Geometry of Light - The Architecture of Arkan Zeytinogly

7/25/2019 Geometry of Light - The Architecture of Arkan Zeytinogly

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The Architecture of

ARKAN ZEYTINOGLU

GEOMETRY OFLIGHT


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Editor Arkan ZeytinogluEditor-in-chief Manuela HtzlEditing assistant Michael Hasslacher

Office team Jakub Bruer, Petra Gschanes, Brigitte Marschall

www.zeytinoglu-architects.com

This work is subject to copyright.All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically those oftranslation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machines orsimilar means, and storage in data banks.

Product liability: The publisher can give no guarantee for the information contained in this book. The useof registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specificstatement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and are thereforefree for general use.

2011 Springer-Verlag/WienPrinted in AustriaSpringerWienNewYork is a part of Springer Science+Business Mediawww.springer.at

The publisher and editor kindly wish to inform you that in some cases, despite efforts to do so, theobtaining of copyright permissions and usage of excerpts of text is not always successful.

Authors Florian Medicus, Wolfgang Pauser, Dietmar SteinerTranslation J. Roderick ODonovan, David Ender (Editorial)Proof reading Andrea Lyman

Graphic design DO & JOE Communication I Doris Fritz, ViennaImage editing Alexander Eugen Koller, ViennaLithography PIXELSTORM I Kostal & Schindler OG, ViennaPrinting and binding Holzhausen Druck GmbH, Vienna

Special thanks to Herta und Haluk Zeytinoglu

Printed on acid-free and chlorine-free bleached paperSPIN: 80029677Library of Congress Control Number: 2011922383With numerous (partly colored) figures

ISBN 978-3-7091-0538-2 SpringerWienNewYork


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Content

Manuela Htzl

Geometry in the Spotlight 13

Arkan Zeytinoglu

The Geometry of my Space and the Position of the Eye 17

Project

The Projective House 18

Florian Medicus

On Useful Doubts 21

Projects

The House with the two Horizons 30Lendkanal 52

Wolfgang Pauser

A Story Between Day and Night 65

Project

Light and Darkness 72

Wolfang Pauser

Concepts of Reason 79

Projects

Light and Darkness 86POOL 112Housing Mantschehofgasse 116Condensed City 118Space Installation Z-VZ 122SAAK 124MAK 126

Dietmar Steiner in conversation with Arkan Zeytinoglu

There is no Such Thing as Abstract Architecture 132


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Content

Projects

Bar Italia 136Restaurant Do & Co Albertina 146City on the River Mur 156Courthouse Graz West 162Courthouse Klagenfurt 174bwin Lounge 184bwin Sportsbar 190Penthouse S 194The Austrian Pavilion at the EXPO 2010 Shanghai 196Hotel Rural La Donaira 206Restaurant Glacis Beisl 212Hotel White Rock 218Business Hotel Kiev 222Hotel Falkensteiner Carinzia 224Business Hotel Leoben 242Hotel Acquapura Funimation 250Rooftop MH1 264Sky Ofce Sperl 284Penthouse FILL15 292Rooftop HOMA 300

Center of Research and Technology Flak Tower 302Convention Center St. Marx 304Obscura 360 306

Jewelry Design Max 308University of Economics and Business 310Integrated Resorts Singapore 318

List of Works 327Team Members 331

Authors 332Image Credits 333

About Arkan Zeytinoglu 335


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Dwelling for the Light

Dwelling for the light

going invisiblelling up the space

where it staysrestless

disappearing in my mind

not looking but seeing

when I close my eyes

and just listen to the colors

till it gets so dark

being mean


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Manuela Htzl

Geometry in the SpotlightWorks by Arkan Zeytinoglu

Geometry is both ideal image and abstract order, which is given a reciprocal

embodiment in architecture through constructed image and material form. 1

The book on hand illuminates the work of the Turkish-descent architectArkan Zeytinoglu under the aspect of geometrized light: drawings,studies of space, landscapes, projects and buildings from 1995 untiltoday (2011) are shown in this light of geometry, Arkan Zeytinoglussource of inspiration. Geometry in connection with architecture is nosurprising term nor has it been a fashionable one since the last hypein the 1990s when the computer became an important instrument of anew formal design. It facilitated calculating new geometries, leaving thearchitect behind as a drawing constructor. Command and understandingof geometry, ever a vital matter for architects, ceased to be a necessity.Responsibility for the design was transferred to the drawing toolcomputer, thus bringing architecture as a whole into a conflict of authority.

In his essay, A Machine Epistemology in Architecture;2Andrew J. Wittdescribes design techniques in connection with the development of toolsand instruments, rightfully maintaining that such machines (includingcomputers) raise certain epistemic challenges: they abstract systemsand detach the user from operative logic. Consequently, if the computertakes over the act of designing, more instrumental and less designknowledge is required from the architect. According to this, architectureno longer is on the hunt for geometry as science and inspiration, asPeter Davidson and Donald L. Bates describe it in the magazineArchitectural Design of 19983, but they observe each other froma distance. Architecture and geometry have disengaged from theirinspiring, centuries-old embrace. With this detached view of geometryand form finding, architecture also has lost something: the pleasure ofdesigning as a whole, encompassing action. Moreover, this also makes

drawing irrelevant. Jeffrey Kipnis declares the collage as the best (andlogical) depiction of a heterogeneous, postmodern architecture which nowhas been replaced by a rendering generation. These new architects arenot searching for a representation of actual space but trying toadapt reality to the virtual perfection however, thats another story.

Along with the loss of pleasure in design and drawing as a process, therelationship of architecture and geometry has also given up its emotional,passionate character.

1 Peter Davidson and Donald L. Bates, Editorial, in AD, Architectural Design, Architecture after Geometry (February 1998) p. 7.2 Andrew J. Witt, A Machine Epistemology in Architecture, Encapsulated Knowledge and the Instrumentation of Design,

in: Candide Journal for Architectural Knowledge (No. 3/2010) p. 37.3 ibid.


9/32214 I EDITORIAL

Davidson and Bates also define this relationship as promise offulfillment, and they describe it enthusiastically: This emotive relationshipexhibits all the tendencies of interpersonal psychologies: infatuation,transference, dependency and a faith in the transcendentality ofconsummation. It is registered by three stages: lust, attractionand attachment.

Geometry of Light is a personal statement, and an emotional one. ForArkan Zeytinoglu, the basis of his work is still intuition, and the effort ofconstantly reinventing space as a construct. For him, geometry isthe projection plane, the structure of an experimental set-up: planesbecome space, oscillation ratios turn into spatial axes, and cross-sectionsinto landscapes.

As Dietmar Steiner, director of the Architectural Center Vienna, observesin an interview with Arkan Zeytinoglu, he is an old-fashioned architect,whose autonomous artistic position regarding content should betreated with respect. With Geometry of Light, Arkan Zeytinoglu not onlyclarifies his (personal) position but also attempts to reinstate geometryas an image of a sensate world. Geometry of Light studies theconcept of space in design, which develops out of geometry rather than

with it. Light is animation (movement) of the spatial. Light localizes andcharacterizes physical space. Light simultaneously is the constant and thetemporal of architecture.

Geometry of Light outlines the history of a relationship betweenarchitecture, light and geometry. The drawings clearly hint at

Arkan Zeytinoglus influences during his years of study at TU Grazand the Cooper Union in New York with tutors like Gnther Domenig,Raimund Abraham and John Hejduk. All three of them have presentedstrong concepts of architecture on paper, and thus imbued the projectwith a reality which sometimes even stood above its realization. The

magnificent gestures of Domenig, Abrahams shadow world andHejduks poetry are necessary if one wants to understand Arkans drawnarchitecture.

The Cubists disassembled the object in order to approach its inner being.A single point of view is not enough to depict a space; so Geometryof Light allows many points of view and invites authors to think aboutgeometry and light. Architect and curator Florian Medicus documents his


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basic doubts in the topic, underlining the courage to use the tools of thetrade and his love for the drawing in architecture. Cultural philosopher

Wolfgang Pauser elaborates the importance of light in architecture, andin his second essay explains the long history of the relation of geometryand architecture. And in a conversation with Arkan, Dietmar Steinerasks him about his motivations for becoming an architect, and about hisrelationship with music

The book Geometry of Light tells a story Arkan Zeytinoglus story ,but it also tries to retrace the relationship of geometry, architecture, andlight, and to point out their various influences on science and philosophy.Still, the question remains what the role of this relationship is today, notonly for Arkan Zeytinoglu.


