The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume II

A New Agenda for Architecture

Patrik Schumacher

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781119940470
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Criticism

This is the second part of a major theoretical work by Patrik Schumacher, which outlines how the discipline of architecture should be understood as its own distinct system of communication. Autopoeisis comes from the Greek and means literally self-production; it was first adopted in biology in the 1970s to describe the essential characteristics of life as a circular self-organizing system and has since been transposed into a theory of social systems. This new approach offers architecture an arsenal of general comparative concepts. It allows architecture to be understood as a distinct discipline, which can be analyzed in elaborate detail while at the same time offering insightful comparisons with other subject areas, such as art, science and political discourse. On the basis of such comparisons the book insists on the necessity of disciplinary autonomy and argues for a sharp demarcation of design from both art and engineering. Schumacher accordingly argues controversially that design as a discipline has its own sui generis intelligence – with its own internal logic, reach and limitations.

Whereas the first volume provides the theoretical groundwork for Schumacher's ideas – focusing on architecture as an autopoeitic system, with its own theory, history, medium and its unique societal function – the second volume addresses the specific, contemporary challenges and tasks that architecture faces. It formulates these tasks, looking specifically at how architecture is seeking to organize and articulate the complexity of post-fordist network society. The volume explicitly addresses how current architecture can upgrade its design methodology in the face of an increasingly demanding task environment, characterized by both complexity and novelty. Architecture's specific role within contemporary society is explained and its relationship to politics is clarified. Finally, the new, global style of Parametricism is introduced and theoretically grounded.

6

The Task of Architecture

The theory of architectural autopoiesis identifies architecture's societal function1 as the innovative framing of social interaction. Interaction is defined as communication between participants who are physically present, as distinct from remote communication via writing, telephone, Internet etc. All communications, and thus all interactions, are embedded within social systems understood as systems of communications. All social interactions take place in designed spaces filled with designed artefacts. Architectural artefacts – as well as other designed artefacts such as furniture, appliances and clothing – thus participate in the reproduction of social systems of communications. Architectural artefacts frame virtually all social communication systems, with the exception of those systems that exclusively reproduce outside the interaction between physically present participants. The designed environment matters: it frames all interactions. Only on the basis of the designed environment as complex system of frames can society be reproduced on the level of complexity it has attained.2

All architectural communications, as well as all communications of all the design disciplines, are communications in the medium of space.3 Architecture frames social interaction. This very general formula characterizes architecture's societal role, responsibility and raison d’être. At this level of abstraction the formula can say nothing about how architecture might be able to discharge its responsibility, ie, how it might be able to order and frame the manifold social interactions that reproduce society.

Architecture's raison d’être – its general societal function or responsibility – must be translated into more concrete terms that allow for the formulation of tangible tasks for architecture. The autopoiesis of architecture itself has always – since its very inception – provided for this translation, namely in the terms of its lead-distinction: form (= frame) vs function (= interaction). Architecture's general societal role is thus continuously reassured, elaborated and made concrete via the continuous application of its lead-distinction on successive scales and levels of abstraction/concretization. The ‘functions’ architects address refer to clusters of social interactions understood as social systems. For instance the function-type ‘residence’ frames families or households, the function-type ‘school’ frames the respective social system. Many such functions can be distinguished, named and listed, at different levels of abstraction/concretization, and then confronted with various spatial forms that might also be distinguished, named and listed.

The historical coevolution of the built environment's pre-architectural repertoire and society's pre-Modern manifold of interactions led to the sedimentation of a catalogue of social institutions that correlates with a catalogue of spatio-formal types, ie, the traditional catalogue of building-type solutions. But these traditional ‘solutions’ are not yet conceptualized as solutions to problems. Rather they are naturalized as unquestioned essences. The traditional concepts like villa, church, palace, town hall, town house etc represent the as yet undifferentiated unity of sedimented form-function complexes. The emergence of architecture as autopoietic system – armed with its lead-distinction – implied the possibility to break down these fixed, taken-for-granted form-function unities. The old canon becomes available for dissection and recombination, in both the formal and the functional dimension. Now function and form can be distinguished as aspects of an artefact. The unification of these aspects becomes problematic. The distinction of form and function poses the question of their effective correlation. The presumed essences are dissolved. Traditional forms can now be criticized with respect to their ability to satisfy functional demands. Functions are now posed as problems. Forms are probed, selected and elaborated as solutions to problems. The distinction of form vs function marks the inauguration of architecture as rational-reflective discipline. It is the precondition of innovation.4 Only the distinction of form vs function allows the framing of social interaction – a necessary dimension of all social evolution – to become a subject of critique and innovation.

The task of architecture can thus be cast in terms of architecture's lead-distinction: to give form to function. This general task formula confronts an increasingly rich world of social institutions with an expanding panoply of forms. Within this abstract conceptual horizon the designer can tackle every concrete design task as the concrete confrontation of a given functional problem with a specific set of forms. As will be elaborated below, this uniform task formulation can be further unfolded by a second, crucial distinction: the distinction between organization and articulation. This distinction is as general and universally applicable as the distinction of form and function. The distinction is equally defining for architecture, and indeed equally venerable in terms of its pedigree in the history of architectural theory.5 Architectural forms function via organization and articulation. Articulation can be further analyzed into phenomenological articulation and semiological articulation.

Organization and articulation are the constituent dimensions of architecture's task. However, before elaborating these dimensions, it seems useful to further clarify the general architectural concept of function and to reflect upon how the understanding of functions in architecture might be further developed and upgraded in the light of the current/emergent challenges the autopoiesis of architecture must cope with.

