4
e r u t c e archit
peripatopian
JULIE
RAHILLY
Master of Architecture / Spring 2014 Wentworth Institute of Technology
acknowledgments Marc Neveu, Jonathan Foote, Glenn Wiggins, John Ellis, Jennifer Lee Michaliszyn, Alex Cabral, Nathaniel St Jean, Kacy Cunningham, Adam Parsons, Spencer Howe, Michelle Lopez, Dan Rahilly, Nancy Rahilly, and Charles Tamk贸 Sirat贸.
i
part 1
Beginning Introduction Inquiry I Inquiry II Inquiry III
part 2
part 4 2 5 6 7
part 4
Researching Research Essay 10 Manifeste Dimensioniste 19 Abstract 20
part 3
Making par Process 22 Diagrams and Models 23 Tectonics and Materials 27
part 4
Wondering Peripatopia Final Assemblies Exhibition Play Conclusion
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part 4
30 32 69 89
1 t
pa r
Beginning
russian constructivism architecture from art
dystopian novels
introduction circulation
“It is we, artists, that will serve as your avant-garde; the power of the arts is indeed the most immediate and the fastest. We have weapons of all sorts: when we want to spread new ideas among people, we carve them in marble or paint them on canvas...We address ourselves to the imagination and feelings of people: we are therefore supposed to achieve the most vivid and decisive kind of action; and if today we seem to play no role or at best a very secondary one, that has been the result of the arts’ lacking a common drive and a general idea, which are essential to their energy and success.”
movement cubism cubo-futurism
suprematism
basic geometries anti-utilitarian anti-materialist
russian futurism
literature visual arts
art dada surrealism
modular
dystopia
constructivism
rejection of autonomous art
malevich
art realist manifesto productivists/pure pevsner rodchenko advertising gabo stepanova
futurism
artistic/social movement
utilitarian function>form
abolition of war
social/political stability
malevich tatlin
avant garde
tatlins tower
osa: organization of contemporary architects vesnin leonidov ginzburg shukhov asnova: association of new architects functionalism lissitzkys ernst may melnikov lubetkin fantastical krinsky chernikov leonidov
architecture
architecture
DYSTOPIA
antonio sant’elia the new city santa maria novella station
revolution
social/political unrest
individual
collective
Olinde Rodrigues, 1825 L’artiste, le sevant et l’industriel: Dialogue
social / political stability
social / political unrest
new economic policy bauhaus
identity
anti-authoritarian marxism
art
situationist internationale
capitalism social alienation commodity fetishism
surrealism dada
the spectacle political art unity urbanism
Imagination, action, energy and success. These wishes by Olinde Rodrigues, one of the first social reformers to comment on the importance of the avant-garde artist in modernity, have continued as shared goals of this thesis. Beginning as a study of how artists, writers, and architects can enact social change, the production of images and objects became an important method of communicating ideas.
constructivism
situationist internationale
futurism
can architecture (subliminally) influence social and political change?
2 socialist realism on ti
ar
nc
ul
sa
ng
ct fe
si
af
ge chan of
d orte
of communication
awar
t
er
dist
fragments
al
subconscious mind belo
of representation
conscious mind above
on
e
romantic realism
s
enes
nc
/ en gine
ue
siti
rs
fl
oppo
te
in
al
al
of memory
ial
entu
behavior
of society
nt pote
alevich & u.n.o.v.i.s.
of politics
ne
ght
ideology
fi de
thou
communism s
asse
surp
supremitism
ed
culture collective
symbolism
conscious unconscious
constructivism
utopia dystopia
image / object
To these great thinkers of the early 20th Century, making was the method of exploration. In particular, images and objects that are defined as both: an image as an object, and an object as an image. Implied then, is an interest in ambiguity. By abstracting Euclidean geometries the dimensions perceived are altered, making the graphics sometimes appear flat and other times appear spatial. This technique was common in the work of the Constructivists and Suprematists such as Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, and Kazimir Malevich.
