Representations and Misrepresentations: On Architectural Theory

Author(s): Andrea Kahn

Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 47, No. 3 (Feb., 1994), pp. 162-168
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
Architecture, Inc.
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 Representations and Misrepresentations:
On Architectural Theory
ANDREA KAHN, Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania
A recent trend in architectural theory is the derivation of methodology from
a poststructuralist critique of representation to illuminate the triangulation of
architectural production, representation, and power. Using an exemplary
text by Mark Wigley, the article questions whether this (or any) theoretical
endeavor is exempt from the attractions to power that it strives to disclose.
It considers a contradiction characterized by a theory's shift of attention
away from architecture's multiple claims toward the production of theory
itself, and it illuminates the consequences of theoretical endeavors that
avoid contact with resistances put forth by nondiscursive architectural
thought. Further, it posits an ethical dimension to theoretical work, arguing
that theory has a responsibility to represent architecture if it intends to
make substantive claims regarding the task and nature of the discipline.
IN RECENT YEARS, A NUMBER OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORISTS HAVE DE-
rived a methodology from a poststructuralist critique of representa-
tion to illuminate relations of architectural production,
representation, and power. This (or any) theoretical endeavor is
not, however, exempt from the attractions to power that it strives
to disclose. In what follows, my critical attention is directed along
a very precise trajectory: one form of implementation in architec-
tural theory of poststructuralism's critique of representation. My
concern is for conflicts that arise when architectural theory is situ-
ated in philosophy's territory while supposedly being staked out on
architectural ground.
How does theory make claims for and about-how does it
represent-architecture? Examining an article by Mark Wigley,
"The Production of Babel, the Translation of Architecture" leads
to an inquiry about why theoretical practice in architecture be-
comes entangled in philosophy.' My purpose in analyzing this ar-
ticle is neither to propose a definitive interpretation of nor to
dismiss its particular argument. Wigley's writings merit close atten-
tion precisely because of their intellectual force. They are distin-
guished by philosophical insight and intelligence and provide a
most exacting vehicle for discussing the broader implications of a
limited theoretical practice, one marked by its determination to re-
main in the realm of the word. "The Production of Babel, the
Translation of Architecture" exemplifies one application of post-
structuralist thought to architectural theory, but the analysis re-
veals distinctive weaknesses in an architectural theory that engages
in and is enclosed by philosophical discourse. In addition, the ar-
ticle raises issues concerning a more general condition: the histori-
cal coupling of architecture and philosophy.
Whatever its position, contemporary architectural theory is
not an isolated enterprise. To consider it involves addressing gen-
eral movements in contemporary critical theory. Because I intend
to consider how architectural theory crosses (and double-crosses)
poststructuralist thought, before going further I briefly want to
February 1994 JAE 47/3 1 62
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consider their reciprocal appeal. The poststructuralist critique of
representation raises questions about the very possibility of "repre-
sentation" (the authority to stand for or speak for) as traditionally
conceived of in philosophy. Invoking an open-ended play of mean-
ings, the attraction of poststructuralist thinking to architecture
springs, in part, from the free play of architectural imagery in a cer-
tain strain of postmodern architecture-architecture designed to
look like architecture-which presents critics with a situation in
which a desire for "representation," in the traditional sense, has run
wild.2 Critical interest elicited by this condition is notable insofar as
it led to the use of architecture as a frequent example in post-
structuralist critiques by Frederic Jameson, Andreas Huyssen, and
Hal Foster among others.3 But it is also extremely problematic if
you consider how style constitutes but one small part of
architecture's representational capacity. The kind of eclectic play of
forms and styles that so intrigues poststructuralists actually drains
architectural forms of meaning by neglecting the significance of
other aspects of architectural work. The strong critical emphasis on
style in post-modern design leads to a disproportionate value placed
on formal and imagistic aspects of architecture while disregarding
important social and political issues in architectural representation.
