Conception in Architecture: A manifestation through the architectural language of war by Panayiotis Ioakim

my thanks and gratitude to my tutors Sam Holden, Mark Hammond and Stefan White for their feedback and continued support during this project without interfering with my vision. There were many oc casions on which they could have questioned certain aspects of my project or asked for a reasonable solution, but they let me grow and develop this project organically. Having tutors like mine who appreciate and love architecture as an art form and a subject of self-expression was truly a blessing. Often, external organisations interfere with architecture through their rules and that ends up killing creativity and promoting commercialisation. Therefore, I would like to thank my tutors for allowing me to experiment and create such a work of art with no rules or regulations.

Conception in Architecture: Through manifestationa of the Architectural Language of War Panayiotis Ioakim

Edited

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Using people’s discomfort during the war and carving that into spaces out of junk in the buffer zone, I wanted people from both sides to face the truth about their past.

While we all know it and see it every day, we are oblivious to it. We know that this has happened, but we have lost hope. It is time to deal with it and to do so we must embrace each other and what is left of our history. We need to create a new shared and sacred place that is untainted by all those things that once divided us. We need a new place to call our own as Cypriots.

Preface

Through this book, I hope to lay the foundation for how to become a conceptual architect. The book is intended to be used as a guideline; it establishes and reiterates certain principles and rules by prominent architects as well as myself that help one become a conceptual architect. This book brings my educational career to a conclusion and reflects the culmination of my architectural education. It reflects years of studying model architects and their architectural journeys as well as their principles and tenets which I strove to apply to my own work. I found that these ‘secrets’ are the key to creating an ideal and timeless project and I wanted to guide other archi tecture students to create such projects to the best of their abilities. But this book is not just about architecture students. It is also about architects in general. It is for me, to remember the importance of applying these rules and norms of architecture, but it is also for existing (and future) architects that may have lost touch with these invaluable principles that make architecture worth making. They remind us that architecture is not commercial, but it is something deeper than that. In addition to presenting these guidelines in this book, at the same time I am also exhibiting my latest project “In-between Spaces: Architecture as a War Language”. This book is thus a hybrid between text and images. The main text details these rules and principles while the images and captions take you on a journey through the creation and progress of the project and the ideas behind it.

The project “In-between Spaces: Architecture as a War Language” is based in Nicosia, Cyprus. It is widely known that Nicosia is the last divided capital in the world. But beyond the city being divided, the two largest communities in Cyprus are still divided. Therefore, my intention with this project was to find a new way to bridge the two communities that has never been done before - through architecture. I want ed to create a new language common to both communities that also respected their history. I realised that both communities knew the language of war. They can both relate to the horrific events that led to war in 1974 as well as the atrocities suffered during the war - the bombings, seeing their houses destroyed, and loved ones killed. They have been forced out of their homes to clearly demarcated territories – Greek Cypriots to the South and Turkish Cypriots to the North. But there is one thing that can bring them together and that is the buffer zone.

Content Page The Importance of Writing The Importance of Books The Importance of Representation The Theme of War Past, Present, Future Heroes in Architecture Project and Practice The Value of Precedent The Value of History Conceptual Representation Value of the Sign Countries in War 83655239209732162529................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Annex 88

A dear friend of mine once told me that she feels that there is a reason why we were born in Cyprus. She thinks that there is a deeper purpose for why we were born on this tiny island which is fraught with division. She feels that young people like us born post-war have a calling to contribute to a solution that the previous generations have failed to provide. Being born after the many dreadful events that took place since the 1950s, we have an opportunity to create a space where division and hatred are no longer allowed. Well, I think that’s true.

In the beginning, I thought the only opportunity given to us to ‘help’ our country was by serving the army. But I never thought this was the right way to do so. Serving the army only feeds into the problem, rather than provid ing a viable solution for it. It ends up reinforcing the division and the illu sion of a threat. But the threat comes from us, from the Cypriot people who have yet to abandon their biases and prejudices and their intransigence on the Cyprus problem. I realised that the only way through which I could con tribute to a solution was through what I know best - architecture. I wanted to create an honest and non-violent solution based on the historical legacy left to us by previous generations. As a youngster, I spent most of my time in the divided capital. I would argue that Nicosia was the inspiration for everything I did, both art and architec ture. My curiosity about what the abandoned houses hid, what was inside the buffer zone, what rooftops you could climb onto in order to see inside the buffer zone, the old documents that one could find in the abandoned buildings, and the graffiti on the old, weathered stones of buildings all made me fall in love with Nicosia and want to learn more about its past; a city so unique, beautiful and whole, but at the same time dark, scary and divided. As Nicosia has a very special place in my heart and it is a city that gave me so much growing up, I felt that my calling to give back to her was to create a proposal of how the city can finally be whole and united again because it needs it. Introduction

1 Building remains found in the buffer-zone in Nicosia, Cyprus around 1985.

The Importance of Writing

Conceptual architects define the world through art and architecture and share their vision using a combination of different communication devices. In the past, and particularly during the modernist and post-modernist era, architecture was often seen in inter alia articles in magazines, in pop-culture and television, but could be found most commonly in academia in conferences, symposiums, lectures and so on. This, however, has certainly changed throughout the years, especially with the expansion of social media which is currently being used as a publicity, communication, and marketing device. Social media, such as Instagram, is unsurprising ly used often by architects who are able to share their creations with the rest of the world through the click of a button. Nonetheless, they seldom deal with issues that are more substantial in nature; rath er, they share fancy, colourful, centred and overly rendered illustrations. Books on the other hand have always been the most widely used medium in architecture. Books provide architects with the space to express their thoughts, outline their methodologies, describe their projects and explain the rules and principles that guide their work. They are also able to comment on where they drew inspiration from and the processes through which they arrive at their creations. A book is thus a vessel that contains architects’ most intricate thoughts about their designs, and one must use this vessel to understand what the building truly hides.

