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contemporary architecture
CLAUS DREYER
Critical modernism
The sharp contrast between the modern and the ancient world originates in the
fact that today, things exist that did not exist then. Elements have surfaced in our
lives that people in those days could not dream of; there are material possibilities
and spiritual directions with enormous consequences: a new ideal of beauty,
still vague and only partially formed, but which is already beginning to fascinate
even the masses. We have actually lost our penchant for the monumental, the
overwhelming and the static, and have instead acquired a taste for the light and
the practical, and for the transitory and the swift. We feel that we are no longer
the people of cathedrals, palaces and imposing courtrooms but a people of
large hotels, train stations, fantastic streets, gigantic harbors, market places,
illuminated archways, reconstructions, and renovations. (Sant’Elia and Marinetti
1964 [1914]: 3)
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This criticism was diverse and concerned the most varied phenomena.
Repeatedly, the loss of formal means and creative imagination was
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 165
Plate 1. I. M. Pei and partner: Christian Science Church Center, Boston, Massachusetts,
1973–1975
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The Centre Pompidou still employs all the elements and methods that
were criticized as being inadequate in functional modernism (Plate 2 a, b).
However, there are also new features which can be interpreted as signs
and which emphasize the representational character of the building:
— The steel-glass construction is exposed and exaggerated in such
a way that it evokes memories of historical predecessors (cf., e.g.,
Paxton’s Crystal Palace, London, 1851; the Eiffel Tower, Paris,
1889; and Russian constructivism of the 1920s). Hence, it both joins
a tradition and quotes a typology comprising conventional forms
(industrial and mechanical construction). There is a superimposi-
tion of construction and function, of supporting structures and
fittings, serving and servicing elements, overall form and detail, of
the natural hue of the materials used and powerfully contrasting
colors which results in contradictions of composition and in a
complexity of design that increases both the potential for meaning
and the communicative capacity.
— Finally, there are numerous individual motifs that produce direct
sign relations and inspire both imagination and interpretation:
the funnels, the bridge and the railing borrowed from shipbuilding,
the glass elevator shafts in the subway, the complex pipe systems
from refinery architecture, etc.
Plate 2 a, b. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers: Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1975–1977
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 167
Plate 2 a, b. Continued
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A circular building opening towards the sky and a block with a ‘curtain wall’ not
only encompass different aesthetic traditions, but also represent and evoke various
social structures (centrality/equality), psychological dimensions (focused/open),
natural relationships (integrated/distant), or forms of rationality and belief (story,
cyclical nature, meditation, attention/analysis, progression, insight, outlook).
This comprehensive panorama lends a deeper dimension to the apparently merely
aesthetic languages and gives real weight to the problem of their inherent
contradictions and modes of coexistence. (Welsch 1987: 118)
Even if one can discover and interpret this problem of the ‘reseman-
tisation’ (Welsch 1987: 116) of the architectural forms in several other
postmodern works of the 1980s (cf. Klotz 1984), it must be emphasized
that the historical references are often arbitrary. Frequently, the visual
motifs are used rather superficially. Empty clichés appear, and the alleged
‘multilingualism’ really consists only of meaningless talk. What Welsch
says of Charles Moore’s ‘Piazza d’Italia’ in New Orleans applies equally
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 169
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Architecture. It is born of the most powerful thoughts. For the people, it will be
a compulsion to suffocate from or to live — live in the way I mean it. Architecture
is not the cover for the primitive instincts of the masses. Architecture is the
embodiment of a few people’s power and desires. It is a brutal thing that has long
ceased to have anything to do with art. It disregards both stupidity and weakness.
It never serves anyone. It squashes those it cannot bear. Architecture is the right
of those who do not believe in justice, but create it. It is a weapon. Architecture
uses the strongest means available without constraint. It has already seized
the machines, and the people are now barely tolerated in its realm. (Pichler and
Hollein 1964 [1962]: 174)
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 171
A second modernism
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 173
Plate 5 a, b. Continued
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 175
Plate 6 a, b. Continued
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 177
Plate 7 a, b. Continued
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document the history of the Jewish culture in Berlin before and after the
Holocaust and, at the same time, to make the inconceivable, the invisible,
and the incomprehensible accessible to the beholder. The outline develops
from two linear motifs, one straight and one jagged, that are combined
and superimposed with a matrix of connecting lines to historical and
imaginary sites of early Jewish culture in Berlin, so that a unique and
expressively spatial structure results, consisting of individual zones, both
crooked and diagonal, canted over and pierced, wide and narrow, pointed
and polygonal. Literary and musical motifs guided the architect in his
design of the individual rooms, in which structured emptiness is con-
sciously employed to create a sense of absence through what is physically
present (cf. Libeskind 1997). This contradiction, which is particularly
articulated in the interior, contrasts with the bizarre but compact exterior
form, whose isolated character is further emphasized by the sheet metal
cladding. Only the completely irregular apertures in the façade point to
the labyrinthine interior, implying the great complexity of the construc-
tion as a whole.
This building, too, defies any conventional reading, reminding only the
expert of Libeskind’s typical formal language: it seems so alien and cold
that this very feature draws attention to it and invites exploration and
interpretation. Here, form is so far divorced from function that it is
not only almost impossible to interpret, but it even almost defies practical
use. This construction is a walk-in sculpture, which aims to shock and
provoke the observer through its expressive spatial gestures (cf. Libeskind
1997). So far, it seems as if the architect would have succeeded in
achieving the effects and interpretations he was aiming for with his unique
design: to link the thus created and designed emptiness and absence with
elementary experiences and patterns of interpretation in order to create
the potential for a better future (cf. ibid.).
