AHISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE
Jae Hyun Lim
AHISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE
Jae Hyun Lim
Author: Jae Hyun Lim Editor: Ana Miron All text, image, design by Jae Hyun Lim unless otherwise noted All rights reserved. Copyright Š 2012 by Jae Hyun Lim
“Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot.�
james joyce,
Ulysses
CONTENTS
finding a storyline
10
world is a collection of objects
12
ahistorical architecture
24
shadow puppet
26
frozen emotion
30
nature
+ structure
34
room in a city
44
project data
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If the future is the past we dream of, what is present?
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franklin j. schaffner,
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Planet of the Apes (1968)
FINDING A STORYLINE
We find ourselves in a scene of Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à part (1964). Three characters performing an identical sequence of action; snap, step, jump, clap… Soon afterwards, we hear each character’s inner monologue of momentary boredom manifesting in and out of their minds whilst the action of the scene is still taking place. With this additional information, we now go back to the scene again. Suddenly, the previous relationship of all things in the scene feels no longer the same as presented before. After all, what used to appear to be an identical repetition is not so identical. It is becoming different and complex by a subtle rearrangement of information within the confined space and time of the film. Such way of finding a specific element and its potential ramification to effect the rest is a crucial aspect of architecture that I attempt to explore throughout in this book.
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jean-luc godard,
Bande à part (1964)
“Arthur watches his feet, but thinks of Odile’s mouth and her romantic kisses.” “Odile wonders if the boys notice her breasts moving as he dances.” “Franz thinks of everything and nothing, uncertain if reality is becoming dream or dream reality.”
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WORLD IS A COLLECTION OF OBJECTS
The first groping were arbitrary; but once the arbitrary beginning was committed, once the initial intuitions were experienced; it is necessary that the organism go through the normal evolution� –John Hejduk
wayne thiebaud
We look around and notice things that surround us; they exist in different time, space, scale, and so on. We assume their physical presence in the current moment as a reality. However, it is never certain if they exist under some universal order or explicit randomness. Perhaps, they may be in a constant fluctuating state from becoming neither one. Knowing this, we can also begin to speculate objects as pieces that can be freely reorganized in an attempt to show new relationship among them, which is still in our imagination. Objects can be fragmented, scaled, synthesized with no restrictions. Different syntax can be created from same objects.
12
catalogue of found objects in no particular order
beach
city
mountain
black sand white sand sand with unknown traces water beige egg white egg striped egg snails iron manhole white perforated volcanic rock grass at hemp carpet white rock beige perforated volcanic rock hemp carpet white rock black perforated volcanic rock fallen leaf grass at gravel field
13
A FIELD OF GRAVEL
Jeju, Korea
14
HEMP WOVEN CARPET FOR HIKING PATH
15
Jeju, Korea
A PILE OF SNAILS
Guangzhou, China
16
EGGS AT A STREET MARKET
17
Guangzhou, China
BLACK SAND MEETS WATER AT OCEAN
Jeju, Korea
18
WHITE SAND WITH UNKNOWN TRACES
19
Jeju, Korea
IRON MANHOLE FOR UTILITY SERVICE LINE
Hong Kong
20
BLACK VOLCANIC ROCK FENCE
21
Jeju, Korea
rearrangement of objects i
22
rearrangement of objects ii
23
AHISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE
Dunhuang, China
24
What can the remains of ancient ruins that have survived centuries of civilizations, wars, and natural disasters tell us? Slow but gradual passing of time has reduced them into bare essentials like bones that were once occupied by living souls, leaving what is only visible and physical. They have outlived the limits of time, and the very little have remained that can suggest the previous function or context. We are left with the pure space that is self referential and timeless. This particular process of subtraction by time has left us a series of ancient objects with the little or no actual use, but it shines new light into the way we envision architecture in its inception. In retrospect, if we consider the longevity of the structure that can withstand years of history, things we often consider essential to architectural creation in a current climate of the practice, such as function, context, program, and even users, become all too relative and short-lived ideas. Instead, what stays constant is more permanent side of architecture; Iconicity, autonomy and monumentality. iconicity—because
of its instant recognition and registration of the space it creates in our imagination. autonomy—because
its can exist through a different phases of history without losing much of its primary tectonic, so it can influence and dictate the evolution of context and history around it. monumentality—because
it exists in a conceptual and physical scale that is indifferent to sentimental appeals of mass or individual.
25
SHADOW PUPPET
Gyeongju, Korea Subtle shift in light produces an ever-changing field of shadows, which moves throughout a day, creating a stage for different narratives to play out. It is a silent and inescapable theater of varying emotions for your memory.
26
27
Collage House, 2009
28
29
Collage House, 2009
FROZEN EMOTION
jacques tati,
Playtime (1967)
This is an encapsulation of a moment inside of single object. New relationships emerge through the interplay of objects that make up larger universe; migration, isolation, discovery, confrontation, settlement, affliction, day and night‌ And it all repeats again, only this time slightly differently‌
30
31
Romus Domus, 2012
32
33
Romus Domus, 2012
NATURE + STRUCTURE
Can forest be shaped into structure? Can structure be trimmed like tree? What is the physical limit of transformation of nature and structure before it starts to resemble something else entirely? This is a series of attempts to remove the familiarity and conventions of the spatial environment associated with nature and structure and assign a sense of neutrality that can be rearranged to create new landscape that is both familiar and unfamiliar.
34
35
Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris
36
37
Less For More, 2011
38
39
Urban Bonsai, 2009
40
41
Urban Bonsai, 2009
Inhale And Exhale, 2010
42
43
ROOM IN A CITY
“I’m all lost in the supermarket I can no longer shop happily I came in here for the special offer Guaranteed personality” –The Clash
Modern urban life has built around mass production and consumption of goods and information, and our body is navigating through the constant stream of materials everyday.
44
There is also another side of the urban life which deals with more conceptual and primal part of our body, such as dinning, sleeping, mating, bathing, meditating, and so on. Often times these activities take place in our shelter. is a unit that is created in an attempt to divert our focus from the distraction created by modern life, and redirects our senses to non-verbal and intimate state of self-awareness to our physical existence. room in a city
It begins by creating space that shelters human body as a creature that explores and creates relationship with space through a simple act of dwelling, then establishing a spatial transition for traveling from the urban exterior to the core interior space. In the end, this is not about luxury or comfort. It is about how the body and space occupy each other.
45
Seoul, Korea
Each turn takes another turn
46
Trying to reach the other side
47
Room In City, 2012
48
49
Room In City, 2012
50
51
Room In City, 2012
52
53
Room In City, 2012
If city is house Room is home We find things we like To dream in our rooms Then we go out to the streets To put things back again On and on
54
55
Room In City, 2012
PROJECT DATA
Year
Title Type Page
2009 Collage House Shinkenchiku Competition 27-29 2010
Inhale And Exhale
Tokyo Gas Architecture And Environment Design Competition
42-43
2011
Less For More
Central Glass Design Competition
36-37
2012 Romus Domus Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale Of Urbanism \ Architecture Collaboration with dehow Art And Architecture 31-33 2012
Room In City
Seoul, Project
56
44-55
PROFILE
Jae Hyun Lim, B. Arch, The Cooper Union, 2004 Born in Busan, Korea After spending his youth in Japan, he moved to US and studied fine art, fashion, graphic design, and architecture. He has attended Southern California Institute of Architecture, Fashion Institute of Technology, and is a graduate of the Cooper Union School of Architecture. He has been a guest critic at New York Institute of Technology, Hong Kong University. He currently lives and works in Seoul.
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