Neurotic House Project

Notes on Wall’s Vertical Studio

General Remarks:

Any student can replace scheduled program with her/his own program without prior approval as to its architectural content. Approval must be secured only over scheduling, requirements, and topic-related subject-matter.

No group projects allowed.

Studio is tentatively to meet four afternoons per week (providing no elective conflicts). Faculty will be present on three of those afternoons on a non-scheduled basis.

The creative architect has nothing to give to society except his/her own personality. Amortizing that personality within marketable skills (this includes problem-solving) is the object of this studio.

All students have a marketable personality.

Faculty will not substitute their own personalities for those of the students. This means non-coercion, obviously; this also meant that students will not be given grade credit for what faculty thinks or suggests. The student must become the master of her/his own development. The second intent of this studio is therefore to have the faculty obsolete-out as crutches: critically, motivationally, prescriptively; evaluatively.

A recent N. Y. Times article indicated that “The going price for a person’s life at the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa., is about two cartons of cigarettes.” I can categorically say, without prior knowledge of any student’s capacity, that I value a person’s life to be at least three cartons of cigarettes. And I don’t even smoke. With a deal like that, who can go wrong?

Prof. Alan Wexler will participate in the studio either as a weekly guest to discuss all students work in a group session, or will take two or three students on a continuing basis. To be decided in discussion.

The scheduled program stresses conception, the perception of conception, and the conception of conception. One important observation can be made in this regards: a piece of paper, a cardboard sheet of a particular size the scale and expanse of the drafting table, the materials used for making, literal orientation (or eyesight), are all considered to be real perceptual elements not just symbolic surrogates for a building to be constructed in the future. If the student cannot handle the real elements of perception-conception that exist at the tips of his fingers and at the peripheries of mind, at the place of sitting, then it seems doubtful that the student would handle an envisioned architecture any better. Because of this reason, much of the activity in this studio will concentrate on the making of “things” as finished products. A “finished product” can be schematics or representational. But in all cases, the visual condition of edges, density of imagery, array, compositional logic, color saturation, etc., will be considered content.

Since the second term will feature the design of a Day Care Center along Piagetian lines (complete with landscape, the building, mechanical, structural, coloring books, games, as integral parts of a cognitive/manipulable curriculum) first preference will be given to those students who have completed Arch 410 and 411, or for those who wish to pursue such a studio program.

Suggested Program: Problem Statement: First Term Only

Create an architecture that (a) feeds/reflects your own individual neurosis (b) within an artificially constructed landform emphasizing only one of the three Piagetian spatial modalities (c) which will be sliced and separated by a cross-sectional “informational” walkthrough, the purpose being to show the materials and methods of making as a graphic subject-matter.

Required Reading:

“Neurotic Personality of Our Time,” by Karen Horney
“An Introduction to a Child’s Conception of Space,” by Hollander

This will be augmented by lectures dealing with historical/contemporary prototypes, stressing especially the work of artists/architects of the last ten years.

Discussion of program: The program has been differentiated into three distinct parts, each having its own validity. The intents deal with the (a) emotional subjective, (b) the objective-cognitive, (c) the factual-professional. Or, in order, neurosis, landform, slide, as described in problem statement.

The first part focuses on the degree that subjective-emotional feelings can be translated into unique physical form (as distinct from habitable form), the degree that it cannot, and what this may mean regarding expressionism in architecture.

The second part focuses attention on organizational factors as such, prior to their becoming use-specific, and as they modify use, materials, construction; also how material, construction and use modifies our perception of what are logical spatial organizational factors.

The third part is the most controlled (by faculty) of all the three parts. The informational-slice deals with certain presentation techniques, topic-related content, etc.

Hence the program extends from the free-wheeling intuitive to the specific, and how each aspect qualifies and exerts demands on each other part.

More discussion of program
(a) affective subjective component; All students shall read Karen Horney’s “The Neurotic Personality of Our Times” and underline those portions which describe their own neurotic identity, in whole or in part (disclosure up to each student).

To refer back momentarily to the “General Remarks” . . . . the affective-emotional component for instance, might be a programmatic read-off of a faculty-member’s neurosis if that faculty is willing to underline and act as client. I will not hesitate to underline T.N.P.O.O. Time and have my neuroses (most of which should be obvious by now . . . but I think I can add more perversity and depth in what has been manifested on the surface of my psych). Students can choose each other, etc. The “creative” architect has nothing to give society other than his/her own personality. Anyone who may be reluctant to disclose intimacies and reveal identities is urged not to sign-up for this studio.

