PERFORMATIVE ARCHITECTURE BEYOND INSTRUMENTALITY doc

[...]... Because events arise out of a past that we do not know, they cannot be produced technically Putting the matter more forcefully, performative architecture is not the outcome of building or design technology, even up-to-the-minute digital technology All that technique can give architecture is enhanced functionality The room’s “eventmental”11 nature is especially clear when its present appearance is considered... a first conclusion: to understand architecture s performative character we cannot rely on transparent and objective description alone, or on techniques of quantification and measurement 1.7 L’Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France (1981–87), architect Ateliers Jean Nouvel 12 THE DEVICE PARADIGM In what types of places do architectural operations unfold? Where are architecture s unscripted performances... it has no control With the different dimensions of the building’s contingency in mind, a second conclusion can be proposed: that architecture s performative labor has no end, for it is a task that continually presents itself anew TOPOGRAPHIES OF PERFORMANCE Performance in architecture unfolds within a milieu that is not of the building’s making A name for this milieu is topography, indicating neither... Zumthor, “A Way of Looking at Things,” 1988, in Thinking Architecture, Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller, 1998, p 24 14 For more on topography in this sense see David Leatherbarrow, Uncommon Ground: Topography, Technology, and Architecture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002, and David Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania... of that functionality, understood in performative terms, beauty arises ARCHITECTURE OF CHANGE To understand the firm’s design philosophy and its consistent application over the past few decades, it is important to locate the practice’s work within the context of time and technological development The initial work at Grimshaw, in the 1970s, was founded in industrial architecture, of which an early example... intended, but settings can also yield, respond or react to unforeseen events The architectural drama, then, comes alive through the building’s performances The first step in the development of a performative architecture is to outline strategies of adjustment 1.9 Neurosciences Institute: the central court ECONOMY OF PERFORMANCE There is another site of architectural action in which performance is less... this determination is so great that it is insufficient to understand the building’s full actuality To grasp that, other kinds of performance must be described — not performances in architecture, instead performances of architecture 10 For the sake of an example, imagine a lecture theater Certainly such a setting can be described objectively: the four walls, the false ceiling that conceals air handling... and E N Rogers (eds), CIAM 8 The Heart of the City: Towards the Humanisation of Urban Life, New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1952, pp 3–16 While his work is also documented in this publication, see more fully Knud Bastlund, José Luis Sert Architecture, City Planning, Urban Design, New York: Frederick A Praeger, 1967 6 See Peter Blake (ed.), Marcel Breuer: Sun and Shadow, The Philosophy of an Architect,... Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957 8 See, for example, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, Tropical Architecture in the Dry and Humid Zones, Malabar, FL: Robert E Krieger, 1964 9 Op.cit Marion, In Excess, p 34 10 This point is elaborated in David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi, postscript to Surface Architecture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002 11 This term is Jean-Luc Marion’s See In Excess, p 32...4 1 ARCHITECTURE' S UNSCRIPTED PERFORMANCE DAVID LEATHERBARROW 5 1 ARCHITECTURE' S UNSCRIPTED PERFORMANCE DAVID LEATHERBARROW 6 1.1 Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla, California (1992–95), architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien The world . PERFORMATIVITY: BEYOND EFFICIENCY AND OPTIMIZATION IN ARCHITECTURE (Rahim) 177 14 COMPUTING THE PERFORMATIVE (Kolarevic) 193 15 TOWARDS THE PERFORMATIVE IN ARCHITECTURE. Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kolarevic, Branko, 1963- Performative architecture : beyond instrumentality / Branko Kolarevic and Ali Malkawi. Includes