manual02: montage
Intimate Cities
Alex Raher B(Arch) yr 5 MSA
Rick Dargavel Amy Hanley
studio 2
theoretical reasoning
experiential spaces
integration / activation
film: architecture: programme
film narrative: final compositions
0
contents
scene
Structuration The word ‘montage’ originates from the French monter: to assemble or to build. Montage can be created through mixed media, and has been explored in multiple ways by many artists. Montaging can also be seen in film making, this technique is a series of images that are produced in particular sequences to suggest time lapse, metaphor or create tension / density in the scenes. The notion of montage can be explored by ideas of structuration; this is a way to explore key spatial, inter-person and object relationships through four parameters: PEOPLE, OBJECT, PLACE and PROGRAMME. The parallels between each of these can explain how spaces are used and the functional hierarchy of each of them. The following diagrams investigate how build up of the street scene creates a terrain for activity and how this is influenced by the notion of structuration. The size of each unit, words or shape relates to the dominance or hierarchy of each relationship between the actors.
Bubble graph represents relationships of structuration parameters (e.g people: program or object:program or people:people etc.) based on the x and y values of: density level and activation of the street level.
density of programming
high density, strongly activated street scene
activation of the street
object
programme
place
people
programme people
object
people
people
object people
place
programme
place object
people programme
place
place
montage: theoretical reasoning
people
1 scene
“
“There is surprisingly little difference between one activity and the other...the largest part of my work is montage...spatial montage” Rem Koolhaas
The ‘ubiquitous office’ dominates the city, often overwhelming the street diminishing its potential. The street, for public function, can be reinterpreted to incorporate that which has been lost in the city of consumerism: the activities that exist now on the periphery. The montaging of these activities brings life to the street. The challenge is how to bring life to this static urbanism, to the ‘dead’ space in the city. Architectural intervention and reprogramming of space allow these new, exciting actions to occur. The critical junctions, edges and relationships between space and people are key to the composition of the street and the montage explores this. The juxtaposition of people, of program and of space creates a rich, random narrative in the street scene. It is this randomness that brings such diversity to a site: the programming of the space must be coexistent with the commodified office, however a level of tension between programs is encouraged as it disjoints the transient nature of the street. Slowing down passage through the site results in greater use and activation of each program. This is the site of pleasure: the disruptive edge condition of the feminine that re-animates the previously static street scene. The
”
scene becomes a heterotopia of difference, of incompatible programs that oppose, but enhance each other. Michel Foucault looks at heterotopia against ideas of utopia in the modern city and suggests that utopias do not exist, but rather, heterotopias do. Fran Tonkiss’ Social relations and urban forms, suggests that a heterotopia is a place of juxtaposition, of spaces that “remake relationships of space and time”. The notion can be expanded to think about grand-narrative and meta-narrative, the first about utopia, order and behaviour and the latter related to heterotopia; lots of parts that are discontinuous but act as a collective whole. Structuralism, in the middle of the 20th century, was an architectural movement in response to lifeless rationalist urban planning that seemed to ignore the identity of people as inhabitants of the city. The anthropological nature of structuralist thinking has helped me construct and develop my ideas on montage. The heterogenous fragmentation of the city, through montage techniques, can be combined into a collective entity. The importance of montage is the layering; the composition of the image. It is through the placement and order of activity that the atmosphere of a scene is generated and this is only possible through montage.
Back Piccadilly, in Manchester city centre has been studied throughout the focus of the Intimate Cities unit year. The lack of use and residual nature of the alleyway offers great potential for architectural reprogramming and this is why the site was chosen. The whole street needs to be used as a terrain for activity, currently the Back Piccadilly is simply a space of transience - a conduit for movement from one destination to another. By re-programming the space through montage techniques, the intention is to create areas to interact, to pause, and for sociability to thrive.
Dada: surrealist work
“
“[Fourth principle] Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time - which is to say that they open onto what might be termed, for the sake of symmetry, heterochronies. The heterotopia begins to function at full capacity when men arrive at a sort of absolute break with their traditional time. This situation shows us that the cemetery is indeed a highly heterotopic place since, for the individual, the cemetery begins with this strange heterochrony, the loss of life, and with this quasi-eternity in which her permanent lot is dissolution and disappearance.” Michel Foucault - ‘Des Espace Autres’ 1984
”
1.1
The montage process was inspired by studies into film and architecture and the work of Sergei Eisenstein. Jean Nouvel sees architecture as a series of frames, cuts and openings, elaborating on the design process as a technique of manipulating time, movement and dimension, similar to that of a film. I have explored the importance of interaction between people and a focus on the experiental nature of space, the film can express this through a series of frames, of sequences that are cut and edited in a certain way to express programme function and use.
