Reflections

リフレクションズ REFLECTIONS メテ クットゥ METE KUTLU

Bachelor of Architecture: From École nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris Malaquais — 2013

Reflections

Content

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An Architect Mete Kutlu

ARCHITECTURE 8

Mitate Housing Paris, France 16

Seashell Museum Paris, France

GEOMETRY

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Talking City

Flower Power

Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France

Imaginary Japanese Garden

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Sensation Machine

Universal Flowers

Paris, France

(P)ink Space

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Manifesto

Blob Chain Space Blue(s)

FABRICATION 66

Gesture & Trajectory The Great Wave off Kanagawa 70

Pyramid Craze Necropolis of Saqqara 74

Wind Against Wind The Great Wave off Kanagawa II

LITERATURE 80

Architecture & Literature

FASHION 87

Fashion (Article) Paris, 19th century 100

Døgme 7 Continents

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

An Architect

Mete Kutlu

There is no doubt whatsoever about the influence of architecture and structure upon human character and action. We make our building and afterwards they make us. They regulate the course of our lives.

— Winston Churchill, 1924 I believe in an architecture of relations.

Relations today define the very essence of ideas, concepts, actions and art.

A building or any existence exists only in the way it is experienced and perceived.

Architecture, as well, is a phenomenon appearing to the human brain and body.

A building is in constant interaction with its context and the people. It defines itself through the nature of these intricate relations through time.

We have lost our predilection for the monumental, the heavy, the static, and we have enriched our sensibility with a taste for the light, the practical, the ephemeral and the swift.

— Antonio Sant’Elia, Manifesto of Futurist Architecture It is for such a questioning that I started exploring the materiality in architecture and the soft space which seems empty but acting and reacting constantly around us with its millions of tiny particles.

The perception of a space is constructed through its form, materiality and the fluids present in it such as heat, sound, light, wind and humidity. Any of these aspects cannot be considered without their relationship to human body.

Architecture is not only the creation of spaces by the placement of certain limits but it is the definition of various aspects of the delimited space, itself (soft space).

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE 建築についての考察 A.01

Mitate Housing

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A.02

Seashell Museum

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A.03

Talking City

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A.04

Sensation Machine

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A.05

Manifesto: Delirium of An Architect

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建築についての考察 見立ハウジング

A.02

Reflections on Architecture

Mitate Housing

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Location: Paris, FRANCE Type: Residential Area: 1200m2 Date: 2011

Mitate Housing is an apartment building in Paris which allows residents to determine the functioning of interior space. The design results from the balance established by part and counterpart that is required for the succesfull expression of an idea.

Interior space is not recognized as such without exterior space. The term highceilinged room means nothing to someone who’s never experienced a low ceilinged room. Following this this strategy, the building uses the long-standing Japanese concept of mitate: to generate surprise through a new point of view.

MITATE The characteristics of mitate is applied at three different scales. The building located at the center of an area is enclosed by other buildings having very strong cubic lines.

Its curved outer skin thus reveals itself as an unexpected presence on entering the surrouned interior park space and serves as an orientation element. The second level of mitate happens in the shared circulation space between this building and another one designed by another architect. Finally,

the thirdth mitate happens in the flats. The outer edge of each apartment is framed with a tiled space that separates the unit from the façade of the building, thus creating two completely different areas.

An ‘inner sanctuary’ enclosed by glass doors functions as a tranquil, private living environment. In contrast, the area beyond this discreet core is bright and initially undefined. The result is an apartment suitable for people who want to live close to the city, as well as for those who want to dwell quitly, away from the urban bustle.

SURFACE STRATEGY & LIGHTNING The building also reminds of a mushroom as its surface area increases at each floor.

Thanks to this strategy, the building responds succesfully to the limited surface area while using the sun light and projected shadows intelligently. The three semi-circular poles at lower levels allows residents to profit from the sunlight at any time of the day. As these poles unite on higher levels, it allows to have other type of spatial organisations.

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Top: Various levels on site Middle: Butterfly shadow diagram Bottom: Visibility analysis 10

MITATE HOUSING キノコハウジング

Top: Volume model Bottom: Plexiglass skin model

REFLECTIONS ARCHITECTURE

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Top: Larger surface area Bottom: Double curvature Façade

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MITATE HOUSING キノコハウジング

Plans

REFLECTIONS ARCHITECTURE

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ア ー キ テ ク チ ャ に つ い て の 考 察

キ ノ コ ハ ウ ジ ン グ

建築についての考察 貝の博物館

A.03

Reflections on Architecture

Seashell Museum

三

Location: Paris, FRANCE Type: Cultural Area: 700m2 Date: 2011

Seashell Museum provides an arena in which to exhibit the archeological findings in the form of an experimental timebubble where prehistorical, historical and contemporary Paris are intertwined.

TIME & CONTRAST Seashell Museum supercedes the notion of museum as “object” or fixed entity, with no firm boundaries between what is “above” and what is “belove”. It is a building concieved in time rather than space. Thus, it appears as a protective bubble that leads the visitors into a journey of time-travel full of surprises. The visitors follow a twisting path underneath the contemporary geometrical structure and above the prehistorical archeological excavation site. This contrast created between “above” and “belove” transforms the spatial depth into an intensified appreciation of Paris’s prehistorical period and its first inhabitants, seashells.

form derived both the conception of the interior organisation and the structure.

