The image that comes to our mind today when faced with the idea of cosmos is indeed one related to the outer space, of planets, stars and galaxies – what we might also call by the name of « universe ». Yet, the cosmos has much rather “earthly” roots, as the etymology of the word binds it with the concepts of order and ornament: it is not by chance that we often refer to the latter as something “cosmetic”. These two terms, opposed to the idea of chaos and of the chaotic, can be seen as closely interwoven with architecture, as a practice that at the same time orders and adornates the space. Tracing a line in the earth (nemein), cutting an enclosure (temenos) out of an undefined space and materializing it through a set of codified signs (the orders): these are the fundamental operations of erecting one of the epitomes of all architecture, the temple. Rising order out of chaos is an act shared both by the human and the divine, to such an extent that, in the creational moment of the cosmogony, God himself is often referred to as « architect » of the universe.
The course will take on an investigation of such “cosmic” dimension of architecture, in the kaleidoscope of its different manifestations. First it will approach the foundations of the order: the “meaning” of orders in classical temples, the finitude of architecture as an opposition to indefiniteness and chaos, and the question of the Origin – the “primitive” order. Then, we will look at the disentanglement of order and ornament, and the acquisition by the latter of an independent status as a sign, be it disguised as useless, coded as a “language”, or deprived of any reference. As a counterpart to that, we will trace a phenomenology of order as political forms and power are rearranged, and representation leaves the ground to abstraction.
Such “quest” will follow a double path, always coupling one excerpt of literature from the field of architecture theory with one belonging to philosophy; one part of the weekly meeting will be dedicated to the lecture, the other to discussion. Our path will be guided by authors such as René Girard, George Hersey, Carl Schmitt, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adolf Loos, Philip Johnson, Guy Debord, Le Corbusier, Michel Foucault, Jeremy Bentham, Michel Serres, Jean Baudrillard and others.
PDF excerpts of the selected readings will be uploaded to TISS each week.
1. Occult Foundations
– René Girard, “Sacrifice”, in Violence and the Sacred (1972), pp. 1-38.
– George Hersey, “Troping Ornament” and “Architecture and Sacrifice”, in The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture: Speculations on Ornament from Vitruvius to Venturi (1987), pp. 1-45.
2. Ordnung und Ortung
– Carl Schmitt, “Law as a Unity of Order and Orientation” and “On the Meaning of the Word Nomos”, in The Nomos of the Earth (1950), pp. 42-85.
– Pier Vittorio Aureli, “Toward the Archipelago”, in The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (2011), pp.1-46.
3. The Primitive Hut
– Marc-Antoine Laugier, “General principles of Architecture”, in An Essay on Architecture (1755), pp. 9-14
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762), pp. 45-62
4. Classical Currency
– John Summerson, "The Essentials of Classicism", "The Grammar of Antiquity", and "Classical into Modern", in The Classical Language of Architecture (1963), pp. 7-19 and pp. 40-46.
– Brian Rotman, Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of the Zero (1987), pp. 1-56.
5. No Other
– Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime (1905).
– Salvador Dalì, The Conquest of the Irrational (1935).
6. Revolution
– Le Corbusier, “Architecture or Revolution”, in Towards a New Architecture (1923), pp. 267-289.
– Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935).
7. On Display
– Guy Debord, “The Culmination of Separation”, in The Society of the Spectacle (1967), pp. 6-17.
– Patrick Schumacher, Parametricism as Style - Parametricist Manifesto (2008).
8. Abstract Machines
– Michel Foucault, “Panopticism”, in Discipline and Punish (1975), pp. 195-228.
– Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (1964), "Introduction: The Need for Rationality" pp. 1-11, and "The Realization of the Program", pp. 84-94.
9. Orders of Magnitude
– Rem Koolhaas, “Bigness, or the Problem of Large”, in S, M, L, XL (1995).
– Martin Heidegger, “The Age of the World Picture” (1950), in The Question Concerning Technology, pp. 116-136.
