Critical Readings E-Book

Ruth Verde Zein

• Herausgeber: Romano Guerra Editora
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Latin America: Thoughts
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 254

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The fifth book of the collection "Latin America: Thoughts" presents a collection of Ruth Verde Zein's articles on architectural theory, history and critic, arranged around three themes: Teaching and research, case studies and panoramas. Essays that share the belief that architectural design process is both creation of the new and connection with the relevant tradition and that being an eminently practical activity, its completion and renewal only occurs when it relates to conceptual issues.

Leseprobe

LATIN AMERICA: THOUGHTS

Romano Guerra Editora

Nhamerica Plataform

MANAGEMENT COORDINATION

Abilio Guerra, Fernando Luiz Lara and Silvana Romano Santos

CRITICAL READINGS

Ruth Verde Zein

Brasil 5

EDITOR

Abilio Guerra, Fernando Luiz Lara and Silvana Romano Santos

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Fabiana Perazolo

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Maria Claudia Levy and Ana Luiza David (Goma Oficina)

FORMATTING

Fernanda Critelli

EBOOK FORMATTING

Natalli Tami Kussunoki

TRANSLATION

Anita Di Marco and Ann Puntch

TRANSLATION REVIEW

Ruth Verde Zein and Fernanda Critelli

foreword

back to the things

an ethical pragmatic critique, an operative and referenced theory

the synthesis as a starting point and not a finish line

when documenting is not enough

it ain’t necessarily so...

breuer affections, back and forth

hard cases

nulla die sine linea

brennand chapel

modern tradition and contemporary culture

latin american contemporary architecture

foreword

In 2000 my first book O lugar da crítica. Ensaios oportunos de arquitetura, was published. It gathered some texts written as a journalist and architectural critic, during the last decades of the 20th century. And it ended a cycle and opened another: then, after twenty years of professional activities, I decided to fully embrace the academic world. In this century, being a professor and a researcher became my main activity. After another twenty years, this new book presents a part of my activities, collecting some unpublished and out-of-print texts.

The first part of this book brings forth some pedagogical texts. They were elaborated in the effort of practicing the teaching, the study and the research of architecture in a more conscious and critical way. Like every work that demands a lot of effort, but when it is finished, it passes almost unnoticed – especially when it is done right –, educational activities seems an inane activity, when in fact they are essential. I believe architectural education is provided by shelping to learn and recognize the world’s realities, in their cultural and human manifestations, especially those related to the built environment. To teach design is to create links with the relevant tradition as much as it is to enable its renovation, advancing to new and, hopefully, better paths. To teach how to research, especially in the field of architectural design – the subject that I’m mostly interested – is also a process of awareness of the knowledge that must be assimilated and transformed. It is also a demystification of truths, which must be requalified as narratives in order to make it possible to question them. These apparently abstract subjects that are quite real and concrete in the everyday teaching and research activities, are debated in the first four texts.

The second part of this book brings forth five texts considering some aspects on the subject of critical readings; or as I’ve renamed, and explained why in one of the texts, of critical and referenced studies. It presents a selection of projects and authors that I am very fond of, not because we are friends (though sometimes that is also true), but because their works tell me things that I would not be able to think or do by myself, and that is why I learn a lot by reading them in a deep and careful way. These writings do not intend to unveil some hidden truth behind those works and architects but instead, they just explain what they are to me. My spectrum of interests is obviously wider, but this book had room to accommodate just a few of such exercises.

In third and final part of the book there are two more broad and panoramic texts. The first one on brutalism, in this case, focused on the architecture of my hometown, São Paulo. It reverberates some of my extensive studies on the theme, which I’ve been studying since the 1980s until today, and will always be a personal subject of interest. The second text is about another subject that also deeply interests me: Latin American modern and contemporary architecture. I have chosen to place them last, knowing that they are inherently fragile, but in the hope that the indulgent reader would, by then, give me some leeway to practice some necessarily dated and finite generalizations. Despite their possible flaws, they do matter not as much for what they say, but mostly for how they were construed, or better, for the method I’ve used to write them: Through the accumulation, sifting and systematizing in a long-term process of acquiring an overall knowledge on things, facts, architectures, projects and cities. These texts were not born from some priori intellectual convictions, but after the determination of arranging, in a more or less didactic way, what I have learned along my way.

