isparchitecture.com This volume of Architecture Philosophy derives from the 4th biennial conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture held for two days at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado in July, 2018. The conference theme “Building as Service: People, Politics, and Governance,” and the three keynote speakers, attracted a wide variety of papers including presentations on state architecture, representations of power, and symbols of politics from 30 additional presenters. The papers also ranged geographically: case studies from architecture in Nazi Germany to informal cities in South America were presented. One of the chief attractions for conferees was the opportunity to explore the grounds of U.S. Air Force Academy: itself one of the 20th century’s distinguished achievements in state architecture. The Academy is notable for coherence and completeness as an exemplar of International Modernist style. Its lead architect, Walter Netsch, and his firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, were at the forefront of this movement. Netsch’s vision was built almost entirely as he intended and it was finished in less than 10 years: the Academy was created on April 1, 1954 and the last building of the initial plan; the celebrated Academy Chapel, was completed in 1962. Amazingly, the Academy still functions largely in accordance with its original design plan, thus Netsch’s vision, together with the Air Force’s intent for the campus, continues to inform the life of the institution today—some Modernism, theyargue, poses special challenges to accepted historic preservation values “ ” editorial: BUIlDING as service Mark Jensen & tom spector AP . vol 5 . No 1 . 2020 6 Ed it or ia l 60 years later. In addition to exploring the buildings themselves, visitors observed the ways in which cadets, faculty, and other personnel pursue their institutional objectives in concert with the supporting architecture. Conferees were treated with a tour of the campus led by the Air Force Academy’s resident architect, Duane Boyle, who knew Netsch personally (Netsch died in 2008) and who shared details of both the architect’s thinking and intent in designing the campus. The conference was convened in the newest addition to the Air Force Academy, Polaris Hall which opened in 2016, also designed, like the rest of the main campus, by SOM. Polaris Hall houses both the Academy’s Center for Character and Leadership Development and serves as a conference center just outside the secure boundaries of the “cadet area,” where cadets live and learn and train. Its signature element is its skylight tower, which telescopes toward the pole star. The conference opened with a keynote from one of Polaris Hall’s lead architects, Frank Mahan, whose contribution, fittingly, opens this volume of Architecture Philosophy. In their piece, “The Future of Modernism,” Frank Mahan and collaborator Van Kluytenaar discuss the architectural challenge of restoration in the context of restoring modernist buildings. Modernism, they argue, poses special challenges to accepted historic preservation values according primacy to a building’s “literal materiality,” first theorized by Ruskin and Morris, when a modern building is more driven by the “fathomless depths of its concept,” better served by the idealistic preservation values of Viollet-le-duc. Drawing on the resources of Merleau-Ponty, they argue that plans for restoration and reuse must be recognizably continuous with the narrative behind the building or else risk losing important, albeit less material, qualities that make the building what it is. They illustrate this theory with a discussion of three case studies: Lever House, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and Polaris Hall itself. It will not be lost on conference participants that these exact issues are at stake in the restoration of Cadet Chapel. In his piece, “Design-Politics: How Buildings Mean,” the conference’s final keynote Lawrence Vale develops a set of distinctions first proposed by Nelson Goodman to examine the gap between what a building means and how it communicates its meaning to its audience. Through a series of case studies, Vale undercuts the possibility of a simple relationship between the meaning of a building and what it communicates. He points out that notable historic events, digital media, and temporary installations add layers to what it communicates that are not directly mappable to the meaning of the building itself. This recognition leads him to conclude that contemporary design cannot hope to slide underneath the political 7 isparchitecture.com dimensions of life: public buildings are not just neutral backdrops for political contests but actually part of the contests themselves. In the next essay in this volume, “Koolhaas’ Revision of Foucault’s Panopticon,” André Patrão explores the relationship between the disciplines of architecture and philosophy through Koolhaas’ apparent, yet denied, appropriation of Foucault’s philosophy in his proposal for a renovated panopticon prison. The panopticon, originally designed by Jeremy Bentham, is a prison in which the cells are arranged around a central guardhouse such that the prisoners are always under the impression that they are being watched, even though the guards themselves are unobserved, e.g., by means of one-way glass. Foucault uses the panopticon as a metaphor for the destructive power of the feeling of constant surveillance. Koolhaas, on the other hand, is faced with a real opportunity to renovate an actual panopticon prison. He proposes to eliminate the central guard tower and makes other changes that will contribute to the humanization of the prisoners inside. It would seem that Foucault must have had an influence on Koolhaas, but as Patrão argues, the genealogy is not straightforward. Foucault is never mentioned by Koolhaas in connection with the proposal and yet its aims are consistent with a serious appreciation of Foucault’s widely disseminated critique. Patrão employs this case to examine the question: Can we, should we, to what degree and for what end assert intellectual influence when ideas are “in the air”? Rick Fox’s “Useless Speculation: Architectural Obsolescence and the Micro-Parcels of Gordon Matta-Clark’s Fake Estates,” uses the work of artist Gordon Matta-Clark to draw attention to the situatedness of buildings inside a public geography that may be marked by disorganization, confusion, and incoherence. In the 1970s, Matta- Clark acquired 15 very small parcels of land in New York City at public auction. That these parcels even Vale undercuts the possibility of a simple relationship between the meaning of a building and what it communicates “ ” AP . vol 5 . No 1 . 2020 8 Ed it or ia l existed was an indication of errors in surveying, zone, and land contracts. Some of these parcels were completely surrounded by private property and hence inaccessible to the owner without the permission of an adjacent property owner. While Matta-Clark never constructed an art installation around his land parcels, Fox reconstructs the underlying critical perspective Fake Estates intended to make about the waste and obsolescence endemic to contemporary architecture and city planning. In our final essay, “Constructing a Common World: Architectural Craftsmanship and Public Responsibility,” Hans Teerds reconfigures Hannah Arendt’s distinction between work and action for the architectural enterprise. For Arendt, work is the act of building something; action is civic and political engagement. Yet contemporary trends in architectural production towards the seeming objectivity provided by machines and algorythms tend to place the architect at an increasing remove from both. True engagement, he contends, must be found in subjectivity. While work is the natural home for architectural activity, Teerds argues that architects must be attentive to action as well, insofar as action takes place in the context of the buildings that architects design. Drawing upon the phenomenological tradition, Teerds describes the interplay between the design and craftsmanship of the architect in the world of work and the contested and deliberative environment of action. Architects today must design and construct in partnership with their clients and stakeholders—a community that, in the world of action, may not be coherent. In this way, the judgment and work of the architect today is inescapably political. Our volume concludes with a review by Mark Jensen of Timothy Hyde’s new book, Ugliness and Judgment: On Architecture in the Public Eye. Hyde’s book provides both a delightful and frustrating tour through hundreds of years of British architecture, city planning, and the public and political responses to the series of poor design choices and ugly buildings that these architects and planners have produced. Unfortunately for the philosophical reader, Hyde does not supply an analysis of ugliness that might be of use to architects and planners alike in order to avoid despoiling the urban landscape. We hope that, in this volume of Architecture Philosophy, you will find the variety, nuance, novelty, and interest that we have all come to expect at the intersection of architecture, design, philosophy, and politics. The next biennial conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture will be held in Monte Verita Switzerland. We hope to see you there! 9 isparchitecture.com AIR FORCE ACADEMY CADET CHAPEL, 2018 AP . vol 5 . No 1 . 2020 10 Ed it or ia l