Kendall Baldwin's Thesis Book by Kendall Baldwin

01 May 2016 // Princeton University Kendall Baldwin

AN EPISODIC ANTHOLOGY ✳ (UN)(RE)BUILD

✳

A Document Constructed to Critically Reconfigure the Domain, Protocols and Outlook of Architectural Preservation 1

Thesis Director // Elizabeth Diller Professor, Princeton University

Thesis Advisor // Guy Nordenson Professor, Princeton University

This publication was produced in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture II at Princeton University

// Contents 0 - On Premise ..................................................................................................................................................09 & Structure Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................09 1 - On Origin & Influence .....................................................................................................................................................13 World War I ..............................................................................................................................................................14 Harold Gillies...........................................................................................................................................................18 Advertisements ......................................................................................................................................................20 2 - On Aging & Repair............................................................................................................................................................29 Discoloration ..........................................................................................................................................................30 Peeling ....................................................................................................................................................................32 Cracking ..................................................................................................................................................................34 Pocketing ................................................................................................................................................................36 Injections ................................................................................................................................................................40 Sutures ...................................................................................................................................................................42 Anchoring ...............................................................................................................................................................44 Prosthetics .............................................................................................................................................................46 3 - On Stochasticity & Control .............................................................................................................................................51 Debris ......................................................................................................................................................................52 Machining ...............................................................................................................................................................56 Erosion ....................................................................................................................................................................62 4 - On Authenticity & Facsimile...........................................................................................................................................71 Jan Vormann ...........................................................................................................................................................72 Edoardo Tresoldi .....................................................................................................................................................76 James Wines ...........................................................................................................................................................78 5 - On Material & Composition ............................................................................................................................................83 Filip Dujardin ..........................................................................................................................................................84 Victor Enrich ...........................................................................................................................................................88 Justin Plunkett .....................................................................................................................................................92

✳ “This document will serve as a provocateur; an anthology, episodic in nature, constructed to facilitate the critical reconfiguration of the domain, protocols and outlook of architectural preservation... It operates non-linearly and non-hierarchically, juxtaposing the conventional with the unorthodox. Its success should be determined by the number of questions it leaves unanswered.”

Kendall Baldwin (Un)/(Re)Build: An Episodic Anthology, 2016

This publication, (Un)/(Re)Build, seeks to speculate on the generative potential of historic preservation practices within the architectural discipline. It will serve as a provocateur; a risky exploration of territory yet uncharted. An anthology, episodic in nature, this document is constructed to facilitate the critical reconfiguration of the domain, protocols and outlook of architectural preservation. It does so by way of unconventional positioning - drawing parallels between normative practices and radical pedagogies. The incorporation of seemingly distant ideas, themes and projects to the established definition of "Historic Preservation" provokes a fundamental reconsideration of what it means to keep, preserve, repair, maintain, restore, conserve, and reconstruct. The collection exhibited here exemplifies both the range and volume of preservation's unrealized aesthetic.

On Premise & Structure

(Un)/(Re)Build intentionally operates non-linearly and non-hierarchically, juxtaposing the conventional with the unorthodox, the historical with the imaginary. It can be consumed in one sitting or in many sittings; read in the provided sequence or in an order of one's choosing; contemplated in isolation or considered in relation to existing texts; taken seriously or thought of casually. Its only rule for interaction is that it imposes no restrictions; engage openly, creatively, independently. The success of this experiment should be determined not by the conclusions it draws, but rather, by the speculations it induces and the questions it leaves unanswered. If the assumptions you held upon opening this document are inverted, challenged or, at the very least shaken, by the time you close its dust jacket, (Un)/(Re)Build will have served its purpose. 7

On Origin & Influence beautyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only skin deep

✳ “Don’t worry Sonny, you’ll be alright and have as good a face as most of us before we’re finished with you.”

Sir Harold Gillies

01 // On Origin & Influence

Conversation with a patient, 1917

The need for repair – both anatomical and architectural – following the destruction imposed by World War I induced an international culture of beautification. The surgical acts imposed upon the bodies of injured soldiers to combat the disfigurement they suffered at the hand of heavy artillery and trench warfare sought simply to reconstruct; to replace body parts lost during conflict. The subsequent medical advancements that were made in this pursuit catalyzed an obsession with personal vanity, pushing surgery into the cosmetic realm. What once was necessary to replace a missing jaw or cheekbone became elective to re-shape minute imperfections in the nose or chin – a movement from repair towards rejuvenation. The techniques deployed in either scenario, very much sculptural in nature, brought about an aesthetic of repair – the polemic of this aesthetic encouraged flaws, a type of negative ornamentation, to be stripped away; the only trace left behind would be the surgical scar, its level of invisibility indicating the degree of its success.