Sequence: narrative runs through multiple scenes
1
1 2
2 3
3
4
4
5
5
6
6 7
7
8
8 9
Cuts / frames / openings: moving the shot, increasing the depth of field
9
10
11 ... 10 11 ...
“Architecture exists, like cinema, in the dimension of time and movement. One conceives and reads a building in terms of sequences. to erect a building is to predict and seek effects of contrast and linkage through which one passes...in the continuous shot/ sequence that a building is, the architect works with cuts and edits, framings and openings...” Jean Nouvel
”
montage: experiential spaces
“
2 scene
3
1
a 4
2 5 b
Layering, compostition and movement through the scene. The montage process I took involved multiple layering techniques and experimentation into programme choices and their installation into the street scene. The film has the potential to capture atmosphere through movement and non-static images - the ideas of stopmotion were developed as a way to montage scenes in quick succession to create a film.
The intellectual montage Eisenstein uses (diagram above left) utilises external images to suggest tension. I used time and change of programme use to suggest different experiential nature of the spaces: how they function with different people and time of day is essential to the exploration of the programmatic function.
2.1
Plug-in programming affordances
of the street allow space for the installation of diverse programmes
Bleeding onto street threshold
between the street and the internal function is redefined
Animation of street new movement
and activation of residual alleyway breathes life into the street - a new urban free flow
2.2
Perception of space is a very subjective idea. The user, the viewer, the spectator and the scene all combine to create an atmosphere. Architecture is essentially a manipulation of space to produce function and form. The space can be said to be cut, framed, changed, enclosed and expanded depending on the intention of the designer.
montage: integration / activation
However, it is the perception of these spaces that defines its true function, its experiential meaning. Here we look at the signifier and the signified, playing on the notion of being viewed and being the viewer. The shaping of the space becomes immaterial, it is the frame that defines the atmosphere.
3 scene
The person viewing the scene changes alongside the movement of time and space. Animating this timeline brings life to the street; much of my reasoning for using film as exploration of montage was this ability to breathe life into a scene, more than a still image could. The hierarchy of the space begins to transform as new users respond to conditions of the street. The signifier suddenly becomes the signified, the spectator begins to merge into the scene and is then spectated upon themselves. Programmes are animated, then fall still, the constant juxtaposition of use, density and activity enriches the new urban heterotopia that is formed.
3.1 5
The constantly modified animates the statically commodified. The street cross-section is a good way to understand the complexity of urban programming that exists in the montage. The intrigue comes from the ambiguity of function; the programme is not instantly recognisable and therefore arises interest to passers by.
3.2
reanimating the street: montage of programmatic function
Sergei Eisenstein - film still drawings ’recovery of sight’ scene & storyboard sketch
graffiti zone
film studio
performance space
market space
shelter: retreat
urban partitions
artist booths
losing oneself
montage: film: architecture: programme
exchange / vending
4 scene
The standard design process can be re-addressed through a new way of thinking, a new perspective on urban planning. The corporate city creates corporate rules and behaviour, this ubiquitous planning is integrated with the intimate parts of the city through the montage process. The ubiquitous becomes a counter-point to the re-activation street frontage: a semi-structured space that is not pre-defined by rules but more simply, governed by guidelines and affordance of spaces. Architecture is always seen in measurable entities, size, shape and form. They way I have designed these spaces is the opposite, the focus is on people, place, objects and programme; the interchange between them is what needs to be used as a design tool. It is a new way of thinking towards the architectural design process, based on identity and individuality against the generic city. We are being critical about why people use spaces; too often people are post-produced into
an architectural drawing or image, without any thought to whether the space functions for that activity, or if the spaces have even the potential at all. To explain this, we must look at public and private space in an urban environment. As a general rule, if everybody exists solely in the generic city then any individuality that tries to thrive immediately becomes visible, it is no longer private. The public areas have no authenticity because as soon as anything diverse or different appears, it stands out and has no place in the city. The opposite would occur if we were to say that the general condition of the city is a multiplicity of programmes, variety and people. Individuality would then be more encouraged as there would be space and availability for a diverse range of people to identify with the spaces of the city. The public realm, therefore, still retains its potential for private activity.
