[1b] a Theory of Making. Methodology and Process in Architectural Practice

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design134

William Tozer A theory of making

1

This paper sets out to challenge assumptions aboutboth normative practice and alternative practice. Ahistorical case study of alternative practice is used tore-read the nature of architectural production sincethe modern period, and a contemporary mode ofalternative practice is proposed which operateswithin the established profession but is informed bythis alternative reading [1, 2]. This proposal seeks toremain fully engaged with the production of thebuilt environment, using to its advantage ratherthan resisting the mechanisms of the profession.

The text is drawn from research I am conducting atthe Bartlett School of Architecture through the PhDby Design programme. The research aims to examinethe gap between what architects say they do andwhat they actually do, and its relation to theperceived gap between the architectural professionand academia. Architects and academics often imply

a singular and well-understood definition of‘normative practice’ before calling for investigationsof and proposals for alternative modes of practice.1

It is also suggested that these modes are likely to haveexplicit social and political agendas, or to definethemselves outside the professional realm of thearchitect.

Normative and alternate practice‘Normative practice’ seems to be generallyunderstood by academia as the production ofdrawings and other representations by registeredprofessional architects working in offices, with theintention of their contents being constructed asbuildings.2 This understanding is reinforced by theprofessional institutes whose structures ofregistration and professional development positdesign as a practical rather than intellectual

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 135

design

2

Exploring professional and academic notions of alternative

practices, a way of working is proposed that is open-ended

and shaped by the processes of its own production.

A theory of making: methodology and process in architectural practiceWilliam Tozer

1 In the Fold, WilliamTozer: rooflightopenings aredetailed so as toconceal their frames,supporting thesculpturalappearance of theoverall form

2 Clockwise from topleft: Moller House, Adolf Loos, Vienna,1927–28; Semi-detached & In the Fold,William Tozer

undertaking. Against this background, academiadefines ‘alternate practice’ as a variation of the abovewhere the process is motivated by an agenda – ormore broadly, as any form of architectural activitythat does not result in the production of buildings. Ifnormative practice is recognised as coming equippedwith an agenda or agendas, then alternate practiceidentifies such agendas as outmoded and proposestheir replacement. Aside from drawings, models andother representations, processes of normativepractice are assumed by academia to be creativelyneutral, and so they are given only professionalrather than intellectual consideration. Due toacademia’s intellectual focus on drawing andmodelling, its interest in practice is generally limitedto a very small minority of architects, whose stateddesign methodologies also highlight these concernsand are explicitly intellectualised. Implicit in thisprocess is an assumption that the limitations of‘normative practice’ stem from the profession and itsprofessional bodies, but not from academia. It isargued here that a definition of ‘normative practice’is required to interrogate the assumptions of boththe profession and academia in order to beproductively critical, rather than simply exacerbate aretreat into autonomous realms.3 The identificationof what is currently normative by these termsrequires a critical reflection upon what is generallyconsidered avant-garde, rather than the comfortableconsignment of each other’s entire field as‘normative’ and one’s own as ‘alternative’. In theseterms, to both the profession and academia,contemporary ‘normative practice’ – as it pertains toarchitects and their relation to the builtenvironment – could be described as the valorisationof large-scale building and novelty of form-making;and reciprocally related predilections for largepractices, the competition format, and apparentconceptual complexity.4

Practice and research in academiaThe above discussion of normative and alternatepractices sets aside definitions of architecture thatdo not pertain to the built environment, but thisshould not be understood as an attempt to diminishthe importance of the separation betweenprofessional and academic realms. It isacknowledged that this separation provides a usefuldistance in every discipline, allowing academia timefor reflection and experimentation free from theconstraints and limitations of the profession.5 Theimplications of academic experimentation andreflection for architectural practice may not beimmediately clear, but this does not diminish itspotential importance. However, there is a dangerthat if the research of architectural academia is notsufficiently connected to its original subject, thebuilt environment, it will become an increasinglyautonomous field focused on self-reflexive relationsto its own body of knowledge. This danger is mostevident in academia’s willingness to frame researchonly in relation to existing research, a connectedresistance to engage with the bulk of the profession,and in attempts to redefine its own operations as

