Pluralism in Architecture.

By Aaron Olko

Southern California Institute of Architecture

The Digital Turn
Fall 2012
Professor Amit Wolf
In the early and mid-1990s socio-political
theorist Robert Mangibeira Unger addressed
the global architecture community with two
different politically charged essays. In these
essays Unger proclaimed that society was
changing in a way that had never occurred
before and that the architecture which provides
for it should change dramatically as well. He
challenged architects to consider that the
change in architecture does not happen through
the architecture itself, but rather in the mind of
the architect as he must become aware of the
changing state of society through technology;
shifting tides from command and market
economies as well as statism and privatism to
Pluralistic interests in economics and politics.i
While this argument may not have become a
household, dinner table discussion among the
architecture community, it certainly hit the nail
right on the head; whether the architects of the
digital turn knew it or not. In the following text
I will discuss how Pluralism has affected the
evolution of the Digital Turn in Architecture.
The first of Ungers essays came in 1991
at the Anyone Conference in Los Angeles. Here
in the midst of discussions among some of the
worlds most influential Architectural thinkers
and designers Roberto Unger, as a complete
outsider, suggests that Architects stop taking
refuge in self-indulgent virtuosity and
prettiness and uphold the commitment to
express in physical vessels a shared vision of
collective life.ii The second essay came in the
form of a letter to Mr. William S. Saunders,
editor of the Harvard Design Magazine after a
panel discussion and ensuing article titled
Architecture in the Public Realm: A Public
Discussion in the Winter/Spring 1995 issue of
GSD News. Here Unger elaborates upon his
earlier dissemination at the Anyone Conference
through a more elaborate and refined statement
in which he expounds his conception of
Pluralism, provides examples of what he
believes to be an Architecture of Visionary
Naturalism, and eventually concludes with a
calling to arms of the students of the GSD.iii
In Ungers expounding of Pluarlism he
argues that latter-day urban icons would work
all the more if they became more pluralistic.iv
And that Pluralism would not merely combat
authoritarianism; it would open channels of
communication between the public symbols of
the state and the real life of society. In the
absence of such a pluralism, the iconic and
monumental space becomes, all too often, what
the myth of republican engagement a la Roman
Republic has generally been in the history of
political thought: an attempt to ennoble
through moral rearmament and edifying re-
description an unchanged set of political and
economic institutions.v The Pluralist argument
here - that Pluralism is emerging in
contemporary society and therefore we should
address this in architecture - is really nothing
new. However, for the first time since the initial
discussions of pluralism, there is need for
serious consideration.
In early twentieth century philosophy
Pluralism was a contrasting argument to
Monistic notions of reductionist principles in
existence. Pluralists believe in individuality and
infinite variation, claiming that no two beings
are the same. This is not to say that Pluralists
believe in individuality to the point of complete
autonomy, but rather that the multiplicities of
beings do not exist as one; our existence is based
on infinite influences creating infinite
differences among beings.
In political theory this concept is
applied as societies become larger and more
complex. Complexity in growing populations,
diverse cultural make-up, balanced age groups,
multiple religious sectors, numerous ethnicities,
and distributions (or the lack of distribution) in
wealth, ideologies, preferences, and anxieties all
become congealed into a progressive form of
variegated societal intellect. Because of these
various bodies of social intellect, allocations of
power become difficult to trace as individuals
find creative allegiances with other individuals
to aggregate into groups of association, so to
say.
Plural theorists propose the concept
that power is the manifestation of the use of
resources by an individual (or group) and that
any individual at any time and place has at their
disposal at least some amount of resources
either in their possession or within their
immediate proximity. When this is realized and
exercised by multiple groups the central body of
governance loses its ability to control society
through coercive means and subsequently
becomes a mediating organization to assure
peaceful relations between the Pluralistic
groups.
