Blurred Architecture
Duration and performance in the work
of Diller Scofidio + Renfro
RACHEL HANN
For architect Juhani Pallasmaa, architecture is
both a measure and a reminder of the passing
and event of time.
Architecture emancipates us from the embrace of
the present and allows us to experience the slow,
healing flow of time.… [Buildings] enable us to
see and understand the passing of history, and to
participate in time cycles that surpass individual
life. (Pallasmaa 2005: 52)
Within theatrical terms, Peter Brook and
Jean-Guy Lecat’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
(1974) is indicative of Pallasmaa’s proposition.
In this old Parisian music hall, time is
presented as a tangible entity as the decaying
architectural skin of the theatre space is a sign
and a consequence of past action. However,
the emancipation to which Pallasmaa alludes
is predicated on the notion that architecture
PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17·5 : pp.9-18
http: //dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2012.728434
remains: that architecture is a changing but
stable fixture within the production and
reception of space. Blur (2002), or Blur Building,
by the interdisciplinary design studio Diller
Scofidio + Renfro, challenges the dialectics
of architecture and permanence and, in turn,
questions the distinction between architecture
and performance. Designed for the Swiss Expo
on Lake Neuchâtel, Blur was composed of a steel
platform and the indigenous material of the
site: water. Pumped through high-pressure
mist nozzles to create a cloud formation,
the result was a temporary structure that
shifted and altered its structure in response
to its immediate surroundings: from bodies
to weather. Now joined by fellow architect
Charles Renfro, Blur is a continuation of the
spatial ecology, or spatial program, of the
earlier installation and performance work by
ISSN 1352-8165 print/1469-9990 online 9
© 2012 TAYLOR & FRANCIS

1
This reciprocal
relationship between
event and architecture,
action and form, body and
space, extends to the first
structures of early
humans. The Roman
scholar Vitruvius (c.
80–70BCE–15BCE)
identified an alliance
between the emergence of
architecture and the
origins of language.
Vitruvius suggests that the
shared space of the first
constructed environments,
such as a fallen tree placed
within a certain locale
(social space), provoked
early humans to gather in
larger groups and thereby
necessitated the need for
common codes of
expression and
identification.
10
Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio from
1979 to 2002, then known as Diller + Scofidio,
and their focus on the indigenous materials
of the site or ‘situation’ of architecture. ‘Site
for us means “situation”,’ Diller explains; ‘[o]
ur work has always looked at space through
a thick perception’ (cited in Incerti et al.
2007: 52). Unlike Pallasmaa’s depiction, Blur
underlines the occurrence of time through
its continuously shifting structure and
ephemeral state, for: ‘BLUR is not a building,
BLUR is a pure atmosphere, water particles
suspended in mid-air. The fog is a dynamic,
phantom mass, which changes form constantly’
(Diller and Scofidio 2002: 325). The use
of water to create an explicitly durational
architecture is representative of Diller
Scofidio + Renfro’s continuing indifference
towards the conventional boundaries between
architecture and other artistic disciplines. The
foundations of this interdisciplinary approach
remain evident within their latest large-scale
architectural commissions such as the New York
public park High Line (2011) and the Museum of
Image & Sound (2012) in Rio de Janeiro.
The aim of this article is to reflect on how
notions of duration and performance are
evident within the architectural practice of
Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Drawing upon the
artistic principles of their earlier installation
and performance-based work, this article
proposes that projects such as Blur underline
the reciprocal relationships that occur between
architecture and its inhabitants. Framed by
the work of architect Bernard Tschumi, this
discussion begins with a contextual statement
on the theoretical material that informs the
notion of ‘performative architecture’. Evidenced
by the work of modernist practitioners such as
Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965), the doctrine that
architecture is a stable medium is examined
through the contexts of performance and
the principles of time-based art. The second
section is a review of their earlier installation
and performance work as Diller + Scofidio.
