Strategy of the Void by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in the light of Gestalt psychology

Magdalena Wąsowicz

doi:10.37190/arc220304

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the usefulness and versatility of a design method, called by the authors from the OMA studio The Strategy of the Void, and its application in the broader context of architectural and urban design. The study of this topic was carried out using a qualitative analytical method and a bibliographic research method. In order to analyze the projects and their broad context, conceptual apparatus borrowed from the gestalt psychology in architecture (in particular the works of Arnheim, Rubin and Żórawski) has been applied. It allows us to point out the connections between the formal operations carried out in the The Strategy of the Void and the impact on visual perception assumed by the architects. So far in the literature there has been no detailed analysis of how the graphic tools that Koolhaas used in his OMA projects are related to the gestalt psychology. The conceptual formal-functional scheme called by OMA architects the Strategy of the Void is presented in this paper using two projects as examples. At the urban scale, it is discussed on the basis of the 1987 Melun-Sénart new town project, which established a strategy based on connections between strategic voids in the layout. At the architectural scale, the strategy is developed in a 1989 competition project for the Grand National Library of France in Paris.

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Magdalena Wąsowicz*

Strategy of the Void by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture

in the light of Gestalt psychology

Introduction

Architects working in the Oce for Metropolitan Ar 

chi

tecture (OMA) in the Netherlands, established by Rem

Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, and Zoe

Zenghelis, search for design strategies dedicated to the

modern society of mass consumption and fast commu

nication [1, p. 812]. Michael Speaks describes the OMA

designs as transforming cities using urban forces and

ows rather than as visually illustrating or imitating them

[2, p. 27]. Therefore, projects are perceived as the results

of programming [3, p. 178]. It is also possible to demon

strate that postmodern formal tools play an important role

in the design work of OMA studio founder Rem Koolhaas.

The architecture of OMA in the 1990s embodied the

idea of postmodernism. David Harvey described postmod

ern architecture as follows: [it is] ction, fragmentation,

collage, and eclecticism infused with a sense of ephem-

erality and chaos [4, p. 117]. French philosopher Jacques

Derrida, in turn, pointed out that collage is the basic form

of postmodern discourse. He stated that cultural creators

produce raw materials (fragments and elements), leaving

it up to consumers to recombine these elements in any

way they wish [4, p. 117].

A representation of the postmodern approach taken by

Rem Koolhaas in his work in the 1990s is the publication

Content [5]. It is a hybrid of a book and a magazine. The

cover of this publication is ashy, covered with sensation

al slogans, and a collage composed of grotesque gures.

The publication includes presentations of built and unbuilt

OMA projects. The description and illustration of the

buildings are the opposite of the established format of an

architectural monograph. The projects are presented in the

form of index cards called “Patents of Universal Modern

ization”. The patents are formulated in such a way so that

they can be processed and applied by other architects in

a new form. They are intended as “raw material” that can

be applied to dierent spatial contexts, referring to Derri

da’s thought of postmodern collage. This formula points

to Koolhaas’ perspective, viewing architectural design as

a process of developing functional programs.

This article will examine one of the design procedures

described in Content [5] – Strategy of the Void. This strate

gy is the basis of the 1987 design of the new city of Melun

Sénart, and on an architectural scale the 1989 competition

design for the Très Grande Bibliothèque Nationale (TGB)

in Paris is presented. A conceptual apparatus borrowed

from Gestalt psychology in architecture

(in particular, the

works of Rudolf Arnheim

[7], Edgar Rubin [8] and Juliusz

Żórawski

) was used to analyze the Strategy of the Void.

The issue of image interpretation, related to the perceptual per

spective of the viewer, is explained by the theories of classical psychol

ogy. According to one of them, Gestalt psychology, impressions are the

result of perceptual organization. The perceiver reacts through the senses

to the stimuli provided and has the ability to organize them into struc

tures, known as gestalts. Gestalt is German for gure, shape or form.

This term gave its name to Gestaltpsychologie, a school of psychology

created in the 2

half of the 20

century in Germany. Its main repre

sentatives were Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koka and Wolfgang Kohler. In

architecture, character psychology found adherents among researchers

such as Juliusz Żórawski, Sven Hesselgren, Rudolf Arnheim and Chris

tian NorbergSchulz [6, pp. 370, 371].

In 1954, Arnheim noted the direct relationship between human psy

chology and the physical parameters of an architectural object in his pub

lication Art and visual perception: A psychology of the creative eye [7].

