L'espace contre l'architecture

This research work analyses Theo van Doesburg's Counter-constructions presented in Paris in 1923 at the "L'Effort Moderne" exhibition. These Counter-constructions stand as icons of the Modern Movement due to their role as precursors of a new "boundless" spatiality, a role first intuitively perceived by Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe and then theorized by Sigfried Giedion. We have attempted in this research a theoretical study of the Counter-constructions' position within the architectural field. That is to say bringing together their aspect of "spatial manifest" and the Dadaist persona of Theo van Doesburg; this alleged contradiction between the progressive and negative dimension of the Counter-constructions being the subject of this research. It is based on the following problematic: understanding what is at stake in the disjointing of the polychrome plane (as a textile surface) and the suppression of the architectural boundary under the guise of spatial continuity ("the breaking of the enclosure" mentioned by Theo van Doesburg and his interest in the notion of mathematical continuum through the theories of the fourth dimension: Henri Poincaré's Analysis situs). That amounts to studying the modalities connecting the notions of dressing and of continuum to a destructive drive, "throwing out" the inside of the house. The methodology turns towards psychoanalysis through the concepts of Verneinung [negation] (Freud) and Moi-peau [Skin-ego] (Anzieu).