AAD Portfolio by Corbin Keech

Corbin Gillen Keech

Exhibition of works + projects

This catalogue is designed to serve as a guide through a fictional exhibition displaying each project generated over the past year in the AAD program. The ambition is to give these architectural works and theoretical speculations a form as well as a definitive spatial context. All thirteen tasks have been included, regardless of scale or strain, in an effort to fully illustrate the discovery and subsequent evolution of my architectural sensibilities and impulses over duration of the AAD program. While each task was bound bound by its own specific requirements, in every case the conceptual subtext remained anchored to a fascination with the enigmatic and often irrational dimensions of the space that exists between things, the problem of the envelope, and the identification of specific boundaries. My argument remains that architecture is the choreography of spatial effects. But if architecture is spatial then it must have limits. In other words, a critique of architectural space demands an equally rigorous examination of the forces that contain it. Architectural space cannot be fully understood without examining its face. Furthermore, the material qualities of these limits are no more important than the immaterial parameters and limitations through which architecture is bound, which is to say zoning regulations are no less fascinating than gravity itself. A necessary byproduct of this attitude is the acceptance that the mastery of the devices that mediate space, light and form is an impossibly unproductive and futile task. However, by recognizing the fundamental limits of these ambitions one can more intelligently define their urban and architectural objectives. Conceptually, this exhibition invites the outsider to physically penetrate its walls, and to become a participant in the critique of my own work as well as the architectural, urban and theoretical discourse through the which the work refers and responds.

{ path }

{ zones }

{ boards }

Corbin Keech / AAD

Summer 2010 6

1. Advanced Studio

Title : Damage Control Project : Salvage Art Institute Site : Staten Island, New York Critic: Mark Wasiuta

2. Digital Craft

Instructors : Josh Uhl, David Fano Case study : Utrect University Library by Wiel Arets

3. Arguments

Instructor : Urtzi Grau Essay topic : Variables and Negotiation

4. Metropolis

Instructor : Enrique Walker TA : Diana Martinez Essay topic : A New Modernist Sensibility

Corbin Keech / AAD

Salvage Art Institute Critic : Mark Wasiuta Site : Staten Island, New York The conceptual terrain for this studio was damage and damage control. This entailed several exercises in which we closely examined the social, institutional, economic and governmental mechanisms through which value is measured and determined. Through these investigations we developed a comprehensive vocabulary relating to value and damage, which served as a conceptual foundation for the design of The Salvage Art Institute. The SAI is the first space devoted to collection and indexing of art removed from circulation within the art market due to accidental damage. While an architectural solution was the ultimate design objective, the intellectual conceit of the project was to create a platform where a discussion could be staged regarding the fundamental nature and value of art and architecture. Architecturally, the objective of the Salvage Art Institute is to rethink the methods by which the identity and value of artwork is created and displayed, as well as the role of distance in the constitution of these invisible properties.

Taxonomies of display

Screen captures from digital film

Corbin Keech / AAD

9 2

Conceptual Basis : Research

My initial research was focused primarily on the disturbing practice of value assessment employed by the United States Department of Justice in the investigation of bomb and crime scenes. What emerged was an interest in exploring the language of forensic investigations, and the highly formulaic procedures utilized by these institutions, and their importance in the process of recreating an event or scene prior to its destruction or disfigurement could be applied to the display of a damaged piece of art.

Narrowing the research to forensic studies was pivotal in the decision to limit the collection of the SAI simply to fragmented or broken pieces of artwork. As a singular object becomes fragmented, its applied value as well as its identity is forever transformed. With this destruction brings new opportunities for the reconstitution (or suspension) of value and identity. Furthermore, fragmented objects are transformed in a manner that allowed for a new spatial language to emerge; their physical ruins for new opportunities of display, organization, and formation of a new identity. Corbin Keech / AAD

Conceptual Basis : Application

Three Studies for a Crucifixion, #1 of 3 Francis Bacon

1. The solid volume

2. The volume is broken into nine smaller spaces which now capable of being occupied, punctured, or entered.

3. The solid components are transformed into planes, thus allowing for additional points of entry

Corbin Keech / AAD

Fragmentation of the Subjects

Step 01 _ Artwork intact

Step 02 _ Fragmentation

The following were chosen for their diversity in scale, material variation, as well as general familiarity : 1. Rumi, by Mark Di Suvero 2. Shuttlecocks, by Claes Olderberg 3. Three Bowls, by Ursula Von Rydingsvard 4. Paimo Chair, by Alvar Aalto 5. Watering Can, by Christopher Dresser 6, 7. Three Studies for a Crucifixion, #3 & 2, by Francis Bacon

These initial pieces are assumed to have been damaged. The second step simulates the fragmentation of these seven pieces. The artwork has been disfigured - physically transformed into a series of smaller fragments that no longer resemble their previous state. More importantly, they are liberated from the limits of their previous identity. Once the objects are broken, the space between these fragments is capable of being activated by program and human activity.

Step 03 _ Categorization

Step 04 _ New spatial properties established

While these objects are physically stable and exhibit the same material properties, they are nevertheless stripped of their externally-provided monetary value and desirability. This condition generates an opportunity for these objects to operate on their own terms. In other words, the stage has been set for the fragments to operate with autonomy and claim a new identity.

The distance between the fragments is now completely adjustable. An external operation is necessary to make their organization parametrically organized.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Fragmentation of the Subjects

Step 05 _ Inventory

Step 06 _ Assignments applied

Before the fragments can be reorganized, the SAI must take inventory of their physical properties. This objective is fulfilled through a series of external operations, the first of which is to classify the objects by their volume. It is assumed that additional modes of classification will be introduced as the collection of the SAI grows.

The fragments are given a new label. Once the fragments have been identified and their volume tabulated, they are distributed evenly in the nine galleries. These rooms serve the dual purpose of display and archive.

Step 07 _ Fragments placed in proper locations The fragments are now assigned their respective locations with the nine galleries. This display tactic is rooted in an attempt to fulfill the stated secondary challenge of the SAI; display the fragments in a manner that suspends their zero-value. In other words, by presenting the fragments not as objects of desire but rather as scientific specimens, they potentially renounce their prior identity and monetary value.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Operational System / Tactics of Display

Laboratories

The first component of the display system is the continually evolving density of the objects. Additions to the collection are entered into the system, their volume and material properties are documented, and they are inserted into the appropriate gallery. Upon the insertion of new damaged pieces, the arrangement of the existing fragments will trigger a re-configuration of the adjacent fragments. Furthermore, as new investigative technologies are incorporated into the laboratory, this will expand the need to keep the displayed fragments in a constant state of alteration - display to lab to display and back again. In addition to examining the material character and volume of the objects in the labs and adjusting their placement upon the addition or subtraction of objects, the display itself attempts to exhibit the weight and decay of the objects. These operations form a system of symbolic re-calibration. By evaluating the material quality of the damaged pieces as well as their slow decay, the distance between the fragments is in a constant state of change. The cumulative effect is a cooperative relationship between the architecture and the artwork; the building and the fragments themselves age and decay with each other, forming an agreement to damage and be damaged.

Entry

analysis

distribution

artwork moved to staging room lab 01 steel aluminum copper bronze

lab 02 wood

lab 03 paper canvas parchment

lab 04 glass ceramic plastic

lab 05 digital media

lab 06 storage miscellaneous

heavy items hoisted and moved with suspended travelling crane.

mechanical lift

lighter items moved with carts or by hand. movable cart has hydraulic lift, for greater mobility and use in the galleries below

distribution room to the lab:

from the lab:

artwork fed back into the labratory system for further study and examination. this is due to more pieces added to the collection or the need or desire to challenge the current placement of a piece(s) that is displayed. documentation of new conditions, physical properties of artwork

artwork held in suspended state of analysis until correct location is determined

mechanical lift

initial categorization of damaged artwork, based on basic material properies.

mechanical lift

floor 01 / labratories

inventory / gathering

gallery 01 2’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 02 4’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 03 6’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 04 8’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 05 10’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 06 12’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 07 14’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

gallery 08 16’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

fragments are displayed and observed in the galleries

gallery 09 18’−0” W x 110’−0” L x 34’−7” H

floor 00 / display

arrival of artwork arrival of employees arrival of guests

conditions change: a. new damaged artwork is added to or removed from the collection of the SAI b. new technologies of forensic or scientific examination emerge, fragments from gallery are placed back into the analysis cycle and examined at the appropriate lab

new fragments, or re−examined fragments are inserted into the appropriate gallery

Corbin Keech / AAD

Formal Resolution

The basic organization of the SAI is one of two halves: the laboratories and the display galleries, or accessible archive. In an effort to rethink the interaction with these two programmatic components, the labs, rather than being submerged and visually inaccessible, are literally elevated above the archive. This formal gesture further questions the process of value assessment employed by the art industry. The architecture itself is completely self-conscious of its role in the suspension and acquisition of value. Does user access affect the value of the damaged art? Does the display itself affect this assumed value? By viewing the investigative process, does the visitor in any way suggest the damaged artwork is delivering a different message?

Final physical model

Corbin Keech / AAD

Formal Resolution

While the system of display and organization is crucial to the identity of the SAI, the translation of the institution in a physical piece of architecture required the simultaneous development of physical and digital models. These two modes of representation provided a level of feedback regarding the relationship between the two programmatic components of the SAI; the display/archive below and the labs above.

Exploded Axonometric of Structure 2’ x 1’-6” Exterior framing 2’ x 1’-6” Truss system Glass enclosure with fittings attached to underside of structure

2’ x 1’-6” Exterior framing 2’ x 1’-6” Interior framing with splayed columns extending to ground Laboratories Glass enclosure First level slab First level elevator for entry 2’ x 1’-6” Structural system within floor

12” Concrete walls, creating the cavities or archive that enclose the fragmented artwork

Steel shroud penetrating the display cavities, forming the circulation spine that connects each gallery/archive Corbin Keech / AAD

Transverse Section Ground floor plan

Corbin Keech / AAD

The Evolution of the Fragment The fragments are allowed to sag, thus providing a new technique of categorization. Further, the viewer gains an understanding of the components lightness, thus illuminating an otherwise misunderstood or invisible physical property While the initial placement was based upon a system of categorization by size, this new component reveals a new set of properties otherwise unknown if the fragment were conventionally displayed, in addition to its material properties, degree of damage, and so forth. above all, this technique is intended to reveal a new component to the artwork that will evolve as the piece is punctured and moved from the labs to the galleries and back again.

Board-formed concrete wall Carbon fiber cord, connecting the artwork to the wall Male fixed hoist ring, with heavy duty lifting eye has a short, largediameter thread, making it ideal for hoisting heavy artwork

double articulation allows it to line up perfectly with carbon fiber sling. the devices allows for two ways of tightening; either by open-ended spanner or by allen key carries loads by itself between .3 tons and 6.3 tons

Building section through galleries

Swivel lift rings are drilled into the walls of the SAI and host rings are drilled into the fragments themselves, and are connected by a high-tension carbon fiber cord to ensure the secure positioning of the fragment. Level 01

This repetitive physical intervetion that is projected onto both the SAI and the fragments themselves secures a new relationship between the two components; they are literally bound to one another, with the assumption that this connection will be eventually broken and restrung.

Level 02

Level 03

Level 04

Level 05

Level 06

Level 07

Typical Gallery, showing pockmarked walls after several classification cycles Level 08

Through the display of the fragmented artwork The SAI has an opportunity to record the damage of the fragments as they arrived and witness their continual decay. Level 09

Level 10

As more artwork is added to the catalogue of the SAI the artwork that is currently displayed must be re-examined and eventually redistributed within the galleries of the SAI. Because the fragments are physically damaged and have been stripped of their original value and identity, the SAI will work within these parameters and continue to aid in the decay of the fragment by physically anchoring the fragment to the concrete walls of the gallery. Corbin Keech / AAD

First floor plan

28 Longitudinal Section

Corbin Keech / AAD

Digital Craft Instructors : Josh Uhl, David Fano Case study : Utrecht University Library by Wiel Arets “As a building, the library prefers not to be invisible. In fact it needs to be a distinct presence on the campus. A symbol for the function of the library in all its aspects. The UBU is a living library. And as a living library it has many faces. Some of these faces can only be understood from a historical background. Some can only be appreciated within their environment. Others are somewhat futuristic.” _ Bas Savenije, Director of the Library Wiel Arets’ library accomplishes the task of creating both enclosure and visual permeability through the variation of a single surface. Just as the contemporary library contents both fragile parchment and invisible datasets, the facade alternates between two poles; precast concrete panels and fritted glass screens, fixed and swiveling panels, light and dark. In effect the membrane of the building becomes a multifunctional spatial device, enclosing its users in a unique inner world while simultaneously linking its users to its extremities. These effects are made possible by subtle changing to the conceptual thickness of the facade.

Digital model of full wall section Corbin Keech / AAD

Digital Representation

Physical Representation

The surface of the building - walls and panes - is covered by a copy-and-paste of a plant-like pattern called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Willow.â&#x20AC;? Conceptually, the books circulate within this organism as a result of controlled interior network.

Physical model of cast-in-place concrete panel, laser cut, spray paint

Corbin Keech / AAD

Historically speaking the pavilion has been used as a tool of national propaganda, a showcase of technological prowess, and innumerable combinations of two. An early example that fully exemplified this idea was Konstantin Melnikov’s Soviet Pavilion for L’Exposition internationale des arts decoratifs, held in Paris during the summer of 1925.10 The selection of this pavilion as a representation of Soviet Russia’s cultural and social values did not occur by mistake. From the outset, the Soviet cultural and trade authorities identified the Paris exposition as an opportunity to showcase their culture and emerging social state.11 In contemporary political terms, their aim was to control a message, and to redefine their national identity in front of the world. Melnikov’s pavilion was arguably a performance piece, and a stage with which Russia placed its faith and trust in the message contained within the structure.