Thus, the museum’s content, seashells, become the very agent and the common ground for this temporal experience. The steel structure is covered with a skin of semitransparent ETFE cushions. This system allows to have the right amount of daylight for the excavation site and offers the visitor the possibility to experience the exhibited seashells with the blurred image of the historical Parisian buildings on the background.

INTEGRATION Seashell Museum integrates itself with its surrounds and re-interpretes the urban grids to generate its own geometry.

Lying next to the ancient wall of Philippe Auguste, it uses the ancient tower as its center. The structure encircles the tower and creates an intermediary space and a historical contrast between the two structures of different periods.

STRUCTURE & SKIN The structure itself reminds of a turritella seashell by the seaside. Turritella’s twisting

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ReDim Preserve SSc(i):SSc(i)=Dist(i)*S ReDim Preserve RSc(i):RSc(i)=Dist(i)*R ReDim Preserve MSc(i):MSc(i)=Dist(i)*M ReDim Preserve LSc(i):LSc(i)=Dist(i)*L ReDim Preserve ESc(i):ESc(i)=Dist(i)*E ReDim Preserve Ps(i):Ps(i)=rhino.pointadd(DivPts(i),rhino.VectorScale(CrossXvic(i),SSc(i)))':Call rhino.

AddPoint(Ps(i)) ReDim Preserve Pr(i):Pr(i)=rhino.pointadd(DivPts(i),rhino.VectorScale(CrossRvec(i),RSc(i)))':Call rhino.

AddPoint(Pr(i)) ReDim Preserve Pm(i):Pm(i)=rhino.pointadd(DivPts(i),rhino.VectorScale(CrossYvec(i),MSc(i)))' If i>0 Then ReDim Preserve CrvPm(i):CrvPm(i)= rhino.AddPoint(Pm(i)):Call rhino.SelectObject(CrvPm(i)) End If ReDim Preserve Pl(i):Pl(i)=rhino.pointadd(DivPts(i),rhino.VectorScale(CrossLvec(i),LSc(i)))':Call rhino.

AddPoint(Pl(i)) ReDim Preserve Pe(i):Pe(i)=rhino.pointadd(DivPts(i),rhino.VectorScale(CrossXvec(i),ESc(i)))':Call rhino.

AddPoint(Pe(i)) ReDim Preserve Profile(i):Profile(i)=rhino.AddInterpCurve(array(Ps(i),Pr(i),Pm(i),Pl(i),Pe(i)),,,CrossYVec (i),CrossYVic(i)) ReDim Preserve RotAx(i):RotAx(i)=rhino.VectorUnitize(rhino.vectorcreate(Ps(i),Pe(i)))

If (i=0) Then

Call Rhino.RotateObject (Profile(i),DivPts(i), 90, RotAx(i), False)

ReDim Preserve StrPm(i):StrPm(i)=rhino.Curvemidpoint(Profile(i)):Call rhino.

AddPoint(StrPm(i)) ReDim Preserve CrvSPm(i):CrvSPm(i)= rhino.AddPoint(StrPm(i)):Call rhino.

SelectObject(CrvSPm(i)) ReDim Preserve CrvPm(i):CrvPm(i)= rhino.AddPoint(Pm(i)):Call rhino.SelectObject(CrvPm(i)) ReDim Preserve PsPrm(i):PsPrm(i)=rhino.curveclosestpoint(Profile(i),Ps(i)) ReDim Preserve PsTnvec(i):PsTnvec(i)=rhino.VectorUnitize(rhino.CurveTangent(Profile(i),PsPrm(i))) ReDim Preserve PsTnvic(i):PsTnvic(i)=rhino.VectorReverse(PsTnvec(i)) 'ReDim Preserve test(i):test(i)=rhino.pointadd(Ps(i),rhino.VectorScale(PsTnvec(i),50)):Call rhino.Addline(Ps(i),test(i))

ReDim Preserve PePrm(i):PePrm(i)=rhino.curveclosestpoint(Profile(i),Pe(i))

gent(Profile(i),PePrm(i)))

ReDim Preserve PeTnvec(i):PeTnvec(i)=rhino.VectorUnitize(rhino.CurveTan-

ReDim Preserve PeTnvic(i):PeTnvic(i)=rhino.VectorReverse(PeTnvec(i)) 'ReDim Preserve test(i):test(i)=rhino.pointadd(Pe(i),rhino.VectorScale(PeTnvec(i),50)):Call rhino.Addline(Pe(i),test(i)) End If If (i=Ubound(DivPts)) Then

The basic form and the population is generated through a computer-run script. The script enables to change and modify the structure according to various contextual and functional parameters.

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SEASHELL MUSEUM 貝殻博物館

Research A. Storage WC Cafeteria Shop Information Excavation

Shape

Triangulation

ETFE Cushions

Top: The skin, structure and the body Middle: Interior organisation and the twisting circulation Bottom: The triangulation of the skin REFLECTIONS ARCHITECTURE

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Top: Interior view of the structure Bottom: structure and skin models

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SEASHELL MUSEUM 貝殻博物館

Top left: Intersecting arcs of the smaller dome Bottom left: ETFE cushion render

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

The hollow sea-shell, which for years hath stood On dusty shelves, when held against the ear Proclaims its stormy parent, and we hear The faint, far murmur of the breaking flood.