On Origin & Influence

This cosmetic revolution of the body is not unlike the transformative movement of Modern architecture and its preservation. Developing very much in parallel with the progression of plastic surgery, Modernism sought to use sophisticated materials, systems of assembly and technological development to move away from the traps of style, ornament and formal irregularities. By borrowing and re-appropriating the surgical methodologies and techniques available at the time, buildings were rationalized and, almost, sterilized. The care and construction of our bodies was projected onto the construction and care of our buildings. In this respect, architecture’s relationship with the body was not severed with the advent of Modernism but, instead, the technological impulses of the period encouraged a deeper connection than had existed previously. Buildings were built in the manner that our bodies were rebuilt – with surgical precision and the absence of imperfection. The architect’s toolkit had become that of the surgeon –the syringe, the scalpel and the suture. 11

Figure 01: Watercolor painting of a soldier with facial wounds during World War I. Painted by surgeon, Henry Tonks in 1918, National Portrait Gallery

On Origin

// World War I

01 // On Origin & Influence

The Faces of the Great War

surgeon working in France. “They seemed to think they could pop their heads up over a trench and move quickly enough to dodge the hail of bullets.” Members of the infantry would return to the bottom of the trench with a fate nearly as bad as death – a nose, jaw or even an entire face missing. Nearly 20,000 of these casualties were documented over the course of the war’s tenure. Surgeons were met with the overwhelming task of treating scores of these soldiers, the socalled mutilés, who were now barely recognizable to both themselves and their families. In the U.K., such severe facial disfigurement was one of a few select wartime injuries for which a soldier received the reparation of full pension. The justification behind this decision was that this type of injury influenced one’s sense of self and social existence. “The psychological effect on a man who must go through life, an object of horror to himself as well as to others, is beyond description,” recalled Albee. “It is a fairly common experience for the maladjusted person to feel like a stranger to his world.”

On nearly every front – political, social, economical, technological, psychological – World War I forever transformed 20th century society. One of the most pronounced impacts it had was the claiming of lives, with 8 million soldiers killed and another 21 million wounded. The innumerable injuries obtained by the war’s young “tommies” overwhelmed all existing strategies for contending with trauma to the body, mind and soul. The unforeseen enemy of World War I proved to be the embattled trenches with a relentless flow of machine-gun fire threatening the soldiers in the conflict. Large-caliber guns and heavy artillery, with their power to atomize bodies into unrecoverable fragments, had made clear, at the war’s outset, that mankind’s military technology wildly outpaced that of its medical counterpart. The very nature of trench warfare, moreover, proved diabolically conducive to facial injuries: “[T]he... soldiers failed to understand the menace of the machine gun,” noted Dr. Fred Albee, an American

Figure 02: Watercolor painting of a soldier with facial wounds during World War I. Painted by surgeon, Henry Tonks in 1918, National Portrait Gallery 12

01 02

01 // On Origin & Influence 03

Figure 03: Facial masks and eyeglass accessories for wounded soldiers in Anna Coleman Ladd's Paris studio, The Library of Congress.

✳ “I endeavor, by means of the skill I happen to possess as a sculptor, to make a man’s face as near as possible to what it looked like before he was wounded. My cases are generally extreme cases that plastic surgery has, perforce, had to abandon; but, as in plastic surgery, the psychological effect is the same. The patient acquires his old selfrespect, self assurance, self-reliance,...takes once more to a pride in his personal appearance. His presence is no longer a source of melancholy to himself nor of sadness to his relatives and friends.”

Francis Derwent Wood Transcribed Statement, 1918

Figure 04: Rows of plaster facial masks (before and after) in Anna Coleman Ladd's Paris studio, The Library of Congress. 15

Figure 05: Before and after portraits documenting the progress of facial reconstruction patients, Archives of American Art.

On Origin

// Harold Gillies

01 // On Origin & Influence

The Father or Plastic Surgery

to aesthetics. It is important to remember that, at this point in history, the most advanced cosmetic procedure in practice was the repair of a cleft lip. Gillies, with the collaborative assistance of a multi-disciplinary team of surgeons, nurses and artists, worked tirelessly to first create sculptures in the likeness of the men before their injuries, and then strove to repair and restore, as much as possible, a mutilated man’s original face. The team worked together at the Queen’s Hospital in a suburb southeast of London, grafting flaps of skin and transplanting rib bones. The clinically honest before-and-after photographs published by Gillies shortly after the war reveal how remarkable – at times almost unimaginably—successful he and his team could be. The gallery of stitched and shattered faces, with their brave patchwork of missing parts, also demonstrated the limitations of a surgeon in that era. It was for those soldiers – too disfigured to qualify for beforeand-after documentation – that the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department had been founded.

