„Entwerfen
(design) comes from 'werfen'.
Planning has to do with 'Ahnung' (premonition)“
In view of this collection of texts on urbanism,
architecture, and limitless conceptual worlds,
it would be plausible to understand and acknowledge
Wolf D. Prix primarily as an author, as someone
who writes – and not as an architect –
if he would have had to remain content with the
formulation of claims, of visions, and of theories.
If he had never been able to build with Coop Himmelb(l)au
– with the resolution "to make architecture
as variable as clouds", to pointedly contribute
to shaping "the three dimensional culture"
– then he would have written provocative
theses or mind-blowing lyrics as the poetic expression
of what is conceivable, desirable, but unable
to concretize. He was never held back by circumstances
– which, despite superficial freedoms, prohibit
so much – because he has a desire to build.
He presents how greatly the material constraints,
which constrict everything possible – including
people, of course – into some type of bookkeeping,
can be constructively confused and enriched. As
Majakowski did in his day, Wolf D. Prix confronts
an almost compulsively paralyzed public and ist
leading exponents with a staccato tempo of model-like
solutions, only his are expanded by the freedorm
of no longer having to believe in a revolution:
"The tougher the times, the tougher the
architecture."
"... incongruous aesthetics are political
aesthetics."
"The builders of the Tower of Babel lacked
the material of reinforced concrete. We lack
the material of language confusion, which we
need to complete it."
"We are looking for the unknown, for uncertain
grounds, and diversity."
'Making mistakes' is the building material of
architecture. The unconscious and coincidence
can be the planning method."
"We break up the word 'Entwurf' (design)
into the syllable 'ent' and the word 'wurf.
Ent-wurf (de-sign). The prefix ent as in ent-äußern,
to renounce, or ent-flammen, to stir up. Wurf
like werfen, to throw."
"Planning clearly has something to do with
premonition."
He constantly beguiled adverse conditions with
images, with linguistic images, with highly experimental
models, and with the insistent claim that far
more is possible than is considered so. He is
permanently involved in further developing dramatically
expanded dimensions for the favorite buzzword
of today's conceivers of efficiency and designers
of reality – feasibility: worlds of emotion,
surprise spaces that open up vast realms. If he
were a linguist or philosopher, already this alone
would be considered a remarkable achievement.
Who else is so successful in vividly cracking
open ceinented-in word use that the result of
this process actually stands before our eyes in
built examples? Grouchy, futile dissenting voices
bemoaning Palladio – why is everything so
crooked, why is there so little love of detail,
all order is repealed, everything seems to fly
away, it mocks harmonious symmetries, it can only
generate an effect as media hype – sound
that much more morose after the realization of
the first major buildings, like an echo od a gloomy
past that ricochets from the technical possibilities
and livelier, hybrid urbanity.
"Completely giving up the dream of a changed
world," Wolf D. Prix said to me recently
in a published conversation on the theme of project
worlds, "woluld fade out essential dimensions
of our self understanding. All that is certain
is that architecture can't afford to do that.
Architecture can actually block a lot. It is the
architect's responsibility to recognize this and
as an offensive strategy, to always think of possibilities."
Also the great poet of our generation, Bob Dylan,
has remained a realistic believer. "It was
said," he wrote in his Chronicles, "that
World War II spelled the end of the Age of Enlightenment,
but I wouldn't have known it. I was still in it.
Somehow I could still remember and feel the light
of something about it." When light and space
play such a delimiting role as they do for Coop
Himmelb(l)au, the questions of progress are posed
differently; totally direct. |
