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Domesticity at WarAuthor(s): Beatriz ColominaSource: Assemblage, No. 16 (Dec., 1991), pp. 14-41Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171160 .
Accessed: 12/05/2011 03:48
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BeatrizColominas Assistant rofessorfArchitecturet PrincetonUniversity.
1. Demolition of the
UndergroundHome pavilion,New YorkWorld'sFair,1964-65
B e a t r i z Colomina
Domesticity a t W a r
16 January1991. We are, we seem to be, on the edge of
war. At the threshold. A line has been drawn. Literally.Adeadline. In crossingthat line we go to war.We go out-side. We leave the homeland to do battle on the outside.But there are also alwayslines in the interior,within the
apparently afe confines of the house. As we all know but
rarelypublicize, the house is a scene of conflict. Thedomestichas alwaysbeen at war. The battleof the family,
the battleof sexuality,the battle for cleanliness, forhygiene . . . and now the ecological battle. With recy-
cling, even the waste of the house is subjectedto classification. Domesticated.People are reminded of life duringWorldWarII, and not justbecause that was the last time
they had to recycle.
"War s no longer identifiablewith declaredconflict, with
battles,"writes Paul Virilio, "Nonetheless,the old illusionstill persists hat a state of peace means the absenceof
open warfare."'Wartakesplace todaywithout fighting.The battlefield s the domestic interior: he warcabinet.
A "cabinet,"n English, means, in common use, a "cup-boardor case with drawers,shelves, etc., for storingordisplayingarticles"; "pieceof furniturecontaininga radioor televisionset";and, in the terms of politics, a "groupofministerscontrolling government policy."The cabinetis a
space. In the firstdefinition, this space is associatedwiththe traditionaldomestic interior,the house;2 n the second,it houses the media;in the third, it has been displaced ntothe media itself. While cabinet members derive their title
fromthe spacewhere their meetingstakeplace, that space,
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16
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. ..
that cabinet, exists, above all, in the media waves, it is
housed by radio, television, and newspapers.The cohabita-
tion of these apparentlydisparatemeanings indicatesthat
the house is a military weapon, a mechanism within a war
where the differencesbetween defense and attackhave
become blurred.
An instanceof this blurringof limits between warand
peace was offeredby CBS news on 15 Januarywhen the
question most insistentlyput to the multiple "guests" f the
program to the war "experts" was, What signsshouldwe be looking for in the next two or three days, what signswill indicate to us that we have reallyenteredwar?The
media, chargedwith makingvisible the war,was at a lossin the moment of identifyingwhat would constituteevi-
dence of its advent. The guests, who are, afterall, guestsin the home of the viewer,were unable to anticipatethe
image of war. The image, therefore,might arrive n the
house before it was recognized.The house is alreadymobilized. (Duringthe War in the Gulf, in fact, CNN
would advertise tself with the line "CNN bringsthe front
line to your living room,"to what we used to call the
"frontroom." Outsidespace, then,
iscollapsed
into this
line, this front, but because the line is unclear, the war
also speaksof the difficultyof establishing he limits of
domestic space.)
1964 (twoyearsafterthe Cuban Missile Crisis).The New
YorkWorld's Fair. Its architecture s dismissed at the time
(and still today)as "toocommercial,""toovulgar," acking
"architectural nity,"and, perhapsmost symptomatic,"themastersare missing":"Whereare Kahn, Neutra, Mies,
Gropius, Yamasaki,BuckminsterFuller, Kiesler . . ? asks
Interiors,a professional ournal.3While the institutionsof
high culture (if one could considerInteriors,Progressive
Architecture,or ArchitecturalRecordas such) lament theirinabilityto comprehendthe fair,only a reporter or Holi-
day, a populartravelmagazine, seems able to providean
adequateresponsewhen he writes,"Mostof these chargesare true;none of them matters.. . . Too commercial?As I
see it, commerce is the point of any fair. . . . It is pre-
cisely the chaos of architectural tylesthat lends to Flush-
ing Meadow the nightmare quality any properWorld'sFair
should strive for. . . . As for the vulgarityand the triviality
I would grieveto see an iota of them blotted or canceledout. "4
The accusations of commercialism,vulgarity,disunity,andabsence of masterywere not simplya rejectionof mass
culture. The attackon the kitsch of the fair,the bad taste
of its formsof massculture, constitutedan elaboratedefense (withantiquatedartillery)againsta majordisrup-tion of the traditionalstatus of architecture.Architectural
magazineswere defendingthemselvesagainsta threat to
their own foundations.
