Jarrett Fuller

The most recent episode of Scratching the Surface is a conversation with Elizabeth Diller, a co-founder of Diller+Scofidio and Renfro, the multidisciplinary studio best known today, I think, for designing New York’s The Highline and The Shed, the recent expansion of MoMA, LA’s The Broad, and other large cultural architectural projects. But that Diller and her partner Ric Scofidio would go on to work on these large-scale urban projects almost feels like an accident. For the first half of their studio’s existence, they worked in a strange space, often without clients, between art, architecture, and public space.

Our conversation took place on the occasion of the studio’s new monograph, Architecture, Not Architecture, that collects all the studio’s work from the last forty years. The book is split into two — with a modular design by 2x4 — that separates the studio’s output between “built” work (as in traditional architecture) and more “experimental work” (as in performances, installation). Diller readily admits this is a false binary. They don’t draw such clear distinctions in the studio and I think that’s evident in the range of their output.

Diller got into architecture through art, while studying at Cooper Union in the 1970s. This is an era of architecture that has always fascinated me as there wasn’t much building happening and architects had to find new ways of practicing. (John Hejduk was the dean at Cooper Union at the time and actively encouraged students not to go into architecture, calling it, in Liz’s words “intellectually bankrupt”). At the same time, Daniel Libeskind was the chair of the architecture program at Cranbrook where he promoted ‘paper architecture’, encouraging students to integrate literary theory into their work. Rem Koolhaas hadn’t yet built anything but was rather known as a theorist, about to publish Delirious, New York, which would help launch his studio OMA.

And by sheer coincidence, I interviewed Liz while I was also deep into two books on Peter Eisenman: Notes on Peter Eisenman: Towards a Vanishing of Architecture, and Building Institution: The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York 1967-1985. Eisenman is another architect who got his start outside of traditional practice. His early work is as a theorist, writer, and teacher. He founded the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, a non-profit think-tank, architecture studio, and publishing outfit, in 1967 where he really championed some of these alternative models for architects and worked to make architecture a discipline of study and criticism on its own. As a student at Cooper Union, Diller attended many IAUS events and those ideas clearly influenced her own practice.

There’s a long history in architecture of working in alternative modes, especially at the beginning of one’s career. There are the countless architects who build up a portfolio with experimental or temporary structures before they start getting commissions. In many cases, this is simply a response to the time it takes to build or to work your way up the studio chain. This critical work can be a way to stay engaged in the practice before you are able to build. I’m thinking of Philip Johnson and his tenure as curator at MoMA or Robert A.M. Stern who got his start in the New York City government helping with city planning and preservation and worked as a curator for the Architectural League of New York (a job he got through Johnson), where he organized the 40 Under 40 Show alongside various lecture series, publications, and journals. But what really interests me about these architects is not just that they started outside of/adjacent to/or opposed to practice but that they eventually all moved into building. And many of them, building at large scales! How does this early critical work influence their later building? What’s the relationship between the two? Where are the connections?

This is less common in my field of graphic design where it’s easier to jump right into practice, easier to work one big projects very early. Are there parallels in the graphic design field where one starts in an experimental mode before moving towards the center of the profession? The two designers that immediately come to mind for me are Abbott Miller and the collaboration between Michael Rock and Susan Sellers.

Miller, along with his partner Ellen Lupton (also Cooper Union graduates), founded Design/Writing/Research in the early 90s, a name that outlines what they did: they were not just designers but also equally engaged in writing and research, putting together books, exhibitions, research projects, and self-generated projects. According to Adrian Shaughnessy’s book on Pentagram, when Miller joined as a partner, he was accused of selling out, trading his indie-success for mainstream jobs. (For what it’s worth, Miller has always been one of the more interesting partners in my opinion.)

Michael Rock, too, started as a writer for Eye and ID Magazine while teaching at RISD. Susan Sellers studied design in undergrad before getting a masters in American Studies. They co-founded 2x4 which began designing experimental publications and theory-heavy documents while 2x4 grew to be one of the leading branding studios working today. When I asked Sellers on Scratching the Surface about the desire to work with clients, she described it as a way to “actualize” the ideas: to move them from the page to the world.

There’s something about this trajectory that is interesting to me because I think about it in the context of my own work. Even though I spent my early career in traditional design practice before returning to grad school. My work over the last decade has existed on the edges: I feel more connection to the early work of Diller, of Stern, of Miller, of Rock, of Sellers. I’ve always said that if you listen to Scratching the Surface and just listen to the questions I’m asking, you can see what I’m wrestling with in my own work at any given moment. Before Diller, I talked to the Amsterdam design studio Formafantasma, who engage in a research-driven design practice. Before that it was Nicolay Boyadjiev who is prototyping new types of design practices with re:arc. And late last year I talked to OMA-collaborator Petra Blaise. There’s a trend here. Perhaps this is a long way to saying I’m trying to figure out the next phase of my work. I think I want to design again.