Visit https://ebookfinal.

com to download the full version and

explore more ebooks

Exuberance New Virtuosity in Contemporary

Architecture Architectural Design 03 04 2010 Vol
80 N 2 1st Edition Marjan Colletti

_____ Click the link below to download _____

https://ebookfinal.com/download/exuberance-new-
virtuosity-in-contemporary-architecture-architectural-
design-03-04-2010-vol-80-n-2-1st-edition-marjan-
colletti/

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookfinal.com

Here are some suggested products you might be interested in.
Click the link to download

Manmade Modular Megastructures Architectural Design 03 04

2006 Vol 76 N 1 1st Edition Ian Abley

https://ebookfinal.com/download/manmade-modular-megastructures-
architectural-design-03-04-2006-vol-76-n-1-1st-edition-ian-abley/

Closing the Gap Information Models in Contemporary Design

Practice Architectural Design03 04 2009 Vol 79 N 2 1st
Edition Richard Garber
https://ebookfinal.com/download/closing-the-gap-information-models-in-
contemporary-design-practice-architectural-
design03-04-2009-vol-79-n-2-1st-edition-richard-garber/

The New Europe Architectural Design 05 06 2006 Vol 76 N 3

1st Edition Valentina Croci

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-new-europe-architectural-
design-05-06-2006-vol-76-n-3-1st-edition-valentina-croci/

The Patterns of Architecture Architectural Design 11 12

2009 Vol 79 No 6 1st Edition Mark Garcia

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-patterns-of-architecture-
architectural-design-11-12-2009-vol-79-no-6-1st-edition-mark-garcia/
Protoarchitecture Analogue and Digital Hybrids
Architectural Design 07 08 2008 Vol 78 N 4 1st Edition Bob
Sheil
https://ebookfinal.com/download/protoarchitecture-analogue-and-
digital-hybrids-architectural-design-07-08-2008-vol-78-n-4-1st-
edition-bob-sheil/

Machine Hallucinations Architecture and Artificial

Intelligence Architectural Design 1st Edition Neil Leach
(Editor)
https://ebookfinal.com/download/machine-hallucinations-architecture-
and-artificial-intelligence-architectural-design-1st-edition-neil-
leach-editor/

Rationalist Traces Architectural Design 09 10 2007 Vol 77

No 5 1st Edition Torsten Schmiedeknecht

https://ebookfinal.com/download/rationalist-traces-architectural-
design-09-10-2007-vol-77-no-5-1st-edition-torsten-schmiedeknecht/

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 in Practice 1st Edition

Kogent Inc.

https://ebookfinal.com/download/autodesk-revit-architecture-2010-in-
practice-1st-edition-kogent-inc/

The Architectural Project Studies in Architecture and

Culture 1st Edition Alfonso Corona Martinez

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-architectural-project-studies-in-
architecture-and-culture-1st-edition-alfonso-corona-martinez/
Exuberance New Virtuosity in Contemporary
Architecture Architectural Design 03 04 2010 Vol 80 N 2
1st Edition Marjan Colletti Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Marjan Colletti
ISBN(s): 9780470717141, 0470717149
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 21.41 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN MAGAZINE
MARCH/APRIL 2010
PROFILE NO 204
GUEST-EDITED BY MARJAN COLLETTI

EXUBERANCE
 AD ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
FORTHCOMING 2 TITLES

MAY/JUNE 2010
PROFILE NO 205
TERRITORY: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND ENVIRONMENT
GUEST-EDITED BY DAVID GISSEN
Advancing a new relationship between architecture and nature, Territory emphasises the simultaneous
production of architectural objects and the environment surrounding them. Conceptualised within a
framework that draws from physical and human geographical thought, this title of 2 examines the
possibility of an architecture that actively produces its external, ecological conditions. The architecture
here scans and modifies atmospheres, arboreal zones, geothermal exchange, magnetic fields, habitats and
toxicities – enabling new and intense geographical patterns, effects, and sensations within architectural
and urban experience. Territory charts out a space, a territory, for architecture beyond conceptualisations
of context or environment, understood as that stable setting which pre-exists the production of new
things. Ultimately, it suggests a role for architecture as a strategy of environmental tinkering versus one of
accommodation or balance with an external natural world.
• Features architects: Patrick Blanc, Gilles Ebersolt, Nicholas de Monchaux, Future Cities Lab, Fritz
Haeg, Iwamoto Scott, Kuth/Ranieri, The Living, R&Sie(n) and WEATHERS.
• Cross-disciplinary contributions come from geographers, historians and theorists Ila Berman, Javier
Arbona, Ben Campkin, Edward Eigen, Matthew Gandy, Antoine Picon and Mitchell Schwarzer.
Volume  No 
ISBN   

JULY/AUGUST 2010
PROFILE NO 206
THE NEW STRUCTURALISM: DESIGN, ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGIES
GUEST-EDITED BY RIVKA AND ROBERT OXMAN
Today the convergence of design, engineering and architectural technologies are breeding a new material
practice in experimental architecture. The significant emphasis on the structuring logic of tectonics is
resulting in a ‘new structuralism’ in design. In this pioneering publication, this important shift is fully
defined as a highly dynamic synthesis of emerging principles of spatial, structural and material ordering
integrated through the application of materialisation and fabrication technologies. Providing the
foundations for a new theory of structuring in architecture, The New Structuralism has broad implications
for the way we both conceive and undertake architectural design, as its impact starts to emanate not only
across education internationally, but also through architectural research and practice.
• Features exemplary work by research and experimental design-oriented structural engineering practices:
Bollinger + Grohmann, Buro Happold, Hanif Kara (AKT) and Werner Sobek.
• Theoretical contributions from: David Chilton, Holzer and Downing, Neri Oxman, Helmut
Pottmann, Nina Rappaport and Yves Weinand.
• Focuses on new design and fabrication technologies in the recent work of Barkow and Leibinger,
EMBT (Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue), Gramazio and Kohler, and Fabian Scheurer
Volume  No  (Designtoproduction).
ISBN   

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010
PROFILE NO 207
POST-TRAUMATIC URBANISM
GUEST-EDITED BY ANTHONY BURKE, ADRIAN LAHOUD AND CHARLES RICE
Urban trauma describes a condition where conflict or catastrophe has disrupted and damaged not only
the physical environment and infrastructure of a city, but also the social and cultural networks. Cities
experiencing trauma dominate the daily news. Images of blasted buildings, or events such as Cyclone
Katrina exemplify the sense of ‘immediate impact’. But how is this trauma to be understood in its
aftermath, and in urban terms? What is the response of the discipline to the post-traumatic condition?
On the one hand, one can try to restore and recover everything that has passed, or otherwise see the
post-traumatic city as a resilient space poised on the cusp of new potentialities. While repair and
reconstruction are automatic reflexes, the knowledge and practices of the disciplines need to be imbued
with a deeper understanding of the effect of trauma on cities and their contingent realities. This issue will
pursue this latter approach, using examples of post-traumatic urban conditions to rethink the agency of
architecture and urbanism in the contemporary world. Post-traumatic urbanism demands of architects
the mobilisation of skills, criticality and creativity in contexts in which they are not familiar. The post-
traumatic is no longer the exception; it is the global condition.
• Contributors include: Andrew Benjamin, Ole Bouman, Tony Chakar, Mark Fisher, Christopher Hight,
Brian Massumi, Todd Reisz, Eyal Weizman and Slavoj Zizek.
Volume  No  • Featured cities: Beirut, Shenzhen, Berlin, Baghdad, Kabul and Caracas
ISBN   
• Encompasses: urban conflict, reconstruction, infrastructure, development, climate change, public
relations, population growth and film.
 1
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

EXUBERANCE
GUEST-EDITED BY
MARJAN COLLETTI

NEW VIRTUOSITY
IN CONTEMPORARY
ARCHITECTURE

|

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
VOL 80, NO 2
MARCH/APRIL 2010
ISSN 0003-8504

PROFILE NO 204
ISBN 978-0470-717141
IN THIS ISSUE
1
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

GUEST-EDITED BY
MARJAN COLLETTI
EXUBERANCE: NEW VIRTUOSITY
IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

 EDITORIAL
Helen Castle

 ABOUT THE GUEST-EDITOR

Marjan Colletti

 INTRODUCTION
Exuberance and Digital Virtuosity
Marjan Colletti

 DigitAlia – the Other Digital Practice

Marjan Colletti

 Interiorities
Ali Rahim
 Diving into the Depth-Scape:
The exploration of internal logics of Exuberance and Personalities
tectonic structures provides the key for
Rahim to a nuanced aesthetic sensibility. Yael Reisner

 Exuberant Couture
Judith Clark
EDITORIAL BOARD
Will Alsop
 Baroque Exuberance:
Denise Bratton
Frivolity or Disquiet?
Paul Brislin
Mark Burry Robert Harbison
André Chaszar
Nigel Coates
Peter Cook
Teddy Cruz  Let’s Rock over Barock
Max Fordham
Massimiliano Fuksas Wolf D Prix
Edwin Heathcote
Michael Hensel The co-founder of Coop Himmelb(l)au
Anthony Hunt
Charles Jencks pays tribute to the continuity of the central
Bob Maxwell European tradition of the Baroque.
Jayne Merkel
Mark Robbins
Deborah Saunt
Leon van Schaik
Patrik Schumacher
Neil Spiller
Michael Weinstock
Ken Yeang
Alejandro Zaera-Polo
  The New Delfina
Peter Cook

 OrnaMental POrnamentation: n:
The Abstract and the Exuberant
ant
Body of Ornamentation
Marjan Colletti

 Surrealistic Exuberance – Dark Matters

Neil Spiller 3
 Exuberance, I Don’t + Leading Lady: Monica Pidgeon,
Editor of Architectural Design,
Know; Excess, I Like 1946 to 1975
Peter Murray
Hernan Diaz Alonso
+ INTERIOR EYE
Embracing the ugly and the horrific, Morphosis Architects’ Cooper Union
Diaz Alonso makes clear that there is Academic Building, New York
method in striving for excess. Jayne Merkel

+ BUILDING PROFILE

Winter Olympic Buildings,
 Extreme Integration
Vancouver 
Tom Wiscombe of EMERGENT
David Littlefield
 Relying on Interdependencies:
+ PRACTICE PROFILE
Snøhetta in the Middle East
Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (FJMT)
Kjetil Trædal Thorsen and
Fleur Watson and Martyn Hook
Robert Greenwood, Snøhetta
+ UNIT FACTOR
 Cultivating Smartcities
Emergence and the Forms of Metabolism
CJ Lim
Michael Weinstock

+ YEANG’S ECO-FILES

Biodiversity Targets as the
Basis for Green Design
Mike Wells and Ken Yeang

+ SPILLER’S BITS

Strategic Plots and Spatial Blooms
Neil Spiller

+ MCLEAN’S NUGGETS

Will McLean

+ USERSCAPE
Urban Interactive
Valentina Croci
 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
1 MARCH/APRIL 2010
PROFILE NO 204

