This essay was originally published in El Croquis 144, reprinted in an omnibus volume with the complete work of Enric Miralles.
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AFTER-LIFE IN PROGRESS
Mark Wigley
What does it mean to complete the work of an architect after his or her death? Are projects fundamentally weakened by the absence of the main designer or can the will of the architect live on in the loving hands of apprentices, partners, and colleagues? Can the architect actually live on in the work, revitalized in a kind of homage through tender design? In particular, what happens when the work of a ‘master’ is completed after they have gone? What does it mean to finish the work of a designer whose touch is seen to be so unique that it commands the admiration, curiosity and even disbelief of all, a seemingly unrepeatable touch that could only be compromised by others, no matter how much they had been affected by the one who is no longer there? More precisely, what does it mean to complete the works of Enric Miralles Moya, so celebrated for his special way of leaving behind all precedent, including his own? Even though he left us on the 3rd of July 2000, his major projects have only just been finished. Those of us who published eulogies for our friend, in a failed attempt to capture the full dimension of the loss to architecture, now have to come to terms with the palpable beauty of his presence in these recently finished buildings, even, if not especially, when the design has changed from what he had visualized.
There are so many famous examples of this dilemma, so many masters whose work has been completed posthumously. Sometimes there is acclaim and sometimes disapproval, but usually the question is never raised, as if it were preferable to simply imagine that the architect was able to guide the work after death. This is especially so when the completed building is one of the most celebrated of an architect’s life, the works with which mastery is confirmed, such as Arne Jacobsen’s National Bank building, completed seven years after his death, the Yale Center of British Art and the Capital Complex in Dhaka, completed three and nine years after Kahn’s death, and a remarkable number of Eero Sarineen’s most admired projects, including the TWA terminal, the Gateway Arch, John Deere Headquarters, and Dulles Airport terminal, which were completed from one to six years after he died. Yet we rarely think about the deeper implications of this strange effect of an afterlife.
The first thing to recognize is that this happens to all architects. Architects never retire. They only get busier with time, so inevitably pass away in mid-project. In fact, they almost always leave us an array of incomplete work, from opening sketches for a commission, winning competition models and finished working drawings, to built works that are only missing the final skin. It is the destiny of every architect to leave behind unfinished work and have it finished by others. The major cultural and economic investments at stake in even the smallest building and the very long time frame of construction mean that architects never simply go away. They linger, and all that that the field cares about most passionately plays itself out in that afterlife. It could even be argued that it is only in the five or six years after an architect’s death that the figure of the architect really takes shape as a life. The work in the afterlife changes the way we see the work in the life. It is not so complicated in the end. It is only in the afterlife that life becomes visible as such. But it only becomes visible as that which precedes and culminates in this sudden absence. In a sense, most architects act as if they do not really have a life; that every second they have must be devoted to the pursuit of an elusive ideal design. Every project could be the last chance to get it right. Every moment is devoted to creating a sense of momentum across the final threshold.
The fact that the best work of an architect can be produced after their death is therefore not a strange event, but a symptom of the always strange rhythms of our field. To put it the other way around, death is always palpable in the studio. Architects expect it, live with it and design for it. The whole field is organized around it, starting with the simple idea that a building can represent the thinking of an architect when they are gone. The whole professional drama of the commission&mdashseduction, design, negotiation, endless redesign, documentation and construction&mdash is organized around the thought that the building will stand there after the people who produced it are gone. It is not by chance that Adolf Loos finds the true work of architecture in the tombstone. Architecture is more about the people who are gone than about those that are present. More precisely, it allows those who are absent to remain, starting with the architect.
Enric Miralles visiting Santa Caterina diggings with chief archaeologist. March, 2000.
In the most basic sense, to design is to project something into the future. The architect’s drawings reach forward to give the outline of what might come. They are fragile statements of hope at the beginning and turn into rigid technical instruments of realization at the end. Each project is a gesture of throwing something forward, and all the mechanisms of the studio are organized to maintain the momentum of the throw. Indeed, the architect’s throw is always completed by others. It is not just the final projects that have to be carried forward by the assistants. Every project has to be carried forward every day. Architectural studios are much more organized around the absence of the principal of the office than his or her presence. Everyone has to imagine what the architect wants, and the architect has to decide whether what they have imagined is indeed what he or she wants. The office provides a kind of mirror to the architect, and the architect’s reaction to the image in the mirror, like anyone’s reaction to seeing their reflection or hearing their own voice, is complicated, to say the least. The only thing that changes with the death of an architect is the loss of this complex reaction to the mirror. But even then, there are always people in the office whose job it is to act as the architect’s surrogate, imagining what his or her response to the mirror image might be. So the full life of the office can continue for some time after the architect is gone. Indeed, the projects themselves keep the architect present after death inasmuch as each project carries the imagined life of the architect, embodying the architect’s desire. With a sad and sweet love, the pain can even be increased by the architect’s palpable presence in the project. It could even be said that the project needs to be completed to allow the architect to finally pass.
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