Design
Precedents and Identity, the exercises
Dr. K. Moraes Zarzar, dipl.arch.,
MTD, PhD
Department of Architecture, Delft University of
Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
e-mail: K.MoraesZarzar@bk.tudelft.nl
Abstract
This article shows the last developments in the research on the use of
design precedents and its relation to the notion of identity which is carried
out at the Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, The
Netherlands. This research started with the author’s PhD research defended in
June, 2003.
This article gives first a summary of an account on how architects use
and adapt precedents in architectural design; it provides the definitions of terms
used in this approach. Second, it gives a summary of the research into the notion
of identity and its relation with the use of design precedents. The main
question in this part of the research was whether it is possible to use design
precedents to embody a notion of identity in designs. In this part the
definition of identity is crucial; because it gives the constraints and the strategy
of the research. It goes without saying that we are searching for a critical
use of the term identity, far from the picturesque and kitsch.
Third, this article shows two examples of the exercises carried out at
the afore-mentioned faculty during the seminar Precedents and Identity on June
22-23 last. This seminar was divided in two main parts: lectures and workshops.
We counted with the participation of lecturers such as Prof. Dr. Roberto Segre,
from DPA/FAU/UFRJ, Brazil, Prof. Celestino Soddu and Prof. Enrica Colabella
from Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy: Prof. Dr. Liane Lefaivre from Universitat
fur Angewandte Kunst, Austria. The seminar was carried out to raise relevant
questions on the role of precedents in expressing identity as well as in
enriching our understanding of the notion of identity.
The final part of this article shows a brief evaluation of the exercises
and gives new directions to the research.
1. Introduction
The objective of this article is to present the state of the arts of the
research on design precedents and on the notion of identity carry out at the
Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology. This article presents
its insights and future goals by presenting two of the exercises carried out
during the Seminar Precedents and Identity held at the afore-mentioned faculty.
The main concepts developed in this research was presented in two earlier
articles.
In the article “Breaking the Type (GA2003), Considerations toward the
Production of Innovative Architectural Designs by Evolutionary Design Models”,
I presented an account of how architects using design precedents might yield
innovative designs. This account, which
was developed during my PhD, Use and
Adaptation of Precedents in Architectural Design, toward an Evolutionary Design
Model, refers to ‘what’ and ‘how’ concepts, configurations, topology as
well as structure was used and adapted in new designs. At that moment, the
question on the architects’ intention (the ‘why’ question) was avoid to its
maximum. This aspect was brought to my
research when I started dealing with the notion of identity in design.
In the article for the GA2004 “Design Precedents and Identity”, I
suggested that the notion of identity should be approached as a ‘complex system’
(Holland 1995) where numerous factors such as economic, political and
geographic as well as cultural and morphological. Considering all these
factors, one can say that there are always change and continuity over the years,
no region remains the same. Indeed, if all aspects abruptly change at once, the
system will probably collapse and a new identity may replace the former. Identity
refers to control as well as resistance in society (Castells 2004) and whenever
people lives or works in a society (virtual or real), there will be a certain
(bad or good) identity or numerous identities in struggle with each other (controlling
and resisting). The notion of Identity is not considered a static system or
closed system, but impregnated by the local culture, changing over time (Moraes
Zarzar 2004).
This paper shows, first, a summary of the main ideas; second, two examples
of the exercises carried out during the international seminar ‘Precedents and
Identity’. Third, it presents a short evaluation of the exercises and the
structure of the exercises which our students are carrying out this semester during
the course Method and Analysis and
the research future goals.
2. The main ideas of the use and Adaptation of Design Precedents
In my former articles, I have being arguing that architects often
explicitly make use of design precedents within an explicitly or less explicitly
manner but in both ways frequently leading to efficient, effective, and/or
innovative results. In fact, in architectural practice, the use of design
precedents as a source of knowledge is often considered to be a more efficient
strategy in developing designs than initiating a project from tabula rasa (Moraes
Zarzar 2003).