The building remains in the buffer zone start moving closer to each other planning a war and confrontation towards the people.

The significance that books have had on architecture is evidenced by Vitruvius, who, many call the father of architecture. Vitruvius’ books laid the foundation for other architects to meticulous ly describe their designs and explain the process es through which they came about in their books. Vitruvius was a Roman architect who admired the norms of architecture and was largely influenced by Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle. He drew inspiration from their philosophy of com position, the importance of the Platonic solids and their relationship to the cosmos, the Pythagorean ratios as well as the ideal and physical worlds sepa rating pure thought from the senses.

I believe that, like Vitruvius, conceptual architects lie in the middle between the ideal world and the physical world. Their project is partly imaginary and conceptualised in relation to how they imagine their ideal world, but this imaginary must be applied to the physical world, the real world, whereby thought turns to reality. The importance of Books 3

The first space composed out of war remains was found in Nicosia’s buffer zone in 1997.

Both Vitruvius and Battista’s books laid the foundation for thinking about architecture more conceptually. Following their work, many more architects shared their own manifestations on how they saw the world through architecture. Many of these ar chitects and their books left a cultural imprint on our profession including Serlio, Palladio, Le Cor busier, Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Peter Ei senman, Colin Rowe, and Lebbeus Wood. Following the footsteps of these architects, I too wanted to develop my own manifesto for architec ture. This is the purpose of this book. It describes the way that I see the world as a conceptual archi tect, how I interpret architecture – its past and pres ent - and what I believe the future of architecture holds and should hold.

Vitruvius inherited such ideas from Greek phi losophy. Importantly, he developed a number of principles for architects to follow. These are known as Order, Arrangement, Eurythmia, Proportions, Economia and Symmetria. Vitruvius was not the only architect to write a book on the norms and principles of architecture. In fact, Leon Battista Alberti wrote a book in response to Vitruvius’ Ten Books of Architecture. But, while Vitruvius focused on Greek architecture, Alberti fo cused on Roman architecture and added two more additional orders while conceptualising his own principles: Region, Platform, Compartitioning, Walling, Covering, Aperture.

Compositions of the war language in progress in front of the ruin in the buffer zone in Nicosia, Cyprus.

In one of his renderings, Vitruvius portrayed himself as presenting one of his ideas to the emperor Julius Caesar. This rendering truly inspired Alberti who quickly became known as the father of Representation. Influenced by Vitruvius and spending forty years watching Brunelleschi build the dome of Duomo di Firenze, Alberti created what we know as architectural drawings, or notational drawings. He believed architects should be able to draw plans, sections and elevations which would then be hand ed to the builder, making the architect the drafts man, not the builder. Such representation inspired many architects to create composite and notational drawings, renders, capriccios (imaginary or whim sical drawings) and conceptual drawings. Along this text, I will be demonstrating some images and drawings that I have produced for this project that represent such conceptual and capriccio drawings.

The Importance of Representation

When I first set out to work on my project, I im agined the city I grew up in, Nicosia. Like others from Cyprus, I too have been impacted by the coun try’s sociocultural and historical problems. How ever, my own relationship with the city is unique. As a teenager, I got to know Old Nicosia through skateboarding and graffiti around the city. I became very familiar with the area, the buildings, the streets and even the borders. At seventeen, I also did an art project that was focused on composites of old buildings and graffiti characters across Nicosia. Since then, Nicosia captivated my interest.

Nicosia’s history has always crawled back into my mind when thinking about my projects. Perhaps, it is the remnants of hope that still lie behind the old walls of Nicosia. I often remember a distinct mo ment when I came across a door in an abandoned building that could take you into the buffer zone without anyone noticing you. What I saw there were lost opportunities; to rebuild a city that could be. Thinking back at this moment, I realised that restoring the buffer zone has potential to bring a sense of connection between both communities that has long been lost. I decided to turn this into a project.

The Theme of War 9 Compositions of the first space that reminds people of the countless hours they spent hiding inside the dark bunkers from the Compositionsmilitary. of the second space that challenges people to experience the dark echo of bombings.

This was indeed very unlikely of me. I often see architecture as the object, the actor and the living being while I see people only as users and visitors with different tastes and expectations. But some thing urged me to work on this as a community pro ject and reach out to people from my community, to hear their thoughts and opinions and what they val ued. But discussing this project with people made me realised that none of them took it seriously: “This could never work,” “We would start fighting each other as soon as we see the Turkish Cypriots in the middle of the building,” “Why would you want to support the Turkish Cypriots?” were some of the responses that I received. I knew that people would be unyielding, often influenced by stories they heard from their grandparents, without being willing to keep an open mind and learn more about their country’s history themselves. I then realised that I was interested in the buildings and not the people. I saw the buildings as living beings affected by the war – left there destroyed, abandoned, untreated, unused, and alone. I felt for the buildings that have withstood time but forever remain in the same place. I thought that conceptu alising the buildings in this way could be the key to developing a long-lasting solution to bring the com munities back together. But beyond this, the project could become a theory or manifesto for dealing with post-war cities and Nicosia and its buffer zone could act as a precedent.

