Towards Architectural Estrangement
Excerpt posted in Tortoise 09 Narrative, Spring 2022.
Estrangement or ostranenie was first coined by Victor Shklovsky as a central concept of Russian formalism. It was introduced to architecture as a device to make works of architecture strange. Modernist architectural estrangement relies on the horror-giving effect of novelty, rupture and disjunction. Tafuri, for instance, analyzes the technique of shock at the foundation of architectural reasoning through Piranesi’s Campo Marzio.1 Massimo Scolari, on the other hand, describes the “laconic astonishment” induced by Aldo Rossi’s architecture. 2 However, the shock effect of modern estrangement is confronted by the ‘waning of affect’ of postmodernism.3 Fredric Jameson describes the waning of affect as the end of unique and personal styles which corresponds to a sense of “depthlessness” in contemporary art, exemplified by Andy Warhol’s Diamond Dust Shoes.4 Instead of the psychic experiences of anxiety and alienation, postmodern subjects are characterized with “free-floating and impersonal” feelings.5
This exhibition thus invites viewers to examine contemporary architectural estrangement under the waning of affects. By displaying the artifacts and texts by four architecture offices, the exhibition asks: can architectural estrangement operate after the waning of affect? How does it respond to the changing technological and cultural landscape of the digital era? Moreover, where does the contemporary practice of estrangement locate itself, in relation to its historical references? Coupling each artifact of estrangement with the architects’ own writings, the exhibition further invites viewers to investigate the tension between textual and spatial practices in architecture today.
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In response to the waning of affect and contemporary culture of digital excess, architectural estrangement today adopts different strategies from modernist shock. Instead of novel, distinctive and violent, contemporary estrangement is sneaky, subtle and almost correct. By instrumentalizing objects that are “slightly off”, this new class of estrangement evokes a sense of the uncanny among its viewers. Freud defines the uncanny as “a class of frightening” which leads to what is known and familiar.6 It is “nothing new or alien”, but something “old-established in the mind” that has become alienated through repression.7 Vidler further describes uncanny architecture to be “disquieting for the absolute normality of the setting” with an “absence of overt terror” 8
This notion of frightening unfamiliarity of something evidently familiar is to be found in the exhibited projects. From default building conventions, generic roof typologies, ordinary material conditions to traditional furniture styles, these projects bring to light the strangeness of something utterly ordinary. Take Bonner’s Domestic Hats as an example. Its Boolean operations highlight the exhaustive hybridizations of different roof typologies in real-life constructions.9 Estrangement, in this case, unveils the oddity of reality which has escaped our attention.
The uncanny presents specific links to domestic architecture. Freud articulates this correlation through a study of the word’s etymological root, heimlich, which can roughly be translated as homely.10 Heimlich possesses two sets of meanings: one suggests what belongs to the house or the family, thus intimate and benevolent; the other, what is concealed from sight, suggesting unforeseeable danger. 11 Uncanny, or Unheimlich, thus contrasts the first meaning of heimlich while being identical to the second.12 Vidler extends this etymological association through discussions of the “implicit horror of the domestic”13 produced by the ruins of Pompeii. The uncanniness of domestic scenes is often expressed through the revelation of something homely and cozy as its opposite, which can be found in several exhibited objects. For instance, the Wrong Chairs suggests the Windsor chair’s forgotten history as a symbol of colonial America beyond being a forgettable piece of furniture one often sees in grandma’s kitchen.14 Rather than the misaligned, invented half of the chair, the uncanniness lies in the original, unaltered half.
Seeing one’s double or repeating objects also produces a sense of uncanny, which Freud vividly captures in his experience getting lost in an Italian provincial town as well as being confused by his mirror image on a train.15 This uncanniness of replicas is explored by Young & Ayata’s Wall Reveal through multiple variations of the same corner condition.
From unfamiliarity of the familiar to the uncanniness of doubles, estrangement that incites feelings of the uncanny requires a second look. Presenting resemblances rather than distinctions at first sight, the “offness” of these objects results in an initial state of confusion. Upon a curious second look, viewers are struck with a moment of revelation. The experience of something “not quite right” thus breaks the illusion of a seamless reality and reveals its internal incoherence. However, these strategies of camouflage have their limitations. As a reaction to the waning of affect through digitization, estrangement today is still subject to the leveling effects of postmodern aesthetics. When the “offness” wears off, will the uncanny disintegrate into indifference and the estranged become refamiliarized?
By showcasing previously exhibited artifacts and published texts, this exhibition foregrounds dilemmas of contemporary architectural estrangement through re-examination and new hypotheses. Remarking on the shifting nature of what is familiar and what is strange, it invites viewers to reflect upon the relationship between architectural estrangement and its present-day contexts. As a curated conversation between estranged objects and viewing subjects, this exhibition asks questions rather than provides answers, in hope of contributing to a better understanding of the current status of architectural estrangement.
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Works Cited
Bonner, Jennifer. Jennifer Bonner: Just Roofs. Accessed January 10, 2022. https://archleague.org/article/jennifer-bonner-just-roofs/.
Freud, Sigmund. “The ‘Uncanny.’” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey, Repr. London: Hogarth Press, 1999.
Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” New Left Review, no. 146 JULY/AUG 1984 (n.d.): 40.
Norman, Carrie, and Thomas Kelley. “Wrong Chairs.” MAS Context, no. 23 (Fall 2014): 188–99.
Scolari, Massimo. “The New Architecture and the Avant-Garde.” In Architecture Theory since 1968.
Tafuri, Manfredo. “Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology.” In Architecture Theory since 1968.
Vidler, Anthony. “The Architecture of the Uncanny: The Unhomely Houses of the Romantic Sublime.” Assemblage, no. 3 (1987): 7–29. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171062.
“Wall Reveal — YOUNG & AYATA,” accessed December 13, 2021, http://www.young-ayata.com/wall-reveals.
[1] Tafuri, “Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology,” 18.
[2] Scolari, “The New Architecture and the Avant-Garde,” 143.
[3] Jameson, “Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,”64.
[4] Jameson, 58-60.
[5] Jameson, 64.
[6] Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,’”, 219.
[7] Freud, 240.
[8] Vidler, “The Architecture of the Uncanny: The Unhomely Houses of the Romantic Sublime,” 8.
[9] Bonner, Jennifer Bonner: Just Roofs, Architecture League Prize Video.
[10] Freud, 221-222.
[11] Freud, 222-224.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Vidler, 18.
[14] Norman and Kelley, “Wrong Chairs,”188.
[15] Freud, 236, 247.