The Double Binding Power of Architecture

www.globalstudiesjournal.com

THEGLOBAL STUDIESJOURNAL

Volume 3

The Binding Power of Architecture

Faida Noori Salim

THE GLOBAL STUDIES JOURNAL http://www.globalstudiesjournal.com/ First published in 2010 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2010 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2010 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <[email protected]>. ISSN: 1835-4432 Publisher Site: http://www.globalstudies-journal.com/ THE GLOBAL STUDIES JOURNAL is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

The Binding Power of ArchitectureFaida Noori Salim, University of Baghdad, Iraq

Abstract: In all its history, architecture has always been linked to power, Ralph Waldo Emerson said;“The most striking monuments of the past, from, the pyramids to capitol, were shaped by architectswho were close to concentrations of great power and who were trusted with the great commissions.”We claim that architecture is still being devised (intentionally or unintentionally) as one of the capil-laries of the modern democratic governments to transmit its power to society, but the question is, inwhat way? Mainly architecture wields its power through emphasizing individualization and at thesame time extending its power over individuals by promoting the identical themes and mass culturethat reject the past, which is shared in their own collective memory, and hence exercises totalization.Henri Lefebvre writes, “[R]epressive space wreaks repression and terror even though it may be strewnwith ostensible signs of the contrary (of contentment, amusement or delight).” In this paper we willexamine how and in what way individuals are affected by the emission and transmission of powerthrough architecture, and we will analyze modern architectural themes by a quick comparison to thepre-modern era, and in reference to the two most important themes of modernity: freedom and indi-viduality.

Keywords: Power, Architecture, Individualization, Totalization, Foucault

Introduction

ARCHITECTURE’S VALUE AS a cultural object reflects technological advance-ment, customs, relationships, and worldviews, while preserving obvious differencesacross time and space. It has a power of communication that interprets our personaland public spaces as a language and symbols with its formal and the functional

narratives that touch our senses and helps build our memory effectively. This characterizationof architecture has changed in modern times.Due to the influence of the present rapid communication, cultural differences are crumbling

especially in the eyes of ‘global citizens’. Even when an architect thinks of him/herself asglobal architect s/he still is in doubt of where to put the dividing line because of the empower-ing continuous dilemmas of modern architecture and architectural practice. Helen Castlesays that “RemKoolhaas, who in his interview with Charles Jencks, openly admits to saying‘yes’ to global culture as an architect reliant on commissions, while at the same time regardingconsumerism in a ‘nuanced way’. 1

Architecture and PowerIn all its history, architecture has always been linked to power. Jonathan Hearn states thatthe two most important factors that contributed to the development of modernity are power

1 CASTLE, H. (2000) Editorial / Fashion + Architecture. Architectural Design (A.D.), 70, 5.

The Global Studies JournalVolume 3, 2010, http://www.globalstudiesjournal.com/, ISSN 1835-4432© Common Ground, Faida Noori Salim, All Rights Reserved, Permissions:[email protected]

and culture.2 Andrew Ballantyne says: “The most striking monuments of the past, from thepyramids to the capitol, were shaped by architects who were close to concentrations of greatpower and who were trusted with the great commissions.”3 Mary Mcleod shares the sameview: “Architecture’s dependence on the sources of finance and power extends to nearlyevery facet of the design process: choice of site, program, budget, materials, and productionschedules.”4

Kim Dovey discusses Hitler use of architecture and, the form of ‘power over’ expressedin the architecture of the ceremonial axis and Forbidden City in Beijing. While, he callsTiananmen square in 1944 the liberated space, but for him, it became the ‘Forbidden Space’in the 1980s, because of the government’s control over the square,5while, he says, “Bangkok,as elsewhere, the political dimension of urban space became dependent on local nuances ofculture, nationalism, religion and authority.” 6

Architecture is still being devised (intentionally or unintentionally) as one of the capillariesof the modern democratic governments to transmit its power to society, in addition to itsability to direct people’s habits, the question, however, is in what way? This question iscrucial if we want to be able to ‘see through’ power considering Habermas’s definition of‘modern repression’ as “the situation that results from the fact that the prevailing ‘relationshipsof power’ in society have not been ‘seen through,’ and therefore become means of ‘discip-linary’ domination.”7 In addition, seeing through power is a natural continuation of examiningthe impact of today’s society of ‘control’.Kim Dovey explains that power is mediated or practiced in built form through several

binaries. He list them as, orientation/disorientation, publicity/privacy, segregation/access,social/universal, stability/change, authentic/fake, identity/difference, dominant/subservient,place/ideology.8 However, those binaries represent the attributes of the built form or the in-dividual building, and they can be interpreted one way or another, after the power has givenits verdict through its ideology. The example of the Tiananmen Square in 1980s given byDovey is an example. At the same time, Dovey himself refers to the new form of controlson the square as a cause of how the use of the square has been changed, though Chineseideology itself was more open towards the form of western democracy.There are three ways, through which power operates in architecture: firstly through the

transmission of the power of the existing political and social system, which does not neces-sarily represent any exclusive ideology, secondly through the architect’s own claim to powerover the design which increases dramatically in the case of the famous architects, thoughDovey explains this attitude as an interest in being part of the ‘meaning market’9, thirdlythrough architecture’s ability to devise actual spaces, which in modernity has encouragedthe duality of individualism and mass culture, where architecture wields its power through

2 HEARN, J. (2006) Rethinking nationalism: a critical introduction; New York, Palgrave Macmillan.3 BALLANTYNE, A. (2005) Architecture theory: a reader in philosophy and culture; London; New York, Con-tinuum, p. 38.4 MCLEOD, M. (1989) Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism.Assemblage, 8, 22-59.5 DOVEY, K. (2008) Framing places: mediating power in built form; London; New York Routledge, p. 79-96.6 Ibid., p. 97.7OCKMAN, J. (Ed.) (1985) Architecture, criticism, ideology, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton Architectural Press,p. 95.8 DOVEY, K. (2008) Framing Places, Mediating power in built form; London, New York, Routledge, p. 18.9 Ibid., p. 38.

THE GLOBAL STUDIES JOURNAL

promoting identical themes and mass culture that reject the ‘call for difference’ and, hence,exercises totalization.Henri Lefebvre writes, “[r]epressive space wreaks repression and terror even though it

may be strewn with ostensible signs of the contrary (of contentment, amusement or delight).”10 To examine how and in what way individuals are affected, modern architectural themeswill be analyzed by a quick comparison with the pre-modern era, and by reference to thetwomost important themes of modernity: freedom and individuality.11 First, however, powerand architectural forms of relatedness must be explained.