The tall frightening notations crawl around the city on their long legs and move from ruin to ruin while they are looking down confronting the two communities. While the swing hits on the weathered metallic ruin the deep sound of the echo reflects the composition of the ceiling that looks like it is falling.

Thus, by exploring the theme of war, ruins, bombed buildings and post-war cities, I became a conceptu al architect myself. Conceptual architects explore the past, historical events and culture; the present, the current conditions and uses of space; and the future: how can we transform this space into effec tive and timeless architecture that people can use to understand the war and what it felt like for the older generations. These are the three words that drove this project - past, present, future. Indeed, as Mark Wigley said, knowing the past is the only way to see the future.

I asked myself questions such as ‘What is it about Nicosia’s past that makes it significant?’ ‘Are there iconic buildings that truly define the city? How are these related?’ ‘Are they related through compo sition or urban connection?’ Importantly, I asked ‘how has the city changed through the years?’ To find answers to these questions, I made capriccio drawings and illustrations where I could observe my questions and the answers to them. Through this process, I realised that a major issue in Nicosia are the ruins. The ruins of Nicosia are largely what make the city so interesting - they remain abandoned and untreated while the world around them evolves and changes constantly. Therefore, the second step in my project was to demonstrate the ruins through a series of drawings showing their vulnerable state.

I then turned to the buildings because, here and now, buildings are the actors. They are actors who have been left untethered and lie together with multiple unused resources around them - metal sheets, metal remains, timber remains, wires, and rope machinery. They use these to survive and develop their own post-war language. A language which is confrontational enough to make people around them think.

The machine of echoes walks from ruin to ruin in order to dominate turf and confront the citizen with its intimidating interior.

Past, Present, Future 16

The third step of the project was to explore the most interesting aspect of Nicosia – its buffer zone, making it the last divided capital of the world. I thought ‘what could possibly lay in the future for the buffer zone?’ ‘Do we rebuild it as it was and try to ‘patch things up’? ‘Do we hide its history and re build anew, or do we embrace it by coming to terms with what happened and building around history?’

I started off the project by exploring Nicosia’s past.

These spaces grow high enough to overshadow and overpower people. The machines are chaos. They do not shy away from the destruction that occurred following the war. The images in this project are, therefore, supposed to show this destruction. Cyprus is not just pretty beaches. It has an ugly past and the abandoned buildings are there to remind you of it. This project is about destruction, pain, chaos, and asymmetrical, un-arranged architecture. If you find beauty in chaos, then this book is for you. This project, and this book in particular, is as raw as it can get. Here, I quote Lebbeus Woods who I relate to “Architecturecompletely:andwar are not incompatible. Archi tecture is war. War is Architecture. I am at war with my time people, with history my culture, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened fright ening forms. I am one of the millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no form place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no sacred and primordial site. I declare war on all icons and finalities and to our industry.”

A space of happiness and darkness, the knitting machine which people used to find calmness in the chaos.

The knitting machine is a mahcine of openness and freedom placed in a warzone.

During the Chicago Architecture Biennale in 2015, Peter Eisenman and Patrick Schumacher brought up the topic of heroes and star architects. Indeed, ‘star’ architects practise architecture while heroes have a project. I resonated immensely with this dis tinction as I realised that star architects are com mercial architects and heroes are conceptual archi Thetects.issue with star or commercial architects is that they respond to a brief, to society, and to the client. Their work is straight-forward rather than substantive. The brief states how many people should live in that building, the budget and location of the site. It does not go beyond this. Star architects then meet the requirements by creating a fancy and possibly sustainable-looking building which responds to the context. They even produce renderings that can be sold and used as marketing material. The client is then happy to sell the new buildings at three times the cost while people have something new and pret ty to look at. While the star architect tries to work towards the client’s satisfaction, what we call ‘’heroes’’ work on the metaphysics of presence. The metaphysics of presence was developed by Aristotle.Metaphys ics in architecture is when your project includes something that ‘the eye cannot see.’ Meanings and messages are hidden, geometries and proportions must be calculated, and theories and relationships of part to part, and part to whole must be observed.

Heroes in Architecture

These elements provide users with signs and hints as to the narrative and metaphysics of the pro ject – this could be done by the form, the space, the opening, and even the trees around the project could be metaphysical. A metaphysical project thus has thought, connections, signs, and processes that connects the whole project to create a perfect whole which is what we might call ‘timelessness.’ This is conceptual architecture. I drew inspiration mostly from Classical conceptual architecture. One useful illustration are the invisible facades across the nave of St. Andrea in Mantua by Alberti. While a human eye may see a void and a high ceiling arc, if one were to draw this on a plan, they could see that the thickness of the facade on all chapel openings creates a relationship where the composition is a B and C space. Alberti not only uses invisible facades in the interior, but he also uses a facade for each chapel that can be read in the same way as the main facade when entering the church, with similar geometry, use of pure circles and squares and the same scale of triumphal arch. (Page.89-90). 21

The geometry of the element makes the knitting machine unique compared to the others, more harmonic, more whole and more approachable.