In the article “Breaking the type”, I argued that the process of using
design precedents resembles in a sense the process of evolution in nature. In
nature, the acquirement of characteristics takes place based on the
transference of genes from one generation to another and the evolution depends
on the transference of erratic copies of genes that generate novelties and more
variation through time and the struggle for survival. In this way, these two
processes are very different models. However, it is implicit in both models
that there is use of past information which is developed during the ontogeny of
a new generation (Moraes Zarzar 2003).
In nature the past information is passed to the other generation via the
genes which copy themselves and are (partially) transmitted to the offspring. One
might say that organisms are the expression of those genes (phenotypes). By
analogy, we could say that design precedents/projects/cases are the expression
of design genes. A design gene then expresses a feature in a project/case:
features are then the “material of the architect”. Architects transfer features
(and their hidden instructions), which may derive from other architectural
projects or vernacular buildings as well as by analogical reasoning such as “bottles,
schips, and bottle racks “(Tzonis 1990) or also d-genes, i.e. concepts and
principles.
In general, one can observe two kinds of transference. On the one hand,
one may be interested only in the configuration of certain elements, such as Le
Corbusier and the piloti of the savage hut. On the other hand, the designer may
be concerned with the use of certain structures irrespective of the original
use that the structure had, such as Calatrava’s use of similar structures for
different kinds of project; for example the “arch and hangers” of Lusitania
Bridge (1988-91) in Mérida, Spain, and the “arch and hangers” of the roof of
Tenerife Exhibition Hall (1992) in Tenerife. In this manner, Instructions from
a feature are isolated from their original design and transferred.
The configurational, topological or geometrical instructions as well as
the structural instructions of a certain feature of an artefact must obviously
fit its corresponding part in the new design. In other words, it must fit with
the other configurations of the new design as well as its structure.
Once separated from the original design, they may evolve by acquiring
more meanings, such as in the case of Le Corbusier’s piloti. They may also
become a principle, as in fact the piloti did in becoming part of Corbusier’s
“five points for a modern architecture”. At that point, it was no longer the
savage hut that was essential to be recalled, but the principle.
3. The main ideas on Identity and Intention
Identity is a concept which is very difficult to define. Identity refers
to a multitude of aspects and their relationships. It refers to aspects from
different domains such as economics, political, geography, social, cultural,
but also “gender, age, ethnicity, life-style and locality” (Sparke 1986, p.
216). It refers to national, regional identity but also to groups, which
sometimes do not belong to a territory, and to the individual self. It goes
without saying that my research did not discuss all these aspects. The research
focuses on how design precedents (configuration, topology, geometry) might
express some of these aspects inherent to identity, in particular the social
and cultural aspects. It focuses on how architects, using precedents,
communicate ideas and answer the users’ need, and, in particular, it focuses on
the effort to ‘create’ a new identity and/or to reinforce the extant one; as
well as on the use of local potentials and critical import of technology and/or
building methods.
In his essay “Identity and Environment: a Cross-cultural Perspective”,
Amos Rapoport ask himself what in fact is Identity. He argues, “In order to
deal with the communication of identity of groups and individuals one needs to
examine the meaning of that concept. It seems generally agreed that ‘identity’
is a difficult concept to define. Dictionaries give multiple meanings, the two
most relevant referring to the unchanging nature of something under varying
aspects or conditions; and the condition of being one thing and not another
(Rapoport 1981).” He considers both relevant, but he argues that the second
notion seems to be at the heart of the concept as it applies to the question
considered in his essay: the communication of identity of groups and
individuals. While I think that this second notion is not really clarifying
much, I disagree in particular with the idea that identity refers to “the
unchanging nature of something under varying aspects or conditions”. I think
that identity refers to continuity but not a fixed situation.
In the article for the GA2004, I considered the dual character of
Identity. I wrote that if on the one hand, with the notion of identity, we
might think that we are giving a feeling of community to the inhabitants, on
the other hand, identity seems to imprison people in an unchangeable
chauvinistic environment or in a parochial picturesque regionalism. The later
form of identity seems to be the one which Rem Koolhaas condemns at the
beginning of his article “Generic City” (Koolhaas 1998). As a way out this
dichotomy, I showed how in “Critical Regionalism”, Alexander Tzonis and Liane
Lefaivre discuss the notion of Identity and the modernist technique of
defamiliarization as a mechanism to arrive at an idea of Identity in design
that was critically open to the import of worldwide elements (Tzonis and
Lefaivre 1996) and I explored the idea of how this kind of technique would also
help us to achieve a variety of high standard worldviews against the
homogenization that globalization is bringing to us.
