International Journal of Contemporary Architecture ”The New ARCH“ Vol. 2, No. 3 (2015)
ISSN 2198-7688
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DOI: 10.14621/tna.20150402
Thinking Architecture through the Traits of Extroversion and Introversion:
Territory as a Question of Environmental Orientation and Autonomy
Arta Xhambazi
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Prishtina
Dardania 6/9 B4, 10000 Prishtina, Kosovo, [email protected]
Abstract
1. Introduction
The paper is a result of a broader research project regarding
theoretical groundings of architecture that will hopefully
recognize relation between culture, theory and design. The
“body” of architecture is understood as a concept defined by
the relations of its parts and by its actions and reactions with
respect both to its environment milieu and to its internal
milieu. Through the traits of introversion and extroversion the
“body of architecture” is explored starting from the limits as
physical boundaries, continuing further by widening the
horizons through different normative position for explaining
meaningful environment and finally introducing the issue of
“territoriality” and how it is related the to the recent discourse
in architecture. The discussion of two different philosophical
frameworks toward understanding architecture resulted in
reconsidering the notion of boundaries /limits that the traits
of introversion and extroversion are linked to. The Territory
becomes a concept that overcomes dualities through which
introversion and extroversion as vectors of diversity in
architecture can be viewed as a single continuum. In this way
the question of territory becomes the matter of the autonomy
of the architectural body, but at the same time the intensive
force that carries it away.
The context of architecture and its discourse in the 21st
century recognizes a theoretical meltdown and the vast
number of researchers aiming at “an architectural
theory”. What becomes evident is that is
understandable that a grand theory of architecture is
probably a risk and a myth so, a vast number of less
detailed terms as mediation, transformation, variation,
affordance, territory etc. are used frequently to describe
the discipline, process and “buildings” of architecture.
In regard of a human body, the traits “introvert” and
“extrovert” are used in the psychology for describing a
central dimension of human personality. The terms
introversion and extroversion were first popularized by
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung [1], an influential thinker and
the founder of Analytical Psychology. Extroversion is
understood as "the act, state, or habit of being
predominantly concerned with and obtaining
gratification from what is outside the self" [2] and
introversion is "the state of or tendency toward being
wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested
in one's own mental life" [3].
So within the analytical psychology the terms tend to
describe the human personality, establishing a “Human
Body” to whom the terms intro and extra are addressed.
In order to apply such notions to architecture the very
first questions to be clarified is: What is Architectural
Body?
Keywords:
Architecture, Territory, Introversion,
Extroversion, Autonomy, Heteronomy
Article history:
Received: 13 July 2015
Revised: 06 September 2015
Accepted: 12 October 2015
This question is a central issue of the broader research
project, which through the “self-reflectance” of
architecture tempts to define a whole “the body” as
composed from parts, but with its own contradictory
elements that are both inside and outside, ordering and
disordering. In this research we will refer to the Deleuze
concept that the “Body” is defined by the relations of its
parts and by its actions and reactions with respect both
to its environment milieu and to its internal milieu [4,
p.35].
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ISSN 2198-7688
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The paper will argue that in order of understanding
architecture, its existence and evolution, it’s important
to understand its internal milieu consistency
(introversion) and what are the relations and actions to
its environment (extroversion).
The goal of this research is that through the terms of
“introversion” and “extroversion”, to put some light
within relations of some parts of the “Body of
Architecture” by comprehensive analysis of postmodern
theory on meaning and appearing contemporary
theories and practices.
In order to do so the questions arise as: What does
introversion and extroversion mean in terms of physical
appearance of architectural buildings? What do the
terms mean within normative positions for explaining
meaningful environments? How do those terms relate
to the appearing notions of contemporary discourse as
mediations or transformation?
For answering these questions firstly, we will narrow the
horizons of our research in the terms of physical
appearance of architecture. Secondly, the broadening
horizons will be discussed in the framework of
normative position for explaining meaningful
environment. Thirdly, we will enter to some
philosophical concerns of Gille Deleuze, questioning the
issue of the “territoriality” and how the concept is
related to the recent discourse in architecture.
2. The boundaries
Architecture
undoubtedly
manifests
with
materialization – formal and spatial definition, therefore
being introvert or extrovert can be analysed taking into
account this aspect of physical appearance. Priority
given physical object has a long history taking into the
consideration the ancient concept of techno, recognized
as the rational basis for the construction of objects, and
medieval ideas of the mechanical arts, which considered
built forms as utilitarian objects [5]. The discussion led
from the 17th century by Perrault, latter by Boulle,
Ledoux, and others tended to establish the new
language of form based on simple geometrical forms that would enable people to grasp the purpose and
character of buildings. The 19th century introduced the
concept of style through which the form was generated
due to the objective principles from system, structures
and manufacturing techniques. The structural
rationalism was furthermore advanced by Viollet-le-Duc
which concerned with functional efficiency and the
honest expression of structures and materials as the
basis of expression of external appearance of forms.
From here, latter Luis Sullivan expressed the dictum
“form follows function”, whose wide currency in 20th
century testifies to the pervasiveness of the of Le Duc’s
concept in the context of modern architecture [6].
