r-

KENNETH FRAMPTON GSAPPColumbia University, New York City, January 19 and 25,2010 ----------------------------- 8

K. MICHAEl HAYS
Graduate School oJ Desigti, Harvard Urdversity, Cambridge, February 16, 2010 --------------- 30

MARK WIGlEY
GSAPPColumbia University, New York City, February 8, 16 and March 2,2010 ---------------- 58

MARY MclEOD GSAPPColumbia Uruverstty, New York City, March 2 and 3,2010 --------------------------------- 96

BEATRIZ COlOMINA New York City, February 25, 2010 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 146

STAN AllEN SAA Studio, New York City, January 18, 2010 ---------------------------------------------------------182

JOAN OCKMAN
New York City, Decetnber 10, 2009 and February 17, 2010 ----------------------------------------- 226

ROBERT SOMOl
School oJArchitecture, University of Illinois, Chicago, February 24,2010 ----------------------- 256

SARAH WHITING
Princeton University School oJArchitecture, Princeton, November 21, 2009 ------------------- 312

MICHAEl SPEAKS Lexington - Bratislava, March 29, 201 O -------------------------------------------------------------- 356

JEFFREY KIPNIS New York City, November 12, 2009 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 382

SYlVIA lAVIN
Princeton School oJArchitecture, Princeton, February 5, 2010 ------------------------------------ 406

MONIKA MITÁSOVÁ
In Dialog with American Ctitical and Projective Theory oJArchitecture ------------------------ 430
[ 600Z 'Z"[ JaqwaAoN 'Ám ~JOAMaN I

MM:
JK:
MM:
JK:
• JOHN WHITEMAN - 1 in Chicago. That's where the architectural strategies book 1-----
JEFFREYKIPNIS-
RICHARD BURDETI, eds.,
Strategies in
Architectural Thinking
(Chicago: Chicago
Institute lor Architecture
and Urbanism, 1992l.
MM:
• JEFFREYKIPNIS- 2 discussion (1985) Peter Eisenman introduced you to Jacques
THOMAS LEESEReds.,
Chora L Work:
Jacques Derrida and
Peter Eisenman
(New York: Monacelli
Press, 1997), 7.
You studied physics. How did you switch from exact or hard
science to the soft science of arts or architecture criticism
and theory?
Science is too hard. You had to not only have interesting ideas,
you had to prove them. 1was always interested in art and had
a long interest in it anyway. When 1realized that, as much as
1loved physícs. 1dídn't really want to spend the rest of mylífe
doing that, [ decided to become a painting critico Then [ met
Peter Eisenman and switched to architecture.
When and how did you join an architectural community?
l think [ kind of started ít, actually. Mark Wigley had come
over from New Zealand to meet Peter IEisenmanl, to finish his
dissertation. We became friends. Then Mark started dating
Beatriz IColominal. I knew Michael Hays anyway, Jennifer
Bloomer and [ were from Atlanta. So there were a lot of
loose relationships. And then we all went, by accident or
coíncídence, to an ACSA Convention in Miami, where we
made an effort to sort of introduce the idea of poststructuralist
thought to architecture. It really wasn't, at that time,
an oppositional activity. We expected to be embraced by
academic circles and stuff. This was a national convention,
the ACSA, and there was quite a negative reaction. Very
negative. And it was clear that we were not going to get jobs
and be supported. So we got together in my hotel room, and
agreed to have a conference together, no one else but us.
came from. We never had a manifesto and all that stuff ...
It was mostly shared interests, fríendshíps, informal
relationships. And people at that conference, or most of thern,
are in some way or another still around today. Even people
that weren't in the book are still important today, Iike Comell
West. There were a lot of interesting people: John Reíchman,
Ann Bergren, etc. It was luck. And we all agreed to help each
other's careers.
At the beginning of the first Chora L Works 2 --------------------------
Derrida as someone who blames Eísenman, the architect,
385
JK
for misreading Derrida, the philosopher. That is why, Eisenman
saíd, you were invited to the discussion as "the guardianJ
provocateur." How did you understand your role in that debate
and how did your participation influence your understanding
of critical practices in architecture?
JK: I met Peter in Atlanta; Peter introduced me to Derrída's writings
at that meeting. [ think, before [ went to New York, [ read
Of Grammatology 3 ---------------------------------------------------------- 3 • JACOUESDERRIDA,
and maybe Writing and Diffetence, 4 ---------------------------------- De la Grammatologie
(Paris: Éditions de Minuit,
a couple of books. But [ worked really hard to see if [ could 1967), trans .• Gayatri
understand them. At that time [ thought Peter was the smartest Chakravorty Spivak,
guy I'd ever met. [moved to New York and l started to realize Of Grammatology
that Peter just dídn't understand it very well. [ didn't think (Baltimore: Janhns Hapkins
University Press, 1976l.
[ understood it very well. [ wasn't even sure it was possible
to understand it very well. The first person [ actually know 4 • JACOUESDERRIDA,
that really got it, in architecture, and that Jacques always said t'écriture et la différence
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil,
was the person who understood it best. was Mark Wigley. 1967), trans .• Alan Bass,
Later on Jacques and [ became good fríends. we had kind of wruing and Difference
a mutual admiration for each other, but [ don't think he ever (Landan and Henley:
Rautledge and Kegan Paul,
actually believed that [ grasped his work very well. Whereas
1978l.
someone Iike Mark, [ thínk, and then later maybe Catherine
língrahaml - Derrida really respected their insight into his work.
But Mark wasn't around at that time. He hadn't come yet.
If there's going to be a question of post-theory. ít's going to be
an understanding that architectural theory, however much
interested it is in other theoretical and art practíces. in philosophy
it cannot apply to another theory. It's going to have to ínternally
generate its own theoretícal díscourse, and [ suppose post-
theory, in my understandíng, actually means post-applied
poststructuralist theory. In other words, there was a period of
naíveté, where we thought we might be able to read a certain
kind of philosophy, whether it was Deleuze or any other, and
then act in architecture according to ít, as if we were somehow
going to realize or iIIustrate it. That was really a naive idea.
MM: But neither the Architectural Strategies group nor you ever
really wanted to illustrate poststructuralísm, did yo u?
JK: No, no. But we definitely thought we were somehow going
to change architecture through its energy.