The fairpresented o the viewer, in the words of the Holi-
day reporter,"a worldcomputerizedto the teeth, a push-button world":
Atthe BetterLivingCenter here s a computero tellyouwhatcolors o use in decoratingourhome. . . . Atthe NationalCash
Register avilion computereedsoutfacts o helpchildrenwiththeirhomework.Atthe Parker enpavilion, computerwill find
youa pen palsomewheren the world . . andat theClairol
pavilion,a computer dvisedmywifewhatcolorsheshoulddyeherhair:Don'tbe a sissy,' soft,electronic emalevoicewhis-
peredn her
ear, goahead,do it '5Not only were the computers(descendantsof the firstcom-
puter developedto decode enemy messagesduringWorldWar II) "concerned" xclusivelywith domestic issues
(displacing nto themselvestraditional ormsof domestic
relations n areas as crucial as decoration,homework,
companionship, and fashionadvice),but moreover,domestic space itself was deeplydisturbed.Within the pop-ular kitsch of the 1964 World'sFairveryelaboratepropo-sitionswere being made about the status of the moderninterior somethingthat architecturalmagazinescould not
recognize).
One such propositionwas the UndergroundHome, a tra-ditional suburbanranch house buried as protectionfromthe new threatof nuclear fallout.6It was the projectof JaySwayze, a Texan militaryinstructor urnedbuildingcon-tractorof luxuryhouses, who duringthe Cuban MissileCrisisof 1962 had been commissionedby the Plainview
(Texas)City Council to build a demonstration allout shel-ter to specificationsby the Departmentof Civil Defense.
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In a promotionalbook publishedin 1980, he discussedthe
projectin the followingterms:
I saw he meritof utilizinghe earthasprotectiongainst adio-active allout.As a formermilitarynstructorn chemicalwarfare,I knew hat hethreewaysman coulddestroy imselfwerebynuclear ission,nervegasorgermwarfare. espitePresident
Kennedy'sssurancehat hethreat f warwasonlytemporary,one thingwasclear.The nuclear gewasuponus, and ong-rangeplanningwasnecessaryo protect umanityrompossibleill
effects.7Swayzequicklyturned the militaryprojectfora shelter
into a domesticprojectfor a house:
It seemedmore ogical o make he home and itssurroundingssafeharborwhere hefamilywouldbe protectedn comfortable,familiarurroundings... Armedwiththese deas,I moved othe drafting able. . . . Because we cannot live in constantfear of
war,storms r uncomfortableemperatures,he 'betterway'mustofferprotectionromsuch.8
This equationof war with weather was symptomatic.The
"betterway" Swayze'ssloganfor the UndergroundHome - rested on two "obviousadvantages":constant
temperature" nd "security rom naturalor man-madehazards."The house offereda controlled environmentin
which one could createone's own climate by "dialing"
temperatureand humiditysettings:"the breeze of a moun-
00J(
5. UndergroundHomepavilion,New York WorldFair,1964-65, plan
tain top, the exhilaratinghigh pressure eeling of a Springday can be created at will. ... The clamor of traffic,jets,noisy neighbors- all are gone with a turn of a switch and
you are free to restin silence, or experiencefor the firsttime the full rangeof sensationsthat today'ssensitive stereo
systemsare able to produce."9
As "windows o the outside worldseemed impossible" nan underground helter, Swayzedevelopeda survey"to
learn how much value people actuallyplacedupon win-dows."He concluded that althoughwindowsmightbe of
psychological importance, they were, in fact, rarely ooked
through. Moreover,"with traditionalhomes we must takewhat we get for views. Afterlookingoutside, I decided anartistcould do a thousand times better."'0n the Under-
ground Home traditionalwindowswere superimposedon"dial-a-view"murals. Everyroom in the house looked outonto a panoramic andscapethat could be changedat will.
(In the prototypeof this house, completedin Coloradobefore the World'sFair, the outside views spanneda conti-
nent, with San Francisco'sGolden Gate to the west andNew York's kylineto the east.) The time of day or night
could also be "dialed" o fit any mood or occasion. A pub-licity brochurenoted that rheostats"permita risingsuneffect in the kitchen, while a star-fillednight blankets he
'outdoor'patio."That is, simultaneously
6. UndergroundHome
pavilion,section
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pavilion,bedroom
9.Undergroundgardening:"the observerforgets that th
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landscape is a productof MrSmith'sluminouspaints and
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assemblage 16
The displacementof time and spaceproducedwithin thishouse problematizes raditional patialdistinctionssuch asthat between inside and outside. But these distinctionsare
not simplyabandonedhere. They are made strange.Insidethe "protective hell" a clear division is keptbetween"inte-rior"and "exterior" reas. The definition of terms at the
beginningof Swayze'sbook clarifies that "out-of-doors,
backyard, rontyard,patio, courtyard,garden,swimmingpool"are "all areas inside the shell." "Outer/outside"s
"anythingnot enclosed in the shell."" By internalizingeven the inside/outsidedistinction,the UndergroundHome offered,again in the words of the Holidayreporter,
"greaterecurity- peace of mind - the ultimatein true
privacy "'2And the publicitybrochure read:"A few feet
undergroundcan give man an island unto himself;a placewhere he controlshis own world a worldof total ease
and comfort, of security,safetyand, aboveall, privacy."
