Introduction
The question of gesture is seminal. It is fundamental, inasmuch as human behaviour and argument insist on it. It is persistent, in so far as we use gesture in context, be it in direct action or metaphor. It forms part of our ontological inquiry, in the sense that it holds an important place in the process of the construction of meaning. It is ever-present, albeit cryptic, given that gesture lies ubiquitous in both action and narrative. In very similar terms, gesture is very much present in the architectural discourse through textual references in academic essays and in the relevant press. While this domain constitutes a much less epistemologically structured approach,1 it nevertheless reveals the important role that the term plays in the general understanding of architecture. On that level, gesture can be found as a prevailing narrative,2 ranging from a simple figure of speech3 to accepted terminology,4 and extend even to a fetish.5 As such, it can also be applied to elements or actions carrying a trace, such as a symbolic hand gesture,6 a sketch conveying an architectural idea,7 or a building that is considered to “gesture”8 to another. In most of these cases, gesture is usually connected with the notion of a fundamental condition, for example being testament to a certain fundamental truth9 or connected with a certain power of expression.10 While this domain is largely open-ended, we cannot ignore that there is an abundance of mentions of the term, which we will attempt to address here by focusing on the specific case study of the Centre Beaubourg. In this regard, we will consider gesture solely in its role as a mediator between an architectural concept and the practice of architecture within society, leaving attempts to a more complex and wider theoretical framework for other occasions. 11 It is important, however, that the reader considers first a general shift in perspective; namely, that before looking to define “a gesture” by its characteristics as an object, one should consider that gesture in general tends to take an active position in the discourse by nominating the subjects of a collective, that is, by assigning identities to those who partake in the discourse around it. In this context “gesture” weaves the collective, assuming therefore a quasi-active role12 as a mediator between the practice of architecture and society (including culture and power).
What is a gesture, then? In terms of framing our argument, the study of gesture per se ranges from a deliberate expression of rhetoric 13 to a spontaneous utterance of thought.14 The case is no different with architecture, where mentions of gesture can be found either in the everyday language of architecture15 or within the activity connected to the field.16 The study of gesture ranges accordingly, to encompass a similar level of diversity; Noam Andrews,17 for instance, examines the aspect of gesture in the hand drawings of Classicism from the Renaissance onwards, and proposes it as a conduit of corporeality and a sign of the “autoritas” of the architect, at the same time that Visser and Maher18 examine it as an actual cognitive activity, studying the communication patterns in architectural design meetings. Moving to the actual building, Ákos Moravánszky deems it appropriate to present us with the notion of a “grand gesture”19 connected to the kind of expressionist architecture that prevailed during the 60s–70s in the socialist nations. In this case “gesture” refers to a certain abstract formal mannerism that prevailed against the symbolist tradition of the classicist monuments – the latter being representative of an era that the new regime aimed to supersede. In this occasion, “gesture” is attached to the “acrobatic” quality of the new style, showcasing the communicative power of architecture as it carries the grandiose expression of political will, but also, as it stands for the desire of the architects to submit the laws of nature to their own formalistic explorations.
