Architecture and ideology

Performative engagements with specific, culturally significant places were among the primary means of configuring landscapes in the ancient world. Ancient states often appropriated symbolic or ritual landscapes through commemorative ceremonies and
building operations. These commemorative sites became event-places where state spectacles encountered and merged with local cult practices. The Early Iron Age inscriptions and reliefs carved on the cave walls of the Dibni Su sources at the
site of Birkleyn in Eastern Turkey, known as the ‘Source of the Tigris’ monuments, present a compelling paradigm for such spatial practices. Assyrian kings Tiglathpileser I (1114–1076 B.C.) and Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.) carved ‘images of kingship’ and accompanying royal inscriptions at this impressive site in a remote but politically contested region. This important commemorative event was represented in detail on Shalmaneser III’s bronze repouss´e bands from Imgul-Enlil (Tell Balawat) as
well as in his annalistic texts, rearticulating the performance of the place on public monuments in Assyrian urban contexts. This paper approaches the making of the Source of the Tigris monuments as a complex performative place-event. The effect
was to reconfigure a socially significant, mytho-poetic landscape into a landscape of commemoration and cult practice, illustrating Assyrian rhetorics of kingship. These rhetorics were maintained by articulate gestures of inscription that appropriated an already symbolically charged landscape in a liminal territory and made it durable through site-specific spatial practices and narrative representations.

Keywords: mytho-poetic landscape; commemorative monuments; rock reliefs; place; performance; event; rhetorics of kingship; acts of inscription

"Architectural heritage of Yugoslav-socialist character: ideology, memory and identity" studies the ability of architecture to represent political and cultural endeavors and developments in the period from 1945 until 1990 in territories which formed the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. The thesis is divided into two parts: the first part analyzes how architecture, as a discourse per se and an ideological apparatus, was used for representation of Yugoslav socialist identity. The second part studies how the deconstruction of given identity, and its consequent dismissal in the process of re-construction of national identities has influenced the level of preservation of heritage of representative character found in territories which previously formed the SFRY. The hypothesis upon which the research is built, stating that the architectural significance of heritage of representative nature built in the socialist period and found in Yugoslav successor countries is dependent on (the assessment of) its cultural, social and historical character, has emerged from the perception of the second part of the problem. However, the larger part of the thesis is devoted to the study of how circumstances in SFRY influenced the character of following three categories of buildings and spaces: I) Governmental buildings and buildings of the League of Communist of Yugoslavia II) Institutions of educational-ideological character and memorial centers III) Memorials and memorial sites. With an objective to analyze how political and social occurrences in the SFRY in the period 1945-1990 influenced the processes of construction of above-listed representative buildings and spaces, the study approaches several important moments in development of architectural discourse in socialist Yugoslavia, such as: the appearance of modernist architecture in the Interwar period; the discussion on the socialist realist style; the influence of the political conflict between Tito and Stalin on architectural developments; architectural developments during the "Informbiro Period"; initiation of grandiose projects of representative character in the period 1956-1965; an impulse in erection of buildings and spaces of educational-ideological and cultural-memorial character in between 1966 and 1974; the appearance of the postmodernism; and finally the course of architectural developments after Josip Broz Tito's death in 1981 till the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1990. The second part of the thesis researches how and why architectural works of representative character built in between 1945 and 1990 are neglected in the present. The objective of a critical and hermeneutical study is to perceive how the process of re-construction of national, cultural identities in the states reconstructed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia has influenced on the negative perception of the given architecture. The architectural works presented in the first chapter now are perceived as architectural heritage and analyzed as a cultural legacy of the uncomfortable nature. The discomfort towards the heritage built in the socialist period is approached through the study of the process of (re)interpretation of cultural memory. The analysis is conducted with the objective to perceive how the transformation in "collective frameworks of memory" has influenced "collective memory" of those societies and consequently the condition of architectural heritage of representative character found in the given territories. The research comes to an end with an insight into the level of preservation and state of condition of the representative heritage of Yugoslav-socialist character and concludes with recommendations for the improvement of protection mechanisms and suggestions on the modalities for its architectural and cultural revitalization.

