The Architecture of Narrative Transference A Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in the Department of Architecture of the Rhode Island School of Design By Alexa Claire Wood Rhode Island School of Design 2010
the intentionally blank page
list of illustrations/ image captions page 9 [embossings] Apri 2010 embossing pages 10 & 11
title page 1 intentionally blank page 3
pages 20 & 21
list of illustrations 4 [audience of many/of one] January 2010 graphite on paper
table of contents 5 pages 30 & 31
[degree project board] October 2009 Yarn, knitting needles [instruction, duration, performance] October 2009 Photo documentation of video installation, performance pages 12 & 13
table of conents
abstract 5
pages 22 & 23 [coast Salish longhouse] January 2010 graphite on paper
[embossings] Apri 2010 embossing, etching, chine colle pages 32 & 33
introduction 6 lexicon/establishment of themes 9
pages 24 & 25 [embossings] Apri 2010 embossing
[embossings] May 2010 embossing
conceptual explorations 10 material explorations 24
pages 34 & 35
[breakfast] December 2009 graphite, food on paper photo
[dance drawings] April 2010 graphite on paper
pages 14 & 15
pages 26 & 27
[marat’s limp limb] January 2010 oil, graphite on board
[listening machine] April 2010 drypoint, etching
[deadman’s island] April 2010 etching
[spoons] March 2010 cold-formed copper
pages 16 & 17
pages 28 & 29
[Kashan house] February 2010 graphite on paper
[copper mine] April 2010 etching
water colour on paper pages 18 & 19
[dish] April 2010 copper
[sketchbook page] February 2010 graphite on paper
[lock] February 2010 graphite on paper
[void] April 2010 poplar
[clearcut] May 2006 photo
hospice/archive 34
[sketches] May 2010 graphite on paper pages 36 & 37
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[hospice/archive final drawing] May 2010 graphite, embossing, chine colle, etching on paper pages 38 & 39 [hospice/archive model] (& detail) May 2010 cooper, wood, steel pages 40 & 41
abstract
In many ways this thesis is an ethical stance on the practice of architecture. Beginning with two positions—(1) that architecture ought to be practiced with a sense of responsibility to others and to the world, and (2) that architecture ought to be aware of its status as party to myths and grand narratives—the trajectory of this project was brought through a cycle of themes and ultimately culminated in the design of a hospice and archive facility. This book, largely a visual record of my process of exploration, is divided into 3 sections: first a discussion of various related terms, explored individually and episodically, second, a concerted set of material studies based on the theme of pressure and transference, and third a description of the hospice and archive design.
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introduction I have long delighted in the lives of objects. Each one contains the myth of its making, its use and its decay. When an object and its myth cease to be relevant to the object’s keeper, it is discarded. Buildings are keepers of larger myths that belong to the collective imagination. Similar to smaller objects, obsolete or irrelevant myths cause the death of a structure.
On the other end of the spectrum, the myths that accompany ephemera or temporary structures are those that emerge and solidify as a result of repetition or cyclical building. Examples of this are as collectively ritualized as the 20 year cyclical rebuilding if the Ise Shrine, or as familial and perfunctory as the pitching of a tent during an annual camping trip. Somewhere between the purely ephemeral and the ostensibly permanent is the practice/ ritual/ perpetual / of maintenance. This too is a function of myth, as can be witnessed in the old Persian cities where
Examining the function of myth as it related to the lifecycle of architecture the necessity of re-applying mud-straw to the roofs has left holes in the built topography where the traditional houses are literally dissolving from lack of maintenance. The ritual of maintenance has been replaced by a preference for sealed, air-conditioned concrete block buildings. The practice of architecture has long relied on a language of archetypes with which to transmit myth from one generation to another or from one culture to another. The importance of the archetype relies on a consensus: a mutually agreed upon set of values that places, for example, the Doric colonnade behind the American president. The use of the archetype as an instrument of power can be witnessed in the built artifacts of any post-colonial city. Similarly, the use of temporary architecture can be an instrument of power by exploiting the unreliability of its existence, effectively erasing myth or disallowing the myth to emerge at all. War encampments, temporary barricades, refugee “camps” can all be dismantled and removed, leaving no thing for myth to embody thence be transmitted. This is instrument of power is an architecture of forgetting. The modern museum, on the other hand, is an architecture dedicated to the purpose of remembering. The museum, as an institutional system of collecting, categorizing, and preserving objects has two functions: to establish a system of values relating to objects which contain myth, and to simultaneously kill that myth by removing it from the context in which the object had relevance. It is in the study of myths and their relationships to the life cycles of buildings and objects where the issue of the responsibility of the maker becomes apparent. There is an ethical responsibility to contribute to the constructed environment in both a materially and a ‘mythically’ sensitive way. To quote a friend: “There is no building that is more sustainable than no building.” So let us examine the possibility of “building” as an verb rather than a noun; as an act of storytelling rather than storage.