"Peace" s achieved in this warby environmentalcontrol,controlover "theexterior":emperature,noise, air, light,view. The publicitydoes not insist so much on nuclear
dangeras on intruders,dangersof the street, insects,
impuritiesof the air. In the
1970s,with the oil
crisis,emphasisturned towardenergysaving, and in the 1980s,
ecological concerns. The descriptionof the battlefield
changes. "Ecologicalcatastrophes re only terrifyingor
civilians,"writesVirilio, "Forthe military, they are but a
simulationof chaos, an opportunity o justifyan artof
warfarewhich is all the more autonomousas the politicalStatedies out."'3
The traditionaldomestic ideal of "peaceand quiet"can
only be produced by engagingthe house in combat, as a
weapon: counterdomesticity.
The sponsorof the UndergroundHome was General Elec-
tric, who also commissionedWalt Disney to producetheCarousel of Progress,a series of theatricalsets that exhib-
ited the historyof the interiorfrom 1880 to 1964 by trac-
ing the transformations f the house throughelectricity.In
the General Electricpaviliona demonstrationof thermo-nuclear fusion took place everyfifteenminutes. So that
nuclearpower,a by-productof military echnology, was
presentedas both a mass spectacleand a transformation f
the interior.
::::::C:
10. Kodakpavilion,New YorkWorld'sFair,1964-65
The transformations f interior/exteriorwere not isolatedmoments within the 1964 Fair but its main theme: IBMofferedthe InformationMachine, where"fourteen yn-chronizedprojectorsuse nine screensto show you how
lucky you are to have a brain, how your brainworks,andhow a computerdoes its mechanical best to emulate yourcerebration."The Bell pavilionexhibited the Picture-
phone." And the Coca-Cola pavilionpromotedthe simu-lation of countries:"The visitor
experiencesnot only thesightsand sounds of five foreigncountriesbut also theirsmells and their temperature hanges. He goes fromacrowdedstreetin Hong Kong (pasta fish store whose smellwas so overpoweringly uthenticthat it had to be deodor-ized beforeopening day), to the Taj Mahal, to a perfumedrainforestin Cambodia, to a bracingski resort n theBavarianAlps, to the slowlycantingdeckof a cruise shipjustoff Rio de Janeiro.It is an amusing journey."'5At theKodakpavilionthe visitor could see, outside, the largestpossiblecolor printsand, inside, how the day'snews pic-turescame in by wire, just as they were being receivedbynewspapersand television stations all overthe country.
The Kodakpavilionalso offered tself as a stageset fromwhich to takepicturesof oneself and one's familyin the
backgroundof the fair or in such unthinkableplacesas themoon (therewas a "moondeck" n the roof).
At the 1964 Fair Kodak ntroduced ts new "Instamatic"camera. With it, the camera, this window into the world,which still in the 1939 Fair was contemplated(likethe
television)with amazement, as a technologicalobject,
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13. Futuramaexhibit, GeneralMotorspavilion, New YorkWorld'sFair,1939-40
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14. Futurama, he metropolisof 1960
15. Visitors o Futurama n
sound-equipped chairsthattravel around a 35,000-square-foot model on a simulatedtripto 1960
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assemblage 16
became an object of mass consumption. Moreover,these
objectswere no longer seen as discrete.The television was
everywhere,partof everyspace. The camera instamaticwas not a technologicalobject of awe, but a cheap piece of
plastic:$8 with a built-in flash. And with the mass con-
sumptionof the cameracame the "privatization"f the
view, that is, of the "exterior."People constructed heirown historiesin photographs, n snapshots, justas theyconstructed he "exterior" f their (underground)houses as
imagesof cities.This is consistentwith the idea of the city presentedby theWorld's Fair in the Futuramaexhibits. Futurama1, at the
1939 Fair, could still offera coherent, unified image of the
city - a modernistproposalof steel and glasstowers,an
object, overwhich the visitor,a detached, amazedviewer,had no control. But Futurama2, at the 1964 Fair, could
no longerprovidea unified urban idea. Instead,it offered
a collection of "improbable" laceswherepeople would
live in the future:on the moon, in the jungle, below ice,under the sea, and in the desert.The visitor to the 1964
Fair could only achieve "unity" hrougha "frame," col-
lageof
imagesassembled as s/he moved
throughthe fair.