The work of architecture is physical as well as conceptual,
and it is always difficult to articulate precisely where one starts and
the other leaves off. Architecture may lack integrity, in the sense of
being "undivided" or "unbroken"; it is always a configuration of
aspects that seldom fit neatly or comfortably together into a single
whole. But it is precisely the tensions that arise in transition from,
for example, site to structure, program to plan, or drawing to
building (to name but a few of the myriad such muddy relations)
that constitute architecture's integrity. Precisely the difficulty of
isolating a common measure across architecture's field of incom-
mensurate aspects gives architecture its potential. The diverse
modes of thought and action defy singular or reductive interpreta-
tions, making architecture appealing to poststructuralist theorists.
As a configuration formed of so many forces (material, theo-
retical, professional, scientific and artistic, technological, historical,
functional, formal, sociological, and economic, to name but a few),
architecture is especially open to exploration along a path delin-
eated by a critique of representation. This is a path (borrowing
from Paul de Man's remarks on literary theory) that examines the
"modalities of production and of reception of meaning and of
value prior to their establishment."4 In architecture, such an exami-
nation can disclose how negotiations between competing claims
define and establish the value of architectural work. As de Man ex-
plains of literature, the "establishment of values is problematic
enough ... to require an autonomous discipline of critical investi-
gation to consider its possibility and status," and this is equally true
for architecture.5 The value of poststructuralism's critique of repre-
sentation for architecture depends, however, on how it is ap-
proached. To quote again from de Man, there is no conflict
between theory and the study of literature unless "tension develops
between methods of understanding and the knowledge which
those methods allow one to reach."6
Mark Wigley's "The Production of Babel, the Translation of
Architecture" presents one such conflict. The argument in this ar-
ticle is representative of a strain of architectural theory that has
gained particular currency today: characterized by a shift of atten-
tion away from the production of value and meaning derived from
architecture's multiple claims, toward the production of theory it-
self. With this shift comes a potentially serious reduction of the task
of theory because it entails avoiding contact with those resistances
put forth by nondiscursive architectural work-by the physical
products of architectural thought. Further, implicit in this redirec-
tion of theory's task as primarily focused on questions specific to
theoretical discourse itself is an assumption that theory's constitu-
tion is independent of other aspects of architectural production.
Wigley's article specifically addresses the translation of
deconstruction into architecture. Because Wigley criticizes archi-
tecture in which deconstruction is a formal operation employed to
reconfigure architectural objects, he is well situated to confront
"bad borrowings" in architectural thought (meaning the appro-
priation of ideas from other disciplines without sufficient under-
standing) as well as "bad translations" from theory to practice. In
this effort, Wigley apparently aligns himself with one of the pri-
mary agendas of poststructuralism, which calls for working
through points of resistance to translation.
Before pursuing in detail what Wigley posits regarding the
problem of translation for architecture, it is worth quickly setting
forth his argument, which begins with the problem of translation
generally. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's point that translation is
"charged with the special mission of watching over the maturing
process of the original language and the birth pangs of its own,"
Wigley asserts that any act of translation affects-"occupies and
organizes" in Wigley's terms-both languages.7 Thus, the move-
ment of deconstruction from a philosophical or literary domain to
architecture will result in reorganizing the discourse of architecture
as well as that of deconstruction.
In his ensuing arguments, Wigley adopts-and adapts-a
poststructuralist stance to rethink the relationship between phi-
losophy and architecture as it has been construed historically, to
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"problematize" the relationship between architecture, representa-
tion, and deconstruction. As a philosophical position and as a
methodology, poststructuralism originated in an extensive debate
with structuralism, which through the work of people like
Ferdinand del Saussure in linguistics, Roman Jakobson in literary
theory, and Claude Levi-Strauss in anthropology, attempted to dis-
cern the formal operations underlying epistemological structures.
Giving priority to the structure of language as the determinant
force in the structuring of thought, structuralism asserts a rela-
tional theory of meaning in which the correlation between sign
and referent is arbitrary-the function of a system of laws organiz-
ing language instead of an absolute correspondence.
