- Portal
- Frame
- Path
- Light
July 7 2010,As I walked toward the Rue Cantagrel I thought to myself, "How has this become my life?" Sure, everyone has been affected by the recession, but I never saw this coming. It feels like a dream, so illogical...before I knew it I found myself at the white mesh of the front gate...
July 8, 2010
On my bed in the dorm, I sat in a sort of stupor, trying not to exert myself in the oppressive heat. Staring out the curtain wall windows, I noticed a thickness of the wall, almost like a growth at the floor and ceiling - belying the apparent thinness of the glazing when viewed from outside. Was it always that way?
July 12, 2010
...but when I reached for the simple Corbusian doorknob to escape from this pressure cooker, I was astonished to find...yet another door. After a moment of disbelief, I mechanically reached for a second time to open the door. Unfolding before my very eyes, what was one single exit from the dorm multiplied into four, none of them getting me to the freedom I so desperately wanted. I must be going insane.
July 19, 2010
I've found the door that I think leads out of the room, but not matter how I turn its intricate lock, I can't seem to undo it. With each turn I hear the click of the locking bolt.
July 20, 2010
Round and round I travel around the outdoor path, moving up and down with a feeling of perpetual déjà vu. Above me I see the sky, taunting me with freedom beyond these walls. Surely there has to be a way out of this maze?
Meant to be a city of refuge, the Salvation Army exerts its control in sinister and explicit ways through the manipulation of simple architectural devices - the thickened façade acts as a visual barrier with the door and lock inhibiting escape from the oppressive dormitory. And just when escape from the dorm provides a glimmer of hope, it is quickly dashed by the realisation that the path to escape is an infinite maze. In a set of constructed moments, each device works on its own as a tangible threshold and together as a path of extreme resistance. Each manipulation shifts our perception of the space as well as the role of our engagement within it resulting in an architecture of multiple iterations or multiple contexts.
August 12, 2011
They've conducted a lot of other tests with abbreviations I don't understand, each one in a room connected to the last. I find the circuitous routes confusing, but the staff are obviously used to it - there is a sense of a perpetual forward moving trajectory. They quickly flit around here and there, so used to their paths of movement and procedure that they never seem to get in each other's way. Like a well oiled machine, they seem to be living extensions of the building itself...
September 1, 2011
I tried to get back to my room before anyone saw me breaking quarantine. I could feel my anxiety mounting and became even more exasperated by the almost claustrophobic slanting walls. Not even sure I was going in the right direction, I hurried up the stairs desperate for relief from the compressed corridor.
September 2, 2011...supporting myself on the handrail, for the first time I noticed the subtle grooves along its smooth surface. One, two, three of them repeated every so often, puncutating my movement down the ramp. Further along I noticed the rhythm change - now only two groove, but what do they mean?
October 7, 2011It's been nearly a month since we were all moved to one room and there's been no lift on the lock down or any real answers from the staff. In our collective isolation it's clear they chose this room for surveillance., I can still see them monitoring us, their gaze strangely level with the clerestory slit of glass at the top of the wall. The opposite side of the room at least has a view out of the building, but again, any real connection with the outside world is lost because of the placement of the openings. The part that's solid almost seems thick enough at one end to contain another space within it, but what that could be is a mystery...
Only in full understanding of the collected moments is the subversive nature and extreme control revealed. The maze-like paths constantly multiply, cross, or disappear altogether. Acting as a funnel for space, the compression and expansion of corridors influences speed of movement. In the overlap of spaces we only ever get a hint of what's beyond and no clear way to access it. It's as though the architecture itself is in a constant state of fluctuation, the possibility of understanding it always slipping just out of grasp.
"...supporting myself on the handrail, for the first time I noticed the subtle grooves along its smooth surface. One, two, three of them repeated every so often, punctuating my movement down the ramp. Further along I noticed the rhythm change: now only two grooves, but what do they mean?
Embedded in the trickery of space are subtle markers used by the staff to orient themselves within the maze - such as with the handrail which is more than just a support, but a tactile wayfinder only to those who know of the subtle system."
