ABIOLA AJUMOBI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, IBADAN OYO

STATE

REPORT ON THIS THING CALLED THEORY

(MANFREDO TAFURI AND THE DEATH OF
ARCHITECTURE

BY

ADEDIRAN JOSIAH ADEYEMI

125/20/1/0007
ARCHITECTURE

Summitted to:

PROF. E.B JAYEOBA

 MANFREDO TAFURI AND DEATH OF ARCHITECTURE
(CHAPTER TWO)

Manfredo Tafuri (1935-1994) was a highly influential figure in architectural theory and history.
His death in 1994 prompted significant reflections on his contributions to the field. This report
will explore his impact, particularly focusing on the perspectives offered by those who
commemorated his life and work.

Tafuri's Impact and Commemoration

"Master of Signs and Conjectures": At Tafuri's funeral, philosopher Massimo Cacciari
described him as a "master of 'signs and conjectures' and not of 'foundations and
certitudes.'" This statement encapsulates Tafuri's approach, which emphasized critical
interpretation and the exploration of possibilities rather than adherence to fixed doctrines.
Casabella Monograph: The journal Casabella dedicated a significant issue to Tafuri
shortly after his death, featuring contributions from prominent architects and scholars like
Vittorio Gregotti, Rafael Moneo, and Joan Ockman. This demonstrates the high regard in
which he was held within the architectural community.

"Epistemological Break": Jean-Louis Cohen, writing in the Casabella issue, suggested

that Tafuri's work represented an "epistemological break" in the history of 20th-century
architecture. This highlights the transformative nature of his ideas and their lasting
influence on the field.

American Influence: Joan Ockman's contribution to the Casabella issue focused on the
impact of Tafuri's thought on American architecture in the 1970s. His work is seen as a
"culture shock" that significantly shaped theoretical production in the United States
during the late 20th century.

Tafuri's Disruptive Approach and Wigley's Perspective

Disruption of the Historical Canon: Tafuri challenged conventional architectural history

by introducing new subjects, actors, contexts, analytical tools, and aims. He
fundamentally altered the way architectural history was understood and written.

Wigley's Obituary: Mark Wigley's obituary for Tafuri in Archis acknowledged a

generational gap and suggested that Tafuri already belonged to the past. This perspective
highlights the evolving nature of architectural discourse and the way in which Tafuri's
work, while influential, was also situated within a specific historical context.
Tafuri's Work: Flaws and Profound Impact

Tafuri's work, while undeniably groundbreaking, is acknowledged to be flawed, containing gaps,

leaps, and contradictions. His texts often require rejection, pushing the reader to engage
critically with his arguments. However, this very characteristic—the limits of his texts and the
points where his arguments seem to break down—became a catalyst for new ways of thinking
about architectural discourse. As Mark Wigley notes, Tafuri's work sparked numerous trajectories
of inquiry, enabling new forms of research. Despite his flaws, Tafuri irrevocably transformed the
subject of architectural history.

The Challenge of Re-Reading Tafuri:

Re-reading Tafuri's work presents a challenge. His writing style is enigmatic and his texts are
structured like labyrinths. They are not ideal for acquiring factual information, and his use of
sources can be unsystematic. The question of why to re-read Tafuri is crucial. Is it to learn about
the European avant-garde, Sansovino and Palladio, the New York Five, or late modernism? The
answer is complex.

"Architecture and Utopia" and the "Death of Architecture":

One of Tafuri's most celebrated works, Architecture and Utopia, originated as an article titled
"Towards a Critique of Architectural Ideology." The book, with Aldo Rossi's "The Murder of
Architecture" on its cover, became associated with the controversial concept of the "death of
architecture." This idea emerged during a period of significant intellectual and political ferment
in the late 1960s and early 1970s, marked by publications like Rossi's Architecture of the City
and Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction, the founding of the Institute for Architecture and
Urban Studies, and widespread political unrest. These events raised fundamental questions about
the meaning of architecture, its relationship to other forms of knowledge, and its potential for
autonomy.

The Context of Architectural Discourse:

Rossi's assertion of architecture's autonomy highlighted the debate surrounding critical practice
and the re-conquest of analytical tools specific to urban form. Architecture sought to reclaim its
capacity to not just interpret urban structure but also to reshape it. This was evident in European
reconstruction projects and the activities of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in the
US.

Tafuri's Destabilizing Influence:

Tafuri's work entered this context with a destabilizing effect. He recognized a condition of doubt
and anxiety within modern architecture, a condition that can be traced back to earlier debates,
like the 17th-century "quarrel between the ancients and the moderns." This historical perspective
is key to understanding Tafuri's critique. He saw the 18th century as a crucial turning point, with
the rise of science and technology separating architecture from the real forces shaping modern
society. This separation, in Tafuri's view, is the origin of the ideological nature of modern
architectural work. Architecture was no longer a protagonist in the transformations of capitalistic
development, unable to either produce or even interpret them.