practice rather than research. While one could makean argument for such an autonomous discipline asan intellectual field, the problems of the builtenvironment remain unaddressed. Furthermore, itcould be argued that this form of investigationconstitutes a normative form of academicarchitectural practice, connected to the normativemodel of the profession identified above. If academicresearch is to have significant implications for thebuilt environment, the apparent unwillingness ofmany practising architects outside an ‘avant-garde’minority to engage with academic notions ofarchitecture cannot be dismissed as entirely a failingof the profession. Rather, this would requireacademia to engage with the issues of the profession,and connect its own body of knowledge with thesethemes. Through understanding its ownmechanisms and potential, architecture coulddevelop modes of operation that are resonant withthem, rather than adjunctive; aligning designprocesses with stated methodologies, and academicand professional understandings of the discipline.

In the introduction to The Reflective Practitioner,Donald Schön argues that ‘[Universities] areinstitutions committed, for the most part, to aparticular epistemology, a view of knowledge thatfosters selective inattention to practical competenceand professional artistry’. Conversely, Schön explainsthat it is ‘as though the practitioner says to hisacademic colleague, “While I do not accept your viewof knowledge, I cannot describe my own”’. Heconcludes that such ‘attitudes have contributed to awidening rift between the universities and theprofession, research and practice, thought andaction’.6 The very labelling of practice as ‘normative’is indicative of a polarisation of academia andpractice into autonomous fields. While architecturalacademia is perhaps too readily dismissed bypractitioners because it fails to address most of the

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design136


3

problematic issues involved in practisingarchitecture, many aspects of practice can bedismissed by academia because they do not appearworthy of intellectual consideration. Academiafocuses the vast majority of its intellectual attentionon design, and gives only ‘professional’consideration to the other subject areas required forpractice. Architects’ relationships with their clients,other professionals, contractors – and with oneanother – are generally understood in academia ascreatively neutral, and unrelated to architecturaldesign. These facets of practice are viewed aspractical rather than intellectual, and aninvestigation of their role in the design process isdismissed in favour of the introduction of materialfrom outside the discipline of architecture that ismore recognisably intellectual.

In The Projective Cast, Robin Evans lamentsarchitecture’s tendency to draw upon mathematics,the natural sciences, the human sciences, painting,and literature, and asks ‘Why is it not possible toderive a theory of architecture from a consideration ofarchitecture?’.7 Like all creative disciplines,architecture benefits immensely from itsrelationships with other fields, but it can be arguedthat it does so at the expense of a full understandingof its own field. While architectural practice coulddraw its inspiration only from the field ofarchitecture, it is proposed here that architectsshould draw their inspiration wherever they please,but that their use of such inspiration would begreatly enhanced by a fuller understanding of theirown discipline. While an artist might drawinspiration from physics or philosophy, there is aninherent understanding in art practice that thisinspiration must be given form through theprocesses of art and can only hope to represent ormake some form of commentary on its inspiration.Conversely, the discipline of architecture seems

inclined to attempt to reinvent itself in the image ofother disciplines, and believes that through thisprocess it will embody all of the meaning of itsinspiration.8

Modernism: functionalism versus fine art architecture It is argued here that the gap between architects’stated design methodologies and their enactedprocesses, and the associated polarisation ofarchitectural practice and academia, can beattributed to the beginning of the modern period. It is proposed that an understanding of this schismdemonstrates a possible mode of alternate practicethat is intellectually engaged with the mechanismsof the profession rather than imposed intellectual orprofessional agendas. The argument centres on theagendas of architecture in the modern period; inparticular the inadequacy of functionalism toprovide sufficient explanation for Modernist spaceand form. It is proposed that modern architecturehas little relation to its stated agendas, and thatinstead the movement signals the point at whicharchitecture effected a transition from decorative artpractice to fine art practice. Adolf Loos is a primecandidate for this alternative reading of Modernism,and his discussions of his architecture in relation toart and ornament are particularly illuminating. Loosalso discusses the influence on his work of a numberof processes of practice that are generally considereddesign-neutral, including clients, photography andpublishing.

