RUSKIN AND BEYOND: VITAL SURFACES AND THE MAKING OF ARCHITECTURE Anuradha Chatterjee Abstract The Chapter mounts an argument against the conceptual and physical thinness of surface, in nineteenth and early twentieth century architectural theory and imagination, and charts a return to surface as space, and as substance. John Ruskin’s writings on building fragments and surfaces are rescued from the dissonance between nineteenth century visual culture’s surface orientation and architectural theory’s emphasis on structure and space. They are reframed as the theory of buildings as dressed bodies. Ruskin’s view of architecture as pure surfaceness, a point of discursive rupture, opens up the spatial field, such that it becomes possible to imagine surface as the ‘building block’ of architecture. The Chapter presents additional surface typologies, and explores the agency of urban surfaces through a study of three Melbourne buildings. Introduction Surfaces, says Joseph A. Amato (2013, p. 1), ‘evade easy definition.’ In fact, the more they are defined the more slippery and elusive they become. Surfaces may be defined as skin (Cheng 2016; Lutpon 2002), textile and textility (Anusas and Ingold), image (Flusser 2000), screen (Bruno 2014), blur (Di Palma 2006), materials and materiality (Ingold 2007), effect (Benjamin 2006), and the instrument of perception (Gibson 1979). In architecture, surface can be specifically identified as sometimes coexistent forms and effects—wall, plaster, paint, cladding, ornament, fenestrations (doors, windows, and louvers), projections (balconies and loggias), transparencies/reflections/translucencies, and image. Nevertheless, according to Glenn Adamson and Victoria Kelly, surfaces are the ‘external appearance of things, easily manipulated, and within many traditions of thought, are held to be of lesser consequence than “deeper” or more “substantive” interiorities (2013, 1).’ This fuels the tendency to ‘rush past the surface to excavate more complex inner truth (1).’ A number of literary scholars call this condition “surface blindness.” This is partially true for architectural theory and practice, where 1 surface has occupied, and sometimes continues to occupy, an ancillary status. Surface is seen as capable of being interpreted but not occupied, capable of being effected but not influencing the design of the enclosure in which people live. The Chapter explores and argues for a greater agency of surface in architecture.1 The writings of John Ruskin and the current field of surface studies are important in grounding these considerations. The inquiry is also aided by the recent shifts in architectural discourse: David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi’s discussion of the free façade and artifice in modernist buildings (2002); Mark Taylor’s departure from the ‘oppositional format of whether surface is depth or depth is surface (2003);’ and Amanda Reeser Lawrence and Ashley Schafer’s consideration of surface as the new locus of invention and occupation (2007). The Chapter aims to challenge the limits of the discipline of architecture, and reveal the spatial potentialities of surface. The first section ‘The impossibility of surface in architectural theory’ opens with a discussion of the opposition(s) between surface and architecture. The nineteenth century marks a point of disjunction. In establishing the disciplinary definition of architecture, the constructive and the spatial took precedence over the visual, despite the fact that the nineteenth century was defined by burgeoning visuality. The chapter considers the limitations of this premise in the context of the more recent surface turn, where surface is substance, and the distinction between surface and depth diminished. The second section ‘John Ruskin and architecture as pure surface’ provides a precursor to this through Ruskin’s theory of the adorned wall veil, a nineteenth century theory of surface architecture, as it were. Ruskin relied upon Thomas Carlyle’s philosophy of clothes and the notion of spiritual life to argue that the ‘architectural clothing’ would reveal the inner life or the moral health of the society that produced it. Architecture was thus theorized entirely through textile metaphors, defined as absolute surface-ness. The third section ‘Urban surfaces and Australian buildings’ considers the idea of looking beyond Ruskin, which alludes to the broadening of his theory of surface as architecture. This is supported by the identification of other typologies of surface, beyond that of representation, which have profound spatial agency. Through a physical study of recent buildings in Melbourne, Australia, the chapter explores the thickened surface of the urban threshold—the effect and occupation of surface, which in essence articulates a conversation between the building and the city. 2 The Impossibility of Surface in Architectural Theory This section foregrounds the adversarial conceptualizations of surface (and visuality) and architecture. In this, the nineteenth century marks a point of incoherence. As an age, it is defined by burgeoning visuality, where surface is at the frontier of mediating these debates on seeing, illusion, truth, unity, subjectivity and so on (Burns 2004; Crary 1990). Yet its architectural theory adheres to constructive and spatial imperatives, over the visual and the surficial, in defining the discipline of architecture. The paradox is also this that despite the overexposed status of architectural surface, it is hardly ever looked at. Beatriz Colomina explains this as follows: ‘Sometimes the best way to hide something is in full sight (1994, p. 11).’ Anne Cheng echoes this in a recent publication where she states: ‘Sometimes it is not a question of what the visible hides but how it is that we have failed to see certain things on its surface (2009, 101).’ It is almost always looked past, or looked through, and thus remaining inaccessible to analysis. The modern era, according to Martin Jay (1988, p. 3), is ‘ocularcentric,’ as it is ‘dominated by sight in a way that sets it apart from its premodern predecessors.’ Jay (1988, p. 3) argues that modern western culture is marked by the ‘ubiquity of vision.’ This condition is exacerbated in the nineteenth century, and evidenced in the proliferation of images; surge in technologies of seeing; settings that foster the production, exchange, and consumption of these images; and the agency of the observer and subjective vision (Crary 1990; Flint 2000; Smith 2006; Newey 2009, Burns 2004).2 Kate Flint (2000, 1) argues that the (Victorian) fascination with the ‘act of seeing’ was about the ‘question of the reliability—or otherwise—of the human eye, and with the problems of interpreting what they saw.’ The subjective and social act of seeing, framing, and recording the world was complicated by the idea of ‘outward and inward seeing,’ or the ‘mind’s eye,’ which constituted the inner world of imagination. Above all, the concern was surrounding the ‘slipperiness of the borderline between the visible and the invisible (2).’ While the society was afforded different forms of spectatorship, it was also concerned with the ‘problematisation of that optical instrument, the human eye (2).’ Jonathan Crary (1988, p. 9) argues that vision itself became the object of study, as the inquiry shifts from ‘physical optics (the study of light and the forms of its propagation)’ to ‘physiological optics (the study of the eye and its sensory capacities) (p. 9).’ Specifically, the investigation into the ‘retinal afterimage’ was the most significant discovery of a so called ‘optical truth (p. 9).’ 3 The preoccupation with the visual was satisfied in a number of ways. Flint (2000, p. 3) argues that the ‘dissemination of images, whether photographic or engraved’ became possible due to the ‘development of the press and the diminishing costs of newsprint and printing technologies.’ Periodicals like Illustrated London and the Graphic ‘relied as much, if not more, on images as on words in their representation of the world (Flint 2000, pp. 3–4).’ Other forms of displays included exhibitions, panoramas, dioramas, and the museums, all of which provided fleeting as well as permanent access to visual images (p. 4). Flint (2000, p. 5) explains that Victorians also indulged in visual excitement through the use of new optical inventions like ‘the magic lantern, the kaleidoscope, the pseudoscope, the zoetrope,’ which provided a sensory experience without a tactile image. The dominance of the visual had yet another implication, Flint argues, employing Foucault’s theory of the panoptic society, that ‘to make something visible is to gain not understanding of it, but control over it (p. 7).’ The ‘drive to exposure’ was driven by the need to make things ‘available to the eye, and hence ready for interpretation (p. 8).’ This was especially supported by the work of scientists (also published and made part of popular culture through the increasing number of illustrated science publications), whose work with the microscope argued for bring the invisible world forward, and exercising ‘knowledge and control over the natural world (p. 8).’ 3 The nineteenth century relation between vision and surface was a paradoxical one. Even though surface was seen as the cause for vision’s obscurity, uncertainty, and opacity, it was the precondition for the operation of vision. On one hand, as Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus argue, surface is seen as capable of prompting ‘symptomatic reading,’ revealing ‘hidden meanings’ and truths that are modelled on the idea of depth (2009, pp. 1, 10). In this view, surfaces are ‘superficial and deceptive,’ and ‘would turn out to be false upon closer scrutiny (p. 4).’ On the other, explains Karen Burns, the image ‘confounds our perceptual cues about depth of field, through the ‘potent misinformation’ it carries (2004, p. 80). To this end, surface is the ‘site of deceit—simulation—and thus potential instability within the system of representation (p. 80).’ It is the fascination with depth, the conflation of depth with truth, and the need to police the depth that polarizes surface and depth. These orientations no doubt complemented nineteenth century architectural theory, because buildings too exhibit the duality palpable in nature and the human body, in consisting of aspects that are visible (exterior form, surface, and ornament) and invisible (structural elements and forces, and interior) to the eye. 4 Critical reception of Ruskin provides evidence of architectural theory’s resistance to surface, and its embeddedness in structural and spatial imperatives. Ruskin’s emphasis on the uselessness of ornament meant that he came across as uneducated in the discipline of architecture, insofar as this was defined as the knowledge of structural systems, perception of depth and interiority, and three dimensionality of form. In 1853, Samuel Higgins, a frequent commentator on Ruskin argued that architecture is the ‘art of the beautiful manifested in structure, of which, by its very nature, as a structural art, form must be the dominant principle.’ Therefore, a ‘building in which construction is made subservient to, and whose chief glory is colour, whether obtained by painting the surface, or by incrustation with precious and coloured material, cannot be architecture at all, in the proper sense of the word (Higgins 1853).’ An anonymous reviewer resonated this view, as s/he argued that Ruskin’s approach of discussing the ornament instead of the structure, was like describing the ‘coat instead of the man, sometimes not even the coat, but the buttons and braid, which cover it (1853).’ Twentieth century views were not very different. Charles H Moore (1924, p. 117) claimed that Ruskin’s ‘apprehensions were not grounded in a proper sense of structure and he had no practical acquaintance with the art of building.’ Moore (1924, p. 117) added: ‘He made, as we shall presently see, the distinguishing characteristics of Gothic to consist virtually in ornamental features—even structural members bring regarded him as of primarily ornamental significance.’ Moore argued that even though Ruskin seemed to discuss structure, he did not fully understand the logic of the structural system. This opinion was echoed by Paul Frankl who argued that Ruskin’s interest was always fixed on two-dimensional aspects, on the manner in which ornament contributed to the perception of the surface as an ‘integral whole (1960, pp. 560–61).’ He did not really understand important advancements in architecture like the ribbed vaults, because he could not adequately visualize or understand three-dimensional interiors (Frankl 1960, pp. 560–61). Alternative and more inclusive readings (Hatton 1992; Unrau 1998) suggest that the above stated views failed to consider that it was interest in surface, not lack of understanding of interiors and structural mechanics, which motivated Ruskin’s architectural studies. Ruskin’s critics were no doubt in harmony with the somewhat later discovery and writings by August Schmarsow (1853–36), who proposed the theory of architecture as a ‘spatial creation, 5 based on bodily movement through space rather than stationary perception of form (Schwarzer and Schmarsow 1991, p. 50).’ Schmarsow’s theory was different from that of his predecessors, as it went against a static theory of space, and because it undermined the formbased understanding of architecture. The discovery of space permeated architectural thinking quickly. Gustav Platz argued that space 'represents the highest cultivated form of our time,’ and architect RM Schindler argued in 1934 that to understand modern architecture, one had to understand ‘‘space’ and ‘space forms’ as a new medium for human expression (Schwarzer and Schmarsow 1991, p. 57).’ Later historians like Nikolaus Pevsner (1963, p. 15) also declared that the ‘history of architecture is a history of man shaping space.’ Similarly, Bruno Zevi in Architecture as space (1948, p. 22) stated: ‘A satisfactory history of architecture has not yet been written, because we are still not accustomed to thinking in terms of space.’ Sigfried Giedion attempted to address this issue by offering the ‘Three space conceptions,’ in Space, time, and architecture (1941). From here on architectural invention was defined wholly spatially, where spatiality was also narrowly understood as interiority—Adolf Loos’s theory of the Raumplan; Le Corbusier’s theory of the architectural promenade; Theo Van Doesberg’s theory of neoplastic space; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s universal space; and Louis Kahn’s plan as the society of rooms. We are, nevertheless, surrounded by and entangled in surfaces. Recent writings from an interdisciplinary field of literature, science, art, design, anthropology, and ethnology have given rise to ‘surface studies,’ theories of life and world based on the study of ‘skin, screens, lines, interfaces, fabric, landscapes, [and] the earth.’4 Architectural theorist Kurt W Forster (2005) argues even though we ‘have been taught to mistrust appearances,’ and are ‘always asked to look for the substance of things and not be distracted by superficial matters,’ we cannot transcend them. Noting the potency and pervasiveness of surface, Forster argues: ‘Surfaces are everywhere. It is tempting to think that we inhabit a world comprising only of surfaces.’ In fact, the inevitability of surface for visual perception was proposed by ecological psychologist James Gibson. Gibson (1979, p. 23) said surfaces were important, as this is where ‘most of the action’ was, and that the ‘surface is where light is reflected or absorbed, not the interior of the substance. The surface is what touches the animal, not the interior. The surface is where chemical reaction mostly takes place. The surface is where vaporization or diffusion of substances into the medium occurs. And the surface is where vibrations of the substances are transmitted into the medium.’ Even though Gibson’s thesis enables us to think of surfaces as 6 integral to sense and cognition, his theory is underpinned by the assumption that surface exists because of substance, and that its own form is reliant on the integrity and the constitutive properties of the substance under consideration. Therefore, in his writings, there are many instances of the ‘surface of,’ such as the ‘surface of a viscoelastic substance’ or the ‘surface of a rigid substance (Gibson 1979, p. 25).’ The Gibsonian polarization of surface and substance is complexified and tested by more recent views. Tim Ingold (2011, p. 12) provides a rethinking of Gibson’s ‘sclerotisation’ of the environment— the assumption that sentient bodies encountered an insentient world, and the moving body interacted with a fully formed environment. Using Martin Heidegger’s notion of dwelling and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of becoming, Ingold (2011, p. 12) argues that another way to look at this would be to consider ‘the sentient body, at once both perceiver and producer,’ such that the surfaces of the world that are traversed, are continuously made and remade. In my view, Ingold’s argument about the inextricability of the subject from the world is mirrored by the entanglement of the surface with substance. This is echoed by the following architectural theorists. Gregor Eichinger (2011, p. 12) says: ‘Essentially we have nothing other than surface. The entire universe consists of it. If we wanted to know what lies behind it, we would have to break with our given perception of the world, which is neither physically nor intellectually possible.’ Along similar lines, Forster (2005) claims: ‘As soon as we try to get beyond them [surfaces], we are called upon to make formidable epistemological efforts.’ These assertions undermine the widely held belief that “peeling back the layers” will lead one to the substance of things, or the core of things: it will not. All truth is in/on the surface. From a textual point of view, Best and Marcus recommend that we abandon ‘symptomatic reading’ of surfaces that attempt to ‘plumb hidden depths’ in texts, and regard it as that which is ‘neither hidden nor hiding; what, in the geometrical sense, has length and breadth but no thickness, and therefore covers no depth. A surface is what insists on being looked at rather than what we must train ourselves to see through (2009, pp. 18, 9).’ This situates surface as content and meaning, reiterating the impossibility of separating surface from substance. This premise can be furthered through the Deleuzian theory of sense. Gilles Deleuze (1990, p. 72) described sense as a ‘surface effect.’ It was not seen as something to be discovered, but to ‘produce by a new machinery.’ Sense was also described as being ‘inseparable from surface which is its proper dimension.’ Not produced in/by depths of bodies, which are now seen as 7 ‘undifferentiated depth and in their measureless pulsation,’ surface became the ‘locus of sense’ and its organizational machinery (Deleuze 1990, p. 124). In fact, Gilbert Simondon (quoted in Deleuze 1990) suggested that the ‘living lives at the limit of itself, on its limit (Deleuze 1990, p. 104).’ Matter is organized topologically, such that the categories of inner and the outer are nonexistent. Everything is simultaneously inside and outside, at the limit, and always defined as/by the surface condition. This section closes with two related conclusions: Surfaces do not belong to substances or that substances do not have surfaces. Surface is substance: it cannot be transcended. John Ruskin and Architecture as Pure Surface This section takes the debate further, contextualizing it, and locating it in a nineteenth century precursor—Ruskin’s theory of the adorned wall veil. Ruskin relied on Thomas Carlyle’s writings, particularly Sartor Resartus (1833–34). Carlyle’s philosophy of clothes favoured the soul over the body, whereby the soul was located in the clothing, not the body. Along similar lines, Ruskin argued that the clothing of the building, the seamless veneer of polychromatic ornament covering the external wall is what revealed the inner life or moral health of the society that produced it: this is architecture. The tectonic language of buildings—Kenneth Frampton describes tectonic as belonging to the realm of buildings and involved in articulating the ‘poetics of construction’—was transformed into one of textile fabrications. 5 The (building) materials were pliable and luxurious fabrics; the process of making involved cutting, gathering, stretching, stitching, draping, and layering; and the outcome was dressing. This advanced a new conception of architecture as absolute surface-ness—a premise Frampton would have wholeheartedly opposed. Ruskin’s architectural theory was based on the wall, which was the key element in ‘The six divisions of architecture,’ in Stones of Venice I, and one of the three elements (with roof and apertures) that constituted architecture. He also devoted four chapters to the wall, (‘the wall base,’ ‘the wall veil,’ ‘the wall cornice,’ and ‘the wall veil and shaft’). Rest of the chapters focused on surface details. The illustrations included wall decorations and profiles of architectural elements like bases, capitals, cornices, mouldings, and brackets. Considered together, the textual and graphic documentation suggested that Ruskin was proposing a new 8 language of architecture focused entirely on surface. This is evidenced in his argument in Seven Lamps of Architecture that the wall is the only element in architecture that is worth considering. Ruskin (1903–1912, vol. 8, pp. 108–9) argued: ‘Of the many broad divisions under which architecture may be considered, none appear to me more significant than that into buildings whose interest is in their walls, and those whose interest is in the lines dividing their walls.’ This showed that his interest was in buildings where the integrity of the wall (mass and solidity) was sustained. This why he argued that in the ‘Greek temple the wall is as nothing,’ whereas in ‘Romanesque work and Egyptian, the wall is a confessed and honoured member (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 8, pp. 108–109).’ Ruskin promoted a new way of looking at buildings, which was no longer tied to period and style. His classificatory system was based on the wall, and the terms ‘Gothic’ and ‘Renaissance’ were indicative of attitudes to surface. Furthermore, the wall was not merely an architectural element: it was the (new) architectural object. The wall was ideally flat. In order to convey this point, Ruskin (1903–1912, vol. 8, p. 109) compared two types of surfaces in nature. He argued: ‘For, whatever infinity of fair form there may be in the maze of the forest, there is a fairer, as I think, in the surface of the quiet lake; and I hardly know that association of shaft or tracery, for which I would exchange the warm sleep of sunshine on some smooth, broad, human-like front of marble.’ This was an implicit comparison between a three-dimensional and a flat surface, between the bristly exterior of the Northern Gothic cathedrals and the decorated surfaces of Byzantine and Italian Gothic buildings. Ruskin recognized that the flatness of the wall could be reinforced by increasing its extent. This is why he delineated ‘[b]readth of flat surface’ as the second item in the list of desirable architectural qualities (1903–1912, vol. 8, p. 187). Ruskin further added that if the ‘terminal lines’ of the building were ‘removed, in every direction, as far as possible,’ it would make the ‘face of a wall look infinite, and its edge against the sky like a horizon (Ruskin 1903– 1912, vol. 8, pp. 109–110).’ The flatness of the wall was further reinforced by Ruskin’s definition of architecture, which according to him was the combination of the sister arts of painting and sculpture. Ruskin (1903–1912, vol. 8, p. 11) declared that the ‘fact is, there are only two fine arts possible to the human race, sculpture and painting. What we call architecture is only the association of these in noble masses, or the placing them in fit places. All architecture other than this is, in fact, mere building.’ He added that the ‘perfect building’ was one that was ‘composed of the 9 highest sculpture…associated with pattern colours on the flat or broad surfaces (Ruskin 1903– 1912, vol. 8, p. 186).’ The architectural element that was best placed to negotiate and incorporate these arts into a common third form of art was the wall. Hence, the wall became synonymous with or identifiable as architecture. Furthermore, the wall itself was reinvented. It was not merely the background for the application of sculpture and painting. It was produced through the amalgamation of the sister arts. The ideal wall had to balance the sister arts, such that it could have abundant polychromy, but could only receive low relief ornamentation. In other words, the wall was like a canvas that had abundant colour but barely any texture or relief. The comparison between the wall and the canvas was articulated in Seven Lamps, where Ruskin argued that the ‘wall surface is to an architect simply what a white canvas is to a painter,’ adding also that the ‘canvas and wall are supposed to be given, and it is our craft to divide (1903–1912, vol. 8, p. 115).’ The wall was seen as having expressive autonomy, not normally afforded to ‘architectural’ walls. The wall (referred to as the wall veil by Ruskin) was to be split clearly into surface and depth. He found precedence for this in geological formations such as mountains, specifically the Mont Cervin in the Alps. Ruskin detected remarkable similarities between the mountain and a wall, specifically in the coursed form of its strata and the verticality of its ascent (1903–1912, vol. 9, p. 87). He also observed that the rock face was composed of a ‘mass of loose and slaty shale, of a dull brick-red colour, which yields beneath the foot like ashes.’ This covered hard rock beneath, which was ‘disposed in thin courses of these cloven shales.’ Ruskin noted that there were no cliffs, which did not ‘display alternations between compact and friable conditions of their material (1903–1912, vol. 9, p. 88).’ Following the ‘universal law of natural building,’ Ruskin suggests that the wall, like the mountain, ought to ideally consist of delicate and decorative outer layer, which almost always conceals a solid inner core. This was a seemingly obvious tectonic condition, theorized for the first time in Alberti’s writings. However, Ruskin’s proposition was grounded in the relation between the fragile and cohesive covering masking a solid interior, mirroring the dressing of the human figure. The disjunction between surface and depth in the adorned wall veil was not just physical: it was also symbolic. In other words, the ornamentation of the wall was disconnected from its construction. This is evidenced in the Baptistery of Florence, which according to Ruskin (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 23, p. 298) was the ‘central building of European Christianity.’ He 10 compared the Baptistery’s wall to a ‘Harlequin’s jacket,’ where the colourful and vivid diapered patterns make no reference to the disposition of musculature of the human body (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 20, p. 217). This was seen in the Baptistery, where the pictorial tectonics of the arches, shafts, bays, and floor levels delineated through the use of coloured marble neither explain nor indicate the actual disposition of space or structure inside the building. The pictorial nature of this surface was reinforced in Ruskin’s characterization of the building as ‘one piece of large engraving. White substance, cut into, and filled with black and dark green (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 23, p. 344).’ This is evidenced in his drawing of a cropped view of one of the bays, which indicates that the external wall may be appreciated as if it were an independently executed art object. The adorned wall veil was also a pliable entity, both in form and ornament. Ruskin discussions around the drawing ‘Pier base,’ Stones I suggested that the wall was a pliable entity. The drawing showed five types of wall construction systems—the solid wall, two sets of pilastered walls, a row of piers, and a row of shafts—arranged sequentially, as if suggesting constructive contiguity. He said: ‘Now observe: the whole pier was the gathering of the whole wall, the base gathers into base, the veil into the shaft, and the string courses of the veil gather into these rings; and when this is clearly expressed, and the rings do indeed correspond with the string courses of the wall veil (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 9, p. 128).’ Along these lines, the cornice would become the capital, and the plinth of the wall transformed into a base for the shaft. That these are distinct constructional systems is suppressed by Ruskin’s textile language, in which wall, shafts, piers, pilasters, capitals, and cornices were seen as uninterrupted elements. It seemed as though the wall was to architecture, what cloth was to tailoring and dressing, whereby the entire surface of the building was composed of a fabric-like material that could be cut, stretched, or gathered. The (literary and visual) transformation of stone into fabric was also undertaken at the level of the ornament. Ruskin argued that ‘properties which, when inherent in a thing, make it drapery, are extension, non-elastic flexibility, unity, and comparative thinness. Everything which has these properties, a waterfall, for instance, if united and extended, or a net of weeds over a wall, is drapery (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 3, p. 151).’ Ornament adhering to these principles would fuse and link to form a flat and a flexible membrane. It would be able to cover a substantial area without losing its form. It was these qualities that made that made the basket and lily capital in 11 the Church of St. Mark’s basilica, Venice; inlaid spandrels in the Church of San Michele de Or, Lucca; interlaced wall ornament in Ca Trevisan, Venice; and the uninterrupted traceries of Ca’ d’Oro, Venice important to Ruskin. Ruskin’s interest in textile and dress was indebted to Thomas Carlyle, and his book, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834). The central argument of the book is that ‘society is founded upon cloth.’ Carlyle (Bloom ed. 1983, p. 54) argued that ‘all visible things are emblems’ and ‘all emblematic things are properly clothes, thought-woven, or hand-woven.’ The very basis of culture was symbolic, and all symbols were clothes that expressed a hidden idea. Even language was called the ‘garment of thought,’ as it revealed imagination, the invisible spirit of the human mind (Bloom ed. 1983, p. 54). These arguments were extended to the human body. Carlyle (Bloom ed. 1983, p. 2) claimed that clothes were the ‘grand tissue of all tissue,’ the ‘vestural tissue,’ that ‘man’s soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall; wherein his whole other…tissues are included and screened, his whole faculties work, his whole self lives, moves, and has its being.’ Clothes were imparted with a corporeal quality, and importance greater than the body, and capable of setting the soul free from its subjugation to the body. Clothes were so important that Carlyle (Bloom ed. 1983, pp. 25–26) compared them to architectural styles, ‘Grecian, Gothic, later-Gothic, or altogether modern, and Parisian or AngloDandiacal.’ He argued: ‘In all his modes, and habilatory endeavours, an architectural idea will be found lurking; his body and the cloth are the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice of a person, is to be built.’ The expression ‘architectural idea’ suggested that the (unclothed) body did not possess innate truth. It was constructed. The fabrication of the exterior surface of the body allowed it to come into being. That the cloth was the material, and the body the site for the construction, reinforced the importance of cloth over body. It also unhooked the soul from the body, allowing it a more direct (surface) and an autonomous (separate from the body) expression and presence. Ruskin utilized this thinking to argue: ‘Uniting the technical and imaginative elements as essentially as humanity does soul and body, it shows the same infirmly balanced liability to the prevalence of the lower part over the higher, to the interference of the constructive, with the purity and simplicity of the reflective element (Ruskin 1903–1912, vol. 8, p. 20–21).’ This demonstrated Carlylean influence, as Ruskin privileged soul, and associated soul with the 12 added layer of ornamentation that was added to the brute masonry structure of a building. The privileging of soul over body was a contextual response. Both thinkers were responding to the increasing materialism and focus on physical sciences in Victorian England that tended to overshadow and dominate spiritual and metaphysical domain of knowledge. Nevertheless, the profound consequence of this was that for the first time, surface was positioned as substance; as capable of constituting substance; and as having a constructive agency or role. Urban Surfaces and Australian Buildings This section considers the enormous potentiality of surface that has remained undeveloped. Andrew Benjamin (2006, p. 30, 31) defines potentiality as the ‘yet-to be realised possibility,’ and a ‘generative’ field, where ‘generative can be located in a set of relationships rather than being reduced to an image of those relationships.’ To this end, it is stimulating to think of the consequences of surface as substance, and surface as constructive (in thinking beyond the known terrain of the representational surface in architecture). The potentiality of Ruskin’s theory of surface as architecture is in the excavation of surface typologies that have thus far been overlooked, and that allow us to think of other ways of constituting (as well as enriching) spatiality and occupation, from “outside in.” This is not to be confused with the depth orientation of symptomatic reading. This is a form of reading that deliberately reverses the process of architectural production that is often limited to proceeding from within to without. It seeks hidden spatialities in surface configurations that are not reducible to the excavation of depth. This is explored in Surface and deep histories (Chatterjee 2013, pp. 151–56), where four additional attitudes to surface are identified. First, surface as an urban threshold, consisting of fenestrations, entries, screens, and other elements, is seen as having a key role in articulating the building’s place in the city, as well as shaping public space and public life. Second, surface may be integrated with the structural system, and its articulation may inform the spatial experience of the interior. Third, optically and physically transient surfaces refigure to the shifting climatic and occupational conditions, thereby challenging the identification of architectural surface as pictorial and static. And fourth, due to the figuration of surface as a topological condition in digital softwares, it becomes the method of generating form, structure, 13 and space (through manual and digital processes of layering, folding, pleating), offering an alternative to the classical orientations in architectural design theory. As these modalities coexist in architecture, surface becomes ‘superficial and pervasive, symbol and space; meaningful and functional; static and transitory, object and envelope (Chatterjee 2014, p. 11).’ The chapter explores the urban agency of surface through a study of three recent buildings in Melbourne, Australia. 6 The significance of this exploration may be grasped by considering the more recent critiques in architecture theory that have mounted a challenge to development imperatives that view architecture, landscape, infrastructure, geology, hydrology as separate areas of concern. Frampton was the first to articulate a critique of the twentieth century city as consisting of ‘megaforms.’ He notes the ‘“ad-hoc” proliferation of ill-related, relatively isolated, free-standing objects, which invariably go to make up the ‘non-place’ agglomeration of the contemporary urban environment (2010).’ Angelo Bucci returns to this issue in The Dissolution of Buildings (Bucci 2016) where he asks: ‘Can an architect pass through walls? Can the city permeate a house?’ Here, Alex Wall’s thinking around the ‘urban surface’ is productive. He suggests that we look at projects that ‘signal a shift of emphasis from the design of enclosed objects to the design and manipulation of larger urban surfaces,’ and that act as the ‘connective tissue that organizes not only objects and spaces but also the dynamic processes and events that move through them.’ Wall asks that we consider the ‘extensive and inclusive ground-plane of the city’ that ‘organizes and supports a broad range of fixed and changing activities in the city.’ I argue that in order to achieve the desired contiguity between buildings and cities, it is important to think of not just of the ground but also of the vertical surface of the building. Specifically, it is the doors, windows, and loggias (as well as niches and aedicules or screens, projections, and walls) that matter.7 In ‘The decorum of doors and windows, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century,’ Peter Kohane and Michael Hill (2007) explain that these elements were historically conceived to attribute to buildings a sense of order, decorum, and animation, which not only allowed buildings to fit into the order of the city, but it also encouraged citizens to sense correspondence between buildings and their own bodies. However, the surface elements listed above exceed their social and corporeal consequences: they can be thought to articulate urban ‘effects.’ These are as follows. First is the construction of the theatrical urban experience. Observable in the National Library of St Mark's in Venice by Renaissance architect 14 Jacopo Sansovino, the loggias not only create an experience of the urban realm as a drama to be witnessed, but they also produce a backdrop for the urbanity to unfold as a theatrical act (Johnson 2000). There is another facet to this. Architectural historian Karsten Harries (1990, p. 23) argues, through the writings of nineteenth century French architect Charles Garnier, the architect of the Paris Opera: ‘Wherever two or three people gather, there is theater, at least in principle.’ In fact, Garnier argued: ‘To see and to make oneself be seen, to understand and to make oneself be understood, that is the fated circle of humanity; to be actor or spectator, that is the condition of human life (Garnier cited in Harries, p. 23).’ This suggests a dynamic relation between the audience and the spectator. The interchangeability of these categories suggests a mode of theatricality that is relational and shifting, thereby making space for vitality in urban life. Second is shared territories, or the space of encounter between the public and the private. Giovanni Maciocco uses the word territory to diminish the dichotomy between city and architecture. He calls this the ‘intermediate space,’ a system of reciprocal relations, and that which establishes an ‘aperture, otherness, a third character, favourable towards mediation and transformation.’ Maciocco sees territory as the ‘space in which the city of places re-emerges in the city of flows (2014, p. 1).’ This means that the territory is where the locatedness of occupation begins to emerge. Maciocco recognizes the territory as ‘urban potential,’ as there is where ‘new modalities of public space may be experimented, [which] are the counter-spaces of the metropolis,’ beyond the imperatives of logic and commodification (2008, p. 15). This was evidenced in Andrea Palladio’s Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza (1551–54). In this building, an extra four meters of public land was acquired for the building. In return, the ground floor loggia was gifted back to the public. Kate Goodwin (2009, p. 12) explains that because of this move, the ‘city gained a long covered walkway, running the length of the building, which to this day is a major meeting place for the citizens of Vicenza. Chiericati gained a much larger first floor as he was able to build over the walkway on the upper level.’ Thus, Palladio was able to create a ‘wonderful synergy between public and private space (Goodwin 2009, p. 12).’ Third is surface as ‘event.’ Fiona McLachlan (2006, p. 192) explains that for Robert Venturi, the ‘contradictory demands of inside and outside, private and public, should be accommodated within the façade, not necessarily resolved, but expressive of any contradiction or discord.’ In Complexity and contradiction, Venturi (1965, p. 86) explains that the ‘wall—the point of change 15 becomes an architectural event. Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forces of use and space…Architecture as the wall between the inside and the outside becomes the spatial record of this resolution and drama. And by recognizing the difference between the inside and the outside, architecture opens the door once again to an urbanistic point of view.’ Venturi uses the term event and eventual in the book several times to express the unexpected or the exceptional, but mostly to suggest that creating a sense of vitality and complexity in architecture is a theatrical event that needs us to bear witness. The emphasis on event highlights action over representation, performance over stable meaning. Venturi repositions the objective/object of architecture as the production of this wall/event, and in so doing, redefines architecture as always urban. Figure 1, Corner view, Monaco House (2007), Melbourne by McBride Charles Ryan Architects, Photo provided by McBride Charles Ryan Architects, Photographer: John Gollings. The Monaco House (2007) in Melbourne by Robert McBride and Debbie-Lyn Ryan of McBride Charles Ryan Architects is a perfect example of the use of surface to shape public life. This is a four storeyed building on a pedestrian lane called Ridgway Place, at the East end of Melbourne’s Central Business District. More specifically, it sits at a corner that is created by a small service lane that leads in from Ridgway place. McBride Charles Ryan, (2004) claim that the ‘process of the aggregation of the Melbourne’s allotments is now almost universally seen as a process which diminishes urban quality and diversity. There is now an earnest attempt, even in large block developments, to reintroduce fine grain urbanism that has been lost to the city.’ The architects characterize the building as diminutive, and no bigger than a ‘postage stamp,’ 16 given that the site is just over six meters in width and seventeen meters in depth, with a footprint of approximately hundred and two square meters (McBride Charles Ryan 2004). Figure 2, View of balconies, Monaco House (2007), Melbourne by McBride Charles Ryan Architects Photo provided by McBride Charles Ryan Architects, Photographer: Trevor Mein. Lacking real frontage, I find the building is not an easy find. It slowly materializes as I walk up to it. It has a narrow frontage, and almost no foreground. The folded form of the corner is the first thing I see. The folding seems dynamic, as the faceted corner folds into and up into a buoyant folded form, which seems to rise up without much effort (Figure 1). The folded angular edges that catch the sun also hold the shadows that give the building a discernible identity. The folds also echo the fact that building is experienced as a series of discrete fragments. I experience the Monaco House by looking up, and not by looking at it. I am encouraged to look up as the folded corner expands into the front. As I look up, I see projecting and receding balconies (and a window). As discussed by Kohane and Hill, the theatricality of these elements is written into their conception (Figure 2). However, it is the soffit of the projecting balcony that really catches my eye: this is a theatrical element that is not obvious. My eyes are blinded by the metal-clad punctured soffit, which catches the light and reflects it back to my eye, deflecting my gaze, yet constantly drawing it up. Meanwhile, at the ground floor level, the folded corner shapes itself into a canopy, stretching deep into the building. This forms the ground floor café, a space that visibly supports public life (Figure 3). The urban surface is not just an external feature of the Monaco House. This is very much a Venturian event, wherein the rise and fall of the faceted surface is actually echoed in the interior spaces, maintaining a dialectical tension between inside and outside. 17 Figure 3, Interior, Monaco House (2007), Melbourne by McBride Charles Ryan Architects, Photo provided by McBride Charles Ryan Architects, Photographer: Trevor Mein. The BHP Billiton Headquarters (2004) by Lyons Architects on Collins Street in Melbourne CBD commands a greater street presence. It departs from the commercial architecture typology of the eighties and the nineties, which was characterized by the tower and podium, or the tower and plaza model. Michael Ostwald (2004) explains that this building (along with other recent mid-rise buildings in Melbourne) is a ‘horizontally attenuated’ tower that meets the ground directly. In such context, asking where the wall stops and urban surfaces begin becomes meaningless. The building fights the representational limits of glass. Throughout modernity, glass has been either a cold and impenetrable membrane, or a reflective refracting crystalline object. BHP Billiton Headquarters ‘reframes’ the limits of glass. The curtain wall seems to be ‘torn’ and contoured, to evoke cuts, folds, and lifts, as if to a stiffened textile (Figure 4). The curtain wall also drops down into two layers of overlapping yet staggered canopies. This, combined with the ground plane that steps back and forth, articulates four different kinds of entries to the building. Above all, it creates recesses to recede into and dwell within (Figure 5). As I walk down the street on a rainy day, I am led into and out of these recesses and canopies, bumping into people carrying umbrellas. Nevertheless, my movement is guided by the fact that the canopies rise up to suggest slower movement at the entrances, and dip down to articulate faster movement in between. This is a commercial building that lends itself to the people and the public realm, that gifts to the city a shared territory of passage and encounter. 18 Figure 4, BHP Billiton Headquarters (2004), Melbourne, Lyons Architects, Photo provided by Lyons, Photographer: John Gollings. As I walk into the building, I notice that the entrances and canopies affect the contours of the lobby. The entrances protrude into the space of the lobby. One can in fact see and feel the layered canopies. The polished floor of the lobby augments this effect, as it collects and multiplies the reflections of the city. While I am somewhat disoriented, I realize that this effect is also applicable to the exterior. The reflections on the glass canopy, seen from outside, produces reflections that make me feel as if I am in an ‘interior’ that is also populated by reflections of the exterior (cars and buses, and people on the opposite side of the street). The interior and the exterior can no longer be pulled apart. These partial and fragmented reflections of the city are further interiorized―in the mural made of die-cast aluminium tiles installed in the lobby. Ostwald (2004) notes that the mural echoes Lyons’s City of Fiction installation for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000, in which the ‘postcards (depicting Lyons’s project work and design propositions] formed an abstracted image of the contemporary city Lyons Architects 2000).’ He explains that the ‘surfaces of the parallelogramshaped tiles are highly polished while others are textured in such a way that from a distance the otherwise flat wall presents an illusion of spatial complexity spatial complexity,’ evoking axonometric views of a city. 19 Figure 5, Looking up, from under one of the canopies, BHP Billiton Headquarters (2004), Melbourne, Lyons Architects, Photographer: Anuradha Chatterjee, 2009. The Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership (2008) in Melbourne by John Wardle Architects façade is a long undulating three-part structure on Domain Road. I focus on the central part of the building, which can be read as the sum total of the top (the framed glazed bays), the middle (glass façade of the library), and the base (brick seating outside). The top catches my eye: it consists of multiple glazed frames that are juxtaposed in a Mondrianesque manner. As the frames are of different thicknesses, the whole composition dances in and out, of off the vertical plane. The juxtaposition of the glazed frames means that I see the Domain Gardens across the road, as simultaneously doubled and fragmented (Figure 6). The foliage is actually a very important part of the urban context, which is constantly broken, shifted, and repositioned on the façade, creating a curated experience of the landscape. I witness the landscape twice. The façade is simultaneously transparent and opaque. The glass is fritpatterned, containing pixelated impressions of the fleur-de-lis of the School crest (Figure 7). However, as I walk towards it, the patterns appear and disappear. In fact, they frequently coalesce with the reflections of the landscape, optically ‘thickening’ the glass surface. The opacity of the façade varies with the changing angle of shadows cast by the varying depth of the frames. The building engages you: this is not normally the case for glass facades (and curtain walls) that are entrenched in the phenomenon of distraction and mass media. 