Architecture rests on intellectual as well as material foundations. _Colin Rowe
s u r f a c e _7  A R C H I T E C T | THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON Graduate Theory Seminar: FALL 2001
MOVEMEANINGMOVEMEANINGMOVEMEANINGMOVEMEANINGMOVEMEANINGMOVEMEANINGMOVEMEANING
formcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontentformcontent
 
All art tends towards structuring the contradiction between that which appears and that which signifies, between form and meaning.
---Robert Slutzky "Re-Reading Phenomenal Transparency"
Perhaps the only entirely new and probably the most important aspect of today's language of forms is the fact that 'negative' elements (the remainder, intermediate, and subtractive quantities) are made active.
---Joseph Albers "Creative Education"
These aren't sunglasses. They're complex visual ideas painfully captured in data.
---Colin Baden, Head of Research Oakley
 
Z-AXIS|THEORIZING PRAXIS: Foundations of Visual Literacy
 
The problem is to evoke the simultaneous presence of painting and architecture.
---Theo van Doesburg (1917)
 
Seminar on the emergence, evolution, and present practicality of controlling ideas of modern architecture, including Abstraction | Significant Form & Significant Space | Figure|Field | Move|Meaning | Defamiliarization | Distortion | Technique | and Transparency. Examines important texts associated with the intellectual construct of twentieth-century architecture and architectural criticism, including ones associated with revolutionary developments in painting and literary theory, especially Synthetic Cubism and Russian Formalism. Texts include Victor Shklovsky's 1917 Art as Device, Alfred Barr's 1936 Cubism and Abstract Art, Colin Rowe's and Fred Koetter's 1975 Collage City,  Colin Rowe's and Robert Slutzky's Transparency,  as well as additional articles by Thomas Schumacher, John Hejduk, Madison Gray, and the instructor.  The influence of related new ideas about Form as explored in the medium of film is also examined--including viewings of Robert Wiene's 1920 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Sergei Eisenstein's 1927 October,  and Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis.
 
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Class participation
Final project
 
REQUIRED TEXTS
Books
1. Barr, Alfred H., Jr. Cubism and Abstract Art. Museum of Modern Art. Ayer Co Pub; Hardcover (June 1966) ISBN: 0405015097
2. Lemon, Lee T., and Marion J. Reis. Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. University of Nebraska Press; Paperback (December 1965) ISBN: 0803254601
3. Rowe, Colin. The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and other Essays. Cambridge, MIT Press; Paperback (October 1982) ISBN: 0262680378
4. Rowe, Colin, and Fred Koetter. Collage City. MIT Press; Paperback Reprint edition (April 1984) ISBN: 0262680424
5. Rowe, Colin, and Robert Slutzky, Transparency. Birkhauser (Architectural); Paperback (April 1997) ISBN: 3764356154

Articles (online or photocopied):
Gordon, Alistair
Utopia Preserved September 2001 House & Garden pp160+ on Eileen Gray's E. 1027 House
Gray, Madison
BARCELONA Trialections: Gaudi, Mies, and Meier deep_SIGHT Review April 2000
Empty/Full deep_SIGHT Review November 2001
Significant Space deep_SIGHT Review September 2000
The Laws of the Mind: In Memory of Colin Rowe deep_SIGHT Review November 1999
1907 Picasso Lessons: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon Madison Gray/deep_SIGHT Review May 2000
Hejduk, John
Out of Time and Into Space  John Hejduk Mask of Medusa: Works 1947-1983 New York: Rizzoli, 1985: pp. 71-75
Hildner, Jef7rey
Collage Reading: Braque | Picasso Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Proceedings 84:1996; pp. 181-87
Formalism: Move + Meaning1 ANY (Architecture New York) Issue 11:1995
Formalism: Move | Meaning2 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Proceedings 84:1996 pp. 251-57
7 Lessons of Painting for Architecture Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Proceedings 85:1997 pp. 262-69
Schumacher, Thomas
Deep Space/Shallow Space Architectural Review, January 1987, Volume CLXXXI, No. 1079, pp. 37-42
 
