Toward a Theory of the Architectural Program

Author(s): Anthony Vidler

Reviewed work(s):
Source: October, Vol. 106 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 59-74
Published by: The MIT Press
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Towarda Theoryof the

Architectural
Program

ANTHONY VIDLER

Recentproposalsand debatesoverthearchitectural
of GroundZerohave
redevelopment
has
the
in
over
the
role
the
last
two
decades,
which,
highlighted way
of architecture
public
beengradually reducedto the symbolicand the emblematic.Its formsof expressionare no
longercloselytied back to the urban issues and physical planning questions that,from
Moderne (CIAM) to Team X, Neo-Realismto NeoCongresInternationauxd'Architecture
Rationalism,Rotterdamto InternationaleBauausstellung Berlin (IBA), once energizedand
mediatedthepracticeof urban architecture.
The questionsthathave arisen around theethics
and aestheticsappropriateto a site markedby disasterand catastrophehave throwninto
in symbolic
overinvested
reliefthedrawbacksof an architecture
formand individual meditation on memory.
discussions
the
indeed,seemedto bear
Many
of proposalsforreconstruction,
out Guy Debord's 1964 anticipation of an allpervading spectacleculture.The difference,
to theperceivedeffects
expressedbyHal Fosterwith reference
of new and dramatic designs
such as thatfor theGuggenheimMuseo Bilbao byFrank Gehry,is that "thirty
yearsago Guy
Deborddefinedspectacleas 'capital accumulatedto such a degreethatit becomesan image, '
but "thereverseis now trueas well: spectacleis an image accumulatedto such a degreethat
it becomescapital."1
The issue hereis, once again, one of "program,"
a wordall-butjettisonedin the high
and
deemed
to
irrelevant
architectural
daysofpostmodernism
"meaning"sincethediscrediting
the
narrow
movement.
In revisitingthis concept,
the
modern
of
seemingly
functionalismof
one of the oldest in the historyof professionalarchitecture,thereis no intent to invoke
programin thelimitedfunctionalistorpolitical approachesof earlymodernism,nor even in
therevivedtypologicaland diagrammaticformsof late modernism.Rather,a contemporary
sense of programwould implythe radical interrogationof the ethical and environmental
conditionsof specificsites,whichare consideredas programsin themselves.
Such programs
not
architecture
in
but
stimulate
the
the
conventional
sense,
might privilege
development
ofa
new environmentalism
construedaccordingto what mightbe called the "technologies
of the
" Such a new environmentalism
to
a
subservience
would
not
everyday.
"green"building
imply
miredin the static responseof existingeconomiesand primitivetechnology,
nor would it
the
static
in
contextualism
the
new
mired
the
urbanism
follow
of
nostalgicresponseto a false
1.

Hal Foster,Designand Crime(and OtherDiatribes)

(London: Verso,2002), p. 41.

OCTOBER 106,Fall 2003,pp. 59-74. ? 2003 October

Institute
ofTechnology.
Magazine,Ltd.and Massachusetts

60

OCTOBER

sense of the "good" historicalpast, norfinally would it accept thepremisesof global late
modernismmiredin thefalse confidenceof technologicaluniversalism.Instead it would be
flexibleand adaptive, inventiveand mobilein its responseto environmentalconditionsand

technological
possibilities.

Not yeta movement,

towardthecriticaldevelopment
nor a unifiedtheory,
thistendency
in the idea and practiceof
the
idea
a
is
driven
number
interventions
ofprogram
of
by
of
It
is
in
the
the
design.
manifested
explorationof
potentialof digital analysis and synthesis,
in theincreasinginterest
in theformaland spatial potentialofnew materialsand structures,
and above all in the migrationof the explorationof social and culturalformsfrom the
domain ofart installationtopublic architecture.
The spring2003 retrospective
oftheworkof
Diller + Scofidioat theWhitney
Museum ofAmericanArtpointsto theway in whichcritical
theory,new media, and the inventivereconstruction
of space and timecan implyprogrammatic inventionthat is neitherfunctionally"determinist"
norformallyautonomous.It is
also evincedin therecenttheorizationof theroleof the "diagram"in architectural
designthatminimalist,reduced,schematicofspatial organizationand technologicalenclosurethat
has, in thepractice of Kazuyo Sejima and Rem Koolhaas, among others,becomealmost
iconographically
representative
ofa "scientific"
approachtoprogram.2
Even theapparentdivision betweenthepostmodernexpressionism
castigatedbyFoster
and a new senseofprogrammaticinventionis perhapsnot as greatas it may appear on the
theirexplorationof theformalpotentialsof
surface.Many architectsare bringingtogether
and
an equally radical approach towardtheprogramby exploitingall the
digital media
possibilitiesofanimation and rendering
informationand
programsto combineand represent
thus overcoming
one of thefundamentalblocksto modernfunctionalism-the "translation"
team
ofdata into meaningfulform.
Design collaborativeshave adoptedtheinterdisciplinary
research;
approachesofscientific
fabricationis no longerso distinctfromconceptionsince the
development
ofsophisticatedoutputtechnology.
As is true of mostradical interventionsin traditionalprocessesof design, however,
at all in
theorizationofthenew "program"in architecture
lags seriouslybehind.If attempted
a climateacceptingof digital determinism,
it has tendedtofollowold patternsof discourse,
splitonce again betweenscienceand art. Approachedfromthestandpointof digitalization,
and explanationofnew technological
theory
possibilities
rarelytacklesmorethan thedescription
and avoids cultural or social studies work on the nature and effectsof new media.
Approachedfromthestandpointofcriticalrevisionoftheprogram,theoryremainsembedded
in theart-historical
in critical
corollaries
discoursesoftheavant-gardesand theirpoststructural
theoryand media analysis.
The emergence
to thearchitectural
ofa newsensibility
programconsideredin itsbroadest
termsrecallstheoptimismofReynerBanham andJohn Summersonin thelate 1950s. Their
or techpremisedeemedthata closerattentiontoscience-whetherofperception,information,
functionalism,
nology-would in the end lead to a fundamental reconceptionof modernist
For a discussionof "diagramarchitecture,"
2.
see, among manyrecenttexts,R. E. Somol, "Dummy
in Peter Eisenman,DiagramDiaries
Text, or the DiagrammaticBasis of ContemporaryArchitecture,"
(New York: Universe, 1999) and my "Diagrams of Diagrams: ArchitecturalAbstractionand Modern
72 (Fall 2000).
Representation,"Representations