This essay focuses on the writings of the architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri, who was at the center of a group of historians and theorists at the University of Venice’s School of Architecture. It considers how his works dealing with the avant-garde, especially Architecture and Utopia and The Sphere and the Labyrinth, develop a historical-critical method to identify and explicate the gap between the evolution of ideologies of the avant-garde and their translation into a repertoire of techniques that have divergent histories and social meanings than those posited by avant-garde ideologies. In doing so, Tafuri is not just offering an “ideology-critique” of modernism, revealing the way that the avant-garde failed to fulfill its postulated social and aesthetic goals; he is also arguing metahistorically, that via a dialectic of the avant-garde, twentieth-century capitalist modernity weaves an ideological fabric of modernism and interleaves it into the effective structure of reality, for instance through the practices of architecture and urbanism. Thus, “modernism” becomes a relevant term of periodization, not because of the historical veracity of any orthodox art historical narrative of the succession or progressive evolution of modernist forms, but insofar as “modernism” designates the symptomatic tension between the progressive history of avant-garde forms and the heterogeneous technical history that represents how the avant-garde’s formal programs were actualized.

Texto do catálogo da exposição homónima … Text of the exhibition catalogue (text in portuguese)

Museu das Comunicações, Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Lisboa, novembro de 1998 a janeiro de 1999; e Museu dos Transportes e Comunicações, Porto, fevereiro a junho de 1999“

[Architecture and equipment from modernism to the Estado Novo: The Post Offices of the Plano Geral de Edificações]
Communications Museum, Portuguese Communications Foundation, Lisbon, November 1998 to January 1999; Transports and Communications Museum, Oporto, February to June 1999"

"The Inka Empire adopted several means to create, demonstrate and legitimize the power in its conquests over a vast territory. This paper focuses on one of those means: the production and
restructuring of socially constructed space. We believe that through this process of domination, the Inka Empire imposed its ideology and its worldview over the conquered societies. Although we do not ignore or reject the explanations usually given to this process, this position evaluates the Inka expansionism as a process guided not only by economic or logistic motivations. Therefore, we believe that ideology and the use of space are both key components when analyzing any social process, and in this specific case: the Inka domination in Northwest Argentina, particularly in the area of the Quebrada de Humahuaca. In subsequent lines we aim to explore some aspects of the relationship between ideology and space as theoretical concepts with the social production of space in the Tawantinsuyu, the Inka conquest of Humahuaca and the specific case of La Huerta archaeological site."

This paper discusses the politics of mosque architecture in modern Turkey. The classical Ottoman mosque image has been reproduced in state-sponsored mosques throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Defining this particular design strategy as architectural mimicry, I discuss the emergence of this image through the negotiation between the nation-state and the ‘nationalist conservative’ discourse within the context of Cold War geopolitics. Comparing the Turkish case with the Islamic post-colonial world, I argue that the prevalence of architectural mimicry is related to the nostalgia it generates. Nostalgia is a discursive
effect of architectural mimicry which is in tune with the nationalist  conservative worldview in its relationship to the state’s anti-communism. This particular image was taken up by the Islamist AKP in the 2000s, within the context of the global rise of political Islam. In this instance, the same representation took on a different meaning. It functioned as a simulacrum representing the ‘nation in Islam’ with a claim to authenticity amongst the competing Islamic representations.

"Centerquest throughout the traditional Chinese cultural
realm was and is characterized bv its unique system of
divination through skilled surveying and Interpretation
of landform. It is this surveying system and its underlying
theory that Western writers often refer to as "'Feng-shui,'
or 'Chinese geomancy .... 'Topomancy' and 'terrestrial
astrology' are less commonly encountered English-language
terms for Feng-shul. Geomantic surveyors in China and
Korea, ideally scholar-technicians educated in the Confucian
classics, are termed 'geomancers' by Western writers.
Chatley's (1917:175) succinct and accurate definition
for Chinese geomancy is: 'The art of adapting the residences
of the living and the dead so as to co-operate and harmonize
with the local currents of the cosmic breath.' In practice,
geomantic surveying attempts to 'center' human residences
exactly where "cosmic breath" concentrates. For this
reason, geomancy is regarded here as 'centerquest' … ."

