Greg lynn folding in architecture

INTRODUCTION Architectural Curvilinearity: The Folded, the Pliant

and the Supple / Greg Lynn

In 1993, Greg Lynn guest-edited an issue of Architectural Design

dedicated to an emerging movement in architecture: folding.

Lynn, a Los Angeles-based architect/educator with a background

in philosophy and an attraction to computer-aided design, was

the ideal person to organize this publication and, in effect, define

the fold in architecture, a concept that generated intense interest

during the remainder of the decade.

In his contributory essay, ''l\rchitectural Curvilinearity: The

Folded, the Pliant and the Supple," Lynn ties together a variety

of sources-including the work of Gilles Deleuze, Rene Thom,

cooking theory, and geology-to present an alternative to

existing architectural theory and practice. He states that since

the mid-1960s architecture has been guided by the notion of

contradiction, whether through attempts to formally embody

heterogeneity or its opposite; in short, postmodernism and decon­

structivism can be understood as two sides of the same coin. Yet,

for Lynn, "neither the reactionary call for unity nor the avant-garde

dismantling of it through the identification of internal contradic­

tions seems adequate as a model for contemporary architecture

and urbanism." Rather, he offers a smooth architecture (in both a

visual and a mathematic sense) composed of combined yet dis­

crete elements that are shaped by forces outside the architectural

discipline, much as diverse ingredients are folded into a smooth

mixture by a discerning chef. This new architecture, what Lynn

calls a pliant, flexible orchitecture, exploits connections between

elements within a design instead of emphasizing contradictions

or attempting to erase them all together. Of equal importance

is that this architecture is inextricably entwined with external

forces, both cultural and contextual. Architects deploy various

.. ,JJiJIIIiIIIIliii.

,j'"'ngies-including a reliance on topological geometry and

"'u"al software and technologies-in the creation of their designs,

II,,' Ihe resulting works tend to be curvilinear in form and inflected ....Ih the particulars of the project and its environment.

In addition to Lynn's essay, Folding in Architecture, as the

A/. hitectural Design issue was titled, included other texts by fig­

,,·os such as Deleuze, Jeffrey Kipnis, and John Rajchman, and

'''presentative projects by architects like Peter Eisenman, Frank

( inhry, and Philip Johnson. This list of distinguished collaborators

("fl' weight to the publication, intimating that the phenomenon

"I the fold was already entrenched within architectural design.

If Indeed it was, Folding in Architecture cemented the shift in

(lfchitectural thought by identifying and highlighting this new

mchitecture of smoothness. The importance of Lynn's special

.,sue of Architectural Design was underscored by its reprinting in

2004 as "a historical document,"1 complete with new introductory

nssays analyzing and situating the original publication as a guid­

Ing force within twenty-first-century architectural discourse.2

Notes

Helen Castle, "Preface," in Folding in Architedure, ed. Greg Lynn (London: Wiley-Academy. 2004), 7.

2 See Greg Lynn, "Introdudion," in Folding in Architecture, 8-13; and Mario Carpo, "Ten Years of Folding," in Folding in Architecture. See also Branko Koleravic, ed., Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York: Spoon Press, 2003), 3-10.

30 31

GREG LYNN

ARCHITECTURAL

CURVILINEARITY:

THE FOLDED, THE PLIANT

AND THE SUPPLE

First appeared in Architectural Design 63, no. 3/4 (1993): 8-15·

Courtesy ofGreg

For the last two decades, beginning with Robert Venturi's

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,' and Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter's Collage City,2 and continuing through Mark Wigley and Philip Johnson's Deconstructivist Architecture, archi­ tects have been primarily concerned with the production of

heterogeneous, fragmented and conflicting formal systems. These practices have attempted to embody the differences within and between diverse physical, cultural, and social con­

texts in formal conflicts. When comparingVenturi's Complexity

and Contradiction or Learning from Las vegas with Wigley and Johnson's DeconstructionArchitecture it is necessary to overlook many significant and distinguishing differences in order to

identify at least one common theme. Both Venturi and Wigley argue for the deployment of dis­

continuous, fragmented, heterogeneous, and diagonal formal strategies based on the incongruities,juxtapositions and opposi­ tions within specific sites and programmes. These disjunctions

