The pursuit of pleasure by the most efficient available means: the urbanism of Benidorm, Spain

Benidorm is a city in southeastern Spain with an urban morphology that is highly unusual for Europe: it is a city of point towers. From a distance, it resembles an American downtown or a new Asian city, with hundreds of tall, slender buildings wedged between arid, semi-desert hills and sparkling sea. From the A-7 highway, which runs the entire length of the highly built-up Mediterranean coast of Spain from the French border to the southernmost tip of the Iberian peninsula, the apparition of Benidorm manages to produce surprise and confusion even after passing through much larger cities such as Barcelona and Valencia.

Benidorm began to develop its urbanism of point towers in the 1960s, when it was transformed from a small fishing village into a major holiday destination for northern Europeans, and, significantly, when the modernist high-rise apartment ‘slab’ was still de rigueur worldwide among architects, planners and mayors. Seen in this historical context, Benidorm prognosticates the demise of the modernist slab and the current growth of the point tower as the preferred form of high-rise residential construction.

In the North American city—the very birthplace of the skyscraper—towers have generally contained office space; high-rise residential buildings more typically assume the form of slabs. It is only relatively recently that the residential point tower has become a commonplace in cities such as Toronto or Vancouver. But the emergence of point-tower housing has been even slower in Europe, where high-rise construction is culturally abhorred and where towers have historically been privileged, singular urban landmarks such as church steeples, defensive ramparts or noble families’ symbols of wealth and power—an idea to which an entire city of towers is an antithesis. So why, then, did Benidorm develop in the way that it did?

In the context of the twentieth century, the slab and the tower can be seen to form dialectical opposites. The slab, ideally sited in a park, is representative of European academic modernism and CIAM urbanism—Le Corbusier, in short—while the tower is associated with ‘vulgar’ commercial real-estate development–the stuff of Manhattan or Hong Kong. The slab speaks of welfare-state housing and utopian planning; the point tower of private-sector pragmatism.

Interestingly, a lack of architectural pretension and a fascination for America are probably the reason for Benidorm’s aberrant urban form. Spain—especially agrarian, small-town provincial Spain—was culturally isolated from the rest of the world during almost four decades of military dictatorship that lasted from 1939 to 1975. Could it be that Benidorm’s architects were perhaps more inspired by popular postcard images of American cities than by the teachings of the architectural modern movement?

The construction of modern Benidorm was, for one thing, never a state-sponsored social housing project but rather a private-sector speculative venture. The point-tower became an established building type in Benidorm due to its high commercial viability and the views that this building type permits, even in a normative situation. Views matter especially in a tourism destination, and a city of slender towers permits more glimpses through the city and toward the surrounding landscape than a city of wall-like slabs. The modernist slab may exploit land efficiently, but not landscape—unless of course the slab is a relatively isolated occurrence in the manner of Le Corbusier’s stand-alone unités.

Architecture is, of course, premised from the very outset on exceptionality. Its values are resistant to the massification of ideas. As every architecture student learns, one must always ‘go against the grain’ and never design the very grain itself. As a mark of cultural distinction, architecture privileges the unique, isolated object; figure over ground. In Benidorm, there is no architecture: there is “the tallest building in Spain” which is also “the tallest hotel in Europe” (the Hotel Bali), but there are no buildings that stand out architecturally. Architectural guidebooks to Spain do not list any of its buildings, making Benidorm an exceptional city without exceptional buildings.

This generic quality permeates Benidorm’s urban fabric with perfect consistency. The point towers contain mostly hotel rooms and vacation apartments inhabited by middle-class Britons, Germans, Scandinavians and Spaniards, such that the city effectively comprises a sort of modern Euro-space. In fact, Benidorm can be seen as a representation in built form of one of the core values underpinning modern Europe: the right of every citizen to free time and leisure. Leisure is democratized and made affordable by the efficiency of the point tower type. It is no coincidence that Benidorm’s occupancy rates consistently outperform other holiday destinations in Spain whose tourist sector faces growing competition from cheaper eastern European destinations served by discount airlines.

