currey, bruce, transilience in architecture and the other

8/3/2019 Currey, Bruce, Transilience in Architecture and the Other

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Transilience in Architecture andthe Other(s)

Philosophy, Classics, Psychoanalysis and the Arts

Bruce CurreyThe University of Edinburgh (UK)

Abstract

This paper, in the conference entitled:Transilient boundaries in/of architecture(Fig1), argues that other disciplines e.g.Philosophy, Classics, Psycho-analysis and theArts, can provoke the architecture discipline totransile or leap (salireLatin = to leap) across

(or under) the impenetrable boundaries beingput in place in the current Age ofApophasis.

Fig 1 : This rubric mimics the poster design for theTransilient boundaries in/of architectureconference held at the University of Edinburgh 30-31 Mar 2009

Architecture

The Manichean liminal or boundary conditionhas fascinated European Architecture from

Romulus (Snodgrass, 1990) and Vitruvius(McKewn, 2003) through to Gottfried Semper(1851). Digital architecture further highlights

this tradition by drawing upon the limitingfunction of the threshold or limen inmodern communication theory to removenoise (Shannon, 1948).

Liminal and boundary conditions havelong been ambivalent and problematic inEuropean Architecture. Romulus used both

a white and a black ox to pull the furrow-cutting plough around the boundary/limit ofthe city of Rome. Vitruvius learned that Also circular is the horizon that embracesthe earth to limit (horizein in Greek) humansight, but he also learned from Cicero that the horizon varies without limit fordifferent people in different places(McKewn, 2003, page 161) But Vitruviuswas primarily concerned with privileging theRoman Emperor: The notion of what wecall the Roman Empire a spatial unit witha centre, Rome, and a clearly marked limitor periphery first took shape under

Augustus Caesar, through whom, asthrough the golden milestone and the PrimaPorta statue, all expressions of unity wereinitially formulated (McKewn, 2003, pages275-276).

The boundary, one of GottfriedSempers key elements of 19th centuryarchitecture, is today in the 21st centurycalled into question in other Architecture,outside Europe in the former British Empire:far from being neutral the boundary worksto structure (other) relations between theinside and outside of the building. These

mirror the power relations between centreand periphery. (Le Roux, 2004). Similarlythe verb to threshold in digital architectureis defined (OED on line, 2009) as To alter(an image) by reproducing it in two tonesonly, each part being dark or light accordingas the original is darker or lighter thansome chosen threshold shade. But inpraxiswhen a designer thresholds a digitalimage, there is no boundary or thresholdshade in the othered image, only a limitprivileging an object with a large loss of other information and no possibility of a

return to a pre-thresholding or pre-limitingcondition. (see also Gonzalez and Wintz,1977)


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For the last 1866 years, the location forwhat is todays Edinburgh and its Universityhas been athwart, and due east of thenorthern limit of the Roman Empire Antonines Wall - built to privilege theEmperor Antoninus Pius about 143 A.D.

F i g 2 ( a + b ) : Transiling or Subsiling: Antonines

Boundary/Limit (below).

Fig 2a: (Transiling) Antonine wall boundary areaof the turf-covered wall and ditch to the west of theCity of Edinburgh:[www.geo.ed.ac.uk/.../featurefirst989.html]

Fig 2b: (Subsiling) Image>Adjustment>Invert and

Image>Rotate Canvas >180o

of Antonine wallboundary area:[www.geo.ed.ac.uk/.../featurefirst989.html]

The Antonine walls boundary area of theturf-covered boulder wall, the ditch to thenorth, and the cobbled road to the southbecame a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2008.Just as the boundary area has both ups and downs of elevation in terms of walls andditches, So the transilience of boundaries maybe considered not only in terms of leapingup and across, but also in terms of plunging down and under. Such subsiling may be

another way of thinking about breachngboundaries, about understanding apparentlydifferent categories, both literally as in Figure

2c below, and metaphorically downthrough the unconscious as this paperexplores.