Inspired by Paul Guillaume’s book entitled La psychologie de la

forme [9], Żórawski developed, and in 1943 presented, his theory of the

formalization of architectural thought. His doctoral dissertation, defended

during the war, is today considered a pioneering work in psychological

DOI: 10.37190/arc220304

Published in open access. CC BY NC ND license

ORCID:

0000000168312746. Faculty of Architecture, Wrocław

Uni versity of Science and Technology, Poland, email: magdalena.wasowicz

pwr.edu.pl

40 Magdalena Wąsowicz

The purpose of this article is to analyze the usefulness

and universality of the Strategy of the Void and its appli

cation in the broader context of architectural and urban

design. The study of this topic was carried out using

the qualitative analytical method and the bibliographic

research method. The contribution of the author of the arti

cle consisted of the analysis and synthesis of the literature

on the subject related to the Strategy of the Void, mainly

monographs edited by Rem Koolhaas [1], [5]. Subsequent

ly, this article presents the author’s analysis of the graphic

tools that Koolhaas used to illustrate his procedure.

There have been many publications on the work of

Koolhaas and the OMA oce. The research in this article

is based on monographs edited by Roberto Gargiani [14],

[15], publications by Lara Schrijver focusing on the search

for teachers’ inuences on this architect’s work [16], [17],

and publications on architectural theory [1]–[3].

The influence of Gestalt psychology on the work

of Rem Koolhaas

Since the 1970s, Rem Koolhaas’ work has been most

inuenced by his time in the United States. Koolhaas

studied from 1972 with Oswald Mathias Ungers at Cor

nell University in Ithaca, New York, and later at the Insti

tute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York. Lara

Schrijver acknowledges that Ungers’ approach, character

ized by a deep interest in the formal language of architec

ture, inuenced the early designs of Rem Koolhaas [16,

pp. 235–261]. Later projects by this architect indicate that

his collaboration with Collin Rowe had a signicant inu

ence on him. Koolhaas himself signaled the inuence of

the graphic techniques used in Rowe and Koetter’s studio

in depicting the concept of a Culture of Congestion [14].

At the core of the typologies developed by Ungers and

Rowe was an attempt to methodically capture the laws

of Gestalt psychology in urban planning. On the basis of

his experience at the two studios, Koolhaas developed his

own graphic language borrowed from Gestalt theory, and

applied it to the Strategy of the Void [15].

The basis of Gestalt psychology was the assumption

that the sense of sight tends to organize the shapes into

two opposing groups: gures and ground

. The Gestalt

school inuenced the work of many architects active in

the United States starting in the 1940s. The principles

postulated by Gestalt psychology, initially described in

relation to graphic representations, were well transfer

aesthetics. In 1962 Żórawski’s theory was published in the form of book

O budowie formy architektonicznej [Theory of build of architectural

form] [10]. In it, the author presented the basis for analyzing and cre

ating an architectural work that responds to the needs of the observer’s

visual perception [11]. The timeliness of the topic of designing modern

architecture in light of the psychology of vision is indicated by the pub

lications issued in the last ve years dealing with this topic in terms of

Żórawski’s theory [11]–[13].

This division is considered one of the basic features of percep

tion. Groups of elements between which topological relations have been

created can be read as gures. The structure of a system of elements

taking a certain shape is subject to the principles of grouping, good con

tinuity, proximity, similarity, and contour closure [6, p. 130].

able to the eld of architectural theory. In his 1944 book

Language of vision [18], György Kepes included Gestalt

psychology and used it to discuss the spatial conception

of images in painting and graphics. The literary works

of American architect Robert Venturi were also created

under the inuence of Gestalt psychology. Venturi et al.

analyzed the importance of the mutual position and form

of objects in shaping urban compositions in their land

mark book Complexity and contradiction in architec ture

[19], using gureground plans

. And in the publication

Learning from Las Vegas [21], he used gureground

plans as a graphic tool.

The use of the gureground drawing, a tool borrowed

from Gestalt perception theory, was popularized in the

1960s by Rowe and Koetter in their book Collage City,

to interpret urban and architectural form. Nolli’s plan

has become the main paradigm for contextual design. The

contextualist method constituted the proposal to resolve

any fragmentary urban condition in a continuous homoge

neous urban fabric marked by high building density. In this

context, the architect’s work served as a recovery of the

quality of the historic edied fabric. In Collage City, the

authors argue that the urban structure can be interpreted as

a composition of gures and it is possible to perform alter

native readings of Gestalt diagrams where the uctuations

of the gure-ground phenomenon occur [22, p. 117].

