A DOMESTICATED LIFE OF OBJECTISM IN A
CONTEMPORARY HOME;
domesticità
/ / domesticity
a study of Contemporary homes;
.
with a Curated focus on mundane things & mess that is presented within
Dylan Markovski
vol. 1
CONTENTS 5
Foreword
7
Defining Mess // d i s o r d i n e
8
The Lifeless Life of Clinical ‘Homes’
17
The Beginning of Mess, Dirt, Things and Domesticity
31
A Cry for Objectism; Things and Objects
39
A Garden; Ecology Gone Rogue
44 References
Fig 01, SANAA, Moriyama House.
4
FOREWORD To humans, dwelling is a necessity. A basic requirement in which centralises around the act of inhabiting, to connect ourselves, though temporarily, with a place, a site on the earth which belongs to us, and to which we belong to. “The act of inhabitation requires an ally”.1 When called upon, we capture the image of these allies in their natural state within a contemporary home. Upright objects, things, mess, and gardens. Whether intentional or not, the amalgamation of these allies serves as an extension to humans. Objects of our daily lives exist as imperfect displays of domestic ownership. Objects that ensure homes are the manifestation of human presence that thrives in the environment it is encapsulated by, and vice versa. The contemporary home has the ability to remain imperfect as a solution to inhabit place [site]. The ability to appear incomplete, yet complete. To live a domestic lifestyle that encapsulates the necessity to provide spaces in which humans can detach themselves from the vertigo of modern life.2 These spaces elicit ambiguity, finished or not; the garden, unattended to, yet, domesticates the site in which we inhabit. The domestic human, becomes the architect, curating a relationship and identity that captures a tensioned “dirty image” 3 of the vestiges of the site’s past and its clinically pristine neighbours. Yet such acts allow our allies [our mess of objects] to inhabit the home [place] and give us a thrill of a slap to hear the praise of awkwardness, shadows, dirtiness, and the site’s layered under-toned values.4
1
2 3 4
Tanizaki, J., 2001. In Praise of Shadows. Vintage, pp.1-2. Shinohara, K., 2011. Kazuo Shinohara, Casas Houses. 2G, pp 8. Campkin, B & Dobraszczyk, P., 2007. Architecture and Dirt Introduction, The Journal of Architecture, pp. 347-351. Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, pp. 1-2 5
Fig 02, Interiors, Notes & Figures, Maxime Delvaux. 2014.
Fig 03, Ecology Lecture Screenshot, George Willmotte. 2021.
6
d i s o r d i n e / / mess Mess is the epitome of mundane variants [things, garden, artefacts] that welcomes rambling. Utilities and things become exposed. Mess allows for a dirty and composed arrangement of objects, structure, and materials non-hierarchically overlaying each other. The architect [domestic human] paints the everyday life, inscribing the arrangement of time. The architecture of Mess and Dirt doesn’t act to resist the overflow of things. Mess allows an intermingling of identities. Whether this be species of weeds from the remnants of place, or to the cross pollination of things to dictate a unique programme within.
7
Sculpture or Home?
Fig 04, Diagram, Farnsworth House, Author, 2021.
8
The Lifeless Life of Clinical ‘Homes’ An echoing of the emptiness that exists in supposedly revolutionary “homes”. A “home” where one is too afraid to make a sound when using the immaculate porcelain toilet. A frigid elegance is something that is ought to portray the clinicality possessed within the works of Mies van der Rohe. Dominating the Cubist and Bauhaus eras of architecture was a glimpse of Minimalism. However, such architectural developments proved irrelevant after Mies unveiled to the world the Barcelona Pavilion at the International Exhibition in 1928.5 The world became tranced by the minimalist ethos of,
“LESS IS MORE” However,
IS IT?