This focuses on their approach to the site/
situation of architecture to account for the
social conditions of late twentieth-century
PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17·5 : ON DURATION
culture. Blur is then introduced and framed as
an extension of the design studio’s event-based
artistic philosophy with explicit reference
to the project’s original aims as a media
pavilion. Influenced by the writings of Paul
Virilio, it is proposed that Blur functions as
a response to the mediated landscape of the
early twenty-first century and the increasingly
‘blurred’ distinctions between architecture,
structure and information. Finally, this article
concludes by positioning Blur as an example of
performative architecture.
P er f o r m a t i v e arch i t ec t u re :
S t r u c t u re and ac t i o n
Architect Bernard Tschumi famously stated,
‘there is no architecture without program,
without action, without event’ (Tschumi
1996: 3). Rejecting the modernist dogma of
‘form follows function’, architecture (form) is
a consequence of action (events). But equally
events are also shaped by architecture, or as
Pallasmaa states, the built environment
‘becomes integrated with our self-identity; it
becomes part of our own body and being’
(Pallasmaa 2005: 72).1 Social action is instigated
by structure and structure is activated by social
action. Following this assertion, architecture is
defined by the social transactions that it
supports. Indicative of this analysis are the early
Greek amphitheatres. As sites of performance
and ritual, these social structures were
symptomatic of the reciprocal relationship
between architecture and action, dwelling and
thought; as architect Alberto Pérez-Gómez
reminds us: ‘[The Greek theatron] is both
a space for “contemplation” and a time set out
for “participation,” a space of recognition’
(Pérez-Gómez 2006: 18). However, in his
analysis of the Greek theatron (a place for
viewing) and orchestra (a place for dancing)
Pérez-Gómez reminds us that:
it is here that architecture ‘happens,’ disclosing
an order that is both spatial and temporal: the
‘meaning’ of architecture can never be grasped
through a mere ‘visit’ of an aesthetic object or
a tourist attraction. (Pérez-Gómez 2006: 17–18)
 The process of building and dwelling are
thereby positioned as actions: as durational
events that have consequence on the psyche of
their habitants. If, as Tschumi states, there is
no architecture without event, the embodied
experience of architecture dictates that the
event of architecture constitutes a performance:
a designed event.
To return to Pallasmaa’s positioning of
architecture as a measure of time, his focus on
the durational aspects of our built environments
was a reaction to the history of postmodernism
within architecture. Unlike other disciplines
such as performance, architectural
postmodernism is considered a style that
evokes notions of assemblage and privileges
aesthetic, as opposed to embodied, experiences
of architecture. Moreover, both Pallasmaa and
Tschumi argue that this approach negates the
phenomenological qualities of architecture
and encourages architects to focus on aesthetic
decoration. The practice of architecture thereby
becomes the process of providing a visual ‘skin’
for a steel structure that has more to do with the
language of sculpture than architecture.
This perverted form of history borrowed
from semiotics the ability to ‘read’ layers
of interpretation but reduced architecture
to a system of surface signs at the expense
of the reciprocal, indifferent, or even
conflictive relationship of spaces and events.
(Tschumi 1996: 140)
This focus on visual symbols as a means of
discussing architectural experience is, to the
mind of Tschumi and Pallasmaa, a reductive
approach to architectural criticism and design.
In privileging the aesthetic and cultural
codification, this semiotic approach negates
the physical and psychological influences of
architecture and its status as an embodied
encounter. Nevertheless, within the history
of early twentieth-century performance there
exist some useful examples of individuals who
have traversed these disciplines (of architecture
and performance) to question the architectural
qualities of performance and the embodied
encounter of architecture.
