Twenty Years After (Deconstructivism)

An Interview with Bernard Tschumi

Michele Costanzo interviews Bernard Tschumi about his work and his vision of the changing field of contemporary
design research. How do the younger generation of students receive Tschumi's seminal theoretical works? Is a lack
of time merely the current scapegoat for a more considered conceptual approach? How does Tschumi view the
proliferation of architectural fetishes in the urban landscape? How is his own theoretical landscape shifting?

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In the early 1990s, there was a significant schism in

architecture. This was triggered in the recently globalised
world of design by a simultaneous crisis in theoretical
thought and a growing shift towards the formal. As the
preoccupation with form developed through the decade it
concurred with a burgeoning international economy,
which paved the way for the exponential rise of the
signature architect. Elevated by the association with the
gilded world of the global brand, the architectural doyen
inevitably became separated from the spatial concerns of
the city. However, with the current economic slowdown
and an acute growing awareness of wider issues, such as
the imminent shortage of water, food and energy as well
as climate change, the reconsideration of the architect as
merely a marketing instrument or branding package has
become pressing. It is now time to re-evaluate how the
architect might become an operative figure in the world of
aesthetics while being attentive to social and urban
objectives.
The fact that Bernard Tschumi is both a theoretician
and a designer is key to understanding his distinctive
approach to architecture. After completing his degree at
the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich,
Tschumi moved to London in 1970 to teach at the
Architectural Association (AA) under the directorship of
Alvin Boyarsky. In 1976 he moved to the US where he
taught at the Institute for Architecture and Urban
Studies, founded by Peter Eisenman, and the University
of Princeton, before taking up a position as a visiting
professor at Cooper Union in New York in the early 1980s.
In the late 1970s, Tschumi began to focus on
identifying a different and more direct relationship with
architecture through a series of drawings known as The
Screenplays (1977), in which he used collages of images
from film noir to experiment with the technique of
cinematic editing and montage. This research was
expanded in The Manhattan Transcripts (1981) with its
three simultaneous levels of reality:1 the event
(represented by documentary-style news photography);
movement (re-created by diagrams of movements from
choreography and sport); and space (explored through
photography, and building and site plans). This effectively
placed the architectural experience in close proximity on
three different levels.

In 1983 when Tschumi won the competition to design the 50hectare (125-acre) Parc de la Villette in Paris, he entered the world of
professional practice and started to build a series of highly iconic
projects, pervaded by a profound theoretical investigation. His ties with
academia, however, remained strong, and in 1988 he was appointed
Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and
Preservation at Columbia University in New York. His 15-year term at
Columbia testifies to his efforts in the field of education, an activity
that provided him with a great deal of stimulation and an important
outlet for his ongoing speculative, intellectual reflections on the
making of architecture.
Between 2001 and 2002, the drawings from The Manhattan
Transcripts were included in a significant retrospective exhibition that
travelled to four US cities. Curated by Jeff Kipnis, Perfect Acts of
Architecture displayed the graphic work that Peter Eisenman, Rem
Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, Daniel Libeskind, Thom Mayne and
Tschumi all produced in a 10-year time period from 1972 to 1982.2
Paper architecture, Kipnis notes, can have a role in the history of
architecture provided that it is innovative and if its main purpose is the
drawing in itself.3 In other words, it must suggest new research trends
and have an objective value. Work was selected from that particular era
in order to consider these points by highlighting their internal values.
However, although supported by a profound theoretical content, they
all subsume the historical momentum in which they were produced. By
encapsulating the social context and the economic transformations
typical of their time, they stress their affiliation to a period of great
communication changes. This incontrovertibly led to the profusion of
computer-aided design with its almost inexhaustible potential.
In his selection of the six projects for the exhibition, Kipnis captures
a renewed confidence.4 There is a strong sense that the featured
architects are poised to pass on something important to ensuing
generations. In a similar way that it was apparent in other cultural and
artistic forms at the time, such as cinema and rock music (think of
2001: A Space Odyssey from Stanley Kubrick, or Electric Lady Land
from Jimi Hendrix).
Transcending History and Concept-Form
Interviewing Tschumi provided the unique opportunity to ask him
whether he shares Kipnis interpretations of the featured projects. Does
he think that The Manhattan Transcripts continue to have a theoretical
value to emerging generations, providing a catalyst for new ideas?
While the mode of communication and the general sensibility of
The Manhattan Transcripts clearly belong to the period, the issues they
explore always had the ambition to transcend the historical conditions

Bernard Tschumi, Concert Hall and Exhibition Centre, Rouen, France, 2001
This cultural complex is located at the gateway to Rouen, close to the National Route 138. The concert
hall plays host to various musical and sporting events, and the new exhibition centre accommodates
large conventions and trade fairs. The concept involves two envelopes, with a large in-between area
which, animated by the various routes to the hall itself, becomes one of the projects key spaces.