Table of Contents ReCon - Salvation Army by Le Corbusier, Paris 1929-33 Background Players: Influence, Ego, and the making of an Icon Institution: Refuge of Reform Architecture: Segregation, Isolation, and Inflexibility The Inescapable City of Refuge Parallel Plots: A destructive cycle told through the eyes of Charlotte Peters (1948) and Jane Edwards (2010) Drawing the Escape: The diaries of Charlotte and Jane Methods of Control: Visual - Facade Access - Door Circulatory - Maze Mechanical - Lock Relief from Control - Room Jury Notes and Conclusions Manifesto - Architecture as a system of control Le Corbusier's 5 Points Identification of points of control Typologies of Control Precedent and Analysis Mental Institution: Buffalo State Insane Asylum, New York Prison: The Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham Hospital: Venice Hospital Project, Le Corbusier 1964-66 Mechanisms of Control Portal Path Handrail
Subversion - Control through Perception
Diary 2011, Through the eyes of a patient
Parts of the Whole - Subversion in Moments
Moment 1 - Multiple Paths
Moment 2 - Compression
Moment 3 - Layering and Surveillance
Moment 4 - Embedded Orientation
The Whole of the Parts - Moments as a System
Site Plan
Key Plan - Identifying the Moments
Plans - Isolation, Separation, and Movement
Section - Perception of the Path
Elevation - Layering and Restriction
Evolution of Control - Design Process
Study of Control through Model
Evolution of Plans
Architects seek to change the world. Part ego, part naivety, we think we can construct utopia with a flick of the wrist, the click of a mouse. In an effort to construct this utopia in all its perfection, we inevitably seek to control experience. Our visions of utopia might claim freedom and flexibility, but any claim for freedom in architecture is a farce. Spatial devices are inherently iterations of restraint. Architecture is ultimately a system of control.
In the 1920s Le Corbusier identified 5 points (or 5 conceptual architectural devices) for a new architecture. Though the architectural object in each point already existed, Le Corbusier's reinterpretation of each device created the means for a new approach to architecture. The following are 4 points in which to investigate control:
Portal
Frame
Path
Light
At each of these points lies a crucial moment of choice where the architectural intention either succeeds or fails allowing new points of interpretation. This project explores the successes and failures of control first through the recontexualisation of an existing project and later through an architectural proposal. It is in the overlap of the architect's intention and the occupant's experience - as understood through select moments- where this investigation takes place in order to find and exploit the boundaries in our system of control.
The Cite de Refuge opens in 1933 as a hyper controlled environment under the authoritarian hand of Corbusier and the Salvation Army. Despite the millions of francs invested the building's rigid Modernist ideals are no match for the realities of building decay. The Salvation Army falls into a destructive cycle of dilapidation and expensive renewal due to its technical and social inflexibility. In 2010, after decades of disuse the Salvation Army reopens as a refuge in response to the economic climate.
From the diary of Jane Edwards:
July 7, 2010
As I walked toward the Rue Cantagrel I thought to myself, "how had this become my life?" Sure, everyone had been affected by the recession, but I never saw this coming. It felt like a dream, so illogical...before I knew it I found myself at the white mesh of the front gate...
July 8, 2010 [FRAME- facade plate]
On my bed in the dorm, I sat in a sort of stupor, trying not to exert myself in the oppressive heat. Staring out the curtain wall windows, I noticed a thickness of the wall, almost like a growth at the ceiling and floor - belying the apparent thinness of the glazing when viewed from outside. Was it always that way?
July 10, 2010 [PORTAL- door plate]
...but when I reached for the simple Corbusian doorknob, to escape from this pressure cooker, I was astonished to find...yet another door. After a moment of disbelief, I mechanically reached for a second time to open the door. Unfolding before my very eyes, what was the one single exit from the dorm multiplied into four. None of them getting me to the freedom I so desperately wanted. I must be going insane.
July 19, 2010 [PORTAL- lock plate]
I've found the door that I think leads out of the room, but not matter how I turn its intricate lock, I can't seem to undo it. With each turn I hear the click of the locking bolt.
July 20, 2010 [PATH- maze plate]
Round and round I travel along the outdoor path, moving up and down with a feeling of perpetual deja vu. Above me I see the sky, taunting me with freedom just beyond these walls. Surely there has to be a way out of this maze?