Along the same line, one of the most unapologetically ubiquitous expressions that carry the notion of a “gesture” into the discourse about architecture can be found in the French phrase “le geste architectural.” Taken literally, it actually translates into “an architectural gesture.”20 nevertheless, in the context of the French culture it is not so much a reference to formal expressiveness, but rather a reference to the core idea or principle of an architectural project – the parti. Hence, the “geste architectural” represents a condensed capacity of expression as a sort of design “event” that sums up the principal quality of a building in a single instance. More interestingly though, once gesture takes the form of an act, it is also often understood as a feat or an exploit.21 This is a meaning that largely originates from the word’s medieval roots,22 and through which the phrase “geste architectural” is seen as implicitly bound to an act of architecture that serves as an expression of power, for example by a prevailing elite, either architectural or political.23 All of these instances – as we shall see later on – play a major role in the case of the competition for the Centre Beaubourg.24
The Competition of the Centre Beaubourg
Architecture, always in need of an “Archē-” – a beginning,25 can potentially fetishize “gesture”, sometimes to the extent of compulsive fixation. This aspect was portrayed explicitly in the case of the Competition for the Centre Beaubourg,26 where the laureate scheme was famously attacked by a group of disenfranchised architects self-proclaimed as “L’Association du Geste Architectural,” specifically for lacking the truth which “le geste” stood for. At the same time, the very constitutional philosophy and political will behind the scheme saw in “gesture” quite the opposite: “le geste architectural” was deemed the very carrier of banality that the Centre should aspire to escape at all costs. Thus, a fiery debate arose between the advocates of the latter and the “association” – and especially their president, André Bergerioux – over the architectural quality (or lack thereof) that the competition advocated. In a public communication to the “Nouvel Observateur,”27 Bergerioux promoted the significance of the “geste architectural” as he supported the group’s intention to fight the good fight:
The “geste architectural” conveys the logic and the sentiments of the architect through a trace in space. It gives the project its character. A project lacking such a gesture is not a work of architecture.28
And he continued29 in protest,
We must consider that it is for the worst reasons in the world that citizens of all professions and all social backgrounds have assembled into one association, so called the “Geste Architectural”, out of their concern before an official body confessing its allergy for architectural gestures and placing its only confidence on the technique and the programming30 intended to create the mold for the robot-human of the age 2000. Must we have a man adapt to [such a] progress, founded on the “golden calf” of the economic process of production and consumption? Must we also enslave man to the machine in order to serve this ideal, protecting [thus] th[is kind of] architectural pollution?31
In these few lines, Bergerioux sets the “truth” of gesture against a machinist future where culture is meant to be consumed rather than created, and thus de-humanized in view of its capacity to be capitalized by the prevailing powers.
Nevertheless, as we mentioned earlier, the circumstances around the Competition for the Centre Beaubourg made it hardly a simple incident of dispute. Critically attached to its patron, President Georges Pompidou, the project was first and foremost a reformist venture, meant to attack established preconceptions about the role of culture in French society, the function of an institution, and, by extension, the architectural quality of a building. Most importantly, it was meant to be Pompidou’s answer to a battle between two prevailing impressions of culture: a conservative one, serving the elitist tastes of the past and the “historic greatness” of France, and a progressive one, promoting fiercely a reform through which cultural heritage was meant to be created anew, and diffused democratically to the widest possible audience.32
In regard to the building itself, a series of steps was taken to emphasize the avant-garde nature of the scheme. For one, it was the unprecedented nature of its program, aiming to substitute the traditional museum with a contemporary building equal to or better than its international counterparts, reflecting the values of multidisciplinarity, plasticity, and the dissemination of culture. Under this brief, the Centre was intended to shelter not one but multiple cultural functions under the same roof: a public library, the “National Museum of Contemporary Art” (Musée National d’Art Moderne – MNAM), and the “Center of Industrial Creation” (Centre de Création Industrielle – CCI), with the later addition of the “Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music” (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/ musique – IRCAM).33 The very modern notion of programming 34 became central to the organizing committee led by Sébastien Loste and 30-year-old François Lombard, which was appointed to develop the scheme under a new, systems-driven approach. Constant to the narrative of integrity and democratization, this program was famously developed in continuous consultation with a group of “utilisateurs,” comprised of the future directors of the institutions who were going to be posted in the Centre once it was finished35 – a consultation that was going to be maintained even after the laureate project was announced, and until the final realization of the building.
Finally, with regard to assigning an architect for the project, Georges Pompidou had opted to hold an international ideas competition instead of a direct commission. According to Laurent Fleury, Pompidou had done this for the same reasons: to signal the rationality and the democratization of the process by opening access to an international scene, as well as to young and unknown architects, safeguarding it at the same time from the arbitrariness of his presidential powers.36 Substituting for a single and undisputed authority, a Jury was assembled, composed of figures of international stature, “mediating between the political leadership (with which they had personal relations) and the world of creators.”37 These were architects Philip Johnson and Oscar Niemeyer; architect Emile Aillaud, well renowned for his work with social housing in the périphérie; Frank Francis, director of the British Museum; Michel Laclotte, director of the department of paintings at the Louvre; William Sandberg, former director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; and Herman Liebhaers,38 director of the Royal Library in Belgium and Gaétan Picon Professor of Philosophy, literary critic, and former director of Arts and Letters at the Department of Cultural Affairs. The position of the chair was awarded by election to Jean Prouvé, an engineer by training but widely accepted for a career which exemplified “a fusion of Arts and the Industry.”39 True to President Pompidou’s reformist agenda, this Jury not only consisted of people of gravitas, but also of figures who were attached to similarly progressive schemes from around the world.40 And, of course, the selection of Jean Prouvé – whose adherence to the technical qualities of an œuvre was well renowned – must have signalled an alarm call to all those who cherished the aestheticized values of the old masters.