Explaining PowerArchitecture plays an important role in what Foucault calls the ‘double bind’ of modernpower structures, which is a reference to its ability to combine individualization and totaliz-ation. It is this dilemma that is summarized by Foucault as the enslaved sovereign and theobserved spectator that haunted contemporary architecture in its relation to the individualwho is supposed to be free and self-determining.

The modern episteme12, beginning at the end of the eighteenth century and perhapsdisintegrating by the 1950s, has an ‘anthropological’ character, focusing on the studyof Man. It places at its centre the working, living and speaking human subject…’manappears in his ambiguous position as object of knowledge and as a subject that knows:enslaved sovereign, observed spectator’.13

According to Foucault, “since the 16th century a new political form of power has been con-tinuously developing. This new political structure … is the state.” He also believes “that ef-forts to reinterpret oneself must resist networks of power/knowledge that constitute sub-jects.”14 Nietzsche was the philosopher who chose to interpret power as the ultimate sover-eignty that determines history in accordance with the will of its agents.15 Hannah Arendt,on the other hand, perceives power as corresponding “to the human ability not just to actbut to act in concert.” 16

Foucault explains that power in modern times is not embodied in a singular agent ormultiple agents.17 It manifests itself in the different forms and institutions of modern society,of which democratic societies are the examples. According to Jonathan Hearn, pre-modernnations were generally dependent on the power of the elite rather than institutional power.18

10 LEFEBVRE, H. (1991) The Production of Space; Oxford; Cambridge, Mass, Blackwell Publisher, p. 14411 The third important theme of modernity is equality, which is a natural outcome of promoting freedom and self-determining individuals.12 Foucault defines episteme as “all those relationships which existed between the various sectors of scienceduring a given epoch.”13 MARKUS, T. A. (1993) Buildings and power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types;London, New York, Routledge, p. 4.14 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London; New York, Routledge, p. 21.15 NIETZSCHE, F. W. (1968) The will to power; London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.16 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London, New York, Routledge, p. 21.17 MCHOUL, A. & GRACE, W. (1998) A Foucault primer: discourse, power, and the subject; Dunedin, NZ,University of Otago Press.18 HEARN, J. (2006) Rethinking nationalism: a critical introduction; New York, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 120.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

Foucault’s understanding of the modern type of power, compared to the sovereign power ofthe pre-modern era or even sometimes that of our modern era, is explained by Paul Wapner:

Power in the contemporary world is agent-less … Power is simply the configurationof vectors of force relations as they assume a pattern at different times and in differentsituations ... The result of this view of power is that in the asylum, state or prison onedoes not see the source of power nor even power’s final forms. Rather, one sees thecodification of force relations at a given time... [In Foucault’s words] ‘But in thinkingof the mechanisms of power, I am thinking rather of its capillary form of existence, thepoint where power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies andinserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes andeveryday lives.’ Focusing on power at this level shows the complexity of its machinationsas well as its fluidity. 19

Yet Foucault offers an ethic of permanent resistance against power, which gives an indirectadmission that power has the tendency to overwhelm, and hence to produce agents of itsown that might prove dangerous even in democratic states as was the case in pre World WarTwoGermany. Foucault himself says, “I would like to mention only two ‘pathological forms’—those two diseases of power— fascism and Stalinism.” 20

Foucault’s view is represented in three categories: knowledge, power and the self-determ-ining individual. For him knowledge is also a form of power, which he discusses in thedesign of the panopticon. In explaining power, Hearn refers to Michael Mann’s conceptualdistinction between the ‘despotic’ and ‘infrastructural’ powers. The first “refers to the abilityof the state’s elite to realize its objectives without routine institutionalized negotiations withcivic society groups.” The second is “the capacity of the state to actually penetrate civil so-ciety, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm.”21

Panopticon ArchitectureFoucault gives the panopticon’s architectural scheme as a possible physical representationof the power practice in an institution that is linked through the knowledge of the designerto the state’s authority. Though the design is western, it is difficult to see that such a designconcept can claim any cultural difference; neither can it claim the end of invention of suchdesign concepts. According to Paul Q. Hirst, “the key theoretical innovation is the systematiclinking of the categories of power and knowledge to form a hybrid ‘power-knowledge’. ThisFoucault regards as the consequence and the condition of the rise of forms of ‘disciplinarypower’ from the eighteenth century onwards and which he considers to be the distinctivefeature of modern forms of control of and transformation of subjects.”22

For Foucault, JeremyBentham’s panopticon is the architectural symbol of the displacementpracticed by the government on the body for the sake of discipline. The panopticon, Foucaultconcludes, “is the general principle of this new ‘political anatomy’ whose object and end

19 WAPNER, P. (1989) What’s left: Marx, Foucault and the Contemporary Problems of social change. PraxisInternational, 9, 88-111.20 FOUCAULT, M. (2000) Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984; London, Penguin, p. 328.21 HEARN, J. (2006) Rethinking nationalism: a critical introduction; New York, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 119.22 HIRST, P. Q. (1984) Foucault and Architecture; Sydney, Australia Local Consumption Publication, pp. 14-15.


are not the relations of sovereignty … but the relations of discipline.”23 His description ofthe panopticon relates power and knowledge, “in an interplay of architecture and social scienceto reveal the self-custodial nature of modern society, where ‘prisons resemble factories,schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons’.”24 He also explains his view ofsuch devised physical relation in what he calls a block of capacity-communication powerthat is not limited to the design of a prison but applies to any other modern institution:

Take, for example, an educational institution: the disposal of its space, the meticulousregulations that govern its internal life, the different activities that are organized there,the diverse persons who live there or meet one another, each with his own function, hiswell-defined character—all these things constitute a block of capacity-communicationpower.25

…These blocks, in which the deployment of technical capacities, the game of commu-

nication, and the relationships of power are adjusted to one another according to con-sidered formulae, constitute what one might call, enlarging a little the sense of the word,“disciplines.”… They also display different models of articulation, sometimes givingpre-eminence to power relations and obedience… sometimes to goal-directed activities… sometimes to relationships of communication … sometimes also to a saturation ofthe three types of relationship.26

Such an example may help to explain only the type of patterns that are aimed at in the designof the building, devising the “disciplinary power in the form of ‘surveillance’, which isperformed in a process that Foucault calls ‘normatizing individuation,’27 but it does not ex-plain, for example, the type of ‘powerful will’ that ‘powerful clients’ bring to architecture,or the will of the architect to enforce his/her visions or theory on the design. Architecture isnot a simple translation of the will of the institution, even if it is a school, or a prison, or acemetery.The accumulated knowledge of building types constitutes the necessary grounds for any

new project. Yet the freedom of innovation is always there to enforce the architects and clientswill. In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre writes:

