his photographs,his spaces, and their occupants. Le
Corbusier'sphotographsof his spaces
explicate this imaginaryregister.
In the double-pagespreadthat introduces
"LesTraces regulateurs"in Versune architecture,Le Corbusieruses the binding to
breakdown Alberti'scostruzionelegittima
into its constituent elements of gridded
ground plane and griddedpictureplane, as
though the structureof the optical space
of perceptioncould be separatedfrom its
two-dimensionalrepresentation.40 On the
verso (which ends the previouschapter),
16b. (Photographof) the studio of the

MaisonOzenfant. Relaminationof space
perceived and space represented.
an invisiblesubject- the readeris
positioned in the space of the rooftop
garden;on the recto, the flatnessof the
arch elevation preventsthe positioningof
any subject, readeror otherwise.Le
Corbusierrelaminatesthe costruzionein
his photographof the three-dimensional
griddedcrystallinecube that lies embedded (like the eye in La Dioptrique)in the
plan of the Ozenfant studio of 1923,
which appearsin a later chapter,"Maisons
en Serie."41'
Together these photographs
the
express
essentiallyheterogeneous
aspect of the photographicspace:that it is
constituted by both the optical depth of
the eye/I and the two-dimensionalplane
of representation,as if it were alreadya
montage.
The window is the site, in architecture,of
the subject-objectrelation.42And we can
expect it to be problematizedin photographsof Le Corbusier'sinteriors.In the
(photographof the) Ozenfant studio, a
fenetreen longueuris montaged onto
Alberti'sveil.43The registrationof the
horizon line on the mullion of the strip
window montages the landscapeonto the
(image of the) studio, as if it were itself an
image. This disruptsthe classicalrelation
of inside to outside and subject to object,
because the relationis not effected by the
orthogonalline of sight and the implied

continuity of ground plane (as it is in the
rooftop photograph,where the perspective
gridleads into the landscape)but by the
horizontalline of incision, a processthat
involvesan image without a perceiving
subject." No eye/I sees this landscape.
Ozenfant has been removedfrom the
space as a privilegedsubject, the site of a
perspectiveconstruction,and resurrected
throughhis effects (the opened paint box
and arrangedchairs)trappedin the cubic
net of the picture. Lacanwritesthat "as
subjects,we areliterallycalled into the
picture, and representedhere as caught."4s
The site of perception- Ozenfant - is
displacedto the reader.Since the camera
is located in the section at the height of
the eye, we may assume that these effects
are not just a contrivanceof the photograph.46The perceptualcondition of the
space is the same as its representation.
Being in the Ozenfant studio is like being
in the photographof the studio.
In (a photographof) the living room of the
Maison Church at Ville d'Avray,a fendtre
en hauteuris montaged againsta fenetreen
longueur;when the fenetreen longueur
turns out to be a mirror,the landscapeand
the fenetreen hauteurthat framesit are
reducedto the status of an image.At
the moment of perception,perception
becomes representation.The camera,
observedtakinga photographof itself,
underscoresthis point. Le Corbusieruses
the mirrorto double and invertthe space,
thus reproducingLacan'soperational
montage. The structureof this mirrored
and photographedspace correspondsto
the scopic field, in the kind of one-to-one
correspondencethat we expect from the
mirroror the photograph.With reference
to Lacan'sdiagram,the space consists of
three planes:the mirroredrearwall is the
object;the fenetreen hauteuris the image/
screen;the photographis the picture.At
the apex of the trianglewhose base is the
photographis the camera- the picture-
34
Holm
making machine that is the gaze; at the

