Ch. 4, pp.163-168

October 20, 2024

Graham McKay

RIken Yamamoto

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Firstly thanks Paul for your comment after the last installment. I know it’s a niche interest but I also find it fascinating how Yamamoto has put all these pieces together and even now that we’re halfway through the book, doesn’t let us forget what went before.
The theme of this week’s installment is standardization and how the meaning of design – the beauty of design, if you like – came to be associated with things that machines could make easily and, not only that, that design meant designing to suit the production capabilities of the machine. This was Hermann Muthusius predating Walter Gropius. There’s no direct mention of buildings in this week’s installment but it’s now easier to see where this is going.

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162-163
164-165
166-167
168-169

Society is systemized by standardized space

“The first instrument that regulates and disciplines is the distribution of people in space, and regulations and discipline have several techniques at their disposal.” (Foucault, The Birth of the Prison [？、監獄の誕生, p.147). These ‘several techniques’ are the design techniques of layout planning and movement planning.

(1) Regulating, disciplining and locking in/out all require specialized places for those deemed different. (ibid., p.147)

(2) Positions are decided for these people and a person is placed in one of these positions. Discriminating between groups is avoided and the centre of the group is distributed in a scattered manner. (ibid. p.148)

For the sake of privacy, housing has to be a space closed to the outside. Such closed houses are mutually separated from each other. Putting them all in the one place does not form a group and, as a result, there is no formation of a community. They are designed that way. This is standardized housing and, as I have already written, this standardized housing is supplied in accordance with society’s requirements. The process of materialization of standardized housing is that of the spatialization (architecturalization) of the system of bureaucratic rule and, inside that space, there is no awareness of bureaucratic rule because this space has been created in accordance with society’s requirements. It is perceived that way. Society is ruled bureaucratically because there is no recognition of the process of materialization. Moreover, we do not notice that we are being ruled. The regulation and discipline that Foucault writes about are the means by which the awareness of being ruled is made into an unawareness.

This is not limited to housing. Standardization was one of the principles of architectural design at the beginning of the 20th century. Architecture became classified according to usage.

(3) “Rules for determining the positions of functions generally came into general architectural use for a great number of spaces and their uses, and facilities concerned with regulation and discipline became codified.” (ibid. p.149)

Cities of the Middle Ages and up to the 18th century, places such as monasteries and intermediate groups such as guilds has the responsibility for many functions such as the regional society’s economy, housing, education, health (hospitals) and elderly care but this changed to a system of classification (codification) according to use such as dedicated housing for living, hospitals, elderly care facilities, schools, libraries, museums and such. The classifications are very fine and it became possible to have such standardized (codified) architecture any place and without the characteristics of that place having any influence. Because of this, it became possible to have exactly the same service no matter what the place. A standardized architecture could be provided irrespective of user and irrespective of their individuality. Standardization is when place and users are not chosen. Classifications can be put in place irrespective of the characteristics of different places. Society as a whole become systemized by standardized space. This is codification by architectural space. It is the systemization of space for the purposes of regulation and discipline. In other words, the standardization of architecture is the standardization of the places where that architecture is built, and also the standardization of the users and their lives.

Standardization was the most important topic for the architects of early 20th century Europe. They were in full agreement with the demands of the society (the nation) that workers (the people) be standardized. Society required its members to be one person with one opinion and one single measure (money) of profit or loss and that they all act as if they were a single large family. (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.62) “Uniformitism is ultimately based on the oneness of mankind (humans as a type).” (Ibid. p. 70) All people are persons who are equal and all are wage laborers. Architecture has been standardized in accordance with (national) social requirements. This standardization is the greatest feature of 20th century architecture. It is architecture for the space that is society. Buildings have been classified according to type and that standardization is for the purpose of standardizing (regulating, disciplining) the people. In a bureaucratically ruled society, standardizing a nation’s people is the basis for its administrative system. Even now, it is the basis for the standardization of architecture. However, we in this space that is society cannot see that administrative system from where we are. We do not even know we have been made unaware of standardized architectural space.