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Arkan Zeytinoglu

The Geometry of my Space andthe Position of the Eye

Arkan Zeytinoglu (quotation from the interview with Dietmar Steiner: There is no such thing as abstractarchitecture. On the career of an architect. An encounter, see p. 132)

I dont search for the content of architecture through the abstraction of the

score. I dont need this story board to develop architecture. For me it is

the perception of music when played that is of primary importance, the kind

of sound-space that it constructs. And I find that this sound-space is extremely

graphic. Vice-versa the geometry of spaces produces a sound for me.

From this sound, i.e. out of these tones, geometries are constructed which are

indeed related to mathematics that together with proportion shapes/createspaces. And this is how the design of the D-House developed D stands for

D major which, looking back, I might perhaps see as a condensate of this

approach. But then other abstract dimensions of architecture are also involved.

There is the light, the construction, the horizon, the perception of space in

perspective which is related to the position of the eye. And out of all these

influences and determining factors the design for my 'first house' arose. That

was the start and it was an attempt to define myself. To find an answer to the

question: where does the form, the geometry of my architecture come from?


12/32218 I THE PROJECTIVE HOUSE

The Catcher in the Rays

THE PROJECTIVE HOUSE I OR D-HOUSE, 1986

Architecture and music have a long joint history. From ancient timesthe theory of proportions in architecture and of harmony in music hasdealt with relationships and ideals. The projective house is based onthe idea of geometrizing music and giving spatial form to a relationshipbetween vibrations. The interstitial space that results is constructed inprojective space.

In Euclidean geometry the definition is as follows: two straight lines areparallel if they lie on the one plane and do not intersect each other and:parallel lines intersect in infinity. If one expands Euclidean space intoa projective space the projective house can be understood as anapproach to the infinite horizon, a projective depiction as affinitybetween Euclidean and projective space. An architecture made of rays oflight in D major.

Projective geometry is an area of geometry. It evolved from theperspective depiction of three dimensional objects in a two dimensionalplane. In contrast to standard Euclidean geometry there are no parallelsin projective geometry. 1

1 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projektive_Geometrie, entry tr. J.R. ODonovan

Architecture is frozen music.Arthur Schopenhauer


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D-House, 1986pencil on paper, 29.6 x 21 cm


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Florian Medicus

On Useful Doubts

It seems strange, having arrived at the end of a project, to still feel tracesof the doubts you had experienced when starting it. After all, everyexamination of a theme should at least attempt to remove doubts, andindeed should aim, as far as possible, to dispel them. Far too muchnonsense has been written already, designed, built and sung for payment,for me to embark upon an allegedly decisive introduction to

Arkan Zeytinoglus Geometry of Light. No, dear ladies and gentlemen,you can rest assured that I really had to slave away! In fact, initially Irejected the claim implicit in the title and with it the far too constructedaspect. This urge to fabricate a theory based on a practice that was, inany case, already successful. However, this fact should not be seen as anattempt to diminish its possible value but should be welcomed as anoccasion for everyone to engage in self-examination: what, I ask you,do the terms geometry and light actually mean to us and how mighta causal link, in the sense of the geometry of light be undertaken,logically and (ideally) entertainingly? Lets start with the big words:geometry and light. These are certainly difficult concepts and oneswhich, I believe, should not be used lightly. Most likely everyone, whetherthrough ignorance or partial knowledge of the factual material, hasan oddly clear image, an actual idea of the purpose.

An area forming part of mathematics that developed from studying thecharacteristics and contents of the physical space that surrounds us, aswell as the form of spatial and plane formations and calculationsof lengths, surfaces and contents of figures.1This is a translation of thedefinition in my dear fathers Brockhausencyclopedia. It mayinitially sound coherent but, like almost everything that at first soundscoherent, it subsequently seems unsatisfactory. Consequently, I try toencourage myself with the beautiful Ludwig W., i.e. I attempt to separatethe complex into its elements.2

Excellent! That in itself is something. But, whether light is a fact that isessentially immanent to space, i.e. of equal value, is something that Iquestion at this point. As we know, there are many spatial conditions

1 Geometriein Brockhaus Enzyklopdie, 19th ed., vol. 8 (Mannheim, 1989), entry tr. J.R. ODonovan.2 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 2.0201 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), p. 13, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.

But what, in fact, is geometry, what can it do, what does it want to do?

If geometry deals with the characteristics and, above all, the facts of the

physical space that surrounds us, i.e. if it can be not only thought of but also

depicted, then at least we can form an image of it.


15/32222 I ON USEFUL DOUBTS

that have to manage entirely without light. While this lack may not makegeometry any more pleasing/any easier, it does not (yet) meanthat it cannot be imagined. The idea that no light is just a tragic (becauseunderexposed), special form of light, i.e. a form of electromagneticradiation that is not perceptible and therefore not perceived which,although it can itself exist in space cannot make the geometry of spaceperceptible (at least not visually), seems of as little help as the bizarreformulation of wave-particle duality, i.e. the theoretical formulationof light quanta (photons) with curious wave characteristics. Wave-particleduality is also one of those historically loaded facts if we wishto continue using this term which, whenever the opportunity arises,I refuse to understand, pleading insufficient mental capacity. NowEinstein, as well as Heisenberg, Schrdinger and Bohr were only able tothink their theories of relativity or quantum mechanics on the basis ofnon-Euclidean geometry (sic!), and, as a result, substantially expandedthe way of looking at things and the course they took.

The inherently definite ideas of space dissolved, not only because theysuddenly could, but because overnight, so to speak, they had becomevulnerable and, even more fatally, inadequate as certainties.Those interested in what this implies for the general view of the worldand, as a direct consequence, for the visual arts (various avant-gardes!)are encouraged to read up on this elsewhere. The architects were, in anycase, still asleepBut to go back further: the world view conveyed in Euclids Elements

survived as a collection of absolute truths for a long time, for over 2000years. Clearly the original 13 books were too complete, too coherent, toobeautiful, and in short too good for them not to be true. Alongsidevarious mathematical postulates, they divide geometry logically intoplane geometry and spatial geometry (towards the end); the last bookabout spatial geometry proves that there are and can be only fiveregular Platonic solids. At first it may not sound all that exciting if theessential difference between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry is

The change of paradigms initially represented by the 20th century is very

clearly based on the sudden independence of the geometric structure

of time and space from material. This put an end not only to the 19th century,

which was indecisive in so many areas, but also to the certainty of things,

such as Kant had seen in Newtons mechanics.


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initially defined as the fact that in the latter the parallel axiom does not(any longer) exist. But precisely this was the decisive step, the fruitfulquestioning of certainties undertaken around the same time byNikolai Ivanovitch Lobachevsky and Jnos Bolyai, and then generalizedby Bernhard Reimann in 1845.

At first this knowledge was of little help in the 19th century, which in anycase lacked real intellectual footing. Given that this is an architecturaltext perhaps I ought to mention here the misgivings of Gottfried Semperwho, around this time, did his utmost to oppose the new kinds of ironconstruction, not to mention the neo-Gothic. And, I also find it somewhatamusing to note that, at around the same time as Lobachevskysand Bolyais non-Euclidean proofs, a certain Joseph Nicphore Nipcesucceeded in producing his first heliograph (1826), that is for the first

time in the history of humankind geometry could be permanently depictedsolely by means of light.But of course we could take an entirely different approach: for in thebeginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth waswithout form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Andthe Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Letthere be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it wasgood: and God divided the light from the darkness.4

So there you have it! And, around 1150, wasnt it said loud and clear:God is light! And light was conveyed as wandering along the tracesof God become man6and thus as a very central characteristic ofscholastic aesthetics? In the Gothic we see the building mass dissolving

3 Peter Tallack, Meilensteine der Wissenschaft (Heidelberg-Berlin: Spektrum Verlag, 2002), p. 114, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan4 Genesis 1: 14, King James Bible online version ht tp:// www.kingjamesbibleonline.org5 Le Corbusier, Bauwelt Fundamente 2 Ausblick auf eine Architektur, (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1995), p. 21, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.6 Georges Duby, Die Zeit der Kathedralen, Kunst und Gesellschaft 9801420 (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), p. 218, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.