Another example that inspired me to create one of my spaces is the ceiling of San Carlo alle Quatro Fontane. One of the first elements that I borrowed from for my analysis was the way in which Borromini makes the space interactive. The space is constantly in motion. The playfulness of the elements inside the space makes the user constantly engaged with their surroundings and this oval composition creates an infinite loop that captivates the user. The exposed elements such as the columns, pediment and sculptures and space drive the eye onto the ceiling. There, you see three shapes that the composition is made from shown by the dia grams. What Borromini created here is a sort of signal for the user of how he created this composi tion. Everything in this composition is conceptual but also real. The user is dumb founded, wondering how Borromini was able to design this. The answer is through metaphysics. This is why Borromini is and continues to be called a hero. (Page.91-92 ).

Few architects are heroes like Borromini. I believe that we need more heroes. The architects are not to blame. It is education and the industry which have conditioned students and professionals to think in specific ways, never going beyond the requirements of clients who are mostly profit-driven. Imagine how much “richer” students could be if they were taught about heroes and conceptual architecture rather than commercialisation. 24 The space is overshadowed by the tradition al pattern of our community. The pain and the chaos that this fabric went through is reflected on the floor of the space.

Project and Practice

25 The destruction of the city and the perfection of the machine create beauty and balance .

The distinction between conceptual and commer cial architecture also reflects what Eisenman calls ‘project vs practice.’ When an architect has a pro ject, it is the architect who defines the world around them while one who owns a practice, they are de fined by the rest of the world. What this mean is that a project should always be related to the disci pline of architecture. A project should be critical of the status quo and the ordinary. Thus, a conceptual architect has a project that is critical, ideological, political, and intellectual. These elements leave a cultural imprint on the discipline of architecture. They do so by returning to history, precedents and visit buildings of other architects who had projects. A useful illustration here to explain this distinction is Le Corbusier’s work. During Le Corbusier’s time, many architects made similar modernist buildings to that of Le Corbusier. However, Le Corbusier stood out for his attitude towards those buildings. His writings are imperative to understand his con ceptual thinking. Through Le Corbusier’s book Towards a New Architecture and The Modular, one is able to understand his manifestations and metaphysical ideas behind the houses as well as his inspirations, the precedents he used and the knowl edge he gained through his travelling. Like Le Cor busier, I chose writing as a form of expression to disseminate these ideas and truly explain the purpose and implications of my project.

The destruction of the city and the perfection of the machine create beauty and balance .

Throughout history, we have had many projects by architects including Vitruvius, Alberti, Borromini, Serlio, Palladio, Guarini and many more. One pro ject in particular which I believe changed architec ture and the discipline is Piranesi’s. Piranesi made architects think differently about the scale, the site and even time. His last project was his text. Indeed, if it were not for this text, we would not be able to understand how he saw the world and how archi tecture represent his views. This is where my own project comes in. I would like to hope that my project is not one of practice but of project - a metaphysical project that consid ers scale (tall spaces), time (past, present, future) and site (buffer-zone); is critical and ideological, especially in terms of how we think about post-war cities; and is supported by text (writing), images (representation) and cultural references (signs). 28

In his book Art of Building, Alberti stated that ar chitects can and should borrow ideas from history. In order for architecture and the discipline to have continuity, an idea from the past should be borrowed and be rethought in a new context. Architects should feel like offspring of these architects by trying to continue their legacy through their own Iwork.am grateful to have had a professor during my undergraduate degree who taught me the beau ty of such books, the importance of analysis and the deeper understanding of architects’ projects. It really did change my mindset. I was even grateful for failing my History and Theory essay because it forced me to rethink my approach to architecture. I had asked my professor how I should improve my essay to which he replied ‘go and buy S,M,L,XL, Delirious New York and Notation and Concept. After we have done our masterclass on Palladio for five weeks, I want you to read these books before you return to the university for your final year.’ 29 The disorienting machine, the scariest of them all forms itself ready to dominate the city. The Value of Precedent

I am not going to lie; I was very sceptical about taking a masterclass on Palladio. At the time, I did not have much knowledge on how to conduct close reading and formal analysis and I had difficulty un derstanding many architectural terms. But by the end of the masterclass, I had read the Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius, the Art of Building by Alberti, and both Plato and Aristotle’s work to understand the manifestations of both Vitruvius and Alberti. I also read Palladio’s Virtuel by Eisenman on the absence of presence and what the eyes cannot see, and Mathematics of the Ideal Villas by Colin Rowe. In the summer, I also read all the books that my professor had suggested. To top this all off, I went to New York later that summer.

For the first time in my life, I was able to visit and experience architecture in the way that it is meant to be experienced. I did not visit buildings because of how they looked, but because of their metaphys ical presence and meaning behind them. Sudden ly everything connected and it was as if the stars aligned. Suddenly I could “see” the squared carte sian grids, the Pilotis to make the building look like it is standing up, the urban unity of Manhattan and its grid system and much more. I became aware of so many things that I did not realise before. Build ings were no longer just buildings, they were projects. If I could understand what the architects meant through these projects, I thought I could do it too. 32 The reflective and intense materials of the disorienting machine create an illusion of a very large space that intends to show power.