In an attempt to combat the life-lasting effects of such facial trauma, wartime surgeons began engaging with and inventing techniques in reconstructive surgery. One of the most renowned pioneers in the realm of facial surgery at the time was Sir Harold Gillies. Born in New Zealand, Gillies was working as a surgeon in London when the war broke out. Shortly thereafter he left for Belgium and France to serve in the field ambulances, where he witnessed firsthand the shocking physical toll that the war was taking; it was at this point that he became determined to specialize in cosmetic reconstruction. In the 1950’s, when recalling his war service, Gillies is quoted as having said, “Unlike the student of today, who is weaned on small scar excisions and graduates to harelips, we were suddenly asked to produce half a face.” Plastic surgery, which aims to restore both function and form to deformities, was, at the war’s outset, crudely practiced, with little attention paid

Figure 06: Before and after portraits documenting the progress of facial reconstruction patients, Archives of American Art. 16

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Figure 07: Advertisement for a headdress launched in July 1940 which would heat the face, stimulating circulation and rejuvenating the skin.

On Influences

// Advertisements

01 // On Origin & Influence

Modern Obsessions with Beauty

In addition to the heated headdress, Max Factor also produced a “nose-shaper” in the 1930’s. A muzzle-like mask designed for both men and women, it was advertised as being capable of “correct[ing] illshaped noses without operation – quickly, safely and permanently.” Such primordial devices, as well as contemporary surgical procedures, sought to combat signs of aging and efface the body as a vessel of history of accumulated marks and transformations. Because cosmetic facial surgery deals with the surface of the body, it devalues the density of the surface as a lived history, that is, a depth history. In other words, the cosmetic industry posits the body as an irreducible continuum of flesh – it sees it as having been constructed with a significant degree of adaptability both representationally and materially.

Before elective surgery was widely available, a number of at-home gadgets and treatments had been invented for the use of people – specifically women – who felt that their bodies were, in some capacity, less than ideal. Dissatisfied with the texture of their skin, the shape of their nose, the size of their waist, the volume of their breasts, women of the general population began investing in and utilizing contraptions that, today, would be viewed as borderline extremist and barbaric. Take, for example, the Max Factor skin rejuvenating headdress, invented and mass-produced in 1940, which, once plugged in and switched on, would heat the face and head, stimulating circulation to leave the skin looking refreshed. The image of the wearer cannot help but to be likened to the plaster casts taken of injured soldiers’ disfigured faces - the origins of this technology clearly rooted in the history of the first World War.

Figures 08-11: Vintage advertisements from the 1930's-1950's which promote early "at-home" cosmetic manipulation devices. 18

01 // On Origin & Influence

Figure 12: Advertisement for a "chin reducer and beautifier" to be used by women at home to privent the appearance of a "double chin."

✳ “In this age, attention to your appearance is an absolute necessity if you expect to make the most out of life. Not only should you wish to appear as attractive as possible for your own self-satisfaction, which is alone well worth your efforts, but you will find the world in general judging you greatly, if not wholly, by your looks. Therefore, it pays to look your best at all times. Permit no one to see you looking otherwise; it will injure your welfare! ”

Dr. M. Trilety The New York Times, 1932

On Aging & Repair

out with the old, in with the new

✳ “Preservation has contributed to a kind of collective amnesia by transforming historic districts into stage sets for tourists while airbrushing out buildings that represent more uncomfortable chapters in our past.”