utopian visions
Ambiguity in the work of these artists also allowed freedom of interpretation. These works were typically devoid of site and scale. One example is El Lissitzky’s Of Two Squares, a Suprematist’s tale told through the illustration of geometries. In the story, there is a direction for the reader to act by building something. Lissitzky is illustrating utopia using the children’s book as a means of communicating social change. Though utopia can never be achieved as a whole, it can be experienced in fragments through creative thought and action. Therefore, ambiguity in appearance, site, and purpose became characteristics in project development. creativity / play Creativity exists in both thought and action. Its process consists of extracting from both the conscious (experiences) and unconscious (instinctual) minds. Besides thought, creativity manifests in methods of making, which is why interaction with architecture is essential. This sort of play is inherent in the act of transforming architecture. By directly interacting with the making of the architecture, each user’s perception of space is altered. A multi-interpretive and multi-dimensional art, architecture transforms space, and should therefore transform itself to create space. 3
forced the use of coal for heating, forced the invention of coke for the production of iron. (reinert 19)
socio-political
constructivism
├
socio-phenomenal
suprematism
├
socio-technical
deconstructivism foucault: there are events in the space we construct ourselves to inhabit: heterotopia...our current occupation with multiple, fragmented, dislocated terrains (noever 127) do you think art should be politically engaged? hadid: architecture does not follow fashion or economic cycles — it follows the inherent logic of cycles of innovation generated by social and technological developments. mies van der Rohe said: "architecture is the will of an epoch, living, changing, new". contemporary society is not standing still — and architecture must evolve with new patterns of life to meet the needs of its users (zaha hadid and suprematism)
(disruptions)
BOOM!
FLASH! POP!
CLICK! KNOCK!
the artistic-social avant garde was interested in these innovative forms as signifiers of new spirit ...to create a new social role for art, one that made the artist a significant participant in the organization and building of social life (margolin 3) lissitzky held the idealist conviction that forms could embody a new consciousness by pointing to a state or condition outside the limitations of contemporary lived experience (margolin 10) this was more than an art movement, it was an approach to working with materials, within a certain conception of their potential, as active participants in the process of social and political transformation (lodder 1)
4
Throughout the 20th Century, artists and architects have always advocated for advancements in the arts and sciences.
inquiry I
Can architecture explode?
There have been plenty of instances throughout history that have caused architecture to physically explode, resulting in ruins or some indiscernible fragment. This thesis began with a fascination in such an event, or more simply, the coming apart of something once whole. A fragment provokes imagination. Like a paleontologist who can imagine the whole dinosaur from one excavated bone, a fragment gives way to an infinite number of possibilities. More so, the assembly of one fragment to another is possible as well. The fragments of this tectonic frame ask to be looked at without consideration of reassembling the once whole, but as the starting pieces of something new. This is to say the paleontologist uses the bone not to rebuild the frame of a dinosaur as it were, but to imagine a species unrecorded. The visual on the right shows the results of fragmenting a diagrammatic box. By dismantling the box, each piece becomes ambiguous in scale, function, and dimension. This tectonic represents an assembly of a discontinuous and destabilized architecture. What is left is an evocative piece that serves as the cornerstone for what happens next.
5
inquiry II
Can architecture transform?
A multi-interpretive and multi-dimensional art, architecture transforms space, and should therefore transform itself to create space. Obviously, architecture transforms all of the time: doors open into rooms or close off hallways, windows decide the fate of the wind and curtains curtail the sun’s exposure. These moves are required as practical functions in building, but why stop at practical? The design cliché, “Form Follows Function,” has run its course. In its place are phrases that describe form as function, form and function, or form as intrinsic to an organism’s function, as is the case with biomimetic architecture. Ultimately, the function should form the form, and the form should transform the function. This is to say that the user should interact with the architecture to transform it in a way that best suits the event at hand. The visual on the right shows the results of transforming a diagrammatic box through the unfolding of its sides. At the scale of a room, this box could begin to divide space depending on how the user sees fit.
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inquiry III
Can architecture move?
