Colletti, Marjan
Published in: SOMA. One Ocean; Theme Pavilion Expo Yeosu, Residenz Verlag, ISBN: 9783701732937, with Essays by Kari Jormakka, Marjan Colletti, Georg Vrachilotis and Jan Knippers, 2012.
Nomen est omen?
Why would a young, digital architectural practice choose a classical reference as their name (SOMA of course, links directly to Ancient Greek σῶμα, which means ‘body’)? Does such a strategy signify anything in particular?
Perhaps there is something like the semantics of SOMA, and more generally, of architectural practices – at least since late Modernism. Personally, I have no recollection by what official company name the great old masters operated. Gaudi Inc.? Corbs Ltd.? FLW (Frank Lloyd Wright)? MvdR Associates (Mies van der Rohe)? I doubt it. Most architects tend to run an office under their own name(s), usually augmented by more or less artistic or corporate appendices: e.g. Herzog & de Meuron, Grimshaw Architects, Foster + Partners, Gehry Partners LLP, Studio Daniel Libeskind, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Greg Lynn Form, etc. (and here we feel the presence of the master). On the other hand, we also know that if you want to be commercially plausible, you have to be a ‘three-letter office’, usually acronyms and abbreviations of the founders' names, because these come across as more abstract, impersonal, corporate: e.g. OMA, BDP, SOM, HOK, KPF, NOX, now even ZHA etc. (and here I sense business).[1] Then there are the invented, iconoclastic names denoting experimentation: Archigram, Coop Himmelb(l)au etc. (where I detect freshness and ambition). And lastly, the ‘borrowed’ names – real words taken from other languages or disciplines: Asymptote (mathematics), Morphosis (life sciences), and SOMA etc. What is to be detected here? Context? Research? A statement?
Undoubtedly, Rutzinger, Oberascher, Schinegger and Weber, by referring to σῶμα, want to tell us that they are into corporeality, the senses, embodiment.[2] ‘Of course, what else?’, you may ask. Well, they could have linked to ‘a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians’ – Google’s first hit. This is quite odd to somebody like me who was educated in the classics.[3]
Fuzzy Somantics
Assuming we started by a classical, aesthetic approach to σῶμα, we would want to look for particular anthropomorphic conjectures, for an implicit or explicit classical arrangement of proportions in SOMA’s work. But frankly, we would be on the wrong track. The associations blitzing through our head of the Vitruvian Man or of Le Corbusier’s Modulor would be utterly useless. Why?
Such diagrams delineate the body in architecture but not the body of architecture. And the body of architecture really ought to be defined as the physical presence of buildings, their dynamic/kinetic properties, as well as the subject matter of architecture. The Theme Pavilion (TP) would present a perfect opportunity to exemplify these issues. Its physicality is complex and variable; it looks different from all sides – which is extremely refreshing: too many morphological exercises result in constellations that can be too homogeneous. Not the TP: it is curvy, striated, wobbly, horizontal, vertical, cellular, porous, twisted, elegant. And performative: the kinetic media façade does work![4]
Here, I would like to touch briefly on the subject matter of SOMA’s architecture: the body. There are clear somatic (bodily) features in SOMA’s latest oeuvre: the TP with its conoidal cavities and animalesque gills, the Building Academy Foyer with its finely triangulated concrete bones/trees, the Temporary Art Pavilion Salzburg as a white hedgehog, the Taiwan Tower Complex and its fibrous, stalky stems – there are plenty of zoomorphic and phytomorphic associations. Furthermore, in the project descriptions, we read of bionic and biomimetic principles underlying the design. As we all know, nature has always played a major role in architecture, since it observes nature for its organisational and formal structures. Historically, from the observation of morphogenetic systems, two different basic architectural approaches seem to have arisen. A first (analogue) approach gave way to organic architecture, the origins of which can be traced back, at least in part, to Austro-German (and English) thinkers, particularly to the scientific and philosophical work of Goethe, and to architects such as Steiner, Häring, Kiesler and many others. A second (digital) approach appears to be rooted in mathematical and algorithmic working concepts: morphogenesis, genetic algorithmic, genomic design, just to mention a few research trajectories.[5] Maybe SOMA is a hybrid of the two.[6]