M o dern i s m and per f o r m a t i v e
arch i t ec t u re
From Edward Gordon Craig (1872–1966) and
his moving design for Screens (1910) to the
experiments at the Bauhaus in the 1920s,
modernism is representative of a critical spatial
shift within performance. Accounting for the
change from notions of stage setting and
decoration to kinetic space and scenography,
the designed elements were positioned as
equal components within the lexicon of
performance. Based on the legacy of Craig
and Adolphe Appia (1862–1928), the term
‘scenography’ is taken to be representative of
a spatially orientated approach to the study
HANN : BLURRED ARCHITECTURE 11
 and practice of performance. While this does
not exclude notions of literary text or scenic
mimesis, scenography is concerned with
how the practice of spatial composition and
the fabric of performance constitute active
elements within the construction and reception
of meaning. Indicative of this approach is the
artiste-architecte Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965)
who sought to blur the distinctions between
performance and architecture, scenography
and choreography. Comparable to the Neo-
Plastic paintings of fellow De Stijl member
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), Kiesler’s aim was
to challenge the conventional physical and
psychological barriers embodied within the
inflexible spatial topography of the proscenium
arch. While over his lifetime Kiesler would
conceive a series of different formats for
performance architecture, his unrealized design
for The Endless Theatre (incubation period
1916–26) best articulates his position on the
‘performative’ capacity of architecture.
The completed plans of The Endless were meant
for a capacity of ten thousand people, all in one
double-shell building of ‘cast glass.’ This double
shell would contain the heating and the cooling,
and consisted of an interplay of ramp, platform,
and elevator – an endless showplace throughout
the whole space.… The Endless was a continuous
intertwining of vast ramps which lead into
others at several levels until spectators and
actors practically reach the ceiling. The various
levels connect through three elevators which are
exposed; the elevators are nothing but platforms
that take off from one level to another. The players
and audience can intertwine anywhere in space.
(Kiesler interviewed in Creighton 1961: 110–11)
As evident with the above description,
Kiesler identified motion as being central to
the articulation and reception of space. Within
The Endless Theatre, the various platforms
and structures were to move and oscillate
throughout the space in dialogue with the
performers’ actions. While unrealized, Kiesler’s
intension was to blur the distinction between
architecture and performance to produce an
explicit choreography (to design movement)
of architectural motion. The structure and
reception of the performance within The Endless
12 PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17·5 : ON DURATION
Theatre was to be driven and composed from the
spatial program of the architecture itself. Thus,
architecture is positioned as a compositional,
or dramaturgical, element of performance.
Dramaturge Cathy Turner argues that expanded
notions of dramaturgy, rather than performance,
better represent the performative elements of
architecture as the term ‘dramaturgy’ privileges
the ‘composition’ of events.
‘[D]ramaturgy’ can be used to suggest an
understanding of architecture that includes
the time-based, narrative and lived elements
within it, the folding processes implicit, latent,
resistant or simply possible within its structures.
(Turner 2010: 152)
As with Tschumi’s contention that
architecture is defined by the events it supports,
Turner’s focus on composition implies that
the dissection and experience of architecture
is positioned as a dramaturgical element.
Consequently, Kiesler’s approach offers an
explicit example of architecture as a means of
instigating and sustaining an event: an explicit
example of ‘performative architecture’.
Kiesler’s ‘performative’ approach also
considered the reciprocal interaction between
architecture and its inhabitants. Along with
a continuously moving construction for a 1924
production of Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones,
Kiesler developed a series of architectural
concepts that exploited his conviction that
design and architecture could become ‘a tool
for the control of man’s health’ (Kiesler 1939:
66). Central to Kiesler’s artistic vision was the
belief that we share an implicit connection
with all that surrounds, encloses and channels
us. ‘Correalism’, Kiesler’s term of this tacit
interdependency, was essentially ‘the dynamics
of continual interaction between man and
his natural and technological environments’
(Kiesler 1939: 61). Under this remit and
evidenced by his intentions for The Endless
Theatre, Kiesler’s approach to performance
architecture was as an extension of the action
itself: an active component in the reception,
construction and development of performance.
This dramaturgical reading of architecture was
a core principle of correalism. Architectural
design, for Kiesler, was the opportunity to move
beyond merely defining space or providing
shelter. Instead, the human experience could
be actively improved through a consideration
of the physiological and psychological affect of
architecture. In this regard, Tschumi describes
architectural affect as a ‘violent’ act. Akin to the
writings of Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) and
his usage of the term ‘cruelty’, the ‘violence’
of architecture is ‘a metaphor for the intensity
of a relationship between individuals and
their surroundings’ (Tschumi 1996: 122).
Significantly, Tschumi applies this metaphor
to explain how architecture is an instigator for
action as well as a respondent to it.
