MANIJEH VERGHESE

Architecture does not exist in isolation. It is always the result of and experienced through its relationship with identity. The pairing of architecture with identity creates the context for this project as identity is constructed through the inhabitation and arrangement of domestic space. The evolution of the identity of the project, in relation to the personas who inhabit it, begins with the status quo where architecture serves as a stage-set for inhabitation or as a container of objects. The building is nothing more than an envelope for containing rather than manifesting identity as a distinct and defining sense of self.  In a society where the construction of identity is as malleable as it is today, with the proliferation of PR agencies and social networking websites, there is a greater urgency to focus on the construction of space as a construction of identity in order to prevent the architect from becoming obsolete.

The aim of this project is to empower inhabitants to transform architecture so that it can play a fundamental role in constructing identity. For this to happen, architecture can no longer be singular. Iconic architecture and the cult of the starchitect are rejected as isolationist. Instead, I construct the context for this project through a series of artefacts, whether they be books, images, fragments or playing cards, that together form the identity of the architecture and its inhabitants through their relationship to one another. The pair plays a significant role in my project as a relationship that resists isolation. I compare the paired identities of twins and couples to paired architecture so that a building cannot be understood without its twin since its identity is always perceived in the shadow of another. Nor can it exist without its couple since one constantly informs the identity of the other. The book is the ideal medium to communicate this message. It manipulates different formats to manifest the evolution of this project's identity as it is constructed through the inhabitants, the objects and then finally the architecture itself.  

CHAPTER 1: THE INHABITANTS

The home and studio of designer couple Charles and Ray Eames is the perfect example of a project constructed through the identity of its inhabitants. Masters of self-promotion, the Eameses constructed a persona that embedded them within the public's collective memory through the design of their home as a stage-set for inhabitation. Their house in the Pacific Palisades, was commissioned by Arts and Architecture magazine in 1945 as Case Study House #8 and was part of a larger program that manufactured lifestyle through imaged inhabitation. The Eameses constructed their identity through curating their possessions in domestic space. Yet without the orchestration of identity through inhabitation, the project ceases to exist. Since Ray's death in 1988 the House has lain empty of life yet full of objects - the sole Case Study House that limits entry let alone inhabitation.

In an effort to resuscitate the identity of the project while its definitive objects are being catalogued within the archive, the Eames Foundation decide to hold an invited competition - the Eames Inhabitation Project in  October 2010.  The following proposals show the varied attempts at colonizing the identity of the project through inhabitation.

The Beckhams saw the house as a backdrop for the performance of their everyday activities, elevating the Eameses philosophy for "work in life" to include posing for photoshoots, parenting their young family and relaxing at home. By contrast SANAA used architectural insertions to embody the Eamesian ideal of framed inhabitation. Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi were the most sympathetic to the Eameses as a role model for society, crafting a didactic collection of recipes for living. Venturi and Scott Brown came the closest to challenging the house but in the end only inverted the interior to convert the facade into a media portal of images and films - the kind of shameless propaganda that the Eameses were known for.

Ultimately, the house is impossible to reconfigure. Every proposal fails as it exists in the shadow of the former inhabitants whose very existence defined the architecture. The first proposal treats the house merely as a backdrop, the second abandons the inhabitant choosing only to deal with the architecture, the third relates only to lifestyle and the fourth relies entirely on the Eamesian archive. Each entry is too singular, embodying only one aspect of the project rather than understanding how they all come together to create the whole. In each proposal, the house exists only as a container for identity through people, media and objects alike.   

CHAPTER 2: THE OBJECTS

The Glass House was explained by its architect, Philip Johnson as "a box in a box in a box in a box." Yet it is the perfectly placed objects within this box that define the identity for this project. The different pieces of furniture enter into a dialogue with one another, with spaces created by larger freestanding objects like the rug, the cupboard or the painting.  Architecture becomes a mere container for possessions. Stripped of human inhabitation, the objects provide scale and context while plants suggest life amongst this lifelessness.

Modernist architecture fails to manifest identity. In both examples, it becomes a container for animate and inanimate objects so its identity exists as an extension of its contents. 

The traditional house arranges space through division into rooms. The prioritisation of separation over connection, ultimately led to the death of the traditional house in the ever-increasing pace of the 21^st century where spaces need to be inhabited concurrently.

