The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work: Exorcising Outlines, Apparitions and Angels 2020006835, 2020006836, 9781138476493, 9781351105897

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The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work

This book traces the development of John Hejduk’s architectural career, using the idea of “exorcism” to uncover his thought process when examining architectural designs. His work encouraged profound questioning on what, why and how we build, which allowed for more open discourse to enhance the phenomenology found in architectural experiences. Three distinct eras in his architectural career are applied to analogies of outlines, apparitions and angels throughout the book across seven chapters. Using these thematic examples, the author investigates the progression of thought and depth inside the architect’s imagination by studying key projects such as the Texas houses, Wall House, Architectural Masques and his final works. Featuring comments by Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk, Stanley Tigerman, ­Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, Charles Jencks, Phyllis Lambert, Juhani Pallasmaa, Toshiko Mori and others, this book brings to life the intricacies in the mind of John Hejduk, and would be beneficial for those interested in architecture and design in the 20th century. J. Kevin Story, AIA is an architect in Houston, Texas. He has served as part of the Adjunct Faculty at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design since 1996. Kevin teaches Intermediate and Advanced design studios and architectural construction detailing. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree from the University of Houston.

Routledge Research in Architecture

The Routledge Research in Architecture series provides the reader with the latest scholarship in the field of architecture. The series publishes research from across the globe and covers areas as diverse as architectural history and theory, technology, digital architecture, structures, materials, details, design, monographs of architects, interior design and much more. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality architectural research. InterVIEWS Insights and Introspection on Doctoral Research in Architecture, Federica Goffi The Multi-Skilled Designer A Cognitive Foundation for Inclusive Architectural Thinking Newton D'souza Ethical Design Intelligence The Virtuous Designer Philippe d'Anjou The Architect as Magician Albert C. Smith and Kendra Schank Smith Puerto Rico’s Henry Klumb A Modern Architect’s Sense of Place César A. Cruz The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work Exorcising Outlines, Apparitions and Angels J. Kevin Story For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Routledge-Research-in-Architecture/book-series/RRARCH

The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work Exorcising Outlines, Apparitions and Angels J. Kevin Story

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 J. Kevin Story The right of J. Kevin Story to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Story, J. Kevin, author. Title: The complexities of Hohn Hejduk’s work: exorcising outlines, apparitions and angels / J. Kevin Story. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge research in architecture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020006835 (print) | LCCN 2020006836 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138476493 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351105897 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Hejduk, John, 1929-2000—Criticism and interpretation. Classification: LCC NA737.H36 S76 2020 (print) | LCC NA737.H36 (ebook) | DDC 720.92—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006835 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006836 ISBN: 978-1-1384-7649-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-3511-0589-7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

Contents

List of illustrations Foreword Acknowledgements

vi xii xiv

Introduction1 1 Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy: exorcising outlines, Part 1

10

2 Pedagogy of the Texas Houses: exorcising outlines, Part 2

29

3 Pedagogy of the Wall House: exorcising apparitions, Part 1

45

4 Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque: exorcising apparitions, Part 2

66

5 Pedagogy of the Last Works: exorcising angels

120

6 Pedagogy of the Cigar Box: experiencing the otherness of John Hejduk

167

7 A serendipitous life: the end of the beginning

176

Epilogue: The otherness of John Hejduk: a collection of thought

181

Bibliography225 Index231

Illustrations

All images, figures and illustrations depicting John Hejduk and his works listed below are included in this publication with permission granted by the Estate of John Q. Hejduk. Cover The Fox and the Crow, Aesop’s Fables, John Hejduk, 1947, courtesy of the Estate of John Q. Hejduk, digital image by J. Kevin Story 0.1 John Hejduk, ca. 1990s, image courtesy of Steven Hillyer, Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The Cooper Union, New York 1.1 Hoeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey, American, 1903–1988, oil on canvas, H: 40” x W: 60¼” (101.60 × 153.04 cm), courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: Patrons Art Fund, 44.2 and © Estate of Robert Gwathmey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY 2.1 Plan with notes for Texas House 5, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 56 × 79 cm, DR1998:0051:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 2.2 Plan for Texas House 1, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 80 × 84 cm, DR1998:0047:003:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 2.3 Plan for Texas House 7, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:006, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 2.4 Plan for Texas House 7, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 2.5 Plan, axonometric, and elevations for Texas House 6, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 107 cm, DR1998:0052:027, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA

1

11

31 32

33 34

37

Illustrations  vii 2.6

2.7

2.8

3.1 3.2

3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2 4.3

4.4

Axonometric for Texas House 7, John Hejduk, 1954– 1963, graphite on translucent paper, 81 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:009, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 39 Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985, John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 42 Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985, John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 43 Comtesse d’Haussonville, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1845, Copyright The Frick Collection, New York, 51 7/8 in. × 36 ¼ in. (131.8 × 92.1 cm). Oil on canvas 47 Plan for Bye House, John Hejduk, 1974, yellow and blue colored pencil and graphite over diazotype on paper, 45.9 × 98 cm, DR2005:0001:068, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 49 Wall House, John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Liao Yusheng, Photographer, [email protected] 49 Wall House, John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Hélène Binet, Photographer 50 Wall House, John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Hélène Binet, Photographer 51 Nelson Atkins Museum Addition, Kansas City, MO, Steven Holl Architects, 2007, image courtesy of © Timothy Hursley, Photographer62 The Ant and the Grasshopper, from Aesop’s Fables illustrations, John Hejduk, 1947, courtesy of the Estate of John Q. Hejduk, digital image by J. Kevin Story 72 Guy Debord, Guide Psychogeographique de Paris, Discours Sur Les Passions de l’amor, 1957, Lithograph, 595 × 735 mm, digital image courtesy of © Drawing Matter Collections 84 Sketches of structures for Victims, John Hejduk, 1984, pen and ink on yellow ruled paper, 27.7 × 21.4cm, DR1998:0109:002:001, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 89 Site Plan for Berlin Masque, John Hejduk, 1981, graphite on translucent paper, 118.3 × 107.5 cm,

viii Illustrations

4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10

4.11

4.12 4.13

4.14

4.15 5.1

5.2 5.3 5.4

DR1998:0098:014, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 91 New England Masque, Sketches, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story 97 New England Masque, Site Plan Perspective Sketch, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story 98 New England Masque, Building Section, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story 101 New England Masque, Floor Plan, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story 102 New England Masque, Building Section, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story 102 Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985, John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 107 Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985, John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 108 Diamond Museum C, Concept Diagram Sketch detail, John Hejduk, 1963–1967, digital image by J. Kevin Story 108 Sketches and notes for The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio, John Hejduk, 1974–1979, ink with pastel on paper, 23 × 31 cm, DR1998:0093:001:006, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 110 Knut Hamsun Museum, Concept Watercolor Sketch, “Concept: Building = A Body – Battleground of Invisible Forces”, Steven Holl, 1994, image courtesy of © Steven Holl Architects111 Blur Building, Swiss Expo 2002, Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland, Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects, image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects, NYC 115 Crucified Angels: Emergency Service and First Aid, from Bovisa, John Hejduk, 1986, Detail, painting with ink on paper, 100 × 65 cm, DR1988:0436:009, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 121 The Tortoise and the Birds, from Aesop’s Fables illustrations, John Hejduk, 1947, digital image by J. Kevin Story 123 New England Masque, Site Plan Sketches, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story 124 Model for Cathedral, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood,

Illustrations  ix

5.5

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5.9

5.10

5.11 5.12

5.13

5.14

61 × 121.9 × 43.2 cm, DR1998:0134:014, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 124 Beatus Facundus, Illustration, from the Beatus Manuscripts, ca. 1047, 250 × 205 mm, title: “en:” The sixth Trumpet. The Angels trapped on the banks of the Euphrates. Rev. Ix, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Beatus_de_Facundus#/media/File:B_Facundus_173.jpg127 Enclosures (E-13), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Ink, gouache, and metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester, Photographer127 Beatus illustration, Angel Detail, Facundus for Ferdinand, ca.1047, title: “The Angel spreads the first Cup. Apoc. XVI”, Illumination on parchment, 110 x 200mm, courtesy of Wikimedia.org, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:B_Facundus_216a.jpg129 Angel Detail, From John Quentin Hejduk, Enclosures (E-07), 1999–2000, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester, Photographer 129 The Pedler, Hans Holbein, from Dance of Death, 1522–1526, woodcut, paper, h 65mm × w 50mm, compiled by Dr. F. Lipman, 1986, “the Pedler” by Ephemeral Scraps is licensed under CC BY 2.0, public domain. https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/418ecfe1-a052-4169-9459-21f7886c9399131 Hospital Towers: Prison/Normal; Via of Crucified Angels, from Bovisa 1986, Detail, John Hejduk, painting with ink on paper, 100 × 65 cm, DR:1988:0436:008, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, © Estate of John Hejduk 133 Artist’s proof for The Flight, from Zenobia, John Hejduk, 1990, 66 × 47 cm, DR1998:0128:311, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 135 Enclosures (E-07), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester, Photographer136 Christ Carrying Cross, Botticelli, ca. 1490, 132.5 × 106.7 cm, courtesy of Wikiart.org, public domain, Mark 1.0, no copyright. www.wikiart.org/en/sandro-botticelli/christ-carrying-the-cross138 Manila Folder, Enclosures layout sketch,1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Ink on paper, 9 ½ × 11 3/4 in. (24.1 × 29.8 cm)

x Illustrations

5.15

5.16

5.17

5.18

5.19

5.20

5.21

5.22

5.23

(folded), image courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Paul Hester, Photographer 141 Enclosures (E-10), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester Photographer143 Sanctuary 1 (1–12), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Ink, gouache, metallic paints, and crayon on Hejduk office ­stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston, Gift of the artist in memory of Dominique de Menil. Paul Hester, Photographer147 The Collapse of Time: 90° Flat Time, 45° Isometric Time, 0° Horizontal Time, 1986, John Hejduk, painted wood and metal, models (range): 9.5 × 5 × 19 to 19 × 5 × 19 cm, DR1998:0108:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 151 Model for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 35 × 76.5 × 102.3 cm, DR1998:0134:016, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 153 Model for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 35 × 76.5 × 102.3 cm, DR1998:0134:016, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 154 Section and details for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 21.5 cm, DR1998:0134:016:005, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 156 Interior perspective for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 28 × 28 cm, DR1998:0134:016:020, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 157 Notes and perspective sketches for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 26 × 20.5 cm, DR1998:0134:016:011, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 158 Exterior perspective for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 28 cm,

Illustrations  xi DR1998:0134:016:022, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 5.24 Model for Cathedral, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 61 × 121.9 × 43.2 cm, DR1998:0134:014, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 5.25 St. Ignatius Chapel, Seattle, WA, Watercolor Sketch, “Bottles of Light in a Stone Box”, Steven Holl, 1994, digital sketch image courtesy of Steven Holl Architects 5.26 Perspective for Cathedral, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 28 cm, DR1998:0134:014:012, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 6.1 John Hejduk, ca. 1980, image courtesy of Steven Hillyer, Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The Cooper Union, New York and the Estate of John Q. Hejduk 6.2 Cigar Box Interior, J. Kevin Story, 1979, 8 × 10 in. b/w photograph, J. Kevin Story, Photographer digital image by J. Kevin Story

159

161 162

163 169 172

Every effort has been made to contact and acknowledge copyright owners, but the author and publisher would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to their attention so that corrections may be published at a later printing.

Foreword

Kevin Story has produced a remarkably thoughtful treatise on the enigmatic ideas of the architect, artist and teacher John Hejduk. His study is driven by genuine appreciation for Hejduk’s work and how, in a world dominated by pragmatism, it illuminates the poetic dimension in architecture. Kevin who is himself an accomplished (and busy) practicing architect and teacher has rediscovered Hejduk at a point where age has become a mature context; a time when people are often jaded or disillusioned by life in the real world. Kevin is still able to find fascination in a perennial question: “Why do architects draw angels?” Kevin came by his interest in Hejduk existentially. He was one of the fortunate students in Professor John Perry’s famous U of H Honors Studio in the fall of 1979 when Hejduk visited the college as a critic. His visit had a deep effect on the students: he brought a different voice to the school: gentle, persistent, affecting. He challenged the students to forget the formal and functional recipes they were using with reliable success and to trust their imaginations, to be poets, dreamers, architects and artists, all at one time. He challenged them with projects of radical indeterminacy, in the ultimate kind of studio environment where no one knew the answers. It was all about discovery, even without questions. As Kevin shows in his thesis, John’s artistic life was a magical mystery tour. And unlike many architects who teach, John was a teacher first who was devoted to questions of architectural pedagogy. As a teacher he first devised a set of modernist space making exercises using the nine-square grid as a provocateur for various syntactical variations and accommodations. The exercises blossomed into narrations in which architectural elements became characters in various quasi-theatrical ensembles. John saw the building program becoming allegorical, interpreting architecture as situational and symbolic. Kevin’s interpretations of John’s spiritual, “sanctuary” projects, a preoccupation during his latter career, are particularly insightful and original in ferreting out the meanings of these stark, existential encounters with angels captured in bounded space that John drew with passionate expressiveness. Kevin’s research, including extensive interviews with the architect’s wife, shaped a view of Hejduk as a deeply religious man working out his faith in powerful architectural schemes and visions.

Foreword  xiii Hejduk visited U of H back in 1979 and not everyone was convinced that what he was doing had much to do with being an architect. Maybe even less so when John sent his former student, Daniel Libeskind (then head of architecture at Cranbrook Academy and at that time the quintessential “paper architect”) and others who were a part of Hejduk’s mystery circle that followed. And for a period of ten years or so the ideas hatched by Hejduk and fueled by fellow travelers were a big part of the creative dynamics of the College. It was at a time when there wasn’t much professional work and jobs for students in architecture offices were hard to find. The computer was just entering the scene and the old defining skills of hand drawing and sketching, model-making and drafting were highly respected though at the same time on the verge of being displaced in many architectural practices. The school was everything. It seemed like a sanctuary – almost monastic – protecting and practicing a deserted art against a time when it might be needed again. In an age of cynicism Hejduk’s visions may seem hopelessly innocent. But they helped to make it possible for students and architects to dream. And to the extent that dreaming is still a part of architecture, they continue to do so. Kevin’s work on this project was a bit like a flaneur’s walk with new subjects of interest, insights and new interpretive directions appearing regularly as Kevin’s research unfolded. A primary source of these openings was the extensive, original interviews Kevin conducted with many notable collaborators, friends and critics of his subject. These include several handwritten letters and telephone interviews with Gloria Hejduk, John’s wife, in which she shared personal insights and experiences. The collection of interviews is a valuable, archival appendix to the study. Bruce C. Webb Professor Emeritus Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design University of Houston A Carnegie-designated Tier One research university

Acknowledgements

Along the journey to the completion of this project I have had support and encouragement from my family, friends and colleagues. Foremost among my supporters is my wife Nancy. She has been a proofreader providing insightful critiques of the form and content of my writing and she has always been an encourager. I can never thank her enough for her sacrifices. If not for Professor Emeritus Bruce Webb this book would not be what it has become. Bruce has been a stalwart advisor, encourager, thoughtful critic, a deep well of knowledge and without his input and criticism my work would not be as comprehensive and thoughtful as I hope it has become. I share any credit I may receive for this work with Professor Webb. This book would not be possible without the support of Patricia Oliver F.A.I.A., Dean of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. Thank you Patricia for your encouragement and very generous support! I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Professors Rafael Longoria, Dietmar Froehlich and the U of H Architectural Graduate Study Program for their support during the course of this project. The depth of this work would not be possible without the ever present support of Mrs. Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk. Her kindness, availability and sincere hospitality are cherished by me and my wife Nancy. I offer my sincere thanks to Renata Hejduk for her help with this project and for opening the door to Gloria’s vivid memory. I feel privileged that I can now count Gloria and Renata as friends. Special thanks are extended to Dr. Weiling He from Texas A&M for her insightful critiques of my early writing and to Steven Hillyer, Director of the Cooper Union Archives, for his generous help with this project. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the following persons for their willingness to provide me permission to use their insights into John Hejduk’s life, work, pedagogy and legacy that are included in the epilogue of this book. The names listed below are in order as they appear in the epilogue: Stanley Tigerman, Juhani Pallasmaa, Zaha Hadid, Charles Jencks, Steven Holl (courtesy of Steven Holl), Jesse Reiser, Toshiko Mori, Diane Lewis, Jim Williamson, Phyllis Lambert (Founding Director Emeritus Canadian Centre for Architecture), Joan Ockman, Dr. Alberto Perez-Gomez (Bronfman

Acknowledgements  xv Professor of the History of Architecture at McGill University), Rafael Moneo, Bruce Webb, Carlos Jimenez, Donald Bates, Chris Petrash and Mrs. Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk. Very special thanks are extended to whom John Hejduk described as: “that great teacher, that grand man, that special heart, that Texan, John Perry.”1 Without Professor Perry’s persistence beginning 40 years ago this current work would not be possible. Thank you John for your generosity, friendship and encouragement! I would like to acknowledge and offer my sincere thanks to my teaching mentor for 20 years, Professor Robert Griffin for his generosity, friendship and encouragement. Additionally, I would like to thank my teaching colleagues at U of H; Professors Tom Diehl, Sharon Chapman, Nora Laos, Geoffrey Brune, Peter Zweig, Duke Fleshman, Jesse Hager and Gary Eades for their support and encouragement. I would like to extend my thanks to Anita Parker and Zerik Kendrick for their generous time in helping me edit parts of the text and images for publication. I would like to thank Michael Thomas and Theresa Ward for their generosity during the production of this work and a special thanks is extended to the Routlledge staff for their support along the journey to publication! Lastly, I would like to thank John Hejduk for his enigmatic complexities. In my research I have come to appreciate the depth of Hejduk’s search for the connectivity between the undertones found in architectural constructs with the metaphysics and phenomenology of human perception. I offer my sincere thanks to John Hejduk for the depth of his spirit, the vastness of his imagination and his lifetime of soulful exorcisms. He poetically delineated the complex ambiguities within the phenomenology of spatial perception and he has taught me the importance of uncovering that which is unrevealed in spatial design to expose the vastness of a mineable field of self-discovery. J. Kevin Story, AIA Adjunct Faculty Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design University of Houston A Carnegie-designated Tier One research university April 30, 2020

Note 1 Quote by John Hejduk is taken from a telegram sent by Hejduk to Juhani Pallasmaa to be included as the Introduction to an exhibit catalog titled: Explorations, Exhibition 1982, Museum of Finnish Architecture. The exhibit featured student work from the University of Houston Honors Studio. The telegram was reproduced in its entirety and the quoted text appears on page 9 of the catalog.

Introduction

… architectural tracings are apparitions, outlines, figments. They are not diagrams but ghosts … X-rays of thoughts. Meditations on the sense of erasures. To fabricate a construction of time. To draw out by compacting in … John Hejduk1

Figure 0.1  John Hejduk, ca. 1990s. Image courtesy of Steven Hillyer, Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The Cooper Union, New York.

ex·or·cise [ek-sawr-sahyz] verb (used with object), ex·or·cised, ex·or·cis·ing2 • •

free person or place from evil: to use prayers and religious rituals with the intention of ridding a person or place of the supposed presence or influence of evil spirits get rid of oppressive feeling: to clear the mind of a painful or oppressive feeling or memory

2 Introduction John Hejduk was a 20th-century American architect, educator and artist noted for his use of narrative, allegory, metaphor and poetics in architectural design. Hejduk was influential with his thought-provoking, theoretical, polemical projects developed over the span of his 50-year career. He was the Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union in NYC beginning in 1975 for 25 years. Hejduk was a respected educator throughout architectural academia in the USA and abroad. His pedagogical positions and methods have continued to be studied and critiqued within academic programs. His relentless pursuit of the otherness engendered by his thought-provoking investigations offers us the opportunity to explore and discover the complexities attributed to his pedagogical work and the poetics of form and space he sought to unearth. He was an architect that saw very few of his building designs constructed. Wall House 2, “The Bye House”, is arguably his most publicly recognized work and was constructed in 2001 after his death on July 3, 2000. During the course of Hejduk’s life journey he would fully absorb the tenets found in great works of art, architecture and literature. He contemplated the imagery he observed in the work and through these absorptions he created his own world of spatial dimensions. Hejduk spent a lifetime exorcising the depth found in the work of others to define his architectural journey. The interpretative work in the following chapters analyzes John Hejduk’s pedagogical propositions. Hejduk was an academic and theorist, but his teaching methods extended beyond the walls of the studio environment. His world revolved around his pedagogical investigations. Hejduk’s work was synonymous with his pedagogy. He used his work as a language to communicate his ideas to others. He sought to teach by exorcising the thoughts in his work for others to contemplate and learn from. His teaching laboratory was as vast as one’s imagination and as deep as one’s soulful introspections would allow. The organizational theme to the narrative of this book identifies three primary phases evident within Hejduk’s oeuvre, providing a chronological referential backdrop to analyze his pedagogical underpinnings. The three primary thematic phases attributed to Hejduk in the following chapters are comprised of: “Outlines”, “Apparitions” and “Angels”. These metaphorical themes define the experimental path along Hejduk’s architectural journey. It is hoped that the interpretive analysis using these themes provides a fresh insight to the polemical importance of John Hejduk’s work. The topical themes or phases of Hejduk’s work defined in this book will be referenced using several recurring terms that Hejduk used to describe his investigative design process. The recurring terms posited throughout the text are: “exorcising” and “exorcism” and/or their derivatives. Hejduk’s term, “exorcising”, is used in this book to define his design process. He viewed the term “exorcising” as a means to fully absorb a particular work of architecture,

Introduction  3 architectural concept, artist, architect, work of literature or art movement, such as, “exorcising Le Corbusier” or “exorcising Cubism”. His process of “exorcising” would “work-out” and “feel-out” the underpinning of his ideas. His exorcisms would result in new paradigms of thought engendering the otherness that is commonly associated with John Hejduk’s work. He would use his exorcising process to rid himself of preconceptions that could influence the outcome of his investigations. One could say, through “exorcising his architectural demons”, he set himself on a course of self-­discovery to redefine the nature of art and architectural representation. The term exorcising or exorcism is complex and it is used extensively in the interpretive analyses in the following chapters of this book. The Webster definition(s) at the outset of this Introduction defines the term as an act that carries a sense of fear and foreboding, but in the context of this book it also has a definition devoid of the fear typically conjured by thoughts of exorcism. The term exorcising in the chapters to follow is used to define Hejduk’s methodology of ridding himself of demons, but the term demon is not meant to be something evil. His demons were typically preconceptions that would influence his thinking. Exorcising was Hejduk’s way of discovering the first principles found in his work. When Hejduk was interviewed by Don Wall in the mid 1980s for the book Mask of Medusa, Wall discussed a time when Hejduk was recovering from an illness and he (Hejduk) was trying to write down his thoughts for a preface he was contributing for an upcoming book release. An excerpt of this interview discussion is recounted below and provides the basis of intent of how the tenets of the term exorcising is used in the context of this book. Wall: Getting rid of the germs through and in writing? Hejduk:  Yes. That was a heavy one, I got rid of it and I’m so glad. That preface was in there a long time, was building up for a long time. Had to get rid of it. Now it’s out. It’s exorcising. Architectural exorcising. Hejduk’s process of “exorcising” allowed him to pull thoughts and images from the depths of his soulful ponderings and bring them into the light for him to analyze and absorb and for others to see, experience and contemplate. In a sense, his process of exorcising is akin to providing a visual and physical clarity to the fleeting imagery we may experience in our daydreams. His methods were thoughtful, introspective and analytical, but he always maintained a childlike innocence of spirit and an uninhibited exploration of his imagination. He was a wanderer searching for the unexpected. “Exorcising” for Hejduk, is similar to the design process used by many architects, in that, most architects generate their work through iterations of sketches, drawings, modeling and other methods to refine their thoughts in

4 Introduction order to discover the underpinning and resolution of an idea. This is a common practice performed by all thoughtful architects and designers. The difference in Hejduk’s method, in my view, was not to use the iterative design process to only find a resolution and clarity in the work; Hejduk used his work as an experiential language to ask questions of what, why and how we build. He saw himself as an interrogator and a questionnaire of architectural solutions. Therefore, his works were not produced as final resolutions to architectural problems, they were meant to be questions pointing towards a deeper understanding of investigations into the connectivity we desire to have with form and spatial experience. The content of this book is divided into seven chapters interpreting the work of John Hejduk. Chapter 1 provides the reader with an overview of the formative years of Hejduk’s education, his early years as an educator and friendships made along the way. These experiences would be very influential in the development of his future work and would inform many, if not all, of his future pedagogical underpinnings. Chapters 2 through 6 provide an interpretative analysis of the major themes found in Hejduk’s work including: the Pedagogy of the Texas Houses, the Pedagogy of the Wall House, the Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque, the Pedagogy of the Last Works and the Pedagogy of the Cigar Box. Chapter 6, the “Pedagogy of the Cigar Box”, is a recounting of a personal encounter this author experienced as a student, in the Honors Studio, under the tutelage of visiting critic John Hejduk at the University of Houston College of Architecture in the fall of 1979. Hejduk was the first of four visiting critics the students worked with during the 1979–1980 school year. Chapter 6 is included as homage to the remembrances of the Honors Studio and the influences John Hejduk and the studio creator, Professor John Perry have given to the students of the U of H College of Architecture. Chapter 7 is provided as a summation to the life of John Hejduk and offers a look into the serendipitous importance Hejduk’s early Texas experiences had in the development of his pedagogical probing. An epilogue is offered as a closure to this book by providing the thoughts and remembrances of John Hejduk by others that knew and/or admired him and his work. When direct quotes by Hejduk are used in the chapters to follow, they are highlighted using text that is bold and italicized. Quotes provided in the text by other sources are italicized but not highlighted in bold.

Organizational themes: Outlines, Apparitions and Angels Theme 1: Outlines out·line [ówt l`in]3 •

line that shows shape: the outer edge or edges of something thought of as a line defining its shape

Introduction  5 •

line depicting shape of something: a line drawn around or depicting the outside edges of something to show its shape

“Outlines” in this book is interpreted in two parts as follows: Chapter 1 provides an “outline” of the primary influences Hejduk absorbed in his early years as a student, a young architect and a member of the infamous “Texas Rangers” faculty at the University of Texas. Hejduk would refer back to these experiences throughout his career as a referential backdrop to many of his pedagogical probings. Chapter 2 uses Hejduk’s “Texas Houses” investigations to analyze his search for the refinements of geometric formal relationships, spatial expression, structural systems, constructability and the conceptual nature of architectural detailing to provide tangible evidence of the importance Hejduk placed on the exactness of geometric constructs within the canon of his work. Theme 2: Apparitions ap·pa·ri·tion [àppə rísh’n]4 • •

appearance of something ghostly: an appearance of a supposed ghost or something ghostly appearance of something unlikely: an appearance of something or somebody unexpected or strange

Chapters 3 and 4 interpret Hejduk’s exorcism of “Apparitions” evident in his pedagogical investigations of the “Wall House” archetype and the “Architectural Masque”. These two archetypes define a pivotal shift in the allegorical, philosophical and poetic nature of Hejduk’s architectural polemics. This phase exposed Hejduk’s use of the allegorical and metaphorical narrative in his work to deepen his poetic sensibilities. Theme 3: Angels an·gel [áynjəl]5 • •

heavenly being: in some religions, a divine being who acts as a messenger of God picture of heavenly being: a depiction of an angel as a human figure with wings

The interpretations of “Angels” in Chapter 5 uses Hejduk’s “Enclosures”, “Christ Chapel” and “Cathedral” projects to analyze his faith in architecture to lift the spirit, to show evidence of his deeply guarded spiritual faith and

6 Introduction provide an insight into his lifelong ­appreciation of Renaissance art providing a summation and homage to his life’s work.

Builder of worlds: setting the stage John Hejduk searched for meanings between the lines, spaces, objects and subjects found in works of art and architecture. He explored the essences of poetic expressions and the underlying relationships that occur between spatially organized elements. The poetics attributed to Hejduk’s work was the result of a lifetime of exploration to deepen his understanding of form and spatial context, whether it was written, drawn, built, physical or metaphysical. All of which defines a unique multidimensional language. Hejduk appreciated the rigor and exactness of geometry as evidenced in his “Texas Houses” based on the “nine-square” student design exercise which was created by Hejduk and Robert Slutzky as part of the “Texas Rangers” faculty at the University of Texas. Hejduk used the nine-square problem to investigate the depth of spatial and metaphorical relationships created between form, object, space and time. The nine-square investigations led to a deeper, more personal architectural exorcising in his “Wall Houses” from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s and beyond. As his work progressed, Hejduk’s straightforward pragmatic approach to the resolution of architectural problems become powerful symbolic propositions in his last works as documented in his “Enclosures” in 1999–2000. Hejduk’s architectural journey was one that represented a life full of revelations and new beginnings, but his journey came full circle in the end. We will see as this book unfolds, where Hejduk began his journey is where he ended. The transitional depth of architectural investigation in Hejduk’s work can be seen by tracing the lineage beginning with his 1947 Aesop’s Fables drawings as a visual tour de force of storytelling, to the compression of time and space found in his discoveries of the Diamond Houses and Wall Houses, to the representations of his Lockhart discoveries in his Masque projects, to the summation of his explorations as represented in his Cathedral project of 1996 and finally to Hejduk’s last works, the personal spiritual imagery of his Enclosures from 1999/2000. Hejduk developed specific imagery in the presentation of his work. His exorcisms were not always meant to be resolutions to his probing, rather the imagery was provided by him as thought-provoking questions to contemplate. The playfulness and innocence of his imagination represented in his 1947 Aesop’s Fables drawings ultimately translated into a deep soulful search that was exorcised in his 1999/2000 Enclosures drawings at the end of his career. The Aesop’s Fables drawings explored a childlike imaginary world through the creative eye of an artist and the Enclosures plates were “felt-out” through the mature mind of a master poet exploring the depths of his soulful search, but presented in a manner evoking the inhibitions and innocence of a child.

Introduction  7 The “second phase”6 of John Hejduk’s architectural journey began with the “Texas Houses”, 1954–1962, which were investigated through a quantifiable analysis of formal ordering systems and spatial contexts. Hejduk’s Texas experience marked a profound departure of self-discovery that would expand his tactile senses and deepen his resolve to exorcise his thoughts to derive personal expressions of spatial experience. Other pivotal events during the second phase of Hejduk’s journey include his associations with Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky. The 1957 essay titled “Lockhart, Texas” by Rowe and Hejduk, written in 1955–1956, would become very influential in Hejduk’s future architectural investigations. Through his Texas experiences he began to ponder questions of allegorical, metaphorical and metaphysical proportions that would later become evident in the Berlin Masque and other Masque investigations. The pedagogy of John Hejduk’s poetic architectural work represents a synthesis of a lifetime of investigation as evidenced through his teaching, writing, poetry, drawings, paintings and architecture. In a sense, his legacy to architectural discourse was his recognition of the labyrinthine depths of self-discovery that can be achieved through the orchestrations that connect an object, viewer, spatial context and time. Through his experiences over time and place his work provides a freshness and innocence of spirit that engenders a pursuit towards the phenomenological depths revealed within spatial constructs. John Hejduk is remembered today as an educator, architect, poet, artist and theorist. He loved teaching young students. He was a lover of art, music and literature and he viewed the representations in these art forms as closely aligned with the ontological nature of architecture. Hejduk was considered by those who knew him as a mystic, poet, architect and outlier. He was a “larger than life figure” and a “force of nature” to those who crossed his path. He was a man that lived in his own world of soulful introspections, but he was not reclusive. He did not consciously explore philosophical questions in his work, but he would recognize and acknowledge the philosophical ponderings observed by others, after a work was completed. He would absorb the discoveries he found to inform additional explorations in his future work. There was also an ambiguity in Hejduk’s pedagogy. On one hand, his work was additive by building on lessons and discoveries he intuited from his previous investigations. On the other hand, he searched for the reductive quality in his work to create a simple clarity towards the “first principles” of his ideas. His work evolved over a lifetime of exploration to clarify the underpinning of his propositions. He built very few buildings and will not be remembered for his built constructions, but rather as a poet and a composer of paradigms in the theoretical worlds of allegory, narrative, metaphor and poetics. He was a “Builder of Worlds”.7 Hejduk would say: “To draw out by compacting in” as a method to express his own introspective nature. It is hoped that the interpretive analysis of John Hejduk offered in the chapters to follow becomes a primer to inspire others to look deeper into the underpinning of their own work. It is hoped

8 Introduction readers of this book will take time to contemplate the polemics of the poetics of form and space to gain a deeper appreciation for phenomenological and metaphysical attributes embedded in architectural works. During the course of his 50-year career, Hejduk asked questions about how we perceive spatial experience through the exorcisms exhibited in his work. To understand the pedagogical tenets of John Hejduk is a thoughtful step towards an understanding of how we experience and perceive the propositions of our own investigations, whether it is “written”, “drawn”, “painted” or “built”. To ponder the questions contemplated by John Hejduk better equips us to find purpose and refinement in the constructs of our built environment. A purposeful architecture designed to inform and expand the depth offered by architectural form and space and to open the imaginations of those that occupy spatial constructs to engender connectivity with the world around us. The chapters to follow will reveal the depth of the complex language developed by Hejduk over his lifetime. Through the interpretations, speculations, analyses and discussion points presented in the following chapters a complex otherness in Hejduk’s work emerges. Hejduk sought, through the absorptions of his pedagogical self-discovery, a means to express human experience through the phenomenological depth of spatial connectivity to exorcise the angels existing in the marble of his mind and soul. In a sense we are all trying to “carve the marble to set our own version of the angel free”.8 It is hoped that Hejduk’s pedagogical propositions “felt-out” and posited within the body of this book will provide the reader with a deeper sensitivity towards what lies beneath the surface of what we think we see. The following chapters will provide an unraveling of a labyrinthine fabric of space, time, method, metaphor, phenomenology and metaphysics. These concepts will be excavated from the depths of Hejduk’s words and his architecture presented to the reader afresh with clarity and purpose. This is an exercise in “exorcising”. A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is architecture, music is … it’s all structure. Essential. I use it as language. Architects are organically responsible today to have their language run parallel with their structure. You know what I am getting at? The new edge in architecture. I cannot do a building without building a new repertoire of characters of stories of language and it’s all parallel. It’s not just building per se. It’s building worlds. ( John Hejduk, January 1991)

Notes 1 1986 quotes by John Hejduk taken from the book Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture, 2006, Second Edition, p. 285. 2 Merriam-Webster.com, Merriam-Webster, 2011.

Introduction  9 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Hejduk referred to the “second phase” of his architectural investigations starting when he arrived in Texas to begin teaching at the University of Texas in 1954. 7 John Hejduk stated in a 1991 interview with David Shapiro that his architecture was not building per se. It’s building worlds. The term “Builder of Worlds” is a reference coined by poet David Shapiro for a 1992 interview with John Hejduk during the production of a video produced by Blackwoods Productions. The title of the 1992 video is: John Hejduk: Builder of Worlds. 8 This phrase is a reference to a quote attributed to Michelangelo.

1 Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy Exorcising outlines, Part 1

It is necessary to keep one’s compass in one’s eyes and not in the hand, for hands execute, but the eye judges. Michelangelo

Early artistic influences John Hejduk was born July 19, 1929 and grew up in the Bronx in New York City. As a high school student he attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan just across the Bronx River from the borough of the Bronx. It is interesting to note that the acclaimed film director Stanley Kubrick was one year older than Hejduk and grew up in the same Bronx neighborhood. Additionally, Hejduk’s friend and fellow “New York Five” member Charles Gwathmey attended the same high school. By Hejduk’s own admission, he did not excel academically in his high school years and after completing high school he was accepted to Cooper Union on a probationary basis due to his poor grade point average.1 At the time Cooper Union was a three-year institution that provided a certificate upon graduation. The intent of the education at Cooper Union during Hejduk’s years of attendance from 1947 to 1950 was to prepare students to move on after graduation to another institution of higher learning (a university) for a more in-depth study of their interests. John Hejduk’s educational experience at Cooper Union would prove to have a profound effect on the foundations of his future pedagogical underpinnings. Looking back I can see the influences on me. I know where I come from, and I want to pay homage to those influences.2 Hejduk credited three of his Cooper Union teachers as influential in his education, modern artist Robert Gwathmey (architect Charles Gwathmey’s father), sculptor George Kratina and artist Henrietta Schutz. These teachers provided Hejduk with the analytical tools and skills that would inform his artistic work for the remainder of his life.3

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  11

Robert Gwathmey Hejduk credits Robert Gwathmey with teaching him the importance and ability of “extracting the abstracted essence of form through the figure”.4 While Gwathmey’s style of art was not minimalist or abstract in the strict sense, Hejduk was able to see the abstracted realities represented in Gwathmey’s work. This is especially evident in the geometric ordering found in Gwathmey’s “Hoeing” painting from 1943. The painting is a complex study of the plane. The arrangement of the figures and field are distorted into a flat, cubist plane … As Hejduk says … “the people are abstracted themselves.” Their relationship to the land turns it into a field of color … the six smaller human figures in the background are composed in triangles, acting like a wall.5 Gwathmey’s artwork reflects a sophisticated use of figure and plane. His subjects were figural and thematically recognizable, but his representations had a distinct quality of perspectival flatness. Gwathmey’s “Hoeing” is an example of the compression of spatial context through the juxtapositions of objects and figures common to many of Gwathmey’s paintings. This spatial device would be redefined by Hejduk in his own work in the decades

Figure 1.1  Hoeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey, American, 1903–1988, oil on canvas, H: 40” × W: 60¼” (101.60 × 153.04 cm) Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: Patrons Art Fund, 44.2 and © Estate of Robert Gwathmey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

12  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy after his experiences with Robert Gwathmey’s teaching. We can look back at the evolution of Hejduk’s body of work and clearly see architectural themes including; compression, flatness, allegory, sociopolitical commentary and use of color as direct influences from Gwathmey’s work. Indeed, the palette of colors used in Gwathmey’s 1943 “Hoeing” painting is strikingly similar to the subdued color palette used by Hejduk in his “Enclosures” drawings from 1999.6

George Kratina George Kratina’s influence on Hejduk is multidimensional, although seemingly less straightforward than that of Gwathmey. Kratina taught sculpture and Hejduk remembers Kratina as follows: He was a Catholic, and he was a Catholic sculptor. Basically a very religious man, religious in the sense of his Catholicism and a passionate teacher who never saw anything bad in your work, he always pulled out whatever was good in it.7 Sculpture class with Kratina was Hejduk’s first experience with three-dimensional design. In his recollections of his classroom days with Kratina, Hejduk stated: I was a very bad sculpture student. I didn’t know how to transform an idea into three dimensions (my work) always looked static and uptight. That’s how it was. That was my experience of three dimensions. It just didn’t work.8 Hejduk never directly stated how Kratina’s teaching influenced his thinking. But, based on comments by Hejduk’s wife Gloria, observations seen in John Hejduk’s work and statements made by Hejduk himself, Kratina must have influenced the teaching style eventually adopted by Hejduk, as well as, influencing Hejduk’s lifelong exploration of the relationship between form and space. Hejduk’s admission as a failure as a sculpture student at Cooper Union must have contributed to his motivation to see beyond the physical nature of an object in deference to the underlying essence of the spatial nature found within the object. For Hejduk, the cutting away of a block of wood to express an idea in sculpture as an end product of artistic expression was not as important to him as the discoveries that are made during the process of trying to re-present the idea expressed through various artistic media, including sculpture. In 1985 Hejduk stated: There are many kinds of architectural realities and interpretations of those realities, which included the major issue of representation of re-presentation. Whatever the medium used – be it pencil on paper, a

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  13 small-scale model, the building, a film of the built building, or a photograph of the above realities – a process is taking place.9 Hejduk disliked the exteriority posed by sculpture. He viewed sculpture as inanimate objects without the duality of interior and exterior spatial experience. This position by Hejduk points to the limitations of sculpture as a spatial medium. Form for forms sake, for Hejduk, equated to form absent of spatial experience. The investigation of architectural transitions through time and space would become one of the pivotal milestones in the evolution of Hejduk’s pedagogical underpinning. While you can mentally “go into” a painting – your mind gets “caught” in it and you mentally proceed through – you cannot physically go into it. Sculpture is similar, it’s external to you; very seldom can you go into it. That’s why I have an objection to the sculptors who pretend to be dealing with architecture; their interiors are empty … I walk in, I walk out, nothing. Architecture has the double aspect of making one an o ­ bserver or voyeur externally, and then completely “ingesting” one internally. One becomes an element of the internal system of the organism.10 Hejduk’s view of the spatial limitations of sculpture and his view of the varied processes used to create many types of architectural realities may have been born out of frustration at his first attempts at three-dimensional design under George Kratina. While this influence on Hejduk speaks to his personal search for architectural clarity, in hindsight we can also see Kratina’s influence on Hejduk as an educator. Hejduk discussed his view of how to teach architecture with his colleague David Shapiro by saying: Osmosistically, by osmosis. I never draw for the student or draw over their work and I never tell them what to do. I try to, in fact, draw them out. In other words draw what’s inside them out and just hit a certain key point and then they can develop their idea … and that should be gently, really gently handled. I teach with gentleness.11 This teaching methodology seems to be a lesson Hejduk learned from his experiences with Kratina. Even through failure in Hejduk’s student attempts at sculpture, the encouragement of his teacher motivated him to see beyond the “static”, “uptight” qualities of his sculptural attempts. The process revealed a new dimension of form and space that Hejduk would produce in the years to come in projects like “Christ Chapel” and “Cathedral” from 1996, which reveal an expressive spiritual content and his Catholicism being reflected in the work. Hejduk’s recollections of Kratina’s strong Catholic beliefs exhibited in his sculptures must have been such a strong influence on Hejduk that he would, like Kratina before him, desire to embody his deep spirituality within his own work.

14  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy Hejduk continually pondered questions of transformation and renewal, but he also was cognizant of his previous experiences. He described his work as additive and he would search for new meanings as it progressed. Hejduk would discard that which seemed redundant or superfluous, but retain the essences of the work that came before. His work and his life are like the Biblical account in Proverbs 22:6 which states: “Train a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it”. Hejduk was soul searching (exorcising) constantly during his life and especially during his last few years. His search in his final years, on one hand, was exorcising his deeply guarded spiritual faith, but he also was exploring the depth of his appreciation of Renaissance art. It is ironic that the construction of his last project designs, which exhibited Hejduk’s deep faith, exists only in drawings and wood sculptural models of Christ Chapel and Cathedral. These wood models embody Hejduk’s Catholicism just as Kratina’s sculptures embodied his. Through all of Hejduk’s early academic influences, Kratina had the deepest philosophical impact. Kratina’s instructions and influence provided Hejduk with pedagogical tools that would ultimately help define his own work as an educator and artist. Hejduk’s early failures in three-dimensional sculptural explorations challenged him to search deeper into the nature of form. He would remember years later that Kratina always had a word of encouragement to the students which influenced his own teaching methodology. And to remember Kratina and his work as deeply religious reminded Hejduk of his own need to feel-out and express the depths of his soulful introspections.

Henrietta Schutz Henrietta Schutz taught two-dimensional design at Cooper Union. Hejduk would describe Schutz as the third major influence on him while he was a student. Hejduk stated: She taught me, I think, the very essence of my architecture. I look back at her, and I see what she taught, and I can recall now in pieces what I did at that time, and relate them to my very recent work.12 Under Schutz’s tutelage, Hejduk learned the importance of composition and craft. He spent a whole semester refining the essence of the relationships that can be found through the juxtaposition of various black and white painted shapes organizationally placed on a piece of paper. He learned through these compositional exercises the importance of formal geometric balance and spatial equilibrium.13 It is clear that Hejduk was reflective over the reasoning’s of how and why his work comes into being. Hejduk’s contemplative nature would be emblematic in his work over the years to come. Hejduk did not see his work as a series of unrelated investigations, but rather he saw it as a continual exploration; an exorcism of spatial discovery. In an interview conducted by Peter

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  15 Eisenman in 1977, Hejduk, when discussing the relationship of his student work to his architectural projects 30 years later, stated: What I am getting at is that for me work has always been additive. I take one project, use what I received from it and go on to the next – ­reject what I don’t want and then add, you know – so each is a progressive condition of going from one thing to the next. In the process you discard heritage because you have become so sophisticated, but somehow or another your essential early thrust begins to creep back again.14 It is interesting that Hejduk would recall later in his interview with Eisenman that during his time as a student at Cooper Union his first design projects were a small church and a footbridge. It is ironic that among Hejduk’s last works would be a chapel, a cathedral and a series of drawings/paintings (“Enclosures” series) depicting apocalyptic scenes inside and outside a spatial enclosure, presumably a worship space. Indeed, the Enclosures could be interpreted as a footbridge to visions of an afterlife. In a sense, Hejduk’s last projects would exhibit the depth and sophistication of a master at work only achievable after a lifetime of exploration. The work would be presented to the observer in a manner that is not unlike the inhibitions of the creative imagination of a child set within a sophisticated spatial compositional framework produced by a master. The creative artwork of a child expresses a world of wonder, promise and dreams of things to come. Pablo Picasso stated: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”.15 John Hejduk embodied the essence of Picasso’s reflection. Henrietta Schutz opened up the childlike inhibition in John Hejduk with her black and white compositional exercises and through her tutelage Hejduk grasped the power of spatial equilibrium.

Gone to Texas The nine-square is metaphysical. It always was, it still is for me … It is one of the classical open-ended problems given in the last thirty years. The nine-square has nothing to do with style. It is detached; the ninesquare is unending in its voidness.16 After his 1953 graduation from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design John Hejduk was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Italy. He spent the 1953– 1954 school year in Rome primarily making “decorative drawings, but no architectural drawings”.17 He spent his days touring Palladian villas and absorbing the clarity of the work bathed in the rich Italian sunlight. After returning from Rome, Hejduk worked on a cathedral project during the summer months of 1954 prior to moving to Texas for the fall school semester. While it was Harwell Harris, Dean at the University of Texas School of Architecture in Austin that offered Hejduk a teaching position at UT, it

16  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy was his friend from Cincinnati; Bernhard Hoesli that first contacted Hejduk about teaching in Texas. Hoesli had arrived in Texas in 1953 and had been teaching at UT that school year. During the 1950s Dean Harris hired a young faculty in order to breathe new life into the primarily old guard pragmatic American Regionalism approach to architectural design that permeated through the design curriculum at the University of Texas.18 The list of new 1950’s faculty included Colin Rowe, Bernhard Hoesli, John Hejduk, Robert Slutzky, Werner Seligman, Lee Hirsche and others. They became known as “The Texas Rangers”. The 1954 teaching position at UT was Hejduk’s first time to teach architecture. Hejduk would later reflect that this year in his career marked a beginning of his second phase of architecture.19 Hejduk became influential with the introduction of the “nine-square” design problem he co-authored along with fellow faculty members Robert Slutzky and Lee Hirsche in 1954.20 This problem began a lifelong pursuit of architectural discovery for John Hejduk that would solidify his reputation as a major voice in modern architectural education.

The nine-square grid The nine-square problem was put in place by Hejduk in 1954, but there was historical influence to the origin of the geometric ordering of the problem as evidenced by Rudolf Wittkower’s essays discussing the role of geometry in the work of Alberti and Palladio. These essays were included in the 1949 book Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. In the book Wittkower documents the Palladian Villa Foscari (La Malcontenta), establishing that there “are variations of a three-bay by three-bay diagram – a nine-square grid”.21 It is likely that Hejduk was aware of Wittkower’s work because Hejduk’s teaching colleague at UT, Colin Rowe, had been a student of Wittkower at the Warburg Institute in London from 1945 to 1947 and Rowe himself postulated on the analysis of the Palladian diagram in his now classic 1947 essay “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa”.22 At Malcontenta, as already noticed, the facades are divided vertically into three principal fields … and horizontally the same situation prevails in the sequence.23 While Wittkower and Rowe’s analysis abstracts the geometric ordering of Villa Foscari and draws insightful organizational comparisons between the Villa and Le Corbusier’s Villa Garche, Hejduk’s interests in the nine-square grid ordering system issued at UT was quite different. The design exercise was never envisioned by Hejduk to be used to compare and contrast the analytical depths of historical geometries within a modern architectural idiom. Rather, Hejduk initially used the exercise purely as a syntactical system as a plan ordering device to introduce the students to a methodology of architectural planning. It should be pointed out that Rowe exposed Hejduk

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  17 to the depth of the structural organizations of Le Corbusier’s diagrammatic architecture in his “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa” essay. Rowe’s essay along with their discussions of order and space during 1954–1955 was also pivotal in Hejduk’s “conversion” to the merits of Le Corbusier’s work. Colin Rowe’s influence was deep and led to Rowe and Hejduk collaborating on their essay “Lockhart, Texas” in 1955–1956. Their essay was first published in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record magazine. This collaboration between Hejduk and Rowe would profoundly influence Hejduk’s work beginning with his Texas Houses and remain influential and referential throughout the remainder of Hejduk’s life. We will see that the discoveries Hejduk found in Lockhart embodies many, if not all, of the primary pedagogical positions of otherness, space-time, sociopolitical commentary, poetics, metaphor and allegory that much of Hejduk’s later work is known to exhibit. The nine-square grid problem allowed Hejduk to organize his methods to teach simple architectural problems of order and organization. Hejduk was also eager to please his teaching colleague Bernhard Hoesli. During this time Bernhard Hoesli, Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky were important influences on John Hejduk. Hejduk had first met Bernhard Hoesli in 1950 when they both worked in Cincinnati for Fellheimer and Wagner Architects. Hoesli had worked in Le Corbusier’s office in Europe for two years and had come to America to visit Frank Lloyd Wright. Hoesli had a passion for Wright’s work as did Hejduk at that time and they became good friends. Hejduk despised Le Corbusier during the early 1950s, but he would come to appreciate the depth of Le Corbusier’s work in the years ahead.24 Due to Hejduk’s friendship and shared enthusiasm for Frank Lloyd Wright’s work with Bernhard Hoesli, as well as, Colin Rowe’s dominant intellectual influence Hejduk became introduced to the merits of Le Corbusier’s work.25 I was a rabid Wright fan. I visited all his work while I was a student at Cooper Union  …  I had a hatred for Le Corbusier  …  I jumped up and down about the horror of the Marseilles block and the Mickey-­ Mouseness of its architect. I was ready for conversion. You get converted very rapidly when you hate somebody that much.26 Hejduk was impressed that Hoesli had worked on the drawings for Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, France (1947–1952) and the Curutchet House (1949–1953) in La Plata, Argentina. These buildings exemplified the proposition of the five points of a new architecture espoused by Le Corbusier beginning in the early 1920s, but the Curutchet project also underscored a seamless synthesis between Le Corbusier’s modernism within a historical and cultural context.27 The synergy that the Curutchet building achieved within its cultural context resonated with Hejduk. During these early years in Texas Hejduk was influenced by his Lockhart experience, Colin Rowe’s analytical nature and his discussions about the significance of

18  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy Le Corbusier’s work with Hoesli and Rowe. As a result the cultural integration he observed in Le Corbusier’s abstract European modernism resonated with him. Whether it was just the complexity found in the interrelationships of site, program and architecture or the in-depth knowledge required to produce drawings of a complex spatial design, Hejduk’s friendship and respect for Hoesli and Rowe provided him with a mindset to embrace the merits of European Modernism beginning in the mid 1950s. Along with his friendship with Bernhard Hoesli, as well as, new friendships made in Texas with Robert Slutzky, Colin Rowe, Lee Hirsche and others, Hejduk was ripe to embrace the notion of discovering spatial meaning from the elemental propositions found in the abstract language of geometry. The simultaneity of Hejduk’s appreciation and coupling of the exploratory depths presented by abstract spatial geometry with the pragmatics of functional resolutions provided the possibility of architectural solutions devoid of stylistic overtones. Hejduk was transforming his worldview of architecture and therefore it was natural for him to devise pedagogy to explore new avenues of design within a neutral framework. Thus, the nine-square grid design exercise was issued to the UT students and to the instructors to explore new methodologies to create formal architectural design solutions. It might be argued that the invention of the nine-square grid exercise was in some way more fortuitous, perhaps even inevitable, for Hejduk’s development as an architect, affording the opportunity for an intuitive and emotional side (always in evidence) to emerge more distinctly.28

Referential typologies of the grid problem The nine-square grid problem was not issued to the students with a pre-­ determined set of learning outcomes, although, certain programmatic issues regarding organizational concepts were defined and became departure points. Hejduk introduced his students to simple organizational concepts including: symmetrical planning, circulation and stair placement. It is not known if original written programs remain of the original nine-square grid exercise from 1954–1955 and it must be deducted that the evolution of the problem was primarily driven by discussion, experimentation and self-­discovery of meanings fostered by the exercise.29 This experimental problem in simple geometric planning relationships evolved into a “kit-of-parts” problem type that became the predominant introductory design studio problem issued throughout architectural schools across the USA from the 1970s until the early 1990s.30 The problem was (is) comprised of parts, including points, lines, planes and massing to be assembled in two- and three-dimensional constructs to discover spatial hierarchy without a recognizable outcome. The abstract exercise eliminated preconceptions to the solutions and engendered creative self-discovery. The exercise was typically introduced in two phases.

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  19 First, drawing exercises were executed to develop methods of providing geometric planning order and to discover hierarchical relationships created by the ordering systems being implemented. And second, a physical three-­ dimensional modeling of the two-dimensional investigations were introduced to develop spatial hierarchies in the use and scale of points, lines, planes and masses. The three-dimensional exercises became an abstract problem to explore the primary and secondary interrelationships discovered within hierarchical spatial constructs. This kit-of-parts exercise is used in modified versions at some design schools even today. The widespread appeal of this problem type lies in the variety of interpretations that can be generated from the exercise. It is the abstract open-ended nature of the problem that provides the possibility to derive solutions absent of external context and style. It is a problem type that promotes an architectural investigation into the pure idea of spatial order. The exercise provided the students with an experimentation of an abstract language. The experiment opened the possibilities of studying order through a constructed language of points, lines, planes, volumes and enclosures. After leaving UT and joining the Cooper Union faculty in 1964, Hejduk reintroduced the nine-square exercise to the beginning architecture students a decade after his days at UT. In the 1971 publication of Education of an Architect: A Point of View – The Cooper Union School of Art & Architecture, 1964–1971, there are insightful statements from John Hejduk and Robert Slutzky regarding the pedagogical lessons of the nine-square grid problem. Hejduk stated: Working within this problem the student begins to discover and understand the elements of architecture. Grid, frame, post, beam, panel, center, periphery, field, edge, line, plane, volume, extension, compression, tension, shear, etc. The student begins to probe the meaning of plan, elevation, section and details. He learns to draw. He begins to comprehend the relationships between two-dimensional drawings, axonometric projections and three-dimensional (model) form  …  An understanding of the elements is revealed – an idea of fabrication emerges.31 Robert Slutzky discussed the merits of the problem as follows: The Nine-Square problem enables an in-depth investigation of binary architectonic relationships – although by no means is it an end in itself … Special emphasis is put upon structure(s) – site interactions with their externalized and internalized pressures defined through programmatic and physical parameters … the notion that “concept” and “percept” not only coexist but become in fact inseparable within any given solution  …  concurrently demanding reevaluation and modification of previously held architectural prejudices.32

20  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy Hejduk’s 1971 description defines the problem from an objective point of view that provides a learning outcome that is architecturally quantifiable that can be critically evaluated. This methodology provides a geometric foundation for future spatial explorations by the student. Slutzky’s description defines the problem from a less formal, quantifiable outcome with the inclusion of integrating the nature of perception to the problem solution. This approach can lead to a more philosophical and metaphysical evaluation of the student solution. In subsequent years Hejduk expanded his definition to include a subjective, less formally quantifiable aspect to the problem. In the 1980s Hejduk described the exercise as “metaphysical”, “open-ended” and “unending in its voidness”. This seemingly contradictory view of the nature of the nine-square grid exercise by Hejduk from his earlier definition provides an insight to the depth and foresight of Hejduk’s understanding of the nature of architectural education. I postulate that Hejduk recognized the  success of a student’s architectural work was reciprocally dependent on the depth of knowledge and experience the student had absorbed during his/ her education. In other words, while a beginning student can excel within a prescribed set of fixed, quantifiable parameters (the intent of the original nine-square exercise), an advanced student can find metaphysical perceptual meaning and an understanding of spatial depth the beginning student is not typically equipped to control and/or exhibit in his or her work. On the one hand, the beginning student can grasp the geometric syntax of spatial constructs through the use and placement of physical elements, such as, column, beam and wall to define enclosure, entry, circulation, etc. He/ she can also grasp the importance and hierarchical use of point, line, plane, mass and transparency as an abstract syntax to define spatial structure, spatial order, edge condition, spatial boundary and spatial joint. On the other hand, the advanced student can use his/her knowledge of the spatial constructs of geometric syntax to explore metaphysical conditions of structure and space, such as, the spatial condition of the hypotenuse as a representation of the most neutral condition found between spaces. The hypotenuse, if determined to be neutral, can be interpreted as the most present condition of space and can be used to hierarchically define transitions between space and time. The hypotenuse of the diamond-perspective is what I call the moment of the present … the hypotenuse of the perspective is constantly in motion and flattening as you approach any building from the exterior. It flattens out right on top of you at the moment of entry – the moment of the present … it’s at once the most extended, the most heightened and at the same time the most neutral and the most at repose.33 In retrospect we can trace the evolution of the depth and importance of the nine-square grid exercise in John Hejduk’s work as follows. 1) The initial

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  21 nine-square problem fostered the nine-square Texas House investigations, 2) the Texas Houses initiated the nine-square Diamond Museums and Houses, 3) the Diamond exorcisms revealed the spatial power of the hypotenuse to Hejduk which opened the door to the investigation of the Wall Houses. The lineage is direct and occurs over the period from 1954 through 1974. By the time the Wall Houses appear in 1968 the grid of the nine square is removed from the investigation. Hejduk’s explorations transitioned from a Cartesian syntax to express spatial order to investigating the poetics of form and space using conditions of neutrality, compression and expansion of space-time and the use of metaphor as his spatial ordering devices. Hejduk refers to this transition within the “second phase” of his architectural investigation as moving from a work of “Optimism” to work exploring the condition of architectural “Pessimism”. We are no longer in an age of optimism. We went through a period where there were only programs of optimism … this was very utopian, light filled, optimistic view of the future … Now we are entering into an architecture of pessimism. I don’t take this as a negative condition at all … there has to be an equilibrium … where a simultaneity of conditions will provoke certain arguments not presently possible.34 The geometric properties of the “square” and its extended proportion identified in the “golden section” used by Le Corbusier as syntax for structural order found at Villa Savoye in 1929 is juxtaposed against the metaphorical and metaphysical geometric propositions found in Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel in 1950. The planning grid is gone from obvious view at Ronchamp, but its spatial depth would not be possible without Le Corbusier’s previous mastery of Cartesian spatial composition. Likewise, the polemics of the expressions of spatial tension, compression, expansion and metaphorical poetics posed by Hejduk’s Wall House investigations would not be possible without the geometric spatial discoveries absorbed by Hejduk in the ninesquare grid exercise. Hejduk discussed the need to “exorcise” qualities of his work that he perceived were holding him back from a deeper self-discovery of the essences of his understanding of form and space. This is the primary reason why Hejduk moved from the reliance of the grid as a spatial ordering syntax in deference to the exploration of the notion of space–time as the primer for formal architectural discoveries. Chapter 3 to follow will provide an analysis of Hejduk’s space-time pedagogical discoveries. There was another education taking place beginning in 1954. I had finished my formal education and started another. Then I exorcised Le Corbusier in the Diamond Houses. The Diamond Houses, outside their conceptual basis, always annoyed me  …  There were the Italian overtones. Then there were the Corb overtones. I didn’t like that … So I had to get rid of that, by working it out, by exorcising the images.35

22  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy

The syntax of the grid As a poet, John Hejduk used his poetry to communicate architectural, spatial and metaphorical imagery through the syntactical positioning of words and phrases. His words became infused with a metaphorical otherness that paints mental pictures as vivid as those found on a canvas. The words define an architectural presence as dense as a physical structure and as expansive as a panoramic view from the top of a tower. In his introduction to John Hejduk’s book of poetry titled Such Places as Memory, David Shapiro stated: John Hejduk is a builder of worlds  …  truth-telling architecture which is utterly entwined with a poetics at once severe and musical … Poetry and architecture are not just contingent analogues for Hejduk … They are ontologically the same art, as he has proposed a drawing strong as a building and vice versa.36 This sense of structure found in Hejduk’s writing and poetry is also clearly evident in the structural syntax used by Hejduk in the nine-square grid problem. The exercise embodies a system of order that on one hand provides apparent constraint and limitation to the expression and logic of two- and three-dimensional planning resolutions. On the other hand, the syntax of the grid is only provided by Hejduk as an infrastructure to be manipulated in order to derive spatial order through the absorption and iteration found between the interrelationships of point, line, plane, object and space. Hejduk saw the volumetric possibilities, as well as, the poetic power provided within the open-endedness of the grid. Within the unending void of the grid Hejduk created his multiplicity of architectural worlds. The structure of Hejduk’s grid is similar to that of a musical composition. From seemingly simple rhythms and orchestrations, music is composed around a musical notation of order. Musical notes, chords and arpeggiations become lines, points and planes in linear order represented on the musical staff as abstract compositions to non-musicians. But, when these seemingly innocuous abstract symbols are pulled from silent existence into audible presence the result can fill the senses with emotion. Music is a universal language of structure. The structural notations on paper become supplanted by the emotional connectivity one feels when the music is played. Within a rhythmic structure of order, music creates a world of emotive power that can truly touch one’s soul. Music defines spatial depth through structures, rhythms and hierarchies. Such is the possibility of Hejduk’s grid. To the casual observer the grid is neither non-hierarchical nor spatial, but in the trained hands and mind of an inventor of spatial constructs, “an inventor of worlds”, the grid can fill the senses with depth and meaning. The architectural compositions can tell stories, provide poetic repose and ask questions of and resolutions to the perception of spatial propositions. The physical presence of the grid

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  23 is ultimately less important than the spatial compositions it proposes. The success of the grid propositions lay in the connectivity the work has with the viewer-occupant. There is a three-dimensional dynamic fluidity akin to a complex musical composition that exists in the spatial constructs of John Hejduk’s work. The work at its finest suggests within its organic make-up a “liquid densification” of space and time.  … A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is architecture, music is … it’s all structure. Essential. I use it as a language. I cannot do a building without a new repertoire of characters, of stories, of language and it’s all parallel. It’s not just building per se. It’s building worlds. It’s building worlds.37

Lockhart, Texas During the pivotal year of teaching at UT in 1954, Colin Rowe made numerous visits to Hejduk and his wife Gloria’s home in Austin. Mrs. Hejduk recalled the “hours of deep conversations that John and Colin Rowe would have until the scotch was gone”.38 The two made several trips, via bus (Hejduk nor Rowe owned a car during this time), to Lockhart, Texas. Their notes and observations taken on these trips were recounted in their essay “Lockhart, Texas”. Gloria Hejduk recalled that “the Lockhart, Texas essay was very influential on John’s thinking”.39 The classical simplicity of the organizational layout of the town square combined with the centroidal metaphysical power of the “town center” reinforced the abstracted qualities of the compression and expansion of space, clarity of order, density, edge, plane, center, quadrant, axis, periphery and extension that Hejduk and Rowe found so powerful in the typology of small Texas towns such as Lockhart, Lampasas, Llano, Gainesville, Belton and Georgetown. The town of Lockhart became emblematic of the “symbol of urbanity” that Hejduk and Rowe envisioned in the constructs of the small town square of Lockhart. Colin Rowe’s Lockhart essay embodies a curious premonition of spatial and metaphorical qualities in the future work Hejduk would produce in the years that followed his Lockhart experience. Due to the important influence the Lockhart essay had on Hejduk, Chapter 4 will continue the discussion analyzing the essay’s influence as a precursor to Hejduk’s future Architectural Masque projects. For purposes of this chapter’s discussion regarding the formations of Hejduk’s pedagogical influences, spatial adjacency will be discussed as one of the primary strategic themes used in the Lockhart essay defining a geometric ordering device to give an architectural hierarchy to the urban plan of Lockhart. Hejduk’s use of architectural spatial adjacencies in site layout, floor plan, building elevation and section would be redefined and applied in many of his future projects to spatially activate his propositions.