Herein lies the traditional Cartesian
organization of orthogonal societal power
structures and the question which Robert Dahl
poses in his critically acclaimed 1961 text Who
Governs? In Dahls book, he uses an example of
resource distribution in New Haven,
Connecticut in 1957 to show the inequality of
tax-paying registered voters. He notes that the
fifty largest property owners in New Haven own
one-third of all the usable property and amount
to less than one-sixteenth of one percent of tax
paying citizens.vi If resources are distributed as
such, how then is equality in the democratic
electoral process possible, Dahl questions. Over
the last thirty years, this access to resources has
shifted dramatically through the invention of
the Internet and the mass distribution of
Personal Computers.vii
Returning to Unger, we may see that
this argument can be considered a reviving of
pluralistic political and existential theories from
the early twentieth century. However, the
format of the argument could be nestled into a
modern day re-writing of Gottfried Sempers Die
vier Elemente (1851). Here Semper ponders the
development of architectural style through
external influences, such as the need for fire, the
evolution of material, and changing social
representation. This evolution in style occurred
due to the communal possibilities in which
rudimentary shelter provided. Subsequently
leading to social collaboration and eventually
politics.
This split in architectural style can be
seen through the typical nomadic hut and its
rudimentary form seen in Tibetan nomadic
architecture and that of Native American and
African tribal buildings (or tents/huts rather)
and the established order of architecture seen in
the civilizations of the Andes Mountains,
Greece, and Egypt.viii This may be a direct
difference between distributed social order in
the need for individual necessity and complex
social machines providing for the betterment of
all of its subordinates, or rather a contrast
between pluralistic and monistic political and
existential beliefs.
Throughout the history of Western
Architecture, the reductionist principle of
monism and unity in society can be seen
through the various styles of architecture
exhibited from the Acropolis to the axial
organizing and compositional principles of the
Ecole des Beaux Arts: various different forms of
post and lintel systems composed of rational
elements derived from proportions of the human
body and human head.ix This is also evident in
the imperial nature of symmetry to express
perfection in social icons as a way of ordering
hierarchical presence of sovereignty and power
over the masses of subordinate individuals, thus
reducing the variegated social complexities to
the power of one.
The architecture of the first and second
machine ages attempted to deviate from this
stratification in architecture by attempting to
eliminate indexes and dominating
proportionality all the while trying to create a
machine which seeks to provide for the
individual needs of the end user. The ultimate
intention was to provide for a more homogenous
(and hopefully) Pluralistic, International style of
design. This however turned into a further
system of oppression by enabling the forces of
capital to turn architecture into a machine of
cheap shelter rather than allowing the end user
to benefit from its mechanistic qualities.
This frustration within architecture was
then enabled further in the Post-Modern era as
collage compositions of multi-cultural
architectural components and basic geometries
were exploited to establish a contrast to the
utopian ideals of Modernism. The incoherence
of an architecture derived from a surrender to
exploitation resulted in the celebration of the
power of capital. This can be seen in the
oversized, imperial collage of various
architectural ornaments in the work of Michael
Graves and the complete loss of all
comprehensive discipline in the work of Robert
Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.x
This language of architecture
throughout civilization has furthered itself into
an abyss of non-significance. As the origins of
architecture stem from the basis of ideological
beliefs in Greek and Chinese philosophy,
Andean social structures, and Roman economy
the significance of such formal language has lost
its place among contemporary society, much
like the ideologies of the historical eras. This
formal language has thus begun the dissolution
of its significance into shop-talk; the talk of
geometric inquiry, separate from any talk of
social responsibility.xi This is the conundrum of
the architectural manifesto: the foundation of
significance upon which most manifestos are
built are hollow, subsequently deflating as soon
as they are inflated.
Unger uses the analogy of a swinging
pendulum to describe the cyclical trap of
architecture where the pendulum swings
between formal order and polycentric
dynamism.xii However, Architecture is not
trapped within itself; it is trapped in the
structured ordering of the state. Thus, we swing
back and forth between the polarizations of this
pendulum to cope with our pre-determined
containment, like a dog pacing in a small fenced-
in yard. While we spin ourselves further into
insignificance we perpetually propose the next
manifesto, providing the prescription of points
for the next round of insignificance and the
further polarizations of the pendulum.xiii In
order to break this trap, the architect must
understand it and be able to utilize the tools
provided by our changing society. Here, and
here only will there be a separation.
