Johan Voordouw
WEERKAS März 2018
Weerkas versteht sich als ein ironischer Kommentar
dar. Die Darstellungen drücken eine Verschiebung der
zu den sich verändernden klimatischen Bedingungen
Wetterbedingungen aus und spekulieren über deren
in den Niederlanden. Jede Zeichnung der Serie stellt
mögliche soziale und wirtschaftliche Auswirkungen
sowohl einen bestimmten Ort in einer der zwölf
auf
Provinzen der Niederlande, als auch eine mit ihm eng
maßstäblichen
verwobene Wettersituation eines bestimmten Monats
als didaktische „Follies“, die auf die zunehmende
die
niederländische
Landschaft.
Die
Weerkas-Interventionen
klein-
fungieren
Disparität zwischen historischen, normativen und
den
klimatischen
Zyklen
Auswirkungen
aufkommenden
eines
Klimawandels
hinweisen. Die damit verbundenen Wetteranomalien dramatische
werden
Auswirkungen
auf
die wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Zukunft der Niederlande haben: Wasser gefriert nicht mehr, der Wasserspiegel damit der
auch
ändert die
sich
Landschaft.
Die
Darstellungen
in
den
eingesetzte
CAD-basierte bezieht
und
Beschaffenheit
Zeichentechnik
sich
direkt
historischen
auf
die
niederländischen
Landschaftsradierungen aus dem 17.
Jahrhundert
und
dadurch
verbindet
zeitgenössische
Narrative des Klimawandels mit historischen Ausdrucksformen der niederländischen Landschaft. Die Zeichnungen erhalten in Wien eine
neue
räumliche
Wirkung,
indem sie analog auf einen neuen Raum und für eine neue Zeit übertragen werden.
Durch diese
mediale Übersetzung werden die Darstellungen Form
greifbar,
in
einer
nicht
als
neuen Bilder
architektonischer Formen in der Landschaft,
sondern
als
archi-
tektonische Linien, die Raum bilden.
W e e r k a s
April acts like a large air conditioner, taking in cold canal
The Weerkas is an ironic commentary on changing
water to absorb ambient heat and dumping it back into
weather patterns in the Netherlands. Each of the
the water. A warm April is poor for the Dutch cut flower
twelvedigital drawings expresses a shift in weather
industry, which is an integral part of the Dutch identity
conditions, and speculates the social and economic
implications of climate change on the Dutch landscape.
that will adversely affect delicate ecosystems through
The portfolio of drawings expands across Dutch space
harmful windstorms. Here the interior sand dunes of
and time. Each image illustrates a specific geographic
theLoonse en DrunenseDuinen are protected from the
location in one of the Netherlands’ twelve provinces, in
worst of the inclement weather through a series of
one month of the year.
protective barriers that illustrate the harmful effects of
wind erosion
The project title – Weerkas - loosely translates to
May expresses the increasingly volatile weather
‘Weather-house’. This is not a ‘house’ in a domestic sense
(huis),but a translation of the word ‘kas’ (greenhouse). The
Bilt, building a large scaffold with a barometer for each
greenhouse was an importantinspiration for the project.
of the Netherlands’ 36 weather stations showing historic
Greenhouses construct the country’s ground plane and
barometric pressure as oppose to the present conditions
represent the modern Dutch landscape par excellence.
It is this set piece, and it related sense of environmental
increased prevalence of summer storms, building
June is located at the KNMI headquarters in De
July deals with volatile weather and the
control that is subverted and called into question in the Weerkas project. Because of climate change the Dutch landscape is undergoing enormous undesirable change. The overtmanagement that the country exerts over of its land and waterwill in the coming decades become increasingly variable and difficult to predict and control. The small Weerkas interventions act as a didactic ‘follies’, expressing the increasing disparity between historic, normative climate cycles and emerging weather conditions. Given the homogenous geography of the Dutch landscape, these weather anomalies will have a dramatic affect on the country’s economic and cultural future.
The drawing technique used in the drawings
references the historic landscape etchings produced in Holland’s Golden Age of art in the 17th Century, tying the contemporary narrative of climate change to historic expressions of the Dutch landscape. The environmental and cultural function of each structureis underscored through
textual
research
of
academic
journal
articles,and, in particular, the documents published by the Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI) – Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute). Each image considers different aspects of the weather:
January is the Ijskas. It considers ice making in
Groningen, a realization that with a small increase in winter temperatures the historic cultural phenomenon of skating on the frozen canals will become an activity relegated only to memory
February is the Windkas. Increasingly winter
wind patterns are shifting from the cold northern winds
a reflective screen that re-directs sunlight onto a
of Norway to warm winds from Spain. This folly takes
bandstand in Maastricht’s Vrijthofplein.