This paper deals with the names given to the city walls, city gates, and palatial structures in Assyrian capital cities, Assur, Kalhu, Dur-Šarrukin, and Nineveh, in the Neo-Assyrian period. These names comprised popular names, which were supposedly used daily, and ceremonial names, which were given for ceremonial-ideological purposes. The names were formulated differently in various cities and in different periods, reflecting the change of historical circumstances and contemporary political-theological ideologies. The naming of the architectural works in later Assyria represented the increasing imperialistic pride of Assyrian kings about their world dominion, claiming the prominence of the capital as the navel of the world in political, economic, and religious senses. In this way, they particularly challenged the traditional Mesopotamian cosmic order, in the center of which Babylon and its god Marduk had been placed.

| Health is an important personal and social asset and is defined by the World Health Organization as reaching beyond the absence of illness or infirmity and implying complete physical, social and psychological wellbeing [1]. In the theory and practice of 20 th century architecture, the diverse interpretations of health range from explicit sanitation issues to implicit philosophical readings. The main objective of this chapter is to track down the roots of the ideological traces in some of these constructs with the focus being on two areas: hospital design and housing. The historical overview starting in ancient times, points to the presence of a consistent ideological component in various spatial interpretations of health including the recently prevailing wellbeing paradigm. In modernism, the role of health was limited to sanitation, and extensive legislation was introduced to help establish and manifest power over the space. The subsequent technocratic environmentalism addressed issues of sustainable healthy spaces with energy consumption and financial returns as core objectives. Likewise, the recent salutogenic approach to designing healing spaces conceals the commodification of health and imminent manipulation. The most recent tendencies in both hospital and housing design transcend the limitations of modernism and embrace hapticity while reinstalling material imagination in the process. The influence of biopolitics on salutogenic design and the resurrection of normativeness through Evidence Based Design reveal the ideological aims in addressing health in contemporary architecture.

Abstract: In  1796,  in  France,  an  erstwhile  cavalry  officer  turned  philosopher  named  Destutt  de Tracy  (1784-1836)  coined  the  word idéologie, meaning “the science of ideas.” A concise and accurate definition for ideology today is “a powerful system of ideas.”  Ideologies and their impacts, both salient and subtle, manifest everywhere, at all scales. Powerful ideas are invariably political ideologies.  This  is  because  all  ideology,  whatever  its  provenance  or  manifestation,  is involved  to  varying  degrees  in  the  political  organization  of  social  and  spatial  relationships involving authority.

Large-scale spatial expressions of ideology are likely to occur when an ideology becomes invested with authority. Authority is a legal or rightful power to command and act. Authority invests in ideology as a tool to justify its inalienable right to exercise power. Justification resides in doctrines and theories that claim confidence in their certainty of knowledge; as for example, in these famous words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, …” written by Thomas Jefferson, founder of an ideology called Jeffersonian Liberalism.

Ideology on close examination is just rhetoric making truth claims. Thus, ideology and critical thinking--as critique--have a close, but adversarial, relationship. Critical thinking from the time of Socrates has been a “critique of domination” by an authority. Critical thinkers are able to advance arguments that successfully undermine ideological knowledge claims that authority makes in order to justify its right to rule. Ideologies proliferate in many guises but are often (but not always) identifiable as words that
have the suffix – "ism".

(PDF) Ideology. Also available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319630131_Ideology [accessed Feb 23 2020].

