Architecture and Culture
ISSN: 2050-7828 (Print) 2050-7836 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfac20
The Landscape of the Mind: A Conversation with
Bernard Tschumi
Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
To cite this article: Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti (2016) The Landscape of the Mind:
A Conversation with Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Culture, 4:2, 263-280, DOI:
10.1080/20507828.2016.1176432
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20507828.2016.1176432
Published online: 02 Sep 2016.
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263
ARCHITECTURE
AND CULTURE
Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
University of Kent, The Landscape of the Mind: A
Canterbury
Keywords:Â architectural
Conversation with Bernard Tschumi
theory, urban design, space,
programme, deconstruction, Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
conceptual art, Foucault,
Derrida
ABSTRACT  Bernard Tschumi, a world-leading architect, author and
theorist is in discussion with Gordana Korolija Fontana-Giusti. The
conversation that took place in Tschumi ‘s Manhattan office explores
the nature and various aspects of contemporary cities in Europe and
America focusing on the reasons why they are still different, despite
appearances and global tendencies.
The collocutors acknowledge the role of different histories and
contexts, and the effects of distinct urban and transient spaces. They
highlight the roles of diverse phenomena such as the conceptual art,
Volume 4/Issue 2
July 2016
the writings of radical thinkers, 1960s student protests and other
pp 263–280 events. They revisit the interplay between architecture and philosophy
DOI: 10.1080/20507828. in the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida among others,
2016.1176432
focusing on the concepts such as ‘space’, ‘event’, ‘programme’, ‘power’
No potential conflict of
interest was reported by the
and ‘deconstruction’. During the course of their dialogue various
author. landscapes of the mind emerge.
Reprints available directly
from the publishers.
Photocopying permitted My expectations about the visit to Bernard Tschumi’s office in West 17th
by licence only. Street were shaped by New York-related literature that I read many years
©2016 Informa UK Limited,
tradingas Taylor & Francis ago. There was already an unconscious setting – an anticipated ambiance
Group – molded not so much by Paul Auster’s Trilogy, as by the three prodigious
novellas by J. D. Salinger.1 Warm and sticky air, and dense, vertical living
dominate the space in these books. Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn
264
The Landscape of the Mind:
A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
Figure 1
Bernard Tschumi, MT1, The
Manhattan Transcripts,
1981. Courtesy BTA.
(1964) and Norman Mailer’s An American Dream (1965) must have helped
to form the anachronistic palette of sensations.2
Hardly any traces of these mid-twentieth-century memories and
moodscapes were there to be experienced on the morning of my visit.3
On the contrary, and tragically, there was a murder on the path to the
architect’s office and my carefully planned flânerie had to be diverted.
This gloomy experience fast-forwarded me out of my romanticized notions
into a blasé state of contemporary urban melancholy.
Arrival by the elevator from the street directly into the architect’s
office suggested that the space had been reclaimed in one of the city’s
many regenerations. The office itself was not unlike those of other
architectural practices worldwide, where an initially cool whiteness had
been disrupted by the bricolage of tables, computers, folders, and models
spread around the space that used to be a loft.
We settled into the windowed meeting room for our scheduled
one-and-half-hour session. Tschumi’s friendly disposition, and his
readiness to respond generously to my questions with elegant simplicity,
marked the relaxed atmosphere of this conversation, in sharp contrast to
the morning’s earlier events. It had been a strange start to the day, having
to dodge a Fifth Avenue murder scene. Perhaps it was the unavoidable
expulsion of the lines from The Manhattan Transcripts (1981) (Figure 1).4
Maybe this was why Tschumi had declined my invitation to walk while
talking – maybe he thought this would be too much H. D. Thoreau for the
contemporary NYC setting.
But let us start the record of this talk with Tschumi, an architect,
theorist, author and educator who has most significantly contributed
to the formation of late twentieth-century architectural discourse by
altering its disciplinary premises and boundaries. Linked to multiple
urban contexts and countries, Tschumi’s contribution to architecture has
impacted on numerous architectural graduates in several leading schools
of architecture including the Architectural Association in London and the
University of Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and
Preservation in New York where Tschumi was Dean (1998–2003).
265 Our talk was based on a nearly 3000-word-long document
divided into four sections: “Prologue,†“Act One: The Office,†â€Act Two: The
Urban Stroll,†and “Epilogue,†that contained thirty-two questions sent to
Tschumi eleven days prior to the meeting.5 In response to these questions,
light has been shed on aspects of Tschumi’s work, such as the trajectory
that grasped the complexity and multiplicity of urban contexts, revealing
the mutual relationships between urban events, statements, and
programs that inhabit, embody, and symbolize each other. Another thread
addresses architectural knowledge understood to be in a permanent
condition of assembling and demarcation that has been analyzed and
compared to the condition of knowledge in general, thus aligning the
discussion with wider epistemological questions.
