Abstraction

Definition

Stub page. Abstraction in architecture refers to the use of non-representational forms, geometries, and compositional strategies that do not directly reference natural or historical precedents. In the context of Zaha Hadid's work, abstraction operates through "distortion fields" that capture multiple perspectives in two dimensions, derived from Russian Suprematism (Malevich) and Arabic calligraphic traditions.

Deyong supplies the concept's art-historical genealogy: in Wilhelm Worringer's 1907 doctoral thesis, abstraction is defined as "an inner sensation," opposed to empathy, "a joyous affinity with the material world" — a pairing that "parallels" Alois Riegl's optic/haptic schema (see optic-haptic-perception). Riegl's definition of style in terms of haptic perception, together with Worringer's category of abstraction, "may have given unprecedented direction to the ideas of the modern avant-garde. If so then the driver must not have been architecture, but the fine arts, especially painting": modern artists' rejection of realism "accorded well with the theories of Riegl and Worringer," since perspectival construction "reduces time to a static moment" and thus "presents a false picture of reality" (see space-time-continuum). De Stijl is the programme's distillation: "the Dutch De Stijl movement strove to eliminate all traces of naturalistic representation, reducing the elements of painting to the minimum abstract essentials: three primary colors (blue, red, and yellow), and horizontal and vertical lines" — a distillation that, as Yves-Alain Bois observed, "did not come readily, but was determined after much struggle and debate," and whose architectural endpoint is the counter construction of planes (see counter-construction).

Key Thinkers

• Zaha Hadid — abstraction as "unfettered invention"; the use of painting to study how lines intersect and distort through space.
• Kazimir Malevich — Suprematist abstraction as the transfer of pictorial forms "from the surface of canvas to space."
• (Discussed in the source, not yet paged — see log: Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy (1907) — abstraction as inner sensation; Alois Riegl, the haptic-grounded theory of style that gave abstraction its art-historical warrant.)

Related Concepts

• Suprematism
• Constructivism
• Parametricism
• Digital Architecture
• Optic and Haptic Perception — Riegl's perceptual schema paralleling Worringer's abstraction/empathy pair.
• Space-Time Continuum — the avant-garde programme abstraction served: the rejection of perspectival realism.
• Style — abstraction as the stylistic programme of the Riegl/Worringer trajectory.
• Mechanization — abstraction's cultural engine: "As society mechanizes, one by one, concrete entities are replaced by their abstract counterparts" (Mumford via Jacobus).
• Dematerialization — abstraction's terminus in the designed object: "the idea of material… entirely severed from that which is physical."

Source Support

• The Abstractionist (Seabrook 2009)
• A history of style and the modern interior (Deyong 2018) — Worringer's definition of abstraction as "an inner sensation"; the Riegl–Worringer lineage as the avant-garde's theoretical driver; De Stijl's abstraction as distillation "after much struggle and debate."
• Toward the immaterial interior (Jacobus 2018) — the cultural-mechanism version of abstraction: "As society mechanizes, one by one, concrete entities are replaced by their abstract counterparts. Mumford points to the romanticism of numbers as resulting in the rise of capitalism, and the change from a barter economy, facilitated by small supplies of variable local coinage, to a money economy with an international credit structure and a constant reference to the abstract symbols of wealth: gold, drafts, bills of exchange, and eventually merely numbers." Where Deyong's abstraction is an aesthetic programme (Worringer, De Stijl), Jacobus's is a civilizational gradient: mechanization replacing the concrete with the abstract across registers — time ("Abstract time became the new medium of existence," Mumford), space ("the clock gave rise to new conceptions of abstract space, interchangeable and relatable over any distance"), wealth, and finally material itself ("the idea of material has been entirely severed from that which is physical"). See mechanization, dematerialization.

Open Questions

• How does architectural abstraction differ from pictorial abstraction?
• What is the relationship between Hadid's abstractionist method and Schumacher's parametricism?
• Is Worringer's abstraction — "an inner sensation," opposed to empathy with the material world — the same concept as the avant-garde's formal abstraction, or its psychological ground? (Deyong's genealogy suggests the latter: abstraction names a desire, not just a method.)