Le Corbusier always thought of architecture as a machine for living, but why use a metaphor? In researching artistic machines, Arthur Ganson became part of the process. A kinetic sculptor and gestural engineer, Ganson makes machines that do nothing, but feels that once the machine is perceived and someone brings it into their own mind, it can be anything. For example, There is a machine in Germany which consists of 6 arms holding yellow pieces that orbit around each other to bring the yellow pieces into the center, and form a little yellow chair. In the moments that the arms are outstretched, there’s wonder as to what the yellow pieces are and if they form anything. It is a disrupted object that stimulates imagination in its fragments. In further studying the work of Constructivism and Suprematism, it turns out that these artists and sculptors were both interested in kinetic sculpture also, because it embodied the fourth dimension. Many say that the fourth dimension is time, but it actually just allows the third dimension to change and move, as in space-time. Thus in art, it exists in kinetic sculpture. From a 2012 article in Universitas, “This ever-changing sculpture illustrates a major fourth dimensional concept, which was that the fourth dimension was completely beyond all possible imagination and one could only ever envision fragments of that dimension.�
4D
3D
2D
7
Image as object; object as image.
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2 t
pa r
Researching
no places
other spaces
/ A Look at Time Travel, the Fourth Dimension, and Peripatopian Architecture
One concept in the early 20th Century stood out as a topic of fascination across many disciplines. Math, physics, art, literature, and architecture all fell privy to the wonderment of the fourth dimension. Described as the passing of time across a direction within the third dimension, the fourth dimension represented liberation from tradition for the great thinkers of the time. It also bridged the sphere of science with that of art through the writing of the Manifeste Dimensioniste, which encouraged artists to break free of immobile forms. This interest in Dimensionism continued into the later 20th Century in the form of imagined spaces, as explained by Michel Foucault in Of Other Spaces. Thinking of space as a layering of dimensions, Foucault coined the term ‘heterotopia’ to describe the unreal spaces that exist in real society. Considering both the objectives of Dimensionism and the principles of heterotopias, architecture can also break free from traditional static solidity. Instead, peripatopian design explores how architecture can change dimensions in order to move from place to place. The spacebreaking conceptions of these 20th Century thinkers have paved the way for 21st Century notions of placeless, purposeless, and peripatetic architecture.
The Fourth Dimension Charles Howard Hinton London, 1912
10
history ‘You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.’ ‘That is all right,’ said the Psychologist. ‘Nor having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.’ - H.G. Wells The Time Machine1 In the same era H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895, Isaac Newton’s view of reality was being questioned. Austrian physicist and mathematician Georg Riemann stumbled upon a completely different understanding of physical reality by suggesting the existence of higher dimensions and non-Euclidean geometries. Essentially, an “unseen fourth dimension” exists as a result of the third-dimension being curved.2 Riemann postulated that, in the same way Newton had based his understanding of three-dimensional space off of the assumption that it is absolute, Euclid had based his geometry off of the assumption that it was situated in a flat planar surface.3 These challenges towards historically sanctified norms would bring about new conceptions of space in both science and the arts. One such conception is described in Edwin A. Abbot’s Flatland, a scientific romance describing math, physics, and society all before the work of H.G. Wells.4 Building off of Riemann’s theories and the popularity of an alleged fourth dimension, the 1916 General Theory of Relativity by a young Albert Einstein surpassed Newton’s understanding even further; which assumed space is absolute and uniform, and that time passes through it as an independent entity.5 Instead, Einstein proposed spacetime as a unifying force between the terms. This theory became accepted in circles beyond the purely scientific, igniting interest in the art and literature of 20th Century pop culture, just as Flatland had done the century before.6 It seemed as though no major art movement of the 1 Wells, 1. 2 Fisher, 110. 3 Clemons, 136. 4 Ibid. 5 Fisher, 109. 6 Malloy, 2.
19th C
20th C
pre
- Euclid
- Georg Riemann
math and science
- Isaac Newton
19th C
- Albert Einstein
20th C
pre
art
- Georg Riemann
literature
math and science
- Albert Einstein
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the fourth dimension art
“
to present the subject of the higher dimensionality of space in a clear manner, devoid of mathematical subtleties and technicalities.