apex of the trianglewhose base is the
mirrorshould be the eye of Le Corbusier
- the subject - but he has vacatedthe
room, leaving only the readerlooking at
the picture with a cameraaimed at him.
No subject escapes the picture:Le
Corbusier'sarchitectureis the instrument
through which even the readeris "photographed."47
The camera,positioned by the mirror
outside the space into which it aims,
suggests that the interiorof the room, as
well as the landscape,might be a montage
upon the window.This image/screenlies
at the intersectionof two triangular
schemas:this outside is an object of negotiation between two insides. Representation constitutes a limit between inside and
outside. The cameraremindsus that every
inside is also an outside, that each limit be it window, mirror,or photographcan be conflated, that the reader'sand the
picture'sspace can be reversed.Every
perceivedspace is also subject to the gaze,
as is the cameraitself and, ultimately, the
reader.The (photographof the) room and
the space of the readerhave the heterogeneous structureof montage. The mirror
and cameraare not used to reflect a fully
constructed space, distanced from the
subject by the picture plane that functions
as a limit, as it does in Brunelleschi's
architecture,but to construct a new space
in which the readerparticipates.The
photographleaps forward,and in a vertiginous reversalof roles, engages the reader.
The Conditions of Occupation
The comparisonbetween Brunelleschiand
Le Corbusierthrough the resistof Lacan
providesa compelling case for the argument that the most informedarchitecture
of each age aligns itself with a characteristic mode of representationand constructs
its occupant, the subject of perceptionnot vice-versa.Brunelleschi'snaves posit
17a. Livingroom of the Villa Church,

redux. An uncannyview shows just how
empty the room is. The subject disappears
and the reader is called into the picture.48
the center point of Renaissancehumanism; Le Corbusier'spurist interiors,the

distributedLacaniansubject.Architecture
continuallypostulatesa relationbetween
itself and its occupant. It structuresthe
limit between inside and outside and
determines the conditions under which
that limit can be crossed. In an architecture constructedthrough one-point perspective, the subject is reduced to the
apex of the visual pyramid.In San Lorenzo
the subject is placed along a line in the
center of enclosure. In an architecture
reconstructedthrough the camera,the
subject is displacedfrom its status as
cogito only to be reintroducedas an image.
The problematizationof the limit replaces
the orthogonalpenetrationby the line.
The Maison Church living room and the
Ozenfant studio restoreextension to the
subject through the distributionof relations among the images that they activate.
Occupation occurs through the image,
and the image is a surfacedistributed
aroundthe room. Room and subject are
coextensive and superimposed,suggesting
perverselythat architectureand its occupant are the same. Modernarchitecture
thus stands as a critique of classicalarchitecture through its restructuringof the
occupant.
17b. Edgertonphotographing
Brunelleschi.The camera displacesthe
subject of perception and enters the
picture.The reader is again called into the
picture.
This intense dynamic of surfaceand the

consequent repositioningof the subject is
nowheremore poignantlycorroborated
than in Samuel Edgerton'sphotomontage
reconstructionof Brunelleschi'sdemonstration:a photographof a mirrorreflection, over which are drawnthe perspective
lines and vanishingpoint, reconstructs
what purportsto be a neutralreflectionof
the world.An image of the subject replaces the punctal site of depth. There is
alwaysa blind spot in the center. ("Reality
is marginal.")49
Brunelleschicould not
have invented perspectivewithout it. The
dynamic of the horizonline in the Maison
Ozenfant erasesit into the veil. The opacity of the window in the Maison Church
places it in our eye, remindingus of the
artificialityand opacity of all looking from
our inside to the worldoutside. We live in
an ellipticalworldin which we can no
longer securelyposit ourselvesas its single
center. We constructthe worldfrom our
own perspective;but consciousnessis a
figurenegotiated between two triangles,
which lies like a blind spot in our field of
action. "Youneverlook at me from the
place from which I see you."'5A camera
gazes out of the page;you, reader,are
photo-graphed.
35
assemblage 18
Notes
1. Quoted in Samuel Y. Edgerton,
Jr.,The RenaissanceRediscoveryof
LinearPerspective(New York:Basic
Books, 1975), chap. 9, "The Discovery of the VanishingPoint."
2. Ibid., chap. 10, "Brunelleschi's
First PerspectivePicture."
3. Leon BattistaAlberti, On Painting and Sculpture,trans. Cecil
Grayson(London:Phaidon Press,
1972), bk. 2, par.26.
4. This marksa radicalchange from
previousconceptions. Painting had
been understoodas a concretization
of spirit,a manifestation, through
the use of established models, of the
inner life of the artist. See Erwin
Panofsky,The CodexHuygensand
LeonardoDa Vinci'sArt Theory
(London:WarburgInstitute, 1940),
90.
5. See Rudolf Wittkower,
"Brunelleschiand 'Proportionin
Perspective,"'in Idea and Image:
Studies in the Italian Renaissance
(New York:Thames and Hudson,
1978).
6. "In its attitude towardart the Renaissance thus differed fundamentally from the Middle Ages in that it
removed the object from the inner
world of the artist'simagination and
placed it firmlyin the 'outer world.'
This was accomplished by laying a
distance between 'subject'and 'object' much as in artistic practiceperspective placed a distance between
the eye and the worldof things - a
distance which at the same time objectifies the 'object' and personalizes
the 'subject"'(ErwinPanofsky,Idea:
A Conceptin Art Theory:A Study in
the Definition and Conceptionof the
Term'Idea,'fromPlato to the 17th
century,When the ModernDefinition Emerged[Columbia:University
of South CarolinaPress, 1966]).
7. Alberti,On Painting and Sculpture,bk. 1, par. 19.