We hear the sea. The Sea? It is the blood In our own veins, impetuous and near. —Eugene Lee-Hamilton, Seashell Murmurs

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貝 殻 博 物 館

建 築 に つ い て の 考 察

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建築についての考察 トーキング·シティ

A.04

Reflections on Architecture

Talking City

ĺ››

Location: Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, FRANCE Type: Urban Area: 10 x 100m2 Date: 2012

Talking City is a manifesto-project on contemporary urban noise pollution.

Its objective is to go beyond the biased opinions and explore various efficient and realistic possibilities in urban noise design starting by analyzing what kind of an influence the sounds and the noise have had on the perception of urban space throughout history.

CITY OF FLUX The project’s location, Villeneuve-SaintGeorges, is a city of flux. The city center is stressed with the traffic of the Seine, the Natianal Road between Milan and Paris, the railroads and the aerodome of the Orly Airport. As a result, the city suffers at different levels from all these uncotrolled noise sources.

NOISE IS GOOD! Instead of trying to eliminate them at a very large scale, Talking City offers a more realistic approach by using the characteristic sounds of the city for its own well-being. Contrary to what architects are thinking about the noise

today, it is neither a negative result of modernity nor an obstacle of the design process. It is an essential part of our society and a very strong and mystical way of percieving the space. Thus, It is a chance and an advantage to animate the city and strengthen its identity.

The project aims to transform the perception of the city from being disturbing and noisy into a city that communicates with its inhabitants.

STRATEGY Through a very thorogh analysis of how noise and sound are diffusing in VSG, 10 strategic parts of the city is identified for the installation of ponctual interventions that creates a panoroma of sound. These interventions use the noise and the sound of their environments in order to create functional and sensational spaces. Thus, the inhabitants are able to form new audible memories and images for each neighbourhood through these sound interventions.

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COLOR & WORD INTERVIEW Two interviews with 80 inhabitants of VSG is realized. At first, they were asked a single word that would describe their city. 75% of the responses were negative adjectives such as “shit”, “dirty” and “garbage”.

Then, they were asked with which color they would associate VSG. More than hald of the people replied as VSG being colorless, black or gray.

NOIR 14%

merde défavorisé respect sympa sale tranquille merde chômage agité triste campagne chargé pollution pauvre triste respect vieux chômage vieux mort crotte merde triste sensibilité vieux dégradé multi-culturel sombre ambiance merde abandonné cosmopolite mélange bruit abandonné bruit défavorisé mort gavant morosité fatiguant triste pourrie international poubelle limité chômage vieux poubelle mélange merde convivialité pauvre bordel pauvre morosité nul encombré tranquille mochetranquille morosité mélange nul triste merde international sale pollué merde poubelle convivialité bordel mélange dégradé vieux sombre racine triste mort

GRIS 38%

BLANC 2%

BLEU 9%

VIOLET 2%

ORANGE 5% JAUNE 9% VERT 11%

Top: One word for VSG interview Bottom: Color of VSG interview

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TALKING CITY トーキング市

MARRON 2% ROUGE 8%

MAPPING THE NOISE Using the data offered by the city mayor combined with the mesurements done with a sound level meter by myself, the different noise sources in VSG are analyzed through three maps. The principal noise sources are cars, trains and airplanes. The trains and the cars create a South-North oriented noise axis whereas the air planes create a West-East oriented one. Thus, the noise in VSG is propagated over the land in various directions, densities and compositions.

Top: Airplane noise map Bottom left: Car noise map Bottom right: Train noise map REFLECTIONS ARCHITECTURE

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

The variety of noises is infinite.

If today, when we have perhaps a thousand different machines, we can distinguish a thousand different noises, tomorrow, as new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, or thirty thousand different noises, not merely in a simply imitative way, but to combine them according to our imagination. — Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises

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建築についての考察 センセーションマシン

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

A.05

Reflections on Architecture

Sensation Machine

五

Location: Paris, FRANCE Type: Mixed-use Area: 3000m2 Date: 2012

Can we make architecture from the invisible fluids present in space?

and models, the fluids are treated as concrete materials just like steel and brick.

The space we live in is not just a void. It’s composed of invisible fluids which exist and act around us, such as the sound, the wind, the heat, the humidity and the solar radiations.

CALORIE BALANCE The Sensation Machine has a mixeduse program incorporating two poles of different nature; a sports center and a restauration area. Considering the energy of the visitors moving in the building as another type of fluid, the visitor capacity of the sports center where energy is lost (-) and the restauration area where energy is gained (+), is defined through “The Calorie Balance” tool. Thus, the building’s calorie footprint is equal to “0”.

FUCK OPTIMUM! The project’s objective is not to control these fluids in order to have the best conditions of comfort or the zero sensation of neither cold nor warm. It is rather the conception and imagination of an architecture based on the very human spatial sensations by playing with them, increasing and reducing them and by modulating them.

The Sensation Machine goes far beyond the simplistic idea of controling the ambiances which basically corresponds to the justification of preconcieved opinions by the means of sophisticated mesuring softwares. It is the development of a completely new methodology which resulted in this project. Through the invention and production of various tools

A SPACE DEFINED BY FLUIDS In search of a true architecture of fluids in the context of sustainable development, we’ve developed the Fluid Cube. Instead of creating spatial organisations based on the logic of functions, we organized them according to the sensations we want to have. Finally, various spatial organisations based on humidity, temperature, sound and lightning is explored and superposed in the Fluid Cube, giving the project’s plan.