Tafuri's "Destabilizing Effect" and the Crisis of Architecture:

Tafuri's theoretical work emerged as a disruptive force within architectural discourse. He

perceived modern architecture as grappling with a fundamental "condition of doubt and anxiety"
regarding its purpose and direction. This unease, Tafuri argued, was not unique to the 20th
century but could be traced back to earlier periods, specifically the late 17th-century debates
between the "ancients and the moderns." The questioning of classical orders during this period
challenged architecture's traditional foundations and its self-assured narrative.

The Loss of Architecture's "Rational Base":

The Renaissance, with its emphasis on the naturalistic analogy between the architectural column
and the human body, had provided architecture with a seemingly solid "rational base." This
analogy, along with the rules of proportion and perspective, gave architecture a status
comparable to painting and sculpture. However, the crisis of this system, beginning in the 18th
century, raised profound questions about the very nature and survival of architecture.

The 18th-Century Precursors to Tafuri's Critique:

Tafuri's analysis connects with the 18th-century discourse on architecture, exemplified by figures
like Marc-Antoine Laugier. Laugier's Essai sur l’architecture sought to re-establish a coherent
system of architectural principles, moving from fundamental rules to ideal forms. His "primitive
hut" represented a "natural archetype" from which architectural order could be derived. This
quest for order and rationality can be seen as a response to the anxieties arising from the erosion
of traditional architectural foundations. Tafuri, however, paid less attention to Laugier, focusing
instead on the role of the city in architectural practice, as seen in the "negative utopia" of
Piranesi.
The Separation of Architecture from Modern Society:

A key element of Tafuri's critique is the separation of architecture from the real forces shaping
modern society. The rise of science and technology as independent fields of knowledge, he
argued, isolated architecture from the processes of modernization. This separation led to the
"ideological nature" of modern architectural work, where architecture became incapable of
genuinely shaping reality, instead merely attempting to "re-form" it.

The Fragmentation of Architecture and the Rise of "Tectonics":

Tafuri also points to the growing divide between architecture and engineering as a crucial aspect
of this crisis. The emergence of "tectonics" as a concept—the art of joining disparate elements
into a unified whole—is seen as a symptom of this fragmentation. The very need to articulate the
principles of joining and construction reveals a consciousness of a lost unity within the
discipline.

Semper and the Crystal Palace:

The Crystal Palace, for Tafuri (following Semper), represents a critical moment in this narrative.
Its innovative use of iron and glass, while technologically impressive, seemed to contradict
traditional notions of "tectonics." Semper's categorization of architecture into "monumental" and
"useful" realms is interpreted as an attempt to reconcile the challenges posed by new
technologies with the established principles of architectural composition.

The Metropolis and the Transformation of Architecture:

Tafuri recognized the metropolis as a fundamentally different entity from the historical city. He
noted its "formless body" that "swallowed up every architectural object," existing as a
"continuous space" governed by an "invisible rationality." This echoes Otto Wagner's
observations at the turn of the 20th century concerning the vast suburbs and the regular grid of
the metropolis. Wagner’s concept of "Baukunst" (the art of building) instead of "architecture"
signaled a crucial shift, implying a move away from historically conditioned architectural
practices towards an anonymous regularity demanded by the metropolitan scale. This
transformation represents a loss of traditional architectural meaning and identity within the
sprawling, rationalized space of the metropolis.

2. Tafuri's Historical 'Project' and the Crisis of Architecture:

Tafuri's response was not to nostalgically yearn for the historical city, nor to simply document
architectural history. Instead, he embarked on a "historical 'project'" aimed at constructing an
"ideological constitution for contemporary architecture." This project was driven by a desire to
understand the crisis of architecture, the "death of architecture" as he famously put it, and the
anxious attempts to salvage fragments of it. He saw the avant-garde's disenchantment and its
mirrored crisis of values as central to this understanding. Tafuri sought to "reveal this
disenchantment for what it was," not to condemn or announce it, but to dissect it. His aim was
not to recount the relationship between architecture and reality but to examine architecture's
contradictory struggle to "exist" within contemporary reality, recognizing this reality as
inherently "ready made."

3. Heroes of Disenchantment:

Tafuri admired architects who confronted this reality directly, those who "fight this battle" and
"dispel anxiety by understanding and internalizing its causes." These "heroes" are depicted as
navigating the "ruins" of architectural language, seeking to interpret meaning within this
fragmented landscape. They are distinct from those who naively embrace commercial "generic
architecture" or the "ingenious optimism" of the neo-avant-garde who believe in a "purifying
immersion" into contemporary society to transcend 'architecture.' Instead, figures like James
Stirling and Carlo Scarpa, practicing an "archaeology of the present," were more compelling to
Tafuri. Stirling, for example, was seen as reducing architectural language to "fragments 'as
found'," manipulating and reflecting upon them, ultimately leading architecture to meditate on its
own destiny rather than pointing towards new paths.

4. 'Victims' of Tafuri's Critique: Kahn and Venturi:

Tafuri's critical lens extended to prominent figures like Louis Kahn and Robert Venturi. Kahn's
"extraordinary complexity" was reduced to a "mystic opposition" out of touch with the "true
nature of the problem." His pursuit of a "fullness of meaning of architectural form" was deemed
"anti-historical" and incompatible with contemporary reality. Paradoxically, Venturi, despite his
seemingly different approach, was also critiqued for attempting a "refounding architecture"
based on reintroducing "significant form" and a "density of the architectural image." Tafuri
viewed this as equally destructive, perhaps even more so than the perceived modesty of Venturi's
actual projects. Both Kahn and Venturi, in their own ways, were seen as victims of their own
attempts to re-establish inherent meaning in architecture, a pursuit Tafuri considered futile in the
face of metropolitan reality.
5. 'New Knights of Purity' and the Retreat into Subjectivity:

Tafuri identified the "Five" Americans in New York and Aldo Rossi in Italy as "new knights of
purity." These architects, in the late 1960s, undertook a "critical revision of the modern tradition"
and its tools, even at the risk of recognizing that this path might lead to a "retreat into the solitary
subjectivity of architectural practice." Rossi himself, in his Scientific Autobiography,
acknowledged this potential outcome, suggesting his work might have been a way to "get rid of
the city" and discover "his architecture" in isolation.

6. Autonomy as a Cognitive Tool, and its Limitations:

The text highlights an "ambiguous affinity" between Rossi's assertion of an autonomous body of
architectural knowledge and Tafuri's claim for the autonomy of historical research. Massimo
Scolari, in a text for Rossi's Architettura Razionale exhibition, explicitly linked this disciplinary
autonomy to a "critical condition." Scolari argued for architecture as a "cognitive process" that,
in recognizing its autonomy, must "re-found" itself, rejecting interdisciplinary solutions and
instead seeking to understand external forces ("political, economic, social, and technological
events") to intervene in them with "lucidity."
7. The 'Sublime Uselessness' and 'Silent Purity':

Reaching "beyond the apocalyptic dilemma on the 'death of architecture'," Rossi and Scolari
seemed to embrace Tafuri's interpretation that architecture was "forced to turn back to 'pure
architecture';" an instance of form "devoid of utopia; a sublime uselessness in the best of cases."
Tafuri, however, expressed a preference for the "sincerity" of this "silent, unreliable purity" over
"mystified attempts to dress architecture in ideological clothing." This suggests a valuing of
honesty and critical self-awareness in the face of architectural crisis over forced or artificial
attempts to imbue architecture with grand, but ultimately hollow, ideologies.
8. Disillusionment and the 'Noise of the World': Rossi's Later Works:

Tafuri viewed Aldo Rossi's later projects, such as the Modena Cemetery and The Analogous City,
as expressions of this disillusionment. The Modena Cemetery, turning its back on the "noise of
the world," exemplified a retreat from engagement with the complexities of contemporary
society. Tafuri saw Rossi's typological research not as a re-establishment of the discipline, but as
leading to its "dissolution." His critique of The Analogous City, titled "Ceci n'est pas une ville,"
directly challenged Rossi's claim to construct a "theory of the city," arguing that it was instead a
"negation" and an interweaving of "subjective impulsions and reality," confessing the "definitive
impossibility of giving a new order" to the city.
Genesis and Significance of "The Historical 'Project'":

"The Historical 'Project'" was initially published in Casabella (1977) and Oppositions (1979)
before becoming the introduction to Tafuri's book La sfera e il labirinto. This text is presented as
a crucial key to understanding Tafuri's historical strategy, characterized by its complexity and
intricate layers of meaning, likened to a labyrinth.

2. Architectural Language and History as a Jigsaw Puzzle:

Tafuri begins by questioning the nature of architectural communication. He asks if a coherent

architectural language exists or if it has fragmented into incommunicable techniques. He uses the
metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle, inspired by Carlo Ginzburg's "micro-history," to describe historical
inquiry. In this analogy, historians possess fragmented evidence, like puzzle pieces, from which
multiple interpretations ("figures") can be constructed. The process is akin to detective work,
starting with limited clues that are gradually expanded through research, yet the "puzzle" remains
incomplete and open to diverse readings. This emphasizes the inherent ambiguity and
interpretative nature of historical reconstruction. Crucially, Tafuri stresses the need to utilize all
available pieces of evidence, even those that don't easily fit a preconceived narrative, to ensure
an honest "historical representation."