MM: Well, and ... dídn't it change?
JK: Well, architecture changed ... but 1think architecture changed
beca use of the climate changes, not just because of the sun,
or the economy.
MM: But maybe also because of certain ideas, projects and
built work ...
]K: Yeah, but for example, all the work that we were thrilled
to believe had come out of that sort of stuff ... later on Mary
McLeod wrote an essay called »Archltecture and Politics
• MARY McLEOO, 5 in the Reagan Era. « 5 --------------------------------------------------------
'Architecture and It was a very interesting piece, and she in a traditional old left
Politics in Reagan Era:
From Postmodernism
Marxist position looks at the system of the commodification
to Deconstructivism,' of so-called avant-garde practices by corporate capital, which
Assemblage 8 was just dislegitimate. It wasn't very sobering because at
(1989): 22-59.
that point in time 1had just decided that there just wasn't
going to be such a thing as a poststructuralist architecture
unless it generated its own poststructuralist argument.
And, you know, what structuralism was in architecture was
not even well understood. It could have been anything from
Ungers, to people trying to do semiotics in architecture.
It wasn't clear, actually. 1think there was more enthusiasm
than rigor at the time.
MM: In your text on Steven Holls' work, 6 -------------------------------------
• JEFFREY KIPNIS, 6 you mentíon roughly three approaches in which architecture can
Stone & Feather: Steven say something about the world: A. intellectual (contemplatíve
Holl Architects /
Netson-Atkins
and conscíous), B. social (communicating through architectural
Museum Expansion institutions) and C. phenomenological (or maybe phenomenal:
(New York: Prestel blending perceptions that communicate simultaneously through
Publishing, 2007) sensatíons, intuition and comprehension to produce our place
in the world), Oid architectural history develop only these three
ways? In another words is architecture an object between other
objects in this world which we can grasp in explanatíons. in lived
experience and in operation/use, or does it also create and require
some other approach unlike any other creative work?
]K: Well, that's a really complicated question. The answer goes
something like this. There are two kinds of autonomies.
387
JK
Let's call the first one the traditional autonomy, in which
only the internal mechanisms of a discipline produce its own
knowledge. Mathematics is oftentimes cited as the perfect
autonomous discipline, and the only reason people find
anything new in mathematics is beca use they stay within
mathematics. 1don't believe that to be true of any discipline,
even mathematics.
1think a better way to think of autonomy is to understand
species in relationship to an ecology. Every species is actually
autonomous from every other species. They can't reproduce
with one another, there are no species in between species,
there are no interdisciplinary animals. In fact, there are no
interdisciplinary forms of matter at all. But every species has to
engage in economic exchanges with every other species. They
communicate either by eating each other, or ... but when one
species eats another species, it doesn't become that species.
It may acquire another set of characteristics temporarily, like
caterpillars can get poisonous by eating poisonous leaves.
but they can't become poisonous by themselves.
My model of autonomy is that model, also these sort
of basic communications within any practice or semiotic,
but communications between practices tend to be something
else. So right now, you're asking me, my current interest ís in
trying to understand disciplinary specificity, and to distinguish
that from medium specificity along these lines. Because all
species within an ecology will evolve, everyone eventually will
become extinct. AlI of the ways that poststructuralism wants to
introduce - indeterminacy, time dependency - to essentially
erase the metaphysical propositions that underwrote disciplines
of disciplines, are things I'm still strongly attracted to.
You have to be careful with analogies. You particularly have to
be careful with biological analogies. But 1think it gives a good
working model about how information is communicated. And
basically, if 1communicate information to a fly, by the time
the fly understands ít, ít's fly information. So, you know,
ít's working well for me; 1think I'm making some progress
in trying to distinguish [Clernent] Greenberg's arguments from
disciplinary specificity.

