By Noah Chasin
1. Concrete, Thomas Bernhard (London, New York: Quartet Books, 1989)The Klimt mural was, as was often the case, a scandal, while the Karl Marx Hof recalls an impoverished period in Vienna's recent history wherein subsidized housing appeared as a means of salvation.
2. Kenneth Frampton, "Prospects for a Critical Regionalism," in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965Ð1995, Kate Nesbitt, ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), pp. 470Ð82
3. Wolf Prix, "On the Edge," Architectural Design (Vol. 60, #9Ð10, 1990), p.65
4. Anthony Vidler writes of a much older instance of the same teleological game, that of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Vidler notes that as prospects for new commissions dwindled, Ledoux spent his later years on the publication of his mammoth architectural treatise: "In the face of the impossibility of building, the 'possibility of writing' becomes the architect's last hope." Claude-Nicolas Ledoux: Architecture and Social Reform at the End of the Ancien RŽgime (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), p.378
5. Rosalind Krauss has been the most persistent pursuer of the concept of the informe as described in Bataille's journal of the 1930's, called Documents. Writes Krauss: "Shapeless matter, like spittle or a crushed worm, says Bataille in his little "Dictionary" piece on informe, are instances of formlessness. But far more importantly, the informe is a conceptual matter, the shattering of signifying boundaries, the undoing of categories. In order to knock meaning off its pedestal, to bring it down in the world, to deliver to it a low blow." (Rosalind Krauss, The Optical Unconscious, [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993], p.157)
6. Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, Deconstructivist Architecture (New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1988), p.16
7. I borrow this title from an LP (80Ð83 Strategien gegen Architekturen) released in 1983 by a Berlin rock band called EinstŸrzende Neubauten, whose project dovetails neatly with that of Coop Himmelblau. Their music consisted of the amplification of noises created by the band members beating on the inside of tunnels, on the corrugated metal walls and air conditioning ducts of warehouses, the resulting songs given titles such as Schmerzen Hšren ("Listen With Pain") and Drau§en ist Feindlich ("Outside is Hostile'). Far from suggesting that the buildings should be destroyed, EinstŸrzende Neubauten attempted to release the cacophony they perceived to be trapped within the static forms, motivating the energy potential in solid objects. Coop Himmelblau can be said to be exploring similar modes of reversal, but are able to create these forms from scratch to fully test the limitations of tension, balance, weight, and enclosure.
8. "Auf...der Associationskette aus dem Namen ReissÑReissenÑRiss beruht im wesentlichen das Entwurfskonzept." Coop Himmelblau: Architecture is Now. (New York: Rizzoli, 1983), p.142
9. W. C. Warden, National Geographic Magazine, 1956. Quoted in Architecture is Now, op. cit., p. 142
10. Hans Hollein, MŽtaphores et MŽtamorphoses, (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, Centre de CrŽation Industrielle, 1987), n.p.
11. Peter Eisenman, "Hollein's Cave(at): The Haas Haus," Architecture and Urbanism ( January 1992, vol. 256), p. 122Ð23.
12. A recent gerontological study conducted in Austria underscores the discrepancy between that country's older and younger generations. Specifically geared to understanding the respective views of what constitutes a culturally-enriched lifestyle, sociologist Franz Kolland writes the following in his conclusive remarks: "The great variety of definitions of culture is certainly a factor that increases societal individualization, the substance of activities partly demonstrating privacy and personalizations. The search for experiential immediateness, i.e., the experience of realizing oneself, lowers the possibilities for intergenerational exchange insofar as the elderly are still bound to a more historical and universal view of culture." (Franz Kolland, "Contrasting Cultural Profiles Between Generations: Interests and Common Activities in Three Intrafamilial Generations," in Ageing and Society, Vol. 14, Pt. 3 [Sept. 1994], p. 326). Differing conceptions of what criteria should be used as an index for one's cultural edification are exactly what brings about the situation in which Coop Himmelblau and Hans Hollein's architecture is most needed. By the 1960's, a critical distance with Vienna's past seemed possible, and a rigorous rethinking of the city's architectural direction seemed necessary, especially one that would shake the foundations of early 20th century modernism in order to understand which promises of those halcyon days had been fulfilled and which lay wasted. Kolland's conclusion shows that the country's younger generations are interested in moving beyond the ideals still held by their elders: a fairly standard state of affairs except for the striking fact that Vienna, in particular, has seemed to resist entry into the international cultural avant-garde in nearly every artistic discipline.
13. Architecture is Now, op. cit., p.32
14. Prix, op. cit., p.70