5. The Aesthetics of Standardization

Design determined by the task performance of machines and the

The Bauhaus was established in the town of Weimar in 1919 and had a huge influence on contemporary architecture movements. The Bauhaus was a national design school for the teaching of art, industrial design and [eventually] architecture. The Weimar Republic was established in the same year as the rationality of design became the principle of education. The meaning of rationality of design was design for increased productivity and this continued the thinking of the Federation of German Industry that had been establised in 1909. Diverse fields such as artists, architects, capitalists, manufacturers and politicians were all members of this Federation of German Industry. It was a design movement led by the nation. “Its purpose was to be a meeting place for selecting the leading representatives from the fields of art, industry, industrial design, and commerce and to have them combine forces with the aim of increasing the quality of goods. “ Pevsner, The Development of Modern Design, p.25) Members of this early 20th century architectural movement included Walter Gropius (who was to be first head of The Bauhaus), Peter Behrens, Hans Olbrich, Bruno Taut and others. At its centre was Hermann Muthesius (1861-1927). Muthuseius was an architect and at the same time a delegate of the Prussian Ministry of Commerce. From 1896 to 1903 he lived in London as an attaché to the German Embassy and while he was there he made a survey of English houses and introduced the Arts & Crafts movement to Germany. He focussed on “architectural form for the new social class (of workers) in England, and customary patterns of living that cannot be defined by style”. (Schwartz, Hermann Muthesius and the Federation of German Industry, p.13) His experience in England linked to the design movement that was the Federation of German Industry. Muthesius said that, in order to activate the market in order to establish the conditions for exporting and for industrial mass production (of one product), it was necessary to establish a single and recognizable (and apparently inevitable) form for it, and to remove the individual efforts of artists as a topic of concern for the Federation of German Industry. (Roht [?, ロート],l Hermannn Muthesius, Harmony Culture, Modern Form and Sachlichtheit, p.40)

In other words, the nation was supporting the production of products to see on world markets. The design of these products had to be excellent, but this was not to be a design that was excellent for an individual designer. It was not to have value because of the uniqueness it had from being the product of any individual designer, and instead was required to have a product value that was attainable by mass production. This was fundamentally different from “The world’s things” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.235) “have worth from longevity” in “being between persons, relating them and creating links between them” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.255) “Things have value because of their usefulness and their instrumentality.” (ibid., p.263) This is not just for one thing but for all things that can be produced – for all things that are products. Their shape must be a shape that can be mass produced and, therefore, “the shape of things for production must be determined by the operations of the machine more than by anything else.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.242) Designing the object of design in accordance with the capabilities of the machine is a perfect example of the means being the end. (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.243) Muthesius overturned the meaning of to design. “Design[ing] the object in accordance with the capabilities of the machine” means that design is derived from the performance of the machine. The means becomes the end. This is ザッハフォルム. [GM: I don’t know what to make of this transliteration of a German word but it seems to mean “things made by machine.] It was Muthesius who attributed aesthetic value to “things made by machine>’

FIG. 3: Upper: Things made by machine (Source: Yuko Ikeda Editor, *From Cushions to City Planning*, pp.146-147, 150-151, 219). Electric teapots and fans designed by Peter Behrens. Behrens was a designer at the manufacturer AEG that made everything from turbines to electric teapots. The rationality of design for things made by machine was at the time the cutting edge of design. Lower: Advertising for AEG products. Graphic design was an important category of instruction at The Bauhaus. (Source: Buddeensieg, *Industriekultur*, S. 259)

This was all very clear. I’m no fan of The Bauhaus’ role in the extinction of the value of crafted objects but what’s galling is that these objects created for manufacture by machine weren’t as good as the things they replaced. A teapot made of metal surely can’t have been a better object for infusing tea than a ceramic one? Sure, machines were used to make goods that were never mass produced, weren’t better at the task, and certainly not any cheaper but these things were only representations of the greater “modernity” and the rise of “design” as the primary criteria for the assessment of value. We’re not only expected to be grateful for the abundance of inferior things but to celebrate the people who made the world a bit more of a shittier place. You’d think the fact we still don’t have housing designed for machines and produced by machines (despite Buckminster Fuller’s famed promotions) is a good thing, but Yamamoto is telling us that housing didn’t have to be made by machines for it to be housing treating people as machines.