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Top: Calorie balance model tool Middle left: Energy losing and gaining spaces tool Middle right: Placing marbles representing a unit of visitors Bottom: Energetical relations in space through time 36

SENSATION MACHINE センセーションマシン

SOUND

WC

WC WC

Showers Showers Showers Showers

WC

Delivery Delivery Delivery Delivery

Delivery

WC

Showers

WC

WC

WC WC

Showers Showers Showers Showers

Storage CStorage C Storage C Storage C Storage C

WashingWashing Washing Washing

Washing

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Kitchen Kitchen Kitchen Kitchen

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Kitchen

Changing Changing Room Changing Room RoomRoom Changing Room Changing

Values for sound, light, humidity and temperature levels are defined for each space in the program in order to create a certain ambience in a certain space.

Waste Treatment Waste Treatment WasteWaste Treatment Waste Treatment Treatment

Distribution Distribution Area Distribution Area Area Area Distribution Area Distribution

Consommation Consommation Area Consommation Area Area Area Consommation Area Consommation

Football Football Terrain Terrain Football Terrain Football Terrain Football Terrain

Showers

WC

Changing Changing Room Changing Room RoomRoom Changing Room Changing

Fitness Space Fitness SpaceSpace Fitness Fitness Space Space Fitness

Cardio Space Cardio Space CardioCardio SpaceSpace Cardio Space

Exposition Exposition Zone Exposition Zone Zone Zone Exposition Zone Exposition

Storage AStorage A Storage A Storage A Storage A

Storage AStorage A Storage A Storage A Storage A

Public WC PublicPublic WC WC Public WC Public WC

Circulation Circulation CirculationCirculation Circulation

Fast-Food Fast-Food Fast-Food Fast-Food Fast-Food

Animated Animated Space Animated Space SpaceSpace Animated Space Animated

TEMPERATURE

HUMIDITY

LIGHT

Top left: Superposition of fluid plans Top right: The fluid cube Bottom: Spatial experiments through softspace design (Each marble represents a different space) 38

SENSATION MACHINE センセーションマシン

TEMPLATES

HUMIDITY

SOUND

TEMPERATURE

LIGHT

Son

Experiment: Different spatial organisations based on the 4 fluids with radial, cross, linear gradient and solar radiation templates.

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Top left: Restauration area Top right: Zen garden, showers and study halls Middle: Cardio area and the algae tubes Bottom: Interactive LED façade 40

SENSATION MACHINE センセーションマシン

Video: Sensations Tour.

The activities and sensations of a person in various spaces during his visit REFLECTIONS ARCHITECTURE

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

SENSATION MACHINE 43

A.01

Reflections on Writing

Manifesto

一

Delirium of An Architect

Buildings are no less alive than people.

They have a birthday, an adolescence; they reach maturity, grow old and finally find silence in a cold death. Each one of them has a character and a way of thinking, just like every person is different in his tastes, his ideas and his feelings. In this sense, I would go as far as saying that buildings do live just like us. Since all living creatures interact with each other, buildings and people have influences on each other as people live in and with architecture. Let’s think of a studio flat occupied by someone who enjoys watching TV and placed a huge television on one of the walls, later the same studio is occupied by someone who enjoys reading books and placed a big bookshelf on the same wall. In these two cases, even though the wall has not changed, because of the differences of the inhabitants in their life styles, tastes and characters, the wall’s meaning, feeling and function have completely changed.

What is more interesting for me than this human influence is the influence of architecture on people. During a speech addressing the English Architectural Association in 1924, Winston Churchill said

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DELIRIUM OF AN ARCHITECT 建築家のせん妄

“There is no doubt whatsoever about the influence of architecture and structure upon human character and action. We make our building and afterwards they make us.

They regulate the course of our lives.”

This strong bind and interaction between architecture and humans happen at many levels in various ways and contexts. The built environment around us shapes our lives. It defines how we live, what we think of a living room, what we would do in it and how we would feel in it. We adapt ourselves to the space in which we are present. We do what we want or need according to the very logic and organization of the space. However, this adaptation happens in a very progressive

and familiar way, moving smoothly, with such little interference that we have no clue of its process. It’s happening by itself. So, without even realizing it, we form expectations about the spaces that we will encounter in the future. These expectations are further strengthened by our fast paced lifestyles with continuous experience of the same spaces; home, work, home; or spaces that are created by similar expectations. Because of this repeated experience of similar spaces, we start living in them without really thinking about how or why we act in the way we do. We stop questioning and live as if our life, as a whole, is just a routine.

Many architects and sociologists criticise the fact that people no longer look at what is around them. People have lost, or more correctly have been forced to lose interest in it because of their fast, busy and tiring urban lifestyles. On the way from home to work, we look at the virtual digital screen of our mobile phone and text with a friend or put headphones and break our relationship with the world around us. It seems that people are lost between their jobs, bills, iPods, mobile phones, computers and TV.

“It seems that people are stuck in Baudrillard’s simulacrum, became numb and don’t know what they are actually living.”

