PREFACE
This essay is structured by two parts: the analysis of the theory “Chaos” “Void” and the design of the fictitious Chaos City. The analysis is focused on the architectural relative projects done by the architect-Rem Koolhaas and the artist Sol LeWitt. These two designers was selected on purpose because they both have some thoughts in the topics:City, Context, Grid, Order, Disorder, Chaos and Void. Difference position and purpose make these two designers have different responses to similar phenomenon. Whatever the responses are similar or opposite, it all provide two different angles to understand it and the answer would be more complete and convincing in the end. The analysis result is presented as the form of a Chaos City story. What the city looks like and what happens in it is not about the reality but more like a presentation of the consciousness. The feeling and thinking of people in this environment is what focused on in this satirical narration. Everything happened in this city could be seen as the reflection of the fact.
CONTENTS Abstract
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1. Chaos and Void
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1.1 The City 1.1.1 Future City Melun Sénart 1.1.2 The Strip 1.2 The Art 1.2.1 The Existing City Cut Outs 1.2.2 The Order 2. The Game of Chaos and Void
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2.1 The Spectator and Participant 2.2 The Fictious City 3. The Narrative of the Architect
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3.1 The Endless Chaos 3.2 The Duplicated Chaos 3.3 The Increased Chaos 3.4 The Beautiful Chaos 3.5 The End of Story Reference
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Abstract This is a discussion about the chaos which be produced during the modern city development. Cities, as well as the architecture, are the result of the human aesthetic and financial profit. To purchase the modern beauty and the maximal economy efficiency, cities are designed under the specific order and grid. However, the overly order and overly producing is going to the opposite ending- “Chaos”. The “Chaos”here not means the visually messy for the big image, but the mentally feeling of lost for the people who lives in the city. In this essay, the chaos city is not Melun Sénart or the specific city in the world, but the summation of the modern city, the epitome of the modern world. Meanwhile, two kinds of people which stand on the different positions are involved in this chaos city’s game. One is the spectator, the authority or the designer of the city. Another is the participant, the citizens who are influenced by the form of the city and also who feel the air of the city everyday. They will become to the narrator of the game, the speaker of these two different voices. The theories and practices of Rem Koolhaas and Sol LeWitt about the chaos and order are the background knowledge of this discussion. And the final production is the future imagination of a segment of Melun-Senart under the order game of Sol LeWitt.
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Part1. Selected notes of analysis work
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Part 1. Chaos and Void
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1.1 The City 1.1.1 Future City Melun Sénart
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The future city is the city drawn on the paper. This kind of city might be built in the future or only stay on the theory status. Melun Sénart(1987), the urban planning designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA , is the future city with the Chaos and Void. This design reflected the thoughts of city issues of Rem Koolhaas. For his respects, this century has lost the battle with the issue of quantity. The transformation from quantity into quality through abstraction and repetition is failed1. People, or the architects, tend to surrender to the aesthetics of chaos. And the only thing architects can do with the subject of chaos is to take their position into the army of those devoted to resist it and then failed. In this design, Melun Sénart is not seen as a specific city in the world since the vague of the characteristic and the location of this city. It is more like a paradigm of the concept of new urbanism which is about discovering the unnameable hybrid. In the future image of this city, the Void area is divided out of the city landscape, be protected out of the pollution of surrounding Chaos. The Bands of Void hold the purity character of the land, which includes the transport, old villages, campus, forest and so on. And the Chaos is the result of necessarily urban development which is fulled with the cluster of residence.These “Chaos” would be different size, shape, location and with varying relationships to the nature and infrastructure. In one word, the architecture form and organization in the Chaos would be totally freedom and different with each other. After the continually development, each Chaos would become to a “microcosm of a different interval” in the final.
