Instead of addressing a specific problem within architecture, I want to tackle the challenge of articulating what architecture must be, and the journey I took that led to this realization. I have always, from the beginning been interested in the architecture of complexity (Mayne), the need for exploration in broader and diverse forces that produce the architecture. Through the pursuit of ambiguity, differences, ideas of inclusion and the coexistence of apparent contradictions (Mayne), the end product will be one that responds to the diverse elements that surrounds itself, elements such as environmental, cultural, social, infrastructural, political… etc. Architecture is an amalgamation of graphics, interiors, architecture and urban design it is a collective act. In the middle of all this, there are the two main objective of achieving function and achieving form, or performance and aesthetic. Although some want to believe that one follows the other, it is foolish not to realize that the two go hand in hand and are fully intertwine (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne), more importantly there is no hierarchy between the two. They follow each other, as you rethink various functions or performance, and you investigate into enhancing the program, you are using the same creative process, you’re reinventing. Which is identical to when you are looking at it from the design point of view, and they lead to each other.
Like a lot of people in LA I am not from here, I was born in Connecticut. In suburban America of the 50’s, we were not expose to a vast variety of arts (Yukio Futagawa), and as the oldest sibling, I was tasked with repairing and maintaining the house and the backyard. I effectively rebuilt the whole family home over my teenage years. I was interested in building various things, mostly things that moved, started with model airplanes and eventually hot rods… etc. When I was 17 I fortuitously won a small architecture competition, and it was then, I realized architecture was what I will go on to pursuit. (Yukio Futagawa) Fast forward to 1968, I graduated from University of Southern California, at this time; our country was experiencing an upheaval, culturally, socially… etc. Which was a product of the Vietnam War, civil rights, gender and feminist movement. Which also resulted in an explosion in art, film and music, between all of this was the “Exhaustion of Modernism” (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne), and this produced the anti-architecture that led to the emergence of the likes of Archigram and Superstudio. In the same year I was introduced to Peter Cook and Ron Herron, when they were visiting UCLA, Archigram, which I’m an avid with, became the start of my question of “what is my generation’s contribution?” (to architecture). From here on, I worked at various firms and offices, until in 1972, me along with many of my colleagues, were fired from Cal Poly Pomona, including Ray Kappe. A few others and me started Morphosis along with “the New School” later named Sci-Arc the same year (SCI-Arc), and they were both fully intertwined. The influence of the collective nature of Archigram, led to us the choice of the name Morphosis (Yukio Futagawa), which was a subtle critique of the “Starchitect” culture that was occurring. (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne) The start of Morphosis was not one of strategic and business, it was one of idea.
In the 70’s we didn’t have much work, it was more about theory and exploration, in a very broad sense, we were looking at everything from rationalism to archigram (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne), we were exploring into every force that is a factor of architecture, and although sometimes segregated, we were looking into intangible and tangible factors, performance and aesthetic. In ’78 I took a sabbatical and attended Harvard to obtain my graduate degree, this was a retooling or rethinking era in my life, I started thinking about the larger picture, thinking about the issues relating to cultural, social, environmental, political… etc. I started focusing on the larger scheme rather than just formal.