The state of architectural knowledge was thus understood in
relation to the complexities of contemporary urban experiences calling for
a new kind of psycho-geography – a landscape of the mind – that is in a
constant state of emergence, formation, and deterioration. This landscape
of the mind is the space in which the discipline of architecture constantly
examines and reinvents itself through its dialogue with the unknowns of
life, contingencies of arts and philosophy, and where a precarious, emergent
reconfiguration of architectural knowledge echoes the effects of urban
events and their unpredictability. This interview is an urban event of a
similar kind.
Mindscapes: Paris and New York
Gordana Fontana-Giusti
(GF-G):  interview with an architect is traditionally held in the
An
architect’s office, surrounded by its paraphernalia. When was
your office set up, and what were the conditions at the time?
Bernard Tschumi
(BT):  Setting up the office in New York was not a professional decision
– it was personal. I was always fascinated with Paris and New
York, both culturally and architecturally, and couldn’t decide
where to belong. So I went for both. Following the La Villette
competition win,6 I opened the Paris office, although the project
was designed here in New York. In 1983 I began the life of trans-
Atlantic commuting. When I became the Dean at Columbia in
1988, I opened the New York office. The conditions of architecture
in the USA and in Europe have always been different. In New York
people come to you with work or you go through an interview
process. In Paris and Switzerland, you go through competitions.
GF-G:  How is the work divided between Paris and New York?
BT:  goes back to the way I organize my time: two weeks in New
It
York, one week in Europe, throughout the year. I cross the Atlantic
maybe twenty-five to thirty times a year. Competition designs are
mostly done from New York. There are twenty people in New York
and ten in Paris.
GF-G: was thinking of the question not simply on a practical level, but
I 266
also to ask what it means to have offices in Paris and New York. The Landscape of the Mind:
BT: n the early days it was different to think, conceive and work in
I A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
Paris as opposed to New York. Now, it does not make much of a Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
difference. In the early days, everything was an experiment and
New York meant a lack of constraints. It enabled me to think in a
more abstract manner. This created a series of conditions that I
began to take advantage of. The actual psycho-geography of Paris
versus the psycho-geography of New York was therefore important
in the beginning, but I don’t think it still is.
GF-G: Sorry to persist, but I happen to believe that we behave, talk,
move and think slightly differently in every city …
BT: understood, and agree. But in time my work has developed in
I
such a way that the role of the place of work has become less
important. It is the location of the actual project that matters.
Travelling is not important as I travel all the time, many of my
projects are conceived in airplanes, which is nowhere
GF-G: … (Thinking) … it is not nowhere, it is in the air above the Atlantic
… it is an identifiable, analysable space, a mixture of air and
water evaporations …
BT: I
used to travel to Columbia by subway and in that half-an-
hour ride I did an enormous amount of work. The ability to
concentrate when one is travelling is greater. It has to do with a
mental landscape. I also write better when I travel …
GF-G: Speaking as a commuter, I agree …
BT: the only way to survive the agony of travelling is by doing
…
things and doing them well …
GF-G: in the early days, New York allowed you to think abstractly while
So,
Paris was more binding. Could you expand?
BT: When I arrived in New York in 1976, my architectural design
work was nearly non-existent. I had spent some important time
teaching and writing. I had purposefully stopped designing for a
while because of all the preconceptions that architectural design
generally entails. To start from scratch in Europe is difficult
because there are things that the mind, the emotions and the
body have difficulty throwing away. The streets, urban spaces,
the relationships between everyday life and the structure of
the city are so closely interrelated that you cannot throw them
away without denying your own existence. In America this is very
different. New York, the most urban of American cities, is a mess.
Its structure is the grid, its logic is – greed (Figure 2).
This is how the city has been built. So while fascinating, it is
not a structured place in the European sense. Foucault would
never have written his texts on institutions in an American
context.7 The direct correlation between institutions and
buildings does not exist in the U.S. As a result, trying to think
Figure 2
Bernard Tschumi: “New York City – Its structure is the grid, its logic is – greed,†Screenplays, 1976. Courtesy BTA.
Figure 3
Bernard Tschumi: “For me,
being interested in urban
space also meant being
interested in the art scene,â€
Screenplays, 1976.
Courtesy BTA.
about architecture in European cities is difficult unless one takes
a distance. Being in New York gave me that distance. For me, being
interested in urban space also meant being interested in the art
scene (Figure 3). I had started to use the word “space†rather than the
word “architecture†already in London. The word “space†was deployed
intentionally in order to take a distance from preconceived ideas about
architecture.