It can be argued that the Modernist agenda offunctionalism masked the actual changes that weretaking place in architecture creatively, particularly inthe processes of architectural form-making [3].Architecture has of course always been functional,

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 137

A theory of making William Tozer

4

3 German Pavilion,Mies van der Rohe,Barcelona, 1929

4 Villa Savoye, LeCorbusier, Poissy,1929–31

and the functions that it fulfils have always changedin response to economics, politics and society.Furthermore, it seems highly questionable thatmodern architects precipitated a new morphology ofbuildings following functional concerns.9 Rather, itseems fairer to conclude that architects wereobservers of ‘functionalist’ architecture, rather thanits authors. As building typologies and technologieschanged to adapt to new programmaticrequirements, architects observed these changes andconsidered their visual and spatial potential for theirmedium. While the rhetoric of Modernism wouldhave us believe that key sources of inspiration wereindustrial objects such as cars, ships and aeroplanes,these technological innovations immediatelybrought changes to buildings to accommodate them;and it is observation of these buildings that was themore likely influence on modern architecture.

From this perspective, it is interesting to considerwhy architects were so attracted to this architectureborn of new functional requirements, and how theyaltered it. It has been argued here that the advent ofmodern architecture can be seen as the point atwhich architecture made a transition fromdecorative art practice to fine art practice. Architectswould have seen in the emerging buildingtechnologies the opportunity to make compositionsof their entire buildings in the way that painters,sculptors and other fine artists do with canvasses,objects and spaces. Where architecture hadpreviously encompassed the application of surfaceornament to recognisable building forms, modernarchitecture eschewed surface ornament and insteadconcerned itself with making ornamentalcompositions of the new building forms themselves.Architecture of course continued to be ‘functionalist’

in the modern period, and the relationship wasperhaps more overt and stated, but this seems not tohave been the defining characteristic of Modernism;and it fails to explain the radical aesthetic changes inarchitectural form.

Architects’ statements of functionalistmethodologies in the modern period can thus beunderstood as almost completely divorced from theprocesses through which they were makingarchitecture; as creative agendas concernedprimarily with the compositional potential, bothvisual and spatial, of new building technologies andfunctions [4]. Emerging technologies had challengedthe traditional role of the architect, arguablyrendering the profession an adjunct to engineeringsolutions making use of new technologies. In thiscontext, it is no surprise that architects might haveadopted a way of speaking about their architecturethat enabled them to reposition their role morecentrally, as giving visual expression to the newtechnologies. This gap – between what architects sayand what they do – is the distinction made herebetween methodology (a statement of motivation andactions) and process (an observation of motivation andactions). While there were political and economicadvantages to be gained by the invention of thefunctionalist agenda, it can be argued that for mostmodern architects this was not premeditateddeception, but simply a misunderstanding of theirown modus operandi.

From the beginning of the modern period, it ispossible to divide all architectural production intotwo categories, on the basis of whether thearchitecture’s ornamental quality resides in thesurface decoration of a recognisable building form,or the overall composition of building forms and

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design138


5

components [5]. These categories might be labelled‘traditional’ and ‘modern’, as the second categorywas precipitated by the Modern Movement. Thisconstitutes a revisionist history of Modernism thatsets aside the statements of the movement’s authorsin favour of observation of its processes and outputs.This distinction usefully liberates discussions aboutthe period, and all that has followed it, from thelimitations of widely held assumptions about thefunctionalist underpinnings of modernarchitecture. It renders as sub-categories ofModernism all the geometry-based movements ofarchitecture that have followed the early modernperiod, on the basis that they share fine artambitions but simply manifest them using differentshapes. Conversely, the definition also re-categorisesas traditional any architecture that uses thevocabulary of building, ornamented or not, ratherthan attempting to assume an ambiguity ofappearance. Modern architecture is correlated withthe fine art object, whose function is uncertain andmeaning is open to interpretation; and traditionalarchitecture with the decorative art object, whosefunction is certain and meaning is singular. Thisredefinition aims to encourage both the professionand academia to move their focus away from thepursuit of novelty of form for its own sake. Similarly,the redefinition is not a call for a return to earlymodern rectilinear geometries, but simply forrecognition that form-making is the mode ofcommunication rather than the content ofarchitectural meaning. Individual practitioners andacademics will of course have their own geometricpreferences and these may be conceptuallygrounded, but it is the ideas represented byarchitectural forms that are most significant, nottheir geometry. In The Projective Cast, Robin Evanschallenges the assumption that geometry should besought in the composition of drawings orbuildings.10 Evans instead proposes that we embracethe unstable notion of projection as central, andfocus on the space between thinking andimagination, imagination and drawing, drawing andbuilding, building and perception. In the light ofthis observation, the endless pursuit of newgeometries as a strategy for delivering architecturalsignificance seems optimistic and misguided, anddivides both practitioners and academics intomeaningless partisan groups.

