THE

MANHATTAN
TRANSCRIPTS

BERNARD TSCHUMI
1976-1981

11 October, 2019
Theory Lecture:
By Anokhi Shah
The Department of Digital Architecture
Dr. B.N. College of Architecture

1 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

 1970,71: Find gathered in London so many young, talented,
non-British architects: Rem Koolhaas, Dalibor Vaseley, Colin
Fournier, Haha Hadid, etc at the AA. Influenced by Cedric Price
and Archigram, Archizoom.
Special issue of Architectural Design, “The Beaux-Arts since ’68”.

1972: Exhibition at the MOMA, “Italy: The New Italian Lanscape.”

Theoretical discourse was part of the culture. People read about
Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Focault, Derrida, Kevin Lynch, Kafka etc.

1973, 74: Met Derrida in London.

1975: Arrived in USA, Conceptual architecture conference took

place at Art Net, met Peter Eisenman.
Wrote “The Paradox of Architecture” for the British art magazine:
Studio.

1976: Arrived in New York, Institute for Architecture and Urban

Studies.
BERNARD Influenced and Met Colin Rowe.
Influenced by the art scene. Artists like Kosuth and Rauschenberg,

TSCHUMI Craig Owens, Douglas Crimp, Kate Linker, etc.

Invited to Georgia Tech by James Joyce.

1980 onwards: Started working with Derrida,

1968: Present during the events (political upheaval) in May’68 in Paris
Parc de La Villette and further projects.
Working in the office of Candilis Josic and Woods (Practicum year/
Internship).
1988: Deconstructivist Architecture Show at MOMA
Involved in education at the Beaux-Arts.
Architects: Frank O Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Peter
Still a student at ETH Zurich.
Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelblau, Bernard Tschumi
Curated by: Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley
1968, 69: Met Cedric Price at the Heidi Weber pavilion, Zurich.
Dean at Columbia GSAPP
Wanted to work for Cedric Price.
Paperless Studios at Columbia GSAPP
Moved to London. Met Peter Cook and started to take reviews at the
AA. Got a job at AA, London. Architecture as a form of knowledge;
not as a knowledge of form.

2 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

 THE
MANHATTAN
TRANSCRIPTS
1976-1981
The Manhattan Transcripts were first concieved in the context of live
spaces-successive paper spaces (on a wall) that defined a real
space in a room. The Transcripts consist of a frame-by-frame de-
scriptions of an architectural inquest. By no means do they comprise of
a definitive statement, they are a tool-in-the-making; a work in
progress.

The Manhattan Transcripts differ from most architectural drawings inso-

far as they are neither real projects nor mere fantasies, they proposed
to transcribe an architectural interpretation of reality.

Their organizational structure employs photographs that depict actual

events as well as architectural plans, sections and diagrams that out-
line spaces and indicate the movement of different protagonists within
the architectural “stage sets.”

The Transcripts’ explicit purpose was to transcribe things normally

removed from conventional architectural representation, namely
the complex relationship between spaces and their use, between the
set and the script, between “type” and “program,” between objects
and events.

The Transcripts aimed to offer a different reading of architecture in

which space, movement and events are independent, yet stand in a
new relation to one another, so that the conventional components of
architecture are broken down and rebuilt along different axes.

3 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

 MT 1
THE PARK
The first episode - ‘The Park’ is composed of twenty-four
sheets illustrating the drawn and photographed notation of
a murder. The formula plot of the murder- the lone figure
stalking its victim, the murder, the hunt, the search for clues
building up to the murderer’s capture- is juxtaposed with
an architecture inextricably linked to the extreme actions it
witnesses. A special mode of notation-the three-square prin-
ciple-underlines the deadly game of hide and seek between
the suspect and the ever-changing architectural events.
Photographs direct the action, plans reveal the alternatively
cruel and loving architectural manifestations, diagrams indi-
cate the movements of the main protagonists. There, atti-
tudes, plans, notations, movements are indissolubly linked.
Only together do they define the architectural space of ‘The
Park’.

4 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

5 Presentation by Anokhi Shah
 MT 2
THE STREET
‘The Street’ is based on a typical street: 42nd Street. From
the East River to the Hudson, there are over a dozen differ-
ent worlds; from the Chrysler Building to the cheap ware-
houses; from Byrant Park to the derelict piers. However MT
2 does not describe these ‘worlds’, but the borders that de-
scribe them. Each border becomes a space with the events
that it contains, with the movements that transgress it. ‘He
gets out of jail; they make love; she kills him; she is free.’

6 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

7 Presentation by Anokhi Shah
 MT 3
THE TOWER
‘The Tower’ (The Fall) - home, office, prison, hotel, asylum
find a common denominator in the lethal fall of one of their
inmates. Such a manipulation of progress has a side effect:
it inevitably questions the nature of the spaces that contain
them. The set of drawings depicts someone’s flight and
subsequent fall through the full height of a Manhattan tower
block, its ‘cells’ and its ‘yards’. The drastic alteration of per-
ceptions caused by the fall is used to explore various spatial
transformations and their typological distortions.

8 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

9 Presentation by Anokhi Shah
 MT 4
THE BLOCK
‘The Block’-five inner courtyards of a simple city block wit-
ness contradictory events and programmatic impossibilities:
acrobats, ice-skaters, dancers, soldiers, and football players
all congregate and perform high-wire acts, games, or even
the reenactment of famous battles, in a context usually
alien to their activity. Disjunctions between movements,
programs, and spaces inevitably follow as each pursues a
distinct logic, while their confrontations produce the most
unlikely combinations.

10 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

11 Presentation by Anokhi Shah
THEMES OR CONCEPTS
Architectural Association (AA), 8 June 1982

1. DEFINITION 7.TRANSFORMATION
• Limit • Device

2. CONDITION 8.COMBINTION
• Disjunction • Program
• Narrative
3. CLASSIFICTION • Programmatic account
• Event 9.DECONSTRUCTION (FROM)
• Space • Reality • Reality
• Movement • Photography • Reciprocity and conflict
• The Cinema
4.RELATION • Notation
• Indifference 10.SENSATION • Frames and sequences
• Reciprocity • Violence
• Conflict • Pleasure
• Madness
5.NOTATION
• Movement Notation
• Event Notation

6. ARTICULATION
• Frames
• Sequence
1.Transformational Sequence
2. Spatial Sequence
3. Programmatic Sequence

12 Presentation by Anokhi Shah

ASSIGNMENT
Submission and Discussion: Thursday, 17th October, 2019
A B
Manhattan Transcripts: Create a graphic novel having strong focus on Nar-
Select any one drawing/ image from the chapter assigned to you. (MT2/MT3/MT4) rative and notations. Can be in colour.
Annotate it in detail using pointers from themes and concepts. Select a well known area/space which is local or
Diagram should be well explanatory and highly detailed. fictional. Focus on Architecture as its main character.
Can add details from narrative.
EVENT SPACE MOVEMENT Focus is on creative use of notations and architec-
Photographs Plans Diagrams
tural representaions through narratives.
It must be a digital submission only.

References:
FRAMES
The Manhattan Transcripts, Bernard Tschumi
Citizens of No place, Jimeniz Lai.
Notations
Intervals

SEQUENCE
FRAMES

SEQUENCE

FRAMES

Vectors

Narrative

(Example: MT1)

13 Presentation by Anokhi Shah