Following my trip, I became even more infatuated with architecture. I shortly came across the story of Peter Eisenman and Colin Rowe. Eisenman had dropped out of Cornell and went to Cambridge so that Colin Rowe became his mentor. They travelled together to Italy to observe the Palladian Villas and ‘see something that was not there.’ In addition to Eisenman and Rowe, Le Corbusier also travelled to Italy and included his travels in his book. It was then that I realised that Italy would be my next des Thetination.following summer I visited Rome and Florence. My goal was to read Renaissance and Baroque by Wolfflin and visit the buildings he mentioned in his book. A year later, I was able to study abroad in Italy for six months which was a great oppor tunity to learn more about, and visit the works of, Brunelleschi, Borromini, Bernini, Giulio Romano, Alberti, Guarini, Palladio, Scarpa and many more. I had the chance to visit hundreds of projects and heroes and get a clear understanding of the metaphysics.(Page.93) The disorienting machine crawls around Nicosia ready to confront those responsible for the destruction of the buildings.

The reading that I have done and what I have expe rienced filled me with ideas on how to approach my project and design. While the design is not Renais sance or Baroque, the metaphysical ideas behind the designs, such as how to create signs, and spaces that interact with the users, how to deal with per spective and longitudinal or circular plans or how to deal with light and materials, help a conceptual architect achieve a project. However, to get to that, you need precedents.

The machine uses lift and elevators to welcome people in the space through an exposed elavator at the back. When the space fills, the machine starts moving floors and elevator in order to diso rient and make the user uncomfortable.

Some of these spaces use the same language as other spaces to create their own flying machines.

Throughout history, we have witnessed the rise of many conceptual architects that were able to con vert a simple idea into an architectural movement and a new manifestation on a design language that defines them as well as the world of architecture. We have seen the many different ways that archi tects used in order to promote themselves, their work, and sell their ideas and have them heard by the public and academia. Such architects set examples for younger conceptual architects to also define the world around them. It is imperative, therefore, to know these stories and their history and use them as precedents and examples to inspire us and pave our way forward into this industry.

The Value of History

Vitruvius was an architect who did not classify as a commercial architect, because even if he never de signed anything, his writing was foundational for conceptual architecture. Nevertheless, we do not know what his architecture would look like. We do know about Piranesi’s architecture, however. Pira nesi had a great vision for Rome, and he aimed to become the Pope’s right hand like Bernini. Howev er, due to the complexity of his work and his unu sual approach towards architecture (capriccio style of architecture), he was unfortunately only able to make one building. Instead of him giving up on his vision, however, he invented a new way to expose his work by creating a series of etchings of his capriccios. 39 These machines rise up into the sky to overlook the city and the people.

Some of the machines even decide to superimpose one another to create one big machine.

The first two series were badly criticised by other architects who viewed Piranesi’s work as a threat to the discipline of architecture. However, after he proposed the Campo Marzio Nollie map of Rome, people saw him as an urban theorist. He not only revolutionised architecture as an art form, enabling architects to sell their vision (drawings) to the peo ple, but he also changed the way architects think about urbanism. Scale did not matter anymore and there was no specific site. In a way, he influenced time by integrating compositions from three differ ent time periods. By being the one to break the strict formalism in Rome and start introducing architecture as a form of art, Piranesi inspired many architects for dec ades. Since then, he established that creating atmos pheres, spaces and an imaginary world was equally important for architecture. In my opinion, someone who aims to establish how they define the world should adopt a project such as that of Piranesi. 42

An architect in the 20th century that I would argue was the ‘offspring’ of Piranesi was Lebbeus Woods. There would be no Lebbeus Woods without Piran esi. Woods was a theoretician and created capric cios to address social issues, science and politics. He was an architectural renderer who worked for many practices. However, when he started creating his own projects, he began manifesting his own ideas. Throughout his career, Woods contributed to architecture through, for example, the Einstein tomb which looks at cosmology, he wrote War in Architecture that addresses politics, talked about how to heal and rebuild a city, how earthquakes can be represented as a building, and he even designed his own city. His work was a mixture of reality and fan tasy very much like Piranesi. Like Piranesi, Woods used Rome as the basis of his work and added his design to that context. By inventing his own lan guage, Woods would also install his work accord ing to the context. He had the ability to reshape his architectural language in a way that would match the very concept he was working on. 43 The superimpositions create a complex form that includes different spacial orienta tions and axes.

The question now is how this project responds to history or how it studies history. Many will argue that this project is a mimic of Woods’ own work. Yes, but it also mimics the work of Piranesi on the composition of the image and the importance of lighting; it mimics the work of Bernand Tschumi on creating pavilions by using the same notational system to compose my pavilion; it mimics the work of Peter Eisenman on the diagram which captures the process of thought; it also mimics Alberti’s idea of sign and representation as well as the playfulness of space from the Baroque period.

Nevertheless, there is still a process of thought. This process is captured through diagramming and drawings, making it its own body of thought. It was born from knowing the history and analysing the work of my heroes, but it was also re-invented and re-manifested in its own way. After this project started with a historical base and idea, it naturally grew to become what it is. I am proud to say that throughout my educational career of 5 years, I have always tried to do each project differently. I do not have a style and I do not want to have my own style. I want to learn. Every project I ever did, I wanted it to be a new building inspired from each of my heroes. Why? Because I want to study them. I want to dive into their own understanding of architecture and how they define it through their work, what inspires and influences them. 46 After being formed and superimposed, the space start taking over the ruins.

