From Needs to Culture, Technologyto Architecture

WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis

Case Studies

Prof. Heather Woofter

From Needs to Culture, Technologyto Architecture

Roberto Jaime Deseda

Friday, December 10th, 2004

From Needs to Culture, Technology to Architecture

As of yet, man’s existence has only been possible as a consequence of his needs. These needs are not only essential for his survival but they are also the beginnings to every major manifestation performed by man.The same needs that have ensured man’s survival have also shaped his culture, which in turn helps technology progress – technology that has the ability to control and/or influence every aspect of human life, from the way he sees the world to how he can change it.

Man as well as any other organism could not function without energy running through him. Yet in order to fuel this energy, man needs to consume foods and drink if he chooses to live. He can do so simply by hunting and gathering as early man had done. But in his search for food and water, man must first reach his destination; now he has created a new need, to walk. But spanning distances has some risky baggage attached to it. For example, he could be attacked, lost, or hurt on his journey. Therefore, man feels the need to reduce the amount of time it takes him to complete this task.[1]

Yet man’s needs cannot be satisfied by the natural world alone. He would have to span distances somehow in order to reach his goals. Another example would be how to maintain a controlled temperature for himselfeven though is always fluctuating in nature. In order to meet his own demands, man develops the means that lead to the desired end. “He produces what he does not find in nature, whether because it does not exist at all or because it is not at hand when he needs it.”[2]

This is the point when man becomes conscious that he can manipulate the world around him to benefit himself and society at large. Additionally, because what he is inventing and executing can be performed by others with no particular skill, it is not his particular technique that reaches his goals, but the technology he is using.[3] Technology is the means that man uses in order to acquire the ends he desires that the natural world does not offer.

Technology was conceived as a result of man wanting more than what was given to him by nature. Reaching this plateau of satisfaction is what Ortega y Gasset calls well-being, the necessity of necessities. Without well-being, man simply exists but not automatically happy. In order to achieve happiness he yearns for more, ultimately contributing to technology. However, different men have different views of well–being, so it is not surprising that the means to attain well–being differ throughout mankind. Because of this variation, different groups of men have developed a technology that best suits their interests and in the course of time it has led to the creation of a diversity of cultures and levels of technological advances.

Ortega y Gasset explored the discrepancy between men, as a race, long for well-being in their life and how diverging groups of men have diverse views on achieving well-being. He used two dissimilar cases, or cultures: the bodhisattva and the English gentleman.

The bodhisattva claims that one must be immersed in the universe in order for one to exist. His intent is to stay humble and mundane, or as Ortega y Gasset said, “To live as little as possible.” Satisfaction is not achieved in this world of appearances but in the body and soul through meditation and concentration.

On the other hand, the English gentleman is egocentric. He is aloof from his surroundings and acts as if he is in perfect control. His individuality correlates to his independence from others, especially economically-speaking. In order to reinforce his independence, he discreetly flaunts his luxuries (automobiles, estates, the latest commodities et cetera). Basically, it is impossible for cultures such as these to be in the same level of technology – one lives in tranquility while the other actively hunts for material goods. Nevertheless, however different these cultures are, they are each manifesting their own idea on well-being and using as much technology as they deem necessary to acquire it.

In Western society nowadays, technology is indispensable and inescapable. It is so deeply and firmly grounded in our culture that we inevitably encounter technology in some way or form every minute. From the organizing of the infrastructure of our government to the packaged food we consume, there is no way an individual in Western society could avoid technology. In fact, it has become so repetitive to confront it that we do not even notice it. We fail to realize that by a simple flick of a finger we can activate an electrical light source or that we can access a myriad number of information from around the universe with the push of a button. Our culture’s thirst for well-being has become so insatiable and high-maintenance that it is creating emptiness in our lives:

“Yet we suffer from an appalling restlessness because we do not know what to do with it, because we lack imagination for inventing ourselves.” – José Ortega y Gasset

Accordingly, technology needs to recommence a balance with nature so that we do not lose sight of our progress and achievements. After all, technology came to be because of man’s ability to “discover new relations between the things around him.”[4] Ortega y Gasset has divided the progress of technology in three stages, each according to man performing some change in the general character of technology.