Architecture’s violence is fundamental and
unavoidable, for architecture is linked to
events.… This also suggests that actions qualify
spaces as much as space qualify actions; that
space and action are inseparable and that no
proper interpretation of architecture, drawing,
or notation can refuse to consider this fact.
(Tschumi 1996: 122)
Similar to Kiesler’s notion of correalism,
Tschumi argues that the reciprocal relationship
between architecture and its inhabitants
influences the trajectory and reception of both.
‘Entering a building may be a delicate act,’
writes Tschumi, ‘but it violates the balance of
a precisely ordered geometry.… Bodies carve all
sorts of new and unexpected spaces, through
fluid or erratic motions’ (Tschumi 1996: 123).
Architect and performance designer Dorita
Hannah extends this discussion to describe
the ‘performative’ aspects of architecture.
It is her contention that this reciprocal
relationship is indicative of what she describes
as ‘spatial performativity’.
A theory of spatial performativity is one that
insists on exposing the reciprocal relationship
between architecture and its inhabitants where
both are active elements.… [I]t is intensified in
theatre spaces, where every venue contains its
own particularities that influence, shape and
are in turn shaped by the multiple performances
harnessed through the specific spatial program,
the social codes of architectural inhabitation, and
the mise-en-scène of theatrical performance itself.
(Hannah 2007: 42)
However, this would suggest that there
is a distinction between notions of spatial
performativity and performative architecture.
While spatial performativity is concerned with
the mediation of a locale’s spatial and social
distinctiveness, performative architecture
is a time-based art of (inter)action that
accounts for the explicit choreography, or
dramaturgy, of events through durational
architectural intervention. Importantly, while
not all architecture is performative, all spaces
‘perform’. In this regard, the architectural
construct of the barricade represents a useful
example of performative architecture: or more
directly the Journée des Barricades (‘day of the
barricades’) in Paris 1588.
Within a discussion on one-day sculptures,
Hannah reflects on how this revolutionary
protest against King Henry III (1551–1589) of
France led to the spontaneous construction of
street blockades from materials requisitioned
from the immediate area. For if performance
is both action and the consequences of
action, then ‘the barricade – an unstable and
ephemeral architecture, originally built as
a communal act of camaraderie and defiance
– presents a powerfully performative concept’
(Hannah 2009: 108). As a barricade ‘takes place’
in a literal sense, for the temporary nature
of its construction serves to emphasise the
structure’s dual status as both an instigator
of action (in its denial of passage) and as
a consequence of action (a protest). The legacy
of the Journée des Barricades has remained
within the lexicon of French rebellion, with the
1968 May protests being a poignant example.
Cars were over-turned and trees uprooted to
form temporary boarders that both disrupted
civic action and inscribed the protestors’
dissatisfaction upon the physical fabric of Paris.
Central to any critique of these twentieth-
century barricades are the Situationists and
their focus on an art of intervention. Indeed,
the usage of the term ‘situation’ is indicative
of their credo that an interventionist art is also
an ephemeral art. Guy Debord (1931–1994)
summarizes the correlation between the
temporary interventions of the Situationists
HANN : BLURRED ARCHITECTURE 13
 and the structures of performance, or
dramaturgy, when he wrote:
Our situations will be without a future; they will
be places where people are constantly coming
and going.… Undoubtedly we must draw up
blueprints for situations, like scripts, despite
their unavoidable inadequacy at the beginning.
(Debord 1957 cited in Bishop 2006: 99)
Along with the ‘happenings’ of Allan Kaprow
(1927–2006), the contexts and practices of
the Situationists are representative of Diller
Scofidio + Renfro’s approach to the reciprocal
relationship between event and architecture.
The action and social consequences of
architecture are prioritized above aesthetic
structure or visual composition. The
relationship between site and architecture
is akin to the relationship between site and
performance: durational action is inevitably
read through the ‘lived’ narrative of a locale’s
social and political fabric.
D i ller + S c o f i d i o :
S i t es and s i t u a t i o ns
Architects Diller and Scofidio have questioned
conventional approaches to spatial ecology
and architectural affect since the late 1970s.
