architecture in consumer society A36 antti ahlava TAIDETEOLLINEN KORKEAKOULU 8.11.2002 OPINNÄYTETIIVISTELMÄ Valmistumisvuosi 2002 Osasto Tila- ja kalustesuunnittelu Koulutusohjelma Tilasuunnittelu Tekijä Ahlava, Antti Työn nimi Architecture in Consumer Society - Arkkitehtuuri kulutusyhteiskunnassa Työn laji Tohtorin väitöskirja Sivumäärä 302 Säilytyspaikka Salassapitoaika päättyy arkkitehtuuri, kulutusyhteiskunta, massat, Jean Baudrillard, mytologia, liikkuvat kuvat Asiasanat Painettu teksti kuvineen sekä työn digitaalinen versio internetissä Aineisto Tiivistelmä Tausta: Kyseessä on tutkimus arkkitehtuurin aseman ja toimintamahdollisuuksien perusteista länsimaisessa kulutusyhteiskunnassa. Metodi: 1) Bibliografinen tutkimus, jossa ranskalainen kulutusyhteiskuntaa laajasti teoretisoinut Jean Baudrillard on tärkeä. 2) Kulutusyhteiskunnan keskeiseen problematiikkaan tyypillisesti liittyvien modernin arkkitehtuurin töiden laadullinen analyysi ja eräiden arkkitehtien kulutusyhteiskunnan muutoksiin vastaavien strategioiden analyysi. 3) Arkkitehtuurin mytologinen laatu ja kehitys on lisäksi havainnollistettu vertaamalla arkkitehtuuria toiseen välineeseen, liikkuviin kuviin (elokuva, tv, video, liikkuvat digitaaliset kuvat), kulutus-yhteiskunnan tyypillisimpään taidemuotoon. 4) Lopuksi työhön kuuluu käytännön rakennus- ja esinesuunnitelmia. Niissä tekijä soveltaa suunnittelumetodia, jonka hän on kehittänyt aikaisemmassa työn vaiheessa, missä analysoidaan arkkitehtuurin vaikutusmahdollisuuksia. Jean Baudrillardin teorioita symbolisesta vaihdosta ja "fataaleista strategioista" on käytetty metodin päälähtökohtina. Tulokset: Työssä päädytään seuraaviin johtopäätöksiin: a) Arkkitehtuurin kysymykset ovat samanaikaisesti toiminnallisia, esteettisiä, organisatorisia ja talouteen liittyviä, mutta määräävin taso on sosiaalinen (yhteisöllinen) ja myyttinen. Myyttien avulla tapahtuva päämäärätön ja tarkoitukseton kontrolli tapahtuu jäljentämisellä tuotettujen ja markkinoitujen periaatteiden kautta. Tällaisia periaatteita ovat yksilöllisyys, tekno-optimismi, pluralismi, regionalismi, personalisaatio, vaihtoehtoisuus, joustavuus, käyttökelpoisuus ja esteettisyys. b) Kulutusyhteiskunnan uusin vaihe (joukkotiedotusvälineiden yhteiskunta) painii digitaalisen kulutuksen kanssa: uuden tietotekniikan, vapautuneen markkinatalouden, realiaikaisen kommunikaation ja globalisaation puitteissa. Nämä tendenssit näkyvät nykyarkkitehtuurissa uusina "mahdollisuuksina" vaihtoehtoisuuteen: pluralismissa, "avoimessa" arkkitehtuurissa, joustavissa tuottajien ja kuluttajien välisissä suhteissa, interaktiivisuudessa ja käsityksessä "innovatiivisista" kuluttajista tai käyttäjistä. Lisääntyneet mahdollisuudet vaihtoehtoisuuteen ja joustavuuteen kulutuksessa eivät kuitenkaan välttämättä voi ratkaista ongelmia, joita liittyy sirpaloitumiseen, vastavuoroisuuden ja toisten huomioonottamisen katoamiseen ja kulttuurin banalisoitumiseen. c) Moralismi kulutusyhteiskuntaa ja kaupallista arkkitehtuuria vastaan ei toimi, koska kulutusyhteiskunnan piirteisiin sinänsä kuuluu, että se levittää moraliteetteja, jotka koskevat sitä miten ihmisten tulisi elää, ja millaisessa ympäristössä heidän tulisi asua. Myöskään ilman arkkitehteja aikaansaatu arkkitehtuuri tai pragmatistinen arkkitehtuuri eivät voi aikaansaada parempaa arkkitehtuuria yhteiskunnassa, koska nämäkin ilmiöt on jo sisäänrakennettu kulutusyhteiskunnan mytologiaan. Tekijä ehdottaa kahta välitöntä ja tapauskohtaista suunnittelustrategiaa, joiden pitäisi tässä tutkimuksessa käytettyä taustaa vasten olla yhteisöllistä hyvinvointia lisääviä. UNIVERSITY OF ART AND DESIGN HELSINKI 8 NOV 2002 ABSTRACT Valmistumisvuosi 2002 Department Spatial Design and Furniture Design Degree Programme Spatial Design Author Ahlava, Antti Name of the work Architecture in Consumer Society Type of work Doctoral Dissertation Number of pages 302 Place of storage architecture, consumer society, masses, Jean Baudrillard, mythology, moving images Keywords Printed text with images and a digital internet version in Adobe Acrobat format Materials Abstract Background: This is a study of the foundations of architecture’s position in Western consumer society as well as its potential for future actions. Method: 1) A bibliographical research of the background to the problematics. Of central importance here is the French sosiologist Jean Baudrillard, who has broadly theorised the principles and manifestations of consumer society. 2) A qualitative analysis of both architectural works related to the main problematics in consumer society and the strategies of certain architects in answering to the changed situation in the developing consumer society. 