Benidorm’s beach is the main public space, principal organizing device and raison d’être of the city. Streets are laid out in a quasi-gridiron pattern of small, compact urban blocks, providing walkable access to the beach as well as ground-level services, mainly in the form of small, family-owned shops, bars and restaurants. The point towers punctuate the air space above this densely built up, contiguous service ground-plane. Like most homes in Spain, Benidorm’s vacation apartments are relatively small, with bedrooms just barely large enough for a bed, side table and wardrobe. Spanish life is lived mostly outside the home in cafés, on streets and in plazas, and the Euro-space of Benidorm is no exception. In fact, the ‘Spanish’ and ‘urban’ lifestyle of Benidorm has been found to be one of its most important attractions, notwithstanding the prevalence of Irish pubs and lunch menus featuring steak and kidney pie. The evening paseo is an institution in Benidorm as much as it is in more traditional Spanish towns. Indeed, notwithstanding the point tower building type, the transformation of Benidorm from fishing village to tourist metropolis parallels Spanish tourism development in general, which has consistently taken on the form of relatively compact urban extensions to historical towns or villages. The isolated, protected and all-inclusive resort complex is rare in Spain, which has always promoted its culture and lifestyle as part of the beach-tourism experience with slogans such as “Spain is different”. This blending of tourism with local culture has made tourism construction relatively indistinguishable from normal urbanization. It is in fact often difficult to distinguish hotels from apartment buildings in Spain, were it not for signage.

In the final analysis, and despite its unusual overall appearance, Benidorm is really not so different, then. Its density, the fine-grain of its ground plane, its public spaces and its walkability make it as much of a Mediterranean city as the traditional, more ‘charming’ fishing villages of postcards. Perhaps too much is made of high-rise versus low-rise development; of urban form as a determinant of urban life. If anything, Benidorm is more of a testament to the perseverance of culture in spite of the forms into which it is placed.

[originally published in Onsite Review # 14]

Relationship of Convenience: The polarization of theory and practice in architecture

[Originally published in Proceedings of The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture West Central 1997 Regional Conference, Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba]

Abstract

The dialectical relationship between 'theory' and 'practice' is perhaps nowhere as rich, ambiguous and complex as it is in the field architecture. This is only natural for a discipline that is very broad in scope, encompassing everything from highly abstract geometry to the most primordial and basic of human needs. Nevertheless, in contemporary architecture it is becoming increasingly possible to perceive a widening split or polarization into either ‘theoretical’ or ‘practical’ modes of operation. On the one hand, there is a rarefied ‘art world’ architecture that is highly theorized and geared toward the consumption of images in the media or the museum; on the other is a more typical ‘real estate’ architecture geared to more direct material consumption. However, when studied in a larger context, these polarized realms can actually be seen to be intricately bound within an ‘economy’ in which the value of prestige and distinction is traded. A problem in this order of things is that architectural theories and ideas attempting to address pressing social and environmental issues, for example, are not in a viable position to be ‘put into practice’ as they do not lend themselves quite so readily to commodification in the form of symbolic or material goods.

This paper will examine the polarization of architecture into seemingly autonomous specializations within the global context of the cultural pressures of postmodernism and late capitalism. Using Pierre Bourdieu's model of ‘cultural’ and ‘economic’ forms of capital, it will show that ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ modes of architecture are not as independent as they appear, but are in fact interdependent. Finally, the paper will briefly discuss some relevant concepts from the ‘pragmatic theory’ movement in the field of philosophy, which calls for an end to theory itself, as well as Donald Schön's concept of ‘reflection in action’ in order to explore some possible options.

Two Architectures

The word ‘architecture’ is becoming used increasingly as a metaphor in the general language while, at the same time, ironically, the institution of architecture is itself becoming more and more invisible. Today, we are more likely to hear about the ‘architecture’ of computer software than that of our cities, or to read about the ‘architect’ of a political treaty rather than that of a building. Within the institution of architecture, meanwhile, we hear chiefly two refrains, each by now a cliché: that of the architectural practitioner complaining that architecture schools are not teaching students skills that they need to know in order to ‘survive in the real world’, as it were; or, conversely, we hear the refrain of the student or instructor of an architecture school in which a local practitioner is berated as an unimaginative ‘hack’ who ‘can’t design’. There are clearly two sets of values in operation here, each with their own aesthetic. Indeed, it can be quite striking sometimes to compare the kinds of images produced in schools with those that circulate in the profession, let alone the public. One almost has to ask if there aren’t essentially two architectures: one being that of professional practices while another is that of academies; or one whose main concern is that of securing a contract for another office building in Edge City, while the other is concerned more with recent debates in the Sorbonne or the latest publication from Éditions de Minuit. The architectural glossies, meanwhile, attempting to cover a middle ground, are busy portraying the latest celebrity architect’s overdesigned art museum, usually a spectacular signature piece that doesn’t even look remotely similar to what gets built for the most part today. The question this paper asks is whether there are essentially two architectures, and if there is a polarization between the two along some definable axis?