…that space signifies is contestable. But what it signifies is dos and don’ts—and thisbrings us back to power. Power’s message is invariably confused—deliberately so;dissimulation is necessarily part of any message from power. Thus space indeed“speaks”—but it does not tell all. Above all, it prohibits … space is at once result andcause, product and producer… Interpretation comes later, almost as an after thought.Space commands bodies … It is produced with this purpose in mind; this is its raisond’être. The “reading” of space is thus merely a secondary and practically irrelevant

23 GUTTING, G. (Ed.) (2005) The Cambridge companion to Foucault; Cambridge, UK; New York, CambridgeUniversity Press, p. 38.24 Ibid., p. 4225 FOUCAULT, M. (2000) Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984; London, Penguin, p. 338.26 Ibid., p. 339.27 HIRST, P. Q. (1984) Foucault and Architecture; Sydney, Australia Local Consumption Publication, p. 16.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

upshot, a rather superfluous reward to the individual for blind, spontaneous and livedobedience.28

Today, not only the architect and the client but also the critics and the media help in the en-forcement of such power if it falls within the horizons and vision of their cultural identity.Power itself cannot exist without a relationship to another, who is a partner. As Foucaultexplains: “[t]he term ‘power’ designates relationships between ‘partners’…”29Architecture,also, has to be in a relationship to transmit and/or emit power. In its universal process, archi-tecture resides in several relationships (with significant others) that usually give the architectthe central role. In an interview Foucault explains such relationship:

you know, I was not really attempting to describe figures of domination when I referredto doctors and people like that, but rather to describe people through whom powerpassed or who are important in the fields of power relations… after all, the architecthas no power over me. If I want to tear down or change a house he built for me … Iwould say that one must take him—his mentality, his attitude—into account as well ashis projects, in order to understand a certain number of the techniques of power thatwe invested in architecture, but he is not comparable to a doctor, a priest, a psychiatrist,or a prison warden.30

Michael Hays explains that Foucault does not advocate that architecture represents power.“Rather it is the techniques for practicing social relations, which are framed and modulatedspatially, that allows for efficient expansion of power, or alternatively, for resistance.”31

Clearly Hays has by passed the social relationship that architecture is in need of realization.Such a relationship is a social relationship with power.

The Architecture-Power TensionThe clients32 of pre-modern times — the church, the king, and the aristocrat, were clearlypowerful figures and institutions on several levels: social, financial and, strategic decisionmaking level. The architects were (usually) culturally and socially close to such figures andinstitutions and hence understood the client’s worldview and the type of cultural languagethat is involved with proposed projects. However, at the present time such a relationship ismuch more complex, blurred and diverse. Markus explains that:

Up to about the middle of the eighteenth century the meanings of form, function andspaces converged in a regular and predictable way, without ambiguity… enlightenmentreason, the political upheavals of the American and French revolutions, and the technicaland social one of the industrial revolution fractured this stable world. Clients ceased to

28 LEFEBVRE, H. (1991) The Production of Space; Oxford; Cambridge, Mass, Blackwell Publisher, pp. 142-143.29 FOUCAULT, M. (2000) Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984; London, Penguin, p. 337.30 RABINOW, P. (1984) The Foucault Reader, New York, Pantheon Books, p. 247.31 Ibid., p. 428.32 The client is a new term that was introduced in modern times to refer to the individual or the institution who in-troduces the brief of an architectural project to the architect and sometimes, the term is used as a reference to user(s)if they are the same.


be a homogenous class. Architects came from different social backgrounds, and nolonger necessarily shared language or class with client.33

Versailles, the Great Wall of China, Notre Dame Cathedral, and hundreds of other examplesof important architecture throughout the history of architecture are in debt to ‘powerful will’and the extended wealth that made them a physical reality. The power that supports suchprojects seems to be ‘absolute’ or ‘sovereign’. It has a powerful will, which Nietzsche con-sidered responsible for writing history. However, in modern times we can still find suchexamples.Power has the ability to ‘open’ many closed doors for the creativity of the (chosen) architect

and exert enough pressure to bring such creativity to the front.34All architecture has its rootsin the creativity of the society and the architect, but creativity by itself cannot explain archi-tecture or even iconic architecture and its timeless importance, without making reference tothe client(s) who made such projects a reality.Powerful clients are still present in contemporary times, though their endeavours to own

iconic projects take different shapes and forms. Again, those can be individuals or institutionswho, to affirm their powerful and unique identity, try to reach for more challenging newness.The conception of architecture is a period of great tension and complexity, where sovereignindividuals compete to share their vision and exercise their will. The free space is open tonew vision. It is a space that has no limits, but as it evolves, it is challenged with manyboundaries, both practical and real that undermine the free spirit brought by the idea of the‘new’.The client’s will, vision and finance, knowledge and the real world play an important role

in creating the tension inherent in the grounds that create and deliver the ‘new’ architecture.Though on the surface this stage appears as a ‘goal-directed’ activity, in reality, it is highlytense stage. Jencks remarks, “Clients routinely ask for a land mark both to put themselveson the map and, as an alibi, regenerate a rustbelt city.”35

Roles, at this stage, are blurred in the sense that the architect might have more than ‘onecreative’ design that is awaiting the client’s decision, in which case the client will assumethe role of the self-determining creative individual. The individuals involved in the projectlimit each other’s visions and freedom. Optional answers, with no one final correct answer,as postmodernist will argue, leave the door open for others to negotiate their ideas. Such isthe case in competitions. On the other hand, if the ground is furnished with one final design,it might limit real possibilities and freedom, which is supposed to be in place at this ‘creative’stage. As Jeffrey Kipnis explains in his article ‘Forms of irrationality’ (1988):

… design is always an ego process; it depends on the operation of authority throughthe architect and this is always already conditioned by the constraints of negotiation…

33 MARKUS, T. A. (1993) Buildings and power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types;London, NewYork, Routledge.34 Though one might argue in modern times at least that such power can close the door in face of many other creativearchitects who were not lucky enough to get the chance to work for them or that their “values”, i.e. that architectsvalues have prevent them from even trying.35 JENCKS, C. (2005) The iconic building: the power of the enigma; London, Frances Lincoln, p. 103.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

the task is now to overcome the double bind, to develop design processes that dilute ordefer the constraints of negotiation at the level of the traditional ego correlates …36

Most successful architects today are good examples of creative negotiators. I. M Pie is anexample of such a case, but Frank L.Wright and Louis Kahn were examples of uncomprom-ising architects. The overestimation of confidence in the disciplinary knowledge that mightshape the language of the architect or the client, creates problems for all parties involved,but it might also leads to create truly creative architecture. Sydney Opera House and theFarnsworth House are examples of iconic architecture that were born out of blurred visionin the relationship between the architect and the client. Donald A. Schon writes:

The causes that underlie such differences in overall achievement are far from simple,for good architecture stems as much from enlightened clients as from architects andthis principle applies to nation states as much as to individuals.37

Conventional knowledge assumes certain limits that are not necessarily visible to the mind.But in case of architecture, the ‘new’ is, or will be, visible and hence is capable of givingshocks to the ‘presupposed’ limits of the conventions. Such shocks will evoke resistance,which is prompted by the resistance of the architect to conventions and norms that have builtour cultural language which in turn play an important role in the cycle that involves creativity.It is the elites who struggle to change traditions and norms, and resistance is an importantfactor in creating the necessary initial grounds.

