A conference in Hamburg brought together philosophers, historians, theorists and practising architects

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 2000 by Layla Dawson

Held recently in Hamburg, Difference Intensity reinforced a contemporary trend: that of contextualizing architectural theories within the many creeds and scientific beliefs of their time. Seen by proponents as a corrective exercise, critics might suggest that, in an age of individualized economic competition, the discreditation of ideals leaves very little else to talk about except indefinable poetry often bordering on the esoteric. It is as if the Age of Enlightenment, Aufklarung, had never occurred. Philosopher Hartmut Bohme of Berlin's Humbolt University, gave a succinct outline of Nietzsche's nineteenth-century world view in which architecture, after what Nietzsche called man's murder of God, would need to compensate with edifices dedicated to collective mass cults. Now, a century after Nietzsche's death, architecture is reduced to the status of just another consumer item, available to order.

What are 'difference', or 'intensity', in architecture? Moving on from Nietzsche Rem Koolhaas has said: 'Different experience equals different behaviour'. Peter Trummer of UN Studio Van Berkel & Bos, Amsterdam, gave concrete examples of a pragmatic architecture which, through research, analyzes questions before suggesting built solutions. 'Building types are the past,' he said. 'We are operating within capitalist competition and we must ask ourselves what life standards are we propagating ... Clients no longer know what they want. The City of Bremen, for example, said "Can you do anything for us?"' Resulting solutions step beyond hierarchical order into a fluid mix of needs, uses and aesthetics. Intensity is in the preparation, when social and physical geographies are overlaid to help generate answers. This methodology owes much to strategic and organizational thinking developed in wartime.

In offering the audience a variety of architectural discussion milestones, Ullrich Schwarz from Hamburg, described Heidegger's 1951 Bauen Wohnen Denken (Building Living Thinking) in which the architect's chief role was defined as creating places. According to Heidegger Heimat, which in German conveys more than just home but also ethnic roots, should not confine itself to geographical place but man must feel he can be himself, sein Selbst. The horror of rootlessness in post-war Europe was understandable, but needs revaluation in a multicultural age of out-of-body electronic experiences. Heidegger has been criticized for wanting a fortress home from which 'the other' was excluded, a tendency evident in today's European Union development.

In the service of intensity, the monumental was discussed by Friedrich Balke from Siegen, in the theories of Gilles Deleuzes, and by Klaus Jan Philipp from Stuttgart, in a survey of discourses since the mid-l800s. The emotional workings of architecture were explored by star architectural historian Marco Dc Michelis from Venice. In an amusing anecdotal example of the secret language of architecture he explained why he was averse to the Reichstag. 'I laugh when I hear the widely held view that large quantities of glass equal democracy. Anyone from my country knows that glazing was long before equated with fascism. The public are led like idiots up a spiral which goes nowhere and from which they are unable to see any of the democracy in action below them. The view is very nice but you can get a better one from the television tower in the former Communist half of Berlin'.

Simone Hein from Berlin, using letters and texts of Hannes Meyer, second director of the Bauhaus, showed the emancipatory influence of philosophic thought. Meyer's contact with Adolf Behner, Walter Benjamin, and Gestalt psychologists, came through Ernst Bloch and his wife, herself an architect. Lebensrichtigergestaltung (Correct Life Design), Bauhaus und Gesellschaft (Bauhaus and Society) and Corbusier's 'Instrument instead of Monument' called for rational planning which would free the individual within an egalitarian environment. From the strict, unadorned architecture, the view from a window on to nature and the movement of the users, would provide the poetic component in an orchestration of contrast between man and nature. As if to prove this point, Jose Pastrana's slides of work in Tenerife, showed Modernist grandeur integrated into volcanic and marine landscapes.

Bruno Reichlin from Geneva explained how architects' own explanations and photography govern the way we see. Behrens' Turbine Hall pilasters are not in fact structural, and Niemeyer's Governor's Palace light columns are no different in mass than standard designs. 'I was sitting in my hotel restaurant this morning and saw a young man, a bit dishevelled and uncertain, walking around. I thought he'd lost his way. I saw the same boy later, in a suit, and realized it was Boris Becker.' So is our perception of architecture.

Two day conference organized by Hamburg's Architects' Chamber, Hamburg, Germany, 27 28 September 2000.