This visitor,unlike that of 1939, wasgiven the illusion of
control (controlover the imagesboth "inside" he house
and "outside"on the fairgrounds).This "frame" ecame
that of the television screen. Virtuallyeveryexhibitin thefair involved television. Indeed, the fairitself was read at
the time as a big televisionscreen:"The biggesttelevision
set in the world,"wrote a reporter,"Itwill have everythingon the 'screen'except the BeverlyHillbillies, the top-ratednetworkshow."'16
But, in fact, the 1964 Fair neverachievedthe popular
appealof the 1939 Fair. Televisionitselfwas more appeal-
ing.The time of the fairs had
alreadypassed.(The1939
Fair is now said to have been "the last fairon earth.")The
mechanism of the World'sFair, the capturingof every-
thing, was no longer operatingoutside, in the traditional
public space, on the fairgrounds,but within the domestic
interior. The public domain has been displacedindoors.
Or as PatriciaPhillipshas written,
Justasthepublicspacehas becomediminished sa civicsite,the home hasbecome, n manysenses,a morepublic,open
forum.Thepublicworldcomes ntoeach homeas it neverhasbeforehroughelevision, adio ndpersonalomputer. o thatritualshatwereonceshared onspicuouslyn a group re nowstillshared butin isolation.Anexample f thisambiguousconditions theannualcelebrationf the NewYear'sEve nTimesSquare.Which s the morepublicevent thethrong fpeoplegatheringt Forty-secondtreeto watcha lighted ppledropor themillionsof peopleat home,eachwatchinghiscon-
gregationn TV?17
Onethinksalso of the televisedspectaclesof the 1960s:Kennedy'sassassination, he moon landing, the Vietnam
War. In fact, many Americansboughttheir firsttelevisionset to "attend"Kennedy's uneral.
1987. Room in the City, an exhibitionorganizedbySusana Torre in New York. Severalprojectsaddressed, nthe words of the curator,"the self-consciouspublic charac-ter of private ife by envisioningthe room as a stageforthe privateperformanceof public rituals."In the projectfor this exhibitionby Donna Robertsonwith Robert
McAnulty,this stageis "fullydematerialized,transformedinto video screenscirclingaround a single chair for the
actor forever urnedspectator."'8
The apartment s divided into two partsby a diagonalwallthat slashesthroughthe space. At one end, the wall is
punctuated by a dining-roomtable, the traditional cene of
domesticity,and, at the other, it passesthroughthe build-
ing's faCadeo supporta satellite dish and broadcastantenna. On one side, the living area, five video monitorsare hooked up to the satellite dish outside the window.These screensshow randomimagesof the city, creatinganetherealglow of collaged information.This flickering ightis reflectedin a mirrorand sent outside throughthe win-
dow, which is partiallyblockedby the satellite dish. On
the other side, the sleepingand bathingarea, is anothertelevisionset, but one not connected to the dish. Here asmall opening replacesthe originalwindow. The blue lightof the television set glowsbehind this wall.
Both windows have been compromised.They are notintendedto let light in but to let light passout. Yet whatkind of light is this?Robertson'sprojectcan be readintermsof what Virilio calls a "newform of visibility":
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I thinkwearewitnessing newformof visibility. think hatelectronicmages rereplacingheelectrificationf townsandofthecountrysiden the latenineteenth ndearly wentiethen-
tury, n a certainway.Automatic ameras ndmonitors re
replacingtreetightsandneonlights n towns.Whenyoumovearoundn a modern ownyounotice hateverythings concen-tratedntoa videomonitorwhich s notmerelyhevideomoni-tor of theprefecturef policeor of traffic irculation, utthevideomonitor f supermarkets,hevideomonitor f interactiveblocks f flatsn a closedcircuit,andso on. Andhereweareno
longer oncernedwithan imageat all in therepresentational,artistic,llustrative eaning f theterm;t is a question fanotheright,an electronicighting,andI think hatone can no
longer onceiveof space,whethert's iving pace, ownspace,oreven thespaceof theentire erritory, ithout hisnewlighting.19
This new "lighting"hat is producedby a new desire forcontrol displacestraditional orms of enclosure. One of the
primaryreferencesof Elizabeth Diller and RicardoScofi-dio's Slow House, begun in 1989, is a photographby Len
Jenshel in which a securityguardin the desertwatches atelevision set that has been placed in the trunk of his sta-tion wagon. No-man's-land:Here there is only a car, a
surrogate nclosure. Yet, precisely,the guarddoes not sit
in the car, but outside it, looking in. The television occu-
pies the space. It is the only thing comfortablyplaced. Its
light passesout. The blue glow illuminates the man's face.He is, in fact, bathedin the light of the television. Theman findssecurityin the television. He warmshimself upin the light of the electronic fire. But in so doing he is
alienated, detached from traditional pace.