With our last example, Richard Rogers’s Millennium Dome in London
(Plate 8), we arrive at the contemporary situation. This building has a
long history, which is connected with Great Britain’s unprecedented
efforts to celebrate the change of the millennium. Backed by a budget
of several billion pounds produced by the National Lottery, some two-
hundred major and minor architectural projects were realized to mark the
occasion. Among the most important of these projects is the design for
the dome, which emerged from a competition among the foremost British
architects. Inaugurated by the Queen on 1 January 2000, it houses a lav-
ishly produced exhibition on the present state of civilization, knowledge,
and culture at the beginning of the third millennium — a much-disputed
display which will not be discussed here (the first director had to resign
after only three months owing to the lack of success; the exhibition was
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 179
closed at the end of 2001). In our context, with its focus on architectural
representation, we will restrict ourselves to the investigation of the
architecture of the central exhibition hall.
The dome consists of a large, slightly convex circle of flexible membrane
suspended from twelve lattice pylons that rise up diagonally far above the
roof, thus leaving a large area of unstructured space for the exhibition on
the inside; it is surrounded by twelve glass cylinders that are used for
service functions. This design technique derives from tent construction,
as it has been further developed and perfected especially by Frei Otto in
the 1950s and the 1960s. Constructions of this kind are suitable as covers
for large areas. The best-known previous project of this type was for the
roofs over the Munich Olympia Stadium of 1972, although these exhibit
a considerably greater variety and complexity in their formal structure.
What we see in London is thus a traditional major form, a cupola, which
stands in a typological series of sacred and secular buildings with their
roots in classical antiquity and which reached their innovative highpoint
as long as half a century ago.
Hence, it comes as no surprise that professional critics judged the dome
as nondescript, mediocre, and banal, declaring the building devoid of any
architectural content fitting the historical moment or the purpose of the
exhibition (cf. articles in Jencks 1999). Melhuish (1999: 65), for example,
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It is this victory of pragmatism over poetry that Charles Jencks has also
found to be characteristic of the Millennium Dome architecture. In his
view, this pragmatism is based on a post-Christian consciousness that still
aligns itself with Christian basic values, but only as far as they accommo-
date the need for comfort, prosperity, security, consumption, and enter-
tainment (Jencks 1999: 86ff.). The Millennium Dome represents this
spiritual horizon in an unspectacular way. It demonstrates that the ‘crisis
of representation’ in contemporary architecture has by no means been
solved and must, therefore, be carried forward into the third millennium.
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References
Berndt, Heide; Lorenzer, Alfred; and Horn, Alfred (1968). Architektur als Ideologie.
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Conrads, Ulrich (ed.) (1975 [1964] ). Programme und Manifeste zur Architektur des 20.
Jahrhunderts. Braunschweig: Vieweg.
Dreyer, Claus (1998). Über das Interpretieren von Architektur. In Führ, E. 1998: 33– 48.
Führ, Eduard; Friesen, Hans; and Sommer, Anette (eds.) (1998). Architektur — Sprache.
Buchstäblichkeit, Versprachlichung, Interpretation. Münster: Wachsmann.
Jencks, Charles (1977). The Language of Postmodern Architecture. London: Academy
Editions.
— (ed.) (1983). Abstract representation. Architectural Design 53 (7/8).
— (ed.) (1999). Millenium architecture. Architectural Design 69 (11/12).
Klotz, Heinrich (1984). Moderne und Postmoderne: Architektur der Gegenwart 1960–80.
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[1964]: 56–59.
Libeskind, Daniel (1997). Between the lines. Architectural Design 67 (9/10), 58–63.
Loos, Adolf (1964 [1908]). Ornament und Verbrechen. In Conrads 1975 [1964]: 15–21.
Lorenzer, Alfred (1968). Städtebau: Funktionalismus und Sozialmontage? Zur
sozialpsychologischen Funktion der Architektur. In Berndt, Lorenzer, and Horn 1968:
51–104.
Melhuish, Clare (1999). Iconic architecture at the end of the millenium. In Jencks 1977:
64–73.
Pichler, Walter and Hollein, Hans (1964 [1962]). Absolute Architektur. In Conrads 1975
[1964]: 144–175.
Sant’Elia, Antonio and Marinetti, Filipo Tomaso (1964 [1914]). Futuristische Architektur.
In Conrads 1975 [1964]: 30–35.
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The crisis of representation in contemporary architecture 183
Schuster, Klaus-Peter and Bärnreuther, Andrea (1999). Die Gewalt der Kunst. In Schuster
et al. 1999: 24–30.
Schuster, Klaus-Peter et al. (eds.) (1999). Das XX. Jahrhundert: Ein Jahrhundert Kunst in
Deutschland. Berlin: Nicolai.
Venturi, Robert (1966). Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York: Museum
of Modern Art.
Welsch, Wolfgang (1987). Unsere postmoderne Moderne. Weinheim: VCH
Verlagsgesellschaft.
Claus Dreyer (b. 1943) is Professor for Architectural Design at the University of Applied
Sciences, Detmold 5claus.dreyer@t-online.de4. His research interests include semiotics,
aesthetics, and logics of architecture. His publications include ‘Semiotische Grundlagen der
Architekturästhetik’ (1979), ‘The performance of space in recent architecture’ (1992),
‘Architecture as a mass medium?’ (1997), and ‘On the poetics of urban space’ (1998).
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