It seems that people are unaware of what is around them. It seems that people are taking a train from one stop to another without knowing where these places are on the map. I believe that people should sometimes jump from the train and walk to their destination, learn and understand the journey the train makes. Even though

our lives force us to give importance only to the arrival at the destination, I think our lives gain meaning by the journey itself. By knowing what is on the journey, maybe farms and cows, maybe cities and

factories; the obstacles on the journey and how the train manages to pass them, we will reach to happiness, creativity and success at our destination.Or maybe, we will come to like walking or another way we’ve found to arrive at our destination and begin using this method. In the context of architecture and people, the conclusion here would be that the numbness and unawareness of the society about what is around them should be prevented in order for inhabitants to see other possibilities of spatial organization and lifestyles, leading to a better appreciation or perhaps a dislike of the habitat. This also must be prevented in order for the world of architects to have an open-minded design approach and see various other possibilities of architecture. Even though similar critiques and conclusions have already been made about the subject, society’s loss of interest in what is around them could not have be prevented.

Instead of looking for solutions in other domains such as sociology and economics, maybe architects should critique architecture and try to find a solution within architecture, itself. I believe that the solution to this problem is an architecture

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that is capable of triggering the interest, the senses and the reflection of people.

In fact, after Derrida, a post-structuralist French philosopher, came up with his idea of “deconstructivism” in the 60s, architects

irrationality? Why not the longest, the slowest and the hardest? I would like to focus on the stereotypes, the clichés and the expectations of people about any kind of space, which is essentially based on a rational way thinking; and break them all, do the contrary. An architecture based on irrationality, the unexpected, the surprise and the impossible. This kind of an approach will reawaken the individual and finally make him realize the space he is in and appreciate or dislike it but, in any case, it gives the individual the possibility of conscious preference.

“Why so rational?

Why not madness?”

like Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenmann and Zaha Hadid (Deconstructivist Architecture at MoMA in 1988), influenced by Derrida, proposed a new expressive architecture.

Their buildings trigger the senses, draw attraction and break down the routine and the clichés. However, their concern was mostly the exterior skin of the building and transforming it into a plate of expression by using geometry. Even though I find this kind of an approach very successful in achieving its goal, the movement was a reaction to the coldness and extremeness of rationality of the modernists, whereas I would like to put in question the very notion of “rationality” with the purpose of freeing people from restrictive customs, structures and false rationality. Since the modern times, we always look for the cheapest, the shortest, the easiest, and the most efficient as if we were some robots working by algorithms.

The rising notion in our lives is: the Ratio.

Why so Rational? Why not madness? Why not feelings? Why not dreams? Why not Left: Lou Ruvo Center, Frank Gehry Right: Mac, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

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DELIRIUM OF AN ARCHITECT 建築家のせん妄

Mistakes and imperfections should not be seen as negative heuristics.

On the contrary, as the mistakes and imperfections of people make them unique, special, particular and loved, a building’s

character is also defined and made unique by its imperfections. One of my favorite television programs is “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” which has already broken many television rules with its assault on mores, racial boundaries and religious taboos. On the new season the character “Mac” who was a young good-looking guy in the first season suddenly appears as a big fat guy who gained 50 pounds.

It caught my attention and I became more interested in the program. The cocreator of the series Rob McElhenney

(Mac) explains this sudden onset of obesity; which is a kind of imperfection, as, “It came when I was watching a very popular sitcom, and I noticed the people were getting better and better looking as the seasons were going on. I thought that what we were trying to do on Sunny was the deconstruction of the sitcom.”

The important point, which leads to an interesting result here, is that humanity’s desire for the ideal sometimes causes them to overlook the facts. If this is understood, presenting an imperfection to a society always looking for perfection would lead to a shocking effect and a certain revival.

“As the mistakes and imperfections of people make them unique, special, particular and loved, a building’s character is also defined and made unique by its imperfections.”

In this approach, not only the architecture is questioned, but the society and the way we live is questioned, too, since its focus is not the clichés and stereotypes about architecture that exist for architects, but instead the ones existing for society.

In this way, it can also be considered as an experimental approach leading to redefinition of any kind of space and questions like, “What can be done with a bathroom?”, “What did it mean yesterday?

And what could it mean today?” or “What if we put a huge fountain in the middle of a bathroom?” It is a way to discover all the possibilities of design for a space in the 21st century society. Another strong tool can be mockery because of its critical aspect. For example, the toilets of an important public building are placed on the front façade. When the viewer outside the building states that he finds

the building very beautiful, he would be actually looking at the toilets.

It is also a very artistic approach as I think the act of imagination is, by nature, art itself. I think of an architect as being just like a painter. A painter has his tools; many kinds of brushes, pencils, paints, and each comes with its own particular application technique. The artist uses these tools, knowing how to hold that brush or apply that kind of paint, and creates a unique piece of art. The architect has different kinds of spaces as his tools, such as toilets, kitchens, rehearsal rooms, or receptions etc., each again coming with its proper basic rules – such as the act of cooking happens in the kitchen-.