I finish this brief foreword thanking the women that made this book possible: Silvana, Fernanda, Noemi, Anita. Friends, sisters, kind force that, I am sure, are helping to change the world for the better.

back to the things

learning from the buildings

Anhembi Tennis Club, perspective of the structure, São Paulo SP. Vilanova Artigas and Carlos Cascaldi, 1961. Drawing Ruth Verde Zein

The new generation has a splendid dose of vital force, the first condition of any historical enterprise; that is why I have hope in it. But at the same time I suspect that it completely lacks internal discipline, without which its strength disaggregates and volatilizes: That is why I do not trust it. Curiosity is not enough when doing things; one needs mental rigor to become their owners.1

How to do a critical analysis of a building? I have often heard this question, especially after lecturing in universities, congresses, and conferences and after presenting my own close readings on modern and contemporary Brazilian architecture buildings. The question may seem superfluous, and the subject may not need further explanation. After all, a critical analysis, or a close reading of a building is not exactly a novelty, numerous authors and dozens of professors do exercise it every day. Even so the question frequently arises when I also suggest the possibility, indeed the necessity, of using this kind of practical-theoretical tool to open up some possibilities in the academic research field of architecture design. Again, that is a not a new road, for it has already been traveled by many others, even if it is still under construction. But anyway, the question usually arises when I suggest that this kind of study, which has already been in use for quite some time, is meant to become an indispensable methodological tool, helping to bridge up two connected, but still separated, professional areas: Architecture design as a practice and architecture design as a research practice. And since the interest in the topic of critical analysis/close reading as a research tool in architectural design seems to be receiving a greater amount of attention, and it is being more frequently adopted by several researchers, perhaps it is in order to try and better understand its nature, and to systematize its scope and comprehensiveness.

Considering only my personal experience as a participant of several domestic and international academic events and associations, I dare say that there seems to be an increasing interest in the topics of design research and critical readings. That suggests the possibility of also increasing the interest in a most intriguing and utopic horizon, which is perhaps a chimera: The possibility of deeply, concertedly, systematically, and clearly connecting research and design, theory and design, critique and design. To put it in another way, that tool may represent an opportunity to better access and to link the architectural practice to other two realms that are supposedly also familiar to architects – critical reflection and theoretical thought; although they happen to result only in the best cases, sometimes quite unexpectedly, as a collateral byproduct of the act of design.2

So, would it be convenient, or even possible, to establish some simple and judicious method to help us, or primarily to guide young researchers, into a better way of studying and understanding the works of architecture? Should one consider critical analysis/close readings as a useful method to broaden architectural knowledge within the academic universe of architecture research, with possible repercussions on the architecture practice?

Evidently, any attempt to try and completely understand a work of architecture would be futile, a philosophically impossible task. But would it be possible to establish some clear, demonstrable, transferable, and plausible method to carry out a study, an analysis, a critical reading, a wider assessment of a building, solely or primarily based on the technical and professional knowledge that caused it to emerge, as concept and construct, in order to activate some substantiated and productive research path? If so, would it be worth suggesting some kind of checklist, or perhaps a few progressive steps to help those who are still novices at this task? Is it adequate to propose some kind of reference handbook, or a sort of vade mecum? Finally, or first of all, what does anyone understand by an analysis, or by a critical reading, or by a referenced critical recognition of a work of architecture?3

Let’s begin with some brief definitions, or better yet, by establishing limits. The word analysis is defined in current dictionaries as a detailed examination of the elements and structure of certain phenomena; but it also means to separate and divide something, whether object or idea, into its constituent parts; in this case, perhaps in the illusion that the addition of the isolated knowledge of each part would result in the full knowledge of the whole. The first sense (a detailed examination) can be adopted here, but I absolutely do not accept the second definition: To reduce any architecture to a puzzle of parts in order to assure its overall understanding will probably foul up the comprehension of what is really important, which may be in all the parts, while simultaneously it is in no part at all. So, for now, it is better not to use the word analysis to describe the task at hand, and instead, to adopt a more extensive and somewhat more precise expression.

