Boredom, Architecture, and Spatial Experience

Description

Boredom is a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Endured by everyone, it is a by-product of modernity, and of situations, spaces and surroundings. As such, this book argues, boredom shares an intimate relationship with modern architecture – one that has been little-explored in architectural history and theory. Boredom, Architecture and Spatial Experience explores that relationship, showing how an understanding of boredom affords us a new way of looking at and understanding the modern architectural experience. It reconstructs a series of episodes in architectural history from the nineteenth century to the present, to explore how boredom became a normalized component of modernity, how it infiltrated into the production and reception of modern architecture, and how it serves to expose moments of crisis in the architecture of the twentieth century. Erudite and innovative, the work moves deftly from architectural theory and philosophy to art theory and sociology to make its case. Combining archival material, literary sources and illuminating excerpts from conversations with practitioners and thinkers (including Charles Jencks, Rem Koolhaas, Sylvia Lavin, and Jorge Silvetti), it reveals the complexity and importance of boredom in the experience and practice of architecture. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACE FOREWORD INTRODUCTION BOREDOM AS ARCHITECTURE Pliable Omnipresence A Long Essay Differential Distances, Circular Trajectories, and Extended Thresholds CHAPTER 1 A COMPONENT OF MODERNITY Spatial Etymology Around Desire, in Abstract Space PART 1 DIFFERENTIAL DISTANCES CHAPTER 2 FASCINATION AND AVERSION Cycles of Boredom First Cycle Second Cycle CHAPTER 3 SØREN KIERKEGAARD’S BABYLONIAN TOWER Defining Outward Spheres Acknowledging Inwardness CHAPTER 4 CATHERINE GORE AND CHARLES DICKENS: IDLE RESTLESSNESS/RESTLESS IDLENESS Idle Restlessness Bored Women and Dull Men Restless Idleness Bleak Houses Once as a Locus, Malady, Confinement, and Curiosity, and Twice as a Dragon Modern Ambiguity CHAPTER 5 BLUNTING AND JADING* Modern Subjectivity Expressive Blunting and Perpetual Jading Constancy and Change CHAPTER 6 CONEY ISLAND, MISLEADING STRUCTURES* Mistreating New York, Misleading Coney Island Flimsy White Structures Stifling Spaces After Boredom PART 2 CIRCULAR TRAJECTORIES CHAPTER 7 A UNITY OF DISARRAY Surrounded by Interests Suffused with Boredom Third Cycle Fourth Cycle The Last Remnants of Joy CHAPTER 8 MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S URGE TO BE AT HOME Attuning Everywhere Boredom, the Space of Modernity Bored by Something, Bored with Something, and Being Bored World-forming CHAPTER 9 ORAN, THE CAPITAL OF BOREDOM* Labyrinthine Boredom The Dustiest City Stone Monuments Without Ariadne or Theseus Awaiting Oran CHAPTER 10 INTERNATIONAL STYLE CONFUSIONS: SIGFRIED GIEDION Superficialities of All Kinds The Symposium Always Bored Johnson Never Bored Banham The Very Backbone of Human Society Enlivening the Discipline CHAPTER 11 LOS ANGELES, FLAT ENOUGH Boredom in the Ecologies of Los Angeles A Different World Another Boredom, the Ecologies of Evil The Hyperspace of Los Angeles, the Hyperspace of Boredom PART 3 EXTENDED THRESHOLDS CHAPTER 12 POTENTIAL ARCHITECTURES Creation and Destruction Boredom at the End of History Fifth Cycle Boredom, an Architectural Ideology CHAPTER 13 ANDREW BENJAMIN’S ANTITHESIS TO BOREDOM The Bored Mass Individual, the Boring World, and the Repetition of Boredom Experimentation, or the Dialectical Antithesis to Boredom CHAPTER 14 BOREDOM IN DOMUS Heterogeneous Fragments “Forum” Boredom Uniformity According to Eve and Adam Alternatives to Boredom Between Less and More, Nam June Paik The Most Normal State CHAPTER 15 SERVITUDE AND LIBERALISM: RUSSELL KIRK Without Classes, Faith, or Historical Consciousness Cleveland, Detroit, London Planning to Thrive Poetry against Boredom CHAPTER 16 CHARLES JENCKS, REM KOOLHAAS, AND THE GENERIC Generic Individualism Dumb Boxes, Expensive Prestige Cosmological Boredom The Boring City Lack and Neutrality Smooth Space, Calm but Eerie In Transit CHAPTER 17 JORGE SILVETTI AND SYLVIA LAVIN: UNAMUSED MUSES AND LYING FALLOW Assessing Goddesses Theory to Form Observing the Field The Key to Invention Resistance as Method Not Interested EPILOGUE ARCHITECTURES OF BOREDOM I’m Bored They’re Bored We’re Bored I Am, They Are, and We Are Bored NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX