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1、WallsandBarriers Walls and Barriers Eugene Raskin 1My fathers reaction to the bank building at 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City was immediate and definite: “ You wont catch me putting my money in there! he declared. Not in that glass box! 2Of course, my father is a gentleman of the old
2、school, a member of the generation to whom a good deal of modern architecture is unnerving; but I suspectI more than suspect, I am convincedthat his negative response was not so much to the architecture as to a violation of his concept of the nature of money. 3In his generation money was thought of
3、as a tangible commoditybullion, bank notes, coinsthat could be hefted, carried, or stolen. Consequently, to attract the custom of a sensible man, a bank had to have heavy walls, barred windows, and bronze doors, to affirm the fact, however untrue, that money would be safe inside. If a buildings desi
4、gn made it appear impregnable, the institution was necessarily sound, and the meaning of the heavy wall as an architectural symbol dwelt in the prevailing attitude toward money, rather than in any aesthetic theory. 4But that attitude toward money has of course changed. Excepting pocket money, cash o
5、f any kind is now rarely used; money as a tangible commodity has largely been replaced by credit, a bookkeeping-banking matter. A deficit economy, accompanied by huge expansion, has led us to think of money as a product of the creative imagination. The banker no longer offers us a safe, he offers us
6、 a servicea service in which the most valuable elements are dash and a creative flair for the invention of large numbers. It is in no way surprising, in view of this change in attitude, that we are witnessing the disappearance of the heavy-walled bank. The Manufacturers Trust, which my father distru
7、sted so heartily, is a great cubical cage of glass whose brilliantly lighted interior challenges even the brightness of a sunny day, while the door to the vault, far from being secluded and guarded, is set out as a window display. 5Just as the older bank asserted its invulnerability, this bank by it
8、s architecture boasts of its imaginative powers. From this point of view it is hard to say where architecture ends and human assertion begins. In fact, there is no such division; the two are one and the same. 6It is in the understanding of architecture as a medium for the expression of human attitud
9、es, prejudices, taboos, and ideals that the new architectural criticism departs from classical aesthetics. The latter relied upon pure proportion, composition, etc., as bases for artistic judgment. In the age of sociology and psychology, walls are not simply walls but physical symbols of the barrier
10、s in mens minds. 7In a primitive society, for example, men pictured the world as large, fearsome, hostile, and beyond human control. Therefore they built heavy walls of huge boulders, behind which they could feel themselves to be in a delimited space that was controllable and safe; these heavy walls
11、 expressed mans fear of the outer world and his need to find protection, however illusory. It might be argued that the undeveloped technology of the period precluded the construction of more delicate walls. This is of course true. Still it was not technology, but a fearful attitude toward the world,
12、 which made people want to build walls in the first place. The greater the fear, the heavier the wall, until in the tombs of ancient kings we find structures that are practically all wall, the feat of dissolution being the ultimate fear. 8And then there is the question of privacyfor is has become qu
13、estionable. In some Mediterranean cultures it was not so much the world of nature that was feared, but the world of men. Men were dirty, prying, vile, and dangerous. One went about, if one could afford it, in guarded litters, women went about heavily veiled, if the went about at all. Ones house was
14、surrounded by a wall, and the rooms faced not out, but in, toward a patio, expressing the prevalent conviction that the beauties and values of life were to be found by looking inward, and by engaging in the intimate activities of a personal as against a public life. The rich intricacies of the decor
15、ative arts of the period as well as its contemplative philosophies are as illustrative of this attitude as the walls themselves. 9We feel different today. For one thing, we place greater reliance upon the control of human hostility, not so much by physical barriers, as by the conventions of law and
16、social practiceas well as the availability of motorized police. We do not cherish privacy as much as did our ancestors. We are proud to have our women seen and admired, and the same goes for our homes. We do not seek solitude; in fact, if we find ourselves alone for once, we flick a switch and invit
17、e the whole world in through the television screen. Small wonder, then, that the heavy surrounding wall is obsolete, and we build, instead, membranes of thin sheet metal or glass. 10The principal function of todays wall is to separate possibly undesirable outside air from the controlled conditions o
18、f temperature and humidity which we have created inside. Glass may accomplish this function, though there are apparently a good many people who still have qualms about eating, sleeping, and dressing under conditions of high visibility; they demand walls that will at least give them a sense of adequa
19、te screening. But these shy ones are a vanishing breed. The Philip Johnson house in Connecticut, which is much admired and widely imitated, has glass walls all the way around, and the only real privacy is to be found in the bathroom, the toilette taboo being still unbroken, at least in Connecticut.
20、11To repeat, it is not our advanced technology, but our changing conceptions of ourselves in relation to the world that determine how we shall build our walls. The glass wall expresses mans conviction that he can and does master nature and society. The “open plan” and the unobstructed view are consi
21、stent with his faith in the eventual solution of all problems through the expanding efforts of science. This is perhaps why it is the most “advanced” and “forward-looking” among us who live and work in glass houses. Even the fear of the cast stone has been analyzed out of us. From: T. Cooley, pp.194-199