He uses these tools, knowing the essential principals of spaces, and creates a unique piece of art. However, in some cases, the artist doesn’t respect the traditional way of using a specific tool and he uses a tool in the way that another tool is used. He mixes and shuffles the principals of his

tools. I think the architect can do the same and shuffle the principles of spaces since they are already bound to change in time. For example, the meaning of the

Right: Jackson Pollock “drip” painting

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bedroom in the 19th century was the place where people go to sleep and nothing else could happen there, whereas today, we would watch TV, study and even eat in our rooms. Since the functions and the meaning of a certain space is changing constantly, why not question the use of it today by incorporating defunctionalism and imagination? In 1924, André Breton included in the Surrealist Manifesto a phrase by poet Pierre Reverdy; “a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be – the greater its emotional power and poetic reality.”. As for architecture, the functionality, morphology and sensibility of a certain space can be juxtaposed with a concept completely out of architectural context, or with the meaning of a different kind of space in order to produce illogical and startling effects.

My approach is highly subjective and artistic, intending to pose questions and reveal the answers lying in the person himself. Hence, an explanatory example of such an approach would Left: The Elephant Celebes, Max Ernst

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DELIRIUM OF AN ARCHITECT 建築家のせん妄

consist of questions and a certain way of approaching a problem instead of absolute oppressive information. I’d like to talk about hospitals because most of the people think that this kind of an approach would be appropriate only for recreational and entertainment related areas, such as opera houses, cultural centers or parks.

Even though such spaces could evidently be the subject of this approach, since the real objective here is to question the society and the way we live, I think hospitals can and should be a subject, too.

“It’s about the fall of Cogito.”

First of all, we should pose the question “What comes to mind when we think of an hospital?” and try setting out the stereotypes. I would say, a building painted white, gray or some cold color both on the outside and inside, long endless corridors with artificial lighting and a particular smell. It brings a picture of a very boring, banal, functional, “ugly”, modernist, rationalist, cold and soulless building filled with sick waiting patients to my mind. Then, I would ask myself “What does a hospital mean to me?”. It’s a place where people need hope, look for a little smile, want to feel loved and be healed. Of course, they’re looking for doctors but it is also a place where we want to be with our family and friends and don’t want to feel alone or insecure. We look for any kind of help. So, instead of a hospital which constantly reminds the patient that he is at a hospital, that he is sick like many others and giving him nothing but coldness and pessimism, it should instead be a place that gives hope, love of life, ways to enjoy it, means of distraction and that can even make people forget their sickness. It is also known that many incurable illnesses can be sometimes cured by placebos, thought and simply love of life. I would like to ask, “Could architecture be that placebo?” We,

as architects, always say that architecture is not like painting a picture and that it is about the society and the way we live, it even influences human behavior; hence I think that architecture of the unexpected, of irrationality and of surprise is very much capable of creating a design that can have the qualities I have just laid out for a hospital. Clearly, there are some functional requirements such as ease of access and speed etc. However, the challenge of the architect should not be creating the most efficient or best functioning design but rather creating a design respecting these requirements that also goes beyond them and has other qualities and objectives.

After breaking down the first layer of clichés and arriving at a higher goal in the very meaning of hospitals, we can continue and break down the clichés that exist for various parts of the building such as the waiting room, cafeteria, patient rooms, halls, toilets, garden etc.

We can create disturbances, unexpected impressions, excitement, and bring life to the building by including unexpected openings to outside, rooms with unusual lightning, halls shaped in many different ways, spaces with contrasting colors or materials and by many other ways only limited by our imagination.

longer be my ideas and whoever agrees with them will be actually agreeing with whatever they understand from them.

However, this doesn’t prevent me from writing them. It actually encourages me. I like the uncertainty of resulting reactions.

“Could architecture be that placebo?”

This is the architecture of madness, of a delirium. This is the very beginning and the very end of the world, as we know it.

It is not only about architecture. It’s about love and life. It’s about you. It’s about me.

It’s about the constant change. It’s the lost part of our society. It’s the creativity of a mad man we see every day in the subway.

It’s about the fall of Cogito and Descartes’s famous phrase “I think, therefore I am” which reflects a falls mindset as explained

by Michel Foucault. I’m also aware of the fact that as I write these lines they will no

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REFLECTIONS ON GEOMETRY 幾何学についての熟考 G.01

Flower Power I

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G.02

Flower Power II

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G.03

Blob Chain

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幾何学についての熟考 花の力

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

G.01

Reflections on Geometry

一

Flower Power

Location: Imaginary Japanese Garden Type: Geometrical Date: 2011

What are the forms and ways of nature?

understand its geometry in depth.

Which codes lead to the generation of these unique forms?

FROM NATURAL TO DIGITAL The very basic principles of this analyzed geometry are used to create a single, more or less unique, object. Our objective to understand and create this geometry as a 3D model forced us to make a meticulous analysis starting from a single point in space until the creation of a surface. In the end, this whole flower was generated only from a single point.

How can these forms and codes be translated and reproduced in a digital geometrical environment?

Flower Power is the result of a passion towards nature and geometry. It is the contemporary understanding of the universals codes and forms of nature. It blurs the limits between the artificially created and the naturally created.

THE GERANIUM FLOWER The Geranium flower growing in abundance in the Mulberry Court of Malaquais is chosen for this project because of the simplicity of a single flower and the harmonious scenography that we see as the flowers multiply.

At first, the Geranium flower is analyzed as a whole in order to see how its petals are distributed. Then, various simple sketches of a single Geranium petal are drawn to

FRACTAL SYSTEM For a possible further fabrication of the object, the geometry is interpreted only as a group of developable surfaces.