Arguments Instructor : Urtzi Grau Essay : Variables and Negotiation: The pavilion as a tool for expanding disciplinary boundaries In Robert Musil’s novel The Man Without Qualities, the main character declares, “After all, each thing exists only by virtue of its limits, in other words, by virtue of a more or less hostile act against its environment.” Similarly at odds with the external forces that both feed and stifle its ambitions and creative desires, the field of architecture knows its boundaries and their constraints, and is therefore in a perpetual state of redefinition. Because the pavilion is a temporal structure it liberates the architect of the conventional constraints of the architectural discipline. It invites invention, optimism, cultural ambition and national pride, just a few examples of the intangible qualities that are often easily eschewed in favor of a properlyexecuted and permanent buildings. The pavilion is typically built with a smaller budget, thus applying a constraint that forces the architect to focus squarely on a singular idea, thus creating a setting ripe for a clear conceptual declaration. The cumulative effect is a stage with which architects can stage a precise disciplinary argument. To withdraw from this opportunity to gain authorship would be a policy inimical to the discipline itself. As a built experiment, the pavilion must be used as a persuasive tool in the perpetual battle for expanding the limits of the architectural discipline.

Russia felt extraordinarily high pressure to display themselves as a powerful and competent international force, as well as to dispel the false notion that it is nothing more than barren landscape haunted by wild men and peasants. This pressure was further accentuated by the idea that Paris was the host city for the exposition. As S. Frederick Starr suggested, “...unlike the others, this one was to be held in Paris, for a century and a half the Mecca for cultivated Russians, whether princely balletomanes or pamphleteering Bolsheviks.” 12 While the cultural and economic implications of the project were important, the primary goal was to make a bold architectural statement that would impress the West. Because the exhibition would be a showcase for contemporary European architecture, some participants adjusted their design approach in anticipation of an especially dynamic, competitive exhibition. Russian competitors such as Valdimir Shchuko - an avid defender of Renaissance values - renounced said ideologies and embraced new ideas typically considered unfamiliar or more avant garde.12 In plan, pavilion was rhomboidal, but with two stairs that dramatically slice from corner to corner, the structure is divided into two acute angles. “By this simple device, the rhombus The is denied the slightest Advertisement chance of settling into a stable - Pavilion, and hence1925 nonSoviet Revolutionary - form, and the exhibition hall is given Konstantin Melnikov the dynamism that it had heretofore lacked (in previous versions).” 11 The structure immediately became a banner for a reinvented Soviet identity, and one that aggressively sought to establish a new relationship with the world, accomplished through of the pavilion itself. Mirror

The Pavilion occupies the undefinable place between art and architecture. That is to say, it represents the boundary or intersection between art and architecture, and therefore serves as a conceptually ductile mediator between the two. But can the pavilion do more than

abstractly unite these two fields? Perhaps the pavilion can offer something in return - a reward that can benefit the two fields and those who care so deeply about their respective definitions. Rather than avoiding the pavilion because of its constraints and limitations, some designers have maneuvered these conditions to their advantage, using the pavilion as the very platform for which they stage their disciplinary arguments. Dan Graham, while not an architect, operates within the liminal space between art and architecture, and has benefitted from its this ambiguous location. Beatriz Colomina’s description of Graham’s exhibition Alteration to a Suburban House touches on this idea. She suggests that Graham’s work could be described as “media-architecture ... it is not simply that he deals with architectural subjects ... or that he uses the media traditionally deployed by the architect, but that he understands the building itself as a medium.” 4 In other words, the structure itself is an extension of the architect; their language in a built form. The pavilion can then be understood as device that can communicates messages both conceptually and materially. Alteration was an experiment concerned with exposure and reflection. The removal of the facade of a typical suburban house and replacing it with transparent glass “makes visible the optical structure of suburban life.” 4 Numerous tricks are employed vis-a-vis the mirror and transparent glass. For example, the mirror, which aggressively divides the house in half lengthwise, doubles the space as it exposes itself to the street. The bedrooms and bathrooms, which are hidden behind the mirror, are still obscured from one side but are now occupied by the public areas of the house as well as the outdoors. “The mirror both cuts the house in half and, at the same time, restores it to completion.” This is just one of the many optic gestures that Graham employs that provoke the viewing public and invites them to reflect upon their own preconceptions of the suburban subject. Alteration is a notable piece because it stages a sharp critique of a particular lifestyle through a highly legible typology - the suburban home. What’s more, the exhibition simultaneously questions the seemingly legible and culturally resolved qualities of the subject in question. Alteration asks “Is this actually legible?” The obviousness of slicing open a house is immediately forgotten once the subject considers what the slice has defiantly revealed. While Graham’s commentary is both provocative and insightful, Alteration is most interesting because of its ability to serve as a precedent for the architect, for it contains a highly critical message that is only understood through the distortion of the architecture. Similar to the pavilion these maneuvers took place within a set of constrictive boundaries that forced Graham to invent a new technique for expanding the

artistic field and the vocabulary of the discipline. Inventory, Response, and Subversion

SANAA’s 2008 installation within the pavilion comes to mind, in that Sejima and Nishizawa were able to pay their respects to Mies while clearly separating themselves from him. The acrylic curve subtly upstages the pavilion in its performance as a more lightweight, more transparent, and yet still more constrictive form than the pavilion. 11 This installation effectively condenses SANAA and their approach into one simple gesture, reinforcing the notion that a pavilion can properly exhibit one’s architectural and ideological sensibilities.

The limitations inherent to the architectural pavilion foster a level of creativity, invention, and risk typically unseen in the realm of conventionally built or servicebased architecture. The temporal nature of the pavilion forces the architect to highlight a specific idea with which they consider to be important or worth of exploration. The absence of variables related to budget, mechanical constraints and programmatic needs have all resulted in a unique typology that remains broadly influential If SANAA reconsidered the Barcelona Pavilion’s formal and relevant despite continually shifting historical, qualities, can its name be critiqued, too? Indeed the social, institutional, and geopolitical contexts. The Blur Barcelona Pavilion maintains its mystique as a cultural Building designed for the Swiss Expo 2002 by Diller + and disciplinary landmark, however its reconstruction Scofidio is an example of a pavilion that had to manage calls into question its title. In other words, can a these constraints simultaneously. As a temporary reconstructed pavilion legitimately claim to be a structure liberated from programmatic constraints, it pavilion? Interestingly enough, by acknowledging the was given the opportunity to respond to past exhibitions fact that there is an agreement to continue to refer to the The Mirror by actively subverting the conceptual aim of the ethos of Barcelona Pavilion as a pavilion, this again reinforces Alteration to look a Suburban House, 1992credibility of the project. Despite this the generic world expo: What does the future like? the indelible by Dan Graham contradiction, it still assumes a protagonistic role in The Blur Building was visionary in its effort to shift sustaining the disciplinary shift it initiated (or to be our focus from the novelty of the future to the lucidity more precise, the shift Philip Johnson initiated, given of the present. Because past expositions recycled a the general confusion as to what Mies’ had actually perverse obsession with the future and its implications designed when it was first completed in 1929).5 Because for society, technology, and the inter-related design the Barcelona Pavilion continues to triggers discussion, disciplines, the architects decided to question these it maintains its role as a polemical device and serves as impulses, and in doing so they expanded the boundaries the stage for the arguments for different architects. of the discipline itself. What’s more, the pavilion helped to continue an ongoing discussion about architectural Does presence equate to relevancy? space and the events that occur within it. It proposed an old question in a contemporary manner - what if So what happens when a pavilion is critically acclaimed architects created nothing at all? What role does the despite its inability to articulate a clear message or architect play in the everyday experience of space? Or advance the field in any way? The Serpentine Pavilion more precisely, what if architects simply organized and in London is an example of an experiment that has choreographed spacial and non-spatial experiences? 7 fallen short of expanding the boundaries of the architectural discipline. Indeed, the annual exhibition What further distinguished the Blur pavilion was its typically receives positive feedback from reviewers paradoxically clear expression; the construction of and participants alike, but for what exactly are they nothing. As the architecture reorients the subject above being praised? The architect that is selected typically the water and the fog further disorients and confuses the has nothing left to prove - the project is merely an subject, other senses are heightened, thus relocating the advertisement for themselves and the Serpentine attention of the subject squarely in the present moment. Gallery. The foundation selects an internationally Furthermore, once the subject can no longer rely upon recognized architect, several of which have already vision as an positioning instrument the subject is forced received the Pritzker Prize honoring their built to mobilize other sensory mechanisms - sound, smell, achievements. Essentially, the architects are often and touch - to regain their composure and location selected because they are the accepted “taste-makers” relative to their surroundings. For these reasons the in the architectural discipline, and have been selected Blur pavilion is a terrific example of an architect using based on what they have done, not by their potential to it a device to stage an argument, and one that embraces shape the future of the discipline. the constraints offered by its very specific program and So why is this an accepted practice, and what have these budget in order to attack and redefine the limits 1 of the pavilions offered that is truly revolutionary? Toyo Ito’s The Response architectural discipline. 2002 Pavilion notwithstanding, given its innovative Blur Building, 2002 creation of an envelope that economically functions as by Diller + Scofidio To return to a relevant historical example, Mies’ both structure and enclosure, all other projects chose Barcelona Pavilion continues to perform as a polemical indulgence over provocation.2 At best, several of these apparatus through which contemporary architects projects adhered to an aesthetic theory, at worst they can reflect upon their own values and display them. are simply indulgent and self-referential. The Snøhetta

and Olafur Eliasson collaboration in 2007 resulted in a self-proclaimed ‘laboratory’ for a exclusive set of architects, artists and academics, and is based on the principle of a winding ramp in one room. This year’s exhibition designed by French architect Jean Nouvel elected to distinguish itself from the largely natural and green landscape that surrounded the site by coloring every surface of the pavilion red. To suggest that these projects are missed opportunities is an understatement.

both invent and subvert accepted methods of discourse. In other words, by challenging social, political, artistic, and architectural mores, the pavilion has aided the progress of our cultural and professional vocabulary. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Pavilions, a collaboration between German artist Olafur Eliasson and British architect David Adjaye, is perhaps the most relevant example of the pavilion utilized as a disciplinary tool, for two reasons. First, the project was recently manifest and is therefore more easily relatable and legible. Secondly and more importantly, this project could accurately be described as a prototype for how related professions can exchange information. Stated differently, the way in which the project was organized, curated and physically constructed is relevant in our ongoing struggle to define the vague trajectory of the two fields.

Ironically, the architectural gestures utilized by the most recognizable names in architecture are small, without risk, and devoid of any consequence. The distinction between the context and the structure is skin-deep - nothing is gained nor lost. These projects offer no attempt to serve any needs outside of themselves, and they fail to generate any credible discourse about the direction of the discipline or the world. What’s worse, our affirmation of these projects as a profession As the world becomes more collaborative and we tells more about the architectural community and become more greatly defined by our relationships to its conspicuous lack of critical discourse than those other professionals, institutions, and networks, the who designed these structures. While it is unlikely ability to negotiate a collective endeavor becomes that it was Nouvel or Eliasson’s intention to create more relevant, and therefore more fascinating. While introspective projects, it is certainly worth considering architects have traditionally perceived the joint project Partnership what these projects say about The the fields of architecture as undesirable, this arcane attitude is becoming a form Thyssen-Bornemisza ArtofPavilions, 1992 and journalism. professional entrapment. The collaborative project offers new opportunities, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza by David Adjaye and Olafur Eliasson The choice of indulgence over invention could be Art Pavilions are a striking example of what is possible attributed to a several factors, most of which deal with for both professions when these parameters are seen as issues of success, money, and disciplinary expectations. advantageous.5 Material and social extravagance, a theme that unquestionably binds these projects, is often impossible Eliasson typically operates within the context of a fixed to achieve without an large budget. Could these projects space, in that there are static boundaries that literally have addressed more substantive topics had they been define the edges of his work. Francesca von Habsburg forced to work more economically? The notion of the selected Adjaye for his functionalist sensibilities as well “architectural celebrity” is also impossible to ignore. as his ability to negotiate similarly fixed constraints The honor of being selected as a Serpentine Gallery while he artfully composes different spaces, materials, designer is small in comparison to the achievements and programs.1 The cumulative effect was a spectacle of these architects have already acquired. The selection is a shared protagonsim. Eliasson’s exhibition is an artificial mere stamp of approval - a recognition of their previous environment that endeavors to conceptually reconstruct recognition. Upon the acknowledgement of these facts, the sublime nature of the horizon.1 regardless of how breathtaking the structures might be, can only make us collectively ask, “Why?” Summary This absence of relevancy is not sustainable for the We as architects have been incrementally stripped Serpentine Gallery. In order to properly address The Response 2 this of their design autonomy and creative control, and issue, the curators would have recognize the fact that our ability to affect the built environment and to fully Mies van der Rohe Installation truly influential work occurs on the fringes, not the experiment with new ideas and materials is continually byfact SANAA core. To honestly recognize this would unsettle the threatened by the external forces that paradoxically identity of the gallery, although it is a necessary shift keep the profession afloat. In order to address these if they intend to remain in tune with the strongest issue, architects must somehow reclaim what has been currents in the architectural discipline. lost. Shared protagonsim Architectural pavilions have used strategies of retrospection and proposition. While pavilions both past and present were borne out of a desire to explore new territories in construction and technology, they have also utilized display and expressive techniques that

The pavilion is battleground - a place to tamper with the limits of art, politics, and the architectural discipline itself. It is a staging ground for experimentation, a place to precisely define and display conceptual 35 CorbinaKeech / AAD idea that demands understanding. This design logic is perfectly suited for consideration within the boundaries of the architectural pavilion. As it has become a historically

Metropolis Instructor : Enrique Walker Essay : A New Modernist Sensibility: An Analysis of Blue This essay is concerned less with the physical threshold and more with the conceptual boundaries that are imposed by external forces or internally invented by design team. In other words, it is the selection of the problem that is critical in establishing both the character of the architecture as well as the effects it endeavours to produce. As the production of architecture continues to evolve, so do the methods by which architects take a conceptual stance. Bernard Tschumiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Blue signifies a shift for both the discipline as well as the architect himself, which is to say the project is bound by the mundane conventions of zoning, fiercely restrictive permitting rules, and the real estate market, and yet the cumulative effect is highly polemical, and triggers reactions both supportive and indignant. The conceptualization, construction and subsequent marketing of Blue suggest that provocation is still possible through the shrewd selection of the parameters with which the architect can then intelligently question and undermine.

