Erandi

La Chiesa del Sacro Fascino seeks to bring back glamour, a persuasive device that was employed throughout the Church before the Reformation to emphasize the wealth, power, importance and otherworldliness of the institution. By recalling the function of glamour in pre-Reformation Churches, the glamorous church seeks to renew faith. 

Glamour in the Church was used during the Baroque period to dislocate people, by suspending the ordinary routine of their lives. Feudal peasants were tied to the land and were immersed in nature. For them, entry into the space of the Church allowed for the experience of opulence and supernatural beauty, which resulted in the consolidation of religious belief. The Enlightenment and Reformation saw a transformation of Church conventions in terms of glamour. The proliferation of the printed word and Biblical translation allowed individuals to access the word of God and encouraged personal interpretations of the Bible and the world around them. These factors coupled with the rise of capitalism and industrialization planted the seeds of modern individualism. The Enlightenment promoted secularization and championed a belief in science, thereby further contributing to the decline of religious faith and the rise of the state. Contemporary capitalism has emphasized the individual and eroded social ties including those that bind religious communities. The power of the church is diminished. We are isolated, atomized individuals in contemporary society. As people struggle for meaning against this historical backdrop, religious identity will likely play an important role in constructing collective identity.

In the modern era, glamour has been used to cultivate elitism and individualism, defining patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Glamour must be redirected towards community. Rather than glamour being consumed to elevate the individual, La Chiesa del Sacro Fascino harnesses glamour for collective experience. Glamour must be reclaimed by the church to seduce its congregation.

Both fashion and architecture express ideas of personal, social and cultural identity, reflecting the needs of the user and the spirit of the times. The relationship between fashion and architecture is a symbiotic one, and throughout history clothing and buildings have echoed one another in form and appearance. This symbiosis is only natural as they share the primary function of providing shelter and protecting the body but also because they both create space and volume out of flat two-dimensional materials. While fashion and architecture share many traits, they are also fundamentally different. Both realms address the human scale, but the proportions, sizes and shapes they adopt differ enourmously. A piece of fashion design is often intended to be used by an individual whereas architecture is often intended for use by multiple people at a given moment. Also, while fashion is by its very nature ephemeral or 'of the moment', architecture traditionally has a more solid, monumental and permanent presence.  

To be glamorous, a thing has to be in part inaccessible, difficult to possess - whether through rarity or expense.                                                                                     
                                                                     
Reference:
Alexandra Shulman, Editor, British Vogue - The Glamour Issue, December 2007, p. 17.

Paid a visit to the Skin and Bones show that just opened at Somerset House. It investigates the relationship between fashion and architecture. Lots of beautiful dresses and great architectural models on display!

Zaha wins.

I'm experimenting with casting some jigs to place my cast fabric models in while they are being vacuum-formed. These should work to ensure that perfect edge condition that provides a guaranteed interlock.

For the final plates I want to set up a kind of fashion shoot with my models as the well...models :)

I am going to use Inez van Lambsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin (photographers) who collaborate often with M/M Paris (graphic/art director dudes) as a precedent. I love the sensuous way they combine line drawings with photos. I will keep that in mind as I prepare the plates.

The greater the number of oval segments that feature the slow, more glamorous part of the curvature, with dramatic approaches, combined with a relatively greater number of inflections, denotes which areas of the building are most glamorous. This organization creates a hierarchy of vague form defined by a proliferation of hidden spaces. 

Glamour is the elusive element of celebrity culture that elevates the star. It is the careful transformation of a person from how they truly appear to an idealized fantasy that exists nowhere on this planet. Images in fashion magazines of unattainable clothing, impeccable hair, flawless makeup, photoshop adjustments and the occasional nip/tuck, construct contemporary icons for us to meditate upon whilst in line at the grocery store; celebrated figures imbued with an otherworldly character. The public instinctively craves these images like nothing else. The Church, an institution that once monopolized the production of glamorous visions of a world beyond, has fallen behind pop culture in the output of such imagery. Having taken on the austere desires of the Reformation, The Church is no longer able to seduce. Although the Reformation favorably lead to an age of rationality and the beginning of greater class equality, something vital was lost. The Church, which like modern architecture, fell victim to a narrow view of functionalism, needs to regain its position as the primary source of glamour and lure followers back into the fold.

Glam Space describes an architectural agenda for a chuch in Rome that highlights spatial qualities which signify that which is glam or glamorous. Originally, glamour refers to a spell which may be cast on a person. This spell changes how things appear. The primary modern meaning of glamour alludes to fascination, charisma, beauty, a kind of exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness. Thereby, it describes both a material quality and an immaterial one. Glamour gives utopian fantasy a sensuality, permitting a human connection. It provides just enough familiarity to lure the imagination. It is a highly mysterious blend of engagement coupled with distance. It is neither transparent nor opaque, but translucent: a partially revealed environment.

This shifting concept of glamour as that which is tangible/intangible is echoed in the notion of The Church which serves as a material representation of the trancendental world. The Church’s opulant treatment of space in the Baroque era not only communicates its otherworldliness but also serves to seduce and convince those who experience it, of the institution’s power.

Considering the two-fold formal characteristics of glamour, the built form of glam space will be a structure within a structure. The relatively sober outer structure alludes to the interior space but obscures its contents. Enclosed within is a seamless undulating surface which transforms from wall to floor to pulpit to pew and so on. Continuous curves make it difficult to discern depth in the space. The interior shell will take its cues from the dramatic walls of its baroque predecessors. This undulating sheath will work to define the spaces of The Church where transformative events occur: the areas which host The Sacraments.

Similarly, the iconic costumes associated with the rituals of the church, underscore a long-standing tradition of marking transformational events through elaborate dress. The Sacraments, the most intensely transformative ritual within the church, demands a distinct set of highly articulated garments such as wedding gowns, christening gowns etc. which serve to mark the unique importance of these divine encounters. Taking into account fashion's ability to provide an everyday means of transforming ones appearance and acknowledging its position as the most common contemporary medium of glamour, the glamorous church will depart from the austere tendencies of recent church design by using the techniques of fashion, in particular dressmaking, as a way to re-establish glamorous associations with The Church.

Prior to constructing the garment, a sensuous body must be defined upon which to lay the garment. The garment  is fitted to a body which is defined by the building’s program. The body is composed of a proliferation of glamorous curves: oval segments which are organized by inflection. Oval segments are used in reference to the Baroque, a period when the Catholic Church used glamour to persuade the laity. The most significant shape during this time was the oval (which results from the transformation of a circle). The space within the oval was symbolic of heaven. Mathematical inflection connects oval segments to create a sensuous curvature as the oval alone is not enough. The glamorous curve must express transformation and duality. The glamorous curve takes heavenly perfection (the oval) and makes it accessible through an organic language (oval segments joined by inflection). Because inflection marks the point where a curve changes sign from positive to negative, it represents the sign of the in-between and the form of the vague. Upon this indefinite curvaceous body fits the dress. The dress takes after the paradigm set  by the corset and petticoat which integrates structure with volume. The dress is a two part affair with an external structural shell and a voluminous interior that blooms from the structure.

I omitted the lower levels because the model won't be able to stand and its very fragile so I don't want to risk breaking it.