‘Architecture’ is not easy to define. It is often used in opposition to the word ‘building’ to discuss a difference such as that between Lincoln Cathedral and a bicycle shed, to use an oft-quoted example. Miriam Gusevitch interestingly points out that “the term ‘architecture’ is a word of Greek and Latin provenance; ‘building’ on the other hand, has Anglo-Saxon roots. In common parlance both have the same referent (structure, construction, edifice); they are synonyms. Nevertheless, they have different connotations, architecture meaning something superior to building...[and] referring to the canon.”[i]  Thus architecture as canon, or effect of architectural criticism, implies a basis in discourse and scholarship, whereas building is craft-based. What emerges is an association of architecture with academia and theory; and ‘building’ with the so-called ‘real world’ of practice. But officially, in fact, an architect is a registered, professional practitioner of architecture, so we are back to two architectures. Might we then speak of a ‘theoretical architecture’ and a ‘practical architecture’?

Tha Nature of Architecture

While this may seem somewhat trivial or obvious, there is, in the case of the field we are investigating, an awkward relationship between theory and practice that is compounded by the very complex and unusual nature of architecture. To begin with, the realization of a built work of architecture is a relatively expensive undertaking, and so there exists in schools of architecture an unusual situation wherein students of a design studio inevitably produce, for the most part, only representative drawings and models, rarely actual, realized examples. At least in the world of filmmaking, which is also prohibitively expensive, a film school student can begin by making a short instead of a feature film, and still get a feel for the craft involved in producing a film: a short film nevertheless involves scriptwriting, scenario development, directing, editing, etcetera. There is no equivalent for an architecture student: realizing an outhouse or a piece of furniture is simply nothing like the work involved in realizing even a small house. Furthermore, in architecture school, where the myth of the hero-architect continues to be very strong, there is a great deal of emphasis on individual students becoming talented designers, when in fact ‘design’ is typically only a fraction of the highly collaborative effort that goes into the realization of a work of architecture. A building project is also extremely contingent upon particular political and economic circumstances, the client, financial institutions, government authorities and building trades; aspects which cannot easily be addressed in the design studio. It is therefore perhaps understandable why a different sort of architecture would be practiced in school than outside of it.

Is it fair, however, to say that the knowledge gained in architecture school is useless to the ‘real world’? Should educational institutions exist merely for acquiring practical and tactical techniques of survival, as much as my generation, it seems, could have made use of them during recent recessions, and as much as employers would like to have a supply of ready-trained automatons at their disposal? The pressure toward a smooth, seamlessly integrated economic machine in which persons are trained not to question and just to do is obviously present, which entails precisely why there is perhaps a need for autonomous institutions that rest on ‘higher ground’, so to speak. This should include architecture schools whose role is not limited exclusively to that of training architects, but also to reflect and comment upon the role of architecture in society. One problem, however, is whether this can be done through architecture itself, since, even when practiced ‘on paper’, architecture’s abstract language is not the ideal medium for conjuring empathy in the way that, say, visual art or written text can. A work of architecture therefore has an inherent difficulty in claiming to be ‘resistant’ --let alone ‘critical’-- to the commercial imperatives of the marketplace even, or perhaps especially, when it is purely theoretical, and by extension unbuildable, since the cultural institution of architecture is socially legitimated in the first place precisely by virtue of architecture being an applied art.

Yet, there is a whole ‘art-world’ around so-called ‘theoretical’ architecture, complete with stars, galleries in major cities, journals that are usually published through the academies, even collectors of napkin sketches and patrons who commission a work of architecture precisely because the architect is one of ‘signature’. Here, it is not the material value of the building that matters, but the symbolic value, the caché. It is the image of a rarefied object that is consumed, not the object itself. This is an architecture whose discourse lays claim to transcending the commercial imperatives that drive mainstream building production, addressing the marketplace of ideas instead. The art of architecture here becomes celebrated apart from its less glamorous, practical side. This can be seen to represent a separation of issues of ‘quality’ from those of ‘quantity’, or of mind from body, separations that are highly problematic, I would argue. Nevertheless, it seems so natural and convenient, and so one has to wonder: is the widening separation of the symbolic role of architecture from its industrial role not perhaps for these very reasons of convenience, since each can then get on unencumbered with its own business? I would like to question if it is in fact constructive to separate the two, and if it does not present other problems in turn.

