Book - Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven:  INVOLUTION AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

1.   The Analogy

The tendency of architectures to split their formative activity into primary and secondary mechanisms during periods of Involution conforms to a remarkable degree with similar processes which take place in schizophrenic communication. Equally, many of the other symptoms displayed by architecture during these times can be directly translated into the patterns of schizophrenic behaviour. These include the chronic misinterpretation of context, massive compression of meaning into indecipherable knots, displacement of meaning to ‘small things’, literal perception of messages, the addition of contextual masks (decoration), rigid behavioural patterns, anxiety towards ambiguous contexts, disintegration of behaviour into ‘assemblies’ of gestures and ‘word heaps’ and so on. At its most extreme, it may also involve the disintegration of the identity into multiple personalities. Add to these the traumatic origin of the Involutionary phase and its propensity toward extreme digital modes of perception and the analogy between the two field becomes clear. The theoretical context of this analogy between the behaviour of an individual and that of a collection of individuals lies in the fact that they can both be seen in terms of communicational systems that are subject to irreconcilable demands placed on them by an inescapable environment over long periods of time. The result of that is the emergence of a similarity of behaviour.

It is important to recognize that the pathological symptoms which are exhibited in both cases do not result from the addition of some new external factor to the 'normal' mode of each system of communication.  An individual does not 'contract' schizophrenia any more than an architecture invents its post-classical state.  Both patterns of behaviour can be understood to be perfectly rational attempts to transcend some inescapable paradox which the systems face in their respective environments.  The fact that these attempts might be futile and lead to what may be regarded by others as bizarre or even destructive behaviour does not invalidate the logic which informs them.  In their respective fields, both the individual and architecture (the collective activity of many architects acting as a single system) is required to behave authentically or spontaneously in an environment which expressly forbids such behaviour. This is the paradox with which they are faced and which they must resolve through the selection of some appropriate response.  Appropriate, that is, to the enclosed world in which they find themselves. For an individual that world is determined by a pre-existing set of personal relationships which both demands and yet forbids spontaneous expressions of behaviour.  For architecture, the world is determined by an already unified and comprehensive Type which severely restricts the possibility of unusual combinations of its element and yet the unique demands of many contexts require the improbable and the different.  So widespread is the Type within architecture (as a similarity between buildings) that any attempt to act spontaneously vis-a-vis a particular context would certainly render the ensuing work incomprehensible.

The particular form of behaviour by which each system learns  to cope with these conditions is, therefore, grounded in the HISTORICAL nature of its relationship to its environment. It is required to act in terms of an already established and fixed set of relations which it cannot change. In most circumstances the flexibility of existing sets of relations within the environment or the presence of equally valid alternative sets allow a system to function both spontaneously and comprehensibly.  It is when a set of circumstances imposes impossibly restrictive rules of combination on the behaviour of a system - facing it with mutually exclusive choices - that counter-productive behaviour results.

           

As suggested earlier, the learned response to the paradoxical constraints on behaviour and the uncertainty which this brings is the systematic splitting of experience into primary and secondary components.  This unconscious process has its obvious analogy in the philosophical system produced by Descartes; there too, the splitting of the mind-body relation was engendered by doubt and uncertainty as to the literal reality of all experience.  However, in that case the 'doubt' was an analytical device rather than an ontological experience. For the schizophrenic individual and for architecture during the Involutionary period, the process of splitting of experience is not a matter of choice but is the way the world is perceived; it is the way the system has LEARNED to be in the world.

The relationship between the primary and secondary mechanisms of communication and their joint function in the of the world of experience is well expressed in the following passage from R.D. Laing's book, 'The Divided Self', where he says:

                       

                        "The self can be real only in relation to real people and things.  But it fears that it will be engulfed, swallowed up in any relationship.  If the 'I' only comes into play vis-a-vis objects of phantasy, while a false self manages dealings with the world, various profound phenomenological changes occur in all elements of experience. Thus, the point we have already got to is that the self, being transcendent, empty, omnipotent, free in its own way, comes to be anybody in phantasy, and nobody in reality."

And in another passage he states:

                        “When experience of the outer world is filtered to the inner self, this self can no longer either experience or give expression to its own desires in a way that is socially acceptable.

            Social acceptability has become a technique, a trick.  His own view of things, the meaning they have for him, his feelings, his expressions, are now likely to be at least odd and eccentric, if not bizarre and crazy.  The self remains encapsulated within its own system, while adaptation and adjustment to changing experiences have to be conducted by the false self."  The false self system is apparently plastic:  it operates with new people and adapts to changing surroundings.  But the self does not keep up with the changes in the real world.  The objects of its phantasy relationships remain the same basic figures although they undergo modification, for instance, in the direction of idealization, or they become more persecutory.  There is no thought of checking, testing these phantom figures (imagos) in terms of reality.  There is no occasion to do so.  The individual' self by now is not making any effort to act upon reality, to effect real changes in it." (pages 142, 143).

           

With few adjustments one could transpose this description of schizophrenia into an analysis of the state of post-classical architecture.  When Laing points to the omnipotence and yet emptiness of the self in this situation one is immediately reminded of the state of the typical set after a long period of stereotyping.  It too has become free 'in its own way' for it is no longer based on the exigencies of experience but has become locked into idealizing the few elements and routines which define its character.  It is in this sense that one can understand Laing's use of the term 'phantasy' for it denotes the detachment of these elements from the empirical world; they have become so abstract and so general in their relationship to experience that they no longer represent anything - they are 'nobody in reality'. The elements of this petrified core which have been sealed off from any real contact with the world (these 'objects of phantasy' or stereotypical elements), must still perform their role as a means of communication with the world. However, in order to do so the Self projects a secondary system of behaviour which superficially can deal with the changing demands of its environment.  It is the one aspect of the set which is 'plastic' and apparently responsive to different contexts: it provides a distinct face for every place. Equally, Laing's remark about the problem of the social acceptability of schizophrenic behaviour points to the streams of criticism which inauthentic or bizarre behaviour provokes. Criticism which is directed at the inappropriate nature of schizophrenic behaviour in a particular time, place or circumstance. It is also a criticism which leads to renewed and equally futile attempts by the Self to correct its behaviour by assuming ever more ‘precise’ and thus ever more inappropriate responses to the complexities of its social environment.

Post-classical architecture faces the same problem for it too is incapable of direct expression of the meaning of any particular context and is, therefore, forced to displace this role into inconsequential features of buildings.  As the typical set becomes progressively more stereotyped and inarticulate these devices are used to disguise the fundamental arbitrariness of the prevailing Type.  They make it APPEAR to be responsive to its environment; but it is, indeed a 'trick'.  As Involution continues, the forms of displacement or decoration (improvisation) must become more exaggerated and even grotesque as the typical set becomes less capable of expressing the meaning and the complexity of contexts through a manipulation of its few elements. The task of  representation is finally passed over to the forms of displacement which, over time become more articulated, enlarged, out of scale, emphatic and, eventually, 'bizarre and crazy'.