Fig 2c: Subsiling boundaries literally, as at theRafah crossing of the Palestine/Egypt border onFeb 10th this year, and also figuratively, as whenwe plunge into the unconscious to breach theboundaries of the mind.[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/10/gaza-tunnels-israel]

Today, Edinburgh and its Universityacademics find themselves ambiguouslyathwart yet another boundary/limit. Theyparticipate in the Erasmus Mundusprogramme ~ Erasmus Mundus (2009-2013) is a cooperation and mobility

programme in the field of higher educationthat aims to enhance the quality ofEuropean higher education and to promotedialogue and understanding between peopleand cultures through cooperation with ThirdCountries. [http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/Erasmus_mundus/index_en.php].

Fig 3a Vaubans salient fortifications atGravelines in 1756 (Monsaingeon, 2007 Page 99)

However, Edinburgh lies outside theSchengen group of European countries, soadditional visas to allow the onward mobilityof international students and academicsfrom Edinburgh and other UK universities touniversities within the Schengen Fortresscan be denied or delayed1. Edinburgh lies

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Transilience in Architecture

outside the enlarged Schengen Zone ofEurope. Schengen, or so called FortressEurope has visa, police and judicial functions limiting post graduate students, workers,refugees and asylum seekers and it hasboundary zones including Free Trade Areasensuring a low income workforce. Within thesupposed Schengen fortress, large 3D modelsof the salient2 urban fortifications of LouisXIVs military architect, Marquis de Vauban(Fig 4), lie uncannily in dim light and shadowin the Musee de LArme in l'Htel Nationaldes Invalides in Paris (Fig 5).

Fig 3b: Vaubans models of salient fortifications inthe dimly lit attic museum of of l'Htel Nationaldes Invalides in Paris.Author 2008

It is planned that these Vauban models

will leap again or re-sile out of theSchengen shadows of the Musee de LArmeattic into open display in 2012.

The Architecture Discipline within theSchool of Arts, Culture and Environment atthe University of Edinburgh also considersliminal and boundary conditions with somedegree of ambivalence. The inauguralprofessorial lecture by the first Head of thenew School of Arts, Culture and Environmentfollowed Gottfried Sempers tradition, butfrom an Architectural Engineering perspective,with a lecture entitled Structure and

Architecture : Supporting Illusion with anemphasis on architecture as enclosure(MacDonald, 2005). The subsequent Head ofthe School also gave a key address to post-graduate students proposing A Theory ofTransgression (Coyne, 2004) whichcelebrates the threshold or limen as a site ofresistance ~ often a necessary condition forthe creative impulse to disclose itself.. Agroup of Architectural post graduate studentsand alumni have presented a transculturalapproach focusing not so much on theboundary or limit , but rather on facilitating mutual reciprocity among students dwelling

on either side of any supposed boundary orlimen (e-Fusions, 2008).

Door, often facilitated by the digital swipe

card operated through remote surveillanceby the private sector, now leaving thehomeless person to sleep in the liminalcrypt-like condition of alcoholism, drugs anddeath.

Fig 4a 4b 4c 4d

The design or re-design of the home of

Architecture within the School of Arts, Cultureand Environment (Figure 4, with Liang andChanen, 2005) reflects some of these concerns,viz: (from left to right) (4a) Open access andegress with mutual reciprocity for people to enterand join the discourse in lectures, studios andMatthew Art Gallery as well as for students to gooutside and learn from those who dwell on thestreet; (4b) apparently limited access, perhapsakin to the one-way process of digital imagethresholding; (3) the threshold of allure with thelight inside apparently welcoming those outside.(4) the paranoid denial of the closed

Four configurations of the outer and inner doors

at the threshold or limen of the ArchitectureDiscipline in the School of Arts Culture andEnvironment, University of Edinburgh at 20Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JG. (withLiang and Munkong, 2005).

