Harvard University

Spring 2010
GSD 4401: TRANSPARENCY
Seminar
Eve Blau
Monday 2:30 5:30
510 Gund Hall
Office Hours [207a]: Wednesdays 2:30-4:30 (by appointment)
TA: Shawn Yee Shiong Pang ypang@gsd.harvard.edu
Course Description
Since the early decades of the 20th century transparency has been a critical concept in
the theorization of modern architecture. In the 1920s it was conceived by the
architectural avant-garde as an operation performed by the object itself: through
transparency the aesthetic, technological and social operations of architecture were not
only revealed, but also brought into a new and dynamic relationship with one another.
Today, after decades of conspicuous absence from the discourses of postmodernism,
transparency is once again of critical interest to architecture.
The purpose of the course is to recover the theoretical, ideological, and formal
complexity of transparency in the discourses of modernism, and to explore the
significance of the concept for architecture today. This exploration is founded on two
working propositions: First, that transparency is not so much about visual objectivity as it
is about the contradiction between objective and subjective modes of cognition. Second,
that modes of representational discourse outside architecture film, photography,
electronic and digital media have figured in important ways in the architectural
conception of transparency.
These discourses include early 20th century theories of 'space creation' (from
Hildebrandt, Schmarzow and Sitte, to van Doesburg, Moholy-Nagy and others); theories
of 'image formation' (Richter, Kepes, Gestalt psychology, etc.); discourses regarding
'relational space' or 'space-time' in the 1920s (Giedion, Le Corbusier, Mies). In the 1950s
and 60s: media studies, op-art, pattern recognition, camouflage; and Rowe and
Slutzkys concept of phenomenal transparency and its impact on architecture in the
1970s (Eisenman, New York Five). The course will also engage transparency in the
1990s when it was conceived in terms of light construction and deep surface (MoMA,
1995); and in the context of design practices and experimental work in the 2000s that
explore contradictions between materiality and perception, envelope and affect,
information and experience.
Requirements/assignments: Aside from active participation in weekly class
discussions, over the course of the semester, students will be responsible for initiating
discussion of assigned readings and topics relating to them. A final presentation and a
(10-12 page) paper on a topic related to the seminar is required of all students.
A one-page abstract of the paper (topic to be selected in consultation with me) will be
due March 22. Final papers will be due May 10.
[All required reading will be on reserve]

Syllabus and Reading:

(schedule subject to change)
1/25

Introduction: Concerns, structure of the course; assignments; schedule

2/1

Shifting Eyes, Moving Bodies: Spatial Paradigms at the Turn of the 20thC.
Reading:
Adolf von Hildebrand, Visual and Kinaesthetic Ideas, Form and Effect, The
Idea Of Space and its Expression in the Appearance, The Problem of Form in
the Fine Arts, in H.F.Mallgrave and E. Ikonomou (eds) Empathy, Form, and
Space (Santa Monica: Getty Center, 1994): pp. 229-243.
August Schmarzow, The Essence of Architectural Creation, in H.F. Mallgrave
and E. Ikonomou (eds) Empathy, Form, and Space (Santa Monica: Getty Center,
1994): pp. 281-296.
Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles (1889) in Collins
and Collins, Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning (NY: Rizzoli,
1986), pp. 243-250, 271-278.

2/8

Abstract Space, Figured Ground: From Stereography and Cubism to

Constructivism and De Stijl
Reading:
Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer (MIT Press, 1990), pp. 97-150.
Rosalind Krauss, Analytic Space: futurism and constructivism, Passages in
Modern Sculpture (The MIT Press, 1981), pp. 39-67.
Yve-Alain Bois, Metamorphosis of Axonometry, Daidalos #1 (1981), pp. 40-59.
Yve-Alain Bois, The De Stijl Idea, Painting as Model (The MIT Press, 1990):
101-122.
Also Recommended:
Yve-Alain Bois, Kahnweilers Lesson, in Painting as Model (The MIT Press,
1990), pp. 65-97.

2/15

The Film Thickened Moment: Giedion , Moholy-Nagy, Richter, and the

Theory of Montage
Reading:
Sigfried Giedion, Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in FerroConcrete (1928) reprint (Santa Monica: Getty Center, 1995): 85-93,
illustrations and captions throughout the book.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Space, The New Vision (1929), reprinted (NY:
Wittenborn, 1947): 55-64, 77-85.
Hans Richter, The Badly Trained Sensibility in P.Adams Sitney (ed) The
Avant-Garde Film (NYU Press, 1978), pp. 22-23.
Sergei M. Eisenstein, Montage and Architecture, including Introduction by
Yve-Alain Bois, Assemblage 10 (December 1989): 111-131.

