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Introduction.: Performance/Architecture

Article  in  Journal of Architectural Education · May 2008

DOI: 10.1111/j.1531-314X.2008.00181.x

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Massey University
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DORITA HANNAH
Massey University
Introduction
OMAR KHAN Performance/Architecture
University of Buffalo (SUNY)

The pairing of the two words ‘‘performance’’ and mative effect. Using a variety of filmic examples notion of ‘‘beauty.’’ Rodrigo Tisi takes up this
‘‘architecture’’ separated by an oblique dash (also and Rem Koolhaas’s Prada store in New York, the conflation of the banal with the remarkable as
referred to as a virgule or solidus) is a means to author suggests an alternative ontology of the a more comprehensive approach to architecture
recognize that each field holds itself apart from the architectural surface, wherein objects and subjects through his pedagogical practice in Chile. By com-
other in mutual tension. The performative gesture of produce one another through an unmediated bining pragmatic requirements, Tisi outlines six
this simple slash also reflects the creative relation- effect. In a different way, the design projects of critical elements of body, surface, program, time,
ship between the two: both interruptive and inclu- J. Meejin Yoon look at architecture’s acting out place, and materials that students integrate to
sive, it ‘‘plays’’ between the fluid and the solid, the through interactive installations in public space. create full-scale models that encourage public
dynamic and the static—performance and archi- Here, architecture, outfitted with sound, light, and interaction.
tecture. In 1967, Jacques Derrida aligned this active real-time interactive technologies, actively con- The case for architectural performativity can
role in punctuation to ‘‘spacing,’’ which ‘‘speaks the structs spaces that encourage new forms of public also be found in discourses that are not specific to
articulation of space and time, the becoming-space participation. architecture, in Erving Goffman’s theatrical framing
of time and the becoming-time of space.’’1 In the same year Derrida was formulating his of the everyday in which environments are stage-
For Derrida, punctuation enacts its own perfor- theory of linguistic ‘‘spacing,’’ Progressive Archi- managed through a social dramaturgy. It can also
mative utterances, designating not only the interval tecture magazine published a special issue on be discussed in relation to Richard Schechner’s
but also ‘‘a ‘productive,’ ‘genetic,’ ‘practical’ ‘‘Performance Design’’ that examined ‘‘in depth the model of performance as ‘‘restored’’ or ‘‘twice-
movement, an ‘operation,’ if you will.’’2 In this new problem-solving methodology of systems behaved behavior,’’ where built space could be
special theme issue, through a range of scholarly analysis and its implications for the practice of called ‘‘twice-constructed constructions,’’ incorpo-
articles, design projects, reviews, and an interview, architecture.’’5 This focus on building science as rating physical and societal structures that form and
we have attempted to recognize the interval that a diagnostic tool emerged after the Second World concretize social action through tectonic form.7
exists between the two while projecting the ways War in response to a need to rerationalize and This reinforces Michel de Certeau’s notion of
in which architecture and performance engage codify functionalism in architecture. The quantifi- ‘‘space as practiced place’’ achieved through the
one another. able workings of buildings in relation to their ‘‘theatre of operations.’’8 These concepts elucidate
Almost two decades after establishing the energy use, general operations, and maintenance architecture’s role of normalizing behavior through
spatiotemporal in language through punctuation, costs framed the performance of architecture as its spatial gestures and encoding. Yet, an under-
Derrida went on to propose the notion of archi- a problem that could be measured and solved. standing of such regulatory signs can be used to
tectural performativity, whereby architecture is ‘‘the Implicated in modernism’s ongoing utopian project, challenge spatial occupation through individual and
event of spacing.’’3 Spacing becomes an architec- it aimed at improving quality of life through the collective performances that undermine normative
tural act for the designer formulating architecture benefits of rationalizing ‘‘high-performance’’ behavior.
and for the inhabitant experiencing it. This spatial materials and environments. While concerns with As an aesthetic practice, performance provides
performativity, as ‘‘the provocation of an event,’’ optimization have remained central in the engi- a means of critiquing architecture and testing
specifically references J.L. Austin’s ‘‘performative’’ neering sciences, recent architectural publications alternative strategies outside the exigencies and
in How to Do Things with Words, where Austin have attempted to align the more pragmatic politics of building. Chris Mills reviews the recent
establishes the dynamic nature of ‘‘speech acts’’ concerns of building science with architecture’s retrospective of Gordon Matta-Clark’s work at the
that expand beyond language into action itself.4 aesthetic considerations.6 Whitney Museum of American Art and how his
Within the illocutionary act of speech, something is In ‘‘Extraordinary Performances at the Salk radical actions of demolition, vandalism, and
being done through the saying, constituting action Institute,’’ Kiel Moe reexamines Louis Kahn’s lab- destabilization commented on the failed architec-
itself. Within the spatial act of architecture, some- oratory complex across a range of performance tural policies of the 1970s. Ephemeral structures
thing is being done through the construction, criteria. His argument centers on the pipe space and become ‘‘effective’’ and ‘‘affective’’ architectures
constituting inhabitation itself. its adaptability in support of sustained bench work. as outlined by Beth Weinstein in her article on
Simone Brott’s article, ‘‘Close Encounter, Moe asserts that this space not only supports the Belgian choreographer Frédéric Flamand and the
Withdrawn Effects,’’ takes up this spatial acting out lab’s efficient performance of services but also may entourage of high-profile architects with whom he
in relation to architectural subjectivity as a perfor- be a more articulate representation of Kahn’s collaborates to create performances in found