Despite, historical interest for the architectural form,
however it is worth mentioning that when we talk about
ancient architecture treaties, we can distinguish that
they hardly speak directly for the space, but instead
their theory bears upon the physical elements of objects
and their reasoning regarding forms. Debate on space
began in early 19th century and the 20th century is the
one that developed architecture as nonfigurative art and
space was exactly a part of this development.
2.1. Architectural space and its limits
One of the most important works of postmodern
thought is "Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture" of Robert Venturi which was welcomed by
the ones who cared for architectural cultural
development. This work used together examples from
different periods, it emphasised especially Modernism,
but the mannerist and baroque corpus constituted the
primary matter of Complexity and Contradiction [7].
From this set of buildings Venturi extracted the formal
principles characteristic of a complex and contradictory
architecture, an architecture whose formal richness
invites active interpretation. In regard of contrast
“Inside and outside” he states that it can be seen as
major manifestation of contradiction in architecture. For
him, “designing from the outside in, as well the inside –
out, creates necessary tensions, which help make
architecture. Since the inside is different from the
outside, the wall – the point of change – becomes an
architectural event. Architecture occurs at the meeting
of interior and exterior forces of use and space” [7,
p.86]. Taking a stand from more phenomenological
perspective, von Meiss states that from these tensions
architectural space is born, from the relationship
between objects or boundaries and from planes which
do not themselves have the character of objects, but
which define the limits [8].
So, if we consider the wall, Venturi’s point of change and
the limits of von Meiss, the windows becomes a sign for
human life, an eye of the building allowing one to gaze
at the outside world without being seen. The window
becomes an architectural element through which one
could gaze outside world and by this it becomes an
element of extroverted architecture, the one that looks
to the outside world. So, one of the fundamental
oppositions which makes it possible to distinguish types
of architectural space is the fact that they can be either
closed – introverted concentrated upon themselves or
open - extroverted, centrifugal [8]. Where the mass is
more concentrated, the space is more closed. If we want
to make the opening of a space toward the exterior,
then we tend to create forms with less explicit shapes.
The opening of the space is made possible through the
reduction of the level of definition and the presence of
elements that belong to the interior as well as exterior.
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Figure 1. The articulation of a fluid space at the Barcelona Pavilion (drawing by A. Xhambazi)
As an example, the articulation of space at the Barcelona
Pavilion avoids the presence of an angle by realizing it
with glass, and uses walls that extend toward exterior.
This really creates spatial tension and compressions that
actually results in shaping a building that articulates s
fluid space (Figure 1).
What the “window” does, actually its relative sizes help
to define the nature of the envelope. The larger the
openings become the more they designate the absence
of the wall. The notion of the pierced wall diminishes
and space opens out. The initial materials of the age of
industry as reinforced concrete, steel and glass have
made it possible to extend the architectural vocabulary
by the elimination of the dependence between
structure and opening. The space and façade became
liberated and offered the possibility of the new dynamic
by the ribbon window, the corner window and the
glazed wall which introduced a new spatial dimension
consciously exploited during Modern Movement.
2.2. Blurring boundaries
So, formal appearance as has been already noted has
always been architectural issue. This because
architecture is build and that means “first of all to
create, define and limit a portion of land distinct from
the rest of the universe and to assign a particular role to
it” [8, p.148]. So, architecture as “wall between the
inside and the outside becomes the spatial record” [7,
p.86] a geometrical limit that creates the interior and
exterior.
Regarding architectural thought, it can be argued that
the geometry of architectural form was based through
centuries on Euclidean thought and Platonic solids. Even
the twentieth century Le Corbusier, in line with these
earlier ideas, advocated the use of simple geometric
objects that could be easily grasped, in his book Vers une
architecture [9]. The cylinder, pyramid, cube, prism and
sphere were not only considered as essential forms of
the Egyptian, Greek and Roman architecture but, were
also universal geometric “primitives” of the digital solid
modelling software of the late twentieth century. But it
was actually the fifth postulate of Euclidean geometry
that opened the realm of non-Euclidian geometries. The
first four postulates articulated by Euclid are considered
postulates of absolute geometry, but the consequence
of the fifth postulate was that through every point there
is one and only one line parallel to any other line. Carl
Friedrich managed to successfully demonstrate the
existence of non-Euclidean geometries and afterwards
Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” based on non-Euclidian
geometry, powerfully showed how Newtonian physics,
based upon Euclidian geometry, failed in considering the
essential curvature of space [10].
So if we turn our discussion on contemporary
Architecture due to the formal appearance, it can be
argued that they represent the visions of man and
woman of the end of 20th century. As a result of all the
changes and developments happening at the time and
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before, at the beginning of 90s Greg Lynn suggested that
more than mere motion, animation implies the
evolution of a form and its shaping forces; it suggests
animalism, animism, growth, actuation, vitality and
virtuality and offers examples of new approaches to
design that move away from the deconstructivism’s
“logic of conflict and contradiction” to develop a “more
fluid logic of connectivity” [10]. His concept manifested
through “folding,” departed from Euclidean geometry of
discrete volumes represented in Cartesian space, and
employs topological conception of form and geometry
of continuous curves and surfaces. This new approach
and ideology was at the heart of architectural critique of
90s that debated along the expression of geometrical
appearance of architectural form as “blobs vs boxes” as
two diametrical opposition.
adaptive properties of form what is emphasizing
intentionally the shift from “making” to the “finding” of
form.