The car windshield and the televisionscreen are both
twentieth-centuryapertures.The picturewindow isanother. But unlike the other two, it is usuallyunderstoodas unproblematicallyarchitectural.The Slow House
problematizes his distinctionbetweenarchitectureand
systemsof communication. The deploymentof the wind-shield, in the words of Diller and Scofidio, "theframedtransitthroughvehicularspace,"and the television screen,"theframed transitthroughelectronic space,"questionsthestatus of the picturewindow. 0
The picturewindow speaksabout control and transparency,but, above all, at issue is the commodification of the visualfield. The New YorkTimes Real Estatesection distin-
guishes between "oceanfront, ocean view, bay view, cove
view, waterview."As Diller and Scofidio havenoted, thisis a complex "realestate nomenclaturedevelopedto subtly
distinguishvalue in a market hat feeds on the desirefor
optical possession."On the site of this house, the view hasa very preciselyestablishedmarketvalue. An ad in theNew YorkTimes reads:"Spectacular iews. Justlike BigSur. With better sunsets. We didn't want anythingless forour beach house." In theirproject,Diller and Scofidio
juxtapose his view with its electronic representation ndexplorethe gap betweenthese two systemsof representa-tion. This is a rereadingand transformation f the rearviewmirrorsuperimposedonto a car windshield.But here, afrontview is juxtaposedonto another frontview, that is,
juxtaposedonto itself. The Slow House makesproblematicthe verystatus of the view: alienation is producednotbetween one view and another,but within the view itself.
The whole house is set up as a spatialtransitionbetweenthe car and the view. The structureof the road is trans-formedupon arrival nto that of the garage,so that onedoes not simply leave the road, the line, for enclosure.
Instead,the windshieldis
telescopedinto the
picturewin-
dow, the zone of transitionoccupied by the traditionalmarkersof domesticity.The front door confrontsa knife
edge that splitsthe passage:one half, remaining evel,deviates to the left (to the sleepingand bathingareas); heother half, ascending, deviatesto the right(to the cooking,eating, and living areas).
The living room is the site of a dialecticalplaybetweenthe television and the fireplace.The television set is sus-
pended in the space so that its image is superimposedontothat of the window. The image on the televisionscreencomes froma cameramounted on a long pole, a transfor-mation of the traditionalchimney. The chimney pointsupward,the camerapole points forward.One is concernedwith gettingsomething out of the house, the other with
pulling something in. One removespollution. The other
bringsin visual pollution, imagesthat, suspendedwithinthe antiperspectival urve of the house, contaminatetradi-tional architecturalorder.
The window is a clearlyestablished ramebut this frame
has no stablecontext. It is as free-floatingas the frame of
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47
.4
assemblage 16
16. The Runabout,Futuram
exhibit, GeneralMotors
pavilion,New YorkWorld'sFair,1964-65, car for
housewives, with built-inremovable shopping cart
~1 _.__. _,PA17. The His-and-HersHummer"in civilian dress":"OperationDesert Storm was a breeze forthis seasoned veteran of
militaryservice."
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"
the television screen. The slightdisplacementof the hori-zon marksa deeperaffinitybetweenthe two systems(pic-ture window and television screen).The television is no
longer simply outside of architectureor some kind of furni-ture within it. The limits of architecturehave been dis-
turbed. This is an architectureon, in, and aftertelevision:
the television cabinet.
With Michael Webb'sDrive-In House project,which has
evolved over the last decade, the car plugs rightinto thehouse, even more, it literallyturns into a house. The car,that "mostluxuriouslyappointedcomponent of vita domes-
tica [which, however]wastefuland sad, sits in the drivewayunused for most of the day" s here recycled, separatedinto parts(the stereosystem, the seats, the windows, the
television, the cocktailcabinet, the air-conditioning,the
telephone).21 The waste is thus classified,domesticated.
Reversing he cycle of consumption, the Drive-InHouse
becomes an ecological alternative,or as Webb puts it, a
"try-anythingype answerto mitigatethe coming disaster
homo-not-so-sapienshas cooked up - namely, the atmos-
pheric warming."His is a strategy hat furtherconvolutes
inside and outside. "When the penultimateGlad trashbagis full of trash and has been takenout," Webb writes,"Iremove the ultimatebag from the packetand place inside
it . . . the packet.Whenever I do this I come over feelingall architectural: he containedbecomes the container,the
containerthe contained."In the Drive-In House the car
body, a container of media equipment, a cabinet that pro-vides a cinematic gaze throughthe windshield accom-
panied by stereosound, is turnedinside out and occupied.