As mentioned in my former article, defamiliarization is a term coined by
the Russian writer Shklovsky who was dealing with the notion of perception in
art. According to Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis in the introduction of Russian
Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, "The purpose of art, according to
Shklovsky, is to force us to notice. [The work of art] is designed especially
for perception, for attracting and holding attention (Lemon and Reis 1965).” According
to Shklovksy, defamiliarization is the main device to attract this attention,
this perception, this awareness of the object. Shklovsky points out, says Lemon and Reis, that defamiliarization can
make a reader perceive by making the familiar seem strange (Lemon and Reis
1965). Tzonis and Lefaivre proposed defamiliarization in a different way: as a
device to be used for a critical regionalism where local potentialities are allied
to a critical import of products/plans of globalization. The local
potentialities are then recollected in an unfamiliar and not in a picturesque
or kitsch way (Tzonis and Lefaivre 1990; Tzonis and Lefaivre 1996; Tzonis and
Lefaivre 2001). In the article for GA2004, I was trying to make explicit how
defamiliarization could be used as a technique to promote identity, one far
from the picturesque.
To understand the use of defamiliarization of precedents and the degree
in which it was applied by architects in certain projects, one should
understand the architects’ intentions. Were they trying to create a new
Identity of the place/building or to reinforce the current Identity of the
place? Were they trying to develop their worldview, their formal vocabulary? Architects
might recall precedents to create their worldview to help themselves in
yielding structure, configuration and topology in an autonomous moment. With
this approach they might, as Le Corbusier in his design for the Unité d’Habitation,
create a new identity with precedents that didn’t belong culturally to the
future users of the building (Moraes Zarzar 2004).
Defamiliarization seems to play an important role in the case of MGA’s
Dr. Santosh Benjamin House (Moraes Zarzar 2004). Both, by Le Corbusier’s Unité
and MGA’s Benjamin House, carry meaning and feeling in their expression.
However, it seems that the recollection of MGA’s precedents, in particular the
verandah, carries more meaning and feelings for the dweller than Le Corbusier’s
precedents would ever do for the dwellers of the Unité (bottles, ships and
bottleracks!). In the case of Benjamin House, one might speak about a critical
regionalism and subsequently about the creation of an identity of
resistance against the homogenization of design and of our cultures; an
identity that has a dialectical relation with processes of modernization. In
the case of the Unité, Le Corbusier used his precedents in his autonomous
moment to create a new identity,
a new life-style for the worker class.
By carrying out numerous cases, it became clear to me that: first,
architects might create or reinforce an identity or to be somewhere in between
these extremes. Second, architects might reinforce the identity of the place or
reinforce the identity of the building in the context; or to create a design somewhere
between these extremes. Third, to achieve their goals, architects might recall
design precedents in a familiar or in an unfamiliar way; i.e. from a
picturesque expression (false return to the Heimat) to a “strange” expression
(the Heideggerian belief that we can not dwell in modernity any longer). Here
as well, it seems that some architects also try to escape from these two
extremes.
Finally, the mode of recollection of precedents varies. Architects
approach their precedents in varied ways. In Classical Architecture, The
Poetics of Order, Tzonis and Lefaivre show three kinds of approach:
citationism, syncretism; and the use of fragments in an architectural
metastatement (Tzonis and Lefaivre 1986, p. 281). They use these approaches in
combination with classical architecture, but I generalized and used for the
recollection of any (fragment of) precedent.
Next I am describing two cases carried out by the participants of the
seminar Precedents and Identity on the Afternoon of June 22nd 2005.
4. Example One: Renzo Piano’s Tjibaou or Kanak Cultural Center, New Caledonia, 1991-1998
The following description of the project is found in Renzo Piano’s site.