Architecture as a Disciplinary KnowledgeThis type of relationship is the one Foucault referred to as ‘blocks’, which are related to a‘discipline’. Thomas A. Markus (1993) covered this relationship extensively in most of ar-chitectural building types through its modern history.38 He explains at length how architec-tural typologies or rationality set the scene for ‘disciplined’ activities. Markus’ examplesincluded hospitals, schools, exhibition halls, libraries, museums, offices, hotels, railwaystations, and other public typologies of the modern times.39He traces the important changesover the last two centuries of such types as patterns of disciplined relationships betweenparties occupying the space.Architecture, when seen through those relationships, presents itself as a mechanism of

the power of modern ‘Governments’. By government, we mean the administration of thesociety as Foucault posed it:

This term refers to the ‘contact between the technologies of domination of others andthose of the self.’ It refers to the connection between power as the regulation of othersand relationship with oneself. In other words, government is the connection between

36 KIPNIS, J. (1992) Forms of Irrationality. INWHITEMAN, J., KIPNIS, J. & BURDETT, R. (Eds.) Strategiesin Architectural Thinking; Cambridge, Mass, London, MIT Press, p. 161.37 FRAMPTON, K. (2007) Modern architecture: a critical history; London, Thames & Hudson, pp. 328-330.38 MARKUS, T. A. (1993) Buildings and power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types;London, New York, Routledge.39 Markus covers all the types that can be considered as discipline.


ethics and politics. One governs one’s own conduct, while government guides theconduct of others. Government is the conduct of conduct.40

One of the obvious forms of governance is the creation of a pattern that can accommodateand classify individual members of community of ‘things’ or ‘living things’. Such patternsin architecture are formed sometimes after a ‘model’ of a certain character that is projectedas universal, but other times they occur through the creation of a particular ‘style’, whichcan sometimes be formed according to models or archetypes. A style can be found in amovement led by a theory, as in the modern movement search for the ‘new’ architecture, orin the revivals of historical styles such as Neo-Classicism or Neo-Gothic architecture or, itmay develop in practice as in most historical traditional styles.The creation of such patterns gradually builds our norms, habits and conventional thinking,

which shapes our expectations when thinking of any function or type of space for ouractivities.What theModernMovement in architecture did was to challenge such expectationsbut only to replace them with new ones. It is on this basis that typological studies in archi-tecture build their argument, in which they defend the idea that we move and act in definedpatterns and that our individuality is limited by our nature and our social relations and habits.The house, for example, has to have certain relationships and patterns in order for us to findit useful and comfortable.41

Hence, what can be seen as the totalization42 of architecture might well be what reflectsour nature when it is in a relation to a place. In other words we are born and raised withconventions and, hence, accept such totalization as part of the habitus field of our activities.Such a premise leads to the conclusion that, as individuals, our freedom is always confrontedby the limitation of the particular and, in this case the particular architecture of the place.The other more dramatic aspect of architecture’s power, which transmits power to the ef-

fects of totalization, is that which is transmitted as a medium through the architecture of thebuilt form onto peoples’ lives, as users or viewers. It is the kind of power that is driven intothe life of people without their choice.In addition to its direct effect, the individual building has a contextual effect as a member

within the urban setting. Architecture has an immense effect on the making of the physicalpatterns of signs and references that shapes people’s language and hence forms the essentialbackground for their relations and communications. In forming the built environment, archi-tecture composes the physical being of the community to which the individual belongs and,the physical context of his/her intimate horizon, and hence, constructs his/her memories andidentity.

40 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London, New York, Routledge, p. 36.41 Numerous attempts have been made, in the history of modern architecture, to leap over conventions but withoutsuccess, because they were made at the wrong time and probably the wrong place, where the conventions of theprevious era were still dominant. In the 1970s and 1980s, some architects challenged such conventional thinkingin architecture and wanted to introduce a different architectural language, but they were faced with either the im-possibility of construction, as in some examples of Zaha Hadid or, if it was actually constructed, proved to be un-inhabitable, as in the case of Peter Eisenman’s 1970 house VI.42 Herbert Marcus in his book “one dimensional Man” views “liberal Democracies” as “totalitarian”, because itadopts “economical-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.”That he calls as non-terroristic compared to the “totalitarian” that is terroristic. GIDDENS, A. (1995) Politics, so-ciology and social theory: encounters with classical and contemporary social thought; Cambridge, UK, PolityPress, p. 219.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

So, architecture cannot be thought of only by the reference to the example of the panopticonor what Foucault termed as a relation of the “block of capacity-communication power”. Toborrow Foucault’s terminology, architecture has pre-eminence to power relations andobedience, sometimes to goal-directed activities, and at other times to relationships of com-munication, but overall it has the saturation of the three types of relationship.

It is necessary also to distinguish power relations from relationships of communicationthat transmit information bymeans of a language, system of signs, or any other symbolicmedium. 43

In modern times such references to the built form are much more dramatic in their effect onpeople’s lives compared to pre-modern times because of the astronomical increase in urban-ization, and hence the extent of architectural impact on the built form and on its inhabitants.As Simons notes, “Power produces; it produces reality, it produces domains of objects andrituals of truth’. It also produces people: Discipline makes individuals.”44

The most obvious impact of built form is seen in the city. It has its own regulation andrules that control its citizens, and it has its government and economy. People in public areasdo not act in the same way as when they are in their private areas. The determination of thedegree of privacy and publicity is carried out through city’s built form. Offices, shops andother activities close at certain hours as do schools. In this sense, the city presents itself asa grand block of relations that can be thought of, in an expanded sense, as a ‘discipline’. Thechanges to the disciplinary power of the contemporary urban built form and the confusionof language that has been created through its architecture are explained by Markus:

