Spatium negatio. Transitions in urban space representation through the perspective of negativity.

SP A TIUM NEGA TIO. T ransitions in urban space representation through the perspective of negativity . Marta López-Marcos. PhD dissertation. University of Seville, 2018. SP A TIUM NEGA TIO. T ransitions in urban space representation through the perspective of negativity . PhD dissertation. Marta López-M arcos. U niversity of S eville, Department of H istory , Theor y and Architectural Composition. S uper visors: P rof . Dr . Carlos T apia Martín. U niversity of S eville. P rof . Dr . David G rahame Shane. Columbia U niversity , GSAPP . T utor: P rof . Dr . V íctor P ér ez Escolano. U niv ersity of S eville. Seville, 2018. T able of contents A CKNO WLEDGEMENTS. 8 (DE)CENTERING . 12 Diomede I slands. 16 M oonwatchers. 22 The P ath of the S un. 24 Decentering E urope (I). 35 Objectives of the pr oject. 50 Challenging totalizing conceptions of space. 53 Counterspace and (ir)r ationality as motor . 56 Socio-spatial processes in cities . 62 Ar chitectur e as a discipline . 63 M ethodological approach. 66 C ritical interpr etive r esearch. 72 Counterpublics and counternarr atives. 76 (Extended) r elational aesthetics . 78 Seductions and (counter)mo vements. 82 S patium negatio . 95 Reco vering negativity . 95 Space (as exteriority) and negativity . 112 N egative avant-gar des. I nter actions in space, negativity and politics. 123 Counterspaces in the city . 141 On (the P olitics of ) S pace. 161 Space as a social pr oduct. 161 Ar chitectur e after the spatial turn. 173 P olitics of the (global) city . 185 P ublic space? 200 (RE)PLA CING (or how the W estern notion of space is challenged through social practice in urban places) 224 S pace and anti-space. 227 Leftov er spaces. 240 The square as a socio-spatial product. 249 SE-DUCTIO I: BEIJING . 276 N e w regime, new spaces. 280 T iananmen square. 285 F rom China to the W est and back. 295 (EM)BOD YING (or how the corporeal emerges as a particular membrane between the interior/exterior spatial gap) 312 Against architecture. 317 (Counter)revolution and autonomy . 328 N e w publics and bodies in motion. F rom panoptic to panchoreographic. 343 SE-DUCTIO II: W ARSA W . 368 S paces-in-between. O skar Hansen and the Open F orm. 379 Anti-city , anti-monument. 389 W arsaw under construction. 402 (TRANS)FORMING (or how the immaterial supports an extended understanding of urban social space) 412 S pecters of the city . 415 Inside/outside. S pace-time compressions and flows. 429 N oopolitics and urban space. 448 SE-DUCTIO III: IST ANBUL. 475 “Crazy plans ” and counter-plans. 479 Occupy! The case of T aksim. 493 Rendering visible the invisible. U rban space as commons. 501 (DIS)CLOSING . 518 N egativity beyond its borders. 520 Counterspaces as a tool for critique. 534 All that melted into air… 544 U rban politics and public spaces from a relational perspective . 551 Coda: Decentering E urope (II). 560 The W est of the W est. 560 East and South. T r ajectories. 563 The moon ov er the archipelago . 568 ANNEX I: Interview with Steven K. P eterson. 578 A final comment by S.K. P eterson. 592 ANNEX II: Research map. 596 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 9 The present work would nev er have been possible without the help and support of many people who have accompanied me throughout this pr ocess for several years. Of them all, it is fair to start by extending my gratitude to my supervisor , P rof. D r . Carlos T apia Martín, because he already conceiv ed this project long before it was in my mind. H e show ed me a new way of understanding (and doing) architecture, a discipline which I would probably have abandoned if not for his lectur es in thir d year . He also intr oduced me to my other super visor , P rof . Dr . David G rahame Shane, whom I would like to thank for his gr eat patience and commitment, as well as his ability to bring order to chaos when the inv estigation was veering off course. The third component of this triad has been my academic tutor , Pr of . Dr . Víctor P ér ez Escolano, whose unconditional support and tr ust have been essential for this project. I would also like to thank the teams of the Institute of Ar chitecture and B uilding Science and the Doctoral P rogram in Architectur e of the U niversity of Seville for the work they have done during these y ears to impro ve the quality and pr omote the internationalization of research. I am particularly grateful to P rof . Dr . Antonio T ejedor Cabrera, the director of both entities, for his guidance and inter est in this project; and to the members of the resear ch group Out_Ar quias [HUM853] for supporting and giving me space. During my r esearch stays at the École P olytechnique F édérale de Lausanne and Delft U niversity of T echnology , I have been fortunate to meet many people who have enriched my perspectives and contributed to this wor k. I am very grateful to P rof. D ieter Dietz and P rof . D r . Roberto Cavallo for their welcome and assistance, allowing me to wor k jointly with their teams during those months. The contributions of some colleagues have been especially relev ant to this project; therefor e, I would like to thank Dr . Caroline Dionne, Dr . Darío N egueruela, Dr . Maurice H arteveld, Dr . Heidi S ohn, Dr . Susanne K omossa, Dr . Arnoud de W aaijer , Mar k Pimlott and O scar Rommens for their v aluable comments and appreciations. I am also grateful to Dr . G regory Bracken, D r . T una T asan Kok and D r . Xiaoxi H ui for helping me get out of “ the Eurocentric trap , ” even for a few moments. I could not forget the students of the MSc 2 studio, who have reinfor ced my vocation for teaching and brought a refr eshing outlook into some of my ideas. I am also indebted to the staff of the Architecture D epartment of the Regional Ministry of Development and H ousing ( J unta de Andalucía) for hosting me for a year and sho wing me the role of public administration with regar d to the development of public space policies. I have r eally learnt a lot from them, since they have helped me to become aware of the r eality of my immediate environment. I would also like to thank those who have allo wed me to access their work and materials to build this work. I n this sense, S teven K. P eterson holds a special place for his availability and generosity when discussing and updating his contributions. Thanks also to Igor Hansen for making av ailable to me the wonderful archive of his parents, Oskar and Z ofia Hansen, because the personal dicovery of their work [DE]CENTERING 16 H o wever , some others like Zhongguo (China), which derives from “Middle Kingdom ” or “Empire of the Center , ” comes from the traditional names that the Chinese people gave to their territories, as they considered their land to be in the center of the world; or N ippon ( J apan), meaning “ the sun ’ s origin, ” and which was given precisely by the Chinese. S till today , the countr y is considered to be “ the Land of the Rising S un, ” as it is one of the most eastern points of the world accor ding to W estern-centric repr esentations. E ven in a time when globalization has blurred to a gr eat extent the decisive character of an original location conditioning the life of the inhabitants of a specific place, the necessity of controlling space and time is related to positions with r espect to other r ealities, usually leading to absolute systems of refer ence, that is, “ eternal and substantial” (Kierans 2007, 77), organizational principles not limited by natur e or histor y . Thus, the absolute –the unlimited, the somehow mysterious Other– that lies abo ve and belo w the human being (natural forces, geological processes and elements, cosmic mo vements) has functioned as a mean to comprise, arrange and give meaning to countless constellations of relational strategies. Thr ough a syncretistic mixture of popular beliefs, science and r eligion, those elements considered to be out of r each of human action –that is, the sun and other celestial bodies, the ocean, telluric currents, etc.– hav e played a significant role since the dawn of time in the way humans have repr esented and understood their time and space. M ore specifically , the relation betw een the cosmic –as the radically other – and the terrestrial has been crucial for the tracing of divisions and differences, as they emerge naturally from a simple counterposition of elements. The sun and the stars, as elements that can be noticed from every point of the Earth, have configured an absolute system of r eference for many groups and societies, first as divine-symbolic factors, then as political benchmarks. This transition, from the mysterious to the political, may be explained from a conflict-based view of politics, to which we will r eturn on several occasions hroughout this wor k. Diomede I slands. There is something supernatural about the space that connects the northern Atlantic and P acific Oceans thr ough the Arctic Circle. The 17 Introduction N or thwest P assage repr esents a disjunction between worlds that challenges the explorer who attempts to cr oss it and face the division by navigating beneath its icy waters. 5 I n this route, just in the middle of the Bering S trait between Alaska and Siberia, two small islands ar e separated by less than thr ee miles of distance and twenty-one hours of time. The space where days end and begin unfolds betw een them, and thus, empirical distance is somehow negated. The D iomede Islands are separated b y the International D ate Line. Each island belongs to a different state: B ig D iomede (or Ratmano v I sland) belongs to the Chukotka A utonomous O krug in Russia, wher eas Little Diomede is part of Alaska, in the U nited S tates. Despite their pro ximity they remain in opposite sides of the world, and not only in physical terms. During decades, both states –especially in the y ears of the USSR– have r epresented two opposing poles, hence influencing their mutual relations and those with other countries and r egions. And yet, decades 5 The pr e -raphaelite John Ever et t Millais reflected in one of his paintings the difficulties of cr ossing the Nor th- W es t P assage and the glor y achieved b y those who succeeded. An old sailor , accompanied by his daughter , sit ting at a desk full of complex and incomplete maps st ar es at the obser ver with an expr ession of fatigue, but also of hope. The title of the painting, which was synonymous with adversity and death, contr asts with the subtitle with which Millais pr esented it: “It might be done and England should do it, ” emphasizing the impor t ance of cr ossing the nor th of the American continent for the British Empire. 02 T omorrow and yester day islands [DE]CENTERING 18 of tensions, antagonisms and radical alterity seem to vanish in this thin line of separation between two islands: a calm, silent, empty space where nothing special appears to happen;. I n fact, it is usually divided in popular E urocentric cartographic repr esentations. H owever , the continuity of days and nights is measured and r efer enced in this space. I t is here where the path of the sun ends and begins –though arbitrarily– day after day . F or that reason, Big and Little D iomede are also known as T omorrow I sland and Y esterday I sland: the continuum space-time is at the same time ensured and alter ed between both pieces of land. F ew inhabitants occupy this interstitial space between these two countries; actually , the Russian island is not inhabited –only a weather station and a base of Russian Bor der Guar d troops r emain there–, and the American one is home to a small settlement (Diomede) with less than 200 inhabitants. Despite the lack of population, political resonances of this space ar e notorious, mainly because of their confronted position and their pro ximity . C uriously , the ver y name of Diomede 6 has str ong political and warlike connotations. In the fifth book of H omer ’ s Iliad, D iomede, son of T ydeus, is presented as a brave A echean warrior who fights in the T r ojan W ar . When he is pr epared to confr ont H ector , Ares, god of war –who fights on behalf of the T r ojans–, inter venes as a common soldier in or der to protect the T rojan prince. Although in a first moment Diomede r ecognizes the true natur e of the warrior and refuses to attack him, the goddess A thena, his protector , encourages him to do it. During the battle, Ar es thro ws his lance to Diomede, but he fails and, by counter-attacking, the G reek hero injur es the god, stabbing him in the side and forcing him to abandon the battlefield. After this and other diverse incidents, the furious Zeus or ders all other Olympians not to take part in this human conflict anymor e. Therefor e, the action of D iomede, unleashing the anger of Zeus, forces the transfer of polemos from gods to humans: the generation of conflict and confrontation would lie solely in the hands of mortals, who would have to deal with this r esponsibility from then on. This 6 Even though, the islands ar e named after St. Diomede, since they wer e re- discov ered b y the Danish explor er V itus Bering on Augus t 16, 1728, the da y on which the Russian Or thodox Chur ch celebrates the da y of the mar t yr St. Diomede. P olemos and agon 19 Introduction episode is deeply related to the pr eliminary condition of politics, which leads to the appearance and construction of spaces of (human) confl ict throughout histor y . P olemos was understood by H eraclitus – and later by N ietzsche– as a primeval force emerging from the discor d and tension between opposites that keeps the equilibrium and unity of nature and cosmos; it is a ruling principle of the universe based on contradiction. N ietzsche would see in the Gr eek agon one of the translations of polemos to the human realm. A gon is a non-destructive force, but r elated to competition and fi ght as a way to human excellence (Carrión Carav edo 2011) –therefor e, it is also a dynamic tension. 7 Only a fr ee, but nonetheless fortunate mental association could lead us to return to the B ering S trait and the islands. Such a contro versial space has been object of multiple pr ojects and actions with strong political connotations. Th e “I ce C urtain, ” the name given to the frontier by M ikhail Gorbachev ’ s offi cial spokesman Gennadi I. Gerasimo v , remains closed for more than sixty years. S ymbolic attempts to unite both islands have been made. F or instance, the American swimmer L ynne Co x crossed the icy waters from Little to Big D iomede in the summer of 1987, aiming at dissolving the border for a short period. Th e feat was celebrated both by American and So viet authorities, and the latter even receiv ed Cox and car ed for her after her arrival to the R ussian island (W atts 2012). 7 How ever , the diff er ence bet ween polemos and agon is subject to multiple positions; to the point that it would be possible to talk of “agonists” and “ polemist s ” ( Garand and Prs tojevic 2016). F or inst ance, Chantal Mouff e and W illiam Connolly w ould be among the fi rs ts –who see confl ic t a s immanent to politics–, while Alex T homson (Schaap ( ed. ) 2009) could be included among the second gr oup. 04 03 [DE]CENTERING 20 T wo years later , a group of artists and architects also made their contribution for a rapprochement between the two po wers. Th e Institute for Contemporary Ar t in N ew Y ork and the USSR U nion of Architects in M oscow launched the Competition D iomede in 1989, being “ the fi rst architectural competition sponsored by two organizations in the USA and the USSR” (“Competition Diomede ” 1989, 54). M ore than a thousand architects and artists from 28 countries sent their proposals, among which wer e well-kno wn fi gures such as Y ona F riedman, Oskar Hansen, P aolo Soleri, D iana Balmori or Aleksandr B rodsky and Ilya U tkin. Th is huge collection of paper architectur e curated by Glenn W eiss was shown in a travelling exhibition – from N ew Y ork to S an F rancisco, S eattle, Los Angeles, M oscow , Leningrad, Minsk, T ashkent and M ontr eal– for two years, so its impact could r each both blocs. H o wev er , everybody knew that the ideas would never be materialized. F or that r eason, most of the proposals wer e not at all r ealistic and did not aim at designing a permanent encounter , since this was not the objective of the competition. Instead, artists and architects w ere playing with imaginar y connections, virtual spaces that transcended the division between both islands. S ome of them did not even try to establish a physical union; facing the Piranesian etchings of B rodsky and U tkin, 06 05 Counter- monuments 21 Introduction who imagined a thir d fl oating space in the middle of the strait, the So viet V ictor S meernov or the P olish architect Oskar H ansen established an immaterial relation betw een the pieces of land; Hansen proposed a twin counter-monument that would be based on the visual connection, whereas S meerno v conceived an aerial projection combining light sources situated in each island. Others, like the artist Sandy Gellis, pr eferr ed to create bridge-like spaces; in this case, she would use boulders from diff erent parts of the world and would deposit them between the D iomedes, creating a platform that would have ecological functions at the same time. A distance of barely two and a half miles was enough to imagine more than a thousand possible worlds. R esistance against division and Cold W ar motivated the appearance of multiple ways of conceiving a space that was fully constrained and regulated because of geopolitical reasons. Th e rev ersal of the islands ’ spatial conditions nev er succeeded to become real, despite the str ong political reper cussions. 8 Th e Cold W ar would come to an end few years later . 8 On the verge of a new period of tense r elations bet ween the United States and Russia , another ar chitectural idea s competition f or the Bering Strait was organized in 2009. It is inter esting to compare the entries f or both competitions, since the la st ones focus on 08 07 [DE]CENTERING 22 M oonwatchers. N atural phenomena were the most basic and primary ways of understanding the world and our position in relation to it. C yclic paths that lead from day to night, from life to death, fr om wakefulness to sleep… co ver an extr emely wide spectrum of states and situations which constantly succeed one another , through subtle –and sometimes undiscernible– moments of transition. In this r espect, the German painter Caspar David F riedrich was an ex cellent portrayer of such instants of suspension. One can feel these states of quiet alteration while contemplating the series of couples gazing upon the horizon (the famous M oonwatchers .) 9 I n these paintings, couples of men, women, or both stand quietly against bright –though melancholic– landscapes, looking directly at the setting sun or the moon. All these similar scenes wer e painted between 1816 and 1820, and he would return to the same motif during the decade of 1830 when his health was progr essively deteriorating. The contemplation of the sun requir es a specific gestur e; semi- closed eyes, an unavoidable fr o wn, pain and effort all at the same time. The blinding light of noon makes it impossible to look directly at it, whereas visibility pr ogressiv ely increases as the sun goes do wn or during the first hours of the morning. That is the moment when things, as well as the star , can be seen calmly , without being annoy ed by ex cessive brightness. A t dusk, the shadows unv eil forms, their limits and contours, while the eyes of the viewer ar e not altered b y phosphenes or optical illusions of any sort. S unset is the moment of reflection and pause, but also of understanding a pr esent that has just escaped –like the owl of M iner va, flying “ only with the onset of dusk ” (H egel 1991, 23). This H egelian thought finds its reply in the work of his contemporary F riedrich, which emanates from a negative, destructive aesthetic experience, sharing a common root with the Bur kian sublime (B urke 1757). H is paintings predict the feeling of much mor e prac tical connections ( tunnels, plat f orms, etc. ) than the ones designed t wenty y ears bef or e. 9 An exhibition about the series was organized under the same title, bet w een September and Nov ember , 2001 at the Metropolitan Museum of Ar t of New Y ork (Rewald 2001). The onset of dusk 23 Introduction disenchantment 10 that would inspire the modern E uropean subject, which still clearly contains an important dose of restlessness and unease–especially against the Other or the unkno wn, like the sun than can be har dly looked at and impossible to grasp . Despite the ser enity of the scenes –the silence of nature, the absence of other people–, a profound rupture r emains latent behind this stillness: it is the break betw een nature and human conscience, between the jo y of the sensual realm and the spiritual and intellectual introjection of the human being expelled from the world. In F riedrich ’ s paintings, it is not possible to find any attempt at conciliation, since all fissures r emain inevitably open. H umans stand in front of a whole world that o verwhelms them, and maybe the only comfort they find is the presence of the other , who remains nevertheless absent. Thus, the quietude experienced by the depicted couples is only apparent, since the scene is inv aded by a sensation of U nr uhe 11 –as H egel would describe it. E ven the observer is struck by an invisible agitation: U nruhe emerges as a moving, internal for ce which precedes an action that will nev er take place in the picture. 10 Disenchantment ( Ent zauberung ) as a symptom of modernit y has been s tudied b y many authors and think ers . Although ta k en fr om Schiller –another German r omantic –, Ma x W eber (1999) is the one who develops the concept in 1919, b y ref erring to the pr ogr essive cultural rationalization and desecration of the m y thical factor in W estern modern societ y . Also Antonin Ar taud, Joachim Rit ter follo wing Odo Mar quar d in Glück im Unglück , Giandomenico Amendola or Jean-Luc Nanc y hav e dealt with this issue. 11 Unruhe could be translated a s “r es tlessness. ” “Hegel employs this term Unruhe fr equently thr oughout his corpus to charac teriz e negation (…). It agitates , it does not st a y still. It persis ts like a curr ent, but r emains as invisible ” (Hass 2014, 122). 10 09 U nr uhe [DE]CENTERING 24 H o w many possible worlds are hidden behind this feeling of unease, restlessness, ev en anxiety? And what if this force r emains contained and does not succeed in becoming action? The P ath of the Sun. T o bring for ward once again the image of the setting sun in a W estern context –specifically E uropean, since that is the ultimate framework in which this work is inserted– means to recogniz e the lineage of thought that goes back to Ancient G reece with the “ traumatic disco very ” of the Other –and ther efore, of the plural, or the “ many ”– in Asia (Carrera 2015, 131). Since that moment, W estern philosophy emerged, as Alessandro Carr era points out, and the newborn Eur ope continued to expand its horizons, positioning itself to war ds other territories through an asymmetric perspective. Thus, E urope constructed an image of itself that would be forev er tied to Otherness. The I talian philosopher Giacomo M arramao, following M erleau-P onty (1964), says: What is, then, the E uropean difference? N ot just on the boundary between ourselves and others, which is tracked in any collective logic of identity: fr om the tribe to state, from the clan to the nation. (...) I t is located rather in the fact that, while all other civilizations are characterized self-centrically , identifying as “ the center of the universe ” (...) E urope, ho wev er , is constituted by “ an internal polarity between W est and East. ” The antithesis between East and W est is therefor e a mythical-symbolic exclusiv e property of the W est, a typical W estern dualism unverifiable in other cultures. (M arramao 2006, 63) 12 In many ways, the W est has been regar ded as the last land on Earth – finis terr ae –, beyond which the dar kness of the unkno wn spreads, as w ell as the hope for a better and more perfect existence. Rev olving around the point wher e Atlas embraces the world, 13 the 12 See also Franke (2014, 87). R ecalling Rémi Brague, he quotes: “nothing is r eally pr oper to Eur ope except ‘ to appr opriate what is f or eign to it’” (2014, 88). 13 “ And here, her e is the man, the pr omised one y ou know of -/ Caesar Augustus, son of a god, destined to rule/ where Saturn ruled of old in Latium, and there/ bring back the age of gold; his empir e shall expand/ pas t Garamants and Indians to a land beyond the zodiac/ and the sun ’ s y early path, wher e Atlas the sk y-bear er piv ots/ the wheeling heav ens, embossed with fier y st ars, on his shoulder” ( V irgil and Day L ewis ( transl. ) 1986, 184). The discov er y of the Other 25 Introduction cycle – anakuklosis , which in G reek means “ rev olution ” 14 (H erman 1997, 15)– continues day after day . In this regar d, the path of the sun simultaneously allows a spatial and temporal differ entiation. If the East is the extreme which r epr esents light, life, vitality , strength and illumination, the W est is that of death and decline, but also plenitude and completeness, which unco vers the promise of a new rise and a new cycle. M ichel H ouellebecq r eco vers this image in Les particules élémentair es (1998) when the dejected M ichel Djerzinski travels to the I rish Atlantic coast to find death in the most w estern extreme of E urope (S loter dijk 2000). Therefor e, the symbolic meaning of both extr emes –decline and plenitude– led to a spatialization of the concept that societies had of themselves. A ctually , many cultures have had their particular centers, “Easts ” and “ W ests ” –being the latter understood not only as the place where the sun hides and wher e the day finishes, but also as the mythical threshold to another unkno wn world. B abylonians, G reeks, 14 Magun (2013, 6–11) traces a clear evolution of the meaning of the term. Fr om its a stronomic/astrological origins, it is supposed to be transferr ed to the political r ealm. The w ord “r evolution ” designates a sor t of “countermo vement”; it carries a contradic tor y meaning bet w een destruc tion, repetition and f or war d mo v ement. 11 [DE]CENTERING 32 as the pow erful extension of the old A bendland , operating as a more advanced version of the E urope that could have been and never was. In this r egar d, the R omanian-American illustrator , Saul S teinberg, offered a sharp , critical vie w on the issue from an urban perspectiv e. H is drawings wer e fr equently published in the weekly magazine The N ew Y orker . F r om the sixties on, S teinberg star ted a series of drawings reflecting the world view of M anhattanites, towar ds the East or the W est and always using the sun as a refer ent. Steinberg ’ s earths are extr emely compr essed, as if the eye could see the Eastern and W estern coasts of the USA at the same time. E ver ything in between is deformed, hidden or shown in an arbitrary way: N or thern E urope and Africa are almost invisible, while R ussia (or S iberia), China, J apan, or India appear as a thin strip in the horiz on announcing the arrival at the American P acific coast –in the drawing of the early seventies. In the end, b y emulating the old empires wher e the sun never set, S teinberg bitterly advances David Harvey ’ s definition of globalization as a “ time-space compression ” (Harvey 1992). These drawings have been copied and r eproduced countless times. C uriously , The Economist ’ s front co ver of M arch 21 st 2009 sho wed an interpretation of S teinberg’ s visions from an equally caustic Chinese perspective, depicting E urope as an insignificant island wher e expensive, luxury items (repr esented by H ermès and P rada) can be bought. Still today , this fascination for the sun is still alive in M anhattan –another center of the world–, where thousands of people congr egate twice a year to contemplate the alignment of the sun with the streets of the urban grid in the east-west dir ection; a phenomenon that is repeated in many American cities, as a consequence of a rational urban structure characteristic of the N ew W orld. S till, European artists continue gazing at the sun, but in a differ ent way; either with terror , like Laurent G rasso and his Soleil Double rising abo ve the ruins of a warlike E urope and r eflecting, once again, terrible signs in the sky; 27 or with pessimism, like Damien H irst and his Black 27 Laurent Grasso ha s explor ed on man y occasions the mysterious, threatening charac ter of the sun, f or inst ance thr ough strategies of duplication ( in Soleil Double ) or absence ( Soleil Noir ) in pas t and f utur e dystopian situations in medieval repr esent ations , urban spaces and ruins 33 Introduction 20 21 22 23 24 25 [DE]CENTERING 34 S un made of death flies stuck on the canvas with r esin. 28 The image of the dark sun appears once again, like in the paintings of R edon and Chagall, but in a more terrible way thr ough a mass of dead lives that become recognizable as w e come closer to the round canvas. The titles of previous fly paintings ( A r maggedon , Who ’ s afr aid of the Dark? , or names of diseases such as AIDS , Cancer or Leprosy ) r einforce the catastrophic-nihilistic character of the work, which seems to mirr or Michel S erres ’ eclipse and the contradiction between the r eversible and irrev ersible character of time, also studied in Soleil Double ’s counterfilm Soleil N oir (2014) through the inert, darkened landscape of the ancient Roman city of P ompeii. W e anticipate the exact moment of an eclipse. W e say: tomorrow , at twelve thirty , the sun or the moon begin to hide. What does it mean: tomorro w? F or me, it means that one more day weighs on my past or shortens my futur e, and so, because of wear and fatigue, death becomes closer . In the realm of the planets, this concerns only a configuration as it has has already occurr ed and that will be reproduced a considerable number of times. The pr ediction of this eclipse, tomorro w , is the account of a closed cycle, the measure of a rhythm. Therefor e, we anticipate futur e or past, either . The time of this astronomy is reversible. (...) The equilibrium of the world is only long, it is not eternal. The 28 Bet w een Oc tober 2015 and Januar y 2016, the Bey eler F oundation in Basel organized an exhibition called Black Sun , dev oted to the influence of Malevich upon contemporar y ar tis ts. 26 35 Introduction return of the r eversible is nothing mor e than an inter val: withering, mediocr e or immense. (Serr es 1991, 75–77) 29 Other works, such as M y S unshine by the M acedonian artist N ikola U zuno vski or O lafur E liasson ’ s breathtaking installations at the T ate M odern and U trecht ( The W eather Pr oject and Double S unset ) reflect the invalidity of the path of the sun as the way to an absolute and finite horizon. I n fact, U zuno vski and Eliasson have confirmed that the sun can already be pr oduced or “ faked ” through human wor k and repr oduced elsewhere, even duplicated b y architectural means. 30 B y breaking with the H egelian path and heliotropic histor y for ever , there ar e no absolute r eferents thr ough which to rethink a W estern civilization with respect to the O ther . The sun does not represent a project; it never sets without rising afterwards. D ecline and upsurge always return, succeeding each other and ev en juxtaposing. Decentering E urope (I). 31 There is much contr o versy r egar ding the extension of the W est and its legitimacy . Although the origin of the concept can be found in the counterposition between G reece and Asia, the modern W est is considered to be r ooted in the core of E urope –mainly Germany , F rance and the U nited Kingdom– and then extended to peripheral W estern E uropean countries. H owev er , the arrival of Columbus to American land repr esented a turning point in the identification of Occident with E urope, since the geographical W est had been displaced. The subsequent political and militar y alliance of E uropean 29 T ranslation b y the author [ T . A . ] 30 Besides, this techniques reflect s on the v er y r ole of ar chitecture fr om within the discipline and with r espec t to its outside: “(…) even when Eliasson uses architectural means (…) he does so in r elation to an ar tis tic questioning of the mechanisms of r epr esentation and mediation in architecture and thus in r elation to a critique of its socio - political and ar chitec tural po w er” (Mora vánszk y and Fischer ( eds. ) 2008, 37–39). 