extraordinary drawings...

as you think about them... (before friday)... you might want to explore:  riba presidents medal (this one is a nice one)

a standard search of images of the bartlett school of architecture yields this...

perry kulper is also pretty cool...

smout-allen too...

cj lim + studio 8... have these (he's part of the london 8):

here is a .pdf of some that i put together in the past...

plastic integration

one of the concerns within modern latin american architecture is the integration of art into buildings.  surely, the call for integration of art into modern architecture advocated by various factions of the post-world war II ciam had been in place since, at least, josé vasconcelos’ influential muralism program for mexican schools and public buildings following the 1910 mexican revolution.

isamu noguchi, history as seen from mexico at the abelardo rodríguez market, mexico, 1936

discussions about what type of art was appropriate for the new architecture ensued almost immediately; questioning both the style, form, and content.  what is clear is that architects have considered integrating sculpture and murals within their buildings and not only seeking artists (and closely collaborating with them) but also that artists were actively interested in developing works to relate to the architecture; highlighting the debates between whether realism or abstraction is more appropriate for new works and whether communication/legibility is more important than stylistic coherence.

edwin studer, urnario municipal, 1962

surely, bayardo's inclusion of edwin studer's mural in the side of the urnario municipal plays into these debates.  and, clearly, studer (in following a line of uruguayan constructivism of joaquín torres-garcia) created a reinforced concrete abstract mural that reflects the material qualities as well as the structure and order of the building.

outside of latin america, there are other examples...

enric miralles and carmé pinos, design of chapel (drawing fragment), igualada, 1984-present

le corbusier, swiss pavilion

le corbusier, swiss pavilion

(post) mid-term review 1

the critics agreed that everyone had very good ideas and interesting issues to deal with.  also, they were very excited about the level of craft and explorations of drawings, draw-dels, models, etc.  while some projects needed more work than others, they agreed that with an investment of time and effort, all of the projects could reach a very high level of complexity and resolution.  you should be happy about this...!  

from my perspective, the review was fair and balanced.  i think that good questions were asked and possible directions pointed.  i too was very happy with the work, level of discourse, and possibilities. 

for tuesday, we will meet at 2 and organize the pinup of the work (we have arch 131).  for this presentation, you should ONLY show your developed scheme - nothing from the past - which should be transformed based on the discussion from yesterday's review and your development of the project from said discussion.  make sure you have plans, section, etc. (with the original ossuary included); its ok to be on trace... but, make sure that your drawings are precise.  the site plan should be to the same scale as for yesterdays midterm.  make new models, drawdels, etc. of the project as needed.  

the project should read by itself without the aid of any previous explorations.  this will cut the time of presentation from 5-7 minutes in 1/2. also, to speed up the process, please post images of your midterm presentation stuff on your blogs for the critics to see (michele, of course, will be the only one privy to the discussions).  

as noted in the final comments, don't forget to think about the logic of the original (its form, movement, material, qualities, etc) and how it might influence your intervention.  about the clarity of the ideas (and the clarification of them); remember to be bold and direct; to self-edit.  about the "right scale" for the addition.  and, ultimately, about how the emotional experience of visiting the ossuary and the cemetery (the metaphysical experience) gets translated into your intervention.

looking forward to seeing how your projects become more pointed, precise, powerful, and beautiful (the last goes without saying).

ungrounding (fabric)ation or, (fabric)ated ungrounding

We live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been shattered to bits, and leftovers. We no longer believe in the myth of the existence of fragments that, like pieces of an antique statue, are merely waiting for the last one to be turned up, so that they may all be glued back together to create a unity that is precisely the same as the original unity. We no longer believe in a primordial totality that once existed, or in a final totality that awaits us at some future date. We no longer believe in the dull gray outlines of a dreary, colorless dialectic of evolution, aimed at forming a harmonious whole out of heterogeneous bits by rounding off their rough edges. We believe only in totalities that are peripheral.

– Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

sewing + drawing without paper

drawing while sewing

more examples here...

on the business of architecture

alain resnais’s night and fog (nuit et brouillard, 1955) opens with shots of abandoned concentration camp grounds. this is what the narrator says several minutes into the film: “a concentration camp is built the way a stadium or hotel is built: with businessmen estimates, competitive bids, and no doubt a bribe or two. no specific style—that’s left to the imagination: alpine style, garage style, japanese style, no style… architects calmly design the gates meant to be passed through only once.“

surely, they had to take con-mat and arch tech... i wonder, tho, if they had their trash cans emptied when they were architecture students...?

fabric + weaving (student) project

fabric [click on image for project]

weaving [click on image for project]

[more images and other projects are here...]