Now may be a prescient moment for theEdinburgh University Architecturepostgraduate students at 20 ChambersStreet Edinburgh to hold a conversation on Transilience in Architecture and theOther(s) ~ Philosophy, Classics,Psychoanalysis and the Arts. If

Architectures postgraduate students, do notdesign leap across boundaries, theboundaries may leap across and beimposed upon Architecture post-graduatestudents.

Philosophy

Let our conversation begin (Nielson andLee, 1994) - as to converse used to meanto dwell - on transilient liminal or boundaryre-design, not with the external limen of 20Chambers Street in Edinburgh (Fig 4,above), but rather with the internal limen

of a philosophical other. The other homeof architecture is 19 Kunmangasse inVienna, the house that Ludwig Wittgenstein,the Architect, designed to be built for his

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sister. Margaret Stonborough-Wittgensteinbetween 1926 and 1928. Kundmangasse 19 isa house where ornament and emotion havebeen eliminated, limen, Latin = threshold) sothat proportions and the play of light becomeall important. (Fig 5, Below)

Fig 5a 5b

Denying the Other Lure of Direct Observation

F ig 5c 5d

Depriving Re-Entry Out In to Freedom

The Royal Academy exhibited photographs

(Figure 5) of some of the internal thresholdsor limina from Wittgensteins Kundmangasse19 in 2002 as illustrated and numbered 5a,5b, 5c and 5d a reverse order from thelimina seen in the home of Architecture at 20Chambers Street, Edinburgh (Figures 4a, 4b,4c and 4d)

5a. The Closed Door Denying theOther

The door is closed by the decision makers orkey holders. who have decided they wish tobe unaware of what is going on the other side

of the boundary. The other, like the homelessperson, is kept absent. People cannot crossthe threshold from one side to the other orvice versa. There are two separate categoriesand there is no threshold space between. Onlythe key holder(s), [the person(s) whoconceived the categories which entail thethreshold] can open the door. Access isdenied.

5b. The Lure of Direct Observation

through Glass Doors

Both the one side and the other side arereciprocally related across the boundary bythe difference in light intensity through theglass panelled doors. The relatively bright

light from one side shining on the person onthe other side, lures and controls them, butleads to a loss of identity for the person onthe one brightly lit side. The relative shadowcast over the person kept on the other sidealso leads to a loss of identity thusreinforcing the panopticon effect. The visa isseen.

5c. Half Closed and Half OpenDoors Depriving Re-Entry

In the case of the half open glass door, aperson can pass through the boundary viathe light side on the right into the darkness,but despite appearances, once one isdeprived of light, there is no way back in viathe left side for the same person trying toreturn across the boundary to the light. Re-entry is (not) seen to be difficult

5d. Wide Open Doors ~ Out In toFreedom

Wittgensteins wide open solid doors andinner glass panel doors allow two waymovement, or play from one side to theother side of the boundary and vice versa;from light into darkness and from darknessinto light. Although some loss of identitybecause of the bright light and shadow stillexists, nevertheless unrelated people fromboth sides can meet each other on eitherside of the threshold and thereby revealtheir identity. Their identity (Latin

identitatem = "sameness") is revealed.

In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in1922 Wittgenstein sought to make scientificpropositions, thoughts and facts clear andto give them sharp boundaries. He stated:

(4.112): (Philosophy) must set limits to whatcan be thought; and, in doing so, to whatcannot be thought. It must set limits to whatcannot be thought by working outwardsthrough what can be thought.

(4.114): It will signify what cannot be said, bypresenting clearly what can be said.

(4.115): It is an activity which aims to makethe propositions of science, i.e. empirical propositions, clear and to give them sharpboundaries

Wittgenstein appears to form a very binary threshold between what could beexpressed and what could not be expressed.It is the hole at (the) centre that isshadowy rather than the boundary line orlimit,viz:

(5.423): (like) a black mark on a sheet ofwhite paper might at first be seen as a blackshape on a white ground, and then as a whiteshape extending outwards from the linesurrounding a shadowy hole at its centre.

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Wittgenstein then goes on to consider thesubject who is not in his or her own logicalworld

(5.632): The subject does not belong to theworld, but is a limit of the world.