5 William J.R Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900 (London: Phaidon, 2016), pp. 270
Mies’ invention of a streamlined and evanescent form conjured up through ambiguous planes created shock, yet an awe, with the Farnsworth House. Such questions arose and dominated the era,
“How would one live in this home?” 6 There became an obsession with excessive use of metal and glass. However, this obsession of the pristine highlights its ‘nonlivability’. The overuse of these basic materials is intimidating. 7 Such polished treatment of an object in a field distorts the value of its materials, instigating a complacent virtue towards architecture. There lacks a re-use of materials. Here, the new is the only answer according to Miesian values.
6 7
Curtis, Modern Architecture, pp. 403 Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, pp. 21 9
Many fetishise this nature of a home, however…..
How does one reside in such a sculpture? Here, the question of tectonics is highlighted. The Farnsworth House doesn’t explore the capabilities of structural elements to generate domestic spaces. There is no awareness of temporality in a domestic scene. Mies’ use of intersecting wall planes, that loosely define enclosed spaces doesn’t answer any questions on the ability to dwell. Domestic necessities were discarded for the extravagance of an architecturally sculpted pavilion. Through the exhibition of the Farnsworth House, it proved to contain more than just the harrowingly long floor planes in such turbulent Chicago weather.8 There exists a fear of dirt and mess within this sterile formula of a home. 9 The hiding away of all artefacts and mess within the home in search for the pristine had just begun. Mies’ grapple on the Western ideal of Minimalism continued, namely with the works of John Pawson. Pawson, a leading “Instagram Architect”, hyper- aestheticises domesticity in his Life House Project, where he obtains a glorified boring and monotonal order. Not only does this supposed dwelling discard the chaotics of what artefacts can be seen, but the ones that remain are imprisoned behind blank walls.10 Such clinicality signals the offensive nature of assemblages in architecture.
8 AD Classics: The Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe”, Arch Daily, May 13 2010, https://www.archdaily.com/59719/ad-classics the-farnsworth-house-mies-van-der-rohe 9 Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Palladianism”. Encyclo pedia Britannica, 1 May. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/art/ Palladianism. Accessed 14 October 2021. 10 10
“Works: Life House”, John Pawson Architecture, http://www.john pawson.com/works/life-house. Accessed on 14 October 2021
Humorously, articles written about the Life House, claim it to be a place of “calm and reflection”, which contradicts what this built form truly represents. The mundane things that exuberate a warmth of domestic life is jailed due to the materiality of the home with its dull shades of beige dominating the entirety of the architecture.11 These homes cannot be rendered as “contemporary”. Things and Mess are always hidden away. Where does the human occupy? Such examples derived from Mies, and Pawson portrays homes which only sit on some land. They do nothing more. Large intimidating and sterile windows to “view” the landscape doesn’t mean a connection to site. Contemporary homes work much harder than simply explaining use, defining, or describing atmosphere. The Contemporary focuses on the gestures of the present, from the rigorous to the intentional, to the overlooked and consequential. A Contemporary home does not seek to solve problems but highlight observations on the way humans live today. We view Miesian based homes with a direct, close-up view. Yet, we see nothing. We encounter an expected. The challenge to the contemporary home is to generate and invoke irrational feelings, or by introducing shocking juxtapositions to the everyday experience of domestic space.12 Within that, we receive a home full of domestic life, a life where the human and their things are the manifestation to evoking such a sequence of spaces.
11 12
“Life House”, Living Architecture. Shinohara, K., 2011. Kazuo Shinohara, Casas Houses. 2G, pp 9. 11
For these Lifeless Homes, the soul of the domestic participant is cut, their freewill to define their home with mess is lost. The clinical architects have already decided that lifeless life for them. These examples evidence the decline of the art and craft of building. The embellishment of ‘ad-hoc’ incomplete homes is lost.
What is being photographed here? A lack of human occupation. Don’t you dare drop a speck of wine on this constantly polished table.
12
Fig 05, Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe. Accessed on 14 October 2021. https://www.andrewraimist.com/2013/03/precedents-in-architecture.html
“When you encounter a building that is hard to photograph you are on to something that is slipping beyond the usual”. - Elizabeth Hatz, On the Architecture of Hugh Strange: Footnotes, Backgrounds and Sheds -
A Home should not be the foreground of the photograph. The architecture is essentially background and peripheral. We do not look at it, but through and around it, like something we inhabit.