31 The crisis of the modern pr ojec t towar d the end of the t wentieth centur y led to the assumption of ins tabilit y and uncer t aint y as inherent to our time, as well as the skepticism or r efusal to grand narrativ es. Positions to war ds this situation were multiple: while some decided to embrace the postmodern condition, others saw it as a tragic situation, like Hans Sedlma yr’ s (1957) “loss of the center” ( V erlust der Mitte ). T afuri (2006, x x viii ) would criticize this nostalgic at titude, arguing for a “ displacement” instead of a loss. [DE]CENTERING 36 nations with the U nited S tates and the shift of power after the S econd W orld W ar reinforced the transatlantic displacement of the W est towar ds the American continent. Since then, contemporar y W est is generally assumed to include the E uropean (or rather , the Eur opean U nion and near W estern countries) and N orth American (mainly the U nited S tates and Canada) territories. Ho wev er , this spatial division is far from being definitive and consensual. I n The Myth of Continents , Martin Lewis and Kären Wigen (1997, 50 ff) propose seven v ersions of the spatial W est as conceived b y several authors through history . The first versions ar e extremely ex clusive, including only England or some original pow ers, such as B ritain, F rance, the Low Countries and S witzerland, whereas some others associate the W est to medieval Christendom. These conceptions are pr ogressiv ely expanded with the Atlantic Alliance, to which some other territories wer e often added, such as J apan, South Africa or A ustralia for different reasons (race, wealth, “high cultur e ”…) In the end, a final version is pr esented, in which the whole world is included within a global, dominating, dystopic W est. Whatever the case may be, the W est usually appears as a broad territory defined through supremacist motives, such as cultural, political, economic or racial hegemony . This is one of the reasons why , facing the tradition initiated by H egel and continued 27 37 Introduction by Oswald S pengler or Arnold T oynbee, an author like Alastair Bonnett (2004, 1) declares that, despite being white, born and living in England and educated in a W estern context, he does not recognize himself as a “ W esterner . ” In fact, it is har d to label oneself as a W esterner being acquainted of such a disturbing lineage. N onetheless, the Eur opean-American union started to perish sever ely with the end of the Cold W ar , but especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the 2003 I raq W ar (Lehti 2010, 93). In this regar d, Marko Lehti (2010) considers that the question of the W est is not territorial, but rather based on two different discourses: the American one, founded on a “ modernizing mission ” (2010, 103) and global hegemony , and the European one, which hinges upon a community , cultural self-consciousness that constantly puts into question its own limits and position. While the American W est “is used for seeking legitimation for American, as well as W estern, norms and values that ar e still claimed to have legitimacy for defining hegemonic or der , ” the E uropean W est “ omits claims for hegemonic legitimacy in a global sense and is not used for claiming international legitimacy but, rather , for seeking the appro val of EU citiz ens ” (Lehti 2010, 109). Besides, it is worth remar king the E uropean r ejection of certain US policies and actions, either through a –mostly cultural and social– “ anti-Americanism ” (Lehti 2010, 97) or a will to independence in relation to American political and economic po wer . An example of this attitude can be found in the initiative of J ürgen Habermas and other E uropean intellectuals such as J acques Derrida or U mberto Eco to publicly expr ess their refusal of the I raq W ar instigated by the U nited S tates, as well as in the massive demonstrations that took E uropean str eets for the same r eason. In the cor e of the fracture between E urope and the US lie two ver y different pr ojects. F acing the American self-conscience, which recogniz es itself in the positive side of binar y antagonisms (good/evil, friendly/dangerous, self/non- self ) and identifies itself with values such as hegemony , capital and unity –the “ utopia achieved ” of B audrillar d (1988)–, it could be argued that the E uropean condition is deeply-r ooted in negativity , despite the attempts of civilizator y discourses centered on pr ogr ess and superiority: indeed, the notions of diversity , fragmentation, crisis or difference ar e today , more than ever , present within the E uropean discourse and mentality . [DE]CENTERING 38 This argument, how ever , is quite paradoxical. The immanent negativity of the “idea ” of Eur ope, its irrational and ungraspable rhythms –reflected in its v er y contingency and indetermination, also in spatial terms–, are b y no means compatible with a E urocentric conception of the world. In fact, negativity has been traditionally left outside the rational project of the W est: the idea of Europe as the summit of the civilization process, launched by H egel and extended through the narratives of E nlightenment and M odernity ceased to be sustainable long time ago . But in the end, after all the attempts for reconstruction, positive celebration of differ ence and a pretended “ unity in diversity , ” 32 only U nr uhe remains. The feeling of r estlessness and agitation that H egel and F riedrich detected within the core of E uropean cultur e persists beneath the project of a common land in permanent crisis. The protests against EU migration policies, the strength of social mo vements during the first decades of the centur y or the refer endum on Br exit are just a few proofs of this everlasting struggle that, ultimately , poses the question on E uropean identity . Who are the E uropeans? I s there a E uropean identity? And, with regar d to the topic of the research, ho w to define a E uropean space, if such a thing exists? I s the E uropean U nion, as Sloter dijk (2013, 171) has diagnosed, the embodiment of a “ gr eat interior , ” a geopolitical apparatus for immunity? The answer is uncertain (Castells 2004; Boy er 2006, 315), considering the plurality of discourses and points of view . In a r eport for the P or tuguese P residency of the Council of the E uropean U nion in 2000, the sociologist M anuel Castells questioned the existence of a E uropean fix ed identity . Rather , he advocated “ an identity in the making, that is a process of social production of identity ” (2004, 5) that should be parallel to a series of social, political, economic and cultural aspects. Castells highlighted possible strategies in education, communication, multiethnicity or mobility that would contribute to the generation of a common ground for E uropeans and, among them, he outlined the relevance of bridges between cities and r egions to enhance cooperation and the reconstruction of cultural ties. The urban realm emerges once 32 “ United in div ersity” wa s adopted in 2000 as the mot to of the Eur opean Union thr ough a contest inv olving 80,000 student s fr om 15 Eur opean countries . The idea of E urope 39 Introduction again as a privileged field for political action and the construction of difference. D espite the enormous leap between the E uropean medieval burgs and cities and today ’ s extensive urban networ ks and agglomerations –a transition that H enri Lefebvr e characterized and extended as the progr ession from absolute and historical space to abstract space (1991)–, there is still a sort of common logic behind E uropean urban space, usually parallel to the public spher e. Theoretically , this space sustains and promotes r elations among individuals; it is not a simple scene for interaction, but rather an active dimension in allowing or forbidding what can and cannot be done or said –the scene versus the ob-scene –, which is agr eed through social consensus. P ublic urban space is the highest expression of democratic space. Whether this ideal is translated into social practice, it puts for war d a problematic issue that will be addr essed later . In any case, to deepen in the E uropean construction entails to reflect on its urban dimension as a space for both encounter and conflict. The success of the modern E uropean-born concept of public space 33 linked to a democratic, bourgeois sphere, has pr o voked its expansion and use as a homogenizing umbrella term under which to designate diverse forms of urban –generally open– space. H o wever , this space presents differ ent connotations in each society or community that can har dly ever fit in the r ealm of the public as it was originally conceived, even within E urope, where the modern, romantic notion of an egalitarian and democratic public space no longer pro vides an accurate model for conflictual, social contemporary practices (Borja 2004; Berroeta T orres and V idal M oranta 2012, 12). F or instance, Beijing hutongs ar e completely different fr om Manhattan ’ s grid, the Eixample of B arcelona or the M edina of F ez. Although they all may be roughly consider ed to be “ public spaces, ” both urban typologies and social practices are radically differ ent in each case. This generalization lies, once again, in the reduction of differences that W estern-centric perspectives impose –sometimes unconsciously– to the rest of the world. Thus, if the W est exists because of contemplation of and confrontation with other r ealities, 33 Dense, compac t, open and a vailable , per vading the urban tissue. It differs fr om the American one in scale and density , a s the American city is usually much more disperse, wher eas Eur opean compactness fav ors par ticipation and gathering. [DE]CENTERING 40 the views and conceptions originated in its midst repr esent a burden 34 o ver other spaces that tend to be assimilated under these conditions, despite their diversity . In this way , the world appears as a centralized entity , usually through a binar y opposition between the “ W est and the Rest, ” as Shohat and S tam (2014) indicate: E urope is seen as the unique source of meaning, as the world ’ s center of gravity , as ontological “ r eality ” to the rest of the world ’ s shadow . (…) Eurocentrism, like Renaissance perspectiv es in painting, envisions the world from a single privileged point (…) E urocentrism (…) organizes ev er yday language into binaristic hierarchies implicitly flattering to E urope: our “ nations, ” their “ tribes ”; our “ r eligions, ” their “ superstitions ”; our “ culture, ” their “ folklore ”; our “ art, ” their “ ar tifacts ”; our “ demonstrations, ” their “ riots ”; our “ defense, ” their “ terr orism. ” (Shohat and S tam 2014, 2) Within the academic field, the flattening effect of E urocentrism often leads to the reading of other spaces as mer e objects of study for W estern kno wledge (T ang 2014, 71), resulting in the obliteration of their own epistemological categories. Thus, the E uropean resear cher is forced to choose between this position and a schiz ophrenic mentality –which is also typically E uropean, as F élix D uque (D uque and H ernández S ánchez 2009) diagnoses– that acknowledges both the indispensability and inadequacy of E uropean heritage (Char krabarty 2007, 12; Crysler , Cairns, and Heynen (eds.) 2012, 13) for a wide thinking beyond E uropean intellection. Only this conscious doubling allows a closer appr oach to distinct contexts. I n addition to this, nobody regar ds the histor y of the W est as the histor y of the world anymore –as F ukuyama did with his “H egelian ” view of the end of histor y after the fall of the Berlin W all (Charkrabarty 2007, 3). The recognition of this decentering, alr eady admitted by M erleau-P onty and Gadamer –among others– and indebted to the legacy of post- 34 “Concepts such a s citizenship, the state, civil societ y , public spher e, human rights , equality befor e the law , the individual, distinc tions bet w een public and private, the idea of the subjec t, democracy , popular sov er eignt y , social jus tice, scientific rationality , and so on all bear the bur den of Eur opean thought and his tor y . One simply cannot think of political modernit y without these and other r elated concepts that found a climatic f orm in the course of the Eur opean Enlightenment and the nineteenth centur y” ( Charkrabar t y 2007, 4). 41 Introduction 28 29 [DE]CENTERING 48 ———. 2011. Sin salvación: tr as las huellas de H eidegger . T res Cantos: Akal. ———. 2013. I n the W orld I nterior of Capital: F or a Philosophical Theor y of G lobalization . Cambridge, UK ; Malden, M ass.: P olity P ress. Szymborska, W isława. 2014. “Map . ” The N ew Y orker . http://www .newyorker .com/ magazine/2014/04/14/map. T afuri, Manfr edo . 2006 [1974]. I nterpr eting the Renaissance: princes, cities, ar chitects . N ew Haven; Cambridge, M ass.: Y ale Univ ersity P ress ; Har var d U niversity , G raduate School of Design. T ang, Wing-S hing. 2014. “Where Lefebvre M eets the East: Urbanization in H ong Kong. ” I n U rban R evolution N ow . H enri Lefebvre in U rban Research and A rchitectur e , edited by Łukasz S tanek, Christian Schmid, and Ákos M oravánszky , 71–92. F arnham; Burlington: Ashgate P ublishing. T apia, Carlos. 2012. “Espacios negativos: contra y anti como partículas reveladoras en el espacio. ” In Congr esso RESE III: cidades, fronteir as e mobilidade humana , 162–74. Manaus: U niversidade F ederal do Amazonas. Virgil, and C. Day Lewis (transl.). 1986. The A eneid . Oxford: Oxfor d U niversity P ress. W atts, Simon. 2012. “S wim That Br oke Cold W ar Ice C ur tain. ” BBC News Magazine . http:// www .bbc.com/news/magazine-19149829. W eber , Max. 1999 [1917]. “Wissenschaft als Beruf . ” I n G esammelte A ufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehr e , edited by E. F litner , 582–613. P otsdam: Institut für P ädagogik der U niversität P otsdam. Images. 01 Cuauhtinchan M ap n° 1, s. XVI. S ource: P royecto Amox calli. 02 Oskar Hansen. “D iomede I slands. ” D rawing for Competition Diomede , 1989. Courtesy of Igor Hansen. 03 T aller 301. “The Bering S trait P roject. Diomede Archipelago . ” Drawing for Bering S tr ait P roject I nter national Ideas Competition , 2009. S ource: T aller 201. 04 T aller 301. “The Bering S trait P roject. Diomede Archipelago . ” Image for Bering S tr ait P roject I nter national Ideas Competition , 2009. S ource: T aller 201. 05 Alexander Brodsky and I lya U tkin. Drawing for Competition Diomede , 1989. Source: Ronald F eldman F ine Arts. 06 V ictor S meerno v . “Island P aradise. ” D rawing for Competition Diomede , 1989. Sour ce: N ew Y ork Magazine , J une 5 1989, 99. 07 Thomas Silva. “Bor der Crossing. ” Drawing for Competition Diomede , 1989. S ource: Thomas Silva Ar chitects. 08 Diomede Competition brochur e, 1989. Sour ce: A nthos: Zeitschrift für Landschaftsarchitektur . 28 (2): 54. 09 Caspar David F riedrich. “E vening landscape with two men, ” 1830-1835. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 49 10 Caspar David F riedrich. “ T wo men contemplating the moon, ” 1819-1820. Sour ce: Wikimedia Commons. 11 Simon M armion (attr .) “M appa M undi, ” in La Fleur des H istoir es , by J ean Mansel, V alenciennes, 1459-1463. Source: W ikimedia Commons. 12 J. M. W illiam T urner . “Rain, S team and S peed – The G reat W estern Railway , ” 1844. Source: W ikimedia Commons. 13 Léonard M isonne. “W aterloo Place, London, ” 1899. Sour ce: londontopia.net 14 “The Central T elegraph Office I nstrument Galler y , ” The Illustr ated London N ews 1874. Source: W ellcome Library , London. 15 Gerald P almer . “M en leaving a pit prior to the G reat W ar , ” in M or e Pictur es of British History , by E.L.Hoskyn, London: A & C B lack, 1914, 62. S ource: Wikimedia Commons. 16 Odilon Redon. “The B lack S un, ” c. 1900. Source: M oMA, Museum of M odern Art, New Yo r k . 17 Marc Chagall. “B lack S un over P aris, ” 1952. Sour ce: Art Institute Chicago, Artists Rights Society (ARS), N ew Y ork / ADAGP , P aris. 18 Saul S teinberg. The New Y orker cover , “ View of the W orld from 9th A venue, ” M arch 29, 1976. Source: The N ew Y orker . 19 J on Ber keley . The Economist cover , “Ho w China sees the W orld, ” March 21-27, 2009. Source: The E conomist. 20 Laurent G rasso. “Soleil D ouble, ” 2014. S ource: osskoor .com, Galerie P errotin. 21 Laurent G rasso. “Soleil N oir , ” 2014. S ource: Galerie P errotin, ADAGP , P aris. 22 Damien H irst. “Black S un, ” 2006. Source: P hotograph by P r udence C uming Associates. Damien H irst and Science Ltd. 23 N ikola U zunovski. “M y S unshine, ” 2009. S ource: FL Gallery . 24 Olafur E liasson. “The W eather P roject, ” at T ate Modern, 2003. Sour ce: Photograph by Michael R eeve. Wikimedia Commons. 25 Olafur E liasson. “Double S unset, ” U trecht, 2000. S ource: P hotograph by Hans Wilschut. Olafur E liasson. 26 Olafur E liasson. “Sketch for D ouble S unset,“ 1999. S ource: Olafur E liasson. 27 East- W est divisions, in The M yth of Continents: A Critique of M etageogr aphy , by Martin W . Lewis and Kären E. W igen, Ber keley; Los Angeles; London: U niversity of California P ress, 1997, 55. 28 Gio vanni B attista T iepolo. “ Apollo and the Continents: Eur ope, ” detail of ceiling fr esco, W urzburg Residence, 1752-1753. Sour ce: W ikimedia Commons. 29 Gio vanni B attista T iepolo. “ Apollo and the Continents, ” details of ceiling fr esco, W urzburg Residence, 1752-1753. Left to right, top to bottom: Africa, America, Asia, E urope. S ource: Wikimedia Commons. Objectives of the project 51 Objectiv es of the project . T o put in a nutshell one of the main conclusions drafted from this (de)centering of the resear ch questions, and in or der to redir ect them towar ds the issue of space, it can be assumed that, even before H egel (although his contributions wer e crucial in this regar d), space has been regar ded in W estern cultur e as a negated dimension with respect to time, which has been considered as the linear thr ead that articulates histor y from its beginning to a mor e or less pr edictable and immediate end. H o wever , the shift promoted during the second half of the twentieth century (the so-called “ spatial turn ” 1 in social sciences) transformed the conception of space and the ways of exploring it, 1 Schlögel (2016) r ecognizes the pr oliferation of “ turns ” in the las t decades (linguistic turn, iconic turn, anthropological turn…) Unlik e other authors who ar e suspicious of this explosion, he does not consider the emergence of multiple turns to be necessarily negative: on the contrary , they displace and rev eal new point s of view that had not been fully explor ed befor e, ev en if they ma y not be ke y to new discov eries or achievements. 01 [DE]CENTERING 52 challenging the very ar ticulation of historicity and spatiality . The historian Karl Schlögel (2016), who has explored the wher e of histor y through a series of particular events, attributes this shift to radical experiences which transformed the general perception of time and space during the last centur y , such as globalization, the increasing predominance of new technologies or the “ spatial revolutions ” in 1989 (the fall of the Berlin W all) and 2001 (September 11 attacks). Although social sciences and disciplines such as geography , histor y or anthropology have experienced this detour in kno wledge to a greater degree, the spatial turn also had str ong reper cussions for architectur e, which lost its status as the privileged producer of space (S tanek 2012). Almost at the same time, the interest for public space emerges in academia and society , experiencing a ne w outburst after the first decade of the twenty-first century . A space that has strongly negative and conflictual implications –besides, in “ formal ” terms it is usually repr esented as the negative of the city–, has parado xically become an oppressiv e tool in the hands of W estern democracies in a very sophisticated way , that can be related to B yung-Chul Han ’ s perception of the new –neural– ways of life r uled by positivity and transpar ency (2013). Having established the context and motivations of the r esearch and after the review of the main contributions and visions on the complex relations betw een space, politics and negativity , the present pr oject aims at further exploring these relations through a different perspectiv e that may extend and actualize the contemporary comprehension of negativity , which has been displaced, criticized and/or rejected b y much of contemporar y thought. H owever , the position of several authors such as D iana Coole (2000), Ray B rassier (2007; 2013), Gail Day (2011), Artemy M agun (2013a), and also H ilde H eynen (1999) or N adir Lahiji (2014b; 2014a) from the field of architectur e, lead to new questions about this topic and ways to grasp the forces of the negative and the possibility of elaborating new readings of the pr esent by taking into account some aspects that hav e been traditionally dismissed, such as how negativity can find space in an urban context. Therefor e, it is essential to r eformulate the notion of the negative in a productiv e way that can be understood and discussed within contemporar y theoretical debates on space and politics. Objectives of the project 53 Thus, the thread of the r esearch connects the fields of ar chitecture, the city and politics by weaving a theor etical fabric that r eflects the pulsing of the negative in modern and contemporary times, as well as the transitions and transformations caused by this force. D espite the complexity of the task, the present wor k aims at unveiling possible translations from political, historical and philosophical incursions in negativity to the more specific field of urban space fr om a critical standpoint. Challenging totalizing conceptions of space. F ollowing H enri Lefebvre, 2 space is today consider ed as a social construction that is constituted through relations and, at the same time, allows the establishment and dev elopment of such relations 2 “(Social) space is a ( social) pr oduct” is one of the key h ypothesis of Lef ebvr e’ s Production of Space (1991, 26). Although he would talk of “pr oduct s” –f ollowing Mar xist terminolog y , wher e pr oduction implies an exac t repetition, “the result of r epetitiv e ac ts and gestures ” (L ef ebvr e 1991, 70)– ins tead of “ cons truc tions, ” since he w ould associate construc tion to the architectural space, it is also considered to be “ a func tion of social r elations ” (Lef ebvr e 1991, 159). Besides, even though a construc tion can be r eplicated, it pr eser ves a cer tain uniqueness and experience –going beyond the ph ysical (Lo w 1996, 02 Space as (social) construction [DE]CENTERING 54 (Löw 2006, 130; S tanek 2012, 50). H o wever , it is important to remar k that this constructivist approach is not exempt of critique: the passive notion of “ space as construction ” should also be understood from its r everse, that is, social spher e is also spatially constructed (Massey 2005; M archar t 2012). The compr ehension of space as a complex set of relational systems is an essential assumption of this resear ch, although it is true that relations are open to many differ ent readings and interpr etations. D uring the last decades of the twentieth centur y , globalization has been considered to be a major issue to tackle, as well as a macro-model to understand spatiotemporal processes and transformations of the world. David H ar vey ’ s “ space- time compression ” (1992), Thomas F riedman ’ s flat world (2005) or Har dt and N egri ’ s Empir e (2000) are just some of the most prominent examples that illustrate the relev ance that the concept has acquired in spatial disciplines. E ven Lefebvr e pointed to an eventual “ complete urbanization society ” (Lefebvr e 2003; M errifield 2014), although he acknowledged not to understand certain ar eas of that space –China, for instance (Lefebvr e 1974, 229). As a result, his theories r evolv ed around W estern space and were extrapolated to the r est of the world (T ang 2014). Although all these authors conceptualize globalization as a neoliberal, capitalist phenomenon in or der to oppose its consequences, they usually tend to a generalization when talking of space from this perspective. The v er y rhetoric of globalization has a flattening effect on the complexity of space, since it assumes a taming of it, as if all relations w ere subor dinated to cer tain, socio-political and economical forces coming mostly from the W est. Despite the considerable element of truth that this statement contains, it is not plausible to reduce space to a bunch of r elations that tend to converge at one point determined by a specific society . 3 Since it is neither an unavoidable process, nor a law of natur e, such a project, as M assey 861)– that is lost in the product. Setha M . Lo w sees that social pr oduction and social construc tion of space are diff erent, but coexistent (1996, 861 ff ). 3 “(…) the neologism globalization mak es it s first appearance in the 1960s , pr ecisely in the field of international law to indicate the new terms of the ‘Hobbesian pr oblem of or der’ ( as a famous definition proposed b y T alcot t Parsons in his w ork The Structure of Social Ac tion , 1937) after the end of the ‘ W es tfalia model’ , that is , an or der of international r elations or chestrated by E ur opean po wers and based on the ex clusion Objectives of the project 55 puts it (2005,5), implies both a simplification of the multiplicity of space and a disdain for non- W estern spatial practices and conceptions. Besides, this “linearity ” in time v aguely reminds of H egel’ s end of histor y (2001): W e are not to imagine them as having their own trajectories, their o wn particular histories, and the potential for their own, perhaps different, futur es. They are not r ecognised as coeval others. They ar e merely at an earlier stage in the one and only narrative it is possible to tell. That cosmology of “ only one narrative ” obliterates the multiplicities, the contemporaneous heterogeneities of space. I t reduces simultaneous coexistence to place in the historical queue . (Massey 2005, 5) In consequence, tackling the issue fr om an open (although particular) position seems to be unavoidable if the conclusions ar e expected to be as plural and adjusted to the global scale as possible; hence the importance of contrasting visions from W estern sensibilities with the reality of other urban spaces that ar e not located in the W est. What motivates the r eturn to this opposition –how ever obsolete it may seem from the perspective of plurality and div ersity that is sought through the work– is that it is still valid, ev en if often hidden or silenced. The difference betw een W est and non- W ests still r emains latent, at least from the perspective of the W estern subject. Then, the idea is to displace the W estern position by av oiding these narratives of progr ess and predominance, despite the cultural backgr ound of the resear ch. The work is focused on a specific type of space, that is, urban space, and on the relations betw een its physical dimension and socio-spatial practices that both configure and take place in it. I t has been already argued that the notion of public space, for which urban space repr esents one of its most r ecognizable manifestations, has a privileged position in the W estern concept of space and it appears to be a ubiquitous phenomenon present in most of the cities of the world, since many studies and works have been dev oted to the issue (N egt and Kluge 1993; Mitchell 2003; Deutsche 2008; Kingwell and T urmel (eds.) 2009; Delgado Ruiz 2011; P arkinson 2012). N evertheless, the term is often adopted in a ver y broad sense, of ‘non-so ver eign’ or ‘with limited so ver eignty’ areas , countries and peoples ” (Marramao 2006, 24) . Ubiquitous public space [DE]CENTERING 56 without taking into account the diversity that it entails, and used interchangeably with “ open urban space, ” due to the dislocation between the physical and philosophical definitions of public space and its inherent parado xes (M arcuse 2014). While its ideological connotations are undeniable (D elgado Ruiz 2013), the extended use of the concept makes necessar y its extension and/or reformulation in or der to adapt it to diverse situations and make it mor e inclusive. Regar ding the W estern connotations of the notion of “ public space, ” a broader framework should be r egar ded in or der to expand the meaning of this “ideal” kind of space, as an urban space of participation that may be appropriated by diverse agents –thus spatializing conflict–; maybe not in W estern-centric terms, but in relation to the forms of exteriority: city , body and nature (P ardo T orío 1992), as the privileged realms to think the O ther and build bridges towar ds it through the “ pores ” of the subject which cannot completely retain being and thought. D eparting from the triple definition of the public that N ora Rabotnikof (2008, 38 ff) exposes to clarify the initial dichotomy public-private (that is, the public as a matter of common interest, as the visible and manifest and as that which is open and accessible to the people), one of the tasks of the resear ch is to explore, redraw and blur the limits betw een both realms. In short, the r esearch aims at addr essing the concept of public space, by ackno wledging its evolution and the appr oaches that from architectur e and urbanism have been critically promoted to wards the homogenizing and totalizing conceptions of urban space. After all, spaces are r elational and hold coexistence and simultaneities, as Dor een M assey argues: space is, first, a set of constructions of interaction and interrelation; second, it is open to possibility and plurality; and thir d, it is never complete or finished, but always under construction (Massey 2005, 9). Counterspace and (ir)r ationality as motor . The question of negativity has been mainly explored in the fields of philosophy , political science, humanities, ar t or cultural studies. Despite the scarcity of explicit connections betw een negativity and space, this categor y has traditionally been opposed to time as its Objectives of the project 57 negation, as well as being consider ed a realm for the possible and the multiple. In this context that r elates social sciences and humanities to the political and the spatial, the notion of counterspace emerges: mainly outlined from the field of political geography (Lefebvr e 1991; Oslender 2010), it suggests the organization of an alternative space that cannot exist if not in the rev erse of space itself . Despite the interest that this Lefeb vrian term generates when analyzing relations of r esistance and differ entiation, its theoretical backgr ound and connotations, as well as its materialization, have been scar cely addressed b y resear chers. I n this regar d, a fur ther exploration of counterspaces and the clarification of their possibilities opens a wide field of resear ch that allows to r ethink and enrich the contemporar y notion of space as it has been expounded before. Although the Lefebvrian counterspace has been one of the main triggers for the present pr oject, it was the F ranco-Belgian artist Raoul Ubac (1942) who first used the term to name “ le contr e-espace poétique , ” that is, the space recr eated by the spirit which, often linked to artistic creation, transforms and penetrates the immediate space of experience as its rev erse. The exploration of this contr e-espace is clear in Ubac ’ s photographic and sculptural work, influenced by surr ealism and employing a series of techniques (solarization, o verexposur e, collage, “burning ” or “ petrification ”) that distort the image, even melting the negative of his photographs in or der to r eveal another formless one that, how ever , would not be possible without the original positive. Although Ubac ’ s counterspaces differ significantly from the meaning that Lefebvr e would give to the term decades later , it is possible to find some connections between both conceptions, since Lefebvr e also proposes to imagine the city from its r everse: The future city , if it is possible to sketch its outlines, would be pretty w ell defined by imagining the rev erse of the current situation and taking this inv erted image of the world upside down to the extr eme. (Lefebvr e 1968, 158) 4 4 After pr onouncing this sug ges tion, the pr oposal is suspended, as if waiting to be explor ed. P eter Mar cuse (2011, 19) w ould continue man y y ears later: “(... ) the city is not a ‘ thing’ , it is not the traditional cit y , but its inverse; it is the social r ealit y ar ound us in an incr easingly urbanized world. W e do not find a spatial definition either . A narro w Counterspace Contr e-espace poétique [DE]CENTERING 64 of capitalism more than two hundr ed years ago and was linked to “ commodity culture, radical politics and aesthetics ” –because of the lack of its own critical discourse (Lahiji 2014b , 2)– the role of the discipline within society has been changing and re-adapting on a continuous basis. Befor e that –and Lahiji clarifies: “before H egel”– architectur e was relev ant only in terms of “ architectural metaphor ” and it ser ved as a r efer ence to other systems in order to gr ound and stabilize them (Karatani 1995; Lahiji 2014b , 2). H owever , the metaphor of architectur e reappears much later in the wor ks of Derrida (Derrida and M eyer 1999), H ollier on Georges B ataille (1993) and Karatani (1995), announcing a progr essive r eturn to an “ architectonic system, ” at least in radical philosophy and currents of new materialism (Lahiji 2014b , 3). The critique towar ds the architectural/urban object has nonetheless lost its significance in a world in which architectural joined the neoliberal repertoires long time ago . H o wever , the long and too-often sterile debates around the autonomy 9 of architectur e and its separation –or not– from economy and politics are important for the course of the resear ch, since urban space (and the elements that configure it) is wher e most of social, political and economic actions and decisions emerge and take place. Many questions on the position of ar chitecture in r elation to other phenomena and its legitimate tools (roughly r epresenting two of the most discussed ways of understanding autonomy) remain open and probably will never be solv ed. Architectur e, as Libero Andr eotti asserts (in Lahiji (ed.) 2016, 72) has never been a monolithic discipline. Therefor e, positions within the debate ar e influenced by diverse experiences and thoughts. E ven without endorsing any particular stance within the dispute, it is worth remembering that a radical 9 In this r egar d, the compr ehension of autonomy that emerged during the seventies and the eighties was highly influenced b y struc turalism: the historical and formal foundations of ar chitec ture w ere understood as independent from other theor etical paradigms ( mathematics, social sciences , psycholog y ... ) Solà-Morales (2009, 121) clearly formulates this r eading: “ Autonom y does not mean that ar chitecture cannot be compar ed with other cultural or technical phenomena , or that its scope is not related to other ar ea s of r eality . Nonetheless , the autonomy of the discipline means that not only ther e are specific tools for ar chitec tural analysis and that these critical instrument s ma y be subject to theorizing, but also that they will be the s tar ting point of new contemporar y ar chitectural prac tices. ” Objectives of the project 65 advocacy for autonomy has often r esulted in “ a retreat to the winter quarters of formal ideology . ” Mor eo ver , “[t]his repeated retraction has historically produced a r epositor y of forms at the disposal of every new dominant ideology , at the same time that it r educed the reach of the disciplinar y field to such a reduced cor e that it seems to have been dissolved ” (M inguet and T apia 2016, 295). This crisis affects also the role of the architect who, although not anymor e the “ Architect of the world, the human image of God the cr eator ” that Lefebvr e (1968, 60) saw in Le Corbusier , seems to be deprived from social agency and the possibility of contributing to a fair society . One of the main objectives of the resear ch is to refute this assertion and claim for a relev ant role for architects that, together with other social agents, work for a sound built environment taking into account socio-spatial processes, without dismissing the singularities of the discipline. 10 This involves the will to find links for a re-elaboration of the socio-political commitment of architectur e. Another consequence of the debate on autonomy is the question about the role of critique and theory within architecture. The fr equent dismissal of theor y by ar chitecture practitioners (G raafland 2010) –a new branch of the debate initiated in the journal P erspecta by Robert S omol and Sarah Whiting (2002) and Michael S peaks (2006) on the issue of criticality opened by K. M ichael Hays (1984)– has instigated a wave of counter-efforts to restor e the role of theory and within culture, and specifically ar chitecture. Although S peaks is right when suggesting that theor y cannot work as “ fast philosophy ” (S peaks 2006, 101) and others, like S wyngedouw (Lahiji (ed.) 2016, 52), confirm the deadlock in which “ critical urban-architectural thought is subsumed today , ” the current circumstances make necessary “ more and better theor y , ” as Libero Andreotti claims (Lahiji (ed.) 2016, 78). A theor y capable of engaging the social context while taking into account the possibilities of architectur e and other spatial disciplines is key to propose possible spatial actions and strategies which could be 10 See Montaner (2007, 23) in terms of architectural critique: “ And not only critique, histor y and theor y are connected but also the field of architectural critique is not autonomous at all. Since ar chitec tur e is situated between ar t and technique, its language and interpr etation are alwa ys r elated to languages and interpr etations of ar t , science and thought. In shor t , the mission of ar chitectural critique should be to es tablish bridges in both dir ec tions (…)” Ar chitectur e, critique, theor y [DE]CENTERING 66 relev ant to unveil conflict and contradiction within the contemporary framework. Besides, it may become a strong tool to question the formal implications of architectur e, away from their supposedly autistic and autonomous character , in or der to search for new media for practice through socio-spatial means and to r einforce a critical understanding of the urban environment and its socio-political context. Otherwise, architecture loses its social str ength, being doomed to “ an uncritical acceptance of the status quo ” according to Andreotti (Lahiji (ed.) 2016, 80), who points to the r esponsibility of other authors and architects such as P atrick Schumacher , who claims that “ political debate within architectur e o verbur dens the discipline ” (2013, 133). Rather , it is possible to generate spaces and architectur es of resistance without falling into the arguments of criticality or post- criticality –although many of their arguments coincide, especially those concerning “ an autonomous architectural formalism ” (Barber 2005, 248). 