För några dagar sedan satt Johan Lange och jag och pratade lite om diverse metoder och övningar för lärande, utveckling mm, och ett gammalt experiment från när jag gick på The Barlett dök upp i huvudet. Den formella uppgiften då var att skriva en dissertation, och som alltid på Bartlett var grundkravet att ge sig ut på okända vatten.

Experimentet handlar om att beskriva någonting verbalt eller i text. Det kan vara ett objekt, en företeelse, en situation eller egentligen vad som helst. Tricket/haken är att man inte får beskriva det utifrån vad det är. Istället måste man beskriva det som om det vore något helt annat, och därmed använda en helt annan vokabulär än man normalt skulle göra. Det är en riktigt bra övning i att tänka och formulera sig när man inte kan ta något för givet.

För att göra det tydligare: om jag skulle beskriva ett vinglas får jag t ex inte säga att det har en fot, stjälk och en kupa, dvs några av de ord jag normalt skulle använda. Istället ska jag beskriva det som om det vore kanske en gata, ett uppslagsverk eller varför inte en klubbkväll. Pröva själv… Först känns det som man blivit rånad på sina uttrycksmedel men sedan börjar man utveckla nya.

Min dissertation handlade till slut om att beskriva själva skolan, och jag gjorde det som om den vore en bank, en restaurangrecension, ett ansikte, en bok, en kustlinje och ett kärleksförhållande. Det finns möjligen en och annan formulering där som jag rodnar lite åt idag, men jag postar hela rasket här ändå trots att det kommer att bli Anders Borg-långt.

”Unfamiliar vocabularies”

Introduction

How does one approach a dissertation about a school like the Bartlett? Should one, in a straightforward way, try to describe what the Bartlett is, or perhaps what it isn’t? Should one compose forms for everyone to fill out? Attempts at straight- forward description tend to deal with the surface and the obvious, to require huge amounts of facts to be complete, and I admit I also sometimes find them boring.

Presenting a picture of this school by accounting for your feelings, expectations and experiences, based on the view that the Bartlett is something else than it actually is, would make it possible to find bits and pieces here and there, in a repetitive pattern, that would otherwise remain hidden. Using a number of vocabularies, reduced ones not normally connected to architecture, will force the author to reformulate what he otherwise would have written down straight away, possibly out of habit. It will also urge the reader to act, by forcing him to translate the text back into the original vocabulary in order to judge and compare, or to make his own translation into the unfamiliar vocabulary. As is often the case when something is passed on, or translated back and forth, things change in the process. This is traditionally not considered a good thing, but in this case can invoke a process in which the output is hopefully more valuable than the input.

In his collection of essays, Diario Minimo, Umberto Eco re-reads great books throughout history, such as the Bible, Ulysses and the Iliad, as if they had been written today but not yet published. We are shown notional statements from publisher’s readers, to whose interpretation we have to bring to the surface our own experience of those books. Eco’s essays display the obvious in a new light, and provoke new thoughts by undermining what is normally taken for granted.

Because my dissertation is presented in this manner, it is a matter of judgement whether I should also present a conclusion, or leave the reader on his own with a fragmented set of hints about what the Bartlett is. The conclusion supplied is brief. Straight, extensive answers would lecture the reader rather than enhance his experience.

This dissertation concentrates as much on literary method as the topic, because the two have become intertwined throughout the process. The style is an essential part in addition to the content, each of them providing different kinds of information that together form the work, just like the Bartlett itself. It also focuses on the diploma school, firstly because I’m part of it, and secondly because that is sufficient for my purposes. Some pieces are more extensive than others. The more extensive ones are to give a more in-depth picture, while the shorter and more abstract ones attempt to deliver feelings and sensations rather than precise descriptions.

B-bank

The main assets of B-Bank are not physical or traditional economical ones, but human intellect. The bank is one of those front-running companies where brain power is regarded as the true gold bars in the vault. It also puts the clients into the equation by depending on their ability to take initiatives and perform accurate analysis, as well as producing visible results in the turnovers.