13
Objectic Living
14
there is no hierarchy.
things & mess living as multiple entities.
Fig 06, DESORDRES 1987-88, Jean Louis Garnell Accessed on 14 October 2021. http://www. jeanlouisgarnell.net/DESORDRES/TEXTEDESORDRES.html
15
Fig 07, Tour Bois-le-Prêtre, Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. Accessed on October 14 2021. https://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/16/tour-bois-le-pretre-by-frederic-druot-anne-lacaton-and-jean-philippe-vassal/
16
The Beginning of Mess, Dirt, Things & Domesticity An Urban Chaos: architecture that is never complacent but challenges the conventional. We tend to associate ‘dirt’ with an offensive stature.13 But such dirt is a part of our daily life. We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind - mass merchandising, advertising, and the constant blurring of identities. For the dirty architect, the fiction already exists. It’s then the job of the domesticated human and dirty architect to invent the reality.14 We look towards the life of an obsessional artist. Their studio in a constant state of chaotics. They “sleep there, urinates in the hand basin or out of the window”.15 These are the realities of Mess and Dirt we are confronted with in a true domestic scene. The assemblage of such an architecture is completely disordered, everything appears out of place, but feels comfortable.
In Tour Bois-le-Prêtre, the assemblage of things does not act to decorate spaces which is evident in Miesian forms. These messes of things and artefacts themselves occupy and inhabit space. You begin to immerse yourself in a place of the known; the mundane. A red bucket acts as a plant pot, it’s not a sterile ceramic, it’s humanised, it’s known. It’s presence on the balcony begins to inhabit it. The mop next to the bar fridge in case spills occurs. We notice in the Tour Bois le Pretre the concrete flooring becoming possessed with stains of the everyday. Materiality is a crucial element into communicating the messes of domesticity and a sense of adaptation. There is an objective to admire the impure varieties of the surfaces. To enjoy such impurities when the concrete flooring becomes scuffed, stained, and weathered.16
13 Campkin, B. (2007) Ornament from grime: David Adjaye’s Dirty House, the architectural ‘aesthetic of recycling’ and the Gritty Brits, The Journal of Architecture, 12:4, pp 367-392. 14 15
Allen, S, SANAA’S Dirty Real ism, 2020, pp 58. Campkin, B. 2007, Ornament from Grime. pp 367.
16
Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, pp. 18-19 17
Domestication exists with a disorderly mode of function. There is a necessity for site to be seen as one of decay and the image of the home originates from recycling and reinvigoration. The architecture should appear completely in place in the urban environment albeit with its “dirt and grime”.17 Contemporary homes should take form of The Dirty House (Fig 08). It conveys a ‘grit’ of urban ‘mess’ that appears incomplete and ambiguous. The contemporary home is most successful when the
inhabitant gains control and can adjust and perfect the space they dwell in. ‘White cube’ architecture, then, is one that appears brilliant in diagram, however clinical in its execution. Such pristine language turns its back on the homogenous harmony between humans as designers, their artefacts, and the place it sits within.
17
18
Campkin, B. 2007, Ornament from Grime. pp 370.
Fig 08, Dirty House, David Adjaye. Ornament and Grime. Accessed October 15 2021.
19
The Contemporary Home should not only celebrate the structural frame of a home but utilise its accessibility and displaying capabilities. Apartment House by Takahashi Ippei expresses its steel frame, with the shell only infilling plywood sheets where needed for inhabitation. This accessibility to the architecture engages humans to utilise the structure as an anchor in which we can attach and detach from. From hanging clothes to attaching make-shift benches for things to inhabit in a disordered way. We begin to achieve this ‘grunge aesthetic’ 18 when amalgamations of banal materials come together. There is ambiguity to the completeness of the architecture. Only utilising materials for what is needed for our artefacts to inhabit and for the inhabitant to live.
18 20
Campkin, B & Dobraszczyk, P., 2007. Architecture and Dirt Introduction, The Journal of Architecture, pp. 347-351.