24  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy

Spatial adjacency The town of Lockhart, Texas is organized around an orthogonal street grid, emanating from a nine-square block of streets, with the “town square” at its core. This geometric model has reference to qualities of center, axes, quadrant, perimeter and Cartesian subdivision. The Lockhart essay describes this geometric condition found in small Texas towns and references the “foursquare, geometrical, concentric little towns … They have, all of them, the diagrammatic coherence of architectural models” but the essay does not analyze Lockhart in strict geometric terms. The town is described by Rowe initially as a distant mirage in the landscape. The mirage is seemingly only the illusion of a place caught within the void of an imaginary idealized landscape reminiscent of a time and place from the past. A ruin of sorts absent of human presence, but populated by the edifices created in the image of the past inhabitants. the first indication of arrival … which appears, from a distance of several miles, as the slightest eruption upon the horizon  …  the landscape has unrolled itself for mile after mile with an almost complete negation of picturesque effect.40 This otherworldly quality describing the approach to Lockhart from a distance provides an insight to Hejduk’s view of the landscape as an abstract referential horizontal plane. A horizon of flatness that reveals an apparition that embodies the tactile qualities of surface, form and volume, but does not reveal the permanence of materiality. The abstraction of place allowed Hejduk to create his own architectural world absent of historical context. This methodology becomes evident in the Texas Houses designed by Hejduk in the same year he first visited Lockhart, Texas. There are a lot of things you let go of in Texas. You let go of old visions and old romances; you let go of city-states and northern broodings. But, in letting go, other things and other moods are captured, such as the meaning of isolated objects, of void spaces. You capture a flatness, a flatness which impregnates your thoughts and fills you with an anticipation – an anticipation of the solemnity of detail and of construction.41 While the courthouse at Lockhart’s town center is clearly defined in the essay as: “exuberant, more than usually brilliant courthouse is apt to suggest that some provincial disciple of Richard Morris Hunt had discovered the irresistible fascination of Leonardo’s studies for domical buildings”,42 the other buildings that emanate from the background around the central square become the focus of the essay. The buildings are described from a seemingly tangential adjacency and not simply as buildings contained within city blocks ordered by the Cartesian scale of the town grid. The reference to

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  25 other buildings as objects in view beyond the town center is an important spatial characteristic Hejduk uses in the organizational planning diagrams in his future work beginning with the Texas Houses and most apparent in his urban masques, such as the Berlin Masque and Victims projects 25 years after the Lockhart essay. as one recovers from the shock of the square’s central ornament, it becomes apparent that some of these minor buildings are not in themselves undemonstrative, and the presence of  …  distinctly assertive structures imposed upon the generally recessive background gradually becomes evident.43 The spatial adjacency relationships that are delineated in Lockhart refer to the characters of the town buildings from a physical proximity, but they are also discussed as modern buildings caught in a time warp of antiquity. It is a shock that one discovers St. Mary’s to have been erected in 1918. The common sense of metropolitan time is severely jolted by this improbable fact. That this unassuming piety should be nine years younger than the Robie House, should postdate Gropius’s Werkbund Building by four years, imposes a sober curiosity which leads one to examine with deference the buildings already passed by.44 There is an interesting syntactic relationship that exists between the notion of the horizontal spatial context of Hejduk’s Texas House’s plan ordering system and the vertical spatial context of their sectional order. There is a similarity to the Lockhart buildings in spatial context to the extent that the Texas Houses attempt to mediate their spatial positioning to find a synthesis between space and time defining a bridge to a universal architectural language. Peter Eisenman when discussing the inherent qualities of Hejduk’s Texas Houses stated: first, the manner in which he uses horizontal elements – the site, the plan and the roof – to imply concepts of space … second, how he uses vertical elements – the columnar grid and the vertical surface – to reveal concepts of time. Unlike Colin Rowe’s conception of space or Siegfried Gideon’s concept of time, in Hejduk’s work space and time reveal intrinsic conditions of architectural content – perhaps aspects of the nature of architecture itself.45

Out of formations into fabrications John Hejduk’s work in the years that followed his Texas experiences would change from an exorcism of stylistic representations in his work in deference towards the discovery of a new eclectic language of form and spatial

26  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy representation engendering metaphor, allegory and narrative as his primary focus. Hejduk would leave critics baffled with how to place the stylistic nature of his work. Initially, Hejduk was grouped with the “New York Five” due to a heritage of work originating from a Corbusian architectural language. Kenneth Frampton has written critiques of Hejduk’s work. In Frampton’s classic book Modern Architecture: A Critical History, Frampton categorizes Hejduk’s work as “Neo-Avant-Gardism” and states that Hejduk: abandoned his early formalism to devote his energies to the creation of mythical settings such as his Berlin Masques of 1981.46 In Steven W. Hurtt’s 1992 publication Five Architects: Twenty Years Later, Kenneth Frampton discussed the primary differences between the original five architects and offered the following retrospective of Hejduk’s work: John Hejduk was then and remains even now the most idiosyncratic of the Five … it seems to me that architecture has always been something of a catalyst or even an alibi for an individual creativity that has been intensely personal, even private and deeply concerned with the imaginistic and with plastic and painterly representations of architecture rather than with tectonic form or phenomenologically spatial qualities of built work … none of the other members of the group will produce a work of such experiential force and conviction.47 Hejduk’s work is categorized in many ways and from many points of view and at times is difficult to engage. His inspirations were deeply personal, but did include foundational influences ranging from the work of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Juan Gris, Mondrian, Dutch Neoplasticism (De Stijl), El Lissitzky, Jacques Lacan, Jay Fellows, Edward Hopper and others. The work produced by Hejduk over the years after his time in Texas would become more personal and self-referential as seen in his last works titled “Enclosures”. Any individual work by Hejduk could be classified through the architectural dogma typically associated with architectural critiques, but when Hejduk’s work is viewed as a complete compositional repertoire, it is more elusive. The work embodies an otherness. A work set apart from the typical notions of acceptable architectural solutions. Hejduk’s work searches to envision form and space anew. He exorcised the intrinsic meanings of spatial constructs. There is a metaphysical nature to Hejduk’s work that bridges the reality of constructability with the phenomenological representations infused within propositions of space and time. John Hejduk painted pictures with his words and was a builder of metaphysical worlds. He liked to restate words so they carried an otherness when audibly spoken, such as, the word represent would be stated by Hejduk as re-present. His sentences were full of depth and meaning, such as, “To flood (liquid densification) the place-site with missing letters and disappeared signatures, to gelatinize forgetfulness”.48

Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy  27 Hejduk’s work was multidimensional and investigated form, space and structure in a variety of media. Over the course of his journey he sought to heighten the sense of separation, compression, extension and of passage. Hejduk’s early influences discussed in this chapter provide the departure for all of his future exorcisms. It seems fitting to end this discussion of the formations surrounding John Hejduk’s pedagogical ponderings by recounting the words of Rod Serling: You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.49 The following chapters will attempt to open the door into John Hejduk’s imagination in search of “both shadow and substance and of things and ideas”.

Notes 1 John Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 4. The interview was transcribed and edited from a taped interview conducted by Peter Eisenman in the fall of 1977 and published by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in Catalog 12, January 22 to February 16, 1980, John Hejduk, 7 Houses, pp. 4–7. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Amy Bragdon Gilley, Doctoral dissertation. “Drawing, Writing, Embodying: John Hejduk’s Masques of Architecture” (Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 2005), pp. 38–39. 6 Personal observations of comparison between Gwathmey’s paintings and Hejduk’s drawings. 7 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 4. 8 Ibid., p. 5. 9 Hejduk quote from the 2005 Doctoral dissertation by Weiling He, “Flatness Transformed and Otherness Embodied” (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005), p. 113. 10 John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985), Interview with Don Wall, p. 90. 11 Hejduk quoted in Alexander Caragonne, The Texas Rangers (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1995), p. 376. 12 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 5. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., p. 7. 15 Picasso is also quoted as saying, "When I was their age I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them". Picasso was discussing the artwork of children with Roland Penrose. This quote is found in Roland Penrose’s 1958 book Picasso: His Life and Work (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press), p. 275. The quote provided in the text here is commonly attributed to Pablo Picasso, but this author is unable to locate the source of the exact wording of the quotation provided. The quote from the Roland Penrose book is used here to support the displayed quote used. 16 Hejduk quote from Mask of Medusa, p. 129. 17 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 7. 18 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, the Narrative Chapter. 19 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 7.

28  Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy 20 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, pp. 190–199. 21 Timothy Love, “Kit-of-Parts Conceptualization”, Harvard Design Magazine, fall 2003/ winter 2004, p. 2. 22 Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT Press, Fourth Printing, 1979). 23 Colin Rowe, “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa”, in Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT Press, Fourth Printing, 1979), p. 11. 24 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 7. 25 Comments provided by Gloria Hejduk in a conversation with this author on September 7, 2012. 26 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 7. 27 Comments derived from a Wikipedia critical analysis of Le Corbusier’s Curutchet House, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curutchet_House, accessed March 3, 2020. 28 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, p. 365. 29 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, comments derived and taken from p. 192. 30 Love, “Kit-of-Parts Conceptualization”, Harvard Design Magazine, fall 2003/winter 2004, p. 2. 31 John Hejduk, Education of an Architect: A Point of View – The Cooper Union School of Art & Architecture, 1964–1971 (New York, Monacelli Press, 2000), p. 23. 32 Ibid., p. 39. 33 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, Interview with Don Wall, p. 63. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., p. 36. 36 Quote by David Shapiro from his introduction to Hejduk’s book Such Places as Memory, Poems 1953–1996 (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1998), p. xvii. 37 Hejduk quote from David Shapiro, 1991 article “A Poem for John Hejduk: After a Lost Original”, A+U Magazine, 1991, Issue No.1(244). 38 Comments provided by Gloria Hejduk in a conversation with this author on September 7, 2012. 39 This quote by Gloria Hejduk was provided to this author during telephone interview about her life with John Hejduk and their experiences in Texas. The interview was conducted on September 7, 2012. 40 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” essay as reprinted in Colin Rowe, As I Was Saying, Volume One (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT Press, Fourth Printing, 1996), p. 59. 41 Hejduk quote taken from “Statement 1979” from the book “John Hejduk 7 Houses”, p. 116. 42 Colin Rowe quote from the Rowe and Hejduk essay “Lockhart, Texas”, first printed in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record Magazine, p. 203. 43 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” essay as reprinted in Colin Rowe, As I Was Saying, Volume One, p. 61. 44 Ibid., p. 65. 45 Eisenman quote from “In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions” from John Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses (New York, Institute of Urban Studies, Catalog 12, 1980), p. 10. 46 Frampton quote from his book Modern Architecture: A Critical History (New York, Thames & Hudson, Fourth Edition, 2007), p. 311. 47 Frampton quote from his article titled “The Five after Twenty Five: An Assessment”, in Steven W. Hurtt, Five Architects: Twenty Years Later (University of Maryland School of Architecture, 1992), p. 6. 48 Hejduk quote from the “Victims” project, 1986. This quote was reprinted in Charles Jencks, editor, Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture (West Sussex, UK, Wiley Academy, Second Edition, 2006), p. 285. 49 Quote by Rod Serling for his television series, The Twilight Zone: Complete Series.

2 Pedagogy of the Texas Houses Exorcising outlines, Part 2

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set it free. Michelangelo, ca. 1550

John Hejduk’s “Texas Houses” were designed between 1954 and 1963 and were born out of Hejduk’s desire to better understand construction methods and detail on a conceptual level.1 The geometric syntax that ordered the seven Texas Houses was a natural extension of Hejduk’s newly implemented “nine-square grid exercise” issued at UT in 1954. The “houses” initially provided Hejduk with a much needed understanding of construction methodology and detailing primarily using steel frame columns and beams. As each house design informed the polemics of the next a spatial depth of form, order and language emerged after a decade long intense process of self-discovery. The pedagogical discoveries found in the “7 Texas Houses” are best understood from an analysis of Hejduk’s use of the Site and the Spatial Geometry of the Grid which will be discussed in this chapter. In Peter Eisenman’s 1979 introductory essay to the “Texas Houses” publication, “In My Father’s House are Many Mansions”, Eisenman analyzed the “7 Houses” from a historical and formal point of view, but he also perceived a deeper level of architectural discovery exhibited in Hejduk’s propositions. In the essay Eisenman stated: they (the houses) contain a conceptual overload, a density and compaction of themes, which produces a clarity of another kind. Within all of the necessary conditions for building they reveal a parallel energy: the existence of architecture itself.2 The “Texas Houses” were not realized constructions. They became a laboratory of conceptual constructs exploring imaginary idealized sites and buildings defining a new design language for Hejduk to internalize and “work out” over time. Embodied within the designs of these houses are the ideas

30  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses forming a design language that John Hejduk would “feel out” and “exorcise” for decades to follow. The realization that the hand and mind are one, working on first principles, and filling these principles with meaning through a juxtaposition of basic relationships such as point, line, plane, and volume, opened up the possibility of argumentation … the hidden forces; the ideas of configuration; the static, the dynamic: all these begin to take on the form of a vocabulary.3 The arguments and points of view are within the work, within the drawings; it is hoped that the conflicts of form in them will lead to a clarity which can be useful and perhaps transferable.4

“Exorcising” the site Each of the “Texas Houses”, with the exception of House 7, has a very specific site condition that provides a place for each design to reside. There is purpose to the placement of each house within its prescribed environment and Hejduk’s reasoning for exact placement varies from house to house. The site designs become more abstract over time as the investigations progress from House 1 to House 7. Whether it is a classical axial resolution of symmetry in House 1 or the exactness of a figure-field arrangement in House 5, each site design establishes its own dialog with the associated house design. In House 1 a pictorial image of classical order emerges and is infused into the proposition. In House 5 the “Miesian” open-plan arrangement is applied to both the exterior site components, as well as, the interior house plan layout. Hejduk uses site design to create a microcosm that defines its own “world” that he explores and geometrically manipulates. As the site plans progress from house to house they also challenge the accepted pragmatic notions typically associated with site design. Resolution of issues such as site access, security, landscape and site amenity development are redefined by Hejduk to be phenomenological components with multiple meanings beyond the typical uses. For example, the site boundary in House 5 is not used only to define the perimeter edge of the property lines of the site. The boundary is also used to create clarity of order to the geometric system of grid, point, line, plane, mass and extension which provides exact placement to entry and site features contained within the edge condition of its “world”. The site fence is similar to the organizing lines of a Mondrian painting. The lines of the fence create an implied diaphanous edge that is permeable. The functionality of the fence is transformed to provide a porosity of containment. On one hand, it is a clearly defined container and on the other hand it is a delicate membrane that provides a spatial dialog of interrelationships found between the site components and the inhabitants inside the container. Hejduk’s thoughts on

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  31

Figure 2.1  Plan with notes for Texas House 5 John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 56 × 79 cm, DR1998:0051:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

site design reveal the contemplative, phenomenological nature to his work as described below. To take a site: … To fabricate a construction of time … To draw out by compacting in. To flood (liquid densification) the place-site with missing letters and disappeared signatures. To gelatinize forgetfulness.5 The “Texas Houses” reinterpret the meaning of the programmatic use of a site condition. Hejduk’s site plans are developed to provide a duality of spatial orders and meanings. On one hand, the site provides the typical temporal external amenities to support the house’s design, such as, a driveway, a garage, a landscaped garden, a pool house, a fence, but on the other hand these outbuildings and elements define its own world for the house to live in and have reference to, just as the house itself provides a place for the inhabitants to live and find spatial equilibrium. In 1954 John Hejduk had just

32  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses returned from one year of study and travel in Italy. House 1 marks the beginning of Hejduk’s need to “exorcise” the classicism of the Italian landscape. The overtones and overtures of the Texas Houses was getting Italy out of the system. Not getting rid of the place aspect, but getting rid of the classicizing aspect, by working it out.6 There is a classical overtone to the site design of House 1. The classicism is a tribute to the beauty Hejduk observed in the Tuscan landscape, but it also shows evidence of the importance the use of narrative will have in Hejduk’s future work evidenced in his Wall Houses, the Masque projects and other works 20 and 30 years later. The site of House 1 defines a narrative of axial procession, spatial transition, symmetrical balance and picturesque repose in plan and site section. As the site designs for the 7 Houses become more abstract in composition they still maintain a sense of narrative. Each design explores the nature of tension, compression, expansion and modulation of spatial context in plan and sectional dimensions. The spatial narratives of the

Figure 2.2  Plan for Texas House 1 John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 80 × 84 cm, DR1998:0047:003:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  33 site designs found within the “Texas Houses” lacks the direct metaphorical and allegorical nature of Hejduk’s later work, but the spatial explorations define a poetic simplicity in the spatial juxtapositions of positive and negative space. Each of the house sites provides its own individual resolution to planning order, interrelationships through spatial tension, planning hierarchies’ and sense of site boundary, but it is House 7 that provides the most insight to the nature of site context explored by Hejduk in the “Texas Houses”. The irony of House 7 is that it has no defined site plan.

The use of “Site” in House 7 While Hejduk did not develop a site plan for House 7 and he provided no verbal description of a site for the house, the labyrinthine density of the plan and implied section of the house suggests that the house itself provides the referential condition necessary to become the “Site”. The house and site share simultaneity of spatial presence. In other words, the house and site become intertwined and inseparable. The 1962–1963 House 7 becomes totally internalized through its plan and implied section. It provides the closest approximation in Hejduk’s early work to what will become the pedagogical beginning to the Wall House a decade later.  … It is conceptually two vertical planes containing a vortex of centrifugal action which erodes the horizontal layers. Thus it is a precursor of Hejduk’s later wall houses, where the front and back walls will compress together, seemingly into one plane … 7

Figure 2.3  Plan for Texas House 7 John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:006., John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

34  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses

Figure 2.4  Plan for Texas House 7 John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:003., John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

House 1 through House 6 provide transparency to the axonometric projections of the designs, but House 7, through the monolithic exterior massing of the building elevations negates interior relationships and distorts the interior vertical spatial order behind the facades. House 7 is a six story plan having three main floors with three mezzanines above each floor. The house is defined in elevation and massing as a three story construction superimposed over the six stories hidden behind the seemingly opaque enclosure walls. Hejduk’s drawings of the house do not include a building section which would provide clarity to the spatial conditions of the interior. The exterior elevations and axonometric projection that Hejduk does provide defines the house as an opaque massing without interiority or spatial content. The house is presented three dimensionally as an opaque object of unknown human scale. The scale of the construct of the house is relative to its parts and geometric “square” properties. Alternatively, the internal planning of the house does provide a human scale in the proportions of furniture, stairs, millwork and fixtures. It is postulated that House 7 is a precursor to future Wall House investigations and it represents Hejduk’s first exploration into the possibilities of the “masque” as an archetype in his work. House 7 defines a density and compression of space within the interior nine-square human scale planning order, but simultaneously defines an expansive openness of vertical dimension with the same nine-square grid syntax without regard of human scale. The density and compactness of the interior combined with the exterior cubicle massing of House 7 provides a narrative defining an ambiguous geometric composition. Internally, the composition explores the density, complexities and the interweaving of the internal parts of a living organism. These internal

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  35 compositional complexities are juxtaposed against the delicacy of the cubicle skin and it shares a common geometric language with the internal organism of the house. The skin becomes an opaque veil that hides the complexities of the interior, as well as providing an ambiguity of scale that masks and encloses the spatial hierarchies inside the house. What appears to be an inanimate object of mass, line and plane is in fact, for Hejduk, a spatial organism of interior density and tension hidden behind an impenetrable mask. When discussing the design of House 7, Hejduk expressed his own struggles with the incompleteness of the design by saying: The program is for a very complex interweaving of spaces  …  Isolated and separated inversions and ambiguities were sought … Although they have been thought about intensely, at this moment I prefer not to determine the final designation of program, construction, structure, materials or finish.8 Hejduk never finished House 7. A house designed without a site condition that ultimately redefined the term “Site” not as an exterior condition of spatial context, but rather a transformative laboratory exploring the multidimensional nature of the interiority of programmatic complexities juxtaposed against the exteriority of a hierarchical geometric syntax. John Hejduk’s use of site design reinforces the importance placement, exactness and the multiplicity of meanings site components can provide to any building design solution. Within the “Texas Houses” Hejduk’s site design propositions can be interpreted through a phenomenological departure as described in the topics to follow.

The “holistic” site Hejduk establishes a “holistic” solution within a given site area to provide order and sense of place. There is a philosophical lexicon attributed to Aristotle and others that states: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. This can certainly be true in the context of architectural design. The sense of “wholeness” to any solution provides spatial equilibrium and the evidence of correctness to a site plan layout. As one old seasoned architect once said in a design critique, “there is truth in the layout”. Gestalt psychology maintains a theory that the human brain initially perceives visual cognition as a holistic image and the eye sees an entity in its entirety before its individual parts. Intentionally or subconsciously, Hejduk applied this sense of spatial “Gestaltism” into his design investigations. His goal was to see the wholeness of a given site as a set of disparate parts providing the infrastructural syntax conceptually underpinning the layout. To dwell in the realm of concept provides clarity to the whole before the mechanics of “drawing the site plan” takes place. Hejduk exorcised the mechanics of a layout to find the underpinning of his idea. This holistic approach provided him opportunities

36  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses to establish new meanings to site issues and provided a mindset to see the hierarchical layering of order, form and space. A physical site is one that is a container of space typically defined by an invisible outer edge (the property lines, building lines and set-backs). This condition of site by Hejduk can be interpreted as his “macro” condition of site area. The primary building(s) posited in the macro area can be thought of as Hejduk’s “micro” site. The components that provide linkage between the macro and micro site conditions establish the “grammar” or “syntax” that provided the sense of “wholeness” to his site design propositions. Hejduk used hierarchy of space, layering of space, properties of extension, compression, tension and infrastructural syntax as a language in all his site contexts, as well as in the development of his building designs. His investigative process of exorcising the site provided depth of meaning and truth to his site layouts. John Hejduk summed it up by saying: the extent of a limited field, of an unlimited field; the meaning of implied extension; the meaning of plan, of section, of spatial expansion-spatial contraction-spatial compression-spatial tension; the direction of regulating lines, of grids; the relationships of figure to ground, of number to proportion, of measurement to scale, of symmetry to asymmetry, of diamond to diagonal; the hidden forces; the ideas of configuration; the static, the dynamic: all these begin to take on the form of a vocabulary.9

“Exorcising the site”: hidden forces emerge Hejduk’s investigations reveal phenomenological site characteristics. He sought to see beyond the pragmatism of site design to exorcise the geometrics of functional site order. He looked into the potentiality of meanings site components could convey to the viewer/user of the site. The site can become a world of its own. Examples of this in the “Texas Houses” are as follows: the underlying meaning of a perimeter site fence in Texas House 6 can be considered as a container of the exteriority of space instead of defining the property line limitations. The “garage” or “outbuilding” can be considered as a construct providing spatial dialog with other site elements through their alignments and proximities furthering an understanding of an architectural language instead of trying to determine the placement of such elements to solve the pragmatics of access and/or function. The functional pragmatics of Hejduk’s Texas Houses site designs were resolved, but he saw beyond the technocratic needs of functional resolution to elevate the very nature of what a site can propose. For instance, a sloping site carries a completely different set of spatial possibilities than a flat site. A sloping site shown in Texas House 1 led Hejduk to explore and define the meaning of ascension, progression, vertical movement and modulation found in the landscape. On the other hand, a flat site seen in the remaining Texas Houses led Hejduk to explore and define notions of expansion, extension,

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  37

Figure 2.5  Plan, axonometric, and elevations for Texas House 6 John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 107 cm, DR1998:0052:027., John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

tension, remoteness and/or horizontality within the various site areas. Hejduk defined a language of order and spatial context to his site solutions. His site designs not only provided a resolution to the placement of functions within a given field of containment, but also the architecture exhibited depth and mastery of spatial tension, compression, extension, duality and dialog. Hejduk’s site designs created a narrative of meaning and conceptual underpinning in their layouts. Hejduk’s Texas Houses expressed an architectural poetry fixed in the flatness of the Texas landscape. The Texas landscape is sparse; objects take on a clarity and a remoteness … you capture the horizontal and you capture a flatness, a flatness which impregnates your thoughts and fills you with anticipation.10

Exorcising spatial geometry of the grid Hejduk initially used the nine-square grid to investigate the basics of planning order and the conceptual nature of construction technique and detailing. Hejduk’s “Texas Houses” designs progressed from a single-story proposition in Houses 1, 2, 3 and 5 to a two-story design in House 4, to a three-story

38  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses design in House 6 and House 7 proposes a six-story plan. While the ninesquare planning grid was the organizing frame of reference for each design, Hejduk’s investigation manipulated the grid planning order to achieve hierarchies that explored interrelationships of objects positioned within a specific spatial geometric context. The hierarchical use of geometry in the houses juxtaposed mass against void, line against plane, symmetry against asymmetry, figure against ground, etc., but it is in the realm of Hejduk’s manipulation of mass and void that provides the depth of geometric spatial investigation that best exposes the exorcising of the grid. The nine-square grid was always present in the work, but attempts by Hejduk to open the plan and section by revealing a modulation of interior volumes and removing parts of the grid entirely to find expansion and tension between interior and exterior space reveals his desire to use the grid as a planning device for infrastructural order only. As the designs progressed over time, the volumetric overtones of the houses searched for a deeper clarity of spatial purpose. The nine-square grid investigations extended beyond the Texas Houses and into the “Diamond House” propositions from 1963 through 1967 where he finally worked-out the grid in his thinking which led him to deeper geometric exorcisms that will be discussed in Chapter 3. The nine-square grid frame of the Texas House investigations expresses connectivity to the ground plane using columns, plinths and slabs. The connection to the ground is important because it reveals a tension and fragmentation of the grid frame. For example, the building sections of House 1 indicate an incomplete conceptual grid as the frame anchors to the ground plane. There are only vertical columns that touch the terraced plane of the earth revealing a hierarchy to the grid. The spatial juxtaposition of the enclosed interior of the house is “floated” above the ground plane creating a spatial tension between the elements of the grid frame and site section. Additionally, the horizontal scale of the floor plan order defined by the nine-square grid is dominant over the vertical scale of the section of the house designs until House 6 is developed. In Houses 1 through 5 the expressed sectional height of the interior volumes are compressed to represent horizontality to the primary interior spaces. In these designs it does not appear that Hejduk has considered the nine-square grid in volumetric section. Hejduk seems to have a preoccupation in Houses 1 through 5 with “working out” the nine-square grid in plan only. There are a few exceptions including the introduction of verandas, courtyards and clerestory spaces into the designs, but the scale of the grid order in section is primarily hierarchically compressed when contrasted against the scale of the predominant equality of the planning grid. I feel that Hejduk was juxtaposing the abstract language of the nine-square grid in plan while still holding on to a human scale in the interior spaces. In other words, Hejduk was experimenting with an abstract planning geometry, but was still being influenced by a personal sensibility of vertical scale. In Houses 1 through 5 there still exists the experiential connection to human scale that provided a sense of reality to the propositions. In this sense the

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  39 grid was influencing, even dictating the designs, but it was not fully explored on a conceptual level. The design for House 6 and House 7 recognizes this ambiguity in the juxtaposition in the scale of the grid between plan and section. Conceptually, these houses become pure spatial expressions of the ninesquare grid. The nine-square is re-presented by Hejduk as being the same scale in width, depth and height. The houses become cubical abstract propositions. The nine-square grid is fully embraced by Hejduk as an ordering device in House 6 and 7. He is free to explore space on an abstract conceptual level without being held to the seemingly rigid “reality” of space previously investigated in Houses 1 through 5. Beginning in House 6 the evidence of the syntactical use of the “square” becomes dominant in plan and section. The dominance of a nine-square planning order is supplanted in Hejduk’s investigation with a cubicle spatial geometry. The importance of this shift in geometric use is found in the phenomenological propositions of positive and negative space found in House 6 and 7. House 6 defines the main living area as a cubicle void posited within the larger cubicle construct of the house. The cubicle void of negative space carved from the main house is defined as a smaller cubicle construct of

Figure 2.6  Axonometric for Texas House 7 John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 81 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:009., John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

40  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses positive space containing support functions of garage and quarters placed geometrically adjacent to the primary house. House 6 also investigates the presence of geometric extension, although the extension is constrained by the syntax of the square planning order. By pulling the primary circulation of the main stair outside the body of the house cube it creates a geometric dialog between the main house, the newly formed “support cube” and exposed stair tower component. The final design uses the geometric juxtapositions of positive and negative space to complete the phenomenological order of the construct. House 7 internalizes an ambiguity in its geometric investigation. The density of geometric planning defines “isolated and separated inversions and ambiguities” of space as Hejduk stated. The dichotomy of House 7 is revealed in the relative scale of the geometric construct. The building is presented as a three-story cube, but the internal planning reveals a six-story plan. The ambiguous nature to the house exists in its sense of enclosure suggesting a different reality than that which is presented in its outer skin. Additionally, the house is designed with a geometrically centered basement and ninesquare grid foundation walls. The outer view of the house defines a cubicle massing, but if the flat ground plane was removed the construct would reveal a different reality of scale and proportion.

Hejduk’s spatial geometry and the poetics of the grid John Hejduk’s “Texas House” exorcisms provides us with a departure to look deeper into his use of the poetics that can be found in Cartesian geometry and Hejduk’s unrevealed poetic phenomenology in his geometric constructs. The nine-square geometry displayed in the Texas Houses defines an abstract vocabulary consisting of points, lines, planes masses and voids orchestrated in two- and three-dimensional organizations. Geometric spatial definition of this language provides a quantifiable methodology to investigate Hejduk’s Cartesian spatial assemblies. Hejduk used a Euclidean language in his Texas Houses to investigate abstract concepts including spatial positioning of plan and section elements, spatial tensions, duality, spatial compression and extension, tectonic hierarchies, condition of edge, literal and phenomenal transparencies, metaphor and phenomenological interrelationships. Abstract geometry provided Hejduk with a quantifiable mathematical resolution of shapes and figures, but it is postulated that the analytical nature of Hejduk’s applied geometry revealed an otherness within the spatial equilibrium. It is the architectural undertones that exist between the lines of Hejduk’s Texas Houses that reveal a deeper understanding of Hejduk’s ideas. For example, Hejduk described House 1 as “an Italian Garden”, in House 3 Hejduk discussed it as “a syncopation. It appears to refer to Mondrian”, he referred to House 5 as “a Mies exercise” and Hejduk described House 7 as “Isolated and separated inversions and ambiguities”. In other words Hejduk’s interest was deeper than just geometric composition. In fact, Hejduk discussed his

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  41 Texas Houses as exorcising his Italian influences. He stated: “So after ten years I exorcised the Italian thing”.11 The self-described phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard in his 1958 publication The Poetics of Space postulated: Space that has been seized upon by the imagination cannot remain indifferent space subject to the measures and estimates of the surveyor. It has been lived in, not in its positivity, but with all the partiality of the imagination.12 Hejduk used the geometric designs of the Texas Houses to exorcise geometric problems from a pure Cartesian resolution resulting in correctness within the framework of mathematical proportions, on the other hand, his explorations also evolved from a metaphysical investigation energized through the depths of his imagination and memories of his experiences in the Italian landscape. Architectural geometric systems used in the spatial positioning of components to define functional space provided Hejduk with primary and secondary interrelationships that created a three-dimensional order of spatial equilibrium. Within the realm of the equilibrium of spatial constructs Hejduk used his imagination to express his sense of the poetics of geometry. Proportion, scale and spatial order, in my view, were the infrastructural components used by Hejduk to express the phenomenological depth in his Cartesian geometric assemblies. Hejduk used the investigative process of compositional resolution ultimately not as a search for geometric correctness, but rather a search to satisfy the depths of his sense of spatial equilibrium. Hejduk’s Texas House exorcisms have a kinship to Bachelard’s notion of achieving poetics through the expression of one’s imagination. Hejduk’s poetics of geometry does not fit into a “one size fits all” strategy. Hejduk used spatial composition in his poems, his narratives, his drawings, models and his architecture. The common link between the varieties of Hejduk’s spatial representations falls in the realm of one’s perception of his work through his or her own experiential imagination. Hejduk’s spatial constructs were not all three-dimensionally constructed to create a sense of poetics. As discussed previously, his spatial compositions are not exclusive to his architectural investigations. There can be disagreement in what constitutes the poetics of geometry and/or spatial experience, but when spatial experience causes one to pause and take notice there is a metaphysical presence to the experience. Hejduk provides us with an example of a metaphysical experience in his essay titled “Evening in Llano”. In the essay Hejduk described the metaphysics of viewing a painting as follows. When the observer totally connects with the painting, all actual distances disappear. Thought illuminates the air between – thought that has no surface … A materialized thought meets pure thought (a thought without substance). The result is a revelation.13

42  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses Buried within our imaginations is a desire to have balance and equilibrium in our surroundings. How can one argue with the emotional fulfillment we experience when confronted with the tangible, tactile essence of beauty? The point is that the key to the connectivity we have with our surroundings is discovered in our imagination through metaphysical experiences over time and place. The power of our imagination is what fuels the perception of what we see. Architect Juhani Pallasmaa stated: Why do so very few modern buildings appeal to our feelings, when ­almost any anonymous house in an old town or the most unpretentious farm outbuilding gives us a sense of familiarity and pleasure? Why is it that the stone foundations we discover in an overgrown meadow, a ­broken-down barn or an abandoned boathouse can arouse our imagination, while our own houses seem to stifle and smother our daydreams?14 Human perception is not usually tuned to find an appreciation for most abstract geometric propositions. Very few of us inhabit “modern abstract architecture” and Hejduk’s home in the Bronx where he and his family lived was no exception. Architecture, in the form of one’s home, provides us with a metaphysical connectivity to our surroundings and at the same time provides a distinct separation from the world around us regardless of the archetype we inhabit. Our imagination triggers the emotional attachments we feel. A house is a metaphysical instrument, a mythical tool with which we try to introduce a reflection of eternity into our momentary existence.15 It is my postulation that Hejduk searched for connectivity in the poetics of geometry, but in the final analysis he did not find it in the geometries of his Texas Houses. Hejduk found poetics in the metaphysical constructs he

Figure 2.7  Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985 John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Pedagogy of the Texas Houses  43

Figure 2.8  Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985 John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

conjured in his mind’s eye and used them to trigger his imagination to exorcise a sense of emotional balance and equilibrium. At times he also conjured disturbing images to fuel other aspects of his imagination. Hejduk intuited that his metaphysical propositions could foster unrevealed undertones of dread, uncertainty, mood, aura and poetics which fueled a deeper connectivity within his imagination. If we compare the Hejduk sketches above depicting his nine-square grid problem he explored in the Texas Houses two opposing outcomes can be argued. Spatial equilibrium and spatial ambiguity become graphically evident. His initial 1950’s sketch shows his interest in the balance and preciseness of order in geometric composition, but Hejduk’s 1970’s sketch of the nine-square shows a deeper poetic sensitivity leading to uncertain outcomes that cannot be realized within the grid alone. Hejduk’s experiences in Italy in 1953–1954 triggered a decade-long investigation delineating the Texas Houses to fully understand and exorcise his feelings about the Italian influences that were so meaningful to him. I feel Hejduk sought to master the use of geometric composition in his Texas House 1 to provide himself with a metaphysical emotional connectivity to his Italian spatial experiences. His exorcisms in the other Texas Houses dealt with other “demons” that built up in Hejduk that he needed to exorcise. In the end it was the poetics in Hejduk’s imagination of form and space that provided him with a metaphysical connectivity to the poetics of his geometric constructs. John Hejduk’s Texas Houses represent a rich pedagogical laboratory to explore and learn from. His decade-long exorcisms revealed to him discoveries of space and form that he would “feel-out” through his work in the decades following his time in Texas. The Houses at first glance are a study in

44  Pedagogy of the Texas Houses planning and geometric order, but within the grids and walls of the Houses lays the depth of investigation that reveals a reductive process; a process undertaken by Hejduk to exorcise his understanding of geometric constructs and classical form in pursuit of a deeper understanding inherent in the phenomenological connectivity that can be achieved through the language of architecture. The landscape in Texas is sparse; objects take on a clarity and a remoteness … Armadillos appear to be hard, but in fact they are soft and they shed tears when you catch them by the tail; so you let them go. There are a lot of things you let go of in Texas. You let go of old visions and old ­romances; you let go of city-states and northern broodings. But in letting go, other things and other moods are captured, such as the meaning of isolated objects, of void spaces … Texas is for pruning and for cutting; and for polishing … We caught the armadillo, but we let him go.16

Notes 1 John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985), p. 40. interpretation of Hejduk’s comments regarding the purpose of the Texas House designs. 2 Peter Eisenman quote in John Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses (New York, Institute of Urban Studies, Catalog 12, 1980), p. 20. 3 John Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses, “Statement 1964”, p. 116. 4 Ibid. 5 Hejduk quote, “Victims”, 1986. 6 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 35. 7 Eisenman quote in Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses, p. 19. 8 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 43. 9 Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses, “Statement 1964”, p. 116. 10 Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses, “Statement 1979”, p. 116. 11 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 36. 12 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Introduction (New York, Orion Press, Third Printing, 1964), p. xxxii. 13 Excerpt from Hejduk’s essay “Evening in Llano” taken from Hejduk, Education of an Architect, (New York, Rizzoli, 1991), p. 340. 14 Quote taken from Juhani Pallasmaa, “The Geometry of Feeling: A Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture”, Skala: Nordic Journal of Architecture and Art, 4 (June 1986), pp. 22–25. 15 Ibid. 16 Hejduk, John Hejduk 7 Houses, “Statement 1979”, p. 116.

3 Pedagogy of the Wall House Exorcising apparitions, Part 1

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to other eyes as mine see it. Michelangelo, ca.1550

The “Wall House” projects were initiated by John Hejduk in 1968 growing out of his efforts to further explore the nature of “Cubist” space previously undertaken in his Diamond House designs.1 His investigations of the Wall House continued until 1974. Over a seven-year period Hejduk exorcised his Wall archetype to study the theoretical interrelationships between “the flattening of space” and the exploration of “time-space” within a spatial construct. During this phase of Hejduk’s work he was preoccupied with exorcising his absorptions of the Cubists Juan Gris and Fernand Léger.2 So I had to get rid of that, by working it out, by exorcising the images, … then I took on the Cubists, … which took care of Gris and Leger in the Wall Houses, in tableaux.3 Hejduk produced construction drawings of his most famous wall house, Wall House 2, (The Bye House), which was to be constructed in Ridgefield, Connecticut for A.E. Bye, landscape architect and one of Hejduk’s teaching colleagues at Cooper Union. The construction of the Bye House project was abandoned, but was later constructed in 2001 in Groningen, Netherlands after John Hejduk’s death in 2000 and 28 years after the design was introduced by Hejduk in 1973. After 1974 the Wall House theme and its syntactical derivatives are evident throughout the remaining years of Hejduk’s work. It is interesting that the “wall” theme was reintroduced and explored by Hejduk in his 1996 “Cathedral” project and the thematic use of the “wall” became a dominant element depicted among Hejduk’s last works titled “Enclosures”. In his last works the space-time theme advanced in Hejduk’s explorations to include a deeper understanding of the metaphysical nature of

46  Pedagogy of the Wall House space and an expression of a personal spiritual journey. Within the context of the “Wall House” theme Hejduk was able to find a continuing renewal of faith in his art, as well as, expressing his deeply held spiritual search and reverence for his Christian faith.4 The spiritual themes found in Hejduk’s work are examined in Chapter 5 of this book. An analysis of John Hejduk’s “Wall House 2” will be used in this chapter to further delineate the themes identified within the Wall House archetype. Hejduk’s wall house pedagogical underpinnings will be analyzed through an interpretive discussion of spatial themes observed in Hejduk’s investigations including, Cubism, Transparency and Phenomenology at the end of this chapter.

Exorcising apparitions of cubism: a pedagogical analysis of the Bye House The formative beginnings of Hejduk’s Wall House archetype began with his geometric studies extending from his Texas House 7 in 1962–1963 as discussed in Chapter 2. The spatial theme of the “flattening of space” investigated in the Wall House projects was first recognized by Hejduk in his spatial studies of the “Diamond Houses” executed between 1963 and 1967. Hejduk postulated that the hypotenuse of the diamond form was the most neutral condition present in his spatially charged diamond plan compositions. The physical presence of the hypotenuse as a geometric condition found in internal and external constructs became for Hejduk a vehicle to study and exorcise the flattening of spatial conditions. This flattening of space has additional origins extending from the analytical cubism art movement beginning around 1911 and evident in the works of Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp and others. The “flattening” or “Cubist” view of space was also evident within the origins of architectural cubism during this same time period and were effectively developed in the early 20th century notably by architects Gerrit Rietveld and J.J.P. Oud from the Dutch “De Stijl” (Neoplasticism) movement (1917–1931) and the work of French architect Le Corbusier.5 The notion of cubism in architectural theory continues to be explored by architects since the concepts of cubism were espoused by the avant-garde a century ago. John Hejduk absorbed the works of Le Corbusier, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger in particular to “feel out” the compositional and spatial nature of cubism, but the spatial themes developed by the Cubists became more meaningful to Hejduk in Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s 1845 painting of Louise de Broglie, Countess d’Haussonville. There she was: Comtesse d’Haussonville … Isn’t it strange? Look at the mirror – there’s no reflectivity. It’s absolutely opaque. And that arm … cannot belong to that person. I mean, the hand is the size of the face. It’s all disjointed, all the parts are separated. It’s Cubism, 60 years before Cubism. There’s no depth, right? No perspective. This painting is in my work – in

Pedagogy of the Wall House  47 the Wall Houses. The separation of the elements, the opacity of the wall, the lack of depth … it’s a very important work for me.6 The spatial relationships Hejduk imbued in the Wall Houses incorporate the essence and tenets of Cubism explored by the original Cubist painters, as well as, an architectural cubism observed in the work of the early modernist architect Le Corbusier. The Bye House (Wall House 2), as an exemplar of the Wall House archetype which is used in the context of this interpretive analysis, clearly exhibits the qualities typically associated with analytic cubism, including; spatial ambiguity, flattening of space, transparency (literal

Figure 3.1  Comtesse d’Haussonville Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1845, Copyright The Frick Collection, New York, 51 7/8 in. × 36 ¼ in. (131.8 × 92.1 cm). Oil on canvas.

48  Pedagogy of the Wall House and phenomenal), juxtapositions of geometric forms and distortions of perspective view.7 In addition to the material and phenomenological attributes exhibited in the Bye House, Hejduk also explored space-time as a temporal modality of spatial definition to facilitate his expression and exorcism of cubism in the Wall Houses. The term “space-time” for purposes of this analysis refers to a fourth dimension of architectural spatial syntax. This metaphysical nature of space combines the qualities of three-dimensional corporeal, static spaces with that of the dynamics of kinetic movement through the spaces. The addition of kinetics within a fixed spatial construct utilizes the dimension of time to help define the intended spatial experience. In other words, the nature of “space-time” within the Bye House heightens the experiential quality one feels as he/she traverses laterally and/or vertically through the interior spaces of the house. The experience is most evident in the transitions between spatial contexts of the house, that is, transitions between inside and outside space, inside to inside (room to room) or outside to inside. The experience is extended (spatially stretched) when vertical movement is used in the transitions between the internal spatial organs of the house. Additionally, the experience is elongated through horizontal movement which heightens one’s sense of anticipation towards the spatial transition. The Bye House uses both spatial devices of vertical and horizontal conditions of spatial transition to express the notion of space-time. But, for Hejduk, it is his recognition of the “wall” as a representation of a neutral condition, a flattening of spatial perception, which separates space on one hand and unites space on the other. In Hejduk’s wall house investigations the wall exemplifies and embodies the ontological representation of the concept of space-time. The wall is a neutral condition. That’s why it’s always painted grey. And the wall represents the same condition as the “moment of the ­hypotenuse” in the Diamond Houses – it’s the moment of greatest repose, and at the same time the greatest tension. It is a moment of passage. The wall heightens that sense of passage, and by the same token, its thinness heightens the sense of it being just a momentary condition … what I call the moment of the present.8 Hejduk observed in Ingres’s “Comtesse d’Haussonville” painting that it contains “no perspective” and “the lack of depth”. This reference to the “flatness of space” is further reinforced in Jay Fellows, 1975 book The Failing Distance. Fellows discussed the merits of John Ruskin’s “madness” and his failure to comprehend recessional space.9 For Hejduk, “the recessional space” in The Failing Distance was defined as the neutral condition of the wall plane. the hypotenuse of the perspective is constantly in motion and flattening as you approach any building from the exterior. It flattens out right on top of you at the moment of entry – the moment of the present. It is the quickest condition time-wise; also, it’s at once the most extended, the most heightened and at the same time the most neutral and repulsive.10

Pedagogy of the Wall House  49

Figure 3.2  Plan for Bye House John Hejduk, 1974, yellow and blue colored pencil and graphite over diazotype on paper, 45.9 × 98 cm, DR2005:0001:068, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Figure 3.3  Wall House John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Liao Yusheng, Photographer, [email protected].

50  Pedagogy of the Wall House The wall posited in the Bye House defines Hejduk’s sense of the “moment of the present”. The wall becomes a perspectival picture plane collapsed into itself absorbing all space around it, as if it is an architectural black hole. A condition of space so deep and dense its surface is akin to a magnetic force that pulls void spaces towards its center becoming fully absorbed into its density. But, as observed in the physics of opposing magnetic forces the wall also repels the massings of the house from physical attachment. It is the void space in between the massings of the house that defines the temporal fleeting moment of passage from one condition of spatial experience to another. The massings seemingly levitate in space and desire for connectivity, but it is their isolation from each other that is dominant within the construct of its parts. A further analysis of Hejduk’s notion of the isolation and separation of parts will be discussed in Chapter 4. The void spaces in between the massings become spatial connectors. The voids are physical manifestations of the metaphysical nature of opposing magnetic forces. The wall becomes a physical apparition representing the collapse of time and space; an apparition engendering the condition of space-time experience. The ground level entry to the Bye House leads up and into an elevated elongated hall. The hall signals to the occupant that this is the beginning of

Figure 3.4  Wall House John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Hélène Binet, Photographer.

Pedagogy of the Wall House  51 a journey with an uncertain destination. It is a journey through time which reveals a multiplicity of directional choices providing access and experience to the interiority of the house. The elongation of the hall establishes within the planning a primary axis of horizontal circulation. The hall, due to its narrow width and exaggerated length, accentuates the depth of one’s perception as if to provide a “forced perspective” looking into the distance to an apparent vanishing point, presumably the “wall”. When confronted with the wall, its presence flattens all spatial context. The wall is only a “present condition” when passing through it. The extended implication of this spatial device by Hejduk also finds its underpinning in the deep recessional space and proportion of beauty as explored by Leon Battista Alberti in his treatise analyzing the geometric implications and applications of Renaissance perspective to produce equilibrium in the perception of form and space.11 the diamond configuration turns in upon the person internally. Well, that moment is the hypotenuse, which is the point of entry-exit, the threshold. The diamond-perspective is what I call the moment of the present which I suspect might also be considered the moment of death.12

Figure 3.5  Wall House John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Hélène Binet, Photographer.

52  Pedagogy of the Wall House The wall is dense and opaque and it is not punctured for view except to allow movement through its massing. The “Hall” provides the house with a primary horizontal axis of circulation and the “Wall” establishes a cross-­axial division to the planning providing space for a vertical zone of circulation. Due to the wall’s constant presence as a mediator between interior spaces it provides the occupant with the memory of spaces that exist beyond the condition of the wall. The wall separates the internal spaces or organs of the house, but at the same time provides a metaphysical memory of its presence to supplant the visual presence of the spaces. Metaphorically, the entry side of the Bye House wall is representative of the past; the wall itself, as Hejduk has proposed, represents the present and the other side of the wall represents the future.13 The dominance of the wall can also be viewed as a metaphor reminding us of the “walls” we face in our everyday lives. It is an interesting departure for one to contemplate the relationship between architectural form and space with our experiences in everyday living. It is my postulation that Hejduk embodied within the design of the Bye House, the unrevealed beginnings of his explorations of the Architectural Masque theme in his work. Programmatic functions of the Bye House are distributed horizontally in plan and vertically in section, but the functional distribution of spaces is secondary to Hejduk’s exploration of the geometric condition of the “­diamond-perspective” hypotenuse as a compression of space defining neutrality stated as the “moment of the present”.14 The programmatic functional components of the 1973 Bye House are the precursors to Hejduk’s 1979 design explorations that resulted in his architectural “Masque” projects. The biomorphic forms posited in the Bye House are abstract freeform constructs defining the spatial program of the house. The positioning of the abstract sculptural forms in the design owes more to Hejduk’s reference to the fixed spatial positioning of Cubist form than that of the sculptural shape making of biomorphic forms. But, as constructed, they exist to the casual observer as sculptural abstractions as if painted into a three-dimensional Cubist canvas. Beyond Hejduk’s absorptions of cubism the program components are symbolic as well. They create a story line or narrative to the Bye House. They are the embodiment of Hejduk’s future architectural “Masque” investigations. This is a significant shift in the body of Hejduk’s work and it will be discussed, in regards to the Bye House, later in this chapter under the section titled “Pessimism of the Bye House”. Curiously, the magnitude of the wall’s physical size is not evident from the interior of the house. The presence of the wall is always felt and glimpses of the wall from the interior are provided, but from an interior perspective it cannot be seen in its entirety. The presence of the wall becomes a dominant physical condition seen from the exterior of the house. There is omnipresence to the wall when seen from the exterior and the memory of the wall plane remains even when not in view. It is only when the wall is confronted from the interior of the house that the inhabitant finds spatial intimacy with its presence. This is primarily due to the close proximity one has with the

Pedagogy of the Wall House  53 wall’s massing. This sense of intimacy and proximity can be defined as a form of spatial connectivity. If architecture provides a sense of connectivity to its viewer/occupant then the architecture can be said to satisfy the desires of one’s internal sense for equilibrium and balance in their spatial environment. Hejduk discussed the nature and perception of architecture as an art form differentiated from painting or sculpture. Connectivity to architectural space is unique within the perception of architectural constructs. The wall plane of the Bye House provides intimate connectivity on one hand, but only a fleeting memory of connectivity on the other. The spatial ambiguity of the wall reinforces Hejduk’s notion of isolating space and compartmentalizing the isolations into memories supporting the concept of experiencing space-time. architecture always has the aspect of the observer or the voyeur exter­ nally, and then complete gestation. You become an element of an ­internal system of organisms.15 The Bye House is a collage of biomorphic parts organized around and fitted onto a wall massing. Its physical presence as a construct in the landscape is reminiscent of a three-dimensional Cubist painting. As in Cubist painting the house has no singular external perspective suggesting front, back or intended viewing angle, although, the compression of biomorphic parts on one side of the wall tableau alludes to a sense of frontality. Although, based on the Bye House floor plan, this side of the wall is actually representational of the rear facade of the house. As a visual composition, the construct is best understood when viewed from multiple exterior perspectives. The house does not present itself as being internally spatial, but rather a construct of isolated spaces; thereby not providing the inhabitant with a holistic sense of the house when it is occupied. Internally the Bye House is perceived as a set of individual parts (rooms) in constant spatial dialog horizontally and vertically with each other in reference to the wall’s vertical axis of positivity and the hall’s horizontal axis of negative space. There is a depth to the exteriority of the construct as evidenced in the dramatic verticality of the wall and extended horizontality of the access hall, but only flatness of space is perceived on the interior through the intentional compression of spaces read against the organizing wall plane. This internal “flattening of space” is akin to a set of single photographic images presented in sequence to form a spatial continuum. Its interiority is defined as fragments of space linked together through motion over time to provide a sense of interior continuity. The Bye House, as constructed, is more akin to an occupiable sculpture of isolated parts rather than a house that engenders open spatial connectivity with its occupants. It is clearly a physical construction exploring and “feeling out” an expression of architectural space-time experience. Upon critical analysis it can be postulated that the conceptual underpinning of Hejduk’s thinking aligns with many of the philosophical and psychological propositions espoused by

54  Pedagogy of the Wall House Sigfried Giedion, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Gestaltism, Bachelard, Kant, Kafka, Foucault, Heidegger, Derrida and others.16 Philosophical underpinning in architectural design is discussed later in this chapter under the topical discussion titled “Phenomenology”. While Hejduk must have been aware of the work of the aforementioned intellectuals, he was more influenced by works of art including works by Ingres, Botticelli, Sassetta, Vermeer, Hopper, Gris, Léger, Braque, Picasso, van Doesburg and Mondrian as well as, works of literature and history including works by Robbe-Grillet, Fellows, Proust, Hardy, Prommer, Flaubert and others.17 Although aware of philosophical and poetic influences, Hejduk typically would only become aware of the depths of his work as expressed by architectural critics after the fact. In a conversation with Don Wall, Hejduk stated: Wall: “So you are not aware of these attributes when doing the work?” Hejduk:  “No. It comes later, this otherness. I am aware of these things on an intellectual plane, in the work say of Hopper, Sassetta. Always later though.”18 In retrospect we can postulate that Hejduk developed the Bye House as a poetic expression fully exposing his introspective thoughts defining “the flatness of space”. Hejduk wrote, in his 1980 introduction essay titled “The Flatness of Depth” for Judith Turner’s book, Judith Turner Photographs: Five Architects, Although the perspective is the most heightened illusion – whereas the representation of a plan may be considered the closest to reality – if we consider it as substantively notational, the so-called reality of built architecture can only come into being through a notational system. In any case, drawing on a piece of paper is an architectural reality.19 In his personal pedagogy of “exorcising”, which is represented through Hejduk’s “absorptions” and “feeling-out” of thoughts over time, the Bye House can be understood as Hejduk’s homage to “exorcising the apparition” of architectural cubism. It is my postulation that he was searching for an expression of occupiable cubism in the Bye House. There is flatness to the implied spatial depth of the house just as in the spatially activated flat canvasses by the Cubist painters defining “frozen” spatial propositions. An interesting contrast between the Cubist paintings and the Bye House is how the quality of time is represented. In the Cubist paintings of the early 20th century, time is presented as being “frozen time” exhibiting a metaphysical fractured imagery of objects seen from many perspectives, but fixed in time and space. Within the body of the Bye House the dimension of time is not frozen, but expressed dynamically in the three-dimensionality of the construct. The metaphysical “presence of time” is physically and emotionally

Pedagogy of the Wall House  55 felt within the interiority of the house. It becomes a tactile physical experience expressed through the compression of space, tension between objects and extensions/elongations of spatial transition. The Bye House is a layered metaphysical and phenomenological poetic expression of frozen corporeal imagery charged with spatial dynamics that engender the temporal nature of the interrelationship between time and space. Such is the differentiation between the two-dimensional artist canvas and the three-dimensional nature of architectural space. In the Bye House I was interested in in the poetics of architecture, in that which only the architect can give. Everyone else can give everything else, but it’s the one thing they can’t give that interests me. I’m not an ambiguous architect; I deal with fabrications, with clarities … The painter starts with the real world and works toward abstraction, and when he’s finished with a work it is abstracted from the so-called real world. But architecture takes two lines. The architect starts with the abstract world, and due to the nature of his work, works toward the real world. The significant architect is one who, when finished with a work, is as close to that original abstraction as he could possibly be.20

Pessimism of the Bye House The “Wall House” period (1968–1974) represents a profound shift in Hejduk’s work. These years were “explosive” in the development of the work.21 Hejduk began using color extensively as a means to define individual characteristics to the components that formed the compositions of his work. His interest in the color palettes used by Ingres, Botticelli, Sassetta, Hopper and Le Corbusier deepened in his attempt to use color to express a “mood” within his work.22 His revelation of the spatial undertones he felt when visiting Corbusier’s Villa La Roche was reinforced in the subdued tonality of color he saw and this changed Hejduk’s life.23 Hejduk saw Ingres’s “Comtesse d’Haussonville” painting in the three-dimensional tonal flatness he observed at Villa La Roche.24 This revelation became a departure point to further reflect on his need to “feel out” work from a poetic, thought-­ provoking pedagogical underpinning. Hejduk was always fascinated by the simplicity, directness and the isolation of parts observed in American architecture, especially the architecture of New England. The forms are simple and the colors typically are muted. Hejduk observed that some of the houses were painted black giving them a mysterious undertone.25 He wanted to capture the mysteriousness of the New England houses in his own work. Hejduk viewed the architectural work of the modern movement primarily as a search for openness, light and the interlocking of space. Hejduk viewed this direction in design as a movement

56  Pedagogy of the Wall House of optimism. But, with a phenomenological poetic underpinning in his work, Hejduk was searching for an alternate to European modernism. In the 20’s and 30’s there was a general “program” of optimism; this produced “the program architecture of optimism”. It was an optimism that had no counterforce.26 Hejduk was interested in peeling back the optimism of the modern movement to search for a deeper understanding of the nature of “program” in architectural propositions. The “architecture of optimism” from the 1920s and 1930s was a very European, utopian view of architecture. Hejduk wanted to develop an architecture that was deeply rooted in an American tradition. It was very utopian – a light-filled, optimistic view of the future. Now, there is another tradition, which I would say is a particularly American phenomenon. Where European architecture and urban space were always interlocking … the “American phenomenon” had to do with a breaking down into units, into objects. For me the question is, how do you get the rich ambiguities present in the architecture produced within the European condition into an architecture of separation and isolation? What fascinated me in American architecture, especially in the architecture of New England houses, is the way they are stock and they are elemental, but they are also mysterious  …  they are austere  …  an austerity that is inexplicable  …  they look so very simple, very direct, very elemental, but on a second look there’s something else going on, and that’s what interests me.27 The Bye House demonstrates Hejduk’s interest in the American phenomenon of spatial isolation. He was fascinated with the story line or narrative associated with the “widows walk” found in the seaside houses of New England.28 It is in the nature of narrative that Hejduk used to conceptually define a new direction in his work. He coined the term “Architecture of Pessimism”29 to describe his interest in looking deeper into the nature and perceptions of architectural space and program. Within the isolated parts of the construct of the Bye House there is an otherness to the spatial collective of the design. There is an undertone within the work pursuing a descriptive narrative to the functionality of the house. The use of narrative would reshape and become a dominant principle underpinning much of Hejduk’s work from 1974 forward. The Bye House becomes the bridge between Hejduk’s exorcising of cubism and his first attempts to clarify his idea of synthesizing spatial ambiguity into “architecture of separation and isolation”. Hejduk stated: My intellect is drawn to Europe. But, my tactile sensibilities are American. The mystery in the work is that they have a deep, intellectual bent, cerebral of a European nature, yet they are presented as isolated parts

Pedagogy of the Wall House  57 in an American manner. Certainly they are not European; they are not Cubism … nor DeStijl … yet they owe something to that, nor are they pure American apple pie.30 In Chapter 4 an in-depth discussion of the undertones found in Hejduk’s written narratives will analyze his ideas that underpin the Architectural Masque theme that pervades much of his work from the late 1970s into the 1990s. Hejduk’s preoccupation with the notion that an underlying mystery, mood and spirit can be found in architectural propositions was exorcised in his Masque investigations. The origin of his thinking can be traced back to his fascination with the austerity of the architecture of early colonial New England. The stories and mysteries that may linger within our imagination surrounding these simple structures were expanded by Hejduk to explore a new set of narratives defining the programmatic undertone of his design propositions for two decades.