Editorial Offices
John Wiley & Sons
25 John Street
London
WC1 N2BS
All Rights Reserved. No part of this Subscription Offices UK
T: + ()   publication may be reproduced, stored John Wiley & Sons Ltd
in a retrieval system or transmitted in Journals Administration Department
Editor any form or by any means, electronic, 1 Oldlands Way, Bognor Regis
Helen Castle mechanical, photocopying, recording, West Sussex, PO SA
scanning or otherwise, except under the T: + () 
Freelance Managing Editor terms of the Copyright, Designs and F: + () 
Caroline Ellerby Patents Act  or under the terms E: [email protected]
of a licence issued by the Copyright
Production Editor Licensing Agency Ltd,  Tottenham [ISSN: -]
Elizabeth Gongde Court Road, London WT LP, UK,
without the permission in writing of Prices are for six issues and include
Design and Prepress the Publisher. postage and handling charges.
Artmedia, London Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica,
Subscribe to 1 NY . Air freight and mailing in
Art Direction and Design the USA by Publications Expediting
CHK Design: 1 is published bimonthly and is Services Inc,  Meacham Avenue,
Christian Küsters available to purchase on both a Elmont, NY .
Hannah Dumphy subscription basis and as individual Individual rate subscriptions must be
volumes at the following prices. paid by personal cheque or credit card.
Printed in Italy by Conti Tipocolor Individual rate subscriptions may not
Prices be resold or used as library copies.
Sponsorship/advertising Individual copies: £./.
Faith Pidduck/Wayne Frost Mailing fees may apply All prices are subject to change
T: + ()  without notice.
E: [email protected] Annual Subscription Rates
Student: UK£/US print only Postmaster
Individual: UK £/US print only Send address changes to Publications
Institutional: UK£/US Expediting Services Inc,
print or online  Meacham Avenue,
Institutional: UK£/US Elmont, NY 
combined print and online
Rights and Permissions
Requests to the Publisher should
be addressed to:
Permissions Department
John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The Atrium
Southern Gate
Chichester
West Sussex PO SQ
England

F: + () 

E: [email protected]

Front cover: Concept, CHK Design;

Illustration © 2010 Jesse Richards.
Inside front cover: Haroon Iqbal (DS10,
University of Westminster), New Sufi Centre,
Istanbul, 2007–08, © Haroon Iqbal.

|
 EDITORIAL
Helen Castle

It is entirely fitting that in , in the year of our th anniversary (AD was founded in a
basement in Bloomsbury in ), we should launch the redesign of AD with the Exuberance
issue. Not only because the word ‘exuberance’ reflects our general excitement, enthusiasm,
energy and high spirits, but also because the richness of its contents suggests much that
has been strong, unique and potent about AD. This title, so adeptly guest-edited by Marjan
Colletti, is highly visual. At a time when many architectural journals have taken a knocking
in the current economic climate, AD remains one of the most image-rich publications, in
recognition that architecture needs to communicate visually as well as verbally. It is printed in
Italy to a high standard and illustrated throughout with high-quality colour images undisrupted
by advertising. With the redesign, the art director, Christian Küsters of CHK Design, and
the designer, Andrea Bettella of Artmedia, have put a great deal of effort into both ensuring
continuity of style throughout the journal while maintaining the discrete identity of each
article. The intention is to have a design that is both elegant and distinct, which gives space to
the images: so that the images can both illustrate and enrich the meaning of the text, creating
effectively a truly integrated page design.
Exuberance celebrates the aesthetics of architecture. This to some degree addresses the recent
emphasis that has been placed on techniques and technologies in architecture. For here, most
notably in the work of Colletti himself, Ali Rahim, Hernan Diaz Alonso and Tom Wiscombe,
the formal overlays become integral to the digital. There is an understanding that architecture
can become nuanced and remain creative only with a conscious development of form and
aesthetics. You cannot design with techniques alone. This continues a rich seam in AD’s history,
as reflected by the presence of Peter Cook, who has contributed to these pages since he co-
founded Archigram in the mid-s and influenced many of its contributors as a designer and
an educator. Often fascinated by technology and gadgetry, he has remained foremost a creative,
concerned with design rather than science or software.
In true AD style, this title is also challenging. Whether you agree or not it begs a
response. Its emphasis on the artistic and the expressive possibilities of architecture – perhaps
most pronounced in Yael Reisner’s article – will certainly gain as much empathy as it does
opposition. In its new format, AD will remain as committed, if not more so, to asking questions
and to delivering crosscurrents alongside currents. The forthcoming fourth issue of this year
( July/August ), The New Structuralism: Design, Engineering and Architectural Technologies,
guest-edited by Rivka and Robert Oxman, could be regarded as the foil to this issue, arguing
for the convergence of structural engineering and design and the hegemony of a new
structuring logic in design, overriding the purely creative. 1

Double-page spread from ‘Archigram

Group, London: A chronological survey’,
Architectural Design, November 1965,
pp 559–73. Peter Cook made his
debut in AD in 1965, as a co-founder
of Archigram, in a 15-page feature
dedicated to the group’s work.

Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons

Ltd. Image © Steve Gorton

5
6
 ABOUT THE GUEST-EDITOR
MARJAN COLLETTI

Dr Marjan Colletti is co-founder of the studio marcosandmarjan in London, and

currently a lecturer in architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University
College London (Unit Master, Unit ), and the University of Westminster
(Unit Master, DS) with Marcos Cruz. He has been a guest professor at UCLA
and Innsbruck University, Austria and design instructor at various institutions
in Europe and Asia. His projects and texts attempt to bridge the gap between
architectural theory and the built environment by expanding the vocabulary of
digital architecture. On various platforms – research, education and practice –
he endeavours to establish a debate in which experimentation, technology and
innovation do not exclude personal emotions, local traditions and cultural identity.
His work has been widely published and shown in more than  exhibitions in
Europe, Brazil and Asia.
marcosandmarjan’s portfolio includes the competition-winning entry for a
,-square-metre (. million-square-foot) entertainment complex in front of
the gates of the Summer Palace in Beijing, the built pavilions and general layout for
the  Lisbon Book Fair, as well as the ongoing NURBSTERS series and the runner-
up project for an estate Sales Centre and model homes display in Cairo.
Marjan’s PhD on ‘Digital Poetics’ (Bartlett, UCL), the co-authored book
marcosandmarjan: Interfaces/Intrafaces (SpringerWienNewYork, ) and the print
collection 2&1/2D Twoandahalf Dimensionality (Bucher Hohenems, ) favour
a poetic digital avant-garde developed through -D, -D software and computer
numerically controlled (CNC), rapid protoyping (RP), and computer-aided design and
computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technologies. Parallel strands of research
are developing novel morphologies (Convoluted Tectonics), new urban strategies
(InterPolis), higher education syllaba in digital design, computation and technology
(AC_DC Architectural Curriculum for Design Computing), as well as sustainable
manufacturing strategies (InterTech). 1

Marjan Colletti, 2&1/2D Fluffy Blue One:

‘Let us overcome virtual aloofness and
disembodiment’, 2006
The infinite digital space formed in
computer-aided design can most precisely
be described by splinear, 2&½D drawings
that convey more intricate spatial attributes
than simple 2-D line drawings, yet less
than 3-D renderings. Such drawings remain
geometrically infinitely flat, yet they appear
spatial in the manifestation of surfaces,
volumes and shadows.

Marjan Colletti, Bartsters installation,

Prague-Bratislava-Kosice, 2004–05
marcosandmarjan’s NURBSTERs are a series
of models and 1:1 prototypes, conceived
for exhibitions and installations. The
design and manufacturing processes are
completely computerised. The Bartsters
(Bartlett Nurbsters), designed as exhibition
islands especially for the Bartlett/
British Council exhibitions in Prague,
Bratislava and Kosice in 2004 and 2005,
Marjan Colletti, 3&1/2D Shiny One, 2009 challenge the dichotomy of style/structure.
Unforeseen behaviours of circles-lofts are Building up a complex object, and fitting
developed as part of an ‘anexact’ design programmatic, structural, ergonomic
process that employs otherwise exact and requisites expressed through curvilinear
precise CAD commands. The results are and arabesque geometries, the assemblage
abstract and symbolic; digital constructs – technique reinterprets the traditional
fictional metareproductions – of something Chinese wooden cut-joint fitting ideal for
between nature and technology, between quick assembly and disassembly.
the known and the unknown, the imaginary
and the real. The digital architect is
understood as being capable of acting
and (meta)producing artistically since
Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
engagement with the model demands
Images © Marjan Colletti
aesthetic consideration of its properties.

7
 INTRODUCTION
By Marjan Colletti

EXUBERANCE AND
DIGITAL VIRTUOSITY
In the history of civilisation there have been regular waves And more excessive, extravagant, exuberant. Thus
of various manifestations of exuberance – in architecture, in Exuberance turned into a manifesto. Of the pervasiveness
the arts, in politics, in religion, in philosophy, in economics of phenomenological aspects of digitality, of the varied
and so on – preceded and followed by more austere, spartan, approaches towards digital design, of the non-engineered
strict periods. In architecture alone there have been too intelligence of digital space, of the profuseness of digi-
many styles, movements and individual architects that have bio-techno ornamentation, of the abundance of CGI in
pursued an exuberant, expressive, expansive vocabulary to Hollywood, of the excessiveness of computer games, of the
possibly give an introductory historic account of exuberance. lavishness of Middle Eastern and Asian super-urbanism.
Thus it seems more appropriate to disclose the brief history of But also of fluidity and elegance, of a rather sinister neo-
Exuberance, this very magazine. As it takes a considerable, Jugendstil revival, even of a neo-Rococo ‘prettynisation’
but not excessive, amount of time to compile an issue of AD, of the digital: the coloration had shifted towards darker
at face value the guest-editor’s bias behind title and content greys and greens, as well as brighter pinks and blues.
should not happen to change within the time frame between Morphological complexity was often applied – consciously
first draft proposal and publishing. Also, it is unlikely that the – as decoration, and digital design intruded into bourgeois
whole context per se would change. Yet this it what happened homes in the shape of teapots, lamps and coffee mugs.
during the development of this issue. Twice. Perhaps the effect A few months later, three main events in economics,
of those ripples that are formed in proximity of larger waves. politics and environmental sciences raised more serious
new questions on what Exuberance might be. The global
Exuberance: Protest-Manifesto-Celebration banking breakdown and financial crisis marked the end of
At its conception, Exuberance was a protest. It was concocted the latest ‘irrational exuberance’ period of the stock market.1
to present a digital world of architecture that antagonised the The election of Barack Obama as President of the United
engineered understanding of digital performance. The term States personified the need for change of American and
was chosen for its politically incorrect bias – not optimised, international policies. Simultaneously, the overdue political
not modulated, not algorithmic – and as a selection tool and economic acknowledgment of the acute seriousness
for filtering out most of the ‘techy’ and ‘geeky’ talk. Against of global climatic changes simply gave us no choice but to
such trends, I envisioned an issue that heralded a new era of think consciously: lower energy consumption, reconsider
exuberance in digital design. Having overcome the alienation aesthetics and push sustainability. Suddenly, the Baroque
and otherness of the cyber, having mastered the virtual macho excessive and the Rococo feminine pretty tail of
qualities and protocols of the parametric, having achieved digital architecture seemed endangered by these three
the intricacy and elegance of the digital, and having fully concurrent events. Were we witnessing the initial sparks of
embraced the potential of 3-D computer software and CAD/CAM a neo-Enlightened spirit that would mark the end of digital
manufacturing technologies, it was now time for architects, not prodigality, luxury and exuberance, albeit in its early stages?
engineers and programmers, to show off. In general terms, a few parallels with the beginning of
But then something seemed to be changing. Those the 18th century could be drawn.
clear and clever ideas that initially a few intelligent and very First, just over two hundred years ago Enlightened
influential people were articulating became more repetitive and politics triggered the French Revolution and saw the
were copied intensively – daily routine in many architecture monarchy as wasting resources. In recent times, was not
schools, in offices, in exhibitions. Just too mainstream to former president George W Bush impersonating a Baroque
be avant-garde? The empiricist barricade got more crowded monarch, the figure of the hero and the saint, fusing
and hence got weakened. A different intelligentsia began church and state, religious fanaticism and undisciplined
articulating other digital things beyond engineered skins, and passions (war) together to keep hierarchical status? And
the few digital phenomenologists (myself included) rejoiced. was not the feminine Rococo moment in recent politics
The system seemed to open up, to become more inclusive; Condoleezza Rice serving as Secretary of State and Hillary
more interpolated, inquisitive, impatient; more Baroque, even Clinton’s campaign in the Democratic primary in the 2008
Rococo (Rococo being the feminine moment of the Baroque). presidential race?
8
Marjan Colletti, 2&1/2D
The Intricate One, 2006
Gradients and shadows,
line widths, strokes and
their colours – deep
appearances.

