November 2007 Archives

Got a really nice email from Charlie Koolhaas inviting me to show Logopelago at the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture! 

 

   

 

In designing a rigidly pleated exterior, I wanted to look at ways pleats can be manipulated.

 
A regular pleating pattern.


Pleats which are incrementally scaled in width by a factor of two.

Pleats which are reflected.

Pleats which are scaled by a factor of two in width and then reflected.

 

Fashion provides an everyday means of transforming ones appearance and is also the most commonly associated contemporary medium of glamour. The iconic costumes associated with the rituals of the church, underscore a long-standing tradition of marking transformational events through elaborate dress. The Pope dons vestments and assumes his role. The Sacraments, the most intensely transformative ritual within the church, demand 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. La Chiesa del Sacro Fascino 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.

 

 

Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, on her wedding day.

The space becomes larger to create drama, as the program becomes more glamorous.

This revision presents a plan that gradually increases the number of hidden spaces as the procession moves towards the most glamorous space, the altar.

 

Ovals generate spaces at the ground level. Different sizes correspond to specific spatial requirements of program. 

 

Ovals are trimmed at the point of inflection.  

 

 

The groundplan is projected up to generate the roofplan. The ovals maintain one original fixed radius and are scaled in accordance with the privacy required in the interior spaces and overhang required for exterior niches that host the various types of masoleums.  

 

 The scaled ovals then undergo a rotation, while maintaining one original radius, in order to create enclosure at the roof level.

 

 

Shaped like a wave, inflection introduces the form of the vague. Inflection is a true in-between.

 

 

Reference:

Cache, Bernard. Earth Moves: The Furnishing of Territories. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.

 

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 favourably 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.

This plan sees a proliferation of spaces for convening with god. They are sized hierarchically:  4 sacramental spaces (the altar, area for baptism, a chapel for annointing the sick and a chapel for confession), 5 reliquaries, 14 stations of the cross, and 22 icons of the miracles, in addition to a handful of miscellaneous spaces. Also, the route twists dramatically in order to hide the sacramental spaces from view.