The Myth About Corridors

Originally from behance.net

Look at any plan of a building today and you will almost always find one architectural element: the corridor. The separation of buildings into specific functioning sets where the corridor assumes the role of circulation has become so commonplace that it can be considered a principle, a principle that has neither been developed further nor put to question. The function of the corridor as only circulation space is a myth. In fact, the corridor is actually a relatively modern device that first appeared in English aristocratic homes in the 17th century to separate the noble household from the servants.

As Robin Evan writes in his essay Figures, Doors and Passages, the corridor was intended primarily to split those who served and those to be served so that a direct sequential access for the privileged family circle could be maintained while servants were consigned to a limited territory always adjacent to, but never within the house proper. It is important to note that in the Evans‟ examples of Coleshill, Berkshire by Sir Robert Pratt (1650) and Amesbury House by John Webb (1661), even though the corridors and back servant stairs collectively form a network of spaces that touch every major room in the household, enfilades remain the primary means of movement through spaces of inhabitation by the ladies and gentlemen of the house. The arrangement of rooms in its hierarchy and function was also still very much governed by this sequence of movement from one room to the next, and not by the corridor. The house proper retains the formal composition from the Italian Renaissance as extolled by Italian theorists Alberti and Serlio, while the corridor was simply a device to restrict the interaction of lower ranks of society within the domain of the noble household, at a time of rising antagonism between the rich and poor in society.

First floor plans of house at Coleshill, Berkshire & Amesbury House at Wiltshire

By the mid-19th century, corridors replaced enfilades to become the key feature in houses. However, it is important to know that the corridor in the 19th century and those in the 17th century are very different in what they were separating. Also, the transformation of the corridor from one that divides social classes to one that segregates space was not a gradual, organic process that occurred over the course of two centuries. For the most part of the 18thcentury, large households still provided both independent access via the corridor as well as interconnection between rooms. The fact is that the use of corridors emerged alongside a spate of social housing projects built for a newly urbanised working population facing housing shortages at that time. It was a growing political issue across Europe, with the centres of many industrialised cities composing of large areas of slum housing filled with a dense mat of one or two-room-deep workers‟ cottages along older townhouses that had fallen into dereliction and mixed occupation. These districts were scenes of filth, vice, depravity and misery, but more importantly, the lack of sanitation, high crime and high fire risk meant that it was a threat to the city at large. It was in this context that Britain‟s, along with many other European countries, reform movement began eradicating slums and rehousing the poor in social housing estates. One of the earliest plans by Henry Roberts shows a typical unit with assigned spaces for cooking, bathing, and separate sleeping quarters of family members in different rooms.3 The primary intention here was the compartmentalisation of spaces as far as possible to prevent spread of diseases and unsanitary living habits. One may even say that this pursuit to segregate right down to the individual and not the family as the basic unit had a political aspect to it, to obliterate any form of social, racial and religious hierarchies within the communities and reconstitute the poor as people of the state. In any case, what must be clear is that the corridor was the natural product of this intent to segregate on one level the various spaces within the house, and on another level, the working population into separate individuals. It was not valued for its use as circulation; it was simply a cost-effective and pragmatic way to provide a route to these highly segregated spaces. These observations also explain the curious fact that it was the corridor and not the enfilade that was established in code and regulation as the main means of circulation in workers‟ homes during that period in the 19th century. One would think that it would be the enfilade that would be incorporated into homes as a sign of luxury, imitating the domestic lifestyle of aristocrats, and not something associated with the control of servants when there were obviously none.