warm winter wind, cools it in its large funnels and flips
its directionto become cold northernly winds
hub, Rotterdam, noting the affect of changes in
March is the Sneeuwkas. This folly forms a
waterlevel either due to flooding or drought. The ‘pool’
square meter of snow on the ground on the three days
in the center of the harbour moves up and down via
in March when snow ought to fall. In this image the tree
a system counterweights maintaining a historic water
is already in leaf as spring has yet again arrived a couple
level to counterpoint the current water level affected by
weeks early
climatic anomalies 3
August moves to the Netherlands’s economic
J a n u a r y
Joh a n Vo o r d ouw is a registered architect (ARB, UK) and Assistant Professor at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University, Ottawa. He studied his Bachelor of Environmental Design, Architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and completed his graduate studies at the Bartlett School of Architecture in Unit 20 under the tutelage of Dr. MarjanColletti and Dr. Marcos Cruz. He has practiced and taught in the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands.
Johan’s work has been extensively published
and exhibited including the Silver Linings exhibition in Vienna (2015), ‘Urban by Nature’ at the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam (2014), the Royal Academy Summer Show in London (2010 & 2011), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2010), and Digital Architecture: Passages through Hinterlands in London (2009). Johan’sresearch by design interests are related to digital design practice, and their connection to emerging modes of architectural representation and hybrid fabrication techniques. His theoretical interests study how these new digital design ideas are contextualized within established fields of architectural theory.
C o nv e r s a t i o n w i t h Joh a n Vo o r d ouw In late February, members of the curatorial team sat down with Johan to have a conversation about the
September speaks to the initial inspiration of
history of the Weerkas, and his interpretation on the
the project. Located in a greenhouse it places two tomato
new installation in Vienna.
plants outside. Shrivelled under the intense heat, they stand in stark contrast to the lush plants that are
Matthias Moroder
fertilized and watered inside
With the March drawing, you applied for the Rotterdam
Biennale [2014]? You did March for the open call?
October shows the affects of urban wind
tunnels. The whiskers constructed along the building facades indicating the wind speed out of town, the gust
Johan Voordouw
indicating how the affects of the city change local wind
I like the fact that March is the month of the exhibition.
patterns
March was the first one that was made; it really was the
November is located inside Haarlem Train
drawing that started off the whole project. I did March
Station. These large bladders collect and rain water on
for the open call and part of the proposal was to say
unsuspecting travellers to indicate typical monthly
that I was going to do 11 more. So the funny thing about
rainfall. November is one of the wettest months in the
March is that it is the only drawing that really was ever
Netherlands. Here it rains inside the train station, as the
changed because I had not fully figured out the project
outside is dry with drought
yet. What actually happened for March was that, as soon
Lastly the month of December is located in the
as it was accepted and I realised that I needed to do 11
string of islands along the North coast of the country. The
more, I needed to find a place in Holland that looked
island of Vlieland has 90% cloud cover in the last month
like that. It is the only one that I have made up totally
of the year. Here inflated panels act as clouds on days
on my own. And so I went to the Dutch monuments’
when the sun’s rays pierce down from a cloud-less sky.
website and I looked for all of the tea houses in the Netherlands and where those tea houses were on Google
Project Assistant: Aisha Sawatsky This text is a synopsis of previous text published at both the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2014 and the eCAADe conference in Newcastle 2015. Completed for an open call to the ‘Urban by Nature’ International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, the images were exhibited along the main ramp of Rem Koolhaas’s (OMA) Kunsthal Rotterdam in the summer of 2014
Earth. I needed to find one that was along a little stream; that had kind of a forest around it, but was out in the open. After a couple of hours of searching, I finally found that little tea house. Originally I had modelled 5
F e b r u a r y
something completely different, something actually
architecture there that gets you inside is something that
far more baroque, because it was made up. And then I
is already existing. So that is the reason why I am careful
deleted that one and put in the little tea house that you
to call them structures, or follies or those things but I do
see there [in the March drawing], so it is actually of that
not really call them architecture per se, because they are
place. And that was the thing that kicked off all of the
not spatial or programmatic. They are functional, but
other drawings.
not programmatic in the same way that architecture is programmatic. It is not that someone is living there, or
Matthias
working there. They work more like machines. In some
The nice thing is that you basically developed the
ways the February drawing might be a perfect example
drawing technique on this March drawing?
of that: it has to take hot air that comes from Spain that gets pushed into one of those funnels. It needs to cool it
Johan
down and then it needs to re-direct it to become cold air
Yes. When I first submitted it I did not really give it any
from Norway. As you are walking your dog on the beach,
month’s name, I had not completely worked out what
it is kind of a warmish February day, and then you walk
the project was going to be, I just said I was going to do
in the front of this thing and you get a blast of cold,
11 more, one for each month . I realised a little bit later
polar air from Norway to remind you that it should be –
during the process that Holland also has 12 provinces;
for one – much, much windier in February than it is, and
that was incredible. Had Holland had 8 provinces, what
the air should be much colder. And so you are designing
do you do? Or even worse, let’s say 13, what do you do?
a machine to have a specific function at that point, and
As soon as I realised that, that’s when it slowly started to
that is where all these formal characteristics come from.
come together. I never had a cohesive plan for the pro-
They become a little bit of a game of how do you capture
ject, where I wrote out what each place was going to be.
wind and how do you re-direct light, how do you store water, so it can rain all of a sudden on train passengers
Eva Sommeregger
– because it should be raining in November, but it is
It grew through the process of making it, that is beautiful.
actually drought outside. In that sense, the functions of them are very, very simple. There is just a re-direction of
Johan
what needs to be happening.