2/22

Space-Time: Giedion, Le Corbusiers plans libres (free plans), and Miess

betonte Leere (heightened emptiness)
Reading:
Sigfried Giedion, Space Time and Architecture (1941) Sixth printing. (Harvard U.
Press, 1976): 491-496.
Bruno Reichlin, Jeanneret-Le Corbusier, Painter-Architect, in Eve Blau and
Nancy Troy (eds) Architecture and Cubism (MIT, 1997): 195-218.
Eve Blau, Transparency and the Irreconcilable Contradictions of Modernity,
PRAXIS 9 (fall 2007): 50-59
Robin Evans, Mies van der Rohes Paradoxical Symmetries, Translations from
Drawing to Building (London: AA, 1997): 233-276.
Also recommended:
Detlef Mertins, Transparency:Autonomy & Relationality AAFiles 32 (1996):3-11.

3/1

The Aerial Perspective: Camouflage + Pattern Recognition

Reading:
Roy R. Behrens, Camouflage, Art and Gestalt, Art & Camouflage: Concealment
and Deception in Nature, Art, and War. (Cedar Falls: Univ of Northern Iowa,
1982): 9-20
Yve-Alain Bois, A Picturesque Stroll Around Clara Clara, October (1984), pp.
32-66
Gyorgy Kepes, The three dimensional field, The spatial forces, Fields of spatial
forces Language of Vision (Dover, 1944), pp. 19-29.
William C. Seitz, The Responsive Eye (NY: MoMA, 1965) Images. Text pp.16-43.
Marshall McLuhan, The Invisible Environment: The Future of Erosion,
Perspecta 11 (1967): 162-167.
Also recommended:
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Message, Understanding Media (NY:
The New American Library, 1967): 23-35.

3/8

MEETINGS RE PAPERS

3/15

[SPRING BREAK: NO CLASS]

3/22

Rowe and Slutzky + Phenomenal Transparency: The Birth of a Paradigm

[Paper Abstracts due]
Reading:
Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,
Perspecta 8 (1963): 45-54. [reprinted in Todd Gannon, editor, The Light
Construction Reader (NY: Monacelli, 2002), pp. 91-101.]
Rowe and Slutzky, Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal. Part 2, Perspecta
13/14 (1971): 286-301. [repr. Light Construction Reader, pp.103-113.]

Rosalind Krauss, Death of a Hermaneutic Phantom: Materialization of the Sign

in the Work of Peter Eisenman, in Eisenman, Houses of Cards (Oxford U.
Press, 1987), pp. [repr. Light Construction Reader, pp.157-169.]
Bernard Hoesli, Transparency Instrument of Design, in Colin Rowe and
Robert Slutzky, Transparency (Basel: Birkhuser, 1997), pp. 97-119.
3/29

Light Construction
Reading:
Terence Riley, Light Construction Light Construction (MoMA,1995), pp. 9-32.
Anthony Vidler, Transparency, The Architectural Uncanny (1992), [repr. Light
Construction Reader, pp.267-273]]
Alejandro Zaera, Herzog and de Meuron: Between the Face and the
Landscape, El Croquis 60 (1993): 24-36
Jeffrey Kipnis, The Cunning of Cosmetics, El Croquis 84 (1997), [repr. Light
Construction Reader, pp. 429-435.]

4/5

Transparency 2000+
Reading:
Alejandro Zaera, A Conversation with Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa,
El Croqius: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa 1995-2000 (2000): 8-20
Eve Blau, Tensions in Transparency. Between Information and Experience:
The Dialectical Logic of SANAAs Architecture, in Harvard Design Magazine #29
(Fall/Winter 2008-9), pp. 29-37.
Ben Van Berkel, Afterimage, UN Studio Design Models: Architecture,
Urbanism, Infrastructure (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006): 370-379.
Michael Speaks, Intelligence After Theory, Perspecta 38 (2006): 103-107.
Andrew Payne, Surfacing the New Sensorium, PRAXIS 9 (fall 2007): 5-13

4/12-4/26 project presentations