Architecture from the Outside

Response to "Architecture from the Outside"
Grosz, Elizabeth. Architecture from the Outside. “The Future of Space: Towards and Architecture of Invention” pages 109-130. UMCP Architecture Library Stacks NA2500 .G76 2001.

Grosz introduces a missing element to our history of architecture:

Space itself, the very stuff of architectural reflection and production, requires and entails a mode of time, timeliness, or duration.

From that statement alone, the word "timeliness" stands out; Louis Kahn sought timelessness, so what does the author intend to describe here? The temporalization of space and time presents a new frontier for theoretical architecture that we can discover. Grosz advocates for this concept as another interpretation of time instead of the traditional, orderly progression of historical time. She claims that the futures of architecture and philosophy require reconsideration and openness to divergences. Grosz expresses this sentiment with her interpretation of Deleuze's writing.

According to Grosz via Deleuze, space is a "multiplicity that brings together the key characteristics of externality, simultaneity, contiguity or juxtaposition, differences of degree, and quantitative differentiations" (112). Duration is explained to be its animus: "It is continuous and virtual" (113). Grosz's literature review frames her argument of using the concept of time to design space. Namely, her citations of Bergson and Deleuze push for incorporating continuity and eliminating geometric division in conceptual design.

"The virtual is the realm of productivity, of functioning otherwise than its plan or blueprint, functioning in excess of design and intention" (130).


Response to "Versioning: Evolving Architectures"
Rocker, Ingeborg. Versioning: Evolutionary Techniques in Architecture - AD Vol. 72. Ed. SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli. “Versioning: Evolving Architectures - Dissolving Identities ‘Nothing is as Persistent as Change’” pages 10-17.

Rocker begins by denouncing Peter Eisenman's and Frank Gehry's design process: CAD as the finished product. 

Versioning suggests that architecture is an evolving and dissolving differential data-design that no longer simply 'exists' but rather 'becomes', as it becomes informed in and through the process's different/ciation.

Different configurations and parameters set by variables determine the extent of the version. Various versions may exist between those versions, leading to another level of differentiation. This process disintegrates the notion of "identity" as the design revolves more around the diffusing network of versions. "Different/ciation becomes that which must be thought, and that which cannot be thought, a continuous movement of life which possess its own internal dynamic, without fixed end, final essence, or final form" (17).