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1. Melun Sénart, scheme of Bands projected onto the map of Paris
2. The Void(black area) and Chaos(white area) of Melun Sénart
3. Diagram of functions
4. The analysis model for the relationship of Void(white area) and Chaos(black area) in Melun-Senart project, made by Author
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1.1.2 The Strip
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To better understand the design discipline of MelunSenart, one piece of the Void located in the center of the city plan is selected to focus on. Compared with other bands of Void, the middle piece ignores the surrounding context which shows as the shape of strip in the plan. It is an ideal geometry in the design and the same shape is also showed on the other projects of Rem Koolhaas , such as the competition of la villette park(1982) and the concept design “Exodus”(1972). The “Exodus” is the first urban dimension design of Rem Koolhass which reflect his thoughts in that period. And it is easy to tell the similarity of the form between the strip in the Melun-Senart and “Exodus”. In the design of “Exodus”,or named “the Voluntary prisoner of Architecture”, the designer saw London be divided into a good half and a bad half. Be influenced by the condition of Berlin at that special time, Koolhaas assumed that the authorities of the bad part will build a wall around the good part to prevent the migration of citizen. The “wall” is not a single wall but a strip territory between the good part and the bad and is cut through the city fabric. After the strip be built in the center of London, the collective monuments in it would be protected by the wall to retain its integrity.These monuments which satisfy the people’s desire attract numbers of citizens exodus from the old city and finally become to the inmate in this strip architectural world. As a result, the old city, which is the part outside the wall, would be forgot and ruined by the “new architectural presence” 2. This design provides a strip-shape dreamland which is opposite to the Chaos to highlight the existing chaotic condition of the city. The Chaos of the city is the consequence of the modern urbanism under the Rem Koolhaas’s theories: “Bigness, or the Problem of Large” 3, “Junkspace” 4 and “Generic City”5. These theories point out that the city is fulled with the characterless and standardizes new buildings. These new buildings without the clear function reproduce in the context and sprawl larger than they need to be. Junkspace, as the new building for the consumption objectives with no connection with the architectural context, devalues the history of the city and decreases the difference among cities. 7
5. The middle Void in the Melun-Senart
6. The Wall in London
7. The strip territory with monuments inside
8. The drawing for the Allotments in the wall
Finally, the Generic City, as the city be established under no history , emerged. This urbanism process occurs no matter where the location is, same like the Chaos in the Melun-Senart. And the design of MelunSenart show the surrender attitude as a architect and the solution of the failed battle.
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9. The drawing of strip shape Void in Melun-Senart and surrounding Chaos, drawn by Author
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1.2 The Art 1.2.1 The Existing City Cut Outs
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Different with the theoretical design of Rem Koolhass, Sol-Lewitt used the real art work to introspect the role of the existing context and the modernist aesthetic. Some of the projects are considered under the city dimension, some are in the smaller size like the words in one page of article. Repetition, adding, linking and cutting are the techniques in those art works. The simplicity of the technique and form tests what people called the aesthetic. In his early works, the map work “Tearing , Cutting and Folding� is a serious of city maps which be removed the geometrical shapes or specific areas in the realistic context. The recognizable cities with a blank area or a piece of city block without the surrounding contexts is created under the notion of dislocation and disembodiment6. Watching the familiar but incompletely city, the spectator will aware of the lost of the integrity. This is not clear for the attitude of the artist:whether the blank area will influence or destroy the definition of the city or actually the context is not essential for the city. But the consciousness and reaction of the viewer show that the changed city map will influence the city cognition of citizen. These serious works somehow illustrate the brave of the artist because it is not a easy work to get rid of or delete a part of the world where we live in. Behind the trick of the art work, this brave also reflected the possibility that the city can easily be treated as some part of the area is not necessary. However, if the city can exist as fragmentary, what is the minimum character to define the difference between cities?
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A Square of Chicago Without a Trapezoid , 1979
A Photograph of Mid-Manhattan with the Area between The Plaza, Ansonia, Biltmore and Carlyle Hotels Removed
Manhattan with Roosevelt Island Removed, 1978, cut black and white photograph
Photo of Part of Manhatt an with the Area Between 117 Hester St, 420 W. Broadway and Morty’s Liquor Store Cut Out, 1978
Photo of Florence, 1976, Cut map and ink
'Map of London with area between Euston Road, Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road..Regent St again, Portland Place, & Park Crescent removed Sol LeWitt 1977
A Piece of Manhatt an for Karl, 1979 Cut silver gelatin print
A Triangle of Manhattan for Arlan, 1979 Cut silver gelatin print
Area of Amsterdam Between Leidseplein, Jan Dibbet’s House, and Kunstijsbaan Japeden, September 4, 1976, Cut-out city map
10. Tearing, Cutting and Folding: Early Map Works by Sol LeWitt, 1967-1979
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1.2.2 The Order
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“Tearing , Cutting and Folding” show the notion about the “relationship” in Sol LeWitt’s early career period. Subjects with or without “relationship” be created simultaneously in his works. Among the projects of Sol LeWitt, utilizing the existing context and repetition of the simple segment are two mainly forms. Linking the existing element and completely ignoring the surrounding are the opposite characters in his design. The commonly simple artistic vocabulary like lines and three dimension cubes have been used as demateriablization form in highly frequency. And the Cartesian order and the logic dominant the design process which totally avoid the subjectivity factor. Among the comments for his art work, Don Judd saw his serial objects as “disordered” or “ordered” only in the sense of an absence of chaos rather than in the implication of any new harmony imposed by the artist7. The aesthetic presented in the collective works shows the visually result of the mathematical process. It provides a perspective from the spectator. Different with the urban development, the large number of the segments provide the beauty of the order rather than the chaos.