In the firstundergroundhouse that Swayzebuilt for his
family, in 1962, only the double garage s visible outsideand one entersthe house between the two garagedoors. As
RosemarieBletter has written,"thegarage s the only signof human habitation that remained."22To which we couldadd the television antenna and the chimney (the house'sexhaustpipe). A photographof anotherundergroundhousebuilt by Swayzeshows the television and the fireplaceoccupyingthe same wall, veryclose to each other, the
family gatheredaroundthem, warmingup. But in a house
where the temperature s always keptconstant, the func-tion of the fireplaceis purelyvisual. Since the chimney
removes not only fumes but also "undesirable centsormoisture"as partof the air-conditioning,the breathingsys-tem, it is actually, like the television, a window.23
The Slow House interiorizes he problematicof the car.The house is about the transitionbetweenwindshield,
garagedoor, frontdoor, picturewindow, and televisionset.Five frames: he windshield and its extensions.The curveof the house producesa car vision, a continuously delayed
promiseof anotherview, anotherangle. When in the liv-
ing room the "actual"view is superimposedonto its elec-tronic representation,but at a slightlydifferentangle, ashift in the horizon, it is like travelingwithoutmoving. Asif the house were sliding in the world, or better,the world
sliding throughthe house.
The Slow House is a second, weekendresidence,accessi-ble only by car. The Room in the City, by contrast,dealswith domesticityin the context of the displacementof the
nineteenth-centuryurbanrealityof New Yorkby the newmedia. The TV/VCR replacesthe outsideview, the win-
dow; it is also a substitute or travel. To return o Virilio:"Thetechnology of the VCR createsa day, an additional
'false-day' that]comes into being for you alone, justas inthe secondaryresidencewhose heatingturnson of its ownaccord when it getscold. . . . The new windshield s no
longera car, it is a television screen. There is thereforeamuch more precisealignmentto be made between thedeferredday and the deferredresidence."24
The Drive-InHouse, finally, is a suburbanhouse at homein the new landscapeof plastifiedvalleysfilled with gar-bage, mountains made of discardedcar bodies, and rivers
runningwith medical waste. This "automobileas a housecontainer" s a nomad'ssteel-and-plasticent for a post-nuclear landscape,the latest, most elusive war cabinet.
25
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. . .
4
assemblage 16
~
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cl~ L-.J
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4
18. Undergroundhouse, 1960s,
living room with television and
fireplace
NotesThis is the editedtranscript f a
lecture given in the School of
Architectureat the Universityof
Illinois, Chicago, on the evening of
16 January1991. During the lec-
ture, the bombingof Baghdad
began.
1. Paul Virilio, PopularDefenseand Ecological Struggles,trans.
MarkPolizzotti(New
York:Semio-
text(e), 1990), 36; originally pub-lished as D6fensepopulaireet luttes
&cologiquesParis:Ed. Galilee,1978).
2. Among the largeamount of lit-
eratureon this theme, I would
point here to Gaston Bachelard's
classic text, The Poeticsof Space
(Boston:Beacon Press, 1969), in
particular hap. 3, "Drawers,Chestsand Wardrobes";o the
extendedreadingsof the domestic
interiorby GeorgesTeyssot, forth-
coming as The Diseaseof the Domi-
cile (Cambridge,Mass.:MIT Press);and to the recent essay by Emily
Apter,"CabinetSecrets:Fetishism,
Prostitution,and the Fin de Siacle
Interior,"Assemblage9 (June 1989):6-19.
3. "RazzmatazzAt FlushingMeadow,"Interiors March 1964):98. Other reviewsof the fairby
professional ournals nclude "The
BusyArchitect'sGuide to the
World'sFair,"ProgressiveArchitec-
ture(October1964), "Queen of the
Fair,"ProgressiveArchitecture
(December 1964), "Bestof the Fair"
Interiors October 1964), and "TheHouse of Good Taste,"Interior
Design (August1964). See also
RosemarieHaagBletter,"The 'Lais-
sez-Fair,'Good Taste, and MoneyTrees: Architectureat the Fair," n
Rememberinghe Future:The New
YorkWorld'sFair From 1939 to
1964 (New York:The QueensMuseum and Rizzoli, 1989).
4. PeterLyon, "AGlorious Nightmare,"Holiday (July 1964).
5. Ibid.
6. The UndergroundHome was
constructedby the UndergroundWorld Home Corporation whose
presidentwasJaySwayze),which
also proposedUndergroundShop-
ping Centers, UndergroundMoteand UndergroundRestaurants nd
Night Clubs. See also HaagBlett"The 'Laissez-Fair,'Good Taste an
Money Trees."I would like to
thankRosemariefor directingmyattentionto the house and Marc
Miller for providingoriginalmate
rial from the World'sFair archive
7. JaySwayze, UndergroundGardens and Homes:The Best of Two
Worlds Aboveand Below(Here
ford, Texas:Geobuilding Systems
1980),19.