8. Piranesi'sCarceriare perhapsa
notable exception.
9. Brunelleschihad to employ very
"modern"representationalstrategies. His image was a montage
conflating categoriesof representation (illusionistic two-dimensional
painted image and reflected threedimensional reality)and the reflected real eye of the subject of
perception,which would otherwise
have remainedoutside the representation as its unacknowledgedsponsor.
10. Leonardo,writingabout eighty
yearsafter Brunelleschi'sdemonstration, supportsthis diagram:"Perspective employs in distances two
opposite pyramids,one of which has
its apex in the eye and its base as far
awayas the horizon. The other has
the base towardsthe eye and the
apex on the horizon. But the first is
concerned with the universe,embracingall the mass of the objects
that pass before the eye, as though a
vast landscapewas seen through a
small hole, the number of the objects seen through such a hole being
so much the greaterin proportionas
the objects are more remote from
the eye; and thus the base is formed
on the horizon and the apex in the
eye, as I have said above. The second pyramidhas to do with a peculiarityof landscape,in showing itself
so much smallerin proportionas it
recedes fartherfrom the eye; and
this second instance of perspective
springsfrom the first"(The Notebooksof LeonardoDa Vinci, trans.
and ed. EdwardMacCurdy[New
York:Braziller,1954], bk. 33, "Perspective," 1000). The second pyramid is the virtualpyramidformed
on the picture plane by the diminution of elements towardthe vanishing point, which marksits apex.
11. JacquesLacan,"Of the Gaze as

Objet Petit a," in The FourFundamental Conceptsof Psychoanalysis,
trans. and ed. Alan Sheridan (New
York:W. W. Norton, 1981), 106.
12. In La DioptriqueDescartes uses
the analogyof a blind man with a
stick to make intelligible the optical
structureof space. This is the first
triangleonly. The second triangle
accounts for visibility.In the scopic
field there is no way to attribute extension and other qualities to the
subject unless it, too, is subject to
the same structure- a projection
through a plane from a point - as
has been constructed from it: in
other words,unless it, too, is looked
at. See Rene Descartes, The Optics,
in Discourseon Method,Optics, Geometry,and Meteorology,trans. Paul
Olscamp (Indianapolis:BobbsMerrill,1965).
13. See JacquesLacan,"The
MirrorStage as Formativeof the
Function of the I as Revealedin
PsychoanalyticExperience,"in
Ecrits:A Selection,trans.Alan
Sheridan (New York:W. W.
Norton, 1977). The idea of himself
as a unified entity that the subject
forms is imaginary,that is, embodied in an image - and like any image it stands in an external relation
to himself. The mirrorstage occurs
before the child can physicallycontrol himself. Thus long before the
body functions as a unified coordinated entity, the subject has an image of himself as such. This double
movement of frustrationwith the
body and anticipation, though the
image, of a future unity, from
which the subject is essentiallydistanced and alienated, structuresthe
conscious self (the ego) thereafter.
14. Lacan,"Of the Gaze as Objet
Petit a," 73.
15. Ibid., 62.
36
16. Ibid., 105.