As I am talking to you, I see those brown tones of façades
through the windows behind you. They are obsessive. Imagine half of the
city is made up of these brick walls. They are twenty-two or twenty-seven
feet wide – there is a typology of which one can easily become a prisoner.
I have seen my European colleagues being prisoners of those typologies.
Using words such as “space†and “movement,†and developing a form of
abstraction, was liberating.
Landscape: America and the Post-Colonial Space 268
The Landscape of the Mind:
GF-G:  Nevertheless, this “space†is not a neutral void? A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
BT: From abstraction you can go into the precise set of conditions Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
which you may encounter in the city filled with history. It is easier
to go from abstraction to an existing reality, than to go from an
existing reality to an abstraction. I now feel at ease in moving
back and forth between the two. I even enjoy it …
GF-G:  Don’t you feel that your thinking about New York and America
as abstraction is predetermined by the history of European
colonisation? Do you as an architect consider the fact that pre-
colonial America was not a void or an abstraction?
BT:  don’t think about it because for me contemporary America is
I
the city of New York and abstraction [here] is not understood as
a white box, in the sense of the modernist abstraction of dancers
in white space. It is an abstraction that functions as reinvention
within an existing world. I often show a piece of work by Trisha
Brown doing a performance on the roofs of Manhattan.8
The water towers, the chimneys and the fire stairs are the
protagonists of events. Her dance is abstract, but it unfolds
establishing relations with the existing urban conditions. Hence
you have, simultaneously, the concept of abstraction and the
interplay with everyday reality (Figure 4).
GF-G:  question alludes to the tension that exists in relation
My
to America and its history. I was referring to the work of
contemporary theorist Manuel De Landa, originally Mexican,
who teaches in New York and theorizes America’s longue-durée
history, including its pre-colonial past.9 The question is related
to contextual and locational concerns. It involves broader
Figure 4
Trisha Brown’s performance
on New York roofs has
been a revisited topos by
Tschumi. “The water towers,
the chimneys and the fire
stairs are the protagonists
of events,†he remarked.
Photo Babette Mangolte,
1973, photograph of
Trisha Brown’s Roof Piece
performed from 53 Wooster
to 381 Lafayette Street,
New York City. Courtesy
Babette Mangle.
269 considerations that we as architects and urban designers take
on board. We do consider pre-sixteenth century history of Paris,
Rome or Athens, as you did so meticulously in your European
projects, so why not here? For example the concept of the land,
this fundamental concept has always been special and different
for Native Americans, has it not?
BT:  often quote the text by Lefebvre on the politics of space where
I
he describes the Tuscan landscape apparently looking like
nature, but in reality being constructed by man.10 When I refer to
this argument in Europe, everybody understands. If I make the
same argument here in America nobody understands. Why? They
are part of this territory, which is still relatively untouched. It is a
strange and young country; the civilisation has here taken place
only for two hundred years and not two, four, or six thousand
years (sic). To project oneself to the origins is more difficult here
than in Europe. Maybe it is because I am ultimately European
that I never look for roots and the layers of history here in
America. I like America for being an uprooted place for me.
GF-G: May I refer to Johnpaul Jones, an American architect, who
attended the 2006 International Academy of Architecture
conference in Sofia, Bulgaria and gave a paper on the Native
American concept of land?11 His presentation attracted the
interest of many architects in the light of contemporary concerns
for the environment. According to Jones’s interpretation, the
pre-colonial land was never an abstraction or a void, rather it
was full of meaning. Native American communities have always
cultivated an important relationship with the land and preserved
it as such. They believed that land was not for exploitation, use
and intensive building, but for mutual coexistence and care.
For Native Americans, the earth was too important to become a
commodity or an overbuilt private property.
BT: These are the things that I would be drawn to while working
on [specific] projects. I tend to function through my projects.
In my urban sensibility, I don’t function in terms of America as
a natural landscape. I am a person of the city, and have never
lived anywhere else but in the city. The fact that New York had a
colonial past doesn’t really play a role in my thinking about its
space.
GF-G: …(Thinking)… For Tschumi New York is Manhattan – an island – a
heterotopia par excellence.
Architecture as a Form of Knowledge
GF-G:  has been said that every interview is a performance and that
It
performance is a form of conceptual art. You have been involved
in thinking about conceptual art … how do you relate to it today?