To launch their debate, poststructuralists submitted the
structuralist position to its own argument. First, they took on the
relational theory of meaning. If all meaning is relational, then any
relation is potentially meaningful. Second, they took on the arbi-
trary relation between a sign and its referent. If a sign has no neces-
sary correspondence to that to which it refers, trajectories of
potential reference are multivalent. By extending these assump-
tions, poststructuralism essentially divests language of the authority
with which it was vested by structuralist thought. It sponsors the
breakdown (the "deconstruction") of those formal laws thought to
stabilize and delimit meaning. With this extension of the structur-
alist position, the boundaries of different disciplinary activities and
discourses are suddenly placed at risk, their clear definition poten-
tially undermined by language's capacity to evade rather than pro-
duce containable meanings.8
For philosophical inquiry, this instability of language pro-
vides the means necessary to destabilize the power structures on
which language depends and, more important, in its use, defends.
When applied (by any number of disciplines, including architec-
ture) to texts as a critical methodology, it can allow masked or hid-
den meanings to come to the fore by divesting a previously
dominant force of its repressive powers.
Wigley's efforts to reconfigure the relations between building,
architecture, and philosophy depend squarely on the poststruc-
turalist notion that language is unstable. Adopting a method of
close reading, Wigley fixes on philosophy's use of terms like edifice,
ruins, ground, and especially support to elucidate what he calls a
"unique scene of translation" between architecture and philosophy.
He does so first to undermine philosophy's authority to represent
architecture and then, in turn, to turn deconstruction back on itself
via architecture. In his preliminary "sketch" of this scenario, Wigley
draws from a Heideggerean (and a Derridean) reading of Kant to
outline the importance of the architectural metaphor to philosophi-
cal discourse and to describe how in the history of philosophy
"metaphysics is dependent on the architectural logic of support."
According to Wigley, a "convoluted economy" is sustained when
philosophy "describes itself' as architecture. Through a complicated
reading and rereading of Derrida, Heidegger, and Kant, Wigley ar-
gues that "philosophy treats its architectural motif as but a meta-
phor that can and should be discarded as superfluous." "But," he
asks, "can architecture be so simply discarded?" Because metaphor is
essential to all discourse, the answer Wigley arrives at is no, because
the architectural motif of the grounded structure is the "founda-
tional metaphor" of philosophy.
At the end of the first part of Wigley's argument, architec-
ture is released from what he argues is an inadequacy and anxiety
born of depending on philosophy for some sort of legitimation. An
inversion occurs in which philosophy apparently now depends on
architecture. One might interpret Wigley as saying that theory
must reclaim for architecture powers usurped from it by metaphys-
ics. In the second part of the argument, however, the author pro-
ceeds to divest architecture of its newfound authority.
The switch comes with the introduction of the figure of the
Tower of Babel. Wigley (again, after Derrida) interprets the fall of
the tower so as to show architecture as a mere supplement to build-
ing, as an addition and not a fundament.9 Briefly recapped: The
Tower of Babel represents one language, the possibility of pure
meaning (before the need for translation between languages muddles
meaning); as such, the tower stands for the structural ground before
representation, the ground philosophy seeks to recover. In Wigley's
version of Derrida's account of translation, "The failure of the tower
marks the necessity for translation, the multiplicity of languages, the
free play of representation, which is to say the necessity for control-
ling representation." When the tower collapses, building falls; the
physical support "fails," the ground is lost: "The structure is no
longer standing on the ground." Architecture, according to Wigley,
is brought in to mask this "abyss": "The necessity of translation is
the failure of building that demands a supplementation by architec-
ture. Just as it is the precondition for philosophy, understood as
building (presentation), translation also marks the necessity for ar-
chitecture (representation), but as a representation that speaks of the
essence of building, an architecture that represents the ground in its
absence." In Wigley's own elliptical language, "Structural failure pro-
duces the need for a supplement, the need for a building/architecture
distinction, the need for architecture." In this scenario, architecture's
job is to cover up the "crisis of representation" that comes with the
loss of pure language. Configured in this way, architecture covers the
same ground (or lack of ground) as philosophy.