3. Beyond Hermeneutics: Deconstruction and Provisionality:

Tafuri critiques a purely "hermeneutic" approach to history, arguing that its aim should not be
just interpretation, but the active production of meaning through a "constant struggle between
analysis and its objects." History, for Tafuri, begins with "signifying traces" and constructs an
"analytical" framework that is inherently "provisional" and functions as an instrument of
"deconstruction of ascertainable realities." This aligns with Mark Wigley's observation of Tafuri's
"scandalous introduction of contradiction into the heart of historical analysis."

4. Genealogy and the "Project of Crisis":

Tafuri describes his historical project as a "project of crisis," moving beyond traditional linear,
positivist historical narratives that trace a path from origin to a predetermined endpoint. He
draws upon Michel Foucault's concept of "genealogy," which rejects linear progress and unitary
historical narratives. Genealogy, in this context, is characterized by discovering "little, not
obvious, truths" through rigorous methodology and aims to "cut" into established knowledge
rather than simply understand it.
5. Distinction from Post-Structuralist Deconstruction and Emphasis on Reconstruction:

While acknowledging the influence of French post-structuralist thought, the text emphasizes a
crucial distinction between Tafuri and theorists like Foucault and Derrida. Tafuri views
deconstruction as a provisional tool that necessitates a subsequent form of "reconstruction." He
cautions against the "mortal risk" of reifying "microscopically analyzed fragments" into new,
autonomous units of meaning, which he sees as a potential pitfall of genealogical and
deconstructivist approaches. For Tafuri, the goal is to understand theoretical language as
inherently plural, encompassing a multiplicity of subjects, knowledge forms, and institutions.
6. Marxist Tradition, Plurality, and the "Divorce" of Signifier and Signified:

Tafuri operates within a Marxist intellectual tradition but diverges from its conventional
dialectical synthesis. He refuses to seek a "centre" or a singular "truth" in history. Instead, he sees
the historical path leading to a "divorce between the signifier and the signified" and embracing
the "multiple meanings" of reality. This recognition of "mise en abîme" and the dissolution of a
unitary architectural notion is central to his critique of modern architecture in Architecture and
Utopia.

7. Architecture as Fragmented Territory and Limits of Philology in Modernity:

Tafuri identifies architecture, particularly modern architecture, as an ideal subject for historical
analysis due to its inherent complexity and fragmentation. He sees modern architecture as
reflecting diverse voices – political, economic, philosophical, technological, and socio-scientific.
This multiformity renders a purely "philological approach" insufficient for understanding
modern architecture. While Tafuri's approach to primary sources on modern architecture is
described as "precarious" and "rough," his strength lies in his ability to expand historical inquiry,
introduce unexpected actors, and establish critical connections between disparate elements. He
effectively reshapes the "jigsaw puzzle" of modern architecture, setting the stage for future
generations to continue giving it form.

8. Disenchantment with Modern Architecture and Turn to the Renaissance:

The text highlights Tafuri's profound "disenchantment" with "hypermodern" architecture and his
sense that "there was nothing more to be found" in its "hypnotic solitude." This disillusionment
prompted a shift in his focus towards Renaissance architecture. He perceived Renaissance
architecture as embodying a period where "wisdom and power still truly blended" and where
architectural forms were intrinsically linked to thought. In contrast to the fragmented and
ideologically fraught landscape of modern architecture, Renaissance architecture offered "large
narrative" structures, prompting a turn to "sophisticated philology" and the meticulous analysis
of "notions hard as stone" – the masterpieces of the Cinquecento. He saw in the complexities of
Renaissance urban strategies and design processes a new challenge, requiring "critical vigour"
and "historical skill and courage" to dismantle their apparent unity.

In conclusion, Tafuri's legacy is not one of architectural salvation but of profound critical insight.
He provided a powerful, if unsettling, framework for understanding the crisis of architecture in
modernity, emphasizing the need for critical self-awareness, intellectual honesty, and a rigorous
engagement with the complex and often contradictory forces shaping the built environment. His
work remains a significant challenge to architects and historians to grapple with the enduring
questions he raised about the nature, purpose, and potential "death" of architecture in the
modern world.

REFERENCE

THIS THING CALLED THEORY …………EDITED BY TERESA STOPPANI, GIOGIO AND GEORGE
THEMISTOKLEOUS