BT:  me architecture is a form of knowledge. I learn about the
For 270
world through the tools that I have as an architect. This is why The Landscape of the Mind:
conceptual art was interesting (Figure 5). When conceptual A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
artists started to question the nature of their disciplines, of Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
representation, of the art market, the role of the museum, the
role of the gallery, they were raising fundamental questions. The
same applies to architecture: you have to define for yourself what
architecture is. I have always been in disagreement with people
who were certain what architecture was. For me architecture
is in a constant state of definition, hence it is necessary to
establish a dialogue with other areas of knowledge. I have often
considered what certain artists, filmmakers, or scientists have
explored and have used imported expressions.
GF-G:  What kind of conceptual art were you involved with?
BT:  was the climate of questioning that suited me. From Joseph
It
Kosuth to Robert Smithson and many others – they were
all important for raising questions and for displaying new
sensibilities. The sober mode of representation that these artists
developed was interesting, and different from the works of Julian
Schnabel. In architecture it was Cedric Price who had worked
similarly within minimalist aesthetics.12
GF-G: With the Fireworks project in London you were involved in
performance art; how did you see the relevance of “body
drama†for the architecture of events?13 Do you think that
architects, like performance artists, acquire the state of mind
where, to paraphrase Marina Abramovic one part of your
´,
mind is completely in control, while the other part is open to
experiences?14 Is it not the case that this awareness is beneficial
for architects in conceptualizing events and creating spaces?
Figure 5
Bernard Tschumi: “I learn
about the world through
the tools that I have as an
architect,†The Manhattan
Transcripts, 1981.
Courtesy BTA.
271 Architecture is about both: concept and experience. There
BT: 
was this fascinating moment in twentieth-century art when
performance artists were devising practices for addressing
both concepts and experience; my work still deploys some of
these mechanisms. There is one difference. Conceptual artists
can focus on one or several phenomena, while architects
always have to take in consideration the multiplicity of things
such as gravity, meta-reality, legal constraints, keeping the
rain out, detailed drawings, the movement of bodies in spaces,
the semiotic issues of meaning, etc. The multiplicity of issues
that architecture is confronted with means making complex
decisions rather than simply a shape or a form. The architect
rationalizes that complexity; it means that your concept is
always part of a multiplicity of things.
Paris ’68 and the Re-Configuration of Urban Landscape
Our discussion had by now meandered from the realm of abstract
multiplicities of things and meanings as contemplated within the circles
of conceptual artists in New York, towards Paris and the intensities of its
events, context, histories, and discourses related to Tschumi’s time spent
there in the late 1960s and 1970s. We discussed how both these realms
matter to Tschumi and how he cannot give up either of them. They are
both part of the landscape of his mind.
GF-G: Could you explain the effects of Paris on you? How have
the events (événements) that took place in this city in 1968
contributed to your concerns about architecture? There is
an apparent proximity between, for example, the concepts of
“space†and “event†in both Foucault’s work and yours. Were
you inspired by his texts or is this parallel the result of similar
conditions related to the atmosphere of Paris at the time?
BT:  is both. As a historian and writer, Foucault was looking at the
It
nature of institutions in relation to space, which resonates with
the mind of an architect, whose work is about that relationship.
During the post-1968 period the awareness of major institutions
became clear to everyone. If the early twentieth century
witnessed the collapse of institutions such as the Church, family
values, the credibility of the army, subsequently the 1960s
became marked by a strange and conflicting fascination for
the spaces of these institutions. Aldo Rossi writes about the
architecture of the city emphasizing its major monuments.15
A world city like Paris had structured itself through these
major institutions and their buildings, the boulevards and the
nineteenth-century Haussmannian plan being equally relevant.
There were precedents in Rome, but at the same time there are
few cities where these institutions are so strongly embedded
in the ground as they have been in Paris. Foucault’s work is as 272
much a result of this spatial arrangement as he is the person The Landscape of the Mind:
who has been able to identify and analyze it. A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
GF-G: This was a time of debates concerning knowledge, desire and Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
revolutionary change in society. In his preface to Deleuze and
Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, Foucault gives us a sense of the context
when he states that it is in the connection of desire to reality
(and not its retreat into forms of representation) that we find
revolutionary forces.16 Did you attend Foucault’s lectures at the
Collège?17
BT:  unfortunately I did not attend his lectures. I have read
No,
Foucault and Barthes, less Blanchot, more Artaud, Bataille, the
early Sollers and Roussel … I am happy to see these writers
being mentioned in the same sentence. They are part of the same
landscape of the mind. It is an ambitious, critical landscape
of the mind, but it is also generous in the manner in which it
has attempted to encapsulate the world. Each person was
able to open a new door, by being extraordinarily creative. They
reinvented their respective disciplines and that was stunningly
stimulating as I was asking myself, can one reinvent architecture?