Influenced by the artistic principles of
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), their aim
is not to extend the processes and practice
of architecture, but rather to examine the
relationship between site and situation
without concern for established definitions
of disciplinary boundaries. While they accept
the label ‘architects’, the diversity and scope
of their early work reveals the underlying
14 PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17·5 : ON DURATION
fluidity of their working practices. The ‘+’
within the studio’s name is symptomatic of
this interdisciplinary focus. As a recurring
graphic feature within their work, this ‘+’ or
‘x’ demarcates the space in-between and the
site itself: ‘x’ marks the spot of action and the
crosshairs of a moving target. As architect
Reinhold Martin writes: ‘And so this moving
target, this “x” or “+”, projects a future by
bringing into view a possible world that cannot
be put in perspective’ (cited in Incerti et al.
2007: 9). In this regard, Duchamp remains
a significant influence. Indeed, as Diller +
Scofidio, their studio produced a series of
projects that were a direct response to the
French artist’s work. The Rotary Notary and
His Hot Plate (A Delay in Glass) (1987) was
a performance based on Duchamp’s The Bride
Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1926) also
known as The Large Glass. The work consisted
of large suspended mirrors that were used to
dissect a stage space akin to the Duchamp’s
usage of glass and division within his original.
However, Diller + Scofidio’s principle interest
in Duchamp is not for his aesthetic choices,
but rather Scofidio has commented that
‘the most important aspect of Duchampian
thinking is the non-retinal.… He invented
the anti-aesthetic’ (Scofidio cited in Incerti
et al. 2007: 55). Unlike the imaginary ‘paper
architecture’ of fellow progressive architects
such as Peter Eisenman working in the late
1970s, Diller + Scofidio were compelled to
formulate their ideas within real operational
scenarios where all the senses were in play. ‘For
us, the challenge wasn’t just to imagine space,’
recalls Diller, ‘it was to produce new problems
in space, to disrupt it. You couldn’t do that
on paper’ (cited in Incerti et al. 2007: 51). As
a consequence of this ‘performative’ approach
and influenced by the Situationists of the
1960s, their initial experiments were a series
of interventions within urban contexts. Traffic
(1981) consisted of 2,500 traffic cones placed
as a regimented grid at Columbus Circle: an
intersection in downtown New York. Lasting 24
hours, the criteria was to utilize the indigenous
materials of the site (in this case, traffic cones)
to connect the divided spaces of the various
islands visually without interrupting the flow
of traffic.
This first collaboration, as Diller + Scofidio,
reveals the design studio’s ongoing sensitivity
to the interrelationships between material
and site. For, within their work, architecture is
a means of examining that which is already ‘in
place’, the social and political inscriptions that
have defined its locale; as Diller writes: ‘We see
space as scripted, not a tabula rasa. Space is
inherited and is always attached to geographies,
histories, and policies’ (cited in Incerti et al.
2007: 51). In Tourisms: Suitcase Studies (1991)
this notion of ‘scripted space’ is examined
through the lens of American tourism and the
connotations of ‘being there’. Performance
scholar Mike Pearson and archaeologist Michael
Shanks describe the immediacy of the site of
past action as being an important factor within
the perceived collapse of present and past
social geographies.
Visuality and movement are the two principle
modes of engagement with the ruined monuments
of ancient landscapes in Britain and northern
Europe. ‘Here people walked and understood the
world in this way’, is the recurrent motif. And
past and present are brought together through
walking and looking under a sensitisation to the
way it may have been felt and thought in the past.
