| |
Koolhaas versus the Actor
2005.05.05 23:19
aml, I just realized that there are (at least) two English "l'architecture dans le boudoir" texts by Tafuri. The 'first' was published in Oppositions 3 (May 1974), the 'second' is chapter 8 of The Sphere and the Labyrinth (1980). The text I started reading today is the one from Oppositions, and I've now compared the two texts and they are not at all identical. For example, Piranesi is not referenced at all in the first text. Overall, much has been added to the second text to 'fill it out' and update it, but there are also some changes (although some of the changes may be due to different translators).
Yes, the concept of reenactment is there within "l'architecture dans le boudoir," but nowhere does Tafuri explain or even recognize it as such. Tafuri mentions that a "code" has been lost, and thus the language architects use is devoid of meaning, implying that if the code were still known, then the meaning would be known as well. For me, reenactionary architecturism is the code and the provider of meaning.
In English, the first chapter of The Sphere and the Labyrinth is "The Wicked Architect," and this chapter was published earlier and separately as well, (or maybe I'm thinking of the first chapter of Architecture and Utopia as having been published earlier).
Anyway, it looks to me like The Sphere and the Labyrinth is itself a bricolage, composed of disparate pieces that were ultimately brought together, which perhaps explains the very first paragraph (to which I responded with "How Ironic!").
|