Many places no longer distinguish clearly between public and private. A shopping mallis accessible to all and hence “public” but feels as if someone controls it, and us, througha powerful presence. Ambiguity in forms, confusion about function, or labyrinthinespace deprives towns and buildings of clarity. Forms have become difficult to decode.Classical buildings are as likely to be associated with 1930s European fascism as withrepublicanism or humanism; the modern movement with democratic freedom as withdoctrinaire bureaucracy.45

If one contemplates supporting cultural change, as Foucault suggests, it would be impossiblefor anyone to by-pass the order that people have perceived in their worldview, which thephysical built form transmits in its current case, and in particular, in zones that are dominatedby commercial efficiency. Because of the powerful impact and the restrictions of the builtenvironment, it would be difficult to imagine that a prison project could be built close to animportant governmental building, or that one storey house be built in the CBD area, even ifit is the personal choice of the owner; such decisions would appear incomprehensible or tobe a joke.In some of the literature on power, writers distinguish between ‘power to’ things as in the

case of the role of the client in the design of a building, and ‘power over’ others that direct

43 FOUCAULT, M. (2000) Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984; London, Penguin, p. 337.44 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London, New York, Routledge, p. 33.45 MARKUS, T. A. (1993) Buildings and power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types;London, New York, Routledge, p. 3.


and control their actions46, which is the role that architecture and urban setting undertakeover the masses of people who are using them. Such differentiation of terms is important ifwe want to think of power as embodied power. As an example, one can say that the leadingarchitects practice ‘power over’ the younger generations of architects or students of architec-ture, because of their leading role, celebrity status and success.

Tension in Architecture as a Double Binding PowerCertainly, the differences betweenmodernity and pre-modernity in architecture are tremendouson any scale. The issues of why, how, and in what way such changes took place, have beendocumented and much debated by scholars of architecture and art. Here, we are interestedin the impact of such change on individuals in relation to modern form(s) of power. Inmodernity ‘ordinary’ individuals represent the masses that needmass-working places, mass-housing, mass-shopping places and markets, mass-education, mass-health care facilities,and forms of mass-transportation, not to mention the multiplication effect of the generatedmass-economy of the increasing population.These increases in demand were followed by a demand for new types of buildings that

needed to accommodate new functions such as industry, administration, banking, recreation,international exhibitions and, public libraries. This is in addition to the fact that modernityitself is inhabited by tension, which Foucault terms as the tension of doubles:

Themodern episteme functions on the understanding that it can reconcileMan as subjectand object, manifested in three doubles: the empirical and the transcendental, the cogitoand the unthought, and the retreat and return of the origin.47

The Modern episteme admires sciences and rationality, but on the other hand, it asserts thetranscendental qualities of nature and ‘man’. To use Foucault’s terms, the modern epistemeadvocates for the individual’s demand for ‘rights,’ ‘truth,’ and ‘destiny’. Modernity standsfirm on the importance of thinking and consciousness, but it also affirms the importance ofnatural sciences in establishing the true nature of the objective world. And finally, the thirddouble, it asserts ‘Man’s’ natural ability for creation and creativity and his natural origins,but it also asserts the rationality that can master nature for his own benefit and interest. Thisexplains the modern battle of interests, which has shifted the focus fromman-nature relationto man-man relation.So, modernity in itself was born under the tensions of its own achievements, and obviously

architecture as one of ‘Man’s’ cultural achievements transmits such tension in addition tobeing itself under tension, which is the outcome of its relation to power.

Scale / the tension between individualization and totalization: Probably the most obviouselement that started to show this tension dramatically in the nineteenth century was the scaleof spaces and volumes that were occupied by ‘ordinary’ people, which certain types of archi-tecture demanded such as arcaded shopping places, supermarkets, international exhibitions,universities, factories, offices, hotels and apartment buildings. Some of those types of archi-tecture were not only new in their typology, but also new in the scale of their volume. Others

46 HEARN, J. (2006) Rethinking nationalism: a critical introduction; New York, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 146.47 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London, New York, Routledge, p. 25.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

were new in their scale of social relation patterns. For the first time, and in complete contra-diction to the modern emphasis on the individual, people came together in hundreds to shop,live, and work, or to spend their leisure time in public gardens, theatres, cinemas and plazas.In pre-modern times people were accustomed to working in rural areas or small urban

places and public spaces. The church and the square provided the only large space for massgathering. Few western countries had national exhibitions. However, starting with the year1851 when the first international exhibition was built in Hyde Park, most European countriesfollowed that lead. The Crystal Palace had so much grandeur of scale that it accommodatedthe trees that were on the site. Those international fairs exhibited all types of industrialproducts ranging from larger scale machines for industrial production to works of arts andcrafts and, currency.48

Henri Lefebvre explains that space has three formants, the geometric formant, which heclaims is reduced to a plan, the optical formant through, which vision renders all objectsincluded in a space hard to see and passive because all their impressions fade away in adistance and hence become images.49 The large scale types of spaces leaves little room forindividual space, though they were, and are, meant to serve the demand of the public. Today’sscale of public housing and, commercial blocks assert totalization. In the post WWII period,public housing dominated western cities, and, in the rest of the world, continues to do so.Such projects represent cities of enslaved sovereigns.

Transparency/ the tension between the private and the public: The dramatic changes inscale have established a new outside man-made world that is so different from the naturalworld that surrounded the individual in the pre-Industrial Revolution times, with its smallerbuildings and spaces occupied by relatives, friends and neighbours. This new outside worldhas become the huge unpredictable and insecure other, while the defined limited privatespace has opened up and, become the extension of the unlimited outside public space thatis occupied by masses of different others. Henri Lefebvre explains the nature of transparency:

“Behind the curtain there is nothing to see.” Says Hegel… this transparency is deceptive,and everything is concealed: space is illusory and the secret of the illusion lies in thetransparency itself. The apparatus of power and knowledge that is revealed once wehave “drawn the curtain” has therefore nothing of smoke and mirrors to it.50

Space in its transparency takes individuals into the illusion of letting them be there while itpractices its power of guiding them gradually into surrendering to the confinement of theclosed space and its real intentions. Walter Benjamin describes the effect of the mirrors onthe commercial streets of Paris, which is as true to the effect of the surfaces of glass building:

The way mirrors bring the open expanse, the streets, into the café’—this, too, belongsto the interweaving of spaces, to the spectacle by which the flâneur is ineluctably drawn

48 BENEVOLO, L. (1971) History of modern architecture; Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.49 The third formant is the Phallic, which cannot be evacuated nor cannot be filled and metaphorically it symbolizesforce and order. LEFEBVRE, H. (1991) The Production of Space;Oxford; Cambridge, Mass, Blackwell Publisher,pp. 285-287.50 Ibid., p. 287.