The inuence of Rowe and Ungers on Koolhaas can be

seen, among other things, in the graphics of urban proj

ects such as the design of the new city of MelunSénart.

In terms of the use of the gureground plan tool, there

are fundamental dierences in the approaches of Kool

haas and the contextualists. Koolhaas stated that it was

not possible to reproduce the quality of historical build

ings with a single creative gesture, since their qualities

are the result of a longterm process of shaping the urban

structure [15, pp. 59–65]. However, this objection did not

exclude the possibility of using gureground plans and

poché

, as discussed later in the article. A common feature

of the approach of the contextualists and Koolhaas was the

understanding that in architecture the gure and ground

cannot be reduced to mere perception in a twodimension

al picture plane. Gestalt is the play of articulation of the

building and its surroundings in the visual eld. And the

approach based on the rules of Gestalt psychology is to

A graphic tool called a gureground plan in the literature is a sim

plied development scheme that illustrates the relationship between build

ings and spaces in an established area. Through it, potentials for mod

ication, unication, and continuation of the existing urban fabric are

identied by adding or capturing spatial elements. The graphic technique

called the gureground plan is based on the assumption that urban layouts

can be interpreted as a composition of gures against a background, in

which the role of gures is assumed by buildings and building complexes,

and the role of background is assumed by the spaces between them [20].

Nolli’s map depicted Rome as an arrangement of black elds corre

sponding to the location of buildings and urban quarters and white elds in

between, representing public spaces and the interiors of public buildings.

The term poché (French for pocket) refers to inll between the

crosssectional lines of solid elements, such as walls or terrain in the case

of buildings sunk into the ground. The inll is usually used in the form

of a solid eld in black. Building elements are thus clearly marked and

easily distinguishable on architectural drawings [20, p. 164].

Strategy of the Void by the Oce for Metropolitan Architecture in the light of Gestalt psychology 41

envision both buildings and urban interiors as gures by

means of a drawing, model, or photograph [23, p. 118].

Strategy of the Void

Content, a book Koolhaas edited, collects the performa

tive principles of architecture that create a design frame

work rather than a specic formal style. The framework

concentrates on identifying nonarchitectural spacemak

ing processes in the built environment as well as its rules.

The authors could see their more extensive and universal

application; thus, they were called Patents of universal

modernization. In the publication, patent denitions were

supplemented with monochromatic generative diagrams.

At the same time, these were simplied formal represen

tations of OMA projects [24, pp. 28–30].

Among them, the authors included the patents Strate-

gy of the Void I and Strategy of the Void II. They present

design strategies for urban planning and buildings of the

type of megastructure, whose main component, labeled

the void, is dened by discontinuity or cutting out of other

designed functional parts. Those patents referred to con

cepts of the projects of the new town MelunSénart and of

the National Library in Paris.

Patents were shown as two graphics that corresponded

to one another as positive and negative do (Figs. 1, 2). The

applied lling was meant to distinguish the void form, the

main component of the program with a precisely dened

shape and the dominant role of the gure in the layout. The

aesthetic means used refer to the gureground interplay.

Strategy of the Void I

The rst application of the patent, named Strategy of the

Void I relating to urban planning, was the design of the new

town of MelunSénart in France. This patent was rst applied

by OMA in their project submitted to the competition for

projects of the town of MelunSénart, France, held in 1987.

It was a scheme of open spaces, infrastructure, and public

institutions in the form of a general diagram for the city.

The patent was identied as a method of planning

a city by manipulating two types of area: unbuilt and left

out of design supervision. The patent suggests reversing

the order of urban plan development, by assigning gen

erative attributes to the void and treating built areas as

boundless and negative space [5]. This is how the “bands”

(“linear voids”) (Fig. 3) were determined: as division lines

that created closed longitudinal areas, protected against

designers’ interventions outside of the areas they created.