(5641): There is therefore really a sense inwhich the I can be talked of in philosophy non-

psychologically. The I occurs in philosophythrough this, that the world is my world. The

philosophical I is not the man, not the humanbody or the human soul of which psychologytreats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit--not a part of the world."

This leaves us to puzzle out the differencebetween the world and my world. The two arepresumably fact-for-fact identical; thedifference is not a difference of fact, but oflimit. and the limit is the subject, according tothe Tractatus 5632 and 5641

Wittgensteins posthumous Philosophical

Investigations, several decades afterdesigning Kundmangasse 19, however,Wittgenstein revealed a very differentperspective to boundaries in his posthumousPhilosophical Investigations, there was asubjective psychological approach to boundarysetting as inAphorism No. 76, viz:

If someone were to draw a sharp boundary Icould not acknowledge it as the one that I tooalways wanted to draw, or had drawn in mymind, for I did not want to draw one at all. Hisconcept can be said to be not the same as mine,but akin to it. The kinship is that of two

pictures, one of which consists of colour patches

with vague contours, and the other of patchessimilarly shaped and distributed, but with clearcontours. The kinship is just as undeniable asthe difference.

The millimetre precision of Kundmangasse19s limits seem to have been re-moved fromWittgensteins mind by the time of thePhilosophical Investigations.

Classics

Many consider that the classical writnings andsyllogisms of Aristotle of Stygera underpin the

Manichean boundary. Lord Ferguson and ColinPowell appeared to invoke Aristotles syllogismin the binary Age of Apophasis ~ wherepeople leap across or do not leap across ~where barbarians are with us or against us~ where we converse or we do notconverse. Transiling this partial interpretationof Aristotles binary oppositions reveals notapophasis or not only apophasis, but alsoAristotles other three perspectives onoppositions (Figure 6): pros ti; Steresis kaihexis; and enantia. (Hass, 1998)

(6a) Apophasis: (Contradictories)

Apophasis is a distinctive form of opposition inwhich an affirmative proposition iscontradicted by a negative proposition which

denies the affirmative proposition andviceversa, as for example:

(i) S/he leaps over (or transiles) ~ iscontradicted by (ii) S/he does not leap over(or transile).

and vice-versa

(i) (S/he does not leap over (or transile) ~is contradicted by (ii) S/he leaps over (ortransiles).

Whether the subject S/he exists ordoes not exist, one of the two propositionsin an apophastic type of opposition is trueand the other is thereby false. In otherwords, if the subject does not exist, thenthe proposition S/he leaps over (ortransiles) becomes false. And if the subjectdoes not exist, then the proposition S/hedoes not leap over (or transile) becomestrue.

Fig 6a 6b

Apophasis | Pros ti

Contradictories | Correlatives

F ig 6c 6d

Steresis kai Hexis | Enantia

Privatives-Positives | Contraries

(6b) P ros ti (Correlatives)

Each of these pairs of opposites, the Prosti, are related to each other. Each oppositeis explained by reference to the other, forexample: the father is the father of a sonand vice-versa, the son is the son of afather. In Aristotles time there was a habitof using the example of the master of aslave and the slave of a master. TheFortress Schengen Neighbourhood Free

Trade Zone equivalents may be thecorporate director of an exploited workerand the exploited worker of a corporate

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director. In such Schengen cooperatives,however, genetic genealogies using DNAtesting as the external standard may reveal aPros ti relationship: the brother of thebrother and vice-versa. This would representa not so new form of incestuous exploitation- made possible by limits and border control.

(6c) Steresis kai Hexis (Privativesand Positives)

The pairs of opposites in Steresis kai Hexisrefer to one and the same subject. Aristotletook as an example subject, the eye. Thesame eye that possesses the positive propertyof sight is deprived of possessing thatpositive property and possesses the propertyof blindness. For Aristotle, privatives andpositives could not be reversed the subjectpossessing the quality of blindness could notregain possession of his sight ~ a process

uncannily similar to digital image thresholding in which a digital imagepossessing large amounts of information isdeprived of much of that information uponimplementing the thresholding rule, butthereafter that lost information whichShannon and Weaver might term noise,cannot be regained. Although in todaysEurope, bionic eye technologies and theItalian premiers hair grafts may appear to run contrary rather than pros ti, neverthelessprivatives and positives may still occur.

