| Title |
A Study on Symbolic Expression of Crises in Lebbeus Woods's Architecture |
| Keywords |
Lebbeus Woods ; crisis ; war ; heterarchy ; freespace ; anarchitecture ; uncanny |
| Abstract |
This paper aims at researching on crises manifested in the American architect Lebbeus Woods's (1940-2012) experimental works. In particular, a 'war' as an extreme expression of a crisis had been a major theme of his projects in 1990s, for example, warfare in the traditional sense as in Sarajevo, warfare of restricting capital as in Havana, and warfare of building against natural forces as in San Francisco. His conceptual healing process of a war-damaged building with the phases of 'injection', 'scab', 'scar' and 'new tissue' is a biological metaphor, more symbolic than realistic. And his ideas of the 'heterarchy' and the 'freespace', characterised arguably by 'the assemblage of fragments and their folded ways', could be seen as a critical reaction against modern rationality and mass consumer/technological culture. Architecture as an instrument for social transformations is a political act to Woods, and he has proposed 'anarchitecture', an architecture for an anarchic society. Finally, this paper asserts that his heterarchic anarchitecture implies 'a fundamentally unlivable modern condition', being accompanied by 'the uncanny' as an aesthetic effect; and that the visionary Woods's projects, though mostly remained unbuilt, should be considered meaningful since they have let us realise existing crises in the present society and see modern culture with a critical view. |