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EGOS Sub-theme 22: The Territorial Organization

Architectural designs as concrete machines:

Tracing the organisation of place in the first prize blueprints of the

architectural competitions for the New Acropolis Museum in 1989 and 2000.

Authors:Sofia PaisiouDepartment of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Muse 4,1700 Fribourg, Switzerland; e-mail: [email protected]

Jan Michel SilberbergerDepartment of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Muse 4,

1700 Fribourg, Switzerland; e-mail: [email protected]

Joris Ernest Van Wezemael (Author for correspondence)Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Muse 4,1700 Fribourg, Switzerland; e-mail: [email protected]

1.Introduction

Architecture and design are strongly related to the organisation activity

(Weick 1993 ) as they are also directly related with the production of place,

the management of the complex layering of intertwining of physical, mental,

relational networks each with their own temporality, scale and reach (Amin,

2004; Healey, 2006).

Architecture is inherently about management and guidance of movement

(Schumacher 1996), about the organization of movement of light and sight,

(Koolhaas, Van Brekel in Delalex 2006) and is pre-emptive in the sense that

designs and plans are based on calculations and strategies related to these

distinct conceptions of power. The French Philosophers Foucault (1975) and

Deleuze (1998) developed important diagrams that differentiate distinct

conceptions of power and allow for conceptualizing the different modes of

how architecture can govern flows and how the re-assembling of things

generates a nexus as to organise movement.

Conceptually this article is based on Deleuze and Guattari (1984) (Deleuze

2006, Guattari 1984) and their work on abstract and concrete machines


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(Watson 2009, Genosko 2002), working towards a perspective that traces the

relations between the social assemblages and the organisation of place, as

these are constructed, negotiated , presented and perceived by material

actualisations or tools used in design, architecture, planning and decision. In

other words by studying the constructed outcomes of territorialising/ de

territorialising processes trying to recognise what folded Stories about Space

exhibiting the operations that allow it are used (Certeau in Reynolds B.,

Fitzpatrick J., 1999) in these kinds of inscriptions (Latour 1985).

Architectural plans are mapping of space in the sense mapping spatial

organisation , the organisation of movements and flows, acting as heuristics

to facilitate organizational action and are considered instrumental.

Simultaneously architectural plans are morphogenetic tools, inscribing

heurestics of aesthetic and creative values.

We see these mappings of space, following Guattari as concrete

machines. Guattari (1984) discusses the example of the blueprints for the

Concord, as an organisational registerof the material parts that make up

the aircraft. Latour (1985) and DeCertau (Reynolds B., Fitzpatrick J., 1999)

also discuss this relation between architectural plans and organisation of

space, referring to plans and mappings as place that exhibit products of

knowledge, legible objective indicators (Reynolds B., Fitzpatrick J., 1999 ) or

as Latour (1985) states presentable immutable scenography , that in a first

place affect the way these places are perceived and performed , marking out

what one can do in and make out of and secondly that allows many other

inscriptions to come together , Realms of reality that seem far apart

(mechanics, economics, marketing, scientific organization of work) are inches

apart, once flattened out onto the same surface.

In this perspective architectural blueprints as mappings of movement and

organisation of space, or hierarchisation devices that work between abstract

machines and various becomings and strata of power. Furthermore

Architectural blueprints are also mappings directly related with the creation of

place. By exploring them as concrete machines that organise space, we


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understand how social assemblages is territorially organized, how concepts

and representations, people and things, are culturally realized by cultural

processes of territorialization / deterritorialization, and acquire emerging

qualities.

As an empirical case study we will study the awarded with first prize

blueprints and images from two New Acropolis Museum competitions, in

1989 and 2001 and see how these two blueprints achieve to territorialised or

deterritorialized the creation of the New Acropolis Museum, what kind of

organisation they implement and what actors they implicate, in other words

what social spatial assemblages were organised and how in order to create a

place for the New Acropolis Museum.

2. Concrete Machines as organisation registers

Staring point of the concept relation between architecturalpalns and

organisation of space is Guattari (1984) example of the blueprints for the

Concord, as an organisational register. Such a blueprint he continues is only

of interest in so far as its articulations are sufficiently de-territorialised and can

be made to correspond with the de-territorialised articulations of the materials

of expression: in other words a blueprint is a combination between

heurestics and symbols (materials of expressions) and their relation with

the material systems (raw materials). In this interchange,

diagrammatisation plays an important role. Concrete machine bring both

types of redundancy into play: ofrepresentation and diagrammatism

(Guattari 1984, 155).

Furthermore concrete machines work between abstract machines and various

becomings and strata of power: although a concrete machine does not belong

to a particular stratum they indicate possible politics of stratification. This

makes concrete machine an hierarchisation device: the various becomings

are organised to proceed by the way of these concrete machines, which are

hierachised in such a way as to make some kinds of becomings depend on


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others (Guattari 1984, 157), in other words in the way concrete machines

organise becomings.