Far from assigning the building directly to a “maître” architect, these directive lines “forged the base for the ‘esprit Beaubourg’”41 as a more universally reformist scheme, which ultimately “opposed [italics mine] (…) the singular ‘geste architecturale’ so dear to the formalist school.”42 According to the recollection of Herman Liebhaers, Jean Prouvé expressed openly this position as he addressed the Jury: “Messieurs, j’espère que nous sommes tous d’accord pour éviter le geste architectural” (Gentlemen, I hope we are in agreement to avoid the architectural gesture).43 Under these circumstances, the building was partly created as a battleground between a formalist agenda and the new avant-garde, a battle already taking place in France with the ‘utopian’ visions of the 60s and the 70s.44 With a Jury set outright to fight against the perils of banality,45 chances would be bleak for the “[f]ifty projects – that is to say a strong enough minority46 – [which] were characterized by an aggressive search of geometric shapes or provocative sculptures aimed for the spectacular, the dramatic or the majestic.”47 Although the Jury almost always immediately eliminated – and always in unanimity – “these spheres and these cubes, these conical trunks and these cylinders, these pyramids, reversed or not, these giant ovoid forms, regardless of whether they were, overall, perfectly constructible”, this was not meant as an opposition to any solution that was expressed by simple geometric elements, “as the choice of some of the laureate projects, including the winner, testify,”48 but rather against the perils of gratuitous monumentality. The Jury famously asserted
[that] if the freedom of the architectural forms must be encouraged, this freedom cannot be simply formal; that a “monument” which would have no other function than to express an architectural “gesture” is vain; that emphasis is eloquence and that art for art’s sake can be the opposite of the art.49
In this spirit of progressiveness, “gesture” became once again a token concerning which a fight was meant to be fought, even though this time it stood for a negative connotation.
Interestingly enough, such an – almost literal – gesture-of-a-building was submitted by Bergerioux,50 who proposed to build the Centre in the shape of an open hand (!), elevated over a rectangular base. Functionally, the project consisted of three zones: the underground level which would serve mostly for auxiliary functions, including parking and access to the metro; the ground level, assigned as a public access area and a promenade, hosting also the permanent and temporary galleries, the library, “public meeting spaces” including a cinema theatre, a dance hall, and multi-purpose halls; and finally the “hand,” conceived as a Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which would encompass “painting”, “sculpture”, and “design”, under one roof. The hand was supported on four oversized cylindrical pilotis which also doubled as access areas. This sculpture-building51 was not merely meant to act as a “symbol of unity” between the different functions of the Centre, but also to act as testament to the overarching authority of “an idea” over the trivial aspects of the program. The principles of Bergerioux’s proposal were described on a quite telling “Exposé” attached by requirement to the submission:
To design a cultural center is, without doubt, to meet with certain material requirements but it’s mostly about putting matter in the service of an idea. (…)
More than a mere building, this project wants to be a monument. If the general shape of the central element is reminiscent of a hand, it is (…) because of its symbolic value – since probably all creation must pass through it – but also because of its sculptural beauty. What other form could better translate the unison between the multiple forms of creation?
But a symbol can be cold. It must be animated. It is the trees and plants, integrated to the architecture and the works of artists, that give life to the center. (…)
A sculpture above the water, on a base of greenery; suchis the answer that the matter gives to the question posed by the philosophy of the centre Beaubourg.52
This overwhelming iconicity obviously bears strong resemblance – if not testament – to the proposal for an Open Hand monument in Chandigarh, India, by Le Corbusier.53 One can be tempted to an enticing correlation with Bergerioux’s proposal, if only for the idealism attached to the project, but also on the grounds of the strong resemblance of the building’s shape and layout to the monument. In fact, the principal logic seems to be entirely corresponding: the overarching icon of an open hand, standing on a column, overarching a plateau where people will assemble in unity.