North Korea, Russia, Juche, Socialism, Capitalism, The Kohinoor Scientism, Populism, Trumpism, Neoliberalism, misogynism, X-ism, Antifa, Alexandra Elba

Özet Erkin temsili olan iktidar, ideolojiler yoluyla kendini ifade etmekte ve bu ifade mimaride hayat bulmaktadır. İdeolojilerin aktarılmasında önemli bir temsil görevi gören mimari ürün ve oluşturduğu çevre, erkin varlığını ve gücünü hissettiren göstergelerle doludur. Mekânsal temsiliyete ilişkin bu göstergeleri, yapı ölçeğinden kent ölçeğine değin tüm katmanlarda izlemek mümkündür. İktidar ideolojilerinin yıktığı, inşa ettiği ve çoğunlukla fiziksel olarak yeniden şekillendirdiği önemli şehirlerden biri de tarihi kent İstanbul'dur. Bu çalışma kapsamında İstanbul, 1950'ler, 1980'ler ve 2000'li yıllar olarak, üç ayrı dönem üzerinden ele alınmıştır. Çalışmada, kentin beşeri dokusunda büyük değişimlerin yaşandığı bu üç dönemde, iktidar ideolojilerinin fiziksel çevredeki göstergelerinin neler olduğu üzerine yoğunlaşılmıştır. Bu bağlamda çalışma, ilgili dönemlere ait kitap, dergi, makale, bildiri ve gazete haberleri gibi çeşitli kaynaklardan elde edilen bilgilerin yorumlanması yoluyla gerçekleştirilmiştir. Abstract As form of power, government expresses itself through ideologies and this expression comes to life in architecture. Serving as an important representation in the conveyance of ideologies, the architectural product and the environment it creates are full of indicators that make its liberal presence and power felt. It is possible to track signifiers regarding spatial representation in all layers, from the building scale to the urban scale. İstanbul as a historical metropolis of is one of the important cities in which government ideologies have destroyed, constructed and for the most part have physically reshaped. In this study, Istanbul has been taken up in three separate eras, the 1950's, 1980's, and the early 21st century. This study focuses on what sort of indicators of governmental ideologies have been left on the physical environment during these three periods of great changes in the human history of the city. In this context, the study was conducted through the interpretation of information obtained through various sources such as books, journals, articles, papers and newspaper reports of the relevant periods.

""The building and resignification of space was a conquest
strategy of the Inca Empire deployed throughout its territory.
This paper aims to examine the problem by considering the
archaeological site of La Huerta (quebrada of Humahuaca,
Jujuy, Argentina) We seek to understand how imperial power
imposed its spatiality on conquered population, by re-building
and re-signifying the socially-built landscape, and how the
ideological representation of this spatiality, both produced and
reproduced the empire’s power relationships of domination.
For this purpose, we humanize the landscape by thinking
about it with people, analyzing how its inhabitants would
have behaved in that tridimensional space, experiencing
and perceiveing it.""

El Imperio Inka reconstruyó y resignificó el paisaje a lo largo de su territorio como una forma de articular el proceso de dominación. De este modo, la construcción de estructuras y la producción y reestructuración del espacio socialmente construido fue uno de los medios de crear, legitimar y testimoniar su poder que adoptó el Tawantinsuyu. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar esta problemática en el sitio La Huerta, Quebrada de Humahuaca, Provincia de Jujuy, al momento de la conquista, alrededor del año 1410 DC.

The following excerpt is from Socialist Architecture: The Reappearing Act, published in Berlin by The Green Box in 2017. A collaboration between the architect Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss and the photographer Armin Linke—supported by the Graham Foundation—the book introduces the concept of an "architecture of Balkanization" and explores textually and visually what that might be in the landscape of the decentralized socialist society of Yugoslavia.

This excerpt is published on post on the occasion of the opening of Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980, on view at The Museum of Modern Art July 15, 2018–January 13, 2019.

ABSTRACT: Architect by education, Ðurde Bošković (1904–1990) devoted himself to research into the history of architecture and art and heritage conservation. Between the two World Wars, he was one of the most active interpreters of architectural development in Belgrade. He made record of important architectural exhibitions in the period when Modernism was emerging and was also a prominent participant in the debate on the ‘National Style’, which started among the professional community in the 1930s on the occasion of the construction of St Sava’s and St Mark’s Churches and the Bridge of King Aleksandar I the Unifier across the Sava river in Belgrade. Before the outbreak of World War II, he was among those who opposed the construction of an Olympic Stadium according to the project by the German architect Werner March at Kalemegdan. Bošković belonged to the group of Modernist-oriented critics and his observations have been an indispensable source in the historiographical interpretation of architectural works and phenomena in Belgrade architecture in the interwar period. In order to reach a correct interpretation and valorization of Ðurde Bošković’s ideas, it is necessary to place them in the context of the aesthetic and ideological trends in architectural criticism in Belgrade between the two World Wars.