February 1994 JAE 47/3 164
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Next, by appealing to the figure of the Tower of Babel as the
"currency of exchange"-the tower is described as "the strategic
intersection of philosophy, architecture, deconstruction, and trans-
lation"-Wigley outlines a constellation of power struggles be-
tween philosophy and architecture; architecture and building;
building, philosophy, and architecture; and finally, philosophy, ar-
chitecture, building, and deconstruction. He then deploys a multi-
directional series of hermeneutical double plays (too involved to
unravel here), whereby deconstruction "disrupts" philosophy and,
in so doing, "disrupts" architecture and architecture's relation to
building. Through intricate discursive maneuverings, architecture
returns as the "possibility of building" and, finally, as the disrup-
tion of deconstruction. Wigley concludes: "Consequently,
deconstruction does not simply survive architecture."
So ends the argument which began thus: "Can decon-
struction survive architecture?" Wigley's introductory query is spon-
sored by his distress over "suspect" readings of deconstruction in
architecture; the author takes issue with "straightforward applica-
tion of theory from outside architecture to the practical domain of
the architectural object." At first, it seems that Wigley plans to ex-
pose the strange shift whereby a critical methodology drawn from
philosophy becomes a style when adopted by architects and archi-
tectural theorists.10 One suspect operation is replaced by another,
however, when he subsequently asserts that the task of architecture
is to "(re) produce deconstruction by transforming it." Here, we dis-
cover that instead of entering the domain of the architectural object,
deconstruction (a method) becomes the architectural project.
According to Wigley, "To translate deconstruction in archi-
tectural discourse is to examine the gaps in deconstructive writing
that demandan architectural translation in order that those texts be
constituted as deconstruction. The architectural translation of
deconstruction is literally the production of deconstruction" [em-
phasis added]. To enable the discipline of architecture to pose a
challenge to deconstruction (and, by extension, philosophy),
Wigley posits that "all making is an effort of recovery" of the loss
of "pure ground" incurred by the fall of the Tower of Babel. This
notion ("all making") neglects to admit different types of produc-
tion and presumes philosophy and architecture to have similar po-
sitions about the questions of representation. In its extreme
generality, the statement can be read either as privileging architec-
ture, giving it equal status to philosophy (here they have the same
job vis-a-vis representation), or as devaluing architecture, denying
it any distinction from philosophy.
Most important, both readings overlook nondiscursive as-
pects of architectural production. Wigley's focus on the discursive
tradition is underscored further by the fact that his one reference to or material aspects of the architectural tradition nor reflects on the
the physical products of architectural thought is to the image of the physical artifacts of architectural thought. From its external stance,
Tower of Babel, an imaginary architectural construction that is, the argument nevertheless takes up questions that remain internal
most important, an image primarily bound up with language-the to the discipline (if not to the subdiscipline of architectural
sign of a discursive construction. The Tower of Babel story engen- theory). To paraphrase Sam Weber, the strategy of deconstruction,
dered the need for translation, but translation between different lan- in its orthodox form, focuses on systematic constructions; it con-
guages, not between language and nonlinguistic constructions. siders the conditions of possibility and impossibility of systems.'