The Art of Collusion

The Dutch critic Ole Bouman, sounding a bit like Noam Chomsky, has said that the celebration of a rarefied, highly theorized and overdesigned ‘art-world’ architecture actually functions, in the end, as “an alibi for the building industry”[ii] since it is effectively functioning as a distracting sideshow, or spectacle, behind which industry is able to concern itself almost exclusively with a crass and uninspired commercial agenda. The implication is almost that there is a sort of collusive association at work between the two architectures, that a cartel has been formed, albeit unwittingly, of course. While this notion itself makes for an entertaining ‘conspiracy theory’ of architecture, it is a compelling argument given the kinds of global market pressures that have come to bear upon the practice of architecture. We might therefore look to a socio-economic model that encompasses these architectural practices, one that traces the exchange of value across these seemingly separate realms in order to see if there is in fact a relationship present.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has developed an analytical method and a model that might be useful here.[iii] Bourdieu describes society, especially cultural production, from a very wide perspective as a system of diverse ‘fields’ within each of which is played a game where winners gain power and authority. All fields are themselves inscribed within a larger field, so the power game is played out between different fields as well. Each field possesses its own ‘habitus’, or set of dispositions and inclinations that shape perceptions and form the unspoken rules of the game. Bourdieu distinguishes between two fields within the field of cultural production that are especially relevant to this discussion: the ‘field of restricted production’ and the ‘field of large scale mass production’. Restricted production, or ‘high art’, is a field in which prestige, consecration, and artistic celebrity are valued, and in which production occurs purposefully in small quantities in comparison to the field of large scale mass production. Because the restricted field involves ‘production for producers’, economic profit is typically disavowed and frowned upon, and so there is an inversion of the principles of ordinary economics within this field. An example of this inverted economy is the hero-myth of the starving artist(or architect) who lives by his or her principles and refuses to ‘sell out’. Indeed, Bourdieu writes:

[T]his does not mean that there is not an economic logic to this charismatic economy based on the social miracle of an act devoid of any determination other than the specifically aesthetic intention. There are economic conditions for the indifference to economy which induces a pursuit of the riskiest positions in the intellectual and artistic avant-garde, and also for the capacity to remain there over a long period without any economic compensation.[iv]

In the field of large scale mass production, it is precisely financial gain that is valued, but interestingly, this field occasionally borrows ideas from the restricted field in order to renew itself. In each field, a mix of different kinds of capital is accumulated in order to wield power and authority: in the restricted field, it is mainly ‘cultural’ and ‘symbolic’ capital’ that are acquired; whereas in the field of large scale mass production, it is mainly ‘economic capital’, or simply financial gain, that is accumulated. Cultural capital takes the form of knowledge: it is accumulated over time through inculcation and education, and so it is not easily bought. ‘Symbolic capital’, as prestige, honour and consecration, “is to be understood as...a ‘credit’ which, under certain conditions, and always in the long run, guarantees ‘economic’ profits”[v]. Certain forms of capital are therefore convertible to one another under certain circumstances, but never reducible. All fields, according to Bourdieu, are sites of competition for power. In the restricted field, this competition concerns the power, or authority, to in turn consecrate honour and prestige, and thereby shape the canon governing the field itself. ‘Position-taking’ in a field makes it dynamic, with struggles usually occurring between the orthodox and the avant-garde heretics, or between the ancients and the moderns.

If we use Bourdieu’s model to look at the two architectures we are studying here, it becomes apparent that the more ‘theoretically’ inspired architecture corresponds to Bourdieu’s restricted field, where it is cultural capital based on knowledge that is accumulated, and where honour and prestige are more valuable than profit, even if eventually this honour may be traded in for financial recompense; whereas the more ‘practically’ orientated architecture corresponds more with the field of large scale mass production and the value of economic and political capital. Furthermore, just as the field of large scale mass production is known to borrow ideas from the restricted field, so ‘practical’ architecture is known to superficially appropriate the ideas of ‘theoretical’ architecture in order to rejuvenate itself. The perfect example of this phenomenon is, of course, Philip Johnson.