The Blue Building is a bold architectural departure for Bernard Tschumi. While past projects were rooted primarily in theory and provocation, the Blue is borne out of a conscious attention to site parameters and tangible contextual properties, carried forth chiefly through the materials, composition, and construction of the facade. This is achieved in three separate but inextricably linked tactics. First, Tschumi takes a highly formal approach and uses the cultural, historical and natural conditions of the site as a framework that guides the design process. Second, he deliberately selects conventional, affordable, and unadorned materials for the components of the building. The final element is the sum of these elementary tactics; the invention of a new modernist sensibility visa-vis its constrictive surroundings. The cumulative effect is a building that conceptually assimilates into its surroundings, comments on its character, and finally offers its counter-argument of subversion. This is a complex maneuver that suggests a new method of referring to oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disciplinary belief structure while adapting to a new set of rules. In the case of Tschumi and Blue, he strays from his built and theoretical work but consciously maintains his provocative instincts.

Tschumi is clear in his declaration that natural site characteristics were crucial in the formation of the concept. Both the sky above and the ground below inform the building, its process, and its final form. The logic of Blue is deliberately simplistic; the sky is blue, and so must be the building if it is going to comfortably fit into the context. Conceptually, this logic is straightforward and honest and therefore appears to choose assimilation rather than subversion. Blue can then be read as a formal response to the tangible characteristics of the site and neighborhood, and therefore endeavors to create an honest dialogue with the surroundings. Secondly, the building acknowledges the historically rich and culturally diverse character of the neighborhood through a pixelated curtain wall system. The building aims to examine the past while embracing the future through a practical but optimistic view of what is to come. The curtain wall itself further delivers its argument through its physical properties and installation methods. The facade is not overly expressive, expensive, or fussy. By choosing an off-the-shelf system used in most conventionally developed office and condo projects - one that is merely $55 per square

foot - the facade expresses both the financial will of the developers and the collective technological ingenuity of the manufacturers, architects, and contractors. Even more notable is its ability to shed a definitive category of contemporary architecture. While it is selfreferential in its declaration that it represents a new paradigm in architecture and real estate, it avoids the title by subtly looking to the parameters of the site for its shape, proportion, and facade composition. The absence of a theoretical basis coupled with a highly formal program results in a visionary, even prescriptive insight into what future projects of similar scale and budget can achieve. Lastly and most notably, a new modernist sensibility results from the combined effort of the developer, marketers, contractors, and the architect. Compared to structures of the same generation in New York - Jean Nouvel’s 100 west eleventh, Asymptote’s 166 Perry Street or Herzog & de Meuron’s 40 Bond - Blue is not an artistic structure in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign was mobilized to transform a building composed of remarkably nondescript components into one that symbolizes luxury, indulgence

and urban grandeur. Coincidentally, it’s presentation to potential buyers conflicts with Tschumi’s more practical intentions. Rather than attempting to generate an atmosphere of superiority and affluence, his objective was less commercially opportunistic. These contradictions generate both confusion and intrigue, two elements which stand to benefit both the developers and Tschumi.

the narrative of well-intentioned contextualism was a ruse; a clever tactical maneuver to stage a far less gentle argument. Tschumi began by paying attention to irrefutable but often overly-romanticized notions of the site, the neighborhood, and cultural identity. Still, the most important factor to note is that this is clearly an intentional, if not preferable condition that Tschumi has continually sought in his past work. Here lies both the relevancy and argument of Blue provocation and commentary are always available and necessary, and tighter restrictions only magnify the possibility of their manifestation. Tschumi was presented with a set of rules that often result in uninspired architecture that argues for nothing more than its own existence. What’s notable about Blue is that it looked to these rules to stage an argument for the relevancy of the site, the neighborhood, and the historical narrative of each. As the building projects upwards and bulges outwards, the personality of the surroundings are magnified and validated.

These formal gestures have resulted a clearly understood conceptual foundation. Nevertheless, while these ideas are transparent, the built result is far from it. The building creates an ambiguous dialogue with its surroundings, a structure that dually symbolizes aggressive economic growth and contains blunt social commentary. Indeed the building is a diagram of the zoning parameters and height limitations, but its seventeen stories of reflective blue hues proudly towers above the aged three-story brick below. What is the true message? Is contextualism actually dead? Are the factors of program and constructability simply inescapable parameters that Above all the most relevant element shape both the building and the is the broader conceit of Tschumi’s intentions of the architect himself? Blue - the creation of a building that is theoretical in its rigorously Through this analysis what seems anti-theoretical logic. Furthermore, to emerge is revelatory. Perhaps while this is a useful commentary

for the architectural discipline, it also potentially signifies the fulfillment of Tschumi’s own theoretical explorations. Tschumi theorized that concept and experience are irrevocable territories of the discipline, forever in conflict with one another. This reality retards their unification. In other words, a building can never fully combine what is abstract and what is material. With regards to Blue, it is an aesthetically foreign polemical device, paradoxically difficult to decipher and full of mystery. However, upon further investigation what presents itself is that the building is just one component in a lineage of projects that are bound by a series of complex theories. Accidental or not, Tschumi maintained his identity by playing by the rules. While the building was just one of several projects that capitalized of financial and cultural momentum, it was also skillfully characterized as an object of desire. Blue’s argument is both skin deep and sincere, and is therefore a spectacular monument of genuine superficiality. It’s relentless adherence to a very specific set of programmatic and constructability 37 Corbin Keech / AAD rules represents a notable shift in attitude and transcends the

Fall 2010 38

1. Advanced Studio

Title : Urban Futures, Future Architectures: Africa 2.0 Project : The Nigerian Institute of Projected Citizenship Site : Abuja, Nigeria Critic: Mabel O. Wilson

2. 12 Dialogical and Poetic Strategies

Instructor : Yehuda Safran Essay topic : Interpreting Enigmatic Urbanism

3. Swarm Intelligence

Instructor : Roland Snooks Project Title : Accretion and Repair

4. Faking It

Instructor : John Szot Film Title : Call me!

5. Surface Screen Structure

Instructor : Joseph Vidich Project Title : Sundail

Corbin Keech / AAD

Nigerian Institute of Projected Citizenship Critic : Mabel O. Wilson Site : Abuja, Nigeria The city of Abuja is not imaginary, but it has been imagined. It is a city that is a fulfillment of a bold urban prophecy, and one that endeavors to rescue Nigeria from its own virulent identity. The members of the panel that gathered in the late 70â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to re-imagine a new national condition wanted a solution to the landscape of fragility, chaos, and decay that was Lagos. This idea is central to my reading of the city; Abuja is a contemporary representation of staged power, artificially presented in a seemingly coherent urban sequence of architecturally neutral but politically immutable buildings. The architectural components of the Abuja is overflowing with gratuitous symbolism, suggesting a willingness to reconstitute the Nigerian identity through a comprehensive administrative utopianism. This project is an attempt to destabilize this system.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Conceptual Basis & Research

Nigeria : What exists While Nigeria attempts to reconstitute a state that is rooted in political stability and neoliberal economic policies it simultaneously cleanses itself of its own crippling lack of self-confidence, borne out of years of political and religious friction. Conventional memorials or monuments that recall past conflict often rely upon simplistic symbolic tropes to project an image of resolution and permanence. The congestion of Lagos was the impetus for designing Abuja as a spacious, modern city that existed as one with the landscape.

Abuja : The Response The conceptualization, planning, design and execution of Abuja as the new Nigerian capital involved a tremendously complex negotiation of cultural, political, economic and architectural forces, both within Nigeria and outside of it. Nigerian officials recognized the need to confront these conditions, and utilized a system of built architectural symbols and symbolic relationships to invoke unification, power, cleanliness, political stability and transparency. In short, Abuja became the platform by which the Nigerian government staged itself to the world.

Designed to be a utopian, modern city, the Nigerian state authorities believed that a new Federal Capital City would facilitate the creation of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Federal Characterâ&#x20AC;? that would resolve the problem of nepotism and ethnic tensions among the 250 cultural groups which constitute the Nigerian nation. Abuja and its architecture, it was claimed, would also remove the colonial identity which Lagos was thought to bestow on the Nigerian people.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Conceptual Basis & Research : Decoding Abuja

This model was an attempt to utilize conventional modes of representation ( plywood, chipboard, pen, pencil ) to conceptualize the contradictory messages that Abuja delivers. My reading of Abuja is that it is an artificial field consisting of autonomous structures, whose collective purpose is to project an image of organization, unity, progress, and modernization.

The two sequences intersect

The building as the container of private activity

The field consists of two sequences that intersect. One is a string of real buildings, objects, and monuments that exist in Abuja, representing a choreographed urban sequence with an entry and a terminus. At the terminus lies Aso Rock - the conceptual and material bedrock of the city and nation. It remains the omnipresent force that dominates the landscape. This is the Abuja as it is imagined. The second sequence is a row of blank images that leads to the ambiguous structure. What this structure attempts to describe is the hidden network of culture, commerce, and economic exchange that exists outside of the boundary of the artificial landscape. The objective of the project is to occupy the grey territory between these two conditions; real and unreal, authentic and artificial.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Conceptual Basis & Research : The Objective

The Nigerian Institute of Projected Citizenship endeavors to confront the following: 1. History of political instability Nigeria must escape its own past, which is characterized by a series of coups that disrupted any process in developing a new and positive cultural narrative.

2. The staging of power

3. Media / Technology

Accomplished through the careful organization of visual programming devices that maintain distance A preexisting condition of digital media frequently utilized by Nigerians to deliver information and - both conceptual and material - between the Nigerian people and those that possess financial and generate personal visibility. political power.

Corbin Keech / AAD

This is Abuja. Central Abuja is in the area of detail.

The system is composed of five structures that are dispersed across Abuja. Their respective locations are highly strategic in that they occupy the most charged and sometimes inaccessible spaces within Abuja. Site one is located adjacent to the current city gate, a structure hastily erected in 1991 as a temporary ceremonial pavilion and entry point to mark the formal transfer of the seat of power from Lagos to Abuja. Site two is located in the Diplomatic Zone; an intersection of embassies, the United Nations building, and the National Stadium. Site three is located on boundary between the Wuse district and the Central Business District, the threshold that also includes the future site of the yet-to-be-realized Abuja mass transit station. Site four is located in the Central Business District at the intersection of powerful local and international interests, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the National Mosque, the National Ecumenical Center, and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Finally, site five sits tightly between the Three Arms Zone and the Military Zone with Aso Rock quietly overshadowing the entire region.

Site 01 _ Abuja City Gate [ The Initial Threshold ]

Site 02 _ Diplomat Zone Park [ The Field and The Park ]

Site 03 _ Wuse District [ National Identity ]

Site 04 _ Urban Core [ Religious Identity ]

Site 05 _ Three Arms Zone [ Terminus ]

Corbin Keech / AAD

Amusement / Water Park

Site 01 _ Abuja City Gate [ The Initial Threshold ]

National Stadium

Abuja City Gate

Parking Lot

Recreational Center

Corbin Keech / AAD

NIAC : The architectural translation

Roof program and entry

The architectural language is a system of three cohesive parts: 1. Location : Each structure occurs at moments of intensity within the city 2. The Mediabox : These internal structures exploit and magnify these intense local conditions. 3. The Building Envelope : Similar to Abuja, the envelope of the structures as well as the mediaboxes act as mediators of these forces.

View west to city gate

Roof terrace with panoramic views of Abuja North entrance to roof terrace

Entry / exit ramp

South entrance to roof terrace

View east to National Stadium Complex and Abuja

Rendering of roof garden, looking west towards city gate.

Corbin Keech / AAD

NIAC : The architectural translation

Ground Floor

Top floor is composed of sonic receptors feeding external information into the room. Sound, light, vibration spills out from these porous membranes, creating overlapping fields of these abstracted forces.

Casual Conversation Zone Formal public theater / forum Entry / exit ramp Casual Conversation Zone Mediabox for received sounds

Rendering of NIPC interior, looking west out to city gate.

Corbin Keech / AAD

NIAC : The architectural translation

Main Floor

Bottom floor compresses the language of movement into a subterranean mediabox that is adapted to echo the shape and trajectory of the movement above. It essentially a carved space that runs the length from east to west. The bottom includes private rooms for debate.

Casual Conversation Zone Formal public theater / forum Traffic visualization and viewing zone Seating created by folded wall

The stage and performance area serves as a programmatic and circulatory bridge between these two zones.

Mediaboxes : See right for logic of layout.

50â&#x20AC;&#x2122; x 25â&#x20AC;&#x2122; template [1,250 square feet]

Primary points of entry.

.01

Lagos

.02

Kano

.03

Asokoro

Program of Mediabox reshapes form.

.01 .02

Mediaboxes reoriented based on relationships.

Maitaima

.01

.03

.04

Overlapping spaces create potential for expanded uses.

Form adjusted for purposes of circulation, entry and exiting. Opening allows sounds and activity to blend into other spaces.

Material quality of spaces is created, resulting in a varied sensory experience. Material varies between opaque and transparent glass as well as poured concrete.

.02

.07 .04

Mediaboxes are overlapped.