Given that the Greek Steresis = addiction,

perhaps the modern day Schengen Fortressexample of this pair of opposites is thefityoung subject trained in the military toperform violent action and drafted not to thenorthern limit to man Antonines wall, butrather to the eastern limit of NATO toeliminate opium in Afghanistan. Upon hisreturn to Europe, the Law rules him guilty forperforming some violent action. He thereforecannot return to his family and becomeshomeless. He becomes addicted to opium oralcohol in order to numb the pain. Thehomeless addict lies in the crypt likethreshold. (Figure 5) The same fit subject

has become addicted. Steresis kai Hexis maystill rule in 21st century Europe!

(6d) Enantia (Contraries)

Pairs of opposites like the enantia are notinterdependent. Aristotles example is that white (is not) spoken of as the white of theblack and similarly vice versa black is notspoken of as the black of the white. Theenantia pairs of opposites are contraries. Bothpairs of enantia opposites must belong to thesame genus, just as black and white are bothcolours. The subjects in which black or white

are naturally present must necessarily containeither black or white. Seemingly a post-modernist to the core, Aristotle emphasizes,

that it is not true to say that every bodymust be white or black. There are bodieswith intermediary shades: grey, sallow,and all the other colours that come inbetween.

With enantia pairs of opposites, eachopposition may change from itself into the

other, while the subject retains its identity,unless indeed one of the contraries is aconstitutive property of the subject suchas(white is to snow). In other words, thatwhich is white (may) become black.

Just as in the first millennium, Aristotleof Stygira showed Greece that a badperson may change towards a person of virtue, so George Kelly has shown thirdmillennium Ireland, Europe and the worldthat a terrorist may change to a peacenegotiator. All four Aristotelean oppositionsprovide 21st Century Europe with alternative

opportunities for transilient conversations(whether with Ahmadinejad or Obama).Perhaps Aristotles enantia opens up thebroadest range of opportunities fortransilient boundaries. Enantia bears anuncanny resemblance to the semiotician/architect, Umberto Ecos and theanthropologist Alain Le Pichons concept ofTranscultural Education (Eco, 2001)involving mutual reciprocity among scholarsand students outside and within Europe.While there may be a tendency forarchitects in Edinburgh to dwell upon theNorthern limits of the Roman Empire, themultiple opportunities of Aristotlesoppositions in Ancient Greece may provokea rethinking of the Eastern European limenespecially with its present-day Other,Turkey.

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud, who lived in Vienna atBergasse 19, did not focus on MargaretStonborough-Wittgensteins home atKundmangasse 19, but rather on an ancient home, one without boundaries or

limits, the unconscious mind. Dependingwhether architects position the limen orthreshold below or above the entrance door,it may be suggested, in the latter case, thatFreud was interested in sub-liminalarchitecture.

Through his lifetimes work withpatients, Freud used parapraxes, dreamsand jokes to try to understand thetransilience of thoughts and nonsense backand forward across and under (trans andsub) the boundary between the consciousand the unconscious.mind.

In his classic work on: The Joke and itsRelation to the Unconscious, Freud , (1905)

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associates the world without boundaries asthe infantile world., viz:

during its development on the level of play in the childhood of reason, that is the joke isable to produce these pleasure-bringingcondensations; and thatit performs the samefeat on a higher level by plunging the thoughtinto the unconscious. For the infantile is the

source of the unconscious; unconscious processes are nothing more than those produced simply and solely in early childhood.The thought plunging into the unconscious inorder to form the joke, is only revisiting theancient home of its erstwhile play with words.For a moment thinking is transposed back to thechildish source of pleasure. Even if we did notalready know it from research into the

psychology of neuroses, we could not butsurmise from jokes that the strange unconsciousrevision is nothing other than the infantile typeof thinking (Freud, 1905. pp166-167).

