M adeline Kahn’s character in the movie Young Doctor Frankenstein clearly appreciates the benefits of stitching together of parts from disparate sources to enhance the whole: she spontaneously breaks into song as Frankenstein’s monster reveals what about him is truly monstrous. It is no accident that Frank O Gehry Associates is located under the shadow of the Hollywood sign. As with the illusions in film, their work can be seen as the stitching of space and time and can be understood in terms of the philosophi- cal method of Gilles Deleuze. Gilles Deleuze has defined philosophy as the creation of concepts. His methodology is to conceptually fold space and time in such a way as to align a concept in four dimensions creating a plan(e). This is what is described A Thousand Plateaus . Any creation is made up of a collision of many concepts, that have their genesis in many different places, and come from all four directions. In contrast is the archaeol- ogy of Michel Foucault who documents events in conventional space and historic time to reveal causation. Both Deleuze and Foucault hold a mirror to culture, but for Deleuze it is more the mirror of Through the Looking Glass . He deals with space/time as personal and rela- tive, while Foucault deals with the social con- struction of space/time. Free ranging and creative, Deleuze does not use conventional categories to define his areas of research or conventional notions of causa- tion to create his connections but recognizes the contingency and complexity of culture in his analysis of artifacts. Alice in Wonderland is treated as significantly as the works of Leib - niz and Nietzsche. Creating a new concept requires a radical use of language, in effect a new language and suggests that we read a work like we listen to music, letting it envelope us. A work’s value is not to be measured by any traditional notion of truth but by the number of connections it creates. Frank Gehry works with an architecture of meaning that respects today’s culture and his- toric context while achieving the ideal of the modern, jugendstil and art nouveau : One does not have to be a member of an elite to enjoy his work, nor is it based on intellectual dogma. Like Deleuze, he has created a new language, by pushing conventional language, and as with
The Stitching of Space/Time in the work of Frank Gehry Ward Egan
Deleuze, many see only the form and not the content, the style or the meaning. This leads, unfortunately, to the production of any number of Frankenstil monsters. Gehry’s buildings reveal themselves as the syn- ergistic sum of parts, where each part stands in relation to the others. They are not simply visual collage nor temporal montage, but a stitching of space and time, and as in Franken- stein’s monster, the stitches intentionally show. In his renovations and additions, the voice of after resonates with the voice of before, each clear and distinct without displacement from the space or time of their origin. This is clearly after, that is clearly before, and their complex harmony forms an electric now. Let me illustrate what I mean by going back to Gehry’s house in Santa Monica. The original renovation took place in the late seventies and can be seen as a workshop and laboratory for Gehry’s ideas, particularly important prior to his use of CATIA modelling software. The house was expanded by adding a second skin around the first. The living room grew into the existing dining space and a new dining space was added, along with a new kitchen and breakfast nook in the expanded skin area. The original skin is maintained, sometimes peeled back to reveal the framing. The original bay window sticks into the new kitchen. A new skylight lights the kitchen and the expanded living room through this bay window. When the original house was built, kitchens were hidden as service space, but since kitch- ens have become the social centre of the house, Gehry’s new kitchen is stitched onto the old dining room at the bay window, keeping the traditional relationship, while updating it by actually making it the living room. A new dining room is now connected to the kitchen to the west, a breakfast nook to the east. The skylight also responds to movement of the sun and living patterns —it is put in askew, bowing to
Kitchen/Dining Renovation to Gehry’s Santa Monica house, 1979.
millier de plateaux.Toute création est réalisée à partir d’une collision de divers concepts qui retracent leur genèse à partir de différentes origines et qui viennent des quatre directions. Les immeubles de Gehry se révèlent comme étant une somme synergique de diverses pièces, où chacune d’entre elles se tient en relation aux autres. Ils ne sont pas simplement un collage visuel ni
kenstein révèle ce qu’il a de si monstrueux. Cet œuvre de Frank Gehry peut être perçu comme un maillage de l’espace et du temps en termes de méthode phi- losophique selon Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze vient replier l’espace et le temps de façon conceptuelle de telle façon à ce que ceux deux concepts s’alignent en un concept à quatre dimensions, créant ainsi un plan, que l’on décrit comme Un
un montage temporal, mais plutôt comme un maillage d’espace et de temps et, tout comme dans le cas du monstre Frankenstein, on laisse paraître, intentionnellement, les points de couture. La rénovation de la maison de Gehry à Santa Monica peut être perçue comme étant le labora- toire de ces idées. La maison a été agrandie en ajoutant une deuxième couche enveloppant la
Le maillage de l’espace et le temps L e personnage interprété par Madeline Kahn dans le film Le jeune docteur Frankenstein vient clairement illustrer les avantages de coudre des pièces disparates les unes aux autres dans le but d’améliorer le tout : elle s’élance spontanément à chanter au moment où le monstre Fran-
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O n S ite review
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I ssue 8 2002
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