The analogy between these two systems of communication centres on the symmetry between their respective sets of relations.  This can be outlined as follows:

     INVOLUTION                       SCHIZOPHRENIA               RELATION

     Type: Environment                Self:  Others.                           Ambiguity-paradox

      

     Type: Displacement             Self:  False Self.                    Compensatory

     

     Type: Typical Set                  Self:  'Imagos'.                        Idealization

    

     Displacement: Environment          False Self: Others        Adaptive       

By extending the analogy outlined above as a context, one can then look at Laing's more detailed description of the False Self system.  He summarizes its development as follows:

1          The false-self system becomes more and more expensive.

2          It becomes more autonomous. 

3          It becomes 'harassed' by compulsive and behaviour fragments.

4          All that belongs to it becomes more and more dead, unreal, false and mechanical."

This conforms to certain points made earlier about the increasing dependence of a Type on the mechanism of displacement.  The Type is forced to transfer more of its representational functions over to this secondary mechanism which does indeed become more extensive, not only in terms of its physical presence in works of architecture (as decoration or articulation) but also in terms of the semantic function it is required to carry out in architecture. This 'fictitious architecture' must eventually overwhelm and blur the canonical forms of the Type and become its corporeal presence. As it becomes more sophisticated and systematic in its forms, displacement which originated as a form of IMPROVISATION, takes over the architectural functions of the Type. It emerges from being, perhaps, a simple inscription on the primary forms of a classical architecture to being the not- quite-integrated fragments of whole separate architectures. By this parthenogenic process architecture extrudes from itself a group of multivalent images each of which seems to refer to a very particular context. Thus the characteristic forms of the group of Postmodern styles already mentioned such as Historicism, Eclecticism, Hi-Tech, Populism, Regionalism and Deconstructivism each define a very particular approach to the expression of social institutions in built form. To put it another way, each of these styles look as if they had emerged or developed out of some very particular context. Their forms are so specific and emphatic that they each appear to be designed for a group of very special circumstances. Here we have another of those curious reversals we find in the Involutionary phase of an architecture. Where before we had an architectural Type which was a general statement inappropriately applied to specific contexts, now we have a group of very specifically-engineered statements applied generally across architectural production. If these ‘special cases’ were integrated into a single set they would almost appear to be a whole architecture which had a wide repertoire of behavioural responses available to it. In fact they are simply fragments of behaviour - sub-routines - which refer to the kinds of context that the Type was on its own unable to represent. That is why their forms appear to be specially-engineered and emphatic. Each of these Postmodern styles is, on its own a customised repertoire for a certain kind of context. They are, in that sense simply expressions of pure context - frozen improvisations split off from the petrified core of the Type.

The 'autonomy' of which Laing speaks can be understood in two senses. In the first it would refer to the systematization of the forms of displacement - their alteration from fluidity to a digital clarity.  The extent of the forms of displacement and the degree of autonomy achieved in an architecture is a matter of time and technology. With Modern Architecture, the function of displacement has reached the point where it substitutes for all authentic re-combination of the typical set.  This is an architecture which no longer defines its forms by their USE (in the broadest sense), but by the rationality of their making. In this way displacement now dictates the form of buildings and thus becomes an autonomous function. In a second and related sense it refers to the final splitting of the Type into a group of semi-autonomous styles such as the Postmodern condition discussed above. 

           

Point three in Laing's list ('compulsive behaviour fragments'), can be translated into the ritualistic articulation of buildings.  It is a compulsive intention to 'discover' and articulate, as architectural form, functional differences in the context whether they exist or not. It results in the disarticulation of the form of buildings and the creation of spurious differences and distinctions.  In fact, one need not take the actual relations which exist in the institution into account at all; its actual differences merely serve as a justification for an arbitrary fragmentation of architectural form. In terms of the logic of the process, these are actual differences digitized into imaginary oppositions. It is a purely formalistic intention disguised as a search for 'truth'.  There are more differences in this functionalism than there are in the world at large; there are more 'identities' than there are phenomena to be identified.

With point four on Laing's list one is reminded of the ever-active presence of the typological process and its digital character during periods of involution.  If every aspect of the forms of displacement becomes 'dead, unreal, false and mechanical' as against its original fluidity, this is only to be expected given that all material is subject to the reductive action of the typological process.  This, of course, is part of the process of systematization mentioned in point two above. As it becomes more autonomous and systematic, inevitably it will begin to appear predictable and mechanical. This 'dryness', this tendency toward abstraction, is the fate that awaits all architectures at the later stages of their history.  In the pathological conditions of the Involutionary state, this is what must happen to each infusion of difference into architecture or each extrusion of complexity from the prevailing typical set.

           

In its own way the form of displacement RECAPITULATES the history of the typical set.  It too moves through a cycle of Evolutionary diversity and complexity, Developmental coherence and, finally, Involutionary petrification.  In that final state it separates itself from its own context: the typical set - it becomes autonomous. Whatever form it takes, displacement is always in a complementary relation to the typical set; it always remains an allegory of events which have been decided elsewhere.  Thus the historical cycle through which it moves is in direct relation to events taking place in the typical set of its time.  It is a surface effect of profound changes in the Type itself.

           

The complexity of the relationship between displacement and Type and, by analogy, between Self and False-Self make it difficult to decipher the true state of things and the limitations which are being imposed on all combinations of the typical set. For instance, which articulations are rea? That is, actually derived out of the particular and pragmatic requirements of a context and which are 'added' to make a building appear more representative? It becomes impossible to tell in the midst of so much fabrication and improvisation. An extended period of Involution generates an extreme degree of additive complexity over the austere and restricted elements of the typical set.  Some ideas of this can be sensed from the following passage from Laing:

                        "One of the greatest barriers against getting to know a schizophrenic is his sheer incomprehensibility:  the oddity, bizarreness, obscurity in all that we can perceive of him.  There are many reasons why this is so. Even when the patient is striving to tell us, in as clear and straight-forward a way as he knows how, the nature of his anxieties and his experiences, structured as they are in a radically different way from ours, the speech content is necessarily difficult to follow.  Moreover, the formal elements of speech are in themselves ordered in unusual ways, and these formal peculiarities seem, at least to some extent, to be the reflection in language of the alternative ordering of his experience, with splits in it where we take coherence for granted, and the running together  (confusion) of elements that we keep apart." (Page 163).

2.  The Effects of Time and Technology

If one supposes either an unlimited life-span for an Involutionary state, or unlimited technological power, then the processes of splitting or displacement would be forced to repeat themselves for ever.  There might be several layers of displacement superimposed on the forms of the architecture during the history of the Involutionary period. The reason for this is that because of the difference in function between the typical set and its form of displacement (between primary and secondary mechanisms), they will inevitably have difficult time-scales.  The rate of change of the secondary mechanism will be much quicker than that of the typical set for it must respond to the immediacy of new building production whereas the stereotyped forms of the typical set do not. Indeed, it is precisely because the set is now so inert and unresponsive to events that displacement is required to provide whatever contextual articulation is required for new buildings.  Since these come on stream perhaps day by day, this forces the relatively rapid historical evolution of the secondary mechanism.  At the same time, the typical set is progressively contracting towards its final evaporation. As each layer of displacement becomes systematized, autonomous and, in its own way, inert, so another layer of 'spontaneous' decoration will be projected in order to maintain the Type's pretence of plurality and responsiveness. This layer will not, however, be projected out of the typical set, as was the first, for that set has been squeezed dry of any diversity.  It will emerge out of the forms of the first layer of displacement.  Since decoration (characteristic displacement) recapitulates the developmental history of the typical set, it too must eventually split itself into literal and contextual components; this is the cost of its growing systematization. New improvisations are derived from previous improvisations resulting in an exponential growth of difference and elaboration on the forms of the Type. If the external constraints on architecture remain the same, then this process of projection, stereotyping and displacement will be continuous.

The application of this theory to the Involutionary condition of Modern Architecture can, obviously, only be speculative since it is impossible to predict a future with any certainty.  Any system has several possible futures although not an infinite number.  If, for the sake of argument, it was assumed that present conditions remain constant and, therefore, that the future of Modern Architecture would be 'more-of-the-same' kind of change, then one could outline some possible states for it. Since displacement as such involves pure articulations of built form, the continuity of this process would lead to even finer articulations.  The identities (whether real of imagined) would become much more specific and would produce a much more aggregated built form. Works of architecture would, according to this scenario, appear as clusters of units, diverse in form and function loosely framed within a formalized infrastructure.  In effect, architecture would move toward an era of bricolage. It is no surprise therefore that one of the Postmodern styles - Deconstructivism makes this dissolution of form one of its primary themes. At a more general level the future of Modern Architecture would be one of continuous disintegration into ever more tenuously related variations on a theme. The result as we now seem to be witnessing, is the formation of several different, but geneologically-related architectures, each of which would continue to articulate their typical set with meticulous precision.