It wasn’t until the 80’s when we really started building, and I also started running the graduate program at Sci-Arc. In this time, we attempted to put our theories into practice, the theories of complexity, considering every factor, and using it as a design tool. It couldn’t be fully realized as we were mostly doing small commercial and residential projects, where the relationship between client, architect and the surrounding issues were very intimate, it always came down to form (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne), meaning what it looks like. But as we moved into the public sector, which was a complete shift, we started having more freedom in terms of exploration in all factors, and have a very clear distinction between what is coming from us and what is coming from our client group or society. Although we are not working under our terms, but the needs of the project, unlike the more intimate interactions in smaller projects, the needs of the client are very black and white. “The defense guy doesn’t care what it looks like; he cares about how many people we can get out of the building in X amount of minutes.” (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne) The work developed were more a collection of buildings arranged with the relationship between in mind, which promoted spatial diversity, and challenged the notion of architecture being a singular object, no one element was to take over the whole. (Mayne, Morphosis) The idea of fragmentation was sparked, and in turn responds to the complexities of issues we were exploring, the fragment was more fertile than the whole. The Amerika Gedenkbibliothek (Berlin Library), proposed in 1988, created an urban ensemble of buildings and figures of the ground. Considering the existing park, and augment it by fragments of old and new, it was conscious of the peripheral buildings, leaving traces of history behind. (Mayne, Morphosis) The intertwining intention of urban and program of the new was to enrich the understanding of the site and the freedom of selection in the movement within and surrounding the proposed complex. (Morphosis)
During the 90’s, we started taking more institutional, large-scale projects and competition, where the program and requirements were the clients focus and ours was to add that to our list of factors to explore. This is when we started recognizing the direction we are going in, although this was the outcome of entering the public realm, it also directed the enhancement in our residential and smaller commercial projects. It led to the articulation and integration of public and private, which developed an effective conception and coherence as a principle of the social condition. (Mayne, Connected Isolation (Architectural Monographs No 23)) In residential projects, after the Crawford house, I thought there would be a lot more clients lining up asking us to build their house, but over the years the clients that ask us to build their house, are all mostly patrons of art, that has the urge to learn about architecture. The Blades house, built in 1992-96 (Morphosis), started with our own critique of the previous, Crawford House, and the challenge or in a way, our take on the traditional iconography of “house-ness”. (Yukio Futagawa) We utilized the site as an architectural factor, where around 70% of the house was imbedded in the ground, the villa eventually became a landscape, challenged the idea of the house being a “machine for living” but rather, a tool actively reshaping the site of inhabitation. (Yukio Futagawa)
The 2000’s were when we fully realized the interrelationship of socio-political and economical forces; the infrastructural and urban elements of the earlier projects are now explicit when successfully merged with context, not just of site, but other “intangible” factors. Morphosis as a form making and development within a collective environment (Mayne, Tangents and Outtakes) was finally realized. This was also partnered with the integration of digital technologies, which enabled us to think more radically. Digital tools allowed us to rapidly produce iterations that start in the abstract and result in the specific (Mayne, Morphosis), through digital workflow we were able to successfully integrate advance systems of the broad topics we were exploring and resolving. With 41 Cooper Square, built in 2009, the aim was to shape the human condition within the social stigma of the higher education institution. We pushed the conventions of the project’s unique program and intense urban context. (Mayne, Morphosis) It informs and activates informal social, intellectual and creative exchanges (Morphosis, 41 Cooper Square) in a successful attempt to redefine the academic environment.
Here, I reveal the issue I intended to address, architecture must embrace the notion of difference; it needs to be a product of complex systems that make up our contemporary environment. The modernist inclination towards unification and simplification must be erased. (Mayne, Connected Isolation (Architectural Monographs No 23)) I compare to myself to an evolutionary biologist, one must recognize that to be an architect is not just to consider yourself and the client, but also to consider the broad project, the bigger picture, and the implications that comes with it. (Mayne, Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne) Architecture has the ability to reveal the world (Yukio Futagawa), through multi-faceted complexity, and in turn reveal us to ourselves.
Works Cited
Yukio Futagawa, Thom Mayne, Yoshio Futagawa. Global Architecture Document Volume 9. Vol. 9. Tokyo: Global Architecture, 1997.
Mayne, Thom. Clashes and Intersections Interview Series: Thom Mayne House of ZKA. 20 June 2017.
—. Connected Isolation (Architectural Monographs No 23). London: Academy Editions; 1st edition, 1995.
—. Morphosis. Los Angeles: Equal Books, 2015.
—. Tangents and Outtakes. London: Artemis Verlags AG, 1993.
Morphosis. "41 Cooper Square." Morphopedia. <https://www.morphosis.com/architecture/4/>.
—. "Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek (Berlin Library)." Morphopedia. <https://www.morphosis.com/architecture/65/>.
—. "Blades House." Morphopedia.
SCI-Arc. "History of SCI-Arc." SCI-Arc. <https://sciarc.edu/institution/about/history>.