Towarda TheoryoftheArchitectural
Program

61

butrathertocastfunctionalism
notin ordertofreearchitecture
fromobservance
offunction,
in a vastlyexpanded
Banham's
that
point
from
included,
perception,
ofview,topology,
field
kinds. Thefollowingessay
all
and
of
biology,
genetics,information
theory, technology
Banham'sattempt
thisturnin relationto theinventive
to theorize
programmatic
explores
in
and formalstrategies
the
foundresonance
of Archigram
Group-workthathas recently
a
the
as
an
discourse
of potential
aspectof prehistory
contemporary
representing important
newapproachtothearchitectural
program.
I
ReynerBanham once remarkedon the factthatthe historyof a period does
not alwaysneatly coincide with the calendar. "For architecturalpurposes," he
architectureobserved,lookingback fromthe vantagepointof 1960,mid-century
thatof the Festivalof Britainaround 1950-seemed less of a break withthe past
of modernismthan thatthatoccurredlaterin the decade, afterthe buildingof Le
Corbusier's Ronchamp and closer to 1957.3 Indeed, as he pointed out, John
Summerson in his celebrated article of that year, "The Case for a Theory of
Rule" thatmeasured
ModernArchitecture,"
describedwhathe called a "Thirty-Year
as
"a
in
1957
and
architectural
taste
year of architectural
changes
dulyproposed
crisis."4The "greatdivide"thatboth Banham and Summersondetectedin the late
was between a
1950s, despite theirsquabbles over its architecturalmanifestation,
and
founded on
of
CIAM
the
modern movementuniversalizedthrough
activities
of
freer
the "mythology Form and Function,"and a new,
style,which,as Banham
noted,was characterizednot so much bythe oftenclaimed "end of functionalism"
but by the death of the slogan "Functionalismwitha capital 'F,' and its accompaAgainst
nyingdelusion thatcurved formswere the workof untrammeledfancy."5
this "untrammeledfancy"that Nikolaus Pevsner was soon to characterize as a
"New Historicism,"both Banham and Summersonwere to propose alternatives
ideas no
based on whateach thoughtof as the radical rethinkingof functionalism,
longer immersed in the largelysymbolicguise espoused by the modern movement,but based on "real"science. Banham,in search ofwhathe called "une autre
turnedto the authorityof militaryand corporateengineers,biologiarchitecture,"
cal researchers,and social scientists;Summerson outlined a new concept of the
programas the foundationof a "theoryof modernarchitecture."
The modern movement,as defined by its historians-Pevsner, Siegfried
Giedion, Henry-RussellHitchcock, and then Banham, had been understood as
fundamentally"functionalist"in character. The nature of this functionalism
differedfromhistorianto historian,but its rule overmodernarchitectureseemed
supreme-it was a way of ignoring the formal and stylisticdifferencesof the
3.
Review127,no. 755 (January1960), p. 9.
After1960,"Architectural
ReynerBanham,"Architecture
4.
Ibid., p. 9. Banham is citing John Summerson, "The Case for a Theory of Modern
Architecture,"
RoyalInstitute
ofBritish
ArchitectsJournal,
June 1957, pp. 307-10.
5.
after1960,"p. 10.
Banham, "Architecture

62

OCTOBER

various avant-gardesin order to providea unifyingalibi, or definingfoundation,

for architecturalmodernity.It was fromthis functionalistposition that Pevsner,
Reviewin the
writingunder the pseudonymPeter F. R. Donner in the Architectural
and
Walter
criticized
Le
Corbusier
(formalist)
Gropius (funcpraised
early1940s,
tionalist) and later excoriated the return of "styles"characterized as a New
Historicism.It was fromthis position, too, that the firstgeneration of modern
masterswas criticizedby Team X, among others,as narrowand antihumanistin
itsfunctionalism.It was under thissign thatJohnSummerson,writingin the Royal
InstituteofBritishArchitects
Journalin 1957, constructedhis "case for a theoryof
modern architecture."6
And of course it was under thissign thatArchigramitself
was to be denounced by these historiansand architects-by Giedion in the 1967
edition of Space,Timeand Architecture,
and byAlisonand PeterSmithsonin Without
Rhetoric
of 1973.
Summersonrejected the idea of building up a theoryof modern architecturebased on the existence
of modern buildings:to abstractformalcharacteristics
froma select repertoryof modern buildings,or provide a grammarof formand
then to illustratehow the formsembodythe ideas, would, he claimed, only "add
up to somethinglike a Palladio of modern architecture,a pedagogical reference
book" thatwouldend up as a "hopelesslygimcrack"rag-bagof aphorisms,platitudes,
and fancyjargon. Rather,a "theory"of architecturewould be "a statementof
relatedideas restingon a philosophicalconception of the natureof architecture,"
whichhe foundin the statementof a group of Mediterraneanbeliefsabout reason
and antiquity,statedbyAlberti,reformulatedin the age of Descartes,rewrittenin
Perrault'scritique of Vitruvius,then again by Berlage, Durand, Horta, Laugier,
Le Corbusier,Perret,and Pugin:
Viollet-le-Duc,
Perraultsaid antiquityis the thingand look how rational;Lodoli seems
to have said up withprimitive
antiquity,only source of the rational;
Durand said down with Laugier, rationalization means economics;
Pugin said down with antiquity,up with the Gothic, and look how
rational;Viollet-le-Ducsaid up withGothic,prototypeof the rational.
Eventuallya voice is heard sayingdown with all the stylesand if it's
rationalismyou want,up withgrainelevatorsand look, how beautiful!7
Againstthisrational tradition,however,Summersonsaw a new versionof authoritysupercedingthe classical-that of the "the biological" as advanced by Laszl6
As Moholy-Nagystated, "architecturewill be broughtto its fullest
Moholy-Nagy.
realizationonlywhen the deepest knowledgeof human lifeas a totalphenomenon
in the biological whole is available."8For Moholy-Nagy,notes Summerson, the
6.
Summerson,when he republishedthisessayin 1990, observed thatit was the "lastgasp of prewar Englishmodernism"(MARS group etc.); the moment"whenthe thoughtof mygeneration-the
MARS group generation-lost touchwiththe real world... not the conclusionwhichhistoryrequired."
7.
Summerson,"The Case fora Theoryof ModernArchitecture,"
p. 230.
8.
TheNewVision(New York:Wittenborn,1949) pp. 159-60.
Laszl6 Moholy-Nagy,