Rem Koolhaas

02 // On Aging & Repair

Preservation is Overtaking Us, 2014

Historic preservation is an architectural endeavor replete with opportunities for enrichment. Implicit in its operation is the practice of restoration, which can be understood as the mediation between the material and the semiotic, encompassing a contentious line of inquiry that determines which of the two is kept. Formally defined as the “process of accurately depicting the character of a property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its history,” restoration serves as a radical form of surface cleansing, applying comprehensive erasure to the presumed denigrating material effects of aging. Born of the divided pedagogical debate “Scrape” versus “Anti-Scrape,” and further fueled by the Venice Charter of 1964, the negotiation of material evidence of the past is at the crux of restoration’s ambition. In either case, time is calcified in an architectural work to embody a singular, significant moment, situated in the historical past or the modernized present. This act of isolation views time – its origins and ravages – as either “fixed” or “fixable,” denying the metamorphic constructs of physical matter. Because material exists in the temporal dimension, it undergoes a continuous process of transformation as it is exposed to the intervening forces of natural disturbance and human volition. To interrupt this course – with sweeping restoration efforts – forces an unnatural break in a material’s evolutionary flow, ending a cycle that induces a periodic, yet necessary, renaissance of the architectural species. 27

On Aging & Repair

Figure 01: Port wine stain birthmark which results in a purple-tinted discoloration of normal skin pigmentation.

On Aging

// Discoloration Architectural Discoloration

Skin discoloration, often manifesting itself as hyperpigmentation is a common, usually harmless condition in which patches of skin become darker in color than the normal surrounding skin. This darkening occurs when an excess of melanin, the brown pigment that produces normal skin color, forms deposits in the skin. Hyperpigmentation can affect the skin color of people of any race.

Concrete, although one of the most durable building materials available to the construction industry, can be easily tarnished by other materials. Airborne dirt can collect on any concrete surface to form a dark and sometimes oily buildup or stain. Buildings with architectural concrete will need to be cleaned of air pollution deposits to regain their original appearance.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Discoloration

Figure 02: Dirt and pollution stain on a reinforced concrete wall which results in a black-ish discoloration of the architectural surface. 28

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Figure 03: Pieces of skin peeling off of an individual's back after a sunburn has healed.

On Aging

// Peeling Architectural Peeling

Peeling skin is a painless but noticeable process. Peeling is the natural maintenance mechanism that the skin uses to get rid of dead skin cells. With healthy skin, this process happens gradually over time so that the shedding of skin cells is not easily visible. If skin is damaged, however, peeling may be more widespread and readily apparent.

Peeling in concrete, known as spalling, occurs when a concrete element intakes an excess quantity of water causing the surface to weaken in strength and durability. This type of damage is not usually noticeable until the first freeze/thaw cycle of the year takes place. At that point, the face of concrete that is exposed to ice or snow will expand and push the thin, weak top layer of concrete upwards causing it to peel off.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Peeling

Figure 04: White paint flakes chipping and peeling off of the surface of a concrete wall. 30

03 04

Figure 05: Dry, cracked skin on the base of an individual's foot.

On Aging

// Cracking Architectural Cracking

Cracked skin is a classic symptom of dry skin, but it can also occur in response to scratches, trauma or infection. When the skin dries, it becomes rough and flaky, with small tears that lead to deep cracks and fissures. These symptoms can be induced by environmental factors as well as existing medical conditions and can be alleviated with non-invasive treatments.

Concrete slabs can shrink as much as one half inch per one hundred feet. This shrinkage causes forces in the concrete which literally pull the slab apart. Cracks are the end result of these forces. The reason this occurs is due to a low water to cement ratio and is the most common issue that effects concrete quality.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Cracking

Figure 06: Cracked face of an exterior concrete wall, likely induced by freezing and thawing cycles. 32

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Figure 07: Pocketing acne scars, often referred to as pockmarks, on the face of a young teenage girl.

On Aging

// Pocketing Architectural Pocketing

A dermatological scarring condition that often occurs as the result of having extreme acne. The surface of the skin (typically on the face) develops divots, or pockets, to create a bumpy texture. These markings can be greatly reduced, though not completely removed, through any number of procedures including chemical peels, dermabrasion, fillers and excision.

A form of concrete degradation which begins as a surface blemish but can develop into a concerning condition of structural deficiency. Typically manifesting itself in the form of a crumbled surface, concrete pocketing is usually the result of experiencing numerous cycles of freezing and thawing.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Pocketing

Figure 08: Brittle concrete has begun to pocket, crumble and expose the aggregate along the wall's surface. 34

07 08

✳ “The built record, which holds most of the lessons of art and history, is there for anyone to see; but, increasingly, we have not wanted to see it. Or we have preferred to pretty it up, to reconfigure it for other purposes.”

Ada Louise Huxtable

02 // On Aging & Repair

The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion, 1997

✳ “Restoration is a difficult and unclear procedure at best; unreality is built into the process, which requires a highly subjective kind of cosmetic surgery that balances life and death.”

Ada Louise Huxtable The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion, 1997

Figure 09: A patient receives the cosmetic treatment of an injection of botulinum toxin (BTX), a neurotoxic protein, to temporarily freeze the development of wrinkles.