It is most likely that Bergerioux may have been influenced by the Maître on the occasion of the competition.54 Le Corbusier himself was prone to a certain tendency towards obscure iconographic references in his later career, for example as manifested in the chapel at Ronchamp (1950–54), among which the hand of Chandigarh is a notable example; therefore it would be enticing to assume that his ‘school of thought’ had carried over. In the same context, it is also interesting to consider the atmosphere charged by the maître’s recent death (1965), combined with the posthumous publication of his Mise au Point (1966) – a book largely written in an emotional language which had presented the Open Hand monument as carrying the culmination of his personal obsession with the theme55 at the same time that it described the maître’s futile battle to fund the scheme.56 Finally, we can also take into account that it was Le Corbusier who was originally entrusted with the idea of a “Museum for the Art of the 20th century” in Paris, out of which had spawned the project for the Centre Beaubourg, and that it was in fact Le Corbusier himself who had publicly advocated the integration of the new complex “in the heart of the city”,57 not long before his death. Overall, the monument in Chandigarh offered exceptional parallels to the case of the Centre Beaubourg because it was also proposed for an already contextually charged space,58 and also because it was meant to transcend the general programmatic aspirations of the new capital through the power of its symbolism.59
However, contrary to the – potentially – sentimentalist aspirations of Bergerioux and the like, Centre Beaubourg was never meant to pay tribute to the old masters.60 On the contrary, it was intended to express a generation which had manifested itself abruptly in May ’68 and had decided to do away with anything connected with a conservative and elitist past.61 This new utopianism had found a perfect ally in the progressive narrative of President Pompidou, underlined by the way it was carried by the technical committee and served faithfully – if not enthusiastically – by the Jury. The President explained his reasons in an interview with Le Monde: “I am baffled by the conservative character of the French taste, particularly of those considered as ‘the elite’, [and] scandalized by the politics of the Public State on the subject of art for over a century; this is why I am looking to react, [albeit] with limited success”.62 When asked about the dimension of conflict between novelty and patrimony,63 Pompidou pointed to a truly Modern monument64 in no uncertain terms:
The question is not new! You are aware of the verse of Baudelaire:
Le vieux Paris n’est plus, la forme d’une ville
Change plus vite, hélas! que le cœur d’un mortel.65
We can’t stay fixed in the past. Paris is not a dead city; it is not a museum to maintain. The builders – from Louis XIV to Haussmann – destroyed much more than they built. The Roman Middle Age has built its churches, [and] Renaissance its palaces, with the stones of ancient monuments. I do not consider this as a model to follow – far from it. (…) But we act on the principle that we must accept novelty, and simply try to search what makes it beautiful and not a copy of the past.66
It is evident in these lines that Pompidou considers it an imperative to act personally, and take it upon himself to safeguard the vision of a contemporary version of culture. This is the point where the project becomes a personal feat: for something so connected with narratives of impartiality, democratisation, and a radical break with the past, we see that it still takes a single man’s vision to achieve what would otherwise be buried in endless conversations on value, aesthetic quality, administration, politics, etc. This aspect is highlighted in almost every piece of literature concerning the creation of the Centre, ranging from positive accounts of the President’s involvement67 to the graphic characterisations, such as “the Pompidoleum”68 and the related caricatures in the press.69 But it is the apostrophe of Claude Mollard, which sums this “geste politique” – an administration (“gestion”) as well as an achievement of personal will (“geste”) – most concisely: “A l’origine d’un acte architectural, surtout s’il s’agit d’une institution de grandes dimensions, il y a nécessairement la décision d’un pouvoir, voire même d’une personne.”70 As the President used to say jokingly, “[sometimes] you [just] have to shout!”71
Conclusion: taking “gesture” for what it does