Towarda TheoryoftheArchitectural
Program

63

biological was psychophysical-a demanding theoryof design matchinga broad

idea of functionthatcalled for"the mostfar-reaching
implicationsof cybernetics
to be realized ... ifthe artist'sfunctionswere at last to be explicable in mechanistic terms."9
In this argument,Summersontraced the idea of the classical,the rational,
and the organic to its modern conception, a trajectorythat moved "fromthe
antique (a world of form) to the program (a local fragmentof social pattern)."
Hence Summerson'scelebrated conclusion that "the source of unityin modern
architectureis in the social sphere,in otherwords,the architect'sprogram-the
one new principleinvolvedin modernarchitecture."10
In his terms,a program"is the descriptionof the spatial dimensions,spatial
relationships, and other physical conditions required for the convenient
performance of specificfunctions,"all of which involve a "process in time,"a
rhythmically
repetitivepatternthat sanctions differentrelationshipsthan those
sanctifiedby the static,classical tradition." The problem he identified,as witha
naive functionalism,
was the need fora wayto translatesuch programmaticideas
into appropriateform-a problem to which Summersonoffersno directanswer.
DismissingBanham's 1955 appeal to topologyin his essayon the New Brutalismas
"an attractivered herring(I thinkit's a herring),"Summersonwas quite dismayed
at the "unfamiliarand complex forms [that were] cropping up" in practices
around him because of the extensionof the engineer'srole.12
Indeed his conclusionwas pessimistic;sensingthe incompatibility
of a theory
that holds two equal and opposite overridingprinciples,he concluded that any
theory that posits program as the only principle leads either to "intellectual
contrivances"or to the unknown:"the missinglanguage willremainmissing"and
our discomfortin the face of thisloss would soon be simplya "scarleftin the mind
bythe violentswingwhichhas takenplace."13
Banham, writingthreeyearslater,was more optimistic.While he sided with
Summerson in deploring the style-mongeringof the 1950s-"it has been a
period when an enterprisingmanufacturercould have put out a do-it-yourself
pundit kit in which the aspiring theorist had only to fill in the blank in the
phrase The New ( . . )-ismand set up in business"-he found that "most of the
blankettheoriesthathave been launched have provenfallible,and partlybecause
most labels have concentratedon the purelyformalside of what has been built
and projected, and failed to take into account the fact that nearlyall the new
trends rely heavily on engineers or technicians of genius (or nearly so)." He
proposed thatwhatwas needed was "a new and equally compellingslogan,"and

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

Summerson,"The Case fora Theoryof ModernArchitecture,"

p. 232.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 233.
Ibid., p. 235.
Ibid.