Firstly is the technology of chance. Primitive man is not conscious that the methods he uses and the utilization he gives objects are forms of technology. Because the applications of technology he uses are so minute, he regards them simply as natural as his desire to eat when hunger strikes. He is blind to the fact that he has invented something because it was not done deliberately. His inventions have been conjured by accident; it is technology by chance.

Secondly is the technology as craftsmanship. At this point, man still depends heavily on nature. Even though he now lives in dense, urban societies, technology is not indispensable for his survival. Certain jobs in this society, blacksmiths and shoemakers for example, need a high level of craftsmanship due to their complexity. These practices are not recognized as natural, but as uniquely human or extranatural. Even though this period might seems more technologically advanced than the former, Ortega y Gasset argues that though there is craftsmanship, there is no invention. Originality is not an issue for these artisans since their sole duty is to perform their jobs using methods passed down by tradition. The only direction that these procedures are taken to is to improve them. Possibilities for new inventions are hindered as a result of looking towards the past.

Finally, there is the technology of the technician. This period arises when machine is developed to works on itself in order to fabricate a new product. In order to create this machine, one must first invent the plan of activity and then execute the plan. This separation of labor, where one designs and the other performs, splits the craftsman responsibility into two parts: the technician and the worker. In principle, the machine that man creates could e unlimited. Then again:

“Just because of its promise of unlimited possibilities, technology is an empty form like the most formalistic logic and is unable to determine the content of life. That is why our time, being the most intensely technical, is also the emptiest in all human history.”[5]

In order to avoid this emptiness, technology needs to relate to culture, which in turn correlates back to needs and nature. The relation between technology and nature manifest itself best through the structures we add to the environment in order to fulfill our needs and reflect our culture. Therefore, technology’s grandest presence on nature is architecture.

Neal Denari is one such architect who agrees that culture plays an essential role in his design making:

“I have recognized that a continuous series of cross sections must be cut through the global cultural structures that have come to dominate our contemporary lives so that the progress, ambivalence, possibilities, and shifts recorded in these slices may inform my work.”

He claims that examining different cultural structures aid him in designing, since it provides him with more information and, as a result, more freedom and options for experimenting. His experimentations are all forward-looking, as he develops his own style of architecture which corresponds to the dominant role high-end technology takes in our society today. As already mentioned by Ortega y Gasset and now reiterated by Denari, “Movements cannot occur, therefore, if resistance is based on nostalgia.”[6] In other words, one should not aim to relive or resurface the past but one can learn from it. Additionally, as LeCorbusier pointed on in “Vers une architecture,” every mayor architectural shift established in the past was a direct result of applying the latest technology: The Romans spanned greater distances than Greeks through the use of arcs rather than lintels, steel structures encouraged the construction of large and more intrepid structures, reinforced concrete welcomed the free façade and free plan et cetera.

With the newest technology, architecture can now perform in ways that were never thought possible. Same as before, technology grants us the potential to go beyond natural restrictions. Technology is the adaptation of the environment for the individual.[7]

With the speed that technology changes and improves nowadays, architecture is also quick to change. Denari defines architecture as “an artificial landscape responding to the fluctuating conditions.” According to him, because architecture, technology and culture are in constant motion, achieving lasting architecture is about standing out. The less the designed space fits into its setting, the larger and longer-lasting the impression it leaves behind on a spectator. Inversely, it is difficult to realize this goal considering the homogeneous and limited commodities the market has to offer.This is the reason why Denari uses common materials in architecture (glass, metal, fiberglass), yet he tries to convert them into his own vocabulary, making them unique and explicitly his. One can understand that Denari feels the need to design architecture that will stand him out above the crowd, a need endowed on us by our culture for one to succeed over all others, and he is using technology in order to accomplish it.

From the materials Denari decides to use in his designs, first we have aluminum. It is a lightweight performance metal that still has the strength to support heavy loads yet its color and luster make it seem delicate and can easily be connected to another piece of the same materials. This visual and structural paradox makes this material seems extranatural while its flexibility of shapes makes its function limitless. Another paradoxical material used is glass. It is a solid surface, yet one can see through it as if nothing was there. Its uses are also widespread, since it can be dyed, translucent, bent and so on. Finally, we have fiberglass, a material that when appropriated by Denari is used as a smooth surface that can wrap over any structure. Additionally, a sea-foam green is predominantly used on this material because, according to him, it is a neutralizing agent and is also the color of light refracted through water or glass.