Model Houses for Working Classes by Banister Fletcher (1871)

Plan of Shaftesbury Park, Battersea, by the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Company (1872)

The perception of the corridor undergoes another crucial change in the early 20th century. In a Fordist world where surplus value is derived primarily from the mass production of cheap commodities, efficiency was of paramount importance. The dictum of „the greater the turn over, the higher the profits‟ led to assembly lines in factories where each worker concentrated on a specific part of the production process to achieve maximum productivity with minimal redundancy. Efficiency however, was not limited to the relationship between the worker and the product. The pursuit of efficiency extended beyond the workplace as a philosophy such that an ideal way of life encompassed the efficient production, distribution and consumption of goods. In this context, the corridor gains an economic dimension and was seen as a highly valuable asset that supported the consumerist lifestyle of the early 20th century by allowing the uninterrupted movement of people and goods from one space to another. The corridor as circulation divided a space into two clear parts – its inhabited rooms and unoccupied circulation space, which gave each space a clear purpose without any overlap of function or unused excess. It was no longer necessary to pass serially through rooms and be encumbered with needless encounters. Instead, the door to any room opened into the corridor from which the room next door and the ones at the extremities became equally easy to access. The thoroughfare drew the extremities closer, and facilitated deliberate communication. At the same time it reduced accidental contact which was regarded as distracting, corrupting and malignant in an era where adding value to commodities was the key means of production, not interaction. The corridor becomes valued for its ability to connect, which gives rise to our contemporary understanding of corridors as circulation spaces.

Thus it can be seen that the notion of a corridor as circulation is a very modern concept that is intrinsically linked to a Fordist model of economy. The corridor as an organisational element in itself has evolved in its function over the years, first as a way of separating social classes, then as part of a political solution for segregation of the working population, and finally to an economic asset as an effective means of circulation in the early 20th century. Though it is true that the observations listed above show the corridor being used as a space for movement tovarious degrees, it was only in the early 20th century that the corridor truly achieves its functional raison d'être and becomes deliberately "streamlined" with all clutter and facilities removed for the sole purpose of circulation, as with other architectural elements such as stairs and ramps that have become equally synonymous with circulation during this period. In this sense, to see corridors as spaces of circulation would only be a valid assumption to make in a Fordist world. But when it is considered in relation to the larger context of the house/office, then perhaps the corridor can only be defined abstractly and neutrally as a space that facilitates by separating or separates by facilitating depending on which attribute is valued. Louis Kahn famously termed corridors as "servant" spaces, recognising this unique reciprocal relationship between the corridor and room, adding to this a fixed hierarchy whereby the corridor is always serving and being subjugated by the space of the room.

In the contemporary condition of a post-Fordist economy however, the concept of the corridor as circulation faces a crisis. Post-Fordist labour is inherently an intellectual form where the act of production cannot be separated from the product. Surplus value is no longer extracted from labour materialised in a product, but resides in the sharing of general intellect among the "multitude", to use the term by Paolo Virno, where the multitude here signifies a plurality in the form of social and political existence where an individual‟s subjectivity is paramount as opposed to the cohesive unity of the "people". The rise of this completely new form of labour requires a new set of apparatus to support it.

We are already witnessing a shift taking place in linguistics in the rise in importance of the Aristotelian concept of topoi konoi (common places) over its counterpart topoi idioi (special places), where common places refer to the skeletal structure of language that gives existence to every individual expression while special places are ways of saying which are highly specific in context. Paolo Virno makes the argument in the Grammar of the Multitude that in today‟s society the “special places” of discourse and argumentation are perishing while generic logical-linguistic forms of the “common places” are becoming more visible and important in giving a sense of orientation and reason. As he writes, “common places are the apotropaic resource of the multitude. What else are they, these "common places‟, if not the fundamental core of the "life of the mind‟, the epicentre of that linguistic animal which is the human animal? ... the fact that the most general and abstract linguistic structures are becoming instruments for orientating one‟s own conduct… is one of the conditions which define the contemporary multitude.”

Similarly, post-Fordist labour no longer requires specific forms of architecture or facilities where machines are the main protagonist of the space. The rise of the exterior, social and collective nature of intellectual exchange demands instead a space generic and abstract enough to allow such interaction to occur freely among the multitude. In doing so, the space must also allow free access to all and must not be prejudiced with established criterion of ownership and imposed standards by an authority that will affect the nature of interaction that happens within. This point can be illustrated when we consider for example that a servant within the domain of his master‟s household can only interact in his capacity of a servant. The nature of his interaction is linked to the space in which he interacts in the sense that the domain of the house forces the servant to behave in a manner so as to conform to the decorum of the noble household. He is unable to act or speak as a free man. In essence, interaction in the Post-Fordist sense can only occur in a space that is public, as it is only in the public realm that anyone is able to interact as an equal and possess the capacity to act in concert. It is alsoonly in the public realm as a “stage of appearances”, as Hannah Arendt suggests, that such form of labour, virtuosic and political in its nature, is able to attain an audience. Most critically, it is the public space that allows a form of alienation where one can act in the capacity of a stranger. By using the word “stranger” here, I refer to both in the Aristotelian sense where a stranger can attain the status of a thinker since the thinker is the stranger, as well as Georg Simmel‟s sense of the word where the stranger is someone unknown yet shares the common features of a national, social, occupational or generally human nature. In that position of being removed and yet close enough, the stranger is able to contribute objectively without prejudice or threat which makes him a highly valuable asset in the Post-Fordist world. As Georg Simmel writes in The Stranger, “For, to be a stranger is naturally a very positive relation; it is a specific form of interaction.”

Thus we see that by this definition that the corridor can be considered such a common, public space, and it is these public spaces and not private, specific places that are fast becoming spaces crucial in this post-Fordist economy. If we return now to the contemporary concept of the corridor as circulation space, then the inherent contradiction becomes clear: the common space of the corridor is left void for circulation, while the specific spaces for work are segregated and private, which negates any possibility for constructive interaction. We see too that Kahn‟s more general description of the corridor as a "servant‟ does not hold true as the hierarchical relationship between the „servant‟ and the „served‟ spaces is completely inverted. This is unwittingly acknowledged by Louis Kahn himself during his speech on The Room, the Street, and the Human Agreement (1971) in which he said, “The stair is the same for the child, the adult and the old… It is good also to consider the stair landing as a place to sit near a window with possibly a shelf for a few books. The old man ascending with the young boy can stop here, showing his interest in a certain book, and avoid the explanations of infirmity. The landing wants to be a room.” In view of this, we must forget the dangerous notions of corridors as circulation and corridors as "servant‟ spaces and redefine it in relation to this rise in importance of common spaces over specific spaces.

However, the majority of alternatives produced so far simply oppose the use of corridors in general with no thought of the intricate nature of the issue at hand or consideration whether the unique ability of the corridor to both separate and connect at the same time can be utilised to provide an answer. Instead, many contemporary architects reduce the problem to a simple dialectic and produce an opposite as a solution that is often extreme, in a manner which is perhaps symptomatic within architectural circles. We see a nostalgic return to the enfilade as the primary means of circulation in in the formal arrangement of the Central Beheer offices by Herman Hertzberger, whereby the building becomes a grid of rooms. This is equally explicit in the University of Pennsylvania Richards Medical Centre by Louis Kahn where the typical laboratory program is exaggerated with the servicing in his „served‟ laboratory studios housed into inconspicuous shafts that are almost physically detached from the rooms, while the rooms themselves are transformed into a completely isolated working environment, glorifying its superiority over the other support spaces. The result, however, is almost ironic: the exteriorisation and transparency of the laboratory environments allow the scientists to be spatially aware that they are part of a larger community of explorers, yet the isolation of the rooms restrains them in their separated spaces, only allowing this awareness to exist as merely a visual relationship.

Floor plans for the Central Beheer office and Richards Medical Centre

More recent examples do away with the use of corridors or enfilades altogether, giving rise to the stereotypical „open-plan‟ office space as exemplified in the Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters by Norman Foster where the entire office space for 1300 staff comprise only of three mat layers for work. There is no separation at all even between spaces of circulation and work with the rationale here being the complete “democratisation of the workplace” since the nature of labour is now so diffused and unspecific. However, “democratisation of the workplace”, stands in direct contradiction to the principle conditions of a Post-Fordist economy. It is already a contradiction of terms in itself because it is impossible for political action to take place in the private space of the office where the individual is subsumed into the identity of the corporation. While previously common spaces like the pantry, bar, corridors and stairs still make possible for a certain degree of freedom in interaction, the open-plan work environment becomes oppressive and totalising, effectively making an entire floor space a single private room. As Paolo Virno explains, “The publicness of the intellect, when it does not take place in a public sphere, translates into an unchecked proliferation of hierarchies as groundless as they are thriving” which drastically increases forms of submission. It is not surprising then that the need for separation returns in the form of office furniture, where workers find refuge in their own little cubicles.