Each student will prepare a “fettish-box,” complete with suggestive imagery of their neurosis, and will eventually program in detail the area requirements, flow charts, etc. of an “architecture of neurosis,” as they would if the program dealt with a library, a train station, etc. While intimate in context, this aspect of the program is not intended to be a pseudo-therapy session, nor does it seek the answer as if their were one.

There are not restrictions as to type of architecture. The architecture might be a dwelling, a phone booth, a city streetscape, a bed-for-hiding, a piece of theater, a video library, an arena of aggression. If, for example, the specific neuroses concerns power and dictatorship, then perhaps a small community of drones (who wish to be dominated as their neurosis) might be appropriate . . . of an “alice-in-wunderlust” for those who wish escapism aligned with excessive needs for affection; or desolated landscapes, deteriorating warehouses, for those who combine morbid self-destruction with escapism. The options are unlimited . . . or rather, limited only by the student’s imagination powers. However, irrespective of the context chosen, it must be programmatically defined.

It should be obvious that students have no spontaneous images as to what an “architecture should look like.” Neither do I. It’s a good beginning since it reduces to a minimum aesthetic, evaluative, creative biases.

No size connotations exist. The architecture might be excessively compact and detailed, or excessively intricate, large-scaled, wherein comprehensive schematics would be required, with only fragments being detailed.

The kinds of images/typologies chosen will depend upon what engages the student’s curiosity when reading the Horney book. Basic to the Horney treatise is the sense of anxiety inherent in neurotic responses. Hence how the envisioned architecture necessarily implicates feelings of apprehension and impending disaster will be central in design . . . not fear, which is justifiable from real danger: anxiety is far more subtle than that, less overt, and this may suggest a sliding scale from anxiety to fear in the experiencing of the architecture. Again, who knows? However, one thing is clear. An architecture of neurosis is different from most normal architecture that seeks well-being for the pedestrian/spectator/user.

No attempt shall be made to encapsulate the entire Horney thesis . . . only a few aspects (almost any will do) are necessary to point out the problematic issues surrounding subjective-emotional content and how it gets translated into physical form. Four broad classifications are possible according to Horney: a neurotic need for affection; a neurotic need for submission; a neurotic need for domination; a neurotic need for withdrawal. When combined with the three Piagetian categories, there is no reason why, with a minimum factor of seven, through should be duplication in any students’ work: there should be as many individual and unique programs as there are students enrolled in the studio, each one different in programs as there are students enrolled in the studio, each one different in kind.

(b) Cognitive/objective component: The architecture will be situated on, in, or extend a landform of minimum of 1000 x 500 feet no height restriction. This landform shall be organized in either the topological, projective or euclidean mode, and must be artificially assembled in its entirety even if natural landscape elements are being employed (trees, rocks, water, earth, grass, etc). Students shall read extracts from Piaget’s “A Child’s Conception of Space,” augmented by discussions, lectures, by faculty. This should be sufficient to yield a first, primitive understanding of space conceived as a generic attribute of all people’s cognitive structure.

The landform can be made of any manner of materials, from sponges to steel-wool and steel plates.

The geographic location of the landform will be the Saskatchewan prairies. The countryside is considered flat. Four distinct climatic conditions prevail: summer; fall; winter; spring. Since Saskatchewan is a land-locked region, the temperature differential ranges from 40 below in the winter to 110 above in the summer. Fall is characterized autumnally in brilliant hues; wintery snows are clean and drifty, while spring features run-off waters and first signs of growth. Summer is verdant. The student is urged to select only on of the four seasons as criteria.

Since we are dealing with landforms, attributes of drainage, wind, sun/shade, surface inclinations, declinations, crumplings, schisms, splits, can be considered content, as are the aspects dealing with linear station-points. Unlike the affective/subjective, the cognitive/objective is limited in its range of options, and can be evaluated in a “yes/no” system as to organizational accuracy, though not to the quality of expression/imagery.

(c) The factual/professional component: In order to make absolutely clear the physicality of architecture as an object, each landform will be sliced by a single walk-through channel space. Here the spectator/pedestrian will be able to read, literally, as visual graphics the cross-sectional identity (plumbing, structure, foundations, wall thickness, etc.) of the project. This will be the only aspect of the program which will be severely restricted as to content and presentation techniques: all cross-sectional work, for instance, will be executed on 30”x40” illustration board, in zip-tape or ink, accompanied by press-type lettering, with a modest use of photomontage, color, etc. All ground lines will be situated at exactly the same place on each student’s board for tandem link-ups. Other aspects of the project can be done in any medium as deemed educational/optimum communication by the students. The cross-sectional aspect of the program acts as a specific and deliberative ‘hood’ into ‘professional’ procedures.