On Repair

// Injections Architectural Injections

Facial fillers are products such as collagen, hyaluronic acid and calcium hydroxyl apatite that rejuvenate facial skin by reducing or eliminating wrinkles, raising scar depressions, enhancing lips and replacing soft-tissue volume loss through injections which paralyze facial muscles.

A common and inexpensive repair technique used on masonry and concrete structures. Applied via injection using either epoxy or polyurethane resin, this procedure resolves issues with cracking, faulty joints, hollow cavities and moisture penetration.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Injections

Figure 10: Continuous stream of epoxy being injected into a severe crack compromising the structural integrity of a concrete wall. 38

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Figure 11: Specialized surgical staples used on a localized region of a patientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back, in place of sutures, to close an incision.

On Repair

// Sutures Architectural Sutures

Surgical sutures are a medical device used to hold body tissues together after an injury or surgery. Application generally involves using a needle with an attached length of thread. A number of different shapes, sizes, and thread materials have been developed over its millennia of history. Surgeons, physicians, dentists, podiatrists, eye doctors, registered nurses and other trained nursing personnel, medics, and clinical pharmacists typically engage in suturing. Surgical knots are then used to secure the sutures.

Devices used for stabilization purposes on architectural elements which have been compromised by structural damage. The stitches are countersunk across each side of an imperfection, such as a masonry crack, closing and securing the splitting region.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Sutures

Figure 12: Carbon fiber staples installed across the face of a large crack in a concrete wall to distribute any future load or movement forces away from the area. 40

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Figure 13: X-Ray image of a patientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leg after a â&#x20AC;&#x153;roddingâ&#x20AC;? surgery where a stainless steel rod was implanted to splint a broken bone.

On Repair

// Anchoring Architectural Anchoring

A stainless steel implant is a device used to help replace a biological structure that has been damaged due to trauma or bone and cartilage disorders. Commonly used in surgical applications, specifically orthopedic surgeries, these implants are used to replace biological tissue or to help stabilize a biological structure - such as bone tissue - to aid the healing process.

Architectural anchoring repairs and stabilizes cracked masonry using helical stainless steel bars bonded into cut slots with a specialized grout for a quick, simple, effective and permanent repair. Cracked masonry is best stabilized by bonding the helical bars into appropriate bed joints or cut slots, in bricks, blocks or stonework with a cementitious grout. Tensile loads are redistributed along the masonry element to minimize further progression of the crack.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Anchoring

Figure 14: Helical stainless steel rod inserted and bonded into a masonry wall joint to stabilize cracks growing within the structure. 42

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Figure 15: The “Modular Prosthetic Limb,” a nextgeneration robotic arm and hand, which provides its recipients with improved dexterous control and a sense of touch.

On Repair

// Prosthetics Architectural Prosthetics

In medicine, a prosthesis (from Ancient Greek prósthesis, “addition, application, attachment”) is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trauma, disease, or congenital conditions. A person’s prosthesis is designed and assembled according to the patient’s appearance and functional needs.

A type of artificial or simulatory intervention into a destabilized architectural structure. Any/all completed elements serve as an exact copy of the damaged, broken or lost original member. Once formulation is complete, the prosthetics is then placed in the original member’s exact location to afford aesthetic, structural and/or compositional continuity.

02 // On Aging & Repair

Anatomical Prosthetics

Figure 16: Newly sculpted marble pieces inserted to the ruinous cornice and columns at Greece’s Parthenon. 44

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On Stochasticity & Control the best of both worlds

✳ “Foundations may survive for a thousand years, while the roof structure may be replaced after a thousand months. The sanitary fittings in the bathroom could last a thousand weeks, the external paintwork a thousand days, and the light bulbs a thousand hours.”

Steven Groak

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

The Idea of a Building: Thought and Action in the Design and Production of Buildings, 1992

On Stochasticity & Control

Every material decays. More precisely, the physical properties of materials change over time as the materials are exposed to various chemical reactions, external sources and mechanical action. The changes, often referred to as pathologies, vary from minor mechanical breakdown to chemical alterations of the physical properties of the material. When the material reaches a critical level of deficiency due to such forces of natural aging or accelerated decay, it is then subjected to undertakings of repair, replacement or demolition.

