i n nature, the resemblance between many animal species’ surface pat- terns and their habitat helps them avoid detection by their predators. This principle, camouflage, is similarly applied by humans in some situa - tions, the most common of which is warfare. In the normal, everyday life of the city, however, an architectural form of camouflage also exists that, as in nature or warfare, can serve as a stratagem for the avoidance of detection — not of prey or enemy forces, but of certain activities and building functions; and not necessarily by predators, but by ordinary citizens.This architectural type of camouflage is not very common, but it is nevertheless illustrative, demonstrating that, in addition to playing an aesthetic role, architectural appearance can also play a performative and strategic role in the city. It reminds us, moreover, of the diplomatic complexity of urban-architectural relations, while betraying the extent to which a mythical image of the city must sometimes be made to prevail over reality. The surface of a building always conceals from view the very thing it contains and shelters: its function or content. However, in order to navigate the complexity of the modern city, however, buildings need to be somewhat legible. Historically, urban legibility was achieved by means of ornament and typological form: an important public building would have a socle, a church a steeple, a store display windows. While interior
styles could vary eclectically to reflect private tastes, the façade usually was consistent with a building’s program and type. With the emergence of steel structural systems and glass cladding, content could be rendered significantly more visible, obviating the need for traditional forms of representation. There was still a moral obligation, on the part of architects, for a building to honestly express its function, whether through the symbolic transparency of ornament or the literal transpar- ency of glass. With the advent of postmodernism, a disjunction emerges between program and expression, with the dialectic between form and content giving way to a dichotomy. A common example is the heritage practice known as ‘façadism’ whereby entirely new building construction takes place behind historical façades that have been retained at great expense.This is itself a reversal of the 1960s practice of re-cladding ordinary turn-of-the-century buildings in North American downtowns with modern metal screens and signage, of which Manhattan’s Times Square provides an example. Here, the dichotomy results from horizon- tal historical layering. In contemporary façadism, however, a horizontal anti-historical layering takes place that is rendered significant, and highly questionable, by its very willfulness.
Out of Sight Architecture as Camouflage in Everyday Life
Rafael Gómez-Moriana and Sheila Nadimi
Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic) is a clandestine Catholic church in Amsterdam built by merchant Jan Hartman as part of his house in 1663. It has its own access stairs from a side alley and two gallery levels.The laws that made Amsterdam Protestant in 1578 forbade the public practice of Catholicism as well as any public display of Catholic symbols.
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O n S ite review
S urface
I ssue 9 2003
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