As we saw in the case study of the Centre Beaubourg, “gesture” seems to take multiple values at once, both positive and negative. In this regard it is fundamentally difficult to agree on what gesture is, unless we are prepared to pick a side and defend our position. Nevertheless, we can still see the themes of genuineness and authenticity running through as a common thread. Quite appropriately, W. Flusser argues that gesture acquires its meaning less through the information it carries and more through the affective process it initiates.72 As Gänshirt notes, reading into Flusser’s analysis:
[I]n order to determine the truth of gestures (…) they should not be judged by ethical or epistemological criteria, but by aesthetic ones: the question is not whether a gesture represents truth or lie directly, but the extent to which whatever it represents is truth or kitsch.73
In a similar manner, Bart Verschaffel’s essay “Architecture is (as) a gesture”74 uses “gesture” as a metaphor in order to elaborate on the modernist anxiety between tradition and novelty. In place of Moravánszky’s formalist gestures, Verschaffel juxtaposes two quite different models of “gesture.” The first is common, familiar, like a simple greeting: an action that everyone knows how to perform, and does so almost unknowingly, naturally, without any preoccupation about its form or shape. The second is that of the modern individual: once prohibited from referring to any given form of the past, the modern individual must necessarily create the form anew. Crossing over to an act of architecture, Verschaffel attaches the first gesture to the “authentic” house such as a peasant would build. As Henry van de Velde puts it, this house is representative of the modernist ideal by merit of its honesty and unpretentiousness. 75 According to van de Velde, these two qualities must serve as testament to the truth and genuineness of any new act of architecture. As such, they also establish an argument against all attempts to imitate the past. But this is exactly the problem with modernity: once set against any imitative reference, it must necessarily reinvent the qualities of honesty and unpretentiousness, thus creating the peasant’s house anew. This proves to be a Herculean task, once the threat of novelty is immediately connected to a flurry of individualism. As van de Velde remembers it in his Pages de Doctrine,
[w]ithout grand gestures, without great pronouncements, the “Arts and Crafts” group, around 1894, knocked down the doors by which – as soon as the creations of this English group became known on the continent – a torrent of individualists would break free who, carried along by the frenzy of their reclaimed liberty, by the joy of having swept away the nightmare of the imitation of styles, would for a certain time cease respecting anything that resembled a discipline, or measure, anything that might have threatened to hamper this freedom. (…)76
(…) The threat of novelty has remained constant. So long as it is not put off, it will extend not only the decadence of taste indefinitely, but it will demoralize all those having directly or indirectly to do with creation.77
According to Verschaffel, this double-edged conundrum is to be resolved like a Gordian knot. Lacking the unpretentious honesty of the ignorant peasant, the modern individual must substitute genuineness with genius:
Opposed to deceitful formality (…) there is ‘genius’ or, in its later, democratic version, spontaneity. Genius is real and authentic, or – in a reduced version – : the spontaneous or informal is real and authentic.78
In this observation, Verschaffel pinpoints the very pathogeny of mediating authenticity through self-expression.
The genius, the artist, the poet tries to ‘speak anew’ and to make – from the heart, in sudden burst of creativity – original forms that are the same time very personal and immediately (…) universal, generally human, eternally accessible. In the best case the strategy works, in the worst and most common cases one makes a spectacle of oneself and only a highly inflated ego appears.79
By this iteration of authenticity, the self is glorified instead of excluded. But in these terms, each attempt to ‘create anew’ also becomes a test of accreditation, of the self as well as the form, subject to either success or miserable failure. Should we revisit then our case study on these terms: do we ascribe to Bergerioux’s assertions that the Centre Pompidou is lacking a “gesture” or do we acknowledge a gesture of genius as, in a swooping move, the building reinvents the design brief it was meant to serve? Do we see, in a turning of the tables, Bergerioux’s hand-like building fit to stand proudly against Le Corbusier’s monument in Chandigarh, or do we see it as a failed attempt to reproduce its symbolic power? In the end, we find ourselves completely immersed in Flusser’s argument: deciding on gesture may very well be subject to an aesthetic judgement.