From the mid-19th century onwards the repertoire of spatial facts

was truly shaken up and as a result a non-Euclidean geometry became

generally conceivable, provided there was a suitable number of

dimensions, a suitable system of coordinates and a suitable method to

determine distances.3

The greatest of all architects wanted to see what he had created without

form and void and so, on the very first day, he let it become light.

An understandable decision and an excellent one; and didnt the secondgreatest architect write: Our eyes are created to see forms in light! 5



for the first time; naturally, these geometries also represent a slimmingdown of the load-bearing system for economic reasons, as well as beinginsane monuments to the vanity of princes of the church, but they alsopursue the clear binding goal to allow more and above all better lightto flood the interior. The idea of light and the right way of directing itdetermines the (at times terrifyingly delicate) geometries ofGothic cathedrals [a word of advice: its best to look at them fromoutside, on account of the horizontal forces]. And dont we find similar(but of course entirely different) approaches in the work of James Turrell(ladies and gentlemen let us rise from our seats!)? It is precisely

James Turrell who repeatedly shows us such fantastic spaces andgeometries in, or to put it better, made outof the strengths and the colorsof light which not only extend to the very limits of familiar visual codesbut even strain these comforts in the most wonderful way. There is a verybeautiful book on a Turrell project in Germany with the illustrioustitle Geometrie des Lichts.7For this artist such a title sounds truly plausible,but what the title ultimately ought to be, could be and must be:the explanation of the Geometry of Light is here not questioned decisivelyenough and thus not answered. Things remain much the way Turrellhimself has described them elsewhere: One of the difficulties with light isthat we dont have a very good vocabulary for describing it.8

I like the passage in Poseners Vorlesungen zur Geschichte der neuenArchitektur, where he says: History never starts at zero. We have ()discussed the question what the architect can learn from the history ofbuilding. We have reached the conclusion: directly the architect can learnabsolutely nothing from history, not by imitation and not by discoveringuniversally valid principles. There are no such principles, neither inarchitecture nor in town planning.9

I can appreciate Posener while not always having to agree with him. Forin principle the use of geometry and light is (and certainly will remain)a central yardstick in the planning and production of spatial contents; andthe way these are used, as well as fortunate external circumstances (whichare always essential) will still allow us to tell the virtuosi fromthe dilettante architects (it is only among dilettantes that a person is hisor her profession!).10I did not invent the title Geometry of Light, nor was

7 See James Turrell, Geometrie des Lichts (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009).8 James Turrell in conversation with Ana Maria Torres, exh. cat. IVAM, Valencia, 2004, p. 15.9 Julius Posener, Rckblick in die Geschichte Heinrich Tessenow in ARCH + 53, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.10 Egon Friedell, Ecce Poeta, (Berlin: Fischer Verlag, 1912), p. 133, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.

Now both of these, geometry and light, are also (but not just) physical

laws and thus principles of space, and as such they are also important

preconditions of general as well as particular perception.


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it my responsibility to explain this coherently to my esteemed readersin five lines; and anyhow, didnt I point out at the start that this aim seemsto me excessively ambitious? Above all because someone might, all thesame, expect to find clarification where none has been promised andwhere no factual solution can be conceived of or formulated in writing.

In the course of these reflections there was another question that alsoengaged my interest: the motive for wanting to show drawings.For a number of reasons this theme is very important/dear to me, and itresonates with me; but I still ask: why attach it this unusually high value,why this presentation of what is, ultimately, histories and stories ofthe most personal kind? I find this decision not only unusual and fortunate,but also courageous, because something of this kind is, of course,dangerous and could go seriously wrong. After all, hasnt Arkan recently

attracted the attention of a broader public as an established architect inthe high-price sector and also through the successful collaboration withSPAN in that case using a highly digitalized, biomorphic 11 architecturallanguage which (at times entirely legitimately) focuses primarily onovercoming all the burdens of historical conventions by meansof technical virtuosity? But this doesnt seem to be Arkans real past, nor(which is ultimately more important here) is it his long-term future.

Quite possible! All in all, I think one should not underestimate thewidespread growing sense of unease within the design industry. Afterall Baudrillard stated years ago that (virtually automated) architecture nolonger refers to some kind of truth or originality but only to the technicalavailability of forms and materials. The truth that emerges is not eventhat of objective circumstances and even less of the architects subjectivewill, but quite simply just the truth of the technical dispositive and its

11 See http://blog.span-arch.com/projects/the-austrian-pavilion-at-expo-shanghai-2010/12 If one wishes to believe Patrik Schumacher; see SchumacherThe Autopoiesis of Architecture (London: Wiley&Sons, 2011).

However, Arkan says thats the way it is: this is what he has been so

pleasurably torturing himself with for many years, this is what brings

everything together, and holds it together. For him the Geometry of Light is,

he says, the big picture, a very private and also very influential cosmos and

as such it should, he says, be accepted and taken seriously!

Here we encounter a kind of understandable and also appealing

back-to-the-roots feeling, the result of a crisis of meaning and creativity,

a somewhat truculent opposition to the unavoidable.12



method of functioning. You can still call this architecture but nothingabout it is certain.13And this is tangible everywhere! Emanating from theglobalized architecture schools, since the day before yesterdayall the parametric CAD stuff has been tilting into an unthinking trendiness.The revolution is devouring its children, in the same way that everyrevolution has eaten its young; instead of producers today all we see isrepresentatives, as Karl Kraus said.14 The digital overwhelmingis becoming increasingly unsatisfactory and every garish animation justserves to feed our doubts. The richly visual enchantment thatwe were promised would follow Avatar now manages to conceal the lackof content and the hypocrisy of the plot only for certain, albeit lengthy,stretches; but for anyone who wants a good story as well as goodpictures, wellBut lets go back to dear old building and, because it just occurred to me,I would like here to recall the crazy constructions at the Paris Worlds Fairin 1889. What we vividly honor in the work of Eiffel, and in particularDutert and Contamin, was the most sophisticated and without doubt thebest that the late 19th century was able to provide and exhibit. But wealso know that these masterpieces, although a highpoint in terms of thedevelopment of technology and construction, were by no means a linearfurther development or the influential fireworks of a recently founded

tradition in terms of content or even esthetics. In fact they were followedby restoration tendencies in major and minor areas, the major and minorrestoration tendencies that are so typical of the 19th century: even theiconic column foot of the three-pin trusses in the Galerie des Machineswere defused only four years later in the madness of Chicago by usingnon-structural and therefore senseless blind chords and, to top itoff, were sunken into the floor. Sempers echo or as David Bowie sang:Theres a brand new dance, but I dont know its name 15

But personally I find this somewhat too optimistic; the pendulum thatmoved so strongly in the one (I dont want to use the term parametricagain) direction in the last decade, will swing back sometime orother otherwise it wouldnt be a pendulum! And the first signs are

13 Jean Baudrillard, Architektur: Wahrheit oder Radikalitt? (Graz-Vienna: Droschl, 1999), quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.14 C. Wagenknecht (ed.), Karl Kraus fr Gestresste (Frankfurt/Main: Insel TB, 1997), p. 63, quote tr. J.R. ODonovan.15 David Bowie, Fashion, 1980.16 Egon Friedell, Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit (13th ed., Munich: dtv, 2000) p. 1112.

Although, taking a more peaceful approach, we could cite Egon Friedell

who, in his Cultural History of the Modern Age, said that all higher levels of

consciousness are reproductions of earlier series of ideas but inmore compressed, crystallized form.16


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already there: the 2010 Venice Biennale and the Small Scale BigImpact exhibition at around the same time at the MoMA in New York.Perhaps the mannered, illustrious Bugatti-Veyron Years with 1001 PSare truly numbered and will inevitably be followed by a shift(wrongly dismissed as mediocre and narrow-minded) to factual,i.e. more content-focused, tasks and solutions. And it may be that somepeople who are endearingly nave as regards the characteristics ofthe process again want to leave the machine, i.e. want to confinethemselves to the theme that Raimund Abraham used to concludewhat turned out, sadly, to be his last lecture: All you need is a piece ofpaper, a pencil, and the desire to make architecture!17

I am doing my utmost here to avoid historical restoration tendencies andother sentimentalities, although I can imagine that a current visit to Ikeawith, for example, William Morris would be highly entertaining. But in thehistory of architecture jokes of this kind have inevitablyturned out to be fatal. However, if back in 2003 we could read fromHollein the Younger that naturally the digital revolution does notstop short of architecture. Paper and pencil are being put aside andhighly qualified software programs used in order to be able to developthe most complex structures. At a time such as this the architecturedrawing, the architectural sketch finds itself in a fundamental state of

transition with regard to its function, reception and value.