By using an open mind it has turned a mostly one-way monologue into a fruitful dialogue, and done so aware of the crucial importance of the staff’s accuracy in picking clients to co-operate with. With this system, high-class clients lead to soaring profits while, if the bank is less successful in setting up working partnerships, profits inevitably drop. The strategy is based on a calculated risk that so far has worked well, and independent analysts now regard B-Bank as the top bank in the UK. It has in addition risen to being one of the most influential and innovative in the world.

B-Bank deals neither with ordinary cheques, accounts and loans, nor putting bank notes into cash machines. It uses highly sophisticated methods of banking in many different fields. Its offices show few signs of what banking is basically about, money. Instead, there are numerous signs of activities in adjacent areas, areas that are both the foundations and the extensions of traditional banking. While most banks are mainly interested in money and its handling one way or another, B-Bank has turned its interest towards what money consists of, and what it may come to consist of, in order to achieve a greater profit in the long run.

The bank’s physical premises, which by no means reminds you of the turn-of- the-century buildings that banks traditionally inhabit, works surprisingly well considering their state. In appearance, there are certainly more fancy banks around, and the management is well aware of that. So it has, perhaps partly as defence and partly as intention, adopted a policy of saying it is wiser to have a neutral environment than one that suggests a certain behaviour or way of thinking. The official statement from the management is that it works as a prompting mechanism, for staff as well as clients, to test alternative solutions and ideas in a non-demanding environment.

The hierarchy of the bank is not so very different from that of other institutions of the same category, possibly due to general banking rules and regulations. The staff consists of a few managers and a larger number of clerks. The clerks, usually working in teams of two, are responsible for the development of their respective units, in which they work with their own group of clients. The clerks are given a vast freedom of responsibility for their own work, but occasionally have to report to the management a few times every year. On those occasions all the clients are reviewed, along with their portfolios. If something seems unsatisfactory, the bank contacts those clients and urges them to invest more, or in a different way. If the clients fails to do so, or isn’t willing to go along with the suggestions, the bank will probably not renew their contract, and start working with another client instead. Quality is extremely important for a bank like this, and it simply can’t afford to continue working with clients who aren’t serious enough about their business. That could in the end affect the bank’s reputation and its profits.

The bank has only a few hundred clients, but the relationship between clerk and client is usually very close. The client comes with an idea about an investment and seeks advice whether or not to go ahead with it and, if so, how to do so. The clerk scrutinises the idea to find weaknesses, as well as suggestions on how to achieve the most positive development possible. It is the responsibility of both clerk and client to find an appropriate rhythm for this, but in an intellect-based business like this, it seems likely that the greater the exchange of information, the more positive the development.

There is no formal dress code, but some clerks and many clients have adopted and developed a similar one anyway. This seems at first like flocking behaviour, and to some extent it probably is, but it is also due to practical reasons, the building being the way it is, and considering the work they do.

There are few formal or official contacts across unit borders. This is odd but perhaps such contact is too time-consuming, and the clerks have usually set very specialised tasks to achieve in conjunction with their clients. Sometimes they have a set goal but most of the time they don’t, and just go as far as they can. Because the tasks are so specialised, it appears difficult for the management to have an overall view of the direction the bank as a whole is heading in, and how the individual task fits into the whole system. The banking world is highly competitive, and so are the people performing in it and the way they try to make their particular work attract attention, to get an even better stock of clients for the bank as a whole. I think it is safe to say that there is also a certain amount of personal fame and glory involved. This is no bad thing, since it can give a clearer view of each clerk’s and client’s capability, but it perhaps also draws attention away from what is being achieved, or could be achieved, collectively. The collective viewpoint contains not only the marketing aspect of the bank and the employees themselves, but also the role the bank plays in the society in which it operates, and the importance of that role. To maintain its position, it is possible that the bank will have to integrate more measures of that kind in their future strategies.

Chez B

When Ludwig Mies van der Rohe wrote, famously, ‘Less is more’ he could just as well have been referring to the entrance of Chez B, a red brick building just off Gordon Square in the heart of literary Bloomsbury. For Chez B is no cosy little place. It is usually quite busy though, and has been described as crammed, since it is comparatively small considering the number of customers they pack in.

