Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
OASE, sa.113, ss.25-35, 2023 (Hakemli Dergi)
The Architecture of the Making of the Author
The late 20th century saw the intensification of attempts that expose the author as a theoretical, traditional and disciplinary construct in its complex socio-cultural entanglements. Some of the central elements for the development and the maintenance of this figure; the ritualistic and disciplinary motives, the role of representation, rhetoric and self-image, the cultural and legal systematization of ownership, therefore granting of socio-economic power and autonomy have been not only been debated but also set a basis for its criticism and alternative reformulations.
This essay, additionally, aims to take on a spatial perspective in the construction of the author-figure in the context of architecture. Borrowing from Soja’s socio-spatial dialectic, it offers a look into the architecture of the construction of authorship, by focusing on one of the most formative chapters in the history of the making of the architect-author with continuing reverberations today.
When the seminal École des Beaux-Arts was re-established in its new complex on Rue Bonaparte in 1820, “Bâtiments des Loges” (The-Loges-Building) was the first building to be completed and used in 1824. “Loges” can be described as individual cubicles aligned on a corridor, divided by rigid walls, strictly regulated and kept under probation by guardians in order to isolate students physically and socially from the outside world and each other during the periods of architectural competitions (ranging from 2 hours to 3 months), including the prestigious Prix de Rome. Inherited from Academie Royal D’Architecture, loges were central to the pedagogy and curriculum of the École (Levine, Middleton, 1984). To counter the anonymity in the ateliers, loges aimed at assuring competitors an uninterrupted blank slate exempt from exterior influences, allowing them to manifest their personal skills, channel their architectural geniuses into pristine drawings, with a guarantee of claiming the credits in person. Although lesser published, this tiny spatio-pedagogic unit has been profound in maintaining the École des Beaux-Arts system and culture, which served as the prevalent model for institutionalized architectural education 19th century onwards.
A brief account of this lasting spatio-pedagogic tradition attempts to pin down the often-mystified production of the author in a spatial lieu. This particular production site of architectural authorship reveals the socio-spatial mechanisms at play, enabled and triggered by its architecture: the conception of creativity and isolation, the rituals of competition and surveillance, the stories of accomplishments and misbehavior.
Through a selection of drawings, postcards, administrative documents and letters from 19th and 20th century archive materials, the essay displays and discusses a brief account of the “loges” as a pedagogic instrument, a cultural incubator and an authorship inscribing mechanism.
Although The Loges Building was remodeled as offices and classrooms after the École’s dissemination in 1968, the question the physical and/or non-physical architectures that construct and maintain the architect-author in pedagogical or professional practice remains its relevancy. Considering the embedded spatiality in the notions of isolation, competition and individual ownership of creativity in collective endeavor, the reconstructions and reformulations of authorship in newly emerging spatio-temporal medium and organizations need to be reviewed in a critical and demystifying light.