In order to maintain the connotative dimension of meaning, it is necessary for any immortal architecture to generate surface after surface of decorative improvisation or displacement.  No matter how stereotyped it has become, architecture must be able to communicate with the world in which it exists even if it does so through the most elliptical of means. The eventual result would be an architecture of enormous complexity.  It would, however, be the additive complexity of many layers superimposed one on another rather than one material subject to continuous transformation.  Each period of displacement would leave its mark upon the forms of architecture - a residue, hardened by systematization.  This sedimentation would not be absolutely consistent, but would, if analysed ‘geologically’, show chronological variations in the duration of the cycles of displacement and in the degree of systematization of each layer before its replacement by another.  This inconsistency is caused by minor socioeconomic variations which can take place within the same general environment; these were discussed earlier as periods of economic expansion or recession. These fluctuations of the forms of displacement would increase the apparent complexity of an Involutionary architecture:  these many faces and memories would be compressed into one massive form. (On is reminded here of the complexities of certain periods of Hindu architecture or Buddhist temples of Southeast Asia). At this stage of an architecture's history, fully developed, fragmentary and vestigial elements would COLLIDE within the 'frame' of a building; so too would anachronistic forms, shreds of past behaviours, contemporary articulations, unfinished experiments, revivals, and so on.  All would be juxtaposed into a dense texture of decoration. The serene geometries and pristine elements of the typical set remain in being only as a virtual foundation for this 'game' played out at the visible level of the architecture.  However, finding these typical elements and relations in the midst of such complexity would be more akin to archeology than architecture

           

Given what was said in an earlier chapter about the use of standardized decoration giving a semblance of unity to Evolutionary types, and of diverse or fluid improvisation being used to articulate a too-unified Type, it is clear that both of these situations must occur simultaneously during the later stages of Involution. At that point the Type is indeed too unified and yet is in a state of disintegration. This 'internal evolution', therefore, requires the application of both standardized and fluid forms of decoration. This is another way of looking at the layering process described above where the continuous emergence of new decorative cycles results in the production of both systematic and fluid 'generations' of decorative forms.  The important fact about the process is that these generations coexist in architecture at the same time, thus offering both unity and diversity to an architecture which now depends on both in order to function at all.

3.      Masks and More Masks

This encrustation of displaced forms in a theoretically immortal architecture - these variations on variations on a basic plot or theme - parallel the schizophrenic search for perfectly appropriate behaviours.  For the schizophrenic, each story, commentary or response to different conditions - each new 'piece' of behaviour - is a play on words or gestures and part of an unending search for ontological certainty.  Unfortunately, all this activity is more akin to an exercise in 'running on the spot' for it ends up facing exactly the same problems it had to begin with. Each fractional movement is freeze-framed into a distinct and isolated act; every circumstance which the individual meets is closed off in space and time into an utterly unique event. These fragments of behaviour are catalogued in terms of their success as masks and in terms of their 'social acceptability'. Carefully typed, labelled and therefore reified into things, they are made available for ‘re-assembly’on other occasions.  This learned inability to behave pragmatically when necessary by modulating and adjusting one's behaviour, necessitates the construction of a catalogue of isolated pieces of behaviour which must grow in number to meet the multitude of different situations that arise in the course of a life-time. But, as predetermined acts they are quite rigid. They prevent an individual from recognizing the differences between apparently similar events. This lack of subtlety of perception leads to the 'either-or', 'yes-no' forms of digital analysis which must inevitably collide with the continuous gradations which make up the analogue state of lived experience.  There is no doubt, however, that when digital representation is carried out with sufficient rigour and at all scales of discourse, it can produce a semblance of authenticity.  (Note, for instance, the digital sophistication of the electronic equipment used in recording studios which can reproduce the analogue continuity of the sound of musical instruments.) Yet no matter how sophisticated an individual (or an architecture) is in selecting and assembling the precisely engineered bits of behaviour that go to make up particular responses, there will always be some indefinable inappropriateness in these sequences. Each individual bit might seem to be correct, but the whole complex will seem to be wrong in some way. The ‘seams’ between responses will always be visible. This assembly mode of behaviour will at times appear strange to others and possibly generate hostility. The schizophrenic response to this is not to 'fine tune' his or her behaviour but again to construct another fixed act to deal with that particular situation. Since there is no modulation of behaviour during the act of communication (as there is in non-schizophrenic behaviour), but only after the fact, there is always this lack of synchronization in the message-response exchange.  The reality of events is ground down into finer and finer and equally reified bits. There is no recognition that exactly the same event will never occur again and that the presentation of a fixed response to what looks like an identical situation will still be wrong. There is no way the schizophrenic can stop communicating and, equally, there is no way that he or she can stop being inappropriate.  The individual is forced to go on inventing new masks whose contextual character will never quite match the situation in which they will be used.  Living becomes a continual exercise in crisis management.

Equally, the volatility of architecture in the Involutionary phase, the flickering transience of its styles, its whimsicality, its eclecticism, its desperate search for the novel and the unusual, do not reflect a sense of freedom or pragmatism, but a hopeless struggle for authenticity. The fragments of this architecture and the multiple characteristics by which it sought to disguise the petrification of its central values now reach a final stage of autonomy.  They take on a life of their own.  The symptoms of this decline are mistaken for organic attributes of the architecture; the disintegration is applauded as a healthy sign of the increasing 'creativity' of architects and the growth of 'individualism' and ‘plurality’ against the tyranny of former times. Fictive (and fictitious) architectural elements and combinations are inflated into parallel architectures. They are assumed to be real, to be identities and independent repertoires which can be considered as options in the formulation of a new more comprehensive architecture.

This permutation of different masks is still, however indirectly, related to the remnants of the classical Type.  Indeed, one can say that behind these different masks there stands that singular architectural phenomenon which now simply manifests itself in a multitude of ways.  The slow evaporation of the typical set leaves these manifestations in place as the only visible sign of its presence.  Yet this is a false dawn. No socioeconomic or institutional changes have been needed to produce this final state of fragmentation which is purely internally generated within architecture. The eternal constraints on architecture have remained as they were. The final catastrophe of complete dissolution of the Type will come about with the eventual advent (at whatever time) of Plural socioeconomic conditions. Even then, there will be no discontinuity in architectural history, but simply a very rapid acceleration of the process of disintegration to a point where the tenuous linkages between the different variations are finally broken forever.

9       Addition and Multiplication

Before the final catastrophe, the pressures an architecture has to cope with are those of number rather than organization. One can also say that in this stable environmental situation architects can still apply the same combinatory rules drawn from a single Type to different contexts.  There is only one dimension of difference as far as architectural production is concerned and that is the number of different buildings which are being built and added to  the total number already in existence. With the diversification of significant commissioning power and patronage, it becomes possible to develop and apply different rules of combination to the same contexts. There are increasingly different ways of doing the same thing. Experiment becomes the order of the day. There are now two dimensions of difference to the collective operation of assimilating and exchanging architectural characteristics throughout production.  It is this multiplication of possibilities which finally explodes what is left of the Type and which carries its need for adaptation over the threshold of its existing possibilities and into the realms of typological re-organization.  The Type, as the whole set of similar characteristics portrayed by production, is subject to a catastrophic ELASTICATION of its routines. The differences of characteristics in production multiply rather than just accrete That essential unity of the typical set which had conditioned production through its long history from type(s) to classical Type and, finally, to Involutionary Type is no longer recognizable within the field of production.  Similarity has given way to difference.