11 What is clear is that the links between architectur e and politics are str ong and relev ant to an uneven, asymmetrical world (Kaminer , Robles-D urán, and Sohn (eds.) 2011). 12 M ethodological approach. T o deepen once again in the dimension of space after centuries of theor y and kno wledge through extr emely diverse approaches is not an easy task. The winding, multiple paths that have been traced – and erased, and retraced– o ver the comprehension of space makes it difficult to open a new one that may only add more confusion and rhetorical intricacy to an already dense mesh of kno wledge. Rather , the approach follo wed thr oughout the resear ch consists in revisiting some of these paths and situating oneself in crossroads positions that could shed some light o ver the questions posed befor e. F or this reason, the r esearch method is not understood in the sense of the H eideggerian methodos , defined by D errida as a “ technique (…) to 11 Daniel Barber (2005) has made an at tempt to escape this division and reco ver the sense of opposition to the st atus-quo within the architectural discipline by theorizing what he calls “militant ar chitec tur e. ” 12 A long tradition of ar chitectural inter ventions with political character suppor t s this asser tion. F or inst ance, see “ Acción Política desde la Ar quitec tura ” (Montaner and Muxí 2011, 54–66). (A)methodos Methodological approach 67 gain control of the way [ odos ]” (in Leach and et al. 1997, 302), but as an attitude towar ds the density of knowledge, of what has been already said. I n this r egar d, the (a)methodological approach of the resear ch is closer to the Benjaminian “ destructive character ” (1999, 541 ff), which “ sees nothing permanent. But for this very reason he sees ways everywhere (…) Because he sees ways everywhere, he always stands at a crossroads ” (Benjamin 1999, 542). 13 I t is possible that the architectural character of the essay , full of spatial refer ences –room, space, emptiness, ways, walls, etc. – was one of the features that fascinated Manfr edo T afuri, who in an inter view in 1981 (Liernur and T afuri 1983) associated this passage with another one in the Ar cades : “F orge ahead with the whetted axe of r eason, looking neither right nor left so as not to succumb to the horror that beckons from deep in the primeval for est ” (Benjamin 2002, 842). F rom this, T afuri concludes that the notion of method is not thinkable in terms of critique, since he does not know “ho w to destroy with a method ” (Liernur and T afuri 1983). This refusal to a method challenges a r esearch pr ocess that has been motivated by critical positions and finds in critique one of its main instruments for spatial inquir y . 14 Ther efore, the pr oposed methodological approach can be assumed as a particular way of walking through this “ for est, ” 15 instead of using means to control and dominate it– a negative methodology for a r esearch on negativity . 13 This essa y ha s been subject to multiple interpretations , often contradictor y . How ever , the mos t inter esting and plausible ones –at lea st for the purposes of the r esear ch– ar e the ones that see a cer t ain glimpse of Benjamin himself in the text despite it ma y seem the opposite ( the essay was inspired in Gustav Glück, a friend who wa s the dir ec tor of the F or eign Sec tion of the St ate Bank ). Benjamin would be facing her e an o ther charac ter that nev er theless shares affinities with his o wn. T his position is maintained by authors such as W ohlf ahr t (1978, 64) and Sontag (1981, 132 ff ) . 14 “In architecture and urbanism, w e cannot do without ‘ gr ound’ , nor can we do without critical thinking” ( Graafland 2012, 83) . 15 The image of the f orest is quite often associated to complexit y as perceiv ed in W es tern cultur e. Going back to the initial contextualization of the W est and its Others , P ar do (1992, 203–4) writes a beautif ul association bet ween the pr esence of trees and their significance in Christian and Muslim cultures: “ A vas t mantle of for es ts and moors , tinged with mor e or less fer tile cultivated clearings, such is the face of Christianit y , similar to a negative of the Muslim East, a world of oasis among deser ts . While in the East the for est is scar ce, it abounds in the W est ; ther e the tr ees mean civilization, her e , barbarism. Ref uge of the pagan geniuses, monk s , saints and missionaries tear it down in an implacable wa y . All pr ogr ess in medieval W est is ba sed on clearing, on s trug gle and vic tor y o ver the brush, the Destructive char acter [DE]CENTERING 68 The conclusion of the route may be uncertain, but there is no doubt that it will be enriched by multiple confrontations and encounters experienced along a way full of crossroads and intersections. Thus, the wor ds of Dider ot when he regar ded his own essays may be applicable to the course of the present r esearch: “Who knows wher e the chain of ideas will lead me?” (M ontaner 2007, 10) The objectives explained abo ve set a field of inter ests that make more plausible the constitution of a frame of r efer ence instead of a fixed fulcrum from which to operate. The limitations of such a decision are alr eady kno wn. F or decades, resear ch on architectur e has been absorbed by the model of the social sciences, 16 and contemporary academia somehow still privileges pur ely scientific approaches. H o wever , the field of architectural r esearch is far from determined and established, since it is in permanent construction. The uniqueness of the discipline, halfway between the r ealms of theor y and practice –as well as science and art–, has promoted several efforts to find appropriate methodologies of r esearch, which at the same time may be adapted depending on the topic or subject. Contemporar y academics such as Linda G roat and David W ang (2002; Sattrup 2012), Sanfor d K winter (K winter and Risteen 2007), Ákos M oravánszky and Ole W . F ischer (2008) or P eggy Deamer (Lahiji (ed.) 2016), among many others, have r eflected upon the condition of resear ch in architectur e and accurate methodologies to conduct it. All of them agree on the hybrid, particular character of the discipline and on the complexity that undertaking a research pr oject on architectur e entails. F rom this stems the necessity for “ atypical or unexpected combinations of methods ” (G roat and W ang 2002, viii). In this regar d, the work of G roat and W ang offers a series of architectural research methods that may be adjusted to the scope, subject and questions of investigation motivated by the objectiv e of acquiring kno wledge “ about how built environments could enhance human life ”(G roat and W ang 2002, xi). Besides, they offer a wide view of potential topics that can be subject bushes and, if necessar y and when technical means and courage allow it, o v er the f or est, the virgin for es t, the ‘ gaste fôr e t ’ of P er ceval, the dark for est of Dante. ” 16 P egg y Deamer (Lahiji ( ed. ) 2016, 113) a ssociates this fact with architectural autonomy as “ a necessar y r esponse to sa ve the discipline fr om non-creativ e for ces” af ter the sixties . Methodological approach 69 of architectural r esearch, highlighting their diversity: fr om technical and construction aspects to the generation of theor y . Befor e unfolding the set of tools and instruments that constitute the operational framework of the resear ch, it is worth reflecting on the convergence between theory and practice in which architecture –like other spatial disciplines, such as art or urbanism– is situated. This position enables the transfer of knowledge betw een both realms, which is essential for the purposes of the resear ch. P eter Sloter dijk (2013) traces an exhaustive genealogy of what he calls bíos theor etikós , the way of life of those who wer e devoted to the inner domain of thought and absent from external circumstances, as if they wer e “ dead, ” away from the world. The moments of ecstasy ( ek-stasis ) and absence (often associated to apathy , athymia ) 17 experienced by the theor etical subject, whose first incarnation is identified by S loter dijk as S ocrates, wer e to be designated as epojé , the term that H usserl borrow ed from the G reek skeptics to designate the “ abstinence of judgement ” (2013). Sloter dijk proclaims the death –or rather , murder b y “ modern epistemologists (…) naturalist philosophers, ideologists and troubled spirits of all kinds ” (S loter dijk 2013, 14)– of the homos theor eticus , acknowledging at the end of the book that it is impossible to r estor e this way of theoretical life: “(…) epistemological modernity has decided (…) to break with the sublime fictions of disinter ested reason and to appeal to the cognizant to r eturn from their contriv ed mortifications ” 18 (Sloter dijk 2013). The need to “ stop ” in order to exert theor y r equires a v oid amidst contemporar y speed that is usually difficult to open. 19 H o wever , Sloter dijk alludes to the possibility of exer cising a theoretical life in our days, although with a lo wer 17 The collision of ecsta sy and apath y , as Magun points out (2013b, 89), leads to melancholia –“another institution of negativ e aff ec tivity that Aris totle pr oclaims to be close to philosophy , ” 18 [ T . A . ] 19 “(…) the sheer speed of telecommunications undermines the time needed for scholarly contemplation. (…)Theory’ s temporalit y is traditionally belated. (…) theor y is impossible because we ha ve no time to r egister events” ( Chun 2011, 94). Bíos theor etikós [DE]CENTERING 70 intensity . There is a third way in betw een the active and the passiv e/ contemplative that the author calls “ exer citant life ”: Accor ding to its natur e, exer citant life constitutes a mixture r ealm: it appears as contemplative without sacrificing the features of activity; it appears as activ e without losing the contemplative perspective. E xer cise is the oldest form and with the greatest consequences of a self-r eferential praxis: its r esults do not come together in objects or external circumstances, as it happens when working and producing, but they configure the ex ercitant himself and bring him ‘into shape ’ as a subject capable of doing things . (Sloter dijk 2013, 17) 20 This kind of life is more understandable in a contemporary context and, at the same time, establishes a connection with the origins of theor y . Accor ding to its original meaning, the G reek theoria emerges through observation. 21 Theoros was a special envo y who took part in a delegation to a foreign festiv al or a religious celebration. H ence, he is mainly a spectator commissioned to attend a sacred cer emony , being theor y “ the act of vie wing ” (B ill 1901, 199). Over the y ears, the term would acquire the sense of speculativ e thinking: a mode of intellectual comprehension that inv olves to see beyond what is observed. Thus, theor y arises from the contemplation of a particular practice, but at the same time, contemplating is an act, that is, a way of participating, even if a passive one: (…) theoria is not to be conceived primarily as subjective conduct, as a self- determination of the subject, but in terms of what it is contemplating. Theoria is a true participation, not something active but something passive ( pathos ), namely being totally involved in and carried away b y what one sees . (Gadamer 2004, 122) Maybe thanks to the “ murder ers ” 22 that Sloterdijk (2013) enumerates, the relational character of theor etical activity has become an essential 20 [ T . A . ] 21 (Bill 1901; Mora vánszk y 2003, 3; Gadamer 2004, 122) 22 The author (2013) points to ten conditions that trig ger ed the mur der of theor etical life: the r e - implant ation of theor y into prac tice ( mostly through neo- Hegelians, such as Mar x ); the break of modern thinking with the fic tions of epistemic sov er eignism ( through Nietz sche ); the infiltration of the classical principle of “apathy” b y par tisan thinking ( thr ough Lukács ); the subv ersion of the W estern culture of rationality by the phenomenological analysis ( through Heideg ger ); the shock caused by ev ent s such as Methodological approach 71 condition to exer cise thereof . In this sense, it is unconceivable today to leave the sensible world and r etire to the heights of thought without contemplating the possibility of coming back. This progr essive mur der made possible the translation of modern and contemporar y modes of theor y to disciplines that had been traditionally tied to the realm of practice (at least in the W est), such as architectur e and urbanism, which until the eighteenth centur y (H egel ’ s essay on architecture is highly relev ant in this regar d) had only been nur tured with kno wledge directly deriv ed from praxis. T alking about space and negativity today from an architectural point of view would make no sense if it were not oriented to war d a specific, sensible reality –in this case, urban space and its W estern connotations and identification with “ public space. ” F or these reasons, the notion of theor y as “ fast philosophy ” is rejected here, in favor of a mo vement that ties together theory and practice, reinforcing each other: the theoretical moment of r eflection on a perceiv ed reality infuses practice with new tools, while at the same time contemporar y architectural practice serves as a starting point for the generation of theor y . Besides, if this mo vement is filter ed through a critical perspective and put in r elation with the social, the mission of architectural theory and practice appears: The task for architectural theory is to adjust the register of architectural activity from the autonomous realm of aesthetic effect to an expanded r ealm of multiple and unstable engagements with the social. The task for architectural practice is to find available openings to destabilise current r egimes of production— continuously . (Barber 2005, 249) Once the framework and positions have been clarified, and finally facing Benjamin ’ s terrible for est, the instruments for the immersion shall be displayed. Despite their div ersity and their different origin, it is unavoidable to combine them in or der to undertake the research, Hir oshima and Nagasak i in the belief in the disinter ested knowledge of modern science; the bombing of systematic philosophical think ing and natural-scientific w orldview b y existentialism; the introduction of the ac ademic discourse hus tle b y the sociolog y of knowledge; the at tempts of feminism to unmask all discursive or derings that hav e been developed as fabrications of a dominant masculinity ; the r efutation that per forms contemporar y neur olog y of apathy in theory , and the ov er coming the m y th of the isolation of the know er in r ecent scientific r esear ch ( through Latour ) . [DE]CENTERING 72 given the complexity of the subject and the multiple angles from which it is approached. The transfer of kno wledge between differ ent fields is essential and amplifies the scope of the process. C ritical interpr etive resear ch. Architectural and urban theor eticians have largely r elied on the hermeneutical method to develop their activity (P érez-G ómez 1997; M untañola Thornberg et al. 2002; Hassenpflug, G iersig, and S tratmann (eds.) 2011; Kidder 2011; Ber tin 2013; S eamon 2015), partly because of the possibilities that it opens when tr ying to understand static, “ silent” artifacts whose reality cannot be grasped through mer ely material or positivist premises, but thr ough their interpretation, mainly based on the idea of “ text analogues ” that are interpr eted in or der to learn “ their intersubjectively shared, and different meanings ” (Schwar tz-S hea and Y anow 2012). S ince their new rise in the sixties, hermeneutics as a method has evolved from a textual character to be open to other realities. T ogether with phenomenology , 23 hermeneutics constitutes the philosophical background of what is called “interpr etive r esearch ” that can be identified with “investigations into social-physical phenomena within complex contexts, with a view towar d explaining those phenomena in narrative form and in a holistic fashion ” (G roat and W ang 2002, 136). Schwar tz-S hea and Y anow (2012), who hav e devoted an entir e book to this approach, ackno wledge that both lines of thought have influenced r esearch practices based on interpr etation through a series of key ideas: 23 In Architecture’ s Historical T ur n (2010), Jorge Oter o -P ailos explores the influence of phenomenolog y on the transition to postmodern architecture and the emergence of a r enewed ar chitec tural theor y in order to r esis t the consequences of post war modernism. Agains t the teleological-technological utopia embodied b y modern ar chitec ture, phenomenolog y ser ved as a base for ar chitectural theoreticians ( fr om Norberg-Schulz to Frampton, Labatut or Moore ) to r estore the intellectual, experiential ( above all, in terms of bodily experience ) and historic dimensions of architecture. Ho we ver , after this first “generation ” of ar chitectural phenomenologis ts , differ ent groups and curr ents – especially fr om a post -struc turalist contex t - s tar ted to diverge, put ting into question their pr oduc tion and ex cessiv e intellectualiz ation of ar chitec tural thought, thus shifting to ward prac tice. Still toda y , phenomenology is a relevant discursiv e mode in terms of per ception and affects . C ritical hermeneutics Methodological approach 73 (…) that the artifacts humans create, whether in the form of language, objects, or acts, embody what is meaningful to their creators at the time of their creation; (…) that those artifacts may , however , have other meanings to other (groups of ) people who encounter and/or use them: knowledge is situated and contextual (or “local”), as ar e “know ers ” (including resear chers); (…) that what is meaningful at the time of an artifact’ s creation might change ov er time or in a different location of usage; (…) that meaning-making—the interpretation and understanding of those artifacts and their meaning—has no one, single starting point; instead, meaning- making begins wherever it begins, with whatev er the interpreter (including researchers) kno ws or understands at that point in time, in that place (his or her prior knowledge); (…) that meaning-making draws on “lived experience ”—a term that has come in some treatments to include the holistic, embodied ways in which humans mov e through the world; (…) that meaning-making is a social practice, as well as an individual one (in many cases, the former pro viding the interpretiv e repertoire for the latter); (…) that language is not a transparent r eferent for what it designates nor does it merely “ mirror ” or “ reflect” an external world but, instead, plays a r ole in shaping or “ constituting ” understandings of that world, and is itself , in this sense, one of the “ ways of worldmaking” (…) (Schwartz-S hea and Y anow 2012) H o wever , the present wor k is not focused on cities or buildings as objects-texts that can be read or understood thr ough literal or semiotic interpretation, but rather as complex socio-spatial pr ocesses that involve a myriad of agents, structur es and other processes; they are culturally mediated and permeated b y forms of pow er , all of which calls for the suitability of a critical approach that would enable an “impro ved ethical practice ” (G iven (ed.) 2008, 151). Critical hermeneutics, founded on the ex change between G adamer and Habermas (R oberge 2011, 7) and the later critique of critical theor y from poststructuralist positions, open a balanced field between both approaches, in which social po wer r elations ar e integrated into the hermeneutic background (G iven (ed.) 2008, 152 ff) and the “ specifically ideological deformation of language use ” (Kinsella 2006) [DE]CENTERING 80 even befor e the term was coined– in the context of art exhibitions and galleries. F or instance, he recalls ho w the artist and critic Liam Gillick (2006, 106) detected in Cologne, at the beginning of the nineties, a division between a group of artists who advocated transpar ency within art (Andrea F raser , Clegg and Guttmann, and others) and another group that r ecognized the importance of finding and articulating “ a sequence of veils and meanderings ” in or der to “ to combat the chaotic ebb and flow of capitalism ” (Philippe P arreno, D ominique Gonzalez- F oerster and others). This latter position, which would occasionally give birth to the notion of relational aesthetics, opens a space for critique against a dominant culture that uses transpar ency as a main tool for maintaining its hegemony . Either within or out of the institution, r elational aesthetics – understood beyond its o wn temporality– pro vides tools to establish the link between space and politics –either as negotiation and consensus, as Bourriaud does, or in terms of antagonism, resistance and negativity (Aguirre 2017)–, which is essential to the objectiv es of this resear ch project. I ndeed, conflict appears as a very specific type of relation and, at the same time, as the ultimate object of politics. The work of the F r ench philosopher J acques Rancière seems to be valuable to further elaborate this connection, as T oni Ross (2006) understands when revisiting his writings on aesthetics and politics in her response to Bourriaud ’ s relational aesthetics. I t is impor tant to keep in mind that Bourriaud advocated the absence of conflict in favor of negotiation and consensus in artistic practice. T o counter this assumption, Ross interpr ets Rancièr e ’ s notion of the aesthetic regime of art in or der to push relational aesthetics further from the consensual constraints of liberal politics, based on symmetrical relations that assume the existence of democratic equality in society . Considering that this equality is far from being r eal and that we ar e immersed in a mesh of asymmetrical (pow er) relations, the possibility of a relational aesthetics based on dissent and conflict appears to pro vide a mor e fruitful framework for the purposes of the research. One of Rancièr e ’ s most determinant contributions is the examination of politics from an aesthetic perspective as “ the distribution of the sensible ” (Rancière 2004b), in which he detects how “ spaces, times, and forms of activity ” determine how and in what Asymmetrical r elations Methodological approach 81 way individuals participate of the something-in-common shared by the group (2004b , 12). Thus, follo wing Aristotle, a citizen would be the one who “ has a part in the act of gov erning and being go verned ” (2004b , 12), while those excluded do not possess this status. I n this sort of choreography of partitions and distributions – of “ spaces and times, of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise ” (2004b , 13)–, Rancière finds the aesthetical character of politics – from a certain a-historical standpoint. Therefor e, political activity is understood as the activity of distribution: “ nothing is political in itself ” (Rancière 1999, 32), but rather everything is ordered thr ough politics. Thus, political activity –always local and precarious (Rancièr e 2004a)– is possible because the establishment of relations betw een objects/bodies, as well as their calling into question. The author adds a second term, the police , to designate the means by which this distribution is regulated, the “law that defines a party ’ s share or lack of it ” (Rancière 1999, 29). The police is then in charge of establishing consensus, while “ dissensus ” (disagreement, conflict) is an issue of politics (V an T oorn 2012, 60). The double theorization of “ the politics of aesthetics ” and “ aesthetics as politics ” opens an inter esting field that has been further developed and explor ed. If R osalyn Deutsche (1996) had alr eady introduced the link between spatial politics and artistic practice, Roemer v an T oorn (2012) relies on Rancièr e to transfer these notions to architectur e while advocating its political possibilities against the post-critical discourse. B y bringing together the critical concept of autonomy and the interest of pr ojective practice in everyday life, van T oorn proposes the acceptance of conflict within the ver y discipline as a political question. Besides, he places architectur e ’ s political potential in the capacity of organizing space and time and creating “ possible encounters ” for new relations and conflicts (2012, 60). O nce again, the imagination of the possible appears as an essential task of architectur e –and the architect. As examples –despite the connotations of interiority that both projects may pr esent and that will be later addressed–, he pr oposes Wiel Ar ets ’ university librar y on the U ithof in U trecht and R em K oolhaas ’ Casa da M úsica in P or to, where spaces and paths are juxtaposed not pr esenting clear , typical arrangements, but opening the possibility for collective practice avoiding consensus. Distribution of the sensible [DE]CENTERING 82 With r egar d to urban space, the possibilities opened by an extended relational aesthetics ar e amplified because of the diversity of agents and the political implications of space –understood as a set of processual and r elational systems (Löw 2006, 120)–, among other reasons that the r esearch aims at unv eiling by placing the focus on particular situations and urban fragments. As Lieven de Cauter (2004, 7) points out, “ the politics of the city is always an aesthetic politics. ” Seductions and (counter)mo vements. T o think is to describe a path in the geography of thought. (P ardo T orío 1992, 128) The construction of public space is usually identified with urban space, but it forms part of social space as well; hence the importance of linking urban and architectural r esearch and cultural studies through politics. W orking within this framework has the advantage of not only acquiring knowledge thr ough the obser vation of r elations in space, but also the possibility of spatializing this knowledge b y means of (spatial) practice. 31 N owadays, ther e is a considerable amount of bibliography related to these issues as a consequence of a r enewed interest in urban space, which has gr own especially after the citiz en manifestations and protests all around the world. 31 The notion of spatialization of thought as essential for the dev elopment of this work has alr eady been mentioned. Later we will r ef er to the figur e of Giulio Camillo (1480-1544) as the thinker who dr eamed of the human mind as a theater -machine, an interior space in which to keep and displa y all possible wor ds, images and idea s (Bologna 2017, 10). 10 09 Methodological approach 83 H o wever , the concern about W estern connotations of public urban space have to be addr essed, thus invalidating an approach concentrated exclusiv ely on W estern socio-spatial processes. I nstead, a methodological strategy based on negativity triggers a shift towar ds the other and the different. D espite the cultural background in which the resear ch project –and the r esearcher– is inserted, the contestation of a deeply assimilated concept requir es to divert the gaze at some point. If the seductiveness of images has alr eady been outlined, the diversity of cities and modes of life shar e this pow er . This fascination for other urban universes is not because of exotism or their attractiv e otherness, but by virtue of the rev ersal of certain values and situations that are r ecognized as global fr om a W estern perspective: they ar e seductive because they force ourselv es to abandon our convictions and reconfigur e our view of the world. The action of abandonment, of deviating oneself from a fix ed path, is at the origins of the wicked force of seduction: to seduce (from the Latin se-ducer e ) means to lead astray , to deviate. This force, howev er , was obliterated through the bourgeois era accor ding to Baudrillar d (1990, 1), since it did not fit within the natural and rational realms. B ut it is pr ecisely its capacity to destabilize and thr eaten which makes it fundamental for the resear ch: Seduction, ho wev er , never belongs to the order of natur e, but that of artifice (…) This is why all the great systems of production and interpr etation have not ceased to exclude seduction -to its good fortune- from their conceptual field. F or seduction continues to haunt them from without, and from deep within its forsaken state, threatening them with collapse. (…) E very discourse is threatened with this sudden reversibility . This is why all disciplines, which hav e as an axiom the coherence and finality of their discourse, must try to exorcize it. (B audrillar d 1990, 2) The task, then, is not to completely decipher the code of the three selected urban fragments to elaborate an extensive cartography of each one of them, but rather to deviate the resear ch apart from established truths and narratives, both in a local and a global perspective that challenges W estern preconceptions. These thr ee case studies – understood as seductiones – do not belong to a traditional W estern context, although W estern traces and relations can be detected in different ways, either because of its influence or its absence. F or Seduction [DE]CENTERING 84 instance, Beijing can be seen as the urban embodiment of a physical system that radically differs from the W estern one throughout histor y , although nowadays ther e is a tendency to endorse certain modes of life and inhabiting that resemble some of the W est that will be further explored. W arsaw , on the other hand, is the capital of a state that shares the E uropean project and which holds some of the most traditional values of W estern culture such as the Christian-catholic tradition. H o wever , its peripheral condition with respect to the E uropean cor e and its alignment with the communist bloc after the Second W orld W ar have left some traces that are worth revisiting, such as the work of Oskar H ansen through human per ception and interaction between bodies and objects. Lastly , the case of Istanbul repr esents both the scission and encounter between East and W est; a chiasm that poses a conflictual relation that still r esonates today , even in the virtual realm. The study of these three cases has been conducted through a series of field trips, the r evision of available bibliography and graphic material and inter views with some main agents. The objective is not to elaborate a thorough portrait of each city through specific spatio-temporal situations, but to bring out some conditions that remain concealed beneath their lay ers, as pentimenti that hide possible, non-fulfilled stories and spaces that may reinfor ce the understanding of their urban reality . F inally , what remains now is the clarification of the structure of the present wor k. F or this reason, w e should come back to S loter djik (2013), who associates theoretical activity –no w embedded within exer citant life– with back and forth mov ements. The sage, once again repr esented by S ocrates, leaves the external world when thinking. H e is absent, somewhere else –“Where are w e when we think?, ” Hannah Ar endt asks (Sloter dijk 2013). As a consequence of the act of thinking, this displacement suggests the mobile character of “being outside ”; Sloter dijk r emembers that H eidegger 32 also found an affinity between the G reek ekstasis and the Latin existentia , r evealing once again the dynamic character of an apparent static activity . H ence, 32 Sloter dijk (2011, 20 ff ) fur ther elaborates on the figure of Heidegger a s “ the thinker in motion. ” Thought and (counter)motion Methodological approach 85 the moment of absence (that H usserl would associate with epoché, suspension) acquires spatial connotations. 33 The course of the present r esearch has been enhanced b y multiple absences and returns to the world of practice. M any thoughts and ideas have been bracketed –or suspended, as this is the function that the S panish philosopher F élix Duque (2001) attributes to this orthographic sign– for long periods of time until they were r eady to be communicated. Therefor e, the articulation of the work responds to these round trips, ex ercising a mo vement and its opposite at the same time: five mo vements and counter-mo vements towar ds the realms of the physical city , the body in space and the real-virtual relations betw een human and non-human agents, interrupted by three seductiones to alter the prescribed path. 33 In fact, Sloterdijk (2013) sug gests that Plato built the Academia a s a space (“heter otope construc tion”) f or those who w er e entir ely dev oted to the activit y of thought. [DE]CENTERING 86 Bibliography . Adorno, Theodor W . 1979. “Functionalism T oday . ” Oppositions 17 , no . 17: 30–41. Aguirre, P eio . 2014. La línea de producción de la crítica . B ilbao: Consonni. ———. 2017. “F or tunas de la llamada estética relacional. ” Campo de Relámpagos . http:// campoderelampagos.org/critica-y-r eviews/9/9/2017?rq=peio aguirre. Andreotti, Libero, and N adir Lahiji. 2016. 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An intentional reading of their contributions, always with the issue of space in mind, points out the most relev ant figures in the generation of a philosophy of negativity that, in addition, have opened some bridges between space and the negative. This means that not all W estern philosophers of negativity have been included in this section; rather , only those who somehow offer pr oductive r elations between both space and negativity have been taken into consideration. U nlike the other three authors, Artemy M agun starts his account on the theories of negativity from classical antiquity , to which we shall return in sev eral occasions throughout the text. M agun (2013, 83) detects that the forces of the negative ar e alr eady present at the origins of W estern thought in G reece, particularly understood in a rhetorical and dialogical manner . H e places the origins of W estern negativity in the Pythagor ean School, which understood the world through the coupling of contraries (M agun 2013, 83). H o wev er , this conception of the Pythagor eans –who believed in the unity of astrology , music, mathematics and thought, as well as in the numerical essence of reality– was based on a static equilibrium, a cosmic perfection underlying the universe. 