The psychology of buildings: Architecture ‘on the couch’
2021 Essex Conference
Authors: A/Prof Jonathan Mosley (Bristol UWE / Warren and Mosley), Sophie Warren (Warren and Mosley)
Abstract
This paper is based on research carried out by an interdisciplinary team of four that includes myself and Nigel, here with you today and Jonathan Mosley, associate prof in architecture and artist Sophie Warren. The project aimed at conceptualising buildings as psychosocial subjects using a combination of affect theory, psychoanalytic and social science approaches. The first part of the paper gives an outline of how we went about this in methodological and methods terms. The second part offers an overview of findings from the case study building of the Communist Party headquarters in Paris that we used to test our approach. Pictures showing.
Methodology
Our starting point for a psychology of buildings has to be how to conceptualise a building as an entity or subject able to encompass conscious and unconscious dimensions. Our framing identifies a number of foundational attributes: 1) A building is the product and expression of a web of relationships comprising human and nonhuman aspects, in that sense it is relational both in the way it comes into being and in the way it is used and related to. 2) A building is an entity of time, with a personal history of people and events. It can be said that a building is a condensed expression of time into space. Buildings have a life span dependent on their design, materials and care bestowed on them to delay the ravages of time. 3) A building speaks through its body and its language is mostly, though not exclusively, visual and spatial. A building speaks through its form, style and gesture, colour and qualities of light and dark, texture and temperature, qualities of materials where touch and smells play a part too. These are experienced by the passer-by or occupant both in dwelling or moving through or past the architecture. 4) A building is subject to power and has power to affect. Humans clearly have power over buildings in their design, use and maintenance, but humans are also affected by the building itself, its ease of use for the functions people require to perform within it, the ambience or atmosphere therein is able to influence people’s wellbeing and productivity. And finally, in that sense 5) a building partakes of unconscious qualities because there are impacts of unconscious decisions embedded in the design/management of the architecture and because of its ability to affect the unconscious of the occupant.
Ontology - affect and the unconscious - buildings as assemblages of human and nonhuman
In our formulation a building is an assemblage of human and nonhuman qualities, materialities and immaterialities (Blackman, 2012). Insofar as it is conceived, built, furnished and inhabited by humans it partakes of human endowed qualities, in so far as it is nonhuman it partakes of qualities the human materiality cannot afford us. These are inscribed through rational as well as unconscious choices, accidents and unforeseen events. What is expressed in final form can be read as signs (in a Deleuzian sense: Deleuze, 2000) of underlying virtual (Deleuze, 1980) conditions. Blind spots that may or may not be thought of as just mistakes, may tell of unconscious processes of perhaps denial, narcissistic aspects or of traces of traumatic events, unresolved conflicts or losses, which may even be thought of as hauntings in some cases. It seems essential therefore to understand the internal assemblage dynamics of architecture in order to understand how a building or set of occupants can co-exist within and as part of the assemblage in a more fulfilling manner.
In their power to affect, buildings possess a kind of agency that might want to make us get away from them, demolish or restore them. Clough (2010, cited in Blackman, 2012, p.5) gives us ways of thinking of ‘the way affect participates at every level and scale of matter, from the subatomic to the cultural, such that matter itself is affective.’ Affect theory dissolves the distinctions between organic and inorganic, living and not living, but is also importantly about movement, change, becomings and transformations, most often occurring out of sight, yet perceptible. Most importantly for our research, affect theory allows for an exploration of conscious and unconscious levels and scales of influence in a human-nonhuman assemblage, such as a building can be conceived to be. Our project is fundamentally psychosocial by aiming to build on this ontological foundation using what can be derived from both a psychoanalytic and affect theory perspective as it pertains to a building as both a subject and an assemblage, something that would see the assemblage itself as forming a fragmented sui generi subjectivity, but a subjectivity nonetheless.