The Wall Houses: a historical primer The following text will provide a historical backdrop providing a plausible precursor to John Hejduk’s Wall House investigation phase. Hejduk’s Wall Houses were developed at a time, 1968–1974, when there was a pivotal shift occurring in the design community’s view of the typological complexities of form and space. The shift is evident in what seemed to be a newfound appreciation for the tenets of modernism. But, the “isms” within the modern movement would include purism, expressionism, rationalism, constructivism, functionalism, brutalism and others.31 A historical view of the placement of Hejduk’s Wall Houses is identified by Kenneth Frampton as that of being “polemical projects” positioned within the work of “Neo-Avant-Gardism”.32 The Wall Houses, in my view, can be loosely fitted into modernism as a sub-movement of “expressionism”. The work is too specific in addressing certain polemics and Hejduk’s methodology of “exorcising” thoughts in his work owes more to a personal expressionism of form and space than to a group within a larger circle of avant-garde elites. During the years 1968– 1974, there was also a societal shift occurring throughout the United States and beyond. Collectively it was known as “The Sixties”. There was societal unrest, the Vietnam War, the Countercultural Revolution, the rise of Feminism, pivotal shifts in Civil Rights and there was a young generation of artists, architects, writers, musicians and film makers searching for clarity and meaning in their respective works with a chaotic world in turmoil as a backdrop. I feel that Hejduk’s Wall Houses were a product as part of that shift in societal mores. The Bye House, in particular, marked a transition in Hejduk’s work to search for a deeper poetic understanding of form and space. The freedoms found and experimentations made during the tumultuous Sixties prompted Hejduk to look deeper into his work to express an architecture underpinned by the experiential nature of space, time and form.

58  Pedagogy of the Wall House Posited below are brief discussions regarding cubism, transparency and phenomenology. In a very real sense, these topics are interrelated one with the other and are present within Hejduk’s body of work. It is inescapable to develop a discussion of these topics without including aspects of each, but an attempt has been made to create a distinction to provide a standalone pedagogical relationship to Hejduk’s work from each respective topic. It is hoped that a deeper understanding into the nature of Hejduk’s investigations can be achieved through the contemplation of the discussion topics that follow.

Cubism The geometric language explored by Hejduk was a by-product of his search for formal correctness that became evident only after his designs were completed. The syntactical use of geometry within Hejduk’s design investigations includes the representations and resolutions of the systematic use of structure, materiality and form. These systems provided clarity to Hejduk’s spatial constructs which, in turn, provided a syntactical geometric formality to his designs. The geometric syntax offered by Analytic Cubism can be observed in the depth of Hejduk’s geometric exorcisms. The Cubist architects of the early modern era used Cubist space to further their notions of the art of spatial definition by infusing into their work qualities of light, structure and the layering of volumes to enhance the three-dimensionality of spatial experience. There was clarity of geometric intention by these architects, not a syntactical by-product observed after the completion of the work. Although, due to the unforeseen “otherness” to the nature of Cubist space designed by the modern’s, the full depth of the experiential nature of the spaces was not known until the work was occupied. This is certainly evident in Le Corbusier’s Villa La Roche (1923–1925), Villa Savoye (1928–1931) and in Rietveld’s Schröder House (1924). These houses are exemplars of the tenets found in the original geometric “Analytical Cubism” first seen in the works of Picasso and Braque. The pedagogical case study analysis previously discussed in the “Pessimism of the Bye House” text above shows the importance Hejduk put on being deliberate in establishing a language to his design investigations. As Hejduk’s interest in the tenets of “Analytical” and “Synthetic” Cubism was translated into his design work it prompted him to search for a deeper understanding of form and space. His search was not to define a geometric Cubist language within a singular spatial construct as evidenced in the Villas by Corbusier, but rather to discover a redefinition of how cubism can be reinterpreted to define a new formal language of architectural order. Hejduk’s Bye House becomes more than a study of a spatial language of geometric assembly, although, there is a refinement to the geometric compositional nature of the house. The tenets of Analytical Cubism uses geometric composition to reinterpret spatial positioning of objects and form within a geometric context and in the Bye House Hejduk uses the spatial positioning of geometric constructs to define a new syntax of formal interrelationships. In Hejduk’s case his reinterpretation had

Pedagogy of the Wall House  59 to do with a rediscovery of the syntactical geometry of “time-space” and a redefinition of how we perceive the programmatic relationships of function. The use of Cubism in the geometry of an architectural language can inform and deepen the understanding of the inherent interrelationships found between structure, form and the enclosure of space. In the end, Hejduk’s language of cubism is not found in the formalisms of his spatial geometry, but rather in the perceptions and experiences one has with form and spatial experience. Unlike the physical flatness of the artists’ canvas, for Hejduk, the ontology of architecture is found in the underlying meanings within the depth of space. Dimensions alone do not create the space; rather the space is a quality bound up in perception … Space is the essential medium of architecture. Space is simultaneously many things – the voids in architecture, the space around architecture, the vast space of landscape and city space, intergalactic spaces of the universe. Space is something both intrinsic and relational.33

Transparency Transparency in architecture can be expressed through physical and phenomenological attributes. John Hejduk used qualities of physical transparency to modulate expressions of natural and ambient light sources into his designs to reinforce opacities of spatial depth, but this use of transparency should be understood through the intentional underpinning of how and why Hejduk used transparencies in his work. The sense of opacity of an object or space transforms one’s perception of the intrinsic physical properties of the materiality of transparency. The multiplicity of uses of the transparent opacities of glass reveals alternate perceptions of spatial context. The transparency of glass can reveal clarity of form and detail, as well as, reflectivity; but the opacity and density of glass can also provide luminosity and/or a sense of porosity to form and space through the opaqueness of translucency. The less opaque an object or space becomes; the more transparent it is until it defines the spatial condition of void. Void spaces do not inherently contain materiality, but they may reinforce hierarchical qualities of spatial transition. John Hejduk felt that his contribution to architecture may be centered on the use of void spaces. And there’s something else. All my projects have voided centers … Maybe my contribution to architecture is the voided center. That’s a real physical condition.34 Alternatively, the definition of the materiality of a transparent object or space transforming towards opaqueness defines the gradations of translucency. The gradient continues until the opacity of an object or space becomes fully absorbed as opaque, defining the material presence of the solidity of mass.

60  Pedagogy of the Wall House While the construct of Hejduk’s Bye House does not have a “voided center”, its opaque assembly becomes a set of figurative metaphysical representations. As previously discussed the “Wall” posited in the Bye House design creates presence and density. The Wall is directly juxtaposed against the transparency of physical separation between the program functions of the house defined by vertical transparent glass walls, as if to signal to the occupant that the “void” spaces are only interconnected to the construct of the house through the spatial experience of internal passage. Additionally the vertical transparencies (window walls) separating the functions of the house are juxtaposed in the composition as horizontal voids between the massing of the house functions as seen against the Wall from the exterior. The  geometric composition of the Bye House is spatially interlocked vertically and horizontally through Hejduk’s use of the positive and negative physical conditions of transparency. Thus, the deliberate infusion of the phenomenological nature of time-space experience in the Bye House is brought into the equation of the physical construct through the use of transparency. We can extract from the Bye House the theme of transparency which provided him with a freedom to explore the nature of spatial intention to reinforce the poetics that underpin the work.

Phenomenology Architectural phenomenology can be defined through perceptions of spatial experiences within our consciousness as explored in the writings of Edmund Husserl and others. Hejduk used the phenomenology of spatial perception as a philosophical underpinning that deepened his investigations. Although, it must be noted that Hejduk did not consciously develop his designs from a particular philosophical departure.35 In Sigfried Gideon’s 1941 book, Space, Time and Architecture, Gideon proposed that the non-perspectival spatial compositions of Picasso’s painting, “L’Arslesienne” from 1921 and Walter Gropius’s workshop wing at the Bauhaus from 1925–1926 defined a new perception of space, marked by planarity, transparency and multiple viewpoints.36 This groundbreaking proposition by Gideon ushered in the modern analysis of “Analytical Cubism” in architecture. By definition, cubism in architecture exhibits spatial phenomenology. The layering of transparent planes and the interrelationships of volumes in space alters one’s perception of spatial context. In a global sense, the phenomenology of spatial perception in architectural design engenders the poetics discovered in spatial constructs. The poetics of space becomes one of the primary tenets of John Hejduk’s Wall House investigations. It can be stated that there is a direct correlation between the phenomenological otherness exhibited in the compositional nature of Hejduk’s Wall Houses and the poetics of form and space commonly attributed to Hejduk’s work. The Bye House embodies the phenomenological perception of space espoused by Gideon in his 1941 book, as well as, philosophical

Pedagogy of the Wall House  61 writers on phenomenology; including, Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, G.W.F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and others.37 The task of providing pedagogical positions by the afore mentioned intellectuals is too complex and deep for the current discussion, but suffice it to say that the ontological meaning and our understanding of the questions posed by these great thinkers, such as, “a State of Being”, “Time-Space”, “Phenomenology of Spirit”, “Existentialism”, “Structuralism”, “The Limits of Phenomenology”, “The Deconstruction of Space”, “The Poetics of Space”; these are philosophical questions without simple explanation, but, in my view, did inform the creative spirit of John Hejduk to engender a deeper understanding the role spatial perception played in the development of his architectural exorcisms. As our technological means multiply, are we growing – or becoming stunted – perceptually? We live our lives in constructed spaces, surrounded by physical objects. But, born into this world of things, are we able to experience fully the phenomena of their interrelation, to derive joy from our perceptions?38 Hejduk’s study of time-space experience through the geometric analysis of the diamond-perspective hypotenuse created the Wall House archetype. The perception of space represented as a compression of time within the isolation of spatial experiences in the Wall Houses certainly engenders the phenomenology of spatial perception. Hejduk’s exploration of the separations and isolations of space would lead him to question the nature of architectural representation. In memorable experiences of architecture, space matter and time fuse into one single dimension, into the basic substance of being, that penetrates the consciousness. We identify ourselves with this space, this place, this moment and these dimensions as they become ingredients of our very existence. Architecture is the art of meditation and reconciliation.39 Hejduk looked deeper into the use and meanings imbued within the phenomenological nature of structure, light, materiality, form and space. Like Hejduk, architects Steven Holl, Peter Zumthor and others also use common materials to transform thoughts of space into material form defined to engender the phenomenology of the poetics of spatial perception. In describing the potentiality of the use of water in architecture, Holl stated: An attention to phenomenal properties of the transformation of light through material can present poetic tools for making spaces of exhilarating perceptions. Refraction phenomena produce a particular magic in architecture that is adjacent to or incorporates water.40

62  Pedagogy of the Wall House

Figure 3.6  Nelson Atkins Museum Addition Kansas City, MO, Steven Holl Architects, 2007, image courtesy of © Timothy Hursley, Photographer.

The perceptions we have of spatial constructs is inevitable in the nature of architecture. Hejduk and Holl have explored the human condition of perception to inform their ideas and the physical construct of their architecture. Human perception is intensified when spatial experience fills the senses with anticipation. The human condition of spatial perception naturally searches for balance, equilibrium and connectivity to our surroundings. Our imagination triggers an emotional internal attachment with our environment when we are confronted with spatial balance. Hejduk was a master at using the metaphysics of form and space to trigger the phenomenology within our imaginations. John Hejduk’s Bye House is an exemplary representation of the use of phenomenology to effect spatial perception. When discussing the phenomenology of architecture architect and close friend of John Hejduk, Juhani Pallasmaa wrote: Why do so very few modern buildings appeal to our feelings, when almost any anonymous house in an old town or the most unpretentious farm outbuilding gives us a sense of familiarity and pleasure? Why is it that the stone foundations we discover in an overgrown meadow, a

Pedagogy of the Wall House  63 broken-down barn or an abandoned boathouse can arouse our imagination, while our own houses see to stifle and smother our daydreams … A house is a metaphysical instrument, a mythical tool with which we try to introduce a reflection of eternity into our momentary existence.41

Pessimism reveals optimism John Hejduk’s Wall Houses, the Bye House in particular, reminds us of the power found in the phenomenology of spatial constructs. Hejduk “exorcised” the remnants of the apparition’s of cubism he pondered in his Diamond Houses and moved away from his pursuit of the tectonics of the constructs of form and space to exorcise questions dissecting the nature of the perception of architectural constructs. Along his path of perceptual discovery Hejduk developed a physical manifestation to the sense of otherness that is evident in the propositions of his Wall Houses. The discoveries infused in the Bye House ultimately provided him with the foundational bridge to ponder deeper questions about why we build and how we perceive architectural form. Hejduk’s Wall Houses led him towards an exploration of “pessimism” in architectural form and space. He viewed “pessimism” as the counterforce needed to challenge accepted practices of modernism. Hejduk set his sights to redefine the essence of the programming of architectural space and to look beneath what he intuited as the malaise and banality of the universal optimism proposed by modern architecture that will be discussed in Chapter 4. In the Bye House I was interested in the poetics of architecture, in that which only the architect can give. Everyone else can give everything else, but it’s the one thing they can’t give that interests me.42 The deeper he excavated within his mind and soul while exploring the Wall House archetype; he began to create new architectural worlds to be discovered. The new territories of discovery he uncovered in the exorcism of the Wall Houses would progress into Hejduk’s propositions of the Architectural Masque as a means to challenge the status quo of architectural design practice. The Bye House gained national and international prominence during the 1970s and provided Hejduk with a world stage to espouse the promise of a “pessimism” that would define a new “ism” in the historicity of modern architecture. The pessimism exhibited by Hejduk in the Bye House was not in the end a pessimistic view of the modern world, but rather a new optimism shedding light towards a contemplative new order of architectural expression and the perceptions of form and space.

Notes 1 Assimilation of thoughts based on Hejduk quotes, John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985), p. 36.

64  Pedagogy of the Wall House 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Hejduk was introduced to the Christian faith as a child growing up in the Bronx. Hejduk was raised in the Catholic Church. As an adult Hejduk never attended mass according to Gloria Hejduk, but this author speculates that Hejduk maintained adeep spirituality throughout his life. 5 Blau, Eve and Troy, Nancy J., editors. Architecture and Cubism (Cambridge, MA, and London, UK, MIT Press, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 2002), pp. 2,3. 6 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 76. 7 Assimilation of thoughts on the general characteristics of Analytical Cubism taken from Edmund Burke Feldman, Varieties of Visual Experience (New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1967), pp. 25, 44, 45, 161. 8 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p.67. 9 Weiling He, doctoral dissertation, “Flatness Transformed and Otherness Embodied” (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005), p. 196. 10 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p.63. 11 Thoughts assimilated by this author from Branko Mitrovic, Philosophy for Architects (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011), pp. 49–54. 12 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p.63. 13 Author’s interpretation based on Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 59. 14 Thoughts derived from John Hejduk, “Introduction to the Diamond Catalog” and “Recession of Time”, Mask of Medusa, pp. 48–50. 15 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p.62 16 Author’s assimilation of thoughts derived from these various sources as to the nature of the perceptions of space, time, poetics and deconstruction of thought with regard to the spatial constructs of John Hejduk. 17 These authors are quoted throughout and repeatedly referenced by Hejduk throughout his book Mask of Medusa. 18 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 53. 19 John Hejduk, “Introduction”, in Judith Turner, Judith Turner Photographs: Five Architects (New York, Rizzoli, 1980), p. 10. 20 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p.67. 21 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p.59. 22 Ibid., p. 91. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., p.76. 25 Ibid., pp. 90, 91. 26 Ibid., p. 90. 27 Ibid. 28 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 90. 29 This phrasing was used by Hejduk in his interview with Don Wall for the book Mask of Medusa notably in “Frame 7” where Hejduk discusses the nature of his work from 1979 to 1983. 30 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 53. 31 Historical accounting of the “isms” of architecture taken from Jeremy Melvin, Isms: Understanding Architectural Styles (New York, Universe, 2006), pp. 98–118. 32 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (New York, Thames & Hudson, Fourth Edition, 2007), p. 311. 33 Steven Holl quotes, from his book Parallax (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000) pp. 22, 31. 34 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 131. 35 Thoughts by Jesse Reiser included as part of the Epilogue at the end of this book. 36 Blau and Troy, Architecture and Cubism, p. 1.

Pedagogy of the Wall House  65 37 Intellectuals that espoused the notion of phenomenology to better understand the nature of being in the world. 38 Steven Holl quote discussing the phenomenology of architecture from Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Perez-Gomez, Questions of Perception (San Francisco, CA, William Stout Publishers, 2006), p. 40. 39 Juhani Pallasmaa quote discussing “An Architecture of the Seven Senses” from Holl, Pallasmaa and Perez-Gomez, Questions of Perception, p. 37. 40 Steven Holl quote discussing “Water: A Phenomenal Lens” from Holl, Pallasmaa and PerezGomez, Questions of Perception, p. 83. 41 Quotes taken from Juhani Pallasmaa’s article “The Geometry of Feeling, a Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture”, Skala: Nordic Journal of Architecture and Art, 4 (June 1986), pp. 22–25. 42 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 67.

4 Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque Exorcising apparitions, Part 2

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. Michelangelo The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; the sculptor’s hand can only break the spell to free the figures slumbering in the stone. Michelangelo

During the mid 1970s John Hejduk began to focus on a redefinition of the meaning associated with the term “architectural program”. He redirected the association of architectural programming from a rationalist point of departure that minimized the ambiguity found in spatial interpretation in deference to a methodology of programming and planning that investigated the intrinsic nature of form and space. Hejduk’s exorcism of program(s) explored the complexities and undertones evident in the human condition to express an “architecture of pessimism” defined through his Architectural Masques.1 The modern understanding and use of the architectural program, used by most modern architects delineated a rational analysis between the relationships of specific functional and spatial criteria, explored primarily through two-dimensional “bubble” relationship planning diagrams, a listing of spaces, known as a “space program” and a variety of matrices depicting any number of perceived programmatic interrelationships that could and should be documented. This scientific rational approach to architectural design was used to provide the architect with an analysis of data to find purpose and hierarchical interrelationships between various components that make up the complexities of a building design problem. In 1969, William Pena, while working at the architectural firm CRS in Houston, wrote his definitive book, Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer, which is currently in its 5th edition, published in 2012. This book became the standard for architectural programming taught in architectural schools in the United States during the 1970s and beyond. The pragmatics of this

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  67 analytical approach to design became, for most architects, a problem-solving technique to derive an objective functional solution to the design goals outlined by a given problem. This approach was widespread throughout architectural firms during the 1970s and this methodology and its derivatives are still widely used in the practice of architecture. This method of architectural problem definition and programming provides a valid approach to architectural problem solving and is very helpful in quantifying the intricacies of complex design criteria. One goal of this methodology is to provide a universal and verifiable approach to architectural planning and programming. One can draw a comparative similarity between the universality espoused by the analytical methods found in William Pena’s “problem seeking” programming methodology and the rational utopian “optimism” espoused by the European modern architects of the early 20th century. The early European moderns viewed their approach to design as a promise towards a rational and universal methodology to define their view of design and optimism for the future of architecture. As a result, many contemporary architectural solutions have been historically informed, in large part, by the sterile rationalism offered by quantifiable programmatic and planning methods adopted by architects beginning in the 1970s. John Hejduk sought to bring into the narrative of architectural discourse the spirit, mood and undertone in the making of space and place. Hejduk was interested in the human response to architecture. His focus required a new method, a pedagogy that reinterpreted the meaning of “architectural program” to discover the undertone and what is unrevealed within an architectural proposition. The Masques have to do with a search for new, authentic programs; I’m looking for programs that are “Authentic”. The Masque is new. It’s metallic  …  It’s ionization or stellarization  …  it’s a metalizing of the universe … if I look at the stars, they look like light, but if I touched them, they’d be metal … The work as it is conceived, is very primitive in its construction … So what’s moving in is a Medieval … Surrealism.2 Hejduk’s redefinition and use of the “architectural program” transforms the modern notion of the pragmatic rationalism of architectural problem solving. His pedagogical shift in thinking about the meaning and use of “program” used three-dimensional architectural imagery re-presented through drawings, models, literature, poetry, narrative and storytelling, in lieu of two-dimensional abstract programmatic diagrams, as used in traditional programming methods, to frame his design solutions. Hejduk felt-out an artistic and poetic narrative to drive the programmatic meaning in his work as evidenced especially in his Masque projects. The narratives used by Hejduk defined a new programmatic methodology for him to explore and exorcise his pessimism of modern European architecture to unearth a spirit and mood that could be used to define a programmatic authenticity engendering a truly American architecture differentiated from the European

68  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque model.3 John Hejduk is arguably the most important poet-architect of the late 20th century. His architectural interests during the late 1970s through the 1980s represents a decade devoted to creating a counterforce to modern architecture that Hejduk referenced as “a very utopian, light-filled, optimistic view of the future”4 and a counterforce to the banality he viewed as being offered by the postmodern era of architectural design beginning in the 1970s.5 During the 1980s Hejduk was no longer interested in the design of a singular structure per se. His concentration focused on design narratives to explore the nature of a new architectural language. Hejduk’s vocabulary of work defined a collective of structures with differing architectural formalities, but was always tied to a common narrative language. His language, as explored in the Masque projects defined new worlds of form and program for us to contemplate. This chapter encompasses three objectives: provide an interpretative analysis of several key Hejduk Architectural Masque projects as a departure to understand his pessimistic view of the world around him, provide an insight to Hejduk’s use of the Architectural Masque to define his search for an authentic American architecture and to explore the roles the Architectural Diagram and Narrative provided Hejduk in the development of his architectural pursuits.

Exorcising apparitions of the Masque The architectural language offered by the Masque theme in John Hejduk’s work beginning in the late 1970s represents a significant shift in the formality of the architectural solutions proposed by Hejduk. Exemplars of his Architectural Masque projects include, “The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio” (1979), “New England Masque” (1979) and “Berlin Masque” (1981). The merits of these projects will be discussed in this chapter, but it is important to first identify the conceptual underpinning that led Hejduk to produce work that explored the otherness engendered through his use of allegory, metaphor and socio-political commentary as presented in the Masque projects listed above. Hejduk’s journey of self-discovery to exorcise the Architectural Masque theme can be traced to two primary sources in his early work that establish the conceptual underpinning of Hejduk’s feeling-out of the Masque concept. The two sources are: The Aesop’s Fables illustrations created in 1947 and the “Lockhart, Texas” essay written in 1955–1956. These sources clearly establish Hejduk’s need to engage the reductive process he attributes in his investigations. The Aesop’s Fables required Hejduk to graphically express the tenets of a written narrative through the storytelling of his pictorial illustrations. The “Lockhart, Texas” essay required Hejduk to use a written narrative to feel-out his thoughts and search for the undertones, spirit and mood he and Colin Rowe observed in the physical construct of the town of Lockhart, Texas. In both works (illustrations and essay) Hejduk exorcised the first principles he unearthed through his pedagogical probing. Hejduk’s process allowed him to exorcise his feelings and preconceptions of

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  69 his subject to understand the essence of his ideas. Hejduk was known for saying the following regarding his work; “It had to do with time”6 and the work “ … takes on the form of a vocabulary”.7 The Masque theme indeed reinforces these attributes observed by Hejduk. From the standpoint of time, the Masques were developed (felt-out) in his work spanning almost 50 years (1947–1990s), but it was not until the late 1970s that Hejduk consciously became aware of and purposefully used the term “Masque” in defining his investigations. He defined the term as an architecture that has an “undertone”, an architecture that has left something “unrevealed” and an architecture that is “removed from the strict realm of rationalism”.8 The evidence of Hejduk’s use of vocabulary, in an architectural sense, as well as a literary one is pervasive and extensively documented in the body of his work. The larger issue regarding Hejduk’s vocabulary is the transition of how it evolves through his lifelong explorations. Hejduk began his journey through the world of art and painting seen in the imaginary world of the 1947 Aesop’s Fables illustrations and transitioned to a Cartesian exploration of form, space and detail found in the Texas Houses and Diamond Houses (1954–1967) which engendered the poetics of the Wall House period (1967–1974) which opened the door for Hejduk to discover the allegorical imagery and programmatic polemics of the Architectural Masque (1979–1999) and finally, in the end, Hejduk returned to an investigation of imaginary painted images, absent of words, but imbued with mood and spirit in his Enclosures paintings (1999–2000).

Aesop’s Fables: a precursor to the Masque The Masque theme was unknowingly begun by Hejduk in 1947. His allegorical drawings which supported the literary imagery of Joseph Jacobs’s 1889 version of 14 of the Fables of Aesop begins Hejduk’s lifelong search for the mystery and aura associated with his work. Hejduk referred to the mysteriousness as: “that which is unrevealed within the work”. Hejduk executed the illustrations as a 17-year-old Cooper Union Architecture student while in Henrietta Schutz’s two-dimensional design class. Hejduk’s 14 color drawings reproduced in his 1991 Aesop’s Fables book clearly shows his desire to define, through his artwork, a childlike world of fantasy, wonder, freedom from inhibition and universal truths espoused by the storytelling of Aesop. Hejduk’s illustrations are drawn and painted as if they are slices or fragments of time compressed and fixed in space. They are on one hand a simple childlike imaginary pictorial language, but on the other hand the images show the simplicity, depth, form, tone and spatial juxtaposition engendered in modern abstract art. The illustrations, while not cubist in content seem to owe something to the fragmentation, compression of time and space offered by cubism. The compositional quality and tonality of the illustrations seem to borrow from that of Juan Gris and the plasticity of Henri Matisse.

70  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque

The undertone of color Color and tonality used by Hejduk is revealing. The investigations in the Aesop’s paintings were Hejduk’s first introduction to the world of color, form and space.9 He used the discoveries from his first year at Cooper Union to begin a lifelong need to exorcise his ideas.10 Hejduk’s Aesop’s Fables illustrations underscore the powerful influence color and composition would have on him in the years ahead. His use of contrast, tone, color and form in the illustrations show Hejduk’s innate sense of how to use these attributes to evoke a mood and create a spirit within the compositional narrative of his work. His graphic intensions in the illustrations were experimental, simple and direct. He used the Fables illustrations to exorcise his compositional acumen and tactile abilities to better understand how to use color and composition to build a set of characters to tell a story. Although, Hejduk was unaware in 1947 what the impact storytelling would have on his work in the future. I now understand the deep philosophic basis of the material. The earlier works didn’t have this because they were of other issues, other realities. They were all tactile too.11 The lineage of the use of color in Hejduk’s work is very important in understanding the underpinnings of his Architectural Masque projects. Colors exhibited in his work have referential meaning beyond the tactile application and technique of paint or pencil on paper, canvas or physical constructs. The underlying importance of his use of color points to Hejduk’s recognition that color provides a means to express varying degrees of density, opacity and mystery embodied beneath the two-dimensional surfaces of the work. In other words, the use of color provided Hejduk with the tactile tools required to evoke a spatial mood and spirit. Hejduk discussed the power of spatial moods in his descriptions and observations found in the paintings of Ingres, Sassetta, Vermeer and Hopper in particular. Hejduk comments on Hopper’s work as follows: what I find most fascinating at this moment is Edward Hopper. I think Hopper has caught an essentiality … I mean “mood” … he has caught the dread simultaneously with the sensuousness. The dread. There’s a dread in his paintings … I am intrigued by their combination of pessimism and sensuousness.12 The lineage of Hejduk’s color palette begins with his Aesop’s Fables illustrations. He believed we “should look back, not just forward, at the work one has done.”13 He continually reflected on the undertones within his investigations. When reflecting on his work in 1977, Hejduk realized that the color palette he used in the Aesop’s Fables drawings were basically the same three colors he used for the Bye House.14 Regarding the use of color, Hejduk

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  71 stated: “It pops up some thirty years later.”15 This observation is important because Hejduk recognized that the colors of the Bye House were subdued like the interior tonality of Corbusier’s Villa La Roche.16 Hejduk’s Villa La Roche observation is important because he noted that he saw the opaqueness of tonality in Ingres’s 1845 painting Comtesse d’Haussonville within Villa La Roche.17 The tracery of the lineage of color use by Hejduk reveals a direct relationship between the Aesop’s Fables illustrations and the unrevealed undertone within his later work. The conceptual undertones found within his 1947 illustrations would become the forerunner to the narrative of his future Architectural Masque projects, as well as, significantly influencing his last works in 1999–2000. The influence and importance of color in Hejduk’s Last Works will be discussed in Chapter 5. The first project at Cooper Union was … to produce an illustrated book on selected Aesop’s Fables. We worked for one full year on that book. The experience … was of unique importance as a tool for the introduction to architecture  …  We learned how to handle a paint brush, and began the exorcising of one’s innate feelings toward color, form and space … We learned how to add and abstract color. Consequently the training of an architect began. Story telling came later.18 Each of Hejduk’s Aesop’s tempera paint illustrations depicts what seems to be a primitive technique recalling the illustrations of ancient petroglyphs expressing a pictorial narrative. Ancient petroglyphs are thought to be representative of a cultural symbolic language. The depiction of ancient symbols and language is still used today by Native Americans to carry on the indigenous traditions of the historic pottery of Native American Pueblos of the past. The most notable Pueblo pottery today can be observed in the artwork of the Hopi, Acoma, Zuni, Laguna, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso Pueblos and others.19 This modern Native American artwork is homage to the traditions and origins of a symbolic narrative language taken from their past generations. In my view, the symbolic language of Hejduk’s illustrations shares an artistic kinship with that of the artistic imagery found on Native American pottery. His original Aesop’s illustrations captured the pictorial essence of Aesop’s ancient Greek fables, but they are posited through a symbolic artistic language that is arguably comparable to an American origin when seen against the artwork of Native American Indians. This unexpected kinship is postulated as an interesting tangential relationship to the origins of Hejduk’s desire to create an intrinsically American architecture. While Hejduk’s illustrations were not influenced by the artwork found on Native American pottery, the symbolic imagery Hejduk utilizes offers a compelling similarity. But, Gloria Hejduk has a different view of the cultural relationships found in the illustrations as evidenced in her thought below. John came from a Slavic background and his Aesop’s Fables illustrations somehow were innately related to Slavic traditions.20

72  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque The work of Wassily Kandinsky from the 1920s shows another possible relationship to Hejduk’s Aesop’s illustrations. An Eastern Slavic background is evident in Kandinsky’s work and this kinship may indeed have influenced Hejduk’s thinking as Gloria Hejduk stated. It is difficult to determine the actual origins of his inspiration for the compositional forms and his use of color in the illustrations, but they mark a significant point in time that established the beginning of his lifelong pursuit to refine his artistic representations. The conjecture in the discussion of the Aesop’s Fables illustrations above reveals a key component to the origins of the conceptual underpinning of Hejduk’s Architectural Masque drawings. But the origin is only clear through a historical lens. The Aesop’s illustrations become a precursor to the quality of mood, spirit and socio-political commentary posited within the Masque projects. Hejduk’s illustrations express a pictorial language of storytelling and they provide an insight into the beginning of Hejduk’s process of exorcising the pedagogy of undertone and unrevealed characteristics that are emblematic in his later work.

Figure 4.1  The Ant and the Grasshopper From Aesop’s Fables illustrations, John Hejduk, 1947, courtesy of the Estate of John Q. Hejduk, digital image by J. Kevin Story.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  73

Soundings from the Masque of Lockhart As mentioned in a previous quote by Hejduk referring to his first year at Cooper Union, he stated: “story telling came later”21 Hejduk recalled that his early focus at Cooper Union was primarily to learn and absorb the tactile mechanics of basic design technique. The origin of Hejduk’s characteristic storytelling and Architectural Masque theme, while unknown to Hejduk at the time, can be traced back to his Texas experiences and specifically in the essay “Lockhart, Texas” published in Architectural Record magazine, March 1957 issue. As a continuation of the discussion of the “Lockhart” essay in Chapter 1 as an important influence in the formation of Hejduk’s work, the following interpretations of the essay references themes used by Colin Rowe and Hejduk that influenced the conceptual underpinnings of his future Masque projects. It is important to point out that Rowe is credited with writing the essay and the photographs included in the original essay were taken by Hejduk. While Rowe authored the essay it should be noted that Hejduk was influential in the thematic nature of the writing, as well as likely influential in specific metaphorical and poetic references observed in the work.22 Therefore, the following analysis identifies Hejduk as the co-author of key concepts observed in the essay themes discussed below. There are four primary themes used by Hejduk and Rowe in the “Lockhart” essay that directly relate to Hejduk’s use of the Masque theme 25 years later. These themes are the use of metaphor, socio-political commentary, poetic prose and allegory. It is a guileless architecture which, because innocent, is often apparently venerable; and which, because one may believe it to be uncorrupted, is sometimes curiously eloquent. (“Lockhart, Texas” essay23)

Metaphor, socio-political commentary, poetic prose and allegory Hejduk and Rowe use metaphor in the “Lockhart” essay as a means to define certain physically recognizable attributes of American towns of the West and the American landscape. The metaphorical references include seeing the “western landscape as an emptiness” and having the “negation of picturesque effect”. They envisioned the American towns of the West as “potent symbols of urbanity” and “comprehensive monuments of an heroic age”. The archetype of small American courthouse towns are described as “like architectural illustrations of a political principle”, “emblems of a political theory” and “foyers of a republican ceremonial”. The town of Lockhart metaphorically becomes a “ship seen in mid-ocean”.24 The mythical character named the “Master of Lockhart” which, metaphorically, is an unseen force

74  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque like that of the Great Oz that controlled the creation of Lockhart. The Master of Lockhart is a metaphor for a socio-political figure, as well as the soul of Lockhart; representing the citizenry that inhabit the town. During visits to Lockhart in 1955–1956, while forming their ideas for the essay, Hejduk and Rowe met the architect who designed the town’s courthouse building and they were very impressed by him. He was 91 years old at the time of their visits. The architect that designed Lockhart’s courthouse influenced the creation of the personality in the essay known as the “Master of Lockhart”.25 and standing between them, their intrinsic reasonableness, their authenticity, their unsophisticated strength, even their obvious weakness cause one automatically to presume the existence of some artistic personality, some architect, or more probably  …  some builder. This personality rapidly takes shape  …  a master builder, a Master of Lockhart  …  The Master of Lockhart resists formulation as a myth. Indeed, was there one or were there several Masters?26 Rowe and Hejduk discussed the town buildings as a set of characters with personality, including the Vogel Block, the Joe Masur Building and St. Mary’s Church. The building personalities are defined through the constructed materiality and detailing of their massing. The Joe Masur Building is described in decidedly masculine terms as follows: There, subordinated to a controlling grid of stringcourses and pilasters, in simplified, almost abstracted, form, arches and all acceptable components of a classical design are fused into a single statement of surprising intensity.27 These structures are only tangentially related to the position of the town square and not described through interior spatial volumes as evidenced in Hejduk’s Texas Houses, but rather as architectural models with surface characteristics as if they are left over iconic statuary from antiquity. The themes embedded in the narrative of the Lockhart essay became fully developed in Hejduk’s work in later years. His Masques would be developed around a narrative describing the physical, spatial and experiential qualities of the designs. Examples of narrative posited in Hejduk’s later work include the Texas Houses, the Wall Houses, the Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio, the Victims Project and others. The Berlin Masque uses narrative to redefine the notion of the programmatic make-up of what constitutes a small town. Berlin Masque has no actual town center or grid of streets, but as in Lockhart, it represents the spirit of a small town redefined by the figural buildings that become the citizens that occupy its implied center. The idealized cultural meanings found in Lockhart and Berlin Masque has the potential to exist in the imagination of the observer. To ponder the questions of the relationship buildings have with the “masks” we clothe them in opens the possibility to

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  75 look at architectural aesthetics anew. As Hans Frei points out in his essay titled “The Master of Lockhart (Texas)”, Rowe and Hejduk postulate in the essay with their statement “the eye which is willing to see” as reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s statement “eyes which do not see” in the 1922 book Towards a New Architecture.28 Frei states: What was originally a reminder for blind academics is here [in the Lockhart essay] a call to the cultural elite, to see architecture and urbanism as abstract tools anew.29 Lessons found in both Lockhart and Berlin Masque opens a door towards a redefinition of the intrinsic values of architectural expression. In the Berlin Masque Hejduk builds a world for a collection of characters that are set apart in the landscape presumably caught in time not unlike a scene from Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone or possibly a slice of everyday life as seen in an agrarian medieval village. The use of “town programming” as redefined by Hejduk in Berlin Masque is a direct linkage to the cast of characters so eloquently described within the body of the “Lockhart, Texas” essay. In the Berlin Masque Hejduk creates a phenomenological mirror as socio-political commentary for us to ponder and rediscover the nature of cohabitation and architecture of intrinsic meanings instead of the thinness offered by the decorative filigree of a veil only skin deep. Rowe and Hejduk use poetic prose to describe the ambiance, mood and organization of Lockhart. Their descriptions of Lockhart define an otherworldly place, seemingly devoid of people, but rather populated only by the citizenry of the town buildings. The buildings become masks or facades that provide a public face to the observer, but these Masques cloak the interior tensions, struggles and history that lay beneath their outer shells. The ambiguity between the exterior imagery projected by an edifice and the interior richness found underneath the exterior facades (masks) presented in the Lockhart essay becomes emblematic in Hejduk’s later Architectural Masque projects. In the Lockhart essay the town buildings became a set of characters orchestrated to define a mood and ambiance to the town. An example is Lockhart’s Town Jail. The essay illustrates the socio-political undertone of Lockhart as follows: A toy fort, brick and machicolated; partly Romanesque and partly Italianate, evidently a jail, its disarming self-assurance sets the mood for the entire town.30 The buildings at some level are representative of the citizenry that make up the town of Lockhart. It is interesting that Rowe and Hejduk describe the Lockhart courthouse as “aggressive” and the jail as “a tiny fort”. The jailhouse is described as having a “dis-arming self-assurance that sets the mood for the entire town”. The governmental buildings are described as

76  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque personalities as stated above, but they are also defined in a foreboding tone as if they characterize the term “us against them”. It is interesting that the buildings used for commerce and worship are described with figural personalities as if Rowe and Hejduk were describing the materiality of the buildings as clothing the buildings wear. For example, the essay describes St. Mary’s Church in exquisite detail and the text seems to even reference the church with feminine characteristics. a building of orange brickwork relieved by brick of a yellow or deeper red and occasionally checkered, as for instance, in the tower, with a pattern of greenish gray headers … its details are less ambiguous and more delicate, its modeling confident and distinguished, and its Gothic both lyrical and strangely firm.31 If the “jail building” sets the mood for the town, Rowe and Hejduk used St. Mary’s Church to define another type of poetic undertone in Lockhart. “this diminutive monument of unassuming piety … which poses a sober curiosity.”32 There is an undeniable metaphorical irony to the feminine overtones of the description of St. Mary’s Church structure. The building has a female name, as differentiated from the masculine description of the Joe Masur Building, but the feminine detail of St. Mary’s is metaphorically more meaningful as the biblical description of the “Church” as Jesus’s “Bride”. It is also important to note a metaphorical and socio-political relationship of the physical location of St. Mary’s. The essay describes the location of the church as being furthest away from the central square of Lockhart, as if to say, the act of worship requires a seeking out of one’s faith. To find the right path in life it requires a search which is not always immediately revealed. A discovery made after moving away from ones self-­ centeredness. In Hejduk’s language one could say it is an “exorcising” of our human frailties and shortcomings. A socio-political reference to St. Mary’s is easier to observe. The remote position of the church, relative to the town center (the courthouse) is a direct observation of the notion of the separation between Church and State. One can intuit that within the small town of Lockhart there exists a microcosm of Americana found within the “grid work” of the town. John Hejduk used the term “Master of Lockhart” in his poem titled “Texas (1954)”. In this poem Hejduk describes the master of Lockhart as turning “ninety-six today”. Also in this poem are references to Hejduk’s relationship to Colin Rowe. In the poem Hejduk talks about the “Town Planner” (Rowe) and how he (Rowe) has intruded on Hejduk and his wife Gloria’s relationship. The poem states: She really loves me But that damn Town Planner Is in the way.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  77 This phrasing in the poem is directly related to Gloria Hejduk’s recollections of John Hejduk and Colin Rowe spending hours in deep conversations at their house until the “scotch was gone”. The “Texas (1954)” poem is a collage of eclectic images defining Hejduk’s newfound experience of the Texas landscape and small town southern psyche. Hejduk and Rowe’s view of Lockhart as a place of eclectic charm is evidenced in their essay as follows: They are structures which personally one finds deeply satisfying; yet, with any conviction, one cannot attribute to their designer a developed or a c­onscious aesthetic intention  …  Seen dispassionately, these buildings are utilitarian structures casually enlivened by an elementary ­eclectic symbolism. Hejduk’s fascination with small town America began as a student at Harvard where he would visit small New England towns.33 He was especially enamored by the community church located at the center of these idyllic picturesque small towns. Hejduk’s pursuit of an authentic American architecture began with the Lockhart essay just a few years after his experiences in New England. The essay uses the town of Lockhart, Texas as an exemplar of the quintessential representative of small town America. But, in a larger sense Lockhart is the embodiment of Hejduk’s notion of the Architectural Masque. It is a place not driven by aesthetic control, or from protective covenants, but rather a place ordered by its inhabitants from an organic origin. An origin seemingly exemplified by the freedom and expansiveness of the American West. The architecture is one that is socially and politically driven. It emanates from a central nine-square grid, but its geometry is not restricted to the formality of the grid. The center of the square is also a political one, and as such, defines the idea of order rather than the geometric requirement of an ordering system. The hierarchical relationships of the physical construct of program elements of Lockhart become asymmetrically placed once out of the immediacy and proximity to the central square. Hejduk recognized within the socio-political structure of Lockhart that the town could be defined as representative of a mythical, idyllic utopianism. An urban model, which is layered with the complexities of political structure and societal conflict, but filled with the undertones of an ambiguous social hierarchy as rich, simple and pragmatic as that of a medieval town. When, in Lockhart it is combined with a city plan as entirely legitimate as that of the courthouse town  …  then we are in the presence, not of an amusing specimen of Americana, but of an exemplary urbanistic success.34 Hejduk’s Architectural Masques are open-ended narratives suggesting a story line of the history, purpose and/or socio-political commentary exhibited by each Masque project. Lockhart, Texas is the place where Hejduk first introduced

78  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque the written expression of an architectural inanimate construct dissected into a living organism revealing undertones with socio-political hierarchies. The buildings of the town of Lockhart became defined with personality and historicity. They became characters with facades described as if cloaked in detailed clothing. The buildings in Lockhart became defined as masculine and feminine entities. They were buildings that evoked a mood, projected stability and offered solace for their inhabitants. The town was described as being “dedicated to an idea.” Hejduk and Rowe defined the town of Lockhart not merely as a place in the “vacant landscape of the West”, but rather as an “exemplary urbanistic success.” Lockhart was described as a place with a soul defined as “a heroine of Main Street.” They told the story of the history of Lockhart without mentioning past or present inhabitants of the town. Its history was that of a quintessential American story, a place to “experience a feeling of inextinguishable antiquity.”35 As if it always existed in the landscape waiting to be discovered. Lockhart, Texas was a metaphor for the complex simplicities of a utopian existence and it embodies the ambiguities and undertones inherent in Hejduk’s Masque projects. With reflection we can envision the “Lockhart, Texas” essay, penned by Colin Rowe, exploring Hejduk’s Architectural Masque themes. The programmatic authenticity Hejduk searched for became evident in the construct of the Lockhart essay. There is poetics in the anticipation of arrival by an outsider to Lockhart which reveals the soundings of the Masque of Lockhart. Within the soundings of the approach there is an undertone and mood which is yet to be revealed. Ultimately, the anticipation of arrival reveals the ambiguous complexities of urban life. It is like a ship seen in mid-ocean – an evidence of amenity and a kind of monumental magnet which seems to impose progressive intricacy as the town is approached.36

The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio As seen in the Lockhart essay, Hejduk established his first entry into a world of storytelling; although, the essay is presented by Rowe and Hejduk as an analysis of an urban condition defining an architectural exemplar of urbanistic success absent of the traditional notion of storytelling. Hejduk’s proclivity for storytelling became a primary force and hallmark in the descriptive narratives of his future Architectural Masque projects. Each Masque project would typically be accompanied by a narrative that explored the undertone and spirit behind the architecture of the proposition. The authenticity of Hejduk’s masque “programs” is found in the imagery of otherness associated with the undertones exhibited in the work. Hejduk’s description below of the socio-political narrative of his 1979 “The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio” project in Venice reveals the undertone and mood behind the Masque of the Watchtowers project.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  79 Thirteen stucco-covered towers, each 96 feet high, containing one room per floor are meant to be erected side-by side in a Venetian piazza, or campo. A small wall house would stand across from them … The City of Venice selects thirteen men, one for each tower for life-long r­ esidency. A fourteenth man is selected to inhabit the small house located in the campo. Upon the death of one of the tower inhabitants the man in the campo house takes his place and another is selected to inhabit the campo house. Somewhere in another part of the city overlooking some other campo there is a house inhabited by one who refused to participate. In that campo stands a 6'x6'x72' stone ­tower … Cell #7 (of the house) is empty  …  At that exact level of the P ­ articipant of ­Refusal’s empty cell there is affixed upon the campo tower a mirror at the precise elevation size of the opposite cell. When the inhabitant of the house stands in his empty room he simply reflects himself upon the mirror of the opposite tower. Any citizen is permitted to climb the ladder and enter the stone tower. Once in the tower the citizen can see the lone inhabitant across the campo within his cell. The citizen is looking through the opposite side of the mirror which reflects the house inhabitant. It is a one way mirror. The citizen can observe without being observed.37 Hejduk’s narrative is highly charged with sociological and political commentary. The work has undertones of psychological and physical isolation, separation, alienation, voyeurism, punishment and imprisonment. The innocuous, repetitive, almost banal exterior architecture of the towers represented in Hejduk’s sketches hides the socio-political undertone of the interior intrigue that lay beneath the innocuousness exhibited by the stone wall towers. Hejduk stated that this project represents a culmination in his transition of architectural optimism to architectural pessimism. In fact, the Venice exhibition in 1976 of his “Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought” began Hejduk’s fascination with unrevealed meanings investigated in the Masque theme. The 1976 Venice experience was pivotal in the evolution of Hejduk’s thinking and resulted in what can be argued as his first Masque project, “The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio” in 1979.38 Since 1974 Venice has preoccupied the nature of my work. It is a ­forum for my inner thoughts. The thoughts have to do with Europe and ­America; abstraction and historicism; the individual and the collective; freedom and totalitarianism; the colors black, white, grey; silence and speech; the literal and the ambiguous; narrative and poetry; the observer and the observed. I am in debt to Italy and to the City of Venice for provoking the impetus for my investigations. I suspect in these past four years my architecture has moved from the “Architecture of Optimism” to what I call the “Architecture of Pessimism.”39

80  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque The Watchtowers project is certainly laced with an undertone and mood of totalitarianism and pessimism to uncover an authenticity to the architectural program narrative supporting the architectural imagery of the proposition. There is a curious repetitive nature to the 13 towers that defines simultaneity of physical dimension, materiality, orientation and separation. While architecturally delineated as 13 individual towers, the close spatial adjacency of the repetitive towers reminds one that the collective of the Thirteen Watchtowers are suggestive of an impenetrable wall plane. On one hand, the towers are identical, which represents the power and authoritative singularity of the body politic (the wall), but on the other hand the towers are meant to be autonomous individual entities occupied and experienced only by one inhabitant with the nature of the interior experience unrevealed to the social-­ collective observing from outside the walls of the towers. This separation from the “outside world” is reinforced by the interior color of the towers. Eleven of the towers are painted grey inside; one of the towers is painted black inside; one of the towers is painted white inside … Each of the thirteen tower men is pledged not to reveal his interior coloration.40 Hejduk’s socio-political narrative also recalls the propositions of Michel Foucault (1926–1984) who studied the relationship between power and knowledge, as well as the implications of imprisonment. Foucault analyzed the merits of the universality of power imposed by any particular regime or authority on any given group. His thinking influenced discussions pertaining to the nature and merits of power and imprisonment imposed upon and within a society;41 and that the authority of power granted or taken by a regime was taken by the body politic as truth.42 The implication was that any liberation or critique of oppression in the name of “truth” is merely a substitution of one system of power for another.43 In other words, oppression from any authoritative group is essentially the same in its suppression of individual expressions of freedom. From this philosophical point of view it can be postulated that Hejduk’s intent of his programmatic manifesto for the Thirteen Watchtowers project requires the reader/observer to ponder the philosophical implications of the universality of individual isolation and imprisonment found in the programmatic proposal and its implications to the rights of individuals to freely express themselves without suppression. What I am doing is I am the questionnaire upon the question. I am the interrogation upon the interrogator.44 “The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio” project is a multifaceted Masque providing an architecture that asks questions about the human condition rather

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  81 than providing a solution to a “programmatic” problem. Indeed, the physical and psychological presence of the Watchtowers may represent the manifestation of ever-present societal problems without hope of a solution. The Watchtowers project creates a world within a world to explore. There is the world outside the towers suggestive of societal acceptance and its collective sense of morality providing the illusion of a better life for all citizens juxtaposed against the inner world of the towers where individual aspirations of the spirit and imagination have been supplanted with the dictates of an oppressive societal authority. The Watchtowers pose questions about the pressures of the socio-political role society should place on individual rights and freedoms; there are issues of separation and isolation explored and there are issues of imprisonment posited in the “House for the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate”, which is an integral part of the project narrative and architecture. Just as prisons remove their occupants from our everyday lives, Hejduk also removes and isolates the inhabitant who refused to participate. The project seeks to layer the meanings held within the Watchtowers project to produce a pessimistic somber mood. Hejduk’s tonality of the Watchtowers project is sketched to reinforce the notion of a foreboding undertone. Hejduk’s pronounced unrevealed pessimism, which is the primary undertone in the proposition, is exhibited through the duality that exists between his narrative and architecture. It can be argued that the unrevealed pessimism in reality takes the opposite effect. The project is quite revealing of the ills, frailties and shortcomings of society and of human nature. On one hand, we become the observer of questionable societal behavior and on the other hand, we project ourselves into the role of the one to be observed. The Watchtowers project, as an architectural proposition, poses philosophical questions regarding human behavior that do not have simple solutions. The thematic ambiguities presented in the project are representative of Hejduk’s deeper investigations found in his late pedagogical thinking. He uses architecture as a vehicle to evoke self-discovery through an exploration of architectural consequences. A pedagogy that explores the architectural possibilities found within one’s imagination.

The Watchtowers as abstract architecture The Thirteen Watchtowers also offers a rich landscape of architectural undertones in the construct of the stone towers. Abstract architectural concepts of duality, tension, materiality, density and opacity are among the ideas Hejduk exorcised in the project. Hejduk uses a variety of architectural expressions, including drawings, models and programmatic narrative to explore and activate the construct of these architectural abstractions to reveal the unrevealed and sometimes ill-defined nature of abstract concepts associated with modern architecture. He brings life to the abstract architectural concepts mentioned above in particular. These abstract architectural concepts are spatially activated through the tone and soundings of his narrative. Hejduk understood that the inanimate presence of architecture requires an outside force

82  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque to bring a fullness of meaning and experience to the abstractions of spatial construction. The architecture that Hejduk uses to define the Watchtower narrative is also revealing with regards to the physical construct of the architecture of the Watchtowers. While the density of stone is used by Hejduk to enclose the towers to evoke a sense of permanence, stability and power (the wall), he is also interested in defining the otherness associated with such a common material as stone. This sense of otherness in materials is evident when Hejduk was asked about qualities of materiality by stating: I am interested in much the same way in materials, in the materiality of architecture, in saying something about materiality in a special way. When you examine a tub of butter, it has a surface as well as bulk. The butter has a surface which is smooth and planar. But, when you cut into it, the butter is also there, in the depth of the tub. Same butter. I want to evoke that duality. I want to make material like granite exude itself, like the butter down deep along with the butter on the smooth top. It’s a matter of density.45 There is an inseparable duality between Hejduk’s written narrative and his architectural sketches. The Watchtowers project program relies on the mutually inclusive imagery of both mediums. The Thirteen Watchtowers represent Hejduk’s emblematic use of integrating a written narrative with a graphic narrative of sketches combined together to define a new programmatic language engendering the uniqueness of the Architectural Masque. He creates fullness to the architectural experience through this duality. For Hejduk, this new experiential language is a vocabulary depicting spatial propositions through the depth of emptiness revealing undertones of mood, spirit and the soundings of form and meaning. His search was to unearth propositions that leave something not yet revealed to the observer. One must “get into” the architecture to discover that which has been unrevealed to fully understand the implications of the spirit and aura of the work. Hejduk’s vocabulary defined through his narratives, models, drawings and constructed architecture are all interconnected and they are part of an integral whole that he uses as an architectural language. Architecture is created as physical constructs to see and experience, but for Hejduk, architecture can also be seen through the mind’s eye and experienced within our imaginations if we can just “get into it”.46

Hejduk’s urban Masques as Situationist apparitions The journey I have been on for the past ten years followed an eastern route starting at Venice, then moving north to Berlin through Prague, then northeast to Riga, from Riga Eastward to Lake Baikal and then on to Vladivostok. This has been, and is, a long journey. John Hejduk, Vladivostok47

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  83 John Hejduk’s self-described journey as recounted in the quote from his book Vladivostok above finds a kinship with the propositions of urban life and space espoused by Situationist International (SI) 1957–1972.48 The interpretive analysis that follows uses urban planning concepts in John Hejduk’s Masques as a catalyst to consider the nature of the urban condition of modern life in Hejduk’s work from a Situationist’s point of departure. For purposes of this writing Hejduk’s urban projects in consideration include his Victims Project (1989), Berlin Masque (1981) and The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio (1979) collectively known in the following discussion as the Vladivostok projects.

Drifting Within the Situationist International (SI) doctrinal texts, lectures and manifestoes of Guy Debord and Asger Jorn, founders of SI, is an undertone exposing a process and methodology to heighten ones sense of the social condition of urban experience and space. In Debord’s Theory of the Dérive, he states: The lessons drawn from dérives enables us to draft the first surveys of the psychogeographical articulations of a modern city. Beyond the discovery of unities of ambience, of their main components and their spatial localization, one comes to perceive their principal axes of passage, their exits and their defenses. One arrives at the central hypothesis of the existence of psychogeographical pivotal points. One measures the distances that actually separate two regions of a city, distances that may have little relation with the physical distance between them. With the aid of old maps, aerial photographs and experimental dérives, one can draw up hitherto lacking maps of influences, maps whose inevitable imprecision at this early stage is no worse than that of the earliest navigational charts. The only difference is that it is no longer a matter of precisely delineating stable continents, but of changing architecture and urbanism.49 In the nature of the “dérive” one can investigate the urban Masque propositions of John Hejduk from a fresh perspective. Hejduk’s Victims Project, Berlin Masque and Thirteen Watchtowers on one hand are paper architectural commentaries reflecting conditions of societal hierarchy, social mores and urban fragments, but on the other, these projects can be viewed and experienced as “psychogeographical mappings” of urban spatial conditions ripe for one to “drift”. In other words to “dérive”, to find an authenticity of experience within ones sphere of reference to engender a genius loci in the larger frame of our place in the world around us. the situationists demanded a quality beyond that of mere habitat; they sought out the unite d’ambiance – an area of particularly intense urban atmosphere.50

84  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque

Figure 4.2  Guy Debord, Guide Psychogeographique de Paris Discours Sur Les Passions de l’amor, 1957, Lithograph, 595 × 735 mm, digital image courtesy of © Drawing Matter Collections.

John Hejduk’s Masques consisted of individual figurations, anthropomorphic surrealist visions and architectural fragments. These objects and subjects became graphic narratives and a set of characters intentionally positioned within an urban condition without apparent order. Hejduk was searching for a programmatic authenticity for modern time. The architectural result of Hejduk’s Masques falls somewhere between Aldo Rossi’s ideas of “a city of fragments”, “the memory structure of the city” and “Urban Artifacts” as defined in Rossi’s book The Architecture of the City (Padova, 1966) and what Charles Jencks calls “Surrationalist” architecture. Hejduk, as far as I know, enjoyed the friendly fire and perhaps even the label Surrationalist, the conjunction of his ultra-rationalism and Surrealism.51 Somewhere in between Rossi’s and Jencks’s ideas the depth of Hejduk’s works are found. Hejduk had high regard for an urbanism defined by the density of historical permanence overlaid through time and space providing

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  85 a historical richness in the life of the city. Rossi’s concept of “Urban Artifacts” defining the spirit of the city is conceptually similar to Hejduk’s urban Masque fragments, but Hejduk’s fragments only have historical significance through their narrative and as such only have the potential to rise up to become urban artifacts over time. Situationist doctrines would certainly applaud this potential found in Hejduk’s troupe of characters. This historical urban richness is an undertone observed in Hejduk’s conceptual ponderings in Berlin Masque and his Victims project. In contrast to this thinking, Hejduk also sought to find programmatic authenticity in his urban projects through the impermanence of his urban propositions; as though he was the creator of a travelling circus or better stated as an architectural carnival. His “traveling theatre” was intended to be handed over to communities, one by one over time to bring a timelessness of place to be remembered over time for all time.