Adolf Loos and alternate practiceAn examination of the work of Adolf Loos providessupport for this argument, as his work spans thehistorical transition from traditional to modernarchitecture and he wrote widely about his designmotivations. His writing demonstrates an unusuallyclose correlation between his stated methodologiesand his design processes. Consequently, Loos’ workprovides a model for an alternate mode of practicewhere architects develop their design methodologies

through reflection upon all of the processes by whichtheir work is designed and brought to fruition.

While Robin Evans’ notion of architecture as aprojective medium could be interpreted as a call toprivilege the representation over the building that itdescribes, an examination of the work of Adolf Loosprovides insights into a mode of built architecturalpractice that embraces this idea. Rather than seekingto invest his architecture with meaning throughgeometry, Loos’ sparse architecture appears at firstinspection to be silent [6]. Kenneth Frampton hasobserved that ‘[t]his silence spoke of the gap betweenfact and value as precisely and paradoxically asWittgenstein’s distinction between the sayable andthe unsayable’.11 Implicit in this statement are theobservations that architecture is a culturalendeavour, and that it can possess meaning asidefrom that communicated by its geometry.

While Loos’ architectural forms can be usefullyunderstood as silence in the face of cultural chatter,

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 139


6

7

5 Weisman Art Museum,Frank Gehry,Minneapolis, 1993

6 Steiner House,Adolf Loos, Vienna,1910

7 Rufer House,Adolf Loos,Vienna, 1922

they could alternatively be read as an alternativeform of ornament at the scale of the entire building[7]. This amounts to an interpretation of Loos’ form-making as a treatment of architecture as fine artpractice – a mechanism for transmitting meaningthrough the composition of form and space. Majorimpediments to this view would appear to be Loos’own statements in relation to architecture and art.Loos’ 1910 publication Architecture is generallyinterpreted as an affirmation of architecture’sprovisional status, by comparison to the projectivequality of art. However, while Loos proclaims that‘Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art:the tomb and the monument’, this could be read as astatement of the ambiguous requirements onarchitecture by comparison to art. While art canreadily aspire to revolution, discomfort andprovocation, architecture is required to providecomfort, security and responsibility. In this context,the statement could be seen as simply a statement ofthe relative freedom of the tomb and monument

from architecture’s usual professional andfunctional requirements. Similarly, in relation to thehouse, Loos remarks that ‘Man […] loves the houseand hates art’. While this is generally interpreted as astatement of Loos’ own mode of practice, it seemsmore consistent to read it as a critique of thearchitecture of others – design born of the inertiaand comfort of his metaphoric dog by the fire.12

This reading of Loos’ work as artistic andornamental also requires defence in the face of hisapparent disregard for ornament. A closerexamination of his attitude to ornament anddecoration reveals that he proposed theirdeployment when functional decision-making couldnot provide answers required by the design process,and as a form of cultural communication [8]. Pevsnerdescribes Loos’ work as compositions of materialsand proportions, rather than ornamental.13 Butimplicit in this definition is the notion thatornament has not disappeared, but simply shifted inscale. While Loos’ use of false beams, non-load-bearing columns, and space-enhancing mirrors runscounter to Modernist proclamations ontransparency and truth, Loos insisted that theseelements were not ornamental because they werepart of the architecture and were natural materials.The notion that the elements are not ornamentalhinges on the idea that their ornamental qualitystems from their role in the overall architecturalcomposition, and that the psychological perceptionof this composition is more important than itsactual presence. In this sense Loos’ architectureprovides a mode of practice that to some extentaddresses the projective space of architectureidentified by Robin Evans [9].

