Have you ever noticed how architecture is not generally used as a verb? While grammatically correct, nobody says something has been architected. Partly because the work of the architect remains curiously elusive, even fantasised. It is unclear what the architect actually does, yet we know at the very least that they have something, if not everything, to do with our built environment.
To that end, we know more or less what the white cube means, or at least the modern definition that has aged in the wake of Brian O’Doherty’s 1976 text, Inside the White Cube.
Nearly fifty years on, the term white cube is monotonously overused to the point of blankness – but maybe that’s the point, as the spectator associates white cubeness with a degree of vacancy. On top of the generic white cube characteristics (timeless, hermetic, always the same), white cube is also synonymous with the equally clichéd term blue chip – both imparting an assumption of value, validation, as well as a degree of inaccessibility.
The changing needs of society and its art market have reshaped the exhibition space, resulting in a tension between white cube theory, building-as-object, and a crisis of space. The white cube is a building as well as a space, the architect the one who answers to requirements and questions of circulation of bodies in that space. Unlike an item to be taken home, architecture is both immovable and intangible. Instead of seeing architecture for what it is, it is much easier to see what it does.
What came as a surprise was that Art Basel, the blue chippiest fair that probably ever was, veered distinctly off the white cube course by way of its architectural framework. This is not to say that the fair did not comprise its share of cubical mazes, bleached clean corners, and art-washed areas. It is still a commercial entity, after all, where speed is of the essence.
However, the convention centre skeleton shined through, its industrial scaffolding undeterred by the collection of objects temporarily occupying its spacious halls – and the fair itself did seemingly little to resist this, which has nothing to do with art but everything at the same time.
Alongside the artworks one saw the functional components of the building that are usually tucked away into closets, cabinets, and corridors. This observation prompted three architectural epiphanies about the contemporary white cube to which Art Basel did not adhere, invariably questioning its definition and the relationship between art installation and the visitor experience.
O’Doherty asserts that the basic principle behind the construction of the white cube is to instil temporal distortion by sealing off the outside world. Windows are covered, leaving the ceiling as the sole source of light. He compares it to a church or tomb, where the absence of natural light renders the space disorientingly timeless. Perhaps a more suitable and imaginable architectural example, instead of a church of a tomb, would be a casino.
Equally commercially driven, casinos intentionally make critical destinations, like bathrooms, difficult to find. There are no clocks. Public benches are intentionally uncomfortable, if not non-existent, with numerous barriers that make it impossible to lie down. Daylight is kept out to obscure the passing of time. This is otherwise known as hostile design.
Fenestration generally refers to the windows of a building. However, another, slightly abstract interpretation of fenestration is the enabling of sight through spaces to other spaces. The white cube does not support this, for it is one space that is meant to be unchanging. Insofar as the borders between things are either minimal or non-existent, internal fenestration ties spaces together, facilitating continual transformations, variations, and disengaging with the ratification of eternity that is enforced by the white cube.
One such modulation of space through internal fenestration was the temporal wall structure created by Basel-based architecture duo Stephanie Rossi and Jens Müller, whose design was inspired by makeshift tent structures found in gardens and on beaches. The arrangement of the thin vertical panels is mounted from the ceiling, giving an illusion of weightlessness. Subtly concealing what is behind, the gentle division of space provides visual intrigue as well as essential social opportunity.
Developed for the alcoves housing the restaurant Tree by Roots, their goal was to create a fluid space with visual connections to the surroundings, simultaneously fostering intimacy and conversation. The structure – delicate and unassuming – also refutes O’Doherty’s description of the white cube as a place where “one does not laugh, eat, drink, lie down,” or speak in a normal voice.
The presence of multiple architectures allowed the fair to function rather like a pavilion, whose geometry and intuition incite a degree of cultural heritage and preservation, as well the enabling of a communal experience. While Basel is not exempt from its role as big bluechip wolf, the employment of Messe’s many windows again drew attention into the social realm.
The white cube’s windowless construction is meant to enforce an asocial space, where factors such as sunlight, traffic, and weather, exist outside of the hermetically finished environment. Basel, however, embraced no shortage of windows; facilitating a more socially-oriented involvement that, unlike the white cube, rejects the censorship of societal variation.
The fair’s inclusion, or active non encloakment of the building’s numerous windows allowed for recurring beams of sunlight to enter into the galleries. This again acted in complete subordination of the white cube, whose modus is to isolate the art from anything that may detract from its own evaluation of itself. Furthermore, unlike the hostile layout of a casino, the fenestration revealed the halls’ many exit points, and negated the inescapability often perceived when in the confines of a maze.
The round courtyard in Hall 2 is visible from almost all areas. Serving as an inward-looking meeting point, this congregation space creates an interface with the wider landscape of the city.
O’Donnel refers to the white space’s inhabitants, or people, ideally eliminated from the space altogether. However, the design of Messe Basel is centralised around the open courtyard, where outdoor access is an enduring focal point.
We tend to regard neutrality as passive. A visual representation of neutrality would fall closely in line with a white cube: clean, unshadowed, clinical. However, the geopolitical consideration of neutrality entails a wholly active disengagement that should not be confused with absence or vacancy. O’Doherty himself admits that empty gallery walls’ apparent neutrality is an illusion.