In a certain way it means that architecture has certain qualities
that no other discipline has, but that's because every discipline
has certain qualities and operations and effects that no other
discipline has. So if I said there was something unique about
architecture, ít's only because I believe there's something
unique about every species or practice, in its own way.
There's nothing special about architecture.
MM: In 1991 in' »Twísting the Separatrix« you also wrote that
"Arcbitecture is a major test fot deconstruction preciseiy
because it is a scene of the propet, a scene of stability unlíke
any other - ptiysical, aesthetic, historie, economic, social,
• JEFFREYKIPNIS, 7 and political" 7 -----------------------------------------------------------------
'Twisting the Separatrix,s What are the results of architectural tests of deconstruction
AssembLage 14
(1992): 30-61.
today?
JK: Well, I still think that's probably true -Iaw and architecture
are the two major tests.
I think the result for me was that it made me understand
deconstruction better. As opposed to thinking it meant
something for architecture, it gave me more insight into
what the conclusions of deconstruction were, in the sense
that, as I said, I thought it would go something like this:
if deconstruction passed the test, it would be able to
fundamentally interrupt archítecture's allegiance to power,
which is what I kind of thought it meant.
I now realize that what deconstruction is basically saying is
that every time you destabilize one power relationship, you
basically reenact another one. An old formula which is worth
remembering is that the copy constructs the original as the
original. But I then learned that it doesn't mea n that the original
quits being the original. I would think that the test was passed,
with results that were disappointing to a naive expectation,
but much more enlightening to a more mature expectation.
MM: Well, is contemporary architecture still a scene of some notion
of the timeless aura which never disappears, as Peter Eisenman
puts it? For example, when you state: "Ttiere is something
magical about architecture" in relation to Steven Holl's
389
JK
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art extension, is this magic
of architecture also auratic in any way?
]K: The introduction to Peter Eisenman's book of writings that
I wrote - ít's called "Act 11" 8 -------------------------------------------. 8 • JEffREY KIPNIS, 'Act 11,'
- also answers that question. We have to understand that in Written into the Void:
SeLectedWritings
if we think aura is going to mean the aura like aura used to 1990,2004, eo. PETER
mean, then, no. So, magical is a better word. It's not mystical. EISENMAN (New Haven:
It's magical. It's magic that that light [poincs to the nearby Lamp] Yale University Press,
turns on, but it's not mysterious. 2007), vi-xxx.
So, in that book introduction I become interested in the fact
that for every metaphor there' s some discipline in which
it seems to be proper. So someone might speak of architectural
metaphors, but the notion of the metaphor is proper to writing.
And then it becomes a metaphor of a metaphor in every other
discipline. This doesn't mean, as we all know, that writing is
somehow better to distinguish between what's real and what's
metaphor, but somehow there's a propriety.
And in the same way, I think of stuff like home, or place, which
seem to be proper to architecture, but which are also as subject
to deconstruction as they ever were. Nevertheless, the discipline
seems to be able to always take advantage of that magical
effect, even if ít's not real, and every place else that tries to use
it becomes metaphor. This is what Mark Wigley did, basically,
by tracing the metaphors of architecture. 9 ---------------------------- 9 • MARK WIGlEY,
And then you start to think that every discipline in some ways TheArchitecture
of Deconstruction:
produces its own proper terms, and borrows metaphors. Derrida's Haunt
(Cambridge, MA:
Mark Wigley wrote a great book called White Walls. 10 ----------- MIT Press, 1993),
I think Mark is one of the smartest guys in the field. Good
friend - at one time he was my best friend - and like 10 • MARK WIGlEY, White
anybody else, I read this book, I thought it was really WaLLs,Designa Dresses:
The Fashioning of
good, and I thought, well, I have to do better. I don't agree Modern Archilecture
with Mark. And it was clear that the structure of the book (Cambridge, MA:
was to devolve architecture into applied psychoanalysis MIT Press, 2001),
or applied Marxist theory.
So I thought what we need is a theory of architectural effects
that are irreducible and irreproducible by other disciplines,

. but are not phenomenologicaL And so the whole discourse
of architectural effects was really started partly to defeat Mark
Wigley because he's my friend. But basically to say that there's
no master discourse doesn't mean that each discourse might
not ha ve a minor mastery in a certain domain. And 1 just
thought, that's why the tension turned very quickly away
from a whole semiotic set of productions to issues like effects,
and once you're in effects, then you're in affect So every'
discipline produces a repertoire of effects by which we identify
it as a discipline. So it became a really easy tool to shift,
1 thought, the center of the discourse in a way that protected
architecture's autonomy without naively claiming something
magic, something metaphysical about ít.
MM: If the metaphysics of architecture is questioned, how does
something like mastership or perfection operate in architecture?
In your exhibition and catalogue of drawings Perfect Acts
• JEFFREY KIPNIS, 11 cf Architecture 11 --~-----------------------------------------------------------
Perfect Acts
you address some contemporary architecture drawings as
cf Architecture
(New York:
"perfect" acts of architecture after metaphysics. In what
MoMA Press, 2001). sense do these drawings operate as perfect? Is there still
a transcendental Idea of perfection they refer to? Or would you
say they operate analogically to your aphorism on "metaptiysics
without trcnsceruietüolity - that truth is real but does not
• JEFFREY KIPNIS, 12 exist . , , "? 12 --------------------------------------------------------------------
In The Manor
Do they address perfection or truth, which is "actual" or "virtual"
of Nietzsche
(New York: Calluna
but nonexistent?
Farms Press, 1990).
JK: Well, that'd be great. , . An important answer is that a huge
amount of the canon of architecture is on unbuílt work and
absolutely crucial to shaping the discourse, whether ít's
Bibliothéque National [by Étienne-Louis Boulléel or The Nolli Map
of Rome. Basically, these are not representations of something
that's going to be realized, and in fact they're so powerful that
they work even more strongly in the discipline than buildings
do. So, on the one hand you have to protect the status of
the building, On the other hand, you ha ve to de-valorize it as
the metaphysical apotheosis, as the reason we do architecture.
So 1call those perfect acts of architecture beca use basically
an act of architecture for me is not the effect of a building
* [Eo. NOTE: This project was designed by Thom Mayne and Andrew Zago (Morphosis Architects) in 1987. The building was
completed in 1992. Selected architectural drawings (1990) are now in the MoMA Architecture Collections in New vork.l
391
JK
on a constituency, but the effect of a work of architecture
on its audience. And so, therefore, part of the whole species
argument is that we don't actually serve constituencies.
An architectural effect is an effect consumed by an audience
for architecture, not by a general publico And you know,
ít's like theatre, or poetry or music or physics or mathematics.
It's a highly specialized bohemian demimonde, for whom
the effects are exaggerated. And ít's for them that people try
to produce those effects. And then every other relationship
is kind of after-the-fact collateral excess.
And for me that' s an important modeL 1 definitely think
the first step back in that period of time, the step towards
a non-humanist definition of architecture, is formalism's
argument, The real idea, 1also think, was to argue that
the best way to serve a constituency is to absolutely ignore
ít. You know the worst damage you can do is try to idealize
it, no matter how romantically, and then serve it. So you're
better off finding out ... you're simply increasing the catalogue
of power, and then letting the other forces select and then
deselect what's desirable, what at any point in time is
considered to be beneficiaL
So 1 thought, when architects saw those exhibited drawings,
they realized another power of architecture that belonged to
architecture. Basically, it dídn't matter if they ever got built
or not, In fact, The Sixth Street House * got built, and people
don't know it. You know, it doesn't matter. House VI ** got
built; there's a book about it and all this stuff. The architecture
exists in the drawings; it doesn't exist in the building. Actually,
Villa Rotonda is the first, in my opinion, the first conceptual
work of architecture, beca use all of the architecture and all
of its effects are in the drawing. You know, the building is sort
oí silly. Why do you have four front doors and no back doors?
For what reason?
MM: Well, four similar doors may form one exterior labyrinthine
element leading into and out of interior central space in the
ideally ordered square/cross scheme of the villa. Palladio also
started our debates on Mannerism ...
** [Eo. NOTE: The Frank Residence was designed by Peter Eisenman, project in 1972-1973, completed in 1976, Cornwall, CT.]
 393