The informational channel will have an earth/grass walk, be oriented east to west in all cases, and be open to sun/clouds. No points of egress-entrance allowed. It is pure profile information.

Schedule, weeks on and two reading of Horney book, selection of neurosis, construction of “fetish box” (size to be determined), review and discussion of imageability of subjective-emotional factors

Week three discussion of Piaget, Paper cutting folding of square, circle, rectangle, rhomboid, triangle, octagon shapes in each of the three spatial categories: topological, projective, euclidean. Selection of which spatial mode to be used subsequently.

Week four Landform probe: three dimensional exploration of selected spatial category. Transformation exercise.

Week five Programming completed of neurotic architecture. Exploration of neurotic imagery in terms of architectural elements: doors, windows, rooms, etc. Develop classification system of possibility according to materials of making, profiles, etc. 

Weeks six, seven “Junk” models of landform, slice and architecture. Two scales: fragmentary and organizationally.

Weeks eight, nine Review by other faculty and outsiders. Continue working in more finished junk models, converting to representation.

Week ten Finalize ingredients of informational slice and start preliminary graphics. Faculty to establish topic-related content.

Weeks eleven to thirteen Finalize landform and architecture.
    Begin total communication package.
    Review

Weeks fourteen to fifteen Communication.

Week sixteen   Show & tell feedback.

Design Project: Obstacle Course

23 September 1975
Spatial A, B, C’s
Sample Format

Design Project: An “Obstacle Course” for Preschoolers that Fosters Cognitive Development

Purpose:
By arranging the interior space of a nursery school into a series of problem-solving situations that will be self-motivating for preschoolers, we would hope to involve them mentally and physically in activities that stimulate intellectual growth.

Theoretical Background:
Preschoolers function most comfortably in a world of physical action-with involvement of all the senses. They have only recently emerged from “sensor/motor” stage of infancy and on cannot expect their best mode of learning to be the sedentary listening that all too often characterizes adult learning experiences. Young children learn best through activity, through doing, imitating, exploring and making mistakes without threat of chastisement. In short, for children between 3 and 5 (and perhaps as old as 10) the most salient learning experienced come during children’s real work – i.e., through play. What we would like to do is to build into the children’s physical environment play experience that help him grow intellectually.

With this in mind we would like you to design an “obstacle course” or a series of hurdles – of spatial, linguistic and logical problems, each one of which has to be solved by the child before he can progress to the next.

Several psychological principles have to be kept in mind during the design stage. First, the tasks or problems must fit the developmental level of the children. If they are too easy no cognitive growth will occur. If too hard, the children will give up and experience frustration. Theorists tell us that the intellectual advances come when the growing mind is challenged by a discrepancy – or a novel situation which cannot be handled by the child’s previous patterns of behavior or thought.

Second, at each hurdle the child should receive some form of feedback, so he knows whether he has succeeded. This can be built into the problem. For example, if the task involved matching the shapes of keys the child would immediately know if he matched the shapes correctly because he could try his chosen key in a lock on a door which leads to the next problem.

Third, there should be several forms of reinforcement built in, both at the end of the course and during the intermediate tasks. Reinforcement here refers to pleasurable events that will make the child wish to return to “run the course” again (sliding boards, trampolines, candy dispensers, slide shows?)

Fourth, the design has to allow for flexibility in at least two senses. The course has to be changeable from day to day by the teacher. Also, it would be ideal if a given “obstacle” had more than one possible solution. If, for example one problem was to get through a tunnel tube a child could solve it by simply crawling through, by pulling himself on a rope or by seeing the relation between the rope, a pulley and a wheeled platform left outside the tube by the designer. The more advanced child thus might make himself a tramway to ride through the tube tunnel! Most of the hurdles should try to design in such different levels of solution. This is where the ingenuity will be needed most.

Some suggested areas around which to design the tasks

1. A task to require the child to have some sense of his position in space, i.e. locating himself and objects in room on a model or grid.
2. Knowing the position of his own body parts.
3. A task involving the manipulation of spatial components, i.e., moveable walls, raising or lowering ceiling.
4. Form matching and differentiating in life size models – i.e. crossing a “chasm” by piecing together a jigsaw puzzle floor.
5. Letter identification – (alphabet) (Use your imagination & they’ll hire you on Sesame St.!)
6. Color matching.
7. Left-right orientation of body parts and objects in room.
8. Tasks involving language skills: i.e. repeating new words on tape, matching spatial relations to the words that refer to them – up/down, in/out, top/bottom, inside/outside, straight/curved, open/closed.
9. Simple counting skills.
10. Identifying “more & less” adding & subtracting.
11. Body control: imitating, coordinated movements – jump, hop, skip, “simon sez” games. Hand and arm coordinations.
12. Fine more control: tracing between two lines, keeping a stylus on a moving target, picking up small objects in a confined space, using tools – hammer, saw, screwdriver, drill.
13. Visual tracking: eye movement control – left to right scanning (simulates a component of reading) following a moving object – say with a flashlight – in circles – along regular paths – etc.
14. Serial orders – stacking by sizes of objects, ordering sticks by height.
15. Perspective taking – can the child predict what is seen from someone else’s point of viewing?
16. Cross modal or intersensory matching – identify or match touched objects with seen ones – invisible “grab bag.”