APSTRAKT: Arhitekt po profesiji, Đurđe Bošković (1904–1990) se opredelio za naučni rad na polju istorije arhitekture, umetnosti i zaštite spomenika kulture. U periodu između dva svetska rata bio je jedan od najangažovanijih tumača razvoja graditeljstva u Beogradu. Beležio je značajne arhitektonske izložbe u vreme rađanja modernizma, bio je zapaženi učesnik polemike o nacionalnom stilu, pokrenute u stručnoj javnosti tridesetih godina XX veka, povodom podizanja Hrama Sv. Save, Crkve Sv. Marka i Mosta kralja Aleksandra I Ujedinitelja preko Save. Pred izbijanje Drugog svetskog rata bio je jedan od protivnika izgradnje Olimpijskog Stadiona po projektu nemačkog arhitekte Vernera Marha na Kalemegdanu. Pripadao je krilu modernistički orijentisanih kritičara i njegova zapažanja do sada su bila nezaobilazan izvor u istoriografskom tumačenju arhitektonskih dela i pojava u međuratnoj arhitekturi Beograda. Da bi se ispravno protumačili i valorizovali, potrebno je da se stavovi Đurđa Boškovića postave u okvir estetskih i ideoloških usmerenja beogradske arhitektonske kritike između dva svetska rata.

SUMMARY: Architect Ðurde Bošković (1904–1990), who dedicated himself to scholarly work on the history of architecture and art, as well as heritage conservation, studied and interpreted the architectural development of Belgrade between the two World Wars.
When Bošković entered the public life as a critic in 1928 on the occasion of the Fourth Exhibition of the Architectural Students’ Club, he put forward the opinion that contemporary architecture revived the Byzantine aspiration to an extremely constructive approach, favoring the ‘national’, i.e. the Modern Byzantine style. In the next year, at the exhibition of the Artistic Group Oblik, his views took definite shape and he sided with Modernist-oriented critics, advocating the abandonment of the imitation of all styles of the past. His reviews of an exhibition of Nikola and Petar Dobrović (1930) and the First and Second Exhibitions of Contemporary Yugoslav Architecture (1931 and 1933) were particularly affirmative.  In the same spirit he praised the works of Petar and Branko Krstić, Branislav Kojić, Milan Zloković, Jan Dubový and other Modernist Belgrade architects.
Not infrequently, his explicit struggle for a free architectural expression, underlain by the idea of reshaping Belgrade, led to an ironic and resolute attitude to phenomena which did not support the principles of modern architecture. Such assessments, sometimes very harsh, like his opinion about Petar and Branko Krstić’s design of the Church of St Mark, or Nikolai (Nikolay) Krasnov’s pylons of the Zemun Bridge, would make an impact in Serbian historiography and influence the attitudes of subsequent interpreters of Belgrade architecture between the two World Wars.
In the years preceding the outbreak of World War II, Bošković was one of the opponents of the construction of an Olympic Stadium according to the project by the German architect Werner March at Kalemegdan. Although admitting that the architecture of the stadium looked very representative, he deemed that from an urbanistic point of view and taking into account the cultural and historical significance of the Belgrade Fortress, Lower Kalemegdan was not an appropriate location for that type of building.
Ðurde Bošković’s criticism was socially engaged, progressive and it stemmed from the views and architecture of a modernist man. From the present-day perspective, his reproaches were not a matter of momentary inspiration; they were clearly spoken out at a time when it was the only way to impose progressive ideas on a conservative milieu where architecture was often a means of achieving national and political goals. Along with being an indispensable source for the interpretation of the trends that led to the formation of modern architecture, Bošković’s pieces of criticism are also valuable as an ideological testimony about a period when professionals, led by sincere desire for creative autonomy and pursuing the best urbanistic and architectural solutions, presented their views in daily newspapers and scholarly publications, initiated forums at the Architects’ Club and took part in public discussions.