Freuds work was further developed by the

French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, wholike Wittgenstein saw language as limitingthe world of the subject. By reflecting uponchild development studies, Lacan sawlanguage as locating the subject within theworld and also as splitting the subject ($)between the imaginary ego of the consciousand the irrational passions and drives of the unconscious. Lacan used the languagestructures of the unconscious, revealedthrough psychoanalytic patients jokes,dreams and parapraxes, to understand the unknown emotions that Wittgenstein soughtto eliminate both from the Tractatus Logico-

Philosophicus and from the design ofKundmangasse 19.

Psychoanalysts like Jacques Lacanillustrate desire leaping across the boundarybetween the shadow of the unconscious andthe bright light of the conscious. Theyconsider the gaps in the Master signifier (S1),Capitalism, built like Wall Street upon theboundaries of the enclosure movement. Theyhighlight the desire not to know of the University built upon its paranoid limits tolibrary access (Fig 8). They hear thejouissanced cry of the hysteric begging at the

threshold for their childs food while theUnited Nations awaits the BBC Humanitarianappeal. They share the analystsunderstanding of the joke about the homelessat the home of the millionaire (Freud, 1905,page 11) or miglionnaire (Lacan, 1957-58,page 47). The architectural structures ofthese psychic processes recognize the othersparanoid mis-understandings, like Bushisms.

In his 17th Seminar Series in 1969-70entitled Lenvers de la psychanalyse (Theother/ under side of psychoanalysis),Jacques Lacan tried to outline multiple

discourses following his fourfold mathemes(Fig 7), each matheme, 7a, 7b, 7c, and 7darranged in the form of an architectural arch.

For each of the four discourses, Lacandeveloped a matheme each with four inter-related components. As seen from the firstarch matheme, the Masters discourse (7a),the Master Signifier (S1) occupies thedrivers seat in the matheme sitting on theupper left of the lintel. The position ofMaster Signifier above the bar is underpinned by the pillar of truth. The truth isthat the power of the Master comes fromthe alienated subject [aptly represented bythe castrated dollar sign ($)]. The MasterSignifier (S1) then acts across the arch uponknowledge such as University Knowledge(S2) to produce what Lacan terms lobjet petit a or the cause of desire as the rightpillar below the bar or limen.

Fig 7aLe Matre 7 b LUniversit

Fig 7c LHystrique 7 d LAnalyste

Lacan rotates the mathemes fourcomponents of the four arches a quarterturn anti-clockwise to produce the series offour discourses each with a differentcomponent in the drivers seat as the agentin the upper left. Just as the MasterSignifier (S1) drives Le Matre (theMasters) discourse (Fig 7a), so knowledge

(S2) is put in the drivers seat in thediscourse of LUniversit (Fig 7b), butuniversity is underpinned in truth by theMaster Signifier (S1) of Capitalism. Thisknowledge acts upon the cause of desire (a)to produce alienated subjects and studentsbelow the bar. But what if ($), thealienated subject, were to gain access tothe drivers seat, as in the discourse ofLHystrique (Fig 7c)) and as might beimagined were homeless people toparticipate in side the architectural studio,or were the street outside to become thearchitectural studio? How then would the

alienated subject ($) act upon the MasterSignifier (S1) to produce new forms ofknowledge beneath the bar. Finally in the

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discourse of lAnalyste (Fig 7d), the arts (a),the cause of desire, are put in the driversseat to help us understand the transiling orsubsiling of boundaries.

Fig 8 : Ironically panoptical surveillance has at lastfound Osama bin Laden! He stands, Rodin-like in

pensive thought, deliberately located beneath andtherefore outside the gaze of the CCTV andaccompanying high-lighting which gatherinformation on, and produce alienation among, allwho desire to seek knowledge (S2 ) from theUniversity Library.