Thus I will restate the initial question in more precise terms, how I wish it had been framed to me: How does one achieve a certain level of referenced critical recognition of a building that allows for greater depth of its understanding, within an academic research, in order to... To what purpose, really? Well, this is perhaps an even more fundamental question. It has to be considered, it needs to be clearly enunciated and it must be fully answered.

i do not understand the process of critical recognition of a work of architecture as an end in itself, but a tool to open other doors.

That is why I insist on adding the word referenced to the complex definition above suggested, replacing the term critical analysis. This is a fundamental aspect, without whose consideration no satisfactory answers to the initial question will be achieved, for those asking the question, and even myself, may be inadvertently speaking about different subjects, different objectives and motives, different expectations, asking ourselves different things – even without being fully aware of that.

Speaking of motives, a brief digression is here necessary.

In his classic text “Ideologia modernista e ensino de projeto: duas proposições em conflito” (Modernist Ideology and Teaching of Architectonic Design: Two Conflicting Proposals),4 Carlos Eduardo Dias Comas argues the need for critical referenced recognition of a broad repertory of works as an indispensable basis for the solution of design problems, and as an indispensable tool for tutoring design students in their design process. According to Comas, following the lessons of his masters Collin Rowe and Alan Colquhoun, deeper critical recognition of a wide repertory of works is not timely invoked just to illustrate a generic point, or erudition, nor just to get to know these works in them. But rather by being invoked they can illuminate the creative scenario in which one develops one’s design, whether to warn us about occasional difficulties or to open up preferential possibilities that activate and/or counterbalance specific moments of a creative process. The catalyzing presence of the recognition of other works in one’s design process is also a critical re-cognition, since it is the result and expression of some criteria (explicit or not) that induced us to make a selection, defining those works that are suitable or that we are interested in studying, ad hoc in this case. Therefore, it is referenced knowledge that goes both ways: Because I reference myself, and because my references seek it.

But would it be possible to try to re-cognize some architecture works in them? That is, in a non-referenced and thus absolute way? Would this perhaps be the situation encountered when the referenced critical recognition of a building is not suggested by the design process, but by the writing of a thesis, an article, a text, a class, a dissertation, i.e., when the task at hand is essentially academic and theoretical, and not professional? I believe not. Or better, here I propose to defend an opposite position: That every critical recognition of a building, even inside a theoretical appointment, is necessarily a referenced one, whether we are aware of that or not. And better be aware, for any naïve or unconscious approach to the subject is not adequate in a serious and meticulous academic task, for taking into account the processes and paths of our thoughts is an unavoidable and basic obligation at that. If that is so, the possibility of elaborating a generic vade mecum, able to be used in any case, will never be possible. Because first of all, one must begin by proposing a first question: Why do I want to better understand this building or this set of buildings? For what purpose am I invoking them?

There is another important second question to be proposed. If we are trying to establish, in an academic research, a list of possible elements to allow us to propose a referenced critical recognition of a building, it must be considered that such building was created by the current design methods of architecture professional field, i.e., it was originally designed mainly through non-verbal or non-textual elements, such as drawings, sketches, models, test models, etc. Thus, would it be possible, or even more correct, to propose a referenced critical recognition mostly, or exclusively, by employing such non-textual/verbal tools? Is it possible to completely dispense with the support of verbal and textual elements?