So, the 90s were the years when features of topological
figures (Figure 2) where transformed to the architectural
concepts. Within those complex forms the architectural
limits blur within the landscape, while the programs
develop without interrupting the continuous surface
flow. These conceptions appealed for the aesthetic and
technology, in search for the novelty considering the
beautiful and marvellous. The digital generative
processes are opened new conceptual, formal and
tectonic explorations, focused on the emergent and
By taking examples of private houses Terence Riley
makes the connections of between them and broader
cultural issues, stating that the most important
questions are not technical but philosophical. He
showed that these houses have challenged many of
dialects calcified around the private house during the
nineteenth century as public/private, male/female,
nature/culture etc. So, topology takes the challenge
further by creation of spatial interconnections rather
than spatial distinctions. As this philosophical attitude
In the Un-Private Houses, Terence Riley [11] by taking
examples of private houses as Cohen’s Torus House, van
Berkel’s Mobius House (Figure 2, up), Stephen Perrella’s
and Rebeca Carpenter’s Mobius House, Zaera – Polo’s
Virtual House (Figure 2 down) states that they all take
their primary form and even their names from
topological geometries. Such complex geometries
resulted as a part of new technologies, new materials
and new medium of creation creating possibilities of
existence of so many projects that simply could not exist
few decades ago. So what is so interesting with topology
that has captured the minds of the architects?
Figure 2. Transformation of the topological figures into the concepts of architectural space (drawing by A. Xhambazi)
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Figure 3. Contemporary revisions of Mies’s work by Koolhaas and Tschumi:
Former with intent of revival of modern principles in the postmodern context and later with reinterpretation of
architecture as a media (diagram by A.Xhambazi)
for using single surfaced geometries can be considered
non dialectical, then also the differences of what is
interior and exterior diminish as any other opposition.
The smooth surfaces appeared as blurring the
boundaries between the physical appearance of
architecture, blurring the notions of physical manifestos
of introversion and extroversion, and at the same time
creating enormous possibilities for contemporary
design. Although in the case of housing design
organizational problems could hardly justify complex
geometries, the matter of the physical appearance of
architectural designs presents broader cultural issues.
Another important thing to note is that, as after every
“blob” there is a single sided figure published by Albert
Mobius, every box is associated with the cardinal work
of Mies van der Rohe. The reappearance of Mies at the
end of the century was dramatic and unexpected,
because thirty years ago his ideas and modernism in
general were considered a spent force. We have great
contemporary revisions as Koolhaas’s did in Maison à
Bordeaux (Figure 3 – up); Herzog and de Meuron,
Koechlin House, Basel (1994) and Bernard Tschumi’s
Glass Video Gallery, Netherlands 1990 (Figure 3 – down).
They all represent some kind of high European
Modernism but still it does not make them Miesian in
ideologies (Figure 3). Koolhaas puts Mies in postmodern
context, Herzog and de Meuron remind us that the
architectonics is a visual and ultimately sensual
discipline and only secondarily is a technical one; while
Tschumi deconstructs and reformulates the Archetypal
Glass house, reminding us that architecture is less
material and more media.
Finally, it can be said that from geometrical point of
view, contemporary architectural form replaced the
singularity by multiplicity and stable by dynamic. The
blurred boundaries of geometrical scale actually have a
scientific argument also. Bernhard Riemann, due to the
concept of curvature of space, established Euclidean
geometry as just a special point on the infinite scale of
bending, or folding that produces “flatness” as a
manifestation of an equilibrium that is established
among various influences producing the curving of space
in the first place. The “boxes” and “blobs” as
conceptions of space can be understood simply as
instances on a sliding scale of formal complexity – a box
could be turned into a blob and vice versa by simply
varying the parameters of space within which they are
defined.
What is said before about geometry of space and the
study presented by Terence Riley, does not mean that
architectural form expressed through its geometry
doesn’t matter, but that the dissimilar forms are not
necessarily ideologically oppositional and vice versa.
This makes us think that the formal distinctions in
architecture are not the most important ones, even
though our question about traits of introverted and
extroverted architecture can be analysed due the
physical appearance of architectural designs.
The important questions remain the ideologies or the
theoretical frameworks of understanding and
interpretation of architecture itself. When we talk about
the blurred boundaries it is not that the only blurred
boundaries are the physical ones, but also the
ideological ones. Obviously Contemporary Architecture
becomes a product of the way of contemporary thinking
and “if the problems of Architecture are to be traced to
their roots, one should be focused on the thinking and
the considerations that inform its production” [12].
3. Realms of inquiry of Architecture
3.1. Extroverted and Introverted thinking
At the turn of the century, as Neal Leach put’s it the
discipline of architecture has gone through a
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metamorphosis, since there is a “clear shift both in the
nature of debates within architecture and in its
relationship with other academic disciplines. Not only
are architects and architectural theorists becoming
more and more receptive to the whole domain of
cultural theory, but cultural theorists, philosophers,
sociologists and many others are now to be found
increasingly engaged with questions of architecture and
the built environment” [12]. Of course architecture is
also interested in this debate, even though sometimes it
becomes captured in the mystified philosophical
concepts and expressing its self-literary as a physical
form.