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Bernard Tschumi, Blue Residential Tower, Manhattan, New York, 2007

This 17-storey residential and commercial tower in the Lower East Side of Manhattan includes 32 apartments.
The strategy was to create a highly specific architectural statement that responds to the eclecticism of the historic
neighbourhood. Its original, pixellated profile is a new presence in the Manhattan urbanscape.

of their time. My interest at that time (as well as today)

was to try to contribute to or potentially alter the
generally accepted definition of what architecture is.
Hence issues of movement and event, together with their
mode of notation, were first of all an investigation into the
nature of architecture.
Had I engaged in the work today, it is likely that the
use of computers would have radically changed
the appearance of the work. Would it have changed the
content itself? Probably up to a point, yet the questioning
would have remained fairly comparable, due to the larger
issues at hand. Would the new generations be able to
draw from them? I have always been suspicious of the
notion of generations. I rather believe in a certain
periodicity of themes, returning to haunt us at certain
moments of history.
Tschumis generation was able to dedicate a great deal
of time to further research and careful consideration of

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conceptual design. Is this, however, now a justifiable scapegoat for the

loss of any conceptual approach to design?
There have always been periods of conception and periods of
consumption. This is due to economic or social forces way beyond the
control of architects. I would say that, as opposed to the1970s, the
early 21st century is characterised by a faster cycle of production and
consumption. This raises conceptual as well as political issues. I hope
these will soon be investigated.
Given Tschumis association with Deconstruction, I was keen to find
out what his understanding of the formalistic is vis--vis the current
hedonistic attitude affecting architecture now:
What is form? The problem is that both media and dictionaries
define it in the most reductive and banalising way: form as the outline
of an object against a background. So does the architectural
dictionary of received ideas. I find more pleasure in what I would call
concept-form, bringing a high level of abstraction in orchestrating
together a complexity that includes materials, movement and
programmes in the definition of architectural form.

Bernard Tschumi, Parc de la Villette, Paris, 198398

The aim of this project, which marked the starting point of Tschumis
career as a theorist and designer, was to create a new model for the
urban park, in which programme, form and ideology all play integral
roles. The image represents, as the architect asserts, the idea that the
importance of architecture resides in the ability to accelerate societys
transformation through a careful agency of spaces and events.

Bernard Tschumi, Lindner Athletic Center,

University of Cincinnati, Ohio, 2006
Representing the epicentre of the universitys athletic and
academic activities, the unusual curvilinear shape of this
building takes advantage of the tight constraints of the site
to create dynamic residual spaces between the existing
stadium, sports fields and the recreation centre.

I suppose it is the same distinction as between

pornography and eroticism. They are both okay, but one is
substantially more complex and more abstract.
Spectacle?
I also would not completely condemn the production
of spectacle. After all, it can also be theorised ...

on the one hand raise interesting questions about a new form of

architecture, yet on the other signify an impoverishment of
architectural thought and invention. I personally like the challenge of
different geographical or social contexts as a stimulus to new
architectural concepts.
Given the distractions and difficulties of executing work, do you
think it remains important to establish the theoretical core around
which architecture is to rely on in the near future? Probably not one
single synthetic core, but four or five anchor points, around which
issues revolve and occasionally intersect: space, programme, body,
envelopes, global versus local, economy of means, typology versus
topology, concept-form, etc.
Given this, can the theoretical/conceptual nucleus of a project
safeguard architecture from the market?
Architecture does not need to be safeguarded: commerce has also
been a driving force of progress throughout history. Yet it is
commercialism that is problematic when market forces begin to
control every aspect of architectural thinking.