If I am honest about it, April is my least favourite one, I think it is the most boring. April is the last one I drew, and I was just completely out of ideas. I knew what I wanted to do from kind of a folly-standpoint. I just could not design it anymore. I needed it to look different from the others and I could not come up with the formal ideas anymore. It was kind of done. I think it is interesting that there is kind of a peak for me with the November one, November was maybe the third-last, and December was the second-last, and then there is a big cliff. Matthias How do you judge them? I find it interesting that, in a way, the follies are architectural projects conceived for one image only – and that is a completely different way of designing something than when you design a whole building, where you go through etc. It seems to open up judgement on the level of the image itself and on the level of the actual possibility of judging the design. Johan The trickiest thing was that each drawing was done individually, but I knew that, because they were months, they would sit in chronology to one another and so they had to sit beside one another as well. And then, from an architectural standpoint, I would say that they are formal, but not entirely spatial. If we look at November – the Haarlem train station –, or the Greenhouse, the 7
M a r c h
Matthias
what’. Two centimetres sound like absolutely nothing.
What I find interesting is that the pedagogical level
But if you are going into the Rotterdam harbour, and
seems to be on the level of the image, and then – as a
you just see that the water level in one little patch of the
question for later – how successful is it? But you have a
harbour is five centimetres lower than the others. First
second level, which I kind of realise now, through your
you might not even notice it, but then you might go:
narrative: there is a pedagogical level in the machines, or
‘hey, wait a second, that is really strange, what is going
in the follies themselves, and in their function. There is
on there?’ And then you come back five years later and it
no dimension of actually changing climate conditions,
is a little bit higher and a little bit higher – this is where
they are only pedagogical interventions.
you start realising that this is not just in the harbour, but this is everywhere.
Johan The thing is: can architecture solve climate change? No.
Eva Going back to what you were saying earlier, that you do
Matthias
not directly call them architectural interventions – I do
Probably not.
not quite agree, I think they are highly architectural. The small follies might not hold program in themselves, but they repair or animate processes that were part of that cultural landscape in the past. Johan They are highly architectural. But because there is no program, I am considering what the next set of drawings might be in the future. In that sense I would like to get inside the space, not of these machines per se, but of the next project. In this project you stay very much on the outside, and these are very much situated in the landscape as functioning machine-like objects with many architectural qualities, but without a conventional architectural program. That is how I always saw that project. Yes, they have all the other requirements for architecture that they are structural, they are material, they are situated, they are very much in the context of place, dealing with contemporary societal issues, like you would imagine other architectural projects to do. It was very important that they serve a didactic function and that they do that sometimes in a very subversive way, other times in a little bit of an ironic, humorous way: the fact that you now need machines to make ice, so that you can simply go skating on the canal, because global warming has prevented that from happening. Eva That is January, right? Johan That is January. You go to your grandparents’ house
Johan
and they always talk about how wonderful it was, back
The thing is: can architecture start to be used as a lens
when they were kids; that they could go out onto the
or as a foil by which people can understand all the
ice and skate... It really stemmed, too, from Dutch art,
differences that are happening in their natural and built
those winter landscapes, Breughel; those really capture
environment? Yes, absolutely. If we start understanding
the public’s imagination of the Dutch landscape. That
these as installations that physically start to showcase
landscape simply does not exist anymore. It does not
what is the difference of a sea level rise of ten centimetres.
