THE AESTHETICS OF REPRESENTATION
The Aesthetics of Representation Brice M Schiano
ARCH793a - Ryan Tyler Martinez University of Southern California G|School of Architecture | FA2021
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT 6 THESIS STATEMENT/ INTRODUCTION 8 WORD INDEX 10 PRECEDENTS/DIAGRAMS & RESEARCH 16 SELECTED PRECEDENT 70 THE ARCHITECT(s) 80 DOCUMENTATION 84 TRANSLATION: DRAWINGS, MODELS, & RENDERS 92 SITE / CONTEXT 100 REFERENCES 108
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
Brice M. Schiano is a designer in Los Angeles, California, and a current Master of Architecture student at the University of Southern California. Before USC, he studied Architecture and received a Bachelor of Design from the University of Florida, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He has helped design Architrave 25 & 26, an annual student publication featuring undergraduate student work from the University of Florida School of Architecture. In addition, he has also had several his works featured in Architrave 25, 26, & 28. During his time at the University of Florida he produced two short texts, Adding Value to our Physical Urban Spaces, and Satchels Pizza Playscape, that feature some of his research, work, and evaluation in Architecture and the built environment. He has participated in a number of design competitions, most notably his team finishing as finalists among over 150 submissions in CBDX: Cities for All an International Design Competition in 2020. His interest of study focuses on representational and visualization skills, to compose compelling narratives of spaces he has designed and interrogate how users interact and engage in them, as well as questioning the role of representation in current architectural practice.
THESIS STATEMENT/ INTRODUCTION
The Aesthetics of Representation Architecture has always relied heavily on representation to rationalize and describe its conceptual nature. However, in the ‘Digital Age’ of Architecture, with images/drawings/models being easier to create, while the geometries we produce become more complex and specific, our depictions have shifted towards that of a documentation rather than representation. And while these images are both compelling and attractive, the issue lies in the inadvertent ability to easily create images that misrepresent the project and create unethical descriptions that are more deceitful than telling. What architects create must be beautiful but also filled with meaning. This thesis seeks to propose Representation as Project. The way architects portray our work through drawings, images, models define and express the project. By investigating the current methodologies of various mediums in architectural representation and challenging their relationship within their process and meaning to the project, the practice, and the discipline. The goal is of a representation that is a translation of elements with the architects’ own interpretation for a meaningful and beautiful aesthetic; representation as technique rather than a result of them.
WORD INDEX
An un-exhaustive list of terms that are to be essential in the starting conversations of this thesis. Most of these terms have multiple meanings and understandings not only in architecture but in other disciplines; these definitions are to be used as basic formal descriptions and will be elaborated on throughout the thesis as well as be used to form a new vocabulary to further explain the concepts of the aesthetics of representation.
Ambiguous (adj.) open to more than a single interpretation; allowing for the subject to have multiple meanings or understandings, while even embracing the misreading of itself to be less easily understood. Communication (n.) the imparting or exchanging of information. The measurement in which something can be read and understood. Complex (adj.) consisting of many different components and compounded ideas, or having qualities containing both a real and imaginary parts.
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Conceptual (adj.) relating to or based on mental concepts.
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Conventional (adj.) based on or in accordance with what is generally done, accepted. Following a traditional form/ format. Didactic (adj.) providing detailed information in an unbiased or un-hierarchical manner. For clear description or understanding. Documentation (n.) material that provides official information that serves as record. The recording and archiving of a single (or set of) drawings, images, models, built objects. Drawing (n.) the art or technique of representing an object or outlining a figure, plan, or sketch by means of lines, textures, hatches, or other 2-dimensional methods. In this case, including both physical and digital methods and techniques.
Image (n.) is an artifact that depicts visual perception, such as a photograph or constructed two- dimensional picture, that suggests a subject/object and presents a interpretation/representation of it. Imaginary (adj.) existing only in the imagination. An object/ subject with a non-physical form. Fugazi.