It was sometimes difficult to enjoy our food under these circumstances, but there are corners for those who want peace during their meal, as well as observation spots for those who enjoy keeping an eye of what is going on. Most seats, however, have the characteristics of something between those two extremes. Ourselves, we ended up at a table with no view whatsoever, next to an air-conditioning system that could have kept the better part of a Spanish summer resort shivering. The interiors are a bit shabby, and could definitely use an upgrading or two when it comes to materials and paint, and some of the furniture looked like it was bought from one of the more obscure corners of Portobello Market.

If the environment was a disappointment, then the food was much more of a treat. The management has obviously chosen to concentrate their energy and investments on providing high-class eating rather than high-class sitting. A gamble perhaps, in these days when institutions of all kinds try to catch the attention of consumers by stimulating as many of their senses as possible, but once the word was out that decision has paid off. The menu indicated we had entered something else than a regular restaurant, and certainly not some fast food joint. We were given the menu quite quickly, but had great difficulty choosing from the large number of dishes, since the descriptions were brief, and only gave a vague idea of what the dishes would actually taste like. You will certainly need a lot of time here, and they did occasionally keep us waiting. The simple reason for this was of course that the dishes took a long time to prepare, but we sometimes got the feeling that the atmosphere was too casual in the kitchen and among the staff. After all, this is a gourmet restaurant, though not as expensive as others, which allows all kinds of people to come here.

That pricing policy is not only sympathetic but plays the key role in widening the selection of possible customers. What it doesn’t make, however, is room for everyone. As in any restaurant there is a certain number of seats available and, since the food at Chez B is much sought after, the restaurant can be selective about who they allow in, and waiting in line outside does not necessarily mean you eventually get in. The customers allowed in are usually those that have a genuine interest in high-class food, with references proving it, and are keen to pick up whatever they can in order to apply it to their own cooking.

The menu was hyper-modern, at the cutting edge (though perhaps a slightly blunt one). It was promising and ambitious, and did attempt to cover the highest class and latest inventions in many areas of the difficult profession of cooking. With aims that high, it was worth every ounce of respect we could muster, but in the end it never really managed any of them. It came close sometimes, but very rarely ahead. This was where confusion once again filled our minds. The dishes served were marvellously prepared, but to such a state that they made us wonder how they actually fitted into the tradition of cooking, as well as the atmosphere and history of the neighbourhood. There were hardly any explanations available on that aspect of a dish, which was a pity in the eyes of some guests, like us. It is not that we insist on it to be that way, what we missed was a statement saying why those aspects had been left out. Other restaurants consider the relationship between the dish and those aspects much more important, and therefore take care of it in quite another way. On the other hand, places like that tend to serve food of a calibre considerably lower than Chez B’s.

After our difficulties choosing from the menu, we decided to go for a few small starters before heading for the main course. We were, rather promptly, served some excellent little gems, apparently meant as a kind of guide into what was to come, each increasing in complexity. We had as first starter some garlic bread, a basic thing, but actually very easy to spoil if you don’t know what you are doing. It was deliciously simple in appearance, but complex in sensation. Our second starter consisted of small slices of various hams, laid out in a pattern where every piece was very much part of the composition. As we ate the slices we understood how they were put together, and the whole process of eating became a reversed analysis of the preparations. It seemed the chef’s intention was to achieve understanding through subtraction, and it worked well on us. The third and last starter was a salad, a combination of whole lettuce leaves, and some tomatoes and cucumbers, transformed into amazing shapes by a knife mastered to perfection. The taste was ordinary, just fresh as it should be, but demonstrated how far something simple can be taken, if you know how it can be done. It was an eye-opener.

At this point we were ready to quote the Caffreys advertising campaign: ‘Strong words, softly spoken’ perfectly applied to the first part of our meal. In a way, those starters followed us as the evening went by. While we were eating them, we enjoyed them very much, but not until we were well into the main course did we fully know how to appreciate them.

During the starters we drank mineral water, which seemed the best beverage to bring out the flavours of these light dishes. Something stronger would probably have distorted, or even killed them. The winelist was comprehensive, and when we reached the main course we were ready for something to match what we expected was coming. We went for a bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 1993, which turned out a good choice: balanced without being insipid.