My position here is also contrary: It does not seem so. I defend it invoking at least two reasons. First, because it seems evident that architects do not dispense the aid of verbal and textual elements within the design process itself, and not just to explain or divulge it to third parties (when written or verbal explanations are customary). Secondly, because whenever a piece of critical recognition of a building is developed within the academy, it must be attentive to the raison d’ être of academies. They are meant to be places for the dissemination and propagation of the knowledge produced by each of their members, who will validate or contest this knowledge; and after being proven and validated, this knowledge must be publicized to the world and put into use. As so, it is a fair reason to demonstrate the need of combining, when doing a referenced critical recognition, textual and non-textual elements, in order to help other people fully understand your study. After all, not everyone has or needs to have the proper training to fully comprehend architect’s non-verbal language, or by extension, any professional field jargon. However, the vast majority of people will be able to comprehend well-argued verbal texts, supported to a greater or lesser degree by non-textual elements. This motive – the public interest and the need to be clear and communicative – is in my opinion sufficient to confirm the need for us to employ textual and non-textual elements in a referenced critical recognition of a building, especially when such study is being elaborated inside an academic study. We should not feed the illusion of being self-sufficient nor should we isolate ourselves. If we have something to say, it is our duty to be clear when telling it to everyone: Our peers, young novices, interested laypeople, other people connected to our research field etc.

Moreover, in explaining ourselves, in renouncing the pretentiousness of imagining that our area of knowledge is ineffable, and in being willing to be clear and communicative, we can open up the possibility of being challenged – which is, in principle, the appropriate condition of intelligent life in the academic debate. This is another basic point that needs to be accepted and that differentiates the professional practice of architecture from the professional practice of research in architecture. The alleged ineffability of the architectonic tasks can be tolerated in professional life whenever the clients are fully satisfied with the results. But in the academic research field the client is an indeterminate open collective, and thus it cannot by definition accept such incommunicability.

all ineffable knowledge may be valuable to those who have it, but since it is non-transferable it fails in the mission of being publicized, shared, responded or endorsed;

and of eventually benefitting a broader community – the raison d’être of any research. Lastly, but no less importantly, we need to be clear in order to be understood by people that belong to other academic research fields who, whether we like it or not, have also a say on the quality and pertinence of our research and on defining whether it will be accepted and validated. In other words, we must be straightforward because we also need to clearly communicate our efforts to the agencies that regulate academic life and set the standards for the assessment of the productivity of our lives as researchers.

So an important step of a possible check list (that I am not going to propose) is to endorse the double textual/non-textual nature of these kinds of studies: A piece of referenced critical recognition of an architectural work would certainly have to deal in every step of the way with non-verbal/non-textual representation and study devices (drawings, diagrams, sketches, designs, etc.) as well as it will necessarily have to deal with verbal and/or textual forms. More precisely, with everything the verbal as well as non-verbal forms carry: More or less abstract concepts and ideas, pertinent to the subject in a total or in a tangential way.5

While it is in development, or when it is being deepened and completed, a study proposing a referenced critical recognition of a building from an architectural standpoint cannot avoid but interfacing with a broad range of other parallel disciplines and adjacent knowledge, without which it would be impossible to qualify and correctly comprehend the network of complexities that may be found at the heart of all architectural works, especially when dealing, as it will be more frequently the case, with exemplary, canonical or significant cases. Therefore, it is convenient to keep in mind that the main focus and starting point for a referenced critical recognition of an architectural work will always be, by free definition and free choice of method, architectonic. The hypotheses, descriptions, considerations, developments and conclusions of a referenced critical study of a chosen architectonic work that one aspires to better recognize and appreciate (for the author’s particular reasons, that should be explained at some point of the text) is necessarily born and is primarily fed on the knowledge and parameters of architectural disciplinary knowledge. In order to better do it one must adopt an intransigent stance pro reviewing the building in its essential architectonic conception, as a result of a design process that brought it to life, but from which the building has paradoxically freed itself at the moment it came into the world.6

By insisting on the need to focus the study of architecture works primarily through the architecture discipline knowledge it may look like as if we are in search of its roots, its origin, or its concrete manifestation that is apparently free of all bonds, ties, and connections. But in fact that is not the intention, nor that is possible to fully occur at any time.