Zones of controlled urban planning interventions along the

main communications pivots, “bands” aimed at providing

access between built and recreational areas, in order to

improve the quality of development. The division of the

arrangement by the “bands” resulted in the emergence of

Fig. 1. Universal Modernization

Patent. Strategy of the Void I

(Planning) (1987)

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz

based on [5, p. 74])

Il. 1. Patent uniwersalnej

modernizacji. Strategia pustki I

(planowanie przestrzenne) (1987)

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz

na podstawie [5, s. 74])

Fig. 2. Universal Modernization

Patent. Strategy of the Void II

(Building) (1989)

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz

based on [5, p. 77])

Il. 2. Patent uniwersalnej

modernizacji. Strategia pustki II

(projektowanie architektoniczne)

(1989) (oprac. M. Wąsowicz

na podstawie [5, s. 77])

42 Magdalena Wąsowicz

petition, the OMA studio received honorable mention

The

prototype of this cubic building located in the center of

a plot was named as one of the most signicant projects of

the end of the 20

century [28, p. 66]. The division of the

program into two additional parts formed the basic estab

lishment of the “Strategy of the Void II”: The rst part was

thematic libraries connected with elevated walkways that

serve as circulation, while the second part was warehouse

storage capacity and support rooms. The way these com

ponents were combined was the essence of the studio’s

idea [14, p. 165].

The strategy of the void is expressed by attribution of the

void characteristics for the central part of the program, so

that […] most important parts of the building consist of an

absence of building [29, p. 626]. The architects explained

the formal distinction between the main and the supplemen

tary programmatic component as follows: The regular hero

is the storage; the irregular, reading rooms, not designed,

simply carved out [29, p. 626]. This formal concept con

ceives public spaces (as voids) as forms only have to be

left out, not constructed [29, p. 626] with no constraints

of a predetermined form or structure. In this formulation,

which refers to sculptural methods of creating an object, in

addition to signaling the division into regular and irregular

forms (Fig. 4), it primarily indicates the method of structur

ing the mass of the building, which consists of hollowing

out the space of one functional component into another. The

described method of shaping the solid can be interpreted

through minimal art

. The syntheticity of the external form

of the TGB building standing in contrast to the hollowedout

The rst prize went to Dominique Perrault’s design [28, p. 66].

Minimal art is a style in painting and sculpture that developed in

the 1960s largely in reaction to Abstract Expressionism. Artists aban

doned decorativeness and emotional subjectivity in favor of impersonal

ity and simplication of form. Massive forms and industrially produced

materials were often used in sculpture [31, p. 7].

areas labeled as “islands”, developed according to an inde

pendent system. For the “islands”, only a general diagram

of the communication system and the recreation buildings

was dened. The zoning was to distinguish the degree of

control of the designer: the development of “strips” was

precisely dened, and for “islands” no detailed guidelines

were specied [26, p. 39].

In the MelunSénart project, Koolhaas argued with the

ideas of Ungers and Rowe. In publication Collage City

[22], its authors argued that urban structure can be inter

preted as a composition of gures, and Gestalt diagrams, in

which uctuations of the gure-background phenomenon

occur, can be read in various ways [22, p. 62]. Contex

tualists operated with diagrams that highlighted the g

urebackground relationship, which were guidelines for

shaping urban layouts. The pictorial tools used by Koolhaas

are analogous to those used by Rowe and Koetter’s studio.

Kristiaan Borret and Bart Eeckhout point out that the

graphic qualities of the design were the focal point of

MelunSénart’s competition proposal. In order to distin

guish the layout of the bands, the designers decided to use

a shape resembling a logographic type sign [24, p. 242].

Zaera, on the other hand, described the graphic solution

of the MelunSénart plan as […] lines of movement, frag-

ments of various creations, gures indicating density, g-

ures representing actions, logos of companies [27, p. 38].

Thus, it is the arrangement of gures – “bands” on the

background – “islands” that is taken as the essence of the

urban design proposed in the project.

Strategy of the Void II

OMA applied the Strategy of the Void II to their 1989

competition project of the National Library of France (Très

Grande Bibliothèque – TGB). The building was called the

Grand Library because it was meant to house one of the

most extensive library collections in the world. In the com

Fig. 3. Rem Koolhaas/OMA, MelunSénart/France, 1987,

scheme of Bands projected onto the map of Paris

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz based on [25, p. 114])

Il. 3. Rem Koolhaas/OMA, MelunSénart we Francji, 1987,

schemat pasm na tle mapy Paryża

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz na podstawie [25, s. 114])

Fig. 4. Très Grande Bibliothèque:

depiction of the distinction between regular and irregular forms

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz based on [30, p. 75])

Il. 4. Très Grande Bibliothèque:

zobrazowanie podziału na formy regularne i nieregularne

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz na podstawie [30, s. 75])

Strategy of the Void by the Oce for Metropolitan Architecture in the light of Gestalt psychology 43

and the cabins for individual work. “The Shell” was a cat

alog room. Due to its shape based on the Möbius strip, the

research library was called “the Loop” [15, p. 165].