This analysis hinges partly on a reading of Loos’writing as ironic and humorous rather than literaland entirely serious. In relation to Loos’ apartments,Kenneth Frampton comments that it ‘is ironic, to saythe least, that Loos never regarded any of thesearrangements, however spatial and disjunctive, asbeing architecture’.14 Frampton seems to takeliterally Loos’ proclamations on the limits ofarchitecture, despite acknowledging that hisarchitecture is ‘proto-Dadaesque’,15 and over a decadeearlier recognising in Loos’ work ‘the ready-madesensibility of Marcel Duchamp’.16 Viewed in thecontext of his friendships with Dadaist artists such asTristan Tzara, Loos’ proclamations can be readentirely differently. The writing style of Tzara’s DadaManifesto closely resembles Loos’ own irreverent andsprawling texts. Loos’ preference for simplerectilinear geometries could be said to run counterto Dada, but is perhaps explained by Frampton’sobservation of ‘Loos’ insistence, after Wittgenstein[…] on the fact that there is no single universallanguage, in architecture or in anything else’.17 Inthese terms Loos’ ‘taste’ in art objects was for thosewhose interpretation is unclear and dependent upon

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design140


9

10 Pavilion, William Tozer:a new rectilinearbuilding fragment isseparated from theexisting house by a slot

of obscured glazingand appears to leanagainst the adjoiningnew pavilion livingspace

8

8 Kärntner Bar, AdolfLoos, Vienna, 1908

9 Kärntner Bar, AdolfLoos

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 141


10

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design142


interaction with the viewer. Another explanation forLoos’ choice of simple geometry could beextrapolated from Robin Evans’s observation that ‘itis more difficult to make a building art-like than apicture because the perceptions of the building aremore in themselves but less manageable, less capableof full orchestration’.18 Loos’ work demonstrates analternative reading of Modernist space as place-making rather than functionalism, and he exposesthe active roles of processes such as commissioningand photography in informing architectural design.

Self-reflective practiceI have drawn from these reflections on Loos in myown design work in practice. My own architecturalproduction is examined here as a case study of thepotential of this approach, and it should be stressedthat a diversity of architectural form and space couldbe accommodated. The aim is not to promote aparticular design process, let alone a typology ofform or space, but rather to encourage architecturaldiscussion focused on the processes actually at playrather than adjunctive agendas. Consequently, thefact that the following observations on my ownpractice describe a particular approach should notbe read as didactic. Rather, they should be seen as theconsequence of the inevitably binary decision-making required to make architecture as opposed tothe ambivalence afforded or demanded by academicconsideration [10].

There is nothing novel about the methodology bywhich my practice of architecture is conducted and,while less usual, my parallel activities of writing andteaching are certainly not uncommon. Rather, it isproposed that my practice is not ‘normative’ simplybecause it recognises the non-neutral character of itsown modes of operation. The work does not possess

an explicit conceptual agenda or meaning, butinstead subscribes to a view of architecture as artpractice: permitting design moves to be openlyinstinctive and wilful rather than systematised; andaccepting that the meaning of the work will bemultiple and open-ended. Compositions of form andspace are proposed in relation to the observation oftheir projective implications for their settings,rather than in isolation or in relation to a stateddesign agenda. Furthermore, it is proposed thatauthorship in architectural practice resides not inthe act of producing a drawing or any other form ofrepresentation, but in the establishment of apractice culture. In light of these observations, theslow growth of the size of the projects and thepractice is considered vital, and so competitions haveto date been actively avoided as the resultant rapidgrowth of a successful outcome would almostinevitably have resulted in a normalisation of theprojects as practice culture was imported in awholesale fashion with the sudden arrival of largenumbers of new staff.

