Architecture - Revision history

Tenementofnaught at 03:35, 11 November 2016

2016-11-11T03:35:15Z

74.73.139.53: /* Bataille and the plan */

2016-10-24T18:09:54Z

Bataille and the plan

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	<blockquote>"History is lived when one does not know how it will come out. Reducing the future to no more than the reproduction of the present, constructing the future the way the architect oversees a project, is to put the formal “mathematical overcoat” on it that stops time. The revolutionary movement liberates the future from the prisons of science. It faces it head on in its heterogeneity, as something unknown."<ref>Ibid., 55</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"History is lived when one does not know how it will come out. Reducing the future to no more than the reproduction of the present, constructing the future the way the architect oversees a project, is to put the formal “mathematical overcoat” on it that stops time. The revolutionary movement liberates the future from the prisons of science. It faces it head on in its heterogeneity, as something unknown."<ref>Ibid., 55</ref></blockquote>

	For Bataille, that revolutionary moment was being enacted in the work of the radical painters working in Paris in the 1920s. Their work confronts the ‘architectural skeleton’ (where the skeleton is the clean form of death after putrefaction and decomposition have done their work) with the anguish of death and decomposition. The 'barbarism' of their work represents that which cannot be assimilated or subjugated to a plan<ref>Ibid., 50</ref> and their violent distortions of human physiognomy hold up a mirror to man in which we can no longer see ourselves reflected: the future as disarticulated.		For Bataille, that revolutionary moment was being enacted in the work of the radical painters working in Paris in the 1920s. Their work confronts the ‘architectural skeleton’ (where the skeleton is the clean form of death after putrefaction and decomposition have done their work) with the anguish of death and decomposition. The 'barbarism' of their work represents that which cannot be assimilated or subjugated to a plan<ref>Ibid., 50</ref>, and their violent distortions of human physiognomy hold up a mirror to man in which we can no longer see ourselves reflected: the future as disarticulated.

	==Additional critical perspectives==		==Additional critical perspectives==

74.73.139.53: /* Bataille and the plan */

2016-10-24T18:06:33Z

Bataille and the plan

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	====Bataille and the plan====		====Bataille and the plan====

	Hollier also credits St. Thomas with defining the distinction, in creation, between the plan and its realization. "He is said to be wise in any order who considers the highest cause in that order. Thus in the order of building he who plans the form of the house is called wise and architect, in relation to the inferior laborers who trim the wood and make ready the stone..."<ref>St. Thomas Aquinas, ''Summa Theologica'', quoted in Hollier, ibid., 43</ref> Strictly speaking, it is the plan that is architecture: as soon as it is built, it becomes impure, subject to time and to entropy, just as God's creation became imperfect when it was left to man.		Hollier also credits St. Thomas with defining the distinction, in creation, between the plan and its realization. "He is said to be wise in any order who considers the highest cause in that order. Thus in the order of building he who plans the form of the house is called wise and architect, in relation to the inferior laborers who trim the wood and make ready the stone..."<ref>St. Thomas Aquinas, ''Summa Theologica'', quoted in Hollier, ibid., 43</ref> Strictly speaking, it is the plan that ''is'' architecture: as soon as it is built, it becomes impure, subject to time and to entropy, just as God's creation became imperfect when it was left to man.

	For Hollier, it is architecture's plan, its plan for us, that Bataille seeks to highlight and disrupt.		For Hollier, it is architecture's plan, its plan for us, that Bataille seeks to highlight and disrupt.

	Whereas the Vitruvian ideal had buildings mirroring the beauty and symmetry of the human face, Bataille sees that the equation has become reversed and that architecture has become the petrification of the organic. If we are but an intermediate stage between apes and great edifices, progress itself has become grotesque and resulted only in immobility and "the repression of anything resembling play, exteriority, or alterity."<ref>Hollier, ''Against Architecture'', 33</ref> Architecture becomes a tomb whose purpose it is to eliminate otherness, to hide death and to make of the future nothing other than the projection of ‘the plan’.		Whereas the Vitruvian ideal had buildings mirroring the beauty and symmetry of the human face, Bataille sees that the equation has become reversed and that architecture has become the petrification of the organic. If we are but an intermediate stage between apes and great edifices, progress itself has become grotesque and resulted only in immobility and "the repression of anything resembling play, exteriority, or alterity."<ref>Hollier, ''Against Architecture'', 33</ref> Architecture becomes a tomb whose purpose it is to eliminate otherness, to hide death and to make of the future nothing other than the projection of ‘the plan’.