This interest of architecture to look outside of the
discipline comes from the fact it is “seeking selfdefinition, and for that self-definition it looks outside of
itself, to see what others say about it” [13, p.4] or said in
another way “for architecture, paradoxical as it may
seem, the most complex question is that of selfdetermination” [14, p.3].
So, along with the physical manifestation of architecture
there have always been attempts to describe what
constitutes proper architecture. In 1987 Peter Rowe in
his book “Design Thinking” [15], gave a range of insight
into many theories, and when trying to distinct various
normative positions that seek to describe what
constitutes a proper architecture, distinguished two
realms of inquiry.
− In the first realm of inquiry architecture is seen
in relationship to a hypothesized society or
interpretation of man’s world. One of
fundamental concerns here becomes
legitimating architecture with a reference to
“nature” or to a set of events that “lie outside
the architecture itself” [15, p. 153].
− And in a second realm, architecture is seen in
relationship to itself and its constituent
elements with the locus of inquiry that of
architectural object.
When looking for determinates of Architectural Space,
as for “elementary question: What is man and what is
his place in space?” [16, p.3], Ahmet Hadrović mentions
two parallel and intertwined courses on man’s attempt
to:
− Getting to know nature or objectively given
realities “in their own merits” where he assumes
that there is nature with a predetermined reality
where man’s role is essential just as any other
living thing’s. (Such teaching greatly feature
Eastern Philosophies).
− Getting to know man, what he is and what he
may be, when he assumes that there is man and
there is an image formed as a consequence of
external influences. The peak of this teaching is
Hegel’s philosophy of dialectic idealism.
If we take into the considerations that talking about
architecture is talking about life (and man/woman), by
analogy this means that the question of defining
architecture and its “Body” could seek:
− Getting to know nature (in our case
environment) within objectively given realities
and
− Getting to know architecture what she is and
what he may be.
We will try to crystalize these positions, which are
somehow equivalent to the question of autonomous
and heteronomous thinking about architecture,
respectively introverted and extroverted thinking in
architecture.
3.2. Postmodern dichotomy
Heteronomous architecture
The first realm could be considered environmental –
extroverted, looking for the truths that lie outside “the
body of architecture”. The seek for the substantiation
form outside the domain of architecture has tended to
look toward human behaviour scientist, social sciences,
and production technologies and we refer this
extrovertness as natural with in the sense that there is a
tendency to describe reality by concepts of “natural
phenomena” (Berstein, 1976) and legitimating models
of knowledge - natural sciences and formal disciplines as
mathematics and logic [15].
Within this realm, Functionalism and Modern
Movement are known as complete departures of earlier
architectural orientations. The term functionalism was
actually coined in order of describing architecture of
engineering and planning while being workable,
economical and efficient; nerveless it was latter
criticized for the lack of qualities such a cosiness,
individuality, warmth… etc. The spirit of “form follows
function” and the preoccupation with new technologies
gave way to the international style. Planning Orthodoxy
of the cities emerged with the similar traits to those of
modern movement in architecture.
System approaches as empirical systems were at the
heart of the “scientific methods” for interpreting man
and his world for the design purposes were the concept
of model and the activity of operational modelling. For
example there was a common use of behavioural
models that aimed to characterize the behaviour upon a
variety of environmental circumstances. For example
Lynch’s on the image of the city gave weight to
empirically determined concepts of spatial conception
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and the idea of “cognitive mapping” became influential
within the urban design.
Rowe, also distinguishes the alternative positions that
were developed due to the comprehensive and intense
criticism of the empirical orthodoxy idea of theory and
the possibility of science of the man. One of these
positions was the phenomenological alternative whose
objective was to address questions about the essence of
the things and Humanist critique who draw the
distinction between what is “outward manifestation” of
human activity and “inward believe” that indicates
directly this activity and structuralism which had
similarities with the theoretical ideals of the empirical
orthodoxy, but still due to opposition to Cartesian and
other mainstream it concerns with the irrational nature
of the man.
So, when we speak for the first realm it can be described
as a tendency to sustain to deductive systems of theory
construction and empirical observation favoured by
social sciences, by which the horizon of interpretation
and design is designed by a “scientific view” of getting to
know nature (and by this to know the man/woman).This
realm could be considered environmental – extroverted,
looking for the truths that lie outside “the body of
architecture”. The seeking for the substantiation form
outside the domain of architecture has tended to look
toward human behaviour scientist, social sciences and
production technologies.
Autonomous architecture
Within the second realm there was a tendency for
adhering to rhetorical domain of architectural objects
and organizing compositional principles. The
proposition for Autonomy of Architecture was a notable
shift toward the architectural discourse happened after
the Second World War, emphasizing the world of
“architectural” objects and the use of its elements as the
primary design focus. The pluralistic thought of
postmodern movement undoubtedly was a reaction to
the avant-garde of the modern movement, with its
concentration in abstract formalism and the denial of
stylistic references or figural qualities.
