# ARCHITECTURAL THEORIES ///

THE MODERNIST IDEOLOGY OF A

NORMATIVE BODY
Modernist Architecture is characterized by a thaumaturgic (talent of miraculously

curing) ambition which would heal the “diseases” of individuals and society.

Although this ambition appears as obsolete and slightly ridiculous nowadays, after

several decades of post-modernism that constituted in denying any other power of

architecture than a merely aesthetic one. However, my thesis, that I have been

developing though a reasonable amount of articles on this blog, is that architecture

does certainly own a power, but rather than the power of healing, it might rather be

the power of hurting.  (see weaponized architecture)

In this regard, what appear to be the quintessential example of a set of norms and a

residue of the modern ideology are the overwhelming diagrams proposed by the

fascinating Architectural Graphic Standards (cf introduction cover page). Indeed,

following the modern dream of an optimized built environment, those architectural

documents consider a normative body –one could think of Le Corbusier’s Modulor-

and advocate for an architecture that is perfectly adapted to this same body. This

normative body is not an ideal body in the classical meaning of it (mostly based on

aesthetic values) but can be considered as such, as it does not represent anybody’s

body but rather constitutes an unreachable state of normality.

As we saw with the work of Arakawa and Madeline Gins (see my essay Architectures

of Joy) , architecture can be considered within the time frame of human evolution

and, this way, be designed in order to influence such evolution. The normative body

of those diagrams constitute the exact opposite of Arakawa/Gins’ work that attempts

to activate bodies in order to resist death. In fact, the normative ideology by

choosing an oxymoronic normal ideal body as a model, refuse the very idea of the

human evolution. This denial organizes a violence effectuated on the body as it

makes it interact with an environment that forces it to remain the same. Such a

normative environment also implies a normative behavior that implies a set of pre-

defined activities relatively to each space and furniture.

One can dream (I do !) of a re-interpretation of those diagrams subverted by various

activities and bodies that were not thought about by those normative documents (the

coitus seems to be a good way to start them for example !).

The following documents and the first image are all extracted from the Architectural

Graphic Standards. Hoboken: Wiley, 2000.

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