64

OCTOBER

he suggestedsome of his own: "Anticipatory

Design," "Une ArchitectureAutre,"
"All-inPackage Design Service,"and even "A More CrumblyAesthetic."'4
By asking this question, as well as implicitlyanswering it on behalf of a
new architecture, Banham introduced a series of inquiries under the title
Printedon
"Architecture
after1960" thathe had initiatedforArchitectural
Review.15
offby
kicked
with
were
red
accents
bold
and
brightyellowpaper
they
typography,
his own, now celebrated article "Stocktaking,"with its parallel discussion of
"Tradition"and "Design"and its obvious design-friendly
conclusion,and followed
a
of
on
"The
Science
Side"
by group
essays
by experts on weapons systems,
and
the
human
The
continued witha symposiumof
sciences.
series
computers,
chaired
on
UniversalMan," thatparadigm
"The
Future
of
architects,
by Banham,
of the traditionalarchitecturalsubject,and concluded withBanham's double bill
on "Historyunder Revision,"a combined questionnaireon "Masterpiecesof the
Modern Movement," and a personal exorcism of his own teacher Nikolaus
in which the masterwas put on the couch
Pevsner,"Historyand Psychoanalysis,"
the
And
to
demonstrate
just
fairness,Banham allowed the old guard
by
pupil.
back to reply,stillon yellowpaper,in a dyspepticsequence of observationsbythe
editors of Architectural
Review:J. M. Richards,Hugh Casson, H. de C. Hastings,
of
Nikolaus
Pevsner. Banham, needless to say,had the last word,
course,
and,
sidebar
notes
he disagreed with the editors and a final note. His
where
adding
the
series
was clear: "Functionalismwith a capital 'F"' was
message throughout
live
witha small"f' and a basis in real science.16
dead, long
functionalism,
while
Banham was clearlyin favorof borrowingfromtechnologyin
However,
widespreadfields-rocketry,as describedbyA. C. Brothersof EnglishElectric,for
example, offereda lesson in "totalplanningand teamwork"-he was as suspicious
of the contemporary architectural fetishismof technology as he was of the
modern movement'smystique.17"Throughout the present century,"he wrote,
"architectshave made fetishesof technologicaland scientificconcepts
outofcontext
and been disappointedby themwhen theydeveloped according to the processes
of technologicaldevelopment,not according to the hopes of architects."And he
concluded, withself-consciousironyagainst his own enthusiasms,"a generation
ago, it was 'The Machine' thatlet architectsdown-tomorrow or the day afterit
14.
after1960,"p. 9.
Banham, "Architecture
15.
"The Future of Universal Man," Architectural
Review127, no. 758 (April 1960), pp. 253-60.
Symposium with Anthony Cox (senior partner in Architects' Co-Partnership), Gordon Graham
(partnerin the livelyprovincialoffice),John Page (lecturerin buildingscience, LiverpoolUniversity),
Lawrence Alloway(critic and programdirector,ICA); "Historyunder Revision"and "Questionnaire,
Review127, no. 759 (May 1960), pp. 325-32,
Masterpiecesof the Modern Movement,"Architectural
Review127, no. 760
including Banham, "Historyand Psychiatry,"
pp. 326-32; "Replies,"Architectural
(June 1960), pp. 381-88, withJ. M. Richards,Nikolaus Pevsner,Hugh Casson, H. de C. Hastings,and
sidebarnotesbyBanham.
16.
after1960,"p. 10.
Banham, "Architecture
17.
Reyner Banham, "The Science Side: Weapons Systems, Computers, Human Sciences,"
Architectural
Review127, no. 757 (March 1960), pp. 188-90.

Towarda TheoryoftheArchitectural
Program

65

willbe 'The Computer,'or Cyberneticsor Topology."18

Electroniccomputinglikewise,as he responded to the summarycontributedby R. B. Drummond of IBM,
"can stand as an example of a topic on whichthe professionas a whole has been
eager to gulp down visionarygeneral articlesof a philosophical nature,without
needsto see just how
scrutinizingeitherthisusefultool, or theirown mathematical
far computersand architecturehave anythingto say to one another."19He gave
the example of Charles Eames, who in 1959 had spoken at the RIBA on the
"mental techniques associated with computers" important for architecture;
Banham calls fora more analyticalapproach, examininghow computersmightbe
used, and "howfar."20
Dutifully,Drummond outlined the contributions that computing might
make to aspects of architecturalplanning in four areas: operations research,
systemssimulation,linear programming,and queuing theory.But, he cautioned,
computerscould add littleto the aestheticappearance of a building:"They deal
in cold hard facts.They have no aesthetic sense whatsoever.Furthermore,they
have no imagination.So, althoughI feel theymaybe used as aids to architecture,
it is still for the human being to create that which is beautiful."21Banham,
however,disputedthistraditionalseparationbetween "mathematics"and "art"as
divide,pointingout "notonlythatmathsimplyreplicatingthe old form/function
ematics is part of the traditionalequipment of the architect,but that aesthetics
and other aspects of human psychologyare no longer mysteriesnecessarilyto be
set up against 'cold hard facts."'22Further,the articleby the futureprofessorof
architectureat the BartlettSchool (and his own futureboss), Richard LlewelynDavies of the Nuffield Foundation, had opened the way to the analysis of
matterscan be
supposedly "soft"social and psychological facts: "Psychological
numerical
values-and
make
it
statistical
assigned
increasinglyfeasible
techniques
to quantifythem-they become susceptibleto mathematicalmanipulation.... An
increasingproportionof the mostjealously guarded 'professionalsecrets'of architectureare alreadyquantifiable."23
In a laterresponse to Pevsner'sirritationthat,
the
"No
architect
series,
throughout
reallystood up to say that he is concerned
withvisual values (i.e., aesthetics) and that,if a buildingfailsvisually,we are not
interestedin it,"24Banham tartlyresponded to his formerteacher: "No architect
stood up to say thathe was concerned withvisualvalues because visualvalues are
onlyone of six (ten? fifty?)
equallyimportantvalues of design."25To Pevsner'sfear
18.
Ibid., p. 183.
19.
Ibid., pp. 185-86.
20.
Ibid., p. 185.
21.
Ibid., p. 188.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid. LlewelynDavies had written:"A verylarge part of the psychophysiologicalrelationship
23.
betweenman and environmentis likelyto fallto the mathematician,not-as heretofore-the mystic."
NikolausPevsner,"Reply,"Architectural
24.
Review127, no. 760 (June 1960), p. 383.
25.
Banham, "Reply,"p. 383.

OCTOBER

66

that "you can have 'non-architecture'thatwaybeforeyou knowwhere you are,"