Within the autonomy, Michael Graves characterized
architecture as “invention” that makes up its own “text”
from myths and rituals of society – a text that in turn
provides impetus to further inventions. This kind of
preoccupation is seen as exception since every epoch
has had its share of introspective interest in its own
constituent elements and their meanings. Looking
inward, introverted toward the elements that constitute
Architecture itself, the different strategies of
interpretation evolved as work on the Language as
formal and figural interpretation (Eisenman and
Venturi); Bricolage (Colin Rowe) and the Use of Type
(works of brother Krier), which by putting forward
grounding on meaning of architectural work dissembled
the confidence placed in the doctrine or dictums as
“form follows function”. Nevertheless, also within this
kind of autonomy, problems of interpretation arise as
the questions of the use of “architectural language” or
that of confusion of “significance” and “meaning”.
So, this second realm emphasised architectural
discourse towards the world of architectural objects
referring advocating a kind of autonomous architecture.
It is characterized by a tendency for adhering to
rhetorical domain of architectural objects as for
organizing compositional principles.
3.3. Contemporary environmental orientation
or autonomy?
Post Modern Dichotomy, elaborated through the two
realms of inquiry can be more crystallized through the
analyses of David Gissen [17] for the writings of Reyner
Banham and Manfredo Tafuri. As he puts it, Benham
advocated the environmental architecture and Tafuri
architectural autonomy. Banham called for the
architecture that would be a direct outcome of a
technical and natural environment, aligning the concept
of environment with the resource driven, technological
techniques of post-war period, and in our terms
extroverted. In the other hand, Tafuri was advocating
architecture that was restrained from this given context.
For Tafuri architecture was perceived as a humanist
discipline and disengagement from the environment
was understood as the sum of external pressure (human
and natural), refusing to become a tool of expanding
economic development, in our terms introverted.
This contemporary Dichotomy continues not only within
the writings but with designs also. In one hand we have
concepts and designs that are undertaken from theory
of environment, so the works are emerging form social
and ecological data, but in the other hand we have a new
architectural autonomy (mostly digital) that confronts
any involution with environment. So, dozens of concepts
of postmodern theory appear in contemporary writings
and among them the concept of “environment –
extrovertness” and the other of “autonomy –
introvertness”. The former concept “erects” buildings
into the mechanics of its settings, and the at the latter
architecture stands as counterpart to its given contexts.
This means that the environmentally oriented
architecture attempts to emerge from its natural, social
and technological contexts and autonomous
architecture is answerable to itself alone. “One is about
world, and the other is about architecture” and seen
from the contemporary position this autonomy can be
typified “as architecture’s refusal to integrate into the
surrounding conditions of a capitalist world” [17, p.8] at
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the time when expanding economy was transforming
nature into a resource, urban environments into
investments and ideas into consumerist spectacle.
Among the ones that are exploring the new dynamics of
contemporary architecture is Ole Bauman by advocating
“Unsolicited Architecture” [18] and the reason for
practicing it is because it keeps architecture
autonomous and autonomy is in the drive and not in the
territory. One of his objectives is to aware architects of
the boundaries of their profession meaning that to go
beyond language, beyond disciplinary frontiers – is the
new motto for architectural research. For him the
dynamics “affect everything that we consider
architecture or architectural: its definition, its mandate,
its output, its corpus of knowledge, its education, its
inspiration, its legitimacy, its techniques and methods,
its social status, its communication” [18, p.83].
In summary, we can say that the latest environmental
explorations repeat the problems of the postmodern era
with passive acceptance of settings and in the other
hand a call for a radical autonomy or a moderated one
as Gissen advocates the “strategic category of thought
in dialogue with key post-Second World War
architectural debates”. According him, the concepts of a
territorial architecture attempts to move us out of the
traps of either environment or autonomy in their most
recent manifestations; meaning that “territory is both
an alternative way of working and a space of thinking
about architectural things and their socio-natural
surroundings” [17, p. 8]. Recently, Idis Turato’s speech
for “Designing the Unpredictable” at the recent
Conference of Architecture and Environment [19], used
the notion of Territory, while presenting his work, the
process of the designing and his understanding of
architecture. It seemed like it was appropriate notion for
describing the overflow of issues regarding the
contemporary question of Architecture.
So what are and what is so interesting about the
“territories” that Bouman (2009), Gissen (2010) and
Turato (2015) talk about?
In order to answer this question we will firstly take into
consideration some philosophical influence in
architecture and how does this reflect in the discourse
of contemporary architecture.
4. Defining the question of territory
4.1. Philosophical influence in architecture
From the 17th century onward, Leibniz (1646–1716) to
Deleuze (1925–1995), philosophers began to challenge
the transcendental tradition in philosophy and the
critiques maintained, in one way or another, the
fundamental distinction between ideas and matter.
Contemporary approaches to architectural design are
influenced and informed by the writings of theorists and
philosophers. In the 80s architectural theory,
appropriated for the most part from a Continental
philosophical tradition and “if one were to glance back
through the archive one would discover structuralist or
semiologically informed architecture, deconstructivist
inspired architecture, and folded architecture, after the
motif of the fold discovered by curious architects in
Deleuze’s book The Fold: Leibniz and The Baroque” [20,
p.110]. The Fold, aimed at describing baroque aesthetic
and thought, by representing the Folding as a concept of
an ambiguous spatial construct, through the concepts of
“a figure and non-figure, an organization and nonorganization, which, as a formal metaphor, has led to
smooth surfaces and transitional spaces between the
interior and the exterior, the building and its site” [10,
pp.4] that was presented in the first part of this
research.