17. Ibid., 106.
18. The imaginaryregisteris the
world as it is embodied in images,
conscious or unconscious, perceived
or imagined. In Lacan'sschema, the
imaginaryis as realas it gets. Lacan
takes great pains to distinguish this
from a kind of idealism accordingto
which we live in a world of appearances that mask a difficult to attain
reality (both of which, presumably,
are availableto signification).The
imaginaryregisterstands in a relation to the symbolic and the real. By
the symbolic, Lacanmeans signification; by the real, that which has
no adequate signifierbut to which
significationwill always- unsuccessfully- return,precisely
because signification can never
apprehendit. The real is the nothing that marksthe limit of the
symbolic and the imaginary.
Petit a," 86.
20. Ibid., 79.
21. Samuel Edgerton,Martin
Kemp, and Eugenio Battisti each
discuss the possible dimensions of
the demonstration. If the hole gets
too small in diameter,because the
panel has a thickness, the cone of
vision will be too narrowto see
enough of the reflected image in
the mirror.Likewise,if the mirroris
too small, it will not reflect the
whole painting;or if too big, it will
reflect the body of the viewerand
ruin the illusion. Similarproblems
occur if the mirroris held too close
or too farawayfrom the painting.
See Edgerton, "Brunelleschi'sFirst
PerspectivePicture";MartinKemp,
The Scienceof Art:Optical Themes
in WesternArt fromBrunelleschito
Seurat (New Haven:Yale University
Press, 1990), app. 2, "Brunelleschi's
Demonstration Panels";and
Holm
Eugenio Battisti, Brunelleschi:The

CompleteWork (London:Thames
and Hudson, 1981), chap. 7, "Experiments with Perspective."
22. "The (image of the eye)/I"
equals Lacan'ssubject. The I (an
entity, the Cartesianpoint of
thought and perception) and the
image of the eye (the image of the
conscious subject) are interrelated
in the context of the scopic field.
The separatrixindicates that this is
a relationalentity.
23. Lacan mentions both La
Dioptriqueand the Meditations. See
"Of the Gaze as Objet Petit a," 87,
85.
24. See Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophyin which
the Existenceof God and the Distinction of the Soul from the BodyIs
Demonstrated,trans. Donald Cress
(Indianapolis:Hackett Publications,
1979).
25. This launches a vicious, infinite
regress:at each step there is a blind
spot that requiresan additional perceiver. Accordingto this account of
perception, we would need eyes in
our eyes in our eyes in our eyes ...
26. The scopic field models the annihilation of the classicalsubject in
Brunelleschi'sarchitectureand
Descartes'sthought, where the subject is strippedof all attributes, including extension. The alienation of
the subject from its image - the
split between the eye and the gaze
- is the dimension of the subject.
This operation of annihilation can
be understood by referenceto the
syntax of mirrorreflection. In
Lacan'sdiagram,the image/screen
has extension only so long as x is
greaterthan zero. But when x equals
zero, the image loses its extension
and the subject as an entity in the
world disappears.
27. Other theorists have deter-
mined that the precondition of the

subject of perception is that it is
embedded in the visible. Maurice
Merleau-Pontywrites that the possibility of seeing is grounded in the
seer's own visibility ("The Intertwining - the Chiasm," in The Visible and the Invisible [Evanston:
NorthwesternUniversity, 1968]).
He delimits the concept of the flesh
of the world,a world of absolute
contiguity not unlike the space in a
Cezanne landscape,which stands
against the Cartesianworld of objects distributed in a metric space
("Cezanne'sDoubt," in Sense and
Non-Sense [Evanston:Northwestern
University, 1964]). He also refersto
the subject as relationaland distributed: as a double circle, the one
slightly displaced from the other.
Roger Caillois writes that the identity of the subject depends on its
ability to distinguish itself from its
spatial context. The mimetic function in insects - whereby,for example, a moth tries to resemble a
leaf - is not related to survival(for
as many of these moths can be
found in the stomachs of birds as
moths that do not disguise themselves as the inedible); rather,the
mimetic function indicates the psychic collapse of the subject: the inability of the subject to distinguish
itself, as an image, from its context,
the spatial field surroundingit. The
subject is structuredby the dihedral
of action that resides in the subject
and moves with him and the dihedral of representationthat is the (visual) image that he has of himself.
When these are brought together,
the subject is annihilated and can
no longer distinguish himself within
a spatial context. Caillois refersto
the experiences of the schizophrenic. "'Iknow where I am, but I
do not feel as though I'm at the
spot where I find myself.' To these
dispossessed souls, space seems to
be a devouringforce .... Life takes a