           

The mathematical basis of the process of multiplication (as against addition) is that it differentiates an aggregate into classes of characteristics: classes within which different rules of combination are applicable.  It is no longer simply a question of number; it is a question of number and kind.  Architects can no longer draw upon a common resource of typical elements which had, in the past ensured that no matter how different the variation on the theme, it always remained comprehensible in terms of other variations. Now, in the Evolutionary period, different types cannot be directly related to each other. For a long time to come it will be impossible to exchange characteristics and retain any semblance of architectural coherence.  The types are simply too different from each other. This is analogous to the reproductive barrier which results in the formation of new species in the biological world. The separation of groups of an original species by migration will after time and genetic isolation prevent their mating with each other. This reproductive barrier is in fact an operational definition of the concept ‘species’.

At this catastrophic stage in the clinical history of schizophrenia, an individual's behavior would have become an incomprehensible aggregate of behavioural fragments, gestures, words, expressions and perhaps separate personalities which would all collide within the frame of their physical presence.  There would no longer be any centre or any recognizable personality which could be identified behind this juxtaposition of bits and pieces.  This veritable kaleidoscope of 'faces' is the end of a long series of futile attempts to adjust to the paradoxical demands of others.  The point is reached where a sudden multiplication of contexts - some extremely complex circumstance - which must be dealt with ALL AT ONCE (whereas before it would have been dealt with in series), precipitates the individual into psychosis.  The remnants of a unique identity are finally dispersed in this explosion of different demands and permanently locked on the surface of behaviour. In real terms, the psychological 'whole' of the individual becomes literally the sum of their parts.

           

For architecture, this catastrophic event in its history is not the result of choices made or decisions taken by groups or single individuals.  It has not come about through visions or revelations or through some spontaneously-created ideology of 'individualism' (although that is how it will be viewed after the event); it is an inexorable product of history.  It is a meeting of certain cumulative processes in architecture with a new set of environmental circumstances.  As far as architecture is concerned, the essential difference between these and the previous set is simply one of MATHEMATICS.  Even if the same number of buildings are being built, the crucial factor is that they are being commissioned by a greater number of patrons.  It does not matter what the actual differences are between these patrons, whether they are entrepreneurs, philanthropists, new institutions or business corporations, universities or municipalities; what matters is that they independently able to commission many works of architecture.  The new functional tasks and the demand for identifiable 'corporate images' which these commissioning sources will require will still be filtered through and represented by combinations of existing architectural forms. But, the differences between these sources will eventually lead to a diversification of form and the final dissolution of the Type.  While the creative activity of architects will remain as it was in the classical and post-classical periods, the different circumstances in which it takes place will have radically altered.  The same rules applied in different contexts will lead to a different end result.

10        A Necessary Chaos

Although it is not the result of a choice on the part of anyone, the disintegration of an architecture destroys any possibility of a coherent urban environment.  In the City - that 'laboratory of the senses - the effects of the collapse of a unified architectural order reveal themselves in the violent juxtaposition of different styles and different answers to the same questions.  This disorder is just as apparent at the level of the City's organization as it is in the profusion of styles which inform its buildings.  There is no continuity between the scale, function or planning of different areas of the City, which have become independent entities each with its own unique character. The City becomes a collection of set-pieces colliding within a geographical area.  Walking through such a city, there is no way one could predict the character of one of its neighbourhoods from an inspection of an adjacent area; everything is unpredictable.  The most powerful image of such a city can be found in the works of Piranesi, especially in his imaginative illustrations of the Campo Marzio produced in 1761-2.  In relating this urban image to the collapse of the Classical-Baroque ideal in architecture, Manfredo Tafuri writes:

                        "Architecture might make the effort to maintain its completeness and preserve itself rom total destruction, but such an effort is nullified by the assemblage of architectural pieces in the city.  It is in the city that these fragments are pitilessly absorbed and deprived of any autonomy, and this situation cannot be reversed by obstinately forcing the fragments to assume articulated, composite configurations.  In the Campo Marzio we witness an epic representation of the battle waged by architecture against itself.  The historically developed language of building types is affirmed here as a superior principle of order, but the configuration of the single building types tends to destroy the very concept of the historically developed language as a whole.  History is here invoked as an inherent 'value', but Piranesi's paradoxical rejection of historical, archeological reality makes the civic potential of the total image very doubtful.  Formal invention seems to declare its own primacy, but the obsessive reiteration of the inventions reduces the whole organism to a sort of gigantic 'useless machine'." (Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia, page 15).

Tafuri later calls this disaggregated urban form, 'This colossal piece of bricolage':  a state of things which can, even amongst the immense fertility of its architectural forms, pervade the City with an unavoidable sense of ANONYMITY and LOSS. In this profusion of architectural events and the spurious creativity which arises both in the Evolutionary and Involutionary periods there are more solutions than there are problems; there are more machines than there are purposes for them to serve.

           

If it is possible to provide several equally valid versions of the truth about a particular context, then this 'freedom', this individuality of expression disguises or ignores a whole dimension of reality; it cannot speak of the many connections between things.  It is unable to recognize the similarities which exist between different contexts.  As with architecture in the Involutionary period, it cannot, with the means at is disposal, say two things simultaneously. In this state, architecture cannot indicate the similarities AND the differences between one context and another.  Evolutionary conditions, as stated earlier, pose equally severe problems of authenticity to those of the early Involutionary period with its uniformities, but now they are reversed: there is MORE formal diversity than there is actual diversity of contexts.  In this situation, one cannot predict whether the visible difference between two buildings represents an actual difference in their content or purpose or the institution represented. It may be that two buildings, radically different in form, could represent fundamentally similar contexts. There would be no way of recognizing such a similarity from an investigation of their forms.  If everything is different in form, then one cannot tell what, if anything, is the same.  There is no frame within which these differences could derive some meaning or against which they could be understood.

The formal chaos which ensues with the loss of a unique and well-defined identity for architecture plunges it into an era of endless experiment from which it cannot extricate itself.  There is no way of avoiding this hiatus in the history of architecture as a whole.  It is the gap which appears between two distinct architectural Types and is a return to trial-and-error methods of combining form in order to find a simple reliable routine.  The duration of this period of experiment cannot be forecast, but only lived through. History or change in the form of another period of socioeconomic integration will, sooner or later call a halt to the multiplication of different architectural solutions to the same problems. Gregory Bateson remarks, with reference to the clinical history of the schizophrenic:

                        "It would appear that once precipitated into psychosis, the patient has a course to run.  He is, as it were, embarked on a voyage of discovery, which is only completed by his return to the normal world, to which he comes back with such insights different from those of the inhabitants who never embarked on such a voyage.  Once begun, a schizophrenic episode would appear to have as definite a course as an initiation ceremony, a death and rebirth."

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Book - Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: INVOLUTION AND LATE MODERN ARCHITECTURE

 

1       Modern Architecture as Involution

Architecture in the late 20th century exemplifies the conflict between the organizational demands of a rigid symbolic order and the complexity and diversity of human experience. Amidst the current anarchy of its forms one can clearly identify it as being at an Involutionary phase of its history.