47 I then try to take that knowledge and try to apply it to my work. If you study enough of these suc cessfully and historically important architects and you draw on ideas from them, then one will devel op their own style, ideas, and language. It is like food. You mix different flavours together to create the ultimate taste. This is why studying history and precedent is important. Students do not have the knowledge to invent new languages and manifest ideas. This takes years. The spaces become part of the ruin and the city. The rust of time and the graffiti unify them.

The space act as notations to reference the history of the site and the ruin.

Many have claimed that Piranesi was the first modern architect since he rejected the plan and started looking at architecture as a playful object to place in different contexts. We then had the representation of the modernist era. Many argue that modernism was Classicism with reduced ornaments on the ob ject. Everything was done in a formal manner. Plan was the generator of the composition along with the section. However, architects started looking at buildings as objects, as mass and as form. Ax onometric views started to matter since that would be the best way to look at and design the object.

As mentioned above, the first architect to introduce the idea of Representation was Alberti who created a notational system that defines architectural draw ings as we know them today. Like architecture, rep resentation has evolved since the 15th century. In Classicism, the composite notation was included on a drawing, plan in relation to the plan, façade and section and then a zoom in on the plan, section and column, sculptures and so on. But Piranesi rejected the plan completely, claiming that archi tecture was not just about being built. It could be a fantasy of objects placed in a context. What was more important to that representation was the per spective, that is, the composition of elements that construct the drawing and the lighting that creates an atmosphere of the space and highlight signs that Piranesi wanted us to discover.

Conceptual Representation

Along with the birth of the axonometric, we also have the birth of the diagram. Starting from the platonic shape, the square during the Renaissance which the architect would subtract, rotate, elevate, and extrude Additionally,it.the architectural drawings were al ways black and white with dark rough texture like cement and concrete. They were drawings of for mal architectural exploration. This period made concept conscious to many architects that diagrams were one way in which one could express the met aphysical. The diagram was a representation of one’s brain by capturing a step-by-step design meth od. Architectural drawings were not only plans, but sections, and elevations after that. We now see con ceptual drawings and diagrams being a communi cation of initial ideas and plan, sections, elevations being the final and formal step. 53 The spaces overtake any spaces inside the buffer zone, especially skyscrapers as then the space ise more likely to be seen.

The spaces overtake any spaces inside the buffer zone, especially skyscrapers as then the space ise more likely to be seen.

During post-modernism, architects started experimenting with colour. The drawings as well as buildings had a unique and playful soft colour palette. Everything was represented through fragmented geometry that was composed together in a form of a building. From that moment on, architects invent ed their own style of representation, and that rep resentation was part of their design process. Woods as well as Zaha Hadid used drawings as representa tion for the design process and both translated abstract paintings into buildings. Tschumi created drawings that notated and reference the city or se quences from images. Peter Cook used the cartoon, comic style to present architecture as a narrative.

Now, we arrive at the present. Here, we have all sorts of architectural representations. We still use diagrams, plans, sections, elevations, collages, and drawings to present our work. However, due to the use of technology, architects and students do not have a unique representation style, but one that is based on what rendering software they use. Additionally, representation now depends on how comfortable and experienced a stu dent and an architect is with software - the more experienced you are, the better the end result.

Personally, I think I belong in the modernist cat egory. I like to think of architecture as an object and individual work of its own - a sculpture that is sculpted and created by the artist and there is a close intimate relationship between the subject (human) and object (architecture). No context, no environment, no colour. A pure form that will then be manipulated and edited in order to be placed in a specific context. That is why the spaces that I created are rendered individually. I wanted these spaces to get all the attention they could possibly get. There is no ground, background, or actual environment. They are spaces that are thought and designed singularly. Yet, there is a relationship be tween them. They represent the same architectural language, materiality, metaphysics, and signs, but they have no relation to the context when they are designed. When the renders are taken with the right lighting which expresses the rough materiality and the playfulness of the object, I then try to create a background brutal enough to express this idea of “war on war.” These spaces are war on people. They are confrontational machines that confront the city and the people who participate in the de struction of the city, the community and peace on the island. 57

The spaces then establish themselves in between the ruins in order to bridger the two sites while being indefferent to cars and pedestrians.

Adding these to the context is difficult when everything was designed individually and thought differently. However, there is beauty in merging them as it creates a language of the in-between which is having a perfectly geometrical building with broken walls, windows and openings for this complex and irregular structure to be placed. That middle ground of order and the irregular creates a war-on-war environment. To conclude, conceptual representation is to create an atmosphere and an environment that gives the viewer a ‘feeling.’ An architect tries to commu nicate to the viewer the ‘feeling’ of your project. You need to translate your concept, process and thought through the image. Indeed, one of my tu tors asked me this year why my drawings are so dark, and muddy, even though Nicosia is a beautiful place. However, I see beauty in chaos and destruction. That is where architecture can tell a story – the pain, memories and ruins remain. The city is scarred. It is a dark place, a ‘warzone’ if you will, and I want to capture the feeling that I have when I walk through the street of Nicosia through my rep resentation. 60 The spaces overtake any spaces inside the buffer zone, especially skyscrapers as then the space ise more likely to be seen.

61 The writings on the walls and on the notation deliver messages of protest.

63 The notations are basically organised junk taken from the ruins and then they were redesigned to cover the cracks and voids of the bombed building.