Since we set out to consider the body, and not Nature, or βίος (life), our enquiry should bypass the triviality of the analogy of the body being the most complex biosystem known to humankind and instead touch upon something beyond the generation of form, shape, Gestalt. Eventually, I would like to examine what I would call ‘somantics’; i.e. a theory of relationships between the body, architecture and their referents; somehow a ‘bodily analysis’ of things, people and concepts. What would such an enquiry entail? First of all, we should distinguish between σῶμα and kορμί. ‘The Greek language differentiates between “soma” – the body that works and functions, and “kormi” – the body that dreams and loves’, asserts Nikos Papastergiadis. And he continues: ‘In pop songs we hear of the kormi which is a victim of causes, traps and triangles. The tender side of beauty and the hard side of seduction are both played out on the kormi.’[7] It would not be unreasonable to state that a huge majority of architects would choose σῶμα, the functional body. Consequently, a main feature of somantic tectonics would be that the body of architecture were of course contingent on brief, programme and function – and therefore, fundamentally changeable.[8] And is this not what avant-garde architects have been discussing forever: open, fluid, flexible, adaptable, mechanical, machinic, indeterminate, anexact, approximated, etc. architecture? In my opinion, SOMA follow this tradition, accepting the possibility of ‘fuzzy’ processes, fuzzy Gestalten. Beware, fuzzy is far from being a derogatory expression; it simply describes, as do the above-mentioned terms, an anti-classical, metabolic system for architecture. It is my own reading of SOMA, but the fact that they describe their project as ‘vague, multiple, scintillating, temporary’ etc. provides a foundation for my argument.
Thus, after the digital/virtual and cyber body (think of Stelarc, Orlan, Kevin Warwick etc.) – post Postmodern body, Modern body, Industrial body, Enlightened body, Baroque body, Renaissance body, Medieval body, Classical body, pre-Classical body – is it feasible to think of the contemporary body as the fuzzy body – and consequently of fuzzy architecture? Of course, in tune with fuzzy logic, the answer to this question is totally approximate and variable, with a truth value ranging between 0 and 1… It goes without saying that this applies to all of the above – surely to the concern and annoyance of more talented and considerate scholars.
The kormi factor
To conclude these fuzzy thoughts, we should look back at the initial query about the relationship between nomen and omen. At this stage I would be tempted to say: ‘I don’t know. The answer would lie between 0 and 1.’ Perhaps it would the most honest way to describe SOMA’s work. They do, indeed, provide us with projects that vacillate between the tectonic (or better: corporeal) 0 and 1. For example: the TP’s Gestalt tends towards the 1, but SOMA has tried everything possible to approach the 0: the gills, the conical cavities, the perforations, the cantilevers, the curves. The spiky pavilion belongs at the opposite end of the scale: a 0 tectonic body project that tries its best to stretch towards the 1. I guess the other projects lie somewhere in between. At this stage then, knowing that (n) is the symbol that, in mathematics, denotes a variable (integer) quantity, we could state that nomen est (n)omen. That a name may signify different things, especially for SOMA. And that (n)omen est omen – that a variable set of meanings is in itself a sign…
The reason that I am slightly off topic here is because in truth, I am anxiously thinking about kορμί, about the body that dreams, loves and suffers. To consider function as the paramount tenet of architectural design nowadays is somehow ludicrous: functions change, adapt, move out. Form survives function; and intelligent buildings must respond to these alterations: through mechanical devices, flexible spaces, open systems (besides, the Greek σῶμα refers to everything but the head…). Thus, it may not be too wrong to plead for a bit of kormi in every architectural soma. For more than function, more than shape. For the kormi factor; a fuzzy factor. To me, fuzziness is a possible way of incorporating such chimeric duality. I have no doubt that to SOMA, aesthesis matters as much as aesthetics, that sensorial detection may be more essential than codification.[9] That semantics are replaced by somantics. The Renaissance understanding of design as de signum (about abstract but readable signs) is long past. Design, in its classical definition, is consequently dead.[10] Inversely, architecture must keep breathing – and the TP, with its gills, surely does.
[1] And of course we find the odd hybrids of the three-letters plus partners, such as Rogers’ RHSP (Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners), MVRDV.
[2] Surprisingly, the ‘About’ section on the company’s webpage makes no effort to theorise on, or contextualise the name.