step backwards"("Mimicryand Legendary Psychasthenia,"October31
[Winter 1984]: 28-30). Lacan
makes referenceto the workof both
Merleau-Pontyand Caillois. But the
power of Lacan'sworkis that he is
able to tie it to the discourseof optics/representationand the device of
the mirror,which plays such a central role.
28. "Mechanicalreproduction"is
the term employed by Beatriz
Colomina in documenting how Le
Corbusieruses the photographto
construct space and produce meaning in his architecture.Much of the
following argumentwas inspiredby
Colomina's comments when she visited Washington Universityin St.
Louis for the GraduateSeminar
Programin the springof 1990. See
Colomina, "Le Corbusierand Photography,"Assemblage4 (October
1987): 7-23, and idem, "L'Esprit
Nouveau:Architectureand
Publicite',"in Architectureproduction, ed. Joan Ockman and Beatriz
Colomina (New York:PrincetonArchitectural Press, 1988), 56-99. In
Colomina
Architectureproduction,
explains that Le Corbusierused the
publication, not as a reflective medium that mirroredhis workin
words and images, turning it into an
object of contemplation as did Narcissus of his own image, but rather
as a productivemedium that constructed a new object in the space of
the page (p. 238). This process is
akin to advertising,whose strategyis
alwaysto concoct something from
nothing. It is cognizant of the
epistemic condition of twentiethcentury representationand the
parallelrestructuringof the
subject-object relation in perception. Representationis no longer
Alberti'smirrorof nature, reflecting,
imitating a priorconstituted object.
37
Instead, it also reflects back the interior condition (the ideas and intentions) of the author.The mirror
is scratched.In "Le Corbusierand
Photography,"Colomina explains
the role of the photographin Le
Corbusier'sformaldiscourse,with
referenceto the Villa Schwob. The
architectureprojectbegins in the
realm of ideas; design and construction implement it in a manner inevitably contaminated by the
contingencies of the world;photographsof the built project,suitably
adjusted, returnit to the realm of
ideas. It is in this context - and not
as a mere falsificationof realitythat Le Corbusier'spracticeof doctoring images must be understood.
29. For a historyof the projects,see
Stanislausvon Moos, Le Corbusier:
Elementsof a Synthesis (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 1979), 187-90.
30. Among the drawingsfor the
Ville Contemporaine are axonometrics and details for the display
of the drawings.The dioramaconsisted of a panoramicperspective
and a stagelikestructurewith a
forced perspectiveand curtains,
suggestive of the circus magician's
set-up for creating illusion. This device had pilotis and a strip window.
See The Le CorbusierArchive:Early
Buildingsand Projects,1912-1923
(New York:GarlandPublishing;
Paris:Fondation Le Corbusier,
1982).
31. Le Corbusieroften uses the
building to position and frame a
view. See, in particular,the project
for an apartmenthouse in Algiers,
1933, and the Cartesianskyscraper,
1938, which Le Corbusierdeveloped
as generalbuilding type and applied
to many of his urbanprojects.
32. We could develop a taxonomy
based on the mirrorplan.
1. Variationson the center surgically
assemblage 18
removed:
a. The vacated center: the entry
ramp that passesbetween the two
lobes of the CarpenterCenter for
the VisualArts, Cambridge, 196164.
b. The unoccupiable center: the
ramp of the Villa Savoye, Poissy,
1929-31, the column line in the
Maison Cook, Paris, 1926, and the
balcony that diagonallydivides the
project for the Maisons en Serie
pour Artisans, 1924.
c. The center removed and the trace
(wall) displaced:Maison Planeix,
Paris, 1927.
d. The center traumatized:the entry
sequence to the Porte Molitor apartments, Paris, 1933.
2. The project intended to complete
itself by reflection (mirroringitself
vertically) so that the entry is in the
center of the body: the Palace of
Justice, Chandigarh,1952. This is
indicated by numerous sketches, as
Robert Slutzkynotes in "Aqueous
Humor,"Oppositions 19-20
(Spring-Winter 1980): 39.
3. The mirrorplan:Maison Clarte,
Geneva, 1930-32, the projectsfor
houses in Loucheur, 1929, and a
residentialtower in Pessac, 1923.
4. The mirrorplan fragment:Palais
des Nations, Geneva, 1927, and
Maison La Roche-Jeanneret,Paris,
1923.
5. The mirrorplan where the faqade
is the trace of a cut: the villa for his
mother, Lac L6man, 1925.
6. The mirrorfaqade,of which more
later:Villa Savoye,Maison Cook,
Maison Ozenfant, Paris, 1923, and
Villa Church, Ville d'Avray,192829.
33. Renato de Fusco, Le Corbusier,
Designer:Furniture,1929 (Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron's,1977), 18-19.
This workcontains an extensive
portfolio documentation of the different pieces of furniture.
34. The chairscan be classified accordingly:the fauteuil grandconfort