Even hostile architecture has underlying political associations, which may help to explain the discouragement of certain un-included audiences. In Switzerland, the architectural manifestation of neutrality has taken on a particularly prominent form factor across the entire country, one that is not only historically pertinent but also socially intriguing: bunkers.
A dog leg from Messe Basel is the satellite contender June Art Fair. So close one could virtually roll there, the two venues are separated only by a quirky tent from the Swiss National Circus. Situated inside an old fallout bunker converted by Basel architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, who also designed Hall 1 at Messe Basel, the bunker is curiously absent from the firm’s website under listed projects.
The structure first gives off a wholly unromantic impression and one wonders whether they have perhaps wandered into the wrong place. The former premises of the Basel Monument Preservation Archive, the space holds an exhibition area the size of a gymnasium at 850 m2 – but, as it is a bunker, it is mostly subterranean. One must first conquer the descent, either by way of a steep spiral staircase leading down 41 steps, or via the original elevator situated next to one of the bunker’s numerous vaults.
Switzerland has an unusually high number of bunkers as a result of a bunker building spree incited by the “shelters for all” policy; a law requiring protective shelters to be constructed for all new buildings since 1963. Every Swiss resident is guaranteed bunker space should they need it, with each person entitled to exactly one square metre of subterranean real estate.
Hundreds of thousands of underground shelters have been built across Switzerland, all to withstand nuclear attacks. So many, in fact, that there are now more than needed. In the decades since, Switzerland has become world-renowned for its bunker technology— bunkers representing something of a national ideology of defence for infamous Swiss neutrality.
As more disused bunkers become converted, the necessity of these bunkers for their intended purpose has become increasingly debated. In the wake of the war in Ukraine and increased threats posed by Putin’s Russia, bunkers for bunkers sake has newfound relevance.
In stark contrast to the cold concrete and florescent light of the underground, the bunker is situated on the same compound as the Gemeinschaftsgarten Landhof, a community art and garden project open to the public. Before registering the bunker, the visitor is met with a quaint coffee cart, a frog garden, and communal tables filled with complimentary breads and jams.
A warm and feral oasis, hippie doodle meets industrial chic in this wholesome, botanical departure from the banals of the “main” event. The garden also includes an open air exhibition of various artists curated by Diogo Pinto. One almost forgets that virtually metres away sits the commercial, steely precision of the Messe.
Despite attempts to be ingenuitive, fair booths often seem to suffer from an excessively meticulous use of space – this being an understandable symptom of the fact that exhibitors pay as much as $1,000 per square metre. The ensuing claustrophobic atmosphere is equally characteristic of a white cube – but perhaps this is not an issue of space per se, but rather a question of levels.
Art Basel takes place on four levels, each accessible via multiple escalators and staircases. While each art genre is isolated to its level, what happens is an inadvertent cross-contamination of sections due to the sight lines accessible from one level to the next. Almost like a narrative, these elevators and staircases become transitionary symbols of ascent, descent, progress, digress, and so forth.
The visitor cannot help but embark on a kind of journey where the origin and destination are simultaneously visible. Instead of the one space that comes from one horizon, there are legions of discernible horizons at any given moment.
In O’Doherty’s first white cube essay, Notes on the Gallery Space, he addresses the horizon – but more importantly he returns to the idea of the horizontal.
Life is horizontal, occurring in a vapid succession of events like a conveyor belt, grovelling slowly and hopelessly toward an ever encroaching horizon. The space is unchanging, eternal, and to an extent inescapable.
The staircase disrupts the white cube’s apparent flatness, and facilitates interconnectivity of spaces. Escalators impart a feeling of movement, arrival, and departure which, on an ideological level, also go against the white cube topology, for they introduce the constant potential for social exchanges, bodies, and shifts in energy.
O’Doherty associates perspective with a single horizon, going on to explain that vertical distance, or that perception afforded by height, is what determines moral virtue. In the white cube there is no height, only what is directly in front of your eyes. There is no was or will be, and certainly no multiplicity of perspectives. There is one perspective, that on the one horizon. In fact everything about the white cube is singular. The ceiling, the light souce, the white cube.
The escalators are central to Messe’s layout and reflect a universal design reflective of a commerce-oriented space. Retail facilities use escalators to encourage foot traffic, and the constant arrival and departure of bodies in space. This constant flow of energy detracts from the sublimity of the white cube and may reflect O’Doherty’s description of modernism as the degeneration of space; brought on by free movement and the dissolution of value.
Unlike elevators, escalators are exposed. What escalators allow for is more passage and less meditation, which is not only characteristic of the contemporary attention span but also a rigorous commercial capacity and its intertwined social aspiration. To avoid congestion, one is neither absent nor present; one is on the move.
Has the white cube dissipated, or has it merely adapted? In the end, O’Doherty’s prevailing argument endures, which is that the space itself imparts influence on the perception of art as well as the degree of social functionality.
Perhaps the parameters of the white cube have changed, but like architecture, what it does has stayed the same. The content of the exhibition is still dwarfed by the impact of its context. Context – like architecture – remains curiously inconspicuous: the thing we all see, but don’t look at.