Then, large structural veins and smaller supporting veins are added to these surfaces. Once the petal-geometry is obtained, it is populated with fractals to create a whole flower from a single petal.

At each level of the fractal, 4 new petals of a smaller scale appear with a slight slope at the end point of the previous petal.

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Top left: Structural veins Top right: Fractals Bottom left: Fractal joint Bottom right: Top view 54

FLOWER POWER 花の力

For i=1 To uu For j=1 To vv ReDim Preserve P0(j):P0(j)=Rhino.

CurveCurveIntersection (RowsCrvs(i1),ColmsCrvs(j-1))(0,1): ReDim Preserve Point0(j):Point0(j)=rhino.

AddPoint(P0(j)) Call rhino.SelectObject(Point0(j)) Next ReDim Preserve ArrP0(i):ArrP0(i)= rhino.selectedobjects:Call rhino.

UnselectAllObjects ‘-----------------------------------

For j=1 To vv ReDim Preserve P1(j):P1(j)=Rhino.

CurveCurveIntersection (RowsCrvs(i1),ColmsCrvs(j))(0,1) ReDim Preserve Point1(j):Point1(j)=rhino.

AddPoint(P1(j)) Call rhino.SelectObject(Point1(j)) Next ReDim Preserve ArrP1(i):ArrP1(i)= rhino.selectedobjects:Call rhino.

UnselectAllObjects ‘----------------------------------For j=1 To vv

ReDim Preserve P2(j):P2(j)=Rhino.

C u r v e C u r v e I n t e r s e c t i o n (RowsCrvs(i),ColmsCrvs(j))(0,1) R e D i m Preserve Point2(j):Point2(j)=rhino.

AddPoint(P2(j)) C a l l rhino.SelectObject(Point2(j)) Next ReDim ArrP2(i):ArrP2(i)= selectedobjects:Call UnselectAllObjects

Preserve rhino. rhino.

‘----------------------------------For j=1 To vv

ReDim Preserve P3(j):P3(j)=Rhino.

C u r v e C u r v e I n t e r s e c t i o n (RowsCrvs(i),ColmsCrvs(j-1))(0,1) ReDim Preserve

Top: Petal joint Bottom: Top view Right: Fractal script REFLECTIONS GEOMETRY

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幾何学についての熟考 ユニバーサルフラワー

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

G.02

Reflections on Geometry

äşŒ

Universal Flowers

Location: Space (P)ink Type: Geometrical Date: 2011

What is a pure form?

Is it possible to make a perfect flawless definition of a form?

complex 3D shapes can be generated by the trajectory of a single point in 3D space (x,y,z) defined by a differential equation.

The captions below the following images

How can the essence of the universe, mathematics, be used in form generation and architecture?

are the corresponding differential equation

EVOLUTION After the Project Seashell Museum which brought, at the backstage, the knowladge of how to parametrically generate architectural forms and structures, the Projecy Flower Power came as a possibility to apply this knowladge of the parametric to the forms of nature. Following this evolution in progress, the desire for the definition and generation of forms only through pure mathematical equations was inevitable.

used to the behaviors and the impacts of

3 FUNCTIONS = 3 DIMENSIONS Various imaginable shapes can be perfectly generated with a single differential equation. Just like the Sine graph, which is the trajectory of a point in 2D space (x,y),

three of them together defines its location

of each shape. Even though, their contents seem complex for someone who is not various functions such as sin(u), tan(1-u/2) on the resulting geometry, it’s structure is pretty simple: Surface=(x,y,z) The

functions

between

each

comma

defines the location of the point along that dimension at a given moment while the in 3D space. The collection of these locations (of a traveling point) creates a surface in a certain period of time.

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Top: shape13[u_, v_] := {Sin[u] , v Cos[u] , Cos[v/2] Cosh[u]} Bottom: shape1[u_,v_] := {(Cos[u] + 0.1 Cos[5 u]) v, (Sin[u] + 0.1 Sin[5 u]) v, Sin[v/2] (1 – 3 Cos[3 u])}

58

FLOWER POWER II ユニバーサルフラワー

Top: shape2[u_, v_] := {Cos[u] v, Sin[u] v, Sin[v/2] (1 – Cos[4 u])} Bottom: shp[u_,v_] := {(Cos[u] + 0.1 Cos[8 u]) v, (Sin[u] + 0.1 Sin[8 u]) v, (Sin[v/2] + Sin[2 v]) (1 – 3 Cos[3 u])} REFLECTIONS GEOMETRY

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幾何学についての熟考 ブロブチェーン

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE SENSATION MACHINE 60

G.03

Reflections on Geometry

Blob Chain

三

Location: Space Blue(s) Type: Geometrical Date: 2011

The Blob Chain is a conceptual piece discovering the new ways of understanding and shaping the space. It’s not a building nor a furniture. It’s focus matter comes way before the design process of a certain object. It questions the way the architects start designing and the limitations they have resulting from being left behind of recent sociological and technological developments.