The main course was extraordinary, and we placed it in the ‘classics’ section of our little black reference book. One of the most intriguing dishes we have come across, it was also at times highly confusing. Strictly speaking, it consisted of a piece of meat, vegetables, potatoes and a sauce. Nothing special about that, but the ingredients had been so refined, over and over again, that they were hardly recognisable. The meat had been cut to thin slices, then twined together, then fried for as long as it takes for the twist to become firm, only to be cut and fried again. Some of the vegetables were prepared much like the salad we had as a starter, while others had been incorporated with the sauce. We still don’t know what spices the chef added to that sauce, but it brought out every taste possible in the meat, without causing any conflict. It was a precision job worthy of a surgeon.

Without the starters it probably would have been difficult to appreciate the chef’s virtuosity. It seemed to us that the dish was designed to encourage us to make every effort to reach a sophistication of appreciation adequate to the level of his cooking. Fair enough, but you don’t go to a restaurant to please the chef.

What sometimes failed at Chez B, as mentioned in the beginning, was the service. It was very difficult to get the attention of the staff, and we spent a lot of time waiting during the evening. When we finally did see them, it was still hard getting to talk to them. But when we succeeded in establishing contact it was mostly worth the waiting, since they were friendly, helpful and had a lot of knowledge to share.

We recommend a visit to Chez B, very much so, but only if you are looking for something special, and specialised. Prices are not outrageous, although if you are serious about your eating you can quickly add significant sums to the bill. You had better not have appointments later in the evening when you go but, if your cup of tea is original and inventive meals, this could be the ultimate place to be.

Chez B is at 22 Gordon Street, WC1, Euston tube. Closed during weekends. No dogs allowed. Few non-smoking sections.

A face

A thin mouth, but wide, able to manage both an arch smile and a frenzied grin. Most often uttering a faint murmur. Occasional roars. Smooth skin, with a little make-up to even out the differences. Scars, a few of them, particularly one on the left cheek. The nose a bit crooked, but slightly pointed upwards. A firm chin thrusting forward, aiming for the catwalk.

Then the eyes. Ah, the eyes! Glowing feverishly in that dark London night. Eyes that has seen a lot, hoped so much, stayed neutral, killed, experienced disappointment and witnessed success. Eyes of searching, of thought and of dreaming. Slim eyebrows, overlining, setting a border of the search, narrowing it down. A transforming hill between valley and flatland, aiming for the ears, turning into a matrix of listening, a landscape of canyons, of catching without hunting.

Hair, dyed into an unnatural ever-changing colour, screaming to be seen, crying to be recognised, striving to be different but fitting into a pattern. A slim flow towards the neck, which is different, very different.

A book

The last time a book of this complexity was put together was probably when James Joyce put the finishing touch to Finnegans Wake. This publication can also be highly confusing at times, while still a marvel overall. It is a compilation of a number of essays, different in character and written by different authors, something that becomes obvious as soon as you start reading it. Naturally, an editor was responsible for gathering these authors, but they were apparently not instructed what topic they should plunge into. You get the feeling they were picked because of the quality of their previous work, and then trusted to choose for themselves.

Were one to impose a general frame around the essays, it would be characterised as exploration, analysis, progress and improvement, all very much in depth. It is fairly arty, but with quite a few ventures into science. Strictly speaking, all the essays deal with architecture, but in the broadest sense of the term. Today, when politicians and diplomats are referred to as the ‘architect’ behind this and that reform, and ‘computer architecture’ is a common term, it seems appropriate for a book on architecture to take on an attitude like that, an attitude which is not only concerned with the built environment but also with architecture as the art of organ- isation in general, and even expand it further by moving into areas such as for example biology and film. According to this book, everything is architecture and architecture is everything. This is not only refreshing for the reader but appears a brilliant tactical move, for it allows the authors to occupy themselves with virtually any topic.

The texts contain a next to endless amount of footnotes and references. In fact, it sometimes seems that the collecting of footnotes and references is the actual writing, and that the text is their summary, put together in a new and, mostly, witty and intriguing way. The book offers far more questions than answers, but does suggest how one might proceed to reach that progress and improvement. It does so, not by providing direct recipes or solutions, but by describing workable methods to use.

All the essays together make the book so complex it is almost impossible for one person to grasp. Even reading one essay is tricky enough, but the authors somehow pull it off, sometimes without you realising how. They seem to let their thoughts wander and then write down what they find, and they may well start dissecting one thing and end up exploring and explaining another.