(Pearson and Shanks 2001: 153)
As Pearson and Shanks suggest, the
geography and experience of a site is positioned
as a signifier for the events that once took
place. Tourists are typically invited to imagine
(with the aid of signposts or even performers)
the ‘time’ of the event in question through
the lens of the site itself. Composed of fifty
suitcases with each one representative of
one of the fifty US states, Tourisms: Suitcase
Studies contained token materials and the
detritus from two distinct types of tourism
site: beds and battlefields. While typically
bland and absent of visual iconography, the
last bed of a famous individual or the site of
war is defined and culturally unscripted by
the knowledge of past events. ‘Battlefields are
strong attractions insofar as they directly feed
the tourist’s desire for “aura,” a quality deemed
absent in the mediated world but considered
retrievable in sites of the cultural past’ (Diller
+ Scofidio 1994a: 25). While not to get into
a debate on living histories and the relativism of
politicized histories, Tourisms: Suitcase Studies
is indicative of Diller + Scofidio’s examination
of the complicit relationship between a site and
the events that occur (or have occurred) within
its borders. ‘Site’ within Diller + Scofidio’s work
means ‘situation’: event and social geography
are intrinsically bound. However, the design
studio’s work is also an examination of that
which architecture invites to ‘take place’: the
consequence(s) of architectural experience.
Unlike the monumental architectures
of early modernists such as Le Corbusier
(1887–1965) and Walter Gropius (1883–1969),
Diller + Scofidio challenged the imposition
that architecture is a permanent and objective
exercise. Experiments such as Traffic (1981) in
New York allowed Diller + Scofidio to continually
re-build anew each and every time. Unlike the
permanence of conventional architecture and
abstraction of the imaginary sketches, ‘the
work was ephemeral.… Brevity was key. Like
a Polaroid snapshot, we were able to conceive an
experiment, enact it, learn from its results and
then destroy it. Our practice was a laboratory’
(Scofidio cited in Incerti et al. 2007: 51).
Architecture, for Diller + Scofidio, is a means
of cultural dissection that subverts the spatial
ecology of a site/situation for the purposes of
revealing wider issues of technology and society.
Architecture typically enters into a role of
complicity, to sustain cultural conventions.…
However, architecture can be put into the role of
HANN : BLURRED ARCHITECTURE 15
 interrogator. Given the technological and political
re-configurations of the contemporary body,
spatial conventions may be called into questions
by architecture. Architecture can be used as a kind
of surgical instrument to operate on itself (in
small increments). (Diller and Scofidio 1994b: 9)
Architecture is re-positioned as a tool for
social and political revelation. Significantly,
Diller + Scofidio typically invited this revelation
through the durational aspects of architectural
affect and utilized the ephemerality of this
experience to underline the integrated
relationship between technology and culture,
body and architecture.
B l u r : A n arch i t ec t u re o f
d u ra t i o nal i n f o r m a t i o n
BLUR is a constant battle between artificial
and real weather forces. In contradiction to the
tradition of Expo pavilions whose exhibitions
entertain and educate, BLUR erases information.
(Diller and Scofidio 2002: 325)
Commissioned as part of the Swiss Expo
2002 in the town of Neuchâtel, Blur was
a structure in a constant state of change. If
we accept it as architecture, it challenges
pre-conceived boundaries between structure
and environment, material and weather. The
structural and visual information of Blur was in
a perpetual state of erasure and rebirth with no
defined compositional structure. Interestingly,
Blur was originally commissioned as a media
pavilion designed to articulate the intersection
between mediated and architectural materials.
However, due to reasons of funding this
mediated element of the commission went
unrealized. Nevertheless, the original overall
aim for Blur was to reflect on the ‘blurring’ that
occurs between the two ‘information states’
that operate within our mediated culture, as
Scofidio outlines.
Our objective is to weave together architecture
and electronic technologies, yet exchange the
properties of each for the other. Thus, architecture
would dematerialise and electronic media,
normally ephemeral, would become palpable in
space. (cited in Diller and Scofidio 2002: 44)
16 PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17·5 : ON DURATION
As with previous pavilions, such as The Crystal
Palace (1851) and the Eiffel Tower (1889), these
(originally) temporary structures were designed
to operate as a manifesto for the materials and
techniques of the age. Blur was intended not
to be directly visible from the main parade of
the exposition. Instead, it was to be located
behind a hillside of fake grass. Patrons were
to be attracted to the lakeside by a sound
installation that would draw their attention
to reveal thinly sliced passageways within the
faux landscape. Before ascending into the cloud,
the patrons were to be invited to complete
a short survey of general likes and dislikes.