	~~Against this architectural skeleton Bataille proposes~~ the ~~barbarism~~ of ~~contemporary painting - where barbarism represents~~ that ~~which cannot be assimilated or subjugated to a plan~~.<ref>Ibid., 50</ref> The skeleton is the 'clean' form of death, after putrefaction and decomposition have done their work. Painting's violent distortions of human physiognomy reintroduce the anguish of death and decomposition. Hollier likens it to the ways in which Nietzsche employed 'anguish' in an historical context:		<blockquote>"History is lived when one does not know how it will come out. Reducing the future to no more than the reproduction of the present, constructing the future the way the architect oversees a project, is to put the formal “mathematical overcoat” on it that stops time. The revolutionary movement liberates the future from the prisons of science. It faces it head on in its heterogeneity, as something unknown."<ref>Ibid., 55</ref></blockquote>

	~~<blockquote>"Anguish is profoundly historical~~, ~~but its historical nature is not progressive, it is~~ revolutionary~~. In contrast with~~ the ~~‘old geometric conception~~ of the ~~future’ (Hegelian-Marxist for example) that would like to have assurances~~ in ~~advance through science about~~ the ~~future, without running any risk~~. ~~History~~ is ~~lived when one does not know how it will come out. Reducing~~ the ~~future to no more than~~ the ~~reproduction~~ of ~~the present, constructing the future the way the architect oversees a project, is to put the formal “mathematical overcoat” on it that stops time~~. The ~~revolutionary movement liberates the future from the prisons~~ of ~~science. It faces it head on in its heterogeneity, as something unknown."~~<ref>Ibid., 55</ref>~~</blockquote>~~		For Bataille, that revolutionary moment was being enacted in the work of the radical painters working in Paris in the 1920s. Their work confronts the ‘architectural skeleton’ (where the skeleton is the clean form of death after putrefaction and decomposition have done their work) with the anguish of death and decomposition. The 'barbarism' of their work represents that which cannot be assimilated or subjugated to a plan<ref>Ibid., 50</ref> and their violent distortions of human physiognomy hold up a mirror to man in which we can no longer see ourselves reflected: the future as disarticulated.

	~~Bataille saw the radical painters working in Paris in the 1920s as holding~~ up a mirror to man in which we can no longer see ourselves reflected; the future as disarticulated.

	==Additional critical perspectives==		==Additional critical perspectives==

74.73.139.53: /* "Architecture" text in full */

2016-10-24T04:09:18Z

"Architecture" text in full

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	=="Architecture" text in full==		=="Architecture" text in full==

	{{Blockquote\|Architecture is the expression of the very being of a society, just as the human face is the expression of an individual's true being. It is, however, mainly to the visages of official persons (prelates, magistrates, admirals) that this comparison pertains. In truth, only the ideal ~~being~~ of a society, ~~that which has~~ the authority to order and prohibit, can strictly speaking be expressed in architectural form. And so, the great monuments raise themselves before us like levees, countering all troubling elements with the logic of majesty and authority: it is in the guise of cathedrals and palaces that the Church and State speak to and impose silence upon the masses. It is clear, in fact, that these monuments inspire social compliance and often, real fear. The storming of the Bastille exemplifies this state of affairs: it is difficult to explain the motivation of the crowd other than through the peoples' animosity toward the monuments that are their true masters.		{{Blockquote\|Architecture is the expression of the very being of a society, just as the human face is the expression of an individual's true being. It is, however, mainly to the visages of official persons (prelates, magistrates, admirals) that this comparison pertains. In truth, only the ideal beings of a society, those who have the authority to order and prohibit, can strictly speaking be expressed in architectural form. And so, the great monuments raise themselves before us like levees, countering all troubling elements with the logic of majesty and authority: it is in the guise of cathedrals and palaces that the Church and State speak to and impose silence upon the masses. It is clear, in fact, that these monuments inspire social compliance and often, real fear. The storming of the Bastille exemplifies this state of affairs: it is difficult to explain the motivation of the crowd other than through the peoples' animosity toward the monuments that are their true masters.