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Indifference (adj.) the artistic expression of no expression; a social engine to produce discussion, reflection, thought, and even action, while allowing for the coexistence of an irresolvable diversity of ideas and identities. 1 Interpretation (n.) a stylistic representation of a creative work or object. In some cases, being of solely subjective qualities and allowing for multiple different or contrasting understandings of the same subject. Legibility (n.) the quality of being clear and easily understood. Model (n.) a physical representation of a structure; built to study aspects of an architectural design or to communicate design ideas. 1 1 Michael Meredith, Indifference, Again, LOG Winter 2017
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Neutral (adj.) an objective understanding without having strong characteristics or features of a particular interpretation. Poetic (adj.) conveying a specific idea or quality in an expressive manner. Prosaic (adj.) lacking poetic beauty, being unable to express or convey experience. Real (adj.) existing as a thing/object; not imagined or supposed. Render (n.) in current Architecture, it usually refers to the production and composition of images using techniques borrowed from the field of computer graphics; commonly to create realistic and sublime scenes or images.2
2 2 Andrew Atwood, Rendering Air: On Representation of Particles in the Sky, LOG Summer 2014
Representation (n.) the description or portrayal of something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature. In this case understood to encompass drawings, images, physical models, and built objects within their variety of techniques, as well as the documentation and presentation of those images. Symbolic (adj.) significant purely in terms of what is being represented or implied. Technique (n.) a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure. skill or ability in a particular field. Translation (n.) the conversion or transformation of something from one form or medium/representation into another; in most cases to emphasize or accentuate certain qualities or ideas of the subject.
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PRECEDENTS/ DIAGRAMS & RESEARCH
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In One and Three Chairs, Joseph Kosuth represents one chair three ways: as a manufactured chair, as a photograph, and as a copy of a dictionary entry for the word “chair.” The installation is thus composed of an object, an image, and words. Kosuth didn’t make the chair, take the photograph, or write the definition; he selected and assembled them together. But is this art? And which representation of the chair is most “accurate”? These open-ended questions are exactly what Kosuth wanted us to think about when he said that “art is making meaning.” We can form a similar examples of this idea in both the art and architecture disciplines. An example being the L’Arc de Triumpe in Paris. Chirsto & Jeanne Claude provide and assemble three alternative representations, of this project and turn an iconic landmark into something completely new and into an object of debate and even consternation, a platform for exploring new meanings.
L’Arc de Triumphe Wrapped installation 1.Designed by the late artists Christo & Jeanne- Claude, the installation sees the iconic Arch on the Champs-Elyees shrouded in 25,000 square meters of silvery, recyclable fabric, which is tied in place by 7,000 meters of red rope.
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L’Arc de Triumphe Wrapped, Christo & Jeanne Claude, Paris, 2021.
20 Ideas about good and bad painting are often uncertain because of the tendency to confuse representation for copying. While people tend to praise and admire life-like portraiture and accurate landscapes, generally everyone agrees the artist should not just copy what they see but translate and recreate with elements of the artists own interpretation.
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Piazza San Marco, 2020 Canaletto, The Square of Saint Mark’s, Venice, 1742/1744 Renoir, Piazza san Marco, 1881
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If this is true, why does the trend of contemporary architectural representation appear to be going away from the interpretive and artistic visualizations of the past? And towards the obvious and unambiguous renders of today?
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Snøhetta, 50 W 66th St, New York City
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3XN, 2 Finsbury Avenue at Broadgate, London
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Snøhetta, 50 W 66th St, New York City
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3XN, 2 Finsbury Avenue at Broadgate, London
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Say there’s a row of visually identical paintings hanging on a wall and they’re all square canvases painted the exact same shade of red. However, each of these paintings has a different backstory; one was designed as a close-up still life of an empty tablecloth, another is meant to represent the red sea after the Israelites had crossed, another is a Soviet political statement, and the last one that wasn’t intended as a finished work of art at all. It was just a canvas that had been primed red an anticipation of being painted. But because it looked like all the others it was hung up by mistake. So what’s the difference between these paintings? Can we judge one of them to be a better artwork than another, and if we can on what basis? American aesthetician Arthur Danto presented this thought exercise to prompt us to think about the ontology of artworks.
When you consider works that look identical, but you still manage to recognize differences between them, you’re almost forced to conclude that there’s some non-physical element that makes something worthy of being called art. But what is that thing? Is it something that exists in the minds of the artists or the audience or some historical facts about the works creation that makes the works different? Aesthetics falls into the broad category of value theory which also includes ethics but unlike ethics where many people think that there are absolute right and wrong answers like killing is wrong and helping people is good many people think that beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder.