.05

.02 .01 .07 .05 .04

.02a

.02b

.01b .07a

.07b .05

.04b

.04a .06a

.05

Airport

.05

.04

.06 .03

.06b .03a .03b

.06

Future Gate

.07

National Stadium

.06

.06 .03

.07

Corbin Keech / AAD

.01

Lagos

.02

Kano

Mediaboxes : Narrowed focus

.03

Asokoro

.01 .02

.02 .01

.03 .07

Mediabox 06a is enclosed in concrete and therefore provides an alternative to the more public connection to separate individuals at the new city gate.

Man in Mediabox 06b, viewing projection of children at the future gate.

Man in small, glassedin room 03a, for connection to Asokoro

Maitaima

children at future gate .05 Airport

.06

Future Gate

.07

National Stadium

.05

.06

.04

.06 .03

.07

.02a

.02b

.01b .07a

.07b

.04 Projected image .04 of .05

.02 .01 .07

.05 .05 Glassed-in rooms .04a .04 allow visitors outside .06a of the conversation to witness .06 .03 the .06b .03a connection sequences.

.04b

.03b

.01

Lagos

.02

Kano

.03

Asokoro

.01 .02

.02 .01

.03 .07

Entry into Mediabox 03a beyond, Entry into 04a in foreground.

Mediabox 04a provides connection to the Maitaima neighborhood. It is enclosed in concrete, thus providing more privacy.

Mediabox 06a, with Woman witnessing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan at Abujaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future gate

.02 .01 .07

.04 .05 The surfaces of the mediaboxes are .04 used to receive the .05 to become .04 projections. This display allows the architecture itself activated by the discourse between the individuals. The material .05the display.04 character of the surface.05 is critical in as well, the glass .06 .03 surfaces allowing outsiders to witness the conversation. Maitaima

.02a

.02b

.01b .07a

.07b .05

.04b

.04a .06a

Airport

.06

Future Gate

.07

National Stadium

.06

.06b .03a .03b

.06 .03

.07

Corbin Keech / AAD

Alternative Modes of Representation

The conventional section is limited in its ability to display information beyond the spatial dimensions of a building. Here, the building section was conceived as representational device that endeavoured to deliver the missing information - sequence, time, and movement. Assuming the section cut line indicates a specific and yet conceptual point in space, it can also be used as a reference for the unseen information to be displayed. Sixteen sections were cut along one path of movement through the building. By incorporating these ideas of movement and sequence into the representation of the NIPC, one can begin to more fully understand the more experiential components with which the NIPC was conceived.

.09

Corbin Keech / AAD

.00

.03

.01

.02

.03

.01

.02

.03

.04

.05

.06

.07

.05

.06

.07

Corbin Keech / AAD

.08 .08

.08

.09 .09

.10

.11 .11

.12

.15

.13

.14 .14

.15

Corbin Keech / AAD

12 Dialogical and Poetic Strategies Instructor : Yehuda Safran Essay : Interpreting Enigmatic Urbanism Among the numerous techniques for deciphering art and architecture is examining its degree of opacity. This system of logic is equally valid in other fields of study, in particular the examination of the social structures that characterize different nationalities, which in turn aids in the study of their varied and complex formal and conceptual manifestations. The internalized and protective expression of Korean architecture, in both its historical and contemporary form, is indicative of a cultural preference to create occupiable spaces that are private, sacred, and separated from external forces. This is an ideology that has a historically rigid foundation, and one that continues to pervade the culture even as it has rapidly modernized itself since the 1970’s. This essay is an attempt to gain access to the internal logic of contemporary Korean architecture, not through the lens of statistical analysis or the formal and urban growth strategies, but rather through the philosophical themes defined by Friedrich Nietzstche and their spatial and figural translations executed by Giorgio De Chirico. The puzzling logic of De Chirico’s work can then be used as a tool for speculating about the degree to which people and/or nations are exiled from the external world, as well as the consequences of this isolation. The ambition is to accept the enigmatic expression of these modern structures as the conceptual boundary that creates mystery and eludes a precise symbolic definition, while serving as the traditional architectural envelope and protector of inhabitants within.

Giorgio de Chirico is often credited for inventing Pittura Metafisica, or Metaphysical Painting, in the early 20th century. The messages are delivered visually through compositions of familiar objects; trains, arched walkways, fruit, and and other nondescript objects. Similar to the Surrealist writers de Chirico was attracted to the notion of a higher four-dimension reality - a surreality - that he alone could perceive.1

exiled from - the primary artistic circles in France, Spain and Italy occupied at that time by largely by Picasso and his Cubist followers. More importantly, while De Chirico’s isolation may have prevented his work from receiving the level of notoriety received by Picasso, this also left them unaffected by De Chirico’s most important single message for modern art: the reaffirmation of perspective as a poetic instrument.6

There are several questions embedded in De Chirico’s paintings. While I am principally concerned with his impulse to use symbolically loaded imagery as a device for asking questions about the reality of chaos and time, I am also interested in examining Nietzsche’s presence in De Chirico’s writing.

2. Concealed Meaning

De Chirico’s novel, Hebdomeros, can be characterized by its deliberately inarticulate and wandering storyline. 2 Because the book follows the logic of a dream he was able to question the purpose of the novel as a device for delivering an coherent story. He was able to successfully translate the Nietzschian notion of questioning the perspective in which judgement of truth or value can be made.

De Chirico utilized very specific representational techniques in his paintings. Ironically, the use of shadows, contrast and distance were combined to deliver messages that were deliberately enigmatic. “The Anguished Morning” from 1912 depicts an urban scene that spells mysterious foreboding. “Piazza d’Italia”7 from 1938 exaggerates the tone of earth and sky to create a unrealistic space that is nevertheless wrought with longing and reflection. “The Song of Love”8 depicts a similar architectural setting although in this case the three primary subjects are a red surgeons glove, a green ball, and the head of a white sculpture that has been removed from its body. The “Enigma and the Oracle” 9gives emotional qualities two lifeless sculptures while obscuring and revealing their bodies behind curtains.

These sources can be located in several of Nietzsche’s philosophical texts. One example is in Nietzsche’s Birth of Typical Hanok, or Traditional Korean House Tragedy, where he writes, “The man of philosophic turn has While De Chirico varied the objects in his work, his repetitive a foreboding that underneath this reality in which we live use of architecture demands examination. The buildings he and have our being, another and altogether different reality includes, at least in the foreground of many of his works, lies concealed, and that it therefore, is also an appearance.”3 are typically white, arched, and either bathed in light or This is not to say that De Chirico relied entirely on darkened by heavy shadows. What’s more, they typically Nietzsche’s philosophical themes, for De Chirico could not exhibit a intriguing protective quality. The structures are escape his personal experiences with familial instability, often characterized by a fixed and noticeably puzzling which were clearly legible in his work. physical presence, presenting themselves as crucial subjects in many of his paintings. De Chirico was also drawn to Nietzsche’s perspectivism, which greatly influenced him in his development in In his 1936 piece “Presente e Passato”10 only the edges of two metaphysical imagery - typically characterized by enigma white, arched buildings are displayed. This compositional - which essentially expresses Nietzsche’s philosophy in technique suggests the viewer is emerging from one space aesthetic form. James Soby’s insight is particularly useful to another; that one is transitioning between two realms. when examining the enigmatic quality of De Chirico’s The space behind the viewer is probably enclosed, compact, work. “We only have to look at any one of de Chirico’s early and even more familiar than what lies ahead; a distant, paintings to see that they propose a Nietzschean counter- unknown landscape. The built structures in the distance are reality based on reverie, incarnation and dreams.”4 Indeed, industrial smokestacks and what appears to be a fortified the subjects of De Chirico’s are references to Nietzsche’s lookout tower. Their connection the earth is unknown, for philosophical speculations, in some cases becoming literal it is obscured by the train and its tracks that run bisect the interpretations of Nietzsche’s doctrine.5 composition. Small houses sit beside these tall structures, whose base is also obscured by the subject, leading one to Like Nietzsche, De Chirico was concerned with subverting speculate about their size, height, material, and who might conventional forms of representation, as well as the occupy them. Finally, an ominous indigo sky hovers above a dissemination of knowledge. The objects in his paintings strange golden horizon, perhaps suggesting pending doom are typically, familiar, reasonable and logical. Similar for the viewer. to Nietzsche, De Chirico became similarly preoccupied Typical A-Pa-Tu Compl with fundamental notions of value and meaning that Like his other metaphysical scenes De Chirico has not are conveyed through these objects. By presenting the only imagined an impossible scenario but has also frozen objects in a manner that suggests they possess something a moment in time. The texture and form of these objects, meaningful, the artist is simultaneously evaluating the in addition to their physical location relative to the viewer, socially constructed framework that applied their meaning are translations of invisible but very real human emotions; in the first place. melancholy, uncertainty, and time. These conditions created distance between himself and the networks of his artistic colleagues operating in Western Europe at the time. The cumulative effect was that De Chirico became incrementally distant from - perhaps even

Because De Chirico used familiar objects to conceal meaning rather than reveal it, there is also a possibility that he was concerned not only with ambiguity but also with suppression. The architectural pieces also seem to withhold

an emotion, and in doing so create a private space within. The effect is a sense of mystery about these contents; their thick conceptual shell serving as a blockade of hidden meaning, a tactic that simultaneously invites exploration and stifles it. The varied but prosaic subjects in his paintings - a colonnade, a sculpture or a reflecting pool - are presented as containers of an important message. Nevertheless, while the viewer is compelled to investigate the symbolic content of these objects, the effort quickly becomes futile because the subjects are, by design, irreducible. This is a shrewd technique that gives these ordinary, even forgettable objects a tremendous amount of autonomy in their individual suppression of meaning. In conventional or realistic terms a condominium tower is a stable entity. Indeed, upon the completion of a building it automatically begins a process of decay, but generally the built structure seeks to stabilize itself and resist oppositional forces. In other words, it is fighting the impulse to physically collapse to the earth. The architecture is suppressing the most universal force on the planet, gravity. Despite the obviousness of this idea of physical suppression, it is nevertheless useful to examine De Chirico’s use of a particular style of architecture in his paintings because it points out his decision to include architecture as a delivery mechanism in the first place.

Giorgio De Chirico 3. The Turn: What is The Application? Piazza d’Italia

The question now becomes the application of these discoveries and how they can adequately measure the degree to which a culture joins or rejects relationships with the social, infrastructural, and political structures that lie outside of it. De Chirico wanted to confront the illusions these images and objects typically conveyed, which is a useful tool in questioning the reality of the protective, internalized structures that are populating the urban centers of rapidly developing cities. In the developing world, more often than not the city is a controlled scenic space, where construction, even when it occurs at a reckless and rapid pace, nevertheless flows through and is organized by regulatory, bureaucratic channels. But what information is contained in these images, and how can they 4. Traditional Housing Typologies

First, some basics of Korean habitation must be understood. The typology of the traditional Korean house can be characterized by its well-choreographed internal sequences, the creation of private spaces, and its questioning of inside and outside spaces. Modern architecture is often the opposite, lexes in Korea, Seoul where interior and exterior are more legible, “but in the case of the traditional Korean house the division between the interior and exterior is very difficult to make.” 11 Architects repeated unusual materials in adjacent spaces, pillars stand independently without walls, canopies and overhangs draw inside spaces outward, and railings bring exterior space inward. The objective of the designer is to create an elevated spatial awareness brought about by an activation of human senses, which is further accentuated through the variation in the temperature of different surfaces. The cumulative effect is an expansion of the senses.

The odumak, which is commonly used by the people of Paekche in the southern and western regions of Korea, is just one example of Korean housing whose internal spatial boundaries are deliberately ambigious. The odumak is built with wooden floors high on the earth, and a southwardmoving hot floor system and the northward-moving wooden floor system cross, thus blending together to form at their center a single house.4 This complex system of varied materials and spatial configurations makes these distinctions uncertain, and by blurring these edges the architect endeavors to subvert conventional notions of enclosure, habitation and the use of space. The importance here lies in the determination that complex spatial configurations and enigmatic boundaries are components that are assumed to be present in traditional forms of Korean habitation. Of course the familiarity of these spatial systems is where it becomes less similar to De Chirico’s use of enigmatic objects in his work. Nevertheless, the comparison remains relevant when the scale of the housing is increased. 5. The Impetus for the Shift Today, the urban landscape of Korea is in a constant state of change. In 1970 88% of the housing stock of Korea was detached houses. In 2000, this number dropped to 25%.12 These changes are the result of a complex interaction between geographical, political and social systems, but what remains most interesting is how they reveal Koreans’ impulse to simultaneously secure a unified national identity and protect itself from potentially disruptive external forces. At first glance the explanation for an explosion of housing seems simple: urban space was scarce and lots of people wanted that space, so simply stack the houses on top of one another. It seems that Korean officials blindly internalization of the modernist architectural principles created by Mies, Corbusier and Gropius in the 20’s and 30’s. To a certain degree this is true, considering that some architects who helped orchestrate the massive planning projects actually worked in Corbusier’s studio in the 50’s. Nevertheless, the massive urban settlements were organized as a means of preserving and protecting the Korean nationality. Growth and progress was understood as a means of counteracting the period of Japanese occupation in Korea, which was accomplished by mobilizing the local stock of Koreans excited and willing to collectively constitute a stronger nation. What’s more, apartment living was considered an advanced form of habitation. The public collectively dreamt of living in apartments, and not just because it was seen as a solution of solving the housing issue but because it indicated De Chirico a level of success. The result is theGiorgio Korean landscape became populated by thousands of modernist apartment towers Presente e Passato that promised a similar doctrine of personal liberation and prosperity. More importantly, the visual language of these developments is indicative of a cultural condition that seeks purity and isolation from external forces, but in doing so the Koreans nation risks isolating itself from the external world. 6. Exile in the Current Urban Morphology of Korea Rapid urban growth has profoundly reshaped Korea’s physical landscape as well as its collective urban psyche. A