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13. Element and process be used in Sol LeWitt art works, drawn by Author. Reference by projects: Wall Making, 1968; Wall Structure, 1969; Variations of Incomplete Open Cubes, 1974 Drawing for Seven Structures, 1977
Form The Word(s)"Art", Blue Lines to Four Corners, Green Lines to Four Sides, And Red Lines Between The Words, 1972
Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing 51 All architectural points connected by straight lines. June 1970
Cube Structure Based on Five Modules, 1971-1974, Painted wood.
11. Selected Sol LeWitt art works related with context
12. Selected Sol LeWitt art works using the segment duplication
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Part2. Model experiment
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Part 2. The Game of Chaos and Void
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2.1 The Spectator and Participant
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Comparing the architectural practices of Rem Koolhaas and the art works of Sol LeWitt, the notion about “Chaos”and “Void” all shows as the important feature. However, the same words sometimes have different definitions and different creator’s attitude. In one way, these creating lay on the different dimension compared with human. One is the city-size but another, the biggest size, is only a sculpture. The size of the projects or the boundary of the imagination provides people two different positions to think about it:the spectator and the participant. It means the artist’s work can be seen as the spectator’s design-the overall appearance and the visually aesthetic is the only judging things. But the architect’s work relay on the participant position-each line drawn on the city map could create a huge effect for the people who lives in. The transformation of the position make the reaction of the Chaos and Void distinct.
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14. People as Spectator
15. People as Participant
The spectator
The participant
The spectator is the one who stands out of the environment. He or she can be the audience of the city cinema or the designer of this chaotic show. The spectator will enjoy what happened in the world as actually it is no influence for him. The only purpose for the spectator is purchasing the aesthetic or the profit of the works. And the rational playing and duplication of the simple segment is one of the effective method.
In this status, the Chaos means the result of overly duplication of standard buildings and the large area of characterless grid planning. No history, no context and no signature for the Chaos. The only thing can be felt in the Chaos is the sense of consumption and financial purchasing, as well as the feeling of lost for the confused citizen. The Void would be the hope island which contains the special architectural elements. It would be established as the monuments in the city and ignore the existing context. It keeps the purity of the city in minimal as the result of architect’s surrendering.
The Chaos is not existing in the spectator’s perspective as the sense of order replaces the chaotic facts. Under the witnessing of the spectator, although the harmony art work changes on the design style or the duplication numbers, the mainly idea or the impression is changeless.
The forming of the Chaos would be influenced by the Void. But the shape or the style of the architectural segment in the Chaos or between the Chaos would be completely isolated and random. The chaotic development also means that the different cluster of the Chaos could be sensed like the same in the end as the emotional numbness of the homogeneity.
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2.2 The Fictious City With these two positions to view the theory of the modernist urban development and sprawl, a fictitious city model can be figured out. This fictitious city could be a detail part of the Melun-Senart planning or a completely new planning located in any place in t he world. The size of the city can not be defined as it depends on which position the people look at it. It is the epitome of common modern city which shares the same living and working principle. The Chaos and Void define the city as two different parts and will never blend with others. The group of spectators take the role of the designer and the audience of this city and the participants live in this city as the citizen.
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08:00 am
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To simplify this model, this city will include eight pieces of Chaos and one piece of Void in a 3x3 gird square. The whole area of the Chaos are designed following the rules of characterless and standard. Each piece of the Chaos is isolated created and become to the outcome of massive homogeneity duplication. Coincidentally, the final appearance of the Chaos looks very like other existing cities in the world such as Manhattan, Florence, London, Chicago,Beijing, New York and Amsterdam. As a result, each piece of the Chaos is named as the same as its similar city. The citizen of this city begged for the admission and finally can live in the Void area. The daily schedule for the participant is to go out of the Void and work in the Chaos for the life needs. Same as other cities, the people living in it will wake up every morning in their home(the Void) and work in the office(the Chaos) on the day time. The city is changing in every second because the development never stops. Each area in one grid will change its position with others randomly or it can be seen as the development of Chaos will make this area become to like anther Chaos. The only thing still in this city is the Void. But the relative location of the Void will be changed with the changing of the Chaos. In order to not lost in this city, the participant needs to take the intelligent city map equipment when he or she need to go into the Chaos.