[3] Admittedly, I would have expected the Greek ‘body’ to appear at the top.
[4] I feel I should expand on these topics; but these issues, I am convinced, are best presented and displayed by the content of this book. The building is finished, and I see no particular reason in commenting on something already finalised. This is also the critical difference between a student crit (a propositional framework where one comments on future development) and a marking session (an administrative job), or a competition jury (about a future piece off architecture) and an awarding committee (about an existing building).
[5] In the sciences for example, Häckel’s studies on the compelling shapes and patterns of planktons (1899) and the illustrated plates of radiolaria (by lithographer Giltsch) in his Kunstformen der Natur had an imminent influence on Art Nouveau, and most directly on the oeuvre of French architect Binet (whose design for the entrance gate to the 1900 Paris World Exposition for example is shaped as a huge tectonic radiolarian). And the list goes on…
[6] In fact, as an Austrian office, SOMA are ‘Europeans’ in that they seem not as concerned, or obsessed, with processes as much as Northern Americans, but more – as already stated – with expression, corporeality, embodiment. Could it be because at least two have been educated in an Austrian master class and a UK unit system, rather than the US semester structure…?
[7] Nikos Papastergiadis, ‘One Night Love’. Object Magazine (2002), online at http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/essays/17, accessed 13.05.2012.
[8] However, the kinetic capacities of bodies, and in particular their growth and death – provide a currently (I am an optimist) insurmountable problem to architecture. Especially if architecture is understood as mimicry – and in biology mimicry is a semiotic quest.
[9] For example, whenever you find an architect (or a group of architects) visiting a building, a workshop or a factory, you can see us all (us architects) touching everything – no matter how novel or familiar the thing is to us. We touch sharp corners, glide our fingertips along (preferably curved) edges, knock on walls, or scratch surfaces with our nails. This is totally uninformative, yet compulsive. We all know how marble feels like, how a column ‘sounds’, how sharp a metal edge is. But we keep doing it.
[10] Yet not the drawing, the image, the model. On the contrary, they are – more then ever – vessels of sensorial communication.
[2] Surprisingly, the ‘About’ section on the company’s webpage makes no effort to theorise on, or contextualise the name.
[3] Admittedly, I would have expected the Greek ‘body’ to appear at the top.
[4] I feel I should expand on these topics; but these issues, I am convinced, are best presented and displayed by the content of this book. The building is finished, and I see no particular reason in commenting on something already finalised. This is also the critical difference between a student crit (a propositional framework where one comments on future development) and a marking session (an administrative job), or a competition jury (about a future piece off architecture) and an awarding committee (about an existing building).
[5] In the sciences for example, Häckel’s studies on the compelling shapes and patterns of planktons (1899) and the illustrated plates of radiolaria (by lithographer Giltsch) in his Kunstformen der Natur had an imminent influence on Art Nouveau, and most directly on the oeuvre of French architect Binet (whose design for the entrance gate to the 1900 Paris World Exposition for example is shaped as a huge tectonic radiolarian). And the list goes on…
[6] In fact, as an Austrian office, SOMA are ‘Europeans’ in that they seem not as concerned, or obsessed, with processes as much as Northern Americans, but more – as already stated – with expression, corporeality, embodiment. Could it be because at least two have been educated in an Austrian master class and a UK unit system, rather than the US semester structure…?
[7] Nikos Papastergiadis, ‘One Night Love’. Object Magazine (2002), online at http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/essays/17, accessed 13.05.2012.
[8] However, the kinetic capacities of bodies, and in particular their growth and death – provide a currently (I am an optimist) insurmountable problem to architecture. Especially if architecture is understood as mimicry – and in biology mimicry is a semiotic quest.
[9] For example, whenever you find an architect (or a group of architects) visiting a building, a workshop or a factory, you can see us all (us architects) touching everything – no matter how novel or familiar the thing is to us. We touch sharp corners, glide our fingertips along (preferably curved) edges, knock on walls, or scratch surfaces with our nails. This is totally uninformative, yet compulsive. We all know how marble feels like, how a column ‘sounds’, how sharp a metal edge is. But we keep doing it.
[10] Yet not the drawing, the image, the model. On the contrary, they are – more then ever – vessels of sensorial communication.