However before we look in more detail at this phenomenon it is worthwhile briefly reminding ourselves that the course of Involution can be divided into two theoretically distinct stages. In the first there is a reduction in the semiotic freedom of the typical set established during the Developmental period. The symptoms of this are the increasing uniformity of buildings and their increasing inability to adapt to different contexts. During this stage meaning is gradually displaced into a secondary function of decoration. In the second (and final) stage of Involution, decoration takes over almost all the communicational functions of the Type. The result of this is the splitting of the Type into several context-specific and semi-autonomous sub-styles. For Modern architecture these two stages roughly coincide with, firstly, the postwar period from 1950 till the mid 1970s, stylistically referred to as the International Style of Modern architecture. The second stage from the 1970s onward is usually (and appropriately) termed the ‘Postmodern’ period. In the latter case, there is a fragmentation of architecture into several reasonably distinct styles such as Historicism, Hi-Tech, Regionalism, Populism, De-constructivism, orthodox Modern and other more eclectic variations.

The post-Developmental history of this architecture from the 1960s to the 1980s, is marked out by an almost continual crisis of meaning partly reflected in the almost uninterrupted stream of criticism which is levelled at it both from within and without architectural circles. These criticisms revolve around a rejection of its self-styled rationality, and point to a wide range of its inadequacies in the representation of the social, economic, technical, aesthetic, ecological, psychological and organizational spheres of human activity.  Apparently, every statement made by this architecture is in some way ‘wrong’. It would seem that its rationality is quite detached from the level of its everyday use and perception.  This can be seen from the kind of adjectives which have been used to condemn it: 'monotonous', 'inconvenient', 'totalitarian', 'insensitive' and 'inhuman'.  And yet, this architecture is the result of the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the social, technical and economic base on which it stands.  It would seem that whatever it is that has been so thoroughly measured, it has been unrelated to the task of shaping this architecture according to the needs, experiences or complex relations of the society which it is supposed to represent in built form. There is neither the time nor the space in this book to go into the subject of the techniques of analysis used by Modern Architecture to form its programmes.  What one can say, however, is that they are so constructed that, in their reductive precision, they are unable to represent the actual conditions and complexity of human experience. Modern techniques of analysis do not simply formalize these conditions into a workable model, they re-define them completely by cutting out the multiplicity of interconnections and the variability of the relations which exist at the level of experience. It has to be said that this kind of reductive analysis is not unique to architecture. It is characteristic of what is loosely called the ‘scientific method’ and is applied in many different fields. The result is always the same. The ‘discovery’ of a group of ‘fundamental elements’ and their reconstitution as a predictable model of a system.

While the purely architectural characteristics of the Modern Type were NOT produced by its relation to the current socioeconomic system but were derived out of its own history, the degree of flexibility or rigidity of the typical set so formed IS the result of this relationship. The centralization of commissioning sources into big institutions which initiate many building projects allow the typological process to assimilate vague similarities between many different projects into a unified typical set.  By the first two decades of this century the Modern Type had been established.  However, the continuity of those same socioeconomic conditions which gave rise to this period of development and their continuing integration is now the source of the problems which beset Modern Architecture. They define the framework within which an Involutionary phase will arise.

           

There are two aspects to the crises which faces Modern Architecture, one of which is typical of any Involutionary period, while the other is unique to this Type. The first can be encapsulated in the following statement: An Involutionary period necessarily follows a Developmental period. Within this admittedly banal statement there is the absolutely crucial historical fact that once a unified Type has emerged out of its Developmental phase, ALL FURTHER ARCHITECTURAL ACTIVITY CAN BE REGARDED AS RITUALISTIC.  In history, ‘one damn thing follows another’. Societies and forms of discourse must work on material already shaped by the action of previous eras and the state of that material at any given point is irreversible. That state, determined by processes taking place within the history of the system dictates the kind of formative activity which can take place afterwards.  In the case of architecture, where the Type is already unified as it was by the first few decades of this century, then the options open for later activity were drastically limited. Constrained both to work on this material AND to produce comprehensible works of architecture, formative activity is forced into an essentially ritualistic role vis-a-vis the Modern Type. In a sense all it can do is to provide a commentary and elaboration of a previous state of things. As suggested earlier, this commentary can only concern itself with the analysis and reduction  of the established typical set.  Once architecture has been locked into developing one particular set, all future action will be limited to formalizing and re-formalizing its elements until this process is brought to a halt by new socioeconomic conditions.  Modern Architecture is currently in the position of engaging in this kind of ritual behaviour. Needless to say the architects of the 19^th century found themselves in an entirely different situation. Using exactly the same selection – combination procedures as the architects of the late 20^th century, they were required by history to sort and filter the great mass of eclectic forms and diverse styles into a single coherent Type. As usual, same processes in different conditions produce different end results.

The other aspect to current problems, and which follows from the first, is that modern institutions have the technical and organizational power to carry out the analysis and reduction of a typical set with unparalleled rigour.  In previous eras the reduction of a typical set to a small group of fixed elements and rules of combination might have taken over a century to complete if at all. Modern Architecture on the other hand, has telescoped this compression of an original set into a period of roughly 40 years.  By the middle of this century Modern Architecture was already showing signs of Involutionary pressures on production.  In spite of the concerted effort to rid architectural form of ambiguities and non-quantifiable attributes, the end result of this coordinated campaign of rationalization was the production of an 'ORGANIZED NOWHERE'. It had led to the stereotyping of architectural form to a degree unprecedented in history. Here, so it was thought was a unified architectural routine applicable with few adjustments to a multitude of different contexts.  Using conceptual models drawn from the repertoire of the physical sciences, architectural activity in the early 1960's had sought to reduce form to a cause-and-effect relationship with the social and technical base upon which it stood.  At the time, this deterministic approach to architectural form was portrayed as an eminently laudable attempt to discover the 'real needs' of the population but it merely succeeded in making architecture even more abstract and unresponsive than before. The sterility of much of the architectural production of the time:  the faceless mass housing projects, devoid of the most basic services; the arbitrary use of towers for family accommodation; the crushing banality of office blocks; schools designed to look like factories; these instances among many others testify to the internalization of the architectural discourse.  Form was being subject to a kind of analysis which could only detach it from experience. In this, one can detect the consistent theme of all Involutionary periods and that is to bring the instrument of representation – architectural form - under calculable control and to eliminate the possibility of contextual variations. Contemporary with these more 'totalitarian' developments in architecture, one could also notice other signs of Involution in the Modern Type. These include the arbitrary articulation of buildings in order to achieve 'significant form' indicating a shift towards displacement and major decorative activity and also the beginnings of historicist, populist and other stylistic tendencies in Modern Architecture. The latter group suggest the beginnings of the future fragmentation of the Type into a group of constituent styles.  Both these tendencies point to the steady disintegration of the Modern Type throughout the 20^th century as Involution reinforced by an all-powerful technology continued to impose impossibly restrictive demands on the making of form.

Condemned by history to a 'SCHOLASTIC' role vis-a-vis the architectural type established in the early Modern movement, analysis must concern itself with splitting experience into fictitious literal and contextual components in order to remove that threatening fluidity of character which up till now remained an essential (and, in fact, advantageous) feature of the typical set.  As suggested earlier, this is to misinterpret the nature of the set by assuming that if its elements change their identity somewhat from place to place and from time to time, that this indicates the existence of some problem or other. In fact, all it indicates is that the set remains representative of experience. The real problem is, however the anxiety of the observer who cannot handle the ambiguity inherent in complex events. Literal interpretations of phenomena must necessarily assume that there are such things as ‘more fundamental’ elements to be found amidst the shifting forms of experience. These are (Platonically-inspired) 'things' which supposedly do not change their character no matter what the context. They can be relied on as concepts which will give a convincing purpose to the unending analyses forced upon architecture by historical chance.  After all, there must be some 'meaning' which underlies the apparent flux of events.

           

The modes of thought which predominates in a particular culture are defined by what has already been said. This defines future possibilities for creative activity. Theoretically, The state of architecture at any time is, either totally determined and unified or it is still open to new combinations.  If the state of the material is 'closed', the only option available to the next generation of architects, is the elaboration and clarification of the material.  A role which is essentially quantitive and reductive relative to the existing state of the material. At this point in the history of the system the only option available to its agents is to ritualistically  ‘name the name’ of the various forms of the material.