Journal of Architectural Education, INTRODUCTION 4

pp. 4–5 ª 2008 ACSA
spaces and formal theaters. Weinstein focuses performance to negotiate each other in ways that is unclear whether any separation can be main-
on projects created in partnership with Diller 1 can be mutually provocative and productive. In tained across practices as technologies and instru-
Scofidio, Jean Nouvel, and Thom Mayne to ‘‘Out of Site: Haworth Tompkins, Paul Brown and mentalities become increasingly shared. Or for that
highlight the mutual obsessions and constructive the ‘Shoreditch Shakespeares’,’’ Juliet Rufford matter, whether disciplinary boundaries will reassert
resistances between dance and architecture. Ronit discusses the complex temporality specific to sites themselves to ‘‘clarify’’ meaning. What is most
Eisenbach also explores the intersection of dance that blend the fictive with the real. Her article encouraging is the prodigious work that is resulting
and architecture as a means of constructing outlines how architect, designer, and director col- from this particular pairing.
pedagogy. Collaborating with two choreographers, laborated to produce two of Shakespeare’s history
she documents an interdisciplinary performance plays in an industrial building slated for demolition
Acknowledgments
laboratory in which graduate and undergraduate in London (2000). The inherent ephemerality in the
Our gratitude to the peer reviewers who gave freely
students improvised space through gesture, building’s lack of futurity became an opportunity to
of their time and advice: Rebecca Sinclair (Massey
rhythm, and movement. create a productive engagement between the art
University), Sven Mehzoud (Massey University),
Performance and architecture find their forms in ways that are rarely seen in the more
Sarah Treadwell (University of Auckland), Charles
mutual site in theater auditoria where performance ‘‘proper’’ places for performance.
Walker (Auckland University of Technology), Jon
is literally housed. These auditoria bring together Perhaps the architect who is most identified
McKenzie (University of Wisconsin—Madison),
theater as art form, fleeting acts of dramatic with performance is Bernard Tschumi. His writing is
Kathleen Irwin (University of Regina), Joyce Hwang
practice that use ephemeral materials and dis- frequently cited by scholars in this issue, and that
(University at Buffalo), Mark Shepard (University at
posable elements, and theater as built form, prompted an interview into his current thinking on
Buffalo), Hadas Steiner (University at Buffalo), and
a stable environment conceived to persist beyond the topic. Tschumi is credited with the term ‘‘event-
Sergio Lopez-Piniero (University at Buffalo).
the events it houses. Although perceived as the space’’ (another punctuated pairing of performance
most expressive and creative of sites, theaters and architecture), which was first established and
tend to be mired in regulations and preconceived developed in the 1970s when he began teaching at Notes
expectations that often foreclose architectural the Architectural Association in London. His asso- 1. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans.
(Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 68.
innovation, limiting typological expression. In ciation with curator RoseLee Goldberg, whose focus
2. Jacques Derrida, Positions, Alan Bass, trans. (London: Continuum
Minneapolis, two significant theater venues, Jean lay in performance art, is documented and dis- Press, 1997), p. 76.
Nouvel’s Guthrie Theater and Herzog and de cussed by Sandra Kaji-O‘Grady in the last of the 3. Jacques Derrida, ‘‘Point de Folie—Maintenant l’Architecture,’’ in Neil
Meuron’s McGuire Theatre in the Walker Art scholarship of design articles. Kaji-O’Grady Leach, ed., Rethinking Architecture (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 335.
4. J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Center, were recently completed. John Comazzi presents a historic snapshot of the ‘‘London Con- University Press, 1975), p. 8.
and Margaret Werry discuss these from the dif- ceptualists,’’ a loose collection of artists and 5. ‘‘Performance Design,’’ Progressive Architecture 48 (August 1967):
fering perspectives of architecture and perfor- architects that was inaugurated through the low- 105–53.
mance, respectively. budget exhibition, A Space: A Thousand Words, 6. Branko Kolarevic and Ali Malkawi, Performative Architecture: Beyond
Instrumentality (New York: Routledge, 2005); M. Wigginton and J. Harris,
The generally regulatory and predictable cocurated in 1978 by Tschumi and Goldberg. Intelligent Skins (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2002); and Leonard
nature of auditorium architecture often leads to However, as Tschumi explains in the interview, he Bachman, Integrated Building: The Systems Basis of Architecture
a desire to un-house theater and let it wander, does not believe in collaboration, nor for that (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2002).
7. Richard Schechner, Between Theater and Anthropology (Philadelphia:
contaminating other sites that are in turn folded matter in separating and defining disciplines. He is
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 36.
into its fictional realm. This encourages the practi- much more interested in how the two influence one 8. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis:
ces of architecture, scenography, and theatrical another in the joint problem of activating space. It University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 117, 145–46.

5 HANNAH AND KHAN

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