“
first three decades was spared; Cubists, Futurists, Surrealists, Dadaists, Suprematists, and Constructivists all participated.7 Some movements found the fourth dimension to be a justifiable means of experimenting in new kinds of art, literature, language, and music.8 Surrealist Salvador Dali, for example, found both the scientific and mystical sides of the fourth dimension attractive.9 Constructivist Kazimir Malevich thought it representative of a higher enlightened power.10 Because interpretations spread across so many disciplines the line between science and mysticism blurred. Trained mathematician, but mystic by vocation, Charles Howard Hinton published The Fourth Dimension as an endeavor “to present the subject of the higher dimensionality of space in a clear manner, devoid of mathematical subtleties and technicalities.”11 To do so, Hinton utilized the tesseract, or hypercube, to visually represent a four dimensional object in a three dimensional world.12 Still, through the publication of The Fourth Dimension and his other writings, Hinton was only able to represent his conceptions of space on a two dimensional page. Thus the objective of the artists became even more determined.
- Charles Howard Hinton
literature
math and science - The tesseract
time
representation
‘Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?’ Filby became pensive. ‘Clearly,’ the Time Traveller proceeded, ‘any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and – Duration.’ - H.G. Wells The Time Machine 13
Goal: to investigate the interrelationship of dimensions, thus going beyond tradition Method: breaking out of closed immobile forms, i.e. motion
Wells’ character of the Time Traveller states that besides the three planes of space, the fourth is simply another way 7 Henderson, Italian Futurism and “The Fourth Dimension”, 317. 8 Henderson, Geometry in Modern Art, 206. 9 Ibid, 208. 10 Bannister. 11 Fisher, 114. Hinton begins his preface of The Fourth Dimension by stating how he wants the reader’s interest to be engaged, with a lack of mathematical knowledge proving no disadvantage to the reader. Fisher, 106. 12 13 Wells, 1-2.
time distance
12
of looking at time.14 Though Hinton’s representations of the fourth dimension include time, the terms are not interchangeable; it is the passing of time within the third dimension that reveals the tesseract.15 An example of the passing of time in the third dimension is an object in motion. Motion studies became the most direct method that abstract artists could use in achieving the fourth dimension. Marcel Duchamp, aware of Hinton’s writings, worked to compress time on canvas in Nudes Descending a Staircase.16 For Duchamp, the studies became ways to go beyond traditional painting techniques and investigate the interrelationship of dimensions.17 Though the painter realized that merely representing motion on a canvas is not fourth dimensional itself, Duchamp acknowledged that the concepts of form-through-time lead abstract art into geometry and mathematics.18 Fellow painters of the era, Kandinsky and Delauney, too, found the fourth dimension as a means of redefining aesthetic space and traditional forms. According to Delauney, “The dynamics of space are created here by a latent movement of masses, not by objects frozen in postures of movement.”19 To the Constructivists, kinetic sculpture became the method of articulating the fourth dimension in art because it conveyed abstract motion.20 Similarly, the cubist/surrealist sculptor Oscar Dominguez found the life of objects in time fascinating, coining the term lithochronic surface to describe the path of such objects.21 What these artists were unaware of was how such experimentation would play a progressive role in the future of avant-garde work.
14 Ibid, 2. 15 Fisher, 115. 16 Ibid. 17 Henderson, Geometry in Modern Art, 205. 18 Henderson, Italian Futurism and “The Fourth Dimension”, 319. The expression “form-through-time” is used by Fisher in Tracing the Tesseract, 105. 19 Clemons, 137. Clemons quotes Delauney from “Robert Delaunay’s Methods of Composition,” an article praising his work by E. von Brusse. 20 Bannister. 21 Henderson, Geometry in Modern Art, 208. Though Dominguez recognized time as the fourth dimension, like Wells, Henderson states that his ideas are closer to those that combine time and space, like Hinton’s.