Bourdieu’s model not only describes a relationship between the systems of value, and therefore beliefs, that establish authority in a given field, but also accounts for the more subtle roles that charisma, taste and distinction play in legitimizing the very existence of each field within the larger field. The fact that architecture is seen by the general population as an aesthetic discipline, (an applied art) and moreover one of luxury means that any elite-theoretical or populist-practical posturing becomes less significant in the larger context, since architecture on the whole becomes so marginal that it then falls entirely into a restricted field. In this sense, it becomes useless to distinguish between ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ architecture. In fact, at this point, all architecture becomes theoretical, even commercial architecture.[vi] So just what, exactly, do the words ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ mean then? Is one that which we learn in school and the other that which we do afterward, so that the former hopefully becomes the knowledge base that informs the latter; or is ‘theory’ the ‘thinking’ that accompanies ‘doing’? If ‘theory’ is defined as thought and ‘practice’ as action, [vii] then architecture, indeed most professional endeavours, must always consist of a balanced mix of both.

Reflective Practice / Pragmatic Philosophy

Here, Donald Schön’s concept of ‘reflection-in-action’ can be instructive. Schön argues that professions are rooted in an outmoded tradition of technical rationality. “Technical rationality is the positivist epistemology of practice. It became institutionalized in the modern university”.[viii] In fact, it is interesting to note, in light of our look at the university affiliated ‘art-world’ architecture of today, that “according to the positivist epistemology of practice, craft and artistry had no lasting place in rigorous practical knowledge.”[ix] The problem for Schön, however, is that positivism cannot deal with the situations in the ‘swampy lowland’ of ‘confusing messes’: “Increasingly, we have become aware of the importance of phenomena --complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value-conflict-- which do not fit the model of technical rationality.”[x] Reflective practice, which involves reflection in action, is a way of thinking not before or after any act, but precisely during action. The problem I see here is that the ‘action’ implied here is then presumably limited to one of problem-solving, and does not account for an architecture that might be inspired by a theoretical idea. But then, maybe we shouldn’t be building theories either.

Another option that presents itself is the negation of theory altogether. The so-called ‘pragmatic philosophers’ Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels have put forth a compelling theoretical argument calling for theory to stop altogether. While this might be seen as either the ultimate in altruism, or an attempt to have the last word in theoretical discourse, it is in fact the separation between theory and practice they are also problematizing, and so I will quote here the final paragraph of their provocatively entitled essay “Against Theory”:

The theoretical impulse, as we have described it, always involves the attempt to separate things that should not be separated: on the ontological side, meaning from intention, language from speech acts; on the epistemological side, knowledge from true belief. Our point has been that the separated terms are in fact inseparable... theory is nothing else but the attempt to escape practice. Meaning is just another name for expressed intention, knowledge is just another name for true belief, but theory is not just another name for practice. It is the name for all the ways people have tried to stand outside practice in order to govern practice from without. Our thesis has been that no one can reach a position outside practice, that theorists should stop trying, and that the theoretical enterprise should therefore come to an end.[xi]

Concluding Questions

So should architecture theory ‘end’? What would be the basis, then, for architectural criticism, unless that were to end too? Without criticism, there is no history; without history, no canon; and, as noted at the beginning, without a canon, no architecture, at least in contradistinction to building. But can one even build, however pragmatically, without any knowledge of history, or at least precedent? The polarizing of architecture into distinctly theoretical and practical modes reflects today’s tendency toward specialization, toward more narrowly defined and limited areas of expertise. This runs very much against the grain of architecture as a form of general knowledge, an art that is ‘applicable’ in many different environments, sites and contexts. Instead, architecture is increasingly being used only for certain kinds of programs, such as, ironically, museums, the ultimate mortuary. There has even been a recent proliferation of museums dedicated to architecture where representations, means to an end, are viewed as ends in themselves. Architecture cannot exist for its own sake alone, as “l’art pour l’art,” or art for art’s sake. Perhaps it takes precisely an artist to remind us of this: to quote Sol LeWitt, from his seminal text “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”: “Architecture, whether it is a work of art or not, must be utilitarian or else fail completely.”[xii]

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[i]  Miriam Gusevitch, “The Architecture of Criticism” in Andrea Kahn, ed., Drawing, Building, Text (Princeton Architectural Press, 1991), p.8.

[ii]  Ole Bouman in a panel discussion on ‘Reflexivity’ at the Berlage Institute Amsterdam, 1995.

[iii] Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993).

[iv]  Ibid. p. 40.

[v]  Ibid. p. 75.

[vi]  see Carol Willis, Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995) for an interesting theorization of one kind of commercial architecture.

