The Mischievous Elements: on the Architecture of Cut-off Columns, Misaligned Walls, and Exaggerated Windows built between 1966 and 2014

Abstract

This research investigates architectural elements-such as columns, walls, roofs, windows, and other building components-in order to outline design practices that address the contemporary fragmented condition. It does so by describing elements that refuse to be standard and command attention within their contexts. Spanning the period between 1966 and 2014, a diverse selection of such elements is collected and analyzed. Absent columns, curved walls, flying roofs, and protruding windows encompass a variety of forms, problems, operations, strategies, and discourses. The research is anchored by two key references: Robert Venturi's book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, published in 1966, and Rem Koolhaas' exhibition "Elements of Architecture," opened in 2014. After presenting historical precedents, it becomes evident that the selected elements display common features, persisting, reappearing, and migrating from project to project. These specific architectural elements not only break boxy volumes but also redefine rules and regulations, overcoming design limitations. In sum, they offer forms of liberation from practical constraints, reaching out to specific disciplinary qualities. The research unveils how these elements are important tools in shaping the vocabulary of architecture. They suggest forms of practice where it is still possible to design a column, reclaiming it from the standards, or pattern catalogs, reintegrating it into the realm of architectural imagination. Hence, the mischievous nature of these elements. Being odd, exuberant, or strange, they reveal tactics reflecting contemporary architectural practice. The conclusion addresses how an architecture of playful misbehavior uses elements to manifest its potential. It is a non-linear, diffuse and relational architecture that is made up of incomplete and unresolved bits and fragments. While the limits and coherence of the architecture are expanded by these elements, novel understandings of the general emerge from the specific. The apartment, the housing block, and the city can be reimagined through this radical shift. Mischievous elements provide access to less obvious areas of architectural design.