In 1980, in a seminal, profound, interdisciplinary research paper, the MIT philosopher of science and technology Langdon Winner, posed this question:  "Do Artifacts have Politics?"

His answer was resounding "Yes!" It would seem to follow that, to the extent there is motivational "architecture of ideology," an architecture can be actively and successfully designed and deployed to promote a political ideology like multiculturalism. This proposition is, anyway, the conceit of our paper here.

The multicultural mission statement in the University of Toledo strategic plan, drafted circa1990, inspired a thought experiment, resulting in a project proposal to design a campus built environment that promotes multiculturalism.

The project we envision and promote in this paper has four sequential stages: Stage One identifies the multiplicity of cultural groups representative of the campus community; Stage Two identifies a range of signs and symbols that can appropriately and effectively communicate the value of cultural, ethnic, gender, etc., diversity on campus; Stage Three identifies various mediums (artifacts, architectures, signage ...) that can successfully promote multicultural ideology and symbolism across campus; Stage Four identifies the location and placement across campus of selected signs and symbols toward achieving the maximal positive ideological (political) impact on students, faculty and staff.

The official history of architect Jože Plečnik's (1872-1957) project for the Slovene national assembly from 1947 is brief: after an unsuccessful open competition the by then elderly architect was invited to present his plans out of competition. The imposing and typically idiosyncratic building, crowned by a 110 m cone and given the name »Cathedral of Freedom« by Plečnik, was soon deemed unbuildable; plans were discarded and practically forgotten. But in the 1980s the project resurged in public consciousness through the work of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) retro-avant-garde collective, becoming one of its central iconographic elements. After the independence of Slovenia a rising number of virtual reconstructions of the project became identified with national representation of statehood ranging from art projects to official state use as an emblem of the upper house of the Slovene Parliament and as an image on the 10 cent euro coin, circulating throughout the Euro Zone. The unbuilt and once nearly forgotten Cathedral of Freedom became the most proliferated official image of any Slovene political institution, by far exceeding the use of any " real " building. The paper examines the ways Plečnik's project was rescued from oblivion, taken over and re-contextualised by the art world as well as by the political authority and how this affected the perception of and identification with the unbuilt project, challenging the notions of semantics and authorship of as well as conversation strategy for such a dynamic, ever-changing and unbuilt part of architectural heritage.

The Palace on the Isle at Łazienki – the summer residence of the last king of Poland, Stanisław August – was in statu nascendi, under construction, throughout his reign. The construction, or rather reconstruction, of the palace took nearly thirty years and was never completed due to a concurrence of tragic historical events. The king’s involvement in the process exceeded the usual supervision of a sponsor and made the whole undertaking something almost personal. The Palace on the Isle may be regarded as an artistic testament of Stanisław August. It was built with great care and regardless of constant financial shortage, the country being threatened politically, and shrinking liberties the palace was the fulfilment of the king’s biggest dream: to create a harmonious, ordered world, more beautiful and rational than the real one. This aim, albeit unfulfilled in politics, was achieved in art, as proved by the Palace on the Isle.

Dans ses premiers livres, "Vers une architecture” et "L'Art décoratif aujourd'hui ”,Le Corbusier emprunte le style injonctif des manifestes avant-gardistes de son époque, mais les concepts qu'il met en avant dépassent ce caractère d'époque et tentent de faire le lien entre une anthropologie générale et une aspiration lyrique à l'harmonie universelle qui le situe plutôt dans la continuation du romantisme.