	Moreover, anywhere architectural composition manifests itself other than in monuments, whether in physiognomy, clothing, music, or painting, one can infer a predominant taste for authority, human or divine. The grand compositions of certain painters express a willingness to constrain the spirit toward official ideals. The disappearance of academic construction in painting, on the other hand, leaves the way open for the expression (hence the exaltation) of psychological processes deeply incompatible with social stability. This explains in large part the wild reactions provoked for over half a century by the progressive transformations of painting, which up until then had been constructed upon a kind of hidden architectural skeleton.		Moreover, anywhere architectural composition manifests itself other than in monuments, whether in physiognomy, clothing, music, or painting, one can infer a predominant taste for authority, human or divine. The grand compositions of certain painters express a willingness to constrain the spirit toward official ideals. The disappearance of academic construction in painting, on the other hand, leaves the way open for the expression (hence the exaltation) of psychological processes deeply incompatible with social stability. This explains in large part the wild reactions provoked for over half a century by the progressive transformations of painting, which up until then had been constructed upon a kind of hidden architectural skeleton.


	So, it is clear that this mathematical decree carved in stone is nothing less than the culmination of the evolution of earthly forms, manifested in the biological order by the passage from simian form to human form, the latter already displaying all the elements of the architectural. Man appears to represent but an intermediate stage in the morphological progression from apes to great edifices. Form has become increasingly fixed, increasingly imposing. And human order increasingly bound to architectural order, which is its ultimate development. So much so that if one attacks architecture, whose monumental productions all across the land are our true masters, gathering servile multitudes in their shadow, inspiring admiration and astonishment, order and constraint, then one is also, somehow, attacking man. A whole sphere of current practice, without doubt some of the most intellectually brilliant, is tending in this direction, challenging the predominant anthropomorphism: so, strange as it may seem when it comes to a creature as elegant as the human being, a path forward has been opened for us - by the painters - toward the bestial and the monstrous; as if this represents our only true chance of escaping the architectural overseer.<ref>Bataille, “Architecture”, translated from the French by ThisTenement, 2016</ref>}}		So, it is clear that this mathematical decree carved in stone is nothing less than the culmination of the evolution of earthly forms, manifested in the biological order by the passage from simian form to human form, the latter already displaying all the elements of the architectural. Man appears to represent but an intermediate stage in the morphological progression from apes to great edifices. Form has become increasingly fixed, increasingly imposing. And human order increasingly bound to architectural order, which is its ultimate development. So much so that if one attacks architecture, whose monumental productions all across the land are our true masters, gathering servile multitudes in their shadow, inspiring admiration and astonishment, order and constraint, then one is also, somehow, attacking man. A whole sphere of current practice, without doubt some of the most intellectually brilliant, is tending in this direction, challenging the predominant anthropomorphism: so, strange as it may seem when it comes to a creature as elegant as the human being, a path forward has been opened for us - by the painters - toward the bestial and the monstrous; as if this represents our only true chance of escaping the architectural overseer.<ref>Bataille, “Architecture”, translated from the French by ThisTenement, 2016</ref>}}

ThisTenement: /* Denis Hollier, Against Architecture */

2016-10-19T04:32:20Z

Denis Hollier, Against Architecture

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	So, it is clear that this mathematical decree carved in stone is nothing less than the culmination of the evolution of earthly forms, manifested in the biological order by the passage from simian form to human form, the latter already displaying all the elements of the architectural. Man appears to represent but an intermediate stage in the morphological progression from apes to great edifices. Form has become increasingly fixed, increasingly imposing. And human order increasingly bound to architectural order, which is its ultimate development. So much so that if one attacks architecture, whose monumental productions all across the land are our true masters, gathering servile multitudes in their shadow, inspiring admiration and astonishment, order and constraint, then one is also, somehow, attacking man. A whole sphere of current practice, without doubt some of the most intellectually brilliant, is tending in this direction, challenging the predominant anthropomorphism: so, strange as it may seem when it comes to a creature as elegant as the human being, a path forward has been opened for us - by the painters - toward the bestial and the monstrous; as if this represents our only true chance of escaping the architectural overseer.<ref>Bataille, “Architecture”, translated from the French by ThisTenement, 2016</ref>}}		So, it is clear that this mathematical decree carved in stone is nothing less than the culmination of the evolution of earthly forms, manifested in the biological order by the passage from simian form to human form, the latter already displaying all the elements of the architectural. Man appears to represent but an intermediate stage in the morphological progression from apes to great edifices. Form has become increasingly fixed, increasingly imposing. And human order increasingly bound to architectural order, which is its ultimate development. So much so that if one attacks architecture, whose monumental productions all across the land are our true masters, gathering servile multitudes in their shadow, inspiring admiration and astonishment, order and constraint, then one is also, somehow, attacking man. A whole sphere of current practice, without doubt some of the most intellectually brilliant, is tending in this direction, challenging the predominant anthropomorphism: so, strange as it may seem when it comes to a creature as elegant as the human being, a path forward has been opened for us - by the painters - toward the bestial and the monstrous; as if this represents our only true chance of escaping the architectural overseer.<ref>Bataille, “Architecture”, translated from the French by ThisTenement, 2016</ref>}}