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Can we judge one to be a better work than another? and if so on what basis? Thought Exercise Arthur Danto
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32 Don’t mistake legibility with communication. Meaning that although legibility and communication are related, they are very different. Legibility is how easily something can be read and understood whereas communication is the measurement in which something can be read and understood.
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Don’t Mistake Legibility for Communication, David Carson, 2013.
Constructed Reality
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Unknown, Andreas Gursky.
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Review, Andreas Gursky, 2015.
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Montparnasse, Andreas Gursky, 1993.
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We still produce the same types of drawings (plan, section, perspective) but with completely different pallets and goals. Does the realistic nature of the current renders really lend it self to helping Architecture advance as a profession? Is the digital hand the only way to truly represent the pragmatic nature of todays design aesthetic in Architecture?
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40 NEUTRAL COMPLEX IMAGE DRAWING CONCEPTUAL COMMUNICATION TRANSLATION REPRESENTATION LEGIBILITY INDIFFERENCE DOCUMENTATION CONVENTIONAL AMBIGUOUS ‘REAL’ IMAGINARY SYMBOLIC POETIC PROSAIC DIDACTIC INTERPRETATION ABSTRACT RENDER
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DIDACTIC
ABSTRACT
CONCEPTUAL Conceptual as a synthesis of the Didactic and Abstract
DIDACTIC
ABSTRACT
CONCEPTUAL Conceptual as distinct from the Didactic and Abstract
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CO M
PL EX
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CONCEPTUAL
DRAWING
COMMUNICATION
DIDACTIC
ABSTRACT
NEUTRAL
IMAGE
INTERPRETATION
PROSAIC
44 LEGIBILITY
CO
MP
LE
X
IMAGINARY
CONCEPTUAL
DOCUMENTATION
COMMUNICATION
DIDACTIC
AMBIGUOUS
DRAWING REPRESENTATION
INDIFFERENCE
POETIC
ABSTRACT
TRANSLATION NEUTRAL
INTERPRETATION
IMAGE CONVENTIONAL
SYMBOLIC PROSAIC ‘REAL’
CO MP LE X
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LEGIBILITY
IMAGINARY
CONCEPTUAL
DOCUMENTATION
COMMUNICATION
DIDACTIC
AMBIGUOUS
DRAWING REPRESENTATION
INDIFFERENCE
POETIC
ABSTRACT
TRANSLATION NEUTRAL
INTERPRETATION
IMAGE CONVENTIONAL
SYMBOLIC
‘REAL’
PROSAIC
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A diagram to be used as a tool to navigate and define new representational typologies within current the architectural discipline and practice.
CO
MP LE X
47 LEGIBILITY
IMAGINARY
CONCEPTUAL
DOCUMENTATION
COMMUNICATION
DIDACTIC
AMBIGUOUS
DRAWING REPRESENTATION
INDIFFERENCE
POETIC
ABSTRACT
TRANSLATION NEUTRAL
INTERPRETATION
IMAGE CONVENTIONAL
SYMBOLIC
‘REAL’
PROSAIC
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Drawing/Model is the Architecture
Cloud /kloud/ noun
1. a visible mass of condensed water vapor floating in the atmosphere, typically high above the ground.
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Blur Building, DS+R, 2000
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Nora House, Atelier Bow-Wow, 2006.
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Machine Shop Drawings for hot wire cutting.
Collectivity After Orthography New Masses for New Masses, Milliøns, 2014
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MAXXI Museum, Rome, Zaha Hadid,2010.
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Sketch MAXXI Museum Roma, Brice Schiano, Spring 2020
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House of the Woodland, WOJR ,2018 - on going
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New York Dolem at MoMA PS1, First Office, 2016.
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Various Models, Morphosis, 1991-2020
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Still Life, Jennifer Bonner, Harvard GSD, 2016.