Deleuze demonstrated a multiplicity of positions, a
thousand “plateaus” (Mille Plateaux) [21] from which
different provisional constructions are created. The
manner is essentially nonlinear, meaning that the
realities and events are not organized in orderly
succession. Such a conception was adopted by a number
of contemporary avant-garde architects to challenge the
pervasive linear causality of design thinking. Deleuze
offered the conceptual framework of the virtual and the
actual. The world according to him is composed of
virtual forms and actual forms, where virtual forms are
not just ideals detached from reality, but abstract ideas
that are not yet actualized. Owing to their abstractness,
they can be interpreted in a variety of ways to produce
a variety of sensible forms. Even though his work was
directed primarily towards processes of thought and not
practices of building, “too often his sophisticated theory
has been appropriated in a simplistic fashion and
translated crudely into a manifesto for complex
architectural forms” [12, p.292].
It is not only that the contemporary discourse is
influenced by postructuralist writers and the thoughts of
French Philosopher Gille Deleuze. Architecture, in order
to grasp within generative means of form making which
are determined by novel design processes, has turned
toward digital tools and rule based procedures, and in
particular the investigations are undertaken coupled
within the computational realms ant the morphogenetic
researches. Still, by contradiction “the risk of such
exploration involves the possible evacuation or
reification of those elusive and fragile qualities of a life
toward which Deleuze has directed our attention” [20,
p.110]. Deleuze recognizes that the creation of the
system is the only way for one to live-nonsystematically, that is far from believe that one might
return thought to life and overcome the submission to
the system [4, p.5]. In order to understand the
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materialistic theories of Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix
Guattari corpus, some of the terminologies are further
discussed in order of revealing the question of territory
in architecture.
4.2. Deleuze and assemblage in architecture
Space for Deleuze and Guattarii is “occupied by events
or haecceities more than by formed and perceives
things” and thus is more a space of affects or sensations
than properties [21, p.479]. They offer the opposition
between smooth space which has no boundaries and
striated space which is structured and organized, where
lines and points designate their trajectoriesii. It is
important to note that Deleuze and Guattari, have no
generalized concept of space; they tend to foreground
localized concepts of territoriality over spatiality.
Smooth space according them can be perceived in and
through striated space, in order to deterritorialise given
places.
The concept of “territory” avoids easy categorization
because [4, p.280]:
− Rather than being a stagnant place maintaining
firm borders against outside threat, the territory
itself is a flexible site of passage,
− It exists in a state of process whereby it
continually passes into something else, and
− Manifests a series of constantly changing
heterogeneous elements and circumstances that
come together for various reasons at particular
times.
An explanatory abstract diagram of the smooth and
strained space in architecture is shown in Figure 4 on the
left. The same picture on the right adopts the relation of
architecture with other disciplines as defined by Julia W.
Robinson [22, p.70, Figure.4.2] in order to illustrate the
different views on architecture that are as a result of
different fields of knowledge.
As shown at the diagrams of Figure 4 and Figure 5, the
deterritorialisation should not be understood as the
polar opposite of territorialisation or reterritorialisation.
In fact, in the way that Deleuze and Guattari describe
and use the concept, “deterritorialisation inheres in a
territory as its transformative vector; hence, it is tied to
the very possibility of change immanent to a given
territory” [4, p.69].
In order to overcome the dualistic framework
underpinning western philosophy, Deleuze introduces
the notions of assemblage that “swing between
territorial closure that tends to rest ratify them and a
deterritorialising movement that on the contrary
connects them with the Cosmos” [21, p.337]. The
concept means the processes of arranging, organizing,
and fitting together that. Assemblage consists and
develops around two axes that are:
Figure 4. Left: The smooth and the strained space in regard of notions or territorialisation deterritorialisation
as the vectors of transformation.
Right: The abstract map of horizontal assemblage of architecture with related disciplines (diagram by A. Xhambazi)
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Figure 5. The diagram of assemblage in architecture in regard to horizontal axis (of content and expressions) and
vertical axis of territorialisation and deterritorialisation (diagram by A. Xhambazi)
− The first, horizontal axe (Figure 4 on the right)
where assemblage comprises two segments,
content and expression. The first as “machinic
assemblage of bodies, of actions and passions,
an intermingling of bodies reacting to one
another….(and second) a collective assemblage
of enunciation, of acts and statements, of
incorporeal transformations attributed to
bodies” [21, p. 88].
− The vertical axe (shown in Figure 4 on the left
and figure 5) has both, “territorial sides, or
reterritorialized sides, which stabilize it, and
cutting edges of deterritorialisation, which carry
it away” [21, p. 88]. Assemblages are presented
as complex constellations of objects, bodies,
expressions, qualities, and territories that come
together for varying periods of time to ideally
create new ways of functioning.