(1928) moves up and down;the
chaise longuea riglage continu
(1929) rotates verticallyto describe
the circumferenceof a circle;the
fauteuil basculant (1929) moves forwardand backward;and the different versions (stool and armchair)of
the fauteuil tournant (1929) rotate
horizontally.Le Corbusier,quoted
in ibid., 17.
35. The casiersstandardsare a
modularwall storagesystem comprisedof a structuralframe and interchangeablepanels, doors, shelves,
and drawers.Their development can
be traced through three exhibitions:
the room partitionsin the Pavillon
de l'EspritNouveau, 1925, the wall
units in the Salon d'Automne, 1929,
and the basic unit on pilotis in the
Model Home for a Young Man,
BrusselsInternationalExhibition,
1935.
36. Robert Slutzkyand Colin Rowe,
"Transparency:Literaland Phenomenal,"Perspecta13-14 (1971). They
referto the extreme stratificationof
space, parallelto the faqade.
37. There are numerous other examples. A similarexchange between
perceivedand representedspace,
based on the wall as bearerof images, occurs in Le Corbusier'sphotographsof the mirroredwall in the
dining room of the Maison Cook,
which reflects the strip window behind it.
Petit a," 106. Walter Benjaminfirst
understoodthat the photograph
marksan epistemic breakbetween
representationand the conditions of
perception. See "The Work of Art in
the Age of MechanicalReproduction," in Illuminations(New York:
Schocken, 1969).
39. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.;
quoted in RosalindKrauss,"Corpus
Delicti," in RosalindKraussand
Jane Livingston,L'AmourFou:Photographyand Surrealism(New York:
Abbeville Press, 1985), 78.
40. See ErwinPanofsky,Renaissance and Renaissancesin Western
Art (New York:Harperand Row,
1972),123-27.
41. Both of these images markimportant moments in Le Corbusier's
thought. The double-page spreadis
a significant detail in the construction of Le Corbusier'stext. It introduces the chapter in which the two
main themes runningthrough his
thought intersect:the optical theme
that valorizespure volumes (in
light) and the theme of rationality
that extols the plan as generatorand
site of clear intention. The regulating lines are those that determine,
primarily,the elevation of the plan
into three dimensions: they regulate
the confrontationof an idea with
the light of day. It is significant that
this exposition appearsin the same
chapter in which Le Corbusierintroduces the primitivehut, his version of the foundation myth of
architecture.See Versune architecture (Paris:Editions Cres, 1923),
48-49, 54-55.At the time of Vers

une architecture'spublication, the
Ozenfant studio was Le Corbusier's
only built project to realize the
double-height space of the
immeuble-villa.In the English
edition, the image of the Ozenfant
studio is inserted in the chapter
"Mass-ProductionHouses"
(Maisons en se'rie)in the discussion
of the immeuble-villaunit designed
for mechanical reproductionas both
photographand housing.
42. Severalcritiques have shown
that the debate between Auguste
Perretand Le Corbusier-Pierre
Jeanneret ("Petit contribution 'a
l'6tude d'une fenetre moderne,"in
38
Almanached'architecturemoderne
[Paris:Editions Cres, 1925]) aligns
the fenetreen hauteurwith the classical subject and the fenetreen
longueurwith space represented.
Perretidentifies the verticalwindow
with man and abhorsthe implications of the horizontal.The vertical
window providesthe perspective
frame of referencethat fixes the eye
in the privilegedposition vis-a-visan
exterior.It constructs the spatial
continuity of fore-, mid-, and background, organizedby the axis
from eye to vanishingpoint. Le
Corbusier-Jeanneretpresent the
strip window as an inevitable consequence of technology and evaluate
it with the photographer'slight
meter. The strip window undermines perspectivaldepth by cropping out the foregroundand
backgroundand making visible only
a middle ground at an indeterminate distance. This window substitutes the horizontalcoordinate for
the depth coordinate,which tends
to emphasize surfacemovement
across the plane of representationas
opposed to movement through perspective depth from the eye. See
BrunoReichlin, "The Prosand Cons
of the HorizontalWindow: The
Perret-Le CorbusierControversy,"
Daidalos 13 (September 1984): 65-
78.
43. Alberti,On Painting and Sculpture,bk. 2, par. 31. Alberti refersto
the gridded picture plane - gridded
for accuracyof placement of figures
- as a veil. Since Alberti'scodification of perspectivein 1435, the discourse of representationhas been
saturatedby contradictorymetaphors that belie the seamlessnessof
this world and suggest - like symptoms - a discord under the surface.
The veil indicates that this transparent media might be as much a concealer as a revealerof reality,that it
Holm
might have woven into its surface,a