The Arts

Just as Ren Magrittes art covers FreudsPenguin Classics (Freud, 1905 publ 2002), sothe artist, Salvador Dal (him~self analysedby Jacques Lacan) transiles the mind of thesubject. Dals series on the Slave Market with

Disappearing Bust of Voltaire opens up amultiplicity of Archadian opportunities forleaping across the architectural boundariesbetween master and slave, between insideand outside, between eros and death, andbetween us and them.

Fig 9a: Masterpiece Disappearing Bust of Voltaire Oil on Canvas 1941 (Ades, 2000, page 140)

Four pictures/sketches by Salvador Dali(Ades, 2000 p. 141. (Fig 10). associated withhis well known master-piece, the 1941 oil oncanvas entitled: Disappearing Bust of

Voltaire, illustrate the artists ability totransile back and forward through thearchitectural arcade, between inside and

outside, the rational and the non- rational,light and darkness, and even between erosand death. Dali, a colleague and analysandof Jacques Lacan, uses a variety of psycho-analytic techniques in his art; includingamong others, condensation anddisplacement, and his own paranoid criticalmethod, to transile the boundaries andlimits of logic and scientific facts.

9a The Master piece

This oil painting illustrates an ambivalentboundary. The dilapidated bust of Voltaire,the father of the European enlightenedrationalism, is disappearing. There is a newbaby, cradled, as if in the arms of death, tothe far left. The slaves with their colourfulplumage, yet without gaze, appear to dancein the evening light upon freedom from thebird cage. Even the far distant home,

perhaps the slaves home. in the gatheringdusk appears to have a light in the limen.But there is no candle on the candlestickpedestal of the Bust of Voltaire. Indeedthere is a terrifying Hokusai-like tsunamiwave engulfing the candlestick whichappears surrounded by a blood red sea thathas come right inside. Yet, there is anabsence. The beggars and the dog (Fig 9b)are denied presence. The boundary space ofthe arcade has become a limit.

9b The Correlative Threshold

Fig 9b: Study for Slave Market with Disappearing

Bust of Voltaire Gouache, cont crayon andChinese ink on pink cardboard 1941 (Ades, 2000,page 147)

Dalis (1941) gouache, cont crayon andchinese ink on pink cardboard privileges the Master-slave relationship. At first sight,Dalis arcade shows two clear architecturalshapestwo Roman arches apparently formthresholds allowing the internal viewer tolook out into the sunlight, the slave marketand perhaps a slave ship from Aristotles colonies at the wharf. The coherentappearance and gaze of the eyes of theclearly bounded slave Master in the rightarch and the eyes of the 17th centurydressed bourgeois in the left archcontrasting with the gazeless slaves, as well

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as the indistinct beggars and dog, lower downon the tiled floor. Dalis paranoid criticalmethod suddenly transforms the scene in theleft arch into the bitmap-like thresholdedimage of the Masterthe Master of theEuropean Enlightenment, Francois MarieArouet (pen name Voltaire). The clear whitelight of the enlightenment seen on the archesof the threshold splits or alienates the blacktorso and white limbs of the slave in theshade between the two arches or thresholds.

9c The Hysterics Steresis

Fig 9c: Study for Slave Market with DisappearingBust of Voltaire Pencil on paper c. 1940 (Ades,2000, page 146)

Dalis pencil on paper shows the alienatedwoman, her young life-giving nipple formingthe keystone of the arched threshold, as shereaches desperately to grasp the Vanitas-like

fruit bowl of life. But the pears in the fruitbowl upon the pedestal of knowledge arecondensed with or displaced to the distantmountain outside. She cannot reach the bowlof fruit. The palms of her outstretched handare darkened as if by the memento mori ofthe skull revealed beneath. The archway hasspatial depth, but does one cross theboundary zone to life or to death?