8. Ibid.,20.
9. The UndergroundHome:NewYorkWorld'sFair 1964-1965, pub
licity brochure(Texas:UndergrouWorld Home Corporation,n.d.).
10. Swayze, UndergroundGardeand Homes, 20.
11. Ibid., 10.
12. Lyon, "AGlorious Nightmar62.
13. Virilio, PopularDefenseand
EcologicalStruggles,65-66.
14. "The televisedtelephone, or
the teletelephoneor the video
phoneor whatever t
maybe calle
when eventuallyit is among us,
slaughtering oreversuch folkwayas the blind date, alwaysin the
name of Progress"Lyon, "AGlo-rious Nightmare,"56).
15. Ibid., 57.
16. "A TV View of the Fair,"Ne
YorkSunday News, 12 April 196World'sFairsection, 26.
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Colomina
17. PatriciaC. Phillips, "Outof
Order:The Public Art Machine,"
Artforum December 1988):96.
18. SusanaTorre, Room in the
City (Princeton,New Jersey:PrincetonArchitecturalPress,
1987), 7. The exhibition took placein the City Gallery, New York,
April-May 1987.
19. Paul Virilio, "The Workof Art
in the ElectronicAge," interviewwith Virilio for a French television
program,Block 14 (1988):4.
20. Quotationsare takenfrom con-
versationsbetween the author and
the architects. The Slow House will
be publishednext yearin Elizabeth
Diller and RicardoScofidio, Flesh
(New York:Princeton Architectural
Press).
21. Quotationsare takenfrom con-
versationswith Michael Webb and
from his notes for a lecture given at
PrincetonUniversity n the fall of
1990.
22. HaagBletter,"The 'Laissez-
Fair,'Good Taste, and MoneyTrees," 128. Blettersees this house
whose garagealone remains visible
as an extremeprogressionof the
migrationof the garagefrom the
servicewing in the earlytwentieth
century(when the garagewas
treatedas a vestigeof the older sta-
ble) to the front of the house in the
1930s (when it displacedthe old
frontporch). See her article "The
Worldof Tomorrow:The Future
with a Past," n High Styles:Twen-
tieth-CenturyAmericanDesign(New York:Whitney Museum of
AmericanArt, 1985), 84-85: At
"the Motor Home, a model housein the Town of Tomorrowat the1939 New York World'sFair, the
two-cargarage s the centralfocusof the front faqade.A small entrybetween the two dominantgaragedoorsfunctionsas a vestigeof the
old-fashioned frontdoor, or, as the
brochurereassures: The mainentrance is providedwith a normalfront door for the convenience of
callerswho do not drive in.'"
23. The etymologyof the Englishword "window" evealsthat it com-bines wind and eye, as GeorgesTeyssothas noted, "anelement ofthe outside and an aspectof inner-ness." See E. Klein, A Complete
EtymologicalDictionary of the
EnglishLanguage, cited by EllenEve Frank n LiteraryArchitecture
(Berkeley:Universityof California
Press, 1979), 263, and by GeorgesTeyssotin "Waterand Gas on All
Floors,"Lotus 44 (1984):90. There
is a channel on Americancable
television, "Yule-TideLog,"that
aroundChristmastimedisplaysa log
constantlyburning.
24. "The Third Window: An Inter-view with Paul Virilio,"in Global
Television,ed. Cynthia Schneider
and BrianWallis (New York:
WedgePress,
1988),187-88.
FigureCredits1. Photographby Bruce Davidson.
? Bruce Davidson/MagnumPho-
tos, Inc.
2. HeraldTribune, 19-20 January1991.
3. New YorkTimes, 19 January1991.
4. New YorkTimes, 20 January1991.
5, 6. The UndergroundHome,
publicitybrochure, UndergroundWorldHome Corporation,n.d.
7, 8, 16. Rememberinghe Future:The New YorkWorld'sFair From
1939 to 1964 (New York:The
Queens Museum and Rizzoli,
1989).
9, 18. Jay Swayze, UndergroundGardensand Homes:The Best ofTwo Worlds Above and Below
(Hereford,Texas:Geobuilding Sys-tems, Inc., 1980).
10. Pressrelease, New YorkWorld's FairCorporation,n.d.
11. Promotionalphotograph,East-man KodakCompany.
12. Promotionalphotograph,RCA.
13-15. Futurama, publicitybro-
chure, General MotorsCorpora-tion, 1940.
17. Neiman Marcus, 1991 Christ-mas Book.
19-25. Courtesyof Donna Robert-son and RobertMcAnulty.