fiction.
44. The horizon line no longer
functions as a device for constructing depth through spatial continuity; instead, it builds a picture
through contiguity and superimposition. The horizon line has been
placed above the vanishing point located by the converginglines of the
studio. No repositioningwill align
the vanishing point with the horizon
line: if the line of sight angles upward,the landscape will fall; if the
subject climbs the ladder at the
back of the studio to the loft, the
landscape will rise. This kind of disjunction in the structuresof representation suggests a phenomenal
opacity of the picture plane. There
is a blind spot in the veil, traced by
the difference between where the
horizon line is and where it ought to
be, which correspondsto the displacement by the camera of the subject (as punctal site of perception).
45. Lacan, "Of the Gaze as Objet
Petit a," 92.
46. In "L'Illusiondes plans"Le
Corbusierunderscoreshow the idea
- the space - of the plan must be
perceivablefrom eye level. The plan
that does not so revealitself is illusory. See Versune architecture,15760.
47. Except that he is, of course, not
there either. A contemporaryLas
Meninas:Velasquez has momentarilypaused from his task, he
emerges into the viewer'sgaze from
behind his canvas and looks at his
object, the viewer.A mirrorin the
backgroundrenderssomeone visible. The invisibilityat the base of
all perception/representationis displaced elsewhere.
48. Accordingto Lacan,anamorphism gives the generaldefinition
of the image as a projection on a
screen. Anamorphismraisesthe
issue of view and/or projection
point. An image normal for one is
anamorphicfor another, as would be
evident if the readercould see the
image projectedthrough the screen
in the Diirer woodcut. Anamorphism, which makes things weird,
involves a change of viewpoint; that
is, a change in the subject, not in
the object. This seeing things from
another point of view than one's
own, this understandingthings in a
new way, accounts for the uncanny.
To live in an anamorphicworld
would be to inhabit a world from
someone else's point of view, in this
case, the camera's.
Petit a," 108.
50. Ibid., 103.
FigureCredits
la. Redrawnby author, from
Jacques Lacan, "Of the Gaze as
Objet Petit a," in The FourFundamental Conceptsof Psychoanalysis,
trans. and ed. Alan Sheridan (New
York:W. W. Norton, 1981).
ib, 6b. Drawnby author.
2a. Rene Descartes,La Dioptrique,
in Oeuvresde Descartes:Discoursde
la methodeet essais (Paris:Cerf,
1902), bk. 6.
2b. Rudolf Wittkower, Ideaand
Image:Studies in the Italian Renaissance (London:Thames and
Hudson, 1978).
3a. L'EspritNouveau28 (January
1925; reprint,New York:Da Capo
Press, 1968).
3b, 4c, 6c, 8b, 9b. Le Corbusierand
PierreJeanneret,Oeuvrecomplete,
1910-1929 (Zurich:Les EIditions
d'architecture, 1964). Fig. 9b modified by author.
4a-b. Fondation Le Corbusier,