First floor plan of Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters by Norman Foster

It is perhaps interesting at this point to compare the difference in the transformation of residential schemes versus office schemes. While offices have come to adopt a loose negotiation between the open-plan and flexible partitioning (perhaps more for the latent benefit of flexibility open-plan spaces provide), the formal arrangement for residential schemes has not changed. There is strong economic incentive to rid housing blocks of useless circulation spaces because of its inefficiency in terms of sellable floor area, but the best that has been achieved is simply the reduction of the corridor to the minimum permissible dimensions. If we follow this reasoning to its logical conclusion, then the ideal situation would be an open-plan residential space where the common space of the corridor collapses into the private and specific space of the apartments to form a completely common space. Here the counter-point to the open-plan office space is produced because the residents are not bound together to any larger organisation or rule. The only common feature they share is where they stay. Yet the fact that such a scheme faces resistance shows the value we place in the private realm where we can escape and be solitary. Thus it can be seen that completely sacrificing one space over another, be it private over public or public over private, does not work. These two realms must co-exist side by side in a way such that public space can protect private interest. This requirement leads to the crucial point. It is precisely because the corridor has the ability to facilitate and separate concurrently that it should be reconsidered as an organisational device for this purpose of facilitating public interaction while maintaining a divide between the public and the private realms at the same time.

Plan of the promenade publique and the rue intérieure, Unite d‟habitation

Le Corbusier famously attempted to inject such a social dimension to the corridors in Unite d'Habitation, calling them rue intérieures, or internal streets. The Marseille block comprised of 337 apartments of 23 different types arranged over twelve stories, all suspended on large piloti with these interior streets occurring at every two floors. However it was only two situated at levels 7 and 8 called the promenade publique that provided commercial services (food, clothes, pharmacy, hairdresser, laundries etc), hotels and a post office, while the street on the 18th floor provided a number of services for collective use: day nursery, kindergarden, gymnasium, open air theatre and even a 300 metre race track. The rest of the corridors unfortunately remained empty and dimly lit, making them unwelcoming and inhospitable as spaces for interaction. In addition, inverting an external and horizontal streetscape into an internal and vertical organisational system compounds the problem by making the areas around the block completely void of any street activity. The Marseille block effectively becomes an isolated collective which lacked the critical volume to support the commercial activities housed within the building. The Smithsons attempted to improve on this concept in their Golden Lane project with the aim to create “a true street-in-the-air, [with] each street having a large number of people dependent on it for access…to become a social entity and be within reach of a large number at the same level. Streets will be places and not corridors or balconies”. These streets would similarity be equipped with small shops, post-boxes, telephone kiosks etc. The Smithsons believed that linking these streets-in-the-sky between multiple blocks to form a network as part of an overall urban plan for the city would provide sufficient scale for them to be commercially sustainable. Unfortunately the project was never built and when a similar scheme was realised in the form of the Robin Hood Gardens some 14 years later, the streets-in-the-sky disappeared and the blocks contained purely residential units.

Left: Plan of deck layers showing streets-in-the-sky in black of the Golden Lane project; Right: The Golden Lane project expressed as a new city fabric

We will never know if streets-in-the-sky will work. In any case, reinterpreting corridors as streets would also be too literal an expression of a common space in a Post-Fordist sense. However, the essence of these last two projects provides us with an interesting direction to take: the underlying theme, which is more explicit in the Smithsons project, effectively called for co-existence of two parallel networks – the rue intérieures and the street / the streets-in-the-sky and the street. Perhaps it is in the provision of an excess number of corridors that one will be used for circulation, and the other, now free from its function to circulate, can truly be a common space for the Post-Fordist worker.