Elizabeth Diller discusses Architecture, Not Architecture, a viewing device for over 40 years of practice
If you don’t count the catalog for Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, a 2003 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, then the recent Phaidon publication Architecture, Not Architecture is, in the office’s description, the “only comprehensive monograph” of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), led by partners Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro, and Benjamin Gilmartin. Scofidio died on March 6 at the age of 89.
For the book, DS+R, in collaboration with 2 × 4, created a two-volume offering that artificially cleaved a single portfolio into two sections: “architecture” and “not architecture.” Each book block is affixed to a double-jointed, magnet-latched cover, which means one can look through front to back (the page numbers are continuous) or flip it out to see both sections—four pages, two spreads—at once. (An early, inspiring maquette was reversible, but the binding would have been difficult to manufacture.) Unfurled, the wide-angle object measures just over 40 inches in width and allows simultaneous viewing, like a Wölfflinian lecture with twinned slide projectors or two tape loops playing at different speeds.
The book has multiple routes through its contents; one can scan chronologically, alphabetically, typologically, or by obsession. There are interstitial dialogues along the way. Manicules— those little pointing-hand icons: —direct attention across the spreads to make connections. While the first chunk evidences the now-familiar output of an office that expertly works around the world, the second surfaces a lesser-known portfolio of objects, installations, exhibitions, films, and happenings that are deviant, critical, and inventive.
Diller recently spoke with Jack Murphy, AN’s executive editor, about the book’s archaeology, how New York has changed, and what risks are worth taking.
AN: Can you talk about the origin of Architecture, Not Architecture?
ED: We steered away from a monograph in the past. It never occurred to us to do one. We take books seriously, as if they were projects, and each book that we’ve made has had a theme or has focused on a particular project, so it’s a complete story of that effort or even a new manifestation, rather than just documentation.
There’s nothing preconceived about the way we do books; it happens naturally and organically in the studio. After books on the Blur Building, High Line, and Lincoln Center, we were working on one about The Shed when the idea of a monograph came up. I think it was because I was tired of lugging three 10-pound books around with me when I traveled. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be better to have something that’s more consolidated?”
We were allergic to a standard monograph, which is this heroic thing meant to organize and explain a body of work as something that’s understandable between two book covers. We tried that, with projects in a chronological order; it didn’t make any sense, because our independent, self-propelled work just intersects everything.
We tried another tactic, which was to separate the work typically considered as architectural work—buildings, parks, master plans, the stuff that normal architects do—and then the projects that were independent, curatorial, public art, performance, or artifacts—things that are actually foreign to architecture work. With this structure, a reader can bounce back between the two volumes.
And then, of course, we had to make it more complicated. The sections had to be conjoined rather than freestanding volumes, a special table of contents was required, and we imagined different ways to navigate. We decided we’re making a portable archive. It’s a two-volume book, but it shouldn’t be read from beginning to end; you take your own path.
Traffic, New York, 1981. Aerial view looking north (fig. 4, page 400, top) Not Architecture. (Diller Scofidio + Renfro)
AN: There seems to be an inflection point in the early 2000s for DS+R: On the left side of the book, the buildings take off at that moment, and, correspondingly, the exhibitions seem to slow. Can you talk about that moment when building commissions became more prominent?
ED: We did a housing project in Gifu, Japan, at the invitation of Arata Isozaki, which finished in 2000; that was a turning point. An earlier one was the unrealized Slow House, from 1991. It was almost the first project we had, because we had written off architecture for the most part. Our view was a bit aligned with Cooper Union’s position at the time that architecture as a profession was intellectually bankrupt.
But then, when we started to work, it felt different; people were coming to us who were like-minded and didn’t represent power structures or “the man.” It went beyond the institutional critique—there was no one to critique. Jill Medvedow, our client for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, was my contemporary, and she wanted to do something interesting. So when there’s no resistance, you have to change your tune. It’s no longer only about being critical. You could still think critically about the conventions of a museum, but you also had to think more generatively about what you can contribute. The inflection point was that we were no longer in a big fight; we found our way in. Sometimes it had to be stealthy, and it was a learning process.