18

We areforced to reflect upon how the historic image of the architect has changedand increasingly disintegrated since the introduction and spread ofthe computer. The influence of what is known in German as theFachplaner (specialist planner, in any case a shabby term) has recentlyexpanded to such an extent that it seems a good idea to look moreclosely at the role of the architect in function, reception and value. Butthat would take us too far away from our topic.

The architecture drawing had already reached its high point long, longbefore the various retraining courses in the use of CAD were introduced;here one can cite, for example, Looss highly plausible criticism ofthe Wagner School which was so very narcissistic in this respect. Hence,it is also understandable that in the contemporary design process the

17 Quoted by Peter Noever in: (Vienna Architecture Conference) in the Absence of Raimund Abraham (Ostfildern; Hat je Cantz, 2011), p. 21.18 Max Hollein Visionen und Utopien, (Schirn Kunsthalle/Prestel Munich, 2003), p. 6.

Ultimately a sketch or a drawing is a very personal document;

it is geometrical handwriting and accordingly a per se non-reproducible,

intuitively subjective and therefore distinctive expression.



hand drawing, if it still has any function at all, has only a diminutiveone, generally as an illustrational gag added at a later date. I mean,who still really draws and if they do: when and what and how andfor whom? And yet I have the impression that in the last two years thenumbers of wonderful half-lunatics, who draw hatching lines by slidingtheir triangles parallel and, late at night, sharpen coloring pencils intoashtrays, are growing again. And recent exhibitions, such as the one inParis (la ville desine!) and large-scale drawing competitions (such asthe one organized by the Danish Larsen foundation or drawing in thepost-digital agefrom Woodbury University)19 indicate a lively and entirelyunsentimental interest in this medium.

But I do believe that it would be no harm (indeed quite the opposite)if certain handcraft facets were to return, even if only as a kind ofsupplement, or better still opposition, just as a gentle warning to

all those who are far too self-confident to polish their spectacles!

20

,as the great Arno Schmidt demanded in a different context. And after all,hasnt the good old record player or turntable experienced an illustriousrenaissance? And wasnt it precisely at the time when the digitalization ofmusic was experiencing its first highpoint through Napster & Co.that the emergent DJ culture or rather its high priests again begancarrying around vinyl records and wanted to be watched as they workedor, in common parlance, DJ-ed? The analogous, i.e. the original, justifiesits existence by offering tangible and visible proof of manual work.

After all, despite everything, we still want to be served individuallyand caringly!

19 http://wuho.org/2d3d20 Arno Schmidt, Deutsches Elend (Zurich: Haffmanns, 1984), p. 96.21 (Vienna Architecture Conference) in the Absence of Raimund Abraham (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2011), p. 84.

The digital revolution has been completed, its consequences are irreversible

and the full extent of its implications is not yet apparent; every stubborn

approach, every attempt at doing entirely without such media would be simply

ridiculous, and, in the end, also impractical.

And also from time to time we want to know what something is and why

something is the way it is! It simply cannot be the case that even great

minds like Thom Mayne can no longer figure things out: because theres

less and less differentiation between the things you show us as a desire

and its potential for realization, and the real thing. 21

So, please: whats the real thing?


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In fact, in recent years the architecture drawing never entirely vanished,but in the general hype it fulfilled more anachronistic and also romantictaboo concepts. For Arkans book, and above all for his drawings, thismay all come too early or too late, the zeitgeist is notoriously unreliable.

Whatever the case, it can be taken for granted that asshole Viennesecolleagues will heap withering scorn on him: A laborious effort,they will say, Historical complacencies and reams of entirely dispensablequotations discovered in various drawers! We know this: just aswe know the handwriting that Arkan borrows for his drawings. But whatelse, how else should one start? Borrowed from the best, is how I see it,to make out of it something that is his own, in short:a history of development. And, to repeat, I still think it courageous toshow this in this form, even though much of it comes from long ago andhas by now acquired a certain nostalgic character.

Arkan will never rid himself of these spirits; so why leave them to growdusty in plan chests; why not publish them in a suitable way? What ishappening here, and ultimately everywhere, is a form of self-plunderingat, in the best case, a high and also touching level. Ones own story (andalso the history of others) is an unerring treasure trove, the housing ofthe motor of development and as such it is a fundamental requirement,essentially a tool. Nothing here is done out of truculence or, I hope, asthe result of calculating what might be fashionable. For that kind of thingthere are a number of Arkans buildings that might be suitable, but less sothe drawings, these very old geometries and the visible and useful doubtsand hopes about space possibly the all-decisive aspect. What we see

here is a virtuoso retrospective, an exploration of his own origins, offeredas an explanation and not as a cheap, transparent sales vehicle in thesense of I can do that, too! Themes that are old, new, large, and small,and, as such, perhaps eternal; among them, as the spiritual center, TheGeometry of Light, also as a form of the weightless, the changing and thetransient; in contrast to the unavoidable heaviness of the shadow, tryingout the masses and possibilities of ones own horizons. It must have beenespecially beautiful this evening at the House with two Horizons!

And yet is also very topical: the one sketch, the idea formulated back

then that was kept for later use: if we can see how the formal requisites

repeatedly surface in buildings and projects and yet are presented and

used very differently.


23/32230 I THE HOUSE WITH THE TWO HORIZONS

THE HOUSE WITH THE TWO HORIZONS I Anatolia, Turkey, 1989Cappadocia Time, Space and Event

Time Exposure, 1989pencil on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm


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Cappadocia Time, Space and Event

The Essence of the Landscape

Landscape, 1989photo-collage , 14.5 x 11 cm

The project Cappadocia is based on tectonic and topological researchand poses the question: what defines a place? An area of Cappadociais used to analyze place. Cappadocia, a landscape in central Anatoliain Turkey, is known for its caves carved out of soft tuff, which containresidential, commercial and sacred spaces. This geological layer isexposed to special erosion that forms particularly deep and steep-walledgrooves that are characteristic of this landscape. The first caves werecreated out of this soft rock in the early Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BCE).The complex of rock formations in Greme, the center of Cappadocia,was declared part of the world cultural heritage by UNESCO in 1985.There are, however, also completely underground cities, which werefirst uncovered only in the 1960s. The thousand-year-old history of thelandscape and the architecture that has grown out of it provide anideal case study. This place has been exposed to constant processesof building up unlike any other, wearing down and reshaping. But itis not the romantic vision of an architecture without architects that isfocused on here, but rather the deconstruction of the landscape and thegeometrization of the place.

Mass is captured and, where necessary, a second horizon is drawn inorder to give the dimension of time a spatial form. One could say, anattempt is made to begin a journey to the center of the earth. How doesone deal with the depth of a place? And: what would architecture looklike without memory? What forms space? Material or matter?