26. Photographby Len Jenshel.
27-38. Courtesyof ElizabethDillerand Ricardo Scofidio.
30-44. Courtesyof Michael Webb.
27
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F
assemblage 16
Donna Robertsonwith Robert McAnultyRoom in the City
iJ%L
.........
SISO
19. Donna Robertsonwith
RobertMcAnulty,Room in theCity, 1987, sections/elevations
28
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Colomina
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20. Room in the City, plans
MCMLXXXVII
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assemblage 16
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21, 22. Room in the City,viewsof model showing interior
30
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Colomina
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23, 24. Room in the City,viewsof model showing faqade
25. Room in the Cdetail of satellite
31
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assemblage 16
Elizabeth Diller
and RicardoScofidio26. LenJenshel,Sterret,Texas,
The Slow House 1985
27. ElizabethDiller and RicarScofidio,Slow House, 1989-,section cuts
A 3
. ..,
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28. Slow House,drawingshowing sight lines from carwindshield in garage
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29. Slow House,juxtapositionof the view with its electronic
representation
C :r* :LI-r Z~i II..
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30. Slow House,view at
picture-windowwall
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assemblage 16
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31. Slow House, plan view of
conceptual model
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32. Slow House,elevationalview of conceptual model
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Colomina
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34. Slow House underconstruction
33. Slow House, plan
35
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assemblage 16
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showing interior
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Colomina
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38. Slow House, conceptualmodel of intent of facade
37. Slow House,section cut,detail
37
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assemblage 16
OUF
MichaelWebbThe Drive-In House
, .
40. Drive-InHouse, four-phase
39. MichaelWebb, Drive-In sequence showing car entering, g COLD IR
House, 1980s, plan showing car then becoming the house WARMIR
entering access tube
X31
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Colomina
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41. Drive-InHouse,horizontalsections through partiallyunderground room
The diagramsillustrate wophases of the rotation of the
garage - a sixteen-inch-
diameter drum and a steelrackon to which the car isdriven.DiagramA shows thedrumand rack n position to
accept entryof the car.Oncethe car is properlyaligned inthe garage, drumand rackrotate clockwise,the latter onan eccentricorbit, until,asshown in diagramB,the carsits in the middleof the room,energizing it. Inthe departure
phase,the drumrotates
counterclockwiseand the rackclockwise.The drumis
designed so as to preventexternal air from blowingdirectly through to theinterior room duringrotation- and this reminds me ofthe graceful surpriseof themotions of the Wankelrotaryengine.
39
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assemblage 16
42. Drive-inHouse,Wankel 43. Drive-inHouse,orbits ofengine the rotor
-4&w
Excerpted rom RoadandTrack February1971):"FelixWankel(a Germanengineer)had devoted muchof his lifeto investigating rotarycombustionengines, and
publishedthe firstsystematicclassificationof them: 804
possibleof which 149 areworkable. In 1954 he
discoveredthe configurationthat, with the help of a Dr.WalterFroede,led to ..."the design shown here.
A pseudotriangular-shapedrotororbits an eccentric shaftwithin a casingwhose shape"isdefined by a point on theradius of a circle which is
rollingaround the outside ofa base circle," ts motion
being termed epitrochoidal."For he two-lobe bore of theWankel RC ngine, the radius
of the rollingcircleis exactlyhalf that of the base circle,and the point which definesthe shape is not on thecircumferenceof the rollingcircle."Idon't get this last bit.
"The rotor is in slidingcontact with the eccentricshaft and impartspower toit as a connecting rod doesto a crankshaft.The internal
gearing merelyestablishesthe necessaryspeed relation-
ship between rotorandshaft - 1:3(the rotororbitsonce for everythree shaft
revolutions)."
An attempt to comprehendthe grace of the rotor'sorbits
through drawingwasinconclusive. Iexpected todiscover,or uncover,latentharmonies,dimensions
emerging as multiplesofother dimensions.No suchluckyet: for example, thecurveof the engine casingappearsnot to be semicirculabut, in fact, formed of more
complexcurvatures.
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Colomina
:: :
44. Drive-InHouse, top and
side views of a design for ahers-and-hishouse, whose planderives from the seating layoutof their car
. q.o
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OscarMadisonof The Odd
Coupleslouches acrossthe
livingroom floor after a hot,
tough day at the office,
throwing off his garmentsone by one, leavingthemwhere they fall on the carpet:he transforms he carpet intoa linear,horizontalstoragecabinet in a procedureto be
enacted in reversethe
following morning.
Sequence:arrive,get up from
seat, undress,descend steps,pee or shit (toilet bowl inthemiddle of steps), bathe, sleep,bathe, pee or shit (toilet bowlinthe middle of steps), ascend
steps, dress, lower into seat,
depart.