This relation between blueprints, plans, power and organisation of place is

discussed also in Latour (1985) and Certeau (Reynolds B., Fitzpatrick J.,

1999). More precisely by using the example of the La Perouse, Latour

discusses that maps and plans are objects, which have the properties of

being mobile but also immutable,presentable, readable and combinable with

one another. In addition these mappings and plans are material expression of

the world views : how a culture sees the world, and makes it visible.

As he points out in the case of Industrial drawing not only creates a paper

world that can be manipulated as if in three dimensions. It also creates a

common place for many other inscriptions to come together ; margins of

tolerance can be inscribed on the drawing, the drawing can be used for

economic calculation, or for defining the tasks to be made, or for organizing

the repairs and the sales. (Latour 1985)

Fiction or nature, mappings and plans are a meeting ground, a common

place, because they all benefit from the same optical consistency. Cities,

landscapes, dreams, heavens can go back and forth to along the same two-

way avenues through space, and look at them through the same

windowpane on the same two-dimensional surface (Latour 1985). According

to Latour (1985) in this way a specific visual culture redefines both what it is to

see, and what there is to see.

In this sense Certeau (Reynolds B., Fitzpatrick J., 1999) relates the discourse

of panopticism , the formulation of maps and to the definition of the city : as

rational organization must (thus) repress all the physical, mental, and political

pollutions that would compromise it. This is made possible by the flattening

out of all the data in a plane projection Latours windowpane: accoding to

Certeau these maps with their tacit spatializations, attempt to definitively mark

out what one can do in () and make out of a space; that is, they direct how

one perceives and performs in space (Reynolds B., Fitzpatrick J., 1999). In

other words they define and propose specific organization for the city and

place.


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At this point it is interesting to reflect the relation between abstract and

concrete machines, having in mind that we are not trying to create

boundaries, between processes, components or gatherings or as Genosko

(2002, 185) states : Guattaris dinstiction between abstract and concrete

machines , just as that between assemblages and components was not [..]

significant since All assemblages of enunciation concerning human beings

are mixed [] to the extent that they are derived as much from signification as

from diagrammatism.

Altough there are not boundaires between processe of becomings, studying

concrete machines are important in what concern the organization of place

and place making because they capable of bringing change: concrete

machines can actualise intensities (Guattari 1984, 154) , they are the

"components of passage," a phrase which emphasizes their ability to move

from assemblage to assemblage, effectuating change (Watson 2009) .

According to Guattari abstract machines work alongside with concrete

machines (Watson, 2009, 75). Concrete machines in Guattaris ontology

(Watson 2009) tranverse different domains and are capable of articulating

singularities of the field under consideration and to join heterogeneous

components. In other words concrete machines articulate the singularities that

are brought together by the abstract machines. What is important to highlight

is the relation between articulating concrete machines and the abstract

machine that formulates the problem.

In that perspective the winners images and blueprints of two competitions can

be thought as temporal actualizations by a concrete machine. Drawing on

Deleuze (2006) the abstract machine is the diagram that structures the

singularities on the virtual field (Deleuze, 2006); it structures the virtual

singularities of the problem of the creation of the New Acropolis Museum to

which both procurement process generates solutions. These procurement

processes are thus concrete assemblages that individuate on the basis of

relations of the abstract machine. Together with the winning blueprints and

plans function as medium, passages allowing the abstract machine that


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structure the problem at hand to acquire certain existential consistency they

otherwise do not enjoy (Genoslo 2002, 185). 1

These plans and blueprints for the New Acropolis Museum are the produced

final decisions, the outcomes of two procurement processes in 1989 and

2000. They map the negotiations about the organisation of place and place

making between the abstract machines, the singularities that formulate the

problem of the creation of the New acropolis Museum, and the various

becomings by the strata of power.

3. The folded organisation of the final blueprints for the New acropolis

Museum

In this paper we will explore how architectural images, plans and

blueprints as concrete machines organise space, and how they create a

sense of place', associating social and cultural practice and place. In

other words by understanding concrete machine and their relation with

diagram/ abstract machine, we can address how social assemblage is

territorially organized, how concepts and representations, people and things,

are culturally realized by cultural processes of territorialization /

deterritorialization, and acquire emerging qualities.

This case study is chosen because of the particular entanglement between

social, cultural, technical and political issues that enter the organization of the

specific place, the new Acropolis Museum. The questions posed by the

creation of this specific museum are interesting from the point of view of

global culture and its symbolism (Yalouri 2001, 192). Furthermore the site

where the New Acropolis Museum is built is located in a very particular and

1Therefore not only the criteria define the future of the projects and the space of potential

solutions; rather, also the proposals, due to their temporary consistency, define the structure

and boundaries of the decision space (Genosko 2002).