9
 marcosandmarjan, New Tomihiro Museum,
Azuma Village, Japan, 2002
Ornamental pattern of first-floor plan.
A convoluted meandering route is
choreographed around the eight elements of
the traditional Japanese garden (water, sand,
flowers, waterfalls, bridges, trees, stones and
islands), presenting a process of discovery,
a metaphorical life journey of the painter
Tomihiro himself. As one passes through and
between, numerous and varying exhibition
vessels, the experience is one of incidences
of confluence and activity interspersed with
moments of contemplation and intimacy:
volution in motion.

Second, Enlightened economics separated art from luxury, grotesque, the blissful; the digital becomes the experiential; the
bourgeois saving from spending as status symbol, taste from anecdotal, the non-techy and non-geeky. Bring forth the new
fashion. The economists rejected the established hierarchies virtuosos (although curiously some of them happen to be the
of the sword over the law over finance.2 In present times, old masters, and some others still students).
are not many governments spending enormous sums of In ‘Interiorities’ (pp 24–31), Ali Rahim confesses the
money on wars? Is not the bailing-out process of the banking purpose to generate architecture as rich in its ‘level of designed
system being claimed as the end of excess, of luxury and luxury’, ‘coherence and precision of formal organisation’ as
(super)capitalism; as a trend towards socialism, morality and the best-known precedents; yes even ‘the most filigree Gothic
modernisation? spaces or the most exuberant Baroque or Rococo interiors’.
Finally, Enlightened agronomics saw agriculture as the In ‘Surrealistic Exuberance – Dark Matters’ (pp 64–69), Neil
most virtuous and useful art, the way forward back to nature Spiller explores the exuberant dark eroticism and its poetic
and romantic sensibility, as well as to productivity and potential of Baroque and religious imagery, and exploits them in
investment. Nowadays, is not the decision of governments the narratives and design of his Communicating Vessels project.
to cut down carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, and In ‘Cultivating Smartcities’ (pp 96–103), CJ Lim calls out
in future the intense focus on the bio – biotechnology, for ‘a new formal, textural and experiential exuberance’ of
bioengineering – inevitable? urbanity with nature – a sensibly exuberant approach to deal
Consequently, the question raised spontaneously: did with the exorbitant demand for food, and space, in the Far
such a global downturn imply the end of exuberance? On East. While in ‘Relying on Interdependencies’ (pp 88–95),
the contrary. Digital exuberance is not to be misunderstood Kjetil Trædal Thorsen and Robert Greenwood mandate
as luxury, superfluity or prodigality; neither is it the same as architects to ‘act within the spirit of cooperation and dialogue,
extravagant, weird, eccentric. Exuberant here equals energy, alongside contemporary values without compromising long-
enthusiasm, excitement and encouragement. Optimism. Thus, term qualities or architectural integrity’. The featured King
with the context having somersaulted twice, Exuberance Abdulaziz Center for Culture and Knowledge is a showcase
became what it is now hopefully stronger, and certainly project for how environmentally complex scenarios like the
timely. Not a protest, not a manifesto, but a celebration. Middle Eastern desert can be engaged with by imaginative
Of the prodigy, generosity and ingenuity of digitality and of solutions far beyond common sense.
architecture in general, and of the talent, the spirit and the In ‘Baroque Exuberance: Frivolity or Disquiet?’ (pp 44–49),
virtuosity of some of its protagonists. Robert Harbison introduces us to some of the many ‘facile
games’, or ‘profound exposures’, that the Baroque spirit staged.
Digital Virtuosity The Baroque wish to defy gravity echoes also in Wolf D Prix’s
The celebration of exuberance defines an architecture that article ‘Let’s Rock over Barock’ (pp 50–57), which highlights a
begins where common sense ends. With the ambition to cultural phenomenon of Austrian ‘space inventors’: the ‘desire
establish conditions beyond the usual, the known, the to celebrate space’.
rational, the obvious and the simple. In the current global In ‘Exuberance, I Don’t Know; Excess, I Like’ (pp 70–77),
situation, the biggest danger lies in giving up creativity for Hernan Diaz Alonso links exuberance to emergent qualities
inventiveness. It could be argued that architecture is not good and to the notion of affect, yet at the same time rejects it for
at inventing things; engineering, philosophy and politics of excessiveness and arousement; aspects of greater intensities
course do it better. But it is unbeaten in its ability to create, in his work. Also more towards the extreme than the
rediscover and reinvent itself, the environment and the human exuberant tends Tom Wiscombe’s ‘Extreme Integration’ (pp
spirit. In fact, the issue debates a plethora of intelligent 78–89), its performance depending on ‘messiness, excess
ways in which experimental architecture manages to cope and jungle thinking’.
with the contemporary turmoil in global politics, economics In ‘Diving into the Depth-Scape: Exuberance and
and ecology. Here occurs the wonder: ‘stuff’ we are mostly Personalities’ (pp 32–39), Yael Reisner states that it is
familiar with is stretched to its absolute extent. Common sense ‘personality, character and poetics’ that ‘take part in exuberant
becomes the experiment; beauty becomes the sublime, the expression’. The article is a clear invocation for emotion
10
Jisuk Lee (Rahim Research Studio,
University of Pennsylvania), Mixed-Use
Complex, Moscow, 2008
Seduction is about visually enticing
someone with a certain kind of aesthetic
expression. The aesthetic expression here
is defined as ‘voluptuousness’ conveyed by
undulating lines and surfaces; the aesthetic
is expressed by transformations between
each component and the behaviours of
their arrangements. The accumulation
of smaller components creates an
intricacy that transforms as a larger
whole, maintaining a richer effect than as
individual units.

and intuition, evocatively illustrated by her Depth-Scape

Interactive Time-cycled Light & Acoustic installation
project. Personality does certainly come across in fashion
design, where couturiers are more often than not
eccentrics. In ‘Exuberant Couture’ (pp 40–45), Judith
Clarke, reveals that in fashion ‘exuberance, in order to
stay exuberant, is always seeking new forms’, as it is ‘by
definition performative’.
For decades Peter Cook has lectured on cheerfulness in
architecture, and his oeuvre will leave an astonishing legacy
of exuberant, flamboyant, clever projects. Out of his ‘creative
tank’, New Delfina, purposely designed for this issue, did
‘burst forth’ (see pp 58–59). My own articles feature mostly
student work produced in Unit 20 at the Bartlett School
of Architecture at University College London, DS10 at
the University of Westminster,3 and Innsbruck University;
hopefully similarly exuberant, flamboyant and clever.
In conclusion, I can reveal that it is no coincidence that
such a motley crew has one common characteristic (that all
contributors are educators and hence good communicators),
that Exuberance questions small and large scale (complexity
on many layers), that the issue includes fashion, building
and urban design (the pervasiveness of the digital), that
some opinions differ (it is neither a protest nor a manifesto),
that some aesthetics are sinister-dark and some other more
romantic-flowery (the non-techy, non-geeky talk), that
some texts are more theoretical and others more practical
(crossing the boundaries between academia and practice),
that it is indebted to Baroque theatricality – similarly playful,
ebullient and slightly arrogant. But then again, as it emerges
from new media and novel technologies, its palimpsest (to
use 20th-century television terms) is more of a variety show
than a theatre performance or a documentary. In truth, more
of a reality TV show, really: only apparently unscripted, in
truth heavily edited and post-produced. 1

Notes
1. ‘Irrational exuberance’ was the term Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the
US Federal Reserve Board, first used on 5 December 1996 to describe the
speculative mania of the 1990s stock market.
2. For further reading see Rémy G Saisselin, The Enlightenment Against
the Baroque: Economics and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth Century, A
Quantum Book, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA and Oxford),
1992, pp 72–3.
3. Unit 20 at the Bartlett School of Architecture and DS10 at the University
of Westminster in London are both run by Marjan Colletti and Marcos
Cruz. Other work by these studios has been published previously in AD
Protoarchitecture and AD Neoplasmatic Design.

11
12
Yousef Al-Mehdari (Unit 20, Bartlett School of Tobias Klein (Unit 20, Bartlett School of Graham Thompson (Unit 20, Bartlett School
Architecture, UCL), The New Polyhydric Body, 2008–09 Architecture, UCL), Synthetic Syncretism/Our Lady of Architecture, UCL), Synthetic Sustainability –
below: The New Polyhydric Body study attempts to of Regla Chapel, Havana, 2005–06 Bio-Farm, Turin, Italy, 2008–09
reinterpret the complexity of overlapping anatomies through opposite: The narrative background is based upon the right and bottom: The biotech centre proposal
repeated and non-scripted digital computations (such as hybrid Cuban Santeria religion – a mixture of Catholicism includes a biofuel production facility to explore
extrusions, rotations and progressive scaling) in order to and saints, and African Yoruba tribe beliefs and animal new ways of breeding strains of algae to produce
generate new types of architectural form. ‘Polyhydra’ is a sacrifices. Due to lack of burial space in Havana, a a sustainable biofuel that can be employed in the
generative term deriving from poly (literally, multi), and ceremonial processional funerary route through the city is depleting fossil-fuel market. Left: Detail of nutrient
Hydra (the many-headed serpent). proposed. Slotted inside an existing cross-shaped courtyard, intent soft system. Pliant adaptive parts are
the inverted chapel acts as an architectural highlight. Its responsive and evolve – specific mechanisms help
formal and structural expression is provided by a series of maintain the health of the living capillaries and their
designed Santerian relics held inside the sacristy – skeletal internal growth status. Right: Detail of bio-robotic
and visceral utensils, 3-D modelled and 3-D printed in machine consisting of multifunctional and rotational
order to perfectly fit 3-D-scanned animal bones. amateurs. These artificially intelligent machines are
programmed to maintain and increase lush synthetic
growth within an architectural bioscaffold.

13
 Eoin O’Dwyer (DS10, University of
Westminster), New Egyptian National
Assembly, Cairo, 2008–09
left: Aerial view of central courtyard.
The project explores the relocation of
the Egyptian National Assembly from its
existing site. The introverted aspect of light
filtering into the living areas of a traditional
Arabic house through the central courtyard
provides the contextual focus. Light is
explored using a single light-wave source
model to generate contour lines radiating
out in different directions from one central
source. This is then multiplied, creating
opposing forces and developing into a series
of physical models, providing the basis for a
structural, light diffusing roof system for the
main council building.

14
Xefirotarch, Tableware marcosandmarjan, Self-Sufficient City: Steven Ma (Graduated Thesis
product design, 2009 Khataba (Al Jadida) Agropolis, Egypt, 2009 programme: advisor Hernan Diaz
left: Tableware by Hernan The rapid increase in the population of the Alonso, Southern California Institute of
Diaz Alonso. Far from Nile Delta, especially around Cairo and Architecture/SCI-Arc), Xuberant, 2008
being virtual, digital design Alexandria, is forcing hundreds of thousands below: he project investigates how
embraces all scales, from the of people into peripheric and unsustainable calligraphical aesthetics and the
urban to product design or satellite developments. This is happening formal language of exuberance can
even jewellery. File-to-factory either in the desert in enclosed condominiums create effects through the production
design protocols, combined for the rich, or in the Delta in shanty-town- of liminality. The form is created by
with exuberant stylistic like settlements for the poor. The proposed constantly evolving the relationship
expressions, also seem to new self-sufficient towns along the Delta are between systems that are held in
attract major international intended to redirect the uncontrolled urban maximal tension in relation to one
product companies. sprawl into new agro-urban settlements that another, suspended in a permanent
grow in accordance with local farming activity. state of incomplete transition. New
The Agropolis is self-sufficient in terms of speciation thus evolves. It is this ‘in-
the involvement of the local population, new between state’ of mutation that allows
transport infrastructures, programme mix and, multiple systems to generate infinite
above all, a sustainable balance in food and growth. Stylistic individuation becomes
energy production and consumption. the contemporary meaning of style.

Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 9 © Marjan

Colletti; pp 10, 14(b) © marcosandmarjan; p 11 © Jisuk Lee;
p 12 © Tobias Klein; p 13(tl) © Yousef al-Mehdari; p 13(tr&b)
© Graham Thompson; p 14(tl) © Eoin O’Dwyer; p 14(tr) ©
Courtesy of Xefirotarch; p 15(r) © Steven Ma

15
DIGITALIA –
THE OTHER
DIGITAL
PRACTICE

Hannes Mayer (Unit 20, Bartlett School of

Architecture, UCL), Lichonic Architecture, 2007–08
The design is driven by image-based vector fields
that break with the convention of the line as a border.
Binary space is replaced by gradients of enclosure.
Reference image layers are stacked on top of each
other to create a three-dimensional colour cloud.
Architecture emerges in these fields as a result of
discreetly interpolated forces. Despite the exuberance
of the final product, the whole design is driven by
quick and simple sketches and images.

16
 Marjan Colletti

Marjan Colletti, the guest-editor of this issue,

defines a clear political agenda for DigitAlia as an
alternative mode of digital practice. He outlines how
it potentially absorbs the latest digital techniques
while embracing the poetic and knowledge of
cultural traditions and pushing the very boundaries
of creativity. The scope of Colletti’s ideas is illustrated
by images from his own practice with Marcos
Cruz, marcosandmarjan architects, and those of
his students at the Bartlett School of Architecture
(UCL), the University of Westminster in London and
Innsbruck University in Austria.

17
The pursuit of computerised complexity per se is, at present, creator and craftsman, whose skills manage to call into being possible
most often a rather shallow endeavour. Elaborated topological spaces, places, images, things, words and worlds that are not, with a
-D crochets appear as frequently on the Internet as -D plethora of means of representation and of Technik not available to the
rendered chimeras and monsters. Indeed, the first are good analogue practice.1
enough for copy-and-paste blogs, the latter for -D software
gallery pages. But surely, this issue’s quest for (digital) exuberance 5. CyberBaroque
does not pertain to either group of these skilled modellers. DigitAlia avoids the dichotomy of rational and empirical thinking, and
Neither does exuberance concern the rationalist and enables the morphing of classical-digital architectural semantics into
epistemological lobby: its barricades crowded and piled high; its playful theatrical tectonics and typologies. In fact, the most contemporary
manifestos engineer-functionalist, mathematic-descriptive and manifestation of digital architecture achieves the synthesis of poetic
neo-Sachlich. Against this trend, I bring forth the possibility of expression and intuitive knowledge, of culture and tradition as well as
an empiricist phenomenological counterpart: DigitAlia – the industry and progress.
other digital practice. It adheres to the principles of openness and
synthesis, and favours a digital avant-garde developed through 6. Phenomenology
-D software and computer numerically controlled (CNC), rapid DigitAlia does not dismiss a phenomenological inspection into CAD’s
prototyping (RP), computer-aided design and computer-aided personal, subjective, intellectual and cognitive processes. On the contrary,
manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technologies. DigitAlia has no the phenomenological goal for DigitAlia is twofold: the phenomenology
manifesto, as it does not believe in dogmas, doctrines and isms, of the poetic imagination (of the designer and the user), and of the poetic
yet it has a clear political agenda, which is outlined below: image (of the architectural input and output).2 Such poetic digital image
achieves the overlap of intuition/input and expression/output.3
1. Digital Politics
The politics of DigitAlia are inclusive and involve everything 7. Cognitive Parameters
that is to do with digitality: practice, profession, methods, DigitAlia aims at merging geometric parameters and cognitive properties,
manoeuvres, principles, opinions, strategies, intrigue, and control as well as geometric properties and cognitive parameters. Geometric
over structure, organisation and administration. properties are to do with materiality, form, organisation – the setup of
Gestalt; cognitive parameters are to do with senses, perception, behaviour
2. Digital Poetics – the setup of consumption (or even empathy). The latter include
DigitAlia provides an alternative to the understanding and the anamorphic projections, perspectival illusion, environmental criteria and
production of CAD beyond protocols, mathematics and geometry, other perception-based parameters.
and towards digital poetics: performance, (re)production, (re)
presentation, projection, mimesis, automatism, reflection and 8. Approximatively Rigorous
bliss, intuition, creativity and intimacy. When architecture is understood as an approximately exact dynamic
morphological entity – as variations in decisions and process do inevitably
3. Convolution produce different outputs – rigour is the approximatively exact coming to
DigitAlia equals convolution (blur, overlap and interference): it terms with an anexact yet definitely maybe rigorous process: the coming
expands architecture by blurring and pushing the boundaries of to terms with ambiguity towards control by extrapolating individual
the discipline, by layering contexts, ideas and technologies, and observations towards a common strategic agenda and social proposal.
by multitasking and by interfering with linear design processes.
9. Exuberance
4. CAADemiurgy Criticising objectivity as invariance, evolution as method, users as
DigitAlia reproposes the digital architect as demiurge: the observers, it could be argued that it is the challenge of this generation
18
 marcosandmarjan architects, Dunes – Ben Cowd (Unit 20, Bartlett
Hyde Park Sales Centre, Cairo, 2008 School of Architecture, UCL), Solar
opposite: An internal artificial topography Topographies, Rome, 2007–08
allows various circulation routes through below: This project for an observatory/
the building: fast (for the employees), ticket office at the Foro Romano
medium (for the general public and focuses on the theme of cosmology
events guests) and slow (for the buyer). and sacred space, mapping astrological
The upper floor is like a floating canopy paths and cycles through adaptive
in which the offices are embedded partly solar topographies. The topographies
as enclosed and partly as mezzanine are sited among the ruins in Rome
spaces. In between, natural, softened and are to be read as astronomical
light floods the internal space. Structurally clocks and calendars. The laser-cut
and environmentally the building borrows recessed drawings and models explore
from the tent: a multilayered tensegrity the layering of precise patterns which
system of roof and facade in which the align with significant events on the
in-between chamber is used as climatic astrological calendar.
and visual filter.

of creative thinkers (whatever the discipline) to fully engage

with the actuality – rather than the virtuality – of CAD. This
means that after the initial period of definition and discovery
of disembodied virtual realities, datascapes and cyber-
realities, the endeavour now is to establish a debate in which
experimentation, technology and progress do not exclude the
actuality of emotions, traditions and identity – and the pursuit
of exuberance.

10. InterPolis – Interpolated Urbanism

Pursuing an interpolating research strategy that is synthetic –
as it introduces something new between an array of existing
elements – results in the emergence of InterPolis. Digital
urbanism usually extrapolates geometric singularities into
multiplicity and modulation of complexity/language via
parametric cohesion. Such an approach is global, and pursues
networking, evolution and growth. InterPolis approaches
urbanism by interpolating multiplicity and modulation of
complexity/language into singularity via convoluted cohesion.
Such an approach is also global, as it pursues identity,
involution (involvement) and synthesis. 1

Notes
1. The CAADemiurge can overcome the schisms in the 15th and 16th
centuries between intellectual and manual labour (and architecture), and
in the 19th century between automatic mechanisation and poetic creation.
The operational field of the demiurge is the ‘choros, the precosmic space,
the place and the “nurse” of all being’. See Joseph Rykwert, The Dancing
Column: On Order in Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA and London),
1996, p 386.
2. In contrast to Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto, phenomenology is here
not dismissed as ‘the desire to have everything grounded within the body
and within experience’, and I do not agree that ‘phenomenological practice
could never propose a new architecture’. Reiser and Umemoto claim that
phenomenology is not good enough as a ‘generative model’, and that if it
were, then architecture would lapse ‘into some form of modernism for the
purpose of organizing space’ and some sort of classical model of humanism.
See Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics/Reiser +
Umemoto, Princeton Architectural Press (New York), 2006 pp 230, 84.
3. Very much in line with Gaston Bachelard and his poetic reverie,
it demands active participation and intuitive response during design
production. See Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood,
Language, and the Cosmos, trans Daniel Russell, Beacon Press (Boston,
MA), 1971, pp 183–210. And it seems to look ‘for salient “poetic”
(cultural) and not merely scientific-rational (technical) proponents of the
digital revolution’. See Mark Goulthorpe, ‘Notes on digital nesting: A poetics
of evolutionary form’, in Leon van Schaik, AD Poetics in Architecture, Vol
72, No 2, March 2002, p 19.

19
 Sam White (Unit 20, Bartlett School Johan Voordouw (Unit 20,
of Architecture, UCL), Chapel to the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL),
Corpus, Wells, Somerset, 2004–05 Aedicules, Tivoli, Italy, 2007–09
below: This proposal for an extension opposite top: A woven sequence of
to Wells Cathedral creates a scene for aedicules creates a memory archive,
the cult of the body. People come to it continuously and simultaneously oscillating
as a place of worship, while suspended between hidden and revealed chambers
scaffolds of human form and mechanical and labyrinths. The public archive
support systems are used for the bridges an existing stair in the town, the
production of surgical flesh supplies. private archive is carved into the soft
travertine hillside and requires more active
participation, and in the archive’s library,
memories get organised, catalogued and
stored. A rapid-prototyped book narrates
the experiential aspects of the project and
reveals the atmospherics, the wonderment
or burden that secrets may contain.

20
Peter Griebel (Studio Colletti, Innsbruck
University, Austria), Santa Mira La Guapa,
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, 2007
below: The project focuses on reinventing the
character of Baroque churches, in particular
Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.
Context, scale and programme remain close
to the original. The exuberant interior is bent
and compressed, and extends towards the
‘lobotomised’ exterior, which is shaped by
forces different to those inside.

21
Kasper Ax (Unit 20, Bartlett School of Kapil Amarnani Chawla (DS10,
Architecture, UCL), Tooling – Ecumenical University of Westminster), New Cairo
Council, Turin, Italy, 2008–09 Sustainable Development, 2007–08
below left and right: Constructed right: The scheme consists of an
viewpoints are created to infuse the urbanisation in between a number
spatial configurations with distorted of centre-pivotal irrigation farms.
and exaggerated perspectives as well The circular farms use an advanced
as figurative means. In the case of irrigation method that creates a final
the interior of the Ecumenical Council product that is on average 28 per cent
of Turin, this theory is employed in more efficient than traditional methods
viewpoints where certain panels in the can achieve. Based on studies of the
ceiling are extracted and treated with typologies of the farms – their internal
a distinct materiality that enables the paths, watering systems and even their
beholder to interpolate figures, such as connections to aquifers – the scheme
the cross, in the mind. merges and blends these pockets of
food with the needs of the city.

22
Oliver von Malm (Studio Colletti, Innsbruck Vicky Patsalis (Unit 20, Bartlett School of Architecture,
University, Austria), New Johann Nepomuk UCL), Screaming Architecture, 2007–08
Chapel, Asamkirche, Munich, 2007 below right: This proposal draws on the representative
below left: A new chapel is inserted into the emotions of a human for its physiognomic reading,
exuberant yet tiny interiors of the Asam church. necessitating a formal understanding of the human body
The facade in-folds into the church, absorbs as well as requiring empathy from its viewer; empathy
the character of the twisted columns above with regards to the scream, which simultaneously
the altar, and intersects itself. Heavy, curved indulges and divulges each circumstantial viewing of
Baroque surfaces emerge from the geometric the arcade. Attempting to restore and rethink the figural
topological and functional parameters of the relationship with architecture, the design investigation
built context. They accelerate the reflections of learns from the flaws of its classical predecessors to reflect
the sunlight falling into the chapel and give the the current age of aesthetics in its terrifying sublime.
impression of infinity by forcing the observer to
lose himself within the chapel’s infinite folds.

Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 16-17 © Hannes
Mayer; p 18 © marcosandmarjan; p 19 © Ben Cowd; p 20 ©
Samuel White 2004; p 21(t) © Johan Voordouw; p 21(b) © Peter
Griebel; p 22(t) © Kapil Amarnani Chawla; p 22(b) © Kasper Ax;
p 23(l) © Oliver von Malm; p 23(r) © Vicky Patsalis

23
24
 Ali Rahim

Ali Rahim emphasises the importance for design of

overlaying a mastery of digital techniques with a nuanced
and developed aesthetic sensibility. Here he illustrates
his fascination with the formal with his exploration of
‘interiorities’, or internal logics of tectonic structures, in
his design research at the University of Pennsylvania. The
strive to create variation and atmosphere in buildings
effectively places a stress on different part-to-whole
relationships, organisations, material qualities and colours
and their various rates of transformation.

Jisuk Lee (Rahim Research Studio, University

of Pennsylvania), Migrating Formations:
Mixed-Use Complex, Moscow, 2008

25
 Jisuk Lee (Rahim Research Studio, University
of Pennsylvania), Migrating Formations:
Mixed-Use Complex, Moscow, 2008
Seduction is about visually enticing someone
with a certain kind of aesthetic expression.
The aesthetic expression here is defined as
‘voluptuousness’, conveyed by undulating lines
and surfaces; the aesthetic is expressed by
transformations between each component and the
behaviours of their arrangements. Accumulation
of smaller components creates an intricacy that
transforms as a larger whole, maintaining a richer
effect than as individual units.

26
Johnny Lin (Rahim Research Studio,
University of Pennsylvania), Interiorities:
Urban Club, TriBeCa, New York City, 2009
The design research tested the limits
of elegance studying quick and slow
transformations in different sequences.
The transformations resulted in the
understanding that if both co-existed in the
overall form of the project, the origanisation
would still yield an elegant project. Colour
was also tested, allowing the systemic
relations to highlight specific geometry
in addition to yielding an overall colour
transformation to enhance the affect of the
project on both the interior and exterior.

Cultural and technological innovations establish new status quos

and updated platforms from which to operate and launch further
innovations to stay ahead of cultural developments. Design
research practices continually reinvent themselves and the
techniques they use, and guide these innovations to stay ahead of
such developments.
Reinvention can come through techniques that have already
been set in motion, such as dynamic systems and other open-
source software programs that are mined for all their potential,
through the development of new plug-ins that are able to change
attributes within dynamic systems, or through changing existing
or writing new expressions in the form of scripts in computer
language – in effect changing the capacity of the operation
of the software to develop new techniques for the design and
manufacture of architecture. These techniques are important
to design research to inform the form, space and material
conditions of architecture. All will continue to be developed and
alter the way architectural practices operate in the near and long
term. Practices can also develop new techniques by investigating
new technologies on the horizon of other fields. The necessary
characteristics of the technologies selected are that they contain
feedback, are interrelational and have the potential to destabilise
their current contexts. Techniques borrowed from other spheres
can assist architectural practices to become more synthetic,
seamlessly integrating the design, testing and manufacture of
material formations.

Beyond Techniques to Elegance

The development of techniques is essential for innovation in
design. However, the mastering of techniques, whether in design,
production or both, does not necessarily yield great architecture.
In the Rahim Research Studio at the University of Pennsylvania,
Interiorities: An Urban Club for New York City (spring )
was an attempt to move beyond techniques by mastering them
to achieve nuances within an exuberant formal development of
projects that exude an elegant aesthetic sensibility.1
Architects who have been able to add such a layer
of aesthetic sophistication to their designs share several
characteristics that are key to current digital design discourse.
All of their projects operate within emerging paradigms of
generative techniques, and move past methods completely
dependent on the rigorous application of scientific standards.
Each exhibits a systemic logic of thought that eschews mapping
27
 Wei Wang (Rahim Research Studio, University of Pennsylvania),
Interiorities: Urban Club, TriBeCa, New York City, 2009
The interior of the club is organised by different extents of
orientation/disorientation, by manipulating multiple types of
geometry and assemblage, purposefully differentiating lighting
and materialisation, and synthesising various accumulation
strategies and part-to-whole relationships. The organisation
and hierarchy of the interior systems constantly inspire and
eventually drive the formation and transformation of the building
exterior and its response to the constraints of the site. Colour
visually enhances the atmospheric transformation and systematic
continuity: blue defines the local transition by highlighting the
module’s boundary, while yellow is continuously distributed
throughout the entire building (exterior and interior), guiding
the overall movement, activated in different intensities and
assembled specifically according to local conditions to maximise
the atmospheric effect.

28
 The aim is to reach the level of designed luxury found,
for instance, in the most filigree Gothic spaces or the
most exuberant Baroque or Rococo interiors – to go
beyond all known historical precedents in terms of
qualitative differentiation and the intensity of part-to-
part and part-to-whole relationships.

a specific process, or revealing the process of an algorithm being up a multi-layered complexity with a high degree of differentiation within
generated, as strategies to generate a project’s form. Instead, each visual system and scale with a high level of correlation between the
mastery of the techniques used allows each designer to assume various levels of perception. Each scale of internal differentiation is associated
a more sophisticated relationship with the creation of form with corresponding or complementary differentiations within other scales.
– using malleable forms differentiated at varied rates that are For example, nested scales of material/textural differentiation in relation to a
correlated systemically – a position made possible only through continuous pattern in colour variation allows for an exuberant affect.
the use of an aesthetic sensibility concomitant with a highly
developed design ability. Methodology
Three primary trajectories for exploration were employed in developing the
Affective Formations: Interiorities Urban Club for New York City design innovation:
Architecture generates cultural change by intensifying and
inflecting existing modes of inhabitation, participation and use. 1. Technique Development
To accomplish this, architecture must become more responsive, Students in the Rahim Research Studio used dynamical/generative
engaging in a relationship of mutual feedback with its users techniques to understand and develop systemic logics that derive
and contexts. In other words it, it must contain ‘affects’ – the qualitative rates of change or velocity and quantitative amounts of change,
capacity both to affect and be affected. Affects differ from such as direction, as well as accumulations and densities of formations.
effects, which, in everyday parlance, imply a one-way direction This interrelational software technology uses vectors of magnitude and
of causality: a cause always precedes its intended effect. Affects, direction that effect and accommodate threshold conditions of decay and
in contrast, suggest a two-way transfer of information and transformation where the geometry of material relations exceeds the capacity
influence between a formation, or work of architecture, and its for Gestalt definition. Some use these systems, or scripting, to map a scientific
users and environment. While all works of architecture arguably approach, or incorporate scientific rigour. The students used these systemic
have effects, certain projects are more prolific than others. The techniques to develop studies of the rate of change and enhance knowledge
Rahim Research Studio is interested in designing affective and understanding of formations. The development of this knowledge
formations – works of architecture that maximise their affects requires iteration, and through this iteration each student developed his or
and hence responsiveness to users and contexts. her own aesthetic sensibility.
Interiority suggests the focus on the creation of affective
formations that unfold and differentiate within the terms 2. Aesthetic Development
of their own internal and perceptual logics. The creation of Each student developed his or her own sensibility for variation using sub-
affects are most clearly pursued by starting with interiors; that division modelling techniques that were incorporated in the dynamical
is, without immediately developing the architecture with an system using scripting techniques. The goal was to use extreme variation
environment and exposing it to external influences such as to produce unprecedented architectural effects that flow from topological
gravity, environment and so on. Perceptual logics assist the way surfaces, and part-to-part as well as part-to-whole arrangements in extreme
one experiences space and form when moving through and variation to produce distinct formal features for interiorities with the
around the interiors. The creation of a series of optical illusions morphological continuity to develop a building. The distinct features – soft
from different angles can be amplified developing a visual to bony, for example – enabled the development of spaces with very disparate
understanding of form that has a non-linear relationship to the and discrete spatial, material and lighting qualities that begin to transform
actual geometry. into each other to maintain morphological continuity. The projects able to
The aim is, then, to reach the level of designed luxury produce the most radical differences with limits within an aesthetic sensibility
found, for instance, in the most excessive Baroque or Rococo were the most successful, the challenge always being to move away from
interiors. The goal is to go beyond all known historical component-based logics (which always produce part-to-part relationships)
precedents in terms of qualitative differentiation and the towards topological continuity that loses each part in the development of
intensity of part-to-part and part- to-whole relationships. an entire project. The aesthetic development is crucial to transferring the
Another way to express this is to say that we are aiming to build emphasis of the design to the affects that it produces.
29
 It is the high degree of variation that
contributes to an environment that is
able to develop the most qualitative
difference in the morphological
continuity of the project.

30
Zongshi Liu (Rahim Research Studio,
University of Pennsylvania), Urban Club,
TriBeCa, New York City, 2009
The topology of the continuous surface
is generated from specific localities and
conditions. Iridescent colours highlight
the geometry of the surface. This changes
depending on light intensity and the
movement of the viewer, thus creating an
affect of sensuality.

3. Project Development and Location

The project was developed simultaneously with the development
of aesthetic and technique. Students channelled and facilitated
the design research towards an urban club located in the New
York neighbourhood of TriBeCa, on Varick Street between N
Moore and Franklin Streets, between existing bars and bar/club
hybrid typologies. The design focuses on a cluster of primary
social rooms: lounge, dining room, library, conference room,
ballroom and den. Intentionally very specific, it synthesises
all of these aspects without losing their intensity to create a
complete architectural experience incorporating form, structure,
material, texture, ornament, colour, transparency/opacity and
light and shadow.

The design research featured here yields interesting knowledge

in terms of how to turn a corner on the interior with material
and the exterior with form, while the variation in colour and
lighting systems, as well as the control of part-to-part and
part-to-whole relationships develop very specific atmospheres in
different locations within each project. The spaces are different
in scale, and the difference is exploited using different material
qualities, whether hard or soft, that are accentuated with colour.
The qualitative difference in each space and project is achieved
through a transformation of spatial scale, material qualities,
part-to-whole relationships, seaming pattern, lighting pattern
and colour accents that at the same time remain morphologically
continuous. It is the high degree of variation that contributes
to an environment that is able to develop the most qualitative
difference in the morphological continuity of the project. 1

Note
1. Interiorities: An Urban Club for New York City was taught simultaneously in
Ali Rahim’s Research Studio at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
and at Studio Hadid (tutors: Ali Rahim and Patrik Schumacher) at the
University of Applied Arts, Vienna.

Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Studio Ali Rahim/University of Pennsylvania

31
Exuberance is about more than appearance. Yael Reisner argues
that it engenders an emotional response. It provides a whole
‘depth-scape’ of expression by offering extensive qualities that go
beyond the merely practical or the required. Exuberance proffers
a full emotional range from the horrific to the sublime, which
requires complexity but also the presence of creative personalities
who lend personal interpretation to the design process.

DIVING INTO
THE DEPTH-SCAPE
EXUBERANCE AND
PERSONALITIES

32
Yael Reisner
Yael Reisner with Lorene Faure, Depth-Scape Interactive
Time-cycled Light & Acoustic installation: Blooming, 2008
A daytime phase of the interactive time-cycled interior
installation when materials, colours and textures are displayed
as they come. The combination of soft and hard materials
brings in the spatial acoustic quality.