Banham rehearsedhis notion of a "scientificaesthetic."Admittingthat"certainly
a fullyscientificaesthetic is impossiblenow-but it is a thousand percent more
possible than it was thirtyyears ago," he explained, "By a scientificaesthetic,I
meantone thatuses,as the basisand guide to design,observations(made according
to the normal laws of scientificevidence) of the actual effectof certain colors,
forms,symbols,spaces, lightinglevels, acoustic qualities, textures,perspective
effects(in isolation or in total 'gestalts')on human viewers."26
In sum, the 1960s
seriesimpliedwhatwould be the radical conclusionto Banham's firstbook, Theory
and Designin theFirstMachineAge,publishedin the same year:
It maywell be thatwhatwe have hithertounderstoodas architecture,
and whatwe are beginningto understandof technologyare incompatible
disciplines. The architect who proposes to run with technology
knowsthat he will be in fastcompany,and that,in order to keep up,
he may have to emulate the Futuristsand discard his whole cultural
load, including the professionalgarmentsby which he is recognized
as an architect.27
II
Banham had spoken on "clip-oncomponents"forthe prefabricatedservice
roomsof a house in his 1960 "Stocktaking,"
but itwas not untilfiveyearslaterthat
he developed a complete theoryof "clip-on architecture"in an articleforDesign
Quarterly,
reprintedin the same year as an introductionto the special issue of
Architectural
Designlargelydevoted to the ArchigramGroup.28Here he traced the
of
genealogy "clip-on,"fromthe idea of "endlessness"withregardto standardizafromMies van der Rohe throughto the
tion, and, according to Llewelyn-Davies,
notion of a "cell withservices,"introducedbythe Smithsonsin theirplasticHouse
of the Future of 1955, by Ionel Schein in France, and Monsanto in the U.S. The
conception of the house as a mass-produced product, mass-marketedlike a
Detroit car but put together with prefabricated components, had inspired
Banham in 1961 to outline a late-1950s unpublished article on "clip-on
philosophy."And Cedric Price's Fun Palace, conceived byJoan Littlewoodand
consideredbyPrice as a "giantneo-futurist
machine,"ranveryclose to the programmaticrevolutionforwhichhe was callingin 1960: a giant"anti-building"
seen as a
"zone of total probability,in which the possibilityof participatingin practically
could be caused to exist."29Three yearslater,Archigramhad reversed
everything
26.
Ibid., pp. 386-87.
27.
and Designin theFirstMachineAge(London: ArchitecturalPress,1960),
ReynerBanham, Theory
p. 329.
28.
Architectural
ReynerBanham, "A Clip-onArchitecture,"
Design35 (November1965), pp. 534-35;
firstpublishedin DesignQuarterly
63 (1965).
29.
Ibid., p. 535.

Towarda TheoryoftheArchitectural
Program

67

the idea of "clip-on"by adopting thatof "plug-in,"but Banham was readyto fold
this into his theory:"Too much should not be made of this distinctionbetween
extremeformsof the twoconcepts: technicallytheyare oftenintimatelyconfused
in the same project,and the aesthetictraditionoverrunsniceties of mechanical
discrimination."30
In returninghere to an "aesthetictradition,"Banham revealed
his real agenda withregardto "une autre architecture":a call foran architecture
that technologicallyovercame all previousarchitecturesto possess an expressive
form. Against the way in which the "architecture of the establishment" had
adopted prefabrication-"the picturesque prefabricationtechniques of the tilehung schools of the CLASP system"-a prefabricatedsystemfor school building
adopted by a consortium of local authorities in the 1960s-he was equally
and O and R men" who predictedthat
opposed to the theoriesof "cyberneticists
"a computerizedcitymightlook like anythingor nothing."For thisreason he was
enthusiasticabout Archigram'sPlug-inCity,because, as he wrote,"mostof us want
we don't wantformto followfunction
[a computerizedcity]to look like something,
into oblivion."31
For Banham Archigram'sprojects-as he characterized them: Zoom City,
Computer City, Off-the-PegCity, Completely Expendable City, and Plug-in
City-were importantas much for the technology on which theywere predicated as for their aesthetic qualities. "Archigramcan't tell you for certain
whetherPlug-inCitycan be made to work,but it can tell you whatit mightlook
like."32Thus whether or not their proposals are acceptable to technicians or
dismissed as Pop frivolity,they offerimportant formallessons. Banham has
traced a movementfrompropositionsabout the contributionof technologyto
aestheticsin the 1950s,to,withArchigram,"aestheticsofferingto givetechnology
its marchingorders."33
III
Of all those interrogating "une autre architecture" in the 1960s, the
ArchigramGroup, under the cover of whatseemed to be irreverentand harmless
play,launched the most fundamental critique of the traditional architectural
in May 1961, which consisted
program.The firstissue of the magazine Archigram
of a single page witha foldoutand David Greene's polemical substitutionof the
"poetryof bricks"witha poetryof "countdown,orbital helmets,and discord of
mechanical body transportationand leg walking,"set the tone. It was followedby
eightissues from1963 to 1970, which developed themes that embraced issues of
expendabilityand consumerismat the broadestscale. Publiclyannounced in the
Living Cityexhibitionof 1963 at the ICA and developed in projects for Plug-in
30.

31.
32.
33.

Ibid.

Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.