However, one may argue that the
architects hands are bound by social
expectation, economy, and the privatization of
society. Therefore there is no possibility for
absolutism or autonomy from within
architecture, regardless of the off-springs of
science envy and/or art envy which most of been provided with new ways to explore the
the discussion of Digital Turn is founded
upon.xiv The answer lies in our ability to become
animalistic, to infuse a sense of vitality into
architecture, to recognize the problem of our
enclosure and take action to create difference. It
is more important for the architect to realize
that the separation from the pendulums swing
comes from outside of Architecture, in order for
it to be changed within architecture. Much like
how Gottfried Semper established the evolution
of architecture (beginning with the communal
space as mound, hearth, enclosure, and roof) as
coming from the basic need for fire, Unger has
positioned us to question whether the incessant
repetition and stagnation in architecture is the
result of the tired (dying) Monisitic beliefs in
society.xv
To understand the concept of enclosure
further we can turn to the lengthy discussion in
Gilles Delueze and Felix Gauttaris A Thousand
Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Delueze and
Guattari expand on the notion of being trapped
in the catch of a state apparatus that behaves in
a striated manner, much like a chess board. This
striated environment is an ordering principle
from which smooth space can emerge with the
generation of creative differences and
subsequently lines of flight. The aggregations
of creative differences comes from variation in
assemblage based upon plural existence and
parallel subjectivities, in turn creating a
machine of offensive intentions from within the
catch of the state apparatus. From within this
comes a separation from the striated and a
becoming of the smooth. This is not a discussion
of geometric transformation, nor should it be
considered as such through metaphors or
analogies. Thus, Pluralism is not necessarily a
nave model for one-to-one translation in
collage-like form-work or color composition,
but rather the becoming of an existential
separation between the individual and the
whole that allows for the disbursement of
controlled subjectivity and thus the desire for
infinite difference and variation.xvi With the
accelerated progression of technology, the
invention of the internet, and the dissolution of
Cartesian concepts and application of calculus
in geometric understanding through software,
architecture of the twenty-first century has
refinement of geometric and spatial significance
to address the perpetual separations and infinite
differences in an evolving pluralistic society.
At the time of Ungers address this
exploration in technology was in the midst of
unfurling through the work of many different
architects, however most of them oblivious to
this condition in the emerging society of the
twenty-first century. Many of these
practitioners came across happy accidents in the
process of exploring the translation of
technology and theory in architecture and some
aimed directly at the foreseeable explosion of
change, while others missed the point entirely.
Regardless, it is important to look at several
works to come to the realization that all of the
architects of the Digital Turn were designing
along the lines of Pluralism, some succeeding in
the quest for differentiation, others returning to
the dogmatic pendulum of architectural non-
significance.
One example of an architect who came
across a happy accident in terms of Pluralism is
Greg Lynn and his Embryological House (1998-
1999). As the proprietor of blob-like shapes,
Lynn provides a universal variation of internal
subjectivity through fluid, undulating surfaces
and an obscure establishment of enclosure
within an Embryo-like shape. Through the
ambivalence of the shape, its anxieties can be
interpreted in infinite ways yet is almost
incoherent in verbal communication. It
expresses no hierarchy of order or any formal
non-significance.xvii Thus, it establishes a
relationship to society at large through
technological and material advancement, while
at the same time catering to individuality in the
real lives of the end user. Its reproducibility
allows it to be accessible to society as a modular
unit. Each units shape is based on user
preference and programmatic needs, so no two
shapes are exactly the same. This creates
accessibility and individuality while breaking
the fabric of the constrained environment in
which it resides through non-iconic
differentiation.xviii This project however was not
presented as a direct response to Ungers call for
pluralistic architecture. And while it presents
strong pluralistic significance it was designed at
a level of privatization where social pluralism
does not exist as more than a projection of
individual subjectivity on to its adjacent and
peripheral environment. This situation can be
seen throughout the twentieth century as
individuals with the appropriate means can
have a house built that contrasts its
environment.
Pluralist Architecture is manifested at
the public scale, where the interests of the many
are formally projected through the incoherence
of the majority. Possibly the best example of this
at the beginning of the Digital Turn can be
found in AKS Runos Alexandria Library project
(1989).