Meant to be a City of refuge, the Salvation Army exerts its control in sinister and explicit ways through the manipulation of simple architectural devices - the thickened facade acts as a visual barrier with the door and lock inhibiting escape from the oppressive dormitory. And just when escape from the dorm provides a glimmer of hope, it is quickly dashed by the realisation that the path to escape is an infinite maze. In a set of constructed moments, each device works on its own as a tangible threshold and together as a path of extreme resistance. Each manipulation shifts our perception of the space as well as the role of our engagement within it resulting in an architecture of multiple iterations or multiple contexts. Our perception of the Salvation Army is altered leaving us with something completely different from what we think we know. By examining how perception can be controlled, we reveal the fallacy in the notion of a fixed context.
Through shifts of perception, context is manipulated, reinvented, recontextualised.
The proposed design uses the previously mentioned points (portal, frame, path, and light) as architectural devices of control, but in a subversive way by using strategies of deception, illusion, layering, surveillance and compression to control its occupants. Only understood as a series of moments, the path of extreme resistance from Salvation Army takes a back seat to spatial distortion and calculated subtleties resulting in an ever changing understanding or misunderstanding of one's surroundings. The following diary demonstrates just one set of experiences from the perspective of a patient whose mysterious illness triggers a shift in the hospital's function from one of rehabilitation to one of rigourous containment and isolation.
August 12, 2011 [Crossing paths view]
They've conducted a bunch of other tests with abbreviations I don't understand, each one in a room connected to the last., I find the circuitous routes confusing but the staff are obviously used to it - there is a sense of a perpetual forward moving trajectory. They quickly flit around here and there, so used to their paths of movement and procedure that they never seem to get in each other's way. Like a well oiled machine, they seem to be living extensions of the hospital itself...
September 1, 2011 [Compressed stair view]
I tried to get back to my room before any of the nurses saw me breaking quarantine. I could feel my anxiety mounting and became even more exasperated by the almost claustrophobic slanting walls. Not even sure I was going in the right direction, I hurried up the stairs desperate for relief from the compressed corridor.
September 2, 2011 [Handrail view]
...supporting myself on the handrail, for the first time I noticed the subtle grooves along its smooth surface. One, two, three of them repeated every so often, punctuating my movement down the ramp. Further along I noticed the rhythm change: now only two grooves, but what do they mean?
October 7, 2011 [Common Isolation View]
It's been nearly a month since we were all moved to one room and still there's been no lift on the lock down or any real answers from the nurses. In our collective isolation it's clear they chose this room for surveillance, I can still see them monitoring us, their gaze strangely level with the clerestory slit of glass at the top of the wall. The opposite side of the room at least has a view out of the building, but again, any real connection with the outside world is lost because of the placement of the openings. The part that's solid though almost seems thick enough at one end to contain another space within it, but what that could be is a mystery...
December 2023 [Site Plan]
When I finally made my way to the top, I burst through the door so carefully hidden. I had no sense of what level I would be on and was astonished to be on the roof. I looked across the outside world and saw a sea of towers just like this one and a perimeter wall barricading us in like our own fortified town...
Only in full understanding of the collected moments is the subversive nature and extreme control revealed. The maze-like paths constantly multiply, cross, or disappear altogether. Acting as a funnel for space, the compression and expansion of corridors influences speed of movement. In the overlap of spaces we only ever get a hint of what's beyond and no clear way to access it. It's as though the architecture itself is in a constant state of fluctuation, the possibility of understanding it always slipping just out of grasp. Embedded in the trickery of space, however, are subtle markers used by the staff to orient themselves within the maze such as with the handrail which is more than just a support, but a tactile wayfinder only to those who know of the subtle system.
In the end, the illusion and manipulation - the subversive means of control - all reveal the influence perception has on the notion of context. From the fragments of space shown here, we see that perception and context are in fact inextricably linked. One cannot shift without the other following like a distorted mirror image. Thought of in this way, the acceptance of architecture as a system of control is not a limiting factor, merely a filter for endless possibility.