Lunch with John Hejduk

I asked Don about his visits with John Hejduk at Cooper Union.
“I had interviewed John and he invited me back to Cooper Union for lunch. When I arrived, Monica, the department secretary, let me in, and he and I started talking. In a little while Monica came in with an incredible tray of sandwiches, and cheeses and fruits, a great spread from Dean & Deluca. After she set everything out on the table, John excused himself and went out of the office. A minute later he came in laughing, ‘When you called to say you’re coming in, Monica thought you were the client for the Wall Houses.’”

During one of their many interviews, Don asked him about The Element House, designed for his daughter as an architectural primer.

from Architecture NJ, July/August/Sept 1979, 32-36.

an excerpt

Wall: Before we talk about the house you designed for your daughter Renata, let’s see if there is anything in childhood, your own childhood, which may have conditioned how you think as an adult. And let’s put this in a specific context: you are among the first to rely on color-form as an integral component to architectonic clarity and meaning. At a time when many architects of established reputation are immersed in the ‘white-wash’ school of expression, Hejduk alone stood out in use of color. With, I might add, a certain catholicism, since the range of color ran the gamut from De Stijl primaries to Rococo pastels. This at once joins and separates from what children do….more.”

“The Book as Spectacle”

One of Don’s students came across this article, probably at St. Mark’s Bookstore, when it first came out.

“The Designer as Architect: The Book as Spectacle”
Eye no.32 vol.8 Summer 1999 

Nearly thirty years ago, when Donald Wall created this extraordinary book about Italian architect Paolo Soleri he uncannily projected a vision of 1990s typography in its most process-driven, radical form. By Rick Poynor
[more...]

Matta-Clark, childhood influences

Don interviewed Gordon Matta-Clark about his work as an artist/architect, part of which dealt with Gordon’s influences from childhood

from Architecture NJ, July/August/Sept 1979, 20-25.

an excerpt

Wall: There’s a strong image forming in my mind. It has to do with doll houses. With the peeling away of barriers. Removal of sides. . .

Matta-Clark: Now we are getting very personal. Actually, the first birthday present I can remember insisting on and getting, is a doll house.
          I wanted to be a voyeur ever since I was four years old. That’s when I got the doll house. The thing about the doll house is it’s not so much being a voyeur as being in control.
            Someone said they thought the piece up in Niagara Falls is like a rape; the most anti-feminist thing that anyone could do, the building, all those parts covered up, and, well, closed, (and) to go in there and strip the building bare of its walls . . .

Wall: Is there anything sexual in all this?

Matta-Clark: Yeah. The thing that is most sexual about voyeurism is the thing that is most sexual about sex, to some degree; (there) is as much anticipation as there is gratification.

 

Click here for interview
published in Architecture NJ, July/August/Sept 1979, 20-25.
special issue for Mind Child Architecture

transcription of Gordon Matta-Clark article by Donald Wall

first published in
Arts Magazine, May 1976, 74-79

GORDON MATTA-
CLARK’S BUILDING
DISSECTIONS

by Donald Wall

Gordon Matta-Clark’s building destructions
anatomize space and form, seeking an analysis
of behavioral architecture

Datum Cuts, article page 74

A wry paradox surrounds Gordon Matta-Clark’s art: On the one hand, his building removals and dissections represent the furthest advance yet made in American behavioral architecture. On the other hand, most people, including many accomplished art/architecture critics, are not even aware that a new architecture has been among us for the last decade – an architecture which has just rendered culturally obsolete European-derived Modernist architecture as effectively as did that architecture once render obsolete the older beaux-arts tradition. It’s time to catch up; time to begin placing the new architecture into its own genealogical framework, much like Corbusier once did with Purism. A good place to start might be with certain comments made by Clement Greenberg in 1948. The mid century does, undeniably, constitute a crucial germination in American artistic thinking.

Click here for full article.

 

Gordon Matta-Clark Exhibition on view through June 3, 2007 at Whitney Museum of American Art.

 

article illustrations: pp 74/75 Gordon Matta-Clark, Datum Cuts, 1974. Courtesy of Holly Solomon Gallery