Submitted before Ungers first essay at
the 1991 Anyone Conference, the Alexandria
Library projects intent is to create its own
text and not recite the work of other
architects and other eras, and its ambivalent
formal resolutions do just that.xix Bahram
Shirdel and Andrew Zago described in the June
1990 issue of A+U [] architecture is in need of
powerful heresies to shake it from its lethargic
orthodoxy.xx This sentiment aligns with the
concept of Pluralist Architecture, whether
Shirdel and Zago knew it or not. The caged,
reduced shapes in the Ptolemy space at the front
of the Library directly express the resistance to
orthodox conformity that the established order
prescribes, while the residual space between the
shell of the plinth and the encasement of the
library stacks defines a separation from
traditional order and creates an experimental
space in which creative use can emerge.
Together with this, the veil draped over the
fractured plinth covers the adjacent corniche,
creating a language relatable only to the
Mediterranean Sea. On the other side of the site,
the sixth, inner caged object projects out into
the city, once again drawing into the site a
language its own, not signified by precedence.
The incoherence presented by the
Alexandria Project was one of the few projects
in the Digital Turn that experimented with
Pluralism in the way it related back to society. It
did this through spatial experimentalism and
physical interruption not just visual affect. In
contrast to spatial experimentalism, UN
Studios Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart,
Germany (2001-2006) is an example of a project
that exhibits a strictly visual, plural affect.
The initial concept of the Trefoil
organization used to establish circulation and
formal resolution was reduced to strictly formal
resolution as the project developed. The hopeful
creation of an MC Esher-esque spatial
containment seemed to have been lost in the
attempt to relate the project back to the
circulation patterns of the Staatsgalerie, the
Guggenheim (New York), and the Centre
Pompidou. This limiting of added precedent
vocabulary debilitated the spatial
experimentation of the project, removing the
possibility of ambivalent space, only to be
replaced by prescriptive (and expected) gallery
and circulation compartments.xxi
 On the visual side of the project, the
trefoil organization processed the elevation of
the building to appear as an elevation of direct
origin to the process that created it. The
concavity, protrusions, and conflictions that
compose the representation of the volume on
the faade are in fact the volume. Thus the
building has no faade aside from the material
surfaces that mask its mechanical nature. This
super rational approach comes across as a form
of incoherence in relation to the foundation of
non-significant architectural language in which
the building is surrounded, thus initiating a
plural reading of subjective identity.
Aside from the work of Jeffrey Kipnis
there was not much acknowledgement towards
the concept of Pluralism (or Ungers argument)
during the Digital Turn. However, those
involved showed a strong desire through their
work to define the new and the shocking with
little discussion of architectures raison detre:
provision to and representation of society. The
discussions of science and philosophy within
Architecture inflated the endogenous response
to pluralism as if there was no need to discuss
society, but rather just find new and creative,
yet justifiable methods in with which to react to
it. It was an unspoken law: society is changing
from monistic homogeneity to a pluralistic
heterogeneity. Thats it. Pluralism is always
there, hiding in plain sight as an explanation for
the desire and need for the new, the different,
and the variegated interruptions to social
existence.
Much like Gottfried Sempers argument
in De vier Elemente: the need for mound, roof,
enclosure, and hearth to protect the flame being
the beginning of architecture; so is societys
need for incoherence of geometry and space to
protect the expanding individual subjectivities
of a pluralist society in the evolution of
architecture.
i
The focus of ideological conflict is ceasing to be the quarrel between statism and privatism, command and market economies.
It is becoming, instead, the conflict among alternative institutionalized versions of political and economic pluralism and the
varieties of social experience that each of these versions supports or discourages. By taking, through his work, a stand in this
conflict building along directions such as those I have just evoked 0 the architect speaks in a way less corrupted by solipsism
and vanity. The Better Futures of Architecture, 4
ii
The Better Futures of Architecture, 1
iii
Unger provided examples of Visionary Naturalism as E. Fay Jones Thorncrown Chapel (Eureka Springs, Arkansas, 1980) as
well Jorge Silvetti and Rodolfo Machados House in Tunisia (Djerba, Tunisia, 1976). April 3rd, 1995 Letter to William Saunders,
6. I find these examples contradictory to what Unger discusses for several reasons, however this is not the occasion to elaborate
on such concerns.
