A SELF REFERENTIAL MANIFESTO

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