However, taking everything into account, this judgement is hardly a final answer as to what a gesture is. As we saw in the case of the competition for the Centre Beaubourg, a number of arguments were made on both sides of the dispute. The positive or negative understanding of the term “gesture” was substantiated depending on the viewpoint one took when discussing it. Still, several traits, such as “authenticity” and “empowerment” seem to persist, depending on the manner in which one examines the term. For example, we see how, in spite of the professed intentions of the committee and the Jury of the competition against an aestheticized formalist “geste” (according to Moravánszky), the whole venture ultimately gave way to a majestic – and equally subject to aesthetic judgement, philosophically speaking – “geste politique”, which subsequently spawned numerous architectural interventions of a large-to-monumental scale that characterised the Fifth Republic up to date,80 and reinvigorated the old ideal of “le mécénat d’Etat”.81 Moreover, we can also see how the singular and ground-breaking presence of the laureate scheme actually turned it into an icon82 despite the fact that the Jury was determined not to have ‘a monument’ in the first place. Finally, we see how the architects’ idea to take the notion of polyvalence as a parti and empty the entire building of its interior, including all the service systems, has established itself in the textbooks of architectural history as ‘speaking anew’, one genius expression of architecture and a veritable “gesture”, one may argue in accordance with the reasoning offered by Verschaffel and the like.
Therefore, it is evident that characterising an act of architecture as a “gesture” can be a very difficult thing to achieve in absolute terms. As we mentioned at the beginning, “gesture” itself lies ubiquitous in act and language; and it seems that is also true regarding architecture. However, if we take a wider view on the arguments we offered in this essay, we see that “gesture” appears to be a persistent factor, not by merit of its capacity to designate “good” architecture and distinguish it from “bad,” but rather by being the token by which histories are being woven. Thus, we suggest that, in spite of the various common themes and traits that are certainly discernible in the cases we examined, it is important to see gesture first and foremost for what it does instead of what it is . Once we do that, we perceive that the role of “gesture” may simply be that of a mediator between architecture and society, carrying the weight of the content we ascribe to it and actually generating the terms of the discussion that revolves around it. Such a concept may well be rooted in sociological and philosophical aspects as, for instance, in the Actor–Network theory,83 where the question about what something is turns into how does something take part in a dynamic relational system. We could then use the term “quasi-object” 84 coined by the French philosopher Michel Serres to designate the function of a ‘thing’ that stands ontologically between an object and a subject, and whose attributes bear little significance compared with its function. Paraphrasing Serres to fit our argument, “gesture”
is not an object, but it is one nevertheless, since it is not a subject, since it is in the world; it is also a quasi-subject, since it marks or designates a subject who, without it, would not be a subject.85
Given the variety of iterations that we saw gesture take in the case studies that we examined, this description looks indeed quite appropriate, as the role of gesture may equally turn out to be that of an actual object, a symbol, or a fetish (i.e. an object), as well as that of a nominator that designates a good architect against a bad one (i.e. a subject). Ontology aside, however, it is equally important to see here that in all cases, “gesture” keeps reflecting a social bond, a shared position, a Gadamerian “sensus communis” 86 which also reflects a space of community. Or, as Anne Cauquelin is keen to notice, “a ‘lieu commun’ (a commonplace) (…) [which] is also always a ‘lien commun’ (a social bond).”87 In these terms, gesture may very well be regarded as a weaver of inter-subjectivity, the nature and fabric of the bond reflecting the very properties of gesture itself – at one time a formalist venture, and at another time a feat.
In conclusion, the question of gesture in the context of architecture seems to be far more a methodological problem, than a heuristic inquiry. This is an important aspect to follow, since architecture itself is far more prone to doctrine than to argumentative statements. At the same time, most types of methodically substantiated claims about gesture so far consist mainly of historical evidence – such as the one[s] we examined here – or grounded cognitive research on actual gestures examined at face value as a communicative interface.88 However, this does not address a more general inquiry on the fabric of architecture itself, but rather stays confined within a preconceived hypothesis about what gesture is, which also reflects a preconceived hypothesis about how architecture stands as a research framework for the specific question at hand. Therefore, we suggest that there is merit in our findings, if anything because the shift of perspective it requires allows us to investigate our questions in a more open-ended way. In such a view we maintain that both gesture and architecture preserve their dynamic, and even entropic, nature as a free-forming human endeavour, and are left open to be discovered in the full richness of their nuances. This argument supports the notion that gesture may very well be part of the fabric of architecture as we know it. And it appears like ubiquity is the first and foremost attribute a researcher should look to preserve when dealing with such a fundamental concept.