,nult from a logic which tends to identify the potential con­ 1I.IIIit'lions between dissimilar elements. A diagonal dialogue Iwlween a building and its context has become an emblem

I", Ihe contradictions within contemporary culture. From the ', •.1It' of an urban plan to a building detail, contexts have been IIl1l1ed for conflicting geometries, materials, styles, histories, ,.lId programmes which are then represented in architecture as 11111' mal contradictions. The most paradigmatic architecture of t t1l' last ten years, including Robert Venturi's Sainsbury Wing of

'hI' National Gallery, Peter Eisenman's Wexner Center, Bernard I \chumi's La Villette Park or the Gehry House, invests in the ,II ('hitectural representation of contradictions. Through con­

II ad iction, architecture represents difference in violent formal • 1111 t1icts.

Contradiction has also provoked a reactionary response ,,, formal conflict. Such resistances attempt to recover unified

.1Il'hitecturallanguages that can stand against heterogeneity. I !Ility is constructed through one of two strategies: either by '\'('onstructing a continuous architectural language through historical analyses (Neo-Classicism or Neo-Modernism) or by ldt'ntifying local consistencies resulting from indigenous cli­

mates, materials, traditions or technologies (Regionalism). rhe internal orders of Neo-Classicism, Neo-Modernism and

Ilt'gionalism conventionally repress the cultural and contextual discontinuities that are necessary for a logic of contradiction. III architecture, both the reaction to and the representation of heterogeneity have shared an origin in contextual analysis. Both Iheoretical models begin with a close analysis ofcontextual con­

ditions from which they proceed to evolve either a homogeneous or heterogeneous urban fabric. Neither the reactionary call for IInity nor the avant-garde dismantling of it through the identifi­ t':ltion of internal contradictions seems adequate as a model for l'Ontemporary architecture and urbanism.

GREG LYNN 33 32

In response to architecture's discovery of complex, dis­ parate, differentiated and heterogeneous cultural and formal contexts, two options have been dominant; either conflict and contradiction or unity and reconstruction. Presently, an alter­ native smoothness is being formulated that may escape these dialectically opposed strategies. Common to the diverse sources of this post-contradictory work-topological geometry, mor­ phology, morphogenesis, Catastrophe Theory or the computer technology of both the defense and Hollywood film industry­ are characteristics of smooth transformation involving the intensive integration of differences within a continuous yet het­ erogeneous system. Smooth mixtures are made up of disparate elements which maintain their integrity while being blended within a continuous field ofother free elements.

Smoothing does not eradicate differences but incorporates3

free intensities through fluid tactics of mixing and blending. Smooth mixtures are not homogeneous and therefore cannot be reduced. Deleuze describes smoothness as "the continuous variation" and the "continuous development ofform."4 Wigley's critique of pure form and static geometry is inscribed within geometric conflicts and discontinuities. For Wigley, smoothness is equated with hierarchical organisation: "the volumes have been purified-they have become smooth, classical-and the wires all converge in a single, hierarchical, vertical movement. "5 Rather than investing in arrested conflicts, Wigley's slipperi­ ness might be better exploited by the alternative smoothness of heterogeneous mixture. For the first time perhaps, complexity might be aligned with neither unity nor contradiction but with smooth, pliant mixture.

Both pliancy and smoothness provide an escape from the two camps which would either have architecture break under the stress ofdifference or stand firm. Pliancy allows architecture to become involved in complexity through flexibility. It may be

34 ' ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY

pn""ihlc to neither repress the complex relations of differences "Ih fixed points ofresolution nor arrest them in contradictions, btu "ustain them through flexible, unpredicted, local connec­ Ikllls. To arrest differences in conflicting forms often precludes ....ny of the more complex possible connections of the forms of .rc:hilecture to larger cultural fields. A more pliant architectural k'""ibility values alliances, rather than conflicts, between ele­ "'t"IlIS. Pliancy implies first an internal flexibility and second a dc-,ll'ndence on external forces for self-definition.

