Team 10 - Keeping the Language of Modern Architecture Alive
The Team 10 project realized by TU Delft in collaboration with NAi and NAi publishers found its conclusion with the congress 'Team 10 - Keeping the Language of Modern Architecture Alive', held at the Faculty of Architecture 5 and 6 January 2006.
We were happy and honoured to welcome two special guests: Guillaume Jullian de la Fuente from Santiago de Chili, former chef de bureau of the Atelier Le Corbusier and Team 10 participant, and Manfred Schiedhelm from Berlin, former collaborator of Shadrach Woods and co-architect of the Free University Berlin.
After a welcome by Dick van Gameren and an introduction to the programme by Dirk van den Heuvel, the event was opened by M. Christine Boyer from Princeton University with her keynote lecture 'Why do Architects Write?' discussing the Team 10 discourse and the group's desire 'to keep the language of modern architecture alive and worthy of inheriting by a younger generation' - as Alison Smithon put it in her introduction to her account of the Team 10 history, 'Team 10 meetings' (1991).
The morning session ended with a conversation with our two guests of honour Guillaume Jullian de la Fuente and Manfred Schiedhelm. Jullian was present at various Team 10 meetings. As former chef de bureau of Le Corbusier he was responsible for the Carpenter Center building at Harvard University as well as the design for the Venice Hospital. The latter project is prototypical for the idea of Mat-Building, one of the most original contributions made by Team 10 to the architectural discourse. The Free University in Berlin, is one of the few canonical realisations of Mat-Building. Initially an assistant to Shadrach Woods, Schiedhelm was entrusted to run Woods' Berlin office to build the ground-breaking design. He also participated in various Team 10 meetings, and co-organized the Matrix-meeting of 1973 that took place in the FU-building complex.
The conversation was introduced by Max Risselada, TU Delft and Francis Strauven, RU Gent.
Francis Strauven, Manfred Schiedhelm, Guillaume Jullian de la Fuente and Max Risselada during the morning session of the first day of the congress.
Whereas the exhibition and the book focused on the core members of Team 10, this concluding congress provided the opportunity to widen our scope in order to include some of the other Team 10 participants as well, and to compare other shifts in the architectural discourse parallel of Team 10. Next to this, the congress offered the possibility of a first evaluation of the Team 10 research project, and the formulation of questions for future research. For this purpose the congress was structured around four parallel sessions with in-depth presentations of case-studies. These parallel sessions focused on the following themes: Mythopoiesis, Superstructures and Structuralism, Shifts around 1972 and Reception after 1981.
The congress was concluded by two keynote lectures delivered by George Baird, Toronto University (Around 1967. The Publication of 'Meaning in Architecture') and Georges Teyssot (Heterotopia, the Diagram and Abstract Machines. Counter-Concpets of the 1960s and the 1970s'). Both discussed topics that partly overlapped the Team 10 discourse, and partly were outside of it. Baird reflected on an anthology of his, 'Meaning in Architecture', co-edited with Charles Jencks and published in 1969, and Teyssot lectured on the idea of Heterotopia as developed by Michel Foucault, and how this idea was appropriated by the architectural discipline from 1967 onward.
Papers of the presentations will be published on the website in the near future.
Definitive programme
DAY ONE
morning
introductions by Dick van Gameren and Dirk van den Heuvel
keynote lecture by M. Christine Boyer
a conversation between Francis Strauven, RU Gent, Guillaume Jullian de la Fuente and Manfred Schiedhelm.
afternoon
parallel sessions 'Mythopoiesis' and 'Superstructures/Structuralism'.
DAY TWO
morning
parallel sessions 'Shifts around 1972' and 'Reception after 1981'.
afternoon
keynote lectures by George Baird and Georges Teyssot
panel discussion with the chairs of the parallel sessions.
Themes and presentations of the parallel sessions
Mythopoiesis
In his famous ‘Homo Ludens’ Johan Huizinga discusses the elements of Mythopoiesis, stating that ‘conceptions are born as acts of the imagination’. This session aims to look at various positions in the postwar period that try to formulate humanist-existentialist alternatives to the then seemingly dominance of the rationalist and positivist strand of modernist thinking. Subjects range from the interest of Aldo van Eyck and Herman Haan in African Dogon culture, the unknown work of Reima Pietilä in Finland to the German discourse of the postwar years including Heidegger's thoughts on dwelling.
Presentations:
Dirk van den Heuvel, TU Delft - Team 10 Riddles. A Few Notes on Mythopoiesis, Discourse and Epistemology
Karin Jaschke, Westminster University, London - Aldo van Eyck and Herman Haan: Visiting the Dogon
Aino Niskanen, TKK Helsinki - 'Laying a Few Traps'. On the Lifework of Reima Pietilä
Hartmut Frank, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg - From 'Darmstädter Gespräch' 1951 to the International Conference 'Architekturtheorie' Berlin 1967.
Chair: Hilde Heynen, KU Leuven
Superstructures and Structuralism
Within Team 10 and parallel to the group’s discourse a couple of all-encompassing approaches were developed that have been denominated with the terms of superstructures and structuralism. In a way, these approaches continued the prewar modernist concern for objective and collective architectural typologies, now combined with an interest in biology, linguistics and anthropology. This led to various new propositions, among which were the idea of Mat-Building and the Open Form of Oskar Hansen.
Presentations:
Irénée Scalbert, AA School, London - From Anthropology to Structuralism
Joanna Mytkovska, Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw - Oskar Hansen and the Open Form
Pablo Allard, PUC, Santiago de Chile - Jullian de la Fuenet and Mat-building
Chair: Tom Avermaete, VAI Antwerpen
Shifts around 1972
In the early 1970s the architecture discourse displayed a mixture of turmoil and indecision, without any position holding dominance. Around 1972 the case for autonomy of the discipline was forged, e.g. by the publication of ‘Five Architects’ and Colin Rowe; it also brought a politicized Team 10 discourse to the US in the form of the Cornell lecture series organized by O.M. Ungers; and it saw radical countercultural experiments as well as experiments in participation and urban renewal.
Presentations:
Dirk van den Heuvel, TU Delft - A Short Introduction to the Theme
Pier V. Aureli, Berlage Institute, Rotterdam - Politics of Retroactivity. Colin Rowe, Oswald Mathias Ungers, OMA
Henk Engel, TU Delft - CIAM in the Museum
Felicity D. Scott, UC Irvine - Architecture or Counter-Revolution?
Chair: Roemer van Toorn, Berlage Institute, Rotterdam
Reception after 1981
In the 1980s younger generations of architects and critics started to look into the legacy of Team 10, partly out of dissatisfaction with the populist postmodernist rhetoric, and partly because they were educated by Team 10 members. This session presents various cases of appropriation and interpretation of Team 10 ideas throughout Europe.
Presentations:
Max Risselada, TU Delft - A Short Introduction to the Theme
Xavier Costa, UPC Barcelona - Team 10: The School of Barcelona after 1976
Marco Vidotto, architect, Siena - Team 10: Siena 191/82
Frits Palmboom, Palmboom & van den Bout Stedebouwkundigen, Rotterdam -
Team 10: Holland and the Layered Landscape
Chair: Deborah Hauptmann, TU Delft
Sponsors
This event was made possible through generous funding by the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, the Netherlands Architecture Fund and NWO, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