… Actually, in the arcades it is not a matter of illuminating the interior space, as inother forms of iron construction, but of damping the exterior space.51

Hence is the confusion of the real and the virtual. In the pre-modern era such a relation wasdefined by a heavy massive wall. Quoting Georges Teyssot and, Franco Rella, Ross Jennerexplains the consequences of such change:

With the loss of ‘solid demarcation’, the significance of the traditional threshold shiftedelsewhere; buildings became understood as all threshold. The modern dweller was tofind the home no longer simply an interior or an exterior, ‘“living” is somehow now tooccupy the space between the two, inhabiting the threshold’. One consequence of thisshift is that the limit becomes seen, as Benjamin discovers, no longer as a defensivebarrier but as an intermediate space which ‘allows the gathering of things as a tension,as a constellation of events and possibilities’.52

Thomas Mayne, when explaining his conceptual thinking, says, “[o]ur proposals questionthe concept of boundary as it marks or delimits an urban territory and as it oscillates betweennotions of inside/outside and centre/periphery and its inverse.”53 While Anthony Vidler ex-presses his disappointment with transparency, “Transparency, it was thought, would eradicatethe domain of myth, suspicion, tyranny, and above all the irrational.”54 The consequence onthe individual is not only living with virtual reality, but with its continuous confusion. Vidleradds that,

Modernity has been haunted, as we know very well, by a myth of transparency: trans-parency of the self to nature, of the self to the other, of all selves to society, and all thisrepresented, if not constructed, from Jeremy Bentham to Le Corbusier, by a universaltransparency of building materials, spatial penetration, and the ubiquitous flow of air,light, and physical movement.55

The incorporation of the private space that was previously closed with the open public spacehas redefined the private world of the individual and his/her relation to what constitutes thepublic. S/he now not only spends his/her long working hours with others, but even in privatehours is living in a space that is redefined as an extension of the outside. With this new rela-tionship to the public, which has failed to allow the individual to distinguish between theinner self and the outside world, s/he has gradually lost the ability to dwell and hence lostthe feeling of security.56 Massimo Cacciari comments on Mies’s use of glass:

51 BENJAMIN, W. (1999) The arcades project; Cambridge, Mass, Belknap Press, pp. 537-539.52 JENNER, R. (2007) The politics and enchantments of interpenetration: Albini and Terragni via Benjamin.The Journal of Architecture, 12, 499-523.53 MORPHOSIS & MAYNE, T. (1993) Morphosis: connected isolation; London, Academy Editions, Ernst &Sohn, pp 7-17.54 VIDLER, A. (1992) The architectural uncanny: essays in the modern unhomely; Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press,p. 168.55 Ibid., p. 217.56 MADANIPOUR, A. (2003) Public and private spaces of the city; London; New York, Routledge, p. 37.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

Mies’s use of glass manifests his anti-dialectic. Glass is concrete negation of dwelling… the language of absence here testifies to the absence of dwelling—to the consummateseparation between building and dwelling which no heterotopia is capable of remedying.The “great glass windows” are the nullity, the silence of dwelling. They negate dwellingas they reflect the metropolis. And reflection only is permitted to these forms.57

The modern change in scale and transparency questions the very existence of the individualas a separate entity from the mass. Not even an extreme existentialist will ponder the possib-ility of working in a factory in his own defined space, and in the way he would like to. Inthis instance Markus recalls Marx thinking: “For Marx exploitative production methodsresulted in alienation at each of these three levels—from self, from others and from nature.”58

Massimo Cacciari concludes (1980) that, Mies, whose ‘language of absence,’ … testifies tothe nullity, the silence of dwelling … To be-at-home is to be invisible guardians of invisiblelaws…59

Individuals in modern built form and architecture have been alienated through the exploit-ation of their needs, and the redefinition of the relation between the private and the public.Private-public relation and individual-mass relation are now more ambiguous than ever.

Undifferentiated places/ insecure identity formation: Individuals, in modern cities, havefound themselves living in exactly the same type of housing units as others, sometimes withlittle freedom to change even the interior. Such was the case with almost all housing produc-tion up till the 1960’s and still is the case for most. Living in such neighborhoods of typicalhousing units forces individuals to consider other forms of difference that define their identity,which will only add to the pressure of the feeling of insecurity that stems from the transparentprivate areas and, the mass culture scale and order.In addition, most modern urban built form has left very little space for natural spaces to

be incorporated within the newly added areas of urbanization of existing cities or newlyformed cities. If we consider Ebenezer Howard’s’ garden city a utopian thinking that wasfollowed by few examples as experimental, it was only in the second half of the twentiethcentury that architects and city planners became more critical of the density of urbanizationand the similarities of the character of the built form, found mostly in housing projects, andcommercial streets.By then it became evident that such mass construction has generated the undifferentiated

character of cities and urban areas that has made it almost impossible for the inhabitants toassociate themselves with a differentiated cultural or national identity, and hence they havelost one of the most important aspects of the meaning of belonging to a community and aplace. Christopher Day, in his book Places of Soul remarks:

Architecture has responsibilities to minimize adverse biological effects on occupants,responsibilities to the human individualities not only in the visual aesthetic sphere andthrough the outer senses but also to the intangible but perceptible ‘spirit of place’.60

57 CACCIARI, M. (1980) Eupalinos or Architecture. Oppositions, 21, 106-116.58 MARKUS, T. A. (1993) Buildings and power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types;London, New York, Routledge, p. 22.59 CACCIARI, M. (1980) Eupalinos or Architecture. Oppositions, 21, 106-116.60 DAY, C. (1990) Places of the soul: architecture and environmental design as a healing art;Wellingborough,Northants, Aquarian, p. 16.


Today, no architect searches for the possible occupiers of the apartment building that s/heis designing to study their personal preference. The case for office buildings is even moreacute. Modern built form promotes the mass-individual as in the statistics of the modernstate and its government. Even when postmodernist have argued for the inclusion of suchdifferentiation, they have accepted the fact that they have to design for the masses.

