建築論の問題群02　〈建築の自律性と他律性〉　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Finding a middle ground between architectural autonomy and heteronomy

Taku Sakaushi (Architect / Professor of Tokyo University of Science)

Introduction
At the starting point of modern thinking of architecture lies the issue of architectural autonomy, that’s what I think. Some people say my idea is outdated. Indeed, the architectural autonomy is a concept that was presented as one of the main attributes—backbone—of modern architecture at the time Emile Kaufmann was analyzing Ledoux, and its roots are quite old. Afterwards, this concept was criticized and almost disappeared from the architectural stage at the end of the century. However, since the beginning of this century, its philosophical reinterpretation has begun and seems to have revived it. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t be too hasty in taking advantage of this swinging back opportunity without due consideration. When an idea swings from one pole to another pole, it will be necessary to stop once and raise the resolution of the screen showing the middle of this amplitude to scrutinize the situation. In this article, I will introduce the ideological amplitude from autonomy to heteronomy, and vice versa, since the birth of modernism as found in several books, and finally explain where I am heading.

Concepts that are internal and external to architecture
Jeffrey Scott's Architecture of Humanism was written in the beginning of the last century and claimed the superiority of Renaissance architecture during the heyday of neo-Gothic architecture in England, pointing out the fallacy of the logic that praised Gothic architecture. The logic of Gothic exaltation Scott considered fallacy was romanticism, mechanics, biology, etc., all of which are external to architecture. On the other hand, the architectural concepts he liked were those that are inherent in architecture such as mass, space, and lines. Here, let us confirm that a century ago, the problematics that were external and internal to architecture were consciously talked about.
Next, let's take a look at Adrian Forty's Words and Buildings. In this book, the author explains 18 modernist and postmodernist architectural concepts. When you look at them, you will notice that they can be divided into internal concepts and external concepts, and the former represents those that constitute modernism (function, space, form, etc.), and the latter represents what constitutes late modernism or post-modernism (memory, history, user, etc.) The former can be distinguished as the problematics internal to architecture and the latter as the external. Here, again, we see the importance of each of the two problematics for architecture.
Although it might be a little premature to judge from these two books, it is suggested that there are concepts that criticize or create architecture, and they can be roughly divided into concepts that are internal to architecture and concepts that are external. Let me call the architecture that can be made with internal concepts autonomous architecture, and the architecture that can be made with external concepts heteronomous architecture.

From autonomous thinking to heteronomous thinking
In Emile Kaufmann's From Ledoux to Le Corbusier—The Origin and Development of Autonomous Architecture mentioned in the beginning, the author concludes that Kant's concept of autonomy supported Ledoux's architecture, and its autonomy was inherited by modernism (Le Corbusier). I think that Ledoux’s autonomous architecture can be rephrased as architecture made up of the logic inherent in architecture.
Robert Venturi disagreed with the autonomous modernist architecture that was born in this way and drove the ideas of the postmodernist era. His claim was to disrupt autonomy and to think in heteronomous way. Such heteronomous thinking is not limited to the world of architecture and art. In the political world, the idea of bundling democratically weak thinking is called lateral thinking, and strong command–oriented thinking is called vertical thinking, and they are used comparingly. For example, as explained in Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt’s Assembly: The Formation of a New Democracy, the idea of people connecting side by side at the same level across nations and regions to counter a huge empire is called "lateral thinking." Although there seems to be a big gap at a first glance, there is something in common between the heteronomous thinking of the architectural or art world and the lateral thinking in politics. The idea that lateral thinking, by connecting many weak ideas, can counter the strength of vertical thinking that is pulled by a single strong idea demonstrates that the same mechanism is at work for art and architecture as well as for politics. But is this heteronomous lateral thinking really solid in modern times?

From heteronomous thinking to autonomous thinking
For example, in Asa Ito's Valerie Art and Body Philosophy, Ito sees the contemporary value in "horizontality" that is democratic and open, but on the other hand, warns that excessive respect for horizontality may be suppressing our possibility of vertical protrusion. She describes the potential of the modernist poet Valerie in these words, where "vertical protrusion" can be thought of as reassessing the potential of autonomy.
In philosophy, in Quentin Meillassoux's After finitude—an Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, the author considers the nature inherent in things as the primary property and a property that consciousness gives to things as the secondary property. Instead of reducing the secondary property to the essence of things, he tries to investigate the essence of things from the primary property. It can be said that this philosophy attempts to reconsider the meaning and value inherent in a thing itself, reversing the prevailing thinking where the meaning and value are considered from the external thoughts and influences associated with a thing. This can be interpreted as a philosophy that presents a reverse thinking against the recent trend that emphasizes heteronomy and puts the autonomy of things aside.
Let me give you another example. Nicolas Bourriaud, who wrote about the lateral thinking of art in The Aesthetics of Relations. In his recent book titled Radicant, he criticized that the multiculturalism of postmodernism did not become the alternative to universalism of modernism ultimately. This is because post-modernists have become the essentialist of each of the multiculture. Therefore, Bourriaud looks at the possibility of a compromise between universalization and multiculturalism.

Increase the resolution of the screen in the middle of autonomous thinking and heteronomous thinking
The above-mentioned Ito and Meillasso's philosophy, and Bourriaud's new aesthetics, seem to have relativized modern heteronomy and are showing inclination to reconsidering autonomy. Now, in such a situation, what I am thinking is the extraction of a concept that benefits both autonomy and heteronomy by increasing the resolution of the screen that sits in the middle of them. Specifically, while advocating autonomy, it is a quest for the possibility of drawing in heteronomy with the autonomy device. When I wrote Rules of Architecture, I tried to extract logic inherent in architecture, and developed a theory that architecture is composed of things, and space in between. Then, I wrote Conditions of Architecture next, setting out a theory that society makes architecture. Needless to say, the former is a book that considers the autonomy of architecture, and the latter is a book that considers the heteronomy of architecture. In my recent book, Architectural Design Capability, I argued that design requires a principle, and that mine is to include "Flow" as another important component in architecture in addition to things and space in between. Flow is an autonomous element of architecture and at the same time implies the movement of various elements external to architecture such as light, wind, sound, nature, people, objects, animals, etc. In other words, I believe it is a highly feasible concept that can assert the autonomy and the heteronomy of architecture simultaneously. Using this concept, I designed a house called "Movement and Scenery". This is a three-story building in the center of Tokyo with a building area of about 30 square meters. The stairs that go up and down the building are woven into the center of the building. The movement (flow) of the residents is foregrounded. In addition, it looks as if a slope of the town called Kagurazaka, where there are many slopes, have flowed into the building. In other words, the internal concept of architecture and the external elements are well connected. I was very fortunate to have discovered the marriage between the two problematics, and I hope to find another marriage between the two thinkings.

Taku Sakaushi
Architect / Professor of Tokyo University of Science, Born in 1959 in Tokyo. Master of architecture at UCLA in 1985, Master of engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1986, Associate Founder of O.F.D.A.architect`s studio in 1998, Professor of Shinshu University in 2008, International Architecture Award to ‘Re-tem Tokyo Factory in 2007, SD Award to Movement and Scenery in 2017. “Architectural Episteme” (Lixil pubishing Co., Ltd. 2017) , “Architectural Design Capability” (Shokokusha publishing Co., Ltd..2020), “Origins of Architect” (Shokokusha publishing Co., Ltd..2022)