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The Essence of the Landscape, 1989acrylic on canvas / window frame , 98 x 56 cm



page leftEarth-break,1989pencil on paper, 21 x 29.7 cm

right pageDrawing, 1989pencil on paper, 21 x 14 cm

To be (at all) is to be in (some) placeArchytas of Tarentum


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Erosion, 1989pencil on wrapping paper, 21 x 29.7 cm


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left pageGeometrized Condition I, 1989colored pencil on paper, 63 x 45 cm

right page, leftGeometrized Condition II, 1989colored pencil on sketching paper, 7 x 27 cm

right page, rightGeometrized Condition III, 1989colored pencil on sketching paper, 7 x 27 cm


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Time, Space and Event

The Built Sundial


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left pageChronometer with Time Levels, 1989pencil on paper, 63 x 45 cm

right page, aboveTime poles, 1989pencil on paper, 63 x 45 cm

right page, below leftChronometer I, 1989charcoal pencil on paper, 63 x 45 cm

right page, below rightChronometer II, 1989charcoal pencil on paper, 63 x 45 cm

All material in nature, the mountains, the great rivers and we

ourselves are extinguished light, and this decayed mass that we

call material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to the light.Louis Kahn




Time as the Fourth Dimension of Space

Around 1900 the understanding of space, which, since the end of theRenaissance, had not changed for over 100 years, was redefined. TheRenaissance discovered perspective, which, as an expression of its time,reoccurred uniformly and everywhere in art as well as in science. Andalso where both were united in a single person such as Michelangeloor Leonardo da Vinci. With Brunelleschis discovery of central perspectiveand paintings in which every element is related to the viewpoint ofthe respective observer, a basis was created for individualism and therationalized view of space related to the subject.1 Space was definedin three dimensions and the standpoint was determined. The constructionand the concept of space stood harmoniously beside each other. Itwas not so easy to set aside this simple knowledge and concept ofspace. Peter Eisenman even speaks of architecture as a willing area ofapplication for perspective, as with its ability to define and reproducethe perception of depth on a two dimensional surface perspective wasallotted to space as a comprehensible construct and he also points outthat architecture with its volume and the architect with his way of lookingat things adapted themselves to perspective. This meant that perspectiveis even more virulent in architecture than in painting because of theimperious demands of the eye and the body to orient itself in architecturalspace through processes of rational perspectival ordering.2

1 Peter Eisenman, Visions Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media, in Kate Nesbitt,ed. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, 1996, 556-561.

2 Ibid.


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left pageSundial I, 1989pencil on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm

right page, aboveArtificial Layers I, 1989pencil on paper, 21.7 x 29.7 cm

right page, below leftSundial II, 1989pencil on sketching paper, 30 x 84 cm

right page, below rightSundial III, 1989fineliner on sketching paper, 20 x 20 cm



With the start of Cubism (around 1908) which emerged from painting,humankind (as subject) distanced itself from its central standpoint(towards the object). The concept of space in art was expanded. Cubism(finally) made a break with the perspective-based understanding of theRenaissance and recognized that a single viewpoint does not suffice toview an object (or space) or to fully understand it. Because the essenceof space as understood in its diversity consists of infinite possibilitiesof internal relationships, an exhaustive description from a single eye-point becomes impossible.3 The Cubists dismantled space into itsconstituent elements and looked at it from all sides; they also added thefourth dimension to it. At the same time as the discovery of the physicalrelationship between space and time (theory of relativity, Albert Einstein)and psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud, who, incidentally, also usedphotography as a way of defining terms)4, time is added as a term forthe perception of space. Whereas in the Renaissance artists were splitinto two groups on the issue of whether perspective should be depictedby means of lines or colors, Futurism developed alongside Cubism,adding movement to the spatial depictions.

Nevertheless, time cannot be experienced in the same way as space.Although the concept of time is derived from Plato and Aristotles

definition of movement in space, even after Kant (who regarded it as theexperience that first makes being human possible) and Einstein, who,through his theory of relativity, defined time as the fourth dimension ofspace, time is not a fixed dimension; time-space remains a relationshipthat must be constantly defined anew.

3 Raum, Zeit, Architektur, Sigfried Giedion.4 Camera obscura de lIdologie, Chapter 2: Freud Der Fotoapparat, Sarah Kofman, 1973.

Freud uses the model of the camera to show us that every psychological phenomenon first of all inevitably undergoes a unconscious phase, through the darkness of the negative, before emerging into consciousness and developing in the brightness of the positive.


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left pageSpatial Curvature and Time Levels, 1989pencil on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm

right page, aboveSpace and Time, 1989pencil on paper , 29.7 x 42 cm

right page, belowArtificial Layers II, 1989pencil on paper, 21 x 29.7 cm


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left pageSection of Timetower, 1989pencil on paper, 31 x 44 cm

right page, leftElevations I Timetower, 1989pencil on paper, 31 x 44 cm

right page, rightElevations II Timetower, 1989pencil on paper, 31 x 44 cm




Idea of a Space

Artificial layers are building space and time.

Contemporary witnesses share their memories.


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left pageInterior of the Earth, 1989pencil on paper, 21 x 29.7 cmright pageArtificial Layers III, 1989pencil on paper, 21 x 29.7 cm


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Everything that has a form is material, only shadows and holes

are pure forms without history or memory.

Roberto Casati

Shadow is the removal of light and the pure contrast between the dense

volume and brightness: shadows belong to the nature of darkness, brightness

to the nature of light. One conceals, the other reveals: they are connected in

permanent communion to the volumes, and shadow is more powerful thanlight, as it completely excludes the volumes from light and robs them of it,

whereas light can never completely drive the shadows away from the volumes,

that is from the dense volumes.

Leonardo da Vinci


45/32252 I LENDKANAL

LENDKANAL, Klagenfurt, Austria 1994

Harbor, Bridge, Moat and Weir

The Allegories of Stations

The city of Klagenfurt was not built on a watercourse, but on a gravelmass between two rivers dating from the Wrm glacial stage. Surroundedby a wide belt of marshland the only possible location for a largersettlement was the extensive flat area of a gravel bed; thus the settlementthat developed into a town was a kind of moated fortress.

As early as the 13th century a plan was made to connect the town ofKlagenfurt to Lake Wrthersee by means of an artificial canal. This canalwas intended to bring the water needed for a city moat to the townboundaries and also to be used for transport purposes. In the course ofthe wars at the start of the 19th century the invading French troops blewup the fortified walls and also drained the moat. Since then the Lendkanalhas ended in the Lendhafen.


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left pageStudy Lendkanal, 1994pencil on sketching paper, 75 x 30 cm

right pageThe Harbor, 1994pencil on paper, 42 x 29.5 cm

Allegories of stations

where places freeze

open and close

where waves

break and disappear

meet

allegories of memories,

where waves lift boats

carry ships

allegories of water,where waves trickle out

and trickle out

condense

and dry up


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left pageCanon of Water I, 1994pencil on paper, 90 x 63.5 cm

right page, leftCanon of Water II, 1994pencil on paper, 126 x 60 cm

right page, rightCanon of Water III 1994pencil on paper, 90 x 60 cm


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left pageThe Bar, 1994pencil on paper, 42 x 29.5 cm

right pageThe Dike, 1994pencil on paper, 42 x 29.5 cm

Deep place

buried

in the earth

draws its lines

separates

ring by ring

coveredruns the path



The Dike and the Bar

right page aboveThe Bar, 1994pencil on paper, 125.5 x 60 cm

right page belowThe Dike, 1994pencil on paper, 60 x 60 cm

next pageThe Bridge, 1994pencil on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm

The project Allegories of Stations redraws the four historic interfacesbetween the town, street and watercourse. It addresses the incisions,transitions and interfaces that constitute the character of the builtlandscape. In four stations (harbor, bridge, moat, weir) relationships toplaces are recreated or newly made. The drawings show the geometry ofthese newly built urban landscapes, the incisions made by the water arematerialized as architecture.

Water weir

forcing itself

through the gate

taking form

in the profile

digging the ditch

it stabs into the earth

above the water

carrying


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right page, aboveThe Bridge, 1994pencil on paper, 105.5 x 60 cm

The Bridge, 1994pencil on paper, 105.5 x 60 cm

Sides

shore

memory

the touchthe opposite

the squares

the time


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57/32265

Wolfgang Pauser

A Story between Day and NightLight and Architecture

Light and architecture inter-relate in a variety of ways and underdifferent conditions, by day and by night. To be visible every building isdependent on natural or artificial light shining on it from outside. If it isnot illuminated at night a building can only make its presence, but not itsform, perceptible, as a series of points of light if artificial light inside thebuilding can be seen from outside through the windows.

With its alternating areas of wall and windows traditional architecturewas structurally deeply influenced by the possibility of directing andcontrolling the amount of natural light that enters the building.Before classic modernism made artificial light available in greateramounts, every experience of space was shaped by the way the amountof daylight gradually decreased from the window into the depth of thespace. The use of artificial light in interiors increased in the course of the20th century and it has become the central medium in the way architectstoday use light to present the interior as a space of visual experience.Thus light has changed from an external ingredient to a substantial centerof architecture, in the process acquiring great importance. Out of the self-evident axiom that light makes spaces visible, the emergence of lightingtechnology combined with day lighting has led to the development of a

differentiated medium in which interior space is articulated as a visualspatial experience. And, although human perception can also registerspace through sound, touch, smell and the interaction of movement, sightis the most important of the senses involved in experiencing architecture.