Methods
The difficulty in working with such a conceptual framework lies in the porousness of boundaries it implies, making it hard to know how to deal with the potential of infinite linkages and interactions. In conceptualising our project, we are concerned with the entanglement of human and nonhuman aspects in so far as they pertain to a building itself, from its location history and the history of those who commissioned it and used it over time, to its aesthetic and material qualities and changes of use over time. All of these aspects are seen to contribute to its subjectivity. The case study approach allows for the specific focus to offer containment. The specific building provides a point of anchorage to depart from and return to. It responds to all the 5 points outlined earlier.
A genealogical approach is deployed on the basis that both conscious and unconscious factors pertaining to traces from the past may be identified as having found expression in the final form, affective qualities and uses of the building over time. These expressions in turn create an affective environment that resonates at mostly unconscious levels even for those visiting, but more strongly for those people inhabiting or operating within a building. The affective environment can be more or less enabling of the work and workers wellbeing. The genealogical approach can also be seen to ally itself with the important practice of taking case studies in psychotherapy.
The Communist Party Headquarters known as La Siege, designed by Oscar Niemeyer has been our test case. The genealogical approach has taken the form of a family tree and an event line, mapping the web of influences and relationships from the history and choice of site to the choice of architect, design, construction and uses of the building up to 2020. The entanglement of social history, including the specific history of the Communist Party, along with aspects more specific to the design and construction of the building have thus been mapped for thematic analysis. The case study/genealogical work findings have then been triangulated to avoid ‘wild analysis’. The triangulation has consisted of a Visual Matrix group process, whereby images of the building were presented to a group of people familiar with psychosocial methods, but without prior knowledge of which building they would be presented with. In addition, we tested the possibility that a stand-in for the building could be part of a series of psychotherapeutic sessions to further unearth unconscious aspects of the building’s subjectivity. The stand-in role was taken up separately by the two investigators with prior knowledge of the building, acquired through a period there as artists in residence and their involvement with the drawing up of family tree and timeline of events. The psychotherapy sessions were conducted by a very experienced therapist, also active academically in the field of psychosocial studies. The following is a summary of main themes derived from our desk-based analysis. Our case study/genealogical research comprised a) the drawing up of a family tree that mapped significant relations of key figures to the building itself and to one another b) the creation of an events timeline starting with the history of the future site of La Siège and of the Parti Communiste Francais (PCF) as the commissioning body, and tracking both broader cultural influences and specific events in the conception, design and construction of the building and its subsequent use up to 2020 c) the identification of psychological aspects of these elements as influencing the building’s present status and use.
The timeline analysis identified distinct time periods: the first period tracked the PCF history from its founding in 1920 and the history of the future site of La Siège owned by a trade union allied to PCF since 1913. There was a change of direction in 1966 with the Central Committee of Argenteuil making a stand for creative freedom. Two pivotal years can be identified marked by the death of Thorez in 1964, the arrival in France of Oscar Niemeyer in 1965 and the acquisition of the site and the decision to build new headquarters there in 1966. The period between 1966 and 1968 saw the design and then between 1968 and 1980 the construction of La Siège. The construction happened in two phases marked by a break of seven years (1971-78). The next period, 1980-1999 saw the building gradually eclipse the PCF in importance. This has its marker in the buildings change of name to Espace Niemeyer in 2000. The building’s importance continued to rise between 2000 and 2020. Within these time periods certain themes made their appearance. These themes can be seen as aspects of the building’s identity/assemblage able to throw long shadows across time. Two particular individuals have been identified as playing key roles in this summary, although many others contributed as evident from the family tree and a longer version of this case study.
The first period up to 1966 had been characterised by a strong Soviet influence in the PCF under the leadership of Maurice Thorez. The Melnikov Pavilion, built by Konstantin Melnikov for the International Decorative Arts exhibition of 1925, was offered to the French communists by the USSR and reassembled on the same site as the future PCF Headquarters. The Melnikov Pavilion can be seen as the material embodiment of Soviet links and influence, yet was also transgressive of Stalinist cultural policy, presaging the main new direction of the PCF post Argenteuil. Two recurrent themes can be gleaned in this precursor building on the same site as the future La Siège/Espace Niemeyer: it was a migrant building and it was transgressive. The site itself has a history of name changes that presaged what was to happen to La Siège.