At this point, some crucial questions are worth noting. In According to Wigley, architectural theory does the same: "Archi-
terms of methodology: Why does a theoretical argument predi- tectural theory thus constructs architecture as a bridge between the
cated on poststructuralist foundations adopt a reductive notion dominant oppositions of metaphysics and constitutes itself by ex-
("all making" makes nonequivalent forms equivalent, reducing ploiting the contractual possibility already written into the philo-
their difference to nil) to substantiate an authoritative claim (that sophical tradition wherein it describes itself as architecture." The
deconstructive writing "demands" architectural translation)? And theoretical practice described here reflects on its own systematic
in terms of the argument itself: Why would architecture bend to construction, and its audience is thereby limited to a constituency
this deconstructive "demand"? whose concerns rest with reflecting on the theoretical condition
According to Wigley, the aim in translating deconstruction of architecture or, even more exclusively, the systematics of
into architecture is to "make thematic the theoretical condition of theory itself. Recalling de Man's remark about the tension be-
objects and the objecthood of theory." This forces architecture tween methods of understanding and the knowledge that these
"out of its domain" as "the object of a specific discourse" and methods allow one to reach, it is possible to trace how this genre
transforms it into "a series of discursive mechanisms whose opera- of architectural theory is limited by its two grounding method-
tions can be traced in ways that are unfamiliar to architectural dis- ological assumptions: first, that architecture is discursive; and sec-
course." The result of this "transformation" is a dismissal of ond, that architectural theory remains in the realm of philosophy
(the
architecture's nondiscursive aspects. Architecture is now situated in first allows for the second)." While claiming to break free of
a philosophical (or logocentric) domain. Architecture becoming a
certain restrictive disciplinary assumptions, this position actually
series of discursive mechanisms may "make thematic" the theoreti-
partakes in a restrictive action. It gives only a partial representa-
tion of architecture. Wigley says his concern is for the relation of
cal condition of the object, but it does not, conversely, offer insight
as to how "the objecthood" of theory is made thematic. deconstruction to an account of architecture repressed by tradi-
Architectural theorists who construe architecture as "a series
tional philosophical discourse. His effort to reconfigure the dy-
of discursive mechanisms" speculate in a territory unaffectednamics
and of disciplinary dependencies is potentially enriching to
unchallenged by architecture's nondiscursive claims. Here, a architectural
sce- thought. It is also apparently aligned with the agenda
nario is set up whereby architectural theorists can operate inofthe
the poststructuralist critique of representation, an agenda at least
domain of philosophy. By choosing to avoid problems of transla-
partially responsible for the recognition of architectural theory as a
tion arising within and across architecture's own not-quite-borders
legitimate (rather than a legitimating) discourse.
(between, for example, technology and aesthetics, science and art, The promise of new knowledge is foreclosed, however, when
or theory and history) and by focusing instead on movements be-architecture, but philosophy's account of architecture is being
not
tween architecture and philosophy, the capacity of theoretical
interrogated.12 Architectural theory is severely circumscribed by a
speculations to illuminate architectural problems of translation is
methodology that fails to distinguish between the work of architec-
subject to radical constraints. What is gained by a theoreticalture
en- and that of philosophy (traditional or otherwise). To take up
deavor that posits architecture's task as reproducing-translat-
philosophy's account of architecture as the object of reflection
ing-deconstruction? By fixing on and privileging only does,
one however, allow this architectural theory to reflect on its own
trajectory of translation, it avoids accounting for the substantial
"contractual possibilities," as determined by metaphysics.
complexity of architectural problems of translation. Drawn together, various points from Wigley's text maneuver
This genre of architectural theory stands in a paradoxical where
re- philosophical intelligence combines with a command of lan-
lation to its subject: Positioned in the realm of philosophicalguage
dis- to delineate a specific site for a theoretical endeavor con-
course, it neither derives its methodology from the visual, spatial,
cerned predominantly with theory itself. Wigley's theoretical effort

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is dedicated to illuminating theory's own constitution. The ques- theory avoids the process of working through the resistance (put
tion is, has this theory reconfigured the shape of the discipline or forth by the discipline of architecture to traditional philosophy)
simply claimed the seat of power once held by another? that its poststructuralist ground advocates. Despite espousing ex-
Here architectural theory criticizing philosophy comes into pansive thought, the genre is marked by reductive consequences.