           

In true Involutionary fashion, quantitive techniques result in the uncoupling of complex and inter-locking groups of functions and their transformation into an ORGANIZED AGGREGATE of things.  These now calculable 'bits' of reality - sharply defined and bearing a precise name - can now be assembled into an apparently new and more predictable order.  This order is achieved by adding together these things (which are not things), these presences (which are not present), into an assembly whose total characteristics can be accurately named, numbered and controlled.

This Involutionary and essentially rigid perception focuses on both dimensions of architecture:  elements and 'space' (which like everything else is reified into a 'thing').  The result is an extremely high degree of standardization of elements and a new kind of spatial organization previously described as 'functionalism'.  In the latter, the form of buildings and of cities is reduced to an aggregate of constituent forms each one of which is literally identified with one particularly activity or function.  The most obvious example of this can be seen at the urban level where each area of a city is zoned to contain one activity only such as housing, commerce, industry or leisure.  In some cases, the functional separation of these zones is emphasized by sterilizing the space between them with urban motorways or 'parkland'.  (This is reminiscent of the aphasic tendency to completely 'clear the space between words' of unclassifiable meanings).

           

In some histories of architecture, it is suggested that it is this tendency towards functionalism which makes Modern Architecture so unique.  From the point of view of this book, functionalism, as described above, is an inevitable tendency in any post-classical phase of an architecture’s history. It is the only creative and comprehensible option open to the collective activity of architects at that time. Other periods in the history of architecture have shown an equal concern with distributing the form of buildings according to supposedly ‘functionalist’ criteria:  where the different activities within the building are identified on a one-to-one basis by consequent articulations in the overall form of the buildings. There is a supposed 'cause-and-effect' relationship between the activity and the form which enclose it. As Emil Kaufmann points out in his book, 'Architecture in the Age of Reason', it was exactly this concern which motivated much of the architecture of 18th century Europe.

                       

                        "We have seen that in the first decades after 1700 a critical attitude toward the well-established formulas of composition had arisen among the English architects.  Somewhat later the Italian 'rigorists', led by Lodoli, felt that architecture should be basically reformed.  Toward the end of the eighteen century France developed a new type of architecture distinguished by positive artistic aims of a quite novel character.  The new predilection for elementary forms and the new truthfulness to the nature of materials reveal the soundness of the French movement; the endeavours to find new pattern tell of its artistic aspirations.  The ideal of pure functionalism remained confined to theory, but was nevertheless as influential ally in the struggle for architectural individualism.  The geometric forms and the respect for the properties of the material promised artistic results which agreed with the rationalism underlying the functionalist doctrine far better than the anthropomorphic forms of the Baroque ever could have done." (Kaufmann, page 181, Dover edition).

Whether this 'struggle for architectural individualism' is typed out in Graeco-Roman, Gothic or Modern characteristics, it will express itself in a literal interpretation of architectural elements and spatial organization.  It will tend towards an extreme articulation of the forms of the classical period which preceded it by giving them a precise, but arbitrary, identity. For the same reason one must reject the idea which is often put forward that the state of architecture in the 20th century is primarily the result of the application of industrial techniques to form. In this argument, functionalist organization of form - the building as an aggregate of elements and spaces - is taken to be unique to Modern Architecture and can be attributed directly to the use of modern technologies.  This idea is quite consistent with an Involutionary perspective on history itself in which every period becomes unique in every way. In this case, it is history which is being turned into an aggregate of distinct events.  In fact, of course, some things change and some things stay the same. While the over-articulation of form (called ‘functionalism’ in the 20^th century) is common to all Involutionary periods in architecture - as its operative aspect - what is unique to Modern Architecture is its ability to carry out the reduction of form to an unprecedented degree.  It is here that modern technologies play their decisive role in architecture; they allow the almost complete disarticulation of the form of buildings and cities.  So powerful are these technologies, both technically and organizationally, that the quantitative techniques which they afford to Modern Architecture also result in the compression of the Developmental and Involutionary sequences into a remarkably short time-scale. Although architecture goes through the same developmental stages as previous architectures, the analytical power made available to Modern Architecture by technology makes it appear to be an almost instantaneous, and certainly revolutionary, architecture. This acceleration of history disguises the similarities of process which link Modern Architecture and the architectures of previous epochs.

2       Signs of Crisis

By what means has Modern Architecture disguised its increasingly unrepresentative character? In other words, like other architectures at the same historical stage, how has it displaced its representational problems into secondary activities. Two devices have already been mentioned: over-articulation of form and the emergence of a superficial plurality of styles and approaches.  These range, as suggested above, from Hi-Tech to Historicism. In one form or another, the latter seems to have become a particular concern of much of the avant-garde many of whom regard the problems of Modern Architecture as irremediable; that is, the source of the crisis lies not in some temporary malfunction of development but can be traced back to the very origins of the Modern Type. From this point of view ‘modern architecture has failed’ and it is therefore necessary to recover the lost richness of expression in architecture by utilizing forms drawn from previous repertoires such as Classicism in its various forms.  Since history in the form of the Modern Movement cannot be reversed, the work of the avant-garde is forced either into proposing truely utopian schemes which offer a consistent, but unrealizable, alternative architecture founded on the principles of the previous Type, (note, for instance the work of Leon Krier) or simply infuses modern forms with spurious 'signs and symbols' of difference and apparent plurality of expression (the work of Michael Graves).  It is not surprising that the reified 'bit-and-pieces' of Classicism, whether Mannerist or Roman, which they choose to abstract from their historical context can quite easily be incorporated as decoration 'on' the surface of otherwise typical modern buildings.  They pose no threat to its self-styled rationality. Without these superficial additions to the inarticulate forms of Modern Architecture, it would face an even more rapid decline in its credibility as an authentic means of representation.  At best, this fragmentary approach to the problems of architecture results in series of amusing stylistic games. With historicism, these can be played out with classical pediments or Mannerist surface techniques; with hi-Tech there is a gross elaboration of the building technology in full colour; with Populism one has the introduction of elements from ‘Main Street’, Levittown or Las Vegas; Regionalism draws upon pre-industrial and traditional architectural elements to establish its contextual identity. These and other approaches are all quite consistent with the final collapse of Modernism and its dispersal into a group of apparently independent styles.

Unable to transcend the problems which are generated by the irreversible condition of Involution, architectural activity (avant-garde or otherwise) in general is forced to displace them in a manner which does not simultaneously contradict the validity of the Modern Type.  It is this unconscious process of displacement which pervades almost the whole of productive activity which must be uncovered in order to understand the state of Modern Architecture.  If complexity is displaced out of the typical set during Involution, it is always displaced into some secondary activity of architecture which provides the contextual material for identifying the inert primary forms of buildings.  In previous architectures at the same historical stage, this 'marking up' of typical elements and spatial organization could be clearly seen in the various forms of decoration which they employed, set rotations, symbolic geometries, allegories, the attachment of imaginary architectures (columns, porticos, pilasters and other fictive elements), together with sculpture and script.  (One is reminded here of the Renaissance concept of decoration as the 'corporeal' nature of a building).  These were all very overt methods of externalizing complexity rather than allowing it to distort the primary forms of the building.  If Involution demands this sort of extrusion, then one must look for its equivalent in the architecture of the later 20th century.  It is worth emphasizing that it is the activity of displacement which is being sought, not the activity of decoration per se.  For this reason one is not searching for some overt use of the fictitious in the forms of Modern Architecture although they are there, but a group of signs (or symptoms) which are being used consistently to indicate context. The term 'context' does not only refer to the relation of one building to another or to the particular time ,place and circumstances of its making. It can also refers to the relation of one part of the building to another part. That is, it defines the context of each and every part of a building. This is particularly important in the Involutionary phase where the overly-precise nature of the elements tends to the make the building an assembly of architectural elements. Another aspect of such contextual signs which must be looked for is that they should portray ritualistic characteristics.