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densely woven urban fabric, where the power of local tensions and

organisation of local networks play a decisive role in the way things are

shaped. This makes the organisation of place interesting in terms of its

embeddedness into the densely packed, everyday life of Athens.

As it in detailed analyse in the second part, during the two competitions

negotiations for NAM are realised, modulation of singularities are effected.

These are related to specific networks actors and propose organisation and

hierarchical becomings for the problem at hand, which are then transformed

and mirror to the winning design.

To deal with the mentioned properties of these specific images and blueprints

the article methodologically draws on actant-networks ANT (Latour 2005) and

its further development by Law (2004) what he calls the assemblage

method. As it is also analyzed previosusly inscription devices and concrete

machines conceptually are very close when it come to trace actual filed of

mapping. An inscription device is mainly responsible for the manipulation of

inscriptions and statements. As Law (2004) states: Inscription device may be,

but is not necessary, a technology or an instrument. [] It is a set of

arrangements for converting relations from non trace to trace like form. It is a

set of practices for shifting material modalities. Assemblage method enables

us to deal with all the actors and the full complexity of the situation in an

image assemblage, a gathering where the negotiations political ,

economical, social and technical issues are folded together producing

organisation of place and for place making or as Law states a process of

bundling , of assembling where the elements put together are not fixed in

shape and do not belong to a large pregiven list, but they are constructed at

least in part as they are entangled together (Law 2004, 122).

Method assemblage should not be used as a standardized method, rather as

a vocabulary for thinking about method: the creativity and performativity of a

continuous process of enacting and crafting necessary boundaries between

presence , (what is here), manifested absence and otherness (what is absent

but hidden, repressed or uninteresting). In this point of view method


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assemblage is interested in materialities and forms of possible presence that

are not conventional study material in social research like texts, visual

depictions, cross sections, conversations, routinesed machines/statements

and others (Law 2004, 146) and thus also the final plants of the two NMA

competitions.

4. Conclusion: diagrammatic tools and complex organization of place

By tracing the relations folded in the architectural plans of New Acropolis

Museum as the material inscription of negotiations between different

materials, actors and networks in competitions, we will explain the

organization of places and place making.

These findings are important for place making as well as for organization

design since the activity of architectural design and plans often serves as a

metaphor for the latter (Weick 1993). As Weick proposes this is problematic

because design is taken as a noun, as a final product and not as a verb and

thus does not allow to explore design as a process or a continuous activity of

creation, interpretation and performance.

As we will illustrate with this study this is important for both organizational

design but also for architectural design and planning.

In architectural ( as in other types of) plans the detailing involved refers to the

technical part, the symbolism/description and combination of the raw

materials, in other words representation ( and symbolism) is what makes the

technical precision and detailing possible.

But as concrete machines these blueprints and plans have also diagrammatic

qualities, meaning that although all the elements are defined and are in the

right position, their relation are not definitely described. Their diagrammatism

does not refers only to the specific case, one specific solutions, but depict a

general pattern of organization from which potential organizational formations

and qualities can be resulted. (Gehring 1992).


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This a crucial aspect as much for planning and architecture as for

organisational design especially in a context of a world that has become

more complex itself (Van Wezemael 2010, 287) rendering linear Euclidean

modes of social research inadequate, and in a context of practices where

uncertainties with regard to goals, procedures and agents are a key

characteristic of these constellations roles are newly defined, tasks have to

be explored, goals are not set yet the constitution of temporary ad-hoc

organisations in concrete planning projects can be described as (temporary)

project environments (Joris E. Van Wezemael, 2008) The diagrammatic

qualities of design and architectural tools is recently discuss in management

studies, as a way of dealing with uncertainties in a complex world (Boland and

Callopy 2004).

Plans and blueprints should be treated as a background of multiple

possibilities expressing multiple becoming of place, as processes with loose

ends - not a closed system but an open one (Massey 1999). This allow to

view maps and plans also as expression of multiplicities, as an organization

based on tactics2

that suggest the reimaging of place in terms of a radical

commitment to openness of the future and a recognition of multiplicities and

difference (Massey 1999)

In other words blueprints, maps and plans can be treat (create and read) not

as proper places, neither as the representation of a goal but as the

diagrammatic cartography of how to get there, unfolding Stories about

2According to Certeau (R) a tactic, is a calculus which cannot count on a proper (a spatial

or institutional localization), nor thus on a borderline distinguishing the other as a visible

totality . Certau opposes tactics to strategies : the calculus of force-relationships which

becomes possible when a subject ofwill and power (a proprietor, an enterprise, a city, a

scientific institution) canbe isolated from an environment. A strategy assumes a place that

can be circumscribed as proper(propre) and thus serve as the basis for generatingrelations

with an exterior distinct from it. . . .

In this way Certeau understand Foucaults panoptic procedures: as strategies in need of a

proper place in which to exercise their authority.


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Space which exhibit the operations that allow it, within a constraining and

non-proper place, to mingle its elements anyway () (r )

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