	==~~Denis Hollier,~~ ''Against Architecture''==		==''Against Architecture''==

	Critical recognition of Bataille’s writing generally came belatedly; it was only after his death in 1962 that an emerging generation of poststructuralist writers embraced him as a ‘contemporary’, a postmodernist ''avant la letter''.<ref>Neal Leach, ed., ''Rethinking Architecture'' (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 4</ref> Richard Wolin has pointed out how this was largely a French intellectual phenomenon until the publication in English of an anthology of Bataille’s essays, ''Visions of Excess'', in 1985. “It would not be much of an exaggeration to claim,” writes Wolin, “that, within a period of ten years, Bataille went from being a virtual unknown in English-speaking countries to one of the most read and cited twentieth-century French authors.”<ref>Richard Wolin, "The Story of I: Unearthing Georges Bataille", review of ''Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography'', by Michel Surya and ''Georges Bataille And The Mysticism Of Sin'', by Peter Tracy Connor, ''Bookforum'', Spring 2004.</ref>		Critical recognition of Bataille’s writing generally came belatedly; it was only after his death in 1962 that an emerging generation of poststructuralist writers embraced him as a ‘contemporary’, a postmodernist ''avant la letter''.<ref>Neal Leach, ed., ''Rethinking Architecture'' (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 4</ref> Richard Wolin has pointed out how this was largely a French intellectual phenomenon until the publication in English of an anthology of Bataille’s essays, ''Visions of Excess'', in 1985. “It would not be much of an exaggeration to claim,” writes Wolin, “that, within a period of ten years, Bataille went from being a virtual unknown in English-speaking countries to one of the most read and cited twentieth-century French authors.”<ref>Richard Wolin, "The Story of I: Unearthing Georges Bataille", review of ''Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography'', by Michel Surya and ''Georges Bataille And The Mysticism Of Sin'', by Peter Tracy Connor, ''Bookforum'', Spring 2004.</ref>

ThisTenement: /* Dictionnaire Critique */

2016-10-17T17:13:57Z

Dictionnaire Critique

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	Bataille's article first appeared as part of the ''Critical Dictionary'' in ''Documents'', a series of articles written by Bataille, Michel Leiris, Carl Einstein and others that set out to flout the ideals of comprehensiveness and scholarly objectivity associated with a dictionary, cutting across conventional hierarchies and categories in articles that range from Buster Keaton to spittle, factory chimneys to shellfish.		Bataille's article first appeared as part of the ''Critical Dictionary'' in ''Documents'', a series of articles written by Bataille, Michel Leiris, Carl Einstein and others that set out to flout the ideals of comprehensiveness and scholarly objectivity associated with a dictionary, cutting across conventional hierarchies and categories in articles that range from Buster Keaton to spittle, factory chimneys to shellfish.

	In his ''Dictionnaire'' entry on "L'informe" (Formless), Bataille states that "A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks"<ref>Georges Bataille, “Formless”, in ''~~Vision~~ of Excess, Selected Writings, 1927-1939'', ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 31</ref>, and this proto-poststructuralist<ref>Ades and Bradley note how "''Documents'' ... did more in its pages than chart the interesting discoveries and materials, modern and ancient, western and non-western, considered relevant to contemporary society. It constructed - or deconstructed - them, and worked them into a series of challenges to those disciplines..." ''Undercover Surrealism'', 13-14</ref> intent for the Critical Dictionary can be seen within the overall editorial context of the Documents journal itself, which set out to act as a "playful museum that simultaneously collects and reclassifies its specimens."<ref>J. Clifford, "On Ethnographic Surrealism", in ''The Predicament of Culture'', 1988, p. 132, quoted in Ades and Bradley, ''Undercover Surrealism'', 15</ref>		In his ''Dictionnaire'' entry on "L'informe" (Formless), Bataille states that "A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks"<ref>Georges Bataille, “Formless”, in ''Visions of Excess, Selected Writings, 1927-1939'', ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 31</ref>, and this proto-poststructuralist<ref>Ades and Bradley note how "''Documents'' ... did more in its pages than chart the interesting discoveries and materials, modern and ancient, western and non-western, considered relevant to contemporary society. It constructed - or deconstructed - them, and worked them into a series of challenges to those disciplines..." ''Undercover Surrealism'', 13-14</ref> intent for the Critical Dictionary can be seen within the overall editorial context of the Documents journal itself, which set out to act as a "playful museum that simultaneously collects and reclassifies its specimens."<ref>J. Clifford, "On Ethnographic Surrealism", in ''The Predicament of Culture'', 1988, p. 132, quoted in Ades and Bradley, ''Undercover Surrealism'', 15</ref>