shift in value systems from traditional forms of habitation and density to a landscape that is significantly higher in diversity of uses and program, as well as noticeable increase in visual complexity has served as a disruptive force, triggering self-reflection, political instability and physical quarrels. “The extended family system has been replaced by the nuclear family system, while communalism has been replaced by individualism.”13 Urbanization has also increased the demand for higher education, human rights, freedom, justice, and a democratic system of government. Despite the benefits, urbanization has created a variety of problems such as regional inequality, congestion, pollution, and deterioration of the quality of life.14 Current issues with overgrowth are closely related to the process of industrialization, since most urban developments have been undertaken to promote economic growth and industrialization. The shift from a static and changeless rural society to an industrialized commercial center was abrupt and thus highly problematic, both socially and infrastructurally. After the collapse of Japanese colonialism in 1945 and the conclusion of the Korean war in 1953, Korea experienced tremendous urban population growth. This was due in large part to the return of expatriates abroad and waves of migration from North Korea. The population of Seoul increased by 1.5 million, from around one million to 2.5 million, despite the fact that much their infrastructure City of Hall had been destroyed or damage during thatKorea period. While the Seoul, rapidity of this growth left many citizens in a destitute state, even more alarming is the growth occurring between 1960 and 1995, when the urban population of Korea increased by about 30 million from 8.9 million to 38.5 million. Now, at least 86 percent of Koreans live in cities with 20,000 people or more.9 The speed and magnitude of this growth far exceeds that of Korea’s Western counterparts. Similar to westward expansion and growth in the United States, in which President Eisenhower’s sponsorship of the interstate system, the proliferation of land grants to agrarian universities, and several acts of Congress which encouraged homeownership, Korea’s industrialization was propelled by the government’s support and sweeping construction initiatives. This growth was further accelerated by a complex mixture of sociocultural predispositions; an even distribution of assets among different social classes, a population that was more highly educated than most developing countries, the availability of an industrious and disciplined labor force, expanded secondary and higher education, a high level of literacy, and an abundance of energetic entrepreneurs. 9 Still, “rational growth-oriented strategies” may have contributed the most to Korea’s expansion and growth. Government-financed industrialization was possible because government officials could more effectively concentrate their efforts, thus allowing for the swift mobilization of contractors and laborers, the construction of massive amounts of housing, an expansion of their manufacturing sector, and the creation of massive export subsidies which included concessions on direct taxes. 9 The cumulative effect of these industrial policy changes has been growth and construction on an unprecedented scale, in large part because government leaders understood that Korea, unlike other developing countries, was incapable of

developing a self-sufficient economy and therefore had to rely more heavily on financial support and investment from other countries. Architecture was a segment of Korean life that underwent the most obvious transformation during periods of political turmoil. In the early 20th century foreign powers attempted to build structures in Korea that would fulfill both a practical and symbolic function. Examples include the Myeongdong Cathedral15(1898), the Renaissance-style Bank of Korea’s headquarters16 (1912), the Seoul Railraod Station17 (1925), the Romanesque-style Seoul Anglican Church18 (1916) and Seoul City Hall19 (1925). Today, feuds between preservationists and those who wish to refashion the past have become more common, even hostile. One site where this conflict is currently being staged is a neighborhood in central Seoul called Bukchon, where the city’s last remaining collection of courtyard houses resides. The hanok, or traditional Korean courtyard house is the contested feature of the neighborhood. In short, some consider it to be a living artifact that demands care and preservation, while others dismiss the typology as a relic of the past with no contemporary use. The decrease in the number of hanok in Bukchon has recently decreased by the thousands, and only one street in the entire neighborhood remains untouched. 20 They are either being transformed from houses into coffee shops and salons or destroyed altogether. Righteous preservationists are fiercely opposed to the wealthy homeowners and boutique shopkeepers, whose laissez-faire attitude has incrementally compromised the purity of the one-story, tile-roofed, hanok courtyard house in exchange for stylistic flourishes that are both modern and ostentatious. Of course, both sides are equally valid as well as irrational in the delivery of their respective arguments. Seoul adjusted its preservation laws about thirty-five years ago, leading to new regulations stipulating that no improvements could be made to the any hanok in the neighborhood. As a result, “roofs went unrepaired, concrete outhouses were built in courtyard gardens and heating systems fueled by charcoal bricks were defeated by Seoul’s notorious winters.” 10 Essentially, the sweeping efforts to protect a component of Seoul’s architectural heritage ultimately propelled the housing type towards greater scarcity. Some even consider the hanok to be an endangered species as vulnerable as any panda or whale. On the other side are the homeowners and developers responsible for commissions that either ignore the contextual scale, material and composition, or simply destroy it Seoul Anglican Cathedral altogether. The result is an unsettling transformation that has caused hostility and bitterness between young and old, traditional and contemporary, conservative and liberal. “Bukchon — once a residential area for courtesans and royal hangers-on at two adjoining 15th-century Chosun dynasty palaces — (has transformed) into a Potemkin-like enclave of third or fourth homes for the rich. Postage-stamp lots with 900-square-foot, or about 85-square-meter, houses can go 67 Corbin Keech / AAD for $2 million or more.”21 These events are indicative of a swelling internal battle; the

Swarm Intelligence Instructor : Roland Snooks Title : Clotting / Accretion / Repair Blood clotting occurs when the breach of a blood vessel wall triggers a series of chemical events whose purpose is to repair and reconstruct the vessel. Both blood and architecture operate within a similar taxonomy of units, blocks, structure, forces, walls, and systems: used loosely, blood clotting may serve as an analog for an architectural system of accretion, decay, and repair. The design objective was to develop a system that offers the potential to simultaneously generate structure and enclosure, with a continually evolving relationship. The flow of this system can serve as a means of understanding how built structures continually alternate between states of repair and disrepair, stability and instability, completion and decay.

.01

.02

.03

.04

.05

The ambition was for the system to continually reenact the moment a complex structural system is undermined by impact and force. The diagram below illustrates the evolution of a structural grid that is penetrated by external forces but immediately re stabilizes itself, generating an emergent field of hybridized structural components.

.06

.07

Corbin Keech / AAD

Postulates for an Architectonic System 1) A system within which the process of decay and the matter for repair are present from initiation. 2) A process within which matter accretes in response to environmental stresses, themselves emergent from the conditions of the systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evolution or flow. 3) A space within which these operations occur; a substrate which shapes and is shaped by the process of accretion or decay.

Final interior spaces

Faking It Instructor : John Szot Title : Call me! The narrative of this short film follows a typical arc of desire and pursuit, although the protagonist is the message itself, rather than the subject who left it. The message then becomes subordinate to the subject who is being pursued, as it trails the subject through the city in an effort to accomplish its mission to deliver the critical message.

.01 _ the secret admirer plants the clue

.05 _ the message chases the subject down the stairs

.02 _ the number is concealed by the aloof landlord

.06 _ the message chases the subject onto the street

.03 _ the subject misses the message

.04 _ the message leaves!

.07 _ the message pushes its luck

.08 _ the subjectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suspicion grows, the message is discovered! roll credits.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Surface Screen Structure Instructor : Joseph Vidich Title : MegaSundail The goal of Megasundail was to conceive of a screening device that served several functions simultaneously; sunlight screen, signage, and decoration. The overall system was to be applied to an Adidas office and retail building on Houston and Broadway in New York. Conceptually, the cumulative effect of these systems is the activation of a building facade that is relatively nondescript and lifeless. During the day, the identity of the building would be passively transmitted through the screen vis-a-vis light and shadow, while at night the effect is generated electronically. These results are in addition to the fundamental use of the screen, which is to mediate the amount of light that is penetrating the spaces within.

04 01

elevation of facade

section of facade and screen

key

plan

01 _ aluminum panel system 02 _ LED fixture 03 _ Structural mullion 04 _ Decorative mullion 05 _ Anchor to slab

Corbin Keech / AAD

Back mullion Anchor at slab

Spandrel Glass

Aluminum Panel

View looking northeast on Houston

Anchor at slab

LED fixture, fastened to inside of aluminum panel, serving as bridge between panels and conceptual signage at night.

Customized steel flange joining panel edges Anchor assembly

Vision Glass

While the first job of the perforations is to filter light, the perforation itself varies depending on the location of the screen on the overall facade. The panels of the screen are split, allowing them to bend and extend outward from the building surface, creating a shadow that would be caught by the flat surface of the screen. Depending on the density of the perforations, more of the shadow would be captured. The cumulation of these shadows is the image of the three stripes of the Adidas logo. At night, the connection between the two panels is filled with an LED strip.

3/8" x 5" x 4" steel plate 3/8" x 1-1/16" x 4" steel plate Assembly of scews, nuts and washers, securing the aluminunm panel to anchor system

axonometric of four aluminum panels

Axonometric of four panels

Interior rendering

Corbin Keech / AAD

Light / Shadow

PHOTO

STUDY OF LIGHT/SHADOW

PHOTO

STUDY OF LIGHT/SHADOW

09 : 00

13 : 00

16 : 00

SCREEN,SURFACE & STRUCTURE

JOSEPH VIDICH

TEAM (dj) SAFARI_

PENNY CHEN . SARAH CHUNG . CORBIN KEECH

SCREEN,SURFACE & STRUCTURE

JOSEPH VIDICH

TEAM (dj) SAFARI_

PENNY CHEN . SARAH CHUNG . CORBIN KEECH

1’ 1-7/8”

5’-0”

3’-0”

0’-1”

3’-0”

0’-1”

enlarged elevation of screens

1’ 1-7/8”

Corbin Keech / AAD

.01

.02

.03

.04

.05

.06

.07 80

3/8" 1 5/8"

5" steel plate anchored to curtain waill assembly

1 3/16"

7/16"

8”

elevation of connection anchor

3/8” x 5” x 4” steel plates 1/8”hex bolt and washers 3/8” x 5” x 4” steel plates

9/16"

1 11/16"

1/8"

3/16” metal screw

steel plate welded to steel connection anchor 3/8” x 1 1/16” x 4” steel plate

3/8” x 1 1/16” x 4” steel plate

1/8”x 2” 1-5/8” steel plate welded to steel connection anchor

plan of connection anchor 3/16” metal screw 1/8”hex bolt and washers

1/8”x 2” 1-5/8” steel plate welded to steel connection anchor

steel block for receiving the tab of the aluminum panel

assembly of connection anchor

axon diagram of connection anchor asembly Corbin Keech / AAD

Spring 2011 82

1. Advanced Studio

Title : Double Dip Project : 60 m Site : Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Critics: Shohei Shigematsu, Christy Cheng

2. Architecture: The Contemporary

Instructor : Bernard Tschumi Essay topic :

3. Architecture, Print, Politics, Case Studies

Instructor : Craig Buckley Project Title :

4. Other Design

Critics : Michael Rock, Yoonjai Choi

Corbin Keech / AAD

60 m Critics : Shohei Shigematsu, Christy Cheng Site : Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic The Santo Domingo Malecón lies virtually inactive. Cut off from the city by the coastal highway, and composed or a largely un-walkable and dangerous rocky surface, its activation faces many challenges. Unfortunately this chronic absence of activity and program along this edge is part of the character of the Dominican Malecón. This inactivity is further troubling given the 60 meter “maritime zone” that extends along the entire Dominican coastline. This invisible boundary is measured from the high tide mark inland, which in effect converts all beaches and waterfront areas into public property. No building is allowed within the maritime zone without a special permit from the government. In other words, this continuous strip of land is designed for public use, but it lacks the infrastructure and programmatic intelligence to sustain any prolonged interest. The objective is to confront the 60 meter barrier that envelops the island, and leverage the fear of the edge as a tool for addressing a complex set of peripheral urban and social issues. The entire development is located within this 60 meter zone, and is distributed between ten individual sites between Sans Souci and the airport. The development is anchored by a convention center which is located at the primary site, Sans Souci, while the rest of the sites are occupied by other educational programs and housing. This decision is directly linked to a chronic shortage of trade schools in the Dominican Republic, as well as a lack of affordable housing options. The cumulative effect is a linear master plan composed of a diverse set of programs - public space, convention center, hotel, student and permanent housing, and so forth - whose ambition is to create a self-sustaining community, and to activate a public amenity that has been neglected for years.

Sans Souci, during a severe storm

On the edge,

Crisis is ( always ) imminent Corbin Keech / AAD

Distribution of program

West bank area = 1,761,326 sf

Sans Souci = 7,426,300 sf

The Maritime Zone is considered an extension of the site. In an effort to define a massing and distribution strategy, I assumed the program was spread evenly over the surface of both sites with an FAR of 1. After this operation, 2,167,679 square feet remains unaccounted for.

The solution : Spill the remaining program out over the boundary of the site. Given the uniform physical nature of the coast, the program can be evenly distributed. This will force the architecture to adapt to the edge. 86

03 _ length = 38,956â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

02 _ length = 20,788â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

01 _ length = 11,423â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

01 _ Assuming the structure is story and a width of 60 meters, this remaining square footage can stretch along the coastline 11,423 feet or 3,482 meters. This area now contains the remaining 2,167,679 square feet of program. 02 _ Upon moving the square footage from the west bank to the east bank, this adds another 1,761,326 square feet, thus allowing the program to stretch another 9,365, feet along the coastline. 03 _ The the remaining program is removed from the site and only the 60 meter zone contains the program, the coastline structure can be expanded by an additional 3,403,060 square feet. The program can now be further broken up into ten chunks, and more specific decisions regarding the site can be established.

