non-typological architecture
The NODPAPL Water Protectors Camp - Morton Country Press
The Disappearance of Type On The American Plains: Ceremonial And Syncretic Architectures Against Extractivism
Brendon Carlin
Chapter in Curatorial Design: A Place Between eds. Wilfried Kuehn and Dubravka Sekulić
“As laid out, the underlying principles, structure, and practices of both the recent NoDAPL protector city and historical Plains architecture, such as the ti’pi, are grounded in ethics of reciprocity and care for all “Plains kin,” including stars, rivers, plants, animals, and ancestors. These ethics are often tied to simple, self-evident phenomena, like cosmic occurrences visible to the naked eye. The architecture, politics, and praxis of Plains peoples always began with and involved the movements and rhythms of all kin. These basic axioms were expressed through intuitive, memorable stories connected to simple geometric symbols, which guided the unfolding of cultural practices and knowledge—constituting a deeply sophisticated science of survival and well-being on the Plains.
The act of building or “performing” a ti’pi, wicoti, or ceremony was about creating, reconstructing, and constantly modifying knowledge, making visible the relationships between people and the world. Because this knowledge was based on oral traditions, geometric symbols, and past performances, it was at once finite and clear, yet open to continuous change and radical transformation. This flexibility resulted in a rich diversity and complexity of individual expressions and practices across different communities. Given this intimate participation and relationality, each instance of constructing architecture and life was unique, shaped by one’s relationships, experiences, and circumstances. Yet, every practice contributed to a shared body of knowledge and architecture—passed down communally and never monopolized as property. For instance, the Lakota, late arrivals to the Plains, inherited ancient knowledge from generations of peoples stretching as far as Asia. Crucially, this co-construction of architecture, while grounded in place, was never culturally deterministic, as evidenced by the thousands of changing and diverse cultures that coexisted, shared, and at times consciously rejected one another’s architectures on the Plains.
Unlike today’s elusive sense of freedom, in which we are dependent on architectures we cannot see or understand, Plains peoples actively engaged in the loss and renewal of forms and relationships. This conscious awareness of destruction and reconstruction, grounded in self- evident ethics, was central to their autonomy. This dynamic is most evident in the seasonal cycles of political forms, and in the fact that the ti’pi, wicoti, and Massaum ceremonies—sacred microcosms of the Plains universe—were constantly disassembled and reassembled as part of seasonal migrations. These structures were understood as part of a regular cycle of loss and renewal, reflecting the openness and fluidity of any system of architecture or culture. Though the historical rituals associated with the ti’pi may be gone, at NoDAPL its mostly empty form, structure, and symbol were used to suspend the dominant ontology and politics, opening space for new experiments in co-creation based on care, protection, and reciprocity.
The ti’pi and ceremonial forms we have seen are best understood not as a static traditional structure, but as a vehicle for a paradoxical union of stability and adaptation. Its basic rhythms of structural organization, assembly, and the continuity provided by its symbolism offer substance to its otherwise emptiness, or openness to radical adaptation and creative reinvention. Its emphasis is on change and transience, in step with the shifting rhythms of community and ecology, rather than settlement and the abstraction of property. Both at the NoDAPL / Standing Rock Encampents and, in its 18th, and 19th-century forms, the ti’pis conception, use, ritual, and maintenance offer new perspectives on how forms of architecture are intimately entangled with relationships and realities, and how they can be conceived of radically otherwise.”