If there is a single effect produced in architecture by folding, .. will be the ability to integrate unrelated elements within a new tunlinuous mixture. Culinary theory has developed both a prac­ tklll and precise definition for at least three types of mixtures. l'lll' first involves the manipulation of homogeneous elements; bt"lIling, whisking and whipping change the volume but not .ht" nature of a liquid through agitation. The second method ur incorporation mixes two or more disparate elements; chop­ Pill){, dicing, grinding, grating, slicing, shredding and mincing rvisl'erate elements into fragments. The first method agitates • "ingle uniform ingredient, the second eviscerates disparate Ingredients. Folding, creaming and blending mix smoothly multiple ingredients "through repeated gentle overturnings wilhout stirring or beating" in such a way that their individual l'hnracteristics are maintained.6 For instance, an egg and choco­ tilt' are folded together so that each is a distinct layer within a c:nntinuous mixture.

Folding employs neither agitation nor evisceration but a .upple layering. Likewise, folding in geology involves the sedi­ IUl'ntation of mineral elements or deposits which become _lowly bent and compacted into plateaus of strata. These strata Afl' compressed, by external forces, into more or less continu­ IIUS layers within which heterogeneous deposits are still intact in varying degrees of intensity.

GREG LYNN 35

A folded mixture is neither homogenous, like whipped cream, nor fragmented, like chopped nuts, but smooth and

heterogeneous. In both cooking and geology, there is no pre­ liminary organisation which becomes folded but rather there are unrelated elements or pure intensities that are intricated

through ajoint manipulation. Disparate elements can be incor­ porated into smooth mixtures through various manipulations

including fulling: "Felt is a supple solid product that proceeds altogether dif­

ferently, as an anti-fabric. It implies no separation of threads, no intertwining, only an entanglement of fibres obtained by full­ ing (for example, by rolling the block of fibres back and forth).

What becomes entangled are the microscales of the fibres. An aggregate of intrication of this kind is in no way homogeneous; nevertheless, it is smooth and contrasts point by point with the

space of fabric (it is in principle infinite, open and uninhibited in every direction; it has neither top, nor bottom, nor centre;

it does not assign fixed or mobile elements but distributes a continuous variation}."?

The two characteristics of smooth mixtures are that they

are composed of disparate unrelated elements and that these free intensities become intricated by an external force exerted upon them jointly. Intrications are intricate connections. They

are intricate, they affiliate local surfaces of elements with one another by negotiating interstitial rather than internal connec­

tions. The heterogeneous elements within a mixture have no

proper relation with one another. Likewise, the external force that intricates these elements with one another is outside of the

individual elements control or prediction.

Viscous Mixtures

Unlike an architecture of contradictions, superpositions and accidental collisions, pliant systems are capable of engendering

36 ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY

unpH'dicted connections with contextual, cultural, program­

nutl ito, structural and economic contingencies by vicissitude. Vldssitude is often equated with vacillation, weakness8 and Intll'l'isiveness but more importantly these characteristics are

trt'(IUcntly in the service of a tactical cunning.9 Vicissitude is • (IUality of being mutable or changeable in response to both '.vourable and unfavourable situations that occur by chance. Vldssitudinous events result from events that are neither arbi­

trAry nor predictable but seem to be accidental. These events .rt' made possible by a collision of internal motivations with

""Il'rnal forces. For instance, when an accident occurs the vl"1 i m s immediately identify the forces contributing to the acci­ dt'1l1 and begin to assign blame. It is inevitable however, that nu single element can be made responsible for any accident

." I hese events occur by vicissitude; a confluence of particular Inlluences at a particular time makes the outcome of an acci­ d('111 possible. If any element participating in such a confluence

