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Here the desire to communicate no longer exists; architecture is dissolved into a deconstructed system of ephemeral signals. In place of communication, there is a flux of
information; in place of architecture as language, there is an attempt to reduce it to a
mass medium, without any ideological residues; in place of an anxious effort to restructure
the urban system, there is a disenchanted acceptance of reality, bordering on extreme
cynicism. (Tafuri 285-6.)
Architecture can be said to have been the first mass medium1, and has always maintained a functionhowever minimal or subliminal at timesas such. Before printing technology, and Victor Hugos pronouncement
Ceci tuera cela (Levine 152)it was the sole broadcast medium of communication. From the cave wall
to cathedrals it delivered its content, which like a true form of mass media by Marshall McLuhans standards, included all of the other arts (painting, sculpture and even music). The passage quoted above is one
of many criticisms of the architectural production of Venturi, Brown and Rauch that appears in Tafuris The
Sphere and the Labyrinth. Given Tafuris criticism of Venturi and Rauch above, does Tafuri wish to suppress
the condition of architecture as mass media and why? And in light of our present moment, when architecture
is becoming increasingly electronicits surfaces emptied of any permanent contentblank screens ready
to be filled, where might this leave us?
returns the architect to the role of the docile temple or cathedral builder, who performs their tasks without
any utopian ideological residues. This regression suggests an architectural practice that does what it is told,
a practice that works within and accepts an ideological structure without criticism.
This lack of critical comment is evident early on in the study of Las Vegas. The book begins with a caveat,
(perhaps one could call it a refusal):
The morality of commercial advertising, gambling interests, and the competitive instinct
[read capitalism] is not at issue here. Because this is a study of method, not content
[emphasis added]. (Venturi et al., Learning 6)
Perhaps incrediblyif you consider the nature of Las Vegas and what occurs therethe word capitalism
does not appear in the entire book. It is a conscious decision not to study the processes that create a condition
like Las Vegas in the first place. Ideologically neutral words like commercial, market and persuasion
are used to describe the economic activity of Las Vegas. The logos of multi-national corporations (gasoline
stations) are innocently described as familiar, like friendly beacons in a foreign land (Venturi et al., Learning
52). Their study innocently glides over larger social concerns, and while they recognize some aspects of the
cultural milieu that creates a Las Vegas, they offer us no judgment (social, political or historical) on this
development. In Learning from Las Vegas, Venturi et al. note that the spaces of old monumentality were
for communal crowds and our spaces of new monumentality are for separate people (Venturi et al.,
Learning 55) However, the word alienation never appears anywhere in the text, indeed they argue that this
is what the people want. In Las Vegaswhere individualism and privatization rulethe only vestigial civic
and collective body, the beautification committee, is cynically targeted for ridicule.
Tafuri recognizes that Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown may be expanding architectures role
to include the design of everything we visually experience, but it remains a superficial operation, a flux of
information in place of communication (Tafuri 285). Tafuri notes that they introduce the theme of dominating
visible space in its entirety[but] they interpret that space solely as a network of superstructures. (Tafuri
285) Venturi et al. never get to the lower level of the substructure (base) of our culture.
Venturi has in fact created a school of the disenchanted without any values to transgress.
(Tafuri 294)
This returns architecture to the role of a mass medium, where Tafuri would prefer Rossis silencewhich
can be read as a criticismto Venturi and Rauchs use of architecture as media outlet in the service of the
ideology on power. When Tafuri says a flux of information in place of communication about Venturi, perhaps
he is saying that in place of architecture has having an informed opinion, it is reduced to a conduit of information, like temples with mosaic murals, that broadcast messages from centers of power without comment.
In contrast, Rossis autonomous architecture silently keeps aloof from every ideology, (Tafuri 276) and
although like Venturis architecture, it also refrains from every utopian proposal for a new lifestyle, (Tafuri
276) its silence may be interpreted as being as critically deafening as the noise of Las Vegas. Tafuri notes:
[For t]oday, he who wishes to make architecture speak is forced to resort to materials
devoid of all meaning; he is forced to reduce to degree zero every ideology, every dream
of social function, every utopian residue. (Tafuri 267)
However, perhaps Venturis critical act is his revelation that architecture can only pretend it is autonomous;
it is only a pretext or conceit. Tafuri observes that Venturis engagement of reality does indeed make any
pretext of [architectures] autonomy purely illusory. (Tafuri 286)
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Browns operations merely re-present juxtapositions rather than re-construct productive juxtapositions. Venturi et al. represent a populist concept but they are simply quoting,
not enacting or creating, new populist concepts or possibilities.