It is proposed that these decisions about therunning of a practice constitute the predominantdesign processes at play in the production of builtarchitecture. Nonetheless, there are a number ofprocesses at work in my practice that are more readilyrecognisable as design processes. Axonometricdrawings are used extensively because they allow adesign to be explored while simultaneouslyrepresenting both the empirical and subjectiveaspects of the project. Throughout the design,documentation and construction process, projectsare represented in a composite manner – through avariety of drawings, texts and images – in order tocommunicate the multiple manner in which oneexperiences a building. Similarly, the projects are

11

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 143


often presented together rather than in isolation,reflecting their serial relationship to one another as abody of work [11, 12]. The role of text, whether writtenor spoken, is recognised as equal or dominant to thatof drawing in coercing built architecture intoexistence. These modes of production andrepresentation are used in order to challenge thedominance of mechanisms that are implicated indetermining the nature of normative practice in bothpractice and academia as framed above. While the roleof drawing is questioned more generally, particularsuspicion is directed towards the dominance ofperspective as a projective representation of proposedarchitecture, whether in the form of a computer-modelled rendering or otherwise, and the singlephotographic image as a descriptive representation ofbuilt architecture. However, it is once again not theparticular deployment of my own processes that isproposed, but simply the notion of critical self-reflection upon process and its potential impact onarchitectural design.

Serial and integrated innovationDemonstrating the results of such an approach toarchitecture is almost by definition problematic, asone proceeds on the premise that meaning shouldnot be singular or readily legible. Rather thanintroducing external inspiration in order todetermine spatial or formal arrangements, myprojects aim to make visible the latent aspects of anarchitectural project – site, client, practice anddrawing, writing and talking. The particularcircumstances of each of the projects are consideredthrough a vocabulary of form and space that has inturn developed from the circumstances of theprojects that precede it [13, 14]. Materials and formsfrom the surrounding site are redeployed in thedesign, but misplaced in order to elicitreconsideration of the context. Structure isconcealed or placed unexpectedly to encourageconsideration by the viewer of an aspect of buildingusually taken for granted. The open-endedness of a building site is engendered in the finishedbuilding through the use of raw materials ormaterials treated to appear unfinished, and spatiallythrough the introduction of unexpected glimpsedviews between spaces and levels. Less tangibly, thepersonalities of clients are manifest in the characterof the buildings, which could usefully beunderstood as architectural portraits. While theprojects are autonomous to some extent, given themanner in which they develop from one another,they are in a sense collectively one project. Wherenormative practice speaks of imported phenomena,this alternate mode of practice proceeds from andreferences its own processes of production andrepresentation.

This is an alternate view of architectural practicewhere innovation is not sought in the wholesale

12

11 Semi-detached & In the Fold, WilliamTozer. Semi-detachedwas conceived as aserial redrawing of anumber of previousextensions toVictorian andEdwardian houses.The roof form of In theFold is battened toconceal its structureand clad with birch-faced plywood so as toappear as a single,folded, abstractsurface

12 Hackney House,Sleeper, Victorian

Hoarding, KarntnerHouse, Pavilion,William Tozer.Hackney House joinstogether two terracehouses and the designdraws upon andabstracts theproportions and scaleof the existingbuildings. Galvanisedsteel and aluminiuminsertions to the rearelevation of theSleeper projectreference theimmediately adjacentrailway lines. The rearelevation of VictorianHoarding recalls a site

hoarding whileutilising the materialpalette andproportions of theexisting building.Through materialselection and the useof mirror, KarntnerHouse creates theimpression of a singleopen plan space withinthe found objectcontainer of theoriginal building. ThePavilion extension canbe understood as a lensthrough which viewsof both the garden andthe existing house aremediated

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design144


13

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 145


14

13Se

lect

edpr

ojec

ts

& S

leep

er,

Will

iam

Toz

er

14O

pen

End,

Slee

per,

Com

posi

te H

ouse

,W

illia

m T

ozer

.Th

e un

expe

cted

posi

tion

ing

ofst

ruct

ure

in O

pen

End

evok

es th

eop

en-e

nded

char

acte

r of a

build

ing

inco

nstr

ucti

on.