1 I t was P armenides of Elea who first questioned this univ ersal rev ersibility , relegating the 1 The Gr eek his torian Diogenes Laer tius describes the inter est of the Py thagoreans in dualisms: “Ther e are also antipodes, and our ‘do wn’ is their ‘up. ’ Light and darkness hav e equal par t in the universe, so ha ve hot and cold, and dr y and moist (... )” Lives 01 Opposition, equilibrium 97 Spatium negatio negative to the r ealm of opinion ( doxa ), inferior to that of truth ( aletheia ). This asymmetr y inaugurates a whole tradition of thought in which the path of negation is considered to be that of “ ambiguity , imager y and subjective ir ony ” (M agun 2013, 83); besides, any negation implies an immediate affirmation just by naming what we want to negate. P armenidean metaphysics paved the gr ound for many other thinkers and philosophers, such as Democritus, who approached the question of being (associated to the full) and not-being (to the void) from a materialist perspectiv e where both being and not-being coexist as real entities; or the sophist G orgias, who associates negation with imagination, criticizing P armenides ’ identification of being with logos , as it is possible “ to conceive and name the nonexistent things ” (Magun 2013, 84). Magun does not mention other r elevant episodes, such as the A ntilogies of P rotagoras, in which the sophist –disciple of H eraclitus– show ed ho w the same argument can be presented fr om opposing views, or the Socratic maieutic dialectics, the method to draw out ideas through progr essive dialogue and questions. Both the sophists and Socrates influenced P lato, who was the first philosopher to pose the problem of the negative as the pr oblem of thought, or rather “ of thought’ s ability to discriminate between that which is and that which is not ” (B rassier 2013, 177). N ot only did he adopt the back- and-forth dialectic developed by his master , Socrates, but he also formulated the question of not-being and its relation to being b y suspending the P armenidean axiom –“being is, and not-being is not ”–, although some of the ideas of the E lean are still r ecognizable. F or Plato, negation is differ ence, the Other of Being, and he distinguishes four ways of thinking this otherness (Magun 2013, 85): as multiplicity; as ungraspable and transcendental otherness; as a plural other facing the non-existence of the One, and as N othing –the absent and unthinkable One. 2 The Platonic khôr a , to which we shall of the Eminent Philosopher s . Book VIII, Py thagoreans [26]. T ranslated b y R ober t Drew Hicks (1925). 2 In this sense, humans ar e permanently strug gling with the contemplation of truth and the imper fect means we ha ve to reach it: “W e ar e condemned to ha ving to deal with an addition of darkness in all things , ” although philosophy w ould open the possibilit y of illumination (Sloter dijk 2010, 24). One and N othing Being, not-Being [DE]CENTERING 98 return later , was already a spatial conception based on pur e negativity; it is the “ receptacle without qualities ” wher e images are generated, appearing as a “ formless space ” only definable through that which occupies it. The khôr a described in T imaeus is a realm for specters, imperfect images of the ideas, thus being a sor t of interval between the sensible and the intelligible which how ever situates negativity out of dualisms, escaping binaries and dialectics (Derrida 1995). In his C ategories , Aristotle argues for a relational negativity , that is, things are not positiv e or negative per se, but only when opposed to another term. 3 Thus, the Other , as well as in the work of Plato, appears as the main pillar of negativity (M agun 2013, 86). P arts 10 and 11 of the Aristotelic work ar e devoted to contrariness and opposition, of which the philosopher identifies four types: correlativity –for instance, the r elation between “ double ” and “half , ” or “knowledge ” and “ the thing known ”–; contrariety –between “ good ” and “bad, ” or “black ” and “ white ” (“ either/or” r elations)–; privation –“blindness ” and “ sight, ” when one of the terms is considered to be a natural state and the other repr esents a lack, a privation of a positive state–, and finally , “ affirmation to negation ” or contradiction between mutually incompatible statements –“S ocrates is ill ” and “Socrates is w ell. ” What is remar kable about these sections is that Aristotle sees negativity as an active force and not as a static encounter of “indifferent positivities, ” thus anticipating the work of Kant and H egel on the negative (M agun 2013, 89). Besides, anticipating future conceptions of space as a negativ e, relational r ealm, the G reek philosopher would define space as the result of defining all contraries. 4 Befor e discussing the role of negativity in modern thought, it is worth recognizing the influence of Christian N eo-Platonism in medieval and scholastic philosophy . N egation, through the so-called 3 “No one of these terms , in and by itself , inv olves an affirmation; it is b y the combination of such terms that positive or negativ e s tatement s arise. F or every a sser tion must, a s is admit ted, be either true or false, wher ea s expr essions which ar e not in an y wa y composite such as ‘man ’ , ‘white’ , ‘runs ’ , ‘wins’ , cannot be either true or false. ” Aristotle. Categories [4]. T ranslated by E. M . Edghill . 4 “Indeed, it seems that in defining contraries of ever y kind men hav e r ecourse to a spatial metaphor , for they sa y that those things ar e contraries which, within the same class , ar e separated b y the gr eatest possible dist ance” (Aristotle, Categories chapter 6) . Relational negativity 99 Spatium negatio via negativa , was promoted as a privileged –although not ex clusive– way to know G od by stating what I t is not, since it is impossible to know what I t really is. H ence, only a-gnosia and contemplation would be possible. This mode of discernment, called apophasis (contrar y to kataphasis , related to affirmation), was follo wed b y thinkers such as P seudo Dionysus the A eropagite (who invites to kno w by not knowing, illuminated b y a “ ray of darkness ”) and later by J ohn Scotus, M eister Eckhar t and scholastics such as D uns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, cr eating a language of “ radical openness ” 5 (F ranke 2014, 90) towar ds the unknown through uncertainty and elusion. Again, it shall be remar ked that this way of knowing thr ough negation is not unique to Christian and W estern thought, but rather it is present in earlier Eastern traditions, such as the Madhyamaka school of M ahayana Buddhism, wu w ei in T aoism and N eo-T aoism, 6 the Hindu school of Adv aita V edanta and the V edic notion of neti neti (“ not this, not this ”), or later with the S ephar dic J ewish philosopher Maimonides and his G uide for the P erplex ed (1904) and in I slamic negative theology , lahoot salbi . Indeed, many G reek classical texts arriv ed in medieval E urope thr ough the Arabic culture, hence the assimilations and transfers to Christian thought. I t is still possible to recognize the echo of this tradition in a crucial assertion that has been traditionally attributed to Baruch S pinoza: “ Omnis determinatio est negatio ” (“ ever y determination is negation ”) 7 5 This type of negative critique is r ecogniz able in the work of Adorno and Horkheimer “ contra the conceptual idolatr y that is rampant in modern and postmodern cultur e, with their unbridled consumerism, their commodity fetishism, and their culture industr y dominated by technocratic po w er” (Franke 2014, 96). Mor e recently , it can be identified as well in the w ork of Jean-Luc Nanc y , Gianni V attimo or Giorgio Agamben. 6 “T ao is the source of all being, but ins tead of identif ying T ao with a cr eator ‘hea ven ’ or a ‘vit al energ y’ ( ch’i ), W ang Pi argues that Being originates fr om ‘non- Being’ ( wu ). The concept of non-Being , taken fr om Lao T zu, brings to light the significance of T ao. Nameless and formless, T ao as such can only be described negatively as wu , literally ‘not ha ving’ any f eature” (Audi ( ed. ) 2004, 703). [ T . A . ] 7 In the let ter 50 to Jarig Jellis, Spinoza wr ote: “ A s to the doc trine that figur e is negation and not any thing positiv e, it is plain that the whole of mat ter consider ed indefinitely can ha ve no figur e, and that figure can only exist in finite and determinate bodies. For he who sa ys, that he perceiv es a figur e, mer ely indicates ther eb y , that he conceives a determinate thing, and how it is determinate. T his determination, theref or e, does not apper t ain to the thing accor ding to its being , but, on the contrar y , is its non- A pophatic thought [DE]CENTERING 100 when arguing that since the universe has no determinate form or shape, all forms and shapes “introduce negativity ” into G od/the universe, “ who does not contain it per se ” (M agun 2013, 92), as it is infinite and ungraspable. Thus, affirmation and negation appear as tied to each other , as different moments of a same logic. This would have strong r epercussions in G erman idealism, especially in H egel, who would understand negativity as the motor of his philosophical system. Immanuel Kant would also deal with negativity at some point, but it was not a central issue in his philosophy . Despite this, some authors consider that he made some relev ant contributions in this regar d, and so Magun (2013, 92 ff) focuses on his pre-critical period, when he writes a brief text entitled “ Attempt to Intr oduce the Concept of N egative Magnitudes into P hilosophy ” (1992) in 1763. Departing from mathematical concepts, Kant makes a crucial distinction between logical opposition –a sheer lack, “ nihil negativum irr epr aesentabile ” (Kant 1992, 211)– and real opposition, which corresponds to a material for ce of resistance, r epugnancy ( R epugnanz ) –“ nihil privativum, r epr aesentabile ” (Kant 1992, 211). I n the thir d section of the text, Kant recogniz es the negative, obscur e character of the psychological for ces of imagination and the unconscious, although he does not explain this further . Diana Coole (2000), who explores the Kantian C ritiques , perceives the German philosopher as “ an ambiguous figure (…) who engender ed or succumbed to negativity in his attempt to exile it, but in whose project of critique a certain negativity is nevertheless embraced” (2000, 13), even though when negativity as a modern problem had not yet been formulated. Thus, in the texts of Kant, it is possible to appreciate the incipient mo vement from classical negation –as action– to wards a modern sense of negativity , understood as potentiality . This negativity opens the possibility of critique as a “ process of interrogating rationally- unjustifiable authority , whether philosophical or political” (Coole 2000, 40). being. A s then figure is nothing else than determination, and determination is negation, figur e, as ha s been said, can be nothing but negation. ” [ The las t two sentences ar e translated fr om Latin, being the original tex t as follo ws: Haec ergo determinatio ad rem juxta suum esse non per tinet: sed e contra est ejus non esse. Quia ergo figura non aliud quam determinatio, et de terminatio negatio est ; non po terit , ut dictum, aliud quid, quam negatio esse . ] C ritique and negation 101 Spatium negatio H o wever , Kant is permanently struggling against inconsistencies and contradictions when tr ying to establish the limits of reason –in a spatial, almost cartographic system that is, according to A dorno (2004, 388), “ a system of stop signals ”–, leaving outside those elements that do not fit into the system, such as imagination and doubt to a certain extent. This attitude is clearly reflected in his texts, in which he always tries to o vercome and rationaliz e negativity instead of embracing contradictions and dualities –what Coole (2000, 41) calls “ generative negativity . ” Kant aims at dissolving sceptical, pre- critical thought by r endering positive and productiv e the problem of the limit: The problematic engendered b y scepticism (…) undermines epistemic confidence in the truth or accessibility of the given (the positive), sustaining an interrogative and doubting attitude to war ds it. Things are not what they seem. A sceptical attitude invokes the possibility , at worst, of a void (outside the mind there is nothing; objective r eality is an illusion; what seems to be pr esent may be absent) or , at best, of a slippage between subject and object, with its attendant uncertainties concerning misrepresentation and err or , where knowledge might dissolve into contingency or fantasy . (Coole 2000, 16) Thus, Kant ’ s negativity is not explicit, but it unavoidably emerges because of the placing of limits: it is not generative, but formal. S till, Coole finds an ultimate access to negativity in Kant in negative noumena, which unlike positive noumena (that allo w the transition to the moral dimension), are accessible to the senses but not to understanding: “P erhaps then there is a nonr epresentational ‘kno wing ’ that Kant ’ s sensibility/understanding configuration denies, where knowledge is mor e fragile and opaque than the transcendental method allows ” (Coole 2000, 33). This form of knowing by not-kno wing, related to the ungraspable, non-understandable dimension of sensitiv e experience acquires a r enewed inter est, when bodies and affects occupy a relev ant position in contemporar y thought. N evertheless, after this brief ov er view of the most important contributions on negativity in classical and pre-modern W estern thought, H egel is considered to be the first modern “ adventur er ” in negativity because of his articulation of dialectics, in which the negative comes to be the very motor of knowledge (thought) and reality (life) thr ough “ a dynamics of becoming” (Coole 2000, 43). I n N egative noumena N egativity as motor [DE]CENTERING 102 this regar d, his work repr esents a milestone that cannot be bypassed or o verlooked in any way . Whether to criticiz e, endorse or reco ver its sense of negativity , it is continuously being re-read, r e-interpr eted, re-appr opriated, either for its extension or contestation. In fact, after a long period of refusal and r eaction against his philosophy from very different positions, an incipient tendency is emerging with a renewed inter est for H egelian –and Platonic– thought within radical contemporar y philosophy , as in the works of Alain Badiou (2008; 2011) or Slav oj Ž ižek (1993; 2012). 8 This can be r egar ded as an attempt to reco ver an “ architectonic system ” or foundation that stabilizes a philosophy that has been r epositioned against reason – mainly by N ietzsche and F rench poststructuralism (Lahiji 2014, 2 ff); a reco ver y that appears even mor e clearly through the theor etical arch traced on the architectural metaphor b y Derrida (1999), H ollier (1993) and Karatani (1995). Lahiji also puts for war d the opposition between the architectural and the musical metaphor in philosophy , repr esented mainly by P lato and H egel –even Kant– on the one side, 8 Besides, Hegelian negativit y had also been approached bef ore b y authors like Julia Kristeva (1984; K ramer 2013) and Herber t Marcuse (1941)fr om differ ent perspec tiv es. 02 Ar chitectur al metaphor 103 Spatium negatio and N ietzsche on the other , displaying a tension between “ grounding ” and “ fr eedom, ” certainty and deconstr uction. H egelian metaphysics are actually r egarded as an extension –or even the “ consummation ” (Sloter dijk 2010, 79)– of Christian- Platonic metaphysics. H is dialectics, simultaneously ontological and methodological (Coole 2000, 52), is deeply rooted in the philosophy of Plato and the introduction of differ ence within the r ealm of Being. Both understood knowledge as a gradual pr ocess that mo ves fr om elementar y forms to concrete, mor e per fect ones, although H egel would be the one to introduce the dialectical character of time and histor y , coinciding with the revolutionary discourse of Enlightenment and opening a vast field to be explor ed by further adventur ers. Besides, the dialogical character of Platonic dialectics is not pr esent in H egel, who understands the process as an individual pr ogression inserted in the path towar d universal r ealization. The mov ement of a being that immediately is consists partly in becoming an other than itself , and thus becoming its own immanent content; partly in taking back into itself this unfolding [of its content] or this existence of it, i.e., in making itself into a moment, and simplifying itself into something determinate. In the former mo vement, negativity is the differentiating and positing of existence ; in this return into self , it is the becoming of determinate simplicity . (H egel 1998, 32) The abstract, floating ideas of Plato, which r epresent the ultimate stage of knowledge, would crystalize into H egelian particular consciousness, which continuously evolves and goes bey ond itself through contradictions and entanglements, “ to discover in the end that its identity (…) lays not in an abstract sameness or an empty self- contemplation, but in going outside itself (…): inhabiting exteriority and difference is ho w we r each a knowledge of ourselves that, moreo ver , always differs and escapes ” (Barrios Casar es 1995, 129). 9 9 [ T . A . ] This interpr et ation of the Spanish philosopher Manuel Barrios is inter esting because it a ssociates Hegel with exteriorit y , something that is quite unusual. W e shall return later to the duality interiorit y/exteriorit y as a reflection on the charac ters of time and space. Suffice it to sa y at this moment that Hegelian thought is often r elated to the interior , to the internal realm of time and Being: thus, the contrar y of something is not its ex tr eme, but an internal “r eflec tion of its other” (Magun 2013, 100). This w ould weak en Identity and differ ence [DE]CENTERING 104 H o wever , negativity , which is essential for both Plato and Hegel, remains secondary and subordinated to the positive (being). F or instance, negativity is o vercome b y the “ negation of negation ” in H egelian dialectics. Essence is thus related to the A bsolute, and difference is r elegated to the background, as a for ce that fades after the dialectical process to r e-appear again and again. 10 The disruptive forces of negativity drive things forward in a world that, following S pinoza, is always already-negated, and wher e “ any fact or law ” are “internally contradictor y , implying the possibility of its opposite ” (Magun 2013, 97). S ince everything carries its negation –or its potential “becoming ”– within, the possibility of critique is radically opened up leading not to a nihilistic approach (Hass 2014, 7), but to an active one –even chr onological, in the case of H egel. This has strong r epercussions in the socio-political spher e, since dialectics are ultimately a permanent r enewal of conflict. Dialectics as a critical practice, as Coole (2000, 55) sees it, “ might allow the political to unfold in a more rational way . ” But still, the negativ e remnants of the irrational, of that which cannot be surpassed by the dialectical forces, are not further analyzed b y the German philosopher . 11 Besides, his system, when applied to the logic of the state, aims at o vercoming contradictions within an irrational, individualist society (Mar cuse 1941, 61). At this point, one of the deepest ruptures emerges in the continuity of the H egelian or der . I s H egel a “ positive ” or a “ negative ” philosopher; a philosopher of “identity ” or of “ difference ”? This is by no means a simple question, the Deleuzian interpr etation of Hegel and, at the same time, evok e a r etr eat fr om the exterior realm –which is theoriz ed and explained b y P ar do (1992) . 10 “In continuit y with the Platonic met aph ysical tradition, [Hegel] is not r eady to give negativity full r ein, that is , his dialec tics is ultimately an eff or t to ‘normaliz e’ the ex cess of negativit y . For late Plato alr eady , the pr oblem wa s how to r elativize or contextualize non-being as a subordinate moment of being ( non-being is alwa ys a par ticular/ determinate lack of being measured b y the f ullness it fails to actualize; ther e is no non-being as such, ther e is alwa ys only (…) In the same vein, Hegelian ‘ negativit y’ ser ves to ‘pr oscribe absolute differ ence’ or ‘non-being’: negativity is limited to the obliteration of all finite/ immediate determinations ” (Žižek 2012, 199) . 11 “The modern histor y of the human spirit —and not that alone—ha s been an apologetic labor of Sisyphus: thinking awa y the negativ e side of the universal” (Adorno 2004, 327) . Against H egel 105 Spatium negatio and a definitive answer would be too simplistic, giv en the diversity of interpretations to which the wor k of the German philosopher has been subject. F or instance, Mar cuse mentions the reaction fr om positive philosophy (mainly Schelling and S tahl in Germany) against H egelian negativity and the permanent critique of the real, which, accor ding to them, “ repudiated any irrational and unreasonable reality ” (Marcuse 1941, 325) thr ough a transcendental reason that obliterates the nature and experience of things –in this sense, positive philosophy establishes a link with scientific positivism. Later , influenced by N ietzsche, F rench anti- or non-dialectical philosophers such as Derrida and Deleuz e would return to H egel to criticize the binaristic reduction to which plural and div erse difference is subsumed in his philosophy . Rather , they would advocate a philosophy of affirmation to a greater or lesser extent. 12 H owev er , N o ys (2010, 25 ff) makes a clear distinction between these two philosophers; while Deleuze r epr esents an “ adieu ” to negativity , Derrida embraces a “ weak affirmationism ” that cannot be reduced to an anti-dialectical position. On the contrary , others have seen a pr edominance of the positive in different aspects of his wor k. In this r egard, Alexandre K ojève (1980, 171) 13 does not consider H egelian dialectics as a dialectical method, but an empiricist or phenomenological one “in H usserl’ s sense of the term ”; even “ positivist” and contemplative. F or his par t, M erleau-P onty , during his lectures at the Collège de F rance (1970), explored dialectical philosophy and would detect a transition fr om the earlier to the later H egel, whose position evolv ed from the negatively 12 P ar tly because the prof usion of spatial r ef er ences in his w ork ( folds, plateaus, rhizomes…), Gilles Deleuz e became –and still is– extremely popular among ar chitect s and ar chitectural theoreticians in the wa ke of deconstructionism, a s a sour ce of thought and inspiration for pr ojec ts and tex ts . How ever , his work has been often misr ead and distor ted, leading to the cr eation of pseudo-philosophical concept s to justif y cer tain decisions. Andreotti and L ahiji (2016, 157) and Spencer (2016), among other , warn about the uncritical appr opriations of Deleuzian terms in the field of ar chitecture and r elate these prac tices to the pr olif eration of spect acular , iconic architectures which enhance the neoliberal phanta smagoria generating an ov erloading aes thetic experience which stuns and block s the user/spect ator . 13 Ther e is a consolidated tradition in French philosoph y ar ound the notions of negativit y and the dyad identity- differ ence. V incent Descombes (1988) r ecapitulates the main contributions on the topic fr om philosophers such as K ojèv e and his Hegelian interpr etation, Derrida or Deleuze. [DE]CENTERING 112 of the relation betw een humans and nature and the “ disappearance ” of nature as such would hav e its reper cussions in further understandings and conceptions of space. Befor e concluding, we have seen that the meaning of negativity has evolved thr oughout time. H o wev er , the general attitude towards the negative today is quite differ ent from what it used to be in past situations. In our days, negativity is usually r egar ded with caution, fear , or even disdain, and “being negative ” has a terrible reputation in a world that privileges happiness and positivity o ver gloomy characters, pessimistic positions and critical readings. A t best, negativity has been absorbed within the norm, as a “ necessar y counterpow er ” to speculate with –as it happened with the historic avant-gar des that enter ed a sort of self-sabotage logic facing a cultural industr y that needs them (Aguirre 2014, 188- 189). 19 Thus, r esistance, critique and opposition are conv eniently dosed by po wer institutions and corporations to validate their decisions and r einforce them to war d the public eye. The distance between r eality and its potential, which used to be the domain of critique and negativity , has been practically abolished, as it will be discussed in further sections, taking the arguments of Aguirre (2014) and H an (2013) as essential refer ences. Space (as exteriority) and negativity . N oli for as ir e, in te ipsum r edi, in interior e homine habitat veritas. [D o not go outwards, r eturn into yourself . T r uth lives in the inner man.](A ugustine of H ippo, De V era Religione , 390, §39, 37) Attend to yourself: turn y our attention away from everything that surrounds you and towar ds your inner life; this is the first demand that philosophy makes of its disciple. Our concern is not with anything that lies outside you, but only with yourself . (F ichte, First I ntroduction to the Science of Knowledge , 1797) 19 Aguirre (2014, 189-190) uses Gus van Sant’ s film Pr omised Land (2012) as an example of how some cultural pr oduc ts reflect how negativit y is used b y po w er for its own inter est. The film shows the strug gle bet w een the r epr esentative of a fracking company who aims at con vincing a small town of the benefits that such an ac tivit y could bring them and an eco -activis t who r eject s the pr oject and manages to change the minds of the inhabitant s. The contradiction bet ween the charac ter and occupation of the main charac ters ( the good guy is ac tually the multinational’ s work er and his ant agonist is the ecologist ) contributes to r einf or ce the conflict bet ween positiv e and negativ e values. 113 Spatium negatio M odernity could be explained through the process of subor dination of space to time. The Cartesian division between re s extensa and r es cogitans already established the differ entiation of two independent realms: the first, abstract, exterior and separated fr om the sensible reality; the second, subjectiv e and belonging to the inner dimension of mind, through which kno wledge and thought are possible. H ere, J osé Luis P ar do (1992, 22) notes ho w these dimensions would be associated to space and time respectiv ely and how the privileged realm of the subjectiv e interior –identified with the subject who thinks– would gradually become “ time, ” following a line of thought “ from Kant to H eidegger going through H egel, H usserl, Dilthey and Bergson. ” Augustine had alr eady advanced the idea of the rational S elf, who can only grasp the truth from within, and exterior would remain as the realm of mutability and imperfection for centuries. 20 S pace has been broadly identified with an exterior measurable and graspable thanks to inner reason, which is the only certainty the modern subject could trust. I t is not surprising that the Kantian notion of a human mind defined by the capacity to r eturn to itself from cosmic exteriority is directly r eflected, accor ding to S loter dijk (2013, 25), in Benjamin ’ s bourgeois interior that “ for the private man, represents the universe. I n the interior , he brings together the far away and the long ago . H is living room is a bo x in the theater of the world ” (Benjamin 2002, 9). Long before this bourgeois inner fortress, the W estern recognition of the interior as the privileged space of thought and truth is evident in spatializations such as those built by the I talian philosopher Giulio “Delminio ” Camillo. I n L ’Idea del Theatro , during the first decades of the sixteenth centur y , Delminio conceived a hypothetical hybrid space between theater and library in which all the universal knowledge would be contained and interrelated thanks to the machinic capacity of the human mind. This “Theater of M emor y , ” which as Bologna indicates repr esents a miniatur e of the universe, manifests itself spatially as “ a totalizing encyclopedia based on the r elations between ideas, images and wor ds ” adopting the form of the Vitruvian amphitheater that F ra Giocondo would later r e-disco ver and interpret 20 Several contemporary authors under take a critique of the primacy of interiorit y (P ar do T orío 1992; Mat téi 2005; Escuder o P érez 2013). Theater of mind [DE]CENTERING 114 (Bologna 2017, 10). 21 Already H ugo of S ainn Victor had intr oduced in De A r cha N oe a “ spiritual edifice ” to be built mentally through the virtual reflection of the exterior . And while Delminio was working on his universal theater , Ignatius of Loy ola was designing his Spiritual Exer cises as a way for the subject to withdraw into himself to meet the divine truth. Accor ding to Bologna (2017), all these incursions into the space of the interior are part of the same great dr eam, which could be summarized as follo ws: [T ]o transform our mind and that of all mankind into an internal building in perpetual gro wth, in an organic machine of memor y and cr eativity that could itself morph and metamorphose the world through concentration, spiritual exer cise and the domain of the abysmal network of wisdom, transferring it to the concrete life of individuals and even of collectivities and S tates. (Bologna 2017, 11) H o wever , it would be H egel who sought to pro vide a rational substrate to this primacy of the interior , being responsible to a gr eat extent for this association of a privileged inside containing the Self and the spirit, and a chaotic, abstract, extensive exterior r elated to the Other , the unthinkable. In his Philosophy of N atur e (2004), the philosopher devotes a section to the category of space, defining it as follows: The first or immediate determination of N ature is S pace: the abstract universality of N ature ’ s self-externality , self-externality ’ s mediationless indifference. I t is a wholly ideal side-by-sideness because it is self-externality; and it is absolutely continuous, because this asunderness is still quite abstract, and contains no specific difference within itself . (H egel and M iller (transl.) 2004, §254, 28) Like time, space is a “ pure form of sense or intuition ” (2004, §258, 34), but both differ in their condition and relation to being, since space is “ abstract objectivity ” and time “ abstract subjectivity . ” The fact that space is considered to pr ecede time in thought –also in the structure of H egel ’ s work– is quite significant, since it implies that the philosopher perceives space as an inferior , more basic category 21 [ T . A . ] Apparently , Camillo designed a small Theater of W isdom, built in wood ar ound the t w enties-thir ties of the six teenth centur y , firs t in P adua and then in P aris . A bstr act space 115 Spatium negatio compared to time, 22 which is motor , transformative pow er: “[t]he truth of space is time, and thus space becomes time ” (H egel 2004, §257 Zusatz , 34). Conversely , space would be the distor ted and external expression of time. (…) time itself is the becoming, this coming-to-be and passing away , the actually existent abstraction, Chronos , from whom ev er ything is born and by whom its offspring is destro yed. The real is certainly distinct from time, but is also essentially identical with it. (H egel 2004, §258 Remar k, 35) Therefor e, space is pr esented as the primitive, first dialectical moment of nature, belonging to the r ealm of “ thought gone outside itself as the thought of outsideness ” (B rann 2016), that eventually becomes time through motion and thus is liberated from its “ paralysis ” and indifference 23 (B rann 1999, 26). If time is associated with the negation of the negation and its positive outcome that allo ws transformation within itself , negation in space is always related to an O ther , as pure exteriority . In this regar d, the beginning of what P ardo (1992, 23) would call a “ prosecution against space ” on behalf of philosophy as metaphysics could be situated at this point. This is because of metaphysics ’ ascetic ideals –against which N ietzsche would famously rebel– that privilege spirit as pur e interiority; then, space cannot be at the same level. (P ardo T orío 1992, 33) Thus, H egel established time as the truth of space, and space as the negative, distorted and fake image of time. I t is not surprising to find that the approximation of H egel to space is mainly geometrical –space, unlike time, has its own science, geometr y–, reco vering some aspects already observed in ancient G reece, and of course by Descartes and Kant. S pace is conceived as pure extension which finds its negation in the point, concr ete and determinate (H egel 2004, §256, 31). I n fact, as Emmánuel Lizcano (2011, 31) notes, certain schools of thought –G reeks, R omans, Arabs, etc.– had already posited geometry as a system “ against space, ” that is, to control and measur e it with delimited surfaces that could 22 Inter estingly , architecture also appears in first place in his Aesthetics (Hegel 1975) –befor e sculpture, painting, music and poetr y–, since it is considered to be the primeval and less r efined form of ar t. 23 Opposed to the main charac teristic of time , that is , diff er ence. Against space [DE]CENTERING 116 avoid a complete dissolution. I n Ousia and G r amme (1982), J acques Derrida traces, follo wing H eidegger , the connections between H egel and Aristotle ’ s conceptions of time and space, based in permanent oppositions, and affirms the H egelian point as the negation of space that, “ developed for itself, ” becomes time (H egel 2004, §259 Remar k, 37; Derrida 1982, 46). The point, sublating itself , thus becomes a line, which is not an ensemble of points, but “ the point existing outside of itself , ” and the same applies to the plane with respect to the line. This oppositional conception of space would have a r emarkable influence in the theor y and practice of architectur e, understood as the discipline of the limitation and framing of spaces graphically repr esented by sequences of fills and v oids. As his whole work, H egel’ s conception of architectur e repr esents a milestone, to the point that any philosopher that has reflected on ar chitecture has necessarily returned to H egel’ s contribution, either to confirm or refute it (Lahiji 2014, 2). In A rchitectur e (1981), the specific section within his lectures on F ine Art ( Aesthetics ), H egel presents the evolution of what he considers to be the beginning of art, since it “has not found for the presentation of its spiritual content either the adequate material or the corresponding forms ” (Hegel 1975, 624). This situates ar chitecture as the most imperfect ar t, contrary to speech and poetr y , which emanate directly fr om the spirit, from the inside, without material or external constraints. N evertheless, Hegel r ecognizes an ar chitecture that has 07 117 Spatium negatio evolved thr oughout histor y from elementary forms –or symbolic architectur e, present in ancient Eastern civilizations such as E gypt or India– to mor e sophisticated stages, that is, classical –G reece and Rome– and r omantic architectur e, corr esponding to E uropean Christendom. N eedless to say that the association of different stages of architectur e with specific cultures is far fr om being innocent, since the whole H egelian philosophical system pointed to the superiority of W estern civilization o ver the r est of the world and, in this case, differences in ar chitectural systems ser ved as a means to justify and demonstrate this supremacy . Architectural elements also evolv ed progr essively into mor e advanced and rational forms, harmonizing both purpose and beauty . S ubsequently , the column is more perfect than the pillar inasmuch as the former is configured b y itself , as an independent element characterized by other components that clarify and expose its function –the pedestal and the capital–, while the latter is constituted “ as it wer e to be a negative limitation imposed by something else, or to be determined accidentally in a way not belonging to it on its own account ” (H egel 1975, 666), as an external force or constraint – anticipating the question of positive and negative space, the fill and the void, that would be addr essed by later generations. F ollowing the same logic, a building is the mor e perfect the more it depends on its own particularity , going beyond its purpose and material fragmentation. H egel posits the Christian gothic temple as the best example of this elevated form of architectur e –romantic architectur e–, where utilitarian limitations ar e ex ceeded by a fix ed and eternal character that transcends any kind of purpose. Contrar y to the open G reek temples, the inwardness of the gothic chur ch responds to the interiority of the Christian spirit, that turns itself towar ds the interior of human soul away from external and mundane circumstances (H egel 1975, 686). Once again, interiority and enclosure pr evail o ver exteriority , which does not possess an absolute truth or ultimate value (Kierans 2007, 76). N evertheless, it is possible to find connections between space and negativity much before H egel, through different systems and argumentations that still result to be of gr eat inter est for a contemporar y understanding of space. Befor e H egel advocated an Relational space N egative form P rimacy of the interior [DE]CENTERING 118 abstract, extensive space, inherited from the Cartesian tradition and understood as an a priori categor y (H egel 2010) as Kant did, Leibniz had posited a model of space dependent on the relations of the elements that coexist within it; 24 thus, it is not an absolute space, but a relational space that, although dismissed for many y ears because of the prev ailing N ewtonian model, advanced the notion of relativ e space that Ernst M ach and Albert Einstein would develop many years later . 