33
34
Yael Reisner with Lorene Faure, Yael Reisner with Lorene Faure, Depth- Yael Reisner with Maro Kallimani,
Depth-Scape Interactive Time-cycled Scape Interactive Time-cycled Light & Andy Shaw and Lorene Faure, Depth-
Light & Acoustic installation: Acoustic installation: Light, 2008 Scape Interactive Time-cycled Light &
Manifold Silhouettes, 2008 opposite top right: In its lit phase, Acoustic installation: Dusk, 2007
opposite top left: The silhouetted the depth-scape three-dimensional below: The preferred atmosphere
phase during the day is explored as installation turns from material to would be drawn in by the inhabitant.
an imagery inspired by Caspar David immaterial. The charged silhouetted phase
Friedrich’s painting The Wanderer is explored here in its darkest
Above the Sea of Fog (1818). The appearance.
different phases are controlled by the
inhabitant’s choice of atmosphere.

35
 It is fascinating that what unifies
contemporary exuberant expression in
architecture is its outcome and not the
process, technique or technology. It is
the ‘depth-scape’ appearance.

Yael Reisner with Maro Kallimani, Andy Shaw and Atelier

One, Family House, Tel Aviv, 2004–08
View from under the pergola above the swimming pool
looking east towards the rear facade and garden.

36
The interior ‘light-well-wall’, which works as a bouncing
artificial sky for the Depth-Scape Interactive Timed-cycled
Light & Acoustic installation. Both features together
enhance the sense of interiority of the space.

37
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
rolling their yard-arms in the water. The Indomptable’s fire was
exceedingly steady, but not well directed, while, after ten minutes of
a close fire, it was seen that we were fast shooting her spars out of
her. The frigate, much disabled by the loss of her mast, had fallen off
to leeward, and never got close enough again to be of any
assistance to her consort.
The Ajax’s people began to clamor to get alongside, and
alongside we got. As we neared the Indomptable, occasionally
yawing to prevent being raked, his metal began to tell, and we were
much cut up aloft, besides having been hulled repeatedly; but we
came on steadily. The man at the wheel had nearly all his clothes
torn off him by a splinter, but with the spirit of a true seaman, he
stood at his post unflinchingly, never letting go of the spokes for one
moment. When we were within a couple of pistol-shot, the
Frenchman opened a smart musketry fire. Sir Peter had left the
bridge for a moment and was crossing the deck, when a ball went
through his hat, knocking it off and tearing it to pieces. He stooped
down, picked it up, and then called out to a powder boy who was
passing.
“Go to my cabin, and in the upper drawer of the locker to the left
of my bed-place, you will see two cocked hats; bring me the newest
one. Hanged if I’ll not wear a decent hat, in spite of the Frenchman!”
And this man was ruled by his wife!
We hove to about a cable’s length from the Frenchman, and then
the fight began in earnest. We were so near that every shot told. The
Frenchman made great play with his main-deck battery, and our sails
and rigging soon were so cut up, that when we came foul, a few
minutes later, we were jammed fast; but nobody on either ship
wished it otherwise. The Frenchman’s main-yard swung directly over
our poop, and Captain Guilford himself made it fast to our mizzen
rigging. The Frenchman, however, was not yet beaten at the guns,
and the firing was so heavy on both sides that a pall of smoke
enveloped both ships. This was to our advantage, for the frigate,
having got some sail on the stump of her mizzenmast, now
approached; but the wind drifted the smoke so between her and the
two fighting ships, that she could not in the dim twilight plainly
discern friend from foe, especially as both were painted black, and
we swung together with the sea and wind. When the smoke drifted
off, the gallant but unfortunate Xantippe found herself directly under
our broadside. We gave her one round from our main battery, and
she troubled us no more.
Of my own feelings, I can only say that I welcomed the return of
my courage so rapturously, I felt capable of heroic things.
Occasionally I recognized Sir Peter as he flitted past; he seemed
everywhere at once, and I perceived that although Captain Guilford
was technically fighting the ship, Sir Peter was by no means an idle
spectator. My gun was on the engaged side all the time, and several
of the guns on that side became disabled, and officers were
wounded or killed; it brought Giles Vernon quite close to me.
Through the smoke and the fast-falling darkness, lighted only by the
red flash of the guns and the glare of the battle lanterns, I could see
his face. He never lost his smile, and his ringing voice always led the
cheering.
Presently, the Frenchman’s fire slackened, and then a dull,
rumbling sound was heard in the depths of the Indomptable, followed
by a roar and streams of light from the fore-hatch. The forward
magazine had exploded, and it seemed in the awful crash and blaze
as if all the masts and spars went skyward, with the rags of the sails,
and a solemn hush and silence followed the explosion.
In another instant I heard Sir Peter’s sharp voice shouting,—
“Call all hands to board! Boatswain, cheer the men up with the
pipe!”
And then the clear notes of the boatswain’s pipe floated out into
the darkness, and with a yell the men gathered at the bulwarks. On
the French ship they appeared to be dazed by the explosion, and we
could see only a few officers running about and trying to collect the
men.
In another instant I saw Mr. Buxton leap upon the hammock-
netting, and about to spring, when a figure behind him seized him by
the coattails, and, dragging him backward, he measured his length
on the deck. The figure was Giles Vernon.
“After me,” he cried to the first lieutenant; and the next moment
he made his spring, and landed, the first man on the Indomptable’s
deck.
As soon as the ship was given up, we hauled up our courses and
ran off a little, rove new braces, and made ready to capture the
frigate, which, although badly cut up, showed no disposition to
surrender, and stood gallantly by her consort. In half an hour we
were ready to go into action again, if necessary, with another ship of
the line.
We got within range,—the sea had gone down much,—and
giving the Xantippe our broadside, brought down the tricolor which
the Frenchmen had nailed to the stump of the mizzenmast. She
proved to have on board near a million sterling, which, with the
Indomptable, was the richest prize taken in for years preceding.
The admiral and captain got eleven thousand pounds sterling
each. The senior officers received two thousand five hundred
pounds sterling each. The juniors got two thousand pounds sterling,
the midshipmen and petty officers one thousand five hundred
pounds sterling, and every seaman got seven hundred pounds
sterling, and the landsmen and boys four hundred pounds sterling in
prize-money. And I say it with diffidence, we got much more in glory;
for the two French ships were not only beaten, but beaten in the
most seamanlike manner. Sir Peter ever after kept the anniversary
as his day of glory, putting on the same uniform and cocked hat he
had worn, and going to church, if on shore, with Lady Hawkshaw on
his arm, and giving thanks in a loud voice.
 IV
We took the Xantippe home—the Indomptable went to the bottom
of the Bay of Biscay—but before our prize-money was settled up, we
were off again; Sir Peter dearly loved cruising in blue water. It was
near two years before we got back to England to spend that prize-
money; for, except the captain and Mr. Buxton and some of the
married officers, I know of no one who saved any. Sir Peter, I
understood afterward, spent much of his in a diamond necklace and
tiara for Lady Hawkshaw, in which he was most egregiously cheated
by a Portuguese money-lender, and the balance he put into a
scheme for acclimating elephants in England, which was to make
him as rich as Crœsus; but he lost a thousand pounds on the
venture, besides his prize-money. In those two years I grew more
and more fond of Giles Vernon. We generally contrived to have our
watch together, and we were intimate as only shipmates could be.
He talked much of what he meant to do when he got ashore with
money to spend, and assured me he had never had above twenty
pounds of his own in his life. In the course of many nights spent in
standing watch together, when the old Ajax was sailing like a witch,
—for she was a capital sailer at that time,—he told me much about
his early youth, and I confided to him the story of Betty Green. Giles’
career had been the common one of the younger branches of a good
family. His father had been a clergyman, and, dying, left several
daughters, who married respectably, and this one son, who was put
in the sea-service very young. At that time, several lives stood
between Giles and the title and estates of Sir Thomas Vernon, and
other lives stood between Giles and Overton; but those had passed
away, leaving these two distant kinsmen as heirs to a man that
seemed rightfully to have earned his title of “wicked Sir Thomas.” I
asked Giles if he knew why Sir Thomas, who so cordially hated his
heirs, had never married. Giles replied that Sir Thomas showed no
inclination to marry until he was near forty. Then his reputation was
so well established that he was generally looked askant upon; his
character for truth was bad and at cards was worse. But he had
induced a lady of rank and wealth to become engaged to be married
to him. His treatment of her was so infamous that her whole family
had declared war against him, and had succeeded in breaking off
several very desirable alliances he would have liked to make. Of
course a man of his rank and wealth could find some woman—alas!
—to take him; but Sir Thomas was bent on money, with an inclination
toward rank, and was the last man on earth to marry unless he had a
substantial inducement; and several more years had passed without
his being able to effect the sort of marriage he desired. Meanwhile,
his health had broken down, and he was now a shattered man and
prey for the doctors. All this was very interesting to me, especially as
Sir Thomas’ two heirs would one day have the experience of
shooting at each other, and possibly deciding the matter of heirship
by the elimination of one or the other from the question.
We both got promotion, of course, and that brought us into the
gun-room; but we were as intimate there as in our reefer days in the
cockpit. On a glorious October morning in 1799, our anchor kissed
the ground in Portsmouth harbor.
When we reached Portsmouth, the news of our good fortune had
preceded us, and we were welcomed with open arms by men,
women, and children—especially the women. All the prize-money
brought back by any single ship during the war was insignificant
compared with ours. The men were seized with a kind of madness
for spending their money. The spectacle of an ordinary seaman
parading the streets of Portsmouth with a gold-laced hat, a gold-
headed stick, and watches and jewelry hung all over him was
common enough, and he was sure to be an Ajax man. Sad to say,
the pimps, and the worst class of men and women soon got the
money away from our poor fellows.
The officers, in their way, were but little behind the men in their
lavishness. Champagne was their common drink, and several of
them invested in coaches!—the last thing they would ever have a
chance of using.
 Giles Vernon, although the most wasteful and profuse man I ever
saw, desired to spend his money in London, Portsmouth being too
small a theater for him. But the pressing affair of the satisfaction he
owed Captain Overton had to be settled. After much hard thinking,
Giles came to me on the day after we reached Portsmouth, and said,
—
“Dicky boy, read this letter and give me your opinion of it.”
This was the letter,—
“H.M.S. Ajax, May 17, 1799.
“Captain Philip Overton:
“Dear Sir,—This is to inform you that I have reached
Portsmouth, after a very successful cruise in the Ajax,
when we took the Indomptable and the Xantippe and a
large sum in specie. My shair is considerable—more
money in short than I ever saw, much less handled, in my
life. I would like a month in London to spend this money
before offering my carkass to be made full of holes by you.
Dear sir, consider. If I escape your marksmanship, the
month more or less will be of little account; and if I fall, I
shall miss the finest chance of seeing the world I ever had
in my life. I think, sir, with difidence I say it, that my record
in the Ajax is enough to make plain I am not shurking the
satisfaction I owe you, but I would take it as a personal
favor if you would put it off to this day month, when I will
be in London. And as I shall eat and drink of the best, ’tis
ten to one I will be much fater and therefore be a much
better mark for you. I am, dear sir,
“Your obliged and
“Obedient servant,
“Giles Vernon.”
I pointed out to Giles that, although the tone of the letter was
quite correct, the writing and spelling were scarce up to standard—I
was more bookish than Giles. But he replied with some heat,—
 “Who, while reading the communication of a gentleman, will be
so base as to sneer at the grammar or spelling?” So the letter went
as it was, and in reply came a very handsome, well-expressed letter
from Captain Overton, not only agreeing to postpone it a month, but
for six weeks, which pleased Giles mightily. I wish to say, although
Giles was inexpert with the pen, he had no lack of either polish or
ideas, and was as fine an officer as ever walked the deck.
The matter with Overton finally settled, and the ship being paid
off, Giles and I started for London, as happy as two youngsters could
be, with liberty and two thousand pounds apiece to spend, for I
acknowledge that I had no more thought of saving than Giles. We
took a chaise and four to London—no stage-coach for us!—and
reached there in a day. We had planned to take the finest rooms at
Mivart’s Hotel, but fate and Lady Hawkshaw prevented me from
enjoying them except for the first night of our arrival. Next morning
on presenting myself at the Admiralty to ask for letters,—never
dreaming I should have any,—I received one from Sir Peter
Hawkshaw, which read—
“Grand-nephew.—My Lady Hawkshaw desires that
you will come and bring your money with you to our house
in Berkeley Square, and remain there.
“Yours, etc.,
“P. Hawkshaw,
C.B.”
Great was my distress when I got this letter, as I foresaw there
would not be much chance under Lady Hawkshaw’s eagle eye of
seeing the kind of life I wished to see. And I was obliged to go, for Sir
Peter was the only person on earth likely to interest himself at the
Admiralty for me; and I might stay and wither on shore while others
more fortunate got ships, if I antagonized him. And when Lady
Hawkshaw commanded, there was but one thing to do, and that was
to obey.
So, with a heavy heart, I took myself and my portmanteau and, in
a canvas bag, my two thousand guineas to the admiral’s great fine
house in Berkeley Square. My parting with Giles was melancholy
enough; for, with the womanish jealousy of a boy, I was unhappy to
think he would be enjoying himself with some one else, while I was
suffering the hardship of having my money taken care of for me.
Giles had no more forgotten the Lady Arabella than I had, and,
on reading this note, exclaimed,—
“Zounds! I wish Peter and Polly had sent for me to stay in
Berkeley Square, with that divine creature under the same roof. Do
you think, Dicky, we could exchange identities, so to speak?” But on
my reminding him that Lady Hawkshaw had demanded my prize-
money, and would certainly get it, his ardor to stand in my shoes
somewhat abated.

