The magic of machines in the house

Abstract In the 1850s, a French magician and inventor named Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin filled his home with electrical and mechanical gadgets including a system of centrally-controlled alarm clocks to wake servants, an automatic horse-feeder and a complex system of bells to detect visitors. We examine how this early intrusion of machinery into the domestic realm drew on the craft of conjuring performance and apparatus design. Through an analysis of Robert-Houdin's house, we show how the techniques of magic, specifically of simulation and dissimulation, provide a ready-made language in which to consider the accommodation of machines within architectural design. This analysis is then reflected forward to a discussion of two later cases of overtly mechanised houses within the established canon of modern architecture: Le Corbusier's Appartement Charles de Beistegui completed in 1931, and Alison and Peter Smithson's House of the Future or 'appliance house' displayed in 1956. Through the language of magic, these cases are discussed in terms of alternative readings of Le Corbusier's modernist mantra of the house as a machine for living. Notes This article is the result of a collaboration between two authors: Smith, working in the field of Information Systems with interests in the history of technology and magic, and Lewi, working in the field of Architecture with interests in the history and conservation of modernism. A. Lance, as quoted by M. Tafuri, 'Machine et memoire: The City in the Work of Le Corbusier', in, H. Allen, ed., Le Corbusier (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 205. Lance, ibid. It is well documented that Le Corbusier synthesised a great array of ideas from the history of architecture and painting. Hunting for his sources of inspiration has become something of a critical preoccupation. Rosalind Krauss, and most recently Jan Birksted, have suggested that modernism demanded a new kind of tactic for using precedents which no longer equated to overt copying. Under new demands for novelty and originality, Le Corbusier is instead described as 'apprenticing' himself to other thinkers and designers. J. Birksted, 'The Politics of Copying: Le Corbusier's "Immaculate Conceptions"', Oxford Art Journal, 30, 2 (2007), pp. 305–326. R. Banham, 'Machine Aesthetic', Architectural Review, 117 (April, 1955), pp. 225–228. Also quoted by N. Rosenblatt, 'Empathy and Anaesthesia: On the Origins of a French Machine Aesthetic', Grey Room, 02 (2001), pp. 78–97. A strong theme in both the English and Australian professional architecture journals of the 1950s, for example. For example, J. M. Freeland, 'A critical look at town planning', Architecture in Australia (March, 1956), pp. 52–54. S. Anderson, 'The Fiction of Function', Assemblage, 2 (1987), pp. 18–31. A further example of more recent qualifications of modernism's appeal to the machine comes from Lefaivre and Tzonis. They wrote of functionalism that it 'was one of the most complex developments in modern culture and played multiple roles … it created buildings which were "as if" machines … through an intricate iconographic system it practised fantasy and persuasion dressed up in the clothes of an impostor mechanisation.': L. Lefaivre, A. Tzonis, 'The Machine in Architectural Thinking', Daidalos, 18 (1985), pp. 16–26. In focusing on machines introduced into the home we exclude concern with other building-related artefacts like materials and construction technologies, purely decorative and artistic embellishments, and media and communication devices that are intended to bring value through connection to more distant worlds (eg, television, wireless, telephones and the internet). This treatment of the machine as distinct from other 'technics' is well established as, for example, in L. Mumford, Technics & Civilization (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934). For a general text on domestic comfort, see for example, M. Ierley, The Comforts of Home: The American House and the Evolution of Modern Convenience (New York, Clarkson Potter, 1999). We refer to the physical presence of new domestic technologies in the home. Related changes to patterns of living have of course been profound in some ways, but in other ways are subtle and sometimes paradoxical. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, for example, has shown how new so-called labour-saving devices did not save American middle-class women of the 1920s from labour; rather, they were 'proletarianised' over this period by becoming singularly responsible for household chores while also succumbing to new and greater demands in areas like child care and cleaning. R. S. Cowan, 'The Industrial Revolution in the home: household technology and social change in the twentieth century', Technology & Culture, 17 (1976), pp. 1–23. More recent research in Australia has further supported the counter-intuitive finding that household appliances have had little effect on the time spent on domestic work by unpaid women. See M. Bittman, J. Rice & J. Wajcman, 'Appliances and their impact: the ownership of domestic technology and time spent on household work', The British Journal of Sociology, 55(3) (2004), pp. 401–423. The