Context, Place and Theory

Designers cannot avoid including in their work the
changes occurring in their everyday lives, whether it is a
matter of interpretation or mirroring their own inner
thoughts. With this in mind, how can we view the
proliferation of architectural fetishes in the urban
landscape; that is, the uncontrolled diffusion of
architectural objects that are indifferent to the
environment they are part of?
This indifference is more problematic. Exporting the
same shapes to Bilbao, Los Angeles or Abu Dhabi may

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Bernard Tschumi, New Acropolis Museum, Athens, 2009

The distinctive characteristic of this new museum structure is its
relationship with the ancient Acropolis and celebrated
monuments which sit on a plateau overlooking the city. The
building highlights the individual elements on the site by
focusing on the creation of broad and inspired views from the
different vantage points within the museum.

Bernard Tschumi, School of Architecture, FIU Miami, Florida, 2003

The Florida International School of Architecture is a place in
which social exchange, discussion and debate between students
and teachers are key. Its buildings are thus generators of events and
interactions. According to Tschumi: The project can be described
as the sobriety of two wings defining a space activated by the
exuberance of three colourful generators. The sober wings are
made of precise yet user-friendly precast concrete; the three
generators are, respectively, varied yellow ceramic tiles, varied
red ceramic tiles and nature.

Bernard Tschumi, Concert Hall, Limoges, France, 2007

Like the Rouen Concert Hall and Exhibition Centre, the Limoges
Concert Hall is based on the idea of a double envelope. The inner
envelope, which delineates the perimeter of the performance space,
is clad entirely with wood, while the exterior envelope is composed
of polycarbonate panels. The concept responds to the dramatic site:
a clearing in a large forest at the edge of the city, surrounded by
200-year-old trees.

Tschumis buildings tend to be vital places open to a range of

human activities and exchanges: places committed to the satisfaction
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of social needs. However, in the third volume from Event-Cities, the
identification of the Concept, Context, Content triad seems to have
removed the role of the user from architectures original aim. What has
caused such a change in the understanding of strategic planning?
To move from Space, Event, Movement to Concept, Context,
Content is by no means a negation of the first triad. On the contrary,
my goal is to expand the earlier issues by inserting the unavoidable
complexity that reality entails. To bring context and content to event
and movement is a way to confront them with the realities of both
culture and production.
In recent times, words like event and space in Tschumis work
have been replaced by others like concept and context. This
seemed to start happening with the project for the New Acropolis
Museum. Does this shift in terminology represent a critical
reassessment of the work?
The project for the New Acropolis Museum had a profound effect
on my thinking. After we won the competition and for a couple of years,
I was not sure what to make of it. It did not fit neatly into the
argumentation around my earlier projects. So I would rarely talk about
it. And yet I knew the project was important. It took me a while to
realise that this project brutally confronted issues that I had been able
to sidestep before, such as the issue of context. Rather than a
reassessment of the work, it became a means to expand thought about
the overall work, a case where practice feeds theory.
The last consideration, in which Tschumi asserts that it is possible
in defined circumstances to arrive at a theory through practice,
explains and analyses more thoroughly what he affirmed at the
beginning of his studies and reflections on the project: that concept,
context and content are part of the definition of contemporary urban
culture and therefore of architecture. Theory is a practice, a practice of
concepts. Practice is a theory, a theory of contexts.6 4
This interview has been compiled from email correspondence between Michele Costanzo
and Bernard Tschumi from April to June 2008.
Translated from the Italian version into English by Paul David Blackmore
Notes
1. The Manhattan Transcripts, Architectural Design (London), 1981; 2nd edition, Academy
Editions (London), 1994.
2. For an overview of the exhibition see
http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=42.
3. Jeffrey Kipnis, Perfect Acts of Architecture, The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and
Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), 2001.
4. The six featured series of drawings in the exhibition were as follows: Rem Koolhaas and
Elia Zenghelis, Exodus or The Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, 1972; Peter Eisenman,
House VI Transformation Collages, 1976; Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts,
197681; Daniel Libeskind, Micromegas, 1978, and Chamber Works, 1983; Thom Mayne
(Morphosis Studio), Sixth Street House, 198687, and Kate Mantilini Restaurant, 1986.
5. Bernard Tschumi, Event-Cities 3, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA, and London), 2005.
6. Event-Cities, op cit, p 3.
Text 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 24, 26, 29 Peter Mauss/Esto; p 27
Sophie Chivet; p 28 Christian Richters

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