Corbin Keech / AAD

hotel [ 265,776 sf ]

electrician school [ site 05 ]

architecture school [ site 10 ]

carpentry school [ site 09 ]

condo [ site 08 ]

4,400,378 sf

affordable / student housing [ site 07 ]

{ consolidation of program }

affordable housing [ site 04 ]

condo / housing [ site 03 ]

institutional / housing [ site 02 ]

convention center [ site 01 ]

primary school [ 27,600 sf ]

architecture school [ 30,600 sf ]

carpentry school [ 31,890 sf ]

engineering school [ 34,000 sf ]

electrician school [ 38,270 sf ]

secondary school [ 42,500 sf ]

cafe / restaurant [ 129,530 sf ]

retail [ 144,900 sf ]

transit [ 194,000 sf ]

condo [ 204,180 sf ]

{ block of program }

apartment [ 340,318 sf ]

office [ 376,000 sf ]

public space [ 397,383 sf ]

4,400,378 sf

primary & secondary schools [ site 06 ]

88 convention center [435,873 sf ]

4,400,378 sf

student housing [ 535,682 sf ]

parking [ 1,182,000 sf ]

Distribution of program to 10 sites

4,400,378 sf

{ mixture / distribution of program to 10 sites }

Since 2001, Santo Domingo has steadily expanded eastward towards the airport and Boca Chica. While its development has been steady, it is nevertheless relatively sparse. 60 M anticipates eventual density, and endeavors to generate an infrastrucural base for which future growth can rest upon.

[ site 02 ]

Central Santo Domingo

Colonial City

Sans Souci [ site 01 ]

[ site 03 ]

[ site 04 ]

[ site 05 ]

[ site 06 ]

[ site 07 ]

[ site 08 ]

[ The red sites are areas east of Santo Domingo that have developed since 2001. ]

[ site 09 ]

[ site 10 ]

Santo Domingo Airport

Corbin Keech / AAD

Boca Chica

Incorporation of protective systems / Groyne as a device for Malec贸n reinforcement

The groyne serves as a passive mechanism for both protecting and rebuilding vulnerable coastlines. In addition to its capacity to remediate and strengthen the waterfront, it can serve as device for organizing program, as well as a formal precedent.

Groynes in Scotland

How would a groyne system both actively and passively reshape & strengthen the Dominican Malec贸n?

By determining the patterns of wind and ocean currents, as well as their velocity, the groyne system can be strategically placed and its behavior can be more easily predicted.

In the North Caribbean and especially around Santo Domingo,

The size and magnitude of storm surges can also be predicted : Wave heights

Meters 1

The wind and waves typically flow from west to northwest ...

... and the wave swells also move in the same west and northwest direction.

Feet

2 5

3 10

Surge heights

5 15

6 20

min

Waves : 100-year return time for DR

source : Metacentral Ltd.

Meters 1

7 25

max

Feet

min

2 5

3 10

5 15

6 20

7 25

max

Surges : 100-year return time for DR

Corbin Keech / AAD

Incorporation of protective systems : Potential reconfiguration / strengthening of edge

.01

.02

Land Predominant direction of waves

Groyne

.03

.04

.05

.06

Locating groyne system / Points of strength & weakness

.01 : Points of strength & vulnerability

Vulnerable point

.02 : Positioning of groyne system

.03 : Insertion of groynes

Groyne

Strong point

Corbin Keech / AAD

Incorporation of protective systems / Elevated structure, porous structure

.01

: extrusion of groynes

.02

: widening of groynes to become structural core

.03

: insertion of program above 25’, the 100 year storm surge level

.04

: bottom slab is divorced from primary structure to connect to ground plane, creating various public spaces, visual transparency, and generate an active Malecón

.05

: program envelope is adjusted to contain different programs

.06

: system continues outward

Land Program Groyne

100’ year storm surge

Stages of formal resolution

01 : Insertion of transit, provides transportation spine linking all 10 sites

02 : Insertion of groyne towers, provides structural core and organizational device for program to span in-between

03 : Bottom plane & first floor, linking internal program to ground below. Reaches out into water and back to existing, creating a new, active, and accessible Malec贸n.

04 : Insertion of structural bracing, spanning from groyne tower to groyne tower.

05 : Insertion of glazing and first level enclosure.

06 : Insert second level floor plates.

07 : Insert second level glazing and enclosure.

08 : Insert root, split the plane near the opening to bring in light.

Corbin Keech / AAD

Site plan

Aerial view of Sans Souci

Corbin Keech / AAD

09 10

05 08 05 02 01

05 08 03

Plan - Malec贸n level

60 m / Programming Legend

Section - North / South

01 _ Large Expo space 02 _ Medium Expo 03 _ Ramp to ground level 04 _ Edge of 60 meter zone 05 _ Malec贸n - connection to tip of Sans Souci 06 _ Malec贸n - large public square 07 _ Hotel 08 _ Malec贸n - extended walkway into water 09 _ Malec贸n - extension over highway to existing context 10 _ Restaurant 11 _ Entry, reception

Corbin Keech / AAD

02 05

05 04

02 01 04

100

Plan - Main Level

60 m / Programming Legend

Section - East / West

01 _ Large Expo space 02 _ Medium Expo 03 _ Malec贸n - connection to tip of Sans Souci 04 _ Malec贸n - large public square 05 _ Hotel 06 _ Malec贸n - extended walkway into water 07 _ Malec贸n - extension over highway to existing context 08 _ Restaurant 09 _ Entry, reception

Corbin Keech / AAD

101

Rendering looking east from Sans Souci

102

In Havana, the Malec贸n is constantly active and lively. It is considered by Cubans to be a place to meet and a part of their daily life. It is a source of pride. Even more remarkable is the Cuban Malec贸n faces the same potential for storm surges and floods as Santo Domingo, and yet Cubans fearlessly occupy this space. The ambition of 60 m is to effectively recreate this unique urban condition, and to provide a series of active urban spaces that are linked to the program and development that is situated along the coast.

The Malec贸n, Havana, Cuba

Corbin Keech / AAD

103

Absent from Santo Domingo’s Malecón is an extension to the water. The image is the tip of Sans Souci, but it is virtually impossible to access, given the rocky terrain that separates the grass from the edge. 60 m would include a secondary surface that would extend out into the water at points on top of the groynes, creating a hybrid infrastructure of disaster prevention mixed with urban amenities.

Sans Souci, Dominican Republic

104

Rendering looking north from groyne extension

Corbin Keech / AAD

105

Rendering of top of ramp and entry into the east Convention area.

106

Sans Souci

Finally, 60 m would provide alternative views out to the sea, as well as a unique relationship to the primary iconic structure on the site, the light tower. The two forms are held apart from one another, but a platform at the top of each ramp allows views out to sea and to the adjacent platform.

Corbin Keech / AAD

107

Architecture: The Contemporary From 1968 to Present Instructor : Bernard Tschumi Essay : Outside Practice / Inside Margins : Intersecting two Seminal Works of John Hejduk and MVRDV The selection of the site - the act of determining the context - is the first critical step in deciding the trajectory of an architectural endeavor. This decision establishes the conceptual territory within which the architect will dedicate their energy and force, leading them down a path of certain frustration ideally mixed with intellectual pleasure. Furthermore, the process of removing extraneous information is a revelatory process, and one that can accurately describe the ideological sensibilities of the architect. While it is customary to judge an architect by their final image or finished product, my argument is that the most salient and revelatory truths about an architect and their work lies in their source material. In other words, the conceptual territory where the architect formulates their solution is where the true identity of the architect becomes clear. My objective is to use this logic as a tool for examining two architects whose generation, architectural style, and overall polemic are completely different, but still identify themselves as outside the conventional circles of the discipline. Through this logic I arrived at the Wall House 2 or Bye House by John Hejduk and Villa KBWW or Double House by MVRDV. These two seminal works will serve as the primary reference points for examining the architects themselves as well as their relationship to the discipline at large.

While it is customary to judge an architect by their final image or finished product, my argument is that the most salient and revelatory truths about an architect and their work lies in their source material. In other words, the conceptual territory where the architect formulates their solution is where the true identity of the architect becomes clear.

the second in the series of Wall House concepts developed by John Hejduk between 1968 and 1976. Preceding these studies was a series of other projects - the Diamond Houses and the Texas Houses - whose formal configurations were inspired by the Lozenge paintings of Mondrian and called attention to what Hejduk called ‘the moment of the hypotenuse.’3

My objective is to use this logic as a tool for examining two architects whose generation, architectural style, and overall polemic are completely different, but still identify themselves as outside the conventional circles of the discipline. Through this logic I arrived at the Wall House 2 or Bye House by John Hejduk and Villa KBWW or Double House by MVRDV. These two seminal works will serve as the primary reference points for examining the architects themselves as well as their relationship to the discipline at large.

Contrary to these early works, which were characterized by their rational and grid-like organization, the Wall House series broke from the rigor of these models and evolved into mannered compositions of points, planes, lines and volume. The Wall House 2 is stretched lengthwise by a horizontal axis. At one ends of this bar are a series of stacked volumes, on the other a volume that is linked to the horizontal bar. The stacked volumes are intersected by a thin concrete wall, which is active in the generation the unique spatial simultaneity for which the house is characterized. In other words, the wall serves as the Archimedean point point by which the entire project hinges.

John Hejduk attempted to reveal the latent forces of a site through architecture and architectural representation. MVRDV, while similarly concerned with the invisible dimension of architecture, saw the site as mixture of data and program. Through each of these projects I argue that their respective disciplinary arguments are revealed. Also notable is the difference in representation, process, and Wall #2While (Bye they House) conceptual basis of these twoHouse projects. are rooted in highly abstractJohn notions of program, space, and Hejduk movement, the details of each illustrate their conflicting attitudes. These projects are also a composition of different levels of complexity and illuminate a great deal about the architects themselves as well as the cultural context within which each was borne. I will also attempt to describe the details of the architects’ evolution, and how they arrived at these projects. Lastly, the use of the wall is a strong material component of these projects, and a detail I will also use to describe their respective identities. I will begin by describing these two projects in detail, and will then descend backwards in time through the many influences that have shaped these two projects, concluding with their respective cultural distinctions. This method of unraveling the architect in the opposite direction is an attempt to substantiate the subtext of my argument which is that the depth and significance of these projects can magnified by slowly revealing their hidden sources and historical references, for these two projects initially present themselves as purely formal solutions but are in fact borne out of a uniquely “marginal” design process and pedagogy. What’s more, one can then understand not only what is at stake in their respective practices, but their relationship with theory. While the process, persona and architectural production could not be any more different, the territory where these two bodies intersect is in the remote and experimental margins on the discipline. As Walter Benjamin points out, innovation in the nineteenth century occurred outside of academically sanctioned practice. Wall House 2 (Bye House)

108

Villa Before it was physically realized in KBWW Groningen, The MVRDV Netherlands, Hejduk’s Wall House 2 existed solely as an idea, or more specifically, as a series of plans, sections, elevations, axonometrics, and primitive sketches. Originally

Through this collision of objectified architectural form, moral and ideological ambitions, and the rhetorical and linguistic meanings that underline the design process, the Bye House forms a comprehensive summary of Hejduk’s body of work. What’s more, Hejduk himself - dually serving as architect and storyteller - is entirely present in every stage. This is a critical area of departure in comparing the Bye House - and Hejduk’s work in general - to the similarly radical Double House. Villa KBWW (Double House) Located on the south of the Wilhelminapark in Utrecht, Villa KBWW or Double House was completed in 1997 and is the culmination of a series of difficult and complex negotiations between two oppositional domestic programs. Rather than adhere to the conventions of property division through with the extruded party wall, the single parcel is divided three dimensionally in an effort to negotiate between two conflicting domestic requirements. Rather than express this differentiation, the two dwellings are contained within an outwardly undifferentiated box. Adding to the complexity was the incorporation of a second architect, Bjarne Mastenbroek, thus giving the final outcome greater significance considering the houses reveal no difference in architectural signature.4 While each unit shares the same physical orientation, the location spaces within are determined relative to the domestic spaces in the adjacent unit. This means that while one of the living rooms occupies the entire first floor in one unit, in the other the living spaces are on the second floor. The façade of the house reveals this division, and determines the shape and complexity of the spaces it encloses. First there is the image, production and scale Before the 1990s significant advances in technology changed the representational techniques employed by architects were accompanied by a series of similarly immense shifts in economic and political paradigms. This included the rise of international media networks, new forms of democracy based on systems of expertise, and the political involvement of the individual citizens made stronger and more salient by

Since the 1990s a central element to MDRDV’s methodology is the belief that the reality architecture and urbanism try to organize is to a large degree quantifiable. Paradoxically, the management or precise identification of the parameters is often impossible to precisely define, however this is where the radicality of MDRDV’s work lies - the audaciousness in their definition of context. Their unique concept of the datascape is where they depart for the margins of professional practice. Datascapes provide a way to understand the development of the environment in a more general way, particularly in situations with a high density, where the different ruling forces inevitably clash. FARMAX is just one of the handbooks that is an example of this attitude. In studies conducted by Maas and van Rijs at the Academie van Bouwkunst in Rotterdam and at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, students developed a catalogue of datascapes within a cubic city of 100 by 100 meters and minimum FAR of 10 - coincidentally the equivalent of Hong Kong.6

in the direction of theory. In other words, in contrast to the courageousness of MVRDV, Hejduk steered clear of such ambitions. Coincidentally, these two extreme attitudes unify Hejduk and MVRDV again on the disciplinary fringes. Before scale, there was professional influence. John Hejduk was trained as an architect while Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe were still alive and practicing. To escape from their influence was virtually impossible, considering the amount of work these leaders were constantly producing. Hejduk and others of his generation were then presented with the task of questioning the deeply engrained modernist conventions to which all architects had been anchored.

hare,” Hejduk’s practice of theory gives up totalizating explanations as absurdities. In other words, the image can only explain itself to itself. Hejduk’s developed his innate feelings towards color, form and space during his initial studios at the Cooper Union under the guidance of Henrietta Schutz. Her twodimensional design class provided an introduction to these fundamental architectural concepts, and trained the students to develop a coherent visual and tactile sensibility through painting.