It is impossible to perform a close reading, or a referenced critical recognition, of a work of art or architecture by disregarding the fact that it is already wrapped in an aura. It is impossible to remain completely free of the influence of this aura and to aspire to attain the pure object in itself as if it could be understood devoid of all the overlapping layers of meaning that were previously imposed there by us or others. Even when dealing with a completely new building, one cannot avoid viewing it with the biases that shape our vision, which is never innocent, even when it is not consciously reflexive. It will never be possible to eradicate the crusts that for better or worse are aggregated to the object, sometimes enmeshed in a nearly inextricable manner, even though in fact they were juxtaposed over time by authors, users, commentators etc. Admitting that, it is better to start the critical reading by accepting that these layers are ever-present and the subject is a complex entity. That is exactly why we need to invest in a certain effort to denaturalize these layers, by peeling them off, and by refusing to unadvisedly accept them as substitutes for the buildings themselves; even when it is inevitable that we use them as a basis to comprehend it, while, in the process, we strive to recognize, refine or contest these crusts.

Abandoning once and for all the idea that it is possible to produce a critical reading in itself, it is worth understanding that the effort of creating a close reading, or of a referenced critical recognition of an architectural work cannot avoid being a methodological proposition, a means to achieve an end, which is the purpose of our journey. And the knowledge thus produced will never be pure, but the hybrid and synergistic result of the association between our free and creative actions, interacting with the building (or buildings) that we have chosen to appreciate, to dedicate our time and effort to study and comprehend.

The reason to do a referenced critical recognition of any work of architecture is to arrive at an objective that we have previously established, whether or not in a conscious way, which will be clearly stated by asking the other basic fundamental question (why someone wants to do this task). Sooner or later, such question must be clearly formulated, in each and every case, in order to allow the entire process to be clear, and to allow it to be verified by the author and by others, in order to confirm its quality, its rigor and its consistency.

Anhembi Tennis Club, floor plan, São Paulo SP. Vilanova Artigas and Carlos Cascaldi, 1961. Drawing Ruth Verde Zein

Naturally it can happen – it almost always happens –, that during the process the questions change, are refined, are made more precise, and are transformed. The initial question does not have to be omniscient, it does not and cannot be expected to contain all the answers a priori, or else it would be neither a question nor a research, but a mere reiteration of some previous knowledge, which is in fact neither being expanded or tested. The question (or questions) can be called as hypothesis, but it may also be named, in a manner that is perhaps more pertinent to the case, as the concept of the project, in this case, the research project. Or it can be called intuition, or a glimpse, or whatever other names seem appropriate. What should not be done is to assume that it is necessary to begin by already knowing where one will arrive, because it does not work that way: As in the design process, knowledge is not there beforehand, but it is constructed during the process, in a non-linear way, with ups and downs, possibly arriving at dead ends which can be critically perceived, impelling us to retake the subject by other routes, and so on. The process of referenced critical recognition of a building is essentially a reflexive process, as much as the design process is7

In other words, and as proposed here, the attempt to do a referenced critical recognition of a work of architecture, or a close reading, or its analysis (using the term only in the first sense described above) will start from some precise and chosen angle, which will both illuminate and limit our reading. During the process this focus will be revised time and again, whenever necessary and appropriate, reformulating the starting question and eventually even re-proposing either the question or the piece of architecture that we have chosen to be studied; for it could happen that the process enlightens our understanding and we realize that the object at issue might not be the best option to try and to respond our questions.

This type of work is by definition endless. But it may be managed, and considered to be sufficient: Not because the researcher has exhausted the possibilities of extracting knowledge out of the reading, but because one has already reached some established goals. Not because one has arrived at the truth, but because now it is possible to try out a plausible response, which now is ready to be expounded to a broader community. And ideally, within this community, called academic, our attempts will arouse some debate that will, in the best cases, help us refine our process of critical recognition, our ideas and our conclusions.