history and theory of conjuring is a fairly obscure area of knowledge and one difficult to access by non-magicians. Our account is based on the writings of magicians and some of the few histories of magic, interpreted through the first author's (Smith's) knowledge as an amateur magician and member of The Magic Circle. For non-magicians, see the following: a popular but well-informed source on nineteenth-century stage visual illusions, J. Steinmeyer, Hiding The Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear (New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003); a short, accessible account of the principles of conjuring, P.Lamont & R.Wiseman, Magic in Theory (Seattle, Washington, Hermetic Press, 1999); an account of the cultural significance of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century magic, S. During, Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2002); and an application of magical ideas to architecture, S.Gage, 'The Wonder of Trivial Machines', The Journal of Systems Research and Behaviour Science, 23 (2006), pp. 771–778. Interestingly, magic tricks were often described as 'experiments' in nineteenth-century conjuring books, so providing another sense of experiments in the mechanised house. A similar observation is made for the present-day 'smart house' by A-J Berg, 'A gendered socio-technical construction: the smart house', in, C. Cockburn, R. Furst-Dilic, eds, Bringing Technology Home: Gender and Technology in a Changing Europe (Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1994), pp. 165–180. M. Vellay and K. Frampton, Pierre Chareau: Architect and Craftsman 1883–1950 (New York, Rizzoli, 1984). J-F. Bastide, The Little House: An Architectural Seduction (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996; originally published in French, 1879). J.E. Robert-Houdin, The Priory, translated in T. Karr, Essential Robert-Houdin (Los Angeles, The Miracle Factory, 2006), p. 353; original French publication: Le Prieuré (Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1867). E. Dawes, The Great Illusionists (London, Chartwell Books, 1979), p. 121; S. During, op. cit. (2002), p. 118; P. Metzner, Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill and Self-Promotion in Paris during the Age of Revolution (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1998), p. 160. S. During, op. cit. (2002), p. 121. Robert-Houdin's inventions were awarded medals by judges, but perhaps the more significant achievement was to be included in the exhibitions: see D. Harvey, Paris, Capital of Modernity (New York and London, Routledge, 2003). Robert-Houdin's writings, particularly his Memoirs, contain episodes that are widely thought to be fabricated. To rely on his account of the Priory is therefore not without danger. Some corroboration of the house and its unique devices is found in various letters and notes written by distinguished visitors as drawn on by C.A. Klein, Robert-Houdin: Prestigieux Magicien de Blois (Chambray-lès-Tours, C.L.D, 1988). However, the technical complexity of the gadgets described is not great given Robert-Houdin's known skills and other inventions like his automata and 'Mysterious Clock'. What is more open to question, perhaps, is his description of the actual use and usefulness of gadgets in the Priory. For our present account, these issues are not especially important because the concern here is with the Priory as an experimental house that projected future possibilities. C.A. Klein, op. cit. (1988), p.69. These two examples are given by Robert-Houdin himself as reported in, respectively: J.E. Robert-Houdin, op. cit. (2006/1867), p. 353 and C.A. Klein, op. cit. (1988), p. 71. This relationship between magic and techno-science was already well established by the eighteenth century, as exemplified by the shows of Fawkes in England, and also later those of Comus and Pinetti performing in Paris and across Europe. But by the end of the nineteenth century, science was rapidly losing its 'table-top scale' making it less translatable to magic performance. J.E. Robert-Houdin, 'The Secrets of Stage Conjuring', translated in T.Karr, op. cit. (2006), p. 304; original French publication: Magie et Physique Amusante (Paris, Lévy, 1877). The electromagnet was invented in England in 1825 by William Sturgeon, and by the 1830s many inventors were considering uses of its properties which included its great force and rapid on/off switching: see M.Schiffer, 'A Cognitive Analysis of Component-Simulated Invention', Technology and Culture, 49 (2) (2008), pp. 376–398. J. Steinmeyer, The Science Behind The Ghost (Burbank, California, Hahne, 1999). J. Steinmeyer, Hiding The Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear (New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003), p. 139. For general histories of magic that chart these changes, see E. Dawes, op cit. (1979) and S.During, op cit. (2002). 