direct conflict with its stated aims, to extricate architectural First, the reduction of the task of architectural theory: Defining it-
thought from domination by a philosophical account of architec- self in terms of (or, equally, against) metaphysics, the knowledge
ture. If, as Wigley suggests, architecture's task is to "produce this theory offers to architecture is so highly specialized as to sub-
deconstruction," then architectural work is still underwritten by an stantially diminish its potential application. The methodological
"other" authority: Architecture remains "bound up into language," choices defining its scope of operation leave its practitioners free to
not (as Wigley explains in a footnote) in a structuralist sense as "a do a philosopher's job.
system of objects to which language theory can be applied, but as The problem is not with poststructuralist thought or even
the possibility of thought about language." If poststructuralism poststructuralist architectural theory. It arises only when the theo-
aims to expose the binding force of a dominant (philosophical) retical work predicated on poststructuralist thought threatens to
logocentric authority, in this argument it is adopted to reinforce become a free-floating enterprise, disassociated from other aspects
and privilege discursive thought. There appears to be a conflict be- of the architectural discipline. Second (related to the first), the re-
tween the way poststructuralism is being implemented here and duction of architecture's work: By insisting that "architecture is
the knowledge this method is supposed to proffer. bound up into language" and failing to admit other aspects of the
At this point, it is worth noting that Wigley's examination of discipline associated with physical thought, Wigley subordinates
the relationship between philosophy and architecture, building the many voices of architectural production to one, effectively
and architecture, and tangentially, theory and praxis demonstrates eliminating these "others" from the field of theoretical speculation.
an affinity with other thinkers who have turned their attention to This reduced view of architectural work arises directly from as-
the same topic. Take, for example, Denis Hollier's observation (in sumptions regarding the primacy of discursive mechanisms in ar-
his work on Bataille) that chitectural production. It also signals an inconsistency.
A poststructuralist critique giving priority and authority to
when architecture is discussed it is never simply a question of the discursive aspect of architecture presents a contradiction. Thus,
architecture .... Architecture refers to whatever there is in
the third and perhaps most surprising reduction evidenced here is
an edifice that cannot be reduced to building, whatever al-that of the very methodology supposedly grounding this theoretical
lows construction to escape from purely utilitarian concerns,
enterprise. Poststructuralism's critique of representation is misrepre-
whatever is aesthetic about it. Now this sort of artistic sented when it supports repressive actions, when architecture's ma-
supplement that, by its addition to a simple building, consti-
terial resistance to its discursive force is ignored. By eliminating the
tutes architecture, finds itself caught from the beginning "other"
in a voices of architecture, Wigley's enterprise is akin to a behav-
process of semantic expansion that forces what is called ior
ar- described by Jean-Francois Lyotard as terrorist: "By terror I
chitecture to be only the general locus or framework of rep-
mean the efficiency gained by eliminating, or threatening to elimi-
resentation, its ground.... Architecture, before any other nate, a player from the language game one shares with him. He is
qualifications, is identical to the space of representation.'3silenced, or consents, not because he has been refuted, but because
his ability to participate has been threatened (there are many ways
Hollier's remark that "architecture is identical to the space of rep-
to prevent someone from playing)."'5 The reductions marking this
genre
resentation" may partially explain why the lens supposedly used to of theory can also be read as refusals: to participate in the
contemplate architecture has become the focus of attention.'4
language game of poststructuralism, to participate in the language
game of architectural discourse, and to represent architecture in
When architectural theorists approach questions of representation,
expansive terms.
however, one assumes that the aims of their inquiry are not identi-
cal to those of philosophers or literary critics. It is worth considering, finally, why poststructuralist theo-
retical work (both within the discipline of architecture and be-
Wigley's argument represents a genre of theory that denies
yond) has, according to de Man, "such difficulty going about its
the difference between architecture and philosophy's incommensu-
rate relation to architecture's only partially discursive ground. business
This and why it lapses so readily into the language of self-justi-

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fication and self-defense."16 Some theoretical discourse seems A few distinctions are useful to imagine a poststructuralist
obliged to take on a denigrating stance when faced by critics.theoretical
A practice that stands with architecture: between theory
discourse that feels itself without ground will readily "lapse into
"theorizing theory" and theory "theorizing architecture"; between
the language of self-defense." But who is in danger here? advocation (talking about action) and a vocation (engaging in ac-
Architectural theory is not unlike poetry, where (as T.S.
