‘Perform-Box’: Towards an architecture-of-time

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce and discuss the itinerary of a 2nd year architectural design course, led by ourselves at Beykent U's Dept. of Architecture. The terms of our discussion traces Deleuze's reworking of Bergson's theory of duration. We retain the critical, hermeneutic and creative moments of Deleuze's selective reading of Bergson while appropriating these moments as our own means of problematizing duration in the context of architecture through performance. In the first part of the article, we follow through the methodological implications of Bergson's three rules of intuition so as to be able to propose a critical outline of “the metric logic of architecture” as an architecture-of-space. Characterized as it is by a lack of precision, this logic fails to regard for the singularity of the body by adopting repertories of knowledge that are static, mediated, and too general. In the second part, we describe the three individual yet inter-connected stages of our design studio process, with references to several student projects in detail. Our main aim here is to counter-attack the logic of metrics with the basic premises of a “parametric logic,” an architecture-of-time, which is inherently performative in nature and is based on dynamic, immediate and singular repertories of knowledge. In the third and final part, we try to highlight those aspects of intuition that in turn may provide us with a model of teaching and learning that capitalizes a re-engagement of architecture with duration. Our guiding questions in elaborating each part are: (1) What does it mean for architecture to embody time instead of representing it? (2) How can intuition turn into a design method and an experiential model in architectural education? (3) What kind of a relation between instructor and student is evoked by elan vital when taken as a pedagogical principle?