25 F or Leibniz, space is an illusion, but a strong one, a “ well-founded phenomenon ” that supports knowledge. Leibniz nev er defined space in explicit negative terms, even though it is possible to detect a certain negative character on a space that does not exist by itself , but only through other elements and r elations between them. F rom this topologic perspective, the notions of form and trans- formation acquire certain relev ance, being highly influential in some branches of contemporar y philosophy; for instance, for G illes Deleuze (1992) and his fascination for the fold and the Bar oque context, in which the world is seen as an infinity of folds in a compressed time- space, or for some authors related to speculativ e realism, 26 such as 24 In a let ter fr om June 2, 1716 to Samuel Clark e, the British philosopher who defended the ph ysical sys tem of New ton, Leibniz r ef utes this model as follo ws: “The Author [ Clarke ] contends, that Space does not depend upon the Situation of Bodies . I answer: ‘T is true, it does not depend upon such or such a situation of Bodies; but it is That Or der , which renders Bodies capable of being situated, and b y which they ha v e a Situation among themselves when they exist together; a s T ime is T hat Or der , with respect to their Successive position. But if ther e w er e no Cr eatur es, Space and T ime would be only in the Ideas of God” ( Clark e and Leibniz 1717, §41, 113). 25 In The Shape of Space (1994), Graham Nerlich offers an inter es ting and thor ough ov er view of the notion of space and the connections bet ween W estern met aphysics and science, focusing on the debate between r ealists and relationists from the sev enteenth centur y to our da ys. These questions exceed the scope of this r esear ch, although they ha ve been v er y relevant f or its contex tualization. 26 It is r emarkable how what is known as “ Speculative Histories ” has made s tr ong inr oads into the mass media . T o take one example r eflec ting the contemporar y sense of philosophic materialism and its transfer to war ds pr oject ac tion, the lates t publications of Zer o Book s deser ve a visit, as they fer tilize a specificity area with the OOO theor y ( Oriented- Objec t Ontolog y ) in which it s main adv ocate, Graham Harman, strenuously tries to est ablish connec tions with the most consolidated (but not less problematic, as Manuel de La nda has writ ten ) Bruno L atour’ s ANT theor y (Ac tor Network Theory ). The mo vement of speculative r ealism wa s born after a conf erence held at Goldsmiths College (University of London ) in 2007. Headed b y figures such as Harman, Ray Bra ssier , 119 Spatium negatio Lars S puybroek or Sjoer d van T uinen (2017), who r eflect on the formal and generative conditions of Gothic and M annerist space and architectur e, respectiv ely . The influence of these diverse conceptions of space and the clashes between some of them would soon r esonate in other parts of the world. The Oratorian F ather T omás V icente T osca, a S panish contemporar y of Leibniz and N ewton, 27 exposed a heterogeneous conception of space combining diverse elements in his Compendium Philosophicum (1754). The work of T osca as mathematician, architect, philosopher and theologian is quite eclectic, combining ideas from Aristotle and the N eoplatonic tradition, taking some advances from his contemporaries. In the Compendium , T osca asks himself about the constitution of space in relation to bodies which occupy it, offering a sensor y and relational perspectiv e in negative terms: I know that some of the Ancients say that space is a r eal thing, which can be penetrated with all bodies, and extends to all sides; this is indeed not understandable, and is ridiculed by everybody . Furthermore, if the aforementioned space is a “ true positive, ” it has cer tainly been created b y God. N amely , there are no non-cr eated entities except for G od: how ever , the aforementioned space has also not been cr eated (…) N amely , this space also Quentin Meillassoux or Iain Hamilton Grant, speculative r ealism ( and its variations , such as speculative materialism ) aims at undermining the “ corr elationis t, ” anthr opocentric link bet w een thinking and being , privileging human ov er non-human exis tence: “ the conviction that ther e can be no access to a r eality that is independent of human subjec tivit y and its mediations thr ough the senses, the unconscious , la nguage, technolog y or , indeed, ar t and aesthetics . ” ( V an T uinen ( ed. ) 2017, 1) 27 T osca belonged to the Novatores mov ement , a gr oup of Spanish scholars and thinkers that dev eloped their ac tivit y in a period pr eceding the scientific r ev olution and the Enlightenment. They w er e usually r ejected by the most conser vative sectors of the r eligious pow er , a s their ideas tended to rationalism and empiricism –in fact , the name of the gr oup had pejorative connotations when it was firs t coined. T he Novatores , in general, wer e awar e of the marginal r ole that the Spanish territories pla y ed in the E ur opean scientific and philosophical scene ( which persis ts today to a lesser degr ee ), a s the V alencian doc tor Juan de Cabriada sho ws in one of his writings: “(…) it is a pitif ul and even shamef ul thing that, as if we wer e Indians [!], we should be the las t to r eceiv e the news and public lights that are alr eady scattered thr oughout E ur ope. And also, that men who should know all of this ar e offended b y the warning and bit ter by the disappointment. O , and ho w true it is that tr ying to set aside the impression of an antiquated opinion is the most difficult thing that is demanded fr om men!” ( Car ta filosófico - médico- chymica , 1687) Spatium negatio [DE]CENTERING 120 extends on the outside of the H eavens: but God has not cr eated anything apart from those things, which are contained in the W orld: Therefore, such a space has not been created by G od. Then, if this space has been created, for sur e it has been created in time: S o, I now ask “Where is this space?” What was it? Certainly , it was a capacity of this space: this capacity would also be a space. Therefor e, there would be a space outside of space, which would be a space of the space, which is absurd: namely , the argument of a “ space of the space ” could be continued to infinity . M oreo ver , it is not negativ e either . N amely: 1. As it is stated in M etaphysica , negations have nothing of being r eal, but rather of being objective. 2. If this space is any kind of negation, what does it negate? If y ou claim to negate the body ( corpus ), what can be put? (…) N amely , if a locus (place) is the negation of a locus , certainly this holds for the corpus (body) in it, it is itself put into negation: you will see why this is ridiculous. (…) So if a corpus is put in a locus , the locus v anishes. I t is not worth mentioning, that this space is not a negation; rather an absence of body (…) 08 121 Spatium negatio M oreo ver , all absence is subjected to this v astness: hence, what would this subject then be, in which the aforementioned absence of body would be? Certainly , such a subject, which would be a real positive (…) So, space ( spatium ) is not something distinct from a corpus located, be it positive or negativ e (…) H ence, there ar e no real spaces ( spatia r ealia ) in the world ( M undus ), except for the bodies themselves which exist in it. That is, in the world there ar e no other actual spaces, except for the bodies themselv es, which extend into the sphere of the highest H eaven (…) can truly be called spaces. In a similar way , it is summarized, that no made-up spaces of infinite extent ar e given outside the world, which are clearly dispr o ven by the abo vementioned reasons. H owever , there can be no spaces outside the W orld; neither above the constitution of the W orld. (T osca 1754, 208 ff) 28 The question of space is being discussed from a negative perspectiv e, from what it is not, and certainly not being contrasted to time, as Aristotle did in his Categories . The category of space is discussed in its own natur e, independent of time and even of G od, but opposed to the body ( corpus ), to sensor y elements related to each other . H ow ever , the conclusion of the discussion surprisingly determines that space is something limited and finite: “ there can be no spaces outside the W orld; neither abo ve the constitution of the W orld, ” contrar y to the Aristotelian conception of space as continuum. E ven before H egel, the space of T osca is understood as an imperfect reality , belonging exclusiv ely to the earthly domain and devoid of the unintelligibility of the Platonic khôr a . I t is a space that exists only because of the bodies which exist in it. H is work as a cartographer sheds light on his spatial interpretation. T osca drew one of the first plans of the city of V alencia in 1704, in which built blocks, streets, open spaces and surr ounding fields are repr esented, as well as the city walls, gr eeneries and other r emarkable points, such as fountains or bridges. The hierarchization of urban spaces is very clear: the ver tical projection of the str eets contrasts with the quasi-isometric repr esentation of the blocks, of which the most remar kable ones –that is, churches, r eligious buildings, to wers or city buildings– are meticulously drawn. The str eets and open spaces, how ever , appear as blank spaces without special details. This suggests 28 T ranslated by Andr ea s K et tner . [DE]CENTERING 128 perspective and the motivation to appr oach it scientifically –due to the great influence of positivism and natural sciences– ar ouse among many remar kable art critics and historians. In fact, a whole generation of scholars would regar d architecture in r elation to visual sciences, psychology or physiology , far from a priori aesthetic paradigms (Schwarzer 1991, 50). F or instance, the German architect and critic Gottfried S emper was the first to regar d architecture as the technique of space, departing from an anthropological point of view that considered the division betw een interior and exterior to be the main task of architectur e. In this interstice betw een Raumkunst and technique of space, the work of central E uropean authors such as the S wiss ar t historian H einrich W ölfflin, the German psy chologist Theodor Lipps or the S wiss-Austrian ar chitect Hans A uer is situated. F rom these, the German art historian A ugust Schmarso w , was probably the most categorical, due to his understanding of space as the art ( R aumkunst ) or “ the essence of architectural creation ” (1993), rejecting other models, such as S emper ’ s “ textile ” architecture or von Hartmann ’ s tectonic vision (Schmarso w 1993, 282). Rather , architectur e is seen as Raumgestalterin , “ cr eatr ess of space ” (1993, 288) 35 that has to be perceived fr om within the body , that is, from the obser ving subject ’ s point of vie w , and that extends itself to the organization of the city , the roads or the fields –once again, space is understood as pure exteriority . Despite the wide range of domains that Schmarsow attributes to ar chitecture in his lectur e of 1893 at the U niversity of Leipzig, it is important to note that the sense of sight is still predominant in his conception of space, which is seen as an “intuited form ” (Schmarsow 1993, 286) in line with W ölfflin ’ s P rolegomena zu einer P sychologie der Ar chitektur (1886), in which the understanding of the architectural work is deeply r elated to particular psychological per ceptions (De S tefani 2009, 10). In Schwarzer ’ s insightful essay on Schmarsow , another relevant figure in this tradition is mentioned. The A ustro-H ungarian 35 Giulio Carlo Argan (1961) would situate the turning point between ar chitecture as repr esentation of space and architecture as determination of space in the Bar oque period: her e, space is not conceived as a pr e- existent reality to be order ed, but a s something that can be cr eated, transformed and materializ ed through clashes , f olds, ca vities, contradic tions… Space as pur e exteriority 129 Spatium negatio art historian Alois Riegl was also one of the initiators of a ne w conception of space, although certainly more “H egelian ” than his German colleague. Schwarzer (1991, 56) mentions Schmarso w ’ s (1905) disagreement with Riegl ’ s vision of ancient architecture as the enclosure of v olumes, “ the creation of clear boundaries, of strong centralized entities, ” which he had characterized through the image of the P antheon four years befor e (Riegl 1901). On the contrary , and despite the importance of inner room for Schmarsow , movement and “ the generation of culturally stimulated rhythmic patterns ” (Schwarzer 1991, 56) is, accor ding to him, the essential task of architectur e. In any case, thanks to this whole line of study , space began to be regar ded as a dynamic object of study , and not as a “ dead” a priori or undialectical element in opposition to time, as it still happened until the end of the nineteenth centur y (M oravánszky 2003, 122). Then, architectur e, like other arts, was not an imitation of the past or nature anymore, but a dynamic, cr eative discipline capable of transforming reality and not only simulating it. H owev er , as Montaner (1997, 28) indicates, this kind of space (dynamic but enclosed, perceptible although mostly visual) would be immediately surpassed with the development of the artistic avant-gar des. The German sculptor A dolf von H ildebrand, belonging to the same generation but not so much concerned about architectur e as his contemporaries wer e, opened a way for space as continuum ( Raumganze ) that would be cr ucial for the emergence of the space of the avant-gar des, which some authors r elate to “ anti-space ” (P eterson 1980; Montaner 1997). 08 Raumganze [DE]CENTERING 130 H o wever , not all the approaches on the spatial question that emerged in E urope in these decades stemmed fr om art histor y and psychology . In the meantime, the foundations of urban sociology wer e being gradually set, while contributing to enrich the scientific corpus built around space from other disciplines. B y introducing social, political and economic factors, the spaces of Karl Marx, F er dinand T önnies, Émile Dur kheim, Max W eber or Georg Simmel, in all their diversity , contrasted with that of art critics and historians because of their lack of neutrality , or even innocence. U rban space became the real, experienced space of ev er yday life, modelled b y the forces of capitalism. Indeed, fr om this point of view , architecture was not the privileged Raumgestälterin of Schmarsow , but rather another piece contributing to the emergence of urban space, and only later would be specifically addressed fr om a sociological perspective. I n fact, it is notewor thy that the A ustrian architect and artist Camillo Sitte (1889) saw S tädtebau (urban design), and not architecture, as the main Raumkunst . In particular , the work of the German sociologist Georg S immel had a strong r epercussion in the space of the avant-gar des according to Manfr edo T afuri, who ar ticulated the r elations between architectur e and modern capitalism and saw in the avant-gar des an ex ceptional episode regar ding these connections. This chronological leap for ward leads us to his two main works addr essing the topic – Ar chitecture and 08 09 Space and urban life 131 Spatium negatio U topia (1976) and The Spher e and the Labyrinth (1987)–, in which capitalist progr essive rationalization and S immel ’ s metropolitan space are r egar ded as a nurturing scenario for the avant-gar des. I t is precisely in the tension between capitalist rationalization and the “ downfall of reason ” –especially perceiv ed in metropolitan space (T afuri 1976, 78)– where the I talian historian places the dialectical mo vement that activated avant-gar des. Through the fr enzied rhythms of metropolitan life, Georg S immel (1997, 174–85) portrays an urban society that grows and liv es parallel to money economy , thus prov oking an intensification of mental and psychic life ( N ervenleben ) that affects both the individual and the urban collective. Life in the metropolis is frantic and accelerated, and the alteration of metropolitan times –punctuality , calculability and exactness (Simmel 1997, 177)– is pr ecisely detected through changes in spatiality . P erfectly calculated and precise it wor ks an enormous machine that swallows and rationaliz es all kinds of flo ws, either economic or social and where individuals and objects ar e assigned a specific monetar y value. T o appreciate this urban whirlpool, one needs only to watch F ritz Lang ’ s Metropolis (1926), R uttmann ’ s Ber lin, Symphony of a G r eat City (1927) or take a look at Georg G rosz ’ s scenes from Berlin or his o wn Metropolis (1917), in which the space of the city is repr esented through an extr eme perspective and wher e nothing is static; even empty space seems to mo ve, because it is not empty at all, but filled with activity , people, advertisements, messages, light, flows. E verything is connected to the rest of the metropolis, unveiling a space of r elations that still persists today , amplified, as well as its effects o ver the psy chic life of its inhabitants. This is r eflected in T iqqun ’ s work, follo wing the par ticular framework of the Bloom Theor y with a highly-S immelian resonance: The most demented, and at the same time the most characteristic concretion of the spectacular ethos remains -on a planetary scale- the metropolis (…) In the metropolis, man experiences his o wn negative condition, purely . F initeness, solitude, and exposedness, which are the thr ee fundamental coordinates of this condition, weave the décor of each person ’ s existence in the big city . N ot a fix ed décor , but a moving décor; the amalgamated décors of the big city , due to which everyone has to endure the ice-cold stench of its non-places. (T iqqun 2010, 14–15) . M etropolis and N er venleben [DE]CENTERING 132 Although Simmel r eveals the character of the metr opolis, his optimistic vision for “ str uggle and reconciliation ” within the urban space is not fully accurate, accor ding to Cacciari (1993) –who would deeply influence T afuri on his characterization of modern avant- gar des–, because of its nostalgic hope. Rather , he would recogniz e the contributions of W alter Benjamin and F riedrich N ietzsche: the former understood the “ radical negativity ” lying beneath the metropolis, while the latter fully grasped the sense of tragedy “ with no hope of consolation ” (Cacciari 1993, xxvii, 17 ff). T afuri agreed: The experience of the “ tragic” is the experience of the metropolis. I n face of such an inevitable experience, the intellectual is no longer even able to assume the blasé attitude of a Baudelair e. (T afuri 1976, 78) In this r egar d, the figur e of the German sociologist M ax W eber and his notion of “ disenchantment” ( E ntzauber ung ) are essential to complete the V enetian tandem ’ s r eading of the metropolis in the twentieth century . W eber studied how the logic of technical rationalization and progr ess had progr essively pervaded reality , displacing the realms of the magical and mythical, hence leading to a sensation of “ disenchantment of the world” (1946) –an expression recalling Schiller ’ s E ntgötterung der N atur (“ the de-divinization of nature ”) – that becomes a defining characteristic of the modern, capitalist society . 36 Cacciari (1993, 31) would consider W eber as the one who detects the essential negative character of the metropolis, “ the affirmation of a bourgeois-capitalist theor y on the negative ” (Cacciari 1993, 15) that would eventually o ver come S immel ’ s analysis, especially after his posthumous work The City (W eber 1987). Without losing perspectiv e on W eber ’ s disenchantment, T afuri goes one step beyond to grasp the forces of the “ tragic ” experience of the metropolis (1976, 78) –which, accor ding to him, is the ideal scenario to contemplate the modern “ downfall of reason ” foretold by P iranesi– within the domain of the arts. If G rosz, Lang or R uttmann offered direct, literal visions of the metr opolis, T afuri goes back to the text of Simmel –thr ough the gaze of M assimo Cacciari (1993)– in or der to 36 W alter Benjamin also deals with a similar issue in his famous essa y “The W ork of Ar t in the Age of It s T echnological Repr oducibilit y” (Benjamin 2008, 19–55), where he poses the question of “ the loss of the aura” aff ecting the modern work of ar t. E ntzauberung 133 Spatium negatio situate the eccentric influence of capitalist rationalization on the art of the avant-gar de. An ex cerpt from S immel ’ s Metropolis and M ental Life (1903) is particularly significant for T afuri, who directly quotes him in Ar chitecture and U topia (1976, 86 ff): All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving str eam of money . All things lie on the same level and differ from one another only in the size of the area which they co ver . (S immel 1997, 178) And so T afuri asks: “ does it not seem that we ar e r eading here a literar y comment on a Schwitter M erzbild ?” (1976, 88) By r eferring to the collage works of the German artist K ur t Schwitters, T afuri points to the chaotic and everflo wing forces of money economy (H eynen 1999, 130). I n fact, Schwitter ’ s Merzbauten represent the most extreme materialization of such flo ws and their effects on things, as if they wer e literally floating in space, disor dered and accumulated without an appreciable hierar chy . Thus, the Merzbau drives the forces of the metropolis to its latest consequences in a giant spatial collage. S tatic, Car tesian, enclosed space is definitely substituted 09 08 Me r z [DE]CENTERING 134 by a continuous, open, transpar ent space where ev er ything flo ws in permanent mo vement. 37 This correlation that T afuri establishes between capitalist money economy and artistic strategies has its main motor in the continuous rupture with the past that the avant-gar de proposes b y br eaking with the established or der of things and generating new values. H ence, through their r eaction against bourgeois standar ds and mode of life, avant-gar des found a way , even unintentionally , to activate the engine of bourgeois development indefinitely: “ a renewed bourgeoisie, capable of accepting doubt as the premise for the full acceptance of existence as a whole, as explosive, r evolutionary vitality , prepar ed for permanent change and the unpredictable ” (T afuri 1976, 56). The question is, then, “how to absorb the shock pr o voked b y the metropolis by transforming it into a new principle of dynamic development (…)” (T afuri 1976, 88 ff), that is, to transform the instantaneous moment of anguish “into a productive for ce ” (W allenstein 2016, 27). T afuri ’ s extensive line of argument would requir e a deeper analysis that exceeds the purposes of this r esearch. H owev er , the work of H ilde H eynen (1999) offers a fruitful perspective that is worth recalling at this moment. After ackno wledging T afuri’ s theor y on the effects of the avant-gar de, H eynen turns to the political debate within their immediate context. At this point, T afuri distinguishes two apparently opposing tr ends with r egar d to the political character of artistic-intellectual labor ( T afuri 1976, 65–66; H eynen 1999): the first position aimed at preserving the autonomy of the work of art through the “ principle of F orm ” – De S tijl , Russian F uturism and Constructivism– ( T afuri 1976, 93), while the second, mainly headed by Dada, but also S urrealism, celebrated chaos, understanding art as a means of political inter vention (H eynen 1999, 131). 37 “If traditional space finds it s highest expression in the unitar y world of the Renaissance, in which ther e is no analy tical separation bet ween the elements of space and the form in which conic perspective expr esses the image of man a s the center , the Copernican r ev olution of science in the seventeenth century is in the origin of anti-space. This is when space begins to emancipate, when it becomes independent and r elative to objec ts in mov ement within an infinite cosmic system” (Montaner 1997, 28–29) . The shock experience 135 Spatium negatio Let every man shout: there is a great destructive, negative task to be accomplished. S weeping, cleaning. ( T ristan T zara, Manifeste Dada, 1918) 38 H o wever , both tendencies are deeply r elated to each other and, in fact, this tension gives birth to the “ dialectic of the avant-garde, ” which through chaos and or der assimilates and r eflects the logical, mechanized or der of capitalist civilization. “ De S tijl and the Bauhaus introduced the ideolog y of the plan into a design method that was always closely related to the city as a pr oductive structure; D ada, by means of the absur d, demonstrated –without naming it– the necessity of a plan ” ( T afuri 1976, 93). I n the end, despite their differences, both mo vements, constructive and destructive, worked to war ds the absorption of the experience of shock, to regulate the experience of being subsumed into the modern reality . Thus, even the differ ence between positive and negativ e avant-gar des fades, since the result is the same: their integration within capitalist rationalization processes. N onetheless, it is impor tant to r emark that the distinction betw een positive and negative av ant-gar des is contro versial, since different authors pose it accor ding to different criteria. G ail Day (2011, 266) attributes this distinction –that would also be considered b y T afuri– to Renato P oggioli, although the perspective of both authors differ significantly . P eter W ollen (1975) would also distinguish between 38 [ T . A . ] 10 11 N egative avant-gar des [DE]CENTERING 136 two avant-gar des: one compatible with the modern project and other working for its dissolution; Kenneth F rampton (2001, 216) would also specify this distinction with the terms “ positive ” and “ negative ” avant-gar des. T err y Eagleton (1990, 373), for his part, understands that the negative avant-gar de “ tries to avoid such absorption [by bourgeois society] by not producing an object. N o artefacts: just gestures, happenings, manifestations, disruptions. Y ou cannot integrate that which consumes itself in the moment of production. ” On the other hand, “[t]he positive av ant gar de understands that the question of integration stands or falls with the destiny of a mass political mo vement. ” In general, those avant-gar des whose ideals attach neither to progr ess and future, nor to synthesis or pr oduction; related to doubt, to the irrational, could be consider ed as negatives: these are mainly D ada and S urrealism. Despite the diversity of criteria and interpretations pr oposed by differ ent authors, we could conclude that different mo vements, such as De S tijl and Dada, converged in the aim of a new synthesis 39 between art and the absorption of shock and anguish and their acceptance as inevitable conditions of existence. But what distinguishes negative avant-gar des from other trends such as constructivism is that they do not limit themselves to the destruction of what lies outside art, but they focus on ar t ’ s own destruction. This fact entails, as Rafael González S andino (2005) diagnoses, 40 that art becomes the place where opposites –art and its denial– are confused, inverted and merged: art is permanently facing its other in a process of self-construction and self-destr uction. S pecifically , avant-gar des occupy a space amidst the traditional visions of art as an autonomous discipline (which correspond to a formalist discourse) and art as a so ver eign realm with a transgr essive potential, which until then had remained as opposite poles in art theor y; thus, they inaugurate an art in which autonomy and so ver eignty are deeply r elated to each other: 39 The magazines Mecano , G , and Mer z resulted fr om this synthesis . ( T afuri 1976, 95) 40 During a r esear ch seminar on the curr ent situation of ar chitec tur e organiz ed at the School of Ar chitec tur e of the Univ ersity of Seville in 2005, prof essor Rafael González Sandino initiated a debate on negative a vant -gardes and their r econsideration. His pr esentation and the subsequent debate can be found in Spanish and English in: ht tps:// outarquiaspublicaciones . wor dpress.com/categor y/libro-sobre-la-situacion-ac tual-de -la- ar quitec tura-genealogias- diagnosticos- e-interpretacion/ 137 Spatium negatio “ truly autonomous ar t has to be r evolutionary; tr uly so ver eign art, formally describable ” (M enke 2011, 39). 41 Returning to the subject of space, the ruptur e with the previous model and the immersion into a spatial abstract continuum precisely respond to the subjacent task of the av ant-gar de to subsume the conditions of a mechanized society , influenced by the advance of objective science and technology . U nlike philosophy , which had preserved the primacy of time and the subject, factual sciences saw the world repr esented as space and discr edited the subjective vision that led to their crisis (P ar do T orío 1992, 255). Accor dingly , space is a privileged medium for avant-gar de artists and would be regar ded as means to transfer art into life, eventually leading to the H egelian “ death of ar t ” (T afuri 1976, 89). E voking the relevance of Schwitter ’ s M er zbau , this is one of the main r easons why architectur e, and specifically the Bauhaus, undertook the task of translating these experiences into a concrete, liv ed form, due to the incapacity of the artistic avant-gardes to r each the productiv e r eality (T afuri 1976, 96). 42 The city , “ the real place of the improbable ” (T afuri 1976, 96), already observed by B audelaire, W eber , Simmel, Benjamin and many more, r epr esented the final scenario nurtured by all tactics and strategies tested in art, the machiner y that kept capitalist society progr essing as a giant “M etropolitan Me r z . ” Thus, architecture definitely enters the political arena as an instrument to materialize the modern utopia: first with the Bauhaus, then with M odern M ovement, ar chitecture was the tool to organiz e the metropolis as a productive, rationaliz ed organism. “ Architecture or R evolution ” was the slogan, coined by Le Corbusier in V ers une Ar chitectur e in 1922, that articulated the promise of a new society and a ne w (anti) space; a promise that, accor ding to T afuri, was never to be fulfilled, since architectur e should be the object of the whole plan, and not the 41 [ T . A . ] Menke sets the basis of the aes thetics of negativity in this relation. 42 “Mondrian wa s to ha ve the courage to ‘ name’ the cit y as the final objec t towar d which neoplas tic composition tended. But he wa s to be f or ced to r ecognize that, once it had been translated into urban struc tures, painting—by no w reduced to a pur e model of beha vior —would ha v e to die” ( T af uri 1976, 92) . N ihilism fulfilled [DE]CENTERING 144 a pro vocativ e 48 but productiv e way (D oucet 2015; 2016, 93), led by the spirit of the mo vements that worked for the r econstr uction of the E uropean city . Many y ears later , the prefix “ counter-” still preser ves the same experimental value in architectur e, urbanism and spatial practice in general, despite the changes that this field has experienced. In 2012, during the 5 th International Ar chitecture B iennale Rotter dam –celebrated under the slogan “Making City ”– a series of countersites wer e selected in or der to show alternativ e ways of thinking urban politics, planning and design with relation to the public agenda 48 The dir ec tor of L a Cambr e School of Ar chitec ture at that moment, R ober t L . Delev o y , declar ed once: “ the architecture of tomorr o w will be pr ov ok ing or won ’t be at all” ( quoted in Ar on, J. 1982. La Cambr e et l’ architec ture: un r egard sur le Bauhaus belge. Brussels: Pierr e Mar daga, 165). 14 15 16 17 Counter-sites 145 Spatium negatio (Brugmans and P etersen (eds.) 2012, 6), together with three main T est Sites in R otterdam, S ao P aulo and Istanbul. Within this context, the Dutch Randstad r epr esents an example of a contemporar y urban ecology which works at differ ent levels through counterposition and differentiation of its parts, elements and agents. I t constitutes an urban region of global r elevance that functions within a much mor e local context, where r elations between cities, pr o vinces, industrial or agricultural areas, institutions, companies, etc. cr eate a particular set of conditions which determine the role of such a r egion from an international perspective. The D utch architects and urbanists D aan Zandbelt and R ogier van den B erg explored this spatial situation in a project selected as countersite for the B iennale. The project – entitled Mid-size U topia: Best of Both W or lds – focuses on the vision of a new intermediate region of interconnected, medium-scale cities within the N etherlands, combining the benefits of the proximity to a global leading region such as the Randstad with a mor e local, attractive, healthier environment in connection to rural ar eas and other E uropean r egions. I n fact, one of the most appealing aspects of the project is the pr eliminar y distinction between the Randstad and seven intermediate zones in its periphery . These spaces configur e a territorial structure with different islands and logics: mobility networks, r esources, economic activities and competitiveness, urban and demographic density , transnational clusters… It is clear that a whole system lies behind the performance of the Randstad as a node of global relev ance, and part of this success is due to those countersites, which at the same time see the proximity of the Randstad as one of their main strengths –and thr eats as well. I n other wor ds, the global impact of the region is deeply r elated to specific relations with other spaces, and ev en the differences betw een them are crucial to understand its par ticular character . W ithout its countersites, the Randstad would surely be differ ent: it needs of these spaces –even when they may enter into conflict– to maintain its status. In this sense, it is possible to trace sev eral coincidences between these projects and what P aola Viganò (2012) calls “ the Rev erse City , ” as a proposal for the contemporar y E uropean urban project that emerges by inverting and br eaking traditional codes within the Rev erse City [DE]CENTERING 146 context of urban fragmentation in or der to go beyond this logic. 