Paradigm Islands:

Manhattan and Venice

Discourses on architecture and the

city

Teresa Stoppani

R Routledge
Taylor & Francis Croup

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Contents
List of illustrations and credits xi

Preface xvii

Acknowledgements xix

1. PARADIGM ISLANDS 1

Manhattan and Venice 1

City 2

'Space within' 3

Island 7

Paradigms 8

Discourses in architecture 12

2. FRAMES 16

Delirium and historical 'project' 16

Learning from Manhattan, designing the frivolous:

Rem Koolhaas from 'delirious' to 'Junkspace' 20

Manhattan lab: from Manhattan to the contemporary city 21

Retroactive manifesto: the city as text 22

Manhattan projects: from architecture to Manhattan 24

Leaving Manhattan: from metropolitan 'theorems' to architectural 'patents' 28

The frivolous project: between signature and adaptation 31

Building on tension, learning from Venice: Manfredo Tafuri's

history between renovatio and continuity 35

Specificity and tension 35

The historical 'project' 37

Contents

History per exempla 38

Tafuri in the labyrinth 39

Harmony and conflicts 42

Venice and the Renaissance 45

Princes, cities, architects 46

3. MAKINGS 52

Manhattan Grid: the city as a script 53

Manhattan surfacing: Central Park 60

From grid to 'grid effect' 66

Gridding 66

Soft grid 67

Grid operations 71

Archegrid 73

Supergrids 77

Venice traces: grids, mats, tentacles 79

Venice impossible: representations of the dynamic 85

4. READINGS 97

Manhattan: performance, artificial chorality and exhibitionism 97

Urban performance 97

Artificial chorality 101

Exhibitionism 102

Venice: normative chorality, masks, tenderness 106

Normative chorality 106

Masks 107

Constitutive tenderness 113

5. MODERN(S) 119

The impossibility of the modern project 119

Le Corbusier and Manhattan 120

viii
 Contents

Against Manhattan 120

American cathedrals 124

United Nations and other fragments 128

Le Corbusier and Venice 133

Le Corbusier and the past 133

Venice and modernity 135

Making Venice 141

6. CONTEMPORARIES 147

The city as event: Bernard Tschumi in Manhattan 148

Manhattan Transcripts 151

Moving architecture and sequencing voids 156

Topology to diagram: Peter Eisenman between

Venice and Manhattan 160

Venice after Le Corbusier 161

Manhattan after the Grid 169

The city as diagram. Gianugo Polesello's Venice 175

The city as architecture 175

'Novissime': Venice anew 178

Cannaregio Ovest 179

4,9, 16 Towers 184

Citta Ideale 186

From capriccio to montage to urban diagram 190

7. REPRESENTATIONS 193

Manhattan 194

Manhattan vertical 194

Manhattan horizontal 197

Manhattan round 200

Venice 203

Venice labyrinths 203

ix
Contents

Venice vertical 207

Venice horizontal 210

Manhattan room 214

8. ISLANDS 217

Manhattan molluscs 217

Venice clouds 221

Epilogue 226

Notes 227

Bibliography 266

Name Index 275

Subject Index 279