Automated architecture: violence and nihilism as strategies of 'making' in the tactics of Coop Himmelb(l)au

This paper will look at the processes of making embodied in the working method of Coop Himmelb(l)au and their relationship to the earlier avant-garde practices of Dada. Using violence and nihilism as key strategies in this subversive attitude towards making, the paper will argue that indeterminacy, as an avant-garde strategy, has a long history as a subversive and politically motivated tactic against architectural hegemony and the taste of the bourgeoisie. The nihilistic impulse that connects certain strands of Deconstruction with Dada provides a platform for revisiting ‘ideology’ and its relationship to modes of architectural production.