68

OCTOBER

City (Peter Cook, 1964), Computer City (Dennis Crompton, 1964), and
UnderwaterCity,Moving Cities (Ron Herron, 1964), Archigramexplored all the
potentials for technologyand social engineering to reshape the environment.
Inflatables,infrastructures,
pods, blobs, blebs, globs, and gloops were proposed
as the engines of a culturededicated to nomadism,social emancipation,endless
exchange, interactiveresponse systems,and, followingthe lead of Cedric Price,
pleasure, fun,and comforton the materialand psychologicallevel. All of which
were designed withwittytechnologicalpoetics to place the total syntheticenvironment-human, psychological,ecological, and technological-firmlyon the
agenda.34
The effectof Archigram'sworkbetween 1961 and 1970 was to project into
societya programand an aestheticfor the totalenvironment-not "environmental design" or "computer-aided design," nor the high-tech idealism of a
BuckminsterFuller or the naturalistorganicismof a Paolo Soleri, nor the psychological nihilism of the Situationists or the ironic nihilism of groups like
Superstudio or Archizoom-but an environmentalismthat worked with every
aspect of the contemporaryenvironment,fromconsumer desire to ecological
demand, frommedia to medium,fromdream to the dream machine, fromthe
suburban kit to the electronic tomato. They meant to inventnot waysof being
determinedby the technologies of conservationand sustainability;not waysof
being confinedby buildingcodes and practicesfounded on existingmarketeconomics and distribution;not waysof reinventingarchitectureor waysof killing
architecture;not waysof rewritingtheoryor simplyintroducing"new" concepts
into old theory;not ways of redistributingarchitecturallanguages and forms
across new technological surfaces; not ways of arguing one language against
another, one historical precedent against another, one politic of class against
another-but ratherto throwout the whole,babywithbathwater,and startagain
withthe elements of the known,and combine them across genres,species, and
disciplines in hithertounknown ways.Warren Chalk, writingat a moment of
"technologicalbacklash,"argued forthisnew approach,fullyagreeingthat"either
the environmentgoes or we go,"and that"our verysurvivaldepends on an ecological utopia, otherwisewe will be destroyed,"but a utopia that has perforceto be
builtwitha "moresophisticatedtechnology,
a more sophisticatedscience."35
Against
what he called a "hippy-type
philosophy,"yetfullyaware of the enormous significance of Woodstock'smomentaryweldingof syntheticand naturalenvironments,
he callsforthe buildingofwhatDavid Greene imaginedas a "cybernetic
forest"coupled withtechnologicalplayof an order thatwould extendthe "existingsituation"
As
and createa new "man/machinerelationship,"
a "people-orientedtechnology."36
Greenehimselfwrote,
34.
See Architectural
Design 35 (November 1965), pp. 559-73, and Peter Cook, ed., Archigram
Press,1999).
(Boston: Birkhauser,1972; reprint,NewYork:PrincetonArchitectural
35.
Warren Chalk, "Touch Not OtherwiseWe Will be Destroyed,"in Peter Cook, ed., Archigram,
p. 138.
36.
Ibid.

Towarda TheoryoftheArchitectural
Program

69

I like to think
(rightnow please!)
of a cyberneticforest
filledwithpines and electronica
wheredeer strollpeacefully
past computers
as iftheywereflowers
withspiningblossoms37
Whetherrepresented"architecturally"
in Peter Cook's studiesin metamorkits
as a set of parts (bay box, deluxe
"Addhox"
for
suburbia
marketed
phosis-his
fun
tubes,garden tray,etc.) and the new prototypesof
bay,lean-to,gardenscreen,
suburban expansion (crater cities and hedgerow villages)-or in the bodily
extensionsof the cyborgsin theircushiclesdesignedbyMikeWebb,this"greening"
of the machine and "machining"of nature was personified,so to speak, by the
image of the chameleon. "People are walking architecture"imagines people
assistedin theirwalkingby a host of half-natural-half-machine
gizmos,of which
the electronictomatopromisedto "directyourbusinessoperations,do the shopping,huntor fish,orjust enjoyelectronicinstamaticvoyeurism,fromthe comfort
ofyourown home."38
One could writethe "programs"ofArchigramas a seriesmore or less systemWe mightalso
atic of such extensionsand expansionsof traditionalfunctionalism.
see themas pointingto the future,or ratherour own present,as theirinventions
mightseemto writethe specs forall the Sonyhome gadgets,the home offices,and
universalremotecontrollersof today.But there is a crucial a difference:technological foresightis, forArchigram,not the end in viewnor the answertheywant.
For their programmaticproject was not only serious and instrumental-it was
certainlyall that-but also fun and ironic,serious and sensoryat the same time;
the profound differencebetween a programmable remote and an "electronic
tomato"is thatthe remoteis simplyan extensionin space and time of our finger,
whereasthe electronictomatointersectsthe organicand the mechanical,the sensory and the functional, in such a way as to disturb all the verities of the
functionalprogramon the one hand and the psychedelicprogramon the other.
IV
It was in 1972 that Banham wrote of Archigram,"Archigramis short on
and craftsmanship.
theory,long on draftsmanship
They're in the image business
37.
David Greene,"Gardener'sNotebook,"in PeterCook, ed., Archigram,
p. 110.
38.
Ron Herron, Warren Chalk, and David Greene, "Manzak and Electronic Tomato," in Peter
Cook, ed., Archigram,
p. 124.

70

OCTOBER

and theyhave been blessed withthe powerto createsome of the mostcompelling

images of our time."39To use the word "image" in this contextwas then, and is
now,of course to conjure up all the spectersof spectacularculture,of surfaceand
mass ornament,that,fromKracauer throughDebord to Baudrillard,have generallyindicateda capitulationto the (postmodern)cultureof capitalismat itsworst.
But Banham, in his faintlydismissivecharacterizationof Archigramas an
image business,is in fact restingon a theorythat he had developed only a few
years earlier,which lent real substance to the sobriquet "image": that notion of
the "image"firstposed by Gombrichin the 1950s and adopted by Banham in his
characterizationof that first"postmodern"Britisharchitecturemovement,the
New Brutalism.40
There, Banham uses the termto escape fromclassicalaesthetics,
to refer to something that, while not conforming to traditional canons of
judgment, was nevertheless,in his terms,"visuallyvaluable," requiring"that the
buildingshould be an immediatelyapprehensiblevisual entityand that the form
grasped by the eye should be confirmedby experience of the buildingin use."41
For Banham, this"imageability"
meant thatthe buildingin some waywas "concepmore
of
an
idea
the
relation
of formto functionthan a reality,and without
tual,"
that
the
any requirement
building be formal or topological. An image for
whether
to
Banham,
referring a JacksonPollock or a Cadillac, meant "something
whichis visuallyvaluable,but not necessarilybythe standardsof classicalaesthetics,"
and, paraphrasingThomas Aquinas,"thatwhichseen, affectsthe emotions."42
In architecturalterms,accordingto Banham, thisimpliedthata buildingdid
and stillbe
not need to be "formal"in traditionalterms;it could also be aformal
as well as
"routine
Palladians
he
was
conceptual. Here
attackingwhat he called
Lane
he
routine Functionalists,"and
took the Smithson'sGolden
project as an
of its
because
means"
example that"createda coherentvisualimage bynonformal
human
of
visible circulation,identifiableunits of habitation,and the presence
beings as part of the total image, which was represented in perspectiveswith
people collaged so that "the human presence almost overwhelmedthe architecture."43In Golden Lane, as at Sheffield University,"aformalismbecomes as
positivea forcein its compositionas it does in a paintingby Burri or Pollock."44
This was a resultof the Smithsons'general attitudetowardcomposition,not in
this was a compositraditionalformalterms,but apparentlycasual informality:
tional approach based not on elementaryrule-and-compassgeometry,but on "an
intuitivesense of topology."It was, concluded Banham, the presence of topology
over geometrythat marked the inception of "un autre architecture,"another
39.
Banham, "A CommentfromPeterReynerBanham,"in PeterCook, ed., Archigram,
p. 5.
40.
Review118 (December 1955), pp. 354-61;
ReynerBanham, "The New Brutalism,"Architectural
Banham,selected byMaryBanham, Paul Barker,Sutherland
reprintedin A CriticWrites:
EssaysbyReyner
of CaliforniaPress,1996), pp. 7-15.
Lyall,Cedric Price,forewordbyPeterHall (Berkeley:University
41.
Banham,"The New Brutalism,"in A CriticWrites,
p. 12.
Ibid.
42.
43.
Ibid., p. 14.
44.
Ibid.