3) The mythological character of architecture, as well as its current stage of development, is demonstrated by comparing it to another medium, moving images (cinema, television, video, moving digital images), that is, the typical art of the consumer society. 4) The work concludes with practical proposals for architectural design. Here the author applies a method developed earlier in the thesis, where he analysed architecture’s means of influence in consumer society. Baudrillard’s theories on symbolic exchange and ‘fatal strategies’ have been used as the main starting points of the method. Results: The work results in the following conclusions: a) Architectural issues are simultaneously functional, aesthetic, organisa-tional and economic, but the decisive level is social (collective) and mythical. The eventually aimless and purposeless control realised through myths takes place through reproduced and mass-promoted principles of individualism, techno-optimism, pluralism, regionalism, personalisation, alternativity, flexibility, usefulness and aestheticism. b) The newest phase of consumer society (mass media society) tackles the impact of digital consumption: the new information technologies, the liberated market economy, real-time communication, and globalisation. These tendencies manifest themselves in contemporary architecture in the new possibilities for alternativity: pluralism, "open" architecture, the flexible interrelationship between producers and consumers, interactivity, and the notion of innovative consumers or users. All in all, the increasing possibilities for alternatives and flexibility in consumption cannot necessarily solve the problems with fragmentation, loss of reciprocity, the diminishing altruism in society and the increasing banalisation of culture. c) Moralism against consumer society and commercial architecture does not work because it is characteristic of consumer society itself to spread moralities concerning how people should live and in which kinds of environments. Neither architecture-without-architects nor pragmatist architecture are likely to make better architecture in society, because these phenomena are already included in the mythologies of the consumer society. The author proposes two spontaneous and case specific strategies that should increase communal welfare according to the theoretical backround used in this research. 2 Publication series of the University of Art and Design Helsinki A36 www.uiah.fi/publications © Antti Ahlava graphic design Antti Ahlava paper cover COLOTECH SILK 280g, b&w KYMPRINT 100g, colour COLOTECH+ 100g Printed by Yliopistopaino, Helsinki Finland 2002 ISBN 951-558-110-9 ISSN 0782-1832 3 Architecture in Consumer Society Antti Ahlava 4 Contents 71 Introduction 81.1 Architecture as modern mythological commodity 23 1.2 The research questions: Learning from Baudrillard in architecture 31 1.3 Method and structure 34 2 Consumer society as mythology and its alternative 35 2.1 Commodification and architecture: from the reproduction of goods to the reproduction of ideas 52 2.2 The rational creative individual vs. symbolic exchange 71 2.3 Architecture and moving images: The generic art form in consumer society 78 3 The logical consumption of architecture: The general features of architecture’s mythologisation in consumer society 80 3.1 The deceit of architecture satisfying needs 87 3.2 Functional architecture is an effect of systematic conceptualisation 94 3.3 “Wise consumption”: Ecological architecture cannot escape irrationality 102 3.4 The loss of enchantment in architecture: From the seductive architecture of moving images (à la Nouvel) to the banal moving images of architecture (à la Reality TV) 1134 The illogical consumption of architecture: The evolved state of consumer society mythology in architecture 121 4.1 Pluralist, non-spatial, extreme, open, alternative architecture? 133 4.2 The transmodern surface of flexible sameness 148 4.3 The transmodern homogenised image 159 4.4 The transmodern ambience of indifference and paranoia 169 4.5 The digital myth in architecture and moving images 175 5 Challenging mythology: ultimategame in architecture 177 5.1 Baudrillard’s fatal strategies 188 5.2 The duel between architecture and moving images 199 5.3 ultimategame: Towards non-reproduced thinking in architecture 220 6 Projects 221 6.1 Challenges to transmodern myths 232 6.2 Case studies 277 7 Conclusion 284 Bibliography 5 Tribute The material for the present work has been gathered not only through a close reading of various texts (mostly by Jean Baudrillard), but also on field trips and discussions with experts in the various fields covered by the work. During the progression of the thesis I spent a year at the Department of Architecture