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However, one day, a participant lost his city map when 19
01:00 pm 16. Chaos City map checking
he was out of the Void. When people found him in the Chaos, he had slipped in to a coma. The media interviewed him after he waked up in hospital. He said that is the most crazy and unimaginable experience he ever had in his whole life. On the basis of what he remembered, the media published his story which is the following passages on the local newspaper.
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17. Map of Manhattan without a square
18. Map of Berlin without a square
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19. Map of London without a square
20. Map of Florence without a square
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21. Map of Beijing without a square
22. Map of Chicago without a square
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23. Map of Amsterdam without a square
24. Map of New York without a square
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25. "The city is changing in every second...... " Selected result of 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2 possibilities, photoed by Author
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26. "The city is changing in every second...... " Selected result of 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2 possibilities, Sketchup Model
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27. The Chaos City model looks like an art piece for the Spectator
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Part3. Story Design
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Part 3. The Narrative of the Architect
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3.1 The Endless Chaos
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Without the city map, the only method this participant can recognized his location is through the street nameplate in each Chaos. He walked into the Chaos named New York, which is very similar with the last Chaos area- Chicago. The only tiny differences are the width of the street and the transparency of the building’s glass. With this thought, he kept walking on the endless street. The scene he saw on this street corner had no difference compared with anther street corner. He got more and more nervous and suspected he was in a trap that made he walked in circles. Gradually, he forgot how similar between this Chaos area with another as he thought he was in one place that never successfully left.
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28. "He was in a trap......"
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3.2 The Duplicated Chaos There is one Chaos he could recall it very clearly but not because its name. The reason is this Chaos has the same name with another Chaos Florence- only add “II”on the end of the name to distinguish their different location. This is the first time he aware that after living over twenty years in this city. A design introduction is written down below the name. It records that the mayor perceived this Chaos plan designed by the planner is completely same with the Florence, which is the most prosperous Chaos in this city. To memorized this design coincidence, the mayor named it as the same name-Florence II. No one knows that whether this is a true story that the result of duplication standard architectural segment could be the same or it is designed on purpose to purchase the same financial profit. The participant went through the street. Suddenly, he saw a man whose looking is exactly same with him standing on the opposite street. He was shocked at that moment but still tried to greet to the another “him”. “Hi,” he said. “Hi!” 29
The same feedback returned, but was not spook out by the person opposite. He turned to look at another 90 degree direction, one more “himself ” was standing on the other side.
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29. "one more 'himself ' was standing on the other side."
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3.3 The Increased Chaos
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This is the first time he looked up these buildings in the Chaos Manhattan. The buildings are too high to see the top. Each building has a very small entrance on the bottom which is hard to let the people pass through. He felt chocked when he imaged go into these buildings. So he walked very fast wishing to leave this Chaos as soon as possible, but the more he walked, the deeper he reached. The wall of the buildings beside him seemed more and more closing with the height of the wall was also increasing. He felt sick with the air getting more and more thinner. Finally, he found there was no road in front of him. The buildings are so dense here that already combined as the one. The wall is such huge and towering that no sunlight can across it.
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30. "the wall is such huge and towering......"
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3.4 The Beautiful Chaos
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He had no idea how long time he already took in this Chaos journey. He felt that he already walked more than eight Chaos area but still not found the exit to the Void. Finally, he walked into a characterless Chaos. This Chaos had fresh air and the comfortable street dimension. The length of every street is the same so it is very easy for him to understand the form of this area. The wall which divided the street is not that high for him. To have a rest, he climbed to the top of the wall and sat down. The sight of this Chaos was so clear in his eyes that he can tell that this Chaos is designed by the regular square shape grids. “What a beautiful place,� he sighed .
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31. "this Chaos is designed by the regular square shape grids......"
