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lthough we speak broadly today of Director Dianne Pilgrim told the audience in
Viewpoint 345
Architecture at Cooper Union. Susan Yelavich merchant's murder of a boy who stole some
was the first of several speakers to cite Hejduk's jewelry from his store.
statement that 'In order to become well, the city
must breathe the thought of the feminine.' My difficulty in grasping Professor Birming-
ham's arguments began to clarify a much larger
issue of how contemporary social discourse is
The presentation of Alan Balfour, the new
conducted. Particularly in academia, but also in
director of the Architectural Association, made
the professions, issues and problems tend to be
reference to the city as the site of complex
framed in terms of isolated conversation com-
negotiations between necessity and desire. On
munities, groups who speak primarily to each
the one hand, he argued, world industry must
other, often evolving their own terms, frames of
put the most advanced construction technology
reference, rhetorical strategies, and issues.
to use to satisfy the pressing demands for hous-
Clearly, Peg Birmingham was addressing a
ing; on the other, evidence of what he called
general audience from within the discourse of a
'authentic desire' could be seen in more diminu-
particular conversation community, academic
tive manifestation such as neighbourhood
feminism. She found a connection to the com-
shrines and small gardens in Japan. Unlike
munity of architects through the work of John
Barkun, who envisaged a future of decentral-
Hejduk, which similarly served as a bridge for
ized small communities, Balfour claimed that
the next speaker, philosopher David Krell.
the city would dominate our imagination in the
future.
Professor Krell focused on a project of Hejduk's
called the 'room for thought', a square silo with
Peg Birmingham, a philosopher from Pace Uni- seats in the four corners. For Krell, the 'room
versity, who acknowledged her limited under- for thought' like Bloch's notion of utopia, is a
standing of architecture, espoused Hejduk's space of possibilities. At one point, he characte-
meditative w r i t i n g a s a way of shaping the rized planning as a withdrawal of what wants to
discourse about cities, particularly in gender- be thought about, suggesting the diminution of
related terms. Her talk was extremely difficult possibilities inherent in action but in some way
to follow because she used a rhetorical strategy arguing more strongly for a sense of loss (since
that relied on an alternating sequence of asser- he is a thinker rather than a planner) than a
tions and images which forced the audience to practitioner might.
listen in an unfamiliar way. At the same time,
she presented encapsulated accounts of ex- Krell's engagement with architecture as a think-
tremely complicated feminist arguments that er rather than a maker and his positing of a
have been developed and understood among a relation between thought and action within
particular conversation community but that can which the latter might be viewed as a closing out
be obscure when stated in an abbreviated form of possible thought, highlights some of the
to a general audience. Laced through her talk difficulties that architectural theorists who draw
was a series of poignant images that were meant their ideas from literature, philosophy, or
to take on rhetorical value but failed through psychoanalysis have with the act of building.
their intangible relation to her arguments. She Such theorists are often extremely impatient
recounted quite vividly, for example, strong with the limitations of planning and strive to
scenes of street life in Harlem, including a posit architecture as something apart from
Viewpoint 347
to characterize the city as postmodern by virtue public boulevards with residential areas behind
of its shift from the entry point for moderniza- them.
tion in Mexico, represented by a concentration
of commerce, education, and goods and ser- Even this degree of planning, however, cannot
vices, to something new, yet to be characte- be found in Tokyo as architect and critic Marc
rized, that results from a reversal of the govern- Treib depicted it. Perhaps Tokyo comes closer
ment's centralizing policies. to Jean Baudrillard's vision of a simulacra-
driven world than any of the other cities discus-
Yet he also seemed ambivalent about decentra- sed on the program. Treib characterized Tokyo
lization. He spoke about buildings and monu- as an urban process, rather than a product,
ments as educators of the public and urban noting how chaotic its development has been.
artifacts as testaments to a national past. As he Originally a group of villages, it still does not
developed his argument, postmodernism for have many trappings of a metropolis such as a
him seemed to have more to do with elaborate system of street names.
juxtapositions of modernity and tradition,
avant-garde culture and native arts, and multi- Japan is a nation with a significant cash surplus
ple ethnicities than with a sense of the inauthen- to support an idiosyncratic building program.
tic that many postmodern theorists claim. Treib noted that few architects address the city
in their buildings, preferring to create extrava-
Rather than postmodern, however, the situation gant structures that stand out from their sur-
Terrazas was describing could also be characte- roundings. For many Japanese architects it
rized as late modern or, in Branzi's terms, a seems, Tokyo is a resource, a place to make new
second modernity, particularly the co-existence statements rather than discover existing patterns
of colossal engineering feats, such as the city's of activity and relate to them. Treib's emphasis
gigantic pumping system that brings water into on the way many Japanese architects transform
the city from outlying areas, and the low-cost building types into icons of other objects strong-
indigenous building schemes conducted by the ly invites a different reading of Tokyo than any
populace without architects or engineers. orthodox modernist could provide.