Paris.From H. Allen Brooks,ed.,
The Le CorbusierArchive(New
York:GarlandPublishing, 1983),
vol. 1, 1912-23, fig. 30.833, and vol.
2, 1923-27, fig. 23147.
5, 8a. L'Architecturevivante
(Winter 1925; reprint,New York:
Da Capo Press, 1975).
6a, 17b. Samuel Y. Edgerton,Jr.,
The RenaissanceRediscoveryof Linear Perspective(New York:Basic
Books, 1975).
6d. Le Corbusierand Franqoisde
Pierrefeu,The Home of Man, trans.
Clive Entwhistle and Gordon Holt
(London:The ArchitecturalPress,
1958).
7a. Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi, Le
fabbrichee i disegni di Andrea
Palladio (1796; reprint,London:
Alec Tiranti, 1968), bk. 3, pls. xii
and xiii.
7b-c. Drawnby author, derived
from Scamozzi.
9a. Paul Le Tarouilly,Edificesde
Romemoderne(1860; reprint,
Princeton:PrincetonArchitectural
Press, 1984), modified by author.
Printedby permissionof the publisher.
10a, Ila, 12a, 14b, 17a. L'Architecturevivante (Spring 1930; reprint,
New York:Da Capo Press, 1975).
10b. Maurizio Di Puolo et al., eds.,
Le Corbusier,CharlottePerriand,
PierreJeanneret:"Lamachinea'
s'asseoir,"exhibition catalogue
(Rome: De Luca Editore, 1976).
1lb-c, 12b. Renato De Fusco, Le
Corbusier,Designer:Furniture,1929
(Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron's,1977).
13a-b. L'Architecturevivante
(Winter 1933; reprint,New York:
Da Capo Press, 1975).
14a. Le Corbusierand Pierre
39
Jeanneret,Oeuvrecomplate,19291934 (Zurich:Les Editions

d'architecture,1964).
15a. AlbrechtDiirer,Master
Printmaker,exhibition catalogue
(Boston:Museum of Fine Arts,
1988).
15b. Rod Slemmons, Likea OneEyedCat: Photographsby Lee
Friedlander,1956-1987 (New York:
HarryAbrams, 1989).
16a-b. Le Corbusier,Versune architecture(Paris:Editions Vincent,
Fr6al, 1958).

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Reading through the Mirror: Brunelleschi, Lacan, Le Corbusier: The Invention of Perspective

and the Post-Freudian Eye/I

LorensHolm was educated at the

Assemblage 18 @1992 by the Massachusetts

Brunelleschi: The Mirror:

Narcissus,who was changed

And so I believe that Pippo

bring [the conception of the

the poets, was the inventor

Florentine found the way

mirrorstage] again to your

of painting. Since painting is

to make this plan [linear

attention,... for the light it

alreadythe flowerof every

perspective] which truly was

sheds on the formation of

art, the storyof Narcissusis

a subtle and beautiful thing,

most to the point. What else

can you call painting but a

experience that leads us to

oppose any philosophy

what is presented on the

Antonio Averlino Filarete,

directly issuing from the

surfaceof the water in the

Treatise on Architecture,ca. 1460

Leon Battista Alberti,

tion of the painting;then, the mirror

It was in Renaissanceart theorythat the

lb. Brunelleschi'sdemonstration. The

this, classicalarchitectureassented. The

defire icy \vous atlcrtil,

2a. Descartes,diagram of vision from

2b. Brunelleschi,nave of San Lorenzo,

apex of the second triangle." The

that the presenceof the image of the eye

positioned outside the box to complete

worldfrom the moment perspectivewas

3a. Coverof L'EspritNouveau 28

3b. Entry(side) faqade of the Pavilionde

4. View of the Pavilionde I'Esprit

5a. Drawingsof the displayfor the Ville

5b. Section of the diorama in the Pavilion

5c. Panoramicview of the PlanVoisinde

6c. The notation for such an architecture

6b. Mirrornotation. The dotted line

6d. The frameless large glass suggests

7a. Palladio,Palazzo Antonin Antonini,

7b. Descartes'stomb. The project

7c. Immeuble-villa.The project is cut

8a. Pavilionde I'EspritNouveau as a

8b. Immeuble-villablock as an aggregate

9a. Palazzo Farnese,Rome, quartered.

The Imaginary Interior

9b. The L-shapedplan of the immeublevillaseems to be a quarterfragment of a

The chairasserts its objectlike status

Corbusier'schairsassume the essential

10a. Montage of the Salon d'Automne

The ultimate container for any type of

1la. Furnishedliving room in the Salon

11b. Detail of a casierstandard in the