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lexicon or establishment of themes or introduction
part II
death lab our
e l c y c e if
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n
r u o
m h is
t n e
In many ways this thesis is an ethical stance on the practice of architecture. Beginning with two positions—(1) that architecture ought to be practiced with a sense of responsibility to others and to the world, and (2) that architecture ought to be aware of its status as party to myths and grand narratives—the trajectory of this project was brought through a cycle of themes and ultimately culminated in the design of a hospice and archive facility.
ti u
y r o em
r m myth stor th ytelli ea ng
ca onsibility r e
resp
sis har catimpression tra n s f
ium ibr uil eq ce accptan
era p n r c e e s s u r e
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l a
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[instruction, duration, performance] October 2009 For the duration of one minute and twenty-six seconds the viewers are forced to reconcile the projected image of me onto my own present self.
[degree project board] October 2009 Like Penelope’s shroud, this length of knitted yarn is caught in a cycle of making and unmaking. The loop of yarn makes for a loop of perpetual work.
conceptual explorations: maintenance time nourishment ritual 10
Touched on here is an idea of responsibility, where maintenance is a necessity for the perpetuation of the object, the architecture, ouselves.
[breakfast] December 2009 The activity of the communal consumption of food can be distilled to an activity of caring. The feeding of others, perfunctory or celebratory, is a demonstration of the shared responsibility we feel toward one another. In eating together there is an optimism, a promise, an investment in shared futures. Pass the syrup, please. Oh sorry, we’re out of orange juice. Is anyone gonna eat the last pancake?
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TIME COLLAPSE, FOLDING, LOOPING, RECYCLING, ENGENDERING RESPONSIBILITY MYTH, DEATH, RITUAL, THEATRE, CATHARIS, PRESSURE, TRANSFERENCE The consumption and processing of goods begets the concept of life-cycle: a cyclical transformation over time, each return echoing the elemental stages of all the previous. Here we may contest the idea of sustainability, a concept which denies the very transformation that allows for the future (future is change). Critique aside, architecture also falls(.) into cyclical time as well, the relative permanence of materials subject to decomposition like everything else. (see Kashan house, next page) A discussion of life cycles encompasses not only disintegration and metabolism but also death. Death sets in motion an architecture of decomposition. Particles are broken from their whole to reconstitute into a larger whole: a heterogeneous whole from which is reincarnated a multitude of possible arrangements. This transformation of matter is the transcendence of death.
[marat’s limp limb] January 2010
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[deadman’s island] April 2010 coast salish poeples would place the bodies of the dead inside bentwood boxes which are tied in the tops of trees on rocky outcrops or islands. remains would decompose and be scattered by winds onto the beaches below
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[Kashan house] February 2010 The traditional Persian House in the city of Kashan is on the slope between the mountain and the desert. It is dry and the water is drawn from deep underground mountain aquifers, through qanats built under the slope. Inhabitants here also migrate seasonally from the winter house to the summer house, which face each other across the symmetrical courtyard. The winter house is sun gathering with glazed doors and low ceilings. The summer house is lofty and open with little enclosure and a system of cooling wherein wind is captured and funneled to the cool basement, forcing circulation through a network of air chases and chutes perforating the thickened walls. The Kashan house is in need of seasonal maintenance, a labour that must be completed lest its soft domed roof and mud-straw walls dissolve in the infrequent but powerful rains. The habitable roofscape is depressed under the weight of a foot, leaving an impression. The roof is a breezy living room on warm nights; an extension of the private house. To journey to the roof, beginning at the street with the gendered door knockers, one must proceed through a series of thresholds, each piercing through into more private realms.
