Non Postmodernism

Central Image: EXTREME NATURE: Landscape of Ambiguous Spaces | Japan Pavilion, Junya Ishigami | 11th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia | Source: https://venezia-biennale-japan.jpf.go.jp/e/architecture/2008

Experimental Architecture is one of the currents of the late 20th century which was born out of the mistakes and divergences of academicism, by people who had not been shaped yet by the academy. It was the pathogenesis of modernity and the urbanization of obedience based on economic plans that failed. It emerged in the early 70s with the financial crash, the Vietnam War and the impending ecological disaster.

As a current, it was short-lived as it was lost in the wave of postmodernism and was considered synonymous to experimentation in architecture. Experimental Architecture expressed a need to disengage the architectural composition from the strict structure that translates into morphology. Its goal was to promote the production process and the methodology behind the final product. It dealt with issues concerning society and the environment at a time when art and architecture would respond politically only to the manifestos of earlier movements and to economic and political interests. The term first appears in the late 20th century by Peter Cook, a member of Archigram, in the book ‘Experimental Architecture’ (1970). According to him, Experimental Architecture is the methodology of harmonization with the environment and not a specific morphology. This new design method takes content from geography, topology, culture and sustainability and tries to place itself on the social and political map not to highlight an aesthetic but to make a statement.

Architecture until then, in the context of early globalization, was the result of economic interests and symbols of power translated into building programs with few divergencies. The social and political transitions of the 20th century emphasized that such policies in design were untimely and socially problematic, and their roots came from deep within the academy. One of the goals of Experimental Architecture was to overturn the hitherto outdated learning methods and to restore techniques and materials that had been lost in modern construction. Lebbeus Woods, already having a long research and architectural background on the revision of deferred practices, founded, in 1988, the Research Institute of Experimental Architecture (RIEA) based in Switzerland. 

The institute, through educational seminars, tried to recover and modernize methods of acquisition and models that could harmonize with the environment. Through their practice, they proposed materials that could respond to the perceptions of the early ecological crisis, such as renewable-recyclable wood of substantial strength, cement based on fungi -which has the ability to decompose-, and new forms of soldering and mortars such as nanocellulose, which is created by the primary recycling of consumables.

ZHUuGROUND14: Critical Skills and Social Interaction l Αrchitectural workshop by RIEA , City University of Hong Kong, 17-19 May 2014 | Construction of bamboo with assemblages from natural materials. The technique of bamboo scaffolding was taught during the RIEA research workshop at the University of Hong Kong by Mak Chiu Le-ung Donald. | Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MtHEO00cqk

The work of Woods and RIEA followed an early academic model directly correlated with architectural application. The core of the current, however, may lie in the overall revision of methods of learning, experience, political action and planning, resulting in visions of methodology that are not translated into the physical world.However, the direction of Experimental Architecture towards the paradox merged it with other architectural positions and currents of that time, the main one being that of the Postmodern. The two currents find their inaugural in manifestations of aversion to dry academicism, the dogma of the modern and the conservatism of the material - as a political position of morphology.

All this was the starting point of deconstructive logic, but Experimental Architecture is positioned in terms of method and Postmodern Architecture in terms of form. A key divergence between the two was that the postmodern existed only in reference to the modern, as the deconstruction of it, meaning that it expressed a kind of ideological aspect that concerned the distancing from strict structure and duality and the transition from a morphology that only served function and dehumanized the strict position of the modern in terms of dry morphocracy as a consequence of the operation. As Aaron Betsky says, «Postmodernism was not all fun and games. It was a serious research and criticism, especially in schools. In the places where students tried things and teachers had the ability to wonder what they were doing and why, experimental architecture emerged to question not only the clarity and clean lines of Modernism, but also the jokes of postmodernism and revival.»

The reactions were mirrored in the general art scene. Conceptual art, arte povera, the shift towards archaeology and folklore and research while considering the environmental footprint were key artistic factors that defined the 1960s. At the same time, independent groups such as those of Archigram, Situationist International, Archizoom et al., clearly influenced by the political position of the art scene, opened a dialogue about design and space. The new positions commented on the ideology of the modern movement on a theoretical and spatial level, proposing an "anti-design" methodology in the design reality (Brayer, 1960, p. 361), definitively marking the early Experimental Architecture.

Kunstmuseum, New Babylon, Situationist International | 19 architectural models, 72 sketches, 48 prints/silks, 4 paintings | Source: www.kunstmuseum.nl

«Experimental architecture was often considered to be a form of paper architecture, referring to architects making utopian, dystopian or fantasy projects that were never meant to be built.»

Spatial Agency: Paper Architects

The existence of an unapplied architecture underlines the need for its existence. A spatial approach that seems impossible is not for technological or building reasons but mainly for social and political reasons. The design proposals of early Experimental Architecture never materialized. The reason for this was not due to a lack of necessary technical training, but mainly because such intrusive proposals would create disorganization in the social and political reality. The fact that these works were never built, seems to have been an initial design decision of their creators and a statement that architecture is not only a natural spatial proposal and morphology but it can exist and be experienced in imaginary environments - a condition that is later confirmed through digitalism. Such design models are Yona Friedman's Spatial City (Ville spatiale), an aerial city of social urbanism with zero environmental footprint, and the urban project New Babylon by Situationist International, a meta-revolutionary city that had excommunicated the capital. In brief, it was a megastructure ecosystem that was shaped by light, sound and climate, and the social and cultural behaviors of its inhabitants (Brayer, 1960, p. 362).

Spatial City (Ville spatiale), Yona Friedman | Source: http://www.frac-centre.fr/

The visions of Friedman and the Situationists included habitable ecosystems and imaginary megastructures where between materials, experience and decomposition there would be complete harmony. Digitality would not only be a control system but also an appliance and engineering would be based on its environment. In other words, instead of simply “installing” architecture, not taking into account the parameters of its surroundings, Experimental Architecture proposes the creation of a new natural environment where space would supply and be supplied with parameters such as light, water, air, issues of gender, class, etc. without promising a specific form. The form would be influenced by its environment and parametrically change based on it.

The Situationists and Archigram, unlike Woods who dwelt on methodology and learning, created architectural utopias, and Paper Architects made buildings and spatialities that survived only on paper. They believed that the implementation on a 1:1 scale, with its construction losses, the lack of techniques and materials as well as the commercial aspect that emerges, would make them deviate from their ideological basis to create sustainable environments. The fantasticism of the current faded somewhere in the 1990s. The reason this might have happened was because such an ideological project could not remain on paper any longer. In 2008 Aaron Betsky presents the curatorial proposal 'Architecture Beyond Building' at the Venice Biennale. 

The exhibition presented sustainable environments that served the imaginary with constructions depicted through digital means, 3d representations, sculptural renderings, videos, texts, 2d websites, etc. The multimedia rendering of architecture highlights the ideological context and practices of the 70s because space does not exist only with its physical substance, boundaries are not made only from building materials and experience can occur in a disembodied state.

Prototyping the future: three houses for the subconscious | 11th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, 2008 | Source: https://asymptote.net/ 

Bibliography:

Brayer Marie-Ange, Work and Play in Experimental Architecture, 1960-1970, TREAM Architecture

Cook Peter, Experimental architecture, 1970, Universe Books

Cook Peter, Morphosis: A Decade of Architectural Confrontation: Residential Projects, 1978-1988, 1989, Cheney Cowles Museum, Spokane 

Hatton Brian, Out Where? Venice Biennale 2008, Architectural Association School of Architecture

Spatial Agency: Paper Architects | spatialagency.net