However, if you read carefully, a thread leads from the starting point to the end. The thread could be thin, but you will find it, though it can appear as a non-linear network-like structure rather than a straight line.

The strength of this book is the variety of topics within a common approval of experimentation and a positive attitude towards uncovering hidden information. If you believe that much information is right in front of us, which we cannot yet see or understand, in a gargantuan, multi-dimensional grid¹, this book attempts to identify and explain some of the links in that system. There is a sense of optimism throughout that makes fascinating reading, augmented by the fact that you can read it over and over again, each time finding some new aspect.

If variety is its strength, it is also its weakness. Each topic is by itself very narrow, and rarely shows the overall view. Instead it tends to wrestle with itself, dealing with specific issues without searching for a context. Also, there is sometimes a lack of reflection on the possible uses of the discovery, or at least an explanation of it. Knowledge is rarely bad, but if one assumption is based on a previous one without enough testing, and so on, you can find yourself standing on very thin ice.

But again, you will never know when the ice cracks if you never step on it, and your brain has a marvellous ability to store things that can appear less useful at the moment, but that some day, with more knowledge added to it, may prove essential.

The book’s graphic design is smooth, as is the typography. Virtually no sharp edges can be seen anywhere, and a certain expression of kind-ness surrounds the package. The content is indeed complex, but certainly not fragile, so what purpose does this embedding serve? Well, the book is written in an unpretentious easy-going tone, despite the very serious topics, and this is expressed in the layout. It is as if the editor wants to remind us that no matter how serious things may be, we must not forget to enjoy ourselves meanwhile. This book has been published annually for a number of years now, intended first of all as a source of inspiration and guidance, but also as a report of the present state. The editors have shifted throughout the years, as well as the authors. My knowledge of the previous editions does not stretch that far back, but I have been told that the appointment of the present editor has marked a significant turn of direction, from a more down-to-earth way of presenting architecture to the present experimental approach.

¹ Influenced by Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, (London: Penguin 1991), p. 65.

Coastline

Almost completely hidden and surrounded by mighty rocks is a small meadow. A small opening in the accumulation of rocks uncovers a vast ocean stretching out westwards. The strange thing about this mellow meadow is that only one kind of flower grows here, although the individual plants have reached different heights, and those exposed to the wind have adapted to it through peculiar shapes. The occasional flock of seagulls flying by see several of these meadows in an otherwise almost completely rocky environment, forming a pattern of great complexity and beauty.

The meadows do not seem connected to each other physically, and from a distance all look the same. However, if the seagulls visited them all, they would find a great variety in flora. The landscape has no winding paths and, since the rocks practically form walls around the meadows, they rarely interact with each other, and have therefore been able to develop their individual characteristics.

They are sudden outbursts of colour and expression in an otherwise rather sterile environment. One is almost completely blue; another red. Some are sparsely inhabited, others have a thick layer of vegetation.

The plants have one thing in common, no matter what family they belong to: they all strive to reach the sunlight. It seems they do so at any cost. At the same time their roots are quite deep, carefully searching their way down through the rocky soil in their quest for the nurturing water. These two things cause the plants to stretch in two directions, and some break while doing so. Others just can’t cope, and settle for only one of the options. In either case they fade away—Slowly in some cases, quickly in others, but the outcome is not in doubt.

There are quite a few animals around, but not many live here the year around. They come in spring and autumn looking for food. The animals that do live here the whole year usually stay in the same area, but some of bigger animals cover much larger territory, even though they have a base as well. Most of the animals live in symbiosis with the plants on the meadows. Without the plants they wouldn’t live there at all, and without the animals the plants would not grow, at least not in the same way.

The rocky terrain surrounding the meadows is to brutal for anything to grow, and passing animals make an extra effort to reach their destination quicker. Only when the terrain starts transforming, further in, do they settle for a while before heading on once more. The terrain is rather flat, more flowing than dramatic, but rough on the surface, despite the innumerable raindrops that have fallen on it, the waves that have washed over it and the winds that have blown across it. The coastline stretches far and in many directions. Though the main part is clearly distinguishable, spurs travel away for some distance, but they are so narrow and sometimes buried that you have to follow them on foot to define them properly. The edge is, perhaps as always, the most interesting part, with different soils and vegetations interacting and overlapping like a complex weaving, creating richness and surprise. This is where the marks of extremity occur in nature. A terrain like that is not at all hostile, but difficult to understand. It is demanding and intriguing, limited and enriching at the same time.