In the 19th century not only was electric lighting developed but alsothe industrialized and consequently economical production ofincreasingly large areas of glazing. Both these inventions radicallychanged architecture and prompted the continuous move towards morelight and lighting. In 1851 the Crystal Palace, an exhibition building thatconsisted entirely of glass with an iron skeleton frame technology that had

originally been developed for greenhouses, represented the start of thisdevelopment. Multi-colored but no less crystalline in its form,Bruno Tauts glass pavilion from 1914 was, so to speak, the startingpoint for a kind of modernism that incorporated light not only technically,but also symbolically as a lodestar in its program. With the curtainwall faade a type was formulated at the Bauhaus that has lost little ofits formative power up to the present day. Modernism is equated withopening up, brightening, enlightenment, transparency and reason.


58/32266 IA STORY BETWEEN DAY AND NIGHT

It is a light mythology project, not just by day, as at night it draws thestarry heavens above1 down to earth, technically strengthening andmultiplying them until they are even brighter than daylight.

All these phenomena are familiar and they have been often described,not least of all because they are at the center of our everyday experienceof light and architecture. But what forms the periphery, the outer andinner boundaries of this link? And how can the historical development ofthe current architecture of light be understood from these boundaries?

The outer boundary is marked by the phenomena of skyline, sea oflight, and dome of light. Architecture is recognizable as a skyline, notas the result of being lit but rather due to a lack of light. In the eveningand the morning, from the east or the west, every city can be viewedagainst backlight as a silhouette. In the sharp contrast between shadowand sky the image of the city loses its differentiation and is simplifiedinto a line that forms the horizon and that can be identified from itsgeometric shape like a signature as a skyline. In the past the effectof backlight for views of the city in terms of compressing, contouring andproducing images was well known, and the impression made by thetowers of defensive and religious buildings in terms of marking, orienting

and identity are a result of this awareness. However, we first speak ofa skyline with regard to the big cities of modernism in which the skylineis shaped by skyscrapers rather than by individual tall buildings, and isa stepped line between different heights. As the view of the skyline canonly be seen and photographed from one direction it is always the sameimages that are disseminated by the media and which effectively createa kind of trade mark. This has made the skyline into an architecturallyproduced line which, as a kind of natural logo identifies those citiesthat have become symbols of economic prosperity, thanks to their largenumber of tall buildings. However, the skyline is never the intentionalproduct of architectural design or urban planning but rather a silhouette

of the sum of all local architectures, a meta-architectural light-imageof the built city. Despite its anonymity and the lack of intention, thisshadow outline can still be read as a radiant, triumphal image of modernarchitecture as a whole and as collective identification with itslocal elements.

At dusk the skyline fades, giving way to the perception of built urbanitythrough the sea of light and the light dome. In contrast to backlight

1 Immanuel Kant, translation by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott: The Critique of Practical Reason (1788).


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which, while not illuminating the city, still clearly outlines it andthus reveals it as a built object, the sea of light blurs all contours. Itsinnumerable sources of light do not illuminate the city and its buildingsbut merely suggest their presence, in that they present nothing otherthan their own light. In contrast to the silhouette, the metaphor of thesea dematerializes the borders of the city as an architectural object intoan animated infinity of living, flickering light. Whereas the skyline is theresult of a shortage of light, the imposing aspect of the sea of light is thatthere are too many sources of light for the perception to synthesize theminto an architectural object. The sea of light is also a counter image of thecity, but, in contrast to the silhouette, here light and dark have swappedplaces: what appears against the dark background is just the light of thecity, but not its architecture. The night-time form of the city consists solelyof light that does not brighten or clarify anything but leaves things in thedark, spreads in an inflationary way, and diffuses the boundaries of allobjects. Nevertheless, or precisely on this account, we can talk here oflight-architecture in the narrower sense of the term.

In the modern big city the intensity of night-time lighting has reacheda level that doubles the sea of light upwards, reflecting it in the airand further diffusing it. Like a mirage, the sum of all the architectural

illuminations appears to hover above the city in a form resemblinga dome of light. This neither illuminates nor is illuminated itself. Itsappearance is the result of scattered light that breaks against particlesfloating in the air and thus produces the image of a cloudy objectconsisting solely of light. This epiphenomenon, a summary of architectureillumination, surpasses the sea of light in terms of both inflation anddiffusion. But, unlike the skyline, it is not interpreted as a glorious supersymbol of that energetically densely built formation, the city, but isincreasingly becoming caught in the crossfire of political criticism. In theCzech Republic a law has even been passed against light pollution.

Interpreting light as a pollutant is not only historically new. This ideaquestions the direction taken by the continuous development of thearchitecture of light and way of thinking about light over thousands ofyears. Purity, clarity and increasing visibility are the qualities that havebeen traditionally attributed to light as core elements of its very nature,without an opposite attribution ever seeming remotely conceivable. In thesymbolic order light and dirt are diametrical opposites, and, so far, thefact that light can hinder sight has been a theme only in the rare case of



dazzling glare. However, the debate about light pollution shows thatthings are now different.

Sources of artificial light pollute the natural darkness at night and cantherefore be seen as a special kind of environmental pollution. It is still amatter of debate whether the artistic aspects such as the illumination ofmonuments justify this. Just as polluted seas, ground or air are no longerhabitable for many species, the destruction of the night also has farreaching consequences. 2

If one ignores for the moment the green fundamentalist overtone inwhich such assessments are delivered with all the fervor of an apostleof nature, the question still remains whether there are any possible ornecessary limits to historic development and whether they increase in theamount of artificial lighting. Sometime in the future, will it be possible toexplain the history of light in terms of a continuous path culminating infull illumination? Or will we be witnesses of a break that fundamentallycorrupts not just the dosage but also the cultural metaphors and meaningof light?

Phenomena of inflation are found not only at the outer edges of the area

of encounter between light and architecture but also in its minimum. 3Darchitecture renderings consist solely of light and two dimensions: Theyare generally presented in a glowing light, peopled by slender officeemployees and couples with children. No dark corners, always warmlight, no grayish-blue tones strolling through ArCAADia.3

The biblical vision of a Heavenly Jerusalem, a city built of transparentgems, in such a way that God descends shining to earth, also shinesout of our idealized images of architecture. These images are used toseduce investors, and consequently, if it wishes to avoid subsequentlydisappointing people, architecture must adapt to match them. Where thearchitecture of light consists only of light, it can hardly resist the seductive

appeal of a utopian totalization of light.

A further minimum of the cultural configuration of light and architectureis the solarium. It is usually not included under architecture but, like airconditioning or the elevator, it belongs to the ensemble of technicalfacilities that makes a decisive contribution to making modern architecturepossible and to structuring it. Whereas air conditioning separates thewarming and the illuminating dimensions of sunlight from each other, the

2 Wikipedia (German version), translation of entry under Lichtverschmutzung, April 2011.3 Tobias Scheidegger, Flanieren in ArCAADia. Digitale Architekturvisualisierungen Analyse einer unbeachteten

Bildgattung (Zrich: Verlag Universitt Zrich Institut fr Populre Kulturen, 2009).


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solarium has a function that compensates for and augments the functionof buildings as a filter against the sun. It is a coffin-like casing, a technicalshell that encloses the human body; in relation to sunlight, however, it canbe seen as a functional inversion of every form of habitation. Its functionis to compensate for the effectiveness of buildings in keeping the sun out.For buildings are designed not only to offer protection against the night. 4

In hot climates architecture is also a bulwark against sun and light. Theradiation which the macro-body-shell of the building deprives humanbeings of is doubly returned by the micro-body-shell of the solarium.

Architecture and solarium together form a system of light politics thatgrows within an energy-rich movement between reciprocal escalationand over-compensation. The increasing use of relatively energy-savinglamps does nothing to limit this escalation but merely smoothes its path incultural terms.

