Architecture and Identity
"We
do not have architecture, therefore, but rather, a part of us is
architecture. Architecture is a way of being just as science, art, and the other
major culture forms are ways of being. So when we come to define the true and
deeper function of architecture, we will not be simply describing the production
of certain types of artefact, but explaining one of the original ways in which
we know ourselves." (Chris Abel, Architecture and Identity, 154)
Course Description
The noted American anthropologist Clifford Geertz recently attempted to summarize a lifetime’s study of other cultures with the following formulation:
"The study of other peoples’cultures . . . involves discovering who they think they are, what they think they are doing, and to what end they think they are doing it . . . " (Geertz, Available Light, 2000, 16).
We might paraphrase his statement for application to the study of other cultures’ architectures, which would involve "discovering who they think they are, what they think they are building, and to what end they think they are building it." Such is the topic of this seminar, whose primary objective is to study the meanings that cultures imbed in their architectures.
Our title assumes a relationship between built form (architecture) and human self-awareness (identity). The pairing of the two terms is meant to suggest, in particular, that the one (architecture) is capable of "expressing" the other (identity). How does this happen? How do buildings, silent and abstract, communicate information about the communities that erect them? Who are these people, and how do they define themselves?
Our interest in architecture, then, will be centered on its "expressive" role, rather than on its strictly aesthetic, structural or functional aspects.
Our interest in identity will be centered on the complex and overlapping ways in which groups define themselves, and on the translation of these self-images into built form.
Of particular interest will be hybrid building contexts, invented identities, and the cross-cultural transmission of architectural messages.
Hybrid contexts: As interesting as it might be to see one-to-one relationships between built form and social identity in culturally monolithic settings, more revealing are those situations, such as imperial/colonial settings, where architecture is called upon to convey a complex, heterogeneous, or conflicted group identity.
Invented identities: Most buildings are built with an explicit functional purpose in mind, by groups whose identities are historically rooted and organically connected to the practices the buildings will accommodate. Especially interesting, however, are buildings conceived by newly asserted groups, such as modern post-colonial nations, whose new identities are still in formation. In these cases, architecture plays a critical role in the consolidation and promulgation of the new national image. Another forum for the marketing of self-consciously constructed identities is the international exposition, for which national groups produce expressive mini-architectures.
Cross cultural transmission. While it may be possible, through research and analysis, to gain some provisional understanding of the symbolic intentions of a building’s sponsors, it is not at all certain that those intentions will be legible to all "readers." Over time and across cultural boundaries the messages conveyed by buildings shift and change, as a host of distorting screens obscure intended meanings. We will pay special attention to the ways in which alien cultures misread one another’s architectures, and on the cultural and political consequences of these misunderstandings.
These themes will guide the organization of weekly sessions, which will proceed from the establishment of a basic theoretical apparatus to the examination of specific cases.
Organization
Our primary resource will be a series of theoretical texts drawn from such fields as architecture, art history, anthropology, history, philosophy, and literary studies. These will supply us with tools for the analysis of specific architectural situations. The first portion of the course will be devoted to group study of texts and sites, the last to individual student investigations.