GF-G:  can see that this was an important question at the time, given
I
that the dominant desire was for grasping the world through the
knowledge that comes from living courageously and creatively.
This art of living a passionate and visionary life was thought
to be achievable through bravely unfolding the events of life.
The notion of “event†is central and irreducible in Foucault’s
Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). Did you derive your definition
of “event†from Foucault, or did you define it independently?
Both. I started to use the word “event†in London in 1972–73
BT: 
in my teaching on space, using the expression “there is no
space without something that happens in it,†hence tackling
the notions of “space†and “event†as inseparable.18 There is no
causal relationship between the two; they constantly intersect
each other. This became crucial for my definitions of “program,â€
“function†and “use.†Only later in conversations with Derrida did
I realize how imprecise my language was, and how important
it was to differentiate between a “program,†as something
repetitive and formulaic, and an “event,†which is by definition
unpredictable. One does not and cannot design events.
The reason why I bring the notions of “event,†“program†and
“space†in relation to one another is because it was somehow
inevitable in the post-1968 context. The word “event†has an
ambiguous meaning in English language, whereby an event
could be both accidental – an incident, and planned – a
spectacle. The intersection of space and events, be it on urban or
architectural scale, is a necessary condition of architecture. But
as you seem to suggest, Artaud brought a certain corporeal
273 dimension to this phenomenon while Blanchot and Barthes probably
less.19
GF-G:  addressing the politics of space, you have voiced suspicions
In
about the nature of the link between space and power by
avoiding naïve interpretations of architecture’s ability to alter
political structures. Can you comment?
This discussion dates back to the late-eighteenth century with
BT: 
Fourier and his Phalanstère; it had a new lease of life after
the Russian revolution when space and architecture were
considered a mould and a mirror of society.20 Discussions were
renewed in France and Italy in the post-1968 debates about
architecture being able to generate a new lifestyle by using
a political dimension: “sous les pavés, la plage†(under the
oppressive rules of civilization lies freedom).21
The expression “there is no socialist architecture, fascist
architecture, there is only architecture in a socialist regime
or in a fascist regime†is both truthful and not.22 There are
certain architectural circumstances that have a direct effect on
spatial and social practice. The example that I often give is the
invention of the corridor. Up to a certain point in time all rooms
led from one to another, until society invented the corridor, thus
creating a disassociation with that sequence of continuity. In
doing so new social relations were created. The same applies to
a city with streets, which works differently from a city without
streets. This would not necessarily affect the power structure.
And yet it may.
GF-G: Your explanation runs parallel to what appears in Foucault’s
1982 interview on the questions of space, where he argues
that there is no architecture of revolution or architecture of
repression, adding that an architecture of repression can
become an architecture of liberation and vice versa.23 This
explanation is different from what appears in many architectural
theories including Rossi’s.
BT:  like your “including Rossi.†Here we have to touch upon the
I
role of ideologies in architecture, as a number of intelligent
architects have been carrying ideological baggage. Foucault
and the writers that you have mentioned in your initial list of
questions from Bataille, to Barthes, were fighting ideologies as a
mode of thinking; I have tried to do the same in architecture.
I avoid people who wish to inflict canons and rules that are pure
ideologies.
GF-G: …(Thinking)… Given that societies have almost universally
slipped into the present ideology of global capitalism, Tschumi
makes a point worthy of emphasis.
Actions, Grands Projets and the Space of Folies 274
The Landscape of the Mind:
GF-G:  Can you comment on “exemplary actions†and “counter design†A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
as they appear in your essay “The Environmental Trigger�24 Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
BT:  oucault’s work on prisons and Guattari’s critique of the asylum
F
were major moves that questioned how society deals with its
misfits.25. I was interested in how the city could be a trigger of
certain social and political actions, realizing that détournement,
a creative misuse of certain circumstances, was potentially a
liberating factor. But as you correctly pointed out, there is no
direct cause and effect relation between a certain type of space
and a certain type of event. The Panopticon style prison, which
was planned as a structure for surveillance, came to be regarded
as a more human environment than the solitary electronically
guarded prison.
GF-G:  Given your experiences in the 1970s of Northern Ireland, or the
occupation with your students of disused buildings in London’s
Kentish Town, what kind of political action have you pursued in
New York, whether at Columbia or elsewhere?
BT:  Columbia I have confronted a tendency of restricting the
At
freedom of thought by establishing separate territories,
the so-called specialist fields. I was against the practice of
departments having an absolute control over how something
would be taught. I tried to open up the boundaries of knowledge,
by introducing visitors with fresh ideas. The School of
Architecture and the Planning and Preservation Department had
literally built cement block walls between themselves. Where
the original 1911 building had an open hallway, my immediate
predecessors had introduced walls that divided the school
community. As Dean I removed these walls and established an
open spatial organization. Running the school was a project not
much different from designing.