Value of the Sign

After some time, spaces overgrow and they collide in order to create a space in space experience. While I previously discussed the metaphysics of presence in architecture which is the virtual, (what the eyes cannot see), it is also equally important to talk about the role of signs in Architecture. Accord ing to Alberti, once someone has these in their pro ject, they can achieve a metaphysical project. The idea of the sign was a very revolutionary thought proposed in the 15th-16th century and it is some thing that critics and conceptual architects are still very conscious of. But what is a sign? The sign is an indication in the representation of one’s work or in the actual building that gives the user a ‘hint’ of what the idea or concept behind the building is. Earlier I talked about San Carlo in Rome and how Borromini used the ceiling as a sign and notation in order to give the visitor a sign about the composition behind the space. When the three signs of the ceiling were put together then one should have the formal composi tion of the space’s plan. Another example of a sign are the columns inside churches. Some columns were not used for structural support or decoration back then. They were there as a sign to identify an invisible façade, a proportional relationship to the plan.(Page.94).

Even the number of stairs in a building is some times a sign. Sometimes we have the presence of the number three which is the number of strength and wholeness, a god-like number that includes God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. That is why we often have signs of divisions of three. These were mainly the signs of Classicism. Moving towards modernism, Robert Venturi and Scott Brown wrote the book Learning from Las Vegas where they dis cussed how the sign became literal and the signs in dicated the use of the building. Two known examples are the huge donut on top of the donut shop or the restaurant that was built in the form of a duck.

Another prominent architect that talked about notations and signs by conceptualising moments of the city was Tschumi. Tschumi invented his own notational system that was process-based. He would start from an image of the city and work through that image to create a drawing, then that drawing became a diagram, that diagram became a notational drawing, and the notational drawing became a plan or an axonometric. In his book Concept and Notation, one can observe how these notations can be traced back to the initial idea or the images of the city. The result is a fragmenta tion of notations from the city, which is considered the ‘concept,’ and from those notations, he would create a new city based on how he defines this city. That way he achieved a metaphysical project as he had a representation (notational system), he was responding to history (as the city itself is history) and he had signs.

The spaces capture the military bases of both sides as a form of protest to ban army bases from the buffer zone.

While some spaces grow on ruins, other spaces grow legs to crawl over the city to overshadow them, protect them and settle their dominance. This idea of the sign has evolved, especially since many heroes in architecture re-thought how to represent the sign and use it in many ways. An example is Peter Eisenman who uses the grid as a sign, or multiple superimpositions that represent the layers of concept there are. He is also using the orientation of ornaments, grids or buildings orient ed towards monuments and iconic buildings of the city in order to create an urban relationship and re spond to the history of the place. However, the question here is what is the sign in my project and how are these monstrous-looking steel structures signs and notations that relate to the his tory of the city? On the first phase of this project, I tried to understand and explore the culture, history and events that occurred in the city of Nicosia. I drew from the events during conflicts in Nicosia, I observed how people communicated in the city as one community in the past, and I analysed the iconic buildings of both communities. I looked at what specific elements represent our culture as one Cypriot culture and not as a separate Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot culture.(Page.95-96).

I(Page.97-98).continuedto build on this idea and my first re sponse to the ruins was to create the absence of the present, meaning what could this ruin be if the war never happened? How could this building develop?

Since my site is in the middle of the city and city centres are normally occupied by skyscrapers, I created these tall metal structured skyscrapers that assume or propose what these ruins could be if the war never happened, and Nicosia could develop as a whole. (Page.99). My second response in creat ing a new language in collaboration with the ruins was to use them to create new compositions, but I wanted the spaces to have a more important role and a more meaningful definition behind them instead of them being just remains that are randomly re-arranged.

Compositions take over ruins, skyscrapers as well as plazas in the buffer zone.

During phase two of the project, after I answered these questions, I wanted to develop my findings into a new architectural language that has no pre vious definition connected to the past and that is not shared by anyone other than the Cypriot peo ple. Then my response to the history, signs and rep resentation is to create a metaphysical and critical project that responds to the significant and contro versial history of war in Cyprus. I started experi menting on this. My first attempt to achieve this was to create a pavilion based off of the superimposed geometry of two drawings, a Byzantine church and a Mosque. However, this reflected exactly what I did not want to achieve; something that is previ ously defined and taken from Greek and Turkish culture. Instead, I thought that I can use the ruins within the buffer zone which are the survivors of the war (history), and they are, in a way, a physical notation of an absent and virtual history. The ruins are already the metaphysics as they respond to a historical event in 1974 (bombings), they represent the war in Cyprus between the new communities and they are used as a sign to notate a warzone.

The spaces are placed according to a masterplan designed based on the different areas where bombings occurred. Therefore, I went back to the drawing board, brain storming on how to notate the war and its event. I decided to use what remained of the ruins to create the nature of destruction through materiality and create spaces that are more meaningful that reflect on the war, the people, and the ruins. Thus, by the end of S2 I started notating and using the bombings that occurred on the ruins as signs. I took specific buildings from the buffer zone and tried to simulate the explosion while the bombing was happening. I defined the different axes where the remains flew and the kind of space that the bombing created. I then composed together the axes to define orienta tion, the remains to define materiality and the ex plosion to define form. That space was then placed where the bombing occurred on the building as a notation of war and bombings. In this way I created a sign that reflects on the history of Nicosia, on the representation of a new language and a notation that expresses the buildings’ history. This was the origin. These spaces organically de veloped to become more effective and reflect on people’s memories during the war. As you can see, they developed into notational, confrontational devices towards the people of Nicosia. People in Cyprus have tried to ignore the presence of war and forget the pain the city has been through by hiding it behind fancy bars and restaurants or colourfully painted walls. But these signs will not let you ignore or forget this. These notations represent the truth of what has happened in Nicosia. It is not invisible or absent anymore.