This information was then fed into a database
and the specific preferences of an individual
uploaded to a ‘braincoat’. Upon entering the
cloud these ‘smart’ raincoats would function
as wearable interfaces, as other individuals’
coats would glow green or red dependent upon
the compatibility between their preferences.
Moreover, as part of the original design,
a ‘text-forest’ was intended for the centre of
the mist cloud. These columns of illuminated
text, along with the glowing responses of other
patrons’ braincoats, would allow individuals to
navigate the visual deprivation of the cloud and
encounter visual information in a coincidental
and social manner. Consequently, this initial
conception of Blur was designed to facilitate
new and unintentional events in a variety of
combinations, as Diller + Scofidio describe.
In Blur, unexpected combinations will occur for
the first time: nature and artifice, architecture and
the immaterial, social space and individualized
experience, involuntary behavior and smart
technologies. Blur brings public consciousness to
a new technology. Without being literal, the media
project is metaphorically a parallel to advances in
wireless technologies.… The wireless, wearable
communication technologies of Blur will be state-
of-the-art, designed and applied specifically to
this context, and with the help of some of the most
forward-thinking members of the industry.… These
technologies, however, will not be in the foreground,
only their aesthetic effects will be visible. The
project utilizes these technologies to produce
a provocative new social and spatial experience for
the public. (Diller and Scofidio 2002: 249)
 Influenced by Paul Virilio’s writings on how
the perception of distance has shifted with
the advent of digital communication, Diller
+ Scofidio define mediated and networked
information as being a governing material and
structure of post-millennium first-world culture.
As Scofidio states:
Beyond expedience, new technologies have
afforded new speculations. However, I have never
been interested in foregrounding technology – I’m
only interested in the ultimate effect. If the effect
is great, it makes you forget about the technology
that produced it. (Scofidio cited in Incerti et al.
2007: 53)
One of the speculations which Scofidio
describes is the dual application of the term
‘architecture’ to define both physical and virtual
structures. Significantly, Virilio contemplates
this usage of architecture and argues that:
[t]he space of the future would be both of real and
of virtual nature. Architecture will ‘take place,’ in
the literal sense of the word, in both domains: in
real space (the materiality of architecture) and
virtual space (the transmission of electromagnetic
signs.) (Virilio cited in Beckmann 1998: 182–3)
The durational structure of Blur was
a metaphor for this ‘blurred space’ between
the network and our everyday environments.
Digital practices have become augmented
within our everyday social and economic
interactions and represent a decisive shift
in how we present (ourselves) and exchange
information. The original concept for Blur would
have underlined the reciprocal relationships
between the dominant spatial topographies
(virtual information and physical material) as
both an event and an architectural structure
that ‘takes place’ simultaneously in both.
Indeed, Diller + Scofidio have examined the
social and artistic implications of technology
within their earlier installation work, such as
Para-site (1991) and Master/Slave (1999). In
each of these projects, mediated technologies
are positioned as a lens through which the
participant is invited to contemplate the
increasing ubiquity of mediated/technologic
interaction within contemporary culture.
Nevertheless, the partially realized Blur still
represents a critical shift in the work of Diller
Scofidio + Renfro. Whereas previously they
had operated in small increments, Blur was
in situ on Lake Neuchâtel for six months and
functioned as a durational symbol for the future
of architectural practice: a fleeting monument
to the integration of architecture and event,
structure and information, within our twenty-
first century environments.
C o ncl u s i o n
Today, the design studio’s architectural projects
are a continuation of their previous spatial
experiments. Events and the dramaturgy of
architectural experience remain a priority
within the design process for their larger scale
permanent civic projects. As Charles Renfro
states, the aim of the design studio is thus:
We strive toward a self-awareness of the building
in which the audience understands itself as
audience and the difference between art and the
building. Art and building are not competing. That
is a reductive notion. (Renfro cited in Incerti et al.