The method used to construct and apply the sea-foam green fiberglass sheeting is technologically based and it is structural. In his 1993 project Details Design Studio in New York, New York, aluminum upholds a fiberglass sheet wrapping that supports itself. Throughout the wrap, no other structural element is found as a result of the curves, dips, and tapers of the wrap. The “structure generates stiffness through depth. When repeated like a sine curve, a radius produces a corrugation.”[8]

This system of bending and wrapping a skin over the structure is apparent in all of Denari’s works. But his wrapping is not an arbitrary one. It not only serves as structure but it also a literal interpretation of the movements and fluctuations of technology and, similarly, culture.Denari writes that each curve must lie on the same line in order to receive pure smoothness. In regards to the movements and fluctuations of technology and culture, the transition between each shift is done so seamless that, even though it is right in front of us, we seldom detect it until we look back and notice the changes. Each curve has different trajectories and values yet are part of the same continuous line, same as movements that follow diverging paths and extremes, yet they flow through society lineally.

Denari’s particular design can be identified fairly easy since he uses the same building system and materials for all of his structures. However, even though he claims to use cultural knowledge and environmental differences to strengthen his design, he does not this information into his design scheme. For example, his 1993 project Prototype House in Tokyo retains the wrapping skin, metal, viewable skeleton and large spaces spanned with glass to allows views both into and out of the house. The discrepancy present here is that he clearly states:

“The scheme inverts the usual privatization often seen in Tokyo as opaque walls containing inward-focused rooms.”

In other words, even though it is customary for Japanese households to remain intimate, introspective and private, he decides to use his usual composition, despite the fact that is it going against usual Japanese customs and culture.[9]

Additionally, another inconsistency between his design of a space and what the environment request of the space is the Corrugated Duct House of 1998 in Palm Springs, California. In a climate as hot and sunny as this, Denari takes the position that “air conditioning is unavoidable in this area.” Consequently, the house runs under many ducts of air conditioning in order to keep a steady and comfortable indoor climate. Yet the rest of the house has the same principles as all of his other designs: glass walls, metal structure and sea-foam green. If Denari were actually to design this space according to its environment and even to the culture that surrounds it, where houses are build with thicker walls for isolation for example, materials would be different and even the duct roofing system would not function as well as intended. The intense sunlight beating down on a large, metal surface will not only warm up the duct systems, forcing the air conditioning to work harder, but it would create a great deal of glare. [10]

Although Neil Denari claims to use needs (cultural or environmental) to intensify his design process, he does not manifest these declarations. By prioritizing his belief that architecture should use technology to move towards the future as its only way to progress blinds him from understanding and applying different needs. The purpose behind his design is to demonstrate how new architecture stems towards new ideas and applications of technology in order to fashion new movements and more ideas in architecture, ultimately aiding it in its progress. Yet by not knowing what other purpose to serve, technology is threatened with a set-back. Without having a clear understanding of what one is using the technology for and what needs are to be reached, we lack the imagination to invent something without a clear base or goal (after all, technology was, again, formed through a convenience it offered man to obtain his needs more efficiently and keep him satisfied. Without that need, it is an aimless search). With technology being used solely technically, it is empty.[11]

[1] José Ortega y Gasset, “Thoughts on Technology”

[2] José Ortega y Gasset, “Thoughts on Technology”

[3] Adolf Behne, “Kunst, Handwerk, Technik,” Die neue Rundschau. 1922

[4] José Ortega y Gasset, “Thoughts on Technology”

[5] José Ortega y Gasset, “Thoughts on Technology”

[6] Neil Denari, “Gyroscopic Horizons.” Los Angeles, 1997

[7] José Ortega y Gasset, “Thoughts on Technology”

[8] Neil Denari, “Gyroscopic Horizons.” Los Angeles, 1997

9 Protoype House, Neil Denari 1993

[10] Corrugated Duct House, Neil Denari 1998

[11]José Ortega y Gasset, “Thoughts on Technology”