Fig 09, Apartment House, Takahashi Ippei. http://www.takahashiippei.com/UKI.html. Accessed October 15 2021. 21
Fig UK
22
g 10 & 11, Apartment House, Takahashi Ippei. http://www.takahashiippei.com/ KI.html. Accessed November 10 2021.
23
To balance the structural frame of the contemporary home, the shell must hold equal weight to culminate temporal value. Texture, colour and form rely on light and shadow for their qualities to be interpretated, dependent on the time of day.19 Our things, mess and artefacts all have temporal connections to them, one that connects back to the domesticated human and their life. Therefore, it’s crucial to have varied transparencies of the shell to control the effect lighting has on the frame and the artefacts. Yoshichika Takagi’s House in Shinkawa utilises glass, polycarbonate, and concrete to highlight this effect.20 The reflectivity of such materials allows varied expressions of the colours and tones the artefacts possess, giving the artefact more value in its placed inhabitation within the home.
Fig 12, Shinkawa House, Yosh agi/5670c57ce58ecee9c00002 2021.
19 20 24
Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, pp. 18-19 “House in Shinkawa,” Yoshichika Takagi + Associates, accessed 15 October 2021, https://yoshichikatakagi.com/ enworks/2015/ house_in_shinkawa/
A make-shift curtain. The repurposing of a thing. Utilising a rug to prevent portions of sunlight inside.
hichika Takagi. https://www.archdaily.com/778894/house-in-shinkawa-yoshichika-tak2a3-house-in-shinkawa-yoshichika-takagi-photo?next_project=no. Accessed October 15
25
Once the frame and shell come together to create the “complete” home for to dwell in, there exists a consideration of the inhabitant in a constant state of change and flux. Therefore, the architecture intends to evoke a free-floating control.21 Yet also be aware of stagnation in one’s life. The Contemporary Home now gains the ability, like the inhabitant, to go through stages of flux and stagnation, as it continually shifts to provide the needs for the human to dwell. The Contemporary Home should not be rendered rigid in its programme. The configuration to be nothing more than a series of loosely suggested spaces. The rooms are open and willing to be defined and re-defined as the inhabitant sees. It’s crucial to utilise mundane materials that can be bought from a local hardware store to assemble such a home for it to be changed and adapted to. Albeit, to perhaps provide basic plumbing services for bathrooms and kitchens, however these are fleeting in their own configuration. Nothing ever needs to be fixed to a wall, or whatever may be a wall. A Contemporary Home functions to always be ready to take on the human and their lifestyle, whilst reflecting on the temporality that is possessed on the land it sits. We gauge such notions within Peter Markli’s Atelierhaus Weissacher. 22
26
21
Allen M, 2010. Control Yourself! Lifestyle Curation in the Work of Sejima and Nishizawa. MIT Press. pp 25.
22
Beigel F & Christou P, ND. Room Non-Room. pp 36-41.
Fig 12, Unknown, Instagram. Accessed October 14 2021.
Mundane material assemblages that allows a constantly evolving relationship between the inhabitant, artefacts and its home.
27
Fig 13, Atelierhaus Weissacher, https://deseopolis.tumblr.com/post/189566666100/atelierhaus-weissacher-bern-switzerland-peter. Accessed October 14 2021.
An amalgamation of messes of things, with no set programme. The artefacts and things determine their own paths.
28
The awkward assemblage of a box gutter through banal materials conveys the grit and reality of the home.
Fig 14, Atelierhaus Weissacher, https://deseopolis.tumblr.com/post/189566666100/atelierhaus-weissacher-bern-switzerland-peter. Accessed October 14 2021.
29
Things & The Contemporary Home
30
A Cry for Objectism; Things and Objects A graphical study.
Artefacts and things territorialise space. Messes of things have more agency than dedicating a strict programme. The bar fridge, sink, wine bottles, air-conditioner and bed are brought together in a nonconventional assemblage. It is a temporal space that conforms to the movements of daily life.23
23 Shinohara, K., 2011. Kazuo Shinohara, Casas Houses. 2G, pp 9. Fig 15, SANAA, Moriyama House.
31
A home where the observer would be compelled to move through space to generate meaning guided by artefacts. Adapted from Kazuo Shinohara, Casas Houses, 2G.
