November 2008 Archives
this collage might seem completely out of context... but... since I was wondering how to effectively design the imaginary landmark - my white building - I came across the idea to collect "iconic moments" - the daydreams of the cities inhabitants - and then use these moments, dreamscapes- to construct the white building ... that will then manifests itself within the imprint ....the negative form....its complicated ... maybe to complicated? I will post the imprint of this "iconic moment" above tomorrow during the day- so it will be clearer- hopefully ...
Molding, Casting, Imprints
Material : CONCRETE
The design purposal is the result of a boolean operation that takes place in the digital realm.The design of the imaginary landmark in the digital world will define the appearance and definition of the imprint in the physical world, the context plane/ground.
The idea for the TS is to take this digital operation as a starting point and investigate a physical translation of the boolean substraction into material properties. I would like to focus on the material concrete and its possibilities in regard to casting, molding and imprints. (surface finishes) The imprint should not be understood as a pure 2D surface finish but also as a 3D modulation of mass and space. In this regard it could also be interesting to push the limit of the material and experiment with extrem light and thin concrete structures.
It is not so much about prefabricated concrete parts and assemblage but more about in situ casting and construction.
Iconic Anarchitecture
Manifesto for a white building on white ground - Ein Gedankengebaeude
Iconic Anarchitecture is to do away with the dominance of the image based one-liner building
and replace it with a clearing conceived of as backdrop setting for further prospects and eventualities.
Iconic Anarchitecture is preparing the canvas rather then spitting out paint.
Iconic Anarchitecture that is a White building on white ground!
Iconic Anarchitecture is ignoring the existing context but will arrive with its own invented one.
Therefore Iconic Anarchitecture’s essence is context itself.
Iconic Anarchitecture will set up the stage to let the imaginary landmarks of the city shine once again.
Iconic Anarchitecture that is a White building on white ground!
Iconic Anarchitecture will offer a plane for collective vision
while leaving space for individual interpretation,
Iconic Anarchitecture will be the refuge for the daydreams of the citys inhabitants.
Iconic Anarchitecture that is a White building on white ground!
The white building is said to completely disappear within its background,
Merge, mix and melt within its context, only a contour –
every now and then a single line, a line without thickness-
then eventually it reveals itself– maybe the white building never existed,
nobody can really tell, they say it casts no shadow,
imaginative speculation, it all depends on the perspective of the observer.
Iconic Anarchitecture plays with the relationship between desire and reality,
between emotion and reason.
Iconic Anarchitecture triggers a voluntary suspension of disbelief which allows to accept
as real that which is pure fiction.
Iconic Anarchitecture that is a White building on white ground!
The White ground that is the context plane!
The White building that is a representative for the imaginary landmarks of the cities inhabitants!
The white building is a portrait of that, which the city was uncapable of - to present.
Materialisation
Iconic Anarchitecture will consist of two basic elements,
the context plane (white ground) that is tied to the physical rules of reality
and the imaginary landmark (the white building) that is mainly invisible
(with accordingly different physical rules)
but with a constant and intense influence of the formal manifestation of the context plane/ground
the white building mainfests itsself mainly as 3 dimensional cast or imprint.
Iconic anarchitecture will be constructed from two different perspectives/point of views.
It will combine different horizon lines.
The context plane (white ground) will be designed according to the rules of an inside view frog perspective based on the fact that each observer perceives only a tiny fraction of the full reality
we are part of.
The context plane will be experienced on three different scales as to sensitize the observer regarding a more careful, inward reading. It will perform like a filter to strip of hastiness and allow to perceive the traces of the imaginary landmark, the white building.
The imaginary landmark (white building) will be constructed according to the rules of a bird perspective,
the outside view of a mathematician studying its mathematical equations, containing within it a vast number of parallel classical storylines.
The imaginary landmark casts no shadow.
The imaginary landmark bypasses the influence of gravity.
Images and Strategies
We seem to be post-critical now, the problem of how to talk to clients and how to produce an easily consumable, public friendly architecture seems to be the question of today. The clients demand for signature architecture increases incessantly, the architect is supposed to deliver, (or maybe even pushes the demand through an aura of individual extravaganza) - The brand-name, one-liner building has become a ubiquitous presence: the iconic is the new generic.
What alternatives do we have?
Rem Koolhaas latest plan is to set up a third branch in addition to OMA and AMO, called MOA to distribute a copy-free architecture without ego. Koolhaas has stated his resentment of iconic architecture and his love for the ‘background’ architecture of cities like
What would it look like, an ego-free and copyright-free architecture? Would it generate a return to the normal? Would it appropriate the Minimalist style? Stripping architecture from (the artist’s) ego and (the artist’s) copyright would mean a return to the core of building: providing shelter. What would be left of architecture would probably disappear in a formless fabric.
