Morphosis: slijed ili način razvitka
ili promjene u nekom organizmu
ili bilo kojem od njegovih dijelova.
Random House Compact Unabridged Dictonary, New York 1996

PASPARTU
Thom Mayne osnovao je Morphosis 1972. godine nastojeći se oteti ograničenjima tradicionalnih oblika
i materijala te prevladati sputavajući dualizam moderno – postmoderno. Dvadeset godina – i još više projekata – kasnije Jeffrey Kipnis u kritičkom osvrtu na djelo Morphosisa, objavljenom 1993. u monografskom izdanju španjolskog časopisa Croquis, ovako razlaže njihove polazne postavke:
“... Neki kritičari obra|ivali su odstupanja Morphosisa od kanonskog modernizma
prvenstveno kao stilističko odvraćanje jer, nedvojbeno, pažnja koju zaokuplja njihov rad crpi ponajviše iz činjenice da je on
drsko zavodljiv. Vjerujem, ipak, da kritika podcjenjuje do koje mjere, unutar estetike njihova djela, politički argument podcrtava njihovo nastojanje ka autentičnosti.
Kao što je dobro znano, Le Corbusierova arhitektura izrasla je
iz uvjerenja da je znakovita povijesna okolnost, kojoj autentična moderna arhitektura mora
odgovoriti, određena pojavom nove demokratske kolektivnosti koja
traži izraženije homogen arhitektonski prostor. Čini mi se da arhitektura Morphosisa također
crpi iz osjećaja demokratičnosti, premda na drugi način.
Za Morphosis neartikulirani kolektivitet izjednačen s
homogenim prostorom nije više odgovarajući model
demokratičnosti. Njihova arhitektura radije se razvija iz motrišta na suvremenu demokraciju kao na ansambl različitih individua i podgrupa, organiziranih u prianjajuće kolektivitete smještene istovremeno u mnoge prostore: materijalni, tehnološki, politički itd.
Ipak, Morphosis se odupire prevladavajućem gledištu da pluralna, postmoderna arhitektura temeljena na paradigmi kolaža odgovara takvoj demokraciji. Za
njih je arhitektura koja pakira različitosti u kolaže fragmenata i ispražnjenih znakova – bilo povijesnih, regionalnih ili populističkih – obilježje lažnosti koja prijeti isporučiti arhitekturu u cijelosti modi. S tog gledišta postmoderni pastiš nepopravljivo je neiskren. I naposljetku, gubitak
vjere u mogućnost iskrenosti može odvesti samo u porugu.
Djelo Morphosisa sugerira afirmativnu alternativu. Ono je agresivno apstraktno i time nevezano za odre|en kontekst ili grupu. Istovremeno ono je
sposobno kalemiti se na različite kontekste, istražujući
preosjetljivosti svakog od njih, bez kompromitiranja vlastitog odlučnog identiteta. Napokon, tektonski prostor koji ono začinje heterogen
je bez smirivanja u fiksne hijerarhije. Ukratko, ono pokušava konstruirati široko primjenjivu platformu, oslobo|enu ironije, koja je odgovarajuće strukturirana za uprizorenje različitosti suvremenog života.”
Opširni navod, osim što precizno pojašnjava jednu arhitektoniku, podupire i sasvim osobnu spekulaciju. Čini mi se znakovitim odlazak mladića s Istočne obale u Californiju na studij koji dovršava famozne 1968. Ne iscrtavaju li porijeklo, šezdesete i podneblje u kojem su one proživljene trokut koji će izbrusiti njegovu arhitektonsku poziciju? Svakako, no tek poslijediplomski studiji na Harvardu – za razliku od razbarušene kalifornijske ležernosti – i analitičko podneblje Graduate School of Design unose nu‘no sre|enje u iskustva koja doniješe šezdesete,
to vrijeme socijalnog previranja bez presedana, novog individualizma i slobodne komune, vrijeme iskrenog nonkonformizma i svijesti o potrebi društvene adhezije svih “dijelova unutar cjeline”. Ova moja spekulacija izvire iz vlastitog harvardskog iskustva kasnih sedamdesetih, neposredno pred venecijanske fanfare postmoderne, dakle iz vremena koje koincidira s boravkom Thoma Mayna na toj školi. Stoga ovdje negdje slutim prave začetke identiteta koji on, beskompromisno, svojom arhitekturom iskazuje.
(.....)

Morphosis: the sequence or manner of
development or change in an organism
or any of its parts;
Random House Compact
Unabridged Dictionary, New York, 1996

PASSE-PARTOUT
Thom Mayne set up Morphosis in 1972 in an attempt to break free from the limitations of traditional forms and materials and to overcome the hampering modern - postmodern dualism. Some twenty years and several projects later, Jeffrey Kipnis, in
a critical review of the work of Morphosis published in 1993 in
a special monograph edition of the Spanish magazine, Croquis, explained its rationale in the following way:
“…Some critics have treated Morphosis’s deviations from canonic modernism primarily
as a stylistic diversion, and
there can be little doubt that the attention its work receives derives in large part from the
fact that it is unabashedly seductive. I believe, however, that criticism underestimates t
he extent to which, within the aesthetics of its work, a political argument underwrites its claim to authenticity.
As is well known, Le Corbusier’s architecture grew out of the conviction that the significant historical condition to which an authentic modern architecture must respond was the emergence of a new democratic collective, requiring a more homogeneous architectural space. It seems to me that Morphosis’s architecture also draws on a notion of democracy, albeit in different terms.
For Morphosis, an unarticulated collective equalised in homogeneous space is no longer an adequate model of democracy. Rather, its architecture evolves from a view of contemporary democracy as an ensemble of diverse individuals and subgroups, organised into adhesive collectives situated simultaneously in many spaces: material, technological, political, etc.
Yet, Morphosis resists the prevailing view that a pluralist, postmodern architecture
founded on a paradigm of
collage is appropriate to such a democracy. For them, an architecture that packages diversity in collages of fragments and empty signs - whether historical, regional or populist - is the hallmark of an inauthenticity that threatens to hand architecture entirely over
to fashion. In this view, pastiche postmodernism is incorrigibly insincere. And ultimately, a loss of faith in the possibility of sincerity can lead only to cynicism.
Morphosis’s work suggests an affirmative alternative. It is aggressively abstract and thus unaligned with any specific context or group. At the same time it is able to graft into different contexts, exploring the idiosyncrasies of each, without compromising its own decisive identity. Finally, the tectonic space it engenders is heterogeneous without settling into fixed hierarchies. In short,
it attempts to construct a broadly applicable platform, free of irony, that is adequately textured to stage the diversities of contemporary life…”
This extensive quotation, besides defining Morphosis’s architectonics, also supports an utterly personal speculation.
The departure of the young man from the East Coast to
California to embark on his studies, which he completed in the infamous year of 1968, seems to be significant. Does not his origin, the sixties and
the mood of the time sketch the outline of a triangle that would mark his architectural position? Certainly. However, only his postgraduate studies at Harvard – the analytical climate of the Graduate School of Design as a contrast to the dishevelled, laid-back lifestyle of California – would lead to the necessary settling of experiences accrued in the sixties, in those times of unprecedented social turmoil,
of new individualism and free communes, a time of sincere non-conformism and of the perceived need for the social adhesion of all the “parts within the whole”. This speculation of mine arises from my own experience at Harvard in the
late seventies, just before the Venetian fanfares of postmodernism rang out, in other words, from a time that coincides with Thom Mayne’s period at this school. So, it was here that I sense that this identity, expressed without any compromises through his architecture, was really conceived.
(....)