49 Always from the perspective of the city-territory , V iganò proposes an experimental scenario, “ a sphere in which to inv estigate new spaces such as under-utilized industrial ar eas which can become equipped platforms crossed by concentrations of natur e to serve the creation of new businesses; streets which become narrative itineraries, dense spatial stories not only of the past but of present r elations ” (2012, 669). Besides, she actualizes the logic of the fragment and the difference within an urban context, and taking into account the legacy of Ro we and Koetter – Collage City– or Cacciari ’ s archipelago, Viganò brings again to the fore the link betw een the physical dimension of space and its socio-political implications. The redefinition of urban “ solids ” and “ voids ” in the R everse City r esponds to the necessity of thinking new models of city and territor y for E urope wher e diversity and mixture ar e possible, leaving behind hyper-specialized, mono- functional structures gathering along highways –the model exported from the U nited S tates to the rest of the world. V iganò acknowledges that, once again, Lefebvr e ’ s P roduction of Space has played an essential role in defining capitalist spatial logic, which tends to segr egation and the elimination of difference. This is the main r eason why we shall return sev eral times to the work of the F r ench sociologist and philosopher , who, in addition, coined the terms “ differential space ” and “ counterspace ” to name the spaces opposing the abstract space of capitalism. “The quest for a counterspace may take multiple forms, ” says Ulrich Oslender (G uerra, P ér ez, and T apia (eds.) 2011, 148) with regar d to Lefebvre ’ s contribution. F acing a privileged socio- spatial reality , counterspaces remain as possible –ev en impossible– alternatives, even though they may just be a pulsion, an impr obable world generated by discontent or will to transform an abstract space generated through violence and war , imposed by the states and 49 “Contemporar y space has inv er ted the traditional code of urbanit y; there is a new scale; ther e ar e new and original pr opor tions bet ween solid and v oid (…) The Re verse City (…) is the space of the deconstruc tion of traditional urban relationships, an ‘ elementar y cit y’ in which innovation becomes the combination and juxtaposition of known elements and the inv ention of new materials. It is an inv erse city because it negates traditional meanings of urban space – its continuities and discontinuities – and transforms them into new forms of urbanity within a territorial context” ( V iganò 2012, 665). Counterspace and opposition 147 Spatium negatio mainly controlled by geometric and visual means. 50 Although Lefeb vre would not define the term “ counterspace ” explicitly , it appears several times in his work, either r elated to everyday life or rather to the extraor dinar y . I t is, abo ve all, a differ ent space: it can certainly be an “ utopian alternative ” (1991, 349), but it is also related to specific spaces of contestation: When a community fights the construction of urban motor ways or housing- developments, when it demands ‘ amenities ’ or empty spaces for play and encounter , we can see how a counter-space can insert itself into spatial reality: against the E ye and the Gaz e, against quantity and homogeneity , against power and the arrogance of po wer , against the endless expansion of the ‘ priv ate ’ and of industrial profitability; and against specialized spaces and a narr ow localization of function. (Lefebvre 1991, 381–82) On the one hand, the critical dimension of the counterspace is clear . In a capitalist society dominated b y ex change value, he argues in Marxist terms, the opposite alternative is the “ primacy of use ” (1991, 381). On the other , howev er , a counterspace cannot be separated from its r everse: space and counterspace –or counterspaces– are doomed to coexistence. This explains the fact that, in many occasions, counterspatial strategies requir e a (homeopathic) dose of the space they are countering: “(…) it happens that a counter- space and a counter-project simulate existing space, parodying it and demonstrating its limitations, ” and he adds “ without for all that escaping its clutches ” (1991, 382). At this moment, it would seem that Lefebvr e ’ s utopian discourse reaches a wall which it cannot surpass: the for ce of abstract space. M oreo ver , he also acknowledges ho w difficult it is for a counterspace to evolve and r emain mor e or less durable, as they are often r elentlessly swallow ed by dominant tactics. This is the case of leisur e spaces, to which we shall r eturn later . In any case, the concept of counterspace opens new possibilities for architecture, ev en if –and this has to be clear from the beginning– counterspaces cannot be projected, as they emerge through social practice. The task of architects, urbanists and planners has been, accor ding to Lefebvr e (who criticized these figur es in several occasions), the r epresentation and (r e)production of abstract 50 See chapter 4: “From Absolute to Abstrac t space” (L ef eb vr e 1991) [DE]CENTERING 148 space, opposed to a particular kind of counterspace: differential space. Comparable to M cLuhan ’ s acoustic space or F oucault’ s heterotopic space (Cavell 2002, 29), differ ential (counter)space hosts and materializes hidden, marginal practices that run counter to the logic of capitalism. I t is frequently associated to the practices of ever yday life –that the F rench J esuit and philosopher M ichel de Certeau (1984) would later analyze, strongly influenced b y Lefebvr e–, but also to countercultur es and resistance (H iernaux-N icolas 2004, 20). While it is easy to find common elements between these categories, it is not so simple to situate architectur e or determine its possible role within a counterspace. I s it a mere scene or backgr ound wher e action takes place? Does it manipulate and affect the space of practice? I s an architectur e against abstract space possible? And an architectur e that does not (re)pr oduce repr esentations of abstract space? Arguably , the possibility of subversiveness in ar chitecture may be all but non- existent, but this does not totally rule it out. It is pr ecisely the possibility of non- hegemonic space that interests Lefebvr e. (Coleman 2015, 61) T wo contemporaries, Lefebvr e and T afuri, share a ver y differ ent vision of the state of architectur e in the last decades of the twentieth centur y , as Cunningham (2010) observes in his theoretical triangle which includes both authors together with Benjamin. Despite the fact that their common discontent with the role of architectur e at that moment may be parallel and have similar motivations, Lefeb vre ’ s utopian –even romantic, but nev er nostalgic (Coleman 2015)– vision contrasts with the doubter , pessimistic view of the I talian historian, 51 who saw in the “ very clever ‘ games ’ of Archiz oom or the creations 51 In the intr oduc tion of T oward an Architecture of Enjoyment (Lef ebvr e 2014) Łuka sz Stanek account s the connections and confrontations bet ween L ef eb vr e and Manfr edo T afuri –some of them in person, during a seminar on ar chitec ture and social sciences in 1972 in P or t Grimaud (Sturge- Moore ( ed. ) 1972). “The contr o v ersy bet w een T afuri and L efebvr e concerned not whether architecture is to be put on trial but rather what kind of critique should it be, how far should it go, and what should it aim at? In P or t Grimaud (Sturge- Moore ( ed. ) 1972), L ef ebvr e a sk ed, ‘ What is ar chitec tur e? Is ther e something specifically ar chitectural? Is it an ar t, a technique, a science?’ He concluded, ‘ I argue that ar chitecture is a social practice. ’ The analysis of ar chitec ture in this perspective star ts with recognizing the practice of an ar chitec t as ‘a pr oducer of space, but never the only one’ who ‘ operates within a specific space –the sheet of white paper . ’” (Stanek 2011, 165) Ar chitectur e in crisis 149 Spatium negatio of sterilized anguish of Gaetano P esce ” (T afuri 1976, 142) ways of perpetuating the institutionalization of protest and subv ersion, even when the influence of negative thought o ver their wor k was quite relev ant. 52 N onetheless, both seem to point to the same direction: the disciplinar y crisis of architectur e and its role with r egar d to society . As 52 In this passage, T afuri was ref erring to the exhibition “It aly: the New Domes tic Landscape: Achievements and Problems of the Italian Design” that took place at the MoMA in 1972, in which Superstudio and Archiz ooom wer e included in the sec tion of “ counter -design. ” T afuri, in his writings, sever ely criticized the work of neo-avant -gar des f or nur turing the utopian dream ( T af uri 1976; 1987; Biraghi 2014). Pier V it torio Aur eli (2008, 76–79) pic tur es and analyzes the relationship between the historian and these neo -a vant - gar de gr oups. 18 19 20 21 [DE]CENTERING 150 a question formulated long time ago that still ho vers o ver architectural practice, it cannot be ignored b y contemporar y critique and theory (Andreotti and Lahiji 2016), despite the impossibility of a univ ocal, satisfactor y answer and curr ent spatial conditions. Rather , it should be re-addr essed in or der to keep the discipline alive: What corresponds to a complex and incompr ehensible world is a living architecture, understood as wor k in progr ess. (...) The capacity to reconcile opposites, the development of a conflictive and coher ent thought at the same time, being dialectical without falling into dogmatism, that is, being non- dialectical at the same time; being methodological and intuitive, being more and more cr eative and at the same time mor e objective r egarding the needs of users. (M ontaner 1997, 22) U rban counterspaces open a field where this ar chitecture, that M ontaner describes, may be analyzed and practiced, even when acknowledging that changing the system in which it is inserted is not an achievable task. Counterspaces sho w the meeting of the diversity of society and its spatial dimension, where conflict and irrationality ar e not avoided, but grasped as essential forces in a hyper-mediated city –heir of the nineteenth and twentieth century metropolis, although radically different fr om it (Andreotti and Lahiji 2016)– that is far from homogeneous and which manifests itself through a myriad of codes around the globe, even when their abundance and complexity may render them invisible, an unintelligible space (P ardo T orío 1992, 231). U rban counterspaces 151 Bibliography . Adams, George. 1965. P hysical and E ther eal Spaces . London: R udolf S teiner P ress. Adorno, Theodor W . 2004 [1966]. N egative Dialectics . London; N e w Y ork: Routledge. Aguirre, P eio . 2014. La línea de producción de la crítica . B ilbao: Consonni. Andreotti, Libero, and N adir Lahiji. 2016. The Architectur e of Phantasmagoria: Specters of the City . London; N e w Y ork: Routledge. Argan, Giulio Carlo . 1961. 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Hiernaux-N icolas, Daniel. 2004. “Henri Lefeb vre: del espacio absoluto al espacio difer encial. ” V eredas. R evista del pensamiento sociológico , no. 8: 11–25. [RE]PL A CING 256 35 36 37 38 39 40 257 The squar e a s a socio-spatial product spend leisure –unpr oductive– time after work or during the w eekend, together with parks and gar dens. Thus, workers and middle-classes share the city under a pr etended democratic equality which unfolds in space. M oreo ver , this relative str engthening of the public sphere and the remote possibility of r estoring a space of equality led to the use of public squares and other open spaces as places for demonstration and protest: not only in E urope, in the wake of the F rench R evolution and during many riots and rebellions in E ngland, I taly , S pain, Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also in the U nited S tates and Latin American countries during their processes of independence and emergence of new states. Ho wever , most of these demonstrations –led by proletarian, feminists, slav es and other counterpublics– would be violently repr essed by official po wers. The proliferation of this kind of events clearly transformed urban landscape through actions of appropriation and occupation. I n this regar d, the contradiction inherent to public space becomes clear in terms of violence and repr ession: despite their civic, consensual natur e, many public spaces have been the stage for violent episodes, as P icon (2008, 10) recalls when exploring the violent dimension of architectur e. M odern urbanism, as one of the strongest tools for the generation of new repr esentations of space, was a useful means to control these effer vescent uprisings and suffocate their effects. O nce again, P aris is the paradigmatic example of an urban transformation with social objectives beyond modernization and the upgrade of health conditions. U nder the mandate of N apoleon III, prefect Haussmann conceived and ex ecuted an ambitious reno vation plan for the F rench capital between 1853 and 1870, until then sever ely affected by problems of crime, o ver cro wding, disease and social tensions. F or that reason, the E mperor commissioned a plan to transform the capital into a modern, healthy , beautiful city , with an extensive network of wide roads, boulevar ds and parks to impro ve cir culation, ventilation and light conditions, as well as pro viding the population with nice spaces to inhabit. H o wever , these humanitarian purposes wer e not the only ones to motivate the transformation. Considering that P aris had suffered continuous r ebellions and riots prior to the establishment of the Second R epublic, Haussmannization has also been regar ded as an attempt to control the cro wd in the streets and facilitate militar y maneuvers in case of uprising (M umfor d 1970, 96; Harvey 2003, U rban planning and social control [RE]PL A CING 258 145; Douglas 2007), since the lab yrinthine medieval urban tissue was a serious obstacle to operate and control insurr ectional mo vements, allowing the construction of barricades and facilitating escape routes –a fact that Haussmann himself suggests in his memories, even when he assures that this was not the main aim of the pr oject (El H addad 2017, 31): I t was the evisceration of O ld P aris, of the quarter of the riots, of the barricades, by means of a broad central r oad, penetrating, through and through, this almost impracticable maze, accosted by transv erse communications [...] Certainly the Emperor , in tracing the Boulevar d de S trasbourg and its prolongation to the Seine and bey ond, had no more in view the strategic utility of this extension, as that of many other great ways , such as R ue de Rivoli, for example, whose straight alignment did not lend itself to the usual tactics of local insurrections. But if he did not seek, abo ve all, this result, as the Opposition r eproached him, it cannot be denied that it was the very happy consequence of all the great perceptions conceiv ed by H is Majesty to impro ve and to sanitize the ancient city . This result served, concurrently with many other good reasons, to justify , vis-à-vis F rance, that the tranquility of P aris is of primar y interest and the participation of the State in the expenses of these oner ous enterprises. (Haussmann 1893, 54–55) 26 Haussmann ’ s operation entailed a deep transformation of socio- spatial relations within the city . The application of rational, scientific strategies to transform the old city into a metropolis became a model for further urban plans, and can be considered a relev ant precedent of modern urbanism precepts, such as those of the A thens Charter . S till, the social consequences of modernization, rationalization and segregation of uses cannot be o verlooked. F élix Duque (2001, 11) describes Haussmannization as a “ cynically bourgeois ” strategy , 27 26 [ T . A . ] 27 The plan was thor oughly implemented at all lev els, not only the urban one, but also on an ar chitectural scale. Haussmann also traced specific rules for r esidential buildings, creating a v er y specific type of block that charac terizes the center of P a ris. These block s w er e cr eated f or bourgeois families, but they had spaces for ser vants: the so - called chambres de bonne w er e apar tments on the top floor with a sur face ar ea of ar ound 6–12 m2 and offering minimal f acilities. T oilet s wer e shared with other ser vants , and the r ooms could only be accessed b y separate st air cases , so wealth y families did not hav e to shar e space with their domestics . Although in the beginning of the t w entieth centur y new 259 The squar e a s a socio-spatial product since it expels the working classes and their workplaces fr om the city center to the banlieues , leaving it free for high and middle classes, but connecting both areas with large boulev ar ds and roads to facilitate police action in case of unrest. The straight line and the empty , inaccessible square surr ounded by traffic become spatial tools for control and r epression, as w ell as for the creation of a specific type of public: “The expression of the N ation-S tate is, in fact, the emptiness ” (Duque 2001, 11). Lefeb vre (1991, 312) also r eflects on the utility of abstract space and the fragmentation of social life, comparing the P arisian Place des V osges, as a meeting place, with la Concorde and the space in front of the R o yal P alace as voids with no life, inserted within a visualization logic developed by the H aussmannian strategy that “ mortally wounded” the qualities of a particular urban space. H o wever , regar dless of the objectives of the imperial plans, the urban transformation of P aris pro ved to be unsuccessful in terms of efficiency of militar y and police inter ventions. The P aris Commune, 28 r egulations wer e introduced in or der to impr ove the quality of these spaces , still today they r epr esent a clear class division, since they are no w hir ed b y lo w-income work ers or student s who want to liv e in the city center . 28 Mar x dev oted a brief text to the episode of the Paris Commune ( Der Bürgerk rieg in F rankreich , 1871), in which he tr eats it as a paradigmatic example of proletarian pow er . Many y ears later , Lef eb vr e (1962) would r eturn to the Commune after Mar x, but from his par ticular point of view . T he counterposition that he ar ticulates bet ween P aris and V ersailles is interesting as a reflection of the opposition bet ween the pr olet ariat and the 41 42 [RE]PL A CING 260 that brief experiment that temporarily put on hold the projections of the bourgeois phantasmagoria, was finally possible in spite of the wide avenues and the lack of r efuge spaces. I t is not surprising that, once again, the destruction of the existent is a first step towar ds appropriation: the fall of the V endôme Column, the monument in honor of N apoleon Bonapar te, challenged both social and spatial or der , in a vague r eturn to the agora after the imposition of the roundabout. All these meanings, events, processes, etc. hav e produced sev eral layers that constitute our contemporary notion of square: an urban void, an empty space for meeting and dynamic expr ession of social and political values, either from publics or counterpublics, under certain codes and restrictions regulated b y the police or the state, with a more or less str ong symbolic charge, surrounded and qualified by monuments, architectur es, traffic roads, gr een surfaces… I t certainly fits the definition of Shane ’ s enclaves (inserted in the frame work of recombinant urbanism and urban ecologies), which r eflects all these conditions and recogniz es the both static and dynamic character of the square: capitalis t class , the new and the old or der ; a s well as the qualification of its urban ac tions as “r evolutionary urbanism. ” F or L ef ebvr e, the Commune wa s a mov ement “ar oused b y the negative elements –ther ef or e, cr eators of the existing societ y . ” [ T . A . ] 43 44 261 The squar e a s a socio-spatial product [A]n enclave is a self-organizing, self-centering, and self-regulating system created by urban actors, often go verned by a rigid hierarchy with set boundaries . I t serves to slow do wn and concentrate nomadic flows using a v ariety of techniques, from perimeter walls and gatekeepers to formal, geometric devices in the plan of the settlement. (Shane 2005, 177) 29 At the same time, some squar es can be considered as something more than a mer e enclave, because of their degr ee of multiplicity and appropriation by urban actors. Thus, the F oucaldian notion of heterotopia may be used as well to generate –or at least to clarify– a more accurate understanding of these urban spaces. I t is worth recalling the medical origin of the term, which designates a specific pathology entailing the presence of an ectopic tissue at an organ or site with a different original tissue (in G reek, héter os means “ distinct, other ” and tópos “ place ”). A pplying this definition to the urban realm, squares may wor k certainly as singular tissues inser ted within a mor e or less homogeneous urban fragment, altering its regularity thr ough exceptional, div erse and sometimes unpredictable and simultaneous actions and configurations. Shane incorporates heter otopia to the triad of organizational devices in urban design ecologies, together with the enclave and the armatur e, being a space for “ experimentation and change, handling nonconforming urban activities and contributing to the o verall stability of the city through its capacity to host change ” (Shane 2011, 17). Thus, as a “heter otopic enclave, ” the square is 29 A mor e extended definition appears in Ur ban Design since 1945 : “The encla ve is a space defined b y a perimeter with one or mor e entries and a clearly defined centr e (…) As an organisational device, the enclav e ser ves as a collec ting point f or people, object s or pr ocesses that fall within the pur view of a single urban actor who controls the space, its content s and its perimeter . Hierarchical systems of contr ol and top- down command struc tures radiate out fr om this dominant ac tor , who nest s many encla ves within encla v es to aid sor ting and memor y . This nesting of encla ves within encla ves can scale up to encompass a whole cit y , as in imperial Beijing , f ocusing symbolically on the F orbidden Cit y . Urban ac tors altered the r ole of the enclav e when they paid mor e at tention to flo w and pr ocess in the city , so the enclav e became a st ationar y point in the system, where people, goods or ser vices could be temporarily located and stored in places like hotels, war ehouses or storage yards, dock s and containers . Later s till, encla ves became containers for urban f anta sies and imager y , a means of wa y-finding , at traction and identification for differ ent areas of the cit y (…)” (Shane 2011, 37) H eterotopic enclaves [RE]PL A CING 262 essentially a space that hosts difference, “inv erting and mirroring their host societies. ” 30 F ocusing again on the position of architectur e within urban space, Denis H ollier highlights, in the introduction to Against A r chitectur e (1993), the animosity that the F rench writer É mile Zola felt against urban landscaping, regar ding its products as absurd pockets of leisur e inserted into the urban fabric. In a text entitled “ Les Squar es , ” Zola writes: “The gates to the new P armentier square, built on the site of the former P opincour t slaughterhouse, will soon be opened to the public. ( ... ) I t looks like a bit of nature that did something wrong and was put in prison ” (Hollier 1993, x v). 31 The P aris of Z ola was undergoing a full urban transformation that would have a strong impact on nineteenth-century literature and thought. Asit has been explained before, one of the many objectiv es of the major operation carried out by B aron H aussmann was to 30 F oucault intr oduced thr ee types of heterotopias: heterotopias of crisis ( Ox for d college, beguinages…), of deviance ( related to domination and punishment: prisons, schools, a sylums…) and of illusion ( gar dens, cinema s, museums , amusement and thematic park s…) Shane f ocuses on the latter , since they wer e the leas t studied by F oucault , but they ar e inter esting to dismantle and unders tand the phant asmagoria s of bourgeoisie: Disney W orld/ EPCO T and gated communities in the United States, Beaubourg in Paris or the Gug genheim site in Bilbao ar e some of the case s tudies he analyzes (2008). Ther e is a four th type that wa s ev en less developed, heter otopia s of compensation, that some authors study in Hetero topia and the City (De Cauter and Dehaene ( eds . ) 2008) 31 Quoted in Emile Zola, “ Les Squar es , ” in Contes et nouvelles , ed. Roger Ripoll. P aris: Gallimar d, 1976, pp. 319, 321. 46 45 Against the squar e 263 The squar e a s a socio-spatial product increase the rate of open space within the city , promoting mor e hygienic and favorable living conditions to the P arisians, who had hitherto inhabited an unhealthy city . While B audelaire laments in his poem “Le C ygne ” the loss of the old P aris, 32 and E ngels criticizes in The H ousing Question (1872) the new structure of the city , which repr esents a systematized instrument of alienation, Z ola is amazed by the new city and its healthy , vibrant, productiv e character , as if it were a living organism in which each component has its specific function. H o wever , the writer would not feel so enthusiastic with regar d to the position that recr eational space for workers would r each, necessarily inserted into the ne w Haussmannian plan. S ince Zola had “ always identified laziness with waste, ” and consequently “ whatever has no use ” should have “ no place ” (Hollier 1993, x vi), he strongly criticized urban open spaces, as he believed that r ecr eational space should not be present within central urban fabric, but rather outside the city walls, as he idealized in his text about S aint-Ouen, published in the T ribune in 1868, in which he describes a day off for the working classes. 33 Contrary to the enclosed, suffocating enclave of 32 “ L e vieux P aris n’est plus (la forme d’une ville/ change plus vite , hélas ! que le coeur d ’un mor tel ” ( L es fleurs du mal , 1861, L X X XIX ). “Old Paris is no mor e ( the form of a city changes, ala s, fas ter than the mor t al’ s hear t )” [ T . A . ] 33 “I s tay ed until ev ening in the midst of the people in their Sunday best. Not many car digans, lot s of workshir t s: a ga y and open cr o wd of w orkers, young girls in cloth hats showing their bar e fingers cov er ed with needle-prick s , men w earing cot ton whose r ough hands still bore the imprint of tools. The jo y in this crow d wa s a healthy one; I did not hear a single quarr el, I did not see a single drunk… It was the gaiet y of good children, sincer e burst s of laughter , plea sur es with no shame at tached” ( Quoted in Hollier 1993, x vii ) . 48 47 W o rk vs. leisur e spaces [RE]PL A CING 264 P armentier squar e in the middle of the city –as well as other urban spaces and forms of leisure–, which r everses the pr oductive function of the urban machine, the open space of the suburban park is tolerable and necessar y , since it places leisure and non-work extra mur os, without decelerating the frenzied rhythm of the city . 34 The paintings of Georges S eurat, depicting weekend scenes in the outskirts of P aris, reflect the separation betw een the city as space of work and the open areas of the peripheries used b y the proletariat during their fr ee days. In Bathers in Asnièr es (1884), the division is clear: the smoky factories in the background contrast with the scene that takes place across the river , where workers r elax and lie do wn, taking off their S unday clothes to have a r efreshing bath in the S eine. The spatial distribution of the city is harmoniously depicted, but the severity of the partition cannot be denied. Conditions of repulsion and attraction on public space ev olve along the line of thought that H ollier traces, linking the bourgeois vision of Zola and the sacrificial perspectiv e of Georges B ataille, whose work is the main focus of H ollier’ s book and to which we shall return later . Both authors, Hollier argues, put on display the opposing forces of life and death within the city . If the beatific space of Saint Ouen is not fr ee of disturbance and death in Zola ’ s work (in Ther èse Raquin , the park is the scene of the mur der of Camille at the hands of Laurent, his wife ’ s lover), B ataille deals with two different spaces of the city that embody these forces of r epulsion and attraction: the slaughterhouse and the museum. The first is the pole of abhorrence; it is centrifuge, while the second is centripetal, attracting people and inhabitants of the city (H ollier 1993, xiii). The slaughterhouse is the enclave in which B ataille detects sacrifice and death manifested in the city; it is the place of loss in an almost religious sense: man kills and devours the animal to live, but at the same time he witnesses his o wn transformation into a terrible, monstrous form. I t cannot be forgotten that fear of death is precisely what the community shar es, and it is here wher e it materializes. The museum, as the r efuge from horr or , counters the slaughterhouse. Bataille says: “ A museum is like the lung of a great city: ev er y S unday , the cro wd flo ws into the museum like 34 The question of w ork and leisur e will be addr essed in the chapter “[Em ] bodying” . The museum and the slaughterhouse 265 The squar e a s a socio-spatial product blood and it leaves purified and fr esh ” (1970, 48). 35 H ollier speaks of these two poles of a system where wor k is the main core: thr ough it, “ foundation and origin of humanity , ” homo faber is able to “liberate the animal” (N avarr o 2002, 132). The factor y , indeed, is the motor , the core of the modern city . Although Zola understood the suburban park or the squar e –and not the museum– as the epicenter of rest and working catharsis, one could outline a parallelism between both enclaves, since the contemporary museum reflects to some extent the functions of the square: the place to see and be seen and, abo ve all, to enjoy stipulated leisur e time; to spend a non-productiv e time rigorously absorbed within the logic and times of labor . 36 35 [ T . A . ] 36 Another parallelism bet w een the squar e as central urban space and the museum could be ar ticulated from Agamben ’ s identification of the museum as the temple of capitalism, acquiring a sacrificial dimension that the square has held –and s till holds– in some occasions: “ev er y thing toda y can become a Museum, because this term simply designates the exhibition of an impossibilit y of using, of dwelling, of experiencing . T hus, in the Museum, the analog y bet w een capitalism a nd religion becomes clear . T o the faithf ul in the T emple (…) correspond toda y the touris ts who restlessly trav el in a w orld that has been abs tracted into a Museum. B ut while the faithf ul and the pilgrims ultimately par ticipated in a sacrifice that reestablished the right relationships bet w een the divine and the human b y moving the victim into the sacred spher e, the touris ts celebrate on themselves a sacrificial act that consist s in the anguishing experience of the destruc tion of all possible use” (Agamben 2007, 84). W ithout delving into the square as a place for public execution, it is possible to find multiple global examples of “ museified” squares which ha ve lost their possibilit y of use. 50 49 [RE]PL A CING 272 06 Bartolomeo Carducci or P ellegrino T ibaldi. “Zeno of Elea sho ws the D oors to T ruth and F alse (V eritas et F alsitas), ” 1588-1595. Sour ce: W ikimedia Commons. 07 J ustinus Kerner . Klesksography , 1890. Source: Wikimedia Commons, U niversity of Heidelberg. 08 Rachel Whiter ead. “U ntitled (One H undred S paces), ” 2017. Source: Carlos Almansa. 09 S tanley T igerman, Little House in the Clouds (model), 1976. Sour ce: Art Institute of Chicago. 10 O.M. U ngers, Hans Kollhoff, W ohn- und Geschäftshaus, Berlin-S pandau, 1977. Source: http://cibernautajoan.blogspot.com 11 Rem K oolhaas. The S tor y of the P ool. . Source: R em K oolhaas, Delirious N ew Y ork , 1994, 309. 12 O.M. U ngers, “ Absent Column ” at the 1st International Architecture E xhibition in V enice, The P r esence of the P ast. Sour ce: Domus (605), 1980. 13 Colin Ro we and F red K oetter . F igure-ground plans of S t. Dié (Le Corbusier) and P arma. Source: Colin R o we and F red K oetter . Collage City . Cambridge, M ass.; London: The MIT P ress, 1978, 62-63. 14 S t. P eter ’ s Basilica plan (project). Donato B ramante, 1506, Rome. S ource: Wikimedia Commons. Drawing by the user M alyszkz from an illustration of Léon P alustre, L ’Architectur e de la Renaissance , 1892. 15 Claypotts Castle, Scotland, s. XVI. Source: U niversity of M aryland. 16 Auguste P erret, Rue F ranklin Apartments at P aris, 1902-1904 (plan). Source: Archiv es de l’I maginaire. EPFL, LAPIS. 17 Gio vanni B attista N olli. “Nuo va pianta di R oma, ”1748. Source: W ikimedia Commons. 18 Colin Ro we, P eter Carl, J udith Di M aio and S teven K. P eterson. “R oma Inter otta: N olli Plate 8, ” 1978. Source: Colin Ro we Conference. P lan pro vided by S teven K. P eterson. 19 Camillo Sitte, “The M odern Revival of Civic Art , ” figure-gr ound plans of 29 medieval spaces, 1889. Source: Camillo S itte, City P lanning Accor ding to Artistic Principles. London: P haidon P ress, 1965 (1889). 20 S t. Mar k ’ s Basilica. P entecost V ault and pendentives, V enice. Source: W ikimedia Commons. Image by D ennis J ar vis. 21 N ine triangle parks and squares in N ew Y ork. Sour ce: Composite image by the author from Google Maps. 22 G regor Schneider . “Haus u r , ” Rheydt 1985-today . Source: G regor Schneider / V G Bild- K unst Bonn. Courtesy of the artist. 23 The Chapuisat Brothers. “H yperespace, ” S t. Gallen 2005. Source: Courtesy of the artists. 24 The Chapuisat Brothers. “H yperespace, ” construction of the interior . S t. Gallen 2005. Source: Courtesy of the artists. 25 CultivAR. S ite R estrictions Diagram of the Left Over S pace House, B risbane 2013. Source: Courtesy of the authors. 273 26 Mateusz M astalski and Ole R obin S torjohann. “Live betw een Buildings, ” 2013. Source: Courtesy of the authors. 27 Charlotte Bovis. “M ind the Gap . ” Development M odel of Expanding S tructure, 2009. Source: RIBA P resident ’ s M edals. 28 Matthew Barry . “S patial Enigma, ” 2016. Source: RIBA P resident’ s Medals. 29 Apolonija Š ušteršič. “ Auditorium/ D isplay , ” P royecto Vitrinas, 2013. S ource: MUSA C. 30 P aris, Les Halles marketplace, 1900. Sour ce: W ikimedia Commons. 31 Saint-E ustache and the Canopy o ver F orum des Halles, 2016. Source: I taliani P ocket. 32 The Agora of Athens at the end of the II century BC, (by J.T ravlos, 1970). Source: Pierr e G ros and M arioT orelli. S toria dell’U rbanistica, il mondo romano . Bari: Editori Laterza, 2010, 423. 33 The Agora of Athens, II century AD, (by J.T ravlos, 1970). Source: Pierr e G ros and MarioT orelli. S toria dell ’U rbanistica, il mondo romano. B ari: Editori Laterza, 2010, 424. 34 F rancisco Rizi. “ Auto de F e en la Plaza Mayor de M adrid, ” 1683. Source: W ikimedia Commons. 