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" The Endless Chaos = New York+Chicago The Duplicated Chaos = Florence The Increased Chaos = Manhattan The Beautiful Chaos = Beijing"
32. Chaos: New York
33. Chaos: Chicago
34. Chaos: London
35. Chaos: Amsterdam
36. Chaos: Florence
37. Chaos: Florence II
38. Chaos: Manhattan
39. Chaos: Beijing
40. Void
41. Land
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42. The Chaos City controled by the spectator
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3.5 The End of Story After this experience, this participant resigned his original job. Thirty years later, he became to the most famous architect in this city.
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43. The participant in the Chaos City
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References
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Reference of Essay 1.Koolhaas, R. & Mau, B., 1998. S,M,L, XL, O.M.A. : small, medium, large, extra-large office for metropolitan architecture. 2nd ed., published by The Monacelli Press. 2. Koolhaas, R. & Mau, B., 1998. S,M,L, XL, O.M.A. : small, medium, large, extra-large office for metropolitan architecture. 2nd ed., published by The Monacelli Press. 3.Koolhaas, R. & Mau, B., 1998. S,M,L, XL, O.M.A. : small, medium, large, extra-large office for metropolitan architecture. 2nd ed.,'Bigness and the Problem of Large', pp.494-516. published by The Monacelli Press. 4. Rem Koolhaas, 'Junkspace', October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence (Spring, 2002), pp. 175-190, published by The MIT Press, 2009 5.Koolhaas, R. & Mau, B., 1998. S,M,L, XL, O.M.A. : small, medium, large, extra-large office for metropolitan architecture. 2nd ed., 'The Generic City', pp. 1238-1264. published by The Monacelli Press. 6. Mariabruna Fabrizi, 'Tearing, Cutting and Folding: Early Map Works by Sol LeWitt(1967-1979) in SOCKS. Available form:http:// socks-studio.com/2015/01/27/tearing-cutting-and-folding-earlymap-works-by-sol-lewitt-1967-1979/ 7. LeWitt et al., 1978. Sol Lewitt the Museum of Modern Art, 'The Structures, The Structure and The Wall Drawings, The Structures and The Wall Drawings and The Books', pp.27, New York [exhibition], The Museum.
Bibliography 1.Bock , Ingrid, 2015. Six Canonical Projects by Rem Koolhaas : Essays on the History of Ideas, Berlin: jovis Verlag. 2. Koolhaas, R., 1994. Delirious New York : a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan., Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. 3.Calvino, I. & Weaver, W., 1979. Invisible cities, London Pan Books.
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Source of Figure Contents 1.Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Ville Nouvelle Melun-Senart/France, 1987, scheme of Bands projected on the map of paris. Souuce: Lucan, OMA, Rem Koolhaas, 114, 2015 2. Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Ville Nouvelle Melun-Senart/France, 1987, the "almost Chinese figure" of void space. Source: Koolhaas and Mau, S,M,L,XL, 980-981, 2015 3. Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Ville Nouvelle Melun-Senart/France, 1987, the diagram of functions. Source: Lucan, OMA, Rem Koolhaas, 116-117, 2015 4. Analysis Model of Melun-Senart, Designed and Photoed by Author 5.Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Ville Nouvelle Melun-Senart/France, 1987, the middle strip in Melun-Senart. Available from: http://oma.eu/projects/ville-nouvelle-melun-senart 6. Rem Koolhaas, "Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners for architecture", 1972, final project at the Architectural Association, London, Source: Koolhaas and Mau, S,M,L,XL, 4-5, 2015 7. Rem Koolhaas, "Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners for architecture", 1972, final project at the Architectural Association, London, "Tip of the Strip", Source: Koolhaas and Mau, S,M,L,XL, 10-11, 2015 8. Rem Koolhaas, "Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners for architecture", 1972, final project at the Architectural Association, London, "Nothing ever happens here", Source: Koolhaas and Mau, S,M,L,XL, 18-19, 2015 9. Function and form analysis of the Void strip in Melun-Senart, drawn by Author 10. Tearing, Cutting and Folding: Early Map Works by Sol LeWitt, 1967-1979, copyright for Sol LeWitt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
11.12.13 Source: LeWitt, et al. Sol Lewitt the Museum of Modern Art, New York [Exhibition]. The Museum, 1978. 14.15.16 Drawn by Author 17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24 Source from Google map 25.-43. Drawing, Photos, Model work by Author Others Cover page. "Spectator and Participant", drawn by Author Part 1 page. Notebook scanning, noted by Author Part 2 page. City map tearing, photoed by Author Part 3 page. City model making, photoed by Author 53