“The centre is composed of 10 " houses ", all of different sizes and
with different functions intended as a celebration of Kanak culture: it is a
genuine village, with its own paths, greenery, and public spaces, located
outside and in direct contact with the ocean. The project addresses the
exploitation of currents of air and the difficulties of finding a way of
expressing the tradition of the Pacific in modern language, and embodies the
decisive contribution of the anthropologist” (Description from Piano’s official
site: http://www.renzopiano.it)
The site informs that the major challenge of this project was “the task
of paying homage to a culture while also respecting its traditions and history,
past, present and future, as well as its sensitivities.” As in the critical
regionalism, on the one hand, the local potentials were taken into account but
not in a picturesque way: “The idea was that, instead of creating a historical
reconstitution or a simple replica village, it was preferable to strive to
reflect the indigenous culture and its symbols which, though age-old, were
still very much alive.” On the other hand, the products of globalization,
meaning European technology and expertise, were used “at the service of the
traditions and expectations of the Kanak.” According to the official website of
Renzo Piano, the products of globalization were intended to be introduced
critically respecting the use of building materials and building methods: “By
no means should it be a parody or imitation of this culture, nor should it
involve imposing a totally foreign model.”
The idea of defamiliarization is clear (see illustration 1: hut and
settlement). The mode of recollection of the precedents seems to be of a
meta-statement, far from an easy citationism.
The project gives continuation to several concepts intrinsic to the
Kanak settlements: “The structure and above all the functionality of Caledonian
huts were reproduced and adapted, architecturally as well as socially. There
are ten huts in all, each measuring between 20 and 28 meters in height, at the
center of a nature reserve along the ocean shore. Each is interconnected by a
footpath.”
Kanak Cultural Center houses different functions than the traditional
settlements. However, the setting of its activities and in particular, the
pedestrian configuration of the path among the ‘huts’ are the same. The huts of
Kanak Cultural Center houses permanent and temporary exhibitions, an auditorium,
an amphitheatre as well as administrative departments, research areas, a
conference room, a library and studios for traditional activities. The topology
of traditional settlements was put to different use.
It is interesting to see that the preliminary project has a lower degree
of defamiliarization (see illustration 1). The final project has a linear
spatial configuration, while the former could be said to be a group of
centralized spatial configurations. The timber structure does not hide the
imported high technology of assemblage. It shows its “contradiction” and , in a almost Venturian way, it
brings vitality to the whole.
In summary, one might say that precedents in this project were used to
express, to embody identity in a critical regionalism. The first is the Kanak
hut, which is used in a certain degree of unfamiliarity consisting on the high
technology applied to construct the huts. The second is the settlement topology:
huts are organized with a topological similarity and only pedestrians circulate
from one hut to the other. there is also a variation of the size of the huts
according to their functions analogous to the traditional settlements. This
topology was put to different use and adapted to fit the program of a cultural
center. One can say that the topology
reinforce the local identity. Finally, the precedents were recollected as “regulatory
genes” (Moraes Zarzar 2003a), that is: configuration and topology; and they
weren’t recollected in a citationist approach, but, as meta-statements
reinforcing and creating a new identity at the same time.
Illustration 1: design precedents and
expression of identity in Renzo Piano’s Kanak Cultural Center.
5. Example Two: Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital 1964-1965 (mostly based on the description of Mahnaz Shah)
This exercise was developed by the participants of the seminar “Precedents
and Identity” on June 22 last as a continuation of the case carried out by
Mahnaz Shah, PhD Candidate at the Architectural Association, School of
Architecture, London. Shah contributed to the seminar as the “observer” of a
group of participants. The group’s objective was to explore the design
precedents that Le Corbusier used in his Venice Hospital project.
In the archINFORM.net one may find the following description of the
plan: “Planned in 1965 for the arsenal area at the edge of the city, the
hospital was designed to extend the city's roads and canal networks, while
simultaneously turning in on itself to create flexible, quasi-urban interior
environments in the form of endlessly repeating courtyards. Upon Le Corbusier's
death in 1965, Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente was commissioned to complete the
building”; however, this project was never built (http://www.archinform.net/projekte).