JK: Well, there's no question about that, but Palladio wasn't
setting out to be a mannerist. You know, what you're saying -
is a hístorían's answer in retrospect. Palladio was just doing
something-
MM: ... something confusing, even monstrous in an ideal order?
Is something that confuses both pure rationality and irrationality
an answer only in retrospect?
JK
in ít, doesn't exist. No one ever noticed. So many quotes,
Ho Chi Minh, Rachmaninov ... ít's just as ridiculous as you
can get. It has a theory called pheromonal translunacy ...
So you know, 1 tried. And 1 was always amazed. 1 thought it was
funny. 1 thought you could read the argument, and the argument
holds up very well, and you can look at the architecture and see
it. It's utterly ridiculous. But nobody thought it was ridiculous.
So, 1 don't know how to answer your question.

JK: Well ... I don't know. Actually, to this day I can't figure out MM: That is the answer. Apart from writing, you also collaborated
why he did it. He made some changes to it. But nevertheless, on projects with Jesse Raiser and Nanako Umemoto (RUR
you see the drawing and the drawing is perfect. And when Archítects). Greg Lynn. Bahram Shirdel and other architects.
you visit it, you're really measuring it against the drawing. What kind of collaboration was it?
So the drawing is the perfect statement of the architecture.
It's nothing more than that. JK: It was different with each of them. When I worked with
Bahram and Andrew [Zagal, their work was really important
Originally I had another name and someone said they dídn't to me, and it was really different from the work with Peter
like the name. So I said okay, let' s just call it Perfect Acts of Eisenman. The first person I collaborated with was Peter and
Architecture. I dídn't have a theory of perfects. It carne from basically everybody worked in his office on design projects.
an argument between me and Rick Scofidio about whether The first project where I think I had an effect on Peter was
it was possible to make a perfect cup of coffee. Moving Arrows [Moving Arrows, Eras and Other Errors, project lar Venice
Biennale. 1985]. Basically, I picked up his idea of introducing
"For my port. 13
1 have grown bored / MM: Let's come back to your aphorisms. You seemed to grow certain quotational elements, and tried to go with that.
with philosophy's
discovery of a /
bored with what you called the new power which philosophy
gained with "hyptienating" and "misspetling" in the 1990s. Most people - I think ít's important that I understand
new power gained
thraugh ttyptien- / Instead you wanted to give a chance to "iiyphemating" and it - consider this the worst period of his work - the whole
ating and misspelling. "misstiaping" 13 ----------------------------------------------------------------
scaling period, when I was there. But then I met Bahram,
It is interest- /
architecture. How did you give these proposed concepts a chance and his work was something really different. And I got really
ing and necessary. attracted to ít, had some ideas about ways to work with it. In that
But insufficient. / in your texts and designs? Did you also find them operating
1say letus in the work of your colleagues? collaboration it had to do with defining for Bahram and Andrew
take chance of / what I thought they were doing, so basically making it very
hyphemating
JK: Well, my work, finally, is writing. I like to write about art. and precise, and then coming up with some ideas of how it should
and misshaping."
I like to write about architecture. I don't know how to tell a story . evolve: the sectional object, and weak form, and near-figure.
• JEFFREY KIPNIS,
aphorism No. 30, So, in the end. when you tal k about my work ... some people
in In The Manar
think of me, probably most accurately, as someone whose job With Greg it was different, and with Jesse it was sort of silly;
of Nietzsche it was sort of listing possible effects. We were trying to figure
(New York: Calluna is a teacher. l've also tried to practice and stuff like that.
Farms Press, 1990),
out how to design the changes of the patterns of the surface
In the end the thing I like to say I do is write. So I have of the water when wind blows. So the Water Garden ••
tried to do some oí that stuff. 1 wrote a piece called evolved. I thought about some effects we might be able to
• JEFFREY KIPNIS, 'P-Tr's 14 )}P-Tr's Progre ss. « 14 ---------------------------------------------------------- produce, and Jesse and Nanako sat around and tried to figure
Progress.s in Eleven The entire thing is made up. Every word in ít, every quote out how to produce them.
Authors in Search of
aBuilding: The Aronoff •• lEo. NOTE: Water Gardenfor Jef] Kipnis was designed by Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto in collaboration with Jeff
Center for Design and Kipnis and David Ruy in 1997.lt was built in Ohio the same year.]
Art at the Untversity
of Cinéinnati,