Love affair

An occasion, an introduction and a rather lovely girl. The ingredients that make a story begin. To be absolutely truthful, it started some time earlier, growing, breeding, when a friend of his mentioned her name, talked about her, about her manners and interests. He was abroad at the time, and remained there some months after the conversation. He didn’t forget her, the one he had never found, the one who seemed to be what he had always wanted, the one he had searched for. No particular attention was paid to what she looked like. That seemed irrelevant at the time, out of place, an insult to her intellect. He was curious, yes, but not desperate to know. When they met, he was in love already. Not madly, not out of his mind, but in love.

As the leaves started to change colour, to fall from the trees, finally settling on the ground waiting to be swept away by either the wind or a street-cleaner, he went back to London. As autumn approaches, or spring, so do the sonatas. The grand piano is an instrument intended for times of change, of movement, and it loathes the static state of normality . It is an instrument of excellence that comes alive in acceleration or deceleration, through a thrust upwards or downwards, forward or backward, through increased or decreased pressure, and pound- ing heartbeats. It vibrates, moans and whispers together with the emotions in the air. The temptation overwhelmed him and he stretched out his hands to grasp the opportunity that his destiny offered. He bought the tickets at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and two nights later went there with a friend. The third row on the right-hand side offers some advantages and denies others. It provided them with a kind of intimacy with Richard Goode, with the possibility of recording every facial expression, closing of eyes, opening of eyes, hair flying across the face as the head moved with every beat of the Hammerklavier. They were denied the hands, the tools of sensitivity, and only through the music could understand how they sometimes caressed the keys, sometimes tortured them. The face had to make up for the loss of the hands. It almost did.

When the music stopped, with the last chords still floating, suspended higher in the large space and in the collective mind of the audience, never wanting to die away, a woman came up to them. He didn’t know her, but his friend did. They shook hands while being introduced. Not for a second had he suspected who she was, until he heard her name. He had for months been building up an image of her, slowly, one piece at a time added to the puzzle in his mind. That image and the person in front of him were not related in any way. While she approached them, he had gone through several stages of analysis. First the mere noticing of someone moving into their sphere of presence. Then surprise and interest when it was clear they were her target. Then a brief recording of features, colours and clothing, instantly transferred to the archives in his brain for an exact match and, if not, a more general category to attach. All in a few seconds.

He was surprised to see how ordinary she looked, dressed in a common, greyish dress, with no make-up except for a bleak red lipstick. The category his brain had attached to this woman did not at all match the one attached to the previous image of her. Her shoes were what could be described at best as robust, a bit out of place in the rather formal environment. At Covent Garden she would have been regarded as odd, her appearance standing out from the glittering crowd. Not at all the fancy type he had expected. With insufficient information at hand, your mind starts creating its own, not necessarily correct, but always wishful, ideal, and glorified. Nevertheless, he wasn’t really disappointed, only bewildered, while his brain frenetically tried to complete the puzzle with twice as many pieces available than the amount that would fit the image. Finally, half the pieces were discarded, and a new image emerged. A correct one, he hoped.

His friend had to hurry home to his family, but he himself was in no hurry, nor was she. Left with each other, they decided to go for a quick drink. The air was fresh, as if cleaned by the music. The breeze wafting along the Thames stirred the leaves on the ground, and formed them into patterns, only to replace them with others the following second, turning them into a momentary kaleidoscope. They entered the nearby wine bar underneath the railway and found a table at once. She did most of the talking, while still concealing herself, her true identity, her inner thoughts. The amount of information was used as camouflage, undoubtedly true but vague through sheer size, like a massive wall. By giving away one truth and many more, the one sought remains hidden. He listened, and he listened, confused but not retreating, still interested. He knew there was no turning back at this point. He had to go along, choosing some part of what she had said to hold on to. His army of curiosity outnumbered the one of anguish, and what followed was a cliché, but inevitable. He asked her when he could or would see her again. Her answer was a look, friendly, demanding, one of kindness and authority. The look was followed by a condition: Lunch the day after or nothing at all. In practice, he was left without a choice, with an infinite number of wishes but only one item to ask for. After seconds dressed up as years, he nodded acceptance.