SUMMARY: The Bridge of Chivalric King Alexander I the Unifier across the Sava river, also known as Zemun Bridge (1929–34), was the first suspension bridge constructed in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It connected the capital city and Zemun and provided the major link for Belgrade’s urban expansion onto the left bank of the river, which was one of urban planning priorities between the two World Wars. А different and broader context to the bridge, more complex and ideological in nature, reflected, inter alia, in the symbolic unification of the Yugoslav nation, for centuries divided by the border along the Sava. The piers and approaches to the bridge were constructed by the Paris-based Société de Construction des Batignolles, while the Oberhausen-based company Gutehoffnungshütte was to manufacture the iron construction. Design of Piers 2, 4 and 5 was entrusted to Nikolay Petrovich Krasnov (rus. Никола́й Петро́вич Красно́в), a prominent Russian-born architect employed at the Architecture Department of the Ministry of Construction, at the discretion of the minister. Krasnov met the specified requirements and clad the piers in rough-textured stone slabs and decorated them with a combination of Byzantine and Romanesque motifs. The initial idea for a triumphal arch at the right-bank entrance to the bridge was soon replaced by the idea of erecting four guard lion statues, and a commission was set up to that end. The lions of Dragomir Aramabašić, a sculptor, and Roman Verhovskoy (rus. Роман Николаевич Верховско́й), an architect, were rejected, while those of Risto Stijović and Petar Pallavicini (Palavičini) were not even submitted to the commission for review, a fact that, once it became public, caused an outrage. The sculptural decoration of the bridge became the focus of public debate when a new project suddenly appeared, this time for four equestrian statues by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović. The statues of the horsemen, Emperor Dušan and Kings Tomislav, Tvrtko I Kotromanić and Peter I Karadjordjević, made the bridge the perfect stage for constitution of Yugoslav identity. The architectural, aesthetic and ideological aspects of the Bridge of Chivalric King Alexander I the Unifier were largely identified during and after construction. Predictably enough, the construction was accompanied by a number of scandals, which were given coverage in the press, and heated debates at the meetings of the Association of Artists and the Association of Yugoslav Engineers and Architects, which involved architects, engineers, visual artists, journalists and others interested in urban planning and architectural issues. Professional opinions expressed in a critical and problem-oriented manner stirred up a discussion on functional, architectural and artistic problems, which escalated into an open clash of opinions over the aesthetic and ideological aspects of how to interpret a contemporary utilitarian structure, which was characteristic of the time in which the bridge was being constructed, the time when modern architecture won a decisive victory.

ABSTRACT: The Bridge of Chivalric King Alexander I the Unifier across the Sava river was built in 1929–34 and was the largest utilitarian structure in Belgrade at the time. As such, it was seen not only as a local landmark and a link between Belgrade and Zemun, but also as a symbol of the economic growth and technological progress of the whole Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The modern suspension bridge was to be set into a historical matrix embodied in the piers designed by the architect Nikolai Krasnov and the initially planned triumphal arch, subsequently replaced by four lion statues and, eventually, by Ivan Meštrović’s equestrian statues of emperor Dušan and kings Tomislav, Tvrtko I Kotromanić and Peter I Karadjordjević. The bridge construction was taking place amidst a debate over its architectural, aesthetic and ideological aspects, and involved engineers, architects, visual artists, journalists, and other experts. The study of the overall context of its architecture reveals the concepts of ideology which had a bearing on broader spheres of politics, culture and society.

APSTRAKT: Most viteškog kralja Aleksandra Prvog Ujedinitelja podignut je preko reke Save u periodu 1929–1934. godine i predstavljao je najveći utilitarni objekat u Beogradu. Kao takav, nije bio posmatran samo kao lokalni orijentir i spona između prestonice i Zemuna već kao simbol ekonomskog razvoja i tehnološkog napretka cele Kraljevine Jugoslavije. Za savremeni viseći most bila je predviđena istorijska matrica koju su činili piloni arhitekte Nikolaja Krasnova i prvobitno predviđena trijumfalna kapija, ubrzo zamenjena figurama četiri lava. Kasnije je ipak odabran projekat konjaničkih skulptura istorijskih vladara – cara Dušana, kraljeva Tomislava, Tvrtka Prvog Kotromanića i Petra Prvog Karađorđevića – koji je izradio Ivan Meštrović. Rasprave o arhitektonskim, estetskim i ideološkim aspektima mosta, u kojima su učestvovali inženjeri, arhitekti, umetnici, novinari i  drugi zainteresovani stručnjaci, pratile su tok izgradnje. Ispitivanje punog konteksta njegove arhitekture otkriva postojanje ideoloških koncepcija koje su se odražavale na šire sfere politike, kulture i  društva.