1like working with designers. 1don't really have any skill at
it. It's fun. Like Wittgenstein - he liked to work with string -
quartets; he liked to consult with them about their playing.
1don't know if they got any better or not.
MM: In relation to all these ways of collaberatíng, how do you
understand your own critical practices? Are you a critic?
JK: Yeah. 1think there's a difference between a theorist and
a critico One thing I'rn definitely not is a scholar. Another thing
I'm definitely not is a historian. That only leaves theory and
criticismo An architecture critic is not the same as a book critie.
There's no point in criticizing a building, What are they going
to do, go tear it down? Or people aren't going to go visit it?
Plus there's so much crap built.
So basically my role as a critic 1think of as if I'rn a performer
of very difficult new music. So let's saya piece of music gets
written, and then someone like David Tudor comes in and gives
its first performance. That's how 1view my role as a critic, you
know; not value judgment, but simply taking something that
seems obscure and counter-intuitive and even undesirable, and
seeing if 1can explain or bring it alive - why anybody would
do it and why it's worth doing it. So ít's partly teaching.
Theory is mostly about looking at the accumulations, trying
to identify certain areas of the practice that are clichés, and
suggesting that we might investigate how to break them.
And 1think cliché-breaking is incredibly interesting because
you break a cliché, and twenty years later the way you
See • ROBERT SOMOl, 15 broke the cliché becomes a cliché. So there's no end to it.
•The Diagrams 01
Matter,' ANY23 (1998),
And there's no Marxist or Heideggerian unfolding of a truth.
23-26. See also So, you just constantly make sure that you're not self-satisfied.
• ROBERT SOMOl, For example, Bob Somol is a big influence on me, 1think
.Dummy Text, or the
the world of him, but, you know, simply to raise the issue
Diagrammatic Basis
about indexical work 15 ---------------------------------------- _ time, ít's easy to do,
01 Contemporary
Architecture,« having become a cliché of intellectual practice was
in: Diagram Diaries, a profoundly important thing. And then also to turn around
ed. PETER EISENMAN
and say look, the reason we're not beating The New Urbanists
(London: Thames &
Hudson, 1999), 7-25.
is we're not recognizing the fact that they actually did some
smart things. 1think of Bob as a consummate cliché-breaker.
395
JK
So, as a theorist, 1think my model of architectural theory is
basically to pay attention to where particularly something
began as a form of cliché-breaking and has now become
a cliché, and trying to write the map out. So ít's really different.
It's not how to do anything, but ít's why to do something
different. And then criticism is once somebody's trying to do ít,
seeing if you can say whether it worked or not.
For example, look at the lCA [Institute of Contemporary Art] building
in Boston by Liz DilIer and Rick Scofidio, and compare
it to Zaha Hadid' s building of the museum in Cincinnati.
As a single-surface museum Zaha's is much more radical.
So when Rick and Liz put the galleries up on the top. in a kind
of an Acropolis, it seems like ít's reactionary. It seems like
they're essentially re-establishing a certain cliché, But then
they put the lenticular wall up there, and that actually adds
and interrupts it. So simply to point that out, to look at the
work with that kind of close attention and subtle apprecíatíon.
that's what 1think criticism ís, that's what 1do,
MM: Criticism is often understood as offering a value judgment related
to some model of architecture formulated by the criticoIf you
do not work with any implicit or explicit model of architecture,
do you work with some dynamic, tested methods and intuitions?
JK: Yes. But you mean. do 1consciously do that? As if 1apply
a formula? No.
MM: No, Do you test your íntuítíons. concepts, critical practíces.
in and by actual architecture?
JK: Well, one thing 1do is 1keep up with work. Well, that's a little
like being a rock and roll critico It seems silly to know every
song that's been written in the last thirty years. and it seems
silly to know every building. 1just like that; it happens in real
MM: Yeah, but if you say that some work of architecture ís,
le1's say, a cliché, or ít's reactionary or not. you refer to your
understanding oí certain terms and concepts. You also íormulate
categories, their relations, contexts, etc.

JK: Yeah but, if you watch a lot of horror movies, there was
a period of time when they dídn't know how to make anything
scary. Then something happened. And what would happen
is the bad guy, or the bad woman, would get killed at the end
of the movie in a horrible way, and then as the credits would
come down, that person would come báck. And it would share
the shit out of everybody, you know. And so for six years, there
were probably three dozen movies like Die Hard [1988], where
you think the bad guy's dead, and then you think the movíe's
over, and then all of sudden the bad guy comes back, traps the
person, and there's another ending. Then that became a cliché.
Now, in order to even care about that, you have to see all those
movies. Like, if you only see one of those things, it doesn't
do any good for somebody to say that's a cliché or that's not
a cliché. You have to be in the audience in the sense that you
have to see all those movies and you have to care about their
relationship to one another. So 1have, 1don't know, 120 single-
surface buildings in my collection. 1have probably 60 faceted
towers. So if you have a record collection, and you have
everything that, 1don't know, the Rolling Stones did, and all
the way up to and including Out of Our Heads [1965], then the
kinds of relationship, the intimacy you have, what's a cliché,
what's not a cliché, and when was it fresh and when was it not
fresh, is really different than a casual or a journalistic observer,
which means people that are interested in what you've got
to say are the people that are doing that.
MM: Okay. You built up your collections and got your expertise.
Doesn't criticism involve also some questioning of what
architecture is, what it was and will be, or even might be?
JK: 1don't know. Look. You see somebody like Ken Frampton
who had a theory, a very interesting theory, about
synthesizing Heidegger and Marx. And it made good sense;
it also was perfect for architecture beca use architecture was
both a global economic practice and a local material practice.
And so it seemed like the perfect place to do that; it seemed
like a great idea. And then he was unable to do it. Then
he decided to not admit he was unable to do it. And so for
me the failure was really interesting and really important.
397
JK
It didn't say anything bad about Ken, it said something really
important about the field.
That's why 1avoid the question "do 1have a kind of personal
master discourse." 1keep up with a certain group of people
like Winnie [Maas[ and Jesse [Reiser[ very closely. Then 1follow
younger practices, but 1don't follow them in the same way.
1follow them much more grandfatherly. 1don't imagine
1actually know what's going on in them, or why other people
are doing it, but ít's fun to talk about. So when 1see Jesse's
work, or Winnie's, 1feel completely expert to comment on it.
When 1see something like Florencia Píta's work, or stuff like
that, ít's interesting to say what 1think, but 1don't imagine
1have anything like the insight, because 1don't have any
existential connection to it.
But unlike Ken, who gets bitter about that, 1actually think
that ít's really interesting, because, essentially, I'm already
a cliché. Not just me, but my way of approaching a problem.
So 1can't read Metropolis. The quality of commentary today
is so useless to me. 1just entertain myself. 1think the emerging
cartoonizoiioti of the world in architecture is incredibly
interesting. 1have my cartoan collection - what 1mean by that
is buildings that look like cartoons. There's hundreds of them by
surprise, like Doug Garofalo's single-surface house that looks Iike
The Jetsons, you know? Or even WiIlAlsop's building.
This ís, to me, extremely interesting. It's theoretically
interesting because there's a migration of interest by architects
from all over the world that aren't in communication with each
other; they're starting to become attracted to it. It's important,
when the single-surface problem in fifteen years goes all
over the world, and is done by people that never met each
other, never studied with each other. And no one actually
knows what it does. There's still not a really good theoretical
understanding of why people were attracted to it.
As a theorist I'rn extremely interested in that. So the first thing
is to take note of that, and acknowledge it. And the second
thing is to try not to master it. You don't want to try to master
it; that ends it. That kills it. You want to try to participate in it.