The “un-excecuted” dimension of Hejduk’s projects can be attributed to the institutional spirit of the mid-50s to mid60s in the US which embraced his dually theoretical and formally familiar explorations. Despite his time as a student of the Cooper Union and Harvard, a Fulbright scholarship, his linkage to Colin Rowe and Werner Seligmann and the four other Whites, he was still anchored to the modernist zeitgeist ossified by Mies, Wright and Le Corbusier. This further solidified his interest in the handmade, even primitive techniques of manipulating figures and objects.

Embedded in Hejduk’s formal preferences is also a preference for scaled, even sensible architecture. In Critique of Judgement, Immanuel Kant emphasized the need to critically examine the presentation of concepts and their tendency to oppose the signs that accompanied them. Kant referred to this attitude as “mere characterization.” In this post-war period, great emphasis was placed 12 While Kant was determined to define a framework for on reconstruction, recreation, and religion, leading to judging and determining beauty, this questioning of the architectural commissions dominated by programs for “suggested meaning” often put forth by the architect is Chapels, Cathedrals, Cemeteries, Bridges, Ski Lodges, Country Fairs, Biological Centers, Zoological Parks.8 This process engraved a critical formal technique that would useful for its interest in liberating the architect of suggesting Depiction of “Energy Sector.” Image Because these projects fell within a very limited typological shape Hejduk’s attitude towards energies of form and space, a specific meaning in the first place. In other words, the Because datascapes are visual representation of all the a windmill overlooking a imagery, in addition to the speculative of Hejduk’s range they required the utilization of basic building and about the relationship between the of periphery and of facade the opacity quantifiable sources, The Double House can be read as a and intuitive nature of his illustrations lends them greater materials, as well as a significant amount of attention to their edge. Emphasis was placed on the handling the“Living brush, Sector” sea ofofred blocks. synthesis of the difficult forces that bound the architecture. constructability, detail, fabricated joints and connections. and the consequences and advantages ofMVRDV not using T squares significance, for in their rejection of specific meaning invite The architects were able to define this context by selecting Thus emerged a specific material and symbolic character and right angles. Instead, the students were relying solely the viewer to project their own. only the controllable and quantifiable factors inherent to that can be traced through these projects. The built work of on the collective work of the eye, hand, paint, paper and the project - domestic program in the form of definitive this era had a specific place in time as a result of this burst of brush. With these lessons the students were considering With regards to scale and visual accessibility, there is no numerical spatial requirements. Absent from this process Shadow of the Future architectural activity. These architectural “patterns” served the manipulation of form, with the assumption they could better project to elaborate on the idea of differentiation is an emphasis on form, proportion, or the experiential than Villa KBWW or Double House. Both the form as a point of interest for Hejduk. For Hejduk, the embedded incorporate their own narratives later.11 (double exposure) dimensions of space that are so deeply embedded in the and programmatic organization of the building are authoritarianism became problematic and difficult to by Niko Geane, 1942 logic of Hejduk’s architecture. generated through purely utilitarian needs. MVRDV reconcile. Before education, there is the cultural dimension. In Vision in Motion also simultaneously devised a supplementary concept Understood perceptually the concrete wall of the Bye House Embedded in Hejduk’s work is a suspiciousness of the Maas, van Rijs and de Vries benefitted from a governmental, of creating a profound sense of “otherness” to the space. demands the greatest amount of visual attention, although certainties that his modernist predecessors professed as political and disciplinary structure whose key positions were This is a recurrent theme in MVRDV’s work, and again is its greater purpose is to serve as the central conceptual device doctrine, and preferred a more personal and less dictatorial occupied by individuals who rebelled in the 1960s and 70s. most clearly understood through the analysis if the Double of the project. In Hejduk’s words, “The wall is a neutral relationship with the temporal and experiential realities 11 The ambitious and often disruptive ideas generated by House. The inhabitants within cannot escape the awareness condition. That’s why it’s always painted grey. And the wall of architecture. MVRDV on the other hand, uses the younger architects were appealing to this generation, and that they are within an enclosure whose structural integrity represents the same condition as the time of the hypotenuse computer as a tool for translating the latent quantities or each group shared a willingness to take risks and propose is dependent upon and linked to a neighbor. However, the in the Diamond Houses - it is the greatest moment of repose, contextual “realities” into form, but also as a device for the sweeping urban and architectural proposals. Because wall that divides the two apartments becomes the boundary and at the same time the greatest tension. It is the moment manipulation of these quantities. Comparing their distinct the older generation was shaped by the predominantly that encourages differentiation. The spatial composition of passage.”7 Essentially, the wall symbolizes the present visualization techniques is critical in further understanding technocratic Two Chapels for the political attitude of the 1960s and the socio- of the house further comments on the “plural other: the through which one is constantly breaking, where on one side where these two bodies collide and separate. political philosophy of the 1970s, wherein the identity of people who share a building with us or live in the same Dead is the present and on the other, the past. individual and their personal creativity was seriously neighborhood and who are all individuals.” Illustration the by Hejduk While at Koolhaas’ office in the 80’s, Maas took a similarly considered. Here lies a point of connection between the oppositional stance to the commonly accepted disciplinary members of MDRDV and Hejduk; the role of the individual Synthesis MVRDV has also made clear its interest in the speculative authority. “While others sceptically attempted to explain mind. territory which is solving global crises related to resources, The two quotations at the beginning of the essay are included Koolhaas’ associations with irony and fantasy, Maas busily housing, and sustainable urbanization. By inserting itself set about transforming them, one might say magically, into a While many have proposed that the global institutionalization to unify these two oppositional bodies through their into the largest of scales, MVRDV assumes the role as a disciplinary method for design.”9 While his talent was in the development of free markets will destroy the individuality of the formally distinctive but conceptually similar Diamond House C virtually scale-less problem-solving figure, bravely engaging of complex diagrams, instructions and cartoons, Maas masses, many Dutch have suggested the opposite. Their missions. The architects have their own method of creating Hejduk the task of managing these complex urban issues. By arming rejected the notion held by Koolhaas that these images were broad proposal is that larger schemes do in fact produce distance from the “realities” that surround them, yet are still itself with the newest technological devices and carrying simply a model of thought. This is a point of departure for differentiation, because the individuals within the system consumed by this distance. An additional byproduct of this with it a relentless intellectual thirst for solving impossible Depiction of “OxygenCarbon steady position is distance from the center of the discipline Hejduk as well, whose architectural imagery was even less now have a collective frame of reference from which they tasks, they remain faithful in the capacity of these tools to well. This similarity complicates their relationship, but Dioxide Sector.”asStacked bound by the realities typically confronted by Koolhaas. can personally separate. What’s more, MVRDV’s disinterest Living room inside Villa KBWW overcome the consequences of globalization. In fact, even be broken again through an analysis of their respective This is especially notable considering Koolhaas’ commonly in the rhetorical dimension of architecture has freed them to can forests of poplar tress MVRDV though this global transformation seems to be weakened representational processes. overlooked preference for economically responsible and focus primarily on their own unique architectural language, inserted in place of oxygenby competitive nationalism that makes a worldwide Balkan stylistically demure architectural resolutions.10 which willfully ignores form and aesthetics, often resulting composition a possibility, such regionalism might also level data. in neglected, uninspired and even sloppy projects. However, Broadly speaking, the representational process is critical in be a way to escape from this very protectionism: through Metacity/Datascapes Before professional influence, there were educational muses the benefit to the users is more utilitarian.From Because large the constitution of the project’s character and behavior. For specialization, each region enhances its global position. parts of the schemes are left open for the residents to Hejduk, the architecture is imagined, perhaps even dreamt. 109 Corbin Keech / AAD This is a particularly Dutch attitude that I will continue to Hejduk’s refusal of theory is shorthand for a more subtle introduce and project their own aesthetics and languages, The datascape imagery of MDRDV is more accurately elaborate on later in the essay. polemic which is practice can never simply be the object the architecture simply becomes container and receptor, described as “generated.” Because the datascape is by definition analytic and therefore arguably pragmatic, the of theory. Like Josef Beuys “explaining pictures to a dead rather than existing for its own purpose. The conventional judgement of Hejduk’s work is that datascape imagery suggests a certain definitiveness that The task was to paint a black shape with no right angles in the center of the white canvas, which was roughly 10” x 12”. Emphasis was placed on creating the shapes quickly and intuitively, while Schutz would suggest the shape be adjusted and re-shaped using more or less black ink. The students continued to adjust the shapes, a continuous process of addition and subtraction.

The illusory effect depends on universally agreed upon definitions of the object, or the projected meaning generated through language. The following projects, despite their initial reliance on visual legibility, are ultimately anchored to their linguistic connotation. Also fundamental is their dependence on an audience or viewer in their activation. The magnitude of their effect is in direct proportion to the degree to which the viewer is provoked, and furthermore, they are incomplete without the reflection and internal response of the individual(s) who witnesses them.

Architecture, Print, Politics: Case Studies 1945 to 1975 Instructor : Craig Buckley Essay : Architecture as Illusion: Semantic Branding and the Evolution of Fakery The ambition of this essay was to describe the legacy of illusion as it pertains to architecture, and to describe its relationship with language. One of the fundamental premises of illusion is a disruption of reality, which is to say a deceptive appearance is created and the familiar is turned unfamiliar. This is an attitude that underscores the work of many artists and architects whose work is consumed with visual tricks and variations in tone. Hans Hollein’s Everything is Architecture sets the stage of this discussion by establishing an extreme conceptual position with his courageous declaration that architecture is in its purest sense, a simulation. Marshall Mcluhan, while similarly concerned with the role of the mind and body in the architectural experience, looked beyond these limits at the external forces whose social and commercial ambitions were similarly enormous in their scope and power. Thirdly I will examine the influential collaborative exhibition, This is Tomorrow, as well as the contextual forces that shaped it. Because the artists, sculptors, and architects deliberately incorporated examples of the new and strange visual environment that had emerged during their generation, it was a defining moment because its acknowledged the embedded strength of these images, and predicted the growth of stylistically indecipherable but interactive artwork that followed. In an effort to complete the narrative I will conclude by examining the early work of Diller + Scofidio, whose conceptual interest started with the body, its operational space, and its material of encounter These projects are united not only by their attempts to challenge the visual designation of their chosen objects, but also their linguistic order that supports their meaning.

So what is the legacy of illusion, and more importantly, what is its relationship with language? What is the appeal of the unseen, especially as it relates to art and architecture? One of the fundamental premises of illusion is a disruption of reality, which is to say a deceptive appearance is created and the familiar is turned unfamiliar. This is an attitude that underscores the work of many artists and architects whose work is consumed with visual tricks and variations in tone, whether Hollein expands the meaning of architecture to include a can of spray paint, or Diller + Scofidio’s 1991 installation “Tourisms: suitCases Studies” challenges the viewer to reconsider the purpose of the suitcase as well as the authenticity of the touristic experience.2 It is not only the visual designation that is being challenged, but also their linguistic order. Sparkplug

Hans Hollein, 1964

Hans Hollein’s Everything is Architecture sets the stage of this discussion by establishing an extreme conceptual position with his courageous declaration that architecture is in its purest sense, a simulation. Marshall Mcluhan, while similarly concerned with the role of the mind and body in the architectural experience, looked beyond these limits at the external forces whose social and commercial ambitions were similarly enormous in their scope and power. Thirdly I will examine the influential collaborative exhibition, This is Tomorrow, as well as the contextual forces that shaped it. Because the artists, sculptors, and architects deliberately incorporated examples of the new and strange visual environment that had emerged during their generation, it was a defining moment because its acknowledged the embedded strength of these images, and predicted the growth of stylistically indecipherable but interactive artwork that followed. In an effort to complete the narrative I will conclude by examining the early work of Diller + Scofidio, whose conceptual interest started with the body, its operational space, and its material of encounter. These four projects serve as case-studies in the ongoing study of the the complicated task which is architectural representation, as well as the fascinating subtext with is their reliance on deceit and editing. This essay will also attempt to define the specific effects that architecture produces, and draw distinctions between what is “architecture” and what is “architectural.” Internal Simulation

110

In the 1960’s Hans Hollein used Bau Magazine as a platform to promote the idea that Everything is Architecture, a paper-revolt whose relevancy was echoed similarly radical movements occurring in all fields of art and science. Hollein challenged the assumption that architecture is a material discipline, and by examining Hollein’s attempts

to destabilize architecture’s foundation, one engages in the complicated task that is making an argument for architecture’s very existence. Hollein’s revolt was borne out of a frustration with the commonly accepted modes of architectural production and representation. His declaration that everything is architecture was an attempt to propose an architectural alternative to the current “tired mainstream practices, dominated by the conservative, formalist architects of the day”3 a group that consisted of by Philip Johnson, Walter Gropius, Edward Durell Stone, and Minoru Yamasaki. Perhaps a deeper origin for this challenge is Hollein’s belief that the brain - or ground zero for the mixture of our senses - is where our interpretation of the surrounding world takes place. Hollein ostensibly asks: What is the most artificial act that man has been engaged in since his existence? The act of building, of constructing shelter, and generating space that is critical in prolonging man’s health, longevity, and very existence. In other words, architecture is, by definition and by historical standards, the most artificial act we know.4 As it relates to less spatial formal techniques of trickery, Hollein even goes as far to suggest the hologram could be utilized to further disrupt our commonly accepted perceptions of reality, and could lead to totally new determinations and experiences. Taken further, I would suggest the architect, as the mediator between a variety of different parties - public and private, builder and client could assume the role of what Claude Lèvi-Strauss refers to as the trickster, or to borrow terms from the hyperbolic architectural lexicon; the facilitator of ambiguous spatial conditions. Lèvi-Strauss, in the examination of the myth, detected a basic paradox which is that “mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution”5 He believed that the trickster of many Native American mythologies acted as a “mediator,” whose role as the myth-maker or embodiment of contradiction was their unpredictable and contradictory personality. He also pointed out that this character was almost always a raven or a coyote. The selection of these two animals can be explained by pointing out how the relationship between agriculture and hunting is analogous to the opposition of life and death, in that agriculture is chiefly concerned with producing life while on the other hand hunting is concerned with the production of death. Furthermore, like agriculture, herbivores are linked to plants, while hunting is linked to the capturing of meat. Finally, because these these two animals are scavengers and feed on carrion, they are linked to neither of these poles and therefore occupy the mediating space between them, thus the invocation of the trickster, or ambiguous and equivocal character.6 Hollein also suggests that architecture’s material componentry and its very production has and will continue to evolve. “Architects have something to learn in this respect from the development of military strategy. Had this science Rotodiscs been subject to the same inertness as architecture and its consumers, we would still be building fortification walls Marcel Duchamp and towers. In contrast, military planning left behind its connection to building to avail itself of new possibilities for

satisfying the demands placed upon it.” 7 Hollein’s impulse to push architecture out of its comfort zone can also be linked to Wittgenstein and his thoughts on the dilemmas of representation. “A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.”8

with which we can assemble a common visual language. This alphabet soup as it were, can also trigger a variety of combinations and readings, each of which bear the insight and perceptual sensibilities of their creator.