Be that as it may, neither are referenced critical recognitions of architectural works something unheard of. Many authors postulate their existence, under these or other names, and/or exercise this task in various ways, with more or less interesting, complete or consistent contributions. There is no pretension of inaugurating here a novel field, but just to discuss some of its premises with more detail and clarity.

Even though a work of architecture cannot be read by reducing it into some relatively simple items (in fact, there will be no checklist!), a building can be symbolically compared to a vector resulting from the geometrical summation of various internal and external forces that help shape it. These forces can be for example: A brief to attend/geometry of spaces; geographical and cultural site of its location/relationship to a place and surroundings; materials and techniques that can be employed/constructive and technological results; architectonic precedents which one wishes to prioritize or deny/formal and constructive emphases that are chosen as highlights. One can continue to list other items, basic but no less indispensable. The items listed above are just some examples, and are not meant to exhaust the subject. They may be useful because they are almost always present in any close reading, and may be taken as a starting point, at least by young researchers who wish to become initiated in the subject, and eventually the researcher will enrich the list by including or excluding others items, according to the reading aims and interests. These and other items look like simple neutral parameters, but they are not, nor can they be. In their apparent simplicity they can be considered with more or less depth and erudition, and eventually produce a referenced critical recognition of great complexity and richness. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to work hard in a persistent, extended, demanding way, as is true for anything in life that intend to be serious and achieve high quality results.

In any case, as a practical suggestion, it is a good idea to begin by a description of the building. A description may be considered as the near zero point of critique, but without it, the critique may not be able to exist.8 No one runs a marathon without first having assiduously trained in some less extenuating races. Considering that, the parameters suggested above (and many others) can serve at least to exercise an initial reading, or as a training. It is also very important to amplify the knowledge and to exercise the correct application of specific and precise technical language appropriated to the case: Knowing how to handle and use the proper vocabulary helps us learn to see, apprehend and understand what one sees – and eventually, see what is not immediately seen, but could be manifested through your reading. After seeing and understanding what is there and what could be there, one can manage to know how to explain it, and eventually to know how to teach seeing it, and finally, when and if necessary, to know how to apply what one has learned in many other different ways.

It is important to notice that these items should not be adopted a priori as an abstract list, to be dissected in a point-by-point study: That would be an analysis as stated in the above discarded definition, and will tend to dispense or unduly substitute a proper and thorough study of the building. On the contrary, what matters is not the list but the buildings, they are the starting point of the reading, not their parts, nor the abstract items. Buildings condense in a complex and usually contradictory manner all the items that we propose to study, and others as well, and no checklist of items or aspects we are interested in learning about is able to substitute the buildings themselves. Due to the immeasurable conceptual density of the buildings and their architectonic complexity, their referenced critical recognition cannot be reduced to a handful of simple explications; which is right and just, since no architecture is the result of simple explanations. And if all that were easy, none of us would be here: The fun of all of this is its difficulty.

The items listed above, although basic, are obviously not the only possible ones. Defining which aspects should be considered, which to include or eliminate when doing a close reading is a deliberated decision, i.e., it is a choice based on some criteria, which in turn results in the consideration and comprehension of the initial question: The one that defines where we want to go, and why.

These chosen aspects or criteria can activate interdisciplinary connections whenever they are indispensable to the referenced critical recognition that we propose, or according to the references we adopt as the basis for our exploration. Notice that the term activate was intentionally used in the above paragraph, meaning that the kind of critical reading or referenced critical recognition or close reading of a building or any work of architecture here discussed does not begin from some interdisciplinary conceptual presuppositions, but could make use of them whenever necessary, but only when the criteria, as defined by the initial question, require them.

There is a subtle but powerful distinction between a reading that assumes extra-architectonic parameters as an priori basis, and another that does not shy away from also using extra-architectonic parameters, but only when they become relevant. What is here proposed, the subject of this text is the second situation. As above-mentioned, the key point of this proposal, its limit or its nature, it that a critical reading