Reading Space: Words and Thoughts on Design

A series of sketches by John Hejduk from 1962 - enigmatic diagrams of a mysterious wall - prompt K. Michael Hays to state in his latest book that the images "resemble nothing so much as Lacans diagram of the gaze, of vision turned back on itself." Indeed, they might lead us to think the architect had the analysts psycho - visual schemata in mind when he made them.

But, no: Lacans figure didnt debut in print until 1973. But you wouldnt know that from reading Architectures Desire, an edifying if irreverent history of architecture in the age of theory - one thats more concerned with applying theory to history than in searching for theory in history.

Hays returns us to a time - the 1960s and 70s - when discourse turned in on itself, looking to reevaluate its ontological foundations and its eschatological trajectory. It hoped to use architecture as a medium for philosophical thought. Conscripted into Hayss late avant - garde are Aldo Rossi, Peter Eisenman, Hejduk, Bernard Tschumi, and, in a brief coda, Rem Koolhaas, who rushes in to crowd out his colleagues introspections and declare the return of the Real.

In a book that deals with architects - as - analysts, it is fitting that Hays should so freguently turn to Lacan to elucidate the deep psychic springs from which their architectures emerged. But it would be useful to know what, exactly, Hejduk and his contemporaries actually thought of Lacan.

Walter Benjamin and Architecture, edited by Cevork Hartoonian. Routledge, 2010,179pages, $70.

On September 25,1940, the philosopher Walter Benjamin, aged 48, was found dead in his hotel room in Portbou, Spain. Fleeing the Gestapo and intending to come to the United States, he carried with him a manuscript he deemed more important than his own life. To this day, it has never been recovered. Nearly three decades after Benjamins death, the discipline of architecture, seeking new ideas, would turn to his oeuvre via Manf redo Tafuris influential Teorie e Storia deilArchitettura, which elaborated a debt to Benjamin and marked Benjamins entree into architectural discourse. As demonstrated in Walter Benjamin and Architecture - a collection of essays - architectural historians and practitioners have found in Benjamins work a way of thinking that transcends eras and resonates with architectures deepest concerns. For example, Terry Smiths essay, "Daniel Among the Philosophers," shows how Benjamins writings helped Daniel Libeskind as he struggled with his paradigm - breaking Jewish Museum in Berlin. Benjamins continued relevance is due, in part, to his intimate and sometimes mystical reflections on how space affects us. His ideas still matter because of their disciplined humanism. His essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is prescient for a 21st century in which digital design has the potential to dehumanize and flatten space.

Stas

Writings on Architecture, by Paul Rudolph, foreword by Robert A.M. Stern. Yale School of Architecture, 2009,164 pages, $18.

Most admirers of Paul Rudolph believe that his native mode of communication was rooted in drawing. But he was also a skilled and influential verbal communicator. This elegant volume of selected writings and photographs provides access to Rudolphs core preoccupations, from modularity and prefabrication to the design of civic space.

Rudolphs residential work in Florida epitomized the first phase of his career; he founded his practice in Sarasota in 1952. Academic projects defined his 1960s output, and large - scale commissions in Asia provided the focus for his late work. During these distinct periods, a level of consistency persisted in Rudolphs writing. Respect for the principles of regionalism, urbanism, and nuanced scale relationships appear throughout the volume.

Writings on Architecture invites the reader into an ongoing conversation between Rudolph and the masters: Gropius, Mies, Le Corbusier, and Wright. A pronounced admiration for grand public spaces such as the Piazza San Marco in Venice and St. Peters in Rome infuse the writing with historical context. Rudolph implores students to experience architecture directly and engage "the joy of making things... the realm of ideas and intellectual aspects of architecture: the sheer joy, and problems, and possibilities of materials, and technigues, and technology." During his tenure as chairman of Yales school of architecture, Rudolph spoke of two selves, the objective teacher and the polemical architect, who were consistently at odds. His critigue of teaching current trends instead of establishing design principles is still relevant today.

Rudolph recognized the importance of Gio Pontis concept of unconcluded works, acknowledging that use and context change over time. This notion that built projects are neither finite nor finished is evident in his expansion strategy for the Yale A&A Building and his modular design for Sarasota, Floridas Riverview High School. Rudolph understood that work designed in the present would provide a context for the future.