actress Betty Grable. References to the war tap into the indefatigable American thirst for victory, and supplies the viewer with an overwhelming amount of emotion and human interest through images of crashing planes, sexual desire, nostalgia, and compassion. Mcluhan vehemently questions the public which accepts these advertisements uncritically. He then accepts this language as established cultural fixture, for if the public or the industry had considered them to be just as distasteful as he considers them, “An alert and conscious public would have repudiated (these) ad(s) emphatically. The magazine would have ceased publication. The papers which carried the ad would have ben glad to have gotten off by the gesture of firing large sections of their staffs. But, instead, the dream grows.” Some languages emerge only to be swallowed up by others or fade entirely. Certainly the visual language of dreams, purity and nationalistic pride continue to remain intact.

sculptor to freely display their personal message. In other words, the overall effect created is that of differentiation, rather than unification.

Perhaps what is most interesting is the exhibit also reveals As Reyner Banham points out in his 1965 article, “A Clip-On the unsettling truth regarding imagery’s capacity to move Architecture”, the architecture generated during periods of masses and motivate rebellion. This is Tomorrow was borne the modern industrial age, united in its concerns for mass out of desire to undermine the meaning of these media production of unitized structural elements and flexible objects, unambiguous iconographies, and commercially spaces, brought about conflicting results and failed to ossify generated images, whose strength has become so fiercely a universally applicable aesthetic and form. Furthermore, stubborn that an entire exhibit has been devoted to their the failure of many projects undermines the assumption destruction. Hollein’s survey is concerned not with the destruction of that a industrialized process and its subsequent formal architecture, but rather he endeavors to preserve, prolong, translation adheres to universal principles of mechanization Crosby and the participating artists could have naively and ultimately strengthen architecture. Pointing out the as well as public perception. “The very few surviving assumed this project could provoke the masses to reject corrupt state of architecture was essentially a gesture of examples of anonymous, endlessly linked, non-centristic the seductive force of the image, but it is more likely their affection, and expressed faith in its capacity to withstand architecture that the United States produced in that period ambitions were more realistic, considering the notion of moments of meaninglessness. Everything in Architecture (1950s) - the long facades of Ero Saarinen’s technical center generating a cultural zeitgeist was an attitude the exhibit was created at a moment when architecture needed to at General Motors - are now unfortunately among the Internal Differentiation rejected in the first place. To return to Wittgenstein, “When be un-consolidated. Hollein considered the definition of most disregarded and despised architecture that post-war we believe that we have to find that order, the ideal, in architecture to be so completely homogenized and devoid of America has produced.”11 Conversely, while this project This is Tomorrow, curated by Theo Crosby in August our actual language, we become dissatisfied with what are actual meaning, he acted to redefine it though the process of was Mies-like in its brutal austerity and excessive repetition, 1956, was less concerned with disguise and endeavored ordinarily called ‘sentences’, ‘words’, ‘signs’. The sentence reducing and democratizing it. the Park Hill housing developments by Jack Lynn and Ivor to celebrate the illusion created by popular imagery and and the word that logic deals with are supposed to be Smith at Sheffield - despite its indulgence in a similarly celebrity. This hodgepodge exhibition was considered a something pure and clear-cut. And now we rack our brains Externally Stimulated extensive plan, formal simplicity, and anti-centristic watershed in post-war British Art, influenced pop artists, over the nature of the real sign - Is that perhaps the idea of organization - nevertheless succeeded by providing a and above all relied upon new forms of sound and visual the sign? Or the idea at the present moment?” The illusory Tourisms: suitCase Studies This is Tomorrow poster The cumulative effect of these acts can then be referred to generous amount of space for the pedestrian with its loops technology as well as the reproduction of existing images as nature of this project is found in the process of searching Diller + Scofidio by Richard McHale as semantic branding, whose ambition to subvertHamilton an object’s and andJohn bifurcations, that created different pathways and points a conceptual base, thus codifying a critical technique that for the meaning, which is to say the object’s relationship to definition occur solely within the territory of linguistic of encounter for its users. would become an old hat to the artistic community. its surrounding context and the moment in time when it is alterations. What Liane Lefaivre calls “everthingizing” “consumed” will reveal the illusory dimension of the artwork. is only a part of the compelling nature of this project and The principle of a false neutrality is also present in the The group of participating artists was deliberately mixed, This prolongs the life and interest in the exhibition, because others whose collective assumption is that these objects shrewd manipulation of information and science utilized resulting in an overall effect of competing messages. over time its polemic - while it was rooted in the cultural are anchored to a specific rhetorical association, and their by commercial interests for purposes of marketing and Furthermore, the language of the exhibit was generated and artistic crisis of the age in which it was imagined - will meaning and use is universally understood and immovable. self-preservation. As C. B. Lewis pointed out, “the folk has through the mobilization of pop iconography and ordinary always change with the position of the person witnessing it. The idea that “a building can become entirely information, neither part nor lot in the making of folklore,” and the objects, and was therefore legible and accessible to all who At the same time, the objects used remain fixed in time, their (and that) its message might be experienced through images and advertisements that have now been welcomed witnessed it. By communicating through the objects whose original meaning remaining intact. informational media”9 is a concept that can be traced back (inserted?) into the commercial lexicon represent a world identity is common and also defined, the objective was to to the theoretical work of Marshall McLuhan, whose work of social myths and speak a language we both know and alter, challenge, and perhaps reconstitute identity and One component of the exhibition whose relevance cannot is consumed by the phenomena associated with commercial do not know.12 Tremendous investment was placed in meaning of these objects. go without attention is Marcel Duchamp’s rotoreliefs that systems, technology and imagery, whose linkages and the gathering of intelligent minds for the dissemination of were included in Group 2. These painted discs were meant growing role in society is often unnoticed and unsettling. drama and emotion. The illusions took the form of headlines On one hand, This is Tomorrow was a critical moment to be displayed while spinning, and worked by careful and fictitious anecdotes, whose purpose was to resonate because it succeeded in overcoming the common obstacles arranging the applied geometries and images, taking great Marshall McLuhan defined media as an extension of the with our deepest emotions and restrained impulses. The facing the curatorial practice, while simultaneously featuring care care organize their adjacencies and spacing. When body. His visionary and elaborate speculations about the success of advertising that was initiated in the 50s and 60s a variety of radical ideas whose conceptual thrust would be spun an illusion emerges, and images transform from a twoevolution of community, society, fashion and housing were was a magnificent display of what international industry and felt for decades. On the other hand, given the spontaneity of dimensional illustration to a dynamic, three-dimensional groundbreaking, and remains completely relevant in our technology is capable of. the exhibit, as well as the lack of aesthetic or programmatic space. In comparison to many of the other “collected” time. His theories further advanced the discussion regarding In the case of advertising and its cunning use of scientific limits,13 the resulting quality is also difficult to decipher. A objects on display at This is Tomorrow , including Group the consequences of technology’s omnipresence, as well as evidence and meticulous consumer polling and market democratized organizational process may have satisfied a 12’s bulletin board of found images from magazine spreads its role in generating a new communicative vocabulary. research, the challenge is determining which party - the motley crew of architects, painters and sculptors, but the and catalogues, the Smithsons’ Patio and Pavilion with its message sender or the message receiver - is the true overall effect may have been nothing if not confusing. Taken sand patio and found objects, Group 2’s Robby the Robot Despite architecture’s material dimension - its moments of autonomous figure. Hot and Cold could be read as an further, I would argue this “momentous” exhibition was an and Marilyn Monroe posters, and a poster from van Gogh’s raw presence and immovability - architecture does actively argument for a linkage between a culture and its dominant illusion in itself, which is to say its ambitions to collapse a Sunflowers, the rotoreliefs stood as one of the few works work as a myth-making device, for it possesses the capacity to media. In other words, the messages delivered are a moment in time through a collection of artifacts and cultural included whose purpose was to cleverly challenge our This is Tomorrow Understanding Media: generate what Mcluhan calls “the instant vision of a complex reflection of that culture and the source, and while the references, while a completely valid and admirable mission, perceptive impulses, rather than the meaning of the objects Robby the Robot, from the 1956 science fiction The Extensions of Man process that ordinarily extends over a long period.” Because message they project is completely plastic, the medium failed to sustain a clear message. we were perceiving. myth collapses a lengthy process into a tight allegorical itself is an accurate reflection offilm, both Forbidden the source and the and Marylin Monroe Planet, Marshall Mcluhan or fictitious reality, it contradicts the fundamental nature overall context. On the other hand, the calibration of these Even more notable was the exhibit in undermining the Further distinguishing these works from others from This is of the process, camouflaging the fact that we continue to messages demands attention, given their motivation is commonly accepted notion that the ideal picture of Tomorrow is their interactivity. Many of the found objects think “fragmentally and on single planes.”10 Mcluhan is of ultimately rooted in the manipulation of one’s inner desires. collaboration is rarely fully achieved, and while it is likely in the exhibition were assembled as groups of references. course referring to the technological processes with which there were some disagreements in the curatorial and The vocabulary was not only accessible, but fragmentary in he had encountered, and was responding to the effect that Even more deceitful is their skillful composition of familiar design process, the project was not completely disrupted nature. Rotoreliefs also resisted the use of prisms or mirror 111 Corbin Keech / AAD electronic technology was beginning to have on architecture. visual cues. Mcluhan highlights the groundbreaking ad by antagonism or conflict. This is Tomorrow succeeded systems which had become a common experimental tactic in Modern Screen, in which the magazine selects another in highlighting the risks that accompany the principles of at that time. Form can then be understood as the alphabet or the parts advertisement, and incorporates the face of iconic American de-specialization, while allowing each artist, architect or

Other Design Critics : Michael Rock, Yoonjai Choi Diagrams : New York Times front page / Iconography / 60 m This was a hybrid seminar about using diagrams as a tool for learning graphic design. It was also concerned not diagrammatic architecture, but the diagrams themselves that would describe it. At the core of the class was an ambition to give form to concepts, but it also endeavored to investigate how the development of the diagram itself can be generative and impact the forms that rise from it. The coursework consisted of several short assignments that engage six different organizational forms: Inventory, Process, Time, System, Comparison and Map. Included in this catalogue is the second and third assignment. The second, entitled Front Page, attempted to analyze an existing dataset, which in this case was the content of the February 27 New York Times. We made six simple diagrams, each based on either Parts / Whole, Process / Sequence, Time, Network, Comparison, and Map. The final assignment included is called Pictograms. The objective was to create four pictograms that clear describe four distinct events, places, things or ideas. The challenge was to not only clearly describe a single system but to generate a set whose components have more or less equal weight. The final assignment was to create four diagrams for our final studio project, which have already been displayed for 60 m.

112

Assignment 03 Iconography Moca Pot Brewing Process

Pictograms / The Moca Pot brewing process

Corbin Keech / AAD

113

Assignment 03 NyTimes analysis 01 _ Network

Front Page Project / 01 _ Network

New York Times section A Friday, January 4, 2011.

a24 a23 a20 a19 a16

a11 a09 a08

a01

114

a02

a03

a04

a05

a06

a07

a10

a12

a13

a14

a15

a17

a18

a21

a22

Assignment 03 NyTimes analysis 02 _ Process / Sequence / Flow

Front Page Project / 02 _ Process / Sequence

stage 01 grid

stage 02 stories

stage 03 secondary stories

stage 04 images + captions

stage 05 headlines

stage 06 secondary headlines

stage 07 supplimentary information

stage 08 NY Times Brand

Corbin Keech / AAD

115

Other Design GSAPP Spring 2011

Front Page Project / 03 _ Time

New Jersey Population Rises

Despite Doubts, JP Morgan Kept Ties

In Shift Economy, Cubans Savor Worried Parents Push for Action

Pettittie is Retiring

Haiti Sets Ballot for Runoff Behind the High Abortion Rate

After Trauma, the Bill

3650 days

1349 days

359 days

247 days

114 days

87 days

76 days

46 days

28 days

116

17 days 20 days

Egypt Bernake Nixon

Assignment 03 NyTimes analysis 03 _ Comparison

Front Page Project / 04 _ Comparison

Percentage typeface coverage of cover, organized by size

3/4” _ 7.54% 3/8” _ 8.15% 1/4” _ 2.37% 7/32” _ 5.57% 1/8” _ 6.00% 3/32” _ 68.9% 1/16” _ 1.24%

Corbin Keech / AAD

117

118

{ end }

Corbin Keech / AAD

119