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dimensionism ‘That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly – why not another direction at right angles to the other three? – and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry.’ - H.G. Wells The Time Machine22 With such widespread interest in how to represent the fourth dimension, it is almost surprising that it would take until the late 1930s for this conglomeration of “philosophical people” to discuss as a whole. In 1936, avant-gardes ranging from Duchamp to Kandinsky to Moholy-Nagy met in Paris to sign what painter Charles Tamkó Sirató penned as the Manifeste Dimensioniste. By then, the proclamations of these Dimensionists were simply reiterations of earlier beliefs. None the matter, Sirató credited Einstein’s theory as the driving force of “Dimensionisme.”23 “It is, on the one hand, the modern spirit’s completely new conception of space and time…and on the other, the technical givens of our age, that 1936 have called Dimensionism to life.”24 Essentially, the Manifeste provided a manifesto common law for art of the avant-garde: N + 1, meaning all modern art should strive for the next dimension.25 Broken into four succinct but literature leaving the line enteringDimensioniste the plane vague statementsI equipped with examples, theand Manifeste (calligrammes, typograms, planism, electric poems) declared that I.) Literature should leave the line and enter the plane, 2.) Painting should leave the plane and occupy space, 3.) Sculpture should II painting leaving the plane and entering space abandon closed,(compositions, immobile form, andmatérielles, 4.) The creation of an absolutely poly constructivism, spatial new art: cosmic constructions, art, or, “the artistic conquest surrealist objects)of four-dimensional space” will develop.26 The art world was already accomplishing the first three proclamations; novels were becoming films, were becoming III sculpture stepping out of paintings closed, immobile forms (perforated sculpture, open sculpture, mobile sculpture, sculpture and even architecture, and sculpture was becoming kinetic, as kinetic sculpture) exemplified by Rodchenko’s spatial constructions and Calder’s mobiles. Despite these advancements, the manifesto never gained the sort of
IV and after this a completely new art form will develop: 22 Wells, 2. cosmic art (the vaporisation of sculpture: ”matter-music” 23 Henderson, Geometry in Modern Art, 206. 24 Sirató, Manifeste Dimensioniste. 25 Malloy, 2. 26 Sirató, Manifest Dimensioniste.
1936
2014
peripatopias
I literature leaving the line and entering the plane (calligrammes, typograms, planism, electric poems)
I
beyond structure to bec
II painting leaving the plane and entering space (compositions, poly matérielles, constructivism, spatial constructions, surrealist objects)
II
beyond program to bec
III sculpture stepping out of closed, immobile forms (perforated sculpture, open sculpture, mobile sculpture, kinetic sculpture)
III
beyond form to becom
IV and after this a completely new art form will develop: cosmic art (the vaporisation of sculpture: ”matter-music”
IV
beyond site to become
2014
manifesto
peripatopias
I
beyond structure to become kinetic
II
beyond program to become purposeless
III
beyond form to become visually ambiguous
IV
beyond site to become peripatetic
- Charles Tamkó Sirató Manifeste Dimensioniste
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- Ju
public attention it deserved. Success, instead, was found in its ability to bring the great avant-gardes of the century together and discuss the combining of modern art with modern science.27
(un)reality ‘In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read, there is a vast amount of detail about building, and social arrangements, and so forth. But while such details are easy enough to obtain when the whole world is contained in one’s imagination, they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid such realities as I found here.’ - H.G. Wells The Time Machine28 At the heart of the relationship between modern art and modern science was a desire to break tradition. Just as Einstein had challenged Newton, and Riemann had challenged Euclid, artists of the avant-garde challenged reality.29 Learning from the advancements of n-dimensional and non-Euclidean geometries, the fourth dimension became a symbol of liberation for artists, departing from visual reality. Until the 20th Century, artists were hindered by traditions such as the musical scale, solid sculpture material, and three-point perspective painting.30 Instead, the fourth dimension provided a place for the sort of utopian convictions of a higher reality.31 The way in which Michel Foucault described utopia in Of Other Spaces seems closely related to the convictions of these artists when he says utopias present “society turned upside down.” 32 However, Foucault’s establishment of heterotopias is perhaps more representative of the fourth dimension. Foucault defined heterotopias as the unreal places located in real society.33 He uses the mirror as an example, because the mirror is a physical object within space that contains a placeless place, providing a “sort of mixed, 27 Malloy, 4. 28 Wells, 51. 29 Henderson, Geometry in Modern Art, 205. 30 Clemons, 137. 31 Henderson, Geometry in Modern Art, 205. 32 Foucault, 24. 33 Ibid.