MM: Is it that theorizing by critique or criticism you mentioned
in your text »On Critícísm- published in Harvard Design
• JEFFREY KIPNIS, 'On 16 Magazine, 16 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Criticism,« Hatvard
where you reviewed Rafael Moneo's anthology and also briefly
Design Magazine 23
(2005) 96-104.
touched on the problem of valuing theory above or over
criticism?
JK: Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm talking about.
MM: Along with journal and catalogue texts you also wrote
monographs on architects (for example, Johnson), and
monographs on buildings (for example, the aforementioned
Holl's museum extensión). as well as a book of the
aforementioned aphorisms. Philip Johnson, in his foreword
to the aphorisms book, says on theory: "Kipnis'form,
• KIPNIS. [n.12] 17 the aphorism, fits practice." 17 ---------------------------------------------
.What design practice fits the theory written in the form
of aphorism?
JK: Nietzsche wrote aphorisms. Philip loved Nietzsche. And what
he liked about it was that you dídn't really have to understand
everything, you just had to say you could think, and it dídn't
matter if you knew how it fitted to a huge body of his work.
It was like a brick. You dídn't have to know the whole house,
but you could like the brick. And for him that was useful.
He dídn't really think leven knew what I was talking about
particularly, But every once in a while you' d write something,
and it would hit a chord with him. And for him that' s how
theory should be, you know, just a way to stimulate him
as a kind of cup of coffee without requiring him to enter into
a sober relationship with understanding. Actually, I prefer
that myself. Philip was really ínterestíng. I think we miss him.
We completely underestimated him as an architect. I expected
by now most of his work to have subsided, and actually, when
you look at it more, it becomes more and more interesting.
MM: You also wrote about Derrída's texts, interpreting them
as labyrinthine writing.
JK: Yeah, that was the key moment for me, when I wanted
the architecture to be simple.
399
JK
MM: lsn't the labyrinthine quality of Derrida's writing true for your
way of writing as well? Aren't your texts some kind of "thírd
writing"? Aphoristic, subversive and bastardized, in a way?
JK: It used to be. Most people say I'm clear, that ít's easy
to read. But I don't write as well as I'd like to. It's not
very creative writing.
MM: Why do you think so? Wha1's creative writing on
architecture, then?
JK: Well, I don't know. If you read Bob [So mal] ... or Reyner
Banham - he just writes well. I think it takes some work to
read my wrítíng. I wish it dídn't. I don't mean it to take work.
By the time I'm reading ít. ít's easy for me. People tell me
that they really like ít, but they have to actually sit down and
concentrate really hard to read ít, not beca use the ideas are
unusual. but beca use the way I unfold the ideas, the rhetoric,
is unusual.
MM: You don't only have to concentrate on it; ít's also a sort
of game - the playful battle, provocation ...
JK: Yeah, I hope so. I put a lot more humor in it than people see.
MM: How do you write?
JK: Oh, ít's horrible, It's one of the greatest pleasures you can have;
it' s
also one of the worst nightmares. 11's just so hard to do.
You eat, and you pace, and you want to run away ... and it
never goes away, you know. To be a really good writer - and
¡'ve done this before, I've gone a couple years where I wrote
every day, and I've gone a couple years where I haven't written
anything, because I'd just freak out. I've been teaching a lot
for the last year and a half, so I haven't written anything
of any significance in a little more than a year. So I'm actually
seriously trying to get back to work on the Miller House
in Columbus, Indiana by Eero Saarinen [designed and built in 1957].
The way I write is I open a thing. Literally. I call it vomiting.
For a couple of days I write out whatever comes to mind: good,