Using this concept of assemblage we can rethink the
dualism between an introverted and extroverted
architecture. An architectural assemblage (or the
architectural body) as a dynamic and consistent
multiplicity, swings between territorial enclosure (its
autonomy, introversion) and the deterritorialising
movement in the other (extroversion). This means that
architecture as the assemblage “involves both territorial
and architectural elements and deterritorialising nonarchitectural elements” [4, p.21]. For architecture each
“first state line of assemblage” (Figure 5) would present
a paradigm, a theory or a design (e.g. Green
architecture, computational architecture etc.) that
operates in certain fields of knowledge, defines different
point of view and has certain belief systems.
Having in mind underlined concepts of materialistic
philosophy, we can easily understand the Gissen’s call
for a strategy of Territory which “suggests a role for
architecture as a strategy of tinkering versus one of
accommodation with or refusal of an external technonatural environment” [17, p. 8]. He resists the notion
that nature is “external to architecture and architecture
can better emulate or mimic”. According him the
modern society, including architecture has reworked all
of nature, so what he believes is a new type of
architecture that uncovers and projects this reality,
doing this through the strategy of Territory. An
important element to distinguish here is “the time”
which allows territories to expand.
4.3. Territories, boundaries and abstract
machines
Toward Defining Architectural Space (ADS) Ahmet
Hadrović [16] distinguished three basic components:
− Environment (ADS1) – with natural and social
layer
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− Man (ADS2) – to whom the notion space is
related since it only makes since when it is
related to man and
to the notion of territorialisation of Deleuze’s concept of
territory and the strained space - a first state line of the
assemblage as conceptually presented at figure 6.
− Boundaries (ADS3) – that actually enclose but
they also integrate man in the states of
environment.
Now, let’s question the notion of perspective (ADS4).
We
introduced
the
Deleuze’s
notions
of
deterritorialisation as a movement that inheres in a
territory/boundary as its transformative vector and it is
tied to the very possibility of change immanent to a
given territory /boundary. This makes the notion of
perspective tangible to the deterritorialisation by which
one leaves the territory and transforms the existing
boundaries.
These components are shown within the Hadrović’s
diagram presented at figure 6 on the left. The broadest
prerequisite for space’s existence is gained by adding
the concept of perspective (ADS4). With these
components the conceptual diagram of ADS (figure 6
left) illustrates the “form” of architecture as not defined
statically or said in a better way there are multiple states
of its portrayal as a result of interactions of components
definediii.
We will distinguish the concept of boundaries and
perspectives and compare them with the notion of
territory, assemblage and deterritorialisation (figure 6)
that are discussed previously.
Hadrović, defines boundaries as states controlled in
compliance with man’s need, where states are all
discovered and undiscovered phenomena in space
affecting man. He underlines that “a question
inseparable from the nature of boundaries is the
question of their scope” [16, p.19] since the boundary
can encompass a more or less of man’s needs. This is the
reason that a boundary can so turn, from its entirely
concrete physical determination, into an immaterial
suggestion. Because the boundaries “may be
subjectively suggested and observable (from a fixed
man’s position) and vice versa: a physically consistent
boundary does not have to be observable (from a fixed
man’s position)" [16, p.20]. This makes boundaries close
So, when we question the Architectural Body, we are
actually attempting to recognize a system of an abstract
machine or using Deleuze term “Body without Organs”,
as it’s defined through its contents and the inner
relations as well the relations of its environment. As this
research went from the physical appearance of
architectural object to the notion of assemblage in
architecture and the question of the territory, we can
conclude that “boundaries” of Ahmet Hadrović are the
same with “territories” of Gille Deleuze.
Although the above distinguished notions (Figure 6)
come from two different ideologies they both offer
means of understanding the multiple forms of portrayal
of architecture. They also are an argument that even
different ideologies, when attempting to answer
complex questions of architecture are not necessarily
oppositional. In search of what constitutes proper
definition of architecture or what constitutes it’s body,
no matter in what realms we inquire, or what philosophy
strains our thoughts, the results are on the both sides of
the same coin.
Figure 6. Comparison of “Spatiality and territoriality”.
Conceptual diagram of architecturally defined Space by Ahmet Hadrovć [16, p.75, figure 10] and “Body without
organs” (diagram A.Xhambazi)
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Talking account the materialistic thinking, it is worth
mentioning that 21st century architecture used the
possibility “of the computer programs known as
“genetic algorithms”—evolutionary simulations that
might replace traditional design methods and result in
the “breeding” of new forms” [23, p. 338]. By using
genetic algorithms architectural form could be formed
and deformed, folded and unfolded due to the concept
of an “abstract machine” of Deleuze. With this the signs
of creative philosophy began reconfiguring within the
discipline and one could argue that the adaption of the
generative concepts for the contemporary field of
architecture appears to promise so much within the
practice of creative ethos. But in seeking to qualify itself
through the inner workings of life as conceived through
the sciences, architecture has to recognize that it also
unavoidably partakes in so many hidden and revealed
guiles of power. So, “an ethos of creativity must also
allow for the slow time of contemplation, and in the case
of architecture the daily rhythms of inhabitation
appreciated not in an instrumental fashion but as
mundane and simple life.” [20, p. 116].
5. Conclusion
Even 21st century manifested a theoretical meltdown,
still a vast number of researchers aim at an architectural
theory. At the same time a number of less explicit
notions are used within the discipline coming from
outside the discipline.
In the search of what is inside or outside, formal
appearance has always been architectural issue since it
presents limits between the interior and the exterior.
