CHAPTER SUMMARIES
Ugly, Useless, Unstable is composed of five chapters: an introductory chapter, three main chapters and a concluding speculative reflection.
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter starts by laying out the motivations of the project, exposing the problematic character of the classical apparatus for the evaluation of architecture. Following this, it sets out to deploy a theoretical framework to critically expand and re-organise the aforementioned apparatus. This framework is based on two main pillars: the Inversion of Platonism (drawing from Nietzsche’s work via Gilles Deleuze) and the Neo-Materialist Theory of Models (drawing from Deleuze’s reading of Henri Poincaré, and developed by Manuel De Landa). The concluding section deals with how the recursive structure of the following chapters is mobilised as a methodological approach to develop both descriptive and projective approaches towards contemporary architectural production.
Chapter 2: The Project of Ugliness
This chapter speculates with a continuous ontological domain in which both the classical notion of Beauty and the disciplinary scenarios that seem to undermine it are embedded. To that extent, it taps into George Bataille’s work, particularly in regards to the notions of the Formless and the Excessive. In order to keep the focus of this research within the boundaries of its disciplinary framework, this chapter also looks into Mark Cousin’s writings in regards to the role of the Ugly in architecture. These insights are mobilised to put forward a three-dimensional space of possibilities for an expanded notion of Beauty. These three dimensions are, respectively, focused on the positional, organizational and boundary conditions of any given architectural entity. Once this possibility space is outlined, chapter one endeavours to examine the regions that steer themselves away from the dimensional combinations that define the classical notion of architectural Beauty. In doing so, this reflection identifies topology as an operational domain that moves away from symmetry and proportion. Following this line of thought, the work on topological forms of Scottish biologist and mathematician D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson is brought to the foreground of the discussion, and discussed alognside contemporary notions of topological systems elaborated by Ben Van Berkel, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Cache –among others-.
Chapter 3: The Limits of the Useful
The second main chapter focuses on critically assessing and expanding the classical Utility, starting with a detailed analysis of its formal, structural and organisational and followed with a thorough exploration of contemporary approaches to architectural design that explicitly manifest themselves as detached from the classical canon of Utility. This endeavour initially taps into Bernard Tschumi’s acknowledgment of the variable relationships established between the organisation of space, the allocation of functions and the passing of time in any given work of architecture. Under this light, chapter two then proceeds to examine Anthony Vidler’s work on the different relationships established historically between function and architectural type, as well as the relationships between function, production and dissipation developed under the umbrella of the notion of Expenditure by Georges Bataille. Insofar they contribute to destabilise the discourse of functionalism within the framework of contemporary design practices, the theoretical positions of both Peter Eisenman and Giorgio Agamben are also incorporated into the lines of argumentation of the second chapter. The next step involves the establishment of a space of possibilities for an expanded notion of Usefulness, which incorporates the aforementioned theoretical positions by inscribing them into its dimensional configuration. The exploration of the structural limits of these dimensional combinations (which are referred to as temporal development, functional alignment and productive economy) brings forward the notion of Process as a suitable characterisation of the limits that are most distant from the conditions of classical Utility. It must be noted that, in the context of this book, the term process will be exclusively refer to the homonymous concept developed by Alfred North Whitehead. As such, it will be aligned with the notion of the non-linear drawn from the work of Manuel De Landa and Sanford Kwinter. This alignment is a vehicle for outlining an architectural definition of process that acts a generative framework explicitly supporting a design methodology. Chapter two will then be completed with a taxonomical analysis of existing process-oriented design frameworks (i.e. rooted in dynamic, generative processes). This analysis directly taps into both the theoretical and the designed outputs of Greg Lynn, Jeff Kipnis, Jesse Reiser with Nanako Umemoto.
Chapter 4: Unstable Organisations, or the Spatiotemporal Processes of Becoming
This chapter deals with the revision and expansion of classical conditions defining Stability. It builds upon Bernard Tschumi’s argument that, once those conditions are examined within the disciplinary framework of architecture, guaranteeing permanence over time emerges as the central question at stake. In response to this, chapter three addresses the roles of difference and transformation as agents of variation from classical stability. This analysis is primarily supported by (and subsequently embedded into) Henri Bergson’s distinction between time and duration, together with its further development by Gilles Deleuze. For the purposes of this book, Bergson’s duration -a transformation that is simultaneously continuous and heterogeneous- will be considered as the basis to discuss architectures and spatial practices that are unstable when considered from the perspective of the operative framework of the classical. Chapter three will consequently put forward a possibility space dealing with stability and duration, characterised by means of three dimensions: structural permanence, hierarchical orientation and relational composition. As in earlier chapters, I will then proceed by exploring the sets of conditions that -whilst being inscribed within this space of possibilities- explicitly distance themselves from the structural limit of classical stability. This exploration attempts to align the notions of Field (as defined by Stan Allen), Event (initially extracted from the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, and subsequently revised by Sanford Kwinter) and Alloy (brought in via the studies in crystallography of physicist and art critic Cyril Stanley Smith). The goal of this conceptual alignment is the articulation of an operative framework in which the idea of a dynamic development is further characterised as simultaneously continuous and heterogeneous. Hence, this chapter will describe the unstable in architecture (or, more precisely, the operations leading to an expanded notion of architectural stability) as a medium of continuous development over time, in which the role of the architect taps into Bernard Cache’s theoretical arguments in order to configure itself as a series of operations of both framing and capture.
Chapter 5: Colophon, or the Spatial Regimes of Architectural Ontologies
The final chapter provides a brief summary of the three main chapters, attempting to integrate their respective possibility spaces (or phase spaces) into one single, multi-dimensional domain, with a view of articulating an operative model of spatial development. The chapter then proceeds to “zoom out” in order to cast a broader view on the different modalities of spatial production emerging from the different ontological positions outlined so far. In doing so, it advances the notion of ‘ontological regimes’ of architectural production, providing a closing reflection on their gradual evolution, occurring in line with (and in response to) the evolutionary timeline of key philosophical paradigms.