[vii]  Jürgen Habermas, Theory and Practice. John Viertel, tr. (London: Heinemann, 1974), p. 74.

[viii]  Donald Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 31.

[ix]  Ibid. p. 34.

[x]  Ibid. p.39.

[xi] Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels, “Against Theory” in W.J.T. Mitchell, ed., Against Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 29-30.

[xii]  Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” in Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, eds., Art in Theory 1900-1990 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), p.836.

Straightforward

[originally published in VMX 95] "Architecture, whether it is a work of art or not, must be utilitarian or else fail completely. Art is not utilitarian." -Sol LeWitt (1) As an endeavour that attempts to transcend the utilitarianism of 'building' with artistic signification, architecture can be understood in a certain way as building made complicated. Building is in and of itself fairly simple and only made 'complicated' when architects choose to make it so; in short, when the architect's subjectivity enters into the equation. This is typically interpreted as meaning, however, that architecture is therefore a vehicle for whimsical personal expression, which often results in a formalist architecture of either tasteful or jarring composition, often willfully forced against the grain of the systematic and rational building industry, not to mention against any given site, programme, and eventual occupants. Such an architecture positions itself in direct binary opposition to questions of utility and economy that are considered to be antithetical to the 'art'. For VMX Architects, however, the building art does not necessarily comprise the literal complicating of building-form, but, on the contrary, the distillation of an idea together with its site and programme down to the simplest possible form of spatial generosity. Their projects have a characteristically straightforward appearance: the right angle figures prominently, as do straight lines and simple bar and box shapes. There is often repetitiveness within a project, almost as though it was designed for expediency of construction; as well as a certain consistency throughout the projects, betraying a sense of aesthetic refinement as well as an ideological position that is quite Miesian: "In Mies [van der Rohe], the realities are, from the very outset, material for the work of architecture..." (2) The ideas behind each of the projects come out of investigations into the very 'realities' that constitute 'the work of architecture'. It is almost only in their ideas that the projects are intuitive, informed as they are by personal observation of the many social and cultural realities with which architecture interacts. The rationality apparent in the work stems from the fact that the ideas are then consequently and methodically taken to an architectural conclusion with the least amount of effort and contrivance. In this way, VMX operates in a manner not unlike that of the Conceptual Art Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Conceptual Art emerged as an avant-garde critique of the relationship between the artist's subjectivity and the art critic's taste. It strove to undermine this relationship by eliminating from art notions of style and aestheticism, even as much as possible the art object itself: these were felt to detract from the notion of 'idea' in art. Conceptual artists attempted "...to eliminate the arbitrary, the capricious, and the subjective as much as possible" (3) by relying on an initial idea that would generate a result with a machine-like minimum of subsequent decision-making on the part of the artist. The work was purposely emotionally dry and often did not employ the conventional media of painting and sculpture, but text and drawings, for example, and tended toward repetition, reduction, appropriation of 'ready-made' objects and simple orthogonality in fabricated objects. Interestingly, these themes resonate with the building industry's practices of standardization, economy of means, pre-fabrication of parts and the rectangular shape of most construction products respectively, practices which VMX employ throughout their work. Comparing architecture to art, however, let alone the building industry to Conceptual Art, is in many other respects misleading since art differs from architecture precisely by virtue of its critical role in society and therefore its degree of autonomy. Autonomy is a form of academic freedom premised upon the need for creative and critical activity to maintain a distance from the realities of finance, public opinion and power. While both art and architecture retain their relative autonomy through cultural institutions such as the museum, (4) artistic autonomy is nevertheless ultimately funded by business and industry, for whom maintaining a small, distant critical elite is not entirely against its interests: the sponsorship of art and culture can serve to redeem morally questionable business activities. While art may criticise and shock or move when it holds up its mirror, architecture, as Sol LeWitt points out above, "must be utilitarian", it has to nevertheless accomodate real needs. Architecture is less autonomous and more socially contingent than art, and ignoring this fact in favour of an architecture primarily of personal expression opens a void for business and industry to fill, as can be seen widely today. This is a reality which VMX is well aware of: "We want to take back the profession of architecture from both its disappearance into the margins of artistic activity as well as from its displacement by developers, contractors and project management firms." (5) The projects are made with the aim of proposing ideas for the most