Com

posi

te H

ouse

colla

ges

toge

ther

spat

ial

and

form

alvo

cabu

lary

deve

lope

d in

apa

rtia

l for

mth

roug

h th

epr

eced

ing

proj

ects

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design146


reinvention of building form or space, drawingmethods, or socio-political agendas, but rather in arecognition and understanding of the active role of alarge number of processes of practice that arefrequently considered design-neutral. Decisions suchas the size of projects undertaken, the speed ofgrowth of a practice and its projects, and themanagement of clients are recognised as designprocesses, and design methodologies developed thatintegrate them. A reconsideration of Modernism as‘fine art architecture’ diminishes the perpetualimperative to find a new architectural agenda andassociated geometry to replace it and, moreimportantly, the desire to propagate its replacementin a partisan way. Terence Riley has written of a‘conjunction of mutually derisive terms: “blobs”versus “boxes”’,19 concluding that ‘dissimilar formsare not necessarily ideologically oppositional and[that …] formal distinctions in architecture are notthe most important ones’.20 A refocusing of theprofession and academia on the processes ofarchitectural production has the potential to addressSchön’s concern for ‘research [that] functions not asa distraction from practice but as a development ofit’ [15, 16].21

It is argued here that the ambition of architects toembody political, social and cultural agendas in theirdesign processes and buildings has its origin in adisingenuous explanation of modern architecture asbuilding with an agenda or agendas. Whilearchitecture is a potential locus of political, socialand cultural activity, it cannot embody thesephenomena. It is almost essential for architects topossess some degree of belief in the notion that abuilt environment can influence human action or

emotion, but the idea that a building can embodypolitics, culture or society is fundamentally flawed.One need only look at the conversion of buildings todifferent functions – or recall the ordinariness ofsites of acts of violence, bravery or creativity – inorder to appreciate the extent to which such anattempt is folly. Furthermore, attempts to attributeagendas to space and form are almost inevitablyundertaken at the expense of addressing issueswhich are within the capacity of architecture and itspractices. Unless one is to opt out of makingbuildings, it cannot be denied that architectureinvolves the creation of objects in space, thephysicality of which demands that aestheticdecisions be taken about their appearance. This isnot to reduce the act of making architecture todecisions of taste, but on the contrary to recognise itspotential as a fine art medium; to inspire and toprovoke contemplation beyond its own physicality.While ‘normative practice’ would expect any suchinspiration and contemplation to be definable as theresult of an applied agenda, the alternate mode ofpractice proposed here would argue for anarchitecture that is open-ended and shaped by theprocesses of its own production. As only a very smallproportion of buildings are currently designed byarchitects, many opportunities exist forarchitectural practice to be redefined in ways thathave a direct impact on the built environment. Themodel of alternative practice proposed here does notrequire the discovery of a new and elusive zeitgeist,but simply the recognition that architecture canhave wide-ranging social, political and culturalimpact without limiting itself to large-scale projects,novel geometries and overt agendas.

15

design arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 147


16

15 One Up One Down,William Tozer; MollerHouse, Adolf Loos;Public House, WilliamTozer

16 Pavilion, WilliamTozer: spatial andvisual manoeuvrescreate ambiguities ofenclosure andopenness, and

construction andcompletion, whichare reinforced by theuse of concrete andexposed brickworkas surface finishes

arq . vol 12 . no 2 . 2008 design148


Notes1. An example is the Call for Papers

for the Alternate Currentssymposium at the Sheffield Schoolof Architecture, 26–27 November2007, at which this paper was firstpresented.

2. The Alternate Currents Call forPapers invited submissions ‘thatoperate outside the standardisedand prescribed tenets and workingmethods promoted by theprofessional bodies’ and buildingswere notably absent from orperipheral to most of thesymposium papers.

3. While it is relatively commonplacefor academics to engage inpractice, the proportion ofpractising architects engaged inacademia is very small.Furthermore, the engagement ofacademics in practice is seldomconnected with the issues thatdominate the profession, andpractices that engage in researchtend to do so either as aprofessional rather thanintellectual undertaking, or as anentirely separate activity. Thedistinction is so established thatwhen one speaks of ‘practice’ inacademia it is assumed that onerefers only to an avant-gardeminority and that the majority ofpractice does not warrantintellectual consideration.