After some time spaces overgrow and they collide in order to create a space in space experience. The history and events have been notated there to make one think about history and culture. A new, true and honest architectural language that express es the history and pain of Nicosia common to both Socommunities.whyare signs important? What does one achieve when they respond to these ‘rules?’ The an swer is timelessness. Architecture becomes timeless through signs. The reason is simply because they make one think, they make one curious to further understand, study and find out about the metaphysics, signs and references in a project. Timeless architecture tells you something new every time you visit it. As you grow and continue to visit this timeless architecture you will understand more and more about the meanings behind it. If the project is built there will be some aspects that you will be able to understand from visiting the building or you can do so through the drawings by researching and ana lysing the project. Representation should be one of the most important ways in which one understands concepts and signs as the drawings should always capture the feeling and the sense of the space. Even the smaller details are important to understand something about the building and what the archi tect was thinking when designing it. For example, when the spaces are integrated with the city and with each other and they try to capture the reality of Nicosia with its destroyed buildings full of graffiti and political messages, it is not to create a realistic image of what the proposal will look like. That representation is the integration of two projects that I did, the first and the last. 75

One project is the one I did on Nicosia in 2015 where I drew my graffiti on the ruins in Nicosia and that project was also the foundation of my architectural journey. It was the first project that I ever did that had to do with buildings. The second project is this one which is supposed to be my fare well project towards my architectural education. Thus, through representation I wanted to tell the viewer how I came full circle from drawing graffi ti on ruins to studying architecture and designing my own buildings that lie along those ruins. I also let the viewer have an inside view of the architect’s past life and their personal and political views. For example, Chez was my first graffiti name. Chez is the character of a nice artist that makes cool fancy graffiti for people to enjoy, whereas SOK was my other character as a graffiti artist that was this anarchist that would walk around Nicosia at 4am vandalising and spraying whatever he found in his way. He is the type of character to graffiti on public buses, and buildings. That is what in my opinion means timeless. These graffiti are signs that allow you to understand the meaning behind these build Atings.(Page.100).theendofthe day, the timelessness of these pro jects are examples for future generations. Students do projects based on Nicosia and on the buffer zone that frankly all look the same. They use weathered copper because Cyprus mines copper, yellow stone as it is a local stone, refurbishment of one or two ruins and some unfruitful idea on how to bridge the two communities. Having said that, I wish I did my job well in creating something unique and different with deeper thinking and meaning.

The spaces eventually took over the whole buffer zone, every street and every ruin. The end.

Countries in War-Conlusion

While working on my project, I realised that it does not just apply to Nicosia, but it could apply to other war-torn countries as well. It could become a manifesto for how to deal with post-war cities. I want this project to have a universal impact because I and so many others have been impacted by war all around the globe. I do not want their cities to remind them of their pain. Instead, I want them to fill them with hope for new beginnings and prosperity while remembering and honouring the past and those who came before them.

The world has always been in conflict. In school, history was all about wars - who killed who, which country claimed which territory, who won, and how many people have been killed. At home, our video games are about world wars and many of our bank holidays usually commemorate fighters or the victories of war. Thus, we have always been close to wars and our lives have been surrounded by wars and fear of war. While we assumed that we would become more peaceful as the years went by, we are by now very much mistaken. War and death are still prominent and even more than before. It is felt everywhere - we are more connected than ever before. It is now time to declare a war on war.

Horrific bombing on civilians by the Rus sian army. Order by Vladimir Putin. 83

My first attempt in doing so was this project. To apply this manifesto to other war-torn cities, I created some images to demonstrate how the spaces I created in Nicosia could also be used as notations in Ukraine. Hopefully, one day this manifestation will no longer be needed. It will be scraped off and never be used by any other country in the world. Spray painted marks on residential build ings in order for Russian aeroplane.

All prayers and thoughts go out to countries cur rently at war. One day, I hope we can find eternal peace on earth.

The annex provides further information and details on the historical content and analysis referred to in this book. All content is my own research, images and art which I have created in the past 5 years.

Annex

89 Annex Invisible facades across the nave of St.Andrea church in Mantova.

Annex 90

Facade geometry for each chapel that can be read as a facade.

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Driven attention to the dome through the playfulness of the space.

Lift and compression of the geometry and space to drive attention to the dome and its signs.

Annex 92

93 Lessons and inspiration from different visits to Italian cities. Annex

Multiple compositional readings on the ceiling that works as a sign.

Annex

Annex 95 Cultural study of iconic churhces in Nicosia.

96 Annex Cultural study of the architectural elements in Nicosia.

97 Annex Pavilion design through superimposition of a Byzantine and Mosque church.

98 Annex Pavilion placement on site.

99 Annex Placement of steel structured of skyscrap pers to demonstrate how the buffer zone could potentially look like if the war never happened.

Artwork from 2015 project on Nicosia’s ruins with graffiti on them.

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Annex

Email: ioakimf@hotmail.com

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