L NDON’S ARK- TECTURE The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes - Marcel Proust The tale of Noah’s ark is a cycle of creation, un-creation and re-creation. The Ark was a boat built for the salvation of the prophet Noah, his family and pairs of every type of animal, to shelter them from the biblical flood and later re-populate the earth with their offspring. This summer we will build London’s Ark to collect and import cultural ways of dealing with water. Rather than paired animals we will pair London with various other cultures in order to learn from, and transform the way the city engages with water. This will be London’s Ark-itecture.
A section through the Belafonte, the fictional boat from Life Aquatic
The ark is a collector. It travels from place to place, observing, archiving and appropriating. It is a vessel that navigates between cultures, resulting in surprising adjacencies: Koolhaas’ fictional floating pool of swimmers that travelled from Moscow to New York now plays host to the mass-bathing rituals of the Kumbh Mela on the Ganges River in India whose ephemeral mega-city is bridged by scaled up versions of the acqua alta platforms of Venice, the sinking city: cleaved by canals and prone to flooding. The ark merges these contexts and cultures together as it charters through the turbulence of the choppy sea. The ark allows for the different spaces intrinsic to water to be transported, transferred and translated to the deserted shores of London. The three-week summerschool will follow the journey of the ark. Pairs of students will come together to build its outer structure; travel to other cultures in order to research spaces created by water and through rooms within the ark, collect these ideas and translate them into mini-universes capable of being imported into London. We will not alter the watery terrain of London but rather the methods by which we utilise it.
L NDON’S ARK- TECTURE
Elena Palacios, Madeleine Kessler & Manijeh Verghese
SCHEDULE Let me tell you about my boat - Steve Zissou, Life Aquatic During the three weeks, we will build an ark, research water-based cultures, collect them into rooms and map out the route back to London to dock along its shores and unfold a new spatial reality that allows the city to capitalise on its watery terrain. This will be interspersed with fun events, interesting talks and exciting excursions.
Noah’s Ark by Mary Singleton
A Map of the World by Vesa Sammalisto
from the blog: The Triumph of Bullshit
CREATE - week 1
UN-CREATE - week 2
RE-CREATE - week 3
In the first week, students will divide into pairs and research their or any other culture that deals with water spatially. Which local customs can London learn and benefit from appropriating?
The second week will see each pair deconstructing how their cultural practice of choice can be spatialised into a room. How does it get transformed into objects and devices?
For the final week, we will export our rooms of translated spaces from their original contexts to London. How does the room now expand to encompass the city? Where does it dock?
The entire unit will also collectively build the shell of the ark model.
activities Boat ride down the Thames Visit to Map shop
activities Talk by Giles Price, Photographer Underground Canal Tour
output Construction of ark-rooms and the devices they contain Map-making of the ark’s route
output Choosing locations in London Unpacking the Ark-rooms Image-making of the cultural import/ export
activities Watch The Life Aquatic Talk by a Naval Architect output Presentation of cultural research Model of the Ark Allocation of Ark-rooms
for the INTERIM JURY Cultural Research Ark Model (collective) In-progress Ark-rooms Unit Map
for the FINAL JURY Cultural Research Ark Model (collective) with the completed Ark-rooms Unit Map Import/ Export images of rooms
L NDON’S ARK- TECTURE
WATERWORLD AA Summer School 2013
PAIRED CULTURES You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities The following examples show three different ways to engage with water as a space. Students will be expected to look towards their own or other cultures to find similar ways of dealing with water spatially that can be imported to London through the unit’s Ark.
Image credit: AP Photo / Luigi Costantini
Image credit: OMA / Madelon Vriesendorp
Image credit: AP Photo / Rajesh Kumar Singh
ACQUA ALTA
THE POOL
KUMBH MELA
VENICE Water as social space / infrastructure
MOSCOW / NEW YORK Water as fictional space / island
ALLAHABAD Water as sacred space/ urbanism
Venice, the northeastern Italian city, is comprised of 118 individual islands, separated by canals and linked by bridges. The canals provide the transportation network for the city - moving people and objects around at a rapid pace. Known as the sinking city, Venice is prone to low-level flooding called acqua alta. Rather than treating this as a calamity, it is seen as an opportunity - raised platforms create walkways through the water, tourists bathe in public squares and architects like Aldo Rossi even designed floating theatres and other spaces for people to congregate.