An interesting discussion might have been The descriptions of the four cities were so rich in
generated by closely comparing Mexico City data that no cursory discussion could have easily
with Los Angeles, which was described by John fathomed the connections between them, either
Kaliski, principal architect for the city's Com- in terms of commonalities or differences. In the
munity Redevelopment Agency. Whereas for subsequent panel discussion, moderated by
Mexico City, self-representation, as Terrazas Alan Platus, Associate Dean of the Yale School
described it, is still seen in terms of national of Architecture, an attempt was made but little
identity and city projects are supported in large was concluded. The cities had been well chosen
part by state funds, Los Angeles is a city that has for their differing social, economic, and cultural
been developed with sizeable infusions of identities and a more intense unravelling of
private capital and multiple independent visions these might have helped us to achieve a better
of urban life. To balance the concerns for grasp of the larger concerns about the millenium
stable residential neighbourhoods with a push that framed the conference.
for expansion, Kaliski described a network of
Viewpoint 349
ment in Italy in the late 1960s, then became Branzi ended with a statesman-like summation
a formulator of Italian 'new design', a par- of where the first modernity has fallen short and
ticipant in the Memphis group, and an educator what design can contribute to a renewed mod-
at the Domus Academy in Milan. His writ- ernity.
ings and projects have had great influence
among designers world wide for a number of He noted what he called the 'violent complexity
years. of the metropolis', and saw this countered in
part by virtual space, which he described as a
Branzi, who has shifted the locus of his thought 'world of fiction and simulacra'. Branzi did not
from postmodernity to an extended and re- end his talk with a prescription but with a
newed modernity, is representative of a more presentation of choices. Design, he said, has to
philosophical position within Italian design cul- decide whether to work in the real world or the
ture. He spoke, as a number of Italian designers virtual one. This was not a talk to be dissected as
do, of the 'project of design', an embracing one would a scholarly paper but rather a states-
concept that locates design centrally in the man's vision of the contemporary world and the
process of cultural transformation. I have al- possibilities it holds for designers.
ways found this concept to be an inspiring one
that forces the need for continuing cultural Unfortunately, Branzi's rhetoric of states-
analysis. If the design project is as culturally manship was not perceived by his respondent
significant as Branzi and other Italian design Michael McDonough, a young New York
theorists argue that it is, then one needs to be architect who countered Branzi's overarching
deeply engaged with large issues of social trans- vision with a rejection of authorities and experts
formation since these will affect the nature of that smacked rhetorically of the 1960s counter-
the project. culture. He characterized Americans as popul-
ists, mistrustful of experts, cynical about
Branzi's presentation was a demonstration of reform-oriented design cultures, and believers
the value of well-informed and sophisticted de- in change from the bottom up. In McDonough's
signers who are capable of stating their own will jingoistic reading, Branzi represented a Euro-
to design in culturally powerful terms. He ack- pean high culture that he felt was irrelevant to
nowledged the complexity of the contemporary the American experience.
condition and stated that the new design must
take full account of this. There are limits to the This was a regrettable interpretation of Branzi's
capitalist industrial system, he declared, but the talk, particularly for an audience generally un-
collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe makes it familiar with Italian design discourse, since
difficult to posit an alternative at present. Never McDonough attempted to undercut the import-
the less, he kept the possibility open. ance of Branzi's vision as an instrument to
empower designers. He called for a resistance to
The focus of design, stated Branzi, is not the the project of design as Branzi proposed it,
single object but an ecology of the entire world. preferring instead to espouse the untidy micro-
He then outlined a series of theorems that had cosms of American multiculturalism. Needless
to do with balancing opposing logics of produc- to say, Branzi had acknowledged and even
tion, advanced technology and crafts, standar- argued for the very diversity that McDonough
dization and diversity, humans and machines. celebrated in his response.
Viewpoint 351
ners generate the forms of virtual objects? acknowledging little of the larger culture of
Would they be considered any less trivial than which design is a part. This paradox is inherent
those decried by Kalman and Jacobs? And do in current design thinking, which is grappling
the poetic projects of McCoy's Cranbrook stu- with ways to integrate pragmatic or operative
dents represent in any way the myths that concerns with semantic or symbolic ones. Nor-
underlie cyberspace consciousness? man, however, does not want to recognize this
complexity. Instead he prefers to privilege prob-
With the next group of speakers, all of whom lems of product function and reject all other
emphasized issues related to product users, we concerns. Consequently, his presentation was
returned from virtual to corporeal reality. one of the least successful of the conference by
Donald Norman, a cognitive scientist known in virtue of his unwillingness to come to terms with
the design community for his book, The the ideas of most of the other speakers.