Towarda TheoryoftheArchitectural
Program

71

architecture,whichdisplayedits qualities throughthe characteristicsof penetration, circulation, the relations between inside and outside, and above all the
surfaceof apperceptionthat,finally,
gave the image its forceand substance:"thus
and
Image, for Banham,
beauty
geometrysupplanted by image and topology."45
"teachable"
the
aesthetic
related
in
he
as
to
what
1960
was
to
claim
only
evidently
scientific
lines:
of
"No
aesthetics
(except possiblyPicturesque) that
along
theory
in seeing."46
could be taughtin schools,takesanycognizanceof the memory-factor
A year later Banham, who was evidentlystrainingto find an appropriate
in the HunstantonSchool, found even the Smithsons
object forhis image-theory
in
their
to
wanting
response his aestheticconditions,in the contextof the group
in
the
This
Is Tomorrow
exhibition at the WhitechapelArt Gallery.The
displays
"Patio and Pavilion,"designed by the Smithsons,Nigel Henderson, and Eduardo
Paolozzi, was a collection of objects in a shed within a courtyardthat in the
Smithsons'wordsrepresented"the fundamentalnecessitiesof the human habitat
in a series of symbols,"and was, for Banham, "the New Brutalistsat their most
submissiveto traditionalvalues ... in an exalted sense, a confirmationof accepted
values and symbols."The installationbyJohn Voelcker,Richard Hamilton, and
John McHale, on the other hand, seemed more "Brutalist"in characterthan the
Brutalists.These artists"employedoptical illusions,scale reversions,oblique structuresand fragmentedimages to disruptstock responsesand put the viewerback
on a tabula rasa of individualresponsibility
forhis own atomizedsensoryawareness
of images of only local and contemporary significance." Ultimately, it was
Brutalism'srefusalof abstractconcepts and its use of "concreteimages-images
thatcan carrythe mass of traditionand association,or the energyof noveltyand
technology,but resistclassificationby the geometricaldisciplinesby which most
other exhibitswere dominated"-that, forBanham, representedthe authenticity
of the movement.Banham's image, then,was not onlya passivesymbolof everyday life or technological desire, but also an active participant in the viewer's
sensoryfield,and it used all the techniques of modernistdisruption-of shock
and displacement-to embed its effectsin experience.47
In thiscontext,forBanham to have accused Archigramof imagismwould be
to see Archigramas a movementconcerned withthe nonformal,nontraditional,
withthe question of process unencumberedby geometry;with
nonarchitectural;
fundamentally
topologiesratherthan geometries;and thuswithan "architecture"
disjointedfromacademicismand historicism.Indeed, it was exactlywhatBanham
wanted,althoughhe could not quite see it throughhis Brutalistblinders.
Such a theoryof the image, then,begins to deepen our own interpretation
of whatArchigramwanted,beyond the overtlybrilliantsubterfugesof advertising
techniques,Pop and Op, collage and montage,super graphics,and the like that
45.
Ibid., p. 15.
46.
Banham,"Reply,"pp. 382-83.
47.
Review120, no. 716 (September 1956),
Exhibit,"Architectural
ReynerBanham, "ThisIs Tomorrow
pp. 186-88.