	=="Architecture" text in full==		=="Architecture" text in full==

ThisTenement at 15:37, 17 October 2016

2016-10-17T15:37:44Z

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	====World-creation====		====World-creation====

	[[File:St-thomas-aquinas.jpg\|thumb\|right\|200px\|Carlo Crivelli, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1476. National Gallery, London. ]]Citing Hegel’s positioning of architecture, in his ''Aesthetics'', as ‘first of the arts’, Hollier underlines the etymology of the term as ‘chief builder’, where the ‘chief’ is related in turn to the word ''arche'', or ''source'', from which everything else flows. Architecture finds its foundational cosmology in the story of Noah’s Ark, where God, the "sovereign architect of the Universe" teaches Noah how to build the ark and instructs him to admit only creatures that are 'named'. Henceforth, theology, architecture, language, and the natural world become bound up together and we have a vision of architecture as 'divine imperative', as world-creating.<ref>Ibid., 34</ref>		[[File:St-thomas-aquinas.jpg\|thumb\|right\|200px\|Carlo Crivelli, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1476. National Gallery, London.]]Citing Hegel’s positioning of architecture, in his ''Aesthetics'', as ‘first of the arts’, Hollier underlines the etymology of the term as ‘chief builder’, where the ‘chief’ is related in turn to the word ''arche'', or ''source'', from which everything else flows. Architecture finds its foundational cosmology in the story of Noah’s Ark, where God, the "sovereign architect of the Universe" teaches Noah how to build the ark and instructs him to admit only creatures that are 'named'. Henceforth, theology, architecture, language, and the natural world become bound up together and we have a vision of architecture as 'divine imperative', as world-creating.<ref>Ibid., 34</ref>

	In the thirteenth century Gothic cathedrals, Hollier sees the ur-example of this system of architectural world-creation. Citing Erwin Panofsky's ''Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism'', he points out the comparisons between the scholastic ''Summae'', (including Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologica'', written 1265–1274), and the design of cathedrals. In their relationships of parts to the whole, in their synthetic intent of drawing together of all human knowledge, and in their organization of that knowledge hierarchically, the cathedrals and the philosophic Summae are homologous. The portal or facade of a gothic cathedral, for example, "offers itself as a sort of plan (or cross section) of the totality of the edifice that is intended to manifest, or externalize; just as, at the beginning of a book, there is a table of contents or a 'summary'..."<ref>Ibid., 42</ref> Though we might take this for granted now, Panofosky notes, "...this type of systematic articulation was absolutely unknown before scholasticism."<ref>Panofsky, quoted in Hollier, ibid.</ref>		In the thirteenth century Gothic cathedrals, Hollier sees the ur-example of this system of architectural world-creation. Citing Erwin Panofsky's ''Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism'', he points out the comparisons between the scholastic ''Summae'', (including Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologica'', written 1265–1274), and the design of cathedrals. In their relationships of parts to the whole, in their synthetic intent of drawing together of all human knowledge, and in their organization of that knowledge hierarchically, the cathedrals and the philosophic Summae are homologous. The portal or facade of a gothic cathedral, for example, "offers itself as a sort of plan (or cross section) of the totality of the edifice that is intended to manifest, or externalize; just as, at the beginning of a book, there is a table of contents or a 'summary'..."<ref>Ibid., 42</ref> Though we might take this for granted now, Panofosky notes, "...this type of systematic articulation was absolutely unknown before scholasticism."<ref>Panofsky, quoted in Hollier, ibid.</ref>