Socio-geographic mapping Hejduk’s Masque projects suggest a Situationist mapping of an urban condition. The Situationist map sought out the life of the city from a non-­Cartesian method of travel promoting a “drift” through the spaces of the city like Hejduk’s positional mapping of his urban Masque characters. The Situationists felt that the patterns and vibrancy of the city were best experienced from the variety of undertones and moods offered by city life. Therefore, a disjunction of time and place in the patterns of movement reinforced and intensified the urban experience. These experiences were heightened by the randomness of the drift through the city. The broad sweeps of the rationalist imagination, which had aspired to tailor the city with Cartesian precision, suddenly looked like butchery. Debord, Jorn, and the Smithsons alike sought ways of illustrating and addressing the social ecology of the city, professing an empathy with the habitual behavior of the city’s lowly … The situationists … preferred to experiment on themselves, analyzing the factors affecting their mood, behavior and choice of route as they wandered their “drift” (derive) through the city … Situationists felt that indigenous living patterns were best nurtured through the “clustering” of the city.52 The make-up of Hejduk’s Masque characters do not signify or elevate the elite of society, instead he provides us with a set of working class characters and caricatures that define the malaise of daily living. Hejduk innately understood that the vibrant richness of daily social life was not found on Main Street, but rather in the less desired districts of an urban setting. An exemplar of this is found in Hejduk’s Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio project in Venice. This Masque is proposed as a fixed construct in the piazza of Cannaregio to be a reminder to the citizens of what the Situationists called

86  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque “psychogeographical articulation of a modern city”.53 While it is unlikely that Hejduk used the Situationists’ concept of social geography in developing his ideas, it is interesting to see the similarities of the work to the tenets of psychogeography promoted by the Situationists. The Thirteen Watchtowers narrative offered by Hejduk recounted earlier in this chapter is a direct link to the 1950s investigation of “social geography” by the Situationists and to Kevin Lynch’s urban “cognitive mapping” studies in his 1960 book The Image of the City.54 Hejduk’s Venetian piazza with his Thirteen Watchtowers would certainly be recorded into a Situationist’s social mapping of Venice. Hejduk’s narrative is truly an exemplar of the type of psychogeographic drift the Situationists envisioned. social geography theorized space as the product of society  …  Situationists were naturally inclined toward the goals of social geography … Fragmented yet tied together by their arrows, situationist maps explored … class struggle, the quest for equilibrium and the sovereign decision of the individual.55 The nature of psychogeographic mapping created a method for an individual or small group to experience the life of the city up close with intent towards an intimate voyeuristic discovery. The experience was meant to create an encounter with the unexpected. This is also the by-product of experiencing the in between negative spaces of Hejduk’s Masques. The physical density of typical urban spatial conditions constructed over time is supplanted in Hejduk’s urban Masque projects with negative interstitial space. The spatial emptiness in his work, which is reminiscent of medieval towns, turns the focus away from the autonomy of modernist objects in the urban condition towards a redefinition of those objects into urban subjects. We understand the subjects as defined by Hejduk as those with the density and historicity of programmatic narrative instead of the heroics of “light-filled” modern formalisms. Urban life is defined by Hejduk as the stories told by the subjects that occupy the negative space of his spatial theatres of life. In the language of Hejduk’s Masque narratives he provides a referential backdrop, a ground zero for us to create our own story. While we constitute a living continuum in the theatre of our own lives and within our place in history, Hejduk provides, in his Masques, the freedom for us to take a detour, a drift in our path of experience to find the unexpected in our urban environment. The Situationists used the term “detournement” to describe this detour towards the unexpected as defined below: The mutual interference of two worlds of feeling, or the bringing together of two independent expressions, superseding the original elements and producing a synthetic organization of greater efficacy.56

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  87 Our understanding of the urban environment is deepened through the intimate tactile experiences of urban space and our lives are enriched from the encounter. Through the detours of everyday life we can find a new equilibrium and understanding of our place in time. Hejduk’s “architecture of pessimism” defined by his Masques provides the observer of his work with a deeper appreciation of the possibilities offered by the urban fabric of the city. There is an intimacy offered in Hejduk’s urban propositions that is overlooked by modern city planners. The homogeneity in the geometric clarity of the modern city lacks the “lived-in” quality of personal space and collective history. Cities such as Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin and Prague through their densities and historicity provide us with the romanticism of the unexpected when we visit and inhabit them. They are living organisms teaming with density and diversity of life. Hejduk uses his urban Masque characters to suggest the possibility of an urban fabric designed as a living organism. His Masques are a modern interpretation of what Aldo Rossi termed “fragments” as engendered in his thoughts below: we only understand parts, pieces of culture, parts of cities … I believe that today we live in a world that cannot be repaired, a world of psychological and human fragments. This is something very modern and at the same time very ancient … I always say that our true invention as architects is to determine how to connect all these fragments together.57

The voided center Hejduk used resultant void space to reinforce the cohesion of his figural Masque fragments. The disjunction of formal order in his Victims and Berlin Masque projects reveal the importance of the void evident in between his Masque characters. The negative spaces provide opportunity for unexpected encounters of spatial experience. We can only observe Hejduk’s designs through his drawings, physical and virtual models, but when understood from inside the worlds he has envisioned the experience, at human scale, becomes filled with anticipation of the unexpected which takes place precisely because of the in-between void spaces he has left for us to fill. So all these obsessions are coming together. And there’s something else. All my projects have voided centers. The center has been eliminated … Maybe my contribution to architecture is the voided center. That’s a real physical condition.58 Hejduk not only constructs a palpable void space for us to fill within our imaginations, he also provides the spectacle of “event space” to celebrate his Masque figurations. This use of spatial context is similar to the Situationist

88  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque view of space. The Situationists sought out space to discover personal readings of spatial experience. In their view, urban space should have intensity of experience while drifting through the cityscape. Spatial experience should be tangible creating a variety of spatial ambiances. For the situationists space offered such a set of relations where the objective world and the subjective labyrinth of sensual experience could be combined. The situationists therefore concentrated on the quality of experience of the objective world, that is, on the social construction of space … Lived space, to be realized through the construction of situations.59 Hejduk’s Masques are designed to engender the social construction of space as outlined by the quote above. The fact that many of Hejduk’s sets of characters are movable and are intended to move from place to place supports this relationship to the Situationists’ view of lived-in urban space. But, the undertone of Hejduk’s Masque idea was to create a counterforce to modernism’s use of architectural planning and programming. To this end, Hejduk populated the urban context with his Masque of architectural fragments and characters organized through tangential in-between spaces. He underscored his desire for the social structure, as well as the architectural order of the urban environment to be determined by the community rather than imposed by architects with a utopian vision of the future. This approach directly confronts the modernist’s approach to a hierarchically ordered urban planning model and more closely aligns its infrastructural positioning with that of creating a situational order. Hejduk’s Masques could be considered first cousins to Bernard Tschumi’s investigations and propositions of “cross-programming” intentionally derived to enrich spatial conditions. Tschumi, like Hejduk during the 1970s and 1980s was more interested in the in between interstices of space exploring the nature of overlapping spatial contexts in an effort to express and give form to “event space”.60 His goal was to develop a labyrinth of spatial contexts. This is notably evident in Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette project in Paris (1984–1987). Tschumi and Hejduk alike used the disjunction of space to breathe the complexity of life into the urban condition. While Tschumi’s Follies were fixed in space and ordered with a Cartesian grid for user exploration and activity, many of Hejduk’s set of characters were mobile without geometric order moving from place to place. They were an architectural troupe deriving with an unknown future. as it was necessary for the highly rational-pragmatic city of fifteenth century Venice to create masques, masks, masses for its time in order to function, it would appear that we of our time must create masques (programmes????) for our time.61

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  89

A landscape of the unexpected Due to Hejduk’s focus on his cast of architectural characters as subjects defining the inner workings of urban life there is a parallel that can be drawn from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s treatise on “faciality”. The face crystallizes all redundancies; it emits and receives releases and recaptures signifying signs. It is a whole body unto itself: it is like a body of the center of significance to which all of the deterriorialized signs affix themselves, and it marks the limit of their deterrioralization … The face is what gives the signifier substance … The mask does not hide the face, it is the face.62 Within the negative void space between the faces of Hejduk’s troupe of opaque characters there is a recentering of thought. The ordered construct of modern city planning was redirected by Hejduk to focus on the decentralization of urban experience promoting intensity within the urban fabric. For instance, if one were to navigate the landscapes of Hejduk’s Vladivostok projects, we

Figure 4.3  Sketches of structures for Victims John Hejduk, 1984, pen and ink on yellow ruled paper, 27.7 × 21.4cm, DR1998:0109:002:001, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

90  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque would be confronted with a multiplicity of imaginary, at times surreal architectural images. The cohesion of the modern planning order of urban life is absent. There is no Cartesian grid to modulate space or to provide a hierarchical center. There is only the drift through the negative spaces and the element of surprise in the occasional whimsical visual character of the architecture and the seemingly haphazard ordering of the urban program. If Hejduk’s Masques provide an architectural definition to Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of faciality, it follows that the Masques are an elevational vertical landscape redefining the typical figure-ground density of urban space. This is in contrast to the western idea of the “organizing Cartesian grid” as an exemplar of an urban ordering device. The order found in the logic of the grid suppresses the element of the unexpected. It is the event of surprise within spatial context that rises to provide significance in our memory of places and spaces. The poetics engendered by Hejduk’s absorptions and exorcisms of allegory, metaphor and mystery open his spatial landscapes to be experienced with anticipation of the unexpected. Instead of the urban landscape defined as a set of organizing lines providing hierarchical significance and spatial definition, Hejduk established a random landscape of elevational order to give spatial significance to his urban Masques. In their opaqueness as objects defined as architectural Masques, they are the quintessential counterforce to the light-filled transparent utopian space of modernism. Hejduk’s Masques have density and the undertones of mystery. They provide a landscape of discovery through the narratives exhibited in their faciality. They ask questions about the role architecture plays in urban space and Hejduk’s Masques provide the wanderer of space an opportunity to detour from his or her daily routine to derive meaning in ones search for the authenticity in the situations found in architectural spatial experience. The lesson taught by Hejduk’s architecture rests in his unsurpassed skill in constructing mysteries and leading the viewer into a state of contemplation about society and about architecture’s role in it – a critical and distanced contemplation that has neither beginning nor end that defies logical progression, taking instead a myriad of detours and digressions that circumnavigate, but never quite locate truth or meaning.63 John Hejduk explored life and architecture through the labyrinth of his imagination. His spatial constructs posed questions seeking to define an authenticity to the constructions of form, program, material, space and time. His journey was self-absorbed and he stood outside the typical conventions of architectural practice. He was not a Situationist by declaration, but his work detoured from modernist programming and planning and reflected the spirit of the Situationist’s dérive to find the undertones of urban space. Hejduk did not identify himself with any particular movement, architectural style or ideology. It is not known if he studied the mappings and manifestoes of the Situationist International, but it is known that Hejduk was sympathetic to the

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  91

Figure 4.4  Site Plan for Berlin Masque John Hejduk, 1981, graphite on translucent paper, 118.3 × 107.5 cm, DR1998:0098:014, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

unexpected encounters one finds in life, work and urban spatial experience. In this sense John Hejduk can be considered a Situationist of the highest order. I have established a repertoire of objects/subjects, and this troupe accompanies me from city to city, from place to place, to cities I have been to and to cities I have not visited. The cast presents itself to a city and its inhabitants. Some of the objects are built and remain in the city; some are built for a time, then are dismantled and disappear; some are built, dismantled and move on to another city where they are reconstructed. I believe that this method/practice is a new way of approaching the architecture of a city and of giving proper respect to a city’s inhabitants. It confronts a pathology head-on.64

Berlin Masque Masque is theatre … and the ritual theater has been intimately related to the historic regulation of the social structure … Theater joins up with poetry in joining up with architecture  …  Theater is a manifestation,

92  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque which is capable of keeping society balanced, and that is the point of communitas. In theater we can begin to undertake an investigation of the phenomena on which our present society rests  …  Architecture is touched, transformed, by such study, thus inextricably connected to it.65

Setting the stage The notion of an authentic American architecture was pursued in the 20th century, most notably by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s well known “organic” and “democratic” views of architecture and the “American phenomenon of isolation and separation” observed by Hejduk, can be seen within the tenets of Wright’s 1932 proposal for Broadacre City. Hejduk’s 1981 Berlin Masque project and Wright’s Broadacre City reveal unique similarities in their approach to define an authentic program. Separated through time by almost 50 years, Wright and Hejduk were providing their vision of the authenticity and uniqueness of American architecture set within their own framework of time and place. Wright’s proposition of Broadacre City was an outcropping from a personal Wrightian quest to define the sense of freedom he envisioned for the individual, but in a larger sense, Wright’s proposition was a metaphor for an organic American architecture that protected the landscape from the density of urban life and elevated the importance of the autonomy of the individual. Wright formulated his thinking as a city planner beginning with Broadacre City, but he continued his quest to define the regional planning of the American landscape until the end of his life. Wright wrote three books beginning in 1932 devoted to the propositions of his Broadacre City planning model, The Disappearing City (1932), When Democracy Builds (1945) and The Living City (1958). During the last 27 years of Wright’s life the proposition of regional planning and the American city of the future was a constant pursuit. His efforts, while notoriously individualistic and self-­promotional, also provided a heartfelt concern for how, what and where we build. In my view, the missing planning and programming component in the Wrightian approach to urban design and explored by John Hejduk was the issue of why we build in lieu of what, how and where we build. We cannot achieve our democratic destiny by mere industrialism, however great. We are by nature gifted as a vast agronomy. In the humane ­proportion of those two – industrialism and agronomy – we will produce the culture that belongs to Democracy organic. And in the word “organic” lies the meaning of this discourse. So this book is all the more for the great invisible but potent “in-between” – that new reality we call, here, his majesty the American citizen.66 The brief discussion above regarding Wright’s Broadacre City project provides a historical backdrop to analyze Hejduk’s investigation of urban planning almost 50 years after Wright’s initiations. While Wright’s design was a

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  93 vision devoted to his expression of the decentralization of democratic American ideals promoting the freedom of the individual spirit, Hejduk’s Berlin Masque project sought to define the decentralization of individual freedom by providing a framework for an authentic program of archetypes defining the “in-between” of why we build, as Wright referenced above, to reinforce the autonomy of individual choice and freedom. Hejduk viewed architectural design as a social act providing a tangible connection between the needs and aspirations of society. This architecturally driven determinate towards the construct of the communitas, in Hejduk’s view, elevates the act of architectural design to be a “social contract” to reinforce the importance the role the architect has in shaping our communities. Hejduk’s efforts were to define a new approach to how we see ourselves in the world and to define why we build rather than defining ourselves through a series of scientific matrices and hierarchical innocuous bubble diagrams. The 28 Berlin Masque program element structures, including Maze, Book Market, Caretakers House, Cross-over Bridge, Clock Tower, Bell Tower, Wind Tower, Observation Tower, Public Facility, Conciliator, House for the Eldest Inhabitant, Mask and all the others, are representative of architectural allegories and metaphors expressing the nature of human connectivity to events of the theater of our daily lives. The structures provide a certain connectivity to form and image that recalls the imagery of a larger stage set or board game of parts that reminds us of a medieval circus event. But, the structures can be representative of physical manifestations that are conjured when considering the function of a certain programmatic element. Each of the program structures are accompanied by a written narrative describing the programmatic intent and function. It is in the nature of program investigation conceived through the use of narrative that Hejduk finds the authenticity in the apparitions of his architectural imagery. The program structures are identified through the dimensionality and materiality of the elements. Hejduk is specific with regards to the scale and physical construct of each element. Each structure is on one hand autonomous and singular and on the other hand is a component part that is needed to constitute a completed idea. The idea of each program part is used by Hejduk to provide us with an insight into the conceptual experience of each function. The Berlin Masque project was Hejduk’s first entry in his trilogy of Masque projects, which included, Berlin Masque (1981), Lancaster/Hanover Masque (1983) and Vladivostok (1989). Each one of these Masques became representative of a collection containing architectural anthropologic, architectonic and biomorphic characters presented as if positioned in a theatrical play exploring the interrelationship of the socialization of collective societal behavior. Just as the nature of Theater becomes a mirror to societal structure exploring the depths of individual despair, tragedy, ecstasy and enlightenment, so is the message of Hejduk’s Masque projects. In a sense the Masque projects, specifically the Berlin Masque is a statement to architects and to society as a whole urging us to understand the essence of why we build and

94  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque how the essences can inform a pragmatic functional outcropping of form, material and space that can satisfy individual and societal desires to understand our place in time. Berlin Masque offers simplicity of form, but within the simple offerings there lays a depth and mystery that evokes a certain freedom of expression to the functional intent of the structures. The Masques were Hejduk’s attempt to create simplicity and connectivity between individuals and the collective of the communitas out of the confused complexities of modern life. The word Koyaanisqatsi is a term found in the native Hopi Indian language and personified in the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi directed by Godfrey Reggio. The term is translated to mean “life out of balance”. John Hejduk sensed that societal pressures within his time and place were in a state of being “out of balance” and he sought to offer a counterforce to the accepted direction of architectural programming resulting in the otherness found in the proposals of his Architectural Masque projects.

Berlin Masque, New England Masque and Broadacre City There is an interesting interrelationship found between Hejduk’s Berlin Masque project, his New England Masque and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City. The two Hejduk projects were conceived and developed concurrently between 1979 and 1981. During these years Hejduk was very interested in the pursuit of an authentic American architecture while still exorcising his notion of pessimism in his work. The New England Masque, which will be discussed later in this chapter, was Hejduk’s attempt to define the uniqueness and authenticity of American architecture. With his completion of the New England house in 1979 he began work on the Berlin Masque. Hejduk’s effort to uncover an alternative to the traditional notion of programming and urban planning extended into the Berlin Masque investigation with his stated desire to create an authentic program. It should be noted that the Berlin Masque project was not a conscious effort on Hejduk’s part to further his delineation of an authentic American architecture as desired in the New England Masque, but the project does recall certain characteristics found in Hejduk’s definition of the uniqueness of American architecture. The architecture of isolation and separation found in the New England project is also defined within the Berlin Masque. Entry into the New England house occurs within the void between the two massings of the house. Entry into the Berlin Masque is found in the void along Wilhelmstrasse between the hedgerows that define the two site fence enclosures surrounding the Berlin Masque design. The New England project uses the hedgerow device as a dense maze to define a separation between the house and the outside world. The “headdress” adorning the angelic Masque figure in Hejduk’s drawing concluding the written and graphic narrative of the Berlin Masque recalls the “wing-like” hedge maze used in the New England Masque. The hedgerow, for Hejduk, suggested mysteriousness to the

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  95 interiority of the maze which revealed a place for self-discovery. In a sense it was a metaphor suggesting a place for individual separation, discovery and reflection. Placement of the program archetypes of Berlin Masque are positioned as if organically determined. This organically generated interior order within the outer hedgerow appears to grow and develop as if each program element “springs-up” as functional societal needs dictate. Out of an apparent chaotic order a new order is revealed. It is the communitas defined through shared social determinants. This new order is not hierarchical, but organically derived from the need to set boundaries of isolation and separation between its internal parts. As with the New England Masque the Berlin Masque is another expression by Hejduk exorcising the unique phenomenon of isolation and separation found in Hejduk’s view of American architecture.

The Wrightian relationship: style vs. idea Broadacre City is Wright’s exemplar of his 27 year exploration into a solution for the decentralization of city planning. Wright’s desire was to elevate the position of the American citizen as one of having power over future development and intrusive disruptions to his environs. Wright felt that design was integrally linked with an organic need to express democratic values. As a young architect Hejduk was heavily influenced by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s individualism is best summed up in his Lloyd Jones family motto “Truth against the World”.67 Hejduk’s individualism and interests were always found in the otherness associated with his work and this fueled the theoretical, abstract and poetic side of Hejduk’s investigations. Frank Lloyd Wright was not an abstract theorist, but rather he was a pragmatist searching for his own definition of aesthetic beauty found in Nature and in the nature of materials. Hejduk was also a pragmatic thinker and did not consider himself as an “abstract” architect. Hejduk kept a plaque on the wall of his Cooper Union office with a quote by writer and filmmaker Robbe-Grillet commenting on Kafka’s work. The plaque states: The hallucinatory effect derives from the extraordinary clarity and not from mystery or mist. Nothing is more fantastic ultimately than precision.68 Frank Lloyd Wright’s work was uncompromisingly organic in origin and exemplified his desire to create an authentic modern American architecture. The merits and success of Wright’s work can be debated, but he is widely considered as “the greatest American Architect”.69 John Hejduk is certainly less known, but his exorcism towards an American architecture exhibited in his New England House project should be considered as Hejduk’s expression of the spatial underpinning that defines the uniqueness of American architecture.

96  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque Broadacre City defined a vision of a future for the American landscape. It is programmed to include building types that in Wright’s mindset, should define the best of American life. Broadacre City is ordered by Wright’s geometric desire to separate and isolate structures and people to provide a sense of spatial freedom and autonomy within a given landscape. Hejduk’s Berlin Masque sought to define a program of social parts in a maze of twists and turns of everyday life. The hedgerow of his Berlin Masque provided Hejduk with the conceptual device to express separation from the outside world on one hand, but within the containment of the hedgerow he provided a sense of unity to the discoveries found within the inner sanctum. Frank Lloyd Wright’s urban design work created a unique stylistic approach to architectural design, but it was John Hejduk that exorcised and unearthed the underpinnings of the conceptual uniqueness of what defines the landscape of American architecture.

Uniquely American: isolation and separation The discussion above identifies a peripheral relationship between the New England Masque and Berlin Masque, but there is an interior spatial relationship that can be drawn between the projects as well. The New England project defines clarity of separation and isolation within the interior and exterior of its walls. There is the illusion of interior order through a veil of apparent geometric symmetry, but in fact, an interior symmetrical geometry does not exist. Interior order is defined through the territoriality of the occupants. The Berlin Masque does not provide its inhabitants with an illusion of geometric order other than the hierarchical reference of two distinct districts of program development separated by the hedgerows along Wilhelmstrasse. The Berlin Masque purposely distributes the interior components within the outer containment of hedgerow walls in a seemingly random arrangement of isolation and separation. There is no apparent formality of geometry to the positioning of program elements. The Berlin Masque becomes a walled-in landscape without geometric order to provide an authenticity to the organic need of its inhabitants to govern themselves based on the freedom and autonomy found in the clarity and spatial separation provided by the architectural characters that define the community. Hejduk’s New England House was meant as living quarters for only two people to internalize the experiential meaning of separation and isolation and his Berlin Masque project was designed at the scale of a small agrarian feudal community to reflect on the labyrinth of meanings associated with the theater of everyday life. The underpinning of Berlin Masque and the New England Masque are interconnected through Hejduk’s exorcism of the unique American phenomenon of an architecture ordered through the isolation and separation of its parts. I pondered this act for a long time and came to the understanding that a deep search into the “nature” of program might perhaps be

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  97 attempted … a search towards the possibility of renewal … a program that perhaps had something to do with the spirit of our times.70 The new program presents a highly charged political social manifestation. If that gets built, it will transport people. I feel there should be a moratorium on the built environment. Because much of what is being built has a negative aspect on the spirit. Now, we should be investigating things that should happen in a positive effect on the spirit … if I cannot build the Masques then I am going to make drawings so that anybody can build them thirty-forty years from now.71

The New England House: an American Masque My attachment to [Aldo] Rossi was as a sympathetic soul, I thought in 1973. His drawings recalled Italy to me, my stay in Italy during 1952. Very nostalgic for me. But what Rossi captures was the authenticity of Italy. And if Rossi could capture it for Italy, then I wanted to capture it for America.72

Figure 4.5  New England Masque Sketches, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story.

98  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque The New England Masque was one of John Hejduk’s most remarkable projects.73 Hejduk was first exposed to the architecture of New England while living in Boston and attending Harvard University. During this time he and his wife Gloria would visit New England’s small towns. Hejduk became fascinated with the historic houses scattered throughout the area.74 During the year at Harvard, Gloria introduced Hejduk to the literature of American authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. She also introduced him to the writings of French novelist Gustave Flaubert and poet/dramatist Victor Hugo, as well as classical music.75 The works of the writers opened up new worlds for Hejduk. Notably, the “dark romanticism” and “moral allegories” found in much of Hawthorne’s work made a lasting influence on him.76 During their visits Hejduk was especially taken with small New England colonial houses and in the coastal New England “widow’s walk” house type. These houses embodied an architectural mystery. The mysteriousness was not presented in the physical presence of the architecture, but rather in the idea underlying the architectural presence. The idea that resonated with Hejduk was found in the nature of loss, anxiety, loneliness and despair. These aspects of everyday life fueled Hejduk’s imagination and in the unrevealed nature of mystery. He began to ponder the questions that lay beneath the skin

Figure 4.6  New England Masque Site Plan Perspective Sketch, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  99 of a building to investigate deeper questions of why and how architecture is defined rather than what architecture looks like.77 For me the question is, how do you get the rich ambiguities present in the architecture  …  into an architecture of separation and isolation? What fascinates me in American architecture, especially in the architecture of New England houses, is the way they are stock and they are elemental but they are also mysterious. They are austere, but it is not the austerity of the Modern Movement in European architecture: it’s an austerity which is inexplicable … and that’s what interests me. This quality persists throughout the history of American architecture … For example, take the widow’s walk. I think it exists only in America … The widow’s walk is a turret on top of the East Coast houses. The wife of the sea captain would go up there to look for her seaman to return from the sea. Imagine those women walking in their black robes in the morning.78 It is my postulation that the metaphysical undertones experienced in architecture elevated Hejduk’s desire to produce the Architectural Masque archetype. The architectural program of the Thirteen Watchtowers project is layered with undertones of deep philosophical questions of mans isolated existence within the larger ideologies of societal mores. During the same period of Hejduk’s Watchtowers project investigation he was also exorcising a different concept of isolation. The 1979 New England House project was Hejduk’s exorcism to define an authentic American architecture. Hejduk felt that the separation and isolation of objects and spaces is intrinsically American.79 But, the “American phenomenon” had to do with a breaking down of units, into objects. For me the question is, how to get the rich ambiguities present in the architecture produced within the European condition into an architecture of separation and isolation?80 Hejduk stated: “This breaking down of independent units, this achievement of ambiguity through the complete isolation of elements is, I might say, the American phenomenon.”81 differentiated from 20th century European modernism which according to Hejduk “achieves ambiguity through interlocking elements”.82 His proposition of a modern American architecture was not to establish a codification for an American archetype, but rather to produce modern architecture that embodied the ambiguities found in isolation and separation which exemplifies the American phenomenon. The New England Masque project became the exemplar of this phenomenon. It has an otherness, an unrevealed characteristic, or what is the sensibility of the Madame d’Haussonville painting; we don’t have that kind of mood in modern architecture. So when I refer to O’Neil’s “Mourning

100  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque Becomes Electra”, that is a very American thing … to go deep and try to unearth the American … I would have to put a house that captures New England, of the austere time.83 The New England Masque defines austerity through the isolation and separation of its parts. Very little is written by critics regarding the architecture of the New England Masque project, but in the book Mask of Medusa there are nine consecutive pages (pp. 128–136) recounting an interview by Don Wall with Hejduk specifically discussing the architectural characteristics of the project. Architecture critic Herbert Muschamp stated that the collection of New England Masque drawings “explored the alienation between married partners” and that the inspiration of the design originated from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining.84 Hejduk was fascinated by Kubrick’s film, but he was mostly interested in the hedge maze depicted in the film.85 Just as Jack searched for Danny through the hedge maze in the film, the procession of entry into the New England Masque is also through a hedgerow landscape. The hedges from Kubrick’s The Shining. I was stunned by that film, I mean, really stunned by the maze. I couldn’t believe it. So, I said I’m going to do a house with hedges. Very pragmatic.86 The New England Houses are mysterious … They’ve widow’s walks and also hedges which are like those from the Stanley Kubrick picture. The Shining. And in plan, this hedgemaze makes wings. It’s like a bird of prey swooping down.87

New England Masque: undertones revealed Approach and access to the “house” takes place through a series of hedgerows reminiscent of “wings” that would reappear in themes of Hejduk’s work years later. Herbert Muschamp’s architectural critique of the New England Masque described as “exploring the alienation between married partners”,88 in my view, is an unlikely influence in the design. Discussions with Mrs. Hejduk revealed that she and John would discuss the nature of everyday life in the “dead of winter” in rural New England. They “romanticized” that the small New England houses revealed a “sensual” quality.89 This romantic notion is a reference to couples being “holed up” inside their houses for days at a time during severe winter storms. This “salt of the earth” colonial lifestyle, in the eyes and minds of two newlyweds (John and Gloria while at Harvard) is more revealing of married couples becoming more intimate rather than experiencing a sense of alienation and separation from each other. The New England Masque project explores the nature of alienation and separation, as Hejduk’s critics have observed, but for Hejduk this issue was an architectural reference to the uniqueness of American architecture absent of the undertone of personal alienation. There are other undertones and moods that are revealed by Hejduk. There are undertones of geometric

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  101 order, abstract architectural spatial concepts and metaphorical references towards life in New England, as well as, the uniqueness of America revealed. The architecture of Hejduk’s New England House is simple and austere as he suggests. The design is layered with undertone, mood, mystery and an unrevealed spirit. The design contains two primary geometric square parts organized within a larger square plan order. The vertical section of the two square plan enclosures define a spatial construction composed of two cubes, but the exterior elevations only reveal a compressed ­rectangular form. The dimensionally completed cubes of the living quarters are only evident when the depth of the foundation below grade is included in the ­sectional composition. This is very similar to the observation found earlier in “Texas House 7”, in that, Hejduk implied spatial massing and density of the House 7 foundation that would change the geometric ordering system of the house. See Chapter 2, in the section titled “Exorcising spatial geometry of the grid” for additional geometric implications of the unrevealed nature of the “foundations” of Hejduk’s designs. The observation above of the geometric construct of the New England Masque is important in revealing one of the many undertones of the house. The dimensional depth of the inaccessible

Figure 4.7  New England Masque Building Section, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story.

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Figure 4.8  New England Masque Floor Plan, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story.

Figure 4.9  New England Masque Building Section, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story.

void under the house represented by the foundation matches the dimensional width of the accessible void of the entry between the massing of the house. Hejduk describes the entry through the void separated by glass walls that rise and fall defining the opening and closing sequence of the entry doors. He

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  103 even defines the doors as a “guillotine”.90 The void of the foundation shown in the building section indicates density and mass contrasted with the void between the two primary cubes of the design, which represent compression, tension and isolation. The duality and juxtaposition of the geometries evident in the house design reveal Hejduk’s exorcising the relationship between the simplicity of what something appears to be and the reality of the ambiguities that lay beneath the Masque of the exterior envelope. The inescapable exterior symmetry of the house reveals the dichotomy between what appears to be a life in balance to the outside observer juxtaposed with the unrevealed isolation that occurs on the interior. The exterior is symmetrically balanced in site planning, floor plan and building section, but the architecture does not reveal the isolation and separation of daily life that exists inside. There is an overbearing puritanical quality imposed by the architectural symmetry which inhibits freedom of expression and spatial movement of the inhabitants except within their imaginations. An undertone of “sensuousness” to the interior was important for Hejduk to define in the design. The design was developed in great detail and Hejduk unearthed and exorcised his thoughts to get the design exactly as he envisioned it. An example of this is found in the building sections. The depth of the foundation void exactly matches the height of the spatial void contained by the roof terrace parapet walls. This relationship of open roof and inaccessible foundation void seems to suggest that the thoughts of loneliness and despair implied by the New England widow’s walk on the roof of Hejduk’s design have been offset by the containment of the void underpinning the house. The void under the house could be interpreted as a burying ground for thoughts of separation, loneliness and despair. One can intuit Hejduk has designed a metaphysical space to contain the palpable undertones of a widow’s feelings of loss and despair. In other words the void of the house foundation below the widow’s walk can be postulated as a metaphor described as a “Cemetery for the Ashes of Foreboding New England Thought”.91 Previous to the time, after I finished with the drawings, then all the connotations were revealed. People could interpret it. This could be this, or this. But, there isn’t a move in this house that hasn’t been pre-­ determined  …  It’s a capsule, but it is a medieval capsule  …  austere, foreboding. Autonomous in the sense that it’s puritanical. … It’s cumulative … Historical. The plays. The writings. Poe, Hawthorne. It’s all in there.92 There is mysteriousness to the house as Hejduk indicated in his quote above. The mysteries are only revealed through close inspection and contemplation. Things are not what they appear to be as an outsider looking in. The undertone of mystery surrounding this house project is the exemplar among Hejduk’s works to fully define his use of pessimism.

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Hierarchies of the New England Masque Without a stated site orientation in Hejduk’s sketches and drawings of the New England Masque, I will establish for purposes of this discussion that the center void axis dividing the two cubes of the house defines an east/ west axis. With this orientation the eastern side of the house faces the vast openness of the sea. Knowing that Hejduk had an affinity for the history of the widow’s walk house type and Hejduk’s sketches showing the house facing a docked ship, it follows that the postulation of orienting the view to the sea is plausible. The western side of the house faces the expansiveness of the landscape beyond. This means that the house’s two cubes are located on the north and south sides of the overall site planning. The possible unintended implication of the north-south positioning of the interior volumes of the cubes may reference the societal tensions and struggles of isolation and separation which resulted in the Civil War. Could it be that the interior volumes of the New England Masque house are a microcosm of the larger struggles of societal alienations faced by Americans throughout her history? The interior plan layout, in fact, does suggest this separation, but it is also understood through Hejduk’s comments, that the division of the cubes is a reference to the puritanical rigidness of American Colonial society.93 There are mandatory separations between the inhabitants without a common gathering place. They are separated by the void between the living quarter enclosures. Societal alienations become redefined as personal separations. There are separations between the inhabitants under one roof, which in reality is represented in the design as two separate roofs. There is no central space, only void. Inhabitants are either on one side of the void or the other, never in between, except to make the transition. The presence of the “Wall” in the Bye House is supplanted with a void in the New England Masque house. The net effect is the same. The “Wall” provided separation and isolation, as well as, unification to the disparate parts of the Bye House just as the presence of the central void in the New England Masque acts to separate its parts on one hand and unify its parts on the other. Hierarchy is also evident within the interior volumes on the east/west axis. The design is compact and dense on the west side, but the interior expands on the east side. In other words, Hejduk provides for a delineation and separation between public and private space within each living quarters cube without ambiguity. Without an ambiguity of functional layout the design carries a certain New England pragmatism and simplicity to its internal planning. The exception to this general interior organization is the roof terrace(s). The roof of each cube is symmetrically divided along the center north/south and east/west axes. The inaccessible center of each roof encourages panoramic views to be experienced from the perimeter. The roof terrace becomes homage to the 19th century New England widow’s walk that Hejduk viewed as uniquely American. The floor plan of the house also recalls the Texas Houses’ nine-square grid plan from 25 years earlier. There is the appearance of interior symmetry

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  105 organized around a nine-square grid, as well as, the biaxial centerlines of the square form of the plan, but the interior reality is hierarchical. Unlike the abstraction of the Texas Houses, the New England Masque is deliberate in its materiality and refinement of detail. The exterior of the design recalls the character and mood of the early colonial houses of the 18th and 19th century. Hejduk draws the house to be clad with horizontal wood siding. Hejduk’s drawings do not indicate the coloration of the exterior, but he does indicate that the house is “Homage to mourning, monochromatic, black-gray-white, ‘New England’”.94 The colors of the early colonial houses typically ranged from dark umber, earth tones, shades of indigo blue and black to white primarily due to the availability of natural pigments. Hejduk was fascinated with the mysteriousness projected by the dark colors of the colonial houses. Therefore, one can postulate the exterior of the New England Masque house could be a dark color or black suggesting Hejduk’s homage to the mysteriousness of early colonial architecture. The exterior color of the house may also have been conceived by Hejduk to be white. A puritanical undertone represented by the simple use of the color white may have been an expression used by Hejduk to recall the simplicity of puritanical Colonial American life. The interior colors of the house are the antithesis of the “white modernist” interior. Hejduk specifically determined that the interior colorations would be those used by Ingres in his Comtesse d’Haussonville painting. This is a significant shift in Hejduk’s thinking in the sense that the interior spaces of the house were intended to define a density of space. This is directly contradictory to the light-filled expansive spaces defined in European modernism. It’s all in the in the Madame d’Haussonville coloration. The walls are a pale yellow. The walls in the bedroom are mauve; this is evening. The wings are the same. This will be a pale brown, the living room walls … They are muted. Like the Bye House which was ­muted … And now the sensibility would be the sensibility of the nineteenth ­century … Much more austere.95 The explicit planning, materiality and interior color choices made by Hejduk are further evidence that the New England Masque project reveals Hejduk’s determination to define an intrinsically American architecture. Hejduk exorcised his ideas of duality, tension, compression, separation and isolation in the New England House. These abstract architectural qualities are all defined by the inescapable presence of void displayed in the project. As mentioned previously Hejduk recognized the importance the presence of void had in the evolution of his work. For Hejduk, the presence of negative space became a physical condition to embrace. The physicality of void is typically thought to represent a weightless and dimensionless negative space in architecture, but Hejduk redefines the qualities of negative void space to become a volumetric density. On one hand, the negative space between the cubes of the New England House receives

106  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque and emanates light through the separation of mass. On the other hand, a compression of space is created by the negative void and is used by Hejduk as an absorber of light and space through a bisection of tension between two objects. He represents the opacity of the void through the use of light and the density of absorption to redefine the characteristics of separation and isolation that defines the uniqueness of American architecture. Not unlike the persecutions and exorcisms of the Salem witch trials, Hejduk exorcised the apparition of the New England Masque to become his homage to the uniqueness of America. As a postscript regarding the importance Hejduk put on the New England House project, it is worth noting that near the end of Hejduk’s life he gifted all of his original drawings of the New England Masque to his long-time collaborator Kim Shkapich in appreciation of her hard work in designing and editing many of his books and publications, including Mask of Medusa.96

The Masque as a pedagogical primer Through the interpretive analysis of John Hejduk’s exorcism of the apparitions of the Architectural Masque theme discussed in this chapter, two key areas of investigation are revealed that best reinforce the architectural underpinnings of Hejduk’s Masque projects. The merits and uses of the Architectural Diagram and the Architectural Narrative as departures were used by Hejduk to provide clarity to his architectural ideas and are expanded as part of a broader discussion below. The methodologies found in the Architectural Diagram and the spirit and mood engendered within the propositions of the Architectural Narrative reveal a deeper understanding of the experiential depth of John Hejduk’s architecture.

Diagramming architecture As referenced at the beginning of this chapter, modern architects typically utilize analytical, scientific and rational diagrammatic methodologies to define the goals and underpinnings of their design solutions. This approach to diagramming is useful, but the “pure abstraction” of analytical methods does not consider the emotive power of spatial experience as its primary source for diagrammatic investigation. In his “Silent Assumptions in Social Communications”, Edward T. Hall asked the question, “Why is it that, even with a history of building dating back to pre-dynastic Egypt … and with the magnificence of the Pantheon achieved by the fifth century before Christ, architects have failed to develop a way of describing the experience of space?” One answer is that spatial sensation is an elusive phenomenon, and it is therefore difficult to schematically grasp its character. Nor has this seemed as essential as the easily definable, tangible aspects of architecture.97

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  107 Posited in Hejduk’s work is a diagrammatic richness exploring unrevealed spatial representations, undertones and moods. Hejduk’s graphic diagrams are presented in various forms utilizing the typical tools of the architect, such as, plans, sections, details and spatial “thumbnail” sketch vignettes. His diagrams also employ color and tonality to imbue a sense of density, opacity, spirit, mood and undertone suggesting a variety of architectural spatial conditions. His sketch diagrams explore the essences of his spatial intentions, but he searches for more than expressions of physical space. Ultimately, Hejduk’s diagrammatic investigations search for the aspects of space that engender the depths of personal experience. Diagrams found in the language of modern architectural investigations are typically associated with abstract drawings attempting to find planning and sectional solutions that do not preconceive an outcome. The idea of this diagrammatic approach is; if one abstracts reality, a new reality is revealed without the influence of personal bias. In other words, these types of diagrams typically seek to redefine real conditions into an abstract context to better understand the essence of an idea. An exemplar of this methodology is found in the multiplicity of diagrammatic uses of Hejduk’s “nine-square grid” exercise. There are benefits to this type of investigation, but this analytical approach generally does not consider the experiential nature of space. These types of diagrams are best used to understand the formal syntax of hierarchical order. In Hejduk’s 1950’s diagram of the nine-square problem, spatial content is presented through the rigor of hierarchical geometric order revealing quantifiable rational space, but in Hejduk’s 1970’s iteration of the nine-square exercise, spatial content is diagrammed through the positioning of void spaces in concert with the rational grid revealing an otherness to the nature of spatial order. These different approaches by Hejduk towards diagramming architectural order using the same initial diagram reveal an investigation in

Figure 4.10  Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985 John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

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Figure 4.11  Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Problem between 1963 and 1985 John Hejduk, Detail, ink on ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm, DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

search of a formal architectural language where the depth of the language is revealed within the hierarchy of geometric systems, but as seen in Hejduk’s 1970’s diagram, the same system is used to investigate the poetic nature of space where the depth of the language is fluid, even kinetic. The diagrammatic fluidity alludes to the potentiality of the importance of the use of time in an architectural proposition. Time and space are interrelated revealing the nature of spatial experience which happens over time and place and is not fixed in space. These two basic diagram types are representative of the spatial diagrammatic exorcisms explored by John Hejduk. In the 1950’s diagram Hejduk exorcised the geometric systems he investigated in the Texas Houses projects and 20 years later his diagram shows the evidence of his exorcisms of the nature of his time/space investigations that ultimately materialized in his Diamond Projects and Wall House projects.

Figure 4.12  Diamond Museum C, Concept Diagram Sketch detail John Hejduk, 1963–1967, digital image by J. Kevin Story.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  109 During the period between 1963 and 1967 Hejduk was beginning his ­exorcisms of time-space interrelationships and he expressed, through his diagrams, a transformation of form and space. In a sense he provided, in a simple series of diagrams, shown in Figure 4.12, a fixed frame representation of a square transforming itself into a plane. One can intuit that Hejduk was activating the fixed construct of the square by applying a diagrammatic representation of space-time kinetics. By rotating the square to become a diamond, which Hejduk used as a reference to the depth found in Renaissance art, and then rotating the diamond in perspective projection, the diamond form ultimately collapses its spatial depth to become a line. The resultant line is Hejduk’s expression of capturing the collapse of time into space. The line can then be thought of as a wall – the edge of a recessional space. A diagram used as a signifier of the flatness of depth.98 This “flatness” becomes a neutral condition, the most present condition of space. This spatial diagrammatic device is the precursor that evolved to become Hejduk’s Wall House archetype. Hejduk sums up his geometric diagrams as follows: The nine-square is metaphysical. It always was, it still is for me … It is one of the classical open-ended problems given in the last thirty years. The nine-square has nothing to do with style. It is detached; the ninesquare is unending in its voidness.99 The minute you start the physicality of moving, which is architecture, you can look at the object if you’re looking in a fixed Renaissance point of view and you’re looking outside of it. As you approach the membrane, there is a point where you physically come inside. It’s a marvelous way of memory, of seeing, of moving, of static and non-static  …  On the plane of the present is that horizontal armature, which is the hypotenuse; you just speculate on futures.100 Hejduk’s “The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio” sketch diagrams use a different methodology focusing on the undertone of how and why architecture provides a solution to a given site condition, as well as conditions of plan, section and spatial intent. The diagrams are simultaneously abstract and yet depict real conditions of pictorial space and place. They suggest hierarchical order, but they also indicate mood and undertone within the depths of the diagrammatic tonality. Hejduk’s sketch diagrams provide the observer with imagery which allows a deeper understanding of the design proposition. The diagrams reveal an undertone or aura to the work that requires contemplation of the ideas projected. The result of this diagrammatic approach fosters a personal connectivity to the work. The connectivity takes the work beyond just the abstractions of rational thought and moves it into a realm engendering personal experience of form and space. Hejduk’s later diagrammatic representations are explored from an allegorical, metaphorical and poetic representation to reinforce the undertones beneath the architectural imagery he expresses.

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Figure 4.13  Sketches and notes for The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio John Hejduk, 1974–1979, ink with pastel on paper, 23 × 31 cm, DR1998:0093:001:006, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Hejduk’s methodologies to explore architectural design did not inhibit or prevent him from exploring the reality of spatial experience in deference to focus only on the abstraction and constructability of an architectural syntax. Hejduk used architectural diagramming as a tool to understand the sensory sensations of a proposed design. His diagrams provided clarity to the underpinning of his ideas. Hejduk’s diagrams result in architectural propositions expressing and communicating experience, as well as the hierarchical nature of formal syntax. diagrams, while certainly amenable to conveying technical specifications, and of use in the environmental sciences, can equally convey spatio-sensory information that we argue is no less real and no less definable. While it has long been an article of faith among Western-trained designers that structure and programme are the most important aspects of buildings, there is a growing understanding of, and appreciation for, their phenomenological aspects. And diagrams can help in that process of enlightenment.101 It is true that rational and technical diagrams have been and will continue to be the primary method used by architects to investigate the formal iterations

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  111 of their work. But, to understand the essences of ideas beyond the abstractions of the formalities within architectural propositions Hejduk’s investigations revealed to him the intangible qualities of light, materiality, opacity, tonality and undertones of spatial experience. These intrinsic qualities are the hallmarks found in the otherness associated with John Hejduk’s work. He thought of his investigations as having the potential to be transferrable to others. A contemporary architect that understands and utilizes the power of tactile, non-rationalist architectural diagrams similar to John Hejduk is Steven Holl. Holl formulates his initial ideas through his use of watercolor sketch diagrams. He investigates the undertones in-between the lines of his work to discover the essence of the architecture. His sketch diagrams are dense with tone, color, form, space, material and light. They are simultaneously abstract, as well as pictorial, suggesting reality through the essences of form and space beyond the formalisms of a hierarchical syntax of order. Through his exploration of the fluidity of the pigmentation of water on paper he creates density of form and space in a manner that Hejduk would call “geometricized air”. He conjures architectural thought from his mind’s eye and explores his thoughts through the tactile use of watercolor not unlike Hejduk’s exorcism

Figure 4.14  Knut Hamsun Museum Concept Watercolor Sketch, “Concept: Building = A Body – Battleground of Invisible Forces”, Steven Holl, 1994, image courtesy of © Steven Holl Architects.

112  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque of his own ideas. An exemplar of Holl’s architectural diagrams providing evidence of depth of thought to define the essence of an idea is seen in his design diagrams for the Knut Hamsun Centre Museum project in Norway completed in 2009. Hejduk used architectural diagrams to explore freedom of expression from many points of view and from a variety of methodologies and mediums to investigate the nature of spatial design. Whether his diagrams investigated the pictorial imagery of a design to inform the essences of his ideas or used the abstractions of formal ordering systems to inform his ideas – each method had its place and time in his design process. With a plethora of algorithmic computer tools available to architects today the process of design can be expedited. These tools, in large measure, supplant the traditional methods of tactile design investigations. I would argue that haptic design investigations, as seen in Hejduk’s work, provide an emotional investment in the work. Whether idea diagrams are produced through watercolor as seen in the work of Steven Holl or through multimedia diagrammatic uses as seen in the work of John Hejduk or through other haptic methods, the result is connectivity to the iterations of the design proposition that cannot yet be achieved through a keyboard and computer screen alone. There is no substitute for the emotive power of an idea conceptually studied through the spatial explorations of the physical architectural diagram. Hejduk explored spatial intentions through the tactile sense of the conceptual diagram. His diagrams provided him with an alternate reality of spatial definition engendering a deeper connectivity to his investigations. The art form of the tactile representations of conceptual diagrams is disappearing from the iterative language of architecture. These types of diagrams have almost become antiquated in the discourse of architectural polemics in our advanced technological landscape. Architects like Hejduk, Holl and others understand the conceptual power of tactile diagrammatic investigations. Architect Juhani Pallasmaa has written a trilogy of books, The Eyes of the Skin (1995), The Thinking Hand (2009) and The Embodied Image (2011) investigating the power and importance of the tactile senses in how we perceive and experience architecture and the world around us. In The Eyes of the Skin, Pallasmaa writes: Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capacities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive visual manipulation, a retinal journey … whereas drawing by hand, as well as, model-making puts the designer into a haptic contact with the object or space.102 John Hejduk knew the importance represented in the interrelationship between his imagination and the tactile senses, especially the simultaneous experience occurring between the actions of his mind and hand. He captured the illusive nature of his imagination and expressed the spatial experiences he

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  113 envisioned within his mind’s eye through the haptic use of the architectural diagram providing clarity to the underpinnings of his exorcisms.

The architectural narrative Hejduk extensively used the written narrative to define the essences of his design propositions. A case study exemplar of his narratives is found in The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio project as recounted earlier in this chapter. To understand architecture at a deeper philosophical level, as proposed in the “Watchtowers” narrative, one can create a platform to ask questions and provide commentary to larger issues than syntactic formalisms. In Hejduk’s Watchtowers project narrative it can be argued that issues of isolation, separation, imprisonment and socio-political commentary became the platform of the architectural investigation. Hejduk developed his narratives to discover the essences of what lay underneath the rigors of his diagrammatic investigations to uncover the unrevealed qualities caught “in-between the lines” of his work. John Hejduk sought to unearth and exorcise architectural spatial experience through his use of narrative and storytelling. In fact, much of his narrative descriptions seem to be written as if they are universal parables to draw life lessons. One such narrative is Hejduk’s 1980’s essay “Evening in Llano”, in which he uncovers the power of spatial experience, not as a manifestation of physical construction, but rather as a metaphysical exploration of the spatial expansiveness of the mind and body. As part of his essay, Hejduk discussed the nature of viewing a work of art. He defines architectural space through the vast depths available through the act of seeing beyond the tactile nature of our world to discover essences of space that can reveal experiential revelations within the imagination. The whole canvas may be seen or a part may be the focus of the vision of the viewer. The space between the canvas and the viewer is “geometricized air”. It is air of a contained visual volume. It is air “outside” of the observer … He is in communion with the painting yet standing three or four arms lengths away … The observer can take in the painting with his eyes … When the observer totally connects with the painting, all actual distances disappear. Thought illuminates the air between – thought has no surface. That is, a dense void locks itself into the physicality of what has been painted on the surface of the canvas. A co-existence takes place. In a way; thought, which is dematerialized, acts with a materialized thought, translated on the canvas through the application of pigment. A materialized thought meets pure thought (a thought without substance). The result is a revelation.103 Hejduk used his architectural narratives to clarify the underpinnings of his ideas while providing an experiential quality to his architecture and his narratives

114  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque clarified the functional intent which offered a story line to the spatial experiences in his architectural propositions. In other words, his narratives were used by him to deepen his architecture by revealing to the observer or user an otherness to the design that he offered to metaphysically activate spatial connectivity between the user and the inanimate construct of form and space. the narrative  …  denotes a sensibility and a way of working that sets out to incorporate human nature into its method. In pursuit of meaning rather than performance, it frames an architecture that takes account of human experiences and the need to shape them into stories.104 Hejduk used his narratives to breathe life into his designs, transforming the work from what may be an abstract syntax expressing and refining formal ordering systems to form and space to one that engenders experiential connectivity within the formal systems of order. His use of narrative did not supplant the use and knowledge of formal ordering systems, but rather it enhanced the experiential depth of those systems. There is a phenomenological interrelationship that exists in the architectural narrative between functional resolution, formal iterations of order and time/space experience that fuels the imagination of the user/inhabitant. An example of this interrelationship is seen in Diller Scofidio’s 2002 Swiss National Expo Pavilion, “Blur Building”. The architect’s idea was stated as: Using water from the lake, the idea was to create an artificial weather system that would respond to the prevailing conditions of temperature, wind and atmospheric pressure.105 The architect’s narrative describing the experience is defined as follows: Visitors wearing protective plastic waterproofs would enter its structure and “disappear” into the artificial cloud that hovered in and around the open structure. As it appeared to the public, this was not so much a building as a natural phenomenon captured, like a kite being held on an unusually short tether. Even though there were no walls as such, the building was absolutely architectural. It had space and substance, corridors, stairs and platforms that, when experienced from within, gave the impression of being inside this living cloud.106 Architectural narratives elevate the experiential imaginations of space. The uniqueness of experiencing the architectural construct of a “cloud” is simultaneously inspiring and a little unsettling. It created a type of occupiable, functional space, but it is fleeting. It is an architecture that fosters emotion and imagination, but it reminds us of the temporal nature of manmade constructs. After its dismantling all that is left of the cloud experience are photographic images and the memories of those that personally experienced the

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Figure 4.15  Blur Building Swiss Expo 2002, Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland, Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects, image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects, NYC.

building. The narrative lives on as do the images within the imagination. Blur Building is one of those rare instances where there was a fusion of structure, image, narrative and technology that inspired connectivity within our imagination. In a sense Blur Building was an “amusement park” type of experience, but within the imaginary world of the theme park there is escapism from the malaise of our daily lives. When architecture transcends beyond the banality of the malaise to provide a heightened sense of anticipation that fuels our imagination it reveals to us the connectivity that is possible within our built environment. Hejduk’s narratives created illusionary worlds for us to contemplate, but within the reality of our temporal world he sought to envelop us in spatial constructs that would stimulate our imaginations. The work Hejduk produced from the 1970s into the 1990s relied heavily on his narratives to reveal the poetic otherness that we associate with many of his designs. He used  the narrative as an integral part of the exorcism of his ideas which defined the pedagogical underpinnings within his investigations. He understood that the narrative brought a metaphysical quality into the propositions of his designs that sparked the imagination. Hejduk’s narratives were simultaneously functional scripts, as well as philosophical, allegorical and poetic statements engendering a phenomenology to his architecture. I was interested in the poetics of architecture, in that which only the architect can give. Everyone else can give everything else, but it’s the one thing they can’t give that interests me.107

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Notes 1 Author’s thoughts assimilated from texts taken from an interview between Don Wall and John Hejduk in John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985), p. 129. 2 Excerpt from Hejduk quote from “Homage to Mourning Becomes Electra”, Mask of Medusa, p. 122. 3 Assimilation of texts taken from the texts found in Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, pp. 123–130. 4 Hejduk quote, Mask of Medusa, p. 63. 5 Ibid., p. 85. 6 Ibid., p. 59. 7 John Hejduk, “Statement 1964”, John Hejduk 7 Houses (New York, Institute of Urban Studies, Catalog 12, 1980), p. 116. 8 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, pp. 127–128. 9 Ibid., p. 27. 10 Ibid., p. 27. 11 Ibid., p. 125. 12 Ibid., p. 91. 13 John Hejduk, “Armadillos” interview by Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk 7 Houses, p. 4. 14 Hejduk, “Armadillos” interview by Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk 7 Houses, p. 4. 15 Ibid. 16 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 76. 17 Author’s thoughts assimilated from Hejduk’s description of the “Comtesse d’Haussonville” 1845 painting by Ingres in Mask of Medusa, p. 76. 18 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 27. 19 Author is a collector of Native American pottery and is familiar with the Indian Pueblos and artists. 20 Quote by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 21 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 27. 22 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 23 Quote from the “Lockhart, Texas” essay first published in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record Magazine, p. 206. 24 Ibid., p. 203. 25 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 26 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” 1955–1956 essay, pp. 69–70 (Colin Rowe’s reprint in his book As I Was Saying Volume One (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT Press, Fourth Printing, 1996)). 27 Quote from the “Lockhart, Texas” essay first published in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record Magazine, p. 205. 28 Corbusier’s statement is a reference in his chapter titled “Eyes Which Do Not See”, pp. 85–148 in Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (J. Rodker, 1931). 29 Hans Frei “The Master of Lockhart (Texas)”, m u. d o t (Magazine for Urban Documentation – Opinion – Theory, Fourth Edition, Germany, 2006), p. 4. 30 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” 1955–1956 essay, p. 61 (Colin Rowe’s reprint in his book As I Was Saying, 1996). 31 Quote from the “Lockhart, Texas” essay first published in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record Magazine, p. 204. 32 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” 1955–1956 essay, p. 65 (Colin Rowe’s reprint in his book As I Was Saying, 1996). 33 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  117 34 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” 1955–1956 essay, p. 71 (Colin Rowe’s reprint in his book As I Was Saying, 1996). 35 Quotes from the “Lockhart, Texas” essay first published in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record Magazine, pp. 201–206. 36 Ibid., p. 59. 37 Hejduk quote describing the narrative undertone of “The Thirteen Towers of Cannaregio”. Quote is taken from the “John Hejduk: Masques” 1981 exhibit catalog written by Franz Schulze, 1981 University of Chicago Exhibit. 38 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 39 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 83. 40 Ibid., p. 345. 41 Author’s thoughts assimilated from text found in Branko Mitrovic, Philosophy for Architects (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011), pp. 161–166. 42 Branko Mitrovic, Philosophy for Architects, pp. 165–166. 43 Branko Mitrovic, Philosophy for Architects, pp. 165. 44 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 130. 45 Hejduk quote describing the relationship between two-dimensionality/three-dimensionality. Quote is taken from the “John Hejduk: Masques” 1981 exhibit catalog written by Franz Schulze, 1981 University of Chicago Exhibit. 46 This is a reference to the phrase “get into it”. During an interview in 1991 with David Shapiro, Hejduk recounted a conversation he had with Peter Eisenman discussing the architectural merits of his “House of the Musician” and the “House of the Painter” installations which were on exhibit in Berlin. Eisenman told Hejduk that the 50 foot tall structures “were not architecture because he could not get in them”. Hejduk looked at Eisenman and said “YOU can’t get in them”. Hejduk continued with his interview with Shapiro by saying: “In other words he was not in a position to get into them, because he did not understand or willing to.” Hejduk was telling Eisenman that architecture can exist within the imagination, as well as in occupiable spaces. Eisenman apparently disagreed. 47 John Hejduk, Vladivostok (New York, Rizzoli; illustrated edition, 1989). 48 The Situationist International (SI) was an organization founded by Guy DeBord and Asger Jorn beginning in 1956 and effectively disbanded by 1972. The SI ideas, as they relate to this discussion, refer to the urban environment as a place to find unexpected spatial experiences. The SI promoted the idea of drifting through the density of the city to find these experiences to enhance one’s connection to their surroundings. 49 Excerpt from Guy Debord, “Theory of the Dérive”, Internationale Situationniste, 2, December 1958. 50 Quote from Simon Sadler’s book “The Situationist City”, p.69. 51 Quote by Charles Jencks from an article written to this author on June 30, 2013 describing his thoughts on John Hejduk’s place in the discourse of Modern Architectural thought. 52 Simon Sadler, The Situationist City (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press) (New edition, July 2, 1999), p. 20. 53 Guy Debord, “Theory of the Dérive”, Internationale Situationniste, 2, December 1958. 54 Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1960). 55 Ibid., p. 92. 56 Quote from Guy Debord and Gil Wolman, “Methods of Detounement”, in Ken Knabb, The Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981), p. 10. Note: This quote was excerpted from James Burch, “Situationist Poise, Space and Architecture”, Transgressions, A Journal of Urban Exploration, Issue No. 1, p. 11, published May 1995, London and Newcastle. 57 Quote by Aldo Rossi taken from an interview titled “Mystic Signs, A Conversation with Aldo Rossi” by Carlos Jimenez, published in Cite Magazine, Spring 1990. 58 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 131.

118  Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque 59 Quote by James Burch, “Situationist Poise, Space and Architecture”, Transgressions, A Journal of Urban Exploration, Issue No. 1, p. 11, published May 1995, London and Newcastle. 60 The terms identified in the text describe architectural concepts generated by Bernard Tschumi in his work from the 1970s. This author contacted Tschumi and provided him with a copy of excerpts from this chapter (including the text in this reference) for his review. Tschumi reviewed the work and responed to this author via email on June 12, 2014. His comments included “the text you are working on is great”. 61 John Hejduk from the concluding paragraph of his Berlin Masque project text reprinted in Masque of Medusa, p. 152. 62 Quote from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1987) p. 572, cited in K. Michael Hays, Hejduk’s Chronotope (an introduction) (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). 63 Detlef Mertins, “The Shells of Architectural Thought”, in Michael K. Hays, Hejduk’s Chronotope, p. 2. 64 John Hejduk, from his statement titled, “A MATTER OF FACT” in Vladivostok (New York, Rizzoli; illustrated edition, 1989). 65 Hejduk quote describing his definition of the term “Masque”. Quote is taken from the “John Hejduk: Masques” 1981 exhibit catalog written by Franz Schulze, 1981 University of Chicago Exhibit. 66 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Living City, p. 222. Reprinted in Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright Designs: The Plans, Sketches and Drawings (New York, Rizzoli Publications, 2011). 67 Meryle Secrest, Frank Lloyd Wright, A Biography (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), p. 8. 68 Quote taken from K. Michael Hays, Architecture’s Desire (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2009), p. 119. 69 1991 American Institute of Architects’ national survey recognized Wright as “the greatest American architect of all time” and voted “Fallingwater” as “the best all-time work of American architecture”. 70 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 138. 71 Ibid., p. 129. 72 Ibid., p. 127. 73 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview confirming this author’s speculations on February 19, 2013. 77 Author’s postulations confirmed by Mrs. Hejduk in a telephone interview on February 19, 2013. 78 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 90. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Hejduk quote, Mask of Medusa, p. 63. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid., pp. 130–131. 84 John Hejduk obituary comments in The New York Times by architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, July 6, 2000. 85 Thoughts assimilated from text found in Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 122. 86 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 131. 87 Ibid., p. 122. 88 John Hejduk obituary comments in The New York Times by architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, July 6, 2000.

Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque  119 89 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 90 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 132. 91 The phrasing used here is this author’s interpretation of how Hejduk may have used an unrevealed meaning to descibe the dimensional depth of the house foundation. The phrasing is a twist on the name of Hejduk’s 1975 Venice project “Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought”. 92 Ibid. 93 Author’s thoughts assimilated from Hejduk’s comments in Mask of Medusa, p. 132. 94 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 375. 95 Ibid., p.132. 96 Comments made by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk during a telephone interview with this author on February 19, 2013. 97 Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka, “Diagrams in Multisensory and Phenomenological Architecture”, in Mark Garcia, editor, The Diagrams of Architecture (West Sussex, UK, Wiley & Sons, 2011), pp. 112–113. 98 Flatness of Depth is a reference to the title of Hejduk’s introductory essay in Judith Turner’s Photographs Five Architects (New York, Rizzoli, 1980). 99 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 129. 100 Ibid., p.50. 101 Malnar and Vodvarka, “Diagrams in Multisensory and Phenomenological Architecture”, in Mark Garcia, editor, The Diagrams of Architecture, p. 121. 102 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin (London, UK, Academy Press, 2005), p. 12. 103 John Hejduk quote from his essay “Evening in Llano”, in Hejduk, Education of an Architect (New York, Rizzoli, 1991), p. 340. 104 Nigel Coates, Narrative Architecture (West Sussex, UK, Wiley & Sons, 2012), p. 11. 105 Coates, Narrative Architecture, p. 87. 106 Ibid. 107 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 67.

5 Pedagogy of the Last Works Exorcising angels

If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master. Michelangelo Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven. Michelangelo

Poet David Shapiro, while interviewing John Hejduk in 1991, twice posed the question “why would an architect draw angels?”1 Hejduk’s elusive and characteristically enigmatic answer to Shapiro’s inquiry, recounted below, provides the departure for this chapter’s interpretations of Hejduk’s “Last Works”. This is the time for drawing angels. Angels have to do with crucifixion in a strange way … We’re in a time that we have the ability to crucify angels … What always interests me in the old paintings of the crucifixion is the construction of the cross. How the cross was constructed? How it was detailed? I think it is important to know. So that’s how the angels came into being of interest to an architect.2 The question still remains; why would an architect (Hejduk) draw angels? Hejduk’s answer above leads this author to other questions not asked by Shapiro, which may help in understanding Hejduk’s enigmatic “Last Works” projects and his interest in angels. Questions including; why was Hejduk interested in the Crucifixion? Why was Hejduk interested in the construction and detailing of the cross? Was Hejduk interested in the geometry of the cross? What were Hejduk’s thoughts on the metaphorical relationship between the Crucifixion of angels in his work and the metaphysical power of the Crucifix? Which artistic depiction(s) of the Crucifixion did Hejduk feel best captured the imagery of loss and redemption exemplified by the Crucifixion and why? How would Hejduk define the meaning(s) of the term angel? The answers to these questions can only be educated speculations after Hejduk’s passing at age 70 in 2000, but an investigation into these

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Figure 5.1  Crucified Angels: Emergency Service and First Aid, from Bovisa John Hejduk, 1986, Detail, painting with ink on paper, 100 × 65 cm, DR1988:0436:009, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

questions will provide a fresh insight leading to a deeper understanding of Hejduk’s Last Works. The discussions that follow in this chapter will attempt to uncover Hejduk’s passions towards his Last Works to provide an insight into his deeply guarded spiritual faith and his faith in the redemptive nature of art and architecture. It is the intent of this chapter to search for and propose plausible conceptual underpinnings to Hejduk’s Last Works. This chapter will use “Enclosures” (1999–2000), “Christ Chapel” (1996) and “Cathedral” (1996) projects, collectively known here as Hejduk’s “Last Works” to study his exorcisms of angels in his work. The analysis of the explorations in these projects will propose the compositional and geometric underpinnings of the work, provide a historical reference to the tonality and use of color in the work and provide a commentary on Hejduk’s enigmatic spiritual undertones of loss, faith, hope and redemption. Within this interpretative analysis the questions surrounding Hejduk’s spiritual exorcisms will provide the reader a sense of the internal complexities of the mind, imagination and spirit of John Hejduk. In his prolific body of work, in which he chose each medium to suit the particular site and subject matter, he animated life in stillness, measured

122  Pedagogy of the Last Works sounds in silence, and illuminated presence within the void. His projects represent the Before Life, Still Life and After Life of buildings.3

Why did John Hejduk draw angels? Origins of Hejduk’s interest in angels This chapter’s attempt to define Hejduk’s exorcism of angels will use key attributes found in Hejduk’s earlier work to provide clarity to the postulations offered. But, in order to provide these postulations regarding the complexities of the Last Works, one must also include the phenomenological and metaphysical nature of Hejduk’s poetic search into the exorcism of why Hejduk drew angels. His fascination with angels is evident throughout many of Hejduk’s projects beginning in the early 1980s and culminating in his Last Works. His interest in angels began with a fascination with the physical nature and metaphorical implications he envisioned in the architectural use of “wings”. When asked about the origin of her husband’s interest in angels, Mrs. Hejduk stated: I cannot be positive as to why John had this deep affinity for angels. I  do recall when we visited the Archeological Museum in Athens in 1982; it was an overwhelming experience for us. We noted that in the many sarcophagi exhibited, they depicted sculptures of the family groups and always behind the family members were “winged personages”. John remarked to me “How strange that in pre-Christian times artists depicted these benign individuals – in all probability artists of the Christian era took inspiration from these ancient works of art” … John often stated to me that throughout the ages, there were individuals sent to earth who were indeed “angels”. He specifically mentioned the poet Rilke, Mozart and Leonardo Da Vinci as being angels amongst ordinary beings.4 The first evidence of Hejduk’s use of wings is seen in his 1947 Aesop’s Fables illustrations. He depicts the wings of an eagle in flight in his Fables drawing titled “The Eagle and the Tortoise” and he depicts wings at rest in a perched crow in the drawing titled “The Fox and the Crow”. These references to wings from the Aesop’s Fables illustrations are provided as a referential backdrop and historical origin to Hejduk’s depiction of wings in his work. His fascination and use of “winged beings” did not occur until over 30 years after he completed the Aesop’s Fables illustrations. Hejduk’s innocent representations of birds positioned as overseers in his non-perspectival Aesop’s illustrations ironically would be transformed 52 years later into angelic beings posited in his non-perspectival Enclosures paintings where they oversee spiritual struggles caught between this world and the next.

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Figure 5.2  The Tortoise and the Birds From Aesop’s Fables illustrations, John Hejduk, 1947, digital image by J. Kevin Story.

In contrast to only “drawing” angels, Hejduk’s use of wings included drawings, as well as the physical construct of wings in the form of hedgerow structures fixed in the landscape. Hejduk was fascinated by the mystery offered by the presence of hedgerows and specifically the construct of a hedgerow maze.5 His hedgerows were initially fashioned after the imagery of wings in flight. This is evident in the “wing-like” hedgerow wall entry processional into Hejduk’s New England Masque project (1979) as identified in Chapter 4. These same wing-like hedge formations also appear in Hejduk’s Berlin Masque project (1981) model and a toned down version of an apparent hedgerow appears in his 1996 Cathedral project model. It should be noted that the hedgerow formations cited in the Cathedral model is only a postulation by this author. It is unclear from available resources if the “hedge-like” structures shown in the Cathedral model are in fact hedgerows. If these forms were designed to be hedges, Hejduk depicted them as hollow structures providing an enclosed path and not used as fixed landscape massings defining in-between negative spaces as seen in his other projects.

124  Pedagogy of the Last Works In the mid 1980s Hejduk discussed his fascination with wings in an interview with Don Wall, stating: I have been fascinated over the past five, six years, with wings. I want to make a collection of books on wings; someone has already done it with angels. The history of wings. There is not an analytical book on the history of people with wings. Never written. Could you imagine?6 The first graphic evidence of Hejduk’s transition from his fascination with wings to a more philosophical search into his exorcism of angels is shown in the closing image of his Berlin Masque project. The drawing clearly shows a winged Medusa figure as if the illustration is created to define a faceless

Figure 5.3  New England Masque Site Plan Sketches, John Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story.

Figure 5.4  Model for Cathedral From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 61 × 121.9 × 43.2 cm, DR1998:0134:014, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Pedagogy of the Last Works  125 mythical angelic being. The angel also features a wing-like headdress fashioned after the New England Masque winged hedgerows.

The presence of angels: an intersection in time and space The imagery of angels has existed in works of art for millennia and the historicity of the presence of angels in the world of art is beyond the scope of this discussion. But, as a historical backdrop to understand possible sources to Hejduk’s images of angels it is important to show several thematic and artistic similarities that exist between historical images of angels and those seen in the work of John Hejduk. As mentioned in previous chapters of this book, Hejduk studied the work of numerous artists, but the artistic imagery of angels Hejduk is known to have studied is found predominantly in works beginning in the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Renaissance painters Hejduk studied include Botticelli, Giotto, Della Francesca, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Sassetta, Van Eyck and others. All of these artists included the imagery of angels in their work. Indeed, some of the most revered works from the Renaissance period are paintings depicting angels. Based on Hejduk’s comments previously discussed regarding the undertones he discovered in the work of Ingres and Hopper it is postulated that Hejduk must have contemplated the Renaissance paintings on an emotional level and not just on composition and tonality alone. In other words, it was the metaphysical story behind the imagery that revealed the depth of the work to Hejduk. The pedagogy of Hejduk’s Last Works were driven by a graphic narrative not unlike the graphic narratives depicted in Renaissance art. The phenomenological depth of the Renaissance masterworks revealed an undertone of mystery, spirit and storytelling that likely influenced the mysteries and depth within the graphic narratives of Hejduk’s Last Works. An interesting distinction between Renaissance painting and Hejduk’s Last Works depicted in his Enclosures series is the absence of spatial depth. One of the hallmarks of Renaissance painting, as we know, was the use of perspective to create the illusion of depth, but another technique used to reinforce spatial depth by the Renaissance painters was their use of density and opaqueness of color to accentuate depth within the work. Hejduk’s Enclosures paintings also employ density and opaqueness of color as a technique to give the illusion of depth within the imagery without signifying depth through geometric composition. On one hand, Hejduk’s Enclosures draws on the notion of storytelling that is evident in Renaissance art, but on the other hand, his paintings reduce form and content to an essentiality of flatness to focus the observer’s perceptions towards the messages found within the imagery. Hejduk provides the viewer with a set of “freeze-frames” or “cross sections of frozen time” in his Enclosures which supplant more traditional depictions of spatial representation and content. It is within the realm of investigating the “flatness of space” that was one of the primary pedagogical exorcisms explored by Hejduk during his lifetime. His Enclosures are his

126  Pedagogy of the Last Works final exploration into the metaphysical phenomenology between the compression of space and the depth of flatness. While it is clear that Hejduk had a lifelong affinity for Renaissance art and his Enclosures owe something to the spiritual content and the presence of angelic scenes within Renaissance paintings, his work also shows an uncanny relationship to pre-Renaissance art of the Middle Ages. The thematic content of Hejduk’s Enclosures, in their flatness and apocalyptic visions, finds a direct kinship to other forms of artwork depicting religious themes. These artworks include the “Beatus Manuscripts” illustrations (8th through 11th centuries) and the “Book of Hours” (13th through 15th centuries). The imagery contained in the Beatus illustrations is described as images of the “Apocalypse” which graphically depict imagery from the biblical Book of Revelation.7 In a discussion of Hejduk’s Enclosures, Nora Laos described Hejduk’s images as follows: The surreal images … are eerily apocalyptic and remind me very much of Spanish Beatus manuscripts. These are medieval illustrated copies of an eighth-century Asturian monk’s commentary on the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation.8 The Book of Hours on the other hand, documents painted prayers of biblical imagery depicting the Book of Psalms, the New Testament Gospels, as well as, other liturgical imagery.9 While Hejduk’s angel drawings and his Enclosure plates are apocalyptic in content, they do not depict direct biblical imagery with the exception of the Crucifixion of Christ imagery observed in several of the Enclosures. Hejduk’s Enclosures clearly use underlying spiritual themes to graphically narrate the undertones within their imagery. In describing Hejduk’s Last Works, architect Toshiko Mori sensed the communicative power and essentiality of Hejduk’s Enclosures, stating:   …  As in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, where the artist used human figures to describe architectural alignments, bodies and creatures spatially transform the sectional alignments of (Hejduk’s) Enclosures. These works are the “Book of Hours” of our time – unearthly events inscribed on our souls.10 Comparison of Hejduk’s “Enclosures” with “Beatus de Facundus illustrations” Hejduk’s Enclosures certainly have a poetic kinship to the storytelling qualities of the 15th-century “Book of Hours” illustrations as Toshiko Mori states above, but Hejduk’s Enclosures and his depiction of angels are more thematically and artistically aligned with the Beatus illustrations from the 10th century shown in Figure 5.5. The quote below provides an artistic critique of the 10th century Beatus illustrations.

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Figure 5.5  Beatus Facundus Illustration, from the Beatus Manuscripts, ca. 1047, 250 × 205 mm, title: “en:” The sixth Trumpet. The Angels trapped on the banks of the Euphrates. Rev. Ix, © https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Beatus_de_Facundus#/media/File:B_Facundus_173.jpg

Figure 5.6  Enclosures (E-13), 1999–2000. John Quentin Hejduk, Ink, gouache, and metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester, Photographer.

128  Pedagogy of the Last Works Contours and linear accents suggest that figures are swathed in voluminous garments of a kind which, in some styles, intensify the illusion of plasticity. Here, however, such illusions are systematically eliminated, and the figures have an irregular, sprawling quality that one imagines would result if substantial figures were flattened under pressure.11 Both sets of images (Enclosures and Beatus Manuscript illustrations) are non-perspectival, one could say pre-perspectival, in compositional format. They project a flatness of spatial definition (except for Hejduk’s Enclosures 4 and 10, which will be discussed later in this chapter) and both sets of work depict apocalyptic and spiritual visions through the use of angelic scenes and angelic positioning. Through their compression and flatness of image they emphasize the purity and power of the narrative. The subject of storytelling, in Beatus and Hejduk’s work becomes dominant over the object of the image itself. Without the geometrics of perspective and absent of apparent graphic depth, the images, in a sense, become primordial expressions of the imagination of the artist. They project simplicity and reductive power; they are apocalyptic images without the bias of decorative pictographic effects. Additional relationships can be observed in the “flatness” of Hejduk’s Enclosures plates and the paintings of Sassetta (1392–1450). Many of Sassetta’s paintings do not use shadow to reinforce depth. In this sense there is “flatness” to the imagery of the paintings. The common link between Sassetta’s work and Hejduk’s Enclosures is the absence of shadows. There is light and color, but no shadow. This observation is similar to Hejduk’s own discoveries in Ingres’s 1845 Comtesse d’Haussonville painting where Hejduk states: There’s no depth, right? No perspective. This painting is in my work … the opacity of the wall, the lack of depth.12 It is also interesting to see the similarities in the forms and colors used in the Beatus illustrations and Hejduk’s Enclosures. In both sets of work the use of color is saturated, dense and opaque. It is not known if Hejduk was aware of the ancient illustrations and Hejduk surely did not derive or borrow his technique of coloration from the early Spanish manuscripts. The quote below highlights the use of color, form and artistic technique used by the artists of the Beatus Manuscript illustrations which could also be an accurate artistic critique of Hejduk’s Enclosures. virtually all illusions of plasticity are suppressed in favor of flat patterns clearly established by line but chiefly conceived in terms of color. The human figure is thought of as an assemblage of colorful panels appended by feet, hands and head, with little concern for a demonstration of organic connections. Figures have no dimension beyond height and breadth; they

Pedagogy of the Last Works  129 cast no shadows  …  it is a style where action takes place in a sphere unmeasured by the conventional guides of illusionistic space.13 Comparison of the Beatus angels and Hejduk’s angels Through the discussions above it is clear that there are historic precedents to the technique and content of Hejduk’s Enclosures, but this analysis of the work only defines a technical approach to understanding the tenets and

Figure 5.7  Beatus illustration Angel Detail, Facundus for Ferdinand, ca.1047, title: “The Angel spreads the first Cup. Apoc. XVI”, Illumination on parchment, 110 x 200mm, courtesy of Wikimedia.org, public domain. © https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B_Facundus_216a.jpg

Figure 5.8  Angel Detail From John Quentin Hejduk, Enclosures (E-07), 1999–2000, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester, Photographer.

130  Pedagogy of the Last Works exorcisms explored by Hejduk. His passions were deep and I feel his exorcisms were explored from an emotional poetic realm. Hejduk’s use of angels, the Crucifix and the stigmata of Christ to express spiritual themes within his Enclosures provides us with a graphic poetic narrative. The Enclosures series does not include accompanying poems or narratives to describe the scenes or visions Hejduk created. The work itself becomes Hejduk’s final exorcism of the simultaneity and equality that exists between his drawing, painting and poetry. One could postulate that Enclosures may be physical “cross sections” of Hejduk’s thoughts. In other words, are his Enclosures “revelations” akin to Hejduk’s narrative described in his essay “Evening in Llano” discussed in Chapter 4? In a very real sense, Hejduk’s Enclosures define the vocabulary of a poetic language he sought his entire life to express. If the purpose of poetry is to open a door to express one’s inner most thoughts, emotions and imagination, then Hejduk’s Enclosures have given us a glimpse into the depth of his soulful wandering. Enclosures are truly Hejduk’s final poems. Dance of death Another comparative of Hejduk’s Enclosures exists between his Enclosure paintings seen as a series of plates creating a collection of allegorical images and that of the “emblem books” created during the 16th and 17th centuries. Hejduk studied the Dance of Death (1526–1538) etchings by Hans Holbein. In Hejduk’s The Collapse of Time project description from 1986 he stated: I had been looking at the plates of Holbein’s “Dance of Death”. What transfixed me were the distances which Death had to traverse. Holbein envisaged him always on the road … a journeyman … his appearance known  …  Holbein’s dread  …  celebrated. The plates were filled with music … distantly heard. Death came out of time.14 Holbein’s 41 woodcut etchings depict macabre scenes juxtaposing the figuration of death, defined as a skeleton, confronting figures of the living. In a sense, Holbein’s images capture the essence of the adage “no one can escape the clutches of death”. The Dance of Death etchings become allegories providing a graphic storyline to the variety of images depicting the disguises of Death. Similarly, the graphic narratives provided by Hejduk’s 32 Enclosure plates can be defined as a modern-day emblem book providing us with apocalyptic imagery as thought provoking as Holbein’s Dance of Death etchings.

Drawing the sound of angels Hejduk never constructed a physical model or made a “construction” drawing of an angel. Those that are familiar with John Hejduk’s work would agree that he never physically “built” an image of an angel. After all, how can you physically construct a “spiritual being”? On the other hand, Hejduk

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Figure 5.9  The Pedler Hans Holbein, from Dance of Death, 1522–1526, woodcut, paper, h 65mm × w 50mm, compiled by Dr. F. Lipman, 1986, “the Pedler” by Ephemeral Scraps is licensed under CC BY 2.0, public domain. © https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/418ecfe1a052-4169-9459-21f7886c9399

certainly would have disagreed with the assessment that he never “built” or “constructed” an angel. For Hejduk the spatial construct of architecture was the same as the spatial construction of a model, the construct of a building, the making of a drawing or the spatial metaphysics of a poem. In this sense, Hejduk indeed was a builder of the metaphysical nature of angels. But why did he draw angels? An alternate phrasing of this question can be stated as: Why would Hejduk “draw on” angels? Hejduk sought, through his “pessimism”, to ask questions about the nature of architecture and the hope offered by the presence of angels in the world around us. It is my postulation that Hejduk sensed in the act of drawing angels, he could somehow provide “guardian angels” to oversee and protect the art of architecture and ensure a future that would stimulate the aspirations of the human spirit.

132  Pedagogy of the Last Works Hejduk had a deep appreciation for the structural syntax of musical composition and he equated music as architecture, but his love of music was in the otherness and the transcendence provided by the emotional connectivity he felt when listening to his favorite composers. Mrs. Hejduk recalled John’s appreciation of music by stating: Upon returning home he would sit quietly and draw while listening to his favorite composers: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and most recently the British composer John Taverner.15 It is postulated that listening to music was Hejduk’s method to release his imagination and to fuel his creative thinking. Did Hejduk visualize angels within his imagination while working on his Enclosures and being absorbed in the soundings of Mozart, Beethoven or Taverner? We will never know, but one could imagine that while feeling-out his work Hejduk may have felt the compositions of Mozart were, for him, the voices of angels here on earth. The Crucifixion of angels Through his exorcism of drawing angels Hejduk came to understand the fragility and short comings of the human spirit defined in his statement as follows: “We’re in a time that we have the ability to crucify angels.”16 The depths of our imagination and our desire to exist beyond the temporal world are embodied in the presence of angels. Hejduk sensed that in his time there was a perceived threat to the demise of the creative imagination found at the very core of art and architecture. In Hejduk’s “Crucified Angels” drawing he captured the metaphorical essence of the nature of loss, hopelessness and fragility of the spirit. The passions so powerfully depicted in the images of the Crucifixion of Christ were supplanted by Hejduk with the image of a crucified angel. He felt that the zeitgeist of postmodern architecture needed correction. His efforts were to re-center a path he deemed was moving rapidly in the wrong direction. He sought to provide a counterforce to the undercurrents rumbling within what he perceived as a pop culture of consumerisms and the immediacy of satisfaction sought from the contemporary architecture of his time.17 I feel that there should be a moratorium on the built environment. Because much of what is being built has a negative aspect upon the spirit. Now, we should be investigating things that should happen in a positive effect on the spirit.18 It is interesting to contemplate Figure 5.10. Hejduk depicts a bridge lined with crucified angels, like soldiers, as if to warn those who make the journey across the bridge that they are leaving innocence behind. It becomes an act of passage that makes one pause to reflect through time and space. It is not the physical act of passage that fuels our imagination, but rather the idea of

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Figure 5.10  Hospital Towers: Prison/Normal; Via of Crucified Angels From Bovisa 1986, Detail, John Hejduk, painting with ink on paper, 100 × 65 cm, DR:1988:0436:008, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, © Estate of John Hejduk.

why one passes over the bridge that gives pause to reflect. Hejduk provided his crucified angels as modern-day symbols to give us pause to reflect on our own sense of place and time. Hejduk also echoed his “pessimism” of the state of the built environment in his letter written to Richard Meier which was used as a postscript in Richard Meier’s first monograph published in 1984. In fact I have been thinking about your work in relationship to the society in which we live. It seems that we have both been caught between two sides of a coin … I no doubt should build more, you no doubt should research more. But what to build more and what to research more is the paradox, the dilemma … Perhaps, Richard, through your particular use of white  …  you have indicated another meaning for our society and its programs, a meaning analogous to that of the dark white houses of Hawthorne’s New England with their hidden, unrevealed aspects. We as architects must explore the possibility of monochromatic programs – programs unknown as yet, which do not necessarily reflect society as it is, but which, somehow, speculate on what society might become.19

134  Pedagogy of the Last Works Hejduk’s letter to Meier is further support of his desire to draw angels. Hejduk’s metaphorical representation of the imagery of angels opens a deeper conversation into the nature of what and why society builds. Hejduk intuited that if he could open the conversation leading to what and why we build, other architects may follow his lead. His exorcism of angels provides us with a metaphorical “ground zero” to begin restructuring the nature of the built environment around us. In a sense, Hejduk’s passionate drawings of angels were a call to all of us to find the possibilities of angels in our own lives. His message is also a call for us to be mindful and respectful of the fragile nature of the soundings of the spirit within the spaces that envelop us. The subject of angels is multifaceted and multidimensional and it is certainly the case with Hejduk’s representations of angels as well. But, it is this author’s postulation that one reading of Hejduk’s depictions of crucified angels was in fact his metaphorical representation of the demise of architecture itself. In other words, the angel represents architecture and his crucified angels represented the Crucifixion of the spirit and art of architecture. If this postulation regarding Hejduk’s thoughts on the demise of architecture is true, a question still remains: Why was Hejduk so interested in the imagery of angels to exorcise his thoughts about the demise and re-centering of architecture? He drew angels for almost 20 years and it is interesting that, as an architect, he only made “life-like drawings” depicting the imagery of angels. If Hejduk used the angel as a symbol of architecture why did he not provide us with “construction” drawings, including traditional plans, sections and details. He only provided us with three-dimensional opaque images. In a sense, the reason for a lack of “spatial” investigation of the physical construct of angels has to do with the undertone of his drawings. Hejduk’s angel drawings were masques hiding the interiorities of unrevealed mysteries behind the innocuous expressionless faces of his angels. This observation is not unlike Hejduk’s investigation of Texas House 7 from 20 years before, in that, Hejduk only provided images of the exterior of House 7. While he produced floor plans to the house, he never provided a site plan or constructed sections through the house to reveal the spatial nature of the interior. The design of House 7 remains an enigma in Hejduk’s Texas portfolio where he only provides an opaque image-screen of the house. Was Hejduk’s lack of interior spatial depth and development in House 7 just due to circumstance? We may never know, but like Hejduk’s angel drawings, House 7 remains as a masque hiding the complexities of what may lay underneath the opaque density of its skin and interior volume. In an effort to provide a “face-value” reading of Hejduk’s angel drawings, it is possible to interpret his angels as simple, even wonderful variations on a singular artistic theme exorcising the use of Renaissance color and compositional techniques. But this viewpoint does not consider the existence of a deeper allegorical or poetic undertone within the drawings and marginalizes Hejduk’s investigation into the imagery offered by his angels.

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Figure 5.11  Artist’s proof for The Flight From Zenobia, John Hejduk, 1990, 66 × 47 cm, DR1998:0128:311, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Hejduk drew angels for many years, some in black and white, in color, some angels were drawn in flight, some angels drawn in conflict, angels drawn at rest, angels at work, angels that have been “caught” and others that have been crucified. In other words, Hejduk’s angels were ones of action and/ or interaction. In a sense they were the “verbs” of his silent graphic narratives. The importance of the imagery of Hejduk’s angels does not lay in their outward formal appearances or even in specific physical acts he depicted in his drawings, but rather the message found in Hejduk’s angels are revealed through the poetic minimalism of their graphic narratives. Hejduk’s angel drawing narratives are not accompanied by written descriptions, although his written poetry did include angelic imagery. Read “The Sleep of Adam” to evoke his feeling for angels – since in this writing, Angels take a most significant role.20 It is the imaginative power of the graphic narrative of Hejduk’s angels, whether written or drawn, that cause us to ponder their phenomenology. He sends us angels to metaphysically experience within our imagination to

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Figure 5.12  Enclosures (E-07), 1999–2000 John Quentin Hejduk, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester, Photographer.

better inform us of our place in time and space. After all, aren’t angels meant to be messengers, “guardian Angels”, sent by God? Hejduk surely understood this tenet of Judeo-Christian thought and Hejduk sent messengers of his own in the form of angels. If we allow ourselves to believe in the existence of angelic beings, with closer inspection of Hejduk’s angel drawings, we can understand his preoccupation with the imaginative power, complexity and limitations embodied in the human spirit. What better metaphor could have Hejduk used to exhibit the aspirations of architecture than what is evident through the metaphysical presence of angels. The excerpt from Hejduk’s poem “The Sleep of Adam” from his 1993 book Soundings recounted below provides haunting imagery that seems to inform the graphic narrative of Hejduk’s Enclosure 7 shown in Figure 5.12. the whispers of all angels which Death had entrusted to her keeping

Pedagogy of the Last Works  137 she removed the last leaves made of pewter from the trees and created a pair of metal wings she sewed them to her back then began her flight as she rose discarding all earthly memories on that day the heavens rained blood.21 Symbolism in the Cross: the plentitude of time and space Hejduk understood the dialectic between the limitations of man and the aspirations of the human spirit. His angels were drawn out of a need to exorcise and express his innate connectivity to the labyrinthine complexities and frailties of the human condition. Hejduk also drew angels out of a need to exorcise his perceived limitations to adequately provide an architectural expression of his faith in architecture to redirect, what he sensed, was a steady cultural decline in the power of architecture to lift up the human spirit. Living in the quasi-rational time of ours, we are in desperate need of the mental emancipation that the spiritual and artistic dimensions can provide to human thought, emotion and imagination.22 It seems by the time of the Enclosures Hejduk’s architecture had outgrown the formal system that he’d spent his entire life developing. His own architectural research had begun to seem inadequate. He had to find a new device, a new set of forms, “a new way of signification”, but perhaps it was just a very, very old one, for the cross is the most fundamental, the most primitive architectural form.23 Hejduk’s deeply guarded faith helped fuel the flames of his desire to create authentic architectural solutions to the societal problems of his time. He believed in the power of art and architecture, on one hand, to reflect the ills of society, and on the other, to heal mankind’s self-inflicted wounds on the built environment. The cross is the mark of the felt loss of architecture’s original, divine mission of founding a promised land – a church on solid ground – and the necessary covering over of the site of that loss, masking it with architecture itself.24 Hejduk was known to study and admire the work of Giotto, Botticelli and others as previously stated. He surely must have contemplated the thematic transition of Botticelli’s work from decorative themes to work that told

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Figure 5.13  Christ Carrying Cross Botticelli, ca. 1490, 132.5 × 106.7 cm, courtesy of Wikiart.org, public domain, Mark 1.0, no copyright. © www.wikiart.org/en/sandro-botticelli/christ-carrying-the-cross

stories with a deeper religious symbolism. One can only imagine Hejduk’s thoughts within his imagination as he pondered the image of Christ carrying the Cross on His way to Golgotha as seen in Botticelli’s painting in Figure 5.13. Would Hejduk consider the physical or the metaphysical weight of the cross depicted in Botticelli’s painting? Certainly Hejduk would have noted the blood red color of Jesus’s once pure white robe as depicted in Botticelli’s painting. This image from Botticelli literally and figuratively depicts Jesus’ blood as He took up the weight of His Cross. Indeed, Botticelli’s painting expresses the weight of the world born on the burden of the Cross. With the use of one color Botticelli transcended the weight of the Cross from a physical burden to a profound expression of the weight of all humanity. Hejduk certainly considered the metaphorical implications of the Cross evident in Botticelli’s painting, but did he also consider the physical nature of the Cross? Questions including the detail of the Cross’s cross-beam joint assembly or the length and width dimensions of the members of the Cross or the type of wood used in “Jesus’s Cross”? While the possibility exists that Hejduk did consider answers to these questions, it is more likely and more important that his interest in the detail of the Cross was not limited to the temporal nature of physical constructs, but rather Hejduk’s interests lay in the metaphor, the metaphysics and the phenomenology of eternal proportions.25 The simple and reductive form evident in the presence of the Cross sums up Hejduk’s lifetime of searching and exorcising his pedagogical investigations

Pedagogy of the Last Works  139 into the manifestations of the physical and the metaphysical realms of architecture. Hejduk stated that it was “the construction and detailing of the Cross that brought an interest in Angels”to him.26 For most of us, as we ponder the Crucifix and the meaning surrounding the crucified Christ, we consider the power of faith, of suffering, the inhumanity of persecution and the redemptive promise of the resurrection. In other words, we contemplate the “Passion of the Christ” not the physical construct of the Cross. But Hejduk’s focus, as he stated, was on the Cross itself. His metaphorical interest was seeing the Cross not as a simple physical construction, but rather as a tectonic symbol and signifier of the abstract spatial composition of point, line and plane he so vigorously exorcised in his earlier works. He envisioned the Cross as the most profound reductive symbol defining the fullness and embodiment of architecture itself. Not architecture seen as the exteriority of an abstract edifice, but rather the materiality of a spatial construct with metaphysical undertones. Hejduk discovered within the construct and detailing of the Cross that the simple act of juxtaposing two lines in space not only formed the intersection of a biaxial geometric system of horizontal and vertical spatial order; the intersection also metaphysically defines the simultaneity of hope, faith, love, suffering, redemption, transcendence, resurrection and transfiguration. Ultimately, it is my interpretation that it was the poetics revealed in the undertone of the Cross where Hejduk found the full absorption of his mind, body and soul. Through the deep opaqueness of loss and shed blood at Golgotha an intersection of time and space revealed by the Cross, in my view, also revealed to John Hejduk the abundant plentitudes found in the luminosity of transparency. In the metaphysics and phenomenology of the Cross Hejduk discovered the first principle of his solid ground, revealing to us the origin of his exorcisms of the compressions and extensions of space and time. Perhaps it is the cross rather than the square or diamond that is architecture’s most primitive form. It is, no doubt, the most profound architectural element in Hejduk’s terms of a double articulation of formal and tectonic development … the degree zero of the architectural sign.27 Hejduk’s exorcism of angels represents a complex multidimensional process used by him to metaphorically give life, even an afterlife to his notion that architecture can lift the spirit and improve the human condition. Through his absorptions he exorcised angels by drawing them in various spatial situations telling us stories of hope, loss, frailty and redemption. In a sense his angels were Hejduk’s homage to exorcising the evil that he perceived as the “shallowness” or “thinness” he observed in the architecture of the late 20th century.28 After all, Hejduk also drew devils.29 For Hejduk the thinness he observed was architecture that lacked depth of thought and idea. It was architecture that was devoid of the richness that only a “soul” can give. He felt the communitas of society were in a place where it could take the promise

140  Pedagogy of the Last Works of architecture as an aspiration of the human spirit to a place where it could be “crucified”, therefore he drew crucified angels. His Crucifixion of angels was a metaphorical exorcism of the Crucifixion of architecture itself. But, as found in the Crucifixion and resultant transfiguration through the Resurrection of Christ, architecture also has the ability to be transfigured. From the ashes of Hejduk’s sense of architectures demise it could soar again on the wings of angels, but one must have the capacity to believe in the power of the spirit. the late John Hejduk. He was an architect who drew angels and believed in the power of spirit and faith.30 This is how the angels came into being of interest to John Hejduk.31 He was a man that believed in the power of angels, the depths of our imagination and the reductive symbol of the Cross. Hejduk believed.32

Enclosures no fire could burn How do we read Hejduk’s Enclosures? They are wonderful, colorful and thought provoking images exhibiting the enigmatic passions of John Hejduk. They are deep in tone and in spirit and they are highly personal apocalyptic images created within Hejduk’s imagination. There have been scholarly interpretations of the work offered over the last several decades by K. Michael Hays, Renata Hejduk, Jim Williamson, Toshiko Mori, Nora Laos, Carlos Jimenez and others offering insights on how to read Hejduk’s Enclosures. But, these scholarly insights and musings deal with Enclosures as a portfolio of collective work and not from an analysis of Hejduk’s individual 32 plates. I must admit that I was surprised when I discovered that the Enclosures were produced on 8½ × 11” paper. Somehow I envisioned the Enclosures as much larger in physical scale. I am not exactly sure why, except to say, that possibly it is the apocalyptic content in Enclosures that seems to warrant a larger platform to express Hejduk’s explorations. But, due to their small scale, the 32 plates can be installed as a collective presentation of images creating a “Wall” of saturated Renaissance color. Could this have been Hejduk’s intention? Hejduk provided a sketch showing the organization of the 32 Enclosures plates. His diagram shows the Enclosures to be four plates wide by eight plates high with each plate numbered one through 32. Was it Hejduk’s intention that the Enclosures were to be curated in sequential order requiring the images to be presented as a full collection or are they autonomous “standalone” images? If meant to be sequential do they tell a story in a similar fashion as medieval artists provided storytelling in the stained glass windows and sculptures adorning medieval cathedrals? Are the Enclosures Hejduk’s exorcisms of Holbein’s collection of Dance of Death images? We will never know, but it is interesting to contemplate the presentation of the Enclosures images as a “wall-like” collection of Renaissance color. Similarly,

Pedagogy of the Last Works  141

Figure 5.14  Manila Folder Enclosures layout sketch, 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Ink on paper, 9½ × 11¾ in. (24.1 × 29.8 cm) (folded), image courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Paul Hester, Photographer.

Hejduk depicted his Thirteen Watchtowers as individual tower enclosures, but were presented by Hejduk as a collective “Wall” of opaque medieval stone. If Enclosures were meant by Hejduk to be displayed as a singular collection of work, the size would be approximately 3 feet 3 inches wide and 8 feet high. One can intuit that the collective of Enclosures may be representative of a singular stained glass window with 32 parts. Did Hejduk possibly envision an interior space, an enclosure, bathed in the rich colors of light stained glass provides? One can recall Hejduk’s comments regarding the interior coloration of his 1979 New England Masque project. He stated the coloration would be from an austere time, colors found in Ingres’s 1845 Comtesse d’Haussonville painting. Did Hejduk exorcise his thoughts on color from 1979 to 1999 to end up exploring the power of color, by moving away from the austerity of color as he described in the painting, to the richness of colors found in medieval stained glass and Renaissance art? Are the Enclosures a window into the personal exorcisms of Hejduk’s soulful ponderings? It is refreshing to think Hejduk’s use of color, at the end of his life, was not a rejection of the light

142  Pedagogy of the Last Works filled optimism of the European modernists, but rather a deeper search for the luminosity color and light can offer to spatial perception. Among Hejduk’s Enclosures only Enclosure 4 and 10 define a spatial depth through “lines” of an implied diamond plan perspective projection while the overall imagery of plates 4 and 10 present an opaque flatness. Enclosure 10 is the only one of Hejduk’s suite of 32 plates that includes a single figure in the composition. All of the remaining 31 Enclosures contain multiple figures staged in various conditions of action and/or interaction. We will never know the specific meanings intended by Hejduk of his Enclosures so we are left to only speculate on their thematic probing. In my view, the Enclosures may be painted images of the poems from Hejduk’s book Lines: No Fire Could Burn published in 1999. The Enclosures plates are not images defining particular poems in the book, but rather a visual tour de force of imagery expressing a collective of the variety of literary and visual themes Hejduk provides in his poetry. The Lines book is one of Hejduk’s Last Works and it follows that he moved from writing about his poetic visions to creating a painted apocalyptic visual expression to exorcise the fullness of faith in his artistic vocabulary to write his poetry without words. Hejduk dedicated the book to poet David Shapiro and in the back cover summary Shapiro stated: Lines are a construction by an architect who seeks out the complex relationships of mother and son, of angels and their mysterious flights, of mental landscapes on earth and in the sea: it is an entire book of idiosyncratic prayer … These powerful religious poems offer strange combinations … bringing forth a new understanding of what it means to be human.33 Enclosure 10: the numinous written with lines and water, written in transparency The coloration of Enclosure 10, at first glance, does not seem unlike Hejduk’s other Enclosure plates, except for one significant difference. The tonality of color defining the object-subject of Enclosure 10 utilizes varying ­saturations of primary red, yellow and blue as its color palette. The use of primary colors leads one to question why Hejduk used “primaries” and what did the colors signify or symbolize in Enclosure 10? We can speculate that primary colors were likely used by Hejduk to emphasize the essentiality and directness of purpose within the work, as if the primary coloration is somehow homage to a Mondrianesque neo-plastic minimalism approach to form and color. See Mondrian’s “Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow” (1930) as a reference. We can only postulate to the signification and symbolism of Hejduk’s color use, but it does seem safe to intuit that yellow was used in Enclosure 10 to signify sunlight and saturated red may have been used to symbolize the blood of Christ. This leaves blue as the remaining primary color to contemplate.

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Figure 5.15  Enclosures (E-10), 1999–2000 John Quentin Hejduk, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester Photographer.

On one hand, historically, blue hues were used by Hejduk and others, such as Picasso’s “blue” period paintings to create a somber aura, melancholy or foreboding mood and this may be an accurate reading of Hejduk’s use of blue in the case of Enclosure 10.

144  Pedagogy of the Last Works In discussions with Professor Bruce Webb about Hejduk’s Enclosure 10, Professor Webb offers another insightful reading of Enclosure 10 as follows: To me the composition is a diptych: The one side is simply, worldly – a box containing a figure on a cross. The other half is a dark cloud of mystery within which anamorphic images of dark smoky shadows can be imagined. There is a sense of foreboding there, the unknown, similar to historic attempts to create pictures of hell. The two parts are pierced by the figural shaft of yellow light. My interpretations of the representational properties of the colors are … Christ’s body is ice (even transparent like ice). The cross an architect’s blue, the room is warm, the shaft, the glorious warmth of light. The brown side is a kind of non-color, dirty brown, dusty … I think he (Hejduk) might have hoped his interpreters of this work would write poems about it.34 Professor Webb’s commentary poses an interesting departure from the “facevalue” of what appears to be a spiritual context in the imagery of Hejduk’s Enclosure 10 in deference to a secular “worldly” context juxtaposing aspects of life against death. On one hand, the piercing presence of light through the murky shadow of void outside the Enclosure gives a sense of life and warm illumination to the interior volume of Enclosure 10 and on the other hand the blue figure and cross in the painting could be a metaphor of the finality and coldness of death as represented through the aqua blue tone of the Christ figure and saturated blue of the Cross metaphorically expressing transparent blue ice. This reading of Enclosure 10, in particular, can suggest a metaphorical expression in the altered state of the materiality of light, water and color.35 Hejduk’s use of blue in Enclosure 10 may also signal other metaphorical uses of the symbolisms associated with water. Hejduk clearly used blue to signify the presence of water in Enclosures 16, 20, 21 and 23. If the postulation of the use of blue as a symbol of water is correct in Enclosure 10, a further analysis of how Hejduk used “water” as a metaphor in Enclosure 10 is needed. As we know from physiological studies the average human body is composed of over 50% water and water is known as one of the building blocks that gives and sustains life. It follows that Hejduk certainly could have conceived that his Christ figure in Enclosure 10 was painted aqua blue to emphasize the fluidity, porosity and liquidity of the human body. Due to the primary pictorial image within Enclosure 10 as a vision of the Crucifixion of Christ one can also interpret the Christ figure in Hejduk’s painting as a symbol of “living water”. Surely with Hejduk’s Catholic upbringing he must have been aware of the scriptures which have references to Jesus as being a symbol of “living water”. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”36

Pedagogy of the Last Works  145 The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.37 In addition to the spiritual metaphors offered by the use of water, physical properties of water, including reflectivity and transparency evident in Enclosure 10 should also be considered. As stated previously, the tonality of Enclosure 10 is saturated with a flat density, saturation and opaqueness of color absent of the depth reflectivity can provide. It can be argued that reflection could be a metaphysical attribute. Enclosure 10, as well as Hejduk’s other plates are layered with metaphysical undertones of thoughtful reflection. Therefore, the property of reflectivity in Enclosure 10 occurs within the thoughts and imagination of the viewer as one reflects on the content of the work. It is within the mystery of this metaphysical realm or unrevealed otherness of art and architecture that Hejduk was most interested in exploring. Hejduk referred to this metaphysical phenomenon of reflective thought as “geometrized air”.38 It is my interpretation that the most important physical characteristic of water, seen in Enclosure 10, is the quality of transparency usually associated with water. Hejduk painted Enclosure 10 with clearly implied lines of a perspective projection overlaid onto the image of the Crucifix. The crucified Christ figure, while seemingly opaque, is actually transparent when seen against the spatial signifier of the receding lines implying the perspective of the Enclosure. It is not lost on this author that a poetic parallel can be drawn between the implied lines of perspective giving what one might call “spatial life” to the Enclosure and the image of the Crucifix symbolizing the promise of “eternal life”. On one hand, Hejduk defines spatial life through an elemental gesture of receding perspective lines, as if he is acknowledging his deep appreciation of classical Renaissance space and on the other hand, Hejduk signifies life through the death of the Crucified Christ figure. Hejduk spatially marks these two compositional gestures by providing a condition of transparency as they overlap to define his exorcisms of the intersection of space collapsing into time. In a sense, Hejduk has provided us with an artistic expression juxtaposing and integrating a vision of “Alberti’s window”39 superimposed onto his interpretation of Jacques Lacan’s “image-screen”40 to reveal the transcendence offered by the transparency of space. This is not “white space” filled with light as seen in early European modernism discussed in earlier chapters, but rather space imbued with the saturation of Renaissance color exposed by the piercing radiance of a single ray of sunlight as if the yellow line of light is an abstraction of the piercing stigmata found in Giotto’s “St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata” painting (ca.1295). Indeed, embodied in Hejduk’s transparent Christ figure is a silent representation of an architectural transfiguration giving promise of an afterlife to architectural space. The illuminated presence posited in Enclosure 10, as well as the other Enclosures, can resonate in the reflections of our imaginations to reveal

146  Pedagogy of the Last Works Hejduk’s version of the sacredness of silence. Michael J. Crosbie, provides his thoughts on the numinous as follows: How do we arrive at the numinous? How can we possibly understand it? [Rudolf] Otto tells us that we must be led; we must be guided through our own consideration and discussion of it, through one’s own mind, until the numinous inside each of us “begins to stir”. It cannot be taught, it can only be awakened.41 Another possible reading of Enclosure 10 is in the relationship Hejduk’s artwork has with the isolations of compositional and tonal saturations observed in the surrealist paintings of Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978). In addition to de Chirico’s tonal saturations, his surrealist work is also imbued with a palpable undertone of mystery, symbolism and metaphor that is also characteristic of Hejduk’s Enclosure plates. The description below of de Chirico’s painting “The Love Song” could also be a commentary on Hejduk’s Enclosure 10. By subverting the logical presence of objects, de Chirico created what he termed “metaphysical” paintings, representations of what lies ­“beyond the physical” world. Cloaked in an atmosphere of anxiety and melancholy.42 Another commentary below on the poetic nature of de Chirico’s work is also descriptive of John Hejduk’s Enclosure plates. That de Chirico was a poet, and a great one, is not in dispute. He could condense voluminous feeling through metaphor and association.43 To signify the essentiality of Enclosure 10 and to underscore that there is no secondary underlying meaning to the image, Hejduk uses Enclosure 10 to underpin his reductive technique of compressing space by intersecting time and space into a single pictorial image as represented in the Crucifix. The receding lines of the perspective posited in Enclosure 10 do not converge on a vanishing point as commonly evidenced in Renaissance art, but rather they intersect into a vertical line of what we may consider as the backdrop limits to Hejduk’s “diamond” volume implied by the floor plan of the Enclosure. One’s initial viewing of Plate 10 provides the illusion of depth, but Hejduk’s flattened compositional technique provides a more complex cross-sectional spatial flatness. We can contrast Leonardo da Vinci’s use of perspective in The Last Supper. Da Vinci’s vanishing point converges on the head of Jesus which puts the focus on Him in the composition, but Hejduk flattens the perspective of Enclosure 10 to put the emphasis on the entirety of his cross sectional imagery instead of a singular spatial point of reference. The cross section technique is used by Hejduk as an image-screen suggesting metaphysical depth.

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Figure 5.16  Sanctuary 1 (1–12), 1999–2000. John Quentin Hejduk, Ink, gouache, metallic paints, and crayon on Hejduk office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston, Gift of the artist in memory of Dominique de Menil. Paul Hester, Photographer.

The geometry of Enclosure 10 recalls his Sanctuary 1 and Sanctuary 3 studies executed around the same time frame as Enclosures. Sanctuary 1 and 3 are designed to be a diamond/triangular form in plan. The formal syntax of the diamond precludes the ability to create a vanishing point when presented from an interior perspective view looking towards the apex of the triangular form. The interior spatial context of Enclosure 10 has been defined by Hejduk with what appears to be a perspective view, but due to the diamond form, he only provides spatial ambiguity in the perspective. Hejduk leaves the physical resolution of space in Enclosure 10 as an open unresolved question. Therefore, it is postulated that Hejduk indeed has created the Enclosure 10 image as flattened space without a perspectival depth. Hejduk stated “What I am is the questionnaire upon the question. I am the interrogation upon the interrogator.”44 This analytical departure by Hejduk may suggest the flattened diamond form evident in his Enclosure 10 is compressed and fused onto the flat plane of the Crucifix to become an image-screen as suggested

148  Pedagogy of the Last Works previously. The imagery of the sectional width of Plate 10 is prescribed by the width of the Cross and the limit of Enclosure 10’s height is cut from view to expose an implied continuation of vertical space. In fact, there are no roof planes evident in the cross sections of any of the Enclosures plates. The physical heights of the Enclosures are unresolved and Hejduk has purposely left them out of view. It’s a beautiful distance; as you go back into space it gets into deeper perspective, it gets less clear and you can never really complete it, because that’s the unknown … as you get closer to the present, it’s clearer. On the plane of the present is that horizontal armature, which is the hypotenuse; you just speculate on futures. The futures can be an inversion of the diamond, the cone, or it can keep moving out in an extended way.45 What are the “futures” implied by the unrevealed spatial height of Hejduk’s image-screen in Enclosure 10? We will never know, but Hejduk would probably say “It’s a beautiful distance”.46 Now that we have a glimpse into the possible metaphorical and allegorical complexities observed in the work of Enclosure 10, can a “codex” of Hejduk’s Enclosures be delineated? Did Hejduk think of Enclosures as a manuscript? Are the works simply gestural autonomous paintings with a repeated “enclosure” theme exploring the use of saturated color to depict religious iconographic images? Are the paintings an effort by Hejduk to express his innermost spiritual thoughts represented as silent visual poems? Unfortunately, we cannot be certain. Hejduk, to this author’s knowledge, never expressed his thoughts about the work during or after the production of Enclosures. We know Hejduk was raised in the Catholic Church and had a deeply guarded personal faith, but this does not mean the spiritual symbolisms in Enclosures were expressive of his religious beliefs or an exorcism of his spiritual faith. When discussing the Enclosures Renata Hejduk stated: He was not somehow waiting for his Maker, making this work as he was sick and thinking that he was going to die and that this work is about that process. I think that’s just where he ended up … it was a culmination of his research into the formations of Western art – he was looking at Giotto and Uccello and he was so absorbed with the Renaissance iconography. I think that was coming back to him in the last years of his life.47 But, it is possible that Hejduk, in his last years was simultaneously exploring and exorcising his faith, as well as Renaissance art in his Enclosures. As a poet and artist Hejduk must have been using his tactile skills to contemplate his own mortality as he drew closer to the end. I agree with Renata Hejduk’s thoughts that J. Hejduk was exploring, possibly exorcising the work of the Renaissance painters and using Christian symbolisms to achieve it. But, in my view, the work is too personal to be only a heuristic exercise when

Pedagogy of the Last Works  149 considering the depth of Hejduk’s sensitive poetic nature and as such John Hejduk’s Enclosures will remain an enigma in the oeuvre of his life’s work. Enclosures can be considered a gift from Hejduk, to all of us, as an expression of the depths of his vast imagination and in the healing power of art, architecture and personal faith. In a poetic summation of the depths found in the metaphysical phenomenology of Enclosures, architect Toshiko Mori stated: John Hejduk believed in the linear nature of time; he existed in the flatness of space. When an angel penetrates a wall and becomes trapped in it, life and death implode at the moment of collision, and space and time fold into infinity.48

Out of time: into flatness Posited within Hejduk’s pedagogy of “flat space” are several key concepts he investigated that can be used to qualify and quantify his exorcisms in the experience of spatial flatness. What follows is an interpretation of Hejduk’s pedagogy of space and time to explore his perceptions of the depth of flatness evidenced in his Last Works. The angelic wall: the presence of “fleeting time” There is a significant phenomenological relationship in Hejduk’s use of angels, as well as his lifelong exploration of “space-time” experience. Hejduk defined spatial themes including the compression and extension of time and space embodied in his architectural investigations as early as the Diamond Houses and Diamond Museum designs from the mid to late 1960s. It can be argued that the “space-time” theme evident in his work can be seen as early as the 1950s Texas Houses projects. Specifically, his desire to exorcise the spirit of his experiences in Italy that were explored in his tectonic spatial variations found in the nine-square grid of the Texas Houses. On one hand, the saturation of light he found so moving in the Italian landscape provided him with a tangible sense of time and place. And on the other hand, Hejduk had a desire to conceptually understand the nature of the constructability of tectonic space devoid of the moods created by time and place. He spent a decade exploring the interrelationship between the tectonics of space and the spirit of place to develop a synergy between the two. In the evolution of Hejduk’s architectural tectonic investigations of “time and space” he developed Wall House 2, The Bye House (1973) establishing a diagrammatic clarity to his space-time pedagogy.49 See Chapter 3 of this book for a detailed interpretive analysis of Hejduk’s use of “space-time” in Wall House 2. As previously stated in this chapter, Hejduk’s use of angels is multifaceted. For an alternative perspective on why Hejduk drew angels, it can be postulated that the metaphysical nature of the image of an angel, for Hejduk, was the embodiment of “present time”. If angels exist they must be outside the

150  Pedagogy of the Last Works temporal boundary of human time. In other words, they exist without a past or future; they only exist in the present. Angels, as God’s messengers, are apparitions providing proof of the existence of eternal time not subject to human limitations. “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come”50 … “To the angel of the church … These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again”.51 The physical presence of the Wall used by Hejduk in the Bye House was a metaphysical representation of Hejduk’s concept that the Wall in architecture is the most “present condition of time”. The Wall became a physical and metaphysical filter by which one could experientially discern changes in spatial experience engendering the importance the role time plays in the experiential nature of spatial perception. Thirty one years after Hejduk’s first Wall House, in his Last Works, the Wall is replaced by an angel to define the most present condition of time. In his last years of life, Hejduk’s work became more introspective, poetic, allegorical and metaphorical. His work in the late 1990s became less absorbed with a language of architectural tectonic formalisms to become biased towards a poetic probing of graphic narratives exploring the relationship between time and space. As evidenced in his Wall House archetype the presence of the angel in Hejduk’s later work is a surrogate for the Wall and became the signifier by which all things are judged. The presence of angels not only allows one to judge the passage of fleeting time, but also the significance of loss, the agony of pain and suffering and the uplifting of the spirit. Hejduk’s use of time is exemplified in his 1986 The Collapse of Time project. This project clearly depicts Hejduk’s interest in the tectonics of constructing an object, as well as the phenomenological nature of pondering the subject of time. It is the intersection of the perception we have between object and subject that Hejduk used to exorcise his space-time pedagogy. Over time from 1968 until the end of his life he sought to further refine his exorcisms of the space-time relationship. Iterations of his investigations using space-time are found in his Diamond Houses (1963–1967), Wall House 1 (1968) Wall House 2 (1973), The Collapse of Time project (1986), Bovisa project (1987), Christ Chapel (1996), Cathedral (1996) and Enclosures (1999–2000). Over time Hejduk’s explorations transitioned from an expression of architectural tectonics to become a metaphorical and metaphysical narrative. The Collapse of Time project uses “Time” as a metaphor to explore the meaning of temporality in the malaise of life. As if Hejduk wanted to signify and heighten our sense of fleeting time. David Shapiro in his essay “The Clock of Deletion” stated: While some analytic philosophers have spoken of the sin of analogizing space and time, Hejduk revels in the space-time continuum and

Pedagogy of the Last Works  151 creates a model that enunciates the analogy as a species of habitation for time … John Hejduk seems to be the only architect who understands the temporal poetics of architecture as an essential and necessary part of the act of refuge.52 Hejduk’s 1986 The Collapse of Time exploration is repeated a decade later in his Last Works. The element of time is the dominant spatial representation in Hejduk’s 1996 Christ Chapel project. Time takes on a deeper meaning transforming the tectonic object of his The Clock of Deletion to become focused on the subject of the Crucifixion of Christ. One can interpret the Christ figure in Hejduk’s Chapel as a signifier of the collapsing of time. In other words, time is presented as fixed temporal objects spatially juxtaposed against the finality of time, as presented in the Crucifixion, revealing the promise of time eternal.

Christ Chapel Much of Hejduk’s work is difficult for us to engage and understand. He lived in his own imaginary world of introspections. Hejduk rarely attended mass and his family did not own a bible. But, according to his wife Gloria, Hejduk

Figure 5.17  The Collapse of Time: 90° Flat Time, 45° Isometric Time, 0° Horizontal Time, 1986 John Hejduk, painted wood and metal, models (range): 9.5 × 5 × 19 to 19 × 5 × 19 cm, DR1998:0108:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

152  Pedagogy of the Last Works was a deeply spiritual person and identified himself as a Catholic for most of his lifetime.53 During Hejduk’s 50-year professional career, he designed multiple worship spaces. None of his worship building projects were realized constructions, but they do exist in his drawings, poetry and models for us to examine. It is important to reiterate that Hejduk felt his drawings, paintings, models, writings, poetry and built constructions alike were as real to him just as the corporeal built environment is to us. He used various media to express the vocabulary of his spatial language. Hejduk’s Christ Chapel is an exemplar of the depth of Hejduk’s imaginative introspections. The work reveals his deep appreciation for Renaissance art, his closely guarded spiritual faith and the metaphysics of spatial experience. Hejduk was known in life as a “builder of worlds”.54 Christ Chapel is one of his sacred worlds for us to explore and contemplate. Forensics of Christ Chapel: an interpretative analysis The Christ Chapel project provides us with an insight into Hejduk’s mindset towards his exorcisms of sacred space. It is not surprising that Hejduk was drawn to designing spaces for worship. His poetic sensibilities were suited to explore the phenomenology that is so often associated with our perceptions of sacred space. There is mysteriousness to sacred space and Hejduk reveled in the idea that architectural space could embody qualities of mystery and discovery. I believe in exploration, always, and I don’t believe in the codification of dogma … it also has to do with the passage of time … what I’m getting at is that I’d rather take on the unknown, take a crack at that than stick with the known. For me that’s much more important.55 Christ Chapel was designed using a rectangular plan and section and is specifically dimensioned by Hejduk to be an interior space that is 24 feet wide, 60 feet long and 36 feet high. Hejduk specified that the chapel is oriented on a north/south longitudinal axis. One enters the linear space from the south side.56 Hejduk’s design is presented as a modern one, but is influenced by an implied medieval imagery. The project carries the probability, if constructed, of an interior space that would have a foreboding mood which is emblematic in much of John Hejduk’s later work and evidenced in his numerous design sketches of the Chapel design. The Chapel is simple in its massing and prescribed materiality. If constructed, the building would be a concrete structure with colored brick veneer finishes on the exterior and interior wall surfaces. The floor would also be a brick finish. Christ Chapel explores metaphysical spatial relationships inside its linear interior space. The Chapel interior, while a simple rectangular volume, is not a static space. The interior is filled and activated by a multiplicity of spatial elements, light and rich coloration. Colors presumably recalling the

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Figure 5.18  Model for Christ Chapel From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 35 × 76.5 × 102.3 cm, DR1998:0134:016, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

depth of color used by the Renaissance masters Hejduk so carefully studied and admired. We know from Hejduk’s sketches that the interior brick walls would be light blue in color. It is postulated that Hejduk used the blue coloration of the interior walls to define the interior of the Chapel as an exterior space. In other words, the walls become a surrealist vision of the sky as if the Chapel floor is floating in space. Hejduk established the floor to be a terracotta earthen red color. The red floor can be interpreted as a metaphor for the earth stained by the spilled blood of Jesus covering over the sins of humanity. Hejduk does not specify the color of the cast concrete ceiling, but he does specify white trim accents on certain interior and exterior details. Based on model photographs of the chapel we may speculate that the ceiling color of the space was intended to be either white or light blue to match the interior walls. The floor is designed with 12 wood and steel cruciform constructions inlayed into its surface, which are postulated as a reference to Jesus’s 12 disciples. In addition to the cruciforms, Hejduk noted that a rope would be fixed to the floor which suggests Hejduk may have been acknowledging Judas’s betrayal of Jesus by hanging himself from a rope. Hejduk depicted a spear anchored to the floor pointing towards Christ’s side which is displayed

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Figure 5.19  Model for Christ Chapel From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 35 × 76.5 × 102.3 cm, DR1998:0134:016, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

on the vertically suspended crucifixes in the space above. The spear seems to be an obvious reference to the spear used by the Romans to pierce Jesus’s side. The two longitudinal interior east and west walls would each have seven bronze etched plates showing the 14 Stations of the Cross. High above the bronze “stand-off” plates would be stained glass windows noted in Hejduk’s sketches to be flower designs, but it is interesting to speculate that Hejduk’s 1999/2000 Enclosures may have been design studies for the stained glass windows to be used at Christ Chapel instead of the original flower notations provided in his1996 sketches.57 The interior floor surface is separated from the exterior walls on all sides except at the entry door. The void between the floor edge and exterior walls is specified to be a light trough 16 inches deep and lined with a white painted steel edge curb. This interior floor separation is like a “moat” of light which supplants the medieval use of an exterior landscaped moat of water. The “interior moat” is another reference that suggests the interior of the Chapel may conceptually represent an exterior space. The “interior” light sources for the Chapel include a “cross of air”58 incised into the south exterior wall above the wood entry door, the light cannon roof skylights, the stained glass

Pedagogy of the Last Works  155 windows and the floor light trough. It is not designed as a “traditional” worship space, but Hejduk did include an altar and pulpit in the design. These elements are located under the steel “bleacher” seating out of view as one enters the Chapel. Hejduk’s sketches indicate that there would be a floormounted font near the south entry on the east side replacing the traditional east end altar placement in medieval churches. Hejduk placed a bell structure fixed on the west wall high above the seating area. The exterior neutral grey colored brick veneer walls of the Chapel building model are clad and appointed with iconic images and details. The elements include a painting of the Annunciation, decorative steel turnbuckles used to position the interior crucifixes, a steel access ladder to a presumed roof terrace, three metal crucifix spikes located under a metal crown of thorns on the north wall, 14 small steel crosses marking the interior position of the Stations of the Cross bronze plates and a steel entry door canopy over the south entry door. The composition of disparate parts exhibited in Christ Chapel, as described above, is reminiscent of a surrealist composition which may have led Hejduk to design his subsequent Cathedral project. Metaphysics and metaphor Hejduk investigated the temporality of time by exploring his notion of the poetics found in the intersection between time and space in his Christ Chapel project. A decade after exorcising his concept of manmade time in his The Collapse of Time Clock, Hejduk expanded his thinking into a spiritual realm by expressing the presence of eternal time. In Christ Chapel Hejduk posits the metaphorical imagery of Christ by using the “Stations of the Cross”59 within the Chapel construct and he used The Collapse of Time’s temporal references of “horizontal time”, “angular time” and “elevational time”60 to depict a spiritual metaphor defining the “Stations of the Cross”. Hejduk noted in his sketches for the design of Christ Chapel that the 14 Stations of the Cross were to be located on the interior with seven Stations on each side. It is interesting to note Hejduk’s The Collapse of Time Clock was a movable object and not occupiable. The Clock construct has a tectonic assembly that provides metaphorical references to time and spatial context. Posited within Hejduk’s Christ Chapel the use of metaphor reveals a deeper poetic imagery. The object of the clock is supplanted by the subject of the cross. Hejduk’s metaphorical poetics now carry spiritual overtones and meanings. Christ Chapel uses the tectonics of the Cross and light cannons to create a hierarchy of spatial intensity only achievable within a physically inhabited space. The metaphysics of one’s imagination is now fueled by the presence of the condition of changing light over time. Hejduk now presents the collapse of time through the presence and absence of light accentuated by the light cannons. Metaphorically time is recorded in the interior of the Chapel by focusing sunlight on the crucifix construction over time from daylight to darkness.