Shah argues that the project aimed at redefining streets, even entire
urban fabrics; their elements were objectified in the form of elevated street
decks and a framework of circulations involving an intrinsic relation between
the city of Venetia and the hospital, forming an architectural structure that
replicates the city in its spatial flexibility and functional programming.
Looking for precedents in the conceptual and typological domain, Shah
shows that “the relationship between the built object and the city – as
explored by Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital project – had developed during the
twentieth century as early as 1933 by the participants of CIAM 4 to replace the existing urban environment
with the conceptual utopian city that would allow its inhabitants to reconnect
with the natural environment through building configurations that left ample
space for light, air and transportation”. The concepts developed in the 1930’s
as well the work developed from the studies on mat-building[1]
at the CIAM 9, Aix en Provence, in 1953, for example, Alison and Peter
Smithson’s "Urban Reidentification," [2]
may be both considered conceptual and typological precedents of the Venetia
Hospital. However, as Sarkis (2001) notes in his introductory note to the GSD
Case “Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital”, “Le Corbusier evokes his own Cité Universitaire of 1925 as one of the precursors of the
Venice Hospital scheme”.
It seems that more contextual facts may have played a role in coming to
the final ‘solution’ of this project. In 1934, says Shah, at the symposium
organized by the Institute of Intellectual Co-operation in Venice, “Le
Corbusier seems mesmerized by the city of Venice in terms of it being in
complete harmony with the human scale and proportions. His Modular may have
been a step in understanding and capturing the spirit and identity of this city”.
In the project of the Venice Hospital, argues Sarkis, Le Corbusier was
able to synthesize seemingly irreconcilable attitudes like the vernacular,
mechanization and modernist urbanization, and it was by rejecting the calls for
formal indeterminacy that he managed to come up with the main mat (Sarkis 2001)[3].
Moving to the principle of organization of this building, Shah argues that
the Unité d’Habitation at Marseilles (1951) also had a important role in it, in
particular the role of the corridor as ‘rue intérieure’ (internal street).
According to Shah’s descriptions, “In 1963 Le Corbusier made two
sketches after visiting a number of Venetian art galleries, one depicting
Carpaccio’s Burial of Saint Ursula and another of a reclining Christ by an
anonymous artist. The bed and the corpse is what Le Corbusier sketches in the
Carnet – raised above the ground, placed on an elevated bed. These two
impressions – the need to build without building and with special concern for
the scale, and the image of a body elevated over the mundane – could be seen as
starting points for the project.”
Fitting this information to the structure of the concepts presented in
the first part of the seminar, the participants came to the following
conclusion. Le Corbusier’s recollected his precedents as in the example of the
Unité in a syncretism, combining elements and concepts of diverse domains to
give form to this Hospital. However, the architectural structure that
replicates the city in its spatial flexibility and functional programming was
used reinforcing the identity of the place. What was recollected was mostly at
a configurational level, “regulatory genes”, such as the corridor, the pilotis, the “bed” of Saint Ursula raised above
the ground. The degree of defamiliarization of the elements that he recollects
from his own oeuvre seems to be lower than the degree of defamiliarization of
elements recollected from the city at an urban level, i.e. the architectural
framework (mat). The urban tissue has some essential characteristics of Venetia,
but without its irregularities, its exceptions, its contradictions.
Illustration 2: Site of Le Corbusier’s
Venice Hospital and bird's eye perspective of the project
Illustration 3: Carpaccio’s Burial of Saint Ursula and Le Corbusier’s bed
design: “the image of a body elevated
over the mundane”
Illustration 4: the Unite d’Habitation and the role of the corridor as ‘rue intérieure’ (internal street) in Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital.
6. Conclusions
The participants of the Seminar Precedents and Identity who took part of
the workshops were enthusiastic with the results of the exercises. The results became
indeed interesting, showing all the degrees of defamiliarization as well as that
of reinforcement of identity vs. the creation of a new identity. But the
results were not exhaustive. This occurs due to the subjectivity of the design
precedents that we were handling as well as because of the limitation imposed
by the time (one afternoon).
In September last, Ali Guney and I started a course called Method and
Analysis at the Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology with
150 students subdivided into 8 subgroups. We decided to apply the ideas so far developed
(till the international seminar) with the advantage that now the students would
have much more time to analyze the buildings. We could also use numerous
projects at once.