exist anymore just simply because of development; it
I always think about it, when people say ‘the sea level
just does not exist because it never snows, it does not
is going to rise by two centimetres this year’ and go ‘so
freeze enough. These machines are done in etchings to 9
A p r i l
capture that Dutch technique of landscape etchings, but they also speak to the landscape to recapture or recreate these historic norms that allow people to function in the landscape in the same way that they did in centuries past. Eva I think there is something very powerful happening in your project, it blurs the way in which we imagine and picture space with the actual space. It blurs image with space. Maybe that is a bit of a Bartlett thing? We are all infected with this ‘virus’, I cannot take myself out of that either. I would say images are space. Johan I would agree with that. What gets picked up from the Bartlett, is the importance of a narrative. Which is funny, because I never saw myself as that person while I was there. There are other units that are far stronger on that front, like Jonathan Hill’s or CJ Lim’s. Unit 20 is not particularly a strong narrative unit. But somehow you get out of that school and out of that program and you realise that by default, it is there. Even if you are only a little bit of a Bartlett narrative student, you are still probably a little bit more of a narrative architect than you are if you maybe got to another school, like the Architectural Association or something like that. But I would also say that it was important to layer the drawings in that way of putting them in a specific place, in a specific month, with a specific weather condition
this time is very interesting, because it is projected – and
and a particular architectural intervention. It gives
because of that it skews that place anyways. I think it
multiple entry routes for people to see the work. So
turns it into a far more dynamic virtuality, so that people
sometimes, people like the drawings, but they do not
now can occupy it. So it does not really matter anymore,
like the architecture. Other people like the architecture,
that it is originally in ‘Groningen’. It is now ‘Groningen’
but they do not know the place. And other people look
projected over a ceiling and two walls and you can stand
at it and they go ‘oh wait, that is “Haarlem treinstation”,
in and under it. What is interesting about this current
that is where my aunt lives, that is cool.’ They just go
intervention is that it is no longer simply an image that
through the work, because there is a personal connection,
is flat on the wall that you look at, but it is now covering
because they recognise the location because either they
multiple surfaces, so you can stand in it. That now starts
have family there, or they live there themselves, or
to lessen the importance of the specific location and it
that’s where they work. In that way I think it captures
starts to make it more experiential. People can actually
a broader sense of the public’s imagination. If they
find the one that they can stand in.
were all totally made up, then it is harder to enter into the image. Because they are a recognisable spot people
Eva
gravitate more towards it: they want to see what was the
This leads to how our intervention of drawing it onto the
location that I picked for the province, in which they live.
wall actually furthers the project, or the ways in which you have conceived it. It really plays with the question
Matthias
of how the image or the imagination of a space informs
For an Austrian public it is slightly more difficult to read
and controls a specific space.
the locations. Last time we talked, you explained they are all very well known iconic places that are pictured.
Johan
So from the first moment on, one sees the difference
Yes. The original idea was that these were etchings, and
and the intervention.
as etchings they spoke to a historic way of representation that is not unique to the Netherlands, but it does define
Johan
a very important time in its cultural history. Now, as
This is where I actually think the way it is being presented
a projection... what is interesting is that you take the 11
M a y
drawings out of the Dutch context, and because of that,
another way of how to read into the project – from the
you are taking it out of the time that the images speak to.
dis-tortions that lead you to the theme of the whole series.
You are changing and updating both at the same time. If you think about the idea of projection, and the way that
Johan
they first developed perspective drawings and the way
What is interesting about it is that the distortions
Philibert de l’Orme, a French architect, came up with
are really done and developed by you, and so there is
these really complex geometries in the 16th century... It
maybe a different type of preciousness to the way that
was all done though projection. So we are updating it, we
the distortions happened. If I was doing it I might be a
can update it, because it is a digital image. It allows us
little bit too tentative, or too gentle with the distortions.
to do a number of really interesting things with it, and
Some of the images were really elongated, as they get
yet at the same rate, we are also doing still remarkably
cast along the ceiling. That is what is becoming quite
old-fashioned things with it, it is just not Dutch etching
exciting about it. It manages to take something, for
anymore, it is almost perspectival projection casting of
example, that has to do with wind, and really stretch it
it. There is still this strange link that drawings might
out, as if it is just being blown across the wall. It does
become almost anamorphic in certain locations and it
not matter anymore that it is about warm Spanish wind
still speaks to the same era, but to a completely different
being converted to cold Norwegian wind. What matters
type of thought.
is that it is the wind. Yes, it distorts, but it also makes it more physical. What I am hoping is, when we stand
Matthias
underneath these drawings and stand in them, that they
What I quite like in the distortions seems to be that, if
become almost more tangible and more spatial.
you place them in a context outside, in Vienna, the shift, or this distortion in the weather conditions is much
Eva
more difficult to read. So you have almost a kind of
That is a beautiful thought. The way we approached it
actualisation of the distortion in the image itself, which
was a lot about how it would look in the space, whether
is an underlying theme of the whole series. It becomes
we would align drawings at the bottom, and we were
visible in the images that get distorted. That becomes
thinking about the choreography of how people would move through the space, which one they would see first, etc., to create a spatial sequence. Johan What I think is very interesting is that by projecting landscape back on top of a three-dimensional surface, they do turn into an almost immersive landscape. Landscape etchings being projected onto surface to become landscape again, I think is exciting. Eva With people animating them, zigzagging through space. Johan And people scaling it. I think this is why these kind of collaborations are really important because everyone sees work a little bit differently. That is what I do think is really exciting about digital work - is the idea, because it is a mode that is so flexible, it allows for a far broader sweep of interpretation. If this was a painting on a canvas, there would be no other thing you could ever do with it. At that point you can only read that work in one way, and all the content has to come from within the image. But this is an image that can be reworked in multiple different ways, so the interpretation can change for different publics.
13
J u n e
Matthias
up with special rules to make it look like an Auto CAD
The interesting thing to me seems that it not only relates
drawing that tries to look like an etching.
to Dutch landscape etchings, in a kind of loose sense. I would much more say that it simulates the hand drawn
Eva
lines through these kind of polygons. If you did not do
And the thing is we cannot zoom in, we are working with
a simulation with it in this absurd precision, it would
the projection that is dependent on the HD resolution of
turn into something completely different. It seems that
the projector, which is 1920 pixels times 1080. One can see
in a way there is no interest from your side to do a direct
the pixel squares on the wall, and we are trying to figure
innovation in the technique of drawing, in what the
out where the lines are that you initially constructed. In
result is, and that is implied through the dimension of
areas of high density it becomes difficult.
simulating something, where you kind of simulate the hand drawing of a line – but the line is not a hand-
Johan
drawn line, it is a set of polygonal lines.
This jumps into my interest anyways of the digital line, and of the hybrid of digital drawing with analog making.
Johan
I think it is so incredible: it was a digital line drawn in
It took a long time to figure out what the best way was to draw this. The backgrounds are drawn on Auto CAD, all the follies are either modelled through Rhino, 3ds Max or Grasshopper, and they are brought into Rhino, and they are contoured – that is how you get that overlapping you would imagine to get through etching. We tried lines and all kinds of other things, but the problem was that when you export it into Illustrator, the lines sometimes corrupt. So the only thing that we could do was the poly line tool. The fragments, or the length of the line was solely dependent on how zoomed in we were in the drawing. If you look at let’s say May, and you look at those pine trees, all of those needles are made up with three or four tiny fragments of a line, that are half a millimetre in length, because when we were drawing that, we were so zoomed in, that those fragments felt like a big part of the computer screen. But when you zoomed out, they were minuscule.
And then when you look at the sky, the sky
sometimes is also only made up of three or four lines, but because it crosses the entire canvas of the sheet, those lines are centimetres long. There is a distinction; each line is made in the exactly same way, using one tool. So what we do not have with these types of etchings is that we do not have any pressure. All line weights are exactly the same. So to be able to get depth, it is not about pressing the stylus into the medium any harder, but you need a lot more lines closer together. That was a small change of technique. Yes, it is a simulation, it needed to look like an etching. Also, when I was drawing, I had to turn off snaps in Auto CAD, because I did not want lines or corners to match up perfectly, I wanted the lines
Auto CAD that then gets etched for the original set of
cross each other, and sometimes they did not meet up. I
drawings, and now is projected and is actually turned
consciously designed mistakes into the drawings so that
from the line into a pixel. The idea is oscillating between
they look more drawing-like.
these different modes of making, and because of that, you are now working with a completely different, but still
Matthias
computer-based virtuality: this is a raster image opposed
Our translation into the space is again a simulation,
to a vector line drawing. Because of the projector, you are
and again, has problems. We do not simply draw a line;
getting to see this actually as the lines being made up of
we draw a poly line with the ruler, so we need to come
a series of points, which are pixels as opposed to – a line. 15
J u l y
came to Carlton University and started teaching there – in some ways because of what I had at my disposal that I want to work again at how the computer can start to expand the breadth of architectural drawing, to look back at representation. Even though I do it myself, I do have a bit of scepticism about renderings and I see renders being more proto-photographic than being an extension of drawing. That is the other reason why I am interested in continuing with drawing and trying to figure out new drawing techniques for architecture.
Technology, I really see as this strange double-
edged sword. We have to start to use it, but particularly for this project, there is a very subversive comment on the technology here. To make ice on the canals to allow people to skate on them would use an enormous amount of energy. There is a larger question of what are we using our technology for? In this project, we are using the technology to maintain a type of identity, which is actually clearly on the way out. It is just not feasible, it is not viable, it is not sustainable. The question is ‘is this a good, responsible, intelligent way of using technology?’
We might find ourselves at a cusp of recognising
that with self-driving cars and all those type of things, there might be technology that might be able to make better decisions than we do. For a lot of people, that is a really scary thought. And yet at the same rate, we deal with the problems that we have to deal with: it is becoming increasingly obvious that the computer, and computation and technology are really able to, at times, Eva
affect very serious debates and change. It puts us into
..or as opposed to how it is defined in the program.
an existentialist crisis sometimes. But it is an important conversation to have. And I think that at the moment,
Johan
architecture is not really joining in that conversation.