The death of the traditional house and the failure of the modernist box to truly embody and construct identity gives rise to a new architectural vocabulary - THE FRAGMENT. The fragment synthesizes the successes of its predecessors - combining the domestic elements or seams that exist between spaces in the traditional house with the flexibility of the modernist container. Through the use of twinning and coupling laws that duplicate and manipulate, each element is thickened into a spatial fragment. Each fragment harnesses the use of elements like doors, windows, staircases or corridors to form spaces with distinct paired identities relating to their new uses - mediating relationships, bridging disparity and manifesting the dual way in which we live our lives.  These fragments, while discrete, cannot exist in isolation. They must be coupled together to form the site for the construction of identity - THE INTERIOR. Through the collection of fragments, the project manifests identity in and of itself.

CHAPTER 3: THE ARCHITECTURE

THE INTERIOR constructs identity through the provision of choice. The new flexible fragments - each flippable with multiple entry-points and symmetrical geometry can be connected in many ways to create different constellations of the interior. Through the use of games and models, the inhabitants are empowered to construct their environment by curating architectural objects in the same way they had previously arranged their other possessions.  The decisions taken by the inhabitants manifest the identity of their persona as the architecture of the project.

This new approach to curating domestic space is widely disseminated through a special issue of Arts + Architecture magazine that challenges the role of the architect in an evolving society as it had done through the Case Study Program in the 1940s. It invokes the architect to enable the construction of identity as much as they shape the construction of architecture.  

The new interior is a hive of activity, filled with multiple vignettes of inhabitation that evoke, what an article within the publication recalls as, the imageability of the Eames lifestyle. Options for the interior ranging from a larger sprawl to a more compact linear proposal expose the interior as something that can aggregate and grow infinitely to encompass the ever-evolving identity of its inhabitants.

The scalar nature of the project delineates the relationship between the architect and the inhabitant in terms of constructing identity through the dual nature of the fragment.

At the scale of the couple, the perfect symmetry of the architectural fragment, in this case the Incubator, provides a twinned frame through which two distinct gendered spaces can be viewed. As with most human twins, similarity is used formally to heighten human difference.

At the scale of the interior, the collection of fragments creates contemporary versions of age-old paired spaces such as the domestic and the workplace. The Trial Separation fragment, which separates at one level while connecting at another, generates communication between two interior spheres of inhabitation while retaining their distinct identities.

At the scale of the project, the architect connects fragments to form the interior, mimicked by the couple inhabiting the same interior who control how it is arranged. While the inhabitants curate fragments into  unique interiors, the architect is the designer of the fragments and the choreographer of the potential routes between fragments and spaces.

CHAPTER 4: THE CURATED EXPERIENCE

The way we experience the interior now needs to be redefined. The path is choreographed by the architect but the interior is experienced through choices made by the inhabitants. In a walk through the domestic interior, the inhabitants are constantly confronted with choice to determine their way forward. The layers of space peel away to reveal the different choices governing the path at moments through the interior. The first choice between the scale at which each space should be inhabited ranges from the intimate to the grandiose. The second instance is the appearance of the other, a haunting reminder of the foil to the interior - the outside world. Choosing to remain in a world of interiors, Identity is the choice between spaces of contemplation or congregation and visual connection yet physical separation. It is heightened by glimpses into other spaces that offer options for how to proceed. The inhabitants experience spaces for repose juxtaposed against those for activity and finally possess architecture that constructs identity through imaged inhabitation - masking the space of preparation and framing the performance. The same space can be experienced differently - a domestic space can alternatively be read as a larger urban interior - depending on the route chosen by the inhabitant.  The arrangement of possessions in domestic space is echoed through the choice of curating a finite set of paired fragments into an interior. The two experienced together construct the identity of the project and the persona. Ultimately, the inhabitants are confronted with a twinned door connecting the coupled volumes of the interior. It is a moment for reflecting on the experience of the interior before turning around and starting again. IDENTITY is the result of the choices we make.

EPILOGUE

 The pairing of architecture and identity sets up a dualism in the way the entire project is read. Nothing exists in isolation but always in the context of its relationship to another. The Eames House cannot survive without Charles and Ray, The Glass House cannot be inhabited by anything other than objects, the fragments only occur within the collection, the built space is disseminated through the media space of books and images, the architect remains relevant by constructing the project alongside the persona. Architecture is inseparable from its manifestation of identity.

Identity cannot exist in isolation. Objectifying architecture as a collection of fragments constructs identity from the relationships between architect, inhabitants, project, persona, objects and books. The house as a machine for living is now a machine for identity.