Psychology of Everyday Things, led off. Nor-
man has earned a considerable reputation in the The talks by the two speakers who followed
past couple of years for his widely publicized Norman, John Seely Brown, director of the
assertion that many, if not most, products are Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and John
badly designed. He is a pragmatist who believes Rheinfrank, a designer with Fitch Richardson
that a product's functional relation to the user is Smith, while fuller and more reasoned than
the only question worth addressing. For him, Norman's jeremiad, also concentrated on
McCoy's concern with myth embodied in form pragmatic rather than cultural issues. This
was irrelevant as is all the 'literary deep thought' separation of pragmatic and cultural problems
that confuses the issue of how to design. in product design is in sharp contrast to
architecture where a centuries long tradition of
Norman could not have been more blatant in his high cultural status and technological advance,
denunciation of inconsequential discourse and along with a well developed historical conscious-
in doing so he, unfortunately, revealed a con- ness, have embeddded architectural discourse in
siderable ignorance of design culture. Accord- cultural issues.
ing to him, most designers don't know how to
make a product that works well. Such a state- The paradox, however, is that immensely in-
ment could only come from someone unfamiliar teresting work is being done by product desig-
with the history and current practice of design. ners in spite of the split between pragmatics,
Norman's thesis that many products are badly cultural theory, and historical consciousness.
designed is beyond dispute but his narrow focus The work described by Brown at the Xerox Palo
on this issue as the core of design thought was Alto Research Center is a good example. Brown
misplaced. It was much more satisfying to hear focused on the subject of ubiquitous computing
Branzi's generalized reflection on design in cul- which he defined as "taking computing out of the
ture than Norman's singular point, repeated box' or the development of networks to estab-
more than was necessary by holding up exam- lish multiple access to a single program. After
ples of badly designed products to the audience. an enticing introductory statement that he and
his colleagues in Palo Alto were 'rethinking the
As a participant in the discourse about products, border in product design', Brown proceeded to
Norman is an intriguing figure by virtue of recount the particularities of the work underway
identifying a central problem of design while at his research centre as if he were speaking to a
Viewpoint 353
visual vocabulary they associate with modern- ference, evaded their task and gave their own
ism. presentations ranging from the moderator
Michael Sorkin's use of a cash machine transac-
The call for a new sensibility was also central to tion as a metaphor for the decline of public
Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller's stimulating space to critic Hugh Aldersey-Williams' argu-
slide lecture on information signs. They con- ment for recognizing national characteristics in
tinued Wild's critique of universal graphic solu- design. Only Kathy McCoy of Cranbrook
tions by arguing that the presentation of in- attempted to draw any conclusions from the
formation, particularly in the form of visual proceedings. Her strongest statement for me
icons, was not value free. Their presentation was the perception that architecture had spent
combined criticism of existing signs, such as itself.
their exposure of the sexist bias in the US
Department of Transportation sign system, with It was evident from the conference that those of
an advocacy that information icons be used us who participate in the discourse about design
more sensitively to denote differences of gender and the built environment do not share a com-
and culture. mon vision of what our contemporary condition
is and have achieved no agreement on what
Cultural distinctions were exemplified in the design might become in the next millennium.
two afternoon presentations whose subject mat- Nor do we share a language with which to
ter was graphic design in the now defunct coun- develop this vision. Although the conference
tries of East Germany and the Soviet Union. offered a rich experience of many voices speak-
These talks focused on how the socialist experi- ing out about architecture and design, conversa-
ence shaped design thought. As Eric Spieker- tions among the speakers did not develop. Con-
mann, a graphic designer from former West sequently the deeper issues embedded in their
Berlin, pointed out, the striving for a socialist presentations were not teased out and discus-
style of public graphics in East Germany was sed.
eventually eroded by increasing knowledge of
This difficulty in discovering and conversing
Western practice, while Constantin Boym, a
about shared themes was not unique to the
Russian furniture designer who now works in
Cooper-Hewitt conference. It is indicative of
New York, told the poignant story of Vladimir
our cultural moment. What is lacking among
Cheka, a graphic designer in Moscow who went
intellectuals is the will to cut through these
to New York to work. Disillusioned with the
differences and forge wider conversations
heavy emphasis on the pragmatics of meeting
around topics that matter. But, more than any
client needs, he returned to Moscow and now
other design conference I have been to, 'The
tries to make a living as an artist. Was Boym's
edge of the millennium' brought together a
narrative tale meant to signify a more wide-
great many speakers with differing concerns.
spread Russian sensibility caught between the
The opportunity to hear them as part of a single
frustration of underdevelopment and the de-
narrative made it possible to better compare
mands of overdevelopment? There was certain-
their themes and rhetorical strategies. I now
ly more to explore on this theme of cultural fit.
understand better ho.w diverse contemporary
5 Conclusions design thought is and recognize the challenge of
With one exception, the members of the closing creating productive conversation communities.
panel, which was supposed to sum up the con- That alone made the conference worthwhile.