Pathology is defined as the scientific study of disease, which can be described as any abnormality that induces change in an entity’s structure or function. Common in branches of medicine, the practice of pathology deals with the laboratory examination of body parts for diagnostic purposes, investigating the causes and effects of aberrant behaviors. When applied to the architectural discipline, pathologic operations attempt to explore such abnormalities as the sites of creative potential. Through the embrace and amplification of a material’s stochastically aged condition, design interventions are able to invent a heretofore unimagined building typology; maintaining a selective sensitivity to the “old” – original structures – and a manipulative capacity for the “new” – altered composition – with allegiance to neither. 49

Figure 01: Photograph of clay brick and cinder brick debris from various processes of induced erosion.

On Stochasticity

// Debris Architectural Dust

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

Debris, or construction waste, consists of unwanted material produced directly or incidentally by the construction process or ancillary industries. Much architectural debris and building waste is made up of materials such as bricks, concrete and wood damaged or unused for various reasons during construction. Observational research has shown that this can be as high as 10 to 15% of the materials that go into a building.

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

Figure 02: Photograph of cinder brick debris from various processes of demolition and induced erosion.

â&#x153;ł â&#x20AC;&#x153;Architecture carries within itself the traces of its future destruction, the already past future, future perfect, of its ruin...it is haunted, indeed signed, by the spectral silhouette of this ruin, at work even in the pedestal of its stone, in its metal or its glass."

Jacques Derrida Letter to Peter Eisenman, 1990

Figure 03: Photograph of a clay brick drilled in a vertical orientation using a power hammer drill. Output and debris are depicted.

On Stochasticity

// Machining Architectural Rubble

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

Machining is any of various processes in which a piece of raw material is cut into a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme, controlled material removal, are today collectively known as subtractive manufacturing, in distinction from processes of controlled material addition, which are known as additive manufacturing. Exactly what the "controlled" part of the definition implies can vary, but it almost always implies the use of machine tools (in addition to power tools and hand tools). Machining is a part of the manufacture of many metal products, but it can also be used on materials such as wood, plastic, ceramic, and composites.

Figures 04-05: Photographs of cinder blocks and clay brick debris from various processes of mechanically induced deformation. 54

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

Figure 06: Photograph of a cinder brick subjected to fracturing and deformation from machining by a hammer drill.

✳ “Whoever must be a creator always annihilates.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1968

Figure 07: Photograph of cinder brick eroded by a muriatic acid wash. Exposed aggregate is depicted with an unscathed section as reference.

On Control

// Erosion Architectural Subtraction

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

In materials science, erosion is the wear of material from a solid surface by the action of another solid. The study of the processes of erosion is part of the discipline of tribology. There are four principal erosion processes: adhesive wear (when two solid surfaces slide over one another under pressure), abrasive wear (when material is removed by contact with hard particles), corrosive wear (deterioration of useful properties in a material due to reactions with its environment) and surface fatigue (the surface of a material is weakened by cyclic loading). Erosion, along with other aging processes such as fatigue, creep, and fracture toughness, causes progressive degradation of materials with time leading to failure of material at an advanced age.

Figures 08-09: Photographs of cinder brick subjected to 3-week salt bath and plainsawn pine 2x4 sandblasted with grit abrasive. Stochastic quality of crystallization and grain patterning is depicted. 60

03 // On Stochasticity & Control

Figure 10: Photograph of Styrofoam blocks that have been sculpturally transformed via sandblasting processes.

✳ “Architecture must be a heart-breaking art.... Paint a picture, write a book, and you possess your creation forever, even if it is no good. But design a building and you have it for twenty years and then the wrecker takes charge of the situation.”

The New Yorker Wrecker's Reminiscences, 1931

On Authenticity & Facsimile keeping up appearances

â&#x153;ł â&#x20AC;&#x153;Landmarks are never stable. Plumbing is replaced; HVAC systems upgraded; facades repaired; programming adjusted to attract new audiences. While promotional photographs of a landmark might emphasize timelessness, the material composition, function, access, and surrounding landscape constantly change. While much of this happens for practical purposes, such revisions are remaking and substituting cultural artifacts, so that the past slides gradually into a new reality."

Bryony Roberts

04 // On Authenticity & Facsimile

CLOG: Landmark, 2015

On Authenticity & Facsimile

It can be assumed that the primary reason restorationists are caught in the signification of a “singular moment” and develop an allegiance to the “static notion of time” is because their tactical efforts begin with an impassioned pursuit of the historical; meticulous research of a work’s construction typology, material components and design methodology. This immersion in the past naturally situates both their work and their mindset in a historical framework, operating exclusively in pursuit of what once was.