Neighborhood centre / tension of relatedness to others: In the pre-modern era, gettingtogether with others living close by on Sundays in church or in the plaza was an occasionof celebration and joy. The centre of the settlement promoted closeness of individuals to thespiritual and the socially based, mostly through religious ethics in a very well defined space.In modern times cities have lost these important and intimate centers.61 Instead of the churchor the mosque or the temple, a commercial centre has been created to promote pleasure andconsumerism. Today, shopping as an activity is considered vital to the life of the city, whichis dependent in its economy on consumption, and architecture has helped in convertingshopping malls to an attractive area for amusement and pleasure.The demand for mobility due to our modern way of life has, moreover, increased the dif-

ficulty of building relationships with others, as has been explained previously in the sustain-ability of space. The new urban built form is shaped by express- and motor-ways, wide ar-terial streets cutting through urban areas due mostly to the expansion of urbanization on anunprecedented scale, and more recently to the need of private investments for a good infra-structure services.The evolution of the modern episteme around “the working, living and speaking human

subject” as its central presupposition was initially translated into the design of the ‘ideal’neighborhoods. As Foucault explains, it is the confident individual who is supposes to bethe centre of modern progress and development:

The modern episteme, beginning at the end of the eighteenth century and perhaps dis-integrating by the 1950s, has an ‘anthropological’ character, focusing on the study ofMan… It places at its centre the working, living and speaking human subject. Thepresupposition of the existence of this subject is a condition of possibility for the epi-steme, which centres on Man knowing himself in his activities.62

However, the trends of growth, land value and commercial appraisal, and demand for mobilitydue to ageing, and the individual’s hunt for a better standard of living made it (on average)impossible to celebrate such centers for a long enough time to help build a strong relatednessto others over generations, or even within the one generation of any given neighborhood.

Consumerism effect/ the tension of the ethical and capitalism: Architecture today lendsitself easily to the transmission of commerce. Advertisements of small and large scales arepasted on walls. In fact it is difficult to find a street not filled with advertisements of all sortsof creation, to the extent that sometimes they replace a whole facade and diverts attentionfrom the architecture to the message of the advertisement itself. Modern cities have learnedfrom Las Vegas, and New York.For the people of today, probably the width of the space and the density of the traffic will

be the way of describing the street or they may refer to shops, banks, restaurants or cinemas

61 HARRIES, K. (1997) The Ethical Function of Architecture; Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.62 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London, New York, Routledge, p. 24.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

that are along that street. All modern sources of information, such as TV, the internet, radio,newspapers, journals and magazines, promote the same vision. The whole of our presentsocial life is centered on the promotion of the ownership of commodities as being essentialfor the good and happy life.The outcome of such an involvement and intimate link to commerce is that architecture

has posited itself as a medium for broadcasting commercialization. So, instead of promotingthe importance of the individual and his/her unlimited value as the source and the aim ofmodern life, architecture and modern cities have helped to turn the individual into marketstatistics. Generally, the idea of alienation through commodification is not new, but what isnew here is that architecture has departed from being a sign of cultural achievement to beingamarketing tool.63To evaluate such a phenomenon,Wapner comparesMarx with Foucault’sthoughts in relation to power:

Marxmakes clear that the condition of labour – themode of production – will be decisivein determining the quality of life. Indeed, it will determine social life and human con-sciousness. (The economic base determines the superstructure.) Yet, while this viewshares the notion of conditioning inherent in Foucault’s thought, it differs in a funda-mental sense. Specifically, it differs in that it locates the source of conditioning, thedetermining factor of human life – in short, power – in one place…ForMarx, the modeof production is the independent variable; … it represents the seat of power. For Fou-cault, this view is unacceptable because it puts forward a misguided understanding ofpower.64

Architecture has not stopped being a place for advertisement; it has turned itself into advert-isement. It has gradually become a product needing promotion andmarketing. Postmodernityhas emphasized consumerism by lending itself to the continuous search for the new as infashion, evenwhen it did not present any new cultural achievement.Markus cites the argumentgiven by Jameson that “post-modernity has challenged the very notion of meaning with itsjokes, disconnections, historical cannibalism and photorealism, and that its roots are in thefree market of multi-national capital.”65

Global cities have started competing by building attractive architecture to promote them-selves and their tourist industry as a lively part of the present and the future of the currentlyemerging global culture. Hence, not only are individuals searching for their identity fromwithin the piles of goods, but even cities are losing their local cultural identity for the benefitof consumerism in the name of becoming global. Existing cities with a clear cultural mixare becoming a collection of fragments of styles in the name of celebrating multiculturalism.

Technology / The tension of the limitless freedom of the architect: Technology’s link toarchitecture is complicated and has a long history, but in modernity it is devised as a mech-anism to control the environment. It is the architects’ and engineers’ rational way of celeb-

63 According to Wapner: (It should be noted here that both Foucault’s and Marx’s conceptions of power flow fromtheir notions of the human being. For Marx, to the degree that the human being is defined in terms of labor, it is nosurprise that he locates power in society within the realmwhich embodies labor, viz. the economic realm ... Foucaultsees no essential human attribute ... does not locate power in any one realm.) WAPNER, P. (1989) What’s left:Marx, Foucault and the Contemporary Problems of social change. Praxis International 9, 88-111.64 Ibid.65 MARKUS, T. A. (1993) Buildings and power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types;London, New York, Routledge, p. 4.


rating the technological achievement of modernity. On the other hand, it has become a con-vention in architectural practice to rely on equipment to control building environment, becausebuildings are required to be as economically efficient as possible, and hence, cannot affordtime and space for natural environmental adjustments, as used to be the case in traditionalbuildings. Such promotion of technology is conceived as part of the aesthetics of modernlife and of being pragmatic.It is only recently that architectural schools and practitioners began to think more seriously

of accommodating simpler mechanisms that can contain changes in the natural environmentmostly because of climatic change that is threatening life on our planet. At the present timesome governments are moving towards institutionalizing regulations to accommodate moreclimatic-conscious practice. It is becoming a power/knowledge regime that will soon belimiting architecture from the current perceived freedom in design. Such freedom has beenenhanced greatly by the recent wave of enthusiasm to digital architecture.66 It is again a newform of rationalization and tantalization.

