Bernard Tschumi offers an alternative viewpoint on the relationships within architecture and its consideration in the framework of modern trends and changes. The author makes the main emphasis on disjunction that is evident in all aspects conventionally discussed in the context of architectural studies. He stresses the change of paradigm and the presence of violence that governs the dynamic, at times incompatible relationships within architectural objects determined by the human intrusion in them and reconsideration of function and form, space, and events taking place within them (Tschumi, 1996). The thesis of the author is that architecture is impossible within action and events, consequently, there are always elements of violence present in the creation and further utilization of architectural objects (Tschumi, 1996, pp. 121-122).
Tschumi examines the notion of violence as a reciprocal concept in architecture – he assumes that both space and human bodies violate each other. The former violates the latter by becoming a part of his/her consciousness and cognition, affecting human behavior, mood, and perception (Tschumi, 1996, p. 124). The latter in their turn violate the former by ruining the balance when intruding into the architectural space, i.e. the empty building (Tschumi, 1996, p. 123). The author further notes that architects have always been trying to purify the uncontrolled violence of the architectural events and the way to this purification is seen in the ritualization of these relationships, which appears empirically impossible because of the inability of anyone in the world to design the mechanism of everyone’s movement and interaction and to define the programs of events (Tschumi, 1996, pp. 125-127).
Tschumi (1996) introduces an innovative phenomenon in architecture: a program. He states that programs and space can enter diverse relationships (either independent, with many buildings fostering many events, types of people and venues, or interdependent, with the architect making the complete design of the building with the target public, events and models of events). Thus, he concludes that each new event is altered by each new space. However, these relations are not unilateral, as the events also possess an ability to redefine the architectural space in which they take place (as a ballet in a church, sleeping in the kitchen, etc.) (Tschumi, 1996). One more stress in the discussion of violence and disjunction made by the author suggests a positive shift in perception of architecture in a dynamic perspective because of its presupposition of change and renewal (Tschumi, 1996, p. 132).
Spaces and events have been traditionally viewed as static elements of architecture, while the very concept of architecture was perceived as an autonomous, static, and structured art. However, the author shows the dynamism and interdependence of such marginal elements in architecture as:
- dis-structuring (questioning the role of structure in architecture);
- order (challenging and pushing the concept to the edge of perception);
- strategies of disjunction (the influence of which is clear in the dissociative logic of the architectural work);
- limits (reminders of architecture is not only the object of admiration but the object of remaking and dismantling);
- notation (so insignificant in traditional approaches to architecture and so important in the modern perception);
- connection of disjunction and the avant-garde (assuming that no element and no moment in architecture can be self-sufficient and absolute, representing the unity of former elements, traces of events, and programs) (Tschumi, 1996, pp. 208-212).
Making a conclusion on the ontology and events in architecture as discussed by Tschumi (1996), it is possible to note that the author admits the exceptional importance thereof in the modern, dynamic and disjunctive approach to architecture. He admits many times, on examples of various buildings that events define and redefine the architectural work every time they change. Events create the dynamic, violent relationships of people with spaces that are not initially determined by the architect, thus ensuring the change and renewal of any architectural work and the disjunction of expected form and expected usage (Tschumi, 1996). These events and interrelationships within the system have brought about the innovative standpoint in architecture and provided the creation of modern trends in the field.
References
Tschumi, B. (1996). Architecture and disjunction. The MIT Press.