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Figure 5.20  Section and details for Christ Chapel From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 21.5 cm, DR1998:0134:016:005, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Instead of considering the interior of Christ Chapel as a metaphor for exterior space one can also view it as presenting itself as a three-dimensional mysterious surrealist painting of space. It conjures imagery that one can imagine as a three-dimensional construction of a surrealist dream. As if Hejduk’s interior is a spatial representation caught between an analytical and synthetic cubist composition of medieval artifacts and Christian iconography. The three roof-mounted light cannon skylights illuminating the three fixed interior crucifixes dominates the volume of the Chapel. Hejduk specified that the crucifixes would be suspended from the side walls and positioned at 90 degrees (vertical), 45 degrees and 0 degrees (horizontal). The horizontal cross would be located 8 feet above the floor. The crucifixes are reminiscent of a freeze frame representation of the Crucifixion of Christ. The imagery asks the visitor/viewer/occupant to contemplate whether Jesus is being lifted on the cross for Crucifixion or if Jesus has already been crucified and the cross is being taken down for His burial. Hejduk provided the bleacher-sized stepped seating, placed on the north end opposite the south entry, as if the seating is meant for visitors, but dedicated for the choir61 to sit and contemplate

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Figure 5.21  Interior perspective for Christ Chapel From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 28 × 28 cm, DR1998:0134:016:020, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

the metaphysical power of the crucifixion. Were the bleachers provided by Hejduk as a metaphor to recall the crowds of people chanting “death to Jesus” as He was being tortured or were they provided for the faithful to worship the risen Christ? Christ Chapel is a spatial exorcism created by Hejduk to explore and discover the spatial juxtaposition that exists between the contemplations of life and death. Christ Chapel is a personal vision expressing Hejduk’s reverence towards sacred architectural space. He provides space for the contemplations of faith and mortality. Hejduk’s Chapel offers the visitor  a place to reflect on one’s sense of fleeting time and significance of purpose. Hejduk poetically expressed these sentiments (below) and they certainly can apply to the contemplations of the numinous one can intuit in his Christ Chapel project. A train stops at the station at night at 6:00 p.m. and lets off two passengers, a man and a woman. They do not know one another. She listens to the water falling on the earth. He sees the flames flowing upward into

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Figure 5.22  Notes and perspective sketches for Christ Chapel From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 26 × 20.5 cm, DR1998:0134:016:011, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

the sky. They both feel the silence … A long while later they board the returning train and sit in the same compartment. As the train moves away from the station, she looks out the train window and thinks she sees a gray panther running parallel to the tracks. He looks out the window and does not believe in anything at all. They both feel the silence.62

Cathedral: a summation of time and space John Hejduk’s 1996 Cathedral is his last known completed building design project. Its significance within his oeuvre is in the summation it gives to his life’s work. Evident in the construct of Cathedral are Hejduk’s Wall House elements, fragments from his Object-Subject studies, fragments form his Victims projects, his The Collapse of Time Clock, program elements from his Berlin Masque and even the suggestion of hedgerows. In other words, Cathedral is a summation of Hejduk’s exorcisms and is representative of the major themes recorded through his 50-year career. Cathedral is truly the exemplar

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Figure 5.23  Exterior perspective for Christ Chapel From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 28 cm, DR1998:0134:016:022, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

of Hejduk’s exorcisms of Outlines, Apparitions and Angels. Cathedral can be thought of as Hejduk’s Last Supper, defining the depth and finality of his absorptions of form and space. Hejduk’s Cathedral project is a construct expressing a passage through time. In this sense Cathedral presents itself as a physical manifestation of Hejduk’s life flashing before his eyes, fixed in space. Cathedral is a cubist work developed by Hejduk to provide the outside observer with a journey through time past, through present time and speculations towards future time all fixed in space. It is an expression of the density of space filled with the fragmentation of light provided by the many piercings evident in the walls of Cathedral. The collage of images anchored onto, as well as penetrating through the outer walls represents a gathering of a lifetime of Hejduk’s investigations. One could speculate that Cathedral is somehow Hejduk’s homage to his Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought. Cathedral is Hejduk’s architectural absorber of space and time. It is fixed space posited in the temporal nature of fleeting time. Cathedral, as presented in the model and drawing images, can be viewed as a surrealist cubist composition. It is composed of fragments of time, of

160  Pedagogy of the Last Works form and space that provide enclosure presumably for worship. It becomes a place made up of fragmented spatial experiences. It is composed of a series of spaces and places as though they are moving through time and space only to be caught along their journey through time by the magnetic presence of Cathedral’s outer walls. There is depth to Hejduk’s Cathedral composition beyond the density of its physical construct. Objects and spaces pass though the outer walls and objects and spaces fix themselves to the exterior enclosure. Cathedral’s enclosure walls on one hand are opaque dense magnetic surfaces, but on the other hand, they are transparent veils allowing physical, metaphysical and spatial penetrations. In the final analysis Cathedral can be thought of as an exploded Wall as if the Wall always held within its density all of Hejduk’s thoughts and investigations. Notations in Hejduk’s Cathedral sketches provide only cryptic descriptions of the interior and exterior elements in the design, such as the alter, confessionals, light wells, cemetery library, outdoor chapel, garden, bishop’s house, caretaker’s house, rose window, etc. Curiously, he does not note that many of the appurtenances anchored to Cathedral are obvious formal references to his past projects and his exquisitely drafted color presentation drawings of Cathedral do not contain written descriptions of the design components. Hejduk’s writings expressing his thoughts on the Cathedral project are minimal and elusive. Alternatively, as a poet, Hejduk wrote extensively about spiritual and religious themes. Since we have few and fragmented written narratives by Hejduk describing the attributes of Cathedral, we can look to his poetry to find the depth of his soulful ponderings and possibly imagine for a fleeting moment the conceptual underpinnings of Cathedral. In Hejduk’s poem “Sounds of Creation” one can absorb the power of his words and envision the awakening of a landscape titled Cathedral. The metal spikes were driven through his hands and his feet a spear into his side into his very soul with ferocious acts pain was absorbed into an immense silence and the counterforce of meaning … Of love and forgiveness was changed for eternity churches would be built over centuries sculptures would be made placed on and in cathedrals landscapes would be awakened

Pedagogy of the Last Works  161 by their presence rose windows would flood interior darkness with the sacred light of color painters would paint the images of Christ’s time and of his Mothers gentleness books would be written.63 Legacy It is interesting to contrast Hejduk’s Cathedral of 1996 with architect Steven Holl’s Chapel of St. Ignatius 1994–1997. Holl’s Chapel defines the seven sacraments as seven bottles of light. Holl’s sketches are reminiscent of Hejduk’s, in that both architects use form, mass, light and time to define space. Hejduk’s Cathedral is an absorber of time and space through the gathering of spatial density, while Holl’s Chapel expresses time and space through the presence of gathering light set within the density of an exterior wall massing.

Figure 5.24  Model for Cathedral From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 61 × 121.9 × 43.2 cm, DR1998:0134:014, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

162  Pedagogy of the Last Works For me, material, scale, concept, they have to all come together before you draw anything … I think getting to integrate the fundamental aspects at the deepest core of an artist’s creation is what John (Hejduk) taught and that is never to forget scale. You know in a way, these are topics of John; color, light, time and scale … John made architecture … John knew about proportions, he knew about scale, structure, light, space, time.64 While Hejduk was known as an outlier by many and his work can be difficult to understand, his exorcisms have inspired others to mine deeper into the underpinnings of their investigations as evidenced in the works of Steven Holl and many others. Hejduk’s Cathedral leaves us with his exorcism into the idea of time, scale, light, space and density. We are left only to speculate on the futures that would have been if Hejduk were still mining the spatial depths of his imagination. On the plane of the present is the horizontal armature … You only speculate on futures.65

Figure 5.25  St. Ignatius Chapel Seattle, WA, Watercolor Sketch, “Bottles of Light in a Stone Box”, Steven Holl, 1994, digital sketch image courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

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Figure 5.26  Perspective for Cathedral From Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 28 cm, DR1998:0134:014:012, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA.

Notes 1 Question posed by David Shapiro to Hejduk twice during a 1991 interview that was recounted in A+U Magazine, January 1991 issue, pp. 58–66. The interview was filmed and became the basis of a documentary on John Hejduk produced by Blackwood Productions, Inc. and was released in 2007 under the title John Hejduk: Builder of Worlds. 2 Hejduk quote from David Shapiro’s 1991 interview titled “John Hejduk or the Architect Who Drew Angels”, A+U Magazine, January 1991 issue, p. 58. 3 Quote by Toshiko Mori, from her preface to K. Michael Hays, Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk (New York, Whitney Museum, 2003). 4 Quote by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk from a letter to this author, May 19, 2013. 5 See discussion of Hejduk’s thoughts on “hedgerows” in Chapter 4 of this book under the heading “The New England house: an American Masque”. 6 John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 131. 7 John Williams, “The Beatus Commentary on the Apocalypse”, in John Williams, Early Spanish Manuscript Illumination (New York, George Braziller, Inc., 1977), p. 24. 8 Quote by University of Houston Professor Nora Laos from a discussion regarding John Hejduk’s Enclosures, from Susan DeMenil (author) and Kim Shkapich (editor), Sanctuary the Spirit in/of Architecture (Houston, TX, The Byzantine Fresco Foundation, 2004), p. 23. 9 Information gathered from Wikipedia article discussing the history of the Book of Hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_hours).

164  Pedagogy of the Last Works 10 Quote by Toshiko Mori, from her preface to K. Michael Hays, Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk. 11 John Williams, Early Spanish Manuscript Illumination, pp. 22–23. 12 John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985), p. 76. 13 John Williams, Early Spanish Manuscript Illumination, p. 15. 14 John Hejduk quote from essay “Diary Constructions”, in John Hejduk, David Shapiro and Helene Binet, The Collapse of Time (London, UK, The Architectural Association, 1987). 15 Quote by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk from a letter to this author, May 19, 2013. 16 Hejduk quote from David Shapiro’s 1991 interview titled “John Hejduk or the Architect Who Drew Angels”, A+U Magazine, January 1991 issue, p. 58. 17 Postulation by this author based on the collective of Hejduk’s writings and comments. 18 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 129. 19 Hejduk quote from his letter to Richard Meier published in Meier’s first monograph book Richard Meier Architect (New York, Rizzoli, 1984), pp. 378–379. 20 Quote by Mrs. Gloria Hejduk from a letter to this author, May 19, 2013. 21 Excerpt from Hejduk’s poem titled “The Sleep of Adam”, in Soundings (New York, Rizzoli, 1993), p. 327. 22 Juhani Pallasmaa, “The Aura of the Sacred”, in Renata Hejduk and Jim Williamson, editors, The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture, (New York, Routledge, 2011), p. 241. 23 K. Michael Hays from a discussion of John Hejduk’s work recounted in Susan DeMenil (author) and Kim Shkapich (editor), Sanctuary the Spirit in/of Architecture, p. 23.p. 131. 24 K. Michael Hays, “Architecture’s Destiny”, in K. Michael Hays, Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk. 25 Thoughts postulated by this author after assimilating many of Hejduk’s comments, poems and drawings, comments made by other critics, as well as comments by others who knew Hejduk. 26 Hejduk quote taken from David Shapiro’s 1991 interview with Hejduk titled “John Hejduk or The Architect Who Drew Angels”, in Architecture and Urbanism Magazine, 1991, No.1(244), pp. 58–65. 27 K. Michael Hays, “Architecture’s Destiny”, in K. Michael Hays, Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk. 28 See Hejduk quotes cited by endnotes 18 and 19 above. 29 This comment is a reference to a telephone conversation the author had with Jim Williamson regarding why Hejduk drew angels. See the epilogue of this book with the expanded excerpts of my interview with Jim Williamson. 30 Renata Hejduk and Jim Williamson, “Acknowledgements”, in Renata Hejduk and Jim Williamson, The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture, p. xvii. 31 This sentence is meant to be a re-play on words provided by Hejduk in his 1991 interview with David Shapiro. See Hejduk’s quote noted under endnote 2 at the beginning of this chapter. 32 This sentence is meant as homage to the biblical verse John 11:35 which states “Jesus wept”. This is the shortest and possibly the most profound verse in the Bible. Theologians feel the minimalism of this verse embodies the fullness and gravity of the humanity of God in the flesh. The sentence “Hejduk believed” is the shortest sentence in this book and it refers to the deeply guarded spiritual faith Hejduk carried throughout his life. Through Hejduk’s humanity, expressed in his drawing of angels, he offers us a glimpse into his world of faith in art and architecture to heal a suffering world and to lift the spirit. 33 This quote is taken from the back cover of the book of poems by John Hejduk titled Lines: No Fire Could Burn (New York, The Monacelli Press, 1999). Author of this quote is not provided in the book credits. 34 Quote by University of Houston Professor Emeritus Bruce Webb in a discussion of Hejduk’s Enclosure 10 with the author, June 2, 2013.

Pedagogy of the Last Works  165 35 In the discussion of the use of blue with Professor Nora Laos, she has made the following historical reference to the uses of color depicted in Medieval and Renaissance art and architecture: Blue and hues of dark purple and dark red were the colors used by Roman emperors and their consorts, for their imperial clothing and for their tombs. For example, the marble used for imperial sarcophagi was porphyry, which is a veined dark reddish purple. See the sarcophagus of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Church of Les Invalides in Paris. He followed in their footsteps. Christians, east (Byzantine) and west (Catholic) transfer this color from the Romans, not only to Christ but also to Mary (remember, the Christians borrow a lot of architectural and iconographic ideas from the Romans – this is just one more thing). Both are almost always shown in robes of blue/purple hues, consistently for hundreds of years. Google “byzantine fresco chapel Houston frescoes” and look at the images. You will see both Christ and Mary clothed in various shades of blue and purple (these are Byzantine frescoes from the 13th century). This quote is taken from an email correspondence between this author and Professor Laos in the spring of 2015. 36 Biblical quote from the Gospel of John. John chapter 7, verse 38. 37 Biblical quote from the Book of Revelation. Chapter 22, verse 1. 38 Quote by John Hejduk from his essay “Evening in Llano”, in Hejduk, Education of an Architect (New York, Rizzoli, 1991). This quote is in reference to Hejduk’s thoughts on the phenomenon that exists in the space between a work of art (painting) and the viewer of the work. 39 The term “Alberti’s window” references in this instance to Leon Battista Alberti’s influence on the use of perspective in Renaissance art. 40 This is a reference to K. Michael Hay’s discussion of Jacques Lacan’s “diagram of the gaze” from Hay’s book Architecture’s Desire (London, UK and Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2009), pp. 99–101. 41 Michael J. Crosbie, “Calling Forth the Numinous in Architecture”, in Julio Bermudez, editor, Transcending Architecture, Contemporary Views on Sacred Space (Washington, DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 2015), p. 226. 42 Excerpt from the gallery label text accompanying de Chirico’s “The Love Song” painting exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City. 43 Magdalena Holzhey, De Chirico (Cologne, Taschen, 2005), p. 60. 44 John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 130. 45 Ibid., p. 50. 46 Quote by Hejduk taken from comments made by K. Michael Hays in Susan DeMenil (author) and Kim Shkapich (editor), Sanctuary the Spirit in/of Architecture, p. 110. 47 Quote by Renata Hejduk from Susan DeMenil (author) and Kim Shkapich (editor), Sanctuary the Spirit in/of Architecture (Houston, TX, The Byzantine Fresco Foundation, 2004), p. 161. 48 Toshiko Mori, from her preface to K. Michael Hays, Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk. 49 See Chapter 3 of this book for an analysis of Hejduk’s concepts found in Wall House 2 for the backdrop and origins of Hejduk’s use of the “Wall” theme. 50 Biblical Quote: Book of Revelation, chapter 1, verse 8. 51 Ibid., chapter 2, verse 8. 52 David Shapiro, “The Clock of Deletion: Time and John Hejduk’s Architecture”, in John Hejduk’s The Collapse of Time (London, UK, The Architectural Association, 1987). 53 Information gathered from conversation with Mrs. Gloria Hejduk at her home in the Bronx on Sept 9, 2013. 54 Term used by John Hejduk in an interview with David Shapiro for his 1991 article, “John Hejduk or the Architect Who Drew Angels”, A+U Magazine, January 1991 issue, to describe his methodology of design thinking.

166  Pedagogy of the Last Works 55 John Hejduk cited in Alexander Caragonne, The Texas Rangers (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1995), pp. 366–367. 56 Information gathered from the text in Hejduk’s book Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils: Wedding in a Dark Plum Room (New York, The Monacelli Press, November 1, 1997), p. 168. 57 The speculation regarding Enclosures as stained glass design studies originated from a discussion with Professor Bruce Webb at the University of Houston College of Architecture in 2013. 58 Term used by Hejduk in his design sketches of the chapel. Hejduk also referenced the wall cut-out as a “crucifix made of air”. 59 “Stations of the Cross” is a reference to the historic artistic representations depicting Christ carrying the Cross to his Crucifixion. 60 These terms by John Hejduk are taken from the text of his book The Collapse of Time in reference to the physical positioning of the “Clock of Deletion” project. The project was constructed in London’s Bedford Square in 1986 (John Hejduk, David Shapiro and Helene Binet, The Collapse of Time (London, UK, The Architectural Association, 1987)). 61 Information gathered from the text in Hejduk’s book Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, p. 168. 62 Hejduk quote from his book Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, p. 272. 63 Hejduk’s poem “Sounds of Creation” from his book Lines: No Fire Could Burn (New York, The Monacelli Press, 1999), p. 53. 64 Quote by Steven Holl taken from an interview with this author on July 9, 2013. 65 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, p. 50.

6 Pedagogy of the Cigar Box Experiencing the otherness of John Hejduk

What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed? Michelangelo

In 1979, John Hejduk was visiting critic at the University of Houston College of Architecture, leading the school’s Honor Studio program. He took the students on an intriguing journey involving a musical instrument, a painting and a cigar box, the destination of which was a deeper understanding of the connection between space and the human spirit. How many places are there left where there it is still a joy and honor to teach, to teach architecture? At the University of Houston College of Architecture there still remains the human touch … It is there at that school in Texas, when I left that student body, did my eyes fill over and over-flow for I truly felt with them a communion.1 This chapter is provided as homage to an encounter this author had with John Hejduk in 1979 as one of the fourth year architecture students selected to take part in the University of Houston College of Architecture Honors Studio program. The text that follows was first published in the January/ February 2017 Issue of Texas Architect Magazine in an article titled “The Pedagogy of the Cigar Box.” At its inception in the mid 1970s, the University of Houston College of Architecture Honors Studio program was the only studio format of its type offered by any architectural school in America.2 It represented an experiment in architectural education that offered a potential life-changing experience for the participating students. Each year, the faculty selected what it considered to be the ten best fourth-year design students for the studio. The numerous visiting critics that made the journey to Houston enriched the lives of the working class, public university students that would never have had the opportunity to meet, not to mention study one-on-one with, the leading

168  Pedagogy of the Cigar Box architects of their day. There was a passion for learning and a passion for design that permeated the work ethic of these students, which John Hejduk noted in a telegram he sent to Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa: My how hard the Texas student works. Their creativity soars in that landscape and in that sun. Clarity and precision are natural to that place.3 When UH Professor John Perry was asked who the most influential visiting critic on the school was and on him personally, he stated: John Hejduk. I do not have to hesitate at all. Hejduk was very, very enthusiastic about the studio because he had ties to Texas. He had been down at the University of Texas and one of his children was born there in Austin. He was romantically tied to the architecture and the state.4 In the fall of 1979, Hejduk, by then Dean of The Cooper Union School of Architecture for four years, arrived at UH as a visiting critic. For one week, as visiting critic, he engaged in intense one-on-one student-teacher dialogue and instruction. As brief as it was, the visit changed the lives and opened the minds of many of the young students. Through Professor Perry’s persistence and Hejduk’s many contacts, Hejduk and the others that followed him opened up a floodgate of noted architects that would make the journey to UH as visiting critic. Hejduk was instrumental in putting the institution on the international stage as a place of creativity, clarity and hard work.

Lessons from a cigar box: a frozen moment in time Hejduk was always interested in the void represented by the in-between spaces that exist in architectural propositions. He envisioned the void as a metaphysical space offering unrestrained spatial possibilities establishing an “otherness” engendered by various design solutions. His preoccupation with the unrevealed otherness in architecture is the root of Hejduk’s 1979 problem statement for the UH students. Prior to Hejduk’s arrival in Houston, he sent his problem statement to the 1979 Honors Studio students to begin their investigations. The problem was issued by Hejduk as follows: Select a musical instrument (non-electronic) • •

In line (ink) (perfection, please) draw plans, elevations, and sections of instrument. Full scale. Precision. Select from the history of painting (no chintz please) one painting depicting the playing of instrument or the incorporation of instrument into

Pedagogy of the Cigar Box  169

•

painting. Study painting. Bring interpretation of painting to first day of class. Some examples: Vermeer, Matisse, Gris, Ingres, Della Francesca, etc. Look at Sassetta. Bring empty cigar box.5

Upon arrival to the studio, Hejduk issued the following project requirements to the students: Imagine and invent a structure and place at which to play the instrument incorporating both painting and instrument. Represent (having imagined and invented) the structure and place in cigar box. When finished, it should reflect those things in a sensitive and beautiful way. Eloquent. Elegant.6 Hejduk guided his one-on-one student discussions through a philosophical departure. He provided a learning environment to redirect the students’ thinking to reveal a mindset that promoted alternate realities of a­ rchitectural spatial experience; an experience grounded in a new understanding of architectural polemics established through the analysis of the architectural narrative. Hejduk’s desire was for the students to invent new worlds of architectural investigation to explore and imagine, and to not be tainted by the preconceptions of accepted design practices.

Figure 6.1  John Hejduk, ca. 1980 Image courtesy of Steven Hillyer, Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The Cooper Union, New York and the Estate of John Q. Hejduk.

170  Pedagogy of the Cigar Box For the first time, the students were asked to think beyond a Euclidean spatial condition. The student solutions to the “cigar box problem” became intimate personal narratives. The architecture posited in the students’ cigar boxes did not search for formal geometric aesthetic resolutions. It was a transitional moment for them; they were now diving into unfamiliar territory, into the pedagogical world of John Hejduk. Their ideas were not rooted in geometric formalisms or organizational diagrammatic concepts. The ideas pondered by the students were intimate and personal without the pretentions of a didactic coldness typically used by these students in their preceding design studio work. In hindsight, one can intuit that the students were being introduced to Hejduk’s world of architectural pessimism.7

Out of outlines into apparitions: from fabrications to reflections While Hejduk did not discuss his reasons for issuing the cigar box problem with the students, we know in retrospect that his own investigations were evolving during the mid-to-late 1970s. Up to 1974, Hejduk was absorbed with exploring the nature of the flattening of spatial context, as well as his interest in the “most present condition” of space and time. He exorcised8 two-dimensional space as well as cubist space, as evidenced in his diamond projects and Wall House projects. He became fully immersed in his exorcisms of time-space interrelationships. Hejduk’s “image-screen”9 was focused on the absorptions found in his study of the Wall. But Hejduk was transitioning the absorptions of Euclidean space offered by the image-screen of the Wall archetype to a meditative reflection of the possibilities found in metaphysical spatial constructs. From 1974 to 1980, Hejduk worked to redefine his image-screen from an absorber of perspectival physical space to a mirror, reflecting within its flatness what lies underneath physical appearances. His exorcisms focused on a deeper search into the poetic, metaphorical and allegorical nature of spatial perception. As part of his search for a redefinition of the nature of architectural program, it is postulated that Hejduk devised and issued the pedagogical problem of the cigar box to the 1979 UH students. Hejduk, in the years ahead, would slide deeper and deeper into more profound theoretical personal work. He acknowledged that he was moving away from an architecture of “light-filled” European optimism espoused by the “moderns”, toward a counterforce of “pessimism” in his architectural syntax.10 His “pessimism” was defined through his Architectural Masque investigations. Hejduk used the 1979 cigar box student project as a pedagogical tool to explore an alternative to the typical Le Corbusier influenced student design studio projects. Hejduk’s educational motivation was to expose and reveal to

Pedagogy of the Cigar Box  171 his students an appreciation for the use of metaphor and narrative to create metaphysical spatial constructs. Hejduk desired for the students to capture within their cigar boxes the ability to see beyond the physical three-dimensionality of an object (the instrument and box), to spatially integrate design components, transforming them into a comprehensive subject re-presented through the design of the interiority of the cigar box. The cigar box interior could be considered a metaphysical synthetic cubist composition. It is postulated that Hejduk used the physicality of the instrument as a signifier of the most present condition of space, supplanting the aforementioned Wall, to provide simultaneity of spatial compression and tension within the spatial construct of the cigar box interior enclosure. The physical object of the instrument is replaced by the subject of the sound being produced by the instrument, providing a metaphysical connectivity between the instrument, the musician and the observer/listener. If the object is supplanted by the subject – it would follow that the disjointed, synthetic landscape of the cigar box interior provides a metaphysical connectivity with the imagined presence and cubist representations of the “interior designer.” Contrastingly, the exterior object of the cigar box becomes only an innocuous shell, holding the subject of complexity and concealing the spatial depth of the unrevealed interior flatness. The simple presence of the cigar box is transformed into an Architectural Masque hiding the essences of a poetic narrative that remains unrevealed until the box is opened. It is an architecture whose simple outward appearance becomes hierarchically secondary to the complexities of the interior, revealing an undertone and mood defining the innermost thoughts of the designer. It is an act of self-expression, uninhibited by the design imagery of the outer enclosure. The cigar box is a pedagogical exemplar of Hejduk’s Architectural Masque archetype. Hejduk absorbed the work of the cubist masters for decades and used his exorcisms of the depths of flatness expressed by the cubists to explore spatial constructs as simple as those that can be created within the confines of a cigar box. Additionally, the cubist relationship found in the cigar box is further expressed within a surrealist viewpoint of metaphysical space, as exhibited in the surrealist works of Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978). In 1919, de Chirico stated: The absolute consciousness of the space that an object in a painting must occupy, and the awareness of the space that divides objects, establishes a new astronomy of objects attached to the planet by the fatal law of gravity. The minutely accurate and prudently weighed use of surface and volumes constitutes the canon of the metaphysical aesthetic.11

172  Pedagogy of the Cigar Box

Figure 6.2  Cigar Box Interior J. Kevin Story, 1979, 8 × 10 in. b/w photograph, J. Kevin Story, Photographer digital image by J. Kevin Story.

From the cigar box into the glass box Hejduk, through his teaching methodology, was providing the young UH students with the capacity to express their most inner thoughts. Architectural space was internalized and de-materialized within their imaginations. This was truly an exercise of architectural self-discovery and introspection. Architecture became framed as a deep spatial void suspended in time. For the first time, the students’ Honors Studio projects became intimate self-expressions – not unlike the fragmentations between cubist and surrealist constructs caught in frozen time. For most of the students, the cigar box problem became a pedagogical tool representing a frozen moment in time defining the metaphysical presence of the students themselves; a re-presentation of time, space and physical essence, simultaneously absorbed by each student. At the end of Hejduk’s one-week visit, the students gathered together with him for the last time. One by one, they opened their boxes for Hejduk and classmates to see. This experience was ritualistic. It was a private event. Only the students and Hejduk were allowed in the room – the glass box (a glasswalled exhibit room located below the architecture administration offices at

Pedagogy of the Cigar Box  173 UH’s School of Architecture). Joy, angst, revelation and tears were shared by the students and Hejduk. In that room, in the glass box, there was oneness of spirit. It was akin to a spiritual rebirth. Hejduk knew – they all knew – that he had released a desire in the students to reach into the depths of their souls to find a new way to interpret the resolution of architectural problems. The cigar box assignment issued to the 1979 UH Honors Studio students would be only one of several times Hejduk made use of the cigar box metaphor as a teaching assignment.12 As the UH students would come to learn from their experience working with him, Hejduk viewed his experience with them as a unique encounter and a special intersection in time, not to be repeated, but rather to be held within a special place in the memories of those involved. In many of the students, the Honors Studio experience embedded a passion for architectural design that would sustain them for decades to follow. Some of them would become teachers and architects, pursuing thought-provoking architectural explorations of their own. Carlos Jiménez, one of the 1979 Honors Studio students stated: Hejduk had a very important impact on me. … He wanted you to fill that box with something that had a personal meaning for you. … In many ways, what [we] created in that box [was] probably each of us, in some way … to make [us] arrive at something [we] couldn’t really have foreseen. … For me, it was very magical. It was a validation. The cigar box in some ways … preserves the spirit about architecture. Hejduk gave us a mirror where we could see ourselves.13 Chris Petrash, another one of the 1979 Honors Studio students stated: Hejduk took away everything we’d known about architecture. He took away form by giving us a blank empty space. He took away function … there was no prescribed function … He’s forcing us to look inward instead of outward … I remember him saying those things to get us on the right path of the purity of the idea … He sat down with us and I remember him talking about frozen moments. Memories are frozen moments. He was thinking back on his most precious frozen moments … At that time we were third. That one week that we had with him was a frozen moment, third on his list. Just so impressive. We were all with goose bumps thinking about how we could be that important to him. He had such an impact on us, how could we have an impact on him.14 After Hejduk’s departure as an Honors Studio visiting critic in 1979, the students completed the work as he had instructed. The final work was well received by all that viewed it. Several of the cigar box project designs were sent to Finland to be used as part of the 1982 opening exhibit of the newly completed Museum of Finnish Architecture. The student work exhibited

174  Pedagogy of the Cigar Box was a compilation of selected projects from the first five years of the Honors Studio and was published in a 1982 catalog entitled “ ­ Explorations”, produced by the museum under the direction of architect Juhani Pallasmaa. Pallasmaa would make the journey to U of H the following year, in 1983, to be an Honors Studio critic. His preface in the 1982 ­“Explorations” catalog states: Education focuses more on practical professional skills than on the poetic dimension of building. Design is based on elaboration of accepted style rather than investigation of the phenomenology of building. On behalf of the Finnish institutions, which are going to exhibit a small collection of student projects from Texas, the Museum of Finnish Architecture wants to welcome this rare insight into an educational approach, primarily concerned with artistic message in building.15

The lessons of otherness Hejduk imparted to the students the importance of the poetic dimension in architectural design. The architecture students were confronted with the opportunity to see beyond the limitation of form and space to experience firsthand the metaphysical presence of the “liquid densification”16 of the body and spirit – a moment in time that allowed them to reflect on the importance of investigating the re-presentation of time, space, form and materiality. They were able to gain an understanding that architectural space, while three-dimensionally projected into fixed constructs, can add the component of time and poetics to transform the spatial experience, touching the intangible, inexplicable qualities of the human spirit. Hejduk taught his 1979 U of H students to understand that the experiential depth of music, represented by the physical presence of an instrument, does not require the instrument to be played. In fact, for some of the students, there was a deafening volume of orchestrations imploding within their imaginations. There also was a peaceful void in the sound of silence. To see one’s soulful reflections caught within the lines of a musical staff lifts the spirit. To transform a musical note expressed as a “dropped note” becomes a poetic, metaphorical expression. Providing a metaphysical redefinition of meaning to the positioning of a point within a spatial condition of linear order is a true lesson in the poetic phenomenology of geometry. Writing about his 1979 Honors Studio experience, Carlos Jiménez stated: The Honors Studio became a theater of symbols; of intrinsic meanings arrived at by each participant, supplemented by the generosity of each critic. The whole experience evokes an aura of faith in art, like the distant cry of Rimbaud: “In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid cities”.17

Pedagogy of the Cigar Box  175 Within the span of one week, the U of H architecture students were transformed, enlightened and liberated. Under Hejduk’s tutelage, the internal struggle by the architecture students to strategize formal architectural solutions was ultimately not a question of synthesizing functional programmatic requirements or the iterative investigations of a tectonic resolution to form and space. Rather, the architectural struggle was and still is to find within the void of one’s imagination a deeper understanding of the connectivity spatial experience has with the human spirit. This was Hejduk’s gift and legacy to his U of H students and to those who have encountered the complexities of his pedagogy.

Notes 1 Excerpt from a telegram written by John Hejduk, sent to Juhani Pallasmaa, 1982. 2 Comments provided by Professor John Perry in an interview with the author December 2010. 3 Excerpt from a telegram written by John Hejduk, sent to Juhani Pallasmaa, 1982. 4 Quote by John Perry taken from an interview by this author with University of Houston Professors John Perry, Robert Griffin and Bruce Webb in December 2010 at the University of Houston. 5 These bullet points were John Hejduk’s prerequisite requirements for the Cigar Box project issued by Hejduk in the fall of 1979 to the 4th year honors studio students at the U of H and sent by Hejduk prior to his visit to the College. 6 Ibid. 7 Hejduk coined the term “architectural pessimism” to describe his interest in looking deeper into the nature and perceptions of architectural space and program. He desired to provide a counterforce to the optimism of the architecture of the 1920s and 1930s. 8 The term “exorcising” is used in the context of this work to describe Hejduk’s methodology of architectural investigation. Hejduk described this process as “architectural exorcising”. His “exorcisims” sought to discover the underpinnings of his design propositions. 9 The term “image screen” is a reference to K. Michael Hays’s discussion of Jacques Lacan’s “diagram of the gaze” from Hays’s book Architecture’s Desire (London, UK and Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2009), pp. 99–101. 10 Please refer to Chapter 4 for a more in-depth discussion of the “pessimism” found in John Hejduk’s work. 11 Cited in Massimo Carra, Metaphysical Art (London, Thames & Hudson, 1971), p. 91. 12 Comments provided by The Cooper Union Professor Diane Lewis in an interview with the author in March 2014. 13 Comments made by Carlos Jiménez to this author in 2011 discussing Hejduk’s cigar box student problem. 14 Comments made by Chris Petrash to this author in 2011 discussing Hejduk’s cigar box student problem. 15 Quote by Juhani Pallasmaa taken from the 1982 “Explorations” exhibit catalog produced by the Museum of Finnish Architecture. 16 The term “liquid densification” was used by Hejduk when describing the attributes of his 1986 Victims project in Berlin. 17 Quote by honors studio student Carlos Jimenez taken from the 1982 “Explorations” exhibit catalog documenting a collection of U of H honors studio student projects. The catalog was produced by the Museum of Finnish Architecture.

7 A serendipitous life The end of the beginning

O night, O sweetest time, though black of hue, with peace you force all the restless work to end; those who exalt you see and understand, and he is sound of mind who honours you. Michelangelo

Each chapter of this book has been introduced with a quote from Michelangelo setting an undertone to the interpretive analysis that followed. Now that this work comes to a close an explanation of why these quotes by Michelangelo were used is offered as follows: The quotes at the beginning of each chapter provided a common thread, a signifier of the free-spirited explorations that John Hejduk pursued his entire career. Hejduk, like Michelangelo before him, was known in life as an artist, teacher, sculptor, architect and poet. In this sense, Hejduk’s work finds a kinship with the spirit of creativity and mastery exhibited in the work of Michelangelo. Although separated through history by over 500 years, these two men find common ground in their unwavering personal artistic pursuits. Michelangelo sought to find truth in what lay underneath the surface of his medium. Michelangelo’s work exhibits a clarity of thought and tactile skill that achieved aesthetic depth and beauty. John Hejduk sought to uncover the spirit, mood and undertone within his work as well. Their efforts were also grounded in a deeply held unwavering faith in their art to uplift the human spirit. It is in the spirit of exorcising truth within the work that this author chose to use the words of a Renaissance master to set the mood to explore the mind and spirit of a modern master of architectural thought.

A journey well-traveled We have arrived at the end of an interpretive journey exploring and exorcising the life and work of John Hejduk. You see. No shock. No engulfment. No tearing asunder. What you feared would come like an explosion is like a whisper. What you thought was the end is the beginning.1

A serendipitous life  177 It is interesting to see the serendipitous influences that became so important in the development of Hejduk’s pedagogical probing. We have traced through the “disappearing signatures” of the early years of John Hejduk’s education and academic explorations to discover how he was able to expand his creative thinking in an exponential manner during his years at The Cooper Union. To start from relative obscurity as a boy from the Bronx with limited academic skills to becoming an integral part of a revolutionary redirection in architectural education and design is a testament to Hejduk’s single-mindedness to achieve a deeper personal understanding of the communicative power that spatial connectivity to the world around us can convey. One can sum up the essences of John Hejduk’s life by mining his exorcisms of Outlines, Apparitions and Angels as attempted in the previous chapters of this book. He became absorbed with the hierarchies of abstract order, he investigated the poetics found in the depth of flatness in his Wall archetype, he mined the worlds of allegory, narrative and poetry, he posited new paradigms of spatial order and program in his architectural masques and he exorcised his spiritual faith and deep appreciation of Renaissance art in his last works. He lived in the light-filled optimism of modern time, but investigated his work as if he lived in the pessimism of medieval time. Through a historical retrospective we can observe that John Hejduk’s life and work would not have had the impact on the discourse of late modern architectural thought in the manner which it did if he had not traveled to Texas to accept the teaching position offered to him at the University of Texas in 1954. Hejduk accepted the position due to an economic recession in New York after his and his wife Gloria’s return from the Fulbright Scholarship study program in Italy in 1953.2 Mrs. Hejduk stated that she and John did not have a desire to move to Texas after their return from Italy, but John, as a young architect, needed to find work to help support his family so they moved to Austin, Texas in the summer of 1954.3 If not for the serendipitous circumstances surrounding Hejduk’s life in 1953/54 there would not have been his nine-square grid exercise as we know it today. The Texas influence and its extended circumstances on Hejduk changed the course of modern architectural education for almost half a century with Hejduk’s introduction of the “nine-square grid” student exercise which led Hejduk to his “Texas Houses” investigations. The nine-square grid laid the foundational groundwork for many, if not all, of his future “architectural exorcisms”. If not for his fortuitous move to Texas the synergy and creative spirit that flourished among the disparate young Texas Rangers faculty in the mid 1950s at the University of Texas would have lacked the larger than life Bronx personality of John Hejduk to fuel the creative discourse so important especially to Colin Rowe.4 If Hejduk would not have traveled to Texas when he did there would not have been the pivotal collaboration between Hejduk and Colin Rowe on the “Lockhart, Texas” essay published in 1957 and there would not be the Texas Houses. Embodied within the Lockhart essay and Texas House 7 are the precursors to Hejduk’s Architectural Masques which

178  A serendipitous life were exorcised by him for two decades. If not for Hejduk’s Texas experiences there would not be the “Armadillos” interview by Peter Eisenman and we would not have Eisenman’s essay “In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions” analyzing the Texas Houses.5 We would not have Hejduk’s Texas Houses “Statements” from 1964 and 1979 and there would not be Hejduk’s essay titled “Evening in Llano”. Hejduk’s “Diamond House” designs (1960– 1967) were a direct outcropping from the Texas Houses (1954–1963) and without the Diamond investigations Hejduk would not have exorcised his lifelong fascination with the constructs between time and space. Without coming to Texas, Hejduk would never have formed the personal relationships he experienced with Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky at such a fertile young age as they all were in the 1950s. If not for Hejduk’s Texas experience Hejduk’s oeuvre of poetry would not have included the poems “Lampasas Square”, “Texas (1954)”, “Out from Lampasas to Odessa” and others. If Hejduk had not gone to Texas in 1954 he may never have made the journey to the University of Houston in the 1970s. But, Hejduk did go to Texas and as a result he has left a legacy of work for all of us to explore, exorcise, discover and rediscover over time. It is a complex body of work with a multiplicity of meanings, undertones, ambiguities and imaginative worlds to discover. It is work by a complex, tempered mind, but executed as if by the creative uninhibited innocence of a child. It is also work created through the lessons learned from his teachers and earliest days at his beloved Cooper Union and it is work expressing a reverence of his deeply guarded spiritual faith. When asked about her thoughts on her husband’s legacy Mrs. Hejduk stated: John was mystical and lived in his own world … he loved music and literature and considered them closely aligned with architecture … he loved drawing … he loved teaching, teaching young architects … he was a wonderful father and husband and we lived a magical life … I would like others to remember his dedication to excellence and sincere love of his chosen profession.6 The legacy of John Hejduk’s pedagogy lives on through the clarity, ambiguity and complexity found in the poetics and phenomenology of spatial experience explored in his work and in the work of those that have been inspired by him. The nature of Hejduk’s work, at times, is difficult to engage and understand, but through the polemical poetics of his pedagogical probing he offers to us a world of self-discovery. John Hejduk’s 1995 poem “Soundings” below reminds us of the depth of his own search for self-discovery. “Soundings” is like a calling from the distance of time. Through the silent echoes recorded in our imagination Hejduk calls us to once again find the passion for invention and to see the timelessness within the receding perspective of void spaces. “Soundings” can be interpreted as Hejduk’s homage to “Architecture” as the mother of all the arts.

A serendipitous life  179 Soundings He threw his voice into the diminishing perspective as she receded leaving him an echo. He drew her a rose and nailed it to her coffin. The shape of her eyes were the shape of her mouth forming a trilogy he kissed her her taste was of rust she laughed at his astonishment his lips turned black.

She replied, “Architect keep your hard-edge geometry I will keep my softness. My breasts are more beautiful than church spires. Feel my body architect so your plans will not be so rigid listen to the sound of my voice so you will know what volume is my soul is made of no substance your space might be the same I am made for birth and you?”7

Hejduk may have lived in a world outside of ours as Mrs. Hejduk has suggested, but his exorcisms of form, space, time and program provided him with the tools he needed to investigate the spatial connectivity between the intersections of time and the labyrinthine voids of his in-between unrevealed spaces. In Hejduk’s time he was a builder of worlds and the legacy of his work as documented in this book as seen through his Outlines, Apparitions and Angels offers new worlds of exploration for us to investigate in our time. I believe in exploration, always, and I don’t believe in the codification of dogma … it also has to do with the passage of time … what I’m getting at is that I’d rather take on the unknown, take a crack at that than stick with the known. For me that’s much more important. (John Hejduk) We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”, from Four Quartets ca. 1942)

180  A serendipitous life

Notes 1 Quote by Rod Serling from his 1960’s The Twilight Zone television show. 2 Comments provided by Gloria Hejduk in a conversation with this author on September 7, 2012. 3 Ibid. 4 Thought expressed by Gloria Hejduk to this author in a conversation on September 7, 2012. 5 The Eisenman interview was conducted in the fall of 1977 and appears on pp. 4–7 of the book John Hejduk: 7 Houses. Eisenman’s essay was included as an introduction to the book John Hejduk: 7 Houses, pp. 8–20. 6 Comments provided by Gloria Hejduk in a conversation with this author on September 7, 2012. 7 Hejduk poem “Soundings”, from his book titled Soundings, A Work by John Hejduk, pp. 28–29.

Epilogue The otherness of John Hejduk: a collection of thought

What are the choices now? The choices are to continue in abstraction, ­derivations on a theme  …  that’s still mineable  …  And there’s something else. All of my projects have voided centers. The center has been eliminated … Cross section of a thought. No center. Void. Maybe my contribution to architecture is the voided center. That’s a real physical condition. John Hejduk1

While investigating the work and life of John Hejduk I contacted several of Hejduk’s contemporaries and others to ask them for their thoughts and insights regarding Hejduk’s work and legacy. They were very enthusiastic about my intention to develop a study of Hejduk’s work and felt that an analysis of his investigations was timely. What follows is a collection of excerpted interview transcripts, thoughts, quotations and insights by persons that knew John Hejduk personally and/or admired and respected the man and his pedagogical probing. The text contributions to follow, specifically provided for this publication, come from architects, historians, educators, friends and colleagues of Hejduk, contemporaries of Hejduk and previous students of Hejduk to express their insights to his influence in the discourse of modern architecture. The following comments are truly the tangible evidence defining the otherness we associate with the life and work of John Hejduk.

STANLEY TIGERMAN faia American Architect, Educator, Theorist, Author, Founding Member of the “Chicago Seven” and the Chicago Architectural Club Memories of John Hejduk on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s death © Stanley Tigerman, 2013 John and I were on the same architectural jury at Cornell in the fall of 1963 when a student rushed into the room announcing that JFK was assassinated. We dismissed the jury and walked the Cornell quad with numerous students overcome with grief and in tears. That incident galvanized a friendship that continued

182 Epilogue unabated for the next 35 years. We spoke by phone once a week until his untimely death in 2000; he was just a few weeks shy of 71. Our conversations were wide ranging; lofty, petty, general and specific – they danced around subjects like “aura,” the architecture of death, my problems with practice, his aggravation with faculty – but all of them ultimately optimistic and never (and I mean never) cynical. We saw each other when we could, but the telephone was our muse. I attended his exhibition at the “Foundation Corbusier” in Paris where we persuaded each other that doctor Blanche was engaged in séances about black magic even as we walked on clay gravel with Charles Moore, Antoine Grumbach and my (then) wife JoAnn or reminisced with Colin Rowe at Corbu’s villa at Poissy. John gave me the gallery at Cooper Union in 1975 to house the opening of Chicago Architects (the exhibition that Stuart Cohen and I co-curated). I was present at the 1976 Venice Biennale when John lost his temper feeling that Peter Eisenman had insulted Gloria. When Chicago’s Graham Foundation hosted a “mosh pit” for the “Whites,” the “Grays,” the “Silvers” and the “Chicago Seven,” I observed his discomfort when two of his ex-­students brought unwanted baggage of unequal status to the table. In a word, I was party to the many kaleidoscopic sides of his persona, but through it all, his larger-than-life characteristics loomed over every occasion (including, I might add, bad behavior by certain Cooper faculty AND visiting critics who unfortunately acted out their own Mishegoss on unsuspecting students. John was my confidante, my poetically inclined conscience and the tormented soul who ultimately could never rest from the perquisites of his morally driven soul. At just a tad over two meters high, he could be a terrifying image to those with whom he disagreed but on other occasions he was the gentlest of giants. More than a decade after his passing, his influence insideand-outside of the design studio still looms large over architecture. Because of the way that he came into my life combined with the unfulfilled way in which he abruptly exited, John left behind a vacuum apparently never to find substance. John’s influence on me is still extant as I mull over his absent presence on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of JFK’s death – the day that we met. Stanley Tigerman Chicago, November 22, 2013

JUHANI PALLASMAA faia Finnish Architect, noted Author and Theorist, Educator, Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects John Hejduk I had heard of John Hejduk and his unique pedagogic approach since mid1970s. I had also seen his fictitious architectural projects in publications.

Epilogue  183 His personality and ideas became more concrete to me through Daniel Libeskind, who was applying Hejdukian educational ideas at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in his teaching as Director of the Architecture School with amazing results. The first exhibition of the work of Daniel’s students in the Art Museum of the Academy was the most impressive student exhibition I had ever seen, and I arranged its presentation at the Museum of Finnish Architecture in early 1980 with the title Symbol & Interpretation. Libeskind used poetic metaphors and imagery derived from various art works as a means to generate artistic structures, imagery and ambiences. Also Hejduk had been approaching the essences of architecture through poetic images, as well as literary, musical, painterly or sculptural precedents. This implied an outright revolution against the prevailing rationalist, pragmatic, intellectual and technological orientation in the education of architects. I met John in Helsinki in 1980 when he gave a lecture at the Museum of Finnish Architecture, and we became instantly friends. He was impressed by the stony toughness of Helsinki streetscape and architecture, and he dedicated one of his poems to Helsinki. I was intrigued and impressed by the memorable contrast between his gigantic physical presence and his childlike enthusiasm and sincerity, his poetic imagination and endless capacity for wonder. His lecture revealed a challenging and inspiring way of looking at architecture. After his return back to New York, he sent me a book on angels, a surprising gift from an architect to a colleague, particularly in the intellectual air of the early 1980s. After our second meeting in New York, he gave me a huge book on Edward Hopper, whose work I knew rather distantly until then. Ever since, I have been greatly inspired by Hopper’s apparently clear minded art, which however conceals strange dark forces beneath its commonplace surfaces. I also understood that these hidden meanings impressed John in Hopper’s art. We kept exchanging books until the very end of John’s life. In 1989 I was one of the activists in publishing a significant book on contemporary art Synnyt: Sources of Contemporary Art (Helsinki 1989) to support the Museum of Contemporary Art project in Helsinki. We included John Hejduk’s Venice project Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio among the few architectural projects that exemplified distinct tendencies in the art of the late 20th century. I used to visit New York at least once a year, and I usually went to see Big John at Cooper Union. Once I also gave a lecture on Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Nostalghia there at John’s request. We always met in his office, and he told me enthusiastically about his latest interests, ghosts at Le Corbusier’s Maison La Roche, medieval illustrations, or Surrealist literature and art, or he showed me his latest sketches. Once he showed me a printed, transparent anatomical model, in which all the body parts, organs and intestines could be taken apart, studied individually and put together again. I always felt that John was the Alchemist of the 20th century, the most mundane object, matter or idea turned into something mystical and precious in his penetrating

184 Epilogue scrutiny and thinking. Often he also showed student work in the studios with great enthusiasm and personal pride. I remember the great emphasis on drawing and well crafted models, which also I have values in education and praxis as well. I gathered that he identified himself strongly with his students and their work, which I have always believed to be a prerequisite for teaching; meaningful teaching cannot happen from an impersonal distance and a preconceived position of authority. After an hour’s conversation we usually went out for lunch, sometimes with a surprise guest. The very last time I met John in 1999, he took me for lunch at the National Arts Club, and the unexpected company was the legendary French art historian René Huyghe, whose quote Art is for the story of human societies what the dreams of an individual are for the psychiatrist … Many think of art as a mere diversion, a thing that is purely marginal to the real business of life, they do not see that it looks into life’s very heart and lays bare its unconscious secrets …  had impressed me a few days earlier in Hans Sedlmayr’s book Art in Crises. The Lost Centre (given to me earlier by Libeskind). By the time of our first encounter, routine postwar Modernism or International Style had flattened architectural reality into a one-dimensional professionalist rationality (a quasi-rationality, at that, I would say now). Architecture had lost its metaphysical, spiritual and poetic echo and its very roots in the ground of myths, dreams and cosmological narratives. Abandoning the notion of architecture as utility, Hejduk revived the forgotten poetic dimension of the art of building. He also revealed the double Janus face of architecture; beneath its apparent utility and benevolence, another reality could be hiding, and that was architecture as an instrument of the unconsciousness, threat and fear. All the way through Modernism, the history of architecture had developed in close interaction with the arts, but after the 1960s, art turned increasingly into detached pieces commissioned to inject life into the new architectural settings that had lost all sense of life. Hejduk reintroduced the poetic artistic realm and the domains of dreams and the unconscious to architectural thinking and education. In his pedagogy he showed that architecture could find inspiration in Renaissance paintings as well as cubist art, music, novels and poetry as well as cinema and dance. His own drawings and projects opened up an entirely new realm of architecture with narrative contents, rituals and uncensored emotions. His unusual subject matters, such as witches, devils and angels, or themes like the crucifixion, alchemy and torture, reintroduced the Medieval world, which had been cleaned away from the rationalized mindset of modernity. At the time that architectural practice was becoming increasingly a faceless professional service, reminiscent of the practice of law, he himself turned away from utilitarian design entirely into metaphorical,

Epilogue  185 symbolic and poetic imagery, as well as writing poetry. He personified the aspiration for inspired and inspiring poetic teaching in architecture through his idea of teaching “osmotically, through osmosis”, through existential guidance and example, instead of merely distributing facts. As I heard of John’s demise, I wrote a letter to Gloria, which included a chapter about the rocky archipelago of the Gulf of Finland where my wife and I have a humble fishing hut: “I was thinking of John two weeks ago in the archipelago of the southwestern Gulf of Finland. Always when I have been there in the past twenty years, the thought came to me that I wanted to show John those rocks, polished by glacier … John was a piece of rock in the lives of many people around the world. We knew of John’s struggle against illness, but we expected him to be stronger than the illness, with his absolute determination. Stora Bergskär Island Southwestern Archipelago of the Gulf of Finland July 6, 2013

ZAHA HADID faia Iraqi-British Architect, Educator, Pritzker Prize Winner 2004, Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects The text below was provided by Zaha Hadid in August 2013 to be included in this publication. John Hejduk To some extent it is difficult to make overarching statements about John Hejduk’s oeuvre, as the work is so specific to the man and his unique predilections. Spanning poetry, figurative paintings, conceptual drawings, and built architecture, the work is full of complexity and contradiction, deeply personal and difficult to categorise. And yet despite all the meanderings and idiosyncrasies, we see a common line of enquiry and the dogged pursuit of a spatial and conceptual agenda throughout. Hejduk’s drawings are particularly inspiring, for in them, he questioned our conventions and methods of architectural representation, unveiling to us a rich territory of exploration and innovation in the act of drawing itself. The conceptual framework of space, structure, and meaning implicit in the diamond houses and the nine-square grid exercises, for example, is as much defined by the formal composition of the drawing on the page as by programmatic or functional questions. The rigid graphical and structural order imposed as rules of the system leads to the emergence of fields, patterns, and transformations that can be read as essays in spatial language as much as they are functional arrangements of architecture.

186 Epilogue The search for new territories of design and an answer to the grand ­ roposals of the Modernists of the mid-20th century led to a flourishing p of architecture made on paper in the 1980s and 1990s. Hejduk’s work falls squarely within this movement, and in many ways leads the way with his prolific output and his steadfast pursuit of his theoretical framework without compromising it for the sake of translating it directly into built form. The dramatic contrast between pure formalism and a personal meditation on meaning and expression, explored through every available medium from the painted canvas to the written word, represents Hejduk’s own search. His body of work is an important reference point in understanding the evolution of the architectural discourse of the time, and parallels the search of the many others who sought to discover personal languages of space and form and seek out new possibilities through drawing, painting, and ultimately buildings.

CHARLES JENCKS American Architect, Author, Ph.D. in Architectural History, Cultural Theorist, Educator, Lecturer, Landscape Architect, Noted Architectural Critic and Co-Founder of Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres The text below was provided by Charles Jencks in June 2013 to be included in this publication. Hejduk Between Commitment and Irony American John Hejduk tried to forge a distinctively American architecture, as if ­citizens owed a special responsibility to the country to be poetic individualists and free-thinkers. But he never broke through to a widespread public and preferred to remain a seer or prophet with a loyal following, especially among the young and academic. His acolytes and devotees were not in the USA especially – as were the cult followers of other American individualists such as Bruce Goff and Herb Greene – but more in Europe and Britain, more specifically Berlin and London where some of his projects actually were built. He might have become an esteemed American architect if he had sought the role. Certainly he had the style and presence to be popular, and was deeply loved by his students and friends (such as Peter Eisenman who learned a lot from his work and sardonic delivery). Hejduk combined a John Wayne presence with a Woody Allen irony and delivered the mixture with a Bronx accent that was no doubt authentic, but exaggerated for effect. These attributes made him an attractive character in his own developing narrative and he could have had the broad appeal of Frank Lloyd Wright, if he had stayed in Texas as a young rebellious architect or sought his fortune in Mid-­America as  a charming rogue and genius. But the attractions of New  York  and

Epilogue  187 academia pulled him back to his roots, and meant his time as a dissident “Texas Ranger” in the 1950s remained more of a trace than a mission. He ended his life proclaiming loyalty to the “University … one of the last places that protects and preserves freedom, therefore teaching is also a socio-­ political act … ” This position was also taken by Professor Eisenman. In the era of Security America with its polarised politics many American academics feel this way, and have done so since the 1960s. It is the long-tail response to the well-known “paranoid streak in American politics” evident well before Senator Joe McCarthy (who traumatised so many intellectuals at the time of Hejduk’s emergence on the scene, in 1952–3). Shaman-architects I met John sometime in 1975, before I heard him speak the next year at UCLA, where he delivered a masterful performance of his work and principles. Since then we became sometime friends who would meet occasionally in downtown New York for lunch, or at a conference. I seem to remember he once offered me (or was it my wife Maggie?) a gift of one of his ultra-tiny model houses he kept in his pocket (one-inch small). We shared a taste for Le Corbusier, the logic of architecture, metaphysics, Surrealism, literature, New York architecture and small-town America. Perhaps most of all we shared an interest in the poetics of architecture tinged with irony. But we did not meet up much after 1985 probably because of his growing aversion to what he took to be postmodernism. Actually, he was a canonical post-modernist (in the hyphenated sense) since his work was so clearly Post-Corb, and “After Cubism” (to use Corb’s and Ozenfant’s title of a book). It was also highly coloured, witty, based on metaphors (even if half of them were focused on the architect’s code, such as the “Wall House”) and, since the 1980s, Proustian titles, literary conceits, narrative and PM masks (masques). He, like Robert Venturi, was the post-modernist in denial who would never join a club that would have him. On the other hand, the esoteric nature of much of his metaphors, such as The Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought and Golden Horn and Stone Veils: A Spanish Wedding in a Dark Plum Room – though inspired by history and literature – were typical of Late-Modernism. Instead of communicating with a diverse public, they sought enigmatic allusions that appealed to gut architectural feelings; and very successfully so. Among the Five Architects he was the most fundamentalist designer and philosopher, the most willing to trade public power “In the Cause of Architecture” to use Wright’s formulation. In this way he reminded me of Aldo van Eyck, whose style, plans, and logic Hejduk’s could resemble – in a few drawings of the 1970s. Because I knew van Eyck before I met Hejduk I always considered Big John a Dutch-American, something I realised was untrue but still revealing. On the stage they were both shaman-architects, following in the footsteps of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, artist-personae who often won their point through aesthetic and personal commitment, through ­convincing enactment.