32
Fig 16, SANAA, Moriyama House Diagram, Author.
zawa, Tokyo, Japan
Things In Interstitial Spaces
The architecture expresses the ‘things’ around it. When the architecture is viewed as peripheral, artefacts not only hold emotional value, but enhance the Plan. - 1:100 programmatic assemblage.
33
Fig 17, Photograph Home Interior; Lara, VIC, Author. 2021.
An awkwardness of the assemblage of artefacts and aligned in the corner to achieve maximum comfort
34
Fig 18, Photograph Interior; Alexandria, NSW, Author. 2020.
d things. The lamp not with its exposure.
35
There exists a disorder. A disorder that captures the mundane contested with fleeting things; mess.24
24
Jean Louis Garnell, DESORDRES 1987-88. Accessed on 14 October 202 garnell.net/DESORDRES/TEXTEDESORDRES.html
Fig 19, DESORDRES 1987-88, Jean Louis Garnell Accessed on 14 October 2021. http://www. jeanlouisgarnell.net/DESORDRES/TEXTEDESORDRES.html
36
e; fixed walls
21. http://www.jeanlouis
Fig 20, DESORDRES 1987-88, Jean Louis Garnell Accessed on 14 October 2021. http://www. jeanlouisgarnell.net/DESORDRES/TEXTEDESORDRES.html
37
Garden & The Contemporary Home
38
A Garden, A Third Landscape
Fig 21, Unknown, Instagram. Accessed October 14 2021.
39
A fragment of the garden that designates the sum of the space left over by man to landscape evolution – to nature alone. Adapted from Gilles Clement, The Third Landscape.
40
Fig 22, Unexpected Rogue Garden, Author. October 13 2021.
41
Fig 23, Maison des jardiniers, ASBR. https://www.instagram.com/p/CUYOpfAMkEH/. Accessed October 14 2021.
42
43
References Allen, Matthew, Control Yourself! Lifestyle Curation in the Work of Sejima and Nishizawa. MIT Press, 2010 Allen, Stan, SANAA’S Dirty Realism, 2020. Anastacio, Barbara. “My Place: Florence Welch,” Published 29 September 2015, 3:19, https:// www.nowness.com/series/my-place/florence-welch-barbara-anastacio. ArchDaily, “AD Classics: The Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe”, Published May 13 2010, https://www.archdaily.com/59719/ad-classics-the-farnsworth-house-mies-van-der-rohe Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Palladianism”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 May. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/art/ Palladianism.Accessed 14 October 2021. Campkin Ben & Dobraszczyk Paul, Architecture and Dirt Introduction, The Journal of Architecture, 12:4, 347-351, 2007 Campkin Ben, Ornament from grime: David Adjaye’s Dirty House, the architectural ‘aesthetic of recycling’ and the Gritty Brits, The Journal of Architecture, 12:4, 367392, 2007 Curtis, J.R William, Modern Architecture since 1900. London: Phaidon, 2016 Clement, Gilles, “Gardens, Landscape, and Nature’s Genius”, Collège de France, 2011 John Pawson Architecture, “Works: Life House”, accessed on 14 October 2021, http://www. johnpawson.com/works/life-house Living Architecture, “Life House”, accessed on 14 October 2021, https://www.livingarchitecture.co.uk/the-houses/life-house/overview/ mA-style Architects, “Ant-house,” accessed 14 October 2021, http://www.ma-style.jp/Home/ ma-style%20architects.html Tanizaki, Junichiro, In Praise of Shadows. London: Vintage Classics, 2001 Shinohara, Kazuo, Kazuo Shinohara, Casas Houses. 2G, 2011 Yoshichika Takagi + Associates, “House in Shinkawa,” accessed 14 November 2021, https:// yoshichikatakagi.com/en/works/2015/house_in_shinkawa/
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