tion); and between reductive and expansive thought (closing down
Eliot writes in "East Coker") "Words strain / Crack and sometimes
conversations versus opening them up).
break, under the burden / Under the tension / Decay with impre- Poststructuralist theory and criticism enriches conventional
architectural discourse by engaging architecture rather than cou-
cision, will not stay in place, / Will not stay still." Architectural
pling with or uncoupling from philosophy. For instance, when
theory by nature engages in a conflict; it grapples with the impreci-
Robin Evans takes on questions of translation between drawing
sion and slippage of words, while attempting to capture in lan-
guage what remains forever beyond language's reach. and building, he uses the poststructuralist tradition (and, by now,
The unavoidable imprecision of theory's task poses a grave
it is a tradition) to expose a fiction regarding drawing's status that
has long undervalued the drawing's formative properties. By work-
danger; a threat, one might say, to the authority that some theore-
ing through the resistance that drawing and building put up
ticians would like to claim as they speak for-as they represent-
architecture. Unable to accept the limits of language, the genreagainst
of one another-by theorizing architecture-Evans enhances
our understanding of how two architectural representations negoti-
theory under scrutiny here attempts to mask them; but knowingly
trying to conceal the problem only results in language caught upate
in their respective and, at times, competing claims to inform ar-
self-justification and self-defense. See, for example, the first pagechitectural
of thought.18 When Katherine Bristol examines the
mystification surrounding the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe hous-
"Nolo Contendere," by Jeffrey Kipnis, in Assemblage: "Plea. On all
ing project, she too stands on the shoulders of poststructuralism.
charges, I, deconstruction, plea: Nolo Contendere."17 For certain
Bristol strives to expose suspicious modernist claims. By revealing
theorists who proclaim their alignments with poststructuralism vo-
how the telling and retelling of the Pruitt-Igoe story mistakenly
ciferously, when a critique of representation (or deconstructive
place social responsibility on the shoulders of the designer and how
method) provides a lens to contemplate architecture, the lens ends
this mistaken responsibility is subsequently taken as a means to le-
up as the object of reflection. Purporting to expand architecture's
gitimate the architectural profession, Bristol uses a critique of rep-
territory, what results instead is a theory working to protect its own
interest in discursive thought. resentation to stand with architecture and disclose why architects
Sponsored by a will to use language to contain those aspects presume
of an authority that is not rightfully theirs.'9
architecture that evade discursive control and constitute a darker By placing logocentric (or philosophical) authority in ques-
material domain, we find this theoretical practice indeed engagedtion,
in poststructuralist thinkers in architecture suggest ways that the
architectural
the pursuit of power as it seeks to make claims about and speak for a discipline can reposition itself with respect to an op-
disciplinary constituency that it only partially represents. Speaking
pressive politic (of writing, of philosophy, in the history of ideas, in
the history of events, and so on). By exposing tacit assumptions
from such a position is not, in itself, suspicious. However, if theorists
sponsored by self-limiting methodological choices are determinedthat
to govern disciplinary work, poststructuralist architectural theory
that takes up architecture's challenges recharts and expands
profess broadly, when instead of entering architecture's open and
architecture's territory well beyond philosophy's ground.
contested ground they stay closed safely in a discursive realm, posi-
tioned to protect limited interests, there is cause for concern.