This fluidity of identity will return as an important aspect of La Siège, but contrasts with a cult of personality identified in the long ‘reign’ of Thorez as PCF leader and the way that, post Argenteuil, Niemeyer came to take a central role with regard to the PCF new direction and its flagship new headquarters’ building project. Already a successful architect responsible for the design of Brazil’s new capital Brasilia, Niemeyer was also a migrant, a refugee escaping Brazil’s dictatorship following the failure of a utopian socialist regime. There seems to have been a reparative urge in the appointment of this charismatic left-wing architect for this particular project: while the socialist dream could be born, but not sustained in Brazil, a new attempt could be made in France; maybe the haunting of past Soviet influence and repression of artistic expression could be exorcised by an ambitious new artistic project headed by a new charismatic communist. Yet an unfortunate repetition occurred in the way the building of Brasilia had incurred unsustainable debt and the building of La Siège also ran out of money. What Holston (1989, p.5) pointed out as a paradox at the heart of Brasilia can be said of La Siège: it was intended to be both an image of and a tool for an imagined desired future, but as such it negated existing conditions.
Narcissistic tendencies at a cultural level (Lasch, 1979) can be thought to be at play both in terms of personality cult, project scale and denial of economic realities. One of the signs that narcissism may have played a part is the relative denial of the downward trajectory of the PCF and its economic consequences, at the time that this major building project was being initiated. The symbolic significance of the headquarters project was inscribed in the printing of a stamp showing the building’s image, as part of the fundraising drive crucial to its completion. The stamps were a way to acknowledge and reward donations, but can also be seen as an early sign that the building was taking on its own specific identity invested with much significance and defying limitations of scale or resources. The only limitation that could not be denied was the space afforded by the site, though the underground design made it possible for the site to be fully utilised. There was nonetheless another denied reality, which was the presence of a private residence on the site. This little acknowledged problem was to stop construction for seven years due to the refusal of the Dauplet family to relocate and six years of conflict ensued.
The underground aspect of the building and the theme of conflict takes us to other themes identified in relation to the history of the site, the previous PCF headquarters and the PCF itself. The name changing mentioned earlier related to names of heroes from different historical periods and their shifting interpretations and uses. What links them is a history of resistance, which was indeed crucial to the success and acceptance of the PCF in the post WWII period. The previous party HQs had been relatively small and scattered across Paris and subject to attacks pre and post war, making the name of La Siège interestingly apt in its English, rather than French, meaning of being ‘under Siège’. The new HQ needed to be well defended and security was an important aspect. The underground nature of the partisan resistance in WWII is reflected in the physical underground part of the building and the lack of easily identifiable access reflects the need for security. This can be seen as an aspect of fight, but also flight etched in the very fabric of the building. This can be viewed not just in terms of disappearing underground, but also in some of the aesthetic qualities of internal spaces in this part of the building, that were remarked upon by visual matrix participants as reminiscent of ‘space ships’, what now is termed retro futurism in the Espace Niemeyer website (https://espace-niemeyer.fr/index.php/en/espace-niemeyer-english/). Flight, in a broad sense, can also be linked to aspects of denial mentioned above or blind spots and erasures, associated with the seven-year gap in completing the build. 20 minutes
The ‘flight’ aspect can be gleaned also in the high-rise part of the building, which in contrast to its underground counterpart is designed to float on pilotis and is fronted by a glass curtain wall. These modernist features aimed at offering light and airy environments, clean lines and innovative engineering, are in line with modernist architecture and share with it a wish to improve and distance human users from nature as bringer of disease and irrationality, linking to the fight/flight aspects. The see-through façade of what became known as the bureau speaks of a conscious wish for the democratic transparency of administrative and political activities housed therein. Yet unwittingly its elevation and floating quality could be interpreted as being ‘out of touch’ and looking down, seeing more than being seen maybe, a haunting reminder of the Soviet top down legacy. The underground domed hall of the workers gives another interesting clue to unconscious dynamics being manifested in physical space. Not only were the people given an underground assembly hall, but in its construction the acoustics proved inadequate: the people could not be heard. The solution came to be a beautiful array of lamellae that were able to distribute sound, but are also visually arresting and could be seen to stand for the many that the assembly was designed to host. There were other aspects that ended up deviating from the initial design that can be seen as modifying or softening modernist tendencies, such as the post-hoc decision to allow windows to open, with elegant openers being specifically designed for the purpose.