ThisTenement at 15:32, 17 October 2016

2016-10-17T15:32:38Z

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	So, it is clear that this mathematical decree carved in stone is nothing less than the culmination of the evolution of earthly forms, manifested in the biological order by the passage from simian form to human form, the latter already displaying all the elements of the architectural. Man appears to represent but an intermediate stage in the morphological progression from apes to great edifices. Form has become increasingly fixed, increasingly imposing. And human order increasingly bound to architectural order, which is its ultimate development. So much so that if one attacks architecture, whose monumental productions all across the land are our true masters, gathering servile multitudes in their shadow, inspiring admiration and astonishment, order and constraint, then one is also, somehow, attacking man. A whole sphere of current practice, without doubt some of the most intellectually brilliant, is tending in this direction, challenging the predominant anthropomorphism: so, strange as it may seem when it comes to a creature as elegant as the human being, a path forward has been opened for us - by the painters - toward the bestial and the monstrous; as if this represents our only true chance of escaping the architectural overseer.<ref>Bataille, “Architecture”, translated from the French by ThisTenement, 2016</ref>}}		So, it is clear that this mathematical decree carved in stone is nothing less than the culmination of the evolution of earthly forms, manifested in the biological order by the passage from simian form to human form, the latter already displaying all the elements of the architectural. Man appears to represent but an intermediate stage in the morphological progression from apes to great edifices. Form has become increasingly fixed, increasingly imposing. And human order increasingly bound to architectural order, which is its ultimate development. So much so that if one attacks architecture, whose monumental productions all across the land are our true masters, gathering servile multitudes in their shadow, inspiring admiration and astonishment, order and constraint, then one is also, somehow, attacking man. A whole sphere of current practice, without doubt some of the most intellectually brilliant, is tending in this direction, challenging the predominant anthropomorphism: so, strange as it may seem when it comes to a creature as elegant as the human being, a path forward has been opened for us - by the painters - toward the bestial and the monstrous; as if this represents our only true chance of escaping the architectural overseer.<ref>Bataille, “Architecture”, translated from the French by ThisTenement, 2016</ref>}}

	==~~Critical Perspectives~~==		==Denis Hollier, ''Against Architecture''==

	Critical recognition of Bataille’s writing generally came belatedly; it was only after his death in 1962 that an emerging generation of poststructuralist writers embraced him as a ‘contemporary’, a postmodernist ''avant la letter''.<ref>Neal Leach, ed., ''Rethinking Architecture'' (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 4</ref> Richard Wolin has pointed out how this was largely a French intellectual phenomenon until the publication in English of an anthology of Bataille’s essays, ''Visions of Excess'', in 1985. “It would not be much of an exaggeration to claim,” writes Wolin, “that, within a period of ten years, Bataille went from being a virtual unknown in English-speaking countries to one of the most read and cited twentieth-century French authors.”<ref>Richard Wolin, "The Story of I: Unearthing Georges Bataille", review of ''Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography'', by Michel Surya and ''Georges Bataille And The Mysticism Of Sin'', by Peter Tracy Connor, ''Bookforum'', Spring 2004.</ref>		Critical recognition of Bataille’s writing generally came belatedly; it was only after his death in 1962 that an emerging generation of poststructuralist writers embraced him as a ‘contemporary’, a postmodernist ''avant la letter''.<ref>Neal Leach, ed., ''Rethinking Architecture'' (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 4</ref> Richard Wolin has pointed out how this was largely a French intellectual phenomenon until the publication in English of an anthology of Bataille’s essays, ''Visions of Excess'', in 1985. “It would not be much of an exaggeration to claim,” writes Wolin, “that, within a period of ten years, Bataille went from being a virtual unknown in English-speaking countries to one of the most read and cited twentieth-century French authors.”<ref>Richard Wolin, "The Story of I: Unearthing Georges Bataille", review of ''Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography'', by Michel Surya and ''Georges Bataille And The Mysticism Of Sin'', by Peter Tracy Connor, ''Bookforum'', Spring 2004.</ref>

	The influence of the "Architecture" article mirrors this general rediscovery and reassessment of Bataille's writing; the article’s extended critical afterlife largely due to Denis Hollier’s remarkable elaboration of Bataille’s central thesis in his ''La Prise de la Concorde'', 1974, published in English as ''Against Architecture'' in 1989.<ref>Denis Hollier, ''Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille'', trans. Betsy Wing, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992)</ref>		The influence of the "Architecture" article mirrors this general rediscovery and reassessment of Bataille's writing; the article’s extended critical afterlife largely due to Denis Hollier’s remarkable elaboration of Bataille’s central thesis in his ''La Prise de la Concorde'', 1974, published in English as ''Against Architecture'' in 1989.<ref>Denis Hollier, ''Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille'', trans. Betsy Wing, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992)</ref>

	~~===Against Architecture===~~

	====Structural imperatives====		====Structural imperatives====
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	Bataille saw the radical painters working in Paris in the 1920s as holding up a mirror to man in which we can no longer see ourselves reflected; the future as disarticulated.		Bataille saw the radical painters working in Paris in the 1920s as holding up a mirror to man in which we can no longer see ourselves reflected; the future as disarticulated.