in Edinburgh University in the UK and have been in close contact with its staff since then. According to The Times Higher Education Supplement, the university is the best place in Britain to study architecture and sociology together. I am especially grateful to pro- fessors Iain Boyd Whyte at the Architecture Department and John Orr at the Sociology Department, who were my thesis supervisors during the time I spent at Edinburgh. Professor Boyd Whyte en- couraged me to scrutinise the little studied aspect of myths within Baudrillard’s writings on consumer society. Professor Orr encour- aged me to include a practical design part in the thesis. This was also recommended by the University of Art and Design Helsinki [UIAH]. Edinburgh, with its medieval and Georgian heritage, is not the first place in the world to study modern architecture at first hand, yet it provided not only a tranquil shelter for peaceful thinking but also a better base than Helsinki to make trips to the busier me- tropolises of central Europe. Journeys to London and Paris to see buildings by Le Corbusier, Grimshaw, Foster, Rogers, Nouvel, Gehry, Perrault and Future Systems were particularly crucial. Later, the Netherlands and the newly globalised Shanghai in China also became fields for my study trips. I also made trips to interview Brian Hatton at the Royal College of Art in London and François Penz at Cambridge University. Also Gary Genosko gave me useful hints about Baudrillard’s relationship to design in our e-mail discus- sions. I would like to specially thank them for all their advice. I would like to express my gratitude to the Finnish Cultural Foun- 6 dation for the financial support which made this work possible, to the Department of Spatial Design and Furniture Design, the Re- search Institute and the Principal of the University of Art and De- sign Helsinki for their grants and to the following people who have personally contributed to the making of this work: Aino Niskanen, Markku Komonen, Juhani Pallasmaa, Gareth Griffiths, Roger Connah, Richard Coyne, Irmeli Hautamäki, Paul Virilio, Sebastien Tison, Pete Lappalainen, Tapio Takala, Jakke Holvas, Herman Raivio, Pekka Seppänen and my associate architects Karri Liukkonen and Fredrik Lindberg. I am also grateful to the gurus at UIAH: Eeva Kurki, Jean Schneider, Jan Verwijnen and Anna-Maija Ylimaula. Professor Verwijnen encouraged me to try to mix the Continental cultural studies on consumer society with the Anglo- Saxon research on the sociology of technology and I am grateful for this fruitful suggestion. In addition, I am thankful for the co-op- eration with Unstudio, Computer 2000 and Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. 7 1 Introduction –Without rules, the world is hollow. Roberto Calasso –The source of all interplay, of everything that is in play, of all passion, of all seduction, is that which is completely foreign to us, yet has power over us. Jean Baudrillard –In architecture, the new communitarian ideals can now be sought where the street is dead and public art is everywhere – as if two deaths make a life. Rem Koolhaas 8 1.1 Architecture as modern mythological commodity –It is the scenario of deterrence that Paul Virilio shares with me, apparently, because he moves back and forth between the real term and the mythical term which is mine. Jean Baudrillard 1 Consumer society This work belongs to the sphere of architectural research and the particular object of study is architecture’s position in consumer so- ciety. Consumer society is a term describing the outcome of modernisation since the beginning of the 20 th century. Consumer society is the result of rapid industrial developments, the growth in manufacturing, trade and standardisation, but also the immense pace of diversification and growth of culture, creativity and urban- ism as a way of life. This urbanism consists of shifting processes of over-stimulation and indifference that cannot be thought of without the notion of fashion. The consumer has had a special role in this process; the consumer has been the target and victim of a massive reproduction and marketing of artefacts and a bombardment by mass media. Due to the importance of mass media, one can say that con- sumption is a system of communication, governed by the media. 2 This process towards perfect industries, perfect commodities and perfect communication has encouraged mutations in the collective structures of consumers. The consumer has faced demands re- garding identification, personalisation and lifestyles, accompanied by an increasing lack of collective and local contexts. Most of all, the consumer has become an object of a machinery of immense cultural abstraction, the abstract reproduction of ideas and values. Therefore, contemporary architecture is built in a society that is 1 Jean Baudrillard: ‘Forget Baudrillard Interview’ (1984-85) (in Jean Baudrillard: Forget Foucault & Forget Baudrillard [1987]) 109. 