20 Figure 6, Glass façade, Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership (2008), Melbourne, John Wardle Architects, Photo provided by John Wardle Architects, Photographer: Trevor Mein, meinphoto. My experience of the interior is also mediated by these framed, glazed bays. As I head up to the first floor and walk toward the glass wall, I realize that the bays effect the occupation of interior. Here, the typology of the window is combined with that of a balcony to create an urban threshold that seems dynamic. The bays are quite purposefully disconnected from the interior, in the sense that their composition is not choreographed to the floor slabs. I am, therefore, able to stand, pressed up against the glass, and quite literally suspended between the floor slab and the street. Furthermore, the frames that are neither continuous nor choreographed create an abstract pictorial space of the landscape, into which I am thrown, away from the building. The framed bays undulate vertically as well as horizontally. This makes the ground floor even more interesting: there are two adjacent but distinct thresholds. The interior is remarkable for its continuously folding study space that extends all the way up to the glass wall but this does not end here. The interior is mirrored on the outside, in the continuous brick seating that roughly echoes the profile of the furniture inside. The interior and the exterior seating are sheltered, shaded, and framed simultaneously by the soffit line of the projecting bay. The doubling and the folding of the experience of inhabiting the threshold makes a point about a learning culture that is as engaged with serious academic reflection as it is in the matters of the city (Figure 8). This is what makes possible the ‘outward focused learning environment orienting its students toward the city (John Wardle Architects 2008).’ 21 Figure 7, Close up showing the frit patterned glass, Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership (2008), Melbourne, John Wardle Architects, Photo provided by John Wardle Architects, Photographer: Trevor Mein, meinphoto. Figure 8, Interior showing the adjacency of the study space and the brick seating outside, Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership (2008), Melbourne, John Wardle Architects, Photo provided by John Wardle Architects, Photographer: Trevor Mein, meinphoto Conclusion The chapter considers the crisis of surface in architecture—the polarization of surface and depth—through the negative reactions to Ruskin’s writings that almost exclusively referred to 22 surface fragments from disparate buildings. Current scholarship in surface studies calls the above stated dichotomy into question, and argues that surface is substance, and that there is no substance that can be uncovered by peeling away the surface. These views echo Ruskin’s writings that had suggested that architecture was the act of dressing an unadorned edifice. His theory was grounded in the Carlylean philosophy of clothes that renewed the value of the soul as the substance of human existence, which was located and expressed autonomously through clothing. Ruskin’s idea that architecture could be pure surface is full of potentiality that asks one to go beyond the literalness of Ruskin’s theory and imagining other possible futures. Hence, it becomes possible to imagine buildings (past, present, and future) as assemblages—of different typologies of surfaces. It becomes possible to imagine that the building blocks of architecture may not be limited to structural and spatial systems but may include surface modalities. To this end, the chapter identifies four surface modalities, of which one is examined—surface as having urban agency. The urban agency of surface is identified as constituting 1) theatrical urbanity; 2) a shared urban territory; and 3) an event that captures the tension between interiority and exteriority. This is explored through the study of three Melbourne buildings—Monaco House; BHP Billiton Headquarters; and Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership. The faceted and folded corner of the Monaco House is choreographed to the projecting balconies to articulate a sharp vertical ascent, which creates a ‘front’ without a real frontage and the space for a street side café. The BHP Billiton HQ curtain wall is manipulated to gift to the city a shared territory of passage and refuge. The building’s reflective surfaces undermine the separateness of the building and the city, private and public. The Nigel Peck Centre for Learning and Leadership creates a threshold that can be inhabited simultaneously, from within and without. The study shows that just as the conceptual categories of surface and substrate cannot be pulled apart, the inner life of the building may in fact be constituted by the public life of the city. This not only challenges the modernist distancing of the building from the city but it also provokes a redefinition of the idea of occupation, and the possibility of imagining architecture from outside in. 23 References Amato, J 2013, Surfaces: a history, University of California Press, California. Anonymous 1853, ‘Ruskin on architecture’, The Illustrated London news, vol. 22, 3, 17 and 31, December, pp. 467, 514–515, 602–604. Anusas, M & Ingold, T 2013, ‘Designing environmental relations: from opacity to textility.’ Design issues 29, no. 4, pp. 58–69. John Wardle Architects 2008, Nigel Peck centre for learning and leadership, Australian Institute of Architects, accessed 01 January 2015, URL: http://dynamic.architecture.com.au/awards_search?option=showaward&entryn o=2008037709. Benjamin, A 2006, ‘Surface effects: Borromini, Semper, Loos,’ The journal of architectural education, vol. 11, no. 1, pp, 1–34. Best, S & Marcus, S 2009, ‘Surface reading: an introduction,’ Representations vol. 108, no. 1, pp. 1–21. Bruno, G 2014, Surface: matters of aesthetics, materiality, and media, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; London. Burns, K 2004, ‘Optical surfaces: the limits and possibilities of illusionism at William Butterfield’s All Saints’ Church’, in H Edquist & H Frichot (eds), Limits: proceedings of the 21st annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, vol. 1, Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, pp. 75–81. Carlyle, T 1833–1834 [1983], Sartor Resartus, ed. H Bloom, Chelsea House, New York. Carter, M 2003, ‘Thomas Carlyle and Sartor Resartus’, in Fashion classics from Carlyle to Barthes, Berg, Oxford & New York, pp. 1–17. Chatterjee, A 2014, Surface and deep histories: critiques and practices in art, architecture, and design, Cambridge Scholarly Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne. Cheng, AA 2009, ‘Skins, tattoos, and susceptibility,’ Representations, vol. 108, no. 1, pp. 98–119. Crary, J 1990, Techniques of the observer: on vision and modernity in the nineteenth century, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England. ———. 