bad, no editing, but not writing, either. Just notes, notes, notes,
and notes ... and then 1 put a page break in, and then 1 take -
one of those [notes), and 1 bring it down, and 1 write a little bit.
And then 1 mark it, and then 1 erase it. And then 1 take another
one. The goal is to erase all the top, and then end up with
something. And that's just what works for me.
MM: Do you like some genres of writing on architecture?
J.K.: Yeah, 1 do, but 1 can't do them. Actually, 1 keep trying
to invent a way to write - 1 wrote one piece of art criticism
as science fiction.
MM: Which one do you mean?
JK: It's about Fabian Marcacdo's painting, but it's called
• JEffREY KIPNIS, 18 . »Dat.3« 18 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
,Dat.3,' in Fabian
It's about a woman painter seventy years from now who
Marcaccio. Paintont
Stoties, eds. MARTIN admired Fabían's paintings, and her work is all about his
HENTSCHEL
- UDD paintings. So I'm trying to discuss Fabían's paintings by telling
KmELMANN (Cologne: a story of her work, getting ready for her show, etc. 1 really love
Kunstverein, 2002).
it. 1 do also stuff like the »P-Tr'sProgress« where 1 literally try
to make it fictional formo
I'm not a scholar. 1 can say whatever 1 want to sayo So 1 don't
even feellike 1 have to tell the truth; 1 just feellike 1 have
to produce a writerly effect. And if 1 can make you think
of a building, whether ít's true or not, if 1 can get in your head,
and get you to think about something, then I've done my job.
That's how 1 try to do it. Which is why absolutely no Ph.D.
student will pay any attention to me at all, you know.
MM: It would be quite a risky Ph.D. degree.
JK: Because 1 have no respect for them. What are they trying to
prove? There's no scholarship in art, there's no scholarship
in poetry. You can do scholarly work on poetry, but you can't
produce a scholarly poetry.
MM: So in what way did you create the graduate and the post-
graduate programs * at AA in London (1992-1995)?
* lEo. NOTE: Jellrey Kipnis was invited to the AA in London to set up the graduate design studio in 1993-1994. Bahram Shirdel
joined him in 1994. Both 01 them also created the post-gradúate program in 1992. Jeffrey Kipnis directed three programs,
each lasting 16 months. Bahram Shirdel directed the final program in 1995-1996.]
401
JK
]K: 1 taught at Ohio State, 1 taught at Columbia, 1 taught at a lot
of places. It was kind of a crisis. What 1 notice is, if someone' s
talented, they do really well. If they're not, no matter what,
nothing really happens. So 1 thought, there' s really no such
a thing as teaching. You can't actually teach architecture,
because there' s nothing to tea ch.
MM: Well, what and why do we teach, then?
JK: 1 split. Look at those two switch es on that wall, look at that.
They're out there leaning this way [points to the rightJ. And they're
not lined up too. They not only lean. It's really wild.
MM: It really is impossible to teach anything like that.
Is that architecture?
JK: 1 actually set out to see if 1 could produce a theory of pedagogy
and execute it. And so 1 studied the two fields 1 know that had
strong histories of pedagogy, which are music and physics.
And 1 also looked at the places where 1 thought there were
moments of real education in architecture. And it was all
based on the atelier model. 1 thought the American university
model wasn't going to work. But at the same time, the unit
master system in this traditional European approach was too
inflexible. So 1 tried to theorize a kind of apprenticeship. And
that's what 1 did. 1 basically went over there to see if it worked,
and 1 think it worked, and then that was it and 1 quit.
1 was surprised that you actually could teach somebody
something. But it really is an apprentice or atelier system.
So 1 basically looked at Danny's [l.íbeskínd'sl Cranbrook system, *
looked at a place you had to come every day; you weren't
allowed to do your own work. No one was allowed to do
their own projects. You had to come 360 days ayear, 50% of
the class was guaranteed to fail. 1 made it as threatening as
possible. And, you know, some real good, some students carne
out of it. 1 don't really feellike 1 was their teactier, but 1 feel
like the program produced some good results.
I've never felt like Danny, or Peter [Eisenman), the few people who
were really great teachers. Greg [Lynn] is clearly one. There's
** lEo. NOTE: From 1978 to 1985. Daniel Libeskind was director 01 the Cranbrook Academy 01 Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan,
a suburb 01 Detroit.]

50 people out in the world today that you can trace back to as
a real mentor. I'rn not like that. So 1 had to figure out: was tlrere
a pedagogy? Was there some way 1 could take difficult exercises,
break them into small, easy exercises, and teach people to do
them by rote, like a piano teacher does? That's what we did
with students like Michael Hensel (OCEAN),etc.
None of them sound like me, or look like me, or do any .
work like me. For me, that's a great thing. 1 never say I've
had students, 1 always say these people were in my classes,
because 1 don't really feel they're ... like Greg's students are,
even though they're independent and do their own work,
you can clearly trace their relationship to Greg, and you can
clearly trace Greg's relationship to Peter. .
MM: One cannot so clearly trace Sarah Whiting's relationship to Peter
Eisenman' s work; her former relation to Rem Koolhaas' office is
maybe more evident. AIso Robert Somol's and Michael Speaks'
relation to ANYjournal is not so clear anymore. How and why
did the turn from "critica!" to "projectíve" get formulated in the
1990s and later on?
JK: This really had to do with Bob's argument that poststructuralist
theory had turned into a justification for indexical procedures,
and indexical procedures had become interesting only beca use
they were indexical procedures. They had lost their force
to produce a significant critical effect; you know, ít's like
gestural painting.
And Bob Somol said, look, there're certain problems that
we haven't been able to solve, like urbanismo And the
New Urbanists have been able to solve them because
they were able to project a lifestyle. Instead of critiquing
institutions or clichés, the critique had so succeeded that it
had become the worst cliché. So Bob introduced the idea
of the projective - he basically was an anti-Tafurian,
obviously, and tried to pick up Banham's idea. It was a really
smart thing to do. lt required a new kind of rigor. It also meant
the discourse had to be interna!. In other words, you couldn't
justify it beca use Foucault said this or that. You basically said
here are some eftects we can produce; here are some eftects
403
JK
we need to produce. And then you had to do that. Did you see
Vis [ot Vendetta 120061?
MM: No, 1 did not see it.
JK: It's a funny movie; they blow up the Parliament in order to
overturn an evil government. The movie ends with everybody
happy because they blow up Big Ben. What's really interesting
is the movie ends because they've destroyed something,
but there's nothing in the movie about what they're now
going to build. So somebody has to come up with something
to build there, because there's still going to be a government,
and it's not about forming a new government - they actually
have to build a new building. But the movie ends without that
problem being solved. And 1 think that's where Bob and Sarah
have really tried to say look, it's more science fiction, or it's
what Bob calls »Polí-Fí.« 19 ------------------------------------------------ 19 • ROBERT SOMOL,
.Poli·Fi,' Joumolfot
political fiction now. And if that's what people mean by post- Architectural Educatian,
theory, then I'm on board. 62 (2009): 32-33.
MM: But in your article »Is Resistance Futíle?« 20 --------------------------- 20 • JEFREY KIPNIS,
'Is Resistance Futile?«,
you also thought of a new subversion or resistance in post- Lag 5 (2005): 105-109.
critical architecture: "new affects as resistance," or an
architecture which "moves directly to affects" while it aims
to evade emotions and understanding. lsn't it also a turn
in a notion of resistance? How does this affective resistance
address the profession?
JK: Have you ever see any Michael Haneke films? They're
horrifying. But nothing you see on the screen is horrifying. You
think you know what's happening, you hear stuff oíf-screen, so
the whole time you're caught up in a traditional narrative, and
that narrative is so horrible. Then at a certain point in time,
you realize there's no narrative at al!. There's nobody getting
hurt off-screen. So the emotion goes away, and you're left with
this disturbed affect, which is essentially an intuition of a new
way of feeling like you exist in the world. So 1 don't think it's
resistant, but 1 definitely think ít's a kind of affect of resistance.
In other words, you've removed all the judgment, and you've
removed all the narrative, and al! you're left with is a kind
of disturbance, a kínd oí affective disturbance, or affective

