Two modes of a literary architecture: Bernard Tschumi and Nigel Coates

摘要

Both Tschumi and Coates asserted that space does not become architecture until there is some element of use, occupation, inhabitation, or action - and placed primary importance on the meeting of the two. Much of the difference in their subsequent approaches can be traced back to the literary text and their distinct relations to it. Tschumi saw the literary text as a resource from which to select narrative sequences that could be projected onto a physical site as the basis for the design of architectural space. The very nature of the process was of an imposition carried out by the architect, manipulated in a similar way to the manipulation of words in a text - his approach deliberate and precise. By contrast, Coates saw the effect created by the literary text - sensation, immersion, narrativity - as qualities to be produced by architecture. While Tschumi sought to use the disjunction between space and experience to create new forms of architecture, Coates sought to create new narratives constructed through experience. The role of architecture for Coates was thus to 'aggregate and disintegrate the experiences it contained'. But while the literary context of events was the starting point for Tschumi's thinking, Coates aimed to bring architecture closer to fiction by exploring its role in unfolding narrative.