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

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,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