2007: 125)
For the Museum of Image & Sound (2012) on
the famous Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro,
Diller Scofidio + Renfro have developed a spatial
program that frames elements of the adjoining
beach and invites individuals to examine their
everyday landscape from a different (spatial)
perspective. Achieved through a combination
of carefully aligned portholes and window
frames, the building curates the external view
as each level is aligned with one element of
the surrounding landscape (such as the sea
or beach) which is viewed in isolation. This
approach positions the surrounding features, or
indigenous materials, of the building as being
equally important to any understanding of the
locale as the exhibits on display. Consequently,
this constitutes a performative approach to
architecture: as an individual’s journey through
the structure actively shifts their experience of
the surrounding landscape.
As a piece of artwork, Blur challenges
conventional labels or disciplinary definitions.
HANN : BLURRED ARCHITECTURE 17
■■Photos: Beat Widmar
For Blur was not a sculpture. Blur was not
a structure. Blur was an event: a performance.
Or as Diller + Scofidio state: ‘Unlike entering
a building, entering Blur is like stepping into
a habitable medium’ (Diller + Scofidio cited in
Incerti et al. 2007: 144). The term ‘blur’ signifies
an action, a verb, which simultaneously acts
to erase and create information. Aligned with
Tschumi and Kiesler’s writings on architectural
affect, Diller + Scofidio’s Blur is an example
of performative architecture. Explicitly, Blur
offered a distinctly different spatial program
and posed new questions as to how we interact
with and dwell within architecture. Unlike
previous discourses of architecture that
privileged the sense of vision and semiotic
analysis, Blur was encountered as an embodied
experience: where the implicit affects of
architecture were made explicit, for ‘BLUR is
a spectacle with nothing to see’ (Diller and
Scofidio 2002: 325). This situates Blur as an
example of performative architecture. With
an individual’s experience of the locale being
derived from the shifting structures (both
virtual and physical) of this dramaturgically
composed architectural event.
18 PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17·5 : ON DURATION
R e f erences
Beckmann, John (ed.) (1998) The Virtual Dimension:
Architecture, representation, and crash culture, New York:
Princeton Architectural Press.
Creighton, Thomas H. (1961) ‘Kiesler’s pursuit of an idea’,
Progressive Architecture 42(7): 104–23.
Diller, Elizabeth and Scofidio, Ricardo (eds) (1994a) Back to
the Front: Tourisms of war / Visite aux Armées: Tourismes de
Guerre, Caen: FRAC Basse-Normandie.
Diller, Elizabeth and Scofidio, Ricardo (eds) (1994b)
Flesh: Architectural probes, New York: Princeton
Architectural Press.
Diller, Elizabeth and Scofidio, Ricardo (eds) (2002) BLUR:
The making of nothing, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
Publishers.
Hannah, Dorita (2007) ‘State of crisis: Theatre architecture
performing badly’, in A. Aronson (ed.) Exhibition on the
Stage: Reflections on the 2007 Prague quadrennial, Prague:
Arts Institute, pp. 41–9.
Hannah, Dorita (2009) ‘Constructing the barricade: An
urban performance building between the archive and the
repertoire’, in Cross, David and Doherty, Claire (eds) One
Day Sculpture, Bielefeld, Germany: Kerber Verlag: 108-114.
Incerti, Guido, Ricchi, Daria and Simpson, Deane (2007)
Diller + Scofidio (+ Renfro), the Ciliary Function: Works and
Projects 1979–2007, Milan: Skira.
Kiesler, Frederick (1939) ‘On correalism and biotechnique:
A definition and test of a new approach to building design’,
Architectural Record 86(3): 60–75.
Pallasmaa, Juhani (2005) Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and
the senses, Chichester: Wiley.
Pearson, Mike and Shanks, Michael (2001) Theatre/
Archaeology, London: Routledge.
Pérez-Gómez, Alberto (2006) ‘The space of architecture:
Meaning as presence and representation’, in S. Holl,
J. Pallasmaa and A. Pérez-Gómez (eds) Questions of
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Tschumi, Bernard (1996) Architecture and Disjunction,
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Turner, Cathy (2010) ‘Mis-Guidance and spatial planning:
Dramaturgies of public space’, Contemporary Theatre
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HANN : BLURRED ARCHITECTURE
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