Architectural movements, utopian moments: (in)coherent renderings of the hundertwasser‐haus, vienna

Abstract

ABSTRACT. This paper explores some of the manifold entanglements of architecture and utopia. It takes as a case study a social housing block in Vienna: the Hundertwasser-Haus. The house was designed by the artist-architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser and has attracted enormous attention from the architectural press and tourists. I articulate a series of architectural 'movements', manifest in Hundertwasser's design philosophy, press reportage about the house, residents' experiences of living at the house, and visitors' activities outside it. I argue that from these movements, a series of essentially unconnected utopian "moments" emerged. The paper makes two contributions. First, it builds upon gathering interest in the geographies of utopiaspecifically by moving beyond an emphasis upon utopian hope. It locates utopian impulses that are imbued with euphoria and joy, and which are not beset by a sense of lack. It also provides empirical examples of "unsettling" utopias of different registers (such as textual and experiential).Second, the paper contributes to recent geographical approaches to studying architecture. It uses the analytical motif of movements to gain a sense of how a material building -and the idea of that building -is constituted as much by tenuous relations and disjunctures (even non-relations) as by relations. Whereas contemporary geographies of architecture do not leave room for tenuous relations and disjunctures in their narratives, this paper tries to do so. It highlights how utopian moments at the Hundertwasser-Haus are proximate to each other: they are located metaphorically and/or literally at the house. Yet those moments neither conform to a coherent, singular narrative, and in some cases, nor do they relate to each other. The paper opens debate about the significance of non-relational socio-technical constituents to the geographies of architecture.Keywords: Geographies of architecture; relational spaces; event and disjuncture; unsettling utopia; home; tourism. 2The concept of disjunction is incompatible with a static, autonomous, structural view of architecture. But it is not anti-autonomy or anti-structure; it simply implies constant, mechanical operations that systematically produce dissociation in space and time, where an architectural element only functions by colliding with a programmatic element, with the movement of bodies, or whatever. In this manner, disjunction becomes a systematic and theoretical tool for the making of architecture (Tschumi 1996, pp. 212-213)

Spatial agency and practising architecture beyond buildings

“…What if, in this instance, an architect sought to radically transform or disconnect the network? Taking Kraftl's (2010b) ruminations on utopia and architecture further, what if an architect purposely seeks to dissociate the conventional socio-technical 'solution' of a building? As this paper will demonstrate, this may well be highly utopian but equally it may be much more pragmatic.…”

‘Danger building site—keep out!?’: a critical agenda for geographical engagement with contemporary construction industries

“…(Pont 2005: 3) From Vitruvius onwards, the Cartesian dichotomy of mind/body in architectural/ construction theory, and practice, is pervasive (Grosz 2001;Imrie 2003;Krell 1995;Till 2009). Partly in response to such Cartesian disembodiments of architecture, a number of geographers (Datta 2008;Jacobs, Cairns and Strebel 2007;Jackson and della Dora 2009;Kraftl 2006Kraftl , 2010Merriman 2005) have relatively recently re-examined how construction is an integral aspect of the geographies of architectural 'practice' (Jacobs and Merriman 2011).…”

“…173 rebrands themselves; nations symbolize territorial claims; the rich escape society into a hypermodern fantasy; and the sea is precariously held at bay. Kraftl's (2010) study of The Hundertwasser-Haus (Vienna) offers a rather different view of the utopianism of construction practices. Kraftl (2010) connects the decentring of the architect in the geographical study of architecture (cf.…”

“…Kraftl's (2010) study of The Hundertwasser-Haus (Vienna) offers a rather different view of the utopianism of construction practices. Kraftl (2010) connects the decentring of the architect in the geographical study of architecture (cf. Lees 2001) with novel possibilities to understand how buildings 'may move, and be moved .…”

“…Yet, despite their ubiquity and indispensable role in the spacing and placing of life, the contemporary construction site, and wider industry, appears a rather seldom visited object of analysis for geographers. Nonetheless, in recent years, social and cultural geographers, in particular, have started to move closer to contemporary construction sites through engagement with historical (Jacobs, Cairns and Strebel 2007;Merriman 2005), extraordinary (Jackson and della Dora 2009;Kraftl 2006Kraftl , 2010 and maintenance-related (Datta 2008;Graham and Thrift 2007;Strebel 2011) construction practices.…”