3       Technology and Architecture

If such a group of signs are to be found in Modern Architecture then they clearly lie in its emphasis on technological rationality.  Technology is not simply the technical apparatus by which an architecture may be realized, nor is it the ubiquitous use of machines, prefabrication or the possibility of mass production. Technology is, first and foremost, the method of organization of the work process:  it is a matter of coordinating these technical means to ensure their maximum productive capacity.  In this it can be considered to be an industrial Type having elements (technical apparatus) and rules for the combination of those elements (their coordination).  Technology has as its goal the elimination of inconsistencies and variations of technique across the whole of production.  This is essentially a question of the economic use of resources - minimum effort against maximum return.  Minimum effort is only achievable given a predictable relationship between the means of production.  Technology gives the production process a self-propelling quality by integrating its originally diverse centres into a reliable whole.  Like the development of an architectural Type, technology integrates the productive world by splitting down existing productive units into their constituent processes and condensing similar processes together. The units so formed are, therefore, highly specialized in their function and are arranged into an organized aggregate where the performance of each unit or process is highly predictable and repetitive. For pre-20th century architecture there was one inescapable problem which prevented the complete standardization of the Type; the process of production could never be completely coordinated.  The means for such control were not available to the institutions which sought to direct, influence and, ultimately unify architectural production.  There would always be areas and pockets of production, even in the most centralized state which remained, for one reason or another, outside the influence of the commanding  institutions.  Also, the existence of adjacent societies with different traditions would contaminate local standards.  Nor was there any way of ensuring conformity in the kind of education that architects would receive since most of them would be trained outside the recognized academies.  As a prerequisite for professional practice, education in a recognized school of architecture only became mandatory at the beginning of this century.  Add to this the lack of a national or international means of publishing the work of many architects and thus speeding up the process of exchange and homogenization of ideas, and one can see that the ideal of perfect standardization would be extremely difficult to achieve. The same 'problems' of diversity of building materials and techniques could be found even within the same society.  Given these conditions, it took a very long time indeed for a recognizably unified architectural Type to become established within one society or group of societies.

If these difficulties were removed, as they have been to a large extent in the 20th century, then the possibility of total conformity of architectural production can be imagined. The means are now available to transmit the values of a single architectural style throughout many societies and to ensure a conformity of education for all architects. So too, the growing uniformity of the industrial base in which architects operate and the convergence of the social and cultural traditions of different societies lend themselves to the acceptance of a common architectural Type.  It becomes the case that the vast majority of architects, trained in exactly the same way, reliant on the same industrial base, influenced by the same technical literature and conditioned by the same cultural milieu will produce a completely unified and comprehensive architectural Type.  This degree of coordination afforded by modern technologies also ensures that the Type so produced will be deeply-programmed into all architectural activity.  The unity arrived at by these means (and over a relatively short space of time) will apply to every single dimension of architectural activity, theoretically erasing the possibility of typological diversity. In these circumstances, every action taken and every creative thought merely serves to confirm and reinforce the prevailing Type.  The typological and institutional diversity which might have allowed a subversive thought to arise (even by accident) has been ironed out.  The material which would have formed the content of an alternative architecture simply does not exist.

           

If technology allows the coordination of production to this degree and if it also allows the collection and analysis of the vast statistical surveys on which architectural programmes will be based, then one would be tempted to say that here was an architecture which could absorb complexity. If no area of the society need be left unclassified in terms of its social needs and if the technical and economic aspects of an architecture can be precisely defined and, therefore, made utterly reliable, then theoretically, the necessity for displacement would have been removed. After all displacement only occurs when the set of typical elements cannot express the complexity of lived experience. Again, if such an architecture did not need to rely on the experience accumulated in the past, and could reject the historical constraints on what sort of architecture it could be, then, more than any other, it would be a self-consistent architecture.  No matter how uniform its routine, technology would have given it the means to derive its forms out of 'needs', 'functions' and the immediate experience of contexts.  In effect, it would transcend history not simply by the stability of its typical set but much more fundamentally by generating a set which was ORGANIC  to the conditions of its society.  More than any other architecture in history, it would seem to be a new ‘nature’ exactly analogous to the relations in the society which it sought to represent.  At this level of sophistication, the DIGITAL analysis of contextual relations (i.e., quantitative- reductive) and the dominant mode of behaviour during Involutionary periods), would be reinforced to an extreme degree by the essentially digital nature of technology itself.  The latter's own atomistic tendencies would by its power indirectly magnify the same tendencies during the Involutionary period. So detailed would functionalist analysis become for this reason that it would appear to be an analogue of its context.  It would seem to have taken absolutely everything into account.

           

The difference between the digital and analogue modes of perception can, of course, be equated with the atomistic and holistic methods of analysis.  A more precise definition of the two terms may be found in the following passage from Antony Wilden's book: 'System and Structure', where he says:

                        "This is in essence is the prime distinction between the function of the digital and that of the analog.  The digital mode of language is denotative: it may talk about any thing and does so in the language of objects, facts, events and the like.  Its linguistic function is primarily the sharing of nameable information (in the non-technical sense); its overall function is the transmission or sharing or reproduction of pattern and structures (information in the technical sense).  The analog on the other hand talks only about relationships.  In human communication there are often serious problems of translation between the two" (Wilden. page 164).

The coincidence of Involution in architecture with a powerful technology would allow architecture to name (i.e., state the characteristic of) every element that was present in production and integrate their similarities to a degree previously unknown. Since Involution is defined with reference to the Type produced in the Developmental stage, its digital power transforms the 'more or less' predictable relationships of that Type (its analogue state) into a number of fixed ‘either-or’  elements which supposedly serve the same overall purpose of representation. (Elements which, as suggested earlier, do not change their character according to context and which are distinct from one another). In a sense there is the creation of a virtual reality.

When the inevitable splitting of literal and contextual elements is reinforced by a technology sympathetic to these ends as it is in the 20th century, a qualitative leap occurs in the process.  Whereas in the past digital analysis – the precise classification of architectural elements - would still result in fixed typical elements and fluid decoration; now, that difference can be dissolved.  It had always represented a complexity or ambiguity  which no amount of Involutionary reduction could eliminate - its fluidity represented the failure of architectural analysis to cope with the ultimate transience of experience.  Although architecture could type out a set of highly predictable elements, it could never quite overcome the problem of representing contextual differences with a set of highly predictable elements. The coincidence of an advanced technology with an Involutionary phase of architecture theoretically solves that problem. The most minute variations of context can be classified in architectural terms.  The process of splitting takes place at a different order of magnitude from previous periods which could only displace complexity into a sub-routine of unpredictable forms to be called up as necessary. Now nothing need be unpredictable; the whole architectural world can be reduced to an aggregate of fine details which can be combined to represent any circumstance, no matter how complex or variable. The blunt instruments of the past can be replaced by the precision instruments of today.