35 Charles M onnet, Antoine-J ean Duclos (engraver). “J ournée du 21 janvier 1793 la mort de Louis Capet sur la place de la Révolution (E xecution of Louis XVI), ” 1794. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 36 “The Haymarket Riot, ” Source: H arpers W eekly , Chicago, 1886. Wikimedia Commons. 37 Plaza Independencia during the r evolution of J une 12, 1887, Buenos Air es. Source: La Gaceta. 38 Demostration of the P ro-P risoners Commission in favor of F rancisco F errer G uar dia during the ragic W eek, Barcelona, 1909. Sour ce: T rabajo: Memoria y P or venir . U niversidad Complutense de Madrid. 39 S uffragette Christabel P ankhurst addressing the cro wd in T rafalgar Square during a rally , May 1909. S ource: P ress Association, Daily Mail. 40 W omen ’ s March on W ashington on Satur day 21 J anuar y 2017. Source: Photograph b y Chang W . Lee, The N ew Y ork T imes. 41 P orte Sainte-Antoine, Bastille, P lace Ro yale (no w the Place des V osges), and the rue Saint- Antoine. Detail of T urgot’ s Map of P aris, 1739. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 42 Leonardo B enevolo . Scheme of the Haussmann Plan for P aris, 1848. Sour ce: Leonardo Benevolo, H istoria de la Ar quitectura M oderna . Bar celona: Gustavo G ili, 1977, 104. 43 F . M.L.A. Gobinet de Villecholle, F ranck. “The Destruction of V endôme Column, ” 1871. Source: W ikimedia Commons. 44 Bruno Braquehais. “S tatue of Napoleon I after the fall of the V endôme Column, ” 1871. Source: W orld D igital Library . 45 Edgar Degas. “Place de la Concor de, ” 1875. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 46 “Place du Théatre. S ortie des ouvriers Delaunay-Belleville, ” c. 1910. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 47 Georges Seurat. “B athers at Asnières, ” 1884. Source: Wikimedia Commons. [RE]PL A CING 274 48 Auguste R enoir . “Dance at the Moulin de la G alette, ” 1876. S ource: Wikimedia Commons. 49 La V illette Slaughterhouse, main hall. 1970s. S ource: EPPGHV -F onds SEMVI. 50 Bernar d T schumi. P oints, lines, surfaces. Diagram for P arc de la Villette, 1982-1983. Source: P lataforma Arquitectura. 275 SE-DUCTIO I: BEIJING. 277 The city sprawls endlessly o ver the northern plains in the shelter of the mountains. As an old tree trunk, its concentric structure unveils the age of its multiple layers, which enclose one another like sacr ed rings preserving the histor y and the form of the city . H owever , concentric perfection dissolves progr essively as we mo ve away from the center towar d the peripheries, where the city becomes a living, formless mass in permanent expansion. I t is practically impossible to draw a fixed map of ir , since it expands in an almost unpredictable way . F uture urban developments ar e constantly projected and r ethought, making it difficult to imagine how the city will look like in the next y ears. The Beijing Planning E xhibition Hall hosts an impr essive 302-squar e- meter model on the scale 1:750 that shows ho w the Chinese capital would look like in 2020. The historic core and the concentrations of skyscrapers in business districts stand in contrast to developing ar eas that have ar e pro visionally represented by generic models of buildings whose layout and arrangement ar e still to be defined. The model stands o ver a huge 1000-squar e meter back-lit glass panel depicting the outskirts of the city , which have been consider ed to be less relev ant for the purposes of the model and whose surface exceeds by far the perimeter of the museum ’ s room. I t is the indefinite projection of a city in permanent becoming that how ever needs to materializ e its future appearance, ev en in an imaginar y , ephemeral way . 01 SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 278 The city of Beijing was properly founded b y the M ongol Y uan Dinasty , under the r ule of K ublai Khan in the thir teenth centur y . Built o ver the remains of former villages, it was giv en the name of Khanbaliq (“ the city of the Khan ”) or Dadu, in Chinese, meaning the “G reat Capital”. I t was placed north-east of the former city of Zhongdu (“Central Capital”), which had been destr o yed by G enghis Khan in 2014. The new city shared many similarities with the former: it also had perpendicular streets, walls, water bodies, ax es, etc., although Dadu was mor e extensive, and soon began to expand following a traditional urban structur e. Indeed, the shape of the Chinese capital responds to a complex system of r efer ences ranging from Confucian philosophy to numerology and geomancy . T wo basic elements can be highlighted in or der to understand the generic structure of the Chinese archaic metr opolitan model, which can be obser ved –with differ ences– in Beijing as w ell as in Xi ’an: the north-south axis and the square. I t is important to bear in mind that the particular space of the capital was to be considered the center of the world, maybe of the universe. As it was pointed out in the introductory chapter , the Chinese name for the countr y , Zhongguo (formally adopted after the 1911 rev olution, although used for centuries), means “ central nation, ”an expression that derives from ancient denominations, which also r efer to a central kingdom 02 03 The centr al nation 279 or civilization. 1 This perception of a central position is influenced by the fact that the Chinese territories have been strongly isolated b y physical boundaries (the H imalayas, the P acific O cean, Gobi Desert, Siberia…), as w ell as the relativ e hegemony and stability that Chinese culture has kept thr oughout most of its histor y: even during the twentieth century , when other communist countries saw themselves falling behind its W estern counterparts, China never considered itself a weak po wer , and its militar y , cultural and commercial strength led to this perception of centrality (H obsbawm 1995, 462–63). Indeed, Beijing, competing during the seventeenth century with Istanbul, Agra, and Delhi (K ostof 1991, 37–41), was the largest global metropolis until 1800, when industrialization boosted the gro wth of many cities and urban areas (S hane 2011, 87). Inter estingly , the Chinese character for “ center” ( 中 , zhong ) looks like a rectangle trav ersed by a vertical stroke, r esembling the physical layout of the traditional city . The city , as a r epresentation of the Earth in connection to the universe, acquir ed the form of the square, since it was the mythical shape attributed to the Earth in ancient Chinese 1 The name of Beijing also has geographical connotations . While jing means “ capital, ” bei is “ nor th. ” Beijing wa s conceived as the Nor thern capit al, in opposition to Nanjing, the Southern capit al. These names ha ve changed several times thr oughout his tor y depending on the situation of the capital for differ ent dyna sties . 04 05 SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 280 geographical thought. 2 I ts orientation was determined by the five –not four , since the center is also included– car dinal points. This layout was extremely effectiv e for the application of numerical schemes, which played an essential role in quantity and spatial r egulation: the duality of yin and yang , five elements and car dinal points, the N ine Divisions of the H ong fan (The G reat Plan described in Confucius ’ Book of Documents ) twelv e temporal markers, sixty-four hexagrams… The numerical dimension of traditional Chinese culture, going from “ two to abundance ” and differing significantly from W estern numerical or ders –the One, duality , dialectics, trinity…– combined all this elements to control and r egulate the city , as well as granting it a recognizable code for its intellectual understanding (S. Li 2014, 6–16). All these numerical refer ences appear in varying degrees in the layout of the ancient cor e of Beijing, the F orbidden City , built during the fifteenth centur y and hosting the imperial residence for the M ing and Qing dynasties within the Imperial City until 1912, with the abdication of P uyi and the founding of the Republic. The multiple palaces, gates and temples of the city are structured accor ding to a grid pattern, with a strong 7.8-kilometer long axis running from north to south –since this is the orientation that favors the flo w of qi , the natural energy present in all living cr eatur es. N ew r egime, new spaces. The layout of the historic city was po werful enough to condition the further development of the capital, even after the urban transformations carried out during the first decades of the P eople ’ s 2 Chinese nonar y cosmography is based on the nine-square f ormation in vented b y F u Xi or Y u the Gr eat, t wo of the sage-kings of high Chinese antiquit y . It was not a mer e intellec tual abstrac tion, but also was applied to the domains of agriculture, urban planning, writ ten language or medicine. The Chinese character for “well” ( jing ) also r esembles the thr ee-by-thr ee grid, reinf or cing its beneficial charac ter . (Henderson 1994) The K aogong ji (“ The Book of Div erse Craf ts , ” 770-476 BC ), an impor t ant tr eaty on science and technolog y in Ancient China , also has ref er ences to this numer ological system with r egar d to urban planning: “ a capital cit y should be square on plan. T hr ee gates on each side of the perimeter lead into the nine main streets that crisscross the city and define its grid- pat tern. And f or its lay out the cit y should hav e the R o yal Cour t situated in the south, the Marketplace in the nor th, the Imperial Ancestral T emple in the ea st and the Alt ar to the Gods of La nd and Grain in the w est” ( quoted in Sparavigna 2013, 56) . N umerical space 281 New regime, new spaces Republic. O nce Beijing was pr oclaimed the only capital of China in 1949, it seemed necessar y to give the city a new identity as the center of the communist republic, whose v alues obviously clashed with the imperial character of the urban tissue. Indeed, the idea of modernizing and even demolishing the F orbidden City was considered and supported by sev eral officials and urban planners (S udjic 2011, 98; Martinsen 2010; H ung 2011), who saw it as an awkwar d, counterrev olutionar y symbol of the past. On the contrary , others claimed for its preservation, because of its cultural, artistic and symbolic value. One of the most v ehement voices against the inter vention in the F orbidden City was the ar chitect and Liang Sicheng, who was appointed vice-dir ector of the Beijing P lanning Committee under the Communist rule. In 1950, together with the urban planner Chen Zhanxiang, Liang presented a pr oposal to relocate the administrativ e center of the P eople ’ s Republic go vernment to the west side of the old city , thus avoiding its demolition. The result was a double urban cor e, hosting the past and the pr esent of the capital, and became highly contro versial due to sev eral r easons; not only because it left the historic enclave unchanged, but also because of the strange duplication of the city , which escaped Chinese –and So viet– planning logic. 3 The great economic effort that the execution 3 Liang and Chen had studied in the United St ates and England, r espectively , so this fact maybe raised the suspicion of some officials and colleagues, who saw a cer tain 06 The double city SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 288 and the main square of the capital was r enewed and extended. W ith the building of the Mausoleum of M ao in 1977, the square was finally completed: then, the center of Beijing was located at the M onument to the H eroes, after a displacement of gr eat symbolic impact. 9 On the contrar y , the F orbidden City remained like a fossil, a museum piece, a “ frame against which new meanings, repr esentations, and symbols can be created ” (W atson 1995, 9), while political and representative activity was concentrated at T iananmen Square, a perfect rectangular extension. Thus, the negative character of the squar e as a void is rev ersed here; ev en the construction of new monuments and some of the T en G reat Buildings in the squar e and the progr essive introduction of civic codes and behavior rules within its limits have not o vershado wed the significance of the extensiv e void, which may be regar ded as what Kern (1983, 153) calls a “ positive negative space, ” that is, a void that transcends its secondary character to become as relev ant as the elements which configure it. U ntil then, demonstrations and parades in the square had had an unquestionably rev olutionar y , pro-P arty character . Indeed, this was the main objective of the spatial project for T iananmen: an immense esplanade to activate the “hectic phonotope ” (Sloter dijk Railway Station, the W orkers’ Stadium, the National Agriculture Exhibition Hall, the Diao yutai St ate Guesthouse, the Minzu Hotel, the Overseas Chinese Hotel ( demolished in 1990 and r econstruc ted) and the Chinese P eople’ s Rev olutionar y Militar y Museum. 9 W u Hung r ef ers to the urban planner Chen Gan as the promoter of this shif t; after the 1949 r evolution he applies Friedrich Engels ’ argument about the significance of “zer o” to mo v e the center of Beijing fr om the Imperial thr one to the squar e (H. W u 2005, 7–8) . 10 11 12 P ositive / negative space 289 T iananmen square 2006, 475) 10 of the masses that stage and legitimate the pow er of the people. H o wever , the turning point in which this purpose begins to fluctuate occurs in 1976, after the death of the P remier Zhou Enlai, one of the most respected leaders of the P ar ty and who had played an essential role in the pr eser vation of the F orbidden City . Due to his moderate attitude, Zhou was confronted with the radical “Gang of F our ” –to which M ao ’ s wife J iang Qing belonged–, who represented a highly strict political faction with an important influence during the years of the C ultural Revolution. D uring the Qingming festival –the “ T omb-S weeping Day ”– of that year , thousands of citizens attended the M onument to the P eople ’ s H eroes in order to expr ess their condolence for the death of Zhou: for the first time, the M onument facing T iananmen, co ver ed with white sheets and paper chr ysanthemums, was associated with the memor y of a single individual. This was particularly contro versial, as the M emorial was the most pow erful repr esentation of collectivity . On the night of 4 to 5 April, P ar ty leaders met at the G reat Hall, wher e they decided to remo ve all symbols of mourning. But in the morning, tens of thousands of people, appalled by what had happened, began a protest in T iananmen Square, despite the police and military presence. Many demonstrators w ere shot and beaten when trying to resist. The next day , blood stains had been carefully cleaned. P aradoxically , this conflict, described as “ counterrevolutionary ” by the leaders of the C ultural R evolution, 11 would be consider ed a brave r evolutionary act when Deng Xiaoping ascended to po wer thr ee years later . With r espect to M ao, he would die a few months after Zhou, and his mausoleum would again alter the spatiality of the square: the symbolic display of opposites was completed with the relation between the corpse of the leader inside the mausoleum and his triumphal portrait on the Gate. H ow ever , it was not until 1989 that a popular demonstration would change the way T iananmen is understood in contemporar y histor y . As in 1976, ever ything started with the death of a leader; in this case H u Y aobang, who had also been dismissed by the r egime and was considered a major adv ocate 10 [ T . A . ] 11 The members of the Gang of F our wer e judged and sentenced to imprisonment in 1981 for crimes against the C CP , Mar xis t - L eninist ideolog y and at tack s to their rivals . (Counter)- r evolutionary actions SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 290 of democracy by students and intellectuals. I n addition to this, a profound discontent arose due to the liberalizing r eforms initiated by Deng ’ s gov ernment, as they wer e considered insufficient b y this group and too aggressiv e accor ding to peasants and workers. 12 The protest began in a similar manner to that of 1976, but while in this case the demonstration was held one hundred days after the death of Zhou, in 1989 people began to gather a few hours after the death of H u, once again leaving their expressions of condolence at the monument, now located in the center of the squar e. As the cro wd grew larger , the general feeling of mourning became a mass outcr y . S tudents formed the most active group , and progr essively transformed the space of the square with symbols of opposition to go vernment values, r eversing the meaning of official elements. The demonstration, which would continue for some days, acquired further relev ance due to the coincidence with other major events, even o vershadowing the visit of Mikhail G orbachev to the P eople ’ s Republic. Ther efor e, the welcoming cer emony to the So viet leader could not be held in T iananmen S quare, so it had to take place at the airport, and the route to war ds the G reat Hall of the P eople had to be diver ted, instead of going through the majestic Chang ’an avenue. The square and its surroundings had been completely taken by the demonstrators, while a festive atmospher e per vaded the occupied space. M arches, demonstrations and meetings of all sorts were held daily . Besides, not only banners and images wer e used to express their demands, but also the square became a habitable place for the pr otesters coming from different parts of the countr y: even sleeping ar eas, toilets and water taps wer e installed at various points (H ershkovitz 1993, 414). Once again, more than any other monument or r epr esentative element, empty space becomes a privileged field for rev olution, as a gap from which histor y could be re-written again and again. I n his analysis of 12 This clash between intellec tual and w orking cla sses was maint ained ev en after the death of Mao, who had foster ed it under the appearance of a false class strug gle in which the intellec tual was the enemy of the w ork er . In this way , mor e anger and r esentment emerged among the people, collec ted in that “national bank of r evolutionary affect” that had st ar ted with the antifeudal anger of peasants prior to Mao’ s rise (Sloter dijk 2010, 172). Consequently , a wa v e of hatr ed and r epr ession was trig gered against intellec tuals, who wer e mistr eated and publicly humiliated in all possible ways f or the sake of the Cultural Re volution (Lu 1996, 143) . 1989 291 T iananmen square 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 292 the F rench R evolution, J ules Michelet proclaimed this significance in a very different context that, how ever , could be expanded to ver y different times and spaces: The Champ de Mars! This is the only monument that the R evolution has left. The Empire has its Column, and engr osses almost exclusiv ely the arch of T riumph; royalty has its Louvr e, its H ospital of I nvalids; the feudal church of the twelfth century is still enthroned at N otre D ame: nay , the very Romans have their Imperial R uins, the Thermae of the Caesars! And the R evolution has for her monument: empty space. 13 As the protest started to gain national relev ance, the urge to create strong symbols for the event immediately ar ose. Thus, a group of students who gathered in the squar e came up with the idea of building a new monument that would reflect the spirit of the protest. The Goddess of D emocracy was sculpted in styrofoam and plaster o ver a metal armatur e by art students. W u (1991) remarks that demonstrators decided to separate from the M onument to the P eople ’ s Her oes because it had already r epresented too many causes. N evertheless, the location of the female figure –which bore some similarity to the American S tatue of Liber ty 14 and became one of the most pow erful visual refer ences of the protest– was mor e important than the sculpture itself: the statue was placed in the v er y north- south axis of the city , between the M onument and T iananmen Gate, defiantly facing the portrait of Mao Zedong. As a response to this act of pr o vocation to war ds the r egime, the party ne wspaper P eople ’ s Daily published an article –mentioned by W u 13 Jules Michelet, Histoire de la Révolution française , 1847-1853 ( quoted in Mitchell 2012, 17) . 14 The ev ent s in T iananmen became a subject of major interest for the W estern public, who saw it as an emergent triumph of democracy in the non- W estern counterpar t. The contradictions and misinterpretations both in the W estern interpretation of the fac ts ( fa vor ed b y mass-media repr esent ation and narratives ) and the Chinese appropriation of W es tern democratic symbols ( also in terms of gender , using the image of a white female goddess ) ar e brilliantly exposed b y R ey Cho w (1988) in “ V iolence in the Other Countr y . ” The symbolic and phantasmagoric charac ter of the st atue, for instance, seriously impressed P aul Auster , as he shows thr ough the narration of the main character of his 1992 novel L eviathan. E mpty space as monument 293 T iananmen square (1991) and H ershko vitz (1993)– claiming for the sacr edness of the square and denouncing the pr otests as a grave offence to the people: Someone er ected a statue of the “Goddess of Democracy ” without authorization in dignified T iananmen Squar e and this evoked various comments among the people. (…) In the S quare the T iananmen rostrum, the flag poles, the M onument to the P eople ’ s Heroes, the memorial hall, the museum, and the G reat H all of the P eople are all built in good order and the lay out is serious and solemn. The Squar e is a site to hold grand ceremonies and major state activities and is an important place for domestic and foreign tourists to visit with rever ence. I t is the hear t of the P eople ’ s Republic and is the focus of the world’ s attention. (…) N o one has the power to add any permanent memorial or to remo ve anything fr om the Squar e. S uch things must not be allowed to happen in China! (Y . W u 1989 quoted in W u 1991, 111 ff) The official perception, as evidenced in this article, was that the protesters wer e desecrating the holiest space in China, an argument that would become essential to evict the demonstrators. In fact, the protest was consider ed a private appropriation of a sacr ed space. Three days after the publication of the article, a tank destroy ed the statue of the Goddess, which collapsed and shatter ed to pieces. Soldiers and tanks from the P eople ’ s Liberation Army wer e sent to take control of the situation and on J une 4 protesters decided to leave the squar e. Although the exact number of casualties remains unkno wn, it is officially stated that nobody died in T iananmen Square. H owev er , the fact that persecution and violent repr ession acts took place mostly in the surroundings is usually hidden. 15 Thus, the squar e has been restor ed again as a holy national space fr ee of dissent and conflict, which have been conveniently deleted. 16 15 Haw (2007, 129) states that the mos t accurate estimate is that around 400 demonstrators wer e killed, a s w ell as a few hundr ed soldiers. The official pr eliminar y figure given b y the Chinese gov ernment was 241, including 23 soldiers; how ev er , the Chinese Red Cr oss counted around 2,600-2,700 (L. Lim 2014, 7). A recently declassified British diplomatic cable alleged that at leas t 10,000 people w er e killed in the ma ssacr e (Lusher 2017). 16 Louisa Lim (2014, 86) conducted an experiment with young students , asking them if they r ecognized the f amous “T ank Man” photograph b y Jeff W idener depic ting a man st anding alone in fr ont of a line of militar y t ank s in T iananmen Squar e during the SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 294 Linda H ershko vitz (1993) conducted an inter esting analysis of the phenomenon in spatial terms through a Lefebvrian appr oach, assuming that “[t]he pow er of oppositional mo vements r ests on their ability to appropriate ‘ the space of the other’ and transform it in ways which articulate their own political vision ” (1993, 395). S patial practice is the moment through which the “ space of the other ” is appropriated, no matter ho w brief or temporar y such appropriation is. T o H ershko vitz, the socio-spatial configuration of T iananmen can be explained in terms of Lefebvrian spatial dialectics, unveiling ho w different forms of po wer hav e been r econciling different elements of their symbolic geography . F or instance, Mao managed to combine the new revolutionary monumentality with symbolic elements of the former empire under a new meaning and to establish and r edefine the concept of urban space in the new regime. H o wev er , this reveals a first contradiction that cannot possibly be solved: H ershkovitz uses pr otest s. Some of them a ssur ed that they had nev er seen the image bef or e, while others ga ve vague answ ers or ref used to speak about it . 25 24 23 22 Spaces of the Other 295 From China to the W es t and back Lefebvr e ’ s definition of monumental space, a space that is determined by what may and may not take place ther e, that is, the prescribed and the proscribed, the scene and the obscene. B ut at the same time, she emphasizes that public spaces can never be fully enclosed, “ and thus their uses and meanings can never be completely pr escribed” (H ershko vitz 1993, 416). This statement that H ershkovitz uses to open a dialectical situation could be interpreted in a r everse way: T iananmen S quare could nev er be a symbol for specific groups, as it has been a space ser ving antagonistic elements: it means both a thing and its opposite, rev olution and counterrev olution. Despite the attempts to o vercome this confr ontation, as it was done after the demonstrations in 1989 with the memorial of the fortieth anniversar y of the founding of the P eople ’ s Republic –in which a pro visional group of statues r epresenting a wor ker , a farmer , a soldier and an intellectual stood where the G oddess of Democracy had been, as a symbol of unity and submission to the regime– T iananmen square has shown the potential to become the scenario of differ ent positions –for or against pow er , which of course still claims the space as an official symbol. As in many other parts of the world, the square is the image of a space and its counterspace –the F orbidden City and the nearby str eets should not be forgotten–, and from its civic, political dimension it necessarily assumes that contradiction, even though official Chinese spatiality does not expect opposing scenarios. Chantal M ouffe (2007), from an agonist political perspective, claims for this space that ends up being a “battlefield, ” where differ ent models ar e faced with no hope of ultimate reconciliation. F rom China to the W est and back. The fact that T iananmen protests almost coincided in time with the fall of the Berlin W all reinfor ces the discourse on the post-political framework. With the 1989 pr otests, many see the beginning of a radically new age in China: paradoxically , some authors and historians match the riots with the advent of postmodernism in a country that, despite the inexistence of a modern period 17 comparable to the 17 In fact, at that moment , intellectuals wanted to reviv e the “ pr oject of Chinese modernit y” that had been traced af ter Ma y 4 1919, brutally interrupted with the Cultural Re volution (Lu 1996, 141) . (Counter)spaces as battlefields P ostmodernism in China? SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 296 W estern ones, began to experience the emergence of postmodern trends in differ ent ar eas. In fact, the period fr om M ao ’ s death until 1989 is often referr ed as the “N ew Era ” ( xin shiqi ), while that after 1989 until today is called “P ost-N e w Era ” ( hou xin shiqi ) (Lu 1996, 140). F redric J ameson was the first to introduce the term “ postmodernism ” in China in 1985 during a series of lectures at Beijing U niversity , although the notion was initially regarded as one more of the many theories coming fr om the W est in or der to enliven the Chinese cultural and philosophical scene (Lu 1996, 145). In spite of the differ ences, some of the featur es of this post-new China share similarities with those of W estern postmodernism: for instance, a certain disappointment emerged among intellectual and creativ e workers who, after decades of silence and prosecution, embarked on a bitter r eflection about the Chinese past, adopting critical positions towar d hegemonic thinking through oppositions, deconstructions of meaning, parody , pastiche, fiction, exploring the boundar y between the elitist and the popular (L u 1996, 145). This shift can be clearly appreciated in Chinese cinema during the last decades of the twentieth century . The F ifth Generation, the most prominent group of Chinese filmmakers during the mid-late 1980s, focused on developing a new aesthetics that reflected the pr ogressiv e break with the go vernment, after a period of ideological emancipation promoted during the N ew Era: they “ effected an imaginar y act of rebellion rather than an aesthetic r evolution ” (Chen 1997, 126) in which rev olutionar y canons underwent aesthetic experimentation. In effect, politics was pr esent, but only in the background, as seen in films such as Y ellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984) or One and E ight 26 297 From China to the W es t and back (Zhang J unzhao, 1984): “ this is not to say that the F ifth Generation was apolitical. I ts politics lay in the ver y act of seemingly apolitical, formal, and aesthetic experimentation ” (Chen 1997, 128). 18 In this sense, these works r edraw new conditions away from the premises of realism and the exaltation of ideology , which had prev ailed until then in filmmaking. In fact, both films depict the times of the alliance between the K uomintang and the Communist P arty during the war against J apan, but they are far from being used as pr opagandistic elements, as it was done in the past: the political is disarmed, reinterpr eted from its v er y absence and in light of the aesthetic- narrative experience. I nterestingly , the production of this group was enthusiastically praised in the W est, where their films began to r eceive several prizes and awar ds in international festivals. On the contrar y , they would not enjoy widespr ead popularity in their o wn country because of censorship and the differences with the topics which interested the general public. At the same time, mass cultur e started to be introduced into commodified circuits through media and new technologies, thus producing a displacement of the intellectual class as a cultural r eferent. P opular culture ser ved to separate the masses fr om the former M aoist official culture b y means of more sentimental messages –soap-operas, pop music, series, best-selling authors– that reflected the emotions of the individual (even r eferencing taboos as sexuality) instead of those of the nation. M oreo ver , these messages, which came from W estern or westernized societies such as J apan, T aiwan and Hong K ong (Lu, 1996: 151-152), wer e also a tool to face “high culture ” generated by intellectuals, with which people did not identify themselves. After years of disdain and r ejection of anything that could be considered culturally “ W estern ” –such as contemporar y art, but also TV series or pop music– the Chinese go vernment progr essively recognized the positive effect that these elements have on its o verall image, and the main consequence has been a greater tolerance to war d new artists and producers in terms of censorship . One of the most r emarkable milestones on this cultural shift was the production of the television 18 Chen (1997) labels this dual charac ter between political and apolitical as “post - political” in his essa y , using the term in a diff er ent wa y than W estern radical philosophers ha ve been doing mor e recently . C ultur e and affects SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 304 While T iananmen weakly resists as the political center of the countr y , 22 the tr ue r epresentation of space is pr esent in these new buildings that show the opening of the r egime to international capitalism –despite the fluctuations and instability of its market. Once again, the economic structure subjugates state policies. This is the ultimate opposition between the two main conceptions of the Chinese city: cheng and shi , the wall and the marketplace that, despite being used interchangeably , the second seems to have displaced the first (Bracken and S olomon 2013, 1): the enclosed city as the per fect repr esentation of an immanent universe has exploded to become a sprawling, endless mega-city in an urban system that is expected to contain more than one billion people in 2030. This progr essive transition from the closed cheng to the extensive shi may serve to introduce the final reflection of this urban seductio that has diverted the course of the resear ch in order to find connections, encounters and oppositions that enrich its perspectives. If the chapter started with the cosmological r eferences to an immanent universe with no outside, generated by itself and from within, which is r eflected in urban space and the socio-political or der (Lee et al. 2013, 30), 23 it could end with the displacement of 22 Its symbolic charac ter has not been los t despite its museification: it s till host s main national events and v enues and, besides, it is s till the chosen space for dissent and at tack s against centralit y , as it happened in 2013 with the at tack at tributed to the Uighur minorit y , a racial communit y from the Xinjiang r egion which often protests against the policies of the central gov ernment . 23 “This metaphysics leads to a moral and familial ( or bioethical) political cons truc t, with an emphasis on oneness , fr om the person to the family , the s tate, and the universe, as one moral or der . For Eur opeans in cla ssical antiquity , how ev er , the universe is generated b y 36 37 The wall and the marketplace 305 From China to the W es t and back these refer ences from cosmos to earth. The sun that appears in the famous national mural This Land so Rich in Beauty (by F u Baoshi and Guan S hanyue, 1959) placed in the Gr eat Hall of the P eople rises in the east, contemplating the changing, diverse but unitary landscape of mainland China, concentrating all times and seasons in a single image. The same sun was expected to descend upon Earth after the death of Mao, a turning point in the history of the countr y . 24 All the entries for the competition to build a mausoleum for the chairman in T iananmen ’ s S quare pointed to the limitless r elevance of the leader as the main source of universal energy; indeed, one of the designs featured a giant, 100-metr e high r ed orb repr esenting the rising sun (Sang and B armé 2008) –and not the setting sun, usually associated with death in W estern culture. F inally , the sun arrived in T iananmen S quare, but not as a colossal tomb or a triumphant, rising star . The smog cloud co vering Beijing evidences the strong pollution problems that the country is facing something else, fr om outside, by something transcendent, ultimately b y an external agent, an unmov ed mover , the First Cause ( God), outside the universe; with this externalit y , all things can be externalized and opposed to each other , and the world can be abstrac ted into a pur e scheme of absolute opposites, a position that leads to a legal and contrac tual political construc t with individuals and social entities conceived as autonomous and opposed in an open outside” (Lee et al. 2013, 30) . 