GF-G:  You have described a concrete action in the context of the
university, but if we may go beyond the university …
BT:  With different projects, your role changes. … The article that you
referred to was written at the time when I was going through
a period of self-examination. That was a time of the Red Army
Faction in Germany and Red Brigades in Italy.
GF-G:  Villette was a grand projet, a political project, and you worked
La
closely with the President of the Republic. What was your
attitude?
BT:  was sympathetic to that particular group regardless of how
I
infuriating some of the individuals in power had been.
I happened to like Mitterrand,26 we got along, and there were
many different dimensions to the project including the social.
The project was of the left and there was a major opposition
275 from the right. Endless strategies had to be deployed to have the
scheme built as the project was threatened many times.
GF-G:  haven’t touched on La Villette’s follies yet, nor on your themes
We
such as architectural paradox, the pleasure of architecture,
architecture and transgression etc.27 Was the reading of
Foucault’s Histoire de la Folie (Madness and Civilization)
important for the formation of your critical thinking and, if so, in
what way?28
BT: Histoire de la Folie was in the back of my mind when thinking
about the folies of La Villette. I had two quotes, by Foucault and
Blanchot. I was playing with the word “folly†in English meaning
a small garden house, and the same word meaning madness in
French. I began using the term folie while working on the project.
While preparing these so-called site-specific installations,
I named them the “twentieth century folies.†Foucault’s Histoire
de la folie was resonating in my mind.
GF-G:  Although you are usually associated with Derrida, it becomes
possible to argue that your architectural thinking was perhaps
more influenced by Foucault. How do you see yourself in relation
to these thinkers?
BT:  is not for me to decide. I believe that the works by Foucault,
It
Derrida, Blanchot, Barthes, Deleuze and Guattari, were part of
a critical discourse that created a cultural landscape of which
I was a part and a product. This goes beyond what Americans
call French theory. It was a period of time, just as there was the
Enlightenment in another century, when thinking crystallized
around a number of thinkers and they are all important. I was
irritated here in the US when people labeled me first Derridian
and now Deleuzian. The frame of reference is never that clear-cut.
GF-G:  Can you comment on your relationship with Jacques Derrida for
historical reasons?
BT: Initially I heard Derrida speaking at the ICA, London in the mid-
70s. His work was of interest because of its relation to literature,
art and film. In the early 1980s, I decided to invite Eisenman and
Derrida to design a garden together for Park La Villette.29 Prior to
that point, they had never met. Derrida visited my office in Paris
for briefing, expressing surprise that architects were interested
in deconstruction, as it was anti-structure, anti-hierarchy,
anti-form, all that architecture is. I responded – exactly for that
reason. I introduced Eisenman and Derrida to each other and
they both started to work. Peter submitted the initial proposal,
which was over the budget, at around that time, Derrida wrote
“Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture.â€30
GF-G:  How did the collaboration work?
BT:  developed the master plan and within it a part called the
I
cinematic promenade. It consisted of a series of 30Â meter
by 30Â meter frames representing a garden. One frame was
planned for Derrida and one for Eisenman. They had the site 276
and they could propose at will. Derrida proposed a design The Landscape of the Mind:
based on a musical instrument, while Peter was interested in A Conversation with Bernard
Tschumi
superimposing the layers of urban history. Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
GF-G: You speak of Derrida with great fondness?
Yes, because Derrida was a genuinely nice person. In 1996,
BT: 
when I was awarded the Grand Prix of Architecture, the French
Minister of Culture proposed a public conversation with Jacques
Derrida. While conversing privately was easy, the idea of arguing
issues in public petrified me. The talk happened; we spoke
without moderators in front of a thousand people and it was a
success.
GF-G:  What about the Deconstructivist exhibition at MoMA in 1988?
BT:  the US it was Philip Johnson with Peter Eisenman with
In
whom the word “decontructivism†was linked. During the
preparation of the exhibition there was a temptation to bring
the word “constructivism†and “deconstruction†together. This
was possible due to a constructivist impulse in Rem’s, Zaha’s,
Libeskind’s and my own work; Coop Himmelblau’s work was
not too distant; Peter was different, Gehry, with his ruptures
and breaks, they were all included.31 The word deconstruction
had been of interest for architects in Paris since the early ’70s.