'Parlour magic' means a scale of performance somewhere between 'close-up' (for a few spectators) and a full 'stage' performance. Simon During sees Robert-Houdin's sartorial style as part of a wider modernist fashion shift known as the 'great masculine renunciation': S. During, op cit. (2002), p. 119. The domestic stage-set of Robert-Houdin might also be seen as a precursor to the domestic displays of room interiors, furnishings and furniture, or ensembles, that became popular in early-twentieth century France. Ensembles were shown at exhibitions of decorative arts and salons. Esther Da Costa describes these settings as not for living in, but rather 'their contrived domesticity was geared toward a purely visual form of consumption.' E. Da Costa Meyer, 'Simulated Domesticities: Perriand before Le Corbusier', in, M. McLeod, ed., Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living (New York, A N Abbrams, 2003), p. 34. J.E. Robert-Houdin, The Secrets of Stage Conjuring, translated in T.Karr, op. cit. (2006), pp. 295–300. An account is also given in S.H.Sharpe, Salutations to Robert-Houdin (Calgary, Micky Hades International, 1983), pp. 113–117. The use of the words 'simulation' and 'dissimulation' in connection with magic are taken from D. Fitzkee, Magic By Misdirection (Oakland, California, Magic Limited, 1945), pp. 65–66. This book is the third of a trilogy that forms one of the most influential contributions to the principles of conjuring technique. D. Fitzkee, The Trick Brain (San Rafael California, San Rafael House, 1944), pp. 21–31: the second of Fitzkee's trilogy. One of Robert-Houdin's most successful early tricks had been a mind-reading effect called 'Second Sight' performed on stage with his young son Emile. L. Mumford, op. cit. (1934), p. 14. Domestic clocks were also one source of the new link between the private and the public realms, through accurate time-keeping, punctuality and the transfer of information: see S. Kwinter, Architecture of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2001), p. 18. On the conflict over clocks and time-keeping in factories, see D.S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 229–230. W. Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trs, H. Eclard and K. McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press, 1999), p. 214. Ibid., p. 215. H. Heynen, 'Modernity and domesticity: tensions and contradictions', in, H. Heynen, G. Baydar, eds, Negotiating Domesticity: Spatial productions of gender in modern architecture (London and New York, Routledge, 2005), p. 9. D. Harvey, Paris, Capital of Modernity (New York and London, Routledge, 2003), p. 204. Ibid., p. 210: Harvey asserts that surveillance was prevalent in all forms of life in France under the Second Empire regime. W. Benjamin, op. cit. (1999), p. 226, emphasised both sides of this contradictory picture. Le Corbusier, 'L'Esprit Nouveau Articles', in, J. Dunnett, ed., Essential Le Corbusier (London, Architectural Press, Butterworth, 1998), p. 95. This is not to imply that Le Corbusier was not also interested in advancing more mainstream domestic technologies in the home. For example, contemporaneous with this apartment, he completed with Jeanneret and Perriand a display apartment called 'Equipment for a Dwelling' at the Salon D'Automne which featured a highly equipped and visible modern kitchen and bathroom. See M. McLeod, 'New Designs for Living: Domestic Equipment of Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, 1828–1829', in, M. McLeod, op. cit., pp. 36–38. M. Tafuri, op. cit. (1987), p. 203. For a discussion on this general point of opposition see H. Heynen, op. cit. (2005), p. 21. P. Sandy, 'Le Corbusier chez riches: l'appartement Charles de Beistegui', Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, 49: 57–70 (1979), pp. 57–60. There have been a number of recent articles examining the de Beistegui apartment in terms of its connections to surrealism. Anthony Vidler argues that Corbusier was by no means always sympathetic: see A. Vidler, 'Homes for Cyborgs', in, C. Reed, ed., Not at Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture, (London, Thames and Hudson, 1996), p. 168. For example, Corbusier had in his library A. Breton, Formes de l'Art — L'Art Magique (Paris, Club Français du Livre, 1957) and K. Seligmann, Le Mirroir de la Magie (Paris, Fasquelle, 1956). Seligmann was part of the surrealist artist circle in Paris who then moved to New York and later published this book on magic and the occult in the western world. These references are courtesy of personal communication with the Fondation Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier, Buildings and Projects, 1933–1937 (Paris, Fondation Le Corbusier, 1983), pp. 53–57. M. Tafuri, op. cit. (1987), p. 205. And for a further analysis of Tafuri's discussion, see H. Lipstadt and H. Mendelsohn, 'Philosophy, History and Autobiography: Manfredo Tafuri and the "Unsurpassed Lesson" of Le Corbusier', Assemblage, 22 (1993), pp. 58–103. Less attention has been paid within English language analysis, until Colomina's account of the apartment: see B. Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1994), pp. 301–306. In an interesting connection to the toy-like nature of the new gadgets, Vidler talks about the legacy of mechanised toys, models and machines such as automata that became translated into the larger modernist ideas of the architectural prosthetic: see A. Vidler, op. cit. (1996), pp. 76–79. Willy Boesiger, ed., Oeuvre Compléte de Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, 1929–1934 (Zurich, Girsberger, 1964). P. Blake, The Master Builders (London, Gollancz, 1961), p. 60. J. Birksted, op. cit. (2007), p. 322. Birksted has recently made an intriguing connection between these hedges that control the prospect towards the Bois de Boulogne, and François-Joseph Belanger's (1744–1818) landscaping spectacle for the Royal visit to the Bagatelle which also framed a similar view. J. M. Richards qualified this point in 1935; it was electricity and the effects of electrical power on industrialisation, rather than the machine itself, that actually revolutionised daily life in the home: see J. M. Richards, 'Towards a Rational Aesthetic: An examination of the Characteristics of Modern Design with Particular Reference to the Influence of the Machine', Architectural Review, LXXVIII (1935), pp. 211–218. M. McLeod, op. cit. (2003), p. 64. Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture, as reproduced in J. Dunnett, ed., Essential Corbusier, op. cit., p. 119. B. Colomina, op. cit., p. 297. Corbusier talks about other modern mechanisms and machines that could perform everyday tasks as being a 'docile servant. A good servant is discreet and self-effacing in order to leave the master free.': Le Corbusier, L'Art Decorative D'Aujourd'hui (Paris, Vincent, 1959 [first published 1925]), pp. 76–70. Mary McLeod describes how a kind of Taylorism from American industry led to the emergence of domestic science, with an influence on German architectural modernism through, for example, 'time and motion' studies of kitchen work: M. McLeod, op. cit., (2003), pp. 36–38. Also relevant here, many new labour-saving devices came into the home, particularly in the early decades of the twentieth century with the growing availability of electricity, and their existence was correlated with a decline in domestic servants and other helpers. In tandem, updated forms of the bathroom and kitchen took shape rapidly. See R. S. Cowan, op. cit. (1976), pp. 1–23. A. Light, Mrs Woolf and the Servants (London, Fig Tree, 2007), p. 45. M. McLeod, op. cit. (2003), p. 58. P. Sandy, op. cit. (1979), pp. 57–60. We have found no positive evidence of a direct connection. Le Corbusier's library held by the Fondation Le Corbusier contains no books on magic or conjuring, nor any of Robert-Houdin's books: personal communication. R. Banham, 'The Machine Aesthetic', in, P. Sparke, ed., Design by Choice: ideas in architecture by Reyner Banham (New York, Rizzoli, 1981), p. 47. N. Whiteley, 'Toward a Throw-Away Culture, Consumerism, 'Style Obsolescence' and Cultural Theory in the 1950s and 1960s', Oxford Art Journal, 10, 2 (1987), pp. 3–27. Until recently this project has been rather ignored in the Smithsons' larger body of work. This was re-addressed in 2004 with a major exhibition in London and an accompanying catalogue devoted to the scheme. D. van den Heuvel, M. Risselda, 'Just a Few Houses', in, D. van den Heuvel, M. Risselda, eds, Alison and Peter Smithson — from The House of the Future to a House of Today (Rotterdam, 010 Publishers, 2004), pp. 10–11. A. and P. Smithson, Changing the Art of Inhabitation (London, Artemis, 1994), p. 114. For a full discussion of the IG and this exhibition see Whiteley, op. cit. (1987), pp. 3–27. Colomina, op. cit. (1994), p. 40. D. van den Heuvel, 'Picking up, Turning over and Putting with …', in D. van den Heuvel, M. Risselda, eds, op. cit. (2004), p. 20. Colomina, op. cit. (1994), p. 35. Colomina, op. cit. (1994), p. 42. R. Banham, 'The House of the Future', Design, 87 (1956), p. 16. B. Colomina makes this comparison in 'Unbreathed Air 1956', in, D. van den Heuvel, M. Risselda, eds, op. cit. (2004), p. 33. Colomina, ibid., pp. 31–33. Colomina reports Peter Smithson's own words: 'It wasn't real. It was made of plywood … The house was made in 10 days … It was not a prototype. It was like the design for a masque, like theatre. Which is extraordinary.' R. Banham, 'Stocktaking', first published in Architectural Review (February, 1960), pp. 51–53. This conception of the house as an impermanent skin that merely houses a complex set of services is extended in Banham's article, 'A Home is not House', Art in America (April,1965), pp. 56–60. R. Banham, 'The Great Gizmo', first published in Industrial Design (September, 1965) and re-published in P. Sparke, ed., op. cit. (1981), pp. L. Mumford, op. cit. (1934), p. C. Reed, in, C. Reed, ed., op. cit., (1996), pp. For a full of these see H. Heynen, 'Modernity and in H. Heynen, G. Baydar, eds, op. cit., (2005), The Australian modern and for example, suggested that ideas in architecture have always from an of a sense of and and that they have become with great because they be into a we they be See 'The Architectural Review, (February, 1956), pp. There of been to such in some modernist like that of of the see C. and writings (New York, Architectural A. in in, P. E. eds, Architecture and Science Mass., The MIT Press, 1999), p. The Age 2007), p. 14. J. a House', The New York p. H. pp. the description of to 'smart home an at the theatre. into the on to of the the house with a few The has up, and the from the In the is in the A. of J. New York International, Our to from the And while at could a 2001), p. What is as of an with on many household

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