heterotopias 1 There is not a single culture in the world that fails to constitute heterotopias…but the heterotopias obviously take quite varied forms (24) 2 Each heterotopia has a precise and determined function within a society and the same heterotopia can, according to the synchrony of the culture in which it occurs, have one function or another (25) 3 The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible (25) 4 Heterotopias are most often linked to slices of time, heterochronies (26) 5 Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable (26) 6 Their role is to create a space of illusion…or else, on the contrary, their role is to create a space that is other (27) - Michel Foucault Of Other Spaces
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joint experience.”34 Interestingly, early theorists like Hinton also saw the mirror as virtual, but this time as a representation of the fourth dimension, because “the surface of the mirror” is “the plane about which movement takes place.”35 In other words, it is the only moment in threedimensional space in which the right changes to the left. Hinton went so far as to believe the mirroring of the two sides of the human body was “proof of a fourth dimension spilling out into the world through a central seam.”36 This overlapping of dimensions becomes prevalent in Foucault’s breaking down of heterotopian principles, the third stating, “the heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible.”37 For example, the cinema projects a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional screen. In the fourth principle, Foucault again seems to write in the spirit of dimensionism and lithochronic surfaces, describing heterochronies, or “slices in time” in which “men arrive at a sort of absolute break with their traditional time.”38 Lastly, the sixth principle states that the role of heterotopias is either to create a space of illusion, or to create a space that is other.39 Foucault’s example of “terrestrial space” speaks vaguely about heterotopias in the same way Sirató’s interest in cosmic space speaks vaguely about the fourth dimension. Whether they are called utopias, heterotopias, four dimensions, or unreal spaces, all terms serve to provoke a questioning of truth and tradition.
peripatopia
peripatopias 1 An undefined place for an undefined space. peri- (around) + patien (to walk) + topos (place) 2 Each peripatopia has no determined function within a society; it has gone beyond traditional program to become purposeless 3 The peripatopia has no defined site given the constantly moving nature of life 4 Peripatopias do not sit motionless, but are capable of moving through time 5 Peripatopias are kinetic in structure through a system of opening and folding for both transportation and transformation 6 Their role is to create a space of interaction, provoking curiosity through visual ambiguity
‘I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious.’ - H.G. Wells The Time Machine40
- Julie Rahilly Peripatopian Architecture4
Questioning the norm is a view that should be taken in all forms of art: architecture being no exception. Therefore, why not 34 Ibid. 35 Fisher, 121. 36 Ibid. 37 Foucault, 25. 38 Ibid, 26. 39 Ibid, 27. 40 Wells, 3.
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apply the Manifeste Dimensioniste to architectural design? Revisiting the manifesto asserts that architecture has gone beyond structure to the kinetic; beyond program to the purposeless; beyond beauty to the visually ambiguous; and beyond site to the peripatetic. “It is not possible to disregard the fatal intersection of time with space,” writes Foucault.41 This notion of architecture moving through time and space then pushes the formerly static beyond the third dimension. Let us go beyond constructing walls to create space, because such spaces are static. Let us go beyond immobile places that sit motionless accumulating time. Given the nature of life, constantly moving through time, architecture should support that by having no defined site. Society has already created such undefined spaces; if a subway passenger begins eating a sandwich on the train, that space is no longer only a train, it is a picnic space. According to Foucault, place is just a beginning point for a thing’s movement, which in a way makes every place a no place, or a utopia.42 The idea of having no place can also be applied to a project that moves from place to place, or peripatopian architecture. “Peripatopian” derives from peri- meaning “around” +patien meaning “to walk” +topos meaning “place.” Add in the purposeless and visually ambiguous construction and, simply put, peripatopian is having an undefined place for an undefined space. The creation of this new construct of architecture could be identified as a heterotopia; simultaneously represented, constructed, and contested.43 It serves to instill the same desires of the avant-garde, to liberate society from traditional norms, and provoke curiosity in whichever no place it lands.
conclusion ‘A vast, green structure, different in character than any I had hitherto seen… the face of it having the lustre, as well as the pale green tint, a kind of bluishgreen…This difference in aspect suggested a difference in use, and I was minded to push on and explore.’ - H.G. Wells The Time Machine 44 41 42 43 44
Foucault, 26. Ibid, 23. Ibid, 24. Wells, 66.