Bringing deconstruction and Constructivism together was a
great journalistic and curatorial coup. The 1988 exhibition was
a media success based on a few calculated misunderstandings
including the term Deconstructivism. The show aimed to ridicule
the tendencies that created –isms. However the habit within the
arts community of having -isms remained, so we all let ourselves
be the beneficiaries of this misunderstanding, while denying
identifications such as “deconstructivist.â€
GF-G:  How do you see your relationship with Constructivism and in
particular with the work of Yakov Chernikhov?
BT:  fascination is with Constructivists’ rethinking of the
My
relationship between architecture, social space and technology.
I was taken by their experiments in the 1920s particularly with
film-makers Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, and was aware
of the works of (Ivan) Leonidov (Konstantin) Melnikov and (Yakov)
Chernikhov. What interested me in Chernikhov was the method –
the role of series.32
GF-G:  you visit Parc de la Villette?
Do
BT:  do. The park constantly changes according to seasons, the time
I
of the day, the weather, the crowds. It provides a rich experience
that has worked beyond expectations. The spontaneous events
and the way in which the park evolves are captivating (Figure 6).
277
Figure 6
Bernard Tschumi: “The
park constantly changes
according to the seasons,
the time of the day, the
weather the crowds.â€
Courtesy BTA.
***
The shadows were becoming longer, their lines visibly acute.
Despite five hours of talk without food or drink, Tschumi was remarkably
fresh; he carried on responding meticulously, with precision, constantly
navigating towards the best turn in the landscape.
Perhaps we shall check the paving stones (pavés) next time.
Gordana Korolija Fontana-Giusti is an architect, architectural theorist,
and Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Kent,
Canterbury. She was Assistant Director of Histories and Theories at
the AA Graduate School; taught on the London Consortium Doctoral
Programme; and directed Urban Design at Central Saint Martins,
London. She has published scholarly papers in journals and books and
is author of Foucault for Architects (Routledge, 2013); co-editor and
author of Scale: Imagination, Perception and Practice in Architecture
(Routledge, 2012); and co-editor and author (with Patrik Schumacher) of
the Complete Works of Zaha Hadid (Thames & Hudson, 2004).
Notes
 1  uster’s New York Trilogy was originally
A   3 
The visit was in August 2012 and I am
published as three short novels: City grateful to Bernard Tschumi for the time
of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986), and The he dedicated to this talk.
Locked Room (1986). The novellas by J. D.  4  ernard Tschumi, The Manhattan
B
Salinger that fueled these expectations Transcripts (London: St. Martin’s/
were Franny and Zooey (1961), Raise Academy Editions, 1981). The
High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and reference is to Tschumi’s quotation: “To
Seymour: An Introduction (published really appreciate architecture, you may
together in book form in 1963). even need to commit a murderâ€;
  2 
Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928–2004) and Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) are Disjunction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
American twentieth-century writers. 1996).
  5  the subject of strolling, see Gordana
On filmmaker; Cedric Price (1934–2003), 278
Korolija Fontana-Giusti, “Urban Strolling an unorthodox British architect; original
as the Measure of Quality,†Architectural and creative, Price was ahead of his The Landscape of the Mind:
A Conversation with Bernard
Research Quarterly, no. 11 (2007): time in promoting new thinking in
Tschumi
255–64. architectural planning, regeneration and Gordana K. Fontana-Giusti
  6 
This major competition Tschumi won in design.
1983. 13  ireworks was a project by Tschumi
F
  7 
The works by Michel Foucault that that took place at the Architectural
Tschumi alludes to are: Madness and Association, London, in 1974; A Space: A
Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Thousand Words (London: Royal College
Age of Reason [1961, abridged French of Art, 1975).
version 1964], trans. R. Howard (London: 14 Marina Abramovic (b. 1946) is a
´
Routledge, 1989); The Birth of the Clinic: Yugoslav-born, New York-based
An Archaeology of Medical Perception contemporary pioneer performance
[1963], trans. A. M. Sheridan-Smith (New artist who performs and exhibits
York: Pantheon 1973); and Discipline worldwide, most recently in London’s
and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Serpentine Gallery (2014) and MoMA,
[1975], trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: New York (2010).
Pantheon, 1977). 15 Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City
  8 
Trisha Brown (b. 1936) is a widely [1966], trans. Diane Girardo and Joan
acclaimed choreographer who first Ockman (Cambridge, MA: Oppositions/
gained public attention in the 1960s. MIT Press 1984).
Tschumi refers to her seminal work Roof 16 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-
Piece (1971) that has subsequently been Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
represented by photographer Babette [1972], preface by Michel Foucault,
Mangolte (1973); Barbara Clausen, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and
“Performing Histories: Why the Point Is Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of
Not to Make a Point …,†Afterall, no. 23 Minnesota Press, 1983).