2 Jean Baudrillard: La société de consommation (1970) 109. [...]... ultimategame in Part 5 22 1.2 The research questions: Learning from Baudrillard in architecture The questions I will address in this study are: a) Regarding the general characteristics of architecture in consumer society: What is the nature of architecture in consumer society? What is the decisive conceptual level in this discourse? Which habitual and abstract patterns does commodification take in architecture? ... (1929-) interpretation of consumer society as my principal concept Baudrillard has offered a convincing view about consumer society and the cultural and economic patterns of the present time, as well as deep insights for understanding it His interpretation of consumer society as a mythology is of special importance for the present work In addition to Baudrillard, I will also mention the following theorists,... relationship between mass media and architecture? What are the consequences of mass production and mass consumption, in their widest meaning, in architecture? What is the role of architecture in satisfying the needs of consumers? What in general is the role of value in architecture? What is the relationship between the culture industry and architecture? Can one assume that architecture suffers from the same... its alternative symbolic exchange, both in relation to society in general and architecture in particular (Part 2), followed by an analysis of the mythologies of consumer society in architecture (Parts 3 and 4) Part 3 concerns the general features of architecture s mythologisation and in Part 4 I will discuss the evolved state of consumer society mythology in architecture Eventually, I will develop... are there signs of commercial manipulation and spreading indifference in contemporary architecture? How does the typical art form of the consumer society, the moving images of cinema and TV, compare to architecture? For example, is the star cult in architecture comparable to the worship of film stars? What is the influence of technological progress in architecture as a commodity? And what about the ecological... [ibid., 5-6]) In architecture, Baudrillard seems to have become best accepted as a theoretical background and a source of inspiration for the American architects Neil Denari and Wes Jones They have been especially interested in the mythological implications of the Machine in architecture Jones has studied Baudrillard’s theories on the increasing “likeness” (simulacra) in society in his book Instrumental... scrutinised Baudrillard’s early books and often makes references to them in his writings I will discuss both of them later in closer detail 41 For another critique on Baudrillard from architectural theorists, see Sarah Chaplin and Eric Holding: ‘Consuming Architecture (in Sarah Chaplin and Eric Holding [eds.]: Consuming Architecture 1998) They accuse Baudrillard of general nostalgia and underestimating... be translated into an infinite number of other objects I find this argument futile because it could be used for any contemporary building Actually, in terms of its morphology, Gehry’s architecture is something totally new rather than just recycling All in all, for a person who is already familiar with their earlier texts on architecture, Les objets singuliers does not include much new information about... already plenty of studies dealing with these matters Instead, I will focus here on studying architecture in consumer society, especially from the viewpoint of its myths Baudrillard’s three first books lean heavily on his interpretation of consumer society as a system of myths He pays particular attention to the seemingly disappeared, illusoric and transcendental dimension in society He calls this supposed... spot in moving images than in architecture Works of architecture are much harder to be conceived as containing complex social themes than moving images Yet, I will show how the same myths occur in both spheres Moving images concern a wide range of optical images, from films to moving computer images Film is a general term which includes predominately non-digital documentaries, artistically oriented cinema, . reciprocity, the diminishing altruism in society and the increasing banalisation of culture. c) Moralism against consumer society and commercial architecture. position in consumer so- ciety. Consumer society is a term describing the outcome of modernisation since the beginning of the 20 th century. Consumer society