The increase of light leads to a reduction of the night, darkness andshadows. In interior design light sources start to overlay and to competewith each other.5 Consequently shadows are in short supply, yet areincreasingly needed because the task of designing interior spaces ismoving closer to the world of the theater, where drama is requiredto stage a piece. Lighting needs shadow as a means of contrast. In

contemporary interiors we experience a duel between the imperative ofcomplete illumination and the imperative of staging or presenting.The inflation of the amount of light is further fueled by the variation ofits sources. Whereas the accentuating spotlight competes with the wall-washer, in addition to light fittings that illuminate, more and more self-illuminating lights are being developed. Advertising light illuminates ourability to desire; back-lit monitors encourage concentration and offerdistractions. Artificial light with the color of daylight is increasingly joinedby daylight artificially introduced into buildings by means of glass fibersand mirrored shafts. Intentionally or unintentionally, they all add to adiffuse, excessively bright atmosphere of light, the indoor pendant to the

cloud of light over the city.

Complete glazing is now standard for inner city office buildings. Howeverdark blue these obelisks of an economy that has become opaque maybe, they still sing the old song of the victory of light and its effect onhuman civilization in terms of enlightening and making transparent. Butbehind these smooth faades a technical and architectural change istaking place. Whereas removing the window originally created monoliths

4 Walter Seitter, Zur Physik der Nacht in Gernot Bhme, Reinhard Olschanski (eds.), Licht und Zeit(Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004).

5 Bruno Haldner in: Marcel Schmid, Licht, exhibition catalog, (Basel 1991).



of light, today this development is guided by the idea of a biomorphicmembrane (with automatic shade appliances at certain points). Unlikethat old architecture medium, the wall, this membrane is not directedagainst nature but is committed to nature and symbolically offered to it.

On the outer boundary (the dome of light) the inflation of light is opposedusing arguments about protecting nature, on the inner boundary (thesolarium) it raises concerns about the dangers it presents to human health.Thus, in this discussion nature and health are increasingly equated.

With the new model of the semi-permeable membrane, architecture hasrecently made attempts to depart from its old mission, setting boundariesto nature by means of walls within which human culture opens up andseeks to escape from the firing line of the nature discourse.6 The inflationand diffusion of light is thus joined by a further dissolution of boundaries:technology and nature should blend together. The outside world and thehuman body as two examples of nature should no longer be separatedby walls, windows and cultural borders. The bionically conceived roboticsbubble that automatically modifies itself by means of solar and windcurrent and adapts to the sun, the clouds and the wind, wants to besimulated nature rather than architecture. It resembles a super-motherwho always knows best what is good for those in her care: it makes

humankind into an embryo in a semitransparent abdominal cavity bathedin the cybernetically optimized mild light of that clarification whichis now about to leave behind the Enlightenment and its architecturalembodiments with all its history of metaphors of light. The latestarchitecture utopia, living in a semi-permeable bubble that adapts to theweather by changing form, creates for mankind a precarious interiorspace robbed of the right to be designed, whose culture of light resemblesin part the dome of light, and in part the solarium. If the architectural self-manifestation of humankind ignores the demands of nature, the result isa structural inversion of the architecture of light: its outermost peripheralphenomena form the new center.

6 See, for example, the biomorphic architecture visions of Vincent Callebaut, www.vincent.callebaut.org


63/32272 I LIGHT AND DARKNESS

LIGHT AND DARKNESS I Studies on NYC, Pier for Coney Island, 1994


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left pageEntity of the Dark, 1995pencil on paper, 91.5 x 61 cm

right page, leftBlack out, 1994pencil on paper, 25 x 25 cm

right page, rightSparks, 1994pencil on paper, 25 x 25 cm

Even in absolute darkness there is light.

The black hole as a boundary of understanding;

the distortion of space and time.


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left page, aboveThe imaginary lines (folds) create a field, 1994

Pencil on paper, 25 x 25 cm

left page, below leftThe Linear Plane or the Balanced Field, 1994Pencil on paper, 25 x 25 cm

left page, below rightDensity, 1994pencil on sketching paper, 25 x 25 cm

right pageFolding the Fold, 1994fineliner on sketching paper, 25 x 25 cm



The Fold or folded horizon, 1995pencil on paper, 96.5 x 91 cm

next pageLaughter in the Dark,1995pencil and acrylic on paper96.5 x 61 cm


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Wolfang Pauser

Concepts of ReasonGeometry and Light

Geometry means, literally, the measurement of the earth. In histories thatadhere to a narrative of the linear development of intellect and reason itsorigins are often explained in terms of the practical necessity in ancientEgypt to regularly redefine property boundaries following frequentflooding. Up to the present day a land surveyor is still occasionally knownas a geometer. In general, however, geometry has developed into anarea of mathematics which in terms of complexity has distanced itselfalmost infinitely from the simple figures used in schools to provide anintroduction to the subject.

However, in addition to this earthy root, geometry has a second rootwhose antipodal origins are to be found in the lights of the heavens.In its early days astronomy was not divorced from religion, cosmologyand astrology, responsibility for it was assumed by the priesthood. Theearly geometry of the heavens is used to measure ground, but on thelevel of its semantic meaning shows little signs of being down to earth.

It poses questions about creation, about God, about the cosmic entity.Consequently, for the history of reason it is useful only as a contrastmedium that one can distance oneself from, at best a precursor. Strandsof traditions spun from the antique geometry of the stars in the heavensextend alongside the history of the Enlightenment up to the present day.In accordance with its program the Enlightenment allots these parallelphenomena, the most prominent of which is Pythagorean thought, tothe universal history of irrationality. This by no means diminishes theirvalue for a cultural and historical examination of their effect. After all,in a poetic reference to Pythagoras and Kepler Immanuel Kant, thephilosopher of the Enlightenment per se, himself believed that he could

see in the starry heavens above us a reflection and symbol of thelaw of reason.

Today it is no longer possible to say with certainty when the starryheavens first provoked humankind to see in them not a chaotic massof light sources but a phenomenon of order, from which regularities,differences and laws can be read and interpreted. What is certain is thatin numerous early cultures the measurement of time by means of

Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection of the spirit of God.Johannes Kepler


71/32280 I CONCEPTS OF REASON

a calendar was derived from this phenomenon, which represented thefirst step in constructing a bridge to mathematics. And we also know thatimaginary lines were drawn between the brightest stars in order to projectmythological figures into the abstract geometric shapes thus created:the constellations.

The point-shaped light from the stars forms a perfect contrast to thehomogenous black background, and it provokes us to form abstractionsof a geometrical and mathematical kind. This phenomenon resembles thenegative of a schematic black and white drawing. The starry sky lookslike a geometric projection of itself, it seems to have anticipated the wayit was to be schematically depicted by human knowledge and appearsas a primal image or prototype of every geometrical drawing and clearorder alongside daytime nature, which, as it is infinitely more diverse,is comparatively chaotic. Points, the lines that connect them, and theapparently curved surface of the vault of the heavens, against which theybecome visible, seem like natural models for the formation of the abstractbasic elements of geometry. The art of calculating and the observation ofthe heavens grow together into a form that illustrates simple mathematicalrelationships and was used to simplify, schematize, model and calculatedaytime phenomena.

The stars in the sky not only inspired the development of geometry,they also raised questions about how these night-time phenomena ofa simple geometric order should be interpreted. And so the achievementsof rational calculation, which had developed in the context of astronomy,were soon generalized and projected back into the starry sky as a cosmicor divine order. What seems like a quintessential order cannot easily beascribed to pure chance. The firmament appears like an illustration of theterm natural law, as the regular nature of its appearance lends itselfto being described in terms of the laws of mathematics and geometry.In the future those drawings made up of points connected by straight

lines, with which the scientific view of the world is illustrated, are tolook similar, albeit only in black and white. In the geometric drawing astandard is later established that appears to guarantee the understandingof nature by means of reason. In modernity only those aspects of naturethat can be described mathematically and can therefore be depictedgeometrically achieve the status of natural scientific truth. The graphictype of connecting black points on a white background by means ofcompass and ruler was considered a general symbol of rationality,


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before being replaced by the 3D computer rendering. The visual demandfor transparency and clear boundaries, according to the Cartesian clareet distincte and closely linked to the phantasm of the spirit, was metby a graphic design which, in the case of solid bodies, marked only theiredges with lines so as to present their opaque interior as transparent andtherefore spiritual.1The distinction could not find a better medium for itsvisualization than the outline. The geometrical, schematic depiction didnot confine itself to the understanding of nature but was used for everykind of rational planning. It was the basic medium of architecture until itencountered competition from parametrical computer-aided design whichcan be worked directly in three-dimensional free form.