Antonio Negri compared the building to a human body,

with an informationlled brain invested in the organs of the

lower torso. Libraries in their forms chosen by the design

ers, apparently without reference to functional factors and

because of their organic shapes, may indeed resemble bio

logical parts more than library rooms (Fig. 6) [15, p. 61].

In paraphrasing Michael Fried’s aforementioned con

cept of the objectivity of minimal art, Pier Vittorio Aureli

stated that architecture by Koolhaas is focused solely on

its own content. For Aureli […] the superciality of the

shape is nothing but a juxtaposition of excess content,

metaphors, meanings, and symbols without meaning…

Shapes can be interpreted as hieroglyphs; incomprehen-

sible, yet their stubbornly gurative and symbolic nature

wants to be deciphered [33, p. 30]. One suspects that the

various shapes of the libraries do not directly refer to their

functions; they are not a symbolic representation of the

contents of these spaces; they are only a pretext for cre

ating theatricality of the interior, complex, multiplane

frames, and surprising openings leading the eye towards

the surroundings of the Great Library.

Strategy of the Void in the light of Gestalt psychology

In the light of Gestalt psychology, it can be observed

that the Strategy of the Void created at the OMA studio is

characterized by three key features:

1) the use of strong forms,

2) control of the relationship between forms and ground

in twodimensional representations,

3) emphasis on the meaning of the forms and the emo

tional experience associated with them.

In Żórawski’s view, shaping architectural objects is the pur 

suit of: molding (seeing everything through forms), geome 

trization, nite number, and strong and consistent form.

According to such assumptions, the most appropriate form

from the viewer’s point of view should be expressive, unam

biguous, understandable, simple and easy to grasp [10, p. 23].

The graphic means used by Koolhaas to illustrate the Strate

gy of the Void can be simplied to basic elements such as

boxes or lines. The diagrams shown in Figures 7–9 indicate

Koolhaas’ use of the criterion of strong and consistent form.

internal structure was characterized by Robert Somol as

a minimalist frame for a monumental void [32, p. 74].

The spatial distribution of voids in the interior of the

TGB aims to shape the experience of the user traveling

a path inside a complex circulation system. Spiral ramps

lead the user from one library to the next; as one walks,

he or she observes frames of the interior’s multifaceted

layout and can look outward. Michael Fried, in an essay

included in his book Art and Objecthood [31, p. 42], de 

scribes minimal art as literal art. For Fried, the shape in

minimal art critically depends on the “eect of presence”,

since it implies both a particular environment and an ob ser

ver moving within it. When one perceives an object in its

spatial context, in the “expanded eld” of architectu ral

conditions, it signicantly increases the awareness of phy

sical “presence”, and thus

[…]

theatricalizes the [viewer’s]

body and places it on stage [31, p. 42].

The cutouts in the mass of the building, moreover, are

a reference to the art installations made by Gordon Mat

taClark (1943–1978) during the construction of the Pom

pidou Center. The artist cut holes framing views through

the body of the building that was to be demolished. The

architects of the OMA oce used this idea. To show the

composition of the voids, the project included a negative

model. In a statuelike depiction of the voids, one can

observe both the path a user might take along the spiral

ramps and the library spaces, some of them in contact with

the plane of the building’s exterior wall in such a way that

it is possible to observe the surrounding landscape.

Plans, sections, and elevations are envisioned as

a square tomographic series and are disposed on the knots

of a grid (Fig. 5). In these depictions the mass of the

books is represented as poché. The Poché plan is useful

for expressing both the spatial continuity of the interior

voids and the spatial hierarchies.