24 The identification between Mao and the rising sun is pr esent in man y traditional songs and poems; for instance, “ The East is Red”: “The east is red, the sun is rising./ From China arises Mao Zedong (…) T he Communist P ar t y is like the sun,/ Wher ever it shines, it is bright (…)” or the traditional childr en’ s song “ I Love Beijing T iananmen”: “I lov e Beijing’ s T iananmen,/ T he place wher e the Sun rises./ Our Great L eader Mao Zedong/ Guides us as we mar ch for ward!” ( translated b y H. W u 2005, 53) 38 The sun ov er Beijing SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 306 due to its unprecedented industrial gr owth and the lack of motiv ation to find effective solutions –which seems a paradox considering the recent outburst of eco-cities and gr een architectur e. The sun is no w possible only as an image; in 2013 and 2014, during several crisis of dangerous levels of polluting particles in air , the rising sun and the blue sky appeared on a giant TV screen installed in the squar e, as advertisements to warn the population about the risks of air pollution and asking for their contribution to avoid it (N ye 2014). Contemporar y China, although strongly anchor ed in its immediate past, is gradually becoming aware of its position with r egar d to the r est of the world and other actors, as well as global challenges that displace the central focus on the countr y to war d an outside. 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Martinsen, J oel. 2010. “ T ear D own the P alace!” China H eritage Quarterly , no . 24. http://www . chinaheritagequarterly .org/articles.php?searchterm=024_palace.inc&issue=024. Mitchell, William J.T . 2012. “Image, Space, R evolution: The Arts of Occupation. ” Critical I nquiry 39 (1): 8–32. M ouffe, Chantal. 2007. “ Ar tistic A ctivism and Agonistic S paces. ” A rt & Resear ch 1 (2): 1–5. N ye, J ames. 2014. “China Starts T elevising the Sunrise on G iant TV Screens Because B eijing Is so Clouded in S mog. ” Mail Online . http://www .dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540955/Beijing- clouded-smog-way-sunrise-watch-giant-commercial-screens-T iananmen-Squar e.html. Sang, Y e, and Geremie R. Barmé. 2008. “ A Beijing That I sn ’ t (P art I). ” China H eritage Quarterly , no . 14. http://www .chinaheritagequarterly .org/features.php?searchterm=014_ BeijingThatW asnt.inc&issue=014. Shane, David G rahame. 2011. U rban Design since 1945: A G lobal P erspective . Chichester: Wiley . Sloter dijk, P eter . 2006. Esfer as III: Espumas, esfer ología plur al. Madrid: Ediciones Siruela. ———. 2010. Rage and T ime: A P sychopolitical I nvestigation . N e w Y ork: Columbia U niversity P ress. S paravigna, Amelia Carolina. 2013. “S unrise and Sunset Azimuths in the Planning of Ancient Chinese T owns. ” International J ournal of Sciences 2 (11): 52–59. S udjic, Deyan. 2011. The Edifice Complex: The A rchitectur e of P o wer . London: P enguin Books Limited. Villar d, F lorent. 2014. “One day in B eijing avec les Gao B rothers. ” In L ’esprit des villes , 1:159–85. Gollion: Infolio É ditions. W atson, Rubie. 1995. “P alaces, M useums and Squar es: Chinese N ational Spaces. ” Museum Anthr opolog y 19 (2): 7–19. W u, H ung. 1991. “T iananmen S quare: A P olitical History of Monuments. ” R epr esentations 35 (1): 84–117. ———. 2005. Remaking Beijing. T iananmen Squar e and the Cr eation of a P olitical S pace. London: Reaktion Books. 309 W u, Y e. 1989. “What does the Statue of the Goddess of Democracy which appear ed in T iananmen Square indicate?” R enmin Ribao (P eople ’ s Daily) . X u, Yinong. 2000. The Chinese City in S pace and T ime. The Development of U rban F or m in Suzhou . H onolulu: U niversity of Hawai ’i Pr ess. Images. 01 A woman looks at the model of Beijings city master plan. Sour ce: Photograph by G uang N iu, Getty I mages. The Guar dian. 02 The two ancient schemes for Chinese imperial capitals, Chang’an (Xian, top) and B eijing (below). S ource: S piro Kostof , The City S haped: U rban P atterns and M eanings Through History , Bullfinch P ress, 1991. 03 The various stages and positions of the capital Beijing through the ages. 1. N anjing (Liao Dynasty); 2. Zhongdu ( J in Dynasty); 3. Dadu (Y uan Dynasty) and 4. Beijing (Ming-Qing Dynasty). Source: Q uadralectic Architecture. 04 The plan of the ideal city of W ang-Ch ’eng. Source: Quadralectic Architectur e. 05 Beijing T emple of Confucius, representation of the universe. S ource: Photograph b y the author . 06 Liang Sicheng and Chen Zhanxiang. P roposal for the new administrative center of Beijing, 1950. Source: B eijing M unicipal Archives. 07 S treet scenes. Beijing and S hanghai (2010-2016). Source: Photographs by the author . 08 T iananmen Gate, 1901. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 09 Aerial view of T iananmen and the Imperial City , 1900. Source: B undesarchiv , Wikimedia Commons. 10 Qing T iananmen and environs, flanked by the government ministries. S ource: Linda Hershko vitz,“ T iananmen Square and the P olitics of Place. ” P olitical Geogr aphy 12 (5), 1993, 403. 11 Plan of T iananmen Square in 1959. S ource: W u Hung, “T iananmen Square: A P olitical History of M onuments. ” R epr esentations 35 (1), 1991,103. 12 Plan of T iananmen Square in 1977. S ource: W u Hung, “T iananmen Square: A P olitical History of M onuments. ” R epr esentations 35 (1), 1991,105. 13 P ro-democracy pr otesters link arms to hold back angry crowds, prev enting them from chasing a retr eating group of soldiers near the G reat H all of the P eople, on J une 3, 1989. Source: J eff Widener , Associated Pr ess. I nternazionale.it 14 F irst Chinese Contemporar y Art Exhibit. Artists per forming on “N o T urning Back ” signs, F ebr uary 1989. Source: zonaeuropa.com 15 A Chinese couple on a bicycle take co ver beneath an underpass as tanks deplo y o verhead in eastern Beijing, on J une 5, 1989. Source: Rare H istorical Photos. 16 Beijing U niversity students put the finishing touches on the Goddess of Democracy in T iananmen Square, on M ay 30, 1989. Sour ce: Rare H istorical Photos. SE-DUC TIO I: B EIJING 310 17 Goddess of Democracy , 30 May 1989. Sour ce: Photograph by Liu H eung S hing, Associated P ress. N ew Y ork T imes (Chinese V ersion). 18 Opposing icons: the statue of the Goddess of Democracy faces M ao ’ s por trait, 1989. Source: W u Hung, “T iananmen Square: A P olitical H istory of Monuments. ” Representations 35 (1), 1991,111. 19 Demonstrators co vering Mao ’ s portrait, May 23, 1989. 23 maggio 1989. S ource: E d N achtrieb , Reuters/Contrasto . Internazionale.it 20 Man standing in front of the tank in T iananmen Squar e. Sour ce: J eff Widener , Associated P ress. N ew Y ork T imes (Chinese V ersion). 21 The burned and lynched body of infantryman Cui Guozheng, 1989. S ource: standoffattiananmen.com 22 F ences arournd T iananmen Squar e, 2016. Sour ce: Photograph by the author . 23 Entrance check point at T iananmen, 2016. Source: Photograph by the author . 24 M onument to the P eople ’ s Heroes, 2016. Sour ce: Photograph by the author . 25 T iananmen Square, 2016. Sour ce: Photograph by the author . 26 A man holding a Coke bottle at T iananmen Square, 1981. Sour ce: Photograph by Liu Heung S hing. CN Cr eate. 27 S un Zixi. “I n F ront of T iananmen Square, ” 1964. S ource: N ational Art Museum of China. 28 W ang J insong. “T aking a picture in front of T iananmen Square, ” 1994. Source: artnet.com 29 The Gao Br others next to their work Mao ’ s G uilt , 2009. Source: P hotograph by S hiho F ukada,The N e w Y ork T imes. 30 W ang Guangyi. “M ao Zedong AO (black grid), ” 1988. Source: Art Asia P acific. 31 W ang J insong. “One H undred Signs of Demolition, ” 1999. Source: artspace.com 32 Zhou J un. “Bird ’ s N est N o. 2, ” 2006. S ource: R ed Gate Gallery . 33 N ight view of Changan A venue, Beijing. Source: I maginechina, Corbis. The G uardian. 34 OMA, CCTV headquarters. Source: OMA, O le Scheeren. 35 Beijing Central Bussiness D istrict, 2016. S ource: Wikimedia Commons, user: morio . 36 F u Baoshi. “This Land so Rich in B eauty , ” 1959. Source: Google Arts & C ulture. 37 A design for the Mao M emorial Hall in T iananmen Squar e featuring a ‘red sun ’. Source: Sang, Y e,and Geremie R. Barmé, “ A Beijing That I sn ’ t (P art I). ” China H eritage Quarterly , no. 14, 2008. 38 “S mog-hit Beijing sho ws sunsets on a giant TV to remind people what the sun looks like, ” 2014. Source: The R egister . ChinaF otoP ress via G etty Images. 311 (EM)BODYING (or how the corporeal emerges as a particular membrane between the interior/exterior spatial gap) 313 I once heard fr om one of our sages, that in our present state w e are dead, and the body is our tomb, and that part of the soul in which the desir es reside is of a nature liable to be o ver persuaded and to be sway ed continually to and fro . And so some smart clever fellow (…) turned this into a fable or allegory , and, playing with the word, fr om its susceptibility to all impressions and capacity for holding belief gave it the name of a jar , and the foolish he called uninitiated: in these uninitiated, that part of the soul where the desires lie, the licentious and non-retentive portion of it, he compar ed to a jar full of holes, because there was no possibility of filling or satisfying it (…) showing that of all those in H ades —meaning you kno w the invisible— those who are uninitiated will be the most miserable, and have to carry water into their leaky jar in a sieve perforated just like the other . And then by the sieve, as my informant told me, he means the soul: and the soul of the foolish he likened to a sieve because it is full of holes, as incapable of holding anything by reason of its incr edulity and forgetfulness . (Plato, G orgias , 493) 1 In this fragment of the P latonic dialogue of G orgias , S ocrates tells a stor y in which the image of the perforated jar or vessel appears; an image that would lie beneath the work of his disciple, Plato . This singular receptacle that can nev er be filled, but spills the liquid poured into it, is r ooted in the mythological barrel of the D anaids, the daughters of king Danaus who wer e condemned to fill eternally a bottomless receptacle with water and a siev e, after being found guilty of the mur der of their husbands. This everlasting spillo ver , resulting from the perpetual labor of filling and leaking, r eflects the idea of porosity , the quality of that which is permeable to fluids through a perforated sur face. P ar do (1992, 85) uses the same image to illustrate exteriority , the realm of passion, body and space. While “ soul ” is a recipient, it may hold or spill the content poured into it. A ccor ding to the fable, the task of the philosopher –and the initiated– is to occlude progr essively the pores of the crater , so it can retain the “liquid ” without losses, creating a perfect interior . On the contrar y , the “ foolish ” or “ uninitiated” cannot seal their jars full of holes, being constantly permeated by desir es and passions that o verflo w their necessities and 1 T ranslation by E.M. Cope (1864) The barr el of the Danaids (EM)BOD YING 320 the evolution from an arithmetic-geometrical paradigm –typical in Vitruvian architectur e, but that can be traced back to ancient cultures– to mor e complex, dynamic scientific notions: the study of flows or biological ev olution wer e some of the advances that caused a shift in the relations betw een science and architectur e –among which we could clearly situate the emergence of anti-space. The incr easing complexity of scientific development, P icon argues, results in a gradual divergence between both fields and a pr ogressiv e approach of architectur e to technology . Thus, the relation with science becomes more inspirational (metaphorical, poetic) than analogical, in a way that can be “ disconcer ting ” for sciences (2008, 63). N onetheless, architectur e still preserves a strong desir e “ to offer a spatial expression of an underlying or der of things and beings ” (2008, 51), consequently working as a mediating element between intellection and sensorial realm. I n this sense, it is unavoidable to detach human agency fr om the objectives and strategies of architectur e, although conditions have clearly changed. H uman body has gone from being the archetype and model of construction –as the image of per fect natur e or divinity– to becoming, apparently and parado xically in a post-human scenario, the ultimate object of architectur e in terms of thermal comfort, ergonomics and usability . 6 In this regar d, architecture becomes essentially a capsule, an enclosing and enclosed space, adapted to other type of human parameters and incorporating the latest technological advances. Going back to the idea of the envelope –which is not new; Sloter dijk (2006) and many others have explor ed the progr ession of this tendency from the nineteenth centur y on–, human body is no longer the measure of architectur e, since it has been swallow ed by it and hypertrophic technology . Shopping malls and office buildings repr esent the predominance of insulated bubbles o ver open, free spaces, which are being r educed to either privately o wned spaces or neutral, vast extensions without qualities. Escaping nature, as w ell as weather conditions and climate change, the architectur e of air-conditioning has become the highest expression of contemporary space (although it seems that some attempts from a social and environmentally-engaged 6 One of the cor e ideas of modernit y is to separate natural and social spheres. (Latour 1993) Ar chitectur e as capsule 321 Against architecture architectur e are opening hopeful paths). N onetheless, it is clear that the relation betw een body and architectur e is still instrumental and, to some degree, oppr essive and pr escriptive, leaving aside other aspects that are not ex clusively functional or r epresentational. E ven the deconstructivist attempt to incorporate entropy , excess and instability in an architectur e without essence, reflecting the destabilization of the postmodern world (with P eter Eisenman and Bernar d T schumi in the lead) did not escape this repr esentational character of architectur e as “ the mirror of natur e ”; first as order , then as chaos (Arenas 2011, 41), with architectur es that trap the human body through intricate forms, paths and loops. Appar ently , we may have liberated ourselv es from natur e, but not from architectur e. I t is worth going back to the origins of this bold pronouncement, inspir ed by a time when the question of the oppressed human body was starting to be taken seriously in the W est. The work of Georges B ataille is compelling in this regard, as he tried to break with the traditional view of the body as the expr ession of ideal nature and divinity , but without detaching it from its natur e by subjugating it to r eason. Instead, he embraced human body in its full exteriority and multiplicity , amidst the generalized process of disenchantment and rationalization of the corporeal –it should not be forgotten that, during these years, scientific experimentation in humans, eugenics and mass extermination methods wer e experiencing an international golden age. Body is the core ar ound which the work of the F r ench writer pivots: it is the cursed and imperfect part of the Self , which it both repels and tries to forget and hide. Thr ough the tragic dichotomy of eroticism and death, B ataille presents the human body in its full crudeness, challenging the pr udish conception of it as the impur e container of soul and reason. H is pro vocative and disturbing texts present the corpor eal as “living quicksand ” (N avarro 2002, 10), constructor and destr uctor of meaning at a time. Body is contradiction and polarity , bringing together the opposing drives of human condition; thus, it is impossible to reduce it to a single, homogeneous discourse, since it is constantly vanishing, changing and challenging its context. This fact, as Ginés N avarr o points out (2002, 10), repr esents a menace against all or der and conceptual (EM)BOD YING 322 monuments and systems: the unco ver ed body , free from all clothes, robes and accessories, is just corruptible flesh embodying absence and dissolution of meaning. Bataille was fascinated b y such lack, and was inspired b y it to cr eate the journal A céphale , as well as the secr et society of the same name. 7 The recurring figur e of A cephalus, drawn by the F r ench artist and friend of Bataille Andr é M asson, r epresented the understanding of human body as permanent dissolution and disor der , being torn and ripped by time, deprived of its o wn head and thus drastically open by means of a major fissure that makes it incapable of r etaining anything. H ence, the (N ietzschean) image of the Acéphale is pur e exteriority , the irrational counterpart of the V itruvian man, who incarnates the order of cosmos. I t is: [t]he mythical and tragic emblem of sov ereignty , as much social as political, psychological, aesthetic and er otic. A headless being stands with his legs slightly apart, resting firmly on the ground, a dagger in his left hand, calling for violence and blood, a flaming heart-grenade in his right hand, a torch to see the unseen: sun, blood, nakedness, corpses, war , madness, death. It has two stars for br easts on the chest and its intestines appear through its abdomen, a maze in which it is lost, an interior labyrinth of the absence of truth, labyrinth of life where the only certainty is that of death. This transparent being has a skull in the place of sex, thus designating the tragic bond of eroticism and death. (T eixeira 1997, 102) 8 Bataille would complete M asson ’ s drawing with the sentence: “ L ’homme a échappé à sa tête comme le condamné à la prison ” (“Man has escaped his own head as the convict fr om prison ”) (1936). H ere, body itself is compared to a prison, the paradigmatic building of or der , control and r epression. N avarr o (2002, 11) proposes to seek for “ the traces of the body ” in pictur es and words, but also in ar chitectur e: “ constr uctions, temples, monuments, ” all of them being “ metaphors of the body . ” F rom this anthropic view of architecture, B ataille speaks of the prison as the generic architectural element r eproducing 7 Pr eviously , Bataille had founded another society named Contre - Attaque , together with Andr é Breton, as a reaction against fascism. The union would only survive a few months bet w een 1935 and 1936, although it would be the germ of f ur ther societies and journals. (See Marmande 1985; Bat aille and Breton 2013) 8 [T .A. ] A céphale The prison 323 Against architecture human ’ s own skin, understood as shell and enclosur e: “The image of Acephalus, thus, should be seen as (...) the negativ e imago of an antimonumental madness involved in the dismemberment of ‘ meaning ’” (H ollier 1993, xii). This symbolic attribution can be several times in the works of the F rench writer , among them the one he wrote on N otre-Dame de Reims in 1918, wher e architectur e appears as the image of social and cosmogonic or der , emulating the body of Christ crucified. Over the urban turmoil –the rambling, chaotic town–, the cathedral stands still, vertical and triumphant. But after the G erman bombar dment of Reims during the F irst W orld W ar , the cathedral, that once seemed eternal, ceased to be a symbol of or der and beauty to become a sign of death and destruction. Later , the P arisian Bastille would be the analogous element that Bataille would describe in his essay “ Architecture ” of 1929: architectur e her e is no longer a symbol, but the imposition of or der itself , so it is attacked and taken by the rev olutionaries, because of their rejection of established po wer: (…) it is in the form of cathedral or palace that Church or S tate speaks to the multitudes and imposes silence upon them. I t is, in fact, obvious that monuments inspire social prudence and often even r eal fear . The taking of the Bastille is symbolic of this state of things: it is har d to explain this cro wd mov ement is other than by the animosity of the people against the monuments that are their r eal masters. (Bataille 1970, 15–16) 9 In his entry on “ Architecture ” in the Dictionnair e C ritique (1970), the author is somehow inv erting the V itruvian tradition that involves that “N ature (…) has made the human body so that the differ ent members of it are measur es of the whole ” (Vitruvius, T en Books on Ar chitecture , book III-1, 4). 10 Later , many modern authors would extend these assumptions from a scientific perspective, such as Destutt de T racy and his vie w of human body ’ s r esistance towar ds mo vement, which sees its r eflection in architectur e (W allenstein 9 English translation in Hollier (1993, 47), b y Betsy W ing. 10 Another historic quote on body and architecture can be f ound on Marsilio Ficino ’ s Commentar y on the S ymposium of Plato (1489): “ any one a sked in what wa y the form of the body can be like the F orm and Reason of the Soul and Mind, let him consider , I ask , the building of the ar chitect . ” Ar chitectur al skeleton (EM)BOD YING 324 2009, 25). Also A ugust Schmarso w ’ s “ Das W esen der architektonischen Schöpfung ” (1993) brings to the fore the issue of human axiality and its correspondence with spatial conception and building. O n the contrar y , Bataille defended the opposite: the human body is just an intermediate element “between the apes and the gr eat buildings ” (1970, 17). 11 So, the author criticiz es the architectural skeleton hidden under classic painting, music, physiognomy , clothes and many other aspects of culture. I f architectur e tends to place this skeleton under all that exists, it means that we ar e caught in a vicious and violent structure from which w e cannot escape, a tyrannical and imperative architectur e, such as the prison, the cathedral or the palace. 12 F or 11 This asser tion is par ticularly graphic considering the multiple repr esentations of bodies with edifice featur es , and vice versa, buildings with human charac teristics . F or inst ance, in the 1931 Beaux Ar t s Ball, when ar chitect s such as W illiam van Allen or Stewar t W alker dr essed up as their buildings; on the other side, Madelon V riesendorp’ s illustration for Delirious New Y or k ’ s co ver ( named “ Flagrant Delit”) repr esent s a post - coit al scene bet w een Empir e State and Chr ysler B uildings , caught in bed b y the r est of the cit y buildings. [ht tp://sock s-studio.com/2015/02/02/madelon-vriesendorps-manhat t an-pr ojec t/] 12 “(…) whenever w e find architectural cons truc tion elsewher e than in monuments , whether it be in physiognom y , dress, music, or painting , w e can inf er a pr evailing ta ste for human or divine authority . (…)It is clear , in any case, that mathematical or der imposed upon stone is really the culmination of the ev olution of ear thly forms, whose dir ec tion is indicated within the biological or der b y the pa ssage fr om the simian to the human form, the latter already displa ying all the element s of ar chitecture. Man w ould seem to r epr esent mer ely an intermediar y st age within the morphological dev elopment bet w een monkey and building. F orms ha ve become incr ea singly st atic, incr easingly dominant. (…) an at tack on architecture, whose monumental productions now truly dominate the whole ear th, grouping the ser vile multitudes under their shadow , imposing admiration and wonder , or der and constraint, is necessarily , a s it w er e, an at tack on man” 07 06 325 Against architecture Bataille, the only way to get rid of this centuries-old tyranny of architectural forms is the way impr essionist painting opens up to the formless and the monstrous. 13 If this is r ead in terms of Lefebvre ’ s P roduction of Space , it is evident the importance of the repr esentative to maintain existence and cohesion of social relations of pr oduction and repr oduction. In particular , relations of production ar e often repr esented through buildings, monuments and wor ks of art. Lefebvre clarifies that this whole system has its own operating rules (1991, 32). H o wever , is it possible to break with the logic of these systems, or rather rewrite the conditions in which the r epresentations of social relations occur? R emo ving architecture ’ s link to violence seems to be a complicated task. After the rev olt of the people against their own space (against the Bastille in P aris, but also during students and workers ’ riots in 1968), it is in La Villette wher e architectur e turns against itself , (Bataille 1970, 15–17) . T ranslation by Dominic F accini in: Dominic F accini et al., “Critical Dic tionar y , ” Oc tober Spring (1992): 25–26. 13 Diametrically opposed to Bataille’ s position, Hans Sedlmayr (Sedlma yr 1957, 95–111) denounced the “att ack on ar chitecture ” that was being carried from div erse fields. From his r eactionar y perspec tive, Sedlma yr considered that landscape ar chitecture and ar tificial ruins ( depic ted b y Huber t Rober t, Caspar David Friedrich and, w e could add, Piranesi ) w er e the trig gers f or the dethronement of ar chitec ture because of their “anti-ar chitec tural, ” haz ar dous, formless condition. It was , paradoxically , rev olutionar y ar chitecture and the dominance of “basic geometri cal forms ” ( such as the cube, the p yramid or the spher e, in Ledoux and Boullée ’ s construc tions, “negating the ear th a s a basis”) that he points out as the definitive at tack that would ha v e an impact on modern ar chitecture, which he qualifies as “unsound and inhuman. ” Self-negating architectur e 09 08 (EM)BOD YING 326 accor ding to Bernar d T schumi, the designer of the park: “ Architecture only sur vives wher e it negates the form that society expects of it. Where it negates itself b y transgressing the limits that history has set for it. ” 14 I t is, thus, an architecture established befor e the subject, before any kind of meaning, “ an architecture that would not allo w space for time needed to become a subject ” (H ollier 1993, xi). If the body , as the “ root of the impur e (...), is a sign of the absence of meaning ” (N avarro 2002, 10), then humans would only be able to free themselv es from their o wn oppr essing spatiality escaping –even ephemerally– their own head, their o wn reason. Certainly , we could affirm today that neither Manet ’ s Olympia nor theory on formlessness based on contemporar y art –intensively explored b y Y ves-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss thr ough the exhibition F ormless (1997)– seem to have liquidated the imperative character of ar chitecture as underlying structure, since it needs a subjacent logic in or der to be built, as parametricist architectur e strives to r emind. H o wev er , the reason the body of Olympia was scandalous was not because of its nakedness or its detachment from the classical canons. Rather , as Roberto Calasso indicates (2011, 262), it was because of her inexpressiv e and self- indulgent gaze, oblivious to the spectator , whom he looks with the impudent indifference of one who is awar e of being inside a sho wcase. H er head, separated from the body b y a black velvet choker , remains isolated from the r est of the figure, which manifests itself as an 14 This sentence appears in an image of the pr ojec t Adver tisement s for Ar chitecture , b y Bernar d T schumi, 1975-1976. Some of them can be accessed in: ht tp://w w w .tschumi. com/pr ojec ts/19/ F or mlessness 11 10 327 Against architecture uncomfortable and incomprehensible body , comical and monstrous at the same time. P recisely , that kind of monstrosity (understood as interruption, discontinuity , singularity) is what the idea of formlessness could bring, like Olympia ’ s body , to the understanding of architectur e. I n or der to build bridges between the architectural and the biological, Carlos T apia (2017) makes a teratological reading aligning Bataille ’ s considerations on the abject in “ Les écarts de la nature ” (“D eviations of nature, ” 1930) and the “hopeful monsters ” of the geneticist Richar d Goldschmidt (1960), who argued that macroev olution was possible because of isolated macromutations that, by mer e good luck, favor ed the adaptation of an organism to a new way of life. Thus, the monstrous is that which pr esents an elementar y inconsistency with respect to its class, so that ev er y being is, to some extent, a monster . P recisely , the monstr uous has also been traced in the field of architectur e: for Ro we (1950) it appears as “ aberration ” or “joke ” through a M odernity that goes from the late sixteenth to the twentieth century , and for Donald K unze (1988) and M arco F rascari (1991) in historical mannerism, in which “ nature r eaches fullness in its idealism, its mathematical and platonic absolute, (...) only feasible under the gaze of art ” through an “ action of opposition ” (T apia 2017, 13). Thus, in this intricate labyrinth between styles and forms of life, T apia (2017, 14) sees in the work of the artist Rafael Canogar a contribution to this “ project of consciousness, ” in which the genetic and the biological are intermingled with (and b y means of ) ar t. T er atologías (meaning “ the science of monsters ”), accor ding to M onstrosity 12 (EM)BOD YING 328 the author , projects ways of life by handcrafting technology , calling human homogeneity into question and rev ealing “ the monster inside us ” (T apia 2017, 13). These “ spatial monsters, ” projected through difference and interruption, are opposed to other models of abstract and homogeneous spaces that emerge from the hyperrational and that have, as it will be argued later , one of their clearest examples in the factor y and the workplace, wher e the body dissolves to become part of the capitalist machine gear . (Counter)r ev olution and autonomy . The city of T urin is one of the v ertices of the so-called I taly ’ s industrial triangle, together with Milan and G enoa. Also kno wn as the A utomobile Capital or the Detr oit of I taly , the city is one of the most industrialized poles of the country , playing an essential role during the postwar years (thanks mostly to automotive industry), when the I talian economy was star ting to reco ver again. During times of crisis, the cities of the triangle have hosted thousands of workers and migrants from southern r egions in search of stable jobs and salaries in northern factories. Thus, the identification of the region with labor and production is very present in the I talian –and even E uropean– social imaginar y . In the city center , in the middle of the significant Piazza S tatuto –inserted in the ancient Roman decumanus – a monument to the construction of the first galler y of the F réjus Rail T unnel during the second half of the nineteenth centur y , connecting I taly and F rance, recalls the industrial character of T urin. The monument, inaugurated in 1879, is a massive pyramidal mound of stone cro wned by Lucifer , the light-bringer , who floats triumphant o ver a group of exhausted T itans, lying painfully amidst the rocks. The pr esence of the angelic demon reinfor ces the mysterious character of the square, which was once the site of the guillotine, close to the Roman necr opolis and the enclave for public ex ecutions. Originally the most occidental zone of T urin, this orientation to the W est (the place of dusk and death) amplifies the legends and beliefs that relate this urban space with negative, diabolic energies. I ndeed, Lucifer has been r egar ded as the fallen angel, one of the multiple incarnations of the devil in the Christian tradition. H o wever , the irrational and other worldly 329 ( Counter)r evolution and autonomy character attributed to the square contrasts with the dedication of the monument to much more mundane activities. The genie stands still, sever e and serene, giving a condescending look at the struggling giants and their wasted bodies, weakened after their colossal effort. The monument has been subject to different interpretations, considering its context, location and its mythical character . Originally , it seems that it was built to repr esent the primacy of reason o ver brute force –either human or natural–, in a time when the positivist spirit impregnated kno wledge and thought: the engineers, illuminated by rational light and thanks to their scientific knowledge and tools, had been able to o vercome the obstacles of the mountain, something which was previously inconceivable. H owever , the monument has also been considered to be a memorial for the suffering workers who built the gallery , repr esented by the titanic gr oup under the attentive, patr onizing gaze of the demon. In both cases, the duality betw een reason and corpor eal forces is very present, as well as the idea of domination of mind and soul o ver the body , as separate entities. This brief digression into the urban space of the P iedmontese capital underscores the extent to which wor k and production processes –which deeply affect and transform space– underlie our daily mo vements and experiences, sometimes even unconsciously . This subtle exer cise of violence, accepted and embraced by the subject as a 13 14 15 L uciferian r eason vs. working body (EM)BOD YING 336 U nder this spirit of countering capitalism from within, the journal Contropiano was founded in 1968 by Cacciari, N egri and Alberto Asor Rosa. I ts pages collected ideas, resear ch and reflections b y different authors willing to theorize a new path towar ds the autonomy of the working class, offering a set of intellectual materials and r eferences –mostly central E uropean– fr om diverse disciplines devoted to the analysis of “ the relations among capitalist dev elopment, working- class histor y and practice, political institutions, and culture ” (A ureli 2008, 44). In this context, M assimo Cacciari developed the notion of negative thought and its capacity of penetrating the very core of capitalism, mainly through N ietzsche ’ s will to power and W eber’ s disenchantment (Cacciari 1969, 183), which constituted the foundation of bourgeoisie ’ s triumph and, according to him, ought to be appropriated by the wor king class in or der to run the counterplan and institutionalize an antagonist cultur e. Also Manfr edo T afuri contributed to the journal with some of his most notorious writings on architectur e and urbanism understood within the capitalist framework, such as those already mentioned in the section devoted to negative av ant-gar des. H o wev er , his vision, as well as his critique of certain operations such as the ones carried out in the Red Vienna (1971), wer e regar ded as awkward within certain operaist circles, which felt much mor e identified with an autonomous architectur e rooted in place ( locus ), as the one studied and developed by Aldo R ossi: an architectur e of concr ete, finite, specific elements and artifacts versus the abstract and planned city-process or city-territor y that T afuri (Piccinato, Quilici, and T afuri 1962) advocated, taking negativity to the extreme. O n the contrar y , Rossi was skeptical to the ideas of openness (“ open form ”), 23 networks, megastructures and the advance of cybernetics and informational technology , defending the pertinence and basic character of the closed form in architecture and urbanism. This divergence of criteria can be clearly observed in the entries for the competition for a new centro dir ezionale in whole course of its his tor y , to giv e a gradual peacef ul f orm to the continual r ev olutionar y upsets of it s o wn economic mechanism. (…) At diff er ent lev els, the proletariat is called to collaborate in the development. At diff erent lev els it must choose the specific form of its political r efusal. (T ronti 1963) 23 See chapter: “ Se -duc tio II : W arsa w . ” [Document text truncated for crawler view.]