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Jussieu Library, OMA, 1992
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Toulouse School of Economics, Grafton Architects,2009(19)
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Storefront for Art and Architecture, Steven Holl, 1993 Blueprint at Storefront for Art and Architecture, SO-IL, 2015
SELECTED PRECEDENT(s)
Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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Bulging Wall(s) Preliminary Research Office PROJECT DESCRIPTION
In this Bauhaus museum proposal, we firstly focus on the arrangement of independent architectural elements, including stairs, ramps, and rooms. These elements are unconventionally positioned along two exterior walls in a panoramic sequence, to emphasize their roles in the functioning of the museum. Each element bulges from its adjacent wall, distorting the wall’s appearance and blurring the separation between the interior and exterior of the building. From the exterior, these bulging walls cultivate a rich dialogue with the surrounding city and park. On the interior, the walls generate interesting experiences of circulation and spatial organization. The building serves as an urban interface, connecting to a city street on one side and a public park on the other. This engages with the surroundings by the manipulation - the stretching, pressing, opening up and pulling in - of the bulging objects in the wall. These distinct design gestures make the relationship between the bulging walls and the city variable and full of distinct moments of intimate interaction, with the intention of enhancing the static urban context by introducing diverse spatial experiences for people on both sides of the building.
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Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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On the interior of the building, the two, parallel, bulging walls influence spatial experience by directly engaging with exhibition space, introducing rhythmic variation to otherwise rectilinear spaces. Together, the bulging walls contain almost all of the non-exhibition space required for the functioning of the museum. The bulging walls extend vertically through both levels in the building and generate apertures from one level to the other, allowing for interesting visual connections between the two. Vertical circulation between the two levels is varied and flexible, allowing visitors to experience different exhibition sequences. These sequences can be understood as unconventional fictions which are composed of a regular depiction, interposed with narration and flashbacks, in order to present the history of Bauhaus in a distinct way.
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Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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THE ARCHITECT(s)
PRILIMENARY RESEARCH OFFICE P-R-O is an Los Angeles based Architecture firm led by Chloe Brunner, Dingliang Yang and Yaohua Wang. Preliminary Research Office has been making a name for itself as an emerging practice leveraging contemporary motifs, exceptional techniques, and unique design schemes to consistently push the boundaries of what a young office can do in today’s practice. The firm breaks down their work into Drawings and Models. The focus on these two modes of representation allows them to both concentrate on their skill of technique in the modeling of these complex forms and compounding figures, as well as understanding how to draw them in descriptive and conceptual fashions. The firm uses representation as process, which sees the project examined through different methods to interrogate different spatial qualities and understandings of design. This can happen through the form of animated sectional drawings, complex 3d models, layered figure ground drawings, or even highly stylized & realistic renders.
Notes on Geometry VI, Preliminary Research Office.
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Notes on Geometry I & IV, Preliminary Research Office.
DOCUMENTATION
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50m
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GROUND FLOOR PLAN
0m
N
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
10m
20m
30m
Ground Floor Plan
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
0m
N
N
10m
20m
30m
50m
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FIRST FLOOR PLAN N
0m
10m
20m
30m
50m
Upper Floor Plan
Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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EAST ELEVATION
WEST ELEVATION
Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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90 Site / Roof Plan
Bulging Wall(s), Preliminary Research Office, 2015.
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TRANSLATION: DRAWINGS, MODELS, & RENDERS
93 A HOUSE FOR AN ARTIST The precedent study has been taken, misread, and ‘translated’ to create new representation of a speculative project. The prospective program is a residence for an artist, an individual who creates images. The representation of these translated objects is focused on 3 different techniques: Drawings, Models, & Renders. With the goal of allowing the various technique of representation to define the project differently than the next. In short, creating One and 3 houses.
DRAWINGS
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GROUND FLOOR
UPPER FLOOR
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SPECULATIVE SITE PLAN
MODELS
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RENDERS
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SITE / CONTEXT(s)
101 CONTEXT(s) Due to the nature of this thesis surrounding various types of representation, it seems more appropriate to discuss the ‘project’ in terms of various contexts rather than a singular specific site. This thesis will define 3 different contexts to discuss each mode of representation relative to its own context. Paper Space, Model Space, & Physical Space.
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PAPER SPACE This context is defined in a 2-dimentional formatting and can allow representation to vary through the paper size, type, orientation, and drawing/image scale. Flatness is an integral component of paper space and is dependant upon graphics, lines, tones, textures, ect. Paper space is the most conventional way we interact with representation, whether it be a drawing on a wall, images on a screen, scanned images, renders in a book spread, documentation of models & buildings.