In addition, symbolic meaning was assigned to the

forms. Depending on the specicity of the book collection,

each void assumes its characteristic shapes in an illustrative

way. Auditoriums and projection booths were designed in

the form of “Pebbles” and randomly placed on the lower

levels. The current events library was called “the Cross”

because it contained two interpenetrating parts: a horizon

tal one with reading rooms and a vertical one with sound

and television rooms. “The Spiral”, in the shape of a triple

helix, connects ve levels of storehouses, the reading room,

Fig. 5. Très Grande Bibliothèque: sections (elaborated by M. Wąsowicz based on [30, p. 74])

Il. 5. Très Grande Bibliothèque: przekroje (oprac. M. Wąsowicz na podstawie [30, s. 74])

44 Magdalena Wąsowicz

ect chose to invoke gural connotations (Fig. 6) can be

explained in several ways. One is the desire to evoke the

viewer’s feelings of aection or of an aesthetic character

attached to the gure. Rubin states that […] these feel-

ings are an aspect of the relation implied in the statement

that the gure dominates in consciousness [8, p. 202]. The

reaction may also be disattached from the implications

of the gure. In […] experiments with nonsense-gures

subjects often “read into” the gures. This can involve

known objects, but sometimes also more – abstract forces,

tendencies, directions, and movements [8, p. 201]. Figure

may suggest several interpretations, the observer does

not need to set on any specic one: Even when the gure

does not look like any known thing, it can still have this

thing-character. By “thing-character” we mean a similar-

ity to what is common in all experienced objects to which

can legitimately be attached the predicate, “a thing” [8,

p. 197]. As Żórawski noted, […] in architecture, content

and form cannot exist separately, content always has

a form, and form has a content [10, p. 62], and it must

correspond to the perceptual capabilities of man. The

architect is able to make the viewer understand his work

in accordance with his intentions, and also induce him to

experience feelings as he sees t.

Summary

In the 1990s, OMA architects focused on formal solu

tions much like the American avantgarde of the time,

including Peter Eisenmann and Greg Lynn. Although con

temporary pragmatic functionalism is seen in the designs

of the OMA studio, in the case of the Strategy of the Void,

the importance of formal operations is paramount. It can

be stated, moreover, that this strategy has a universal char

acter. It is a common and transversal method of composi

tion building in the world of art and architecture. In broad

terms, the strategy of operating on the traditional division

between the “void” component, architectural space, and

the “mass” component, building matter, has been present

in one way or another (since antiquity) in the creative and

In Koolhaas’ approach, the form against the ground is

important. In addition, pairs of diagrams illustrating the

Strategy of the Void constitute each other’s positive and

negative. Operating the negative allows better control

over the contour of the forms and the spaces surrounding

them. As Rubin noted: When the inversion of gure and

background occurs, it can be seen that the area giving

shape through contour simultaneously acquires a char-

acteristic similar to that which makes us call objects

“things”. The shape experienced is dening for the object,

and the contour is the edge of that object [8, p. 197]. What

the laws of Gestalt have determined for twodimensional

representations can be similarly applied to the perception

of threedimensional architectural spaces: by interpreting

observed structures in the built environment, the visual

system seeks to distinguish gestalt – solids and interiors.

Rem Koolhaas used the aforementioned properties of

visual perception to dene the role of form. As the main

programmatic component, a void was presented, privi

leged in the visual eld. To achieve the eect of the form

being surrounded by the ground, Koolhaas resorted to the

hollowing procedure. The reversal of the design technique

from additive to subtractive draws attention to how space

is created and dened [34, p. 230], [35, p. 238]. It is pos

sible to analyze both the MelunSénart urban design and

the TGB from this angle. The graphic representation of

the Parisian project is an attempt to capture […] a portrait

of all libraries in a way they will never be seen: as shapes,

as objects [29, p. 638]. If libraries were surrounded by

void, their form would be perceivable. However, since

these rooms are surrounded by warehouses, their shape is

impossible to observe in an actual building, neither from

the outside nor from the inside [36, p. 61]. The libraries

seem to be hollowed out in the cuboidal mass of the TGB

building, just as the “bands” in MelunSénart’s design are

corridors that cut through the structure of the “islands”.

For Koolhaas, the linear urban structure of Melun

Sénart resembled the sign of the logographic alphabet [4],

also each library in the TGB building had its own sym

bolic meaning. The reasons why the authors of this proj

Fig. 6. Très Grande Bibliothèque:

interior organisation of forms and

its association as bodily organs

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz

based on [30, p. 76])

Il. 6. Très Grande Bibliothèque:

organizacja form we wnętrzu

i ich podobieństwo

do organów wewnętrznych

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz

na podstawie [30, s. 76])

Strategy of the Void by the Oce for Metropolitan Architecture in the light of Gestalt psychology 45

Fig. 7. MelunSénart: depiction

of coherent forms of “bands”

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz

based on [5, p. 74])

