Hubert Damisch

Three Minus Two, Two Plus One:
Architecture and the Fabric of Time by

Hubert Damisch
“As far as space and time are concerned, Hegel has a way of classifying the arts that is
paradoxical inasmuch as it is simultaneously generative and subtractive - generativity
depending in this case on subtraction, and even proceeding from it. Architecture and sculpture
come first in this classification because they take place and operate in the three dimensions of
the objective world. Next comes painting, the concept of which implies the elimination of one
dimension - that is, three minus one; painting develops itself up to the point of being converted
into a pure magic of color that is nevertheless still of a spatial character, bound as it is to the two
dimensions of the wall or the picture plane on which the interior self, the "subject" as we call it,
projects itself in the guise of permanent configura-
tions of forms and color. Last comes music,
in its seemingly linear, one-dimensional, and
ephemeral mode of manifestation - that is, three minus two; music, as Hegel writes in his
Lessons on Aesthetics, does not proceed so much from the disappearance or subtraction of one
more dimension of space than it does from the suppression of spatiality in general.
The main task of music is to make manifest the most intimate self, the deepest subjectivity, the
ideal soul, resounding, finding an echo, in the pure and permanently flowing element of time.
Architecture and music thus correspond to two opposite poles, traditionally referred to as the
arts of space (architecture, sculpture, painting), and the arts of time (music and poetry).
Far from assigning it the first rank in the hierarchy of the arts, Hegel considers architecture the
most incomplete of all, claiming that it is unable to adequately express the spiritual through the
use of materials concerned mostly with obeying the laws of gravity and therefore
reduced to providing an external environment with only symbolic significance. Music, on the
other hand, is thought to be the "romantic" art par excellence, because it deals with a material
as insubstantial as sound - a material which, in turn, implies a double negation of exteriority;
space is nullified by the way in
which the body reacts to a mere vibration, which is thereby converted into a mode of expression
of pure interiority.
The strictly conceptual opposition of space, as the element of exteriority and objectivity, and
time or duration, as the element of interiority and subjectivity, is contradicted by the reality of
movement. Movement is defined in terms of space and time, or perhaps it is space and time
that are defined in terms of movement. Form in music is related to movement, just as movement
is related to form.
This calls for further investigations into the fabric of
time, a fabric that, in spite of its alleged "linearity," allows music to reflect itself in the mirror of
form and structure and thereby recognize the spatial image of its development, its construction,
and its architecture.
But if, according to Friedrich Schelling's famous metaphor, architecture is nothing but "frozen
music" (eine erstarrte Musik), how are we to define music?
As "defrosted architecture?"
In the Story of Amphion as told by Paul Valéry
(who used it as an argument for a "melo-
drama," set to music by Arthur Honegger), a
temple is built through the agency of music.
Having received the lyre from Apollo, the mortal Amphion gives birth both to music and
architecture when he begins to play it. The stones move and assemble themselves into a
temple. Hence the challenge for the composer, who refrains from making use of all the
resources of his art until they are developed in Valéry's story under Amphion's touch.
The same is true for architecture, which, at first,
was to be presented more as a simple exercise
of movements and combinations than of structure or composition. In the same way that music
retrospectively reflects itself in its own architecture, architecture projects itself in its own
generative, not to say musical,
process. But its relation to time and to its fabric goes deeper than a succession of choices and
displacements, a mere succession of moves, as in a game or a play; it involves - or relies on a
kind of movement or dynamic inherent to its own fabric and which requires, in order to become
visible, an approach other than metaphor, an approach that involves the
medium of images, according to their own movement, their own circulation, and their own
dynamics.
Painting was for a long time associated with

architecture. With the Renaissance, linear perspective became a common basis for both arts
and provided architects and painters with an instrument that allowed them to commute freely
between the actual three-dimensional space of architecture and the two-dimensional plane on
which it was represented. This seemed to exclude any consideration of time or duration, except
for the representation of ruins and decay or of the building process itself. The transformations
that could take place within the frame of perspective all implied, in one way or another, a
displacement that could be treated according to the same geometrical lines on which the
comparison between architecture and music relied; any attempt to make room for the
representation or expression of
movement and its dynamics had to conform either to the rules of proportion or to the principles
of harmony.
This state of affairs was radically altered by the discovery of photography and the invention of
the cinematograph.”
The above essay is excerpted from “Anytime” (Mit Press, edited by Cynthia Davidson). The
book is part from a conference series on architecture held between 1991-2000 in New York.
Among Hubert Damisch many other leading architects, historians, philosophers (Rem Koolhaas,
Jacques Herzog, Bruce Mau, Zaha Hadid etc) explore the relationship of space and time to
planning and building. You can also find “Making Strange” essay on experimental architecture
and urbanism by Zaha Hadid while reflecting on projects like the Contemporary Arts Center in
Cincinnati or the Millenium Dome in London.

Hubert Damisch

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hubert Damisch

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hubert Damisch

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Three Minus Two, Two Plus One:

Architecture and the Fabric of Time by

Painting was for a long time associated with

You might also like