6.1 Functions

THESIS 25

While functional typology remains indispensable as initial orienting framework, functional reasoning in architecture has to upgrade towards a conceptualization of function in terms of action-artefact networks.

The distinction of form and function is architecture's lead-distinction and as such a permanent communication structure of architecture's autopoiesis. The concern with function is an inescapable feature of all architectural communications. It concerns all architectural artefacts, from the overall building, to each space, each architectural element, and tectonic detail.

The concept of function is a primary concept within architecture right from its ancient inception and then again from its rebirth in the Renaissance. The classical Vitruvian trinity of firmitas, utilitas and venustas attests to this.6 The term ‘function’ entered the autopoiesis of architecture only in the 19th century, perhaps most prominently in the writings of Viollet-le-Duc. The term seems to have been borrowed from the biology of Georges Cuvier. Cuvier insisted that the understanding of the structure of organisms had to be grounded in relating structures to their functions. He emphasized the principle of functional organization that allocates specific functions to the various parts of the organism in correlation to all its other parts and its overall conditions of existence.7 The influence of Cuvier's idea of functional analysis and his principle of the correlation of parts is evident in Viollet-le-Duc's writings. ‘In every specimen of mason-work each piece taken separately in the case of dressed stone, or each section in concrete works, should clearly indicate its function. We ought to be able to analyze a building, as we take a puzzle to pieces, so that the place and function of each of the parts cannot be mistaken.’8

In the case of Viollet-le-Duc's notion quoted above, the concept of function refers to the contributions that the different parts of a structure make to the overall performance of a structure. Here these contributions are primarily technical. The different parts have no independent social function. The case is different if we consider the different rooms of a villa. Here each room has an individual social function and as such contributes to the overall functioning of the villa as ordering frame for the family's life. This second way of applying the concept of function can also be found in Viollet-le-Duc: ‘There is in every building, I may say, one principal organ – one dominant part – and certain secondary orders or members, and the necessary appliances for supplying all these parts, by a system of circulation. Each of these organs has its own function; but it ought to be connected with the whole body in proportion to its requirements.’9 Although the term function was imported into architectural discourse only in the 19th century, and was given a new impetus by the advancing science of biology of the time, both the concept and its underpinning analogy with the animal organism were already fully operative in Alberti's foundational treatise. Alberti writes: ‘Just as with animals, members relate to members, so too in buildings part ought to relate to part. … Each member should therefore be in the correct zone and position; it should be no larger than utility requires, no smaller than dignity demands.’10 Alberti parallels functional integration with aesthetic harmony: ‘The parts ought to be so composed that their overall harmony contributes to the honour and grace of the whole work.’11 However, the primacy of the functional determination and correlation of the parts is clearly stated: ‘Each part should be appropriate and suit its purpose. For every aspect of building, if you think of it rightly, is born of necessity, nourished by convenience, dignified by use, and only in the end is pleasure provided for.’12 Alberti's implied notion of function (utility, purpose, convenience, necessity) is of equal generality as Viollet-le-Duc's notion.

More detailed and comprehensive accounts of the emergence and development of the concept of function within architecture can be found in works by Adrian Forty, Christoph Feldtkeller and Philip Steadman, among others. Here the main point is to establish the universal presence of the concept of function since architecture's inception as well as its generality that encompasses both the architectural artefact's functioning with respect to social demands and the functioning of the artefact's parts with respect to their contribution to the artefact's overall function. Thus the concept of function refers to both the architectural artefact's ends and its means. Since this generality might lead to confusion, a distinction is called for: the distinction between substantial and subsidiary functions. This distinction will be elaborated below. Before introducing this distinction and elaborating how the substantial functions of architecture are ordered by means of a system of fundamental function-types, another important distinction must be introduced: the distinction between functions and capacities. This distinction will be introduced in the following chapter.

An important aspect of the concept of function as indicated by the historical references quoted above seems to be the idea of the functional integration of parts. The function of an architectural artefact is always defined relative to an encompassing functioning unit to which it is considered to contribute. Therefore, for any particular application of the notion of ‘function’ it is necessary to specify a system-reference, ie, the functioning whole with reference to which the functional element is supposed to contribute by fulfilling its allocated function. An architectural artefact is built up as a cascade of functions serving functions. This cascade is usually ordered hierarchically: encompassing functions are fulfilled via a series of subsidiary functions. One can also find webs of functions that cannot be neatly decomposed into distinct levels. However, the cascade or web of functions always culminates in categorical social functions that are given to architecture as its external reference, its world-reference.

That functions constitute architecture's world-reference, and that functions are always embedded within cascades and networks of functions, does not tell us what kind of entities the functions of architecture and design are. The fundamental starting point of the theory of architectural autopoiesis is that everything within its domain is communication. This is a consequence of the theory's self-embedding within Luhmann's social systems theory. Everything social is communication. Therefore everything architectural is communication. The theory operates within an ontologically homogeneous domain: everything is communication.

Architecture's lead-distinction is the distinction of form vs function. According to the theory of architectural autopoiesis, both forms and functions are communications. Forms are framing communications, functions are framed communications. This is the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction to Volume 2
• Chapter 6: The Task of Architecture
• Chapter 7: The Design Process
• Chapter 8: Architecture and Society
• Chapter 9: Architecture and Politics
• Chapter 10: The Self-descriptions of Architecture
• Chapter 11: Parametricism – The Parametric Paradigm and the Formation of a New Style
• Chapter 12: Epilogue – The Design of a Theory
• Concluding Remarks
• Appendix 3: The Autopoiesis of Architecture in the Context of Three Classic Texts
• Appendix 4: Theses 25–60
• References
• Key Search Terms