Supplemental Texts
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution
 
Films
Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, Das (1920) (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921) (USA))
Directed by Robert Wiene; Writing credits: Hans Janowitz, Carl Mayer
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, et al.
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/dvd/6305075492/tech-info/103-2699666-0131812
October (Ten Days That Shook the World)
Directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein; Writing credits: Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein 
Starring: Nikolai Popov, Boris Livanov, 
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6305186774/qid=1002342017/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_3_5/104-8081195-0965505
Metropolis (1927)
Directed by Fritz Lang; Writing credits: Fritz Lang
Starring: Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm, et al.
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6305013578/qid=999474537/sr=1-2/ref=sc_d_2/103-2699666-0131812
 
WEEKLY READING  ASSIGNMENTS
Week 1: 8.28.2001
BARCELONA Trialections: Gaudi, Mies, and Meier Madison Gray/deep_SIGHT Review April 2000
Utopia Preserved Alastair Gordon, September 2001 House & Garden pp. 160+ on Eileen Gray's E. 1027 House
Week 2: 9.4.2001
Formalism: Move + Meaning1 (Part 1) Jeffrey Hildner, ANY (Architecture New York) Issue 11:1995
Week 3: 9.11.2001
Cancelled: NYC World Trade Center & Washington D.C. Pentagon Terrorist Attacks
Week 4: 9.18.2001
Art as Technique/Device Victor Shklovsky (+ Introduction and other essays as time allows) in Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays
Week 5: 9.25.2001
Formalism: Move | Meaning2 (Part 2) Jeffrey Hildner, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Proceedings 84:1996 pp. 251-57
Significant Space Madison Gray/deep_SIGHT Review September 2000
Week 6: 10.2.2001
Out of Time and Into Space  John Hejduk Mask of Medusa. New York: Rizzoli, 1985: pp. 71-75
7 Lessons of Painting for Architecture  Jef7rey Hildner, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Proceedings 85:1997 pp. 262-69
Week 7: 10.9.2001
Deep Space/Shallow Space Thomas Schumacher,  Architectural Review, January 1987, Volume CLXXXI, No. 1079, pp. 37-42
Week 8: 10.16.2001
Cubism and Abstract Art Alfred H. Barr, Jr.; first 53 pages (through Analytical Cubism)  + 77-93 (Synthetic Cubism)
Week 9: 10.23.2001
Cubism and Abstract Art Alfred H. Barr, Jr.; pp. 120-152 (Abstract painting in Russia + Constructivism + Abstract art in Holland: de Stijl; Neo-Plasticism)
1907 Picasso Lessons: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon Madison Gray/deep_SIGHT Review May 2000
Week 10: 10.30.2001
Cubism and Abstract Art Alfred H. Barr, Jr.; pp. 153-166 (Post-War Germany: The Bauhaus; Purism)
Crisis of the Object: Predicament of Texture in Collage City Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter;  pp. 50-85
Collage Reading: Braque | Picasso Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Proceedings 84:1996; pp. 181-87
Week 11: 11.6.2001
Transparency Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky; first 56 pages
Week 12: 11.13.2001
Transparency Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky; Bernard Hoesli Commentary pp. 57-83
Week 13: 11.20.2001
PRESENT DIAGRAMS FOR Empty/Full by Madison Gray deep_SIGHT Review November 2001
Week 14: 11.27.2001
  • PRESENT DIAGRAMS FOR Empty/Full by Madison Gray deep_SIGHT Review November 2001
    • Week 15: 12.4.2001
    PRESENT DIAGRAMS FOR Empty/Full by Madison Gray deep_SIGHT Review November 2001
     
     
     
    [ARCHITECTURE/ART is] . . . the conception of the world as law-bound in the relation of simple elementary components, yet open, unbounded, and contingent as a whole.  
    ---Meyer Scaphiro "On Some Problems of the Semiotics of Visual Art: Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs"

     

     

    Seeing is in some respect an art, which must be learnt.  ---Sir William Herschel Astronomer

    Painting? For me it's about architecture. About Space and Form. I think of my paintings as both Maps and Windows. They're about, framing, sub-framing, counter-framing; placing, displacing, replacing; bounding, unbounding, enclosing and disclosing. They're about structuring the visual. About making the figure and marking the field . . . simultaneously, in the horizontal and vertical planes. About full and empty, solid and void. To this point, my paintings explore what I call the Chess-Move side of Art. Whereas my buildings explore the the Meaning-beyond-pure-form side as well.. ---Madison Gray

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