OCTOBER

72

renderedthe actual imagesof Archigramso seductiveand arresting.For to see an

underlyingcommitmentto topologyand the image as a confirmationof synthetic
experiencewas to begin the processof buildingout ofArchigrama "program"for
architecturethat goes beyond its surface effects.It was in this sense that, for
Banham, at least in 1965 beforehis retreatinto more conventionalarchitectural
paradigms of the "well-tempered environment," Archigram was to provide
Summerson's"missinglanguage."
V
reinforcReview"stocktaking,"
Forty-three
yearsafterBanham's Architectural
Koolhaas
Banham's
a
a
view
of
out
Rem
of
with
calendar,
ing
history
sync
published his own "review"of architecturein the new century,symptomatically
not in an architecturaljournal but in Wiredmagazine, once the hip site of computer fetishism, now reborn as the oracle of post-Silicon-Valley-meltdown
dystopia.48"The Ultimate Atlas for the 21st Century"is presented for the new
century as an assemblage of thirty"spaces" alphabetically ranged from "ad
space" to "waningspace." Like Banham's "1960," withits "science for children"
approach to architects intimating their own imminent demise, but unlike
Banham, Koolhaas's Koolworld produces a world vision entirelycounter to any
ideal of design, technologicalor aesthetic.This world is mapped withrelentless
"realism":its new frontiersare those of population growthand its economic and
social consequences-youth is mapped against the cost of pension plans; prisoners against domains of civil and political liberty;television ownership against
illiteracy.Real alternativespaces-that escape control established for the purposes of tax evasion, waste disposal (electronic and maritime), abortion,
euthanasia, same-sex partnerships,and human stem-cell cloning are seen as
"new islands" mapped against the virtualspaces of global commerce and manufacture,politics and power. The only "architectural"image, and the last in the
review,is that of a deserted capitol at Chandigarh, "all that's left from the
Western imagination's most radical attempt to organize public space."49 New
York,capital of the twentiethcentury,is, as Koolhaas concludes, "delirious no
more" in the twenty-first.
Readers of Koolhaas are, of course, familiarwith all of this as well as his
recentforaysinto the "junkspace"of modern capitalismby wayof guides to the
developmentof the Pearl RiverDelta and shoppingguides recentlyinterpretedby
FredricJamesonas formsof an apocalypticutopia thatattemptto "imaginecapitalism by way of imaginingthe end of the world."50But the Wired"atlas" promises
more than these deliberatelyextra-largecollections:its insertionwithinthe pages
48.
49.
50.

Rem Koolhaas, "The UltimateAtlasforthe 21stCentury,"WIRED(June2003), pp. 132-69.

Ibid., p. 169.
FredricJameson,"FutureCity,"NewLeftReviewsecond series21 (May-June2003), p. 76.

Towarda Theory
oftheArchitectural
Program

73

of the ultimateglossyof networld,whose editorialis oftenindistinguishablefrom

forspeedyHewlett-Packard
advertisements
printers,edges its surveyof realjunkinto
the
the
even as it challenges designersof
of
virtual
territory
space uneasily
real space to comprehendthe sublime (an aesthetictermthatappears once more
in itspost-postmodern
form)of the real.As FelicityD. Scottarguesin her contribution to this issue of October,
here the early"ironic"stance of OMA is occluded.
Ratherthan the worldof the future,thisis an inventoryof the present,building
up, in Koolhaas's terms,"a fragmentof an image,a pixelatedmap of an emerging
world."And this emergingworld, while rejecting architecturalterminologyas
inadequate foritsdescription,retainsarchitecturein itsvirtualdimensions:"think
Web sites,and firewalls,"
chat rooms,
writesKoolhaas.
is thenbroughtto theWeb to defineits new spatialdimensions,
Architecture
Review.But
even as Banham broughtcomputersto the readers of the Architectural
where forKoolhaas to "reporton the world"as his contributors"see it" is not to
claim a privilegeforany formof information,onlyforits mannerof framing,for
Banham information,was, in and of itself,bound to change the architectural
worldin form.In 1960, the fundamentalquestionwas the natureof the "program"
a programthat
conceivedof in the widestpossiblesense,adopted forarchitecture,
"form
followsfuncform.
Not
comprehended and subsumed both functionand
a truly
Banham
For
tion,"but formas, in a real sense, programand vice versa.
in
all
scientificprogram for architecturewould take
aspects previouslyleft to
tradition,includingthe aestheticsof perception,human response (visual,psychological,biological), technologiesof the environment,and the like; science would
simplyrevealand propose the bestsolutionsto the designof shelter.For Koolhaas,
science offersno solutions, only knowledge; solutions are the province of the
global managers of power and markets.Architects,armed withthe precise tools
offeredby informationand visual mapping,can onlyperceive and predict;their
role is not in inventing the program, but identifyingits raw material. If for
Summersonand Banham it was imperativeto rewritetheoryin order to promulgate their new sense of the program, theoryas both rational elucidation and
manifesto,for Koolhaas such theoryis manifestedby the catalog, on-line and
potentiallyexhaustive,theoryas inventory.
Recent theoryhas put forwardthe notion of the diagram as one potential
form-makinginstrumentin the face of such an inventory.The diagram seems
authoritative and scientific amid a world of graphs and charts and without
rhetoric in a world cluttered with the residues of architectural expressions.
Banham, too, believedin diagrams;his celebratedremarkthat"historyis a graph"
evinced his faithin predictionand progress.But where Banham looked to archiand inventivemotorforhis graphs,
tecture(or its replacement)as the form-giving
the new,global,Koolhaas seems to have entirelysurpassedthe efficacyeven of his
own diagramsand foundarchitecture'spleasure principleinsteadin the relentless
negationof traditionalstrategiesand ideals.
Confrontedwiththisunstructuredand potentiallyethicallyneutralcatalog,

74

OCTOBER

the momentaryalliance between Archigramand Banham seems to offermore

than a historicalcorrectiveto contemporaryexperimentsin virtualarchitecture.
As MarkWigleyhas pointed out, Archigramwas more than a "sci-fi"and Pop blip
on the screen of architecturalhistory;it was embedded in the veryprocesses of
architecturalpractice, imaginaryand real. Banham's insistence on the role of
aesthetics-of the viewerand in experience-in the promulgationof a new architectureadds to this significanceand invokes the possibilityof reconceivingthe
notion of programin a waythat occludes the fatal modernistgap between form
and functionand incorporatesenvironmentalconcerns,technology,and formal
inventionas integralto a singlediscourse.51"Une architectureautre"was,in 1960,
a promise of "tomorrow";its realizationtodayhas become not onlypossible,but
also urgent.

51.
MarkWigley,"The Fiction of Architecture,"
in Out ofSite:FictionalArchitectural
Spaces,ed. Anne
Ellegood (NewYork:New Museum of ContemporaryArt,2002), pp. 37-49.