The next day, when he showed up at the little restaurant not far from British Museum, his eyes hurting from lack of sleep, he was early. Not much, but nevertheless earlier than her. He knew the place, and had been there a few times before. She took her time. Five minutes turned into double figures, again, again, and again. She strolled into his sight thirty minutes late, but made no apology at all. He expressed his annoyance through carefully chosen gestures, interpretable in one way only. She didn’t notice, or didn’t care, which in any case made him feel exposed and vulnerable, at her mercy. She sat down opposite. The furniture was old, tired but inviting. The table supported their elbows, as it had supported so many before them, adding their shapes to the previous ones, leaving tiny marks in the wood, like prints or inscriptions illustrate events. They approached each other through words, words acting like probes, scanning the surface of an armour in search of an opening, not a weakness. This time he was leading, but not in control. She dominated the stage they were treading on from the first moment to the last. He didn’t object to it. It was what he had expected, and in a contradictory way it made him feel more secure for the time being. She appeared genuinely interested when he described his work, and occasionally interrupted him to ask him to clarify something, or to expand on a topic. Time went by, he forgot about being annoyed, and an understanding arose, a silent one, that both wanted to know more about each other.

A week passed before he saw her again but, when he did, their relationship gained a momentum it had lacked before. When she spoke, she spoke carefully, choosing the words, putting them in the scales before delivering them. Her mind was of a different kind than his, occupying itself with every thought possible, analysing them, storing some of them and throwing away others. Her way of connecting ideas not normally connectable startled him. He didn’t feel inferior, only very different, always more direct. As he listened he was learning to swim all over again, or to walk, but in another way. For the moment, he was a disciple feeling he could walk on water, hauling parts of his mind overboard, eager for another starting point, a different one in another race.

Like the song Ingrid Bergman wanted Sam to play in Casablanca, time went by, but unlike the plot in that movie, routine entered the relationship. The elements of surprise became more and more rare, and some of her little habits started to annoy him, nagging him like a splinter in the palm of his hand, occasionally causing pain. He started to ransack his mind, sometimes wondering what had brought him into this position. While he went through a process of revaluating his old life and opinions, he still valued her friendship. He didn’t want to lose it, just bring it to a level of comfort and normality. Slowly, he started to develop a new set of references, some carried for a long time, some recently acquired. He became more careful when making decisions, more critical. No longer was he blinded by her apparent excellence. The possessive mood left him, as did the eager to be loved, as did the jealousy. His love was fading, or transforming into something more mature. He began regarding her as a friend rather than a potential lover-to-be, a fling that would take a long time to get over, if ever, one that had changed his life, but still one that he didn’t regret for a second.

Conclusion

This dissertation records an experiment. What started out as rather straightforward descriptions, using other vocabularies, developed to some extent into a stylistic exercise. I wanted it to be something that would surprise me, something I would not be able to predict. This is not to devalue the conventional, more literal and direct, ways of describing facts, but I ’m not very keen on taking it for granted. (It was also an opportunity for me to try to stretch my knowledge of the English language, by stepping into more literary territories than I have roamed before.)

I have for some time been interested in the re-reading of objects, situations and events, in order to find alternative ways of describing what is going on around me, and that is what I have done in this dissertation. Previously, I have explored the subject in an exhibition called ‘The Human Factor’ back in Gothenburg, where I tried to find out if anything could be found beside, in-between, or within the common perception of buildings and typographical symbols and, if so, what that could be. Re-reading is also what I’m mostly concerned with in my present project work, but there I’m using more intuitive means, through images, sound, movement etc. I use those means in order to build up computerised environments for visitors to explore, environments that have small illogical variations built into them, which cause slightly unexpected responses to familiar everyday actions. That project is trying to show how even the tiniest action is linked to, and dependent on, our inherited and accustomed (and socially acceptable) behaviour while interacting with the environment around us. Through the work I have done with this dissertation, I now think that I have another tool to use if I feel that the proper circumstances arise.