This article discusses the motif of the "architecture of transgression", which is present most implicitly, in Lars von Trier's "The House that Jack Built". The analysis concerns both the construction of cinematic narrative itself and the subtle allusions, inserted in the script, to two architectural metaphors: the Nietzschean (and Jungian) labyrinth and the Heideggerian die Hütte. Von Trier's film may be read as an oeuvre immersed in literary tradition-from Dante's "Divine Comedy" to the modern Bildungsroman-as well as inspired by modern philosophy, particularly George Bataille's philosophy of transgression, (as expound in his "Erotism" and his short 1929 essay on "Architecture").

Inspired by the following I-Ching narrative, my body of work related to feng shui (p'ungsu; terrestrial astrology; Chinese geomancy ... ) is perhaps most clearly articulated in this 1991 article; a book chapter in an anthology focusing on sacred spaces and places edited by James Swan):

"When in early antiquity [Fu Hsi] ruled the world, he
looked upward and contemplated the images in the
heavens: he looked downward and contemplated the
markings of birds and beasts and their adaptations to
the regions. He proceeded directly from himself and
indirectly from objects. Thus he invented the eight trigrams
in order to enter into connections with the virtues of the
light of the gods and to regulate the conditions of all beings."

The I Ching or Book of Changes (Richard Wilhelm translation from Chinese into German, and Rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, With a Foreword by C.G. Jung). Third Edition. 1968.

Apart from a lesser degree of philosophical aesthetics, architects predominantly rely on two fundamental intellectual discourses that are thematically intertwined and conceptually too often identified: theory and ideology. The influence of these discourses on individual opuses and construction schools is best seen from the historical distance. They give to architectural creations deeper thought (theory) and a practical projective dimension (ideology). Moderate, constitutively and constructively oriented ideologies stimulate the attainment of a tolerable, sustainable social reality, while pronounced pragmatism and unilateralism are at the heart of every extreme ideology that seeks to realize as fully as possible. Ideology often stimulates the distorted consciousness, the distorted image of the world and its appearance, arising from the limited interests of the conflicted groups and their partial perception of reality. Hence, she "disseminates", beautifies or degrades the actual status of the quo of socio-cultural reality, in accordance with the specific interests of its agents.

Professor Donald Baker at the University of British Columbia, a specialist on Korean Neo-Confucianism, published this rather caustic review of my AoI monograph in the academic journal, Pacific Affairs. He and I both served as Peace Corps Volunteers in South Korea during the 1970s.

"Nemeth's muddled description of the impact of Yi dynasty ideology and policy on Cheju island peasants and their surroundings makes Architecture of Ideology of little use to readers seeking accurate information on Korea or practical advice on environmental policy. Misleading for those who know little about Korea and disappointing to those who know it well, this book is recommended only for those determined to read every monograph on Korea ever published."

Keywords: muddled, misleading, disappointing, Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, 'taking Nemeth to the woodshed.'

(Donald Baker's review of AoI has provided me with some useful feedback. Readers of Donald's review might now also read Professor Willie Stotzner's more positive review of AoI, for the purposes of some richer discussion:

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol22/iss22/12

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol22/iss22/12/

Cheju Island, Korea's historic island of exile, with a harsh natural environment, early developed a negative image as human habitat. The author challenges this perception and shows how Neo-Confucian state ideology during the Yi dynasty (A.D. 1392-1910) created and conserved the island as a viable habitat by using feng-shui--a powerful medieval science of surveying--to shape the island's built environment and quality of life. The outcome, reflecting sustained political commitment to the philosophical concept of enlightened undervelopment, was a sincere landscape inhabited by a virtuous people.