The fictional pool from Rem Koolhaas’ seminal 1978 text, Delirious New York, was powered by swimmers who caused it to float from Moscow to New York by swimming synchronised laps in the opposite direction. It is an enclave of optimism, a vessel of escape, a symbol of communal effort, action and reaction. As an island it travelled from one city to another, docking at different places yet failing to discover the ideal context to situate itself within. It is a ‘dialectical room,’ dividing what is within the pool from what is without.
Kumbh Mela is a Hindu pilgrimage of epic proportions. Occurring once every three years in one of four different places, millions of people congregate to bathe in a sacred river. There are different types of Mela, Maha Kumbh Mela or the biggest one, which took place in January 2013, occurs only once every 144 years. People of every age, race and class are unified in this communal act causing a mega-city to erupt for the duration of the event on the banks of the river Ganges. It is a strange form of temporary urbanism, born out of ritual.
L NDON’S ARK- TECTURE
Elena Palacios, Madeleine Kessler & Manijeh Verghese
The Narcissist’s City, 2012
The Flat Stage, 2013
The Case of the Elusive Room, 2012
ELENA PALACIOS CARRAL
MADELEINE KESSLER
MANIJEH VERGHESE
Elena studied Architecture and Urbanism for four years in Mexico City and graduated from the AA in June 2012. She has worked in small offices and as a freelance architect in Mexico City and is currently working for Squire & Partners in London towards her Part III. Elena is interested in the city as a project and in the discovery of new forms of architects and architecture by questioning the format of an architectural project.
Madeleine recently graduated from the AA. Previously she received a Masters degree in Structural Engineering and Architecture from Sheffield University. Madeleine has also worked and studied in Finland, China, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK. Most recently she was awarded the KPF Traveling Fellowship, facilitating an exploration in cross-cultural exchange along The Silk Road through Central Asia.
An AA graduate with a previous degree in Architecture and Mathematics, Manijeh is a tutor, editor and writer. Having previously worked for practices in London and Boston, she currently teaches an Intermediate unit at the AA, is the Salon co-ordinator at Disegno magazine and is the editor and founder of the website, AA Conversations. Manijeh is interested in the idea of cultural context and the communication of information through various media and formats.
REFERENCES
Films: • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson, 2004
Books: • Noah’s Ark, Heinz Janisch and Lisbeth Zwerger, 1997 • Maps of the World, Gestalten, 2013 • Thames: Sacred River, Peter Ackroyd, 2008 • Venice from the Water: Architecture and Myth in an Early Modern City, Daniel Savoy, 2012 • Delirious New York A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, Rem Koolhaas, 1978. • The Kumbh Mela, Mark Tully, 2002
CREATE
UN-CREATE
RE-CREATE
3
WED
Guest Speakers Workshops Lectures + Events
Photographer Giles Price
Tutorials: Images
18
Presentations Outings and Field Trips
Exhibition, Finishing up! Presentation and Final Push
17
Image Making
15
16
Group design of map
11
Group Meeting 10am Tutorials: Mapping Re-cap interim work JONATHAN POTTER Brief 3: Mapping MAP SHOP
MOVIE NIGHT: Life Aquatic (7.45)
Group Meeting: Design of the Ark
MID REVIEW
Mini-Jury with
SUMMER SCHOOL PARTY!
FINAL REVIEW
19
Group Presentation of Chosen Sites
Picking of Sites
12
Brief 2: Ark Rooms Andreas Design of Ark Room in Pairs
9
5
FRI
Group Meeting 10am Naval Architect Andreas Finish the Ark Shell
4
THURS
Presentation of Research
10
Group Meeting 10am Group tutorials: Paired Cultures Paired Cultures Research Build the Ark
2
TUES
Tutorials for Mid-Review
Prepare Interim Presentation
Group Meeting 10am
8
UNIT DRINKS
Divide into pairs
Brief 1: Paired Cultures
Unit Presentations Inductions
1
MON
7
SUN
Exhibition Design
IMAGE-MAKING WORKSHOP
13
Group Presentation of Ark Rooms
Design of Ark Room
Tutorials: Mapping
UNDERGROUND LONDON CANAL TRIP
14
Group Meeting 10am STUDIOS CLOSED
6
SAT
L NDON’S ARK- TECTURE WATERWORLD AA Summer School 2013