With her were Daphne and the glorious Lady Arabella. Page 69
 When I reached Sir Peter’s house about noon, the same tall and
insolent footman that I had seen on my first visit opened the door for
me. Lady Hawkshaw, wearing the same black velvet gown and the
identical feathers, received me, and sitting with her were Daphne
Carmichael and the glorious, the beautiful, the enchanting Lady
Arabella Stormont.
If I had fallen madly in love with her when I was but fourteen, and
had only seven and sixpence, one may imagine where I found
myself when I was near seventeen, and had two thousand pounds in
a bag in my hands. Lady Hawkshaw’s greeting was stiff, but far from
unkind; and she introduced me to the young ladies, who curtsied
most beautifully to me, and, I may say, looked at me not unkindly.
“Is that your prize-money in that bag, Richard?” asked Lady
Hawkshaw immediately.
I replied it was.
“Jeames,” she said, “go and make my compliments to Sir Peter,
and say to him that if he has nothing better to do, I would be glad to
see him at once. And order the coach.”
Jeames departed.
I sat in adoring silence, oblivious of Daphne, but gazing at Lady
Arabella until she exclaimed pettishly,—
“La! Have I got a cross-eye or a crooked nose, Mr. Richard, that
you can’t take your eyes off me?”
“You have neither,” I replied gallantly. “And my name is not Mr.
Richard, but Mr. Glyn, at your ladyship’s service.”
“Arabella,” said Lady Hawkshaw in a voice of thunder, “be more
particular in your address to young gentlemen.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” pertly replied Lady Arabella. “But such very
young gentlemen, like Mr. Glyn, or Mr. Thin, or whatever his name
may be, are always difficult to please in the way of address. If you
are familiar, they are affronted; and if you are reserved, they think
you are making game of them.”
 By this speech I discovered that although Lady Hawkshaw might
rule her world, terrorize Sir Peter, and make the Lords of the
Admiralty her humble servitors, she had one rebel in the camp, and
that was Lady Arabella Stormont. I saw that her remarks displeased
Lady Hawkshaw, but she endured them in silence. Who, though,
would not endure anything from that cherub mouth and those
dazzling eyes?
Sir Peter now appeared and greeted me.
“Sir Peter,” said Lady Hawkshaw in her usual authoritative
manner, “you will go in the coach with me to the bank, with Richard
Glyn, to deposit his money. You will be ready in ten minutes, when
the coach will be at the door.”
“I will go with you, Madam,” replied Sir Peter; “but I shall order my
horse, and ride a-horseback, because I do not like riding in that
damned stuffy coach. And besides, when you and your feathers get
in, there is no room for me.”
“You ride a-horseback!” sniffed Lady Hawkshaw. “Even the
grooms and stable boys laugh at you. You are always talking some
sea nonsense about keeping the horse’s head to the wind, and
yawing and luffing and bowsing at the bowline, and what not; and
besides, I am afraid to trust you since Brown Jane threw you in the
Park.”
It ended by Sir Peter’s going in the coach, where the little man lay
back in the corner, nearly smothered by Lady Hawkshaw’s
voluminous robe, and pishing and pshawing the whole way.
But I was quite happy,—albeit I was the victim of Lady Hawkshaw
in having my money kept for me,—for on the seat beside me was
Lady Arabella, who chose to go with us. She made much game of
me, but I had the spirit to answer her back. After placing the money,
we took an airing in the park, and then returned to dinner at five
o’clock. I neither knew nor cared what became of Daphne; for was I
not with the adored Lady Arabella?
That night Lady Hawkshaw was at home, and I had my first
experience of a London rout. The card-tables were set on the lower
floor, for although Lady Hawkshaw hated cards, yet it was commonly
said that no one could entertain company in London without them.
And that night I made a strange and terrible discovery. Lady
Arabella was a gamester of the most desperate character, in ready
money, as far as her allowance as a minor permitted, and in
promises to pay, when she came into her fortune, as far as such
promises would be accepted. But they were not much favored by the
gentlemen and ladies who played with her; for the chances of her
marrying before her majority were so great, that her I O U’s were not
considered of much value, and found few takers, even when
accompanied by Lady Arabella’s most brilliant smiles; for your true
gamester is impervious to smiles or frowns, insensible to beauty—in
short, all his faculties are concentrated on the odd trick.
A great mob of fine people came and there was a supper, and
many wax lights, and all the accessories of a fashionable rout. I
wandered about, knowing no one, but observant of all. I noticed that
a very clever device was hit upon by Lady Arabella and others who
liked high play, which Lady Hawkshaw disliked very much. The
stakes were nominally very small, but in reality they were very large,
shillings actually signifying pounds. All of the people who practised
this were in one of the lower rooms, while Sir Peter, who was
allowed to play six-penny whist, and those who in good faith
observed Lady Hawkshaw’s wishes, were in a room to themselves. I
must not forget to mention, among the notable things at this rout,
Lady Hawkshaw’s turban. It was a construction of feathers, flowers,
beads, and every other species of ornament, the whole capped with
the celebrated tiara which had been bought from the Portuguese,
and the diamond necklace beamed upon her black velvet bosom. Sir
Peter seemed quite enchanted with her appearance, as she loomed
a head taller than any woman in the rooms, and evidently considered
her a combination of Venus and Minerva—not that the pair ceased
squabbling on that account. I think they disagreed violently on every
detail of the party, and Sir Peter was routed at every point.
Among those who did not play was Daphne, then quite as tall as I
and well on into her sixteenth year. I could not but acknowledge her
to be a pretty slip of a girl, and we sat in a corner and I told her about
our bloody doings on the Ajax, until she stopped her ears and
begged me to desist. I regarded Daphne with condescension, then;
but I perceived that she was sharp of wit and nimble of tongue, much
more so than her cousin, Lady Arabella.
After a while I left Daphne and went back to watch Lady Arabella.
I soon saw that she was a very poor player, and lost continually; but
that only whetted her appetite for the game. Presently a gentleman
entered, and, walking about listlessly, although he seemed to be
known to everybody present, approached me. It was Captain
Overton, as handsome, as distrait, as on the first and only time I had
seen him.
Much to my surprise, he recognized me and came up and spoke
to me, making me a very handsome compliment upon the
performances of the Ajax.
“And is my cousin, Mr. Vernon, here to-night?” he asked, smiling.
I replied I supposed not; he had received no card when we had
parted that morning, and I knew of none since.
“I shall be very glad to meet him,” said Overton. “I think him a fine
fellow, in spite of our disagreement. I see you are not playing.”
“I have no taste for play, strange to say.”
“Do not try to acquire it,” he said; “it is wrong, you may depend
upon it; but indulgence in it makes many believe it to be right. Every
time you look at a sin, it gets better looking.”
I was surprised to hear sin mentioned in the society of such
elegant and well-bred sinners as I saw around me, who never
alluded to it, except officially, as it were, on Sunday, when they all
declared themselves miserable sinners—for that occasion only.
Overton then sauntered over toward Lady Arabella, who seemed to
recognize his approach by instinct. She turned to him, her cards in
her hands, and flushed deeply; he gazed at her sternly as if in
reproof, and, after a slight remark or two, moved off, to her evident
chagrin.
Daphne being near me then, I said to her with a forced laugh,—
 “What is the meaning, I beg you to tell me, of the pantomime
between Lady Arabella and Captain Overton?”
Daphne hesitated, and then said,—
“Captain Overton was one of the gayest men about London until
a year or two ago. Since then, it is said, he has turned Methody. It is
believed he goes to Mr. Wesley’s meetings, although he has never
been actually caught there. He lives plainly, and, some say, he gives
his means to the poor; he will not go to the races any more, nor play,
and he does not like to see Arabella play.”
“What has he to do with Arabella?”
“Nothing that I know of, except that she likes him. He does not
like to see any one play now, although he gamed very high himself at
one time.”
I had seen no particular marks of interest on Overton’s part
toward Lady Arabella; but, watching her, I saw, in a very little while,
the deepest sort of interest on her part toward him. She even left the
card-table for him, and kept fast hold of him. I recalled the way she
had striven to attract his attention at the play that night, more than
two years before, and my jealous soul was illuminated with the
knowledge that she was infatuated with Overton—and I was right.
Some time afterward, whom should I see walking in but Giles
Vernon! Lady Hawkshaw received him most graciously. I went up to
him and asked, “How came you here?”
“Did you think, Dicky, that I meant to let you keep up a close
blockade of the lovely Arabella? No, indeed; I got a card at seven
o’clock this evening, by working all day for it, and I mean to
reconnoiter the ground as well as you.”
I thought when he saw Lady Arabella with Overton that even
Giles Vernon’s assurance would scarcely be equal to accosting her.
He marched himself up with all the coolness in the world, claiming
kinship boldly with Overton, who couldn’t forbear smiling, and
immediately began to try for favor in Arabella’s eyes.
 But here I saw what I never did before or since with Giles Vernon
—a woman who was utterly indifferent to him, and actually seemed
to dislike him. She scarcely noticed him at first, and, when he would
not be rebuffed, was so saucy to him that I wondered he stood it for
a minute. But stand it he did, with the evident determination to
conquer her indifference or dislike, whichever it might be.
Overton seized the excuse of Giles’ approach to escape, and left
the house, which did not cause Lady Arabella to like Giles any better.
She returned to the card-table, Giles with her, and, by the exercise of
the most exquisite ingenuity, he managed to lose some money to
her, which somewhat restored her good humor.
At last the rout was over, and, soon after midnight, all had gone. I
was shown to a bedroom, with only a partition wall between me and
Sir Peter and Lady Hawkshaw; so I had the benefit of the nightly
lecture Lady Hawkshaw gave Sir Peter, with the most unfailing
regularity. On this particular night, they came nearer agreeing than
usual, both of them discussing anxiously Lady Arabella’s marked
fondness for play. And Lady Hawkshaw told of a late escapade of
Lady Arabella’s in which a certain ace of clubs was played by her;
the said ace of clubs being fashioned out of black court-plaster and
white cardboard. When detected, Lady Arabella professed to think
the whole thing a joke, but as her adversary at the time was a very
old lady whose eyesight was notoriously defective, it took all of Lady
Arabella’s wit and youth to carry it off successfully, which, however,
she did. As for her trinkets, Lady Arabella was always buying them,
and always taking a distaste to them, so she alleged, and Lady
Hawkshaw suspected they took the place of shillings at the card-
table. Sir Peter groaned at this, and remarked that the earl, her
father, was the worst gamester he ever knew, except her
grandfather. I do not remember any more. I tried to avoid hearing
what they were saying, but every word was distinctly audible to me,
until, at this point, I fell asleep and dreamed that Lady Hawkshaw
was appointed to command the Ajax, and I was to report on board
next day.
 V
I spent several weeks in Sir Peter’s house, and strange weeks
they were in many respects. I never had the least complaint to make
of the kindness of Sir Peter or Lady Hawkshaw, except that Lady
Hawkshaw insisted on investing my money, all except ten pounds
which she gave me, charging me to be careful with it; but Sir Peter