Architectural theory (and poststructuralist architectural
theory) can be situated in different ways: It can stand with or speak
for-represent-the interests of architecture, or it can stand away
Acknowledgments
from architecture to represent other interests. Theory that repre-
sents architecture's interests is neither acritical nor subservient to
This article is an expanded version of a plenary lecture delivered at SUNY-
existing disciplinary structures. It also does not presume to focus
Buffalo as part of the Representation Conference held in fall 1991 and a seminar
solely on obviously architectural questions. Theoretical work that
delivered at Yale University in spring 1992. I want to thank Carol Burns, Peggy
"stands with" architecture admits (and enjoys) grappling with Deamer,
the and Keller Easterling for their insightful readings of earlier versions of
this text.
resistance put forth by its multivalent claims.

167 Kahn

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Notes
1. Mark Wigley, "The Production of Babel, the Translation of Architec-
ture," Assemblage 8 (February 1989): 7-22. All subsequent references to Wigley are
taken from this publication.
2. This tendency toward free play in postmodernist work is by no means
limited to architecture.
3. See Frederic Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society," in The
Anti-Aesthetic (Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983); Andreas Huyssen, "Map-
ping the Post-Modern," in After the Great Divide (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1986); and Hal Foster, Recodings (Seattle: Bay Press, 1985).
4. Paul de Man, Resistance to Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minne-
sota, 1986), p. 4
5. Ibid., p. 7.
6. Ibid., p. 4.
7. Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator," in Hannah Arendt, ed.,
Illuminations (New York: Schocken, 1969), p. 75.
8. The political and ideological difficulties attendant to a poststructuralist
position have been taken up by many theorists outside the discipline of architec-
ture. See, for example, Henri Lefebvre's discussion of politics and post-structural-
ism in The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell,
1991) and Samuel Weber, Institutions and Interpretations (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota, 1987).
9. This remark is based in Wigley's earlier references to Heidegger's exami-
nation of the status of art. According to Wigley's reading of Heidegger,
"Metaphysics's [sic] determination of ground-as-support also determines art as a
merely representative 'addition' to a utilitarian object, a 'superstructure' which, in
turn, is added to the ground. The architectural metaphor organizes this relation-
ship.... It is the 'support' to which the artwork is added, the presentation of the
ground to which the artwork is added as a representation." In a further elaboration:
"Heidegger notes that metaphysics treats art itself as a superstructure added to the
substructure of philosophy. Metaphysics understands itself as a grounded structure
to which is attached the representation ornament of art" p. 11.
February 1994 JAE 47/3 1 6
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10. Wigley's position on this shift is unclear, especially when one considers
his involvement in the 1988 Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition at the Mu-
seum of Modern Art in New York. Wigley's essay in the exhibition catalog strives
to illuminate how the formal attributes of the work on display make evident their
foundation in a theoretical position. Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley,
Deconstructivist Architecture (New York: MOMA, 1988).
11. According to de Man, "The real debate of literary theory is not with its
polemical opponents but with its own methodological assumptions and possibili-
ties." Resistance to Theory, p. 12.
12. Although not irrelevant to architectural discourse, a critique of this ac-
count does not necessarily have bearing on problems of translation (noted by
Wigley himself) specific to architectural production-problems connected to and
exacerbated by the fact that architectural work entails transiting between the visual
and nonvisual realms.
13. Denis Hollier, La Prise de la Concorde (Paris: Editions Gallimard,
1974); and Against Architecture: The Writings of George Bataille, trans. Betsy Wing
(Cambridge, MIT Press, 1989), p. 31.
14. Henri Lefebvre emphasizes the negative effects of an overly generalized
conceptualization of space on different disciplinary efforts to theorize spatial prob-
lems. An analogous situation might well be documented regarding the topic of
representation. See especially "Plan of the Present Work," in Lefebvre, Production
ofSpace, pp. 1-68.
15. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowl-
edge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minne-
sota, 1984), pp. 63-64.
16. de Man, Resistance to Theory, p. 12.
17. Jeffrey Kipnis, "Nolo Contendere," Assemblage 11 (April 1990): 54-57.
18. Robin Evans, "Translations from Drawing to Building," AA Files 12
(Summer 1986): 3-19.
19. Katherine Bristol, "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth," JAE 44/3 (May 1991):
163-172.