Decoration arises when analysis has to stop, overwhelmed by the complexity and variety of situations which an architecture must represent.  It marks the limit - the high-water mark - of the typological process in architecture.  It denoted the beginning of the region of uncertainty: a region to which all unclassifiable material was exiled. In the 20th century the dimensions of that region have apparently been reduced to a marginal - 'statistically negligible' - area of production.  What does this mean for Modern Architecture?  In one sense it makes it difficult to detect the signs of displacement in contemporary architecture for it is based on a set which seems to be utterly comprehensive.  There is no involuntary admission ( a Freudian ‘slip of the tongue’), for instance in the use of overt decoration that the typical set is inadequate to the task of representing the whole of experience – apparently there is no process of displacement in this architecture. The power of technology has allowed it to INTERNALIZE diversity within the limits of a now comprehensive typical set. Or, so it would seem. Yet the Postmodern fragmentation of the Modern points exactly to the fact that the same irreconcilable differences exist within this architecture between the simplicity of the model which it uses and the complexity of the experience which it represents.

5       Technology as Ritual

In architecture, the unconscious activity of displacement is expressed through a ritualization of the organization of the built form.  That is, as a rhetorical confirmation of the primary forms of a building. If decoration is called up to alleviate the semantic inadequacies of a building (the Type-in-context), it does so by articulating the stereotyped forms drawn from the typical set.  It makes the building speak of a particular place and a particular time.  It is a sub-routine which provides the determinative clues which indicate the meaning of the typical elements in this context.  It fulfils this function for every part of the building for these elements can no longer be adjusted to suit the inevitably varied circumstances in which they will be used.  At this late stage in the historical of an architecture, elements are JUXTAPOSED against each other rather than pragmatically fused with one another.  Decoration is focused on those events in a building where different elements and spatial groups meet. In linking the differences which in-form a building it simultaneously expresses its overall organization. It has taken over this role from the typical elements which are now too abstract and inert for they can only express their own consistency.  The task of expressing the meaning of any particular building (what makes it forms predictable to each other and to its context), is transferred to a set of relatively inconsequential features.  For this reason, meaning is always ADJACENT to the 'key words' of any particular statement.

           

Decoration articulates or elaborates on events such as entrances, windows, doors, floor levels, corners, eaves, column-beam junctions, stairways, and so on. Similarly, it articulates the internal geometries which organize the distribution of spaces by emphasizing their intersections, focal points and axes.  From this, one can suggest that decoration, or more generally, displacement, will focus on the MAKING of buildings both in the technical and organizational senses.  It elaborates on the way a building is put together in terms of the elements it uses and the spatial organization it presents.  Displacement materializes itself as a commentary on the making of buildings.

           

In the past there was a clear division between a statement and its commentary; they could be read separately.  This is not the case with Modern Architecture where the typological process has eroded the difference between the two.  It has gained the power through modern technology to stereotype every dimension of the formative process, including the form of displacement.  Effectively, the statement and its commentary are compressed into one form.  The result is an apparently uncondittional statement which appears to be an immutable 'fact'.  Historically, decoration implied that in some way every building was unique to its context, even although it might utilize the standard elements of the Type. When displacement loses its  visible and subversive difference from the typical elements – when displacement as such seems to disappear, so too does architecture's capacity to respond at any level to the complexities of experience. For the first time in history an architecture has lost almost every aspect of its representational flexibility.  It has 'literally' become PURE FORM.

           

While displacement has been emptied of the differences which allowed one to recognize it as decoration, it remains an unavoidable dimension of architectural activity.  Indeed, in the case of Modern Architecture it has become an ever more necessary activity, which must alleviate the total collapse of the semantic function.  The result of this is that in the 20th century it is not enough just to make a building, one must also show HOW IT WAS MADE.  Modern Architecture is compulsively driven to reveal the rationality of every aspect of the organization and fabricating of its work.  It cannot stop itself from elaborating on this rationality; opening it up to view; clarifying it and articulating it.  However, this massive commentary on the making of Modern Architecture, its ritualization, is still a device whose central purpose is to deflect criticism of its essentially unrepresentative forms.  It is the displacement of its inadequacies recast as a confirmation of its rationality.  No matter that many of the forms of Modern Architecture have been shown time after time to be completely irrational at the level of everyday use or that the meaning of modern buildings cannot be assumed from their forms, IT MUST APPEAR TO BE RATIONAL.  For every one of its real deficiencies there is a technical, economic or organizational justification which cannot be overcome in its own terms.  Like the highly compressed symbol mentioned earlier, Modern Architecture deflects criticism of any one of its aspects by continually referring to some other aspect as its ‘cause’. It deflects criticism. This is an architecture which screams its sanity and rationality.  But, it is also an architecture which protests its innocence too much. In striving to make itself transparent and absolutely comprehensible, Modern Architecture articulates its forms well beyond any necessary technical or organizational requirements.  Indeed, in those terms, much of this is positively uneconomic and spurious.  Yet this architecture has the technical ability to carry such articulation to great extremes: to the point, in fact, where it dis-articulates the building to reveal its volumetric organization. This is the extremity of the process of displacement and clarification where the form of the building is EXPLODED into a material diagram of the relationships which exist between the different parts of the building. 

Historically,  it was only possible to imply these relationships.  In effect, Modern Architecture can build the diagram.  Here the digital character of Involutionary activity reaches new heights of clarity with the literal introduction of gaps or spaces between the parts of buildings and between the elements which make those parts.  More figuratively, one can imagine this digital action has produced buildings which appear, in some cases to have been frozen at the moment after they have been exploded.  One need only look at so-called Deconstructivist buildings to sense the ultimately digital design process. The many parts do not fly off in all directions but although now separated from one another, they remain in the same relationship.  Where decoration might have been used to link these different parts together - to fill in the gaps between the parts of the building and contextualize each part - its digital equivalent (its negative) emphasizes them. Each element of the building is in sharp focus; so too is its relationship to all others. In this way at least the contextual function of displacement is still operative even if in its literal fashion it can only identify 'one element at a time'.  The building as a whole, however, is context-free.

           

The digital spaces which are used to identify the different parts of the building and to declaim the rationality of its making and organization are equally evident at the large scale.  It was mentioned earlier that the sterilized spaces between many modern buildings which isolate them from one another serve to articulate their specific identities.  Note, for instance the gigantic cemeteries of tower blocks which face each other is silent affirmation of their own identities.  At an even larger scale the highly specialized zoning regulations which govern the organization of many cities performs the same task of clarification.  The functions which exist in each of these zones (one can no longer call them neighbourhoods) will be utterly predictable and inevitably, utterly monotonous.  True to their ideological nature as the products of Involution, these cities defy the most fundamental principle of urban living, namely that the form of the city should ensure the least necessary action by its inhabitants in order to gain access to any service.  One could suggest that cities originated on this basis that the products and services for a whole region were all available in one place.  In the past, many cities were organized as a group of self-sufficient neighbourhoods within which one could live, work and play and die.  Today, however, planning policy requires that no matter how inconvenient or uneconomic it might be, these functions will be dispersed into specialized parts of the city.

           

In this ritual celebration of the organization of built form every place and space must have a distinct identity – a distinct name. In Modern Architecture, this extreme degree of technical and formal precision can be understood as an arbitrary punctuation of the organizational logic of the buildings. It is ritualistic insofar as it is applied in all circumstances whether it is justified or not. The continuity of the relations in a context and their interdependence are no longer reflected in the form of buildings which speak (in staccato) only of themselves and their making.  The obvious differences between primary form and displacement have been eliminated with the reduction (in both sense of the word) of the overt expression of displacement.  In previous architectures, decoration in its most obvious additive form provided buildings with a level of complexity, detail, scale and visual interest which alleviated the mass of a building. In the circumstances of Involution, this was by no means a superficial function. Apart from the pure pleasure which it provided to the observer it served to visually hold the elements of the building together and also identify its relation to its particular context Yet in destroying this visible and autonomous dimension of form and its mediating role, architecture unleashes the full weight of the typological process on itself, unconstrained by history or pragmatism. Reinforced by the empirical world of technology, architecture propels itself towards that final state reserved for all unconstrained ideologies:  insanity.

End of Chapter 10