4. Small residential work isfrequently commodified as ‘breadand butter’ revenue to keep youngpractices afloat, infantilised as anopportunity for architects to ‘cuttheir teeth’, or trivialised bycomparison to an architect’s ‘firstreal building’. A single house isgenerally considered insufficientlycomplex to be the subject of a finalyear student project, andgeometrically elaborate workdominates the end-of-term showsof architecture schools. Examplesare numerous and widespread, butthe following is indicative: ‘After

two decades spent designinghouses, Peter Märkli is at lastbuilding at a substantial scale’,Ellis Woodman, ‘Beyond Babel: thework of Swiss architect PeterMärkli’, Building Design, 27 (2007).

5. This principle can be observed inany discipline, and is discussed inrelation to architecture by PeterCarolin, ‘Laboratory Time’.

6. Donald A. Schön, The ReflectivePractitioner: How Professionals Thinkin Action (London: Ashgate, 1983),pp. vii–x.

7. Robin Evans, The Projective Cast,Architecture and Its Three Geometries(Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1995), p. xxxvi.

8. For example, in describing thedesign process for the MöbiusHouse, Ben van Berkel asserts thatthe ‘diagram liberatesarchitecture from language,interpretation, and signification’,as cited by Terence Riley, ‘Projects’,in The Un-Private House, ed. by LauraMorris (New York: The Museum ofModern Art, 1999), p. 128. Theimplication of the architect’sstatement is that the architectureembodies the meaning of itsscientific inspiration, rather thansimply utilising it as a creativestarting point.

9. Theodor W. Adorno argues that,‘the question of functionalismdoes not coincide with thequestion of practical function […]The difference between thenecessary and the superfluous isinherent in a work, and is notdefined by the work’s relationship– or lack of it – to somethingoutside itself’. T. W. Adorno,‘Functionalism Today’, inRethinking Architecture: A Reader inCultural Theory, ed. by Neil Leach(London: Routledge, 1997).

10. Evans, The Projective Cast, p. xxxi.11. Kenneth Frampton in Robert

Schezen, Adolf Loos, Architecture1903–1932 (New York: TheMonacelli Press, 1996), p. 15.

12. Adolf Loos as cited by Aldo Rossi inAdolf Loos, Theory & Works,Benedetto Gravagnuolo, ed. by.Andrea Branzi, trans. by C. H.Evans (Milan: Idea Books, 1982), p. 14.

13. Nikolaus Pevsner, as cited inPanayotis Tournikiotis, Adolf Loos(New York: PrincetonArchitectural Press, 1994), p. 49.

14. Frampton in Schezen, Adolf Loos, p. 17.

15. Ibid.16. Yehuda Safran, Wilfried Wang and

Mildred Bundy, Adolf Loos (London:Arts Council of Great Britain andPrecision Press, 1985), p. 12.

17. Schezen, Adolf Loos, p. 18.18. Evans, The Projective Cast, p. xxi.19. Riley, ‘The Un-Private House’, in

The Un-Private House, p. 29.20. Ibid., p. 36.21. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner,

pp. xi.

Illustration creditsarq gratefully acknowledges:The author, all images except 15

Ed Reeve, staircase top left, 15

Image 4: © flc/adagp, Paris and dacs,London 2008

BiographyWilliam Tozer is conducting doctoral research by design at theBartlett School of Architecture and runs his own architecturalpractice, previously shortlisted forthe Young Architect of the Year Award and featured in numerouspublications. He taught design forseveral years as a part-time lecturer,and is a prolific publishedarchitectural critic.

Author’s addressWilliam TozerFirst Floor33 D’Arblay StreetLondonw1f 8eu

uk

[email protected]

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

[1b] a Theory of Making. Methodology and Process in Architectural Practice

Documents

Transcript of [1b] a Theory of Making. Methodology and Process in Architectural Practice