We were maturing and the world was changing; we were given opportunities, but we never stopped doing independent work. It’s not like the architectural projects took up all our brain space, and it’s not as if we felt this need to not allow this stuff to disappear; it’s just natural. When the opportunities happen, we do them, whether they’re self-initiated or by invitation. I think that’s what keeps us sane.
AN: The studio’s success also parallels the development of New York. You went from an installation of traffic cones in Columbus Circle in 1981 to, blocks away, redesigning Lincoln Center in the early 2010s. You were able to change so many pieces of your hometown. How have you experienced this creative growth?
ED: I see New York as a big punch list. Sometimes I can be on the High Line and appreciate it, but often when I see something that’s out of place or needs to be maintained, it bugs me. I get an OCD effect at the scale of the city. How can I have control over that? In our formative years, we were able to do things like Traffic, and we felt that we could just do things in our own city.
After 9/11 was an extraordinarily important time. With Michael Bloomberg’s three-term run as mayor, we were the beneficiaries of an unusual administration where, in addition to Bloomberg, both Amanda Burden as the planning commissioner and Kate Levin as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs were interested in new things and making the city better. Things felt like gifts. When we opened the High Line, nobody expected anything. It wasn’t preadvertised, it just happened.
Zaryadye Park, Moscow, 2017. Aerial view with flyover bridge looking northwest toward the Kremlin, Red Square (fig. 6, page 238) Architecture. (Iwan Baan)
AN: Some of your work is risky: It’s provocative, and it’s about bodies and technology. But culture, lately, is fairly risk averse. How do you navigate which risks to take as a firm?
ED: One of the big risks is that we take on things that we’re totally unqualified to do. Like with The Mile-Long Opera, we had a thousand singers, and we were producing and directing it. We were doing all this, and we weren’t qualified. We learned as we went. Like with the Blur Building, we jumped off the cliff without a parachute and learned on the way down. Thankfully we had a soft landing. We didn’t understand what we were getting into; we didn’t realize that all of Switzerland could’ve gotten Legionnaires’ disease. But we learned we needed serious filtration systems, and we had water engineers involved.
The projects we take on wouldn’t be interesting if there was no risk, because then we’re just doing something we already know. It could be a new project or a novel structural system or technological idea, and even if it is a typology we have done before, we rethink it in a different way.
We also do unpopular things, which is risky with our own audience. We designed Zaryadye Park in Moscow, right in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral and close to the Kremlin. It raised the question, “Are we supporting a regime we don’t endorse?” We decided to move forward because there was an international jury that picked us legitimately and there was a city architect who was extraordinarily enlightened. The project, which didn’t seem like a Russian project, was selected, and it went forward without being stopped.
It was a delicate thing. The brief instructed us to not make any spaces where the public can assemble. So we included lots of smaller spots, including places where you can walk on the grass, unlike other parks in Russia. Challenging the rules might include taking on something that is risky in an ideological way, but it is an opportunity to make a positive change. I struggle with the issue, as populations need good minds, people, and institutions to change, but I can’t quite get it out of my head when the ruling body enables criminal things that we can’t support.
Every project has those kinds of assessments. We actually made this interesting scorecard that had all the countries and their relative risk levels, so we could assess where we could feel comfortable working. It’s funny, but it allowed us to think about the world and human rights.
The Shed (Courtesy Phaidon)
AN: What surprised you when making this book?
ED: I thought looking back at this work would have a nostalgic effect or that we would be showing things that maybe we’re not proud of. Instead, everything in there I feel I would do again.
Things have changed, but every entry cracked a piece of research that was essential in our growth. When I look back, I’m proud of every project: Each made us think differently about the world and institutions and so forth. Maybe that’s the biggest discovery. And there are all these postpublication discoveries of the networked connections between projects that I didn’t realize before. We’ll have to start noting them down for the next edition.
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