MODEL SPACE The context of Model space is a physical representation of an object, and can express aspects of an architectural design that cannot be shown in the restricted 2D of paper space. Model’s take on physical materials to represent aspects of the project rather than rely on graphics. Due to the physical characteristics of certain materials the project can inherit specific qualities from the chosen materials, such as grain of the wood, properties of paper, the color of the printing filament, ect.
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PHYSICAL SPACE Referring to the Representation of ‘Physical Space,’ is that of ‘real world’ context; a site that exists in the world and is defined by real dimensions and in locked into 1:1 Scale. Representation at this scale and context takes on a different purpose and set of characteristics. These can come in the form as physical elements such as installations/ mock-ups, graphics like a scaffolding screen, or most commonly the Render. Typically any representation at this level has been refined to a High-fidelity and loses much of its previous abstract or ambiguous state (if it had any to begin with).
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We understand the creation of representation as the result of using various techniques ( line, wash, tone, collage, Photoshop, photograph, model, ect.) to create images that are of Architectural significance, subsequently to the design and process. This thesis hopes to instill the concept of Representation as Technique. Understanding representation as an active tool itself to explore and create architecture, rather than being left to a passive documentation of it.
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REFERENCES
TEXTS Allen, Mathew, Screenshot Aesthetic (MOS: Selected Works), 2015. American Institute of Architects, editor. The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice. 15th ed., Wiley, 2014. Atwood, Andrew, Not Interesting: On the Limits of Criticism in Architecture, 2018. Atwood, Andrew, & Fisher, Morgan, Rewriting Abstraction and Abstraction, 2015-16. Danto, Arthur, Transfiguration of the Commonplace, 1981. Dewey, John, Art as Experience, 1934. Harman, Graham, Art + Objects, 2019. Harwood, John & May, John, If We Wake Up to Find We have Been Too Well-Trained, 2017. Hyde, Timothy, Low Fidelity (El Croquis 184), 2016. Krauss, Rosalind, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, 1979. Loos, Adolf, Ornament and Crime, 1908. May, John, Everything is Already an Image (Log 40), 2017. Meredith, Michael, Indifference, Again (Log), 2017. Meredith, Michael, Towards a Body of Work (Log), 2015. Scott Brown, Denise & Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966. SO-IL, New Sobriety, 2002. Thenhaus, Clark, Unresolved Legibility in Residential Types, 2019
DIGITAL MEDIA Grant, James,Oxford University, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art lectures, 2020. Harvard GSD, GSD Talks: “Emerging Issues in Architectural Representation,” Jennifer Bonner & Zeina Koreitem, 2017.
PROJECTS / IMAGES 3XN, 2 Finsbury Avenue at Broadgate, London, 2018. Atelier Bow-Wow, Nora House, 2006. Bonner, Jennifer, Still Life, GSD, 2016. Canaletto, The Square of Saint Mark’s, Venice, 1742/1744. Carson, David, Don’t Mistake Legibility for Communication. 2013. Christo, and Jeanne-Claude, L’Arc de Triumphe Wrapped, Paris, 2021. DS+R, Blur Building, 2000. DS+R, Slow House, 1990. First Office, New York Dolem at MoMA PS1, 2016. Gurksy, Andreas, Montparnasse, 1993. Gursky, Andreas, Review, 2015. Gursky, Andreas, Unknown. Hadid, Zaha, Maxxi Museum painting. 2010. Holl, Steven, Storefront for Art and Architecture, 1993.
Milliøns, Collectivity After Orthography New Masses for New Masses 2014. Morphosis, Models, 1991-2020. MOS, Winters Studio, 2007. NADAAA, Rock Creek House, 2015. OMA, Jussieu Library, 1992. Preliminary Research Office, Bulging Wall(s), 2015. Preliminary Research Office, Qingdao Aquarium, 2016. Preliminary Research Office, Notes on Geometry I-VI, 2016. Renoir, Piazza San Marco, 1881. Snøhetta, 50 W 66th St, New York City, 2017. SO-IL, Blueprint at Storefront for Art and Architetcure, 2015. SO-IL, Shrem and Manetti Museum of Art, 2016. Toulouse School of Economics, Grafton Architects,2009(19). WOJR, House of the Woodland, 2018(21).
University of Southern California | School of Architecture