Johannes Keplers attempts in the 17th century to discover theconstruction plan of creation in the geometry of the planetary orbitswere based on the theory of Pythagoras as conveyed by Plato. He hadmeasured vibrating strings to discover the ratios in which they must bedivided to produce consonant sounds. His experiments showed thatthe ratios must be integers. Even though today we know that this isonly an approximate result that is not confirmed by precise calculation,for centuries the apparent evidence that, on hearing at the same timesounds whose relationship represents an integral division of the octave,

the human ear experiences an aesthetic feeling of harmony seemedsubjectively confirmed. From this phenomenon Pythagoras concluded that,analogous to the sound of harmonious tones, the integral relationshipsmust play an important role in all other areas and perceptions of nature.In particular the geometry of the starry sky seemed ideally suited asa subject into which the laws of music could be projected. Modelsdiscovered in music and transferred to astronomy achieved great impactin the history of ideas as the harmony of the spheres.

The cosmos as described by Plato resembles a spindle. Concentrichemispheres rotate around an axis consisting of light. A harmonious

sound is produced which is, however, inaudible to the human ear. ThePythagorean esthetic of music, equated with the relationships betweenwhole numbers (fractions), is regarded as a law that not only structuresthe cosmos but also produces it. As a planetary model the spindle ofnecessity fits into the tradition of ancient myths of creation, whichemploy metaphors of sound in an attempt to explain the transition fromnothing to something. Pythagoras gives these creation myths that usesound a mathematical form. The laws of numbers of music are to be

1 The term spiritual is used here in the sense of an abstraction of humankinds intellectual achievements.



found reflected in the celestial lights that appear against the night sky.In Greek the term cosmos means both order as well as ornament. It isthe musical beauty of harmonious sound whose mathematical equivalentis seen in the order of the stars.

Against this background we can understand why Vitruvius derives theproportions of architecture from reflections on the theory of music. Theadditional aesthetic value of integral intervals was regarded as proof ofthe general validity of a cosmic law, a kind of world formula of creation,described by Plato in the dialogue Timaeus as Lambdoma. In this systemthe number 1 stands for the whole, all further values are derived from thedivision/fraction of whole numbers.For Pythagoras the issue is not numbers used for counting, but therelationship between numbers. The term proportion is still used todayin architecture and the visual arts and means nothing other than thatthe relationships between dimensions relate to the Pythagorean theoryof numbers. Such proportions are described as harmonious, as it isassumed that the beauty of musical consonance can be transferred tovisual phenomena by means of the relevant ratios. This can only succeedif one assumes that a cosmological building law of integers forms thebasis for the audible as well as the visual. Thus, conveyed by means

of mathematics, the geometrical division of the lengths of the strings isprojected into the geometry of the celestial bodies, from where, as adivine law, it structures, produces and shapes the world of appearances.

An attempt is then made to discover the inaudible sound of the harmonyof spheres in the regularities of natural phenomena (such as, forexample, the laws of the way leaves are arranged on a stem, the anglesof crystals or the human form).

Johannes Kepler discovered that the orbits of the planets are ellipticalbecause, as a Pythagorean, he was convinced that circular orbits couldnot reflect the beauty of cosmic music, as integral ratios of division are

not to be found in circles. It is only in an ellipse that every point bedescribed by a relationship, namely its distance from two focal points.Kepler used a telescope that he developed and built himself to examinethe thesis of harmonious number relationships, developed from musictheory. Even though the theory behind his reasoning was wrong,verifying it by means of the observation of nature represents a decisivestep in modern natural sciences. In Keplers model of the cosmos,which was derived from Platos spindle, there was also a place for the


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Platonic solids. These are the simplest forms of geometrical polygons,from the tetrahedron to the octahedron. Since antiquity these bodies hadbeen regarded as elements or ideal atoms out of which the cosmos isconstructed. In particular Leonardo da Vinci gave them in his depictionsa kind of apotheosis comparable to the Brussels Atomium. Keplerbelieved that he could determine the distances between the planets byplacing the Platonic solids inside each other in the concentric circlingdishes of the musical heavenly machines (Boetius). At this point in thehistoric development the basic forms of geometry are used as organizingprinciples in the astronomic interpretation of the lights that appear inthe heavens.

As, in his planet model, Kepler combines the most general geometricalideas, the Platonic solids, with the Pythagorean theory of ratios, in thiscontext he also, logically, deals with crystals. He regards the phenomenonof crystals, characterized by their combination of permeability to lightwith geometrical form, as further clear proof of the fact that geometryis not just a method of abstraction used by human understanding, butas a divine law, so to speak, inherent to nature and the cosmos itselfand even underlies their generation. The similarity of the crystals to thePlatonic solids gave credence to the belief that they were, so to speak,

underground evidence for the order of the celestial lights, as shapedby the harmony of the spheres. Keplers suppositions later influencedpioneers of the science of crystallography such as, for example,

Victor Goldschmidt who sought to decipher the angles of crystals bymeans of Pythagorass theory of numbers.

The historical paths of light and geometry cross each other not only attheir starting point, the star and its underground correlate crystal, but alsoin the year 1671, when Isaac Newton discovered the laws of refractionin the prism. During the day he closed the window shutters, leaving justa tiny gap open, to obtain a ray of light, with which he could observe,

in the prism, the light fanning out into a spectrum of colors. This enabledhim to describe the geometrical laws of optics.

Whereas to derive geometry from the points of light in the night sky theyhad to be connected by imaginary lines to form flat figures, sunlight hadto be filtered through a gap in a window shutter to shape it into a line. Inphysical terms the resulting ray of light is actually a cone that is almost acylinder, but it leads the eye to interpret it as a line. Here, too, geometric



abstraction is demonstrated, in that the visibility of light is presented insuch a way that the schematic construction of the optical theory seemsto emerge as evident from the phenomenon itself. In Newtons study thegeometric character of the ray transforms into a natural phenomenon,whose laws are then to be depicted as truths in the geometricalconstructions of physical optics.

In nature there are no points and also no straight lines. The fundamentalelements of geometry are purely intellectual models that allow a simplifiedmathematical description of natural phenomena. This does not mean thatthey exist a priori in the human mind geometry, too, grew historicallyand in the process was provoked, inspired and made possible by allkinds of external phenomena, both natural and cultural, such as stars,creation myths based on sound, land surveying, stone formations andwindow shutters. The question whether we can truly recognize naturethrough geometric models, because it itself is built and operatesaccording to geometry, or whether, conversely, we simply project thesimplifications of our reason into nature as a grid and then filter itaccordingly is about as difficult to answer as the one about the chickenand the egg. Goethe regarded the eyes as sun-like, Kant believed that weprescribe to nature the categories of understanding. Geometry is not

only inspired in many ways by phenomena of light, in western history itis committed to bringing light into dark things and to creating order, notonly in the mind but, consequently, also in the design of the world.

A fourth point of intersection of historical importance (in addition toPythagoras as conveyed by Plato, Kepler, and Newton) is found at thebeginning of the 20th century, when in 1901 in Darmstadt architectPeter Behrens ceremonially unveils a crystal and declares it the leitmotifof modernism, with all the familiar consequences in terms of geometricabstraction in painting, design and architecture. At the WerkbundExhibition in 1914 Bruno Taut gives his glass pavilion the form of a

crystal, combining light and geometry in a way that has dominatedbuilding in urban centers down to the present day. A convention hasestablished itself that high-rise buildings should be given simple geometricforms that are then clad with glass, as far as possible without joints, sothat they look like mighty crystals. In this culture of high-rise buildingsa millennia-old vision continues to live, in which geometry could be aconnecting bridge between heaven and earth, light and stone, beautyand measure, concepts of reason and the material world.



LIGHT AND DARKNESSI Studies on NYC, Pier for Coney Island, 1994

left pageLight rays changing media, 1994pencil on paper, 25 x 25 cm

right pageLight rays changing media, 1995acrylic on canvas, 91 x 122 cm


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left pageOpening, 1995acrylic on canvas, 91 x 122 cm

right pageOpening, 1994penci

Geometry of Light - The Architecture of Arkan Zeytinogly

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