			==Additional critical perspectives==


	===Architecture and the Formless===		===Architecture and the Formless===
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	<blockquote>"The clearing away of material and the activity of making room are both experiments with space and experiences of space. Minor architectures are acts of clearing. Each act yields an emergent, revolutionary space, even as that space begins to close in behind. It is space displaced, a deterritorialization. It challenges authority and its management of time; it is political."<ref>Ibid., 14</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"The clearing away of material and the activity of making room are both experiments with space and experiences of space. Minor architectures are acts of clearing. Each act yields an emergent, revolutionary space, even as that space begins to close in behind. It is space displaced, a deterritorialization. It challenges authority and its management of time; it is political."<ref>Ibid., 14</ref></blockquote>


	==References==		==References==

ThisTenement at 15:07, 17 October 2016

2016-10-17T15:07:07Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:07, 17 October 2016
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	<blockquote>"The clearing away of material and the activity of making room are both experiments with space and experiences of space. Minor architectures are acts of clearing. Each act yields an emergent, revolutionary space, even as that space begins to close in behind. It is space displaced, a deterritorialization. It challenges authority and its management of time; it is political."<ref>Ibid., 14</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"The clearing away of material and the activity of making room are both experiments with space and experiences of space. Minor architectures are acts of clearing. Each act yields an emergent, revolutionary space, even as that space begins to close in behind. It is space displaced, a deterritorialization. It challenges authority and its management of time; it is political."<ref>Ibid., 14</ref></blockquote>


	==References==		==References==
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ThisTenement at 20:01, 15 October 2016

2016-10-15T20:01:23Z

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	<blockquote>"A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks. Thus formless is not only an adjective having a given meaning, but a term that serves to bring things down in the world, generally requiring that each thing have its form. What it designates has no rights in any sense and gets itself squashed everywhere, like a spider or an earthworm. In fact, for academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit."<ref>Bataille, "Formless", in ''Visions of Excess'', 31</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks. Thus formless is not only an adjective having a given meaning, but a term that serves to bring things down in the world, generally requiring that each thing have its form. What it designates has no rights in any sense and gets itself squashed everywhere, like a spider or an earthworm. In fact, for academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit."<ref>Bataille, "Formless", in ''Visions of Excess'', 31</ref></blockquote>

	The 'Architecture' and 'Formless' definitions can be seen to be coming at the same argument from opposite directions. Like Hollier, Bois and Krauss view architecture as a "privileged metaphor of metaphysics"<ref>Bois and Krauss, ''Formless: A User's Guide'', 17</ref> and "another name for system itself, for the regulation of the plan."<ref>Ibid., 185</ref> They separate, however, the engagement with architecture and painting in the “Architecture” article, and claim that Bataille does not develop the premise of the article's first paragraph, instead shifting the piece onto "the rather traditional line on anatomical deformation in painting."<ref>Ibid., 186. Bois and Krauss relate this failure to an aesthetic limitation of the whole ''Documents'' group, being "burdened by a figurative conception of art..." The claim can perhaps be put into context by considering that ''Formless: A User's Guide'' was initially published to accompany the authors’ exhibition of the same name at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, an ambitious attempt to re-envisage twentieth century art in the light of ''formless'' (and therefore, largely, non-figurative) work by Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Lucio Fontana, Cindy Sherman, Claes Oldenburg, Jean Dubuffet and others.</ref>		[[File:Cheminee-d-usine.jpg\|thumb\|right\|200px\|"Factory Chimney", in ''Documents'' no. 6, 1929)]]The 'Architecture' and 'Formless' definitions can be seen to be coming at the same argument from opposite directions. Like Hollier, Bois and Krauss view architecture as a "privileged metaphor of metaphysics"<ref>Bois and Krauss, ''Formless: A User's Guide'', 17</ref> and "another name for system itself, for the regulation of the plan."<ref>Ibid., 185</ref> They separate, however, the engagement with architecture and painting in the “Architecture” article, and claim that Bataille does not develop the premise of the article's first paragraph, instead shifting the piece onto "the rather traditional line on anatomical deformation in painting."<ref>Ibid., 186. Bois and Krauss relate this failure to an aesthetic limitation of the whole ''Documents'' group, being "burdened by a figurative conception of art..." The claim can perhaps be put into context by considering that ''Formless: A User's Guide'' was initially published to accompany the authors’ exhibition of the same name at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, an ambitious attempt to re-envisage twentieth century art in the light of ''formless'' (and therefore, largely, non-figurative) work by Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Lucio Fontana, Cindy Sherman, Claes Oldenburg, Jean Dubuffet and others.</ref>