Another suggestion was offered by Jeff Kipnis, he claims to maintain artistic expression and proposes the use of pure sensational affect in order to create a direct connection to the reading audience. He refers to artists like Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons and Matthew Barney and amplifies; These works assign an un-theorized power to the figural element, these works do not mean anything, they do not say anything but neither are they silent. He propagates an architecture that communicates without saying.
What he is looking for is neither an image-based, metaphoric one-liner building nor a silent, self-referential one, like non-figurational abstraction – modernism and minimalism would pursue.
Context
Within the recent debate of how to talk to clients contextualism seems to be dead.
From the picturesque theorists ideal that a landscape should be composed like a picture based on foreground, middle ground and background in the 18th century to the modernist context of pure rationality based on mere function, design with nature, critical, sentimental, nostalgic or copyist response. Context theory has been unstable. Koolhaas said “fuck context” and argues that context is an out of date idea that places too much of a restraint upon what cities might become, a plea for the status quo – to beat down the imagination. The skyline of
Social Impact An Iconic building relates by definition to a broader audience it is supposed to appeal to the masses. It positions itself intrusively in the environment, flashy and big, we don’t have a choice anymore, love it or loathe it, the iconic building forces us to pay attention, forces us to engage, you can’t ignore it regardless of taste.
Info about OMA/AMO/MOA ; Hollandse Meester, Caroline Brakel, JFK Magazine, June-July 2008, p. 130-135 ,
reference www.eikonographia.com
After re-thinking Tuesday's tutorial I thought about the question how my rather "radical" self-referential manifesto
differs from the "generic-Dubai-Model" and I came to the conclusion for now- that it could be interesting to work on a Montage of Antithesis. I tried to pin point the Iconic Stereotype design criteria and contrasted them with my own thoughts and criteria. I was thinking the dialectic, overlap and tension between the two of them could be interesting to combine within the topic of camouflage and dissolution.
The model above tries to demonstrate that in a rather abstract first attempt. It is a self-referential iconic tower (in a literal sense-) that dissolves with its surrounding through camouflage.
Stereotype of the ICONIC
no context
vague shape
bigness – be obvious
pleasure activity – “the museum”
pop/glamorous
Camouflage of the Stereotype
invention of context
design according to classic aesthetic principles
be subtle
emptiness, silence, immersion
timeless/clarity
context, social setting, gestures and meaning are of no interest
the external features have been removed
there is no concrete mission
the interest is focused on the materiality of space-its physics
the aim is an internal richness of imagery
since 500 years, the images have been full to bursting point,
the entire universe forces one inside them (satre)
the mode of dealing with materiality may be able to
escape the images and sounds of the over-semanitification
that we suffer on an everyday basis
the torturous sensory overload that surrounds us
the compulsion to recognize everything possible in images
the constraint to communicate through them
all of these are things to avoid
hissing emptiness nothing
for one thing,
as complete,
radical
elimination of signification
CONTEXT
context is of no interest - the external features have been removed.
“Contextualism is finally dead, let’s face it – except as a survival mechanism in some parts of academia and in the profession. Maybe it is for the best. Its promises from the 1970s never really materialized - a plea for the status quo – to beat down the imagination of young designers.
I predict a new fascination with carelessness, a new tolerance for “whatever” in a “whatever generation” - an architecture that prides itself on neither history nor theory, to put it bluntly. This generation will take over the mantel of the “avant-garde,” and demand that it vacate itself of purpose and thought.” (1)
We have reclaimed the right to make “objects,” brilliant objects for sure, but objects nonetheless. Everything else be damned.
SOCIAL SETTING
social setting is of no interest - the external features have been removed.
Given that practically all we build today is socially disappointing
I invest my hopes in the construction of emptiness as the last source of the sublime.
The aim is an architecture of forgetting.
The program is conceived of as space that makes you forget.
Sensation, forced into the foreground pushes consciousness into perception,
what is left is feeling. The aim here is to trigger purposeless activity.
GESTURE
gesture is of no interest - the external features have been removed.
NO to gesture. NO to signification. No to Images.
The aim is an internal richness of imagery.
(1) Mark Jarzombek, Associate Dean at MIT
...just came across this quote while gathering more information about the self-referential context, I like it-
more to post soon...
In Agamben's analysis, the artist who seeks absolute essence must by necessity turn to the absolute essence of the work, which means the dismissal of any content. But when the work turns out to be void of content, it reveals itself as pure inessence:
If the artist now seeks his certainty in a particular content or faith, he is lying, because he knows that pure artistic subjectivity is the essence of everything; but if he seeks his reality in pure artistic subjectivity, he finds himself in the paradoxical condition of having to find his own essence precisely in the inessential, his content. His condition, then, is that of a radical split; and outside of this split, everything is a lie.
The result, Agamben concludes, is that the artist is the man without content, with "no other identity than a perpetual emerging out of the nothingness of expression and no other ground than this incomprehensible station on this side of himself."
Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