(If local forces is altered the nature of the event will change. In A Thousand Plateaus, Spinoza's concept of "a thousand vicis­

alludes" is linked with Gregory Bateson's "continuing plateau uf intensity" to describe events which incorporate unpredict­

"hie events through intensity. These occurrences are difficult to ICIl'alise, difficult to identify. 10 Any logic of vicissitude is depen­ tll'nt on both an intrication of local intensities and the exegetic

prcssure exerted on those elements by external contingencies,

Nl'ither the intrications nor the forces which put them into rela­ lion are predictable from within any single system. Connections

hy vicissitude develop identity through the exploitation of local iltljacencies and their affiliation with external forces. In this fil'nse, vicissitudinous mixtures become cohesive through a log-ic ofviscosity.

Viscous fluids develop internal stability in direct propor­ lion to the external pressures exerted upon them. These fluids

GREG LYNN 37

behave with two types of viscidity. They exhibit both internal cohesion and adhesion to external elements as their viscosity increases. Viscous fluids begin to behave less like liquids and more like sticky solids as the pressures upon them intensify. Similarly, viscous solids are capable of yielding continually under stress so as not to shear.

Viscous space would exhibit a related cohesive stabil­ ity in response to adjacent pressures and a stickiness or adhesion to adjacent elements. Viscous relations such as these are not reducible to any single or holistic organisation. Forms of viscosity and pliability cannot be examined outside of the vicissitudinous connections and forces with which their defor­ mation is intensively involved. The nature of pliant forms is that they are sticky and flexible. Things tend to adhere to them. As pliant forms are manipulated and deformed the things that stick to their surfaces become incorporated within their interiors.

Curving Away from Deconstructivism

Along with a group of younger architects, the projects that best represent pliancy, not coincidentally, are being produced by many of the same architects previously involved in the valorisa­ tion of contradictions. Deconstructivism theorised the world as a site of differences in order that architecture could represent these contradictions in form. This contradictory logic is begin­ ning to soften in order to exploit more fully the particularities of urban and cultural contexts. This is a reasonable transition, as the Deconstructivists originated their projects with the inter­ nal discontinuities they uncovered within buildings and sites. These same architects are beginning to employ urban strategies which exploit discontinuities, not by representing them in for­ mal collisions, but by affiliating them with one another though continuous flexible systems.

38 ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY

Just as many of these architects have already been inscribed ...hl" a Deconstructivist style of diagonal forms, there will .",1), hc those who would enclose their present work within • Nto-Baroque or even Expressionist style of curved forms. "JW("vcr, many of the formal similitudes suggest a far richer *kJJCil' of curvilinearity"11 that can be characterised by the Involvement of outside forces in the development of form. If Inltrnally motivated and homogeneous systems were to extend In .tmight lines, curvilinear developments would result from the IIM'urporation of external influences. Curvilinearity can put into ..hllion the collected projects in this publication [Architectural ,"',ign 63], Deleuze's The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque and Rene Tholn's catastrophe diagrams. The smooth spaces described by these continuous yet differentiated systems result from cur­ ..linear sensibilities that are capable of complex deformations In rl'sponse to programmatic, structural, economic, aesthetic, political and contextual influences. This is not to imply that Intl'nsive curvature is more politically correct than an unin­ volved formal logic, but rather, that a cunning pliability is often Inure effective through smooth incorporation than contradic­ lion and conflict. Many cunning tactics are aggressive in nature. Whether insidious or ameliorative these kinds of cunning con­ IIt'ctions discover new possibilities for organisation. A logic of rurvilinearity argues for an active involvement with external ('wnts in the folding, bending and curving of form.