Aside from these details the overall design itself transgressed modernism by its use of curves. This speaks to what had already occurred in Brazil where a ‘cultural cannibalism’ art movement (De Andrade, 1928) had taken hold in the 60s, incorporating Western artistic influences and Brazilian Folk and native art. La Siège looked back to the seven hills of Rio in its sinuous curves, bringing an element of Niemeyer’s identity and nostalgia for a lost loved native landscape. In this sense we can see a repetition of a migrant building on this site, the first instance having been the move there of the Soviet Melnikov Pavilion years earlier. There is also a feminine quality being brought to bear on the masculine clean lines of modernism, an aspect that has come up in terms of visual matrix associations and in the therapy sessions as a sense of gender fluidity, a queerness in the fabric and building’s identity. The anthropophagic aspect comes in this hybridisation of forms, but can also be tracked back in terms of the rise of Niemeyer as a central figure in the vicissitudes of the Communist Party after Thorez’s death and the way La Siège gained progressively more importance as the PCF gradually went into decline: the arts first feed and then eat up the political.
Already in 1971, the building itself had started to become an entity in its own right. The building had had extensive coverage in the Nouvelle Critique prior to this, but the 1971 stamps had given it a different status and currency in the life of the party and of Paris and beyond. The building’s image on the stamps had replaced the typical human figure head. A particular trajectory can be tracked where the mixed race, migrant offspring overcomes the French parent, in a gradual move to independence. From 1999 onwards La Siège started to be open to the public and to earn its keep by being rented out, to this day mostly to fashion/beauty/advertising related major brands. Capitalism in its most narcissistic superficiality could be said to have won over communism. One of the images that come to mind is that of a glamorous offspring having to make the most of their charm and physical appeal to keep the old parent going in their decline. By 2007 the building was declared a National Monument. By 2008 what has been presented here as its hybrid mixed identity, became split as evident in its renaming as Espace Niemeyer. The name of La Siège is still used, but the relevance of the party and the building as its headquarters is now much reduced, just as membership is also low. Progressively since 2000, most of its physical space has been used for a professionalised rental system, while the PCF presence in terms of staff/members and its archives are now much reduced. Most of the archives have been moved to a different public library location, a first in its own right for political party documents.
This brings us to the last theme of memorialisation. This can be tracked from early years: the history of resistance, place names, funerals being held in the building, plaques and now the status of National Monument. Memorialisation speaks to a wish to remember, but is also the fixing in time and space of a past that is no longer living, it speaks of the ancestors tracked in the family tree and no doubt named in the archives. The question that remains is whether they have been put to rest or, as our work suggests, they are still haunting the beautiful building that has outlived them. Figlio (2017) suggests that memorialisation can be prone to intergenerational processes in which something being remembered can get fixed in a manic form that has ideology, unacknowledged trauma or disavowal within it. This is in contrast with more depressively informed memorialisation where the origins of the memory are more fully embodied and acknowledged. With a structure as complex as Espace Niemeyer it maybe that previously less acknowledged aspects of the building present from the outset become more apparent as time goes on with the changing political cultural circumstances. The need to “rememorialise” maybe uppermost at the moment as a new future focus is sought.
Alongside this testing of particular psychosocial methods, we created a toolkit outlining the variety of tools we would consider suitable to a psychology of buildings. The toolkit offers an artistic and innovative way of thinking about research design, giving a visual rendering of the tools and their possible combinations. Our next step is to operationalise this further by application to further case study buildings and develop a psychosocial architectural consultancy model alongside academic research outcomes.