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Representing the fourth dimension will forever be a challenge plagued in obscurity; a challenge, however, that should continue to inspire artists, scientists, and especially architects in the forthcoming centuries. The writing of the Manifeste Dimensioniste by Sirató, the representations of Dimensionism by the avant-gardes, and the principles of ‘other’ spaces by Foucault have set the stage for continued exploration. Current research in physics is already pushing beyond General Relativity Theory to String Theory, with the uncovering of dimensions beyond the fourth. These advancements are results of exploration in both concept and action. The principles of peripatopian architecture have been written, and it is the responsibilities of the 21st Century thinkers to act on them. Like the “vast, green structure” that the oracle Wells describes: materials, scale, and tectonics are starting points for architects to experiment with. Through the act of moving architecture in a direction, over time, and across the third dimension, experiencing the fourth dimension is possible. Human life is in motion, and architecture should be too.
works cited Clemons, Leigh. “Staging New Dimensions: Wassily Kandinsky, Der Blaue Reiter Almanac and the Reconfiguration of Artistic Space.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism vol. 9, no. 1 (1994): 135-142. Fisher, Kevin. “A Conceptual Prehistory Tracing the Tesseract of the Morph.” Meta-morphing: visual transformation and the culture of quickchange. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 103-127. Foucault, Michel, and Jay Miskowiec. “Of Other Spaces.” diacritics vol. 16, no. 1 (1986): 22. Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. “Italian Futurism and “The Fourth Dimension”.” Art Journal vol. 41, no. 4 (1981): 317-323. Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. “The Fourth Dimension and NonEuclidean Geometry in Modern Art: Conclusion.” Leonardo vol. 17, no. 3 (1984): 205-210. Malloy, Vanja, M. Crosta, M. Gramegna, and M.l. Ruggiero. “Non-Euclidean Space, Movement and Astronomy in Modern Art: Alexander Calder’s Mobiles and Ben Nicholson’s Reliefs.” EPJ Web of Conferences vol. 58 (2013): 04004. Wells, H. G.. The Time Machine. S.l.: Duke Classics, 2012. Print. 18
Manifeste Dimensioniste Charles Tamk贸 Sirat贸 In La Revue N + 1 Paris, 1936
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abstract “Deductive with respect to the past. Inductive with respect to the future. Alive in the present.” These three sentences, by French writer Charles Tamkó Sirató, summarize the essence of Dimensionism. Published in Paris in 1936 on a loose sheet from a magazine, the Manifeste Dimensioniste contained signatures of the highest regarded avant-garde artists of the early 20th Century. Inspired by advancements in mathematics and physics, the artists proclaimed that literature leave the line and enter the plane, painting leave the plane and enter space, and sculpture leave immobile form for four dimensions. Playing off of the original proclaimations of the Manifeste Dimensioniste, this thesis challenges the third-dimensional architecture of today to go beyond the static. Peripatopian Architecture4 asserts that architecture has gone beyond structure to the kinetic, beyond program to the purposeless, beyond beauty to the visually ambiguous, and beyond site to the peripatetic. Exploring transformative architecture through models that explode and collapse, this thesis aims to stimulate curiosity and provoke imagination through interaction. “Peripatopian” comes from peri- meaning “around” +patien meaning “to walk” +topos meaning “place” or, simply having an undefined place for an undefined space.
peripatopia:
(noun) an undefined place for an undefined space. peri- (around) + patien (to walk) + topos (place)
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3 t
pa r
Making
process interior space
This process of making uses a very Constructivist approach to illustrate a series of actions. There are many characteristics that must make their way into the final design: motion, ambiguity, transformation, explosion (for a multiplicity/simultaneity of spaces), human scale, structural non-rigidity, and wonder. To begin, a matrix of architectural manipulations communicates how transformation can take place by the user. As a nod to the avant-gardes of the 20th Century, experimentation with geometric solids provides the original form to be transformed. Using these geometries, manipulating them by way of the matrix, and testing different materials creates a collection of study models.
exterior space
transformative
The visual on the right shows how a cube can be transformed by reversing its convex faces. This transformation changes the size of the internal space. With the faces exploded separately from the cube, the exterior space is activated instead.