Completed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower is constructed of 18,000 unique iron components. Each year, as a means of responding to structural deficiencies, approximately 300 of the Tower’s most deteriorated elements are removed and replaced. Considering the Tower’s age in concert with annual iron replacement, we can safely assume that its 18,000 members are entirely substituted, on average, every 6o years. At 118 years old, the Eiffel Tower that we view today is, in fact, the third incarnation of it’s original self. While the iconic representation of the Tower is maintained, the materials that comprised its initial construction have been lost to time. As such, is it possible to consider the Eiffel Tower as “preserved” if it is now entirely fabricated of present-day componentry? Or, conversely, must it be relegated simply as a contemporary simulation of a structure that once was? 69

Figure 01: Photograph of Dispatchwork on a wall in Tel Aviv, Israel.

On Authenticity

// Jan Vormann Dispatchwork

04 // On Authenticity & Facsimile

The ongoing street art project Dispatchwork is authored by German artist, Jan Vormann. His work, which began in 2007, takes him around the world - from New York to Berlin to Moscow - "repairing" buildings with cracks and broken crevices, filling them with shiny, plastic Lego bricks. The bright, colorful compositions create a playful juxtaposition with the dusty, grey, imperfect building walls in which they are inserted. The resulting mosaic seeks to capture the curiosity of passersby as well as encourage onlookers to question what it means to "properly" repair the defects of aging buildings.

04 // On Authenticity & Facsimile 02

Figure 02: Photograph of Dispatchwork on a wall in Tel Aviv, Israel.

✳ “Change tends to fill people with this incredible fear. We are surrounded by crisis-mongers who see the city in terms of decline. I kind of automatically embrace the change. Then I try to find ways in which change can be mobilized to strengthen the original identity. It’s a weird combination of having faith and having no faith.”

Rem Koolhaas Preservation is Overtaking Us, 2014

Figure 03: Photograph of Dispatchwork on a wall in Bocchignano, Italy. 73

Figure 04: Sculptural wire mesh installation at the archaeological ruins in Puglia, Italy. The project is meant to resurrect the work into its original form.

On Authenticity

// Edoardo Tresoldi

04 // On Authenticity & Facsimile

Basilica di Siponto In the Southern Italian region of Puglia, the historic park of Siponto is known as a site of great archaeological significance. Abandoned after earthquakes in the 13th century, the area formerly assumed the role as one of the principal harbors in the region. Alongside several artifacts emblematic of Pulian-Romanesque architecture, the land hosts the ancient remains of an early Christian basilica, illustrating the townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role as one of the most important dioceses in the region. On the site of this early church, Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi constructed a monumental wire mesh installation that simulates the ancient townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architectural quality. The sculpture, titled Basilica di Siponto, occupies the vast space as a light and transparent volume, resurrecting the archaeological remains as a sculptural form for visitors to experience and explore. Layers of mesh intersect and overlap to form cavernous archways, soaring columns and a Romanesque roof. The objective is to infuse new life into the site's ancient remains. Figure 05: Sculptural wire mesh installation at the archaeological ruins in Puglia, Italy. The project is meant to resurrect the work into its original form. 74

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Figure 06: BEST Products Indeterminate Facade showroom in Houston, Texas, 1975

On Facsimile

// James Wines BEST Products Retail Stores

04 // On Authenticity & Facsimile

BEST Products is a now defunct chain of American catalogue showroom retail stores founded by Sydney and Frances Lewis and headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. In the mid 1970's, the Lewis Family hired James Wines and his architecture firm Sculpture In The Environment (SITE) to create a series of facades for nine of their showrooms across the United States. SITE was given full creative control over the project. What was soon to develop was an incredible series of architectural commentaries on post-war consumerism that were in-tune with the material culture of the time and the client. The storefronts acted as a sort of re-branding object, aligning themselves with the artistic avant-garde - the "Anti-Walmart" of the era. These buildings, nine in total throughout the United States, were charged with critique and an inversion of expectation, where the processes of building and unbuilding became a central movement.

Figure 07: Detail view of the Indeterminate Facade showroom in Houston. 76

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Figure 08: BEST Products Inside/Outside showroom in Miami, Florida, 1994. This cutaway section of the faรงade reveals the layers of normally enclosed technology and merchandise.

04 // On Authenticity & Facsimile

Figure 09: BEST Products Cultural Ridge showroom in Miami, Florida, 1994. 78

Figure 10: BEST Products Tilt Building showroom in Baltimore, Maryland, 1978.

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Figure 11: BEST Products Notch showroom in Sacramento, California, 1977. 79

On Material & Composition which comes first?