..or how it is defined in the program. That is always
We are very good at building things. We are using the
interesting about doing this kind of work. It clarifies the
robots, 3D printers to do super-interesting projects, but
limitations of all of these different ways of working. The
from a societal standpoint, from a cultural standpoint,
fact that you have got a line to turn into pixels is that
which I really see as a foundation for architecture
you are working at the very limit of what these lines
and for its theory, and for how we see the world, I do
are able to do. For you they are actually starting to break
not know if we are joining that conversation as much
down into its constituent parts.
as maybe I feel that we should be. There is a bit of a subversive act, or thought, to the technology in this
Jerome Becker
project. It is doing things that, on the face of it, or what
I am still interested in how you would describe your
you would expect the Dutch maybe to want to reflect
general approach to technological innovation – this
their historical milieu, but at the same rate it is also
seems to be the main theme of your 12 drawings, not
going to be incredibly energy-intensive, it is going to be
only on the level of technique of how you draw it, but
fraught with all kinds of other environmental questions.
also within the image itself. Matthias Johan
But let’s say for Austria, or for Alpine and skiing regions.,
This is a larger reading of what computational
we have had artificial snow for probably at least 25 years,
architecture is now – this whole line of thinking has
making skiing possible. You have raised a lot of questions
shifted very quickly to fabrication, to making stuff, which
that are within that timeframe already. We have snow
I think is fundamentally important and very interesting
cannons, and no architectural snowing machines.
myself. But it is also something that I simply do not have the facilities to be able to explore. So I realised when I 17
A u g u s t
Eva
provinces... they actually use the residue from penicillin
It is the most normal thing to have in the landscape.
production [Biosol], left over from the factory, as a
If you compare the actual ratio between ski-resorts and
fertiliser, because the slopes are brown after the snow
the total area of the mountainous region, Austria has
is molten, because of people having skied there. So they
the largest sum of slopes within the Alps – compared to
put it there as a fertiliser, and then everything is green
Switzerland, Italy and France. Austria’s ski-resort land-
again. It is an invisible process.
scape is kept intact by all these snow machines, and by people preparing the snow each evening for the next day.
Johan What is so beautiful about these things is that this is
Johan
where you realise that truth is almost always stranger
The idea that you would look at the mountains right
than fiction.
now, I think it is so amazing, particularly in February and March, to see these rivers of snow tumbling down
Matthias
the mountains, which are the runs. Beside that, you just
I completely agree.
see the rock and the ground of the mountain, because everything else is molten. It is just cold enough to make
Johan
snow... you would see at that point almost the perfect
The Dutch are quite a conservative bunch, so they saw
map of the ski-resort, because it is just the path where
these drawings and said ‘well, aren’t you being a little
snow and ice is. In that sense, the commentary that is
bit silly here? It is kind of funny, it is subversive, there
made through the project is something that is playing
is humorous moments in it’, that is all really quite nice.
out everywhere, but in different ways. It is because
But then you hear stories like this and you go ‘man, I did
I am Dutch, so I understand those issues a little bit
not even get close to being far enough’. I do not know
better than I understand those in the Austrian context.
how you would even draw that. The idea of penicillin-
Because it was a Biennale in Rotterdam that I did the
by-products being used as fertilisers to make green grass
drawings for, all of those were more strategic decisions.
where invisible snow machines make snow... Who makes
It is something that is playing out in real terms and in
this stuff up? It is kind of wild.
real time everywhere. Matthias If we look closely at this example, there are a few interesting things. One, if we look at the development of snow cannons, they used to be super-massive. Now, within a timeframe of let’s say 20 years, they have become almost invisible. There is a tendency not to turn these things into architecture... Where is the representation of what makes it possible? So I would say that there are all these visible absurdities, like the artificial lakes that come with them... but the cannons, they are no cannons anymore. Eva They almost look like lighting. Johan It is those real instances where I think that technology does super-interesting things. By architecturalising it, by turning it into these follies, you make people aware of it. It starts to serve some form of a didactic function. By starting to hide it, by miniaturising it, it really starts to make the landscape work like ‘look, everything is normal here, we are perfectly fine.’ Eva Your project does not just visualise it, but uses architecture for it and makes the architecture itself visible. If we compare it to what happens in Tyrol, one of the Alpine 19
S e p t e m b e r
Matthias
but I get the impression – maybe it is just a bias of our
Bas Princen, I guess he is Dutch, is visualising a lot of
generation – that these stakes seem pretty high. So, what
these absurdities in his photographs.
is the follow-up-act?
Johan
Matthias
Sometimes
I
find
that
more
adjacent
fields
to
You
consider
using
the
drawing
technique
as
architecture are having more nuanced, sophisticated
disconnected from this specific relation to the Dutch
conversation about it. The problem I find myself in now
landscape? Because I think one of the most amazing
– I am quite happy with the commentary that these
things is the technique you kind of re-invented...