I urge the faculty and students of the Graduate School of Design to live the moment in this spirit, understanding the active
construction of social space as a special contribution to democratic experimentalism. The further they go, the more disillusioned
with disillusionment the will become, April 3rd, 1995 letter to William Saunders, page 7
iv
April 3rd, 1995 letter to William Saunders, 1
v
April 3rd, 1995 letter to William Saunders, 2
vi
Who Governs, 4
vii
As of 2010 there were roughly 229.7 million internet users in America. That is roughly 74% of the population. This has been a
steady increase since the internets inception and places America as the second largest internet consumer (China has roughly
460.1 million users, 45% of its population).
viii
An interesting project that dances along the line of nomadism in the contemporary society is the Suburban Tipi by John
Paananen, Cranbrook, 2009
ix
Considering the 1 to 7 ratio of the head to the body and the 1 to 9 ratio of the nose to the face
x
Unintended for this purpose, I find Peter Blakes contrasting images of the University of Virginia and a city street scape in
Gods Own Junkyard a prime example of a failed attempt to create a manifold transition of architecture towards utopianism, in
turn giving in to capital and a complete return to symbolism of power. Architectures attempts to escape symbolism to rise to a
higher power of service for society is a cyclical failure.
xi
Sylvia Lavin, Practice Makes Perfect, Hunch 11 (Winter 2006-2007) via Dora Epstein-Jones The Non-Significance of
Columns, Log 26 (Fall/Winter 2012)
xii
The pendular swing between rigid order and studied disorder seems merely to have continued with ever wider sweeps. The
willingness of contemporary architects to play a role in this pre-written script would weaken if only they saw it more clearly for
what it is; the script usurps their power to choose a future for architecture resonating with a future for society. The Better
Futures of Architecture, 2
xiii
In Jeffrey Kipnis Towards A New Architecture he provides an interesting interpretation of Ungers first essay, The Better Futures of
Architecture. This is especially seen in his analysis of InFormation and DeFormation. However, it is actually an example of what is
the problem in the first place: compartmentalization and existential empiricism. Architecture cannot be prescriptive in the
Digital Turn if it is to provide for a Pluralistic society.
xiv
Kenneth Framptons text on the Autonomy of Architecture (Reflections on the Autonomy of Architecture: A Critique of Contemporary
Production from Out of Site: A Social Criticism of Architecture, Bay Press, 1991) is used here as an all-encompassing umbrella relative to
architectural discussions of Folding in Architecture, Catastrophe Theory in Architecture, Topology in Architecture, etcetera.
xv
Henry Francis Mallgrave elaborates on Gottfried Semper and Die vier Elemente in Modern Architectural Theory, pages 130 139
Americas Monistic society is the result of a governing body based on Plutocracy.
xvi
In the article A Family Affair, Jeffrey Kipnis comments Many efforts have been made to overturn that view of architecture in
the name of everyday life not least of which was Manfredo Tafuris call for architects to leave the boudoir and turn its attention
to building practices. The fact that the historical and cultural construction of architectures self-image as a discipline still
persists speaks not to a a conspiracy of elitists but to the extraordinary long-lived success of the discipline in these terms. And in
these terms, the contemporary urge to greater variation simply speaks to the reality that our contemporary social coherence no
longer seems grounded in a common subjectivity, but in a common embrace of multiple, partial subjectivities. This state does not
reflect the nave model called pluralism, which understands that multiplicity as between one person/group and another: I like
green, he likes yellow, were both entitled to our opinion. Rather it speaks to a postmodern state of the subject (which should
thus, strictly speaking, be called a subject) that is composed of multiple, partial, and conflicting subjectivities that roil within
each of us. Greg Lynn Form, pages 196-198.
xvii
This term is borrowed from Dora Epstein-Jones The Non-Significance of Columns, Log 26 (Fall/Winter 2012)
xviii
This is considering that Lynn created hundreds of formal variations to explore the possibilities; as well as the concept of the
structure skin separation that Lynn had designed to make the House accessible.
xix
The Alexandria Project, A+U, June 1990, page 23
xx
The Alexandria Project, A+U, June 1990, page 23
xxi
Its only fair to consider that the limitations of spatial experimentation could have been a result of limited knowledge of such
ambitious projects by government agencies and/or a lack of wiggle room for Van Berkel and Bos by their client, DiamlerBenz
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