In the Bartlett’s guide to the studio units², Peter Cook, trying to pinpoint what is going on at this school, ends one passage with the sentence ‘There is that British instinct towards fiddling-away-with-bits. Not being British, and coming from a very different kind of education, I think that is a very precise description. A lot of what is going on here is connected to, and dependent on, the studio unit system. That system is the one thing that shows up in all of my texts, and it occurs on several layers. It is difficult to characterise the system in a few words, but one could call it ‘isolated variety’ or maybe ‘variety within a pattern’. I refer here to both the different studio units, and to individual students within them. The opposite, probably called ‘connected uniformity’, is practised at the Belleville School in Paris, where everyone does the same thing with very small variations.

Another thing demanding attention in each text is the Bartlett anxiety to be at the cutting edge. Such an attitude is clearly present, but it faces a major initial problem. When students engage in projects concerning the ultimate in technological development, they face competition with the research and development divisions of multi-national companies, as well as high-level research teams at various universities. In such a context it naturally becomes extremely difficult to be in a leading position. The Bartlett seems to have found a way around this, by stressing the imaginative and intellectual side of the matter, as it is stated in the Course Guide: ‘Like the undergraduate Architecture programme, they [the diploma courses] are characterised by a belief in innovative imagination and critical scepticism as motors for advancing knowledge, and in the studio as a laboratory of rigorous research’³.

Many other aspects of the Bartlett have emerged in the texts, but I wish to leave them open to individual interpretation. Some are easily recognisable, others probably more difficult to decipher. In those cases, the reader will have to use imagination, innovation and test his or her own experiences, all in the good spirit of the Bartlett.

My experience from writing and developing the pieces is that it turned out to be more difficult the further away I strayed from the original architectural vocabulary. I have in the process been working in parallel on some twenty different topics. I found that some of them acted as restrictions in themselves, making it very difficult to achieve the kind of material I sought, and I eventually discarded them. That left me with the six topics that I, and others, found the most promising. With this in mind, it seems that this method is not applicable to everything, but can prove helpful as an alternative way of widening your thinking. I must stress that it appears necessary to at least make a short draft on every single occasion, in order to find out if it will be of any use, and this will perhaps prove too time-consuming.

As one would expect, there have been previous attempts resembling this one, with the most relevant ones that I have come across being Eco⁴, Queneau⁵ and Barthes⁶. They differ in their influence on, and relationship with, this dissertation. Queneau provides stylistic hints, without being to concerned with the topic, though the choice of style is no doubt connected to the choice of topic. Barthes, on the other hand, is different. Mythologies is a display of ways of analysing social phenomena, providing examples of somewhat peripheral occurrences, positioning them in society and pointing out what other things and occurrences they are connected to.

Eco also deals with re-reading, but he does so by stressing the time factor in a way the other two don’t. He is not re-defining the object itself, but rather the changing attitude towards the presentation of it, how it is received, the importance of timing. He is focusing on perception, by taking something out of its chronological context and putting it into another era, occasion- ally touching stylistic matters, mostly using some of the hallmarks of the late twentieth-century: cynicism and irony.

To various degrees, this dissertation has elements of all those methods within it: the stylistic element of Queneau; Barthes’ contextual positioning of the object; the perceptive aspect of Eco. It is dealing with a defined and recognisable object: the educational institution called the Bartlett. It does so over and over again, by using an element of repetition which is not present in any of the three, though Eco comes close, by every time using written material as the object of interest. Especially in A face, it is also beginning to use a more emotional approach, to some extent bypassing the intellect.

² Cook, Peter, and others, Guide to year 1 and the units, (London: UCL 1995).
³ Till, Jeremy (ed.), The Bartlett Course Guide, (London: UCL 1995), p.13.
⁴ Eco, Umberto, Diario Minimo, (Milano: Mondadori 1983).
⁵ Queneau, Raymond, Exercises in Style, (Paris: 1979).
⁶ Barthes, Roland, Mythologies, (London: Vintage 1993).

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Taggat som: Alan Lightman, bank, Bart Kosko, book, coastline, dissertation, face, Jeremy Till, John Fiske, love affair, Peter Cook, Philip Tabor, Raymond Queneau, restaurant, Richard Dawkins, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, William Shakespeare

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