Il. 7. MelunSénart:

zobrazowanie pasm

jako form silnych

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz

na podstawie [5, s. 74])

Fig. 8. MelunSénart: depiction

of coherent forms of “islands”

(elaborated by M. Wąsowicz

based on [5, p. 74])

Il. 8. MelunSénart:

zobrazowanie wysp jako

form silnych

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz

na podstawie [5, s. 74])

design sphere of the architectural discipline. Traditionally,

architecture seeks forms against the ground, distinguishes

the interior form by hollowing the material, and assigns

symbolic meaning to the form. What distinguishes OMA’s

approach in the strategy of the void is the idea of juxtapos

ing complementary functional components and presenting

them as form and void. Here, Koolhaas explored the po ten

tial of emptiness that is not empty [1, pp. 156, 157] empha

sizing that the void can have an overriding role in the

selection of programmatic components. The Strategy of

the Void is a pretext for building complex formal solutions,

which, according to the author of the article, have a poten

tially wider application in contemporary architecture.

Translated by

Monika Cesarz

Fig. 9. Très Grande Bibliothèque:

depiction of coherent forms of

interior organization

(elaboration by M. Wąsowicz

based on [30, p. 74])

Il. 9. Très Grande Bibliothèque:

zobrazowanie form silnych

w organizacji form we wnętrzu

(oprac. M. Wąsowicz

na podstawie [30, s. 74])

46 Magdalena Wąsowicz

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Abstract

Strategy of the Void by the Oce for Metropolitan Architecture in the light of Gestalt psychology

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the usefulness and versatility of a design method, called by the authors from the OMA studio The Strategy

of the Void, and its application in the broader context of architectural and urban design. The study of this topic was carried out using a qualitative

analytical method and a bibliographic research method. In order to analyze the projects and their broad context, conceptual apparatus borrowed

from the gestalt psychology in architecture (in particular the works of Arnheim, Rubin and Żórawski) has been applied. It allows us to point out the

connections between the formal operations carried out in the The Strategy of the Void and the impact on visual perception assumed by the architects.

So far in the literature there has been no detailed analysis of how the graphic tools that Koolhaas used in his OMA projects are related to the gestalt

psychology. The conceptual formalfunctional scheme called by OMA architects the Strategy of the Void is presented in this paper using two proj

ects as examples. At the urban scale, it is discussed on the basis of the 1987 MelunSénart new town project, which established a strategy based on

connections between strategic voids in the layout. At the architectural scale, the strategy is developed in a 1989 competition project for the Grand

National Library of France in Paris.

Key words: architecture, psychology of vision, Gestalt, architectural space, architectural graphics

Strategy of the Void by the Oce for Metropolitan Architecture in the light of Gestalt psychology 47

Streszczenie

Strategia pustki autorstwa pracowni Oce for Metropolitan Architecture w świetle psychologii postaci

W artykule przedstawiono analizę przydatności i uniwersalności metody projektowej nazwanej przez autorów z pracowni OMA strategią pustki

oraz jej zastosowania w szerszym kontekście projektowania architektonicznego i urbanistycznego. Studia tego tematu przeprowadzono metodą

analityczną jakościową oraz metodą badań bibliogracznych. Do analizy projektów i ich szerokiego kontekstu zastosowany został aparat pojęciowy

zapożyczony z psychologii postaci w architekturze (w szczególności prac Arnheima, Rubina i Żórawskiego). Pozwala on wskazać powiązania prze

prowadzanych w strategii pustki operacji formalnych z założonym przez architektów oddziaływaniem na percepcję wzrokową. Dotychczas w litera

turze przedmiotu nie przeprowadzono szczegółowej analizy pod kątem pokrewieństwa narzędzi gracznych, których Koolhaas używał w projektach

OMA, z psychologią widzenia. Konceptualny schemat formalnofunkcjonalny nazwany przez architektów OMA strategią pustki przedstawiono

w niniejszym artykule na przykładzie dwóch projektów. W skali urbanistycznej omówiona została ona na podstawie projektu nowego miasta Melun

Sénart z 1987 r., w którym ustanowiono strategię opartą na połączeniach pomiędzy strategicznymi pustkami w układzie. W skali architektonicznej

strategia rozwijana jest w projekcie konkursowym z 1989 r. na Très Grande Bibliothèque Nationale w Paryżu.

Słowa kluczowe: architektura, psychologia widzenia, Gestalt, przestrzeń architektoniczna, graka architektoniczna