generous possible spatial resolution of their respective intersections of site and programme. These are intersections which are recognized as unique for each and every project in architecture, always occuring in a different context and inevitably resulting in a unique 'DNA footprint'. Each project is seen as always representing, therefore, a unique opportunity. The almost banal repetition of forms and materials in the designs is meant to foreground rather than distract from the issue of space and its use and enjoyment in situ. The programmatic allocation and organization of space, both interior and exterior, as well as the material and perceptual mediation between spaces therefore assume importance. The drawings that explain these projects, with the same matter-of-factness as the designs, are 'designed' to no more than represent three-dimensional spaces at reduced scales on two-dimensional paper in the most informative way; they are not painstakingly crafted artistic ends-in-themselves in which architecture becomes effectively a pretext for the activity of drawing. Here, architecture is primarily a pretext for providing space, and drawing is a means. It is moreso the model and especially its expressive portrayal in photographs that generates the 'image' of every project. In the actual designs, there are many aspects of the work that are simplified as much as possible, often, it seems, in spite of complex and difficult requirements. In projects such as Dun Laoghaire and the Souks of Beirut, with their preposterous floor to area requirements, this can be seen as almost a will to straightforwardness, an effort. These projects manifest, for example, a decisive preference for resolving high density in low-rise buildings with carefully positioned and defined exterior spaces rather than high-rise free-standing objects in the centre of the site. Low-rise decisively occupies, defines and fabricates its own ground-scape, whereas the tall building, especially when raised on pilotis à la Le Corbusier, pretends to barely intervene in the nature of the ground. 'Pretends', because it is of course impossible to build anything (except a space station) that does not affect the ground one way or another given that that is still where buildings are usually made physically accessible by infrastructure. Better then to go ahead and design the ground, and by extension what one gazes at, in an architecture / landscape / infrastructure 'Total Design', something that low-rise more readily implies. The low-rise buildings, with their courts and patios, establish a close-range architectural environment with a more tactile, haptic experience of exterior materials than would a taller free-standing building conceived as a 'device to see the world'. (6) The latter's view over large terrain promotes a more colonizing gaze, one that dominates over nature. (7) Even Oostpoort, whose municipal 'envelope' is for a (relatively) high-rise office complex, uses a slightly raised sockle and careful positioning of openings in the building masses to lend qualities precisely to the courtyard at the centre of the scheme, not unlike Alison and Peter Smithson's Economist building in London. While a preference for enclosed exterior spaces with openings is evident in the way VMX occupy a site, further articulation of building mass itself is kept to a rational minimum with the rectilinear box and bar shapes, as epitomized in the Villa Vente and in Beirut's 'Cartesian Transformation'. The purity of the bar form nevertheless becomes somewhat fluid in projects such as 'Heaven Can Wait' and the Olympic Stadium, however, suggesting a certain flexibility within their orthodoxy of the right angle. But this is still not for purposes of capricious composition: the articulation evident in the former, for example, is so because there is a decision to re-use the site's existing elements of pool and parking, which results in the bar shape having to bend in order to circumnavigate these elements while defining exterior spaces. What appears as composition, albeit a simple one, is in fact entirely rational and avoids "the arbitrary, the capricious and the subjective as much as possible." Both 'Heaven Can Wait' and the Olympic Stadium project are transformations of similar perimeter block types: these blocks are both opened to the waterfront and folded in various places to take advantage of views and light, resulting in a hybrid of the nearby Berlage 'Plan Zuid' perimeter block and modernist blocks. Repetitions of compositions occur most clearly in the Metaalunie and van Leer projects, both of which are additions to existing buildings. The former is a two-phased extension onto an idiosynchratic structure, and yet the theme of simple repetition is nowhere else reduced to such an essence: the second extension phase is an exact clone of the first, not in an obvious symmetry of wings attaching onto each side of the original structure but with the second phase directly on top of the first one, complete with base of pilotis. It does so with the utmost of simplicity while providing an upper storey loggia and opening views out of the original building. In the van Leer building extension, on the other hand, three similar single-storey elements are repeated along the ground and rotated into a pinwheel formation. Repetition carries through within elements by the use of similar unit-types, lift cores and column grids. While the exteriors of the projects regularly appear as low, modestly simple box or bar shapes, the interiors, on the other hand, are sometimes extremely complex, as evident in 'Heaven Can Wait'. This project investigates the reality of today's seniors, for whom retirement is almost only a midpoint given today's longer life expectancies. This has changed seniors' lifestyles and is recognised here as