(2010). Available online: 17 Foucault was appointed to the Collège
http://www.afterall.org/journal/issue.23/ de France, Paris, in 1970; he gave public
performing.historieswhy.the.point.is.not. lectures there until his death in 1984.
to.make.a.point.barbara.clausen#share 18  more on this, see the Introduction to
For
(accessed February 28, 2016). Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction,
  9 
Manuel de Landa, A Thousand Years of 2–25.
Nonlinear History (New York: Zone, 1997). 19 Tschumi here responds to the original
10 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space questions from the preliminary
[1974], trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith document sent to him by Fontana-Giusti.
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991). Related more detailed discussion had to
11  Johnpaul Jones is a University of Oregon be omitted in the editing of this article.
alumnus and an architect who in 2014 20 Charles Fourier (1772–1837) was a
was awarded the National Humanities French socialist utopian thinker who
Medal from President Barack Obama. devised a phalanstère (or Phalanstery)
Available online: – a type of building for a utopian
http://www.jonesandjones.com/. community; Nathaniel Coleman, Utopias
IAA is the International Academy of and Architecture (London: Routledge,
Architecture – a non-governmental 2005): 137. Tschumi also refers to the
organization with special status in the Soviet architects who highly valued the
United Nations Economic and Social role of architecture in a society; Mosei
Council (UN ECOSOC), whose members Ginzburg, Style and Epoch [1924], trans.
are leading architectural academicians Anatole Senkevitch (Cambridge, MA:
from all over the world. Oppositions/MIT Press).
12  Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945), a contemporary 21 Tschumi recalls the spring 1968 slogan.
American conceptual artist who lives in The phrase remains a symbol of the
New York and London; Robert Smithson events in Paris in the early days of the
(1938–73), an American artist known protests, when the first barricades were
for his use of photography, sculpture, erected. The students noticed that the
and land art; Julian Schnabel (b. 1951), cobblestones were placed on a bed of
a contemporary American painter and sand. More than an incentive to build
279 barricades and throw cobblestones Available online:
at riot police, the slogan sums up the www.tschumi.com/projects/3/#
aspirations of May ’68: the desire for (accessed March 2015); Bernard
freedom. “Under the cobblestones, the Tschumi, “The Architectural Paradox,â€
beach!†was chanted and written on the Studio International (September/October
walls. Available online: 1975), revd in idem, Architecture and
http://inventin.lautre.net/graffiti.html Disjunction; idem, “The Pleasure of
(accessed on February 28, 2016). Architecture,†Architectural Design, 3
22 Tschumi here paraphrases the idea (March 1977); idem, “Architecture and
that is found in Michel Foucault’s essay Transgression,†Oppositions, 7 (Winter
“Space, Knowledge and Power,†in The 1976).
Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow 28 Foucault, ibid.
(London: Penguin, 1984): 239–56; also 29 Peter Eisenman (b. 1932) is an American
Gordana Fontana-Giusti, Foucault for architect considered one of the New York
Architects (London: Routledge, 2013): Five. In addition to his modernist and
132–64. often-called deconstructive designs, he
23 Foucault, “Space, Knowledge, Power.†is known for his writing on architecture.
24 Bernard Tschumi, “The Environmental 30 Jacques Derrida, “Point de folie –
Trigger,†in A Continuing Experiment: Maintenant l’architecture,†AA Folios
Learning and Teaching at the AA, ed. (London: Architectural Association,
James Gowan (London: Architectural 1985).
Press, 1975). 31 Tschumi refers to his contemporaries
25 Foucault, Madness and Civilization; Rem Koolhaas, the late Zaha Hadid,
Deleuze & Guattari, Anti-Oedipus. Daniel Libeskind, Coop Himmelblau,
26 François Mitterrand (1916–96) was Peter Eisenman, and Frank Gehry.
a French statesman who served as Tschumi knew Koolhaas and Hadid
President of France (1981–95) when through their involvement with the
Parc de la Villette was commissioned Architectural Association, London.
and built. 32 Tschumi mentions Russian avant-garde
27  Parc de la Villette, Paris (1982–98),
At film-makers: Sergei Eisenstein (1898–
a “system of dispersed “points†– the 1948), Dziga Vertov (1896–1954), and
red enameled steel folies that support Constructivist architects: Ivan Leonidov
different cultural and leisure activities (1902–59), Konstantin Melnikov
– is superimposed on a system of lines (1890–1974), and Yakov Chernikhov
that emphasizes movement through (1889–1951).
the parkâ€; Bernard Tschumi Architects.
References
– 
Auster, Paul. 1987. The New York Trilogy. Foucault, translated by Robert Hurley,
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