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[lock] February 2010
The Canal Lock, an infrastructure of the industrial revolution; its proper functioning requires the participation and commitment of the human hand. To operate the lock a sequence of movements must be made in order: the boat must be let in, then the doors close, then the gates open, ooding or draining the chamber depending on the direction of travel. For the duration of the ďŹ lling and emptying, the doors are held tightly in place by hydrostatic pressure, forcing them to press against each other and rendering them as solid as the stone riverbank to which they are hinged. Catharsis occurs at the moment of fulďŹ llment when the pressure on either side is equalized and the door swings open with the push of one hand. This event is dramatic; people stop and watch the churning water as it is released into the chamber, marvel at the operator- any canal dweller with the right set of keys- as they balance across the closed lock doors sometimes at risk of falling 20 feet into the water below.
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[audience of many/of one] January 2010
The flooded amphitheatre is built in the intertidal realm: the orchestra pit is inundated at high tide and so there is a bridge from stage to audience. There is a ladder, its base cut radially into the seating, its rungs carrying one up to the upper rows and above. The central axis of the theatre is tunneled through to a seaward ramp, which lead out to a raft. At low tide the raft lays on the intertidal slope. At high tide the raft is tethered to the shore by a floating suspension bridge who’s planks will submerge under the weight of a foot, thus one arrives at the raft with wet feet.
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[coast Salish longhouse] January 2010
The Coast Salish house is a superstructure which waits half the year for the return of its people who spend summer on the shores and winters in the valleys. It is a simple post and lintel structure made from the sturdy, solid trunks of large trees. When inhabitants return for the season, they bring with them the planks split from living trees, planks that are 30 feet long, four feet high and 4 inches thick. These planks are fastened to the seasonal structure in overlapping horizons with rope spun from the bark of the same tree, the western red cedar. This wood, split along its straight and scented grain, will last a lifetime, its cellular structure intact and uncut. The other house, unclothed and uninhabited, awaits its seasonal garments and the life they bring within their shelter.
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Architecture aspires to transcend death, surviving its designers, builders, inhabitants. It seeks to carry forward the myth of one generation to the next. It is a mnemonic construction of stories. Thus, the idea of ritual comes under scrutiny: a prescribed sequence of events must be enacted whereby participation is necessary, whether in the capacity of lever-operator, house guest, builder or spectator. Ritual involves a codified sequence of behaviours, where the enactor surrenders the burden of individual choice and responsibility and accepts in place a pre-written script with predictable outcomes.
The chosen program is twofold: firstly that of hospice care as it encompasses not only the sterile rituals of medical care but also seeks to provide spaces for the facilitation of narrative transference; secondly that of the archive, marrying the private acceptance of transferred stories within the realm of hospice care with the practice of public record keeping. The processes and rituals associated with our deaths has here been re-scripted in order to propose that we see architecture as an armature for a cycle of care and responsibility for one another and for the extents of our imprints.
material explorations: emboss dance cold-form
I believe that there exists certain catharsis in this narrative transference. I’ve explored this materially through printmaking, cold-forming copper, contact dance. These processes involve acts of caring, carrying, taking weight, taking responsibility and acknowledging transformation upon release.
Contact imporovisation is a partner or group form in which dancers are in physical contact with one another. it is a discipline of the haptic realm where knowlegde and learning of the architecture of our bodies is of equal importance to knowledge about the limits of our own kinaesthetic body and our propreoceptive space. The dance is a reading and reacting where our bodies assume the function of architectures, forming ledges, steps, shelves, rails. The dance involves pressure, but also transfer, of weight, sweat, trust. We sway and fall. Are lifted. The dance requires strength and yielding. The reading of action: following a momentum or supporting a lift. Important are the moments of pause: where equilibrium is reached and then is released back into movement. What in the material world is like this give and take? (everything) Water and buoyancy, surfing, lifting of tidal surfaces. Trees sway, and have tensile strength to rebound. It is a sharing of weight across the breadth of their roots: pressure into the ground Systems of balance: wind fingers, water paddles, solar heat, coolness of basements
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[listening machine] April 2010
An additive process began with scratching into the clean mirrored copper surface: acoustical reverberation contained between the two edges of the plate. The infrastructure of the machine was then added: nested spiraled ramps into the bowl under the precarious ladders which are climbed for the sake of hearing and li stening. As we began with air, the last step is adding solidity to the ground to effect the relative permanence of masonry.