secretly lent me a considerable sum, to be repaid at my majority.
Sir Peter was actively at war with all the women-folk in the
household, from his lady down, except little Daphne. He assumed to
conduct everything in a large town house in Berkeley Square exactly
as if he were on the Ajax, seventy-four. He desired to have the lazy
London servants called promptly at two bells, five o’clock in the
morning, and to put them to holystoning, squilgeeing, and swabbing
off the decks, as he called it. Of course the servants rebelled, and Sir
Peter denounced them as mutineers, and would have dearly liked to
put them all in double irons. He divided the scullions and
chambermaids into watches, and when they laughed in his face,
threatened them with the articles of war. He wished everything in the
house stowed away in the least compass possible, and when Lady
Hawkshaw had her routs, Sir Peter, watch in hand, superintended
the removal of the furniture from the reception-rooms, which he
called clearing for action, and discharged any servant who was not
smart at his duty. He had a room, which he called his study, fitted up
with all the odds and ends he had collected during forty years in the
navy, and here he held what might be called drumhead courts-
martial, and disrated the domestic staff, fined them, swore at them,
and bitterly regretted that the land law did not admit of any proper
discipline whatever.
It may be imagined what a scene of discord this created,
although Sir Peter was of so kind and generous a nature that the
servants took more from him than from most masters, and, indeed,
rather diverted themselves with his fines and punishments, and,
when dismissed, declined to leave his service, much to his wrath and
chagrin. The acme was reached when he attempted to put the cook
in the brig, as he called a dank cellar which he determined to utilize
for mutineers, as on board ship. The cook, a huge creature three
times as big as Sir Peter, boarded him in his own particular den, and,
brandishing a rolling-pin that was quite as dangerous as a cutlass,
announced that she would no longer submit to be governed by the
articles of war, as administered by Sir Peter. She was sustained by a
vociferous chorus of housemaids and kitchen girls who flocked
behind her, the men rather choosing to remain in the background
and grinning. Sad to say, Admiral Sir Peter Hawkshaw, C.B., was
conquered by the virago with the rolling-pin, and was forced to
surrender to the mutineers, which he did with a very bad grace. At
that juncture Lady Hawkshaw hove in sight, and, bearing down upon
the company from below stairs, dispersed them all with one wave of
her hand. Sir Peter complained bitterly, and Lady Hawkshaw
promised to bring them to summary punishment. But she warned Sir
Peter that his methods were becoming as intolerable to her as to the
rest of the family, and Sir Peter, after a round or two for the honor of
his flag, hauled down his colors. This became especially necessary,
as his retirement was at hand, consequent more upon an obstinate
rheumatism that fixed itself upon him than his age. There was doubt
whether he would get the K.C.B., which he certainly well deserved,
on his retirement; there was some sort of hitch about it, although,
after the capture of the two French ships, he had been promoted to
the office of admiral. Lady Hawkshaw, however, went down to the
Admiralty in a coach with six horses and three footmen and four
outriders, and, marching in upon the First Lord, opened fire on him,
with the result that Sir Peter was gazetted K.C.B. the very next week.
Little Daphne, who had always submitted to Sir Peter’s whims,
did so more than ever after he had been vanquished by the cook;
and Sir Peter swore, twenty times a week, that Daphne had the stuff
in her to make a sea-officer of the first order.
My infatuation for Lady Arabella continued: but I can not say she
ever showed me the least mark of favor. But that she did to no one
except Overton, and I soon knew what everybody in the town knew,
that she was desperately smitten with him, and would have
bestowed herself and her fortune upon him at any moment, if he
would but accept it. As for Giles Vernon, she showed him what no
other woman ever did,—a coolness at first, that deepened into
something like active hatred. She knew he stood between Overton
and the heirship to the Vernon estates, and that was enough to make
her dislike him. She often remarked upon his want of good looks,
and she was the only woman I ever knew to do it. Yet Giles was
undeniably hard-featured, and, except a good figure, had nothing in
his person to recommend him. I had thought that pride would have
kept Giles from paying court to a person so inimical to him; but pride
was the excuse he gave for still pursuing her. He declared he had
never, no, never, been flouted by a woman, and that Lady Arabella
should yet come at his call. This I believed at the time to be mere
bravado. He was enchanted by her, that was the truth, and could no
more leave her than the moth can leave the candle.
I saw much of Daphne in those days, chiefly because I could see
so little of Lady Arabella, who led a life of singular independence,
little restrained by the authority of Lady Hawkshaw, and none at all
by Sir Peter. Daphne was fond of books, and commonly went about
with one under her arm. I, too, was inclined to be bookish; and so
there was something in common between us. She was keener of wit
than any one in that house; and I soon learned to take delight in her
conversation, in Lady Arabella’s absence. My love for the Lady
Arabella was, I admit, the fond fancy of a boy; while Giles Vernon’s
was the mad infatuation of a man.
Giles was much with us at that time; and I acknowledge I had
great benefit from the spending of his prize-money—or rather, I
should say, much enjoyment. He laid it out right royally, asked the
price of nothing, and, for the time he was in London, footed it with
the best of them. His lineage and his heirship to Sir Thomas Vernon
gave him entrance anywhere; and his wit and courage made his
place secure. Shortly after we arrived, Sir Thomas Vernon also
arrived at his house in Grosvenor Square. We were bound to meet
him, for Giles went much into gay society, as I did, in the train of
Lady Hawkshaw. The first time this occurred was at a drum at her
Grace of Auchester’s, where all of London was assembled. Even
Overton, who was rarely seen in drawing-rooms, was there. Giles, of
course, was there; her Grace had fallen in love with him, as women
usually did, the first time she met him.
It was a great house for play; and when we arrived, we found the
whole suite of splendid apartments on the lower floor prepared for
cards.
There was the usual crush and clamor of a fine London party;
and I, being young and unsophisticated, enjoyed it, as did Daphne.
Names were bawled out at the head of the stairs, but could not be
distinguished over the roar of voices. I happened to be near the door,
with Giles, Lady Arabella being near by, when I heard the name of
Sir Thomas Vernon shouted out, as he entered.
He was a man of middle size, and was between forty and fifty
years of age. He might once have been handsome; but the ravages
of an evil nature and a broken constitution were plainly visible in his
countenance. I observed that, as he stood, glancing about him
before making his devoirs to the Duchess of Auchester, no one
spoke to him, or seemed disposed to recognize him. This only
brought a sardonic grin to his countenance. He advanced, and was
civilly, though not cordially, received by her Grace. At that moment,
Giles approached, and spoke to her, and the change in the great
lady’s manner showed the favor in which she held him. Sir Thomas
scowled upon Giles, but bowed slightly; and Giles returned the look
by a steady glance, and this stinging remark:
“Good evening, Sir Thomas. You look very ill. Is your health as
desperate as I heard it was two years ago?”
A titter went around at this, and Giles moved off, smiling. Sir
Thomas was unpopular, there could be no doubt about that.
Presently Sir Thomas caught sight of Lady Arabella, and, as
usual, he was instantly struck by her exquisite beauty. He succeeded
in being presented to her, and I noted that she received him with
affability.
 About midnight the company broke up, and our party made a
move to go, but Lady Arabella announced that she had been invited
by her Grace of Auchester to stay the night, and she wished to do
so. Neither Sir Peter nor Lady Hawkshaw perfectly approved; but
Lady Arabella carried her point, with the assistance of the duchess.
At the last moment, her Grace—a fine woman—approached me, and
said confidentially,—
“Mr. Wynne,—Glyn, I mean,—will you not remain, and share a
game with a choice collection of players?”
I was flattered at being asked; and besides, I wanted to see how
these great London ladies acted at such play, so I accepted. But it
was another thing to get away from Lady Hawkshaw. However, I
managed to elude her, by giving a shilling to a footman, who shoved
me into a little closet, and then went and told Lady Hawkshaw I had
gone home in a coach with a gentleman who had been taken ill, and
had left word for them to go without me. This pacified her, and she
and Sir Peter and Daphne went away with the crowd. There were left
about twenty persons, who, after a little supper, and general
expressions of relief at the departure of the other guests, sat down to
play, at one in the morning. There was a cabinet minister, also a
political parson, two peers of the realm, several officers of the
Guards, Giles Vernon, and your humble servant. The ladies were
mostly old,—Lady Arabella was the youngest of them all,—but all
very great in rank.
I had wanted to see London ladies play—and I saw them. Jack,
with his greasy cards, in the forecastle, laying his month’s wages,
was a child to them. And how they watched one another, and
quarreled and fought!
No one among them played so eagerly as Lady Arabella; and
very badly, as usual, so that she managed to lose all her money. She
was ever a bad player, with all her passion for play. Her last guinea
went; and then, determined not to be balked, she rose and said,
laughing,—
“I have on a new white satin petticoat, with lace that cost three
guineas the yard. It is very fit for waistcoats. No gentleman will be so
ungallant as to refuse my petticoat as a stake.”
Of course, they all applauded; and Lady Arabella, retiring behind
a screen, emerged with her satin petticoat—how it shone and
shimmered!—in her hand. And in five minutes, she had lost it to
Giles Vernon!
There was much laughter, but Giles, gravely folding it up, laid it
aside; and when we departed, in the gray light of dawn, he carried it
off under his arm.
As for me, I had lost all the money I had with me, and had given
my I O U for three hundred pounds.
Next day Lady Arabella was dropped in Berkeley Square by her
Grace of Auchester. It was in the afternoon, and I was sitting in the
Chinese room with Lady Hawkshaw and Daphne when Lady
Arabella appeared.
“Well, Dicky,” she said,—a very offensive mode of addressing
me,—“how do you stand your losses at play?” And, as I am a sinner,
she plumped out the whole story of my play to Lady Hawkshaw and
Daphne. As an officer and a gentleman, I scorned to retaliate by
telling of the white satin petticoat. But vengeance was at hand. Just
as she had finished, when Lady Hawkshaw was swelling with rage,
like a toad, before opening her main batteries on me, and Daphne’s
fair eyes were full of contempt for me, we heard a commotion
outside. None of us could keep from going to the window, and the
sight we saw threw Lady Arabella into a perfect tempest of angry
tears.
A fife and drum were advancing up the street, playing with great
vigor the old tune known as “Petticoats Loose.” Behind them
marched, with the deepest gravity, a couple of marines, bearing aloft
on their muskets a glittering shimmering thing that fluttered whitely in
the air. It was Lady Arabella’s satin petticoat; and, halting before the
door, the drum, with a great flourish, pounded the knocker. On the
porter’s responding, the two marines handed the petticoat in with
ceremony to him, directing him to convey it to the Lady Arabella
Stormont, with the compliments of Lieutenant Giles Vernon of his
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookfinal.com