1988, ‘Techniques of the observer,’ October, vol. 45, pp. 3–35. Deleuze, G 1990, The Logic of sense, Columbia University Press, New York. 24 Di Palma, V 2006, ‘Blurs, blots, and clouds: architecture and the dissolution of the surface,’ AA Files 54 (Summer 2006), pp. 24–35. Doucet, I & Cupers, K 2009, ‘Agency in architecture: reframing criticality in theory and practice,’ Footprint: Delft School of Design journal, vol. 4, pp. 1–6. E, Gregor and Tröger, E 2011, Touch me: the mystery of the surface: Gregor Eichinger speaks about the benutzeroberfläche in architecture, Lars Müller Publishers, Baden, Switzerland. Forster, KW 2007, ‘Surface tension in modern architecture,’ Lecture presented at the Yale School of Architecture, 10 October 2005, Public Lecture Transcripts, Haecceity inc. Online Publishing Portal, accessed 19 June 2007, URL: http://www.haecceityinc.com/homepage.html (discontinued). Flint, K 2000, The Victorians and the visual imagination, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Flusser, V 2000 Towards a philosophy of photography, London, Reaktion. Frampton, K 1996, ‘Rappel à l’ordre: the case for the tectonic,’ in K Nesbitt (ed.), Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory, 1965–1995, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 515–528. Frankl, F 1960, The Gothic: literary sources and interpretations through eight centuries, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. Gibson, J 1979 [1986], The ecological approach to visual perception, Psychology Press, New York. Goodwin, K 2009, Andrea Palladio: his life and legacy, London, Royal Academy of Arts. Harries, K 1990, ‘Theatricality and re-presentation,’ Perspecta, vol. 26, pp. 21–40. Hatton, P 1992, ‘The argument of the text,’ in M Wheeler & N Whiteley (eds.), The Lamp of memory: Ruskin, tradition, and architecture, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Higgins, S 1853, ‘Classical columnar architecture and the Stones of Venice’, The Builder, vol. 11, 3 and 10 December, pp. 722–24, 743–44. Ingold, T, 2007, ‘Materials against materiality,’ Archaeological dialogues 14, no. 1 (June 2007), pp. 1–16. Jay, M 1988, ‘Scopic Regimes of Modernity,’ in H Foster (ed.) Vision and visuality, Seattle Bay Press, Seattle. 25 Johnson, EJ 2000, ‘Jacopo Sansovino, Giacomo Torelli, and the theatricality of the piazzetta in Venice,’ The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 436–453. Keenan, WJ 2001, ‘Introduction: “Sartor Resartus” restored: dress studies in Carlylean perspective’, in Dressed to impress: looking the part, Berg, Oxford and New York, pp. 1–50. Kohane, P & Hill, M 2006, ‘The decorum of doors and windows, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century,’ Architectural Research Quarterly vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 141–55. Lawrence, AR & Schafer, A (eds) 2007, ‘Expanding Surface,’ Special Issue, Praxis: Journal of Writing and Building vol. 9, pp. 1. Leatherbarrow, D and M Mostafavi, 2002, Surface architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Lightman, B 2010, ‘The visual theology of Victorian popularizers of science: from reverent eye to chemical retina,’ Isis, vol. 91, no. 4, pp. 651–80. Lupton, E, 2002, ‘Skin: new design organics,’ in E Lupton (ed.), Skin, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 29–42. Lyons 2000, ‘‘City of Fiction,’ 7th International Architecture Biennale, Venice,’ accessed 01 January 2015, URL: http://www.lyonsarch.com.au/city-of-fiction-7thinternational-architecture-biennale-venice/. Lyons, C 2010, Interview, 13 October. McBride Charles Ryan 2007, Monaco House, ArchDaily, accessed 17 October 2016, URL: http://www.archdaily.com/8039/monaco-house-mcbride-charles-ryan McLachlan, F 2006, ‘Dancing windows: the restless façade,’ Architectural research quarterly no. 10, no. 3–4, pp. 191–200. Moore, CH 1924, ‘Ruskin as a critic of architecture,’ Architectural record, vol. 56, August, pp. 117–122. Maciocco, G 2008 ‘The Territorial future of the city,’ in G Maciocco (ed.), The territorial future of the city, Springer, Berlin; New York, pp. 1–27. ———. 2014, ‘Editorial,’ City, territory and architecture, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 1. Newey KM 2009, ‘Speaking pictures: the Victorian stage and visual culture,’ in Heinrich, A, Newey, KM, & Richards, J (eds), Ruskin, the theatre, and Victorian visual culture, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. 26 Pevsner, N 1963, An outline of European architecture, 7th ed, Pelican Books, Hammondsworth, Middlesex. Ostwald, M 2004, ‘Towering transparency,’ Architecture Australia, vol. 93, no. 5, accessed 01 January 2015, URL: http://architectureau.com/articles/toweringtransparency/. Ruskin, J 1903–1912, The works of John Ruskin, ET Cook & A Wedderburn (eds.), Library edition, 39 vols, George Allen, London. Schwarzer, MW & Schmarsow, A 1991, ‘The emergence of architectural space: August Schmarsow’s theory of ‘raumgestaltung,’’ Assemblage no.15, pp. 48–61. Taylor, M 2003, ed. Surface consciousness, Special issue, Architectural design, vol. 73, no. 2. Venturi, R 1977, Complexity and contradiction in architecture 2nd ed, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Wall, A 1999, ‘Programming the urban surface,’ in James Corner (ed.), Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, pp. 232–49. Zevi, B 1974, Architecture as space: how to look at architecture, trans. Milton Gendel, Horizon Press, New York. 27 Endnotes 1 Isabelle Doucet and Kenny Cupers (2009, p. 1) define agency as that which defines ‘how architecture enacts, how it performs, and consequently, how it might “act otherwise” or lead to other possible futures. This possibility underlies all questions regarding architecture’s ability to be critical. Agency can be understood as the very vehicle of such drive or intention to create alternative worlds.’ It is in this sense that the agency of surface is explored, as the creative capacity of surfaces in articulating alternative but equally valuable spatial experiences, relations, and systems. The word agency indicates that surfaces are not just consequences waiting to be interpreted: they are designed, intended to have an effect, and be inhabited. 2 This is notwithstanding the recent scholarship on nineteenth century vision, which has been shown to be as invested in touch, texture, tactility and hand, as it is in seeing. See H Tilley (ed.) 2014, Special issue, The Victorian tactile imagination, 19: Interdisciplinary studies in the long nineteenth century, vol. 19, http://www.19.bbk.ac.uk/87/volume/0/issue/19/. 3 See B Lightman 2000, ‘The visual theology of Victorian popularizers of science: from reverent Eye to chemical retina,’ Isis vol. 91, no. 4, pp. 651–680. 4 Liz Oakley Brown and Rebecca Coleman, URL: www.surfacestudies.org/. For a brief discussion of surface studies perspectives, see Introduction. 5 The term tectonic indicates that which has to do with building and construction as the mode of production. It refers to Frampton’s who argues that the term indicates ‘not only the structural component in set but also the formal amplification of its presence in relation to the assembly of which it is a part. From its conscious emergence in the middle of the nineteenth–century with the writings of Karl Bötticher and Gottfried Semper, the term not only indicates a structural and material probity but also a poetics of construction.’ Frampton is inclined towards the tectonic over the scenographic. He therefore asks ‘architects to reposition themselves given that the predominant tendency today is to reduce all architectural expression to the status of commodity culture.’ See Frampton 1996. 6 The study of these buildings was funded by the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand David Saunders Founders Grant in 2008 for a project titled Touching the Surface, Looking for Substance - The Role of the Surface in Australian Architecture form 1990-2008. 7 Kohane and Hill define aedicules as follows: ‘An aedicule was originally the architecture of the small shrine, a miniature temple that celebrated the statue of the deity within. At some point it was transferred to the opening in general, becoming the flattened “little portico (2006, p. 145).” Kohane and Hill define the niche ‘as a type of opening, positioned and formed like doors and windows,’ which was ‘meant to house a statue (p. 152).’ 28