Tafuris problem with representing instead of acting, is that [Venturi] deals only with a
virtual function and not an effective function. The mission of avant-garde architects of the past was to
use architecture to create new social conditions, a theater would be designed to create a new community
rather than simply symbolize this new community. The architecture participates in the act of the creation of
new social forms. Tafuri illustrates this with the example of Andrew Melville Hall [which simply] represents
in theatrical form the space of community integrationthat the orthodoxy of the Modern Movement had
hoped to make act as a nucleus of social precipitation. (Tafuri 270)
Tafuri does support engaging the real, but despite the war being over the operation of this engagement must be one that is from form to reform that might lead to a possible overcoming of[architectures]
own equivocations. (Tafuri 287) Tafuri calls for a move from a practice that concerns itself with what
architecture wishes to be, or wishes to say, toward what building production represents in the economic
gamepenetrating to the heart of the role played by architecture within the capitalist system. (Tafuri
287)
environments we live in and experience to confirm and conform to. This Pop culture machine that comes
into its own during these years is the generator of our milieu, and it is constantly creating, destroying and
re-creating consumable goods, content and symbols.
In the same passage at the end of the book Venturi et. al. also offer an opinion on the nature of the message,
and clearly articulate the coercive power of symbolism applied to architecture:
The didactic symbolism of Chartres may represent to somemedieval theology and to
others the depths ofsuperstition and manipulation. Manipulation is not the monopoly
of crass commercialism. And manipulation works both waysformal languages and
associational systems are inevitable and good, becoming tyrannies only when we are
unconscious of them. (Venturi et al., Learning 162)
Here again, does the ideology in power confer onto the architect the responsibility of ensuring any symbolic
communication is not unconsciously manipulative? According to Venturi in his book Complexity and Contradiction a subversive architect could use the tools of Pop Art to ironically express in this indirect way a true
concern for societys inverted scale of values (Venturi, Complexity 44) but realistically how much impact
can irony as a mode of practice have? Especially in a mode where ones architecture is operating as a mass
medium?
Tafuri would conclude our reading of Learning from Las Vegas with the warning wherever contemporary
architecture ostensibly poses the problem of its own meaning, we can discern the glimmering of a regressive utopia, even if it simulates a struggle against the institutional functions of language. (Tafuri 268) He
In the last section of Learning from Las Vegas, the authors offer a brief opinion on content that somewhat
contradicts their earlier conception of the architects role:
Understanding the content of Pops messagesdoes not mean that one need agree
with, approve of, or reproduce that content. If the commercial persuasions that flash
on the strip are materialistic manipulation and vapid subcommunication,it does not
follow that we architects who learn from their techniques must reproduce the content
or the superficiality of their messages. (But we are indebted to them for helping us to
recognize that Modern architecture too has a content and a vapid one at that.) (Venturi
et al., Learning 161-2)
After suggesting a certain impotence of the architect, how do Venturi et al. arrive at this conception of an
empowered architect that has the ability to act with editorial powers within an ideologically neutral
practice of architecture as mass media? Architecture does not generate the content of Pop culture, it is imposed on architecture and all other forms of communication media. Especially when Venturi observes more
recently, in an interview that appeared in The Harvard Guide to Shopping,that:
[p]erhaps its not for the architect to designate the specifics of the content of architecture:
that it derives from societal culture in general. The architect of the Pantheon did not
compose the graphic inscription on the pediment, the architect-builders of the Egyptian
pylons did not specify the content of the hieroglyphics, etc. And in the information age,
the informational and decorative content that is to dominate form and space and compose
architectural expression should not derive from the architect. (Obrist 616)
Maybe the elemental content of architecture that architects have editorial powers over is rightly stated by
Umberto Eco as denotation and connotation:
[B]esides denoting its function the architectural object could connote a certain ideology
of the function. (Eco/Leach 187)
Here Eco defines for us where the architect of our current situation has editorial powers. The architect can
bring an operative ideology to the project that can be in direct contrast to the ideological forces the architect is
engaged with. Venturi is aware of the denotative and connotative possibilities of architectural production. In
the section Ornament: Signs and Symbols, Denotation and Connotation, Heraldry and Physiognomy, Meaning
and Expression in Learning from Las Vegas the authors make a good case for architectures communicative elements, whether they are consciously trying to signify or not. But in their descriptions of their work
(such as The Guild House) they only speak of connotations that reinforce (or communicate) existing ideology
without challenging it. The only criticism the authors allow for connotation is an anti-modernist stance on
the generation of architectural form and meanings.
also observes that in [t]he pleasure of subtle mental gamesthere is clearly no social value, it simply
registersthe state of mind of someone who feels himself betrayed;reveal[ing] to the very depths the
[impotent] condition in which someone who still wants to make Architecture is confined. (Tafuri 302) The
builds temples and basilicas.
Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecturecan Architecture be more than just
another Channel to watch?
The reality of today is that signs are a part of architecture with or without the architects consent and
involvement. The spaces of our lives are increasingly lit by the loglo (Stephenson 7) of moving images and
logo icons, signage ranging from the official (ads, corporate and media messaging) to the unofficial and truly
emergent (graffiti, local flyers etc.). Isnt it now near impossible to remain silent, when as soon as said
architect leaves the project (if not before), the buildings owners make deals with advertising outlets that
slap billboards wherever they can be slapped, or graffiti artists use the building as their canvas. We have
reached the point where every surface that is viewed by many people has an advertising and communicative
value that can be calculated in very specific monetary terms. In addition, we have reached the point where
electronic technology synergistically amplifies this proliferation.
In Venturis collection of essays Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture he finds
a parallel between our architecture and that of ancient civilizations, (not to mention the culturally regressive role of the architect as previously noted). However there is a potentially redeeming difference in that
the information of our age is not culturally monolithic and is basically ephemeral. Venturi observes a
difference in our electronic age whenimages can change over time, information can be infinitely varied
rather than dogmatically universal.Our iconography will not be etched in stone. (Venturi, Iconography 4-5)
He goes further when interviewed by Obrist and Koolhaas declaring:
The essential element of architecture for our time is no longer spacethe essential element is iconography.[R]emember this is the information age (as well as the electronic
age) and therefore signage is relevant.! (Obrist 593)
Robert Venturi constantly references temples, basilicas and Byzantine mosaics as being parallels to our
pixelized moving imagery, but I would argue a more productive analogy would be with town bulletin boards
and graffiti. The proliferation of electronic technology can now serve to create a truly emergent visual
Spatial Images are the dreams of society. Wherever the hieroglyphics of any spatial image
are deciphered, there the basis of social reality presents itself. (Kracauer/Leach XV)
environment of communication. In the same way that the internet levels the playing field, couldnt electronic
architecture be a locus for the communication of official and unofficial messages? New ways that our
built environment can carry official signs and graffiti together.
In Venturis words a commercial electronic aesthetic for now is no worse than an industrial machine aesthetic of then. (Venturi, Iconography 306) However I would also argue for an aggregation of the
official commercial with the unofficial flyers, stickers and graffiti messages of modern urban life. It moves
architecture from the old form of hierarchical mass media to the new model of non-hierarchical world-wide
web, that while not without its own issues, at least allows for two-way broadcasting of the official and
un-official. In this way, our social reality is constructed in a truly more emergent way where our spatial
images carry a more heterogeneous spectrum of our dreams. Would Tafuri have agreed to this operation of
architecture as mass medium?
Notes
1. Umberto Ecos following passage in Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture draws effective parallels between architecture
in relations to qualities that make a mass media:
[A]rchitectural objects seem to have characteristics in common with the messages of mass communication. To mention a few:
-Architectural discourse generally aims at mass appeal: it starts with accepted premises, builds upon them well-known or readily acceptable arguments, and thereby elicits a certain type of consent.
-Architectural discourse is psychologically persuasive.
-Architectural discourse is experienced inattentivelyin the same way we experience the discourse of moviesor advertising.
-Architectural messages can never be interpreted in an aberrant way, and without the addresse being aware of thereby perverting them.
Most of us would have some sense of being engaged in a perversion of the object if we were to use the Venus de Milo for erotic purposesbut
we use the cover of an elevated roadway for getting out of the rain or hang laundry on a railing and see no perversion in this.
-Thus architecture fluctuates between being rather coercive, implying that you will live in such and such a way with it, and rather indifferent,
letting you use it as you see fit.
-Architecture belongs to the realm of everyday life, just like pop music and most ready-to-wear clothing, instead of being set apart like
serious music and high fashion.
-Architecture is a business. It is produced under economic conditions very similar to the ones governing much of mass culture, and in this too
it differs from other forms of culture.[T]he painter canpursue painting independently,.the writer can produce works for which there
is no market.[B]ut the architect cannot be engaged in the practice of architecture without inserting himself into a given economy and
technology and trying to embrace the logic he finds there, even when he would like to contest it(Eco/Leach 195-6)
2. Quote is Morris Lapidus, as referenced in Learning from Las Vegas. The original quote is from Progressive Architecture (September 1970),
p.122.
3. Quote is Jane Jacobs, as referenced in Learning from Las Vegas. The original quote is from Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great
American Cities, New York: Vintage Books, 1961. p.376.