The research showed that the traits of introversion and
extroversion can be analysed due to formal appearance
of architecture although the boarder of what is interior
and exterior diminishes due to complex geometries of
temporary – the forms that could not simply exist few
decades ago. Through the topological understandings
the discourse “boxes” vs “blobs” resulted in
interpretation of those formal conceptions as instances
on a sliding scale of formal complexity. By putting
forward a question of what is so interesting in topology
that captured architects mind, the research showed that
the most important questions are not technical and
formal but philosophical, since the dissimilar forms are
not necessarily ideologically oppositional and vice versa.
This makes us think that the formal distinctions in
architecture are not the most important ones.
As the research points out that the architecture is the
product of our thinking, in regard of the question of
“what constitutes a proper architecture”, two realms of
inquiry are distinguished within the postmodern period.
The first realm tended toward the horizon of
interpretation and design by a “scientific view” of
getting to know nature. As such the realm is considered
environmental – extroverted, looking for the truths that
lie outside “the body of architecture”. The second realm
emphasised architectural discourse towards the world
of architectural objects advocating a kind of
autonomous – introverted architecture, which is
characterized by a tendency for adhering to rhetorical
domain of architectural objects as for organizing
compositional principles. This kind of dichotomy is also
evident within the contemporary context.
The
environmentally oriented architecture is somehow
“about world” with an attempt to emerge from its
natural, social and technological contexts and
autonomous architecture is about architecture and is
answerable to itself alone.
Taking stance from the discourse and theories of some
contemporary architects, the concept of Territory is
presented and elaborated presenting some insights of
Deleuze’s conceptions. Using his understanding of
“territory” the diagram of assemblage in architecture is
produced (Figure 4 and figure 5). Territory becomes a
flexible site of passage, a process whereby it continually
passes into something else and manifests a series of
constantly changing heterogeneous elements and
circumstances that come together for various reasons at
particular times. Apparently as such the concept of
Territory was used by Idis Turato’s at the Conference of
Architecture and Environment [19] where the first
version of this research was presented [24].
So, Territory as concept overcomes dichotomies. It
becomes the matter of the autonomy of the
architectural body, but also the intensive forces that
carry it away in new territories. The introversion is about
the logic, cognition, rhetoric, argumentation and the
extroversion
is
about
“expending
territories/boundaries” for understanding the mundane
life. In this way the Architectural Body becomes close
with the concept of assemblage that swings between
territorial closure and a deterritorialising movement
that connects with the complexity of Architecture. Even
the parallelism between two different thinking
frameworks (phenomenological and poststructuralist)
as discussed at subsection 4.3 showed that when it
comes to complex questions of architecture and its
body, the results are not necessarily oppositional. This
makes us think that is really important to understand the
widening horizons of architecture, its expending
territories within environmental space. Because of this
expansion of territories as a matter of time and intensive
forces, the corpus of knowledge, practice, technology,
awareness, appear intertwined within the both realms,
that of autonomy and environment.
As Jung suggested, everyone has both, an extroverted
and an introverted side, and the research showed that
the use of less explicit notions of contemporary
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discourse (e.g. mediation, transformation, assemblage,
territory etc.) are probably considering a more
expensive autonomy for more considered environment,
and vice versa.
This actually opens another question: Why are we in
constant search for other theories in Architecture?
The answer might be because theories act as tools
toward capturing the smooth space in architecture.
They tend to create a system in order to allow the
creative ethos to live non-systematically. Problem
appears when they grasp within the dictums as “form
follows function”, “the architecture of the machine
age”, “green architecture” etc., since the meaning of
each of the words from the dictionary (nor the syntax of
the sentence) does not reveal the other meaning – that
of the context of architecture. In the age of theoretical
anxiety it is important to “know that” the strained
spaces of architecture are a result of intensiveness of its
autonomy and heteronomy, rather than “know how” to
build strained space whose slave the architecture might
become.
Acknowledgement
This research is inspired by the lectures at the course
“Architecture in Context” and is a segment of a broader
project of doctoral thesis under supervision of Prof. Dr.
Ahmet Hadrović to whom I express my gratitude.
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May/June), Territory, pp.8-13.
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[19] Turato, Idis, Designing the Unpredictable, Keynote
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DOI:10.1080/09697250600797971.
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[21] Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix, A Thousand
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i
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Deleuze’s detests Hegelianism and is concerned with overcoming dualistic framework underpinning western philosophy
(Being/nonbeing, original copy etc.). His philosophy is a materialistic meaning that “the world exists without us” and he recognizes
“geology” as the beginning of Non-Human Expressivity, seeking for otherness through the disciplines of geology, chemistry and
biology. He applies styles of thinking of evolutionary biologist (the concept of populism – positive idea of variation – difference
of variations), thermodynamics (the concept of thermodynamic – intensive forces – intensives differences drive processes) and
mathematics (topological thinking – differential calculus - Abstract body map, the connectivity).
Consider that the concept of strained space becomes more tangible in regard to architectural objects, since it becomes
measurable
It is worth to be mentioned that there is a strong influence of phenomenological paradigm, the writings of Heidegger and
Norberg-Shultz, what makes us assuming for the essentialist believes
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