MM:
MM:
• SYLVIA LAVIN, 21
'The Return 01 Nature:
Organicism Contra
Ornamente (webcast 01
symposium discussion
produced by the Harvard
University Graduate
MM:
School 01 Design,
September 16th 2009,
http://www.gsd.harvard.
edu/events/webcastsl) . consume. And that's why Sylvía's also arguing that flash
• GILLES DELEUZE, 22
Francis Bacon:
The Iogic of Sensation
(London, New York:
Continuum, 2003).
awakening. And that becomes a project for counter-intuitive
speculative work, which ísn't either modeled on curating
lifestyles or critiques of institutions.
Mmm-hmm. In the middle of September, Sylvia Lavin discussed
"the return" of ornament at the Harvard Graduate School
of Design (GSD)symposium.
JK: Oh yeah. she was furious about that.
YesoIn a way one can understand why. but in the discussion
she raised, 1 thínk, a much more interesting question than
that of an actual or possible return of anything we know as
an ornament. She mentioned the problem oí architecture
with "ttie strongfigure yet not representationally closed nor
symbolically specific ... highly offective work which enters
perception without entering memory and language ... " 21 -----
This is probably quite close to what you are talking about now ...
JK: She did a much betterjob.
This question of how we are affected by fine art and
architectural works entering our perception "dírectly" seems
to be in discussion again now. What do you think of it?
JK: AII of that comes from Deleuze's book on Bacon. 22 ---------------
Deleuze makes an argument about pure ethic but no emotions.
Now, when you say mernory, you know, there's something
called affective memory - comes out oí method acting.
It doesn't mean there's no memory or no thoughts. A theory
oí affects starts in Freud as two things. He realized you could
have a dream, and the representations oí the dream could look
like they should feel one way, but then you feel a different
way. So the dream might be happy images, but you feel really
afraid. Or it might be really horriíying images and you might
íeel erotíc, or whatever. So he realized that there was a pre-
critical excítatíon. pre-intellectual excitation, which then had
two paths. And both paths were cultural. One was semiotic,
and the other was affected by semiotics, but wasn't semiotic.
AII 1thought of it was that the discourse on affect was to
complete the semiotic project, not to oppose it.
405
JK
So, let's put it this way. Every human being can become
afraíd, but 1can't make you afraíd unless 1know something
about you and your culture. 1can hold a gun up to you,
and if you're one person you might laugh. and if you're
somebody else - it depends. So the knowledge and memory
have to be there. But they're not the thing that's producing
the affect. It's fairly close to Sítuatíonísts' work. So there's
no such thing as a purely affective architecture, beca use that
would be an oxymoron.
There is Cesar Pellí' s new building called the [ira Centre
[completed 2005) in Philadelphia, the one kind oí looking like
an icicle building. When those buildings first carne out,
they made people really disturbed. No one could say why.
Now they've become a style. It's very interesting. The one
aspect of this work is ít's gonna be easily consumed and
short-lived. Peter [Eisenrnan] is always interested in a kind
oí resistance that can't be consumed. So he identifies two
kinds oí resistance - like Frank Gehry produces a kind of
resistance - but then it becomes easily consumed, whereas
he thinks oí Le Corb as producing a kind oí resistance that was
never actually consumed. And 1think that's really interesting.
Let's say counter-intuitive affect will always be easy to
in the pan 23 ------------------------------------------------------------------- 23 • SYLVIA LAVIN'S
short-lived phenomena are just as important as long-lived . lorthcoming book is
entitled The Flash in
So when you ask me about a timelessness ... 1hope not. the Pan and Other
Forms of Architectural
MM: No. But as you yourself asked in one oí your aphorísms, Contemporaneity
where are we now?
JK: This is going to be just completely stupid. Look at this headline.
This is today's paper [November 12,2009 The New York Times). This is so
funny: "World tries to buck up dollar. Basically it says "World
n
tries to save the dollar," right? And wait. who's trying to do it?
It's Indonesía, Thaíland, South Korea. China, the Philippines.
It's not Russía, England, France ... we're íucked.