drawings delivered, they do spark really interesting conversations, and this was even asked a couple of years
Johan
ago – so what is now the follow-up-act? What can be that
So I do think that your comment earlier about the
next thing that you set up? It is not really that I feel that
simulation is the important one. It simulates kind of
architecture should be like a mercenary for hire, that
an etching technique that speaks to a historic way of
it takes the most topical thing and then does a couple
image production, which was really popularised in
of drawings on it and comments on it, and feels that it
the Netherlands of these landscape etchings. The big difference is that mine are vertical as opposed to the Dutch ones which were horizontal, and the idea that the Dutch ones are horizontal is that because they were more of a historic landscape, and these are vertical because they speak of the city. They speak of today’s present times. But beyond that, there has to be some form of intention – they are very different drawings than they were a couple of hundred years ago. They used different technology, they are done under different circumstances, they deal with different conditions. There is a disconnect there, but what we said earlier of it being a simulation is probably the closest to the way they can be characterised. Matthias I have the impression that architectural representation is in deep crisis. It has to do with what you were saying about being sceptical about renderings, an answer are this type of drawings that are called post-rendering drawings, which are done from the more analogue scene from Milan to London – these really naive collages. Then you have got hand-drawings. And then I think your drawing technique kind of stands out completely, doing something that I have never seen, which I thought was amazing. Johan At the moment I find this conversation about hand drawing and computer drawing so incredibly unhelpful for the profession. So you get this kind of old guard
somehow has contributed. But at the same rate I also
that feel that quality can only be found back in this...,
feel that architecture has a larger ethic responsibility
as if there is a one-to-one relationship that because
to take a look at the issues in the world. Because a lot
someone is good at hand-drawing, that somehow they
of these problems are so large and so complicated, they
are a good architect. And someone that works on the
cannot be solved by buildings alone, but we should at
computer is a draftsperson. It really gets under my skin.
least try that architecture at least illuminates it or makes
So what I try to do here too is that I put a little bit of
it visible by actualising a structure for it, so that people,
a marker down, to say: ‘You can draw in AutoCAD, and
as they go about their daily lives, there are moments
you can make really expressive, complex compositional
where they can become aware of what is at stake at
drawings,’ using software and programs that people
the moment. We have always had stakes in the world,
would otherwise consider to be used by other things. 21
O c t o b e r
To use Rhino, which is a 3D modelling program, as a drawing tool, starts to show how resilient, broad and sophisticated these programs are. You can use them what they are not intended for, it is perfectly fine. As far as the workflow was concerned, Rhino was never the problem. Bringing Rhino into AutoCAD was never the problem. Bringing AutoCAD to Illustrator was never the problem. I think representation is going through a rough patch at the moment. I find there is one camp that is really disingenuous by not accepting the fact that the computer is really here to stay. So I find that camp is like a torch flare for architectural representation, while I find that there are lots of other people doing super-interesting work, but they might be focused at other parts of architectural production. So I sometimes look at the drawings coming out of this, but they are simply diagrams, which are being used to facilitate fabrication. When you look at some of these images, they are actually incredible images. They should really be celebrated as architectural drawings. But because they are diagrams that speak to the G-code for the CNCmilling of a piece, we do not see them as architectural drawings. If you really think about it in the future, those are the new plans. They will become the new sections of stuff. There are now projects being made where you look at traditional orthographic drawing and it really makes no sense to cut a plan from this. It would not really help us to understand how this might be built, because it is so sophisticated, it is so topological, it breaks down in so
As a first initial step it is important that they remain as
many constituent parts – the only way you can do it is
recognisable drawings. For people that have worked in
to send it to a 3D printer or a robot. I think that drawing
Rhino and AutoCAD, it seems to be more surprising to
at the moment is expanding in a really big way, but we
them when they find out where it was made. It seems
just need to recognise that the ideas of orthographic and
to have some resonance with people that have worked
those things, they simply need to expand. The typical
with that program often. The next step is how we can
toolkit for architects using axo, perspective, plan-section-
further that even more.
elevation, needs to open up a lot more to starting to understand what 3D modelling can start to do, and how
Eva
we get other forms of drawing to inform architectural
I am just not so sure whether simulation is the right
practice.
word, because simulation points to similarity and to the
So these drawings do not do that, but they at
idea of re-presentation; whereas I think your drawings
least have a relationship with the computer that I am
are not re-presentations, they are presentations, they
hoping starts to break out of what I otherwise find a
also become things in themselves.
really unhelpful hand-drawing / computer-drawing , and computer-drawing is almost always rendering, kind
Johan
of debate.
Yes, that is true.
Matthias
Matthias
It steps in a space in between, maybe through this
But if they are only presentations, how do you explain the
dimension of simulation, which always relates to both.
relationship? Then, they would be a kind of invention. Yes, they are things by themselves ...
Johan
Eva
Exactly. Moving forward, if I am starting to think ‘What
They certainly relate to the history of etching, to the
is the next project’, I am trying the next project to explore
history of drawing, to the history of architectural
those ideas a little bit further. This was a first, initial step.
production and all kinds of technologies that we use, 23
N o v e m b e r
but representation does not really do it, for me. Or
Matthias
simulation. Simulating something means you try to get
On a level of technical language, it works – when you
as close as possible to something, to a known outcome,
were describing before how you technically do it. But it
like you simulate how people flee the building. I think
seems difficult to find a word that compresses what it
the drawings try to mimic something, and then do
does into one term.
something else with it. They rather subvert than simulate. Johan Johan
I see this work as a hybrid on many different levels.