	~~[[File:Cheminee-d-usine.jpg\|thumb\|right\|200px\|"Factory Chimney", in ''Documents'' no. 6, 1929)]]~~Bois and Krauss do highlight Bataille's return to a counter-architectural theme in two images printed in later issues of ''Documents'', again under the ''Critical Dictionary'' umbrella, and both "attesting to the vulnerability of architecture": "Factory Chimney" (''Documents'' no. 6, 1929) reproduces an image of a factory chimney in process of demolition, and the entry on "Space" (''Documents'' 1, 1930), an image of the collapse of a prison in Columbus, Ohio.<ref>Ibid.</ref> And Bataille further explores the theme of "architecture as the metaphor not of the human figure but of the idealism of man's project..." in ''L'Experience Interieure'' (1943):		Bois and Krauss do highlight Bataille's return to a counter-architectural theme in two images printed in later issues of ''Documents'', again under the ''Critical Dictionary'' umbrella, and both "attesting to the vulnerability of architecture": "Factory Chimney" (''Documents'' no. 6, 1929) reproduces an image of a factory chimney in process of demolition, and the entry on "Space" (''Documents'' 1, 1930), an image of the collapse of a prison in Columbus, Ohio.<ref>Ibid.</ref> And Bataille further explores the theme of "architecture as the metaphor not of the human figure but of the idealism of man's project..." in ''L'Experience Interieure'' (1943):

	<blockquote>"Harmony, like the project, throws time into the outside: its principle is the repetition through which 'all that is possible' is made eternal. The ideal of architecture, or sculpture, immobilizing harmony, guaranteeing the duration of motifs whose essence is the annulment of time."<ref>Ibid., 186-87</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"Harmony, like the project, throws time into the outside: its principle is the repetition through which 'all that is possible' is made eternal. The ideal of architecture, or sculpture, immobilizing harmony, guaranteeing the duration of motifs whose essence is the annulment of time."<ref>Ibid., 186-87</ref></blockquote>
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	<blockquote>"One of the words Bataille reserved for that moment of ecstatic loss of self ... was 'vertigo'. At that moment, for Bataille, love and death almost touch: the possibility of fusion with another and the abyss of final separation. We experience a kind of 'vertiginous death'".<ref>Ibid.</ref></blockquote>		<blockquote>"One of the words Bataille reserved for that moment of ecstatic loss of self ... was 'vertigo'. At that moment, for Bataille, love and death almost touch: the possibility of fusion with another and the abyss of final separation. We experience a kind of 'vertiginous death'".<ref>Ibid.</ref></blockquote>

	[[File:Fiafgkjwegg.jpg\|thumb\|~~right~~\|200px\|Pablo Picasso, ''Painter and Model'', 1928]]Green contends that Picasso's work plays out a confrontation between the architectural and the vertiginous, between the compositional skeletons of his works and a desire that animates but always threatens to demolish them.		[[File:Fiafgkjwegg.jpg\|thumb\|left\|200px\|Pablo Picasso, ''Painter and Model'', 1928]]Green contends that Picasso's work plays out a confrontation between the architectural and the vertiginous, between the compositional skeletons of his works and a desire that animates but always threatens to demolish them.

	Green links this understanding of the vertiginous to Freud's 'oceanic feeling', as outlined in ''Civilization And Its Discontents'' (1930), where a lost sense of continuity with the world around us prompts a destructive 'death drive' against the social and cultural prohibitions which civilization erects against the individual. Freud's definition of civilization can be seen as analogous to Bataille's concept of architecture as, "...the monumental institutional and behavioral structure with which societies confront the compulsion to transgress."<ref>Ibid., 25</ref>		Green links this understanding of the vertiginous to Freud's 'oceanic feeling', as outlined in ''Civilization And Its Discontents'' (1930), where a lost sense of continuity with the world around us prompts a destructive 'death drive' against the social and cultural prohibitions which civilization erects against the individual. Freud's definition of civilization can be seen as analogous to Bataille's concept of architecture as, "...the monumental institutional and behavioral structure with which societies confront the compulsion to transgress."<ref>Ibid., 25</ref>