Already in several Deconstructivist projects are latent sug­ J(estions of smooth mixture and curvature. For instance, the (iehry House is typically portrayed as representing materials Hnd forms already present within, yet repressed by, the subur­ hlln neighbourhood: sheds, chain-link fences, exposed plywood, trailers, boats and recreational vehicles. The house is described liS an "essay on the convoluted relationship between the conflict within and between forms ... which were not imported to but

GREG LYNN 39

emerged from within the house."" The house is seen to provoke conflict within the neighbourhood due to its public representa­ tion of hidden aspects of its context. The Gehry House violates the neighbourhood from within. Despite the dominant appeal of the house to contradictions, a less contradictory and more pliant reading of the house is possible as a new organisation emerges between the existing house and Gehry's addition. A dynamic stability develops with the mixing of the original and the addition. Despite the contradictions between elements pos­ sible points of connection are exploited. Rather than valorise the conflicts the house engenders, as has been done in both academic and popular publications, a more pliant logic would identify, not the degree ofviolation, but the degree to which new connections were exploited. A new intermediate organisation occurs in the Gehry House by vicissitude from the affiliation of the existing house and its addition. Within the discontinuities of Deconstructivism there are inevitable unforeseen moments

of cohesion. Similarly, Peter Eisenman's Wexner Center is convention­

ally portrayed as a collision of the conflicting geometries of the campus, city and armoury which once stood adjacent to the site. These contradictions are represented by the diagonal collisions between the two grids and the masonry towers. Despite the dis­ junctions and discontinuities between these three disparate systems, Eisenman's project has suggested recessive readings ofcontinuous non-linear systems ofconnection. Robert Somop3 identifies such a system of Deleuzian rhizomatous connections between armoury and grid. The armoury and diagonal grids are shown by Somol to participate in a hybrid L-movement that organises the main gallery space. Somol's schizophrenic analy­ sis is made possible by, yet does not emanate from within, a Deconstructivist logic of contradiction and conflict. The force of this Deleuzian schizo-analytic model is its ability to maintain

40 . ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY

multiple organisations simultaneously. In Eisenman's project Iht' tower and grid need not be seen as mutually exclusive or in (,()lItradiction. Rather, these disparate elements may be seen I" distinct elements co-present within a composite mixture. I%mcy does not result from and is not in line with the previous luc:hitecturallogic of contradiction, yet it is capable of exploit­ Ing many conflicting combinations for the possible connections Ihilt are overlooked. Where DeconstructivistArchitecture was seen II) t'xploit external forces in the familiar name of contradiction And conflict, recent pliant projects by many of these architects t'xhibit a more fluid logic of connectivity.

Immersed in Context

The contradictory architecture of the last two decades has t'volved primarily from highly differentiated, heterogeneous ('ClI1texts within which conflicting, contradictory and discon­ Iinuous buildings were sited. An alternative involvement with Iwterogeneous contexts could be affiliated, compliant and con­ Iinuous. Where complexity and contradiction arose previously (rom inherent contextual conflicts, present attempts are being made to fold smoothly specific locations, materials and pro­ Jtmmmes into architecture while maintaining their individual Idt'ntity.

This recent work may be described as being compliant; in II state of being plied by forces beyond control. The projects are

folded, pliant and supple in order to incorporate their nmtexts with minimal resistance. Again, this characterisation lihould not imply flaccidity but a cunning submissiveness that Is l'apable of bending rather than breaking. Compliant tactics, Mll'h as these, assume neither an absolute coherence nor cohe­ ,.ion between discrete elements but a system of provisional, Intl'nsive, local connections between free elements. Intensity d{'scribes the dynamic internalisation and incorporation of

GREG lYNN 41

external influences into a pliant system. Distinct from a whole organism-to which nothing can be added or subtracted­ intensive organisations continually invite external influence within their internal limits so that they might extend their influence through the affiliations they make. A two-fold deter­ ritorialisation, such as this, expands by internalising external forces. This expansion through incorporation is an urban alternative to either the infinite extension of International Modernism, the uniform fabric of Contextualism or the con­ flicts of Post-Modernism and Deconstructivism. Folded, pliant and supple architectural forms invite exigencies and contingen­ cies in both their deformation and their reception.