essentially a programmatic issue related to leisure and the 'ultimate luxury' of choice, something the highly standardized Dutch housing industry is ill-equipped to deal with. A total of 120 different units, a recognition of the diversity of today's seniors, is generated out of a game of permutations and combinations with Dutch standard residential measurements and concealed behind a uniform facade. There is thus a complete schism between the rational logic of the exterior and the interior 'puzzle of lifestyles', recalling, incidentally, New York's skyscrapers as discussed by Rem Koolhaas in Delirious New York. The Oostpoort and Olympic Stadium projects combine somewhat less complex interiors with the use of standard construction methods. These methods are so cost-effective that buildings in the Netherlands have effectively become ready-to-build kits whose parts are already in tandem with the stringent Dutch requirements for natural ventilation and daylight admittance. With building heights regulated by each municipality's zoning bylaws and the developer's imperative to generate maximum profit for investors, resultant building masses are effectively pre-determined. The architect is only required for reasons of legal formality and as the final 'cake decorator' who must paint a happy face over this reality and make it appear as if each building is a unique product of genius. It can be said, however, that the systematised production of buildings according to norms and typical construction methods is nevertheless an example of 'complexity and contradiction' that is arguably more beautiful in its pure state than when it is glossed over. VMX views standardization as a given and uses it precisely to generate architecture. The kit of parts is used in the most straightforward manner and becomes the very essence of these projects. This is not to deny, however, the possibility of an architecture of 'reflexivity', one which nevertheless can also comment upon the conditions surrounding its production. In the reconstruction of the Souks of Beirut, for example, historical continuity is established but without the nostalgia: the ancient figure-ground is used as a given, but 'corrected' in a 'Cartesian Transformation' that aligns the buildings with the Earth's lines of latitude and longitude. Cartesian coordinates are the principle behind both the game of 'Battleships' and the Global Positioning System whereby a position is ascribable to anything anywhere in relation to an established set of mutually perpendicular axes. Through the 'Cartesian Transformation', the Souks become part of a global order. Indeed, their reconstruction, whatever form it takes, is likely to be built as a mega-project with international financing and its share of the Benettons and McDonalds that comprise the New World Order. The 'Cartesian Transformation' is then, in this sense, an entirely appropriate metaphor. It also illustrates perfectly VMX's conceptual approach whereby an initial intuitive idea is consequently and consistently carried out with the least amount of formalist composition-making: at the outset it is decided to appropriate the plan of the original Souks, followed by their systematic transformation to arrive at a result. The result is a scheme that is at once cognisant of Beirut's history as well as contextual with its own status as a singularly conceived project. This resolution of site and programme into an architecture that reflects upon the cultural context of its own production bypasses any need for expression. The work of VMX, by its very simplicity, does not set out primarily to claim an autonomous aesthetic realm for architecture, just as it does not stake avant-garde claims of newness for society to eventually learn to live with. Ironically, such avant-gardeness is becoming increasingly expected by certain societies (such as the Dutch), which have come almost to await from architects 'a new architecture every Monday morning.' Their work is in this sense also not just the newest critique of contemporary commodity culture which "...privileges the brand-new product or idea over that of the devalued, most recent 'new' idea in the name of 'progress.'" (8) Architecture resides in ideas for spaces. The spatial ideas in the work of VMX come out of an interest in culture and its dilemmas, with the projects not merely telling it as is, but positing buildable proposals for their resolution. But moreover, the projects approach the very beauty of art in the way their ideas are taken to their architectural essence instead of complicated beyond recognition. If these projects, in the end, make architecture appear beautifully simple, then that is precisely their virtue. NOTES 1. Sol LeWit, 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art', Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, eds., Art in Theory 1900-1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 836. 2. Ignasi de Solá-Morales Rubió, 'Mies van der Rohe and Minimalism', Detlef Mertins, ed., The Presence of Mies (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), p. 151. 3. Sol LeWitt, op cit, p. 835. 4. Art maintains its autonomy in the museum, as much as it tries to test these institutional limitations; while architecture maintains its autonomy by building the museum, as much as it resists accomodating art 'neutrally'. The museum has, since postmodernism, become the architectural object par excellence. 5. VMX partner Don Murphy in private conversation. 6. Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1994), p. 7. 7. Interestingly, even an urban environment can be said to appear more 'natural' from above. 8. Dan Graham, 'Art in Relation to Architecture / Architecture in Relation to Art', Brian Wallis, ed., Rock my Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1993), p. 239.