â&#x153;ł â&#x20AC;&#x153;The preserved building must take into consideration its relevance in the modern urban context. Contrary to popular belief, preservation does not limit choices for innovative design and creativity.â&#x20AC;?

Kevin Bukowski

05 // On Material & Composition

CLOG: Landmark, 2015

On Material & Composition Operating under the conceit that a built work is chiefly defined by the assemblage of its physical matter, one can view a structure as “preserved” so long as its original materials are retained and utilized – even if those materials are aged, displaced and reprocessed. As such, it is possible to posit that methods of material deconstruction and compositional reassembly can be deployed as generative acts of design that destabilize the normative rhetoric of preservation techniques. Through the manipulation and reconfiguration of a project’s built material, a new composite typology that carries the work’s original principles of scale, geometry, composition and texture can be formulated; one that possesses the genetic material of an architectural past synthesized with a tectonic sensibility that operates productively in the contemporary milieu. With this disciplinary recalibration, preservation in the 21st century can be defined not as the static conservation of an historical condition, but rather, as the dynamic production of a germane – unbuilt – work. 83

On Composition

// Filip Dujardin

05 // On Material & Composition

Impossible Architecture Photographer Filip Dujardin designs architectural fictions in the digital realm. The Belgian artist began as a professional architectural photographer because of his interest in the sculptural qualities of building forms. It wasn't long before Dujardin turned to digital design to construct sculptural manipulations of his own in 2007, assembling virtual(ly) impossible creations. At first glance, Dujardinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photographic collages seem almost ordinary, though highly modern, only revealing their structural implausibility upon close examination. He ignores the laws of physics, defying gravity and material, to create exquisite, yet fictional, architectural compositions. A single image can incorporate more than 150 "fragments" from Dujardin's personal library of architectural features and building textures. The seemingly haphazard assembly of these isolated elements generates a striking object that questions the meaning of material, composition and authenticity.

Figure 01: An untitled piece which is part of the Architectures Imaginaires series.

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Figure 02: An untitled piece which is part of the Architectures Imaginaires series. 85

Figure 03: An untitled piece which is part of the Architectures Imaginaires series.

05 // On Material & Composition

Figure 04: "Untitled #5" is part of the Architectures Imaginaires series. 86

Figure 05: An untitled piece which is part of the Architectures Imaginaires series.

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Figure 06: "Untitled #19" is part of the Architectures Imaginaires series. 87

On Composition

// Victor Enrich City Portraits

05 // On Material & Composition

Victor Enrich, a Catalan photographer, is noted for his architectural photography and photographic manipulations. Enrich photographs buildings and then, through digital manipulations and montage techniques, formulates impossible constructions he transforms conventional architectural structures into improbable and surreal shapes. These images are assembled into a collection titled City Portraits, an endless stream of architectural fictions including a Tel Aviv residential tower split vertically in half and a housing complex with undulating balcony extrusions. The buildings that Enrich photographs and modifies are situated around the world, including locations from New York to Munich.

Figure 07: Medusa, a distorted photograph taken in Tel Aviv, 2011.

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Figure 08: Deportation, a distorted photograph taken in Tel Aviv, 2011. 89

Figure 09: Defense, a distorted photograph taken in Tel Aviv, 2009.

05 // On Material & Composition

Figure 10: NHDK 68, a distorted photograph taken in Munich, 2013. 90

Figure 11: Measure, a distorted photograph taken in Manhattan, 2015.

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Figure 12: Shalom 2, a distorted photograph taken in Tel Aviv, 2008. 91

On Composition

// Justin Plunkett Con/Struct

05 // On Material & Composition

Con/Struct is digital project authored by Capetown-based artist, Justin Plunkett. It is an exploration into the themes of empowerment and imagination. Plunkett, using photography, creates juxtaposed environments with digitally-formed architectural images. These fictional situations attempt to examine the influence of brands and commercialization on lifestyle, the urban environment and architecture, particularly cultural icons like churches, skyscrapers and shopping malls. It is Plunkett's hope that the imagined scenes and surreal compositions encourage onlookers to questions and explore conventional notions of contemporary design, construction and preservation practices globally.

Figure 13: Langa Longer Shopping Mall, 2015.

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Figure 14: Gugulethu Gables, 2015. 93

05 // On Material & Composition

Figure 15: Skhayascraper, 2015.

Figure 16: Diepsloot Dignity Tower, 2015.

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Figure 17: Glory to Gold, 2015. 95