ConclusionThe binding powers of architecture present another dilemma for architects. Architecture asa process is determined by several relations, of which the most effective at any moment isthe architect-client relation, which can be defined as goal directed. The other is the architect-user relation that is mostly an authority-obedience relation and a relationship of communic-ation. Iconic architecture in particular defies convention and the associated worldview, andhence uniquely represents the case of created tension in architecture. While the built formcelebrates individuals as its inhabitants, it regulates their choice and freedom, and shapestheir habits and customs. Foucault makes this clear when he writes,

The body is molded by a great many distinct regimes; it is broken down by the rhythmsof work, rest and holidays, it is poisoned by food or values, through eating habits ormoral laws; it constructs resistances.67

What all the above means is that there is nothing at the core of human beings that couldbe called a nature or essence… the human being is pure exteriority… there is no interiorto nail down.68

Clearly, architecture is confined by the actualization of power/knowledge that represents itsown objective limitations. Given such tension within architecture itself (that is transmittedthrough its ‘being there’ with its users), one wonders howmuch will be left for the individualto choose and have a self-relation in a way that Foucault would describe as ethical, as Simonsexplains:

Self-subjection centers around the theme of Foucauldian ethics, i.e. the relationshipwith oneself … Forming oneself as an ethical subject requires practices of the self …they involve exercise of power over oneself … Humanism is a failed philosophical

66 LEACH, N., TURNBULL, D. & WILLIAMS, C. (2004) Digital Tectonics, Chichester, UK, Wiley-Academy.67 RABINOW, P. (1984) The Foucault Reader, New York, Pantheon Books, p. 87.68 WAPNER, P. (1989) What’s left: Marx, Foucault and the Contemporary Problems of social change. PraxisInternational; 9, pp. 88-111.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

project because it takes Man to be its foundation for knowledge, whereas he is one ofits effects.69

Probably the most revealing words that can summarize the impact of architecture are thosewords which Foucault himself has cited70,

Bentham’s Preface to Panopticon opens with a list of the benefits to be obtained fromhis ‘inspection-house’: ‘Morals reformed - health preserved - industry invigorated -instruction diffused -public burdens lightened - Economy seated, as it were, upon arock - the gordian knot of the Poor-Laws not cut, but untied - all by a simple idea inarchitecture! 71

Foucault’s suggestion to remedy the problems of modernity is:

Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are.We have to imagine and build up what we could be to get rid of this kind of political“double bind,” which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modernpower structure.72

The impact of architecture and built form on the community and individuals cannot be tracedto one or a few particular buildings, despite the attempt to accuse the pioneers of modernmovement, or the pioneers of postmodern architecture, for such dramatic changes in ourphysical horizons and hence our cultural language. It requires a lot more than the theory ofan architect and the power of a few elites to create the dramatic change that we have seenhappening to modern cities. It requires the powerful role of a government and its institutionswith visions for the future and plans for the ‘progress’ of the nation.In modern times such governments are formed in the nation-state. In explaining the concept

of regionalism, Alan Colquhoun stresses the fact that nation-states are the modern powerthat promotes culture. He says that,

One of the intentions of a regionalist approach is the preservation of ‘difference.’ Butdifference, which used to be insured by the coexistence of water-tight and autonomousregions of culture, now depends largely on two other phenomenon: individualism andthe nation-state… In a sense, the nation-state is the ‘modern’ region – a region in whichculture is coextensive with political power.73

Therefore, it will be necessary to investigate next, the role of architecture through the currentmodern dynamics of nation’s structure and its institutions, especially in regard to cultureand social system, taking into account that global culture is advocating globalising some ofthe nation-state’s institutions.

69 SIMONS, J. (1995) Foucault & the political; London, New York, Routledge, p. 25.70 In his book Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison.71 FOUCAULT, M. (1991) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison; London, Penguin Books, pp. 195-228.72 FOUCAULT, M. (2000) Essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984; London, Penguin, p. 337.73 COLQUHOUN, A. (1997) The Concept of Regionalism. IN NALBANTOGLU, G. B. & THAI, W. C. (Eds.)Postcolonial Space(s). New York, Princeton Architectural Press, p. 20.


About the AuthorFaida Noori SalimShe graduated from the University of Baghdad in June 1975 and finished her masters Degreefrom MIT( Massachusetts Institute of Technology)/USA in May 1984. She taught in thethree Departments of Architecture in Iraq: The University of Baghdad, The University ofMosul and The University of Technology. Her research works used to focus mainly on urbandesign and housing but she has also taught theory of architecture for over 20 years and herdoctoral studies at the University of Auckland are concerned with the impact of Globalizationon architecture and architectural ethics. Faida Salim has already published several researchworks on the subject. The most interesting results of these studies, which are currently beingcompleted, are concerned with the role of power as it pertains to the topic of globalizationand its effect. She has also supervised doctoral theses on the subject in architectural theory.

FAIDA NOORI SALIM

EDITORS Fazal Rizvi, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Brenda Gourley, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. Lily Kong, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Bob Lingard, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom. Kris Olds, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. Michael Peters, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Paige Porter, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. Dato’ Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia. Susan Robertson, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom. Sulaiman Md. Yassin, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia.

Please visit the Journal website at http://www.Universities-Journal.com for further information about the Journal or to subscribe.

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS JOURNALS

Creates a space for dialogue on innovative theories and practices in the arts, and their inter-relationships

with society. ISSN: 1833-1866

http://www.Arts-Journal.com

Explores the past, present and future of books,

publishing, libraries, information, literacy and learning in the information society.

ISSN: 1447-9567 http://www.Book-Journal.com

Examines the meaning and purpose of ‘design’ while also speaking in grounded ways about the task of design and the use of designed artefacts and

processes. ISSN: 1833-1874

http://www.Design-Journal.com

Provides a forum for discussion and builds a body of knowledge on the forms and dynamics of difference

and diversity. ISSN: 1447-9583

http://www.Diversity-Journal.com

Maps and interprets new trends and patterns in

globalisation. ISSN 1835-4432

http://www.GlobalStudiesJournal.com

Discusses the role of the humanities in contemplating the future and the human, in an era otherwise dominated by scientific, technical and economic

rationalisms. ISSN: 1447-9559

http://www.Humanities-Journal.com

Sets out to foster inquiry, invite dialogue and build a

body of knowledge on the nature and future of learning.

ISSN: 1447-9540 http://www.Learning-Journal.com

Creates a space for discussion of the nature and future of organisations, in all their forms and

manifestations. ISSN: 1447-9575

http://www.Management-Journal.com

Addresses the key question: How can the institution

of the museum become more inclusive? ISSN 1835-2014

http://www.Museum-Journal.com

Discusses disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge creation within and across the various social sciences and between the social,

natural and applied sciences. ISSN: 1833-1882

http://www.Socialsciences-Journal.com

Draws from the various fields and perspectives through which we can address fundamental

questions of sustainability. ISSN: 1832-2077

http://www.Sustainability-Journal.com

Focuses on a range of critically important themes in the various fields that address the complex and

subtle relationships between technology, knowledge and society.

ISSN: 1832-3669 http://www.Technology-Journal.com

Investigates the affordances for learning in the digital

media, in school and throughout everyday life. ISSN 1835-2030

http://www.ULJournal.com

Explores the meaning and purpose of the academy in times of striking social transformation.

ISSN 1835-2030 http://www.Universities-Journal.com

FOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT

[email protected]

The Double Binding Power of Architecture

Documents

Transcript of The Double Binding Power of Architecture