188 Epilogue If Nietzsche said he philosophised with a hammer, then they persuaded with kunstwollen. If architecture is an art, there will always be artist-architects who sacrifice themselves to its ontology, carrying the moment by the force of vision; or when that fails, personality. The Five create the momentary code Coming after Modernism demands a re-coding of contemporary meaning. A public architectural code obviously depends on conventions and use, coherent meanings shared, for instance, during the Gothic period by architects, masons, public and abbots. Centered loosely around the Cathedral of St Denis in the 12th century and the figure of Abbot Suger, the new Gothic code focused on a formal system of ribs and pointed arches, a continuous spatial and material system, and a metaphysics of light signifying transcendence. This new bundle of meaning modified the Romanesque synthesis, or swerved from it in Bloomian terms, as a coherently studied style and formal system. On a much smaller scale, and centered around New York and certain academies from London to the Ivy League, a new architectural code of Late-Modernism developed in the 1960s. Stemming from Rudolf Wittkower and his investigations on Palladio, it gained counter-logic to Modernist practice with the writings of Colin Rowe, Robert Slutzky, and then Peter Eisenman. Called collectively “The Whites” because of their late version of early white Corbu and Terragni, they forged an architectural code that lasted about fifteen years – until roughly 1980. Shared by professionals, it was elucidated by Kenneth Frampton in his analysis of the Five Architects (published in 1975, but apparently spoken in 1969): “Frontality vs. Rotation”. Square was set versus diagonal, and the main formal oppositions were most succinctly summarised in the beautiful plans of John Hejduk’s OneHalf House. But the same binary code also could be signified by the layered grid versus the circle, or several other oppositions including even, (and miraculously) the missing ones that Frampton mentions. The unresolved tension between frontalization and rotation [is created by] the presence and/or absence of stainless steel cylindrical columns … Oh those absent square columns [I wrote in response] are just so … frontalized! The irony was not only directed at this kind of privatised esoterica, the difficulty of communicating publicly with missing elements, but also because the code of whiteness, abstraction, reductivism, minimalism, good taste – absence – was such an orthodox presence in the academies of the Modern. “The presence of the absence” was the cliché at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, and God and Man at Yale. Evidently the satire hit some nerves because the article – “Irrational Rationalism: The Rats Since 1960” – was republished in books, and G ­ erman

Epilogue  189 and Japanese magazines. It culminated with the subsection King Rats or Rat Killers? – Surrationalism, and the work of Hejduk and Rem Koolhaas. Hejduk, as far as I know, enjoyed the friendly fire and perhaps even the label Surrationalist, the conjunction of his ultra-rationalism and Surrealism. He also tolerated my take-off of his Bronxese (“You goh truh da waal to make yah way back to da house”), words I took down from his talk at UCLA. This affectionate satire was misread occasionally to be an attack, whereas its irony elevated the role of both Hejduk and Koolhaas to prime positions within the Rationalist Tradition. The perplexity, as always, is that some of the funniest architectural writing (such as Le Corbusier’s) gains its impossibly good humour by being deadly serious. One does not have to quote chapter and verse; almost any twenties architectural manifesto recited aloud in the wrong tone of voice will prove the point. Cryptic, oracular, self-important pronouncements, we are a profession built on them. The void: the titanic soundless wonderful horrible presence of the absence I like manifestoes unless they become too popular. In 1983 Arata Isozaki designed a “central void” for the science city of Tsukuba, a postmodern collage that had the water running down a beautiful drain located at its bull’seye. This idea of nihilism inverted Michelangelo’s Capitoline Hill in Rome, which was the symbol of nationhood, homecoming and the human presence. I thought Isozaki got the idea from having visited UCLA, where we had another reverse fountain or existentialist plughole but, as many had written, such a void at the heart of things was central to Modern Japan, and typified by the Emperor’s invisible palace in Tokyo. Japanese circled around this empty landscape, and no one could see anything but trees, elegant planting, and a beauty hole. Roland Barthes, ever the post-existentialist, thought this void symbolised the Empire of Signs. “Negative space” – opacity, density, materiality as integral to architectural space – Hejduk wrote about such ideas. Since Nietzsche’s transvaluation of all values and the death of God; since the rebirth of many gods in its place which decenters life, since a deep existentialist depression was amplified by the rise of mass culture, countless threats have challenged the integrity of architecture. Particularly in New York culture, where high architecture has not enjoyed much patronage, this inversion has been experienced as loss. Hejduk and Eisenman, looking to negative capability, thus partly defined architecture as destabilizing, as challenging the presence of the subject, and they attacked complacent humanism. This was not a popular, easy, or endearing programme, since architecture is supposed to be for humans. But these two of the Five pursued it religiously, a position which however unpopular has to be defended because architecture is also a cultural formation, and the rest of culture was painting, sculpting and writing nihilism – so why not architecture?

190 Epilogue The voided center had a long and venerable tradition in Japanese architecture and Zen gardens, India and Asia generally, and even contemporary physics where the plenum vacuum is seen, paradoxically, as full of potential energy. Particles come into and out of existence fast enough not to contradict the laws of the universe – cancelling each other – and this void actually generates a measurable effect on space. So why cannot architects represent the plenum vacuum? – I have several times, and architects come before landscape designers in controlling the urban discourse. Besides, in post-Nietzschean metaphysics, the presence of the absence of God takes on an equal palpable being: that is, the absent God of Christ on the cross – “Why hast thou forsaken me?” This ever-present western void still dominates much negative theology today, especially that of university and philosophy departments, of Deconstruction and Nihilism. Drawing on Adolf Loos, emptiness and blankness are occasionally schematised by Kenneth Frampton as “words spoken into the void,” and built as abstracted, missing elements by Hejduk, Tigerman and Eisenman. The void constituted another semantic meaning of the momentary code that was established for fifteen years, and is still continued by Eisenman. If the Five Architects shared a loose paradigm on this “presence of the absence,” then it also led to a collective paradox. It usually led them to a very strong, formal architecture, a kind of ultra-presence in the absence. Hejduk’s work is typical in this respect; it is sculptural, well defined, conceptually resolved, highly profiled even almost Egyptian. It is the very opposite of a weak or informal art, that is usually derived from this metaphysics of the void – that of the “inform” (as it is called in French). Hence the irony of my title, and my sympathy for Hejduk; his commitment and that of his devoted followers has an unmistakable tinge of self-critique, doubt, superior disinterest (never uninterest), even self-parody. It is in this way supremely postmodern. Message? We got on privately very well in our few meetings. Perhaps this was because of our shared sensibility rather than ideology. I may have found Hejduk’s built work sometimes too metaphysical and uncompromising. For instance, I saw his Berlin apartment balconies, though beautifully proportioned and fitting to the mood of the public housing, too small for use (but then the budget was minimalist). My sort of irony is based on mixing codes, with those differing ones of the inhabitant, valid in part. John’s sort is to tell the inhabitant something fundamental about absolute architecture, which may reveal a truth of existence. In some cases, such as the implicit Face House (the end view of this Berlin Housing) the metaphors could reach a mixed audience. And as many have observed, his surreal minimalism could be like that of Aldo Rossi: based on urban universals, aedicules, classical squares, Pop cabins, peaked roofscapes, funny details such as railroad wheels.

Epilogue  191 I remember the installation outside the AA in Bedford Square in 1986, The Collapse of Time, a strange half-building/railroad car on tracks with its tilting front of ascending numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, X, 13 (was the blank X a joke against Americans leaving out the 13th floor?). Or time stopped? The frontal “pilaster-timepiece” could tilt halfway down becoming a “cat” or all the way to its base becoming a “coffin” – and therefore collapse time. Upright it did look zoomorphic, like an animal of some kind, a horse or “centaur” according to Hejduk. This slightly sinister but friendly mechanised beast had no use beyond its associations, which remained haunting the mind for a long time, like Rossi’s work. It became like the standard word in his lexicon, an ur-form to turn into all his projects, or Le Corbusier’s Poissy, or a tank, or a horse, or anything. It was depicted Egyptian style in a black profile or section to generate his masques, or theatrical compositions. A stage-set of such characters talking to each other – striking precise objects in space – is perhaps how Hejduk saw the poetry of the American situation: lonely isolated individuals, Lonesome Cowboys as they are known on the West Coast, stubbornly knocking up against each other in their captivating objecthood, conversing and laughing. When I think of this stage animated as a video, it becomes like the architectural promenade that Le Corbusier recommended as the supreme role of the art. Buildings and forms seen in movement, in relationship – brutal, sculptural, enigmatic, mute, friendly, questioning, unlikely, classical, exact – open to interpretation. Maybe there was too much architecture, the masterly, correct and magnificent play of forms in sunlight? Not enough of the otherness that Hejduk talked about; the city, nature, and diverse views of the good life. It is regrettable that his ideal client, the landscape architect Ed Bye, never got to build the second Wall House, because if it had been done under Hejduk’s eye and control, then the landscape and magic realism would have come together as convincingly as the drawings presented this astonishing poetry.

STEVEN HOLL riba American Architect, Author, Educator, Watercolorist, Lecturer, Awarded the Alvaro Alto Medal 1998, the AIA Gold Medal 2012, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects

First impressions I met John in 1974 …  to us there was Louis Kahn, John Hejduk and if I could have worked for John but he didn’t have any work and I tried to work for Kahn in ’74. I wanted to see The Cooper Union and it was just being finished. I even had a beard; I was kind of a hippie. I was across the street from the building in a phone booth explaining to the secretary that I’m an architect from San Francisco and I really want to learn from this

192 Epilogue new renovation. Could it be possible that, I guess it was Christmas time, like 15th of December, something like that and she said no and she paused a minute, I guess she talked to him (Hejduk) and then she said come on over. I remember I came up that cylinder elevator and the doors opened and Hejduk was standing there and he took me on a 1 ½ hr. tour of the building, explaining every single thing. Just me and him. Amazing guy that way.

On teaching architecture I think John brought a lot of things forgotten back to life. I remember him saying: “the idea of teaching is a social contract. It’s the keeping of the flame.” So that’s what you have to do as the teacher. If you have any memory of it, you are obliged to try to pass it on. You can’t blame the students. They’re being brainwashed by, in a way, it’s a silly moment. Architecture is in a silly moment.

The technological machine In architecture education right now, it’s being overwhelmed by an euphoria of technique and the train and wisdom that has to drive any machine any technique. You can’t just ride the technique, expect to get any deeper. Any­ thing that’s being produced by the machine …  so I think it is crucial to bring back all the things that are not there in parametrics. You don’t have materiality. You don’t have the scale. You don’t have grounding to the site, to the people, to the circumstance. The main things that John likely thought about and I think about are not available in a parametric program. That’s just the euphoric of technique. Of course, we have to use them [parametrics] because now it’s just like you have to use your iPhone. You’re not going to go back to the fax machine and I’m not mailing any letters recently so  …  But the point of the urgency of teaching a studio that gets back to the fundamentals of scale, of materiality, of place, of time and space is because these things are not being thought of any more. Because the machine itself does the thinking. The student goes right into the machine and they instantly produce designs that look half way marketable.

Phenomenology vs. parametrics I think time and space is so central to the making of architecture. It’ll never go away, it’s just that we have an amnesia. When you go to the Pantheon, you have to remember that was the discovery of concrete. They built this fantastic structure, which is really the compression of time and space. Like every day is different the way the sun comes in and the way that space works. And in a way, it’s a lesson also to how much amnesia can occur. For 1000 years

Epilogue  193 no one knew how to make concrete, after the Romans. 1000 years went by of ignorance. So maybe we’re entering that period now. Called parametric ignorance. You can use that term by the way.

Music K. Story (KS): Hejduk felt music and architecture were very closely aligned. And there’s something about the structure of music, the tonality of music and the emotional power of music that is so architectural. Why can’t we bring that into the discourse of architectural language? Holl: We can. In fact, that’s one of the excitements of our studio is we find that language of architecture through a piece of music. I work with a composer, Raphael Mostel, who knows really, really knows the mathematics in every detail of the history of the compositions. He’s a composer. Technically, I like to have backup for the students. The students will select something, piece of Stockhausen, piece of Xenakis or a piece of Morton Feldman, then they’ll be making something around three minutes of a score and create something and come to a language which is very refreshing and  creative.  That’s part of the experiment and research I’ve been doing for a while.

Material, color, time, scale, concept Holl: For me, material, scale, concept, they have to all come together before you draw anything. They’re very integral. You can’t add that later. It has to be integral. You know structure is 20 to 25% of the cost of the building so if it doesn’t have a role and a meaning, what do we do. I think getting to integrate the fundamental aspects at the deepest core of an artist’s creation is what John taught and that is never to forget scale. You know in a way, these are topics of John, color, light and time and scale, I mean, I could have dedicated these two books (Scale and Color, Light, Time) to John Hejduk. I’m trying to carry the flame that he was carrying … I’m not saying he’s the only one. I think Louis Kahn, Corbusier.

On legacy KS: Hejduk saw himself, as a questionnaire, an interrogator upon the interrogation of architecture. Do you see yourself that way? Do you see yourself as a questionnaire of why we do things and how? Holl: It’s not for me to say how I see myself. I mean, I don’t know. I just sort of put my head down and try to keep working, but definitely one of the reasons I continue to teach is that I can continue to pose questions, experiment and ask

194 Epilogue student’s questions and we ask questions together. That’s the very simple part of keeping alive the flame. I think that’s central to architecture. I mean, what’s the difference between architecture and just building construction. Architecture has an idea, a spiritual core. Something that holds all the manifold parts and pieces together. In a certain sense, you could say that’s not architecture (points to building outside). Right outside the window you’ve got a pile of rental apartments. OHM Rentals. It’s a hideous building. This is not a piece of architecture. It’s a very tall skyscraper. So if architecture is a proposal of an idea that holds the manifold parts and pieces together, of light, of space, of material, of structure, John made architecture and this guy doesn’t make it  …  John knew about proportions, he knew about scale, structure, light, space, time.

JESSE REISER American Architect, Author, Educator and Lecturer

The poet as social commentator The first thing I would comment on is about Hejduk’s particular disciplinary involvement. He was a true poet. And I think at some level he was somewhat of a contradiction. He was both very sensitive about how average people would experience his work but I also think he was disciplinarily an elitist – even though he projected the image of a rough guy from the Bronx. What he was mining architecturally and extending into his own project was very specific to certain tendencies in modernist art and architecture and so I wouldn’t consider him pop or populist in the way Venturi became. Was he really particularly interested in social commentary? … I mean, the work is incredibly powerful and I think it’s accessible to anybody. People get it, but I don’t think he intended his architecture as a direct comment on society nor did he espouse a particular social program as such or even thought of architecture in those terms  …  I know that in the 80s he was talking about civitas, the communitas. Architecture, especially in his later work, was not commentary but rather I believe he intended it as a physical and spiritual catalyst for the creation of community.

On philosophy Peter [Eisenman] was much more interested in reading philosophy, conceptualizing, and in a certain sense embodying it directly in his work – and I think John was definitely the opposite. His work might resonate with a philosophical concept but it was not something he was trying to consciously embody …  It’s interesting, too, that it would resonate even more with philosophers than the architects who would base their work directly on philosophy. That’s how I see

Epilogue  195 it. He didn’t fall into the trap of designing an allegory of philosophy as architecture. He never sought to illustrate philosophical concepts through form, but then once the work was out there, it sparked all kinds of reactions from people in the philosophic community.

Turning inward I recall that when I spoke with Libeskind about this, he [Hejduk] was really crushed that he didn’t win the “Victims” project. The project that got built was really nothing but plaques in a park whereas John’s was a full blown masterwork … the critical indifference to his project, I believe, caused him to turn inward. And he was right, it [Victims] deserved recognition but ­[Hejduk] just didn’t want to do competitions after that. Sort of turned away from building, thought it was hopeless or something. I think it was a critical moment in his career.

Time, spatial experience and process He really wasn’t theoretical in the sense of a rigorously instantiating a priori concepts. Yes and no, I guess. He wouldn’t talk about theory when we were working on “Victims”; rather he performed it – like jazz. The time element also had to do with getting the right feeling and sense of tension from what he was configuring; and the composing would be done directly on the floor. It wasn’t about a premeditated approach but it was about being engaged in the process right there and being hyper conscious of what was being done: moving things a 1/16 of an inch one way and a 1/16 of an inch another way. All of the plans of the building elements in “Victims” were completed first, printed, cut out, and dropped down on a large piece of paper and then we started moving them around – it was about creating a certain kind of space in the plan and if you veered off slightly he would be right onto you, for example, he said no to balanced composition and he was right. It was not about producing a pretty or classically balanced composition, it was – I don’t know how to explain it exactly – but it was more about, what he called a non-compositional composition. John was not a premeditating systems builder or a conceptualist, his working method relied upon an active direct engagement in the work and being hypersensitive to what was coming out at the moment and in relation to the whole piece …  You’d know when he was on or off, in that sense his method was impersonal – more objective. There was a tacit understanding about where we were going with it and when to stop. Again, Peter [Eisenman] would be much more in the realm of establishing and rigorously executing a concept. John on the other hand, would have a rough working concept that would quickly be overtaken by engaging specific exigencies. What he began with was less important than what he finished with.

196 Epilogue

Edward Hopper Hopper was a really important figure for Hejduk and also in the Rossi/Hejduk connection because both shared an interest in synthetic memory. Every major painting by Hopper was based on memory, looked like real places but actually were constructed. Hopper’s method of synthesizing memory was by compositing sketches from many sources and then through selective erasure of detail making them cohere – creating a space at once abstract and concrete. People would think they knew where an Edward Hopper was painted but actually it’s made up of 50 sketches which then got abstracted and turned into something real; or something that appears real. I think Rossi and Hejduk were both fascinated with the method …  Hejduk at times was also remarkably literal. I remember being struck by a Hejduk poem – realizing that I knew exactly where it came from. I had a well-worn copy of the Hopper book by Lloyd Goodrich which I copied from in High School. I realized that Hejduk, in a series of poems – I think in “Mask of Medusa”, was literally turning pages and looking at the paintings and then writing down his impressions – one painting after the other straight from Lloyd Goodrich. He would mine stuff like that. It was like a jazz riff …  It was literal. It wasn’t interpretive and that was its strength.

Materiality It’s really interesting …  All of those things Hejduk was talking about has more to do with the experience of building, than its literal physicality. ­Especially the issue of materiality. Something he could only point to because he was doing a sketch that would indicate what was wanted. I think, in a way, he was more interested in the idea of opacity and materiality than on the actual materials. I remember him saying he wanted a building to be made out of copper, which was insane. The building would really never be made entirely out of copper but it was the idea of being a copper thing …  Also this way of seeing ran through his way of detailing … What he wanted to express wasn’t really about detailing the actual materials. It was more the idea of the detail. For example there would be six fasteners drawn on the armored plate elevation of one of his figural buildings and you’d actually need way more in construction but these were deliberately not expressed – it was more important to create a vivid impression of the connections than being materially “honest”. I’ve had discussions about this with people. Talking about that moment in architecture, it connects in a weird way to postmodernism …  Not a Graves postmodernism, but it was a desire for the picture of the idea that he was interested in rather than what you really would need materially to make it. It was important somehow. The fasteners he did express would be way oversized and there would be this many and even the number of them had a meaning, probably

Epilogue  197 more important than whether they would really be effective physically. You could even consider them decorative. It’s tough. I guess on the one hand, they’re all totally buildable. It was more important what kind of expression he would want to get out of a building that would look this way. Even if you had to hide 20 more fasteners to physically keep everything together  …  I think that’s what links him in a way to that moment, late modernism or even more strangely to the ancient Greeks in their transmutations of wood details into stone. Ultimately I think he would consider it more transcendentally honest than literally showing all the fasteners. It had to be that way.

Design intent and construction Well, Hejduk meant to build it [Wall House 2] with Ed Bye but the dominant life of the project still exists in the drawings. They were designed in axonometric. Then they would have to be … And I think he would do this, he would re-proportion things that were going to be built physically. Things are drawn for the projection when the projection is the architectural end. That was how he could express an architecture in between building and painting. But then there would be a necessary shift, if he was going to build the thing, it would then necessitate re-proportioning. Unlike the architects who ultimately built the Wall House, Hejduk was very flexible and cognizant of the shift between drawing and building … he would have actively changed things with no problem. It had one reality in the drawing and another in construction.

Phenomenology Honestly, I think these are later accretions to Hejduk’s work. Phenomenologist’s got interested in his work. He was just reacting to phenomena …  He was hyper sensitive to the actual experience and so a phenomenologist could come along and theorize his projects after the fact … Relative late comers interpreted the work through a phenomenological approach to architecture and then Hejduk got interested in the philosophy. But it wasn’t really the source; it was just that he was super keyed into phenomena, and then it resonated with the philosophers.

Hejduk as teacher We owe a lot to John in terms of his pedagogy. Everybody talks about it being osmotic. That was a part of it. He never really taught in the typical sense of the term. I have to say, I wasn’t in the class he gave the first year which was the nine-square problem and he was already not doing

198 Epilogue the “cut-outs” class. I  had him as a thesis advisor and then he took an interest in the work that we did. In terms of how he would talk to you, he would avoid discussing anything until he thought you were ready. He had an innate sense about where everybody in the studio was with their work. He could tell when there was nothing significant happening (even if you were producing) for weeks, and then he had an intuition that you had something important to talk about or show. But then he was never really a didactic teacher. He was more inclined to tell just the right story to deliver his point: saying in effect this is going to go well, this is not going to go well  …  Oh, yes and he would also change the rules, which would drive certain fellow instructor’s nuts. Because at some level he would ­react directly to what the student had done and then go with it. There was one instance that I remember. There was the famous musical instrument problem; have the thesis students draw instruments very systematically as a way to speculate on the relationship between form, mechanism, and the body. One student, I think it was Joan Serrapica, decided that she wasn’t going to do a standard musical instrument. Instead she did a meticulous, isometric cut away of a wind up monkey with a drum. I remember the jury included Bob Slutzky, John, and someone else I can’t remember. Slutzky was really incensed that the student had not drawn a musical instrument. He didn’t consider a wind up monkey with a drum a musical instrument. Hejduk couldn’t care less. He didn’t even care about the mechanism or the form. He got obsessed with the way Joan drew the eyes on the monkey. He said “Look at the eyes. I don’t care about the assignment, look at the way she drew the eyes”.

TOSHIKO MORI Architect, Educator, Author, Lecturer, awarded the Inaugural Cooper Union John Hejduk Award in 2003

The nine-square grid We always call it architectonics. We used the nine-square grid for ­exercises. So then Bob Slutzky being a painter, his interests were compositional, I would say. Understanding different forces between objects and planes and colors and the relationship of elements. John’s interest has always been, as you say, spatiality. The sequence of the construct, not really structural construct or philosophical construct. The concept and ideas behind it is the way I recall developing it … John [Hejduk], like Raimund Abraham, also teaches architectonics. I think Peter Eisenman did this particular thing. It allows for many people to enter into a dialog with John and say evolution occurred in terms of philosophical thinking of his pedagogy for this particular vehicle. It becomes a common denominator. Cooper Union, you probably know,

Epilogue  199 we do team teaching, like 3, 4, 5 of us, we actually teach the same problem together with the students. We go to each student. We might have different ideas but there is always dialogue and debate amongst ourselves. It was highly educational. This particular formula is very important to understand when you’re thinking about the nine-square grid because the nine-square grid starts more singular and prescriptive when being taught by one teacher, but it becomes highly dispersive once taught by multiple people and opinions. It then becomes a very dynamic investigation by students. There was debate going on, questions and answers, many, many different ways of interpreting. Most students are not alike. Everybody has individual tastes and personalities.

Proportion It’s beyond mathematics. I think one exercise, the nine-square grid, the student’s had an idea of measurement, proportion in terms of numbers. One was able to visually check it. One would absorb the entire sense of scale in size and proportion as a more visceral capacity instead of through didactics. This was very instrumental to those of us who were trained with Hejduk.

Hejduk as a teacher   …  He would give out to the students and faculty the capacity to observe the human potential and it always had to be fresh. He was really interested in originality and because of it he never wanted any student to do anything imitative of his own work … .That’s where he focused a lot. So, it’s not gentleness, it’s incredible rigor, but he would really absorb himself into the work of each student …  He would sit with you for hours just talking or looking. I had this one instance where I was dreaming about a painting. I came to my desk and somebody placed a book with a painting …  I told John, “somebody put a book on my desk and the painting I dreamt is open”. He says “I did that, what’s wrong with that”. He was really tuned in to each student … He had so much empathy. His physical presence was overpowering. He was always first in the morning, last one to leave. He was always looking at student’s work, and then he goes home and does his own work. He’s there every day. He’s always working in the studio and even if he is done teaching, he’ll come to your desk and talk to you.

Work ethic He was very independent and original and he didn’t go with the scenes. He had this quiet singular presence which, I think, was very wise  …  Everybody in his architectural circle really cared about what he did and what

200 Epilogue he thought  …  [But] He was an outlier  …  The architecture scene is just a little bit too incestuous and I think if you think of the productivity, he didn’t have time to hang out and waste time. Just working and teaching. He just devoted his time to doing that. He really talked about productivity. He really was asking us to put productivity first, the only thing, produce the work, the student and the teacher, working all the time. His work ethic was amazing.

The computer I had a very difficult conversation with John because I was going to leave Cooper and go to Harvard … I said to John, when I go for an interview, they’re going to ask me what the future will be with computers. And John was laughing and asked how I would answer that. I said I’m going to tell them computers are not a design tool. The computer is a fabrication tool. I told him then, 15 years ago, we’re going to be using computers to be doing fabrication. but not designing. He really liked that … And when I connect the computer with the publication, he actually got it. He said … “You have the facility to use it as a productive tool.”

DIANE LEWIS American Architect, Educator, Author, Lecturer, recipient of the Cooper Union John Hejduk Award 2006 The text below are excerpts from an interview with Diane Lewis in March 2013 to be included in this publication.

Origins of Hejduk’s Masque concept I consider civic work the work of the architect. That distinction seems to be lost on students, so they kind of don’t get what the Victims Project, the Berlin Masque Project, they don’t get where all this comes from. What the “Masque” means … the whole kind of Carnivale meaning that the King can be dressed as a house maid and the house maid can be dressed as a Queen. There’s a moment when you can be anywhere in the wheel. By doing that you get compassion and vision of a social program … I also believe it has a little more mystery. There are various architects who were very involved with the Masque. Inigo Jones was very involved with the Masque as was Karl Schinkel. Schinkel designed the Magic Flute stage set. He was such a great stage designer that Frederick the Great hired him to be his architect. That’s true of all the great mysterious architects (they) were involved with the Masque, with the Carnivale, that’s where it comes from.

Epilogue  201

Hejduk encounters Rossi the tradition of looking at Matisse and the tradition of cubism and Cezanne … I just want you to understand that the stylistic opposition that Slutzky had was very much challenged by John [Hejduk], talking about cutouts and getting into painting himself … in 1973 … So by proclaiming that he [Hejduk] was doing the “Cut-Outs” course … It was the Cut-Outs course that was invited to Switzerland to meet [Aldo] Rossi.

Hejduk, Rossi, Slutzky, Abraham In Italy everyone considers [Aldo] Rossi to have been so famous. It wasn’t looked at that way from the Cooper Union perspective by John [Hejduk] and Raimund [Abraham]. So what I’m saying here is that this breakaway from the rigorous stylistic modern movement austerity of [Joseph] Albers, which I consider key to Cooper Union and deeply engrained in observation and philosophy that I deeply, deeply value as the main piece of the education. But that was the break between (Robert) Slutzky and Hejduk, that Slutzky was unable to see a kind of existential breakaway that John (Hejduk) was making to integrate certain aspects of cubism and philosophy and what it reflected in a deeper rooted vision of memory … Slutzky was quite academically stylistical …  before he [Slutzky] got so sick that he couldn’t speak, he and I were the keynote speakers in Waterloo, Canada. He showed all the paintings he made after the break with John, which I had not seen, which he finally let the canvas change and he started to make strokes [that] opened up … by bringing Raimund Abraham into Cooper, John brought a kind of Liechtensteinian philosophical Heideggerian thinker who did not see the modern movement stylistically, but philosophically and I would say Slutzky also thought philosophically in a deep way.

Aldo Rossi dies I was standing in the studio at Cooper Union, I was teaching and someone said to me Aldo Rossi died … I walked out of the studio into the hall and John [Hejduk] came out of the fifth year studio and he was standing in front of me and I said “John, Aldo Rossi died”. And John said “Oh, that’s terrible, it’s a terrible thing when someone you were very close to dies and you no longer have … ” He said something to that effect. It was very painful for me and I just remember looking, he was telling me something very important in life. Which is true. There are people you can have this moment of great sharing and inspiration with and love at some point and remember how much love and creative force there was in the relationship and maybe something takes you apart. You don’t trust that person anymore and then you don’t feel the same way about them.

202 Epilogue

Hejduk as a teacher Well, there are two very important things to know about John to start with. One of them I just quoted the other day. He used to say in this kind of zany way, he would say “studio teaching is osmotic”. Nobody knew what he meant. It sounded like asthmatic. Osmotic is spelled o-s-m-o-t-i-c. He made up the word. He would say “You know Bob Gwathmey”, who was Charlie Gwathmey’s father, he would say “Bob Gwathmey used to sit in the studio with his dog in his seat and his pipe in his mouth and he said he never said a word. Everyone learned to paint.” I have to agree with that. He really believed that he was bringing in a group of individuals to exude what they knew. Whether they talked or not, they were studio architects. So this is the thing that distinguishes the school from all the others. He [Hejduk] didn’t care whether you talked or not …  But I want to go on to the second point about, after osmotic. So they had this weekend thing where everybody came and John was asked among the Dean’s what is the future of your school. And he said “The future of the school of architecture is the unexpected”. He said “and I tell you what I mean by that.” He said “about a year ago I was walking through the lobby. There was a crit on and I saw my colleagues and among them, Mike Webb was sitting there and next to him was an architect who was obviously from Scandinavia, Danish or Swedish, and he was good on the crit. I noticed him and he must be Mike Webb’s friend, he’s sitting next to him, he must have brought him to the crit”. He said a couple of days later the bup, bup, bup, as he used to say, in came the Danish architect. He said “how do you do Mr. Hejduk?” He (John) said “How are you?”. He said “I’ve come and I have a lecture I’d like to give on the houses I’ve just done”. And John said “Of course. When do you want to give the lecture?” He said “Tuesday”. John said “fine”. He [Hejduk] said Mike Webb’s friend, he went into Monica, he said “make a poster”. All of a sudden bup, bup, bup, the poster’s on the wall. Tuesday evening comes bup, bup, bup. Everyone’s going to the lecture hall, which is very hard to do, get the poster, get it up. Implying it’s a semi miracle and he says as we’re walking towards the lecture hall, Mike Webb says “who is this bloke?” So he [John] says “Who is this bloke? It’s your friend. That’s why I invited him to give a lecture”. He [Mike Webb] says “I don’t know who he is”. Hejduk says now I get in front of the room and I say this man was on a crit. I thought he was Mike Webb’s friend. Mike just told me he doesn’t know him from a hole in the wall but here he is. He’s going to present so now he’s got a guy presenting that he knows nothing about  …  And the guy gets up and shows three houses in the woods of Denmark that are three superb works of art. John says you take a risk and unless you have the freedom, you take that risk whether it’s good or it fails. That is the future of architecture. That is the future of our school. The unexpected. And that is what it takes to make great work. I was in tears when he said it. I knew that not only was I as a student a recipient

Epilogue  203 of that, but teaching at UVA and Yale and Harvard where everything is so controlled, that someone could come out of nowhere and bring the great work. This is very, very important.

The Cigar Box project It’s so funny thinking about the Cigar Boxes because I’m the one who taught the Cigar Boxes with him [Hejduk] … It’s called “Masque” … I have only one copy of it. We [Hejduk and Diane] did it with postcards because there wasn’t a lot of money so we had the students do a postcard of one of their objects and it’s from 1982 … I’m trying to remember the genesis of it because we did do it at Cooper once and he must have then done it with you … there was a big Joseph Cornell show at Cooper Union when I was an art student. I think that’s where the Cigar Box idea came from. That’s definitely where it came from, as far as I am concerned … He [Hejduk] never said that, but that’s how I see it because that’s what Cornell used.

Hejduk’s legacy Well, I do talk about it, very rarely but it’s something I would say is the basis of my understanding of many things, but I look very carefully … You see, I see John’s work in terms as having all the messages he wants or to deliver about his study of the progress of notations of cosmological space and models or thought in the language of plan and function. And, certainly there’s a direct continuum between  …  I’m very interested in his diagram of the Wall House that he put in “Mask of Medusa”. His understanding of distance in flatness and how that relates to pushing spatial and structural invention forward. I believe, the work itself is the nugget from which all the teaching comes from. And, I certainly have learned that and my work is that way too. So, I can talk about it in those terms … John was really aware of the individual and the collective and aware of what it meant in American society. He (believed) in the vision of the great American visionary projects  …  He enriched architecture through a deep knowledge of civilizing forms … John was very structurally oriented in the most poetic way. And, that is so important to the whole memory of great architecture. Definitive, poetic, structural expression. That is why Cooper is a rigorous school.

JIM WILLIAMSON American Architect, Educator and Author

House of the Suicide I had always heard about Hejduk as a student … , but I went to Cranbrook Academy of Art when Daniel Libeskind was the head of the department

204 Epilogue there and we met him then. And, then when I was teaching at Georgia Tech we decided that we were going to do a special project with Hejduk and we built the “House of the Suicide” and “House of the Mother of the Suicide” and that’s how I really got to know him  …  So we did that together then we built them in Atlanta and then later in Prague. Then I was teaching at Cooper for a bit. Then Renata Hejduk, his daughter, started a teaching program at Harvard when I was there. We got to know each other, then we edited a book together. I guess what I’m saying it’s a kind of an extensive familial relationship … then when Michael Hays did the exhibition at the Whitney, he asked me to come on board and help bring the Atlanta projects up and we constructed them again in New York. And now the Czechs have been planning to build them yet a fourth time, this time in steel as a permanent monument in a very prominent square just outside of the old city of Prague. The projects get their name from a young Czech dissident who set fire to himself in 1969 after the Russians had crushed the Prague Spring. So for the Czech’s, he’s sort of a national hero. A national martyr  …  The history of the projects is a simple story and it says a lot. An awful lot of people used to think of Hejduk as irrelevant especially from a sociological point of view, you know. What relevance does (his work) have for culture and the problems that we face today. My argument is that just the history of these projects in various contexts, speaks volumes of the relevance of [Hejduk’s] work. You don’t have to theorize it; it’s just here in the story.

Hejduk as outlier The funny thing about John and this is probably true for any number of subjects, is that he would not be aware of (certain theories) but somehow was totally in tune with whatever was being discussed at the time. He would not want to talk about theory and semiotics and post structural arguments about language, but it was rampant through his work. He thought Marcel Duchamp was a second rate artist but then I think, in lots of ways, there’s that quality about his work to, so … If he had mentioned them (the theories), he might have said “I hate them” … He was that kind of complex character  …  Well, the name of one of his important projects is “The House for the Man Who Refused to Participate.” And I think that’s him. He really had a kind of strong artistic ethos about what he let guide him, about what he should and should not be a part of. And if he thought it was clearly a kind of impure project or somehow the work was being sidelined by some other agenda, he just wouldn’t do it. He just wouldn’t participate. His refusal to be a part of the deconstructionist show that Mark Wrigley put together was simply because he thought that anything that Philip Johnson had his hands on was the worst thing in the world  …  I remember once he talked about Johnson being Methuselah, that he would never go away. Hejduk had a nose for corruption and he didn’t have much tolerance for it. People were making compromises that he thought were a little too much.

Epilogue  205

Hejduk’s legacy I think the Nine Square Grid and the Texas Houses are really, really important for reintroducing a dialogue with history in American education and an approach to architecture in a particular type of dialogue. The Bye House, the Wall House, I think is really extraordinary in the way that it allows the architect to completely invent their own program and have that program be the kind of engine behind the project. I think what it did more than anything is give permission to a whole generation of architects to begin to explore things. And, I think, in a way that is similar to Eisenman but more of an ­artistic license than a kind of analytical license. Understand what I mean? And, so in that regard, I think, there’s this enormous amount of work that came out after the Bye House that just basically gave architects permission to do something new and different and provide a departure where they can begin to become much more of an author of the work. I think that was really, really important. And the Masque projects, I think they are incredibly important, but they’re a little more obscure to most people. It’s a real shame …  It’s not the sort of thing you can teach and the lesson there is probably similar to the Bye House or the Wall Houses in that you can really begin to give yourself permission …  I think what’s really important and I guess, as I said it in my “Cosmopolitan Architectures” essay; they create a world. They create this alternative reality that’s more than just one project. And that, I think, is critical and that’s why I included it with Le Corbusier’s “The Poem of the Right Angle” and to some extent Rossi as well. I think there are others that are part of that too. They’re really creating a parallel universe in a time when the function of architecture is compromised.

The architect who drew angels Well, he drew devils, too. I’ll tell you a couple of anecdotes maybe as a way of approaching why Hejduk drew angels. Once when early in the mornings and we’d [Jim W. and Jesse Reiser] be working in the studio space at Cooper and John would come in. No one would be there. He’d wander through the desks and pick up objects and hold them and say something or gesture, driven in some way. And Jesse said it was like watching someone handle magical objects … Then, John took me to lunch once and he told me this story about the time he and Gloria had gone to Switzerland and there was a man who wanted to talk to John about building a house. They had to take this long journey up this mountain to get to this guy’s place and they got there and nobody was there and the door was open and John’s very superstitious, and he got the creeps and he said “let’s go”. “We gotta get out of here”. And so they started to leave and this guy finally showed up and he said “welcome” and Hejduk and Gloria drove down the hill and this guy followed them and they finally stopped and the guy said “I’m sorry I was late” or something like that. [The Guy said] Let me just shake your hand

206 Epilogue and John said “oh, ok and I shook his hand” and then he looked at me and said “Jim, it was a paw”. Meaning, I guess, John really did believe in another world that had creatures like devils and beasts and angels. He was certainly metaphorical but I also think it was a part of an invisible reality that he thought was real. I think the angels are part metaphorical and I think they could stand for any number of things. Certainly they could stand for architecture  … I think he had a kind of dark view of history. He didn’t give trust easily. I don’t know if I ever told this to John or not but I just thought of it. Once I met Felix Candela and we were at a dinner after he had given a lecture and he was talking about how he had been in an internment camp during the Spanish Civil War and someone at the table said you were in a camp? and he said yes, “I am a citizen of the 20th century, I have been in a concentration camp”. And the reason I bring that up is that’s something that Hejduk would have absolutely agreed with. That it is unfortunately a part of the century he lived in. And so I think that the angels and the crucifixions and the figures of death  …  What’s really complicated, Kevin, is that sometimes they’re just absolutely autobiographical. Sometimes they’re religious. Sometimes they’re political. It’s very, very hard to assign any singular meaning to some of the things Hejduk did and there are always, it seems to me, multiple references and multiple possibilities in any of the figures. Why ­Medusa? Why angels? Why devils? Why death? Why any of these?  …  Some of ­Hejduk’s real seminal images all seem to me to have multiple possibilities. Like in the Painter’s House, for instance, or in the Musician’s House. You can pretty much say the Musician’s House looks like an organ and the Painter’s House, well, that’s the window turning into a piece of p ­ aper on a table. That rotating fin, I think, is a kind of diagram that is looking out the window and then looking at a piece of paper. So you can explain those but some of the others are really much more enigmatic.

The Enclosures You asked about the “Enclosures” drawings. I’m not real certain about this. This is a somewhat undeveloped thought. In Le Corbusier’s “The Poem of the Right Angle”, he writes out all this stuff in the poem and then there are all these plates. And the plates, several of them had architectural imagery, really explicit stuff like the “five points of architecture” or an architect drawing something. It’s a kind of cipher to the whole late work of Le Corbusier. All of the mystical and alchemical and some of the social stuff, it’s all there in the poem and in the imagery. It’s like a book that you have to read to really understand the rest of it. I’m not sure about the “Enclosures”. I think that they might be a key to what goes on in the Masques. Now I don’t think the Masques are a kind of in between … I might offer a different interpretation.

Epilogue  207 I think the Masques are before, like a barely hidden reality that we tend not to want to look at, but it is there. And I think, that even behind that is something else and I’ve just been speculating that the “Enclosures” are that thing behind the world of the Masques. I’ve wondered the same thing, if they [Enclosures] are sections. I thought that they might be sections, not literal sections but sections through the ­Cathedral. Or even a kind of stained glass that might have been put in the Cathedral. I do think you’re on to something. I think in a way they may ­picture what goes on in those buildings and that may be what they look like. Of course, the thing about the Cathedral is that it’s a Masque that’s made up of everything.

Hejduk’s persona Hejduk was a force of nature. I think what he did was to open things up for people, for architects in architecture and giving them permission. By a kind of necessity, Hejduk gave authority to each individual. And, I think, you know that. I think if you met him and engaged with him and you listened to him, what you really got was not that this is the kind of architecture you should make; it was you can do this, too. The problem with that thinking is that not everyone is as talented as John Hejduk. And so there have been an awful lot of sins committed in that name. But in the end, I think, we’ve got to decide to open up for what he wanted …  I think he was an open and genuine person and he really did encourage an awful lot of people.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT Architect, Author, Director of Planning for the Seagram Building, founded the Heritage Montreal Preservation Group in 1975, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in 1979 John Hejduk created one of the two or three great alternate schools of architecture of the 20th century. This would include IIT created by Mies and, more contemporaneously, the AA as created by Alvin Boyarsky. Schools concerned with knowledge and spirit, not formulae. John expressed this as you know (at his inaugural, as follows): I believe in the social contract therefore I teach. I believe that the University is one of the last places that protects and preserves freedom; therefore teaching is also a socio/political act, among other things. I believe in books and the written word, therefore I fabricate works with the hope

208 Epilogue that they will be recorded in books. I am pragmatic and believe in keeping records. I believe to record is to bear witness. The book I wrote, Victims is to bear witness and to remember. I believe in the density of the sparse. I believe in place and the spirit of place. My first conversation with John was in his small office at Cooper in which he loomed so large. He was showing me small sculptures relating to one of his Masques. He wished to interest the CCA in developing the other figures, but my sense was that it was his hand that counted: the rich, anguishing, beautiful drawings and texts of the Masques. Eventually most of these and most of his other works came to the CCA (www.cca.qc.ca/en/). In a lecture given by John at the CCA he included a film: John with his Bronx accent said thank you to the great masters, thank you because we stand on your shoulders. John was profoundly religious spiritually. The angel appeared much in his work of the late years. Extraordinary large black and white scratching line drawings of angels. Two late models in our collection, Cathedral and a Chapel with Christ on the Cross, moved him very much. This religious work was certainly spiritually generated as was the anguish he revealed in the Masques. But I believe that it was also deeply imbedded in his Czech Catholic roots, the love of the Passion, and the paintings of great 14th century Bohemian painter, Master Theodoricus. John moved from the early meticulous drawings in which he invented sectional superposition, and the rigorous nine-square grid exercises. He describes their construction in the Texas heat as a Texas Ranger, and although he continued these methodological foundations in teaching, they became part of an ongoing narrative of object and subject. No one that I know has compared this approach to Louis Kahn’s spaces, it should be investigated: the Wall Houses relate to Kahn and of course to the FLW quadruple homes concept. And the mysticism. And the written texts. Yet there was a consistent poetry in Hejduk’s work Kahn rarely if ever achieved. His poetry was compelling. Of the five architects none achieved this but Hejduk. His thinking, the relation of each to each and the narrative of his creation, is closer to us today although many now deny narrative. Spiritually, John is closer to Mies than to his colleagues.

JOAN OCKMAN American Architect, Author and Educator History of the “nine-square” exercise The major difference between Bob’s approach to the nine-square exercise and John’s was that Bob [Slutzky] treated it as a figure/field problem and

Epilogue  209 John treated the grid as an object. This is very clear from the presentation in the first volume of Education of an Architect, where the solutions by John’s students are reproduced in white and Bob’s in black. The following comments are from an interview with Bob in 2001. They are published in IAUS (The Institute for Architecture an Urban Studies): An Insider’s Memoir by Suzanne Frank (Bloomington, IN, AuthorHouse, 2010), pp. 284–285: The nine-square project started in Texas when I came to teach with a guy named Lee Hirsche in 1954–1955. The two of us were from Josef Albers’s program at Yale Art School and we were asked by the new dean in Texas, Harwell Hamilton Harris, to form up a foundation course in the architecture school that would teach two-dimensional and three-dimensional color and free-hand drawing. (Lee Hirsche actually arrived in Texas first; then there was a call for another Yalie to come, and I joined him.) In my paintings at the time I was involved with the juxtaposition of rectilinear forms and primary colors. So in our two-dimensional color course we gave simple exercises like one black rectangle on a white field, two black rectangles on a white field, and so forth. Incidentally, I was also coming from a rather extensive involvement with Gestalt psychology at Yale. I initiated this study on my own; I never took a psychology course but after becoming fascinated by Gestalt psychology, I wrote my MFA thesis on its relationship to art education. Gestalt thinking informs a number of the problems of two-dimensional design that cropped up in our teaching in Texas, not just the figure-ground exercises but ones on constellation and other Gestalt laws that have to do with visual perception. And I still believe this thinking is valid; it’s something that ought to be taught to all art and architecture students. In any event the main exercise in three-dimensional design was “the square cubed.” We centralized the cube within the nine-square grid, and this led to what was essentially a nine-square study of space. You could put in half or full or quarter partitions within the system and in this way work out problems of tension, compression, shear, and so forth. The whole thing was very pedagogically ordered, step by step, with complexities rising out of simplicities. But we were still stuck with the cube as a sculptural element, not necessarily an architectural one. Then John Hejduk – who was also teaching in Austin and had been assigned to teach architectonics to the home economics students, who were basically women – got interested in the nine-square problem. And he had the foresight to scale the nine-square cube to 1/4-inch equals a foot. Like a Miesian house. My second year in Austin he and I each taught the ninesquare problem. At the same time John was also working on his own series of Texas Houses, and his very first Texas House was based on a nine-­square grid. In fact, all the houses in the series are expositions of nine-square grids. So it was really John who took the three-dimensional nine-square grid and transformed it from sculpture into architecture.

210 Epilogue As for compression, tension, and shear, these are really empathic responses that one gets from configuring forms in relation to the grid. All these configurational moves are ways of describing structure. We weren’t solving problems so much as investigating space with lines, planes, and solids. Ultimately we introduced solid forms within the cube. And later on when we got to Cooper Union we developed the nine-square pedagogy further. Well, you know the Cooper Union catalogue, the big one, Education of an Architect. In there you can see John’s way of teaching the nine-square and my own method juxtaposed. I located the grid in a matrix that went beyond the nine-square structure and I had my students move the structure and the solid elements about within this larger field. John was more interested in the object itself, just the nine-square object without the field. So there was a difference in our approaches, but each approach fed the other in an interesting way.

Legacy of John Hejduk I think Hejduk was a unique figure, a true original and an enormously gifted artist-architect. He will be remembered as an outsider who was also an insider. He chose to remain outside the stream of professional practice, but Cooper Union served as his power base, his fiefdom if you like, and he reigned over it for more than three decades as a highly influential and dedicated educator  …  I suppose his ultimate influence will be determined by the future course of architecture. If architecture continues to be increasingly driven by the imperatives of technology and professional expertise rather than aesthetics and poetic thinking, I think Hejduk will be viewed largely as an exceptional figure and one mediating between the disciplines of art and architecture at a particular historical moment.

Hejduk as a teacher I was fortunate to have John my first year at Cooper. It was the last year that he taught the nine-square problem himself and it was a two-semester sequence. He was a charismatic personality. Much of his teaching took place by osmosis, or by pronouncement. Students wanted desperately to receive his benediction and to bask in his aura. He would walk through the studio, often picking up pieces of the elaborate “kit of parts” that each of us was required to fabricate for the nine-square problem, and he would comment on the way it was crafted. If he stopped at your drafting table and looked at your scheme and said “wow,” that was the ultimate compliment  …  While I was a student at Cooper I gave John a copy of a statement I had come across in writing my undergraduate thesis at Harvard on Kafka: “The hallucinatory effect derives from the extraordinary clarity and not from mystery or mist. Nothing is more fantastic, ultimately, than precision.” It’s by Alain

Epilogue  211 Robbe-Grillet, from his book For a New Novel (1963), an essay titled “From Realism to Reality.” Robbe-Grillet is describing the visual world of Kafka’s novels. Actually, my classmate at Cooper, Caroline Sidnam, decided to have the statement inscribed on a plaque for John and we presented it to him. He was deeply affected by it and the plaque remained on the wall in his office for years. The statement continues, Perhaps Kafka’s staircases lead elsewhere, but they are there, and we look at them, step by step, following the detail of the banisters and the risers. Perhaps his gray walls hide something, but it is on them that the memory lingers, on their cracked whitewash, their crevices. Even what the hero is searching for vanishes before the obstinacy of his pursuit, his trajectories, his movements; they alone are made apparent, they alone are made real. In the whole of Kafka’s work, man’s relations with the world, far from having a symbolic character, are constantly direct and immediate. I still feel this statement equally captures the stubbornness, the strangeness, and the intensity of John’s work.

Hejduk’s most significant works I find the early work, from the Texas Houses through the Wall Houses, to be the most significant in their exquisite balance of architectonic rigor and poetic sensibility.

Hejduk and American architecture In the second half of the 1970s and early 1980s, the presence of European architects at Cooper Union, including Rafael Moneo, Massimo Scolari, Raimund Abraham, and others, and the impact of Rossi at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, must have intensified John’s own sense of being American and caused him to reflect on it. He was able to mine a poetic vein in American art and literature, including books like photographer Paul Strand’s Time in New England and American literature from Melville to John Hawkes. A cross-cultural dialogue emerged between John’s Cannaregio project for the Venice Biennale (1978) and Rossi’s acknowledgment of the impact of American architecture and urbanism on his own imagination in the introduction to the English translation of The Architecture of the City (1982).

Hejduk’s philosophical view This is not a direct answer … but it’s important to keep in mind John’s deep Catholicism. Also a certain superstitiousness, and a childlike (but carefully cultivated) view of the world.

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ALBERTO PÉREZ-GOMEZ Canadian Architectural Historian, Author, Educator, Lecturer, Ph.D. in ­Architectural History and Theory, Noted Theorist and Historian What follows are a series of quotations and texts provided by Alberto PérezGomez to be included as part of this publication discussing the work and life of John Hejduk. The texts below are excerpts from previous writings by Alberto Pérez-Gomez. his architecture is a model for the relationship between meditative thinking and poetic making, as a way to transcend both an empty formal mysticism and a banal functionalism. An introduction to his words and works demands a different manner of speech, indeed a resonant sounding that may provide a quiet and harmonious opening chord. His architecture is indeed profoundly critical, but the critique is first and foremost, a gift of the imagination, luminous and visceral. his theoretical work, always a personal making, is a paradigm of “techne-­ poiesis”, the Greek terms used to define the nature of the work of art as a revelation of what is, as an embodiment of human truth. John Hejduk’s work, however, and this must be categorically emphasized, can never be grasped in the simplistic terms of a critique because it is not merely revolutionary; while it destabilizes and wakes us up to our humanity, it always proposes a world. Consequently it can never become stylish or fashionable. His work has the capacity to bypass the banal intellectualizing discourses of late 20th century critical theory. It challenges simplistic critical categories because it is immensely imaginative, yet compassionate; profoundly poetic, yet respectful of its role as a medium to suggest a “different” social order through the careful rewriting of narratives drawn from our cultural traditions. John Hejduk’s architecture is incandescent, like Rainer Maria Rilke’s crystal cup that shatters even as it rings. It has the power to change our life because it is always new, and always familiar. It reveals the coincidence of life and death in our moment of communion with the work, disclosing both the absurdity of a nihilism of despair, and the delusion of positive scientific or theological dogmatism. John Hejduk’s work is never finished. The last utterance invariably has the power to remain fresh and reformulate previous production: it is a making as self-making, architecture as a verb, a process of enlightenment that

Epilogue  213 embraces the often forgotten ephemeral nature of our human condition. Passionately engaged and yet detached, this is a work of the personal imagination that is also radically cosmocentric, it is for and about the Other, proposing a world where we all may realize our spiritual wholeness. Meaning inhabits the work of John Hejduk … It cannot be paraphrased or elucidated. It cannot be conceptualized as something added to the work that we may dissect, that we may reduce to information and then deconstruct. Meaning inhabits the surface and depth of the work, it is the medium, the word, the idea, the pencil tracing, and the brush stroke. It speaks directly to our bodily experience, to our heart and our stomach, to our embodied consciousness which is also the universal mind, opaque yet luminous. Our life in John Hejduk’s architecture, between dark b ­ eginning and beyond, places us in a position to grasp a sense of direction. This is the power of his work to help us question destructive nihilistic assumptions and perhaps recognize our purpose as mortals on earth. On July 5, 2000, Alberto Pérez-Gomez sent a letter to all friends of John Hejduk as an offering of remembrance of his friend that died on July 3, 2000. I have provided a reprinting of this heartfelt tribute by Alberto below. For John Hejduk July 5, 2000 Dear Friends, Suddenly a great silence, like a blanket of thick, fresh snow in the middle of Summer. Our great poet/architect has died. His pens and brushes, inks and watercolors lay still for the first time, almost innocently, on his desk in the Bronx. And here in Montreal all words of reason fail us, they turn to meaningless whispers until soon, in the presence of his legacy, we breathe in the sphere of the most eloquent silence. It is always difficult to lose a dear one, and very sad to be present at the passing of anyone in our human community who has given so much to others, with passion and compassion. To witness the death of a great poet, however, of one whose life has changed yours so radically, is almost unbearable. John Hejduk was my teacher without having ever formally taught me. He was a very close friend, without ever having exchanged a confidence. I shared his vision of the good and the beautiful, without ever having had with him a conversation about religion, ethics or aesthetics. For the works of a true poet, regardless of his medium, touch us deeply, without sentimentality. Through him spoke the voices of the world, of a primordial language and an archetypal architecture. I knew and admired John Hejduk’s work long before knowing him personally. Yet, when I finally met him, I remember how struck I was by his

214 Epilogue presence, by the unfathomable depth of his embodied spirit. He was one of those rare individuals who could bear his soul, with all its poetic freshness and naivete, without ever being vulnerable. He could often see a reality that others couldn’t. He remained a child, with the sophistication of a thousand years. And all this was written on his body, expressed through his physiognomy and gestural choreography. John’s gaze and words both enabled one to know oneself, allowing for intimate communion, and demanded the acknowledgement of the ineffable other. His presence challenged all contradictions, demonstrating a link with the invisible, a presence luminous and tender, strong and caring, yet unforgiving of those who through a lack of authenticity patronized or produced mediocre work. This presence was always at the beginning of his work, architecture as a verb, a constant search, a way of life. And we should be grateful, for it remains like an aura surrounding his legacy. John’s production as an architect and author, and his contributions to the teaching of architecture, will remain among the most significant of the 20th century, with repercussions far beyond its time. At Cooper Union he demonstrated that to learn architecture one should NOT try to emulate practice, but rather follow a poetic curriculum, thoughtfully designed. The work at school, the “process,” is not merely a means towards an end, it is rather a crucial moment in all future architects’ alchemical search for a formula, always personal and ephemeral, to relate ethical thoughts and intentions with poetic action; the words of theories and programs, with resonant architectural forms. Cooper graduates, following John’s footsteps, have long had a significant impact on our cities, demonstrating their capacity for historically responsible, significant innovation, while rejecting the lure of fashionable novelty. As an architect, mostly through his theoretical projects, John Hejduk transformed from within the scope of an often mute and senseless modernist architecture, without ever engaging in futile nostalgic evasions. Architecture, like music, is an art of the limits. It configures the limits between the world of language, and the mute horizon beyond, the ever present more-than-human world. Architecture doesn’t mean “something,” like a sentence that can be paraphrased, rather it must overflow with sense, reminding us of the presence and crucial importance of such limits. The limits configured by architecture both bound and open up the “space” of culture, the world of language and the other iconic arts, operating as a hyphen between the visible and the invisible. John realized that since the long standing architectural conventions of classicism had been questioned by modernism, the relationships between language, particularly poetry which is by definition language impossible to paraphrase, geometry, a primordial and transhistorical articulation of human order, and architecture, had to be probed. This is the fundamental thrust of his immensely significant and diverse work. In the wake of the crisis of meaning that has afflicted our profession since the 19th century, his poetic theoretical projects propose tactics for an architecture that may fulfill its inveterate symbolic task, without reverting to dogmatism or historical pastiche.

Epilogue  215 As I wrote on the occasion of John’s retrospective exhibition at the CCA: Meaning inhabits the work of John Hejduk. Such meaning is. It cannot be paraphrased or elucidated. It cannot be conceptualized as something added to the work that we may dissect, that we may reduce to information and then deconstruct. Meaning inhabits the surface and depth of the work, it is the medium, the word, the idea, the pencil tracing, and the brush stroke. It speaks directly to our bodily experience, to our heart and our stomach, to our embodied consciousness which is also the universal mind, opaque yet luminous. Our life in John Hejduk’s architecture, between dark beginning and beyond, places us in a position to grasp a sense of direction. This is the power of his work to help us question destructive nihilistic assumptions and perhaps recognize our purpose as mortals on earth. John Hejduk’s architecture, his drawings and models, his buildings and books, all affirm being and the reality of the human spirit, a rather rare occurrence in our materialistic world. Most importantly, this affirmation is not dogmatic. It is simply a recognition that our continuity as humans hinges on shared questions which must be acknowledged, questions which inevitably lead us to a mystery, one which should be embraced as such and not ignored or trivialized. These recurring enigmas make us human, and architecture must address them squarely if it is to disclose a meaningful space for our lives. What is affirmed therefore is not something forever stable and unchanging, rather the work’s eloquence rests on a recognition of the great void where all things begin, the infinite source of our most intense vibration. This void is where the poet’s angels live, now the place occupied by John himself. A void which, we know this much, is not nothing. It is the void carefully protected by the rose’s petals, the rose of the poet’s epitaph that reads: Rose, oh pure contradiction, desire, To be no one’s sleep under so many Lids. This void is elsewhere, but it is also here, it always qualifies human life, it makes the rose possible, for even in the sweetest wind we breathe parting. Thus the poet’s silence becomes eloquence, and John can remain with us forever. The most important lesson of his work is also our consolation. I’ll leave you with a short late poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, a favourite of John: Life and death: they are one, at core entwined Who understands himself from his own strain presses himself into a drop of wine and throws himself into the purest flame. (R.M. Rilke, 1922; tr. John L. Mood) [Alberto Pérez-Gómez]

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RAFAEL MONEO Spanish Architect, Author, Educator, Lecturer, Pritzker Prize Winner 1996, Royal Gold Medal 2003 In our opinion, however, the most profound lesson that can be drawn from this exercise (nine-square grid) is this very passage from an abstract datum to a formal structure that can be materialised in architecture   …  If the “nine square grid problem” tended towards the analysis of the plane, “The Cube Problem” permits and examination of the solid and the empty, three dimensional space. This dimensional dialectic will present itself more clearly where it comes into contact with the question of architectonic representation, once the “diamond” has made its appearance. Hejduk will point out that in the “diamond” we find ourselves in front of a flat projection which has the appearance of a three-dimensional representation …  In other words, the relationship between two and three dimensions established by means of the “diamond” and isometric projection allows Hejduk to affirm that architectonic representation must before all else be representation of the object from the object, not of the object from the observer as happens in the traditional representation of architecture, where the desired objective seems to have been three-dimensionality as a representation of the object perceived. At this point it is perhaps worth examining what cubism means for Hejduk and for some of his closest collaborators, such as Robert Slutzky. For them the cubist painters struggled, right from their discovery of frontality, to give to the plane that three-dimensional quality that had been denied it. They transferred onto the plane what had until then been the property of space. It was, to put it briefly, a true Copernican revolution which denied that depth to which the perspective view had accustomed us … The drawing should seek those attributes of form which characterise the object, without losing, however, its character of an object with its, own, complete life; in other words, the drawing is not what the spectator sees, but should rather be what the object architecturally is. The didactic intention which I seem to perceive in John Hejduk’s work is a new phenomenon which perhaps reflects the situation in which the discipline finds itself today; the profession of architect having by now faded away into a mechanical production which has rendered him superfluous, architecture bends back on itself and teaching becomes a new way of being an architect. In this way the architect’s work becomes the teaching of architecture, the opportunity to express his principles. In my opinion, here is to be found the key to the understanding of his work; Hejduk is convinced that his work is like an open book in which the main points in the learning of the discipline are brought to light. This explains why his work can be considered as a long process of contemplation leading to a gradual awareness of architecture and, if we can be permitted the

Epilogue  217 analogy of the textbook, it may not be rash to claim that it takes on, seen as a whole, the character of a new treatise.