From an impulse the spoons echo each other, contain the space inbetween. From each cradle there is a landing and a narrowning bridge, a fulcrum by which the object ďŹ nds balance in its approximated symmetry. The landing, slighly dished holds about a tablespoon of uid, each spoon one third of a cup. [spoons] March 2010
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[copper mine] April 2010 [dish] april 2010 [void] April 2010 To create a void is to remove material; make a space where there used to be something. A void anticipates inhabitation, a void yearns to be ďŹ lled.
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[embossings] March 2010 Cut copper plates are composed on the cold steel of the press bed, slide against each other. Dampened paper is pressed into over and around them by thick woolen blankets driven into crevices by the force of the steel roller andd the bed passes undernieth. Analogous to an act of caring, the paper accepts the plate, is moved and deformend to accomodate it.
[embossings-sections] May 2010 [embossings] May 2010 The wedge: press experiments with cut copper plates resulted in a tectonic idea of compressive structure. Tightening, holding , making even.
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hospice/archive: [sketches] May 2010
architecture of narrative transference
[journal writer’s room] April 2010
[sketch section] May 2010 [sketch plan] May 2010
The concept of hospice is distilled to the activities of care, of storytelling, of record keeping. Early intuition dictated that there will be a bridge, a space of transitioning. ‘Transitioning’ as it is understood in this realm of care is a stage wherein the dying become dissociated from their concerns of comfort, both social and bodily. There is also to be a forest, both intimate and infinite. Journal writing, one of the common tasks asked of hospice volunteers, takes place in direct relation to the archive, which serves as a link between the storyand the city
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This project is set in a river city. Hospice as threshold: The building sits on the landing of the bridge and consists of two rooms: one for the ritual of comfort and medical care, the other for respite and storytelling. The two rooms are also one room, the reversed trusses building a common vaulted ceiling of the two opposing slopes. From the landing the island is visible, the tree’s grid visually impenetrable. Travel across the tapering suspended bridge delivers a gentle upward slope as the island approaches. Arriving at the birch forest is arriving at a stage of transitioning, when awareness is focused soley on the immediate present. The dying are carried into the birches - which is the place of letting go - and continue on to the archive to record and shelve their stories. The archive, a circular compression structure is stacked of opposing wedges, alternately protruding in to the bowl to make shelving and spiraling vertical circulation. Shelves and steps are made of solid wood and thus have a lifespan shorter than stone of which the outer wedges are chiseled. To shelve a story the shelf needs to be put in place by either building up the structure’s walls or replacing a rotten shelf of obsolete stories. The return trip is clear, the trees’ grid now obvious, revealing the straight path back to the city.
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To conclude this story is not to shelve it as it will be an informant for the duration of a working life. It was not until the breadth of my work was laid out before me did I realize that it had made complete loop (see diagram, page 6). From a starting point of care, responsibility and myth I explored life cycle, which took me to death and decomposition on the one hand, and labour and maintenance on the other. Labour and myth meet at the altar of ritual, which was explored though architectural, urban and dreamscape lenses. Ritual is performative, requiring the roles of actors, or enactors. Ritual, however, is merely a set of motions to facilitate the appearance of theatre. The theatre, as Artaud would have it, is set on the visceral stage where all expectation is confounded and all learned behaviours are rendered useless. It is this setting that brings about catharsis; an equalization of pressure where the lock’s doors open effortlessly. The narrative continues to encompass the impressions of plates in the process of printmaking, the hammer striking the copper and the weight of the other dancers’ bodies; all manifestations of pressure and equilibrium. The dance closes the loop by requiring a bodily responsibility; a guard against recklessness and injury. Architectural propositions are stories in themselves; the anticipated inhabitants protagonists in an imagined future world. This story is not over. Turn the page.
conclusion
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Borges, Jorge Luis. “An Evening with Ramon Bonavena.” Chronicles of Bustos Domecq. New York: EP Dutton and Co., 1976. 25-32. Eco, Umberto. “The Poetics of the Open Work.” The Open Work. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989. 1-24.
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