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stretch hinge explode collapse fold...
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nifesto revisited
nd
me
nd
me
firmitas kinetic
me
nd
me
explosion
kinetics
collapse
kinetics
orbit
kinetics
hinge
program
(structure) to
inside/outside
utilitas (program) purposeless
I venustas
nd
rotation
kinetics
program to
(form) to
visually ambiguous mobility: fold or roll
site
stretch
systematize
form
form
A typology of architectural manipulations: how architecture can begin to go beyond kinetics, program, site, and form.
place (site) to peripatetic
accomodate
site
illusion
form
ames room
hypercubes
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“ long bisymmetric hendecahedron ”
“ bisymmetric hendecahedron ”
“ rhombic dodecahedron ” Experimenting with the translation of three-dimensional geometric solids to two-dimensional representations, or using math to generate visual ambguity.
“ long sphenoid hendecahedron ”
“ sphenoid hendecahedron ”
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“ flip ”
“ scrunch” Study models exploring methods of transformation, particularly through a system of collapsing and expanding.
“ twist ”
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“ spin ”
Study models exploring methods of transformation, particularly through a system of collapsing and expanding.
“ fold ”
“ morph ”
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“ flatten ”
Study models exploring tectonic connections and materials that allow for movement; the hinge being the chosen method.
“ hinge ”
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(50) pieces stained with (1) gallon of cedar mountains exterior stain
attach hinges to wooden frames
(50) pieces sanded (5) 4’ x 8’ x 23/32” poplar plywood sheets mark holes on wood and drill
milled on the CNC into 50 pieces tie to hooks for removal (720) flat phillips head wood screws for hinges
(10) 6’ x 1-1/16” steel piano hinges
replace hinge pin with hitch pin remove pin (41) hitch pins
cut
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Material quantities throughout final construction process
4 t
pa r
Wondering
peripatopia Welcome to Peripatopia: an undefined place for an undefined space. This means the user is in charge of choosing where the architecture is sited and its how it becomes purposeful, if at all. Scale of the user versus scale of the architecture is essential in Peripatopia, because what an adult may find as furniture, a child may find as shelter. It is up to the user to choose which dimension to explore as well. A completely unfolded piece of Peripatopian architecture lays in one direction as a line on the ground. With one face folded up, this piece becomes two dimensional in appearance. Completing the action of folding until all pieces meet as a closed frame creates a spatial, threedimensional structure. And finally, the act of manipulating a piece with other pieces creates a four-dimensional architecture that moves over time across the third. The visual at the right is a concept diagram of manipulating architecture across dimensions. By interacting with Peripatopian pieces, a multiplicity and ambiguity of spaces is created.
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a b c d e f 3’- 7”
2’- 4”
2’ - 5”
4’- 1” 2’- 5”
2’- 5”
4’- 10” 8’- 4”
4’- 10”
3’- 7”
4’- 9” 2’- 5”
1’- 3”
4’- 9”
4’- 1” 4’- 9”
4’- 9” 2’- 4”
4’- 10” 4’- 9”
1’- 2”
4’- 1”
1’- 2”
Axonometric drawings of each framed assembly; perspective guesses of how these assemblies can be used; and the use of hitch pins to unfold each assembly.
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conclusion The MArch Exhbition proved how Peripatopian architecture engages the user and promotes creative action. Besides interacting with the architecture, this design also proved to generate social interaction at the exhibition. Popular within Peripatopia was inhabiting the spaces between each framed assembly, and then socialzing around the pieces; sometimes pushing pieces together for seating, other times leaning on one. Most interesting was how the perception of the exhibtion space changed based on how condensed or exploded the assembly was. It very much divided space if necessary. Fascinating comments were made on the idea of purposeless. One comment was that Peripatopian architecture can never be purposeless, because its purpose is play. Another comment was that Peripatopian architecture encourages our bodies to then push beyond our usual movements as another form or creativity. Peripatopian architecture is a design technique to be carried through the 21st Century. Purpose is a fading thing, given the constant motion of our lives. Transforming architecture in Peripatopia allows us to choose how we want to experience space.
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