4.1
Fictionalised narrative for new street scene: A solitary woman, meandering along the street, pauses to catch her breath and finds a surprisingly pleasant recess allocated for this. She begins to notice abnormal atmospheres along this street, as if the street has become animated. A newspaper salesman beckons, while a couple emerge from a narrow entrance that appears to lead to an exhibition space of sorts. As the reality of the scene unfolds, she finds herself captivated by the possibilities that have been installed in this small (forgotten) alley of the city. Even the illicit nature of the sliding steel grate that, unknown to her, leads to the secret strip show and cinema, appeals to her curiosity. She rises from her rest, passing the world market, casually located inside a disused loading bay and gathers her groceries for the week, excited from the urban encounters she so unexpectedly just experienced along her previously uninteresting thoroughfare home from work.
Karin Jachke, in her essay City is House and House is City (Intimate Metropolis) speaks of modernist architecture and planning as “bypassing the issue of the individual dwelling’s relation to public space as a place of civic encounter, exchange and spectacle.” Team 10, a group of young architects in the 1950’s began to look at the transition between interior and exterior space and suggested that it needed more than simple spatial connection. The idea was that purposeful transitions should be installed, a ‘threshold’ concept, introduced by Aldo Van Eyck. It is here in this site of threshold, that the montage aims to bridge - the connection between inside and outside, the transitional and multi-functional spaces of the ground (street) level that can be plugged with programme and activity.
density of programming
shelter
market
loosing oneself
artist booth
market
film studio artist booth
graffiti zone exchange
film studio performance space
urban partitions
shelter
market
filmloosing studio oneself
film studio
performance space graffiti zone
market
activation of the street
urban partitions
graffiti zone
exchange artist booths
film studio
“We are not only breathing in, nor are we exclusively breathing out. This is why it would be so beneficial if the relation of interior space and exterior space, between individual and common space inside and outside, between the open and closed...could be the built mirror of human nature, so that man can identify with it...” - Aldo Van Eyck - ‘Over Binnen en Buitenruimte’
montage: film narrative: final compositions
urban partitions
5 scene
Site area of montage the route along the commodified reactivated route - draws use towards it
The revitalised route across the city center by new programming of the back alley, of the residual areas that are currently under used, anti-corporate and ignored. A new route is generated by new animations of the area. The following pages show the final montage film as a series of stills.
5.1
Film stills
Montage
5.2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
market wandering shelter: retreat the lovers performance space artist/ film studio place to sit
The final scene of the film is seen here, rich in activity. The scene was built up through multiple compositional layers and techniques, from the photo real layering of film, images and people, to the abstracted sketches of programs and potential functions. Plugging in new programmes and cutting and editing the film resulted in a constant development of the montage scene. The scene was never created in a linear process, it was always produced on a 3or 4 dimensional level, considering time as a key component. The montage process allowed me to explore how building design should be about people and relationships between them, rather than always an aesthetically driven process. The montage methods can be transferred into architectural practice; focusing on an anthropological and
8 9 10 11 12 13
urban partitions ubiquitous office peep show exchange / vending losing oneself graffiti zone
phenomenological approach that address the key issues of urban space. Therefore it is not necessary to start designing using measurements, the initial site analysis should be interpersonal, experiential and about emotional connections to the site. Perhaps through designing this way, the city would be devoid of residual space and the unplanned could become planned again. Pleasure can thrive in a city of secrets, a city of spatial disorganisation, a habitat of intrigue. The modern day disregard of the urban environment (through social habits, technology etc.) can be reversed so people interact with their urban terrain once more and express their individuality through actions. All that is required is space for these potentials to flourish.
1
3
6
10
7
12
5 2
4
11 8
final compositions
13
9
5.3
References: inspiration: bibliography Michel Foucault - Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias Fran Tonkiss - Social relations and Urban Forms Aldo Van Eyck - ‘Over Binnen en Buitenruimte’ Karin Jaschke -Intimate Metropolis: ch. City is House and House is City Sergei Eisenstein: soviet filmmaking Eisenstein: Montage and Architecture, 1938 Fillip Dujardin: art/montage photography Rem Koolhaas Jean Nouvel Walter Benjamin - the situationist Film Architecture: ‘From Metropolis to Blade Runner’ - Dietrich Neumann
5.4