Aeon: The Architecture of Time: A Monograph: Lebbeus Woods

by Lebbeus Woods

There are four cities. One is of earth, one of fire, one of air and one of water. The relationship of each to the basic states of matter establishes its place in the orderly evolution of the world. This evolution may be thought of as a cycle of the life and death of plants, animals, men and women, minerals, atmospheres, oceans and seas, sun, moon and stars.

Genres: Architecture

32 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 1982

About the author

Lebbeus Woods was an American architect and artist.

Woods studied architecture at the University of Illinois and engineering at Purdue University and first worked in the offices of Eero Saarinen, but in 1976 turned exclusively to theory and experimental projects. He has designed buildings in Chengdu, China and Havana, Cuba. In 1988, Woods co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, a nonprofit institution devoted to the advancement of experimental architectural thought and practice while promoting the concept and perception of architecture itself.

He was a professor of architecture at the Cooper Union in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

The majority of his explorations deal with the design of systems in crisis: the order of the existing being confronted by the order of the new. His designs are politically charged and provocative visions of a possible reality; provisional, local, and charged with the investment of their creators. He is best known for his proposals for San Francisco, Havana, and Sarajevo that were included in the publication of Radical Reconstruction in 1997 (Sarajevo after the war, Havana in the grips of the ongoing trade embargo, and San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake).

"Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city."

Woods, who envisioned experimental constructs and environments, has stated, "the interplay of metrical systems establishing boundaries of materials and energetic forms is the foundation of a universal science (universcience) whose workers include all individuals"

Reviews

[jw468 · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're interested in this work, you're likely familiar with Anarchitecture: Architecture Is A Political Act. The cities considered in this brief work are also considered in that book, but in greater detail here. The illustrations in this work are reproduced in black, gray, and of course, the white of the paper. Part of what is so great about this work is that the illustrations are reproduced at such a large scale that it's possible to see the individual stroke marks, making it possible to examine Woods's technique.

Additional information about these cities can be found posted on Woods's blog; simply search the blog for the four cities named in the description.

Added 01/06/2014

More of this series of drawings can be found in Origins.