I think the issue of subversion is an important one. But it
I am fine with it living in a space between that uses
also speaks to the architectural lexicon at the moment. It
3D modelling, drafting software and traditional image
is really based on a language that stems from the Beaux-
making techniques. It lives in a world of existing things
Arts and Modernism, so it is a hybrid language that really
that overlay functional machines. It lives in a world
was formulated in the 19th/20th century and we are now
of 16th/17th century Dutch history with contemporary
trying to do this new work and categorise it, using old
environmental
terms. Even the idea of simulation and simulacra, you
boundaries. It tries to be many things.
issues
and
so
it
stretches
those
know all of that, that all comes from theory that is now 40 years old, so we are trying to describe work that might
Eva
actually not be coherent or cohesive for it. How do we
What could actually be a follow-up-project? That is last
move around that without making up a whole bunch
question. What would you like to do next, after this project?
of stuff – what does that then do for us, then we start to talk in a language that even less people understand.
Johan
It is simply true. If someone were to say that it is just
For one, the next project has to get inside. It has to start to
a representation of ‘Haarlem treinstation’... I would
speak to space, and make space and try to see what kind
like to think that it is a little bit more, but I would not
of a space this might look like. These were line-drawings.
necessarily be able to figure out what that word is that
I have almost been very interested in a Kandinsky-like
gives me that little bit more.
thing, the point, the line and the plane. So I am actually starting to look at points. Because points are really interesting at the moment in computer-modelling, the idea that you can have pixels and voxels, and that we use points on topological surfaces for deformations and all of these types of things, to see if we can make points into design elements, into drawing elements in the same way as, let’s say, the Fauvists used them for colour or the Pointillists – to see, if you can turn that into an image element.
The theme is actually the one that is most
difficult. Again, what I said about these drawings, is that people can approach them from many different directions; because they live there, people are going to know that place; they like that activity; or they think the technique is interesting, or whatever; this now becomes the next question. What is the theme, what is this going to comment on? I have some initial ideas, but it is very much work in progress. The initial idea is how architectural photography represents architecture in the first place. There is only a limited set of activities that ever gets shown in architectural photos, a lot of pictures have people that are blurred, so they are kind of walking through the space, not really scale-figures, but they are figures of movement and action. If you go to architectural blogs, like Dezeen, Arch-Daily or Designboom, and let’s say you are looking at projects that are housing, rarely they will show the apartments furnished. Social housing units never really get inhabited, but single family homes do. But you never see family photos, 25
D e c e m b e r
you never see whether these families are religious, you
Eva
would never see iconography inside this all. The idea
You will get there, I am sure. And then we are going to
that architectural photography hides an enormous
have another exhibition, in 10 years time. In a big space.
amount of stuff, that these houses are staged, gets me inside a program, inside a space and it allows me to,
Matthias
again, have a commentary on something – where I now
400 square metres.
need to figure out the next technique of how that might be played out. That is slowly where I am going to head
Johan
towards. It has been frustrating that it has been taking as
That would be wonderful.
many years as it has, trying to figure out something else to do. When I first finished these drawings, I thought
Eva
‘Wow, I can do something like this every two years.’ And
It has been a great conversation, I have enjoyed it very
then you sit down and you think about it and realise I
much, thank you.
am not ready at all to do the next one. ‘Maybe next year.’ And then ‘Maybe next year.’ And then you go ‘Hey, this cannot be the only thing that I do. I really do have to do something else.’ Matthias In our first conversation, you talked about this immense work load in these drawings. The interesting thing is that what you are describing seems also connected with this, and it shows clearly that if you do a shift in the programs that everyone uses, and you do something which is not in this work flow, the amount of time is absurd. But it would be easily imaginable that you have some friends that script a tool of a technique that you find amazing – a plugin for Rhino. And you pop out images in a day, with this density of lines. Johan This is where these things are so interesting. I always roll my eyes on the hardship of the starving artist, that trope, yet at the same rate I do feel that if these drawings were immediately possible, someone would take a look at the work and go like ‘I know how they did that.’ To me, there would be something lost. So there is this wilful desire for difficulty. What is this about? Is this about the commentary, is this about the work, is this about being able to situate yourself within a larger architectural context? Or is there also a little bit, or quite a bit of ego involved? That it needs a certain type of virtuosity that someone goes ‘How was that done?’ Eva But it is also about how this subversive nature of the theme translates into a subversive nature of the actual making of the thing. Johan Exactly. So that there is a sort of alignment between the two things. That is another thing. Like many things, there is a little bit of ego involved that the next project needs to be able to meet those criteria, which unfortunately is harder than I thought it would be. 27
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