BRUCE C. WEBB American Educator, Professor Emeritus and Author Hejduk visited U of H (University of Houston) back in 1979 and not everyone was convinced that what he was doing had much to do with being an architect. Maybe even less so when John sent his former student, Daniel Libeskind (then head of architecture at Cranbrook Academy and at that time the quintessential “paper architect”) and others who were a part of Hejduk’s mystery circle followed. And for a period of ten years or so the ideas hatched by Hejduk and fueled by fellow travelers were a big part of the creative dynamics of the College. It was at a time when there wasn’t much professional work and jobs for students in architecture offices were hard to find. The computer was just entering the scene and the old defining skills of hand drawing and sketching, model-making and drafting were highly respected though at the same time on the verge of being displaced in many architectural practices. The school was everything. It seemed like a sanctuary  – almost monastic – protecting and practicing a deserted art against a time when it might be needed again. In an age of cynicism Hejduk’s visions may seem hopelessly innocent. But they helped to make it possible for students and architects to dream. And to the extent that dreaming is still a part of architecture, they continue to do so. It has been a pleasure for me as the advisor to see the project [K. Story’s book] wander and find its way, becoming much more than a research paper it has matured into a genuine interpretative narrative that is both scholarly and ingeniously personal. Bruce C. Webb Professor Emeritus Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design University of Houston

CARLOS JIMENEZ Designer, Educator, Lecturer, Writer, member of the 1979 UH Honors Studio

Honors Studio project When John Hejduk visited the Honors Studio in 1979, I was struggling to improve my proficiency in English. I had difficulty understanding Hejduk’s thick New York accent, yet somehow, I managed to follow most of what he was saying. I recall discussing at some length Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist”,

218 Epilogue the painting that I had chosen for our studio project. Hejduk’s highlighted the power of the painting’s geometric composition, allowing us to see beyond the sad blue patina that envelops the work. For Hejduk it was important that we understood the painting as an integral, formal, and emotional composition. “The Old Guitarist” rhymed very well with my acoustic guitar, the instrument that I had drawn full scale as required by our studio exercise. Selecting a painting, a musical instrument and a cigar box were the prelude to our final exercise: imagining and constructing an architecture within the boundaries of a common cigar box.

Remembering the Cigar Box The Cigar Box exercise happened at a critical juncture in my education. Around this time, I had become slightly disillusioned with the way architecture was being taught, as it seemed to me to be driven almost exclusively by formal preoccupations. I had begun to take poetry courses and to read as many poets as I could to temper my anxiety. When Hejduk visited our studio that Fall semester, I was immersed in the writings of Federico García Lorca. Inspired and encouraged by Hejduk’s deep appreciation for poetry, I decided to construct a memorial, a stage for the Spanish poet within the tiny confines of my cigar box. Hejduk, himself a poet of singular magnitude, understood like few the connections between poetry and architecture. The whole Cigar Box exercise was a liberating experience for me, and it has had a significant impact on my understanding of architecture to this day. I remember sharing with Hejduk an English translation of Lorca’s “The Guitar” as I wanted to use this poem as part of the memorial. He liked the poem’s evocative simplicity and asked me to read it out loud in its original Spanish. As time has passed, I realize how much the cigar box echoes with personal meanings. Sometimes I open the cigar box as if it were a musical box and I hear Lorca’s poem again. I marvel at the power of the diminutive memorial, a space that contains not only an arc of memory, but a memento from a timeless lesson.

Lessons of the Cigar Box The Cigar Box project was both a validation and a revelation for me, the entire experience opened an unexpected release from some inhibitions. I learned a profound lesson as to how one can transform even a discarded, insignificant cigar box into a memorable space, even for a solitary dweller. I could design and inhabit a place where poetry could coexist quietly. The limits of the cigar box were not limiting but rather an ode to freedom, the spirit of architecture. I often think that Hejduk gave us in that simple yet complex exercise of the cigar box a mirror where we could find ourselves, a reflection where we could see our becoming. And for that I will always be grateful.

Epilogue  219

DONALD BATES FAIA, RIB, American Architect, Chair of Architectural Design – University of Melbourne Founder/Director – LAB Architecture Studio, Member of the 1976 UH Honors Studio 08.06.2013 Melbourne

How has John Hejduk influenced you? As a student at University of Houston, I met John Hejduk when he came to the school as a visiting critic for the “Honors Studio” or “Visiting Critics Studio”, which was directed by John Perry. The program operates with four visiting critics over two semesters, each critic setting a short project based on various themes and issues. Hejduk came as the 2nd critic in the Fall semester of 1976, after Craig Hodgetts. As Hejduk did not enjoy airplane flights, he came by train from New York City, taking a few days to arrive in Houston. Before he ever arrived in Houston he sent us a number of “influences” to become familiar with – a painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, “Countess d’Haussonville” (1845), as well as a painting by Henri Matisse, “The Piano Lesson” (1916). In addition, he asked that we read The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Hejduk arrived on a Saturday morning, and came to the studio with John Perry to meet the group and to make a few comments and instructions. Immediately we were also given a series of films to review. We probably had about two or three hours maximum with Hejduk that day, before he retired to the Hilton hotel on the campus. The next morning, Sunday, Hejduk was not feeling very well, so he asked that we visit him in his hotel room and present work that we had undertaken before his arrival. During the earlier visit in the semester with Craig Hodgetts, I had become interested in the shorter writings of Samuel Beckett, and had tried to “design” the architectural settings of some of his short stories. With Hejduk, and given the wide-ranging influences and references he was bringing to the studio, I decided to continue my “architectural work” as a text. Not a polemical text, but a piece of creative writing. On the Monday, we were given the news that Hejduk had increasingly unwell and needed to return to New York – this time by plane – for medical attention. I believe he underwent surgery upon his return to NYC. Upon his recuperation, Hejduk asked that we continue our work and to forward to him our completed projects at the end of that fall semester. He announced that given his inability to fulfill his teaching role, he would refund his fee to the School and it was to be used to bring four students – as selected by his review of the completed projects – to New York for a week’s visit. I was one of the selected students, Along with John Clagett, Linda McGarity,

220 Epilogue and others. My final project was a text I wrote – “TIC-TOCK” that included a text and a metronomic punctuation alongside the text. In February, this group of four UH students traveled to NYC – in the bitter cold – to spend a week as guests of John Hejduk and The Cooper Union. Although, after our first meeting with John Hejduk at Cooper and his showing us around the premises and making introduction, his instruction to us was to explore New York, as that was the point of the invitation – not to sit in classes all day. This extended historiography is just to set the stage for being introduced to John Hejduk and experiencing up close his passion, his dedication and his absolute belief in Architecture and Architectural Education. As a kind of “John Wayne” from the Bronx – tall, laconic but a firm moralist for architecture, Hejduk revealed an active, deeply engaged mind that saw architecture as too serious to just be seen as a profession. He spent as much time with first year students as with those doing their final fifth year thesis. He seemed to be present on all the reviews across the school – not so much as final adjudicator as just someone who enjoyed the intensity of presentations and the debates that ensued about the architectural spirit of each project. Hejduk’s effect on my architectural maturation, came from seeing both his openness to all forms of influence in architecture – literature, visual arts, performing arts, philosophy, poetry, and architecture itself – with no real hierarchy as to the value and relevance of any of these – and other – disciplines. At the same time, it was also his passion for architecture and for learning and teaching – as if somehow that was all one thing. A certain induced innocence to the world, but not a naivety. And certainly distaste for those that saw architecture as “problem-solving”.

Hejduk’s legacy Hejduk’s impact is difficult to quantify in a traditional sense – especially his architectural projects – as compared to his teaching and educational pursuits. It certainly exists and my feeling is that it is far more pervasive than anyone acknowledges or even appreciates. But it runs less from overt formal linkages or the establishment of a language of form and more to being diffuse in terms of specific attributions. But as with much of his teaching – and in fact these things are not separate – Hejduk’s greatest demonstrable impact is on the numerous great architects and educators that have followed from him and were inculcated with a sense of the importance of architecture beyond the commodity of everyday offices and corporate production. For the issue of education specifically, there is both the consequences of numerous generations of architects who studied with him and have gone on to be great and important architects. But Hejduk’s worth in the academy is also in the pedagogic structures that he established – especially at Cooper Union – but also before that at University of Texas. The nine-square grid project is a famous one, but there are many other ways in which he influenced

Epilogue  221 how architecture is taught – through its expansion into (or perhaps return to) the fields of Humanities such as literature, philosophy, the arts and an openness to all fields including medicine, dance, film, biology, etc.

CHRIS PETRASH American Architect, member of the 1979 UH Honors Studio University of Houston College of Architecture As a 22-year-old, fourth year, College of Architecture student at the University of Houston, I had gone through many creative building design exercises both small and large in second and third years. These were the typical hypothetical assignments designed to teach you about point, line and plane and the organizational possibilities. We, the students, would rack our brains all night to come up with a “big idea” and then try to do something unique or at least interesting once we realized that we didn’t have one. The fourth year Honors Studio was different. Created to bring a select few students and highly respected design architects, many of whom were professors from top design schools from around the world together in an intense one week charrette to essentially discover the essence of design. I was fortunate enough to be part of this Studio in 1979 with opportunities to work with John Hejduk, Susanna Torre, Raimund Abraham, and Werner Seligmann. John Perry was the coordinator and founder of the studio and he was our day to day professor in between visiting critics. Here’s the way it worked. The visiting professor issued an assignment two or three weeks prior to his or her visit designed to engage and prepare the students for them. Once the professor arrived the “real” assignment becomes crystallized and the Professor becomes the mentor and energizes the students spending a precious few minutes with each student daily. It is critical to be available every day. The week is spent discovering, defining and refining the project culminating with a jury which usually included some of the other design professors from the school. As fate would have it, my first visiting professor was to be John Hejduk, Dean of the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, and one of the New York Five. This was going to be Hejduk’s second time around at UH so John Perry had a feeling of what to expect. John Perry is one of those “good ole boys” that loved to tell you stories that always seemed a little unbelievable. He gave us the pre-visit assignment from Hejduk and told us about this magical experience that happened the first time Hejduk visited and that we were so fortunate to have this opportunity. We were all a little skeptical to say the least, especially when we looked at the assignment. We were each to select a different musical instrument and draw it in pen and ink “full size”. We also had to select a painting that depicted the chosen instrument in some way. Finally we had to obtain an empty cigar box of any type. No other information was given.

222 Epilogue When Hejduk arrived he instructed us to make a space within the cigar box. No limits as to what it should or could be except that it should in some way relate to our chosen instrument or painting. Wow! That was so very different to any previous exercises I had experienced to that time. Hejduk was a very large and boisterous person to the eye and ear but a true poet at heart as we all soon found out. The week was full of discovery of romantic and very personal ideas. John was so good at listening to the student and helping him or her realize the poetry of whatever idea they had without imposing his own. If you know John the following will make sense, otherwise it will sound phony. Hejduk devoted himself to his magical way of teaching self-discovery and storytelling. He made sure to focus time with each student every day. I remember waiting my turn, getting my thoughts ready in my head to make the most of his visit. Because he was so genuine in his understanding of what you were trying to achieve, it was easy to open up about ideas way beyond the walls of architecture. In the end we presented each project one by one only to each other and John. Each opening of a delicate box revealed a sanctuary for something so deeply personal that we all felt it profoundly. Some incorporated music into the presentation coordinated to end exactly with the student’s last word. One was so personal that it would have to be closed forever after this one time presentation. I think that as a student and now practicing for some 33 years this is the singular event that formed my thoughts about what Architecture can and should be and I am so thankful for that time spent with Hejduk at that moment in time. Before Hejduk left he gathered us around him outside in the courtyard and expressed his gratitude for us and how we profoundly affected him. He did this by talking about life as “frozen moments in time”, and that for him our time together ranked just behind his marriage to Gloria and birth of his Children, Renata and Rafael. I am saying this not to build us, the students, up but to reveal the great teacher’s gracious, thoughtful, genuine and rich personality. Chris Petrash, AIA Design Principal – Architecture; Ziegler Cooper Architects

GLORIA FIORENTINO HEJDUK The following comments by Mrs. Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk were recorded at the home of John and Gloria Hejduk in the Bronx, New York on July 7, 2013 as follows:

Meeting John We met at Cooper Union. John was a second year student and I a third year student (1948) …  John invited me to a Cooper Union picnic. The boys were

Epilogue  223 playing a game of baseball and John told me that he was an excellent baseball player. I soon realized he could not play after watching him try to play. He was just trying to impress me …  We were married one year after John’s graduation. At the time of John’s death in July, 2000 – we were married ­almost 50 years.

Home life In contrast to most of his architectural peers (particularly true of the New York scene), John was basically a “family man”. He loved being at home reading, sketching, listening to music and of course, writing poetry.

Favorite project(s) My favorite works were the Chapel and Cathedral projects – both never built. I believe John loved all his projects equally.

Music He often said architecture and music were the most closely related arts. He was an original thinker who sincerely loved his profession – not wanting monetary compensation or “stardom”.

How John wanted to be remembered John loved teaching and tried to instill in his students his love and sincerity for his profession.

Rationalist vs. Poetics John’s thinking changed during the 60’s into the 70’s to some extent due to his maturity and many experiences after the Texas Houses and Diamond Houses period. For instance, readings and travels to see the colors in Villa La Roche changed his architecture from being basically ‘black and white’.

Travel memories when the children were young I was not able to travel with John. He went alone. However, I did resume traveling with him once they were in their later teen years. He loved the flat landscape of the Netherlands and expressed to me he always felt ‘at home’ there. When starting work and traveling to Berlin, he became enamored with the city and wanted to initiate a program there for Cooper Union, but the Board of Directors did not approve – much to his dismay!

224 Epilogue

John’s legacy I would like others to remember his dedication to excellence and sincere love of his chosen profession. My 50 year marriage to John Hejduk now seems but a fleeting instant! It was indeed fortunate that we met at Cooper Union, our alma mater, and wed shortly after graduation. Then, residing in Boston, Massachusetts for graduate studies at Harvard and subsequently a marvelous stay in Italy as a Fulbright Scholar where John studied with engineer Pier Luigi Nervi – a great privilege! Subsequently, an introduction to Texas, teaching at the University of Texas in Austin where many lifelong friendships ensued and the birth of our first child. Later, travels to most European countries. Perhaps the muses were most generous to me in giving me an Architect-Poet as a spouse! Possibly, John Hejduk holds the unique position as the only Architect-Poet of our century. Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk 2013

Final thought The collective body of thought exhibited in this epilogue into the life, persona and work of John Hejduk provides the evidence and assurance that Hejduk’s haptic investigations are still being studied, admired and contemplated by architects, educators and historians throughout the architectural community even in today’s world of emerging technologies. In the end it is the depth and power of ideas that fuel the flame of architectural polemics. Hejduk was a master of the flame and a builder of worlds for us to explore. It is hoped that the interpretive analysis in the previous chapters of this book brings freshness to Hejduk’s exorcisms and in some way continues to fuel the flame of ideas in the discourse of our modern world. J. Kevin Story, December 2019

Note 1 This Hejduk quote is taken from his 1985 book Mask of Medusa, pp. 130 and 131. The underlying theme behind the quote is from Hejduk’s thoughts surrounding influence his Masque projects had on him and specifically his investigation of the New England Masque project.

Bibliography

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226 Bibliography Fellows, Jay. The Failing Distance (Baltimore, MD and London, UK, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). Frampton, Kenneth. Studies in Techtonic Culture (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1995). Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History (New York, Thames & Hudson, Fourth Edition, 2007). Frei, Hans. “The Master of Lockhart (Texas)”, m u. d o t (Magazine for Urban Documentation – Opinion – Theory, Fourth Edition, Germany, 2006). Garcia, Mark, editor. The Diagrams of Architecture (West Sussex, UK, Wiley & Sons, 2011). Gast, Klaus-Peter. Le Corbusier, Paris to Chandigarh (Basel, Switzerland, Berlin, Germany and London, UK, Birkhauser Publishers, 2000). Gidion, Sigfried. Space, Time & Architecture, the Growth of a New Tradition (Cambridge, MA, London, UK, Harvard University Press, Fifth Edition, 2008). Gilley, Amy Bragdon. Doctoral dissertation. “Drawing, Writing, Embodying: John Hejduk’s Masques of Architecture” (Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 2005). Goldwag, Arhur. Isms and –Ologies (New York, Random House, 2007). Grime, Karen H. Ingres (Hohenzollernring, Koln, Germany, Taschen, 2006). Hadid, Zaha. Essay. “John Hejduk” (United Kingdom, August 2, 2013). Essay written specifically for this author’s use in this book publication. Sent via email by the office of Zaha Hadid on August 2, 2013. Hays, K. Michael. Hejduk’s Chronotope (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). Hays, K. Michael. Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk (New York, Whitney Museum, 2003). Hays, K. Michael. Architecture’s Desire (London, UK and Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2009). He, Weiling. Doctoral dissertation. “Flatness Transformed and Otherness Embodied” (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005). He, Weiling. Essay. “The Otherness in Wall House 2”, The Journal of Architecture, 10, 2 (2005), pp. 161–180. He, Weiling. Essay. “Drawing Flatness” (College Station, Texas A&M University). Excerpt from Weiling He’s doctoral dissertation “Flatness Transformed and Otherness Embodied” (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005, Chapter 4, pp. 170–191). Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time (New York, Harper & Row Publishers, Seventh Edition, 2008). Hejduk, John. John Hejduk 7 Houses (New York, Institute of Urban Studies, Catalog 12, 1980). Hejduk, John. A Berlin Masque (Zurich, ETH, 1983). Hejduk, John. Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985). Hejduk, John. Vladivostok (New York, Rizzoli, illustrated edition, 1989). Hejduk, John. Aesop’s Fables (New York, Rizzoli, First Edition, August 15, 1991). Hejduk, John. Education of an Architect (New York, Rizzoli, 1991). Hejduk, John. Soundings (New York, Rizzoli, 1993). Hejduk, John. Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils: Wedding in a Dark Plum Room (New York, The Monacelli Press, November 1, 1997). Hejduk, John. Such Places as Memory, Poems 1953–1996 (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1998).

Bibliography  227 Hejduk, John. Lines: No Fire Could Burn (New York, The Monacelli Press, 1999). Hejduk, John. Education of an Architect: A Point of View – The Cooper Union School of Art & Architecture, 1964–1971 (New York, The Monacelli Press, 2000). Hejduk, John and Moneo, Jose Rafael. Bovisa, John Hejduk (New York, Rizzoli International Publications, 1987). Hejduk, John, Shapiro, David and Binet, Helene. The Collapse of Time (London, UK, The Architectural Association, 1987). Hejduk, Renata and Williamson, Jim, editors. The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture (New York, Routledge, 2011). Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. In the Nature of Materials (New York, Da Capo Press, Inc., Fourth Printing April, 1978). Holl, Steven. Steven Holl Simmons Hall (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2004). Holl, Steven. Scale (Zurich, Switzerland, Lars Muller Publishers, 2012). Holl, Steven. Symphony of Modules (New York, Steven Holl Architects, 2012). Holl, Steven, Pallasmaa, Juhani and Perez-Gomez, Alberto. Questions of Perception (San Francisco, CA, William Stout Publishers, 2006). Holl, Steven, Safont-Tria, Jordi and Sanford, Kwinter. Steven Holl Color, Light, Time (Zurich, Switzerland, Lars Muller Publishers, 2012). Hurtt, Steven W. Five Architects: Twenty Years Later (College Park, MD, University of Maryland School of Architecture, 1992). Jencks, Charles and Kropf, Karl, editors. Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture (West Sussex, UK, Wiley Academy, Second Edition, 2006). Jencks, Charles. Essay. “Hejduk, between Commitment and Irony” (United Kingdom, June 30, 2013). Essay written by Charles Jencks specifically for this author’s use in this book publication. Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement (Kentucky, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012). Lawlor, Robert. Sacred Geometry: Philosophy & Practice (Art and Imagination) (New York, Thames & Hudson, June 17, 1982). Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture (J. Rodker, 1931). Legendre, George L., editor. Mathematics of Space (West Sussex, UK, Wiley Academy, Architectural Design Publication, 2011). Love, Timothy. “Kit-of-Parts Conceptualization”, Harvard Design Magazine, fall 2003/winter (2004), p. 2. Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1960). Malnar, Joy Monice. Sensory Design (Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, First Edition, February 18, 2004). Malnar, Joy Monice and Vodvarka, Frank. “Diagrams in Multisensory and Phenomenological Architecture” (excerpted from Mark Garcia, The Diagrams of Architecture: AD Reader, Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2010). Meier, Richard. Richard Meier Architect (New York, Rizzoli, 1984). Merriam-Webster, 2011. Merriam-Webster.com Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception (New York, Routledge, Second Edition, 2002). Mertins, Detlef. “The Shells of Architectural Thought”, in Michael K. Hays (ed.), Hejduk’s Chronotope (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). Mertins, Detlef. Modernity Unbound: Other Histories of Architectural Modernity (London, Architectural Association Publications, 2011).

228 Bibliography Mical, Thomas. Essay. “Genius, Genus, Genealogy: Hejduk’s Potential Angels” (The University of Auckland, New Zealand, Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, Volume 7, September, 2006, pp. 9–19). Mitrovic, Branko. Philosophy for Architects (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011). Moneo, Rafael. “The Work of John Hejduk or the Passion to Teach Architectural Education at Cooper Union” (Lotus International 27 Magazine, November Issue, 1980, pp. 64–84). Moneo, Rafael. Lecture. “Hejduk at the Crossroads” (Lecture at Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, date unknown). Morton, David. “The Bye House, Second Wall House”, Progressive Architecture Magazine (June 1974, pp. 98–103). Nesbit, Kate, editor. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture (An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965–1995) (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). Olsen, Scott. The Golden Section: Nature’s Greatest Secret (New York, Walker & Company, 2006). Pallasmaa, Juhani, editor. Explorations (Helsinki, Finland, Museum of Finnish Architecture, Exhibition Catalog, 1982). Pallasmaa, Juhani. Essay. “The Geometry of Feeling, a Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture”, Skala: Nordic Journal of Architecture and Art, 4 (June 1986), pp. 22–25. Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin (London, UK, Academy Press, 2005). Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Thinking Hand (London, UK, Wiley & Sons, Architectural Design Publication, 2009). Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Embodied Image (London, UK, Wiley & Sons, Architectural Design Publication, 2011). Pallasmaa, Juhani. Essay. “John Hejduk” (Helsinki, Finland, July 18, 2013). Essay written by Pallasmaa specifically for this author’s use in this book publication. Pena, William M. Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer (Hoboken, NJ, Wiley, 5th Edition, February 28, 2012). Penrose, Roland, Sir. Picasso: His Life and Work (New York, Harper, 1959). Pérez-Gómez, Dr. Alberto. Lecture. “Other Soundings: Selected Works by John Hejduk, 1953–1997” (Montreal, Canada, CCA, November 6, 1997). Pérez-Gómez, Dr. Alberto. Essay. “Education of an Architect: Unraveling a Point of View”, in John Hejduk (ed.), Education of an Architect: A Point of View, The Cooper Union School of Art & Architecture, 1964–1971 (New York, The Monacelli Press, 2000, pp. 14–22). Pérez-Gómez, Dr. Alberto. Obituary. “For John Hejduk: July 5th, 2000”. Alberto Pérez- Gómez provided the obituary to this author to specifically use in this book publication. Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Designs: The Plans, Sketches and Drawings (New York, Rizzoli Publications, 2011). Raiziss, Sonia, editor. Chelsea 41 (New York, Chelsea Associates, Inc, 1982). Rasmussen, Steen Eiler. Experiencing Architecture (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, Second Edition, 1964). Remmer, Rolf G. Hopper (Hohenzollernring, Koln, Germany, Taschen, 2012). Rowe, Colin and Hejduk, John. "Lockhart, Texas", Architectural Record Magazine, March 1957 Issue, pp. 201–206.

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Index

Abraham, Raimund 198, 201, 211, 221 absorptions 2, 8, 45, 52, 54, 90, 139, 159, 170 abstract architect 42, 81, 95, 101, 105 abstract theorist 95 “a city of fragments” 84 Aesop’s Fables 6, 68–72, 122 Alberti, Leon Battista 16, 51, 145 Alberti’s Window 145 allegorical 5, 7, 33, 69, 109, 115, 130, 134, 158, 150, 170 allegory 2, 7, 12, 17, 26, 68, 73, 90, 177, 195 Allen, Woody 186 alienation 79, 100, 104 ambiguity 7, 35, 39–40, 43, 47, 53, 56, 66, 75, 99, 104, 147, 178 ambiguous 34, 40, 55, 76–9 America 17, 77, 79, 97, 99, 101, 106, 167, 186–7 American: Architecture 55–6, 67–8, 71, 77, 92, 94, 95–6, 99–100, 105–6, 186, 211; Landscape 76, 92, 96; phenomenon 56, 92, 96, 99; Regionalism 16; West 77 Analytic Cubism 47, 58 Angels 2, 4–5, 8, 120–6, 129–37, 139–40, 142, 149–50, 159, 177, 179, 183–4, 205–6, 208, 215 angular time 155 anthropologic 93 anthropomorphic 84 antithesis 105 anxiety 98, 146, 218 Apocalypse 126 apocalyptic 15, 126, 128, 130, 140, 142 Apparitions 1–2, 4–5, 45–6, 66, 68, 82, 93, 106, 150, 159, 170, 177, 179

archetype 5, 34, 42, 45–47, 61, 63, 73, 93, 95, 99, 109, 150, 170–1, 177 architectonics 198, 209 Architectural: Diagram 68, 106, 111–3; Masque 4–5, 23, 52, 57, 63, 66, 68–73, 75, 77–8, 82, 90, 94, 99, 106, 170–1, 177; Narrative 106, 113–4, 169; “Pessimism” 79, 170; program 66–7, 80, 94, 99, 170 Architectural Record Magazine 17, 73 Architecture: of isolation and separation 94; of optimism 56, 79; of Pessimism 21, 56, 66, 79, 87 Architecture of the City, The 84, 211 Aristotle 35 ascension 36 aspirations 81, 93, 131, 136–7 aura 43, 69, 82, 109, 143, 174, 182, 210, 214 austerity 56–7, 99–100, 141, 201 authentic programs 67 authenticity 67, 74, 78, 80, 83–5, 90, 92–4, 96–7, 214 autonomy 86, 92–3, 96 axial procession 32 axis 23, 51–3, 104, 152 Bach, Johann Sebastian 132 Bachelard, Gaston 41, 61 banality 63, 68, 115 Bates, Donald 219 Bauhaus 60 Beatus Manuscripts 126 Beethoven, Ludwig 132 Berlin Masque 7, 25–6, 68, 74–5, 83, 85, 87, 91–6, 123–4, 158, 200 biaxial 105, 139 binary 19, 188 biomorphic 52–3, 93

232 Index bisection 106 black hole 50 blood 137–9, 142, 153 “Blur Building” 114–5 “Book of Hours” 126 Book of Psalms 126 Book of Revelation 126 Boston, Massachusetts 98, 224 Botticelli, Sandro 54–5, 125, 137–8 Boyarsky, Alvin 207 Braque, Georges 46 Broadacre City 92, 94–96 Bronx, New York 10, 177, 186, 194, 208, 213, 220, 222 brutalism 57 bubble diagrams 93 “builder of worlds” 6–7, 22, 152, 179, 224 butter 82 “Bye House, The” 2, 45–8, 50, 52–8, 60, 63, 70–1, 104–5, 149–50, 205 Canadian Centre for Architecture 14, 207 Candela, Felix 206 caricatures 85 Cartesian 21, 24, 40–1, 69, 85, 88, 90 Cartesian Syntax 21 “Cathedral” 13, 14, 123–4, 140, 150, 158–63, 188, 207–8 Cathedral Project 5–6, 15, 45, 121, 123, 155, 159–60, 223 Catholic 12–3, 144, 148, 152, 208 Catholicism 12–4, 212 “Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought” 79, 159, 187 centaur 191 centroidal 23 “Chapel of St. Ignatius” 161 Christ 106, 126, 130, 132, 138–40, 142, 144–5, 151, 153, 155–7, 161, 190, 208 “Christ Chapel” 5, 13–4, 121, 150–9 Christian 46, 122, 136, 148, 156 cigar box 4, 169–73, 203, 218, 221–2 Civil War 104, 206 “Clock of Deletion, The” 150–1 codex 148 codification 99, 152, 179 cognitive mapping 86 collage 53, 77, 159, 189 Collapse of Time 50, 109, 130, 150–1, 155, 159, 191 collective 56, 68, 79–81, 87, 93–4, 140–2, 190, 203, 224

coloration 80, 105, 128, 141–2, 152–3 column 20, 29, 38, 188 compression 6, 11–2, 19, 21, 23, 27, 32, 34, 36–7, 40, 52–3, 55, 61, 69, 103, 105–6, 126, 128, 139, 149, 171, 192, 209–10 communitas 92–5, 139, 194 community 57, 77, 88, 96, 194–5, 213, 224 Comtesse d’Haussonville 46–8, 55, 71, 105, 128, 141 connectivity 4, 8, 22–3, 38, 42–4, 50, 53, 62, 93–4, 109, 112, 114–5, 132, 137, 171, 175, 177, 179 constructivism 57 contemplation 58, 90, 103, 109, 157, 216 contemplative 14, 31, 63 continuum 53, 86, 150, 203 Cooper Union 2, 10, 12, 14–5, 17, 19, 45, 69, 70–1, 73, 95, 168, 177–8, 182–3,191, 198–201, 203, 210–1, 214, 220–4 Cornell, Joseph 203 corporeal 48, 55, 152 counterforce 56, 63, 68, 88, 90, 94, 132, 160, 170 cross 120, 137–40, 144, 148, 154–6, 181, 190, 208 cross-programming 88 crucified Angel 121, 132–4, 140 Crucifix 120, 130, 139, 145–7, 155 crucifixion 120, 126, 132, 134, 140, 144, 151, 156–7, 184, 206 cruciform 153 cube(s) 40, 101, 103–5, 209–10, 216 Cubist 11, 45–7, 52–4, 58, 69, 156, 159, 170–2, 184, 216 Curutchet House 17 Dance of Death 130, 140 dark romanticism 98 da Vinci, Leonardo 122, 125, 146 Debord, Guy 83, 117 de Chirico, Giorgio 146, 171 decentralization 89, 93, 95 Deconstruction of Space, The 61 Deleuze, Gilles 89 della Francesca, Piero 125, 169 demise of architecture 134 democratic 92–3, 95 density 23, 29, 33–5, 40, 50, 59–60, 70, 81–3, 86–7, 90, 92, 101, 103, 105–7, 111, 125, 134, 145, 159–62, 189, 208

Index  233 dérive 83, 90 Derrida, Jacques 54, 61 De Stijl 26, 46 Despair 93, 98, 103, 212 deterrioralization 89 detour 86–7, 90 detournement 86 diagrammatic 17, 24, 106–9, 112–3, 149, 170 dialectic 137, 216 dialog 30, 36–7, 40, 53, 198 Diamond Houses 6, 21, 38, 45–6, 48, 63, 69, 149–50, 178, 185, 223 Diamond Museums 21 diamond-perspective 20, 51–2, 61 diaphanous 30 dichotomy 40, 103 dimensionless 105 Disappearing City, The 92 disjunction 85, 87–8 dread 43, 70, 130 drift 83, 85–86, 90 Drifting 83, 88 duality 13, 31, 37, 40, 81–2, 103, 105 Duchamp, Marcel 46, 204 Dutch Neo-Plasticism 26 Eastern Slavic 72 eclectic 25, 77 ecstasy 93 edge(s) 4–5, 19–20, 23, 30, 36, 40, 109, 154 edge condition 20, 30 edifice 24, 75, 139 Eisenman, Peter 25, 29, 178, 82, 186, 188, 198 El Lissitzky 26 elevational time 155 Eliot, T.S. 179 Emblem Books 130 emblematic 14, 23, 72, 75, 82, 152 Embodied Image, The 112 emptiness 73, 82, 86, 190 “Enclosures” 5–6, 12, 15, 26, 45, 69, 121–2, 125–6, 128–30, 132, 136–7, 140–2, 144–5, 147–50, 154, 206–7 Enclosure 10 142–8 enigmatic 120–1, 140, 187, 191, 206 enlightenment 93, 110, 213 equilibrium 14–5, 21, 31, 35, 40–3, 51, 53, 62, 86–7 escapism 115 essentiality 70, 125–6, 142, 146 Eternal Life 145

eternity 42, 63, 160 Euclidean 40, 170 European Modernism 18, 56, 99, 105, 145 “Evening in Llano” 41, 113, 130, 178 event space 87–8 Existentialism 61 exorcise 7–8, 21, 30, 32, 36, 41, 43–4, 57, 63, 67–8, 70, 81, 96, 113, 134, 137, 141, 150, 178 exorcising 2–3, 6, 8, 10, 14, 21, 29–30, 36–8, 41, 45–6, 54, 56–7, 66, 68, 71–2, 76, 94–5, 99, 101, 103, 120, 134, 138–9, 148, 155, 176 expansiveness 77, 104, 103 experiential imagination 41, 114 expressionism 57 Eyes of the Skin, The 112 facades 16, 34, 75, 78 faciality 89, 90 faith 5–6, 14, 46, 76, 110, 121, 137, 139–40, 142, 148–9, 152, 157, 174, 176–8 Failing Distance, The 48 Fellows, Jay 26, 48 feminine 76, 78 figural 11, 74, 76, 87, 144, 196 figurative 60, 185 Finland 173, 185 “first principles” 3, 7, 30, 68 five points of a new architecture 17 flat space 149 flatness 11–2, 24, 37, 54–5, 59, 109, 125–6, 128, 142, 146, 149, 170–1, 177, 203 flatness of space 48, 53–4, 125, 149 flattening 20, 46, 48, 170 flattening of space 45–7, 53 flattens 20, 48, 51, 146 Flaubert, Gustave 54, 98 fleeting 3, 50, 53, 114, 149, 160, 224 fleeting time 150, 157, 159 fluidity 23, 108, 111, 144 Follies 88 force of nature 7, 207 forced perspective 51 foreboding 3, 76, 81, 103, 143–4, 152 fortuitous 18, 177 Foucault, Michel 54, 61, 80 14 Stations of the Cross 154–5 fragility 132 fragments 53, 69, 84–5, 87–8, 158–9 fragmentation 38, 69, 159, 172

234 Index Frampton, Kenneth 26, 57, 188, 190 freeze frames 125 Frei, Hans 75 frontality 53, 188, 216 frozen time 54, 125, 172 Fulbright Scholar 224 Fulbright Scholarship 15, 177 functionalism 57, 212 future 4, 7, 10, 20–1, 23, 25, 27, 32, 34, 52, 56, 67–8, 70–1, 73, 78, 88, 92, 95–6, 131, 150, 159, 177, 202–3, 210, 214 futures 109, 148, 162 Genius Loci 83 gentleness 13, 161, 199 geometric system 30, 41, 108, 139 geometricized air 111, 113 geometry 6, 16, 18, 29, 37–42, 58–9, 77, 96, 101, 120, 147, 174, 179, 214 Gestalt psychology 35, 209 Gestaltism 35, 54 Gestation 54 “get into” 82 Giedion, Sigfried 54 Giotto 125, 137, 145, 148 golden section 21 Golgotha 138–9 Gomez, Alberto Perez 14, 212–3, 215 Gothic 76, 188 gradient 59 Gris, Juan 26, 45–6, 69 Gropius, Walter 60 ground zero 86, 134 guardian angels 131, 136 Guattari, Felix 89 guillotine 103 Gwathmey, Charles 10 Gwathmey, Robert 10–2 Hadid, Zaha 14, 185 Hall, Edward T. 106 haptic 112–3, 224 Harris, Harwell 15 Harvard University 98 Hawkes, John 211 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 98 Hays, K. Michael 140, 204 headdress 94, 125 hedgerows 94, 96, 100, 123, 125, 158 Hegel, G.W.F. 61 Heidegger, Martin 61 Hejduk, Gloria Fiorentino 23, 71–2, 77, 151, 222

Hejduk, Renata 140, 148, 204 heroic age 73 Hidden Forces 30, 36 hierarchical 19–20, 22, 35–6, 38, 59, 66, 77, 90, 93, 95–6, 105, 107, 109–11 Hirsche, Lee 16, 18, 209 historicity 63, 78, 86–7, 125 “Hoeing” 11–2 Hoesli, Bernhard 16–8 Holbein, Hans 130 Holl, Steven 61, 111–2, 161–2, 191 homage 10, 54, 71, 104–6, 139, 142, 159, 167, 178 “Honors Studio” 14, 167–8, 172–4, 217, 219, 221 hope 81, 121, 131, 139, 208 hopelessness 132 Hopper, Edward 26, 70, 183, 196 horizon 24, 214 horizontal plane 24 horizontal time 155 horizontality 37–8, 53, 60 House 1 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 43 House 4 37 House 5 30, 40 House 6 34, 38–40 House 7 30, 33–5, 38, 40, 101, 134 “House for the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate” 81 House of the Suicide 204 House of the Mother of the Suicide 204 Hugo, Victor 98 human scale 34, 38, 87 Hunt, Richard Morris 24 Husserl, Edmund 60, 61 hypotenuse 20–21, 46, 48, 51–2, 61, 109, 148 idea of order 77 ideology 90, 190 illusion 24, 54, 81, 96, 125, 128, 146 Image of the City, The 86 Image-screen 134, 145–8, 170 imaginations 8, 42, 62, 82, 87, 103, 114–5, 145, 172, 174 imprisonment 79–81, 113 in-between 87–8, 92–3, 111, 113, 123, 168, 179 indigenous 71, 85 individualism 95 industrialism 92 inextinguishable antiquity 78 infrastructural 35–6, 38, 41, 88 Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 46, 219

Index  235 Inhabitant(s) 24, 30–1, 52–3, 77–81, 91, 93, 96, 103–4, 114, 190 innocuous 22, 79, 93, 134, 171 interiority 34–5, 51, 53, 55, 95, 171 interrelated 58, 108 interrelationships 18–9, 22, 30, 33, 38, 40–1, 45, 58–60, 66, 109, 170 interrogator 4, 80, 147, 193 interstitial 86 intimacy 52–3, 87 isolated 35, 40, 53, 56, 99, 191 isolated objects 24,44 Italian landscape 32, 41, 149 Italy 15, 32, 43, 79, 97, 149, 177, 201, 224 Jacobs, Joseph 69 Jencks, Charles 14, 84, 186 Jimenez, Carlos 140, 173–4, 217 Johnson, Philip 205 Jones, Inigo 200 Jorn, Asger 83 juxtaposition 11, 14, 33, 38–40, 48, 69, 103, 157, 209 Kandinsky, Wassily 72 Kafka, Franz 54, 95, 211 Kahn, Louis 187, 191, 193, 208 Kant, Immanuel 61 Kennedy, John F. (JFK) 181; death 181–2 kinetic 48, 108–9 Knut Hamsun Centre Museum 112 Koyaanisqatsi 94 Kratina, George 10, 12 Kubrick, Stanley 10, 100 labyrinthine 7–8, 33, 137, 179 Lacan, Jacques 26, 145 lack of depth 47–8, 128 Lake Baikal 82 Lambert, Phyllis 207 La Malcontenta 16 Lancaster/Hanover Masque 93 language 2, 4, 6, 8, 18, 19, 22–3, 25–6, 29–30, 35–8, 40, 44, 58–9, 68–9, 71–2, 76, 82, 86, 94, 107–8, 112, 150, 152, 185–6, 193, 203–4, 213–4, 220 Laos, Nora 126, 140 larger than life 7, 177, 182 “Last Supper, The” 146 last works 4, 6, 15, 26, 45, 71, 121–2, 125–6, 142, 149, 150–1, 177 Late-Modernism 187–8

layering 36, 58, 60 Le Corbusier 3, 16–8, 21, 26, 46–7, 55, 58, 75, 170, 183, 187, 189, 191, 205–7 Leger, Fernand 45–6 levitate 50 Lewis, Diane 14, 200 Libeskind, Daniel 183, 204, 217 “life out of balance” 94 Limits of Phenomenology, The 61 liquid densification 23, 26, 31, 174 liquidity 144 Living City, The 92 living water 144 Lockhart 6, 17, 24–5, 73–78 Lockhart Essay 23–5, 73, 75, 77–8, 177 loneliness 98, 103 “Love Song, The” 146 luminosity 59, 139, 142 Lynch, Kevin 86 macabre 130 magnetic 50, 160 malaise 63, 85, 115, 150 masculine 74, 76, 78 Mask of Medusa 3, 100, 106, 196, 203 Masque 6–7, 32, 34, 52, 57, 67–9, 72–5, 77–80, 82–8, 90–1, 93–4, 97–8, 103, 106, 134, 177, 187, 191, 202, 203, 205, 207–8 Mass 20, 30, 35, 38, 59, 103, 106, 151, 161, 189 Master of Lockhart 73–6 materiality 23, 58–9, 61, 74, 76, 80–2, 93, 105, 111, 139, 144, 152, 174, 189, 192, 196 Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, The 16–7 Matisse, Henri 69, 219 medieval 67, 75, 77, 86, 93, 103, 126, 140–1, 152, 154–6, 177, 183–4 medusa 124, 206 Meier, Richard 133 Miesian 30, 210 melancholy 143, 146 Melville, Herman 98 Memories 41, 53, 114, 137, 173, 181, 223 “memory structure of the city, the” 84 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 61 metaphor 2, 7–8, 17, 21, 26, 40, 52, 68, 73–4, 78, 90, 92–3, 95, 103, 136, 138, 144–6, 150, 153, 155–7, 171, 173, 183, 187, 190

236 Index metaphorical 2, 5–7, 21–3, 33, 73, 76, 101, 109, 120, 122, 132, 134, 139–40, 144, 148, 150, 155, 170, 174, 184, 206 metaphysical 6–8, 15, 20–1, 23, 26, 41–3, 45, 48, 50, 52, 54–5, 60, 63, 99, 103, 109, 113, 115, 120, 122, 125–6, 131, 136, 138–9, 145–6, 149–50, 152, 157, 160, 168, 170–2, 174, 184, 190 Methuselah 205 Michelangelo 10, 29, 45, 64, 120, 125–6, 167, 176, 189 microcosm 30, 76, 104 Middle Ages 125–6 minimalism 134, 142, 188, 190 moat 154 modern movement 55–7, 99, 201 modernism 17–8, 56–7, 63, 88, 90, 99, 105, 145, 184, 187–8, 196–7, 214 modulation 32, 36, 38 moment of death 51 moment of the present 20, 48, 50–2 Mondrian, Piet 26, 30, 40, 54, 142 mondrianesque 142 Moneo, Rafael 211, 216 monochromatic 105, 133 mood 24, 43–4, 55, 57, 67–70, 72, 75–6, 78, 80–2, 85, 99, 100–1, 105–7, 109, 143, 149, 152, 171, 176, 190 moral allegories 98 morality 81 moratorium 97, 132 Mori, Toshiko 14, 126, 140, 149, 198 Mourning 99, 105 Mozart, Amadeus 122, 132 multidimensional 6, 12, 27, 35, 134, 139 Museum of Finnish Architecture 173–4, 183 music 7–8, 10, 22–3, 98, 130, 132, 174, 178, 184, 193, 214, 222–3 mysterious 55–6, 99–100, 142, 156, 200 mythical 26, 42, 63, 73, 77, 125 narrative 2, 5, 7, 26, 32, 34, 37, 41, 52, 56–7, 67–8, 70–1, 78–82, 84–6, 90, 93–4, 113–5, 125, 128, 130, 135–6, 150, 160, 169–171, 177, 184, 186–7, 208, 212, 217 negative space 33, 39–40, 53, 86–7, 90, 105, 123, 189 Neo-Avant-Gardism 26, 57

Neoplasticism 46 Nervi, Pier Luigi 224 Netherlands 45, 223 neutral condition 20, 46, 48, 109 New England 55–7, 77, 94–6, 98–101, 103–6, 133, 211 New England Masque 69, 94–102, 104–6, 123–5, 141 “New York Five” 10, 26, 221 Nietzsche, Friedrich 188–9 Nine-Square Grid 16–20, 22, 29, 34, 37–9, 43, 77, 104–5, 107, 149, 177, 189, 198–9, 205, 208–10, 216, 220 Nine-Square Problem 6, 16, 19, 21, 42–3, 107–8, 198, 210–11 non-compositional composition 195 non-perspectival 60, 122, 128 Ockman, Joan 14, 209 Oeuvre 2, 149, 158, 178, 185 oneness 173 ontological 7, 22, 48, 61 opacities 59 opaque 34–5, 46, 52, 59–60, 89, 128, 134, 141–2, 145, 160, 213, 215 open-endedness 22 “Optimism” 21, 56, 63, 67, 79, 142, 170, 177 Order: abstract 177; architectural 58, 88, 107; classical 30; dimensional 41; elevational 90; formal 7, 87, 112, 114; geometric 11, 16, 23, 44, 88, 96, 101, 107; linear 22, 174; phenomenological 40; planning 19, 33–4, 37–40, 90; sectional 25; sequential 140; social 212; urban 90 ordering system 7, 16, 19, 25, 77, 101, 112, 114 organic 23, 77, 92, 95–6, 126 organism 13, 34–5, 53, 78, 87 orthogonal 24 osmosis 13, 185, 210 Osmosistically 13 osmotic 197, 202 otherness 2–3, 8, 17, 22, 26, 40, 54, 56, 58, 60, 63, 68, 78, 82, 94–5, 99, 107, 111, 114–5, 132, 145, 167–8, 174, 181, 191 otherworldly 24, 75 Oud, J.J.P. 46 Outlier 7, 162, 200, 204 Outlines 1–2, 4–5, 10, 29, 159, 170, 177, 179

Index  237 Palladian Villas 15 Palladio, Andrea 16, 188 Pallasmaa, Juhani 14, 42, 62, 112, 168, 174, 182 palpable 87, 103, 146, 190 Pantheon 106, 192 parametric 192–3 Parc de la Villette 88 Paris 87–8, 182 “Passion of the Christ” 139 pathology 91 pedagogical 29, 33, 43, 46, 55, 58, 61, 67–8, 81, 106, 115, 125, 138, 170, 171–2, 177–8, 181 Pena, William 66–7 percept 19 perception 20, 22, 41–2, 48, 51, 53, 56, 59–63, 125, 142, 149–150, 152, 170, 209 perceptual 20, 63 perimeter 24, 30, 36, 104 periphery 19, 23 Perry, John 4, 168, 219, 221 perspectival 11, 50, 147, 170 pessimism 63, 67, 70, 80–81, 94, 103, 131, 133, 170, 177 Pessimism of the Bye House 52, 55, 58 Petrash, Chris 173, 221–2 petroglyphs 71 phenomenal transparencies 40 phenomenological 7–8, 26, 30–1, 35–6, 39–41, 44, 48, 55–6, 59–61, 74, 110, 114, 122, 125, 149–150, 197 Phenomenology of Spirit 61 phenomenon 56, 92, 95, 96, 99, 106, 114, 145, 216 philosophical 5, 7, 14, 20, 35, 53–4, 60–1, 80–81, 99, 113, 115, 124, 169, 195, 198, 201, 212 photographic 53, 114 physics 50, 190 Picasso, Pablo 15, 27, 46, 54, 58, 60, 143, 217 picturesque 24, 32, 73, 77 piety 25, 76 planarity 60 plane 11, 18–20, 22–4, 30, 33, 35, 38, 40, 48, 50, 52–4, 60, 80, 109, 139, 147–8, 162, 198, 210, 216, 219, 221 plasticity 69, 128 Poe, Edgar Allan 123 Poem(s) 8, 23, 41, 76–7, 130–1, 136, 142, 144, 148, 160, 178, 183, 196, 206–7, 215, 215

Poem of the Right Angle, The 205–6 poet architect 68 Poetic Prose 73, 75 poetics: of architecture 55, 63, 115, 151, 187; of Geometry 41–2; of Space, The 41, 60–1; poetry 7, 22, 37, 67, 79, 91, 130, 135, 142, 152, 160, 177–8, 184–5, 191, 208, 214, 218, 222–3; polemics 5, 8, 21, 29, 57, 69, 112, 169, 224 political principle 73 political theory 73 pop-culture 132 porosity 30, 59, 144 positivity 41, 53 post modern power and knowledge 80 pragmatic 6, 16, 18, 30, 36, 66–7, 77, 88, 94–5, 100, 183, 208 Prague 82, 87, 204 preconceive 107, 187 precursor 23, 33–4, 52, 57, 69, 72, 109, 177 pre-perspectival 128 present time 149, 159 Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer 66 program(s) 2, 18, 21, 35, 52, 56, 60, 66–8, 77–8, 80, 82, 90, 92–7, 99, 133, 158, 167, 170, 177, 179, 192, 194, 200, 204–5, 209, 214, 219, 223 programmatic 18–9, 31, 35, 52, 57, 59, 66–7, 69, 74, 78, 80–2, 84–6, 93, 175, 185 progression 36, 90 Prommer, Richard 54 proportion 7, 21, 34, 36, 40–1, 51, 92, 138, 162, 194, 197, 199 Proust, Marcel 54 Proverbs 14 proximity 25, 52–3, 77 psychogeographical 83, 86 psychological 53, 79, 81, 87 purism 57 puritanical 103–5 quadrant 23–4 questionnaire 4, 80, 147, 193 Raphael 15, 125, 193 rationalism 57, 67, 69, 188 redefined 11, 23, 30, 35, 74–5, 104 redemption 120–1, 139 reductive 7, 128, 138–140, 146

238 Index reductive process 44, 68 reflection 15, 42, 63, 78, 95, 145, 170, 174, 218 reflectivity 46, 59, 145 Reggio, Godfrey 94 reinterpretation 58 Reiser, Jesse 14, 194, 205 Renaissance 51, 109, 125–6, 134, 140, 145, 148, 153, 176, 184 renaissance art 6, 14, 109, 125, 141, 146, 148, 152, 177 repertoire 8, 23, 26, 91 repose 20, 22, 32, 48 Republican Ceremonial 73 resurrection 139–140 Rietveld, Gerrit 46, 58 Rilke, Rainer Maria 122, 212, 215 Riga 82 Robbe-Grillet, Alain 54, 95, 211, 219 Romanesque 75, 188 romanticism 87, 98 Ronchamp Chapel 21 roof terrace 103–4, 155 rope 153 Rossi, Aldo 84–5, 87, 97, 190–1, 196, 201, 211 Rowe, Colin 7, 16–8, 23–5, 68, 73–8, 177–8, 182, 185 Rudolf, Paul 16,146, 188 Ruskin, John 48 sacred space 152 Salem Witch Trials 106 salt of the earth 100 Sanctuaries 163 Sartre, Jean-Paul 54, 61 Sassetta 54–5, 70, 125, 128, 169 Shapiro, David 13, 22, 120, 142, 150 Schröder House 58 Schutz, Henrietta 10, 14–5, 69 Scofidio, Diller 114 Scolari, Massimo 211 sculptural 13–4, 52, 183, 190–1, 209 sculpture 12–4, 53, 122, 140, 160, 208, 210 second phase 7, 16, 21 self-discovery 3, 7–8, 18, 21, 29, 68, 81, 95, 172, 178, 222 Seligman, Werner 16, 221 sensual 88, 100 sensuousness 70, 103 separated 35, 40, 46, 92, 96, 102, 104, 154, 176

Serling, Rod 27, 75 shallowness 139 shaman architects 187 Shapiro, David 13, 22, 120, 142, 150 “Shining, The” 100 Shkapich, Kim 106 signification 137, 142 signifier 89, 109, 139, 145, 150–1, 171, 176 silence 79, 122, 146, 158, 160, 174, 213, 215 simultaneity 18, 21, 33, 80, 130, 139, 171 site design 30–3, 35–7 situational order 88 Situationist 82–3, 85–8, 9–91 Situationist International 90 Sixties, The 57 Skin 35, 40, 75, 98, 112, 134, 167 Slavic 71–2 “Sleep of Adam, The” 135–6 Slutzky, Robert 6–7, 16–20, 178, 188, 198, 201, 209, 216 Social: contract 93, 192, 208; geography 86; mores 83 Societal Mores 57, 99 socio-political commentary 68, 72–3, 75, 77, 113 soundings 73, 78, 81–2, 132, 134, 136, 178–9 space program 66 space-time 17, 21, 45, 48, 50, 53, 109, 149–150 Spatial: adjacency 23–5, 80; ambiguity 43, 47, 53, 56, 147; boundary 20; Design 18,112; equilibrium 14–5, 31, 35, 40–1, 43; Experience 4, 7–8, 13, 41, 43, 48, 50, 58–62, 87–88, 90–1, 106, 108, 110–4, 150, 152, 160, 169, 174–5, 178, 195; Hierarchy 18; Joint 20; life 145; order 19–22, 31, 34, 41, 107, 139, 177; structure 20; tension 21, 33, 36–38, 40; transition 32, 48, 55, 59 spear 153–4, 160 spiritual themes 46, 126, 130 spirituality 13 St. Mary’s Church 74, 76 State of Being 61, 94 Stigmata 130, 145 storytelling 6, 67–70, 72–3, 78, 113, 125–6, 128, 140, 222 Strand, Paul 211 Structuralism 61

Index  239 structure 8, 19–20, 22–3, 25, 27, 35, 57–9, 61, 68, 74, 76–7, 84, 88, 91, 93–4, 96, 110, 114–5, 123, 152, 155, 162, 169, 183, 185, 192–4, 210, 216, 220 supplant 52, 112, 114, 125, 154 supplanted 22, 39, 81, 86, 104, 132, 155, 171 Surrationalist 84, 189 Surrealism 67, 84, 187, 189 surrogate 150 symbolic 6, 52, 71, 185, 211, 214 “symbol of urbanity” 23 symmetry 30, 36, 38, 96, 103–4 syntax 20–2, 29, 34–6, 40, 48, 58, 107, 110–1, 114, 132, 147, 170 synthesizing 56, 175, 196 “synthetic” cubism 58 tableau 45, 53 tactile 7, 24, 42, 55–6, 70, 73, 87, 111–3, 148, 176 tangential 24, 71, 88 Taverner, John 132 technocratic 36 tectonic 26, 40, 63, 139, 149–51, 155, 175 temporal 31, 48, 50, 55, 114–5, 132, 138, 150–1, 155, 159 temporality 150, 155 tenets 2–3, 8, 47, 57–8, 60, 68, 86, 92, 129 tension 37–8, 40, 48, 55, 75, 81, 103–6, 171, 188, 195, 209–10 territoriality 96 Texas: Austin 15, 23, 168, 177, 209–10, 224; “Lockhart, Texas” 7, 17, 23–4, 68, 73, 75, 77–8, 177; “Texas (1954)” 76–7, 178; Texas Houses 4–7, 17, 23, 24–5, 29–38,40–3, 69, 74, 104–5, 108, 149, 177–8, 205, 210–1, 223 “Texas Rangers” 5–6, 16, 177 theatre 85–6, 91 theoretical 2, 7, 45, 95, 170, 186, 195, 212, 214 “Theory of the Dérive” 83 Thinking Hand, The 112 thinness 48, 75, 139 Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio 68, 74, 78–80, 83, 85, 109–10, 113, 183 Tigerman, Stanley 14, 181–2, 190

timelessness 85, 178 Time-Space 45, 59–61, 109, 170 tonality 55, 69–71, 81, 107, 109, 111, 121, 125, 152, 145, 193 Torre, Susanna 221 Toshiko, Mori 14, 126, 140, 149, 198 totalitarianism 79–80 town center 23–5, 74, 76 tragedy 93 transcendence 132, 139, 145, 188 transfiguration 139–40, 145 transformation 14, 61, 109, 185 translucency 59 transparency 20, 34, 46–7, 58–60, 139, 142, 145 transparent 59–60, 90, 144–5, 160, 183 traveling theatre 85 troupe of characters 85 Tschumi, Bernard 88 Turner, Judith 54 tutelage 4, 14–5, 175 20th century 2, 46, 54, 67–6, 92, 99, 139, 183, 186, 206–7, 212, 214 “Twilight Zone” 75 typological 57 typology 23 ultra-rationalism 84, 189 uncovered 63 underpinning 2–4, 7, 10, 13, 35, 37, 46, 51, 53–6, 59–60, 68, 70, 72–73, 95–6, 103, 106, 110, 113, 115, 121, 160, 162 undertone: conceptual 71; foreboding 81; metaphysical 99, 139, 145; poetic 76, 134; political 75, 79; programmatic 57; spatial 55; spiritual 121 unearth 2, 67–8, 82, 96, 100, 103, 113 unexpected 3, 5, 71, 86–7, 89–91, 184, 202–3, 218 uniqueness 82, 92, 94–6, 100–1, 106, 114 Unite d’ Habitation 17 universal 22, 25, 63, 67, 69, 80, 113, 190, 213, 215 University of Houston College of Architecture 4, 167, 221 University of Texas 5–6, 15–6, 168, 177, 220, 224 unrevealed 40, 43, 52, 67, 69, 71–2, 79–2, 98–9, 101, 103, 107, 113, 133–4, 145, 148, 168, 171, 179

240 Index Urban: “Urban Artifacts” 84–5; urban fabric 87, 89; urban fragments 83; urban masques 25, 82–3, 85–7, 90; urban model 77 urbanity 23, 72 utopianism 77 van der Rohe, Mies 26 van Doesburg, Theo 54 van Eyck, Jan 125, 187 vanishing point 51, 146–7 veil 35, 75, 95, 160, 187 Venice, Italy 78–9, 82, 85–8, 182–3, 211 Vermeer, Johannes 54, 70, 169 Victims 87, 195, 208 Victims Project 25, 74, 83, 85, 156, 195, 200 Villa La Roche 55, 58, 71, 223 Villa Foscari 16 Villa Garche 16 Villa Savoye 21, 58 Vladivostok 82–3, 89, 93 vocabulary 30, 36, 40, 68–9, 82, 130, 142, 152 Vogel Block 74 void spaces 24, 44, 50, 59–60, 87, 107, 178 voided center 59–60, 87, 190 voidness 15, 20, 109 volumetric 22, 38, 105 voyeurism 79 Wall, Don 3, 54, 100, 124

Wall House 4–5, 21, 33–4, 45–51, 55, 57, 60–1, 63, 69, 79, 108–9, 150, 158, 170, 187, 191, 197, 203, 205 Wall House Archetype 5, 46–7, 61, 63, 109, 150 “Wall Houses” 6, 21, 32, 45, 47–8, 57, 60–1, 63, 74, 205, 211 Wall House 2 2, 45–7, 149–50, 197 wall plane 48, 52–3, 80 wanderer 3, 90 Warburg Institute 16 water 61, 111, 114, 142, 144–5, 154, 157, 189 watercolor 111–2, 213 Wayne, John 186, 220 Webb, Bruce 144, 202, 217 weightless 105 “When Democracy Builds” 92 “Whites, The” 188 wholeness 35–6, 213 why would an architect draw angels? 120 widow’s walk 98–100, 103, 104 Wilhelmstrasse 94, 96 Williamson, Jim 140, 204 winged beings 122 wings 100, 105, 120, 122–4, 137, 140 Wittkower, Rudolf 16, 188 worship 15, 76, 152, 155, 157, 160 Wright, Frank Lloyd 17, 92–6, 186–7 Wrigley, Mark 205 X-Rays 1 Xenakis 193