We selected 12 buildings, presented them to each subgroup, and let them
choose which projects they wanted to analyze (each 2 students analyzed 1
project). So far, each project have been analyzed 6 to 8 times with the help of numerous methods.
The course started with a spatial and functional analysis of the
projects. In this part we used Francis D.K. Ching’s method, Roger H. Clark and
Michael Pause’s method, semantic networks representing function and space, as
well as Alexander Tzonis’ Performance-Operational-Morphology reasoning system to
explore the project. At this moment the students are carrying out the last
assignment which refers to the use of precedents by the architect. They are
doing this based on an analysis of the architect’s oeuvre and texts with the
help of the afore-mentioned methods.
We expect to find in some examples the initial intention of the
architect and a link with the notion of identity: being that the identity of
the building or of the environment. We also expect that the students start to
see the degree of defamiliarization of the precedents and the degree between
reinforcement and creation of a new identity. We pursue the same main question of
my article for GA2004: is it possible to embody a critical notion of identity
in designing by using design precedents? But, we hope to find this time some
formative ideas that have been used systematically to embody identity. Maybe
this way we can try at list to partially model the use of precedents in
relation to the notion of identity.
7. References
Castells, Manuel. 2004. The Power of Identity. In: The Information Age,
Economy, Society, and Culture. Volume II.
Holland, John. 1995. Hidden Order, How Adaptation Builds Complexity.
Reading, Massachusetts: Perseus Books
Koolhaas, Rem; Bruce Mau; Hans Werlemann. 1998. “The Generic City”. In: S,M,L,Xl.
Monacelli Press
Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis. 1965.
“Introduction”. In: Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Edited by: A.
Olson. Lincoln and London: University
of Nebraska Press
Moraes Zarzar, K. 2003a. Use & Adaptation
of Precedents in Architectural Design: Toward an Evolutionary Design Model.
Delft: Delft University Press
Moraes Zarzar, K. 2003b. “Breaking the Type”.
Procedures GA2003
Moraes Zarzar, K. 2004. “Design Precedents and
Identity”. Procedures GA2004
Panicker, Shaji K. year. Implicit
Metastatements, Domestic signs in the architecture of Mathew and Ghosh Archits,
India. Http://www.layermag.com/shaji.pdf
Alan Read, “return to sender: The Revolution
of the Roundabout”,
http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/artshum/arts/performance/green%20room/returntosender.html
Sarkis, Hashim (Editor). 2001. Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital and the Mat
Building Revival. The Case Series. Munich: Prestel Publishing Ltd
Shah, Mahnaz. 2005. The study case: Le
Corbusier's Venice Hospital.
Tzonis, Alexander and Liane Lefaivre. 1986.
Classical Architecture, The Poetics of Order. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT
Press.
Tzonis, A., and Lefaivre, L. (co-author). 1990. “Why Critical
Regionalism Today?” A & U. no.5 (236). May 1990. pp. 23-33
Tzonis, Alexander and Liane Lefaivre. 1996.
“Critical Regionalism”. In: The Critical Landscape. Edited by: A. Graafland and
Jasper de Haan. The Stylos Series. Rotterdam: OIO Publishers
Tzonis, Alexander and Liane Lefaivre. 2001. “Chapter 1: Tropical
Critical Regionalism: Introductory Comments”. In: Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in the Age of Globalization.
Edited by: Alexander Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre and Bruno Stagno. Wiley-Academy.
2001
Tzonis, Alexander and Liane Lefaivre. 2003. Critical Regionalism,
Architecture and Identity in a Globalized World. Munich; Berlin; London; New
York: Prestel.
The Author: In 1985, Karina Moraes Zarzar obtained her Bachelor’s degree
in Architecture at the UFPE University, Brazil. Between 1989 and 1991 she
followed the OPB post-graduate course at Delft and Eindhoven Universities of Technology
in The Netherlands and obtained the title Master of Technological Design (MTD).
On June 11th, 2003, she received her doctoral degree at the Delft University of
Technology, and is currently lecturing and conducting research at the same
university.