In both Learning from Las Vegas and Deconstructivist Architecture, urban contexts provided rich sites of difference. These differences are presently being exploited for their abil­ ity to engender multiple lines of local connections rather than lines of conflict. These affiliations are not predictable by any contextual orders but occur by vicissitude. Here, urban fabric has no value or meaning beyond the connections that are made within it. Distinct from earlier urban sensibilities that general­ ised broad formal codes, the collected projects develop local, fine grain, complex systems of intrication. There is no general urban strategy common to these projects, only a kind of tactical mutability. These folded, pliant and supple forms of urbanism are neither in deference to nor in defiance of their contexts but exploit them by turning them within their own twisted and

curvilinear logics.

The Supple and Curvilinear

1 supple\adj [ME souple, fr OF, fr L supplic-, supplex

submissive, suppliant, lit, bending under, fr sub +plic­ (akin to plicare to fold)-more at PLY] u: compliant often

42 . ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY

to the point of obsequiousness b: readily adaptable or

responsive to new situations 2a: capable of being bent or

folded without creases, cracks or breaks: PLIANT b: able to

perform bending or twisting movements with ease and

grace: LIMBER c: easy and fluent without stiffness or

awkwardness. 14

At an urban scale, many of these projects seem to be some­ where between contextualism and expressionism. Their supple rorms are neither geometrically exact nor arbitrarily figural. I:or example, the curvilinear figures of Shoei Yoh's roof struc­ tures are anything but decorative but also resist being reduced to a pure geometric figure. Yoh's supple roof structures exhibit /I logic of curvilinearity as they are continuously differentiated Ill'cording to contingencies. The exigencies of structural span Il'ngths, beam depths, lighting, lateral loading, ceiling height lind view angles influence the form of the roof structure. Rather than averaging these requirements within a mean or mini­ mum dimension they are precisely maintained by an anexact ),l·t rigorous geometry. Exact geometries are eidetic; they can bl' reproduced identically at any time by anyone. In this regard, they must be capable of being reduced to fixed mathematical (Iuantities. Inexact geometries lack the precision and rigor nec­ t'ssary for measurement.

Anexact geometries, as described by Edmund Husserl,15

nrc those geometries which are irreducible yet rigorous. These geometries can be determined with precision yet cannot be reduced to average points or dimensions. Anexact geometries often appear to be merely figural in this regard. Unlike exact geometries, it is meaningless to repeat identically an anexact geometric figure outside of the specific context within which It is situated. In this regard, anexact figures cannot be easily translated.

GREG LYNN 43

http:awkwardness.14
Jeffrey Kipnis has argued convincingly that Peter Eisenman's Columbus Convention Center has become a canonical model for the negotiation of differentiated urban fringe sites through the use of near figures. '6 Kipnis identifies the disparate sys­ tems informing the Columbus Convention Center including: a single volume of inviolate programme of a uniform shape and height larger than two city blocks, an existing fine grain fabric of commercial buildings and a network of freeway inter­ changes that plug into the gridded streets of the central business district. Eisenman's project drapes the large rectilinear vol­ ume of the convention hall with a series of supple vermiforms. These elements become involved with the train tracks to the north-east, the highway to the south-east and the pedes­ trian scale of High Street to the west. The project incorporates the multiple scales, programmes, and pedestrian and auto­ motive circulation of a highly differentiated urban context. Kipnis' canonisation of a form which is involved with such spe­ cific contextual and programmatic contingencies seems to be frustrated from the beginning. The effects of a pliant urban mix­ ture such as this can only be evaluated by the connections that it makes. Outside of specific contexts, curvature ceases to be intensive. Where the Wexner Center, on the same street in the same city, represents a monumental collision, the Convention Center attempts to disappear by connection between intervals within its context; where the Wexner Center destabilises through contradictions the Convention Center does so by subterfuge.

In a similar fashion Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain covers a series of orthogonal gallery spaces with flexible tubes which respond to the scales of the adjacent roadways, bridges, the Bilbao River and the existing medieval city. Akin to the Vitra Museum, the curvilinear roof forms of the Bilbao Guggenheim integrate the large rectilinear masses of