9d The Analysed Subject

Fig 9d: Study for Slave Market with DisappearingBust of Voltaire Pencil and ink on paper c. 1940(Ades, 2000, page 142)

Salvador Dal constructs an architecturalthreshold between the two categories inside and outside in the pencil and inkpaper Study for Slave Market andDisappearing Bust of Voltaire. The supineself portrait mask of Dals profile formsthe arches of the threshold with hisforehead to the left and his nose formingthe cavity above the central arch. Thestreakily drawn sheltering shadow of lineson the central archway doubles as Dalis eyelashes or shade.

For Dali, the analysand, the boundary iswithout limit. The boundary is a place ofshelter accessible to those on the inside andthose on the outside. Dalis boundary spaceis no Guantanamo, Bhagram or ChristmasIsland. Life triumphs, at least temporarily,in the eternal dance with death.

ConclusionThis paper has outlined how Wittgenstein,Aristotle, Lacan and Dali from otherdisciplines like Philosophy, Classics,Psychoanalysis and the Arts haveapproached the limit or boundary. Vauban,the military architect, with his work lurkingin the shadows of the Schengen fortress isrenowned not only for fortifying boundariesand for breaching or leaping overboundaries and limits. So Wittgenstein, thebuilder of the non-emotional Kundmangasse19 home later under stood that the

decision on placing boundaries waspsychological ~ in the mind. Aristotlesought to integrate the psychologicaldesires within the physical world. His logicwas more pluralist than only the assumedapophastic affirmation and denial. Lacanbuilt arches or mathemes to open updifferent discourses transiling the boundarybetween the unconscious and the consciousto allow alternative desires to provoke ourboundary leaping. Dali showed that thearches of the arcade could open out toshelter the other ~not only master andslave (or Schengen immigrant), but also

beggar and dog may have a place to dwellin shelter and/or shade.

Architectural education, with itstraditional focus on the liminal or boundarycondition, may leap or delve into otherdisciplines. This may broaden the focus onthe boundary or limit towards theoppositional categories that the privilegedput in place without dialogue with the other~ thereby imprisoning themselves. Just asyoung children play freely beyond theboundaries of the mind, so architecturaleducation may transile and subsile into the

unconscious of the other to provide shelterwhere we may converse or dwell

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Just as Vauban, the military Architect ofthe Schengen Fortress, became more adept atbreaking through salient fortifications than indesigning them (Vauban,1742); socontemporary post-graduate architecturestudents may transile or subsile Schengenslimits. Our conscious self on one side of theSchengen boundary is constituted by theother (the unified self we have lost) who maybe inside or outside the Schengen fortress.With less selfishness as imperialarchitects3, we may include the emotionalpassion of Wittgensteins I, Lacans Je orFreuds das Es. Then, like the sile (Scots=newly hatched fish), each of us may, asRobert Burns suggested in 1786, wintle like asaumont (somersault like a salmon) across or under disciplinary or Schengen boundarystructures with the help of other disciplines(Fig 10).

Fig 10: A Scottish salmon wintles across the poster of the Transilient Boundaries in/ofArchitecture conference, 2009

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Notes

1 The Schengen visa restrictions have affected postgraduate architecturestudents at the University of Edinburgh andstudent visa restrictions were repeatedly raisedin the discourse of the Erasmus Mundus II(2009-2013) launch conference 16-17thFebruary 2009.

2 salient (salire Latin = to leap as in transilience,but meaning pointing out in militaryarchitecture)

3 This phrase was suggested by a post-graduatestudent from an other discipline within theScool of Arts, Culture and Environment at thetime of the Conference.

Dedication

Dedicated to all Edinburgh international post-graduate architecture students who havedifficulty getting a Schengen visa. ~ and to allnon Edinburgh, non international, non postgraduate, non Architects, and non students whohave difficulty gaining a Schengen visa ~ andto all those people: men, women and childrenwho do not wish a Schengen visa, but proudlyopen their own doors and boundaries to

converse about their home and culture.

Acknowledgement

To my thesis supervisors Richard Coyne and JohnLee, and to the many postgraduate studentswho have made this paper possible.

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