CONTEMPORARY SENSIBILITY The Blob Chain is the result of a search for a contemporary meaning and experience of form in the 21st century architectural context. As Antonio Sant’Elia states in the Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, “We have lost our predilection for the monumental, the heavy, the static, and we have enriched our sensibility with a taste for the light, the practical, the ephemeral and the swift.” Our constantly changing world has now reached at a point that the change is not simply a differentiation of what is around us but the conception of our surrounding. The 21st century person is the citizen of a world where the

movement is constant, the visual is the real, the dynamism is necessary to survive and the chaos is inevitable. The Blob Chain tries to reestablish the relation between architecture and the new user of it.

FORM GENERATION It is made up of a single module that repeats itself 8 times. The module looks like a Torus (donut shape). However, instead of a single circle that repeats itself around a circular axis, the shape is formed by disparate cross sections and their smooth connections. The essential aspect of the blob module is its ability to create a smooth and continuous eye movement.The stripes giving the module its shape are transforming each time just a bit in their kinetic values. Since the human eye can’t cancel out the objects around its focus point, it realizes the stripe next to it also (which is just a bit different than the previous one). This situation happens at each stripe and the eye is lead to the starting point again. Hence, it creates an effect that can be appropriated to the 21st century dynamic architecture.

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DYNAMISM AND MOVEMENT The idea of dynamism and the movement in the building itself, can be used for many architectural purposes. This type of approach can be helpful to have control over the orientation, the circulation and the view of its inhabitants. More than that, the building will become a part of 21st century cities and create the intented living space and the ambience.

Dynamism of the shape

Top: Different stripes forming the deformed torus Bottom: Genesis: Vertical & Horizontal Sections

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FLOWER POWER II ブロブチェーン

Top left: Single smooth module Middle left: Biamorphic form Bottom left: Inverse effect, aggression Right: Modules joining together REFLECTIONS GEOMETRY

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REFLECTIONS ON FABRICATION 制作上の熟考 F.01

Gesture & Trajectory

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F.02

From Form To Idea

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F.03

Wind-free Wind

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制作上の熟考 ジェスチャーと軌跡

F.01

Reflections on Fabrication

Gesture & Trajectory

一

Location: The Great Wave off Kanagawa Type: Modular Structure Date: 2012

Gestures & Trajectories is a project that explores the different possibilities of interaction between human gestural operations and the programmed operations of the 6 axis robotic arm in the context of architectural and artistic production.

DIALOGUES During the project, we created and explored various kinds of dialogues at different levels: - human/human: between the different perceptions of an idea revealed through different gestures of my design partner and me - human/non-human: between the human conception and understanding of form and the artificial interface of the 3D modeling software

PROCESS Through a Kinect, a sensor of body movements, and a program associating these movements to stable geometrical information, we determined protocols for the generation and the production of a certain form based on our gestures. We started by using different daily objects to create certain trajectories by following their contours with our hands or feet. Then, we imitated the movements of certain animals such bees and ants. Finally, we also danced and used every part of our body as the generating factor of form.

These gestures first appear as a series of points in the 3D modeling software.

They are further used as raw information and further translated into complex geometrical forms. Once we had our form defined, we started simulating the trajectory of the robotic arm in order to find the most efficient way of production.

- non-human/non-human: between the modeling software and the production hardware, the robotic arm

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Top: Controlling the 6 axis robot Bottom: Single wave module

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GESTURE & TRAJECTORY ジェスチャーと軌跡

Top: Double curvature of the wave Bottom: The wave and cuts

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制作上の熟考 ピラミッドの流行

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

F.02

Reflections on Fabrication

Pyramid Craze

二

Location: Necropolis of Saqqara Type: Modular Structure Date: 2012

How can the structural efficiency of a concrete modular structure be increased?

What are the stages of fabrication with concrete?

INTRODUCTION The Pyramid Craze is a project realized during the workshop “From Idea To Form” organized by the studio “École” in ENSA Paris Malaquais. Our objective was to express our individual inspirations through a module as part of a bigger structure, together with the pieces produced by other students. However, the creation of the form was restricted with 2 imperatives:

and the structural impacts of form was realized. Then came the period of dialogue and exchange of knowledge and inspirations. Finally, decisions on the design and the production of a particular structural object were taken.

FABRICATION We designed a cardboard casting mould with a population of square-based pyramids of which the height increased as the distance from the diagonals of the base (50x50cm) increased. Thus, a structural efficiency was obtained through the increased mass of concrete and veins resisting against the diagonal forces of tension.

- reduce the total weight through altering the volume and the shape of the surface - use a 50x50cm concrete slab with 4 anchor points at each corner PROCESS The project started with a period of individual research on form and concept.

A deep analysis on the function of form

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Top: Render of the mold Bottom: The variation of height

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PYRAMIDE CRAZE ピラミッドの流行

Top left: The mold Top right: Pouring the concrete Bottom: Final model in concrete REFLECTIONS FABRICATION

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制作上の熟考 風への風

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REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE

F.03

Reflections on Fabrication

Wind Against Wind

三

Location: The Great Wave off Kanagawa II Type: Modular Structure Date: 2012

What are the codes and stages followed while designing a product for a particular clientel?

What are the differences in the design process between architecture and product design?

What’s the signification of “concept” for a product and for a designer?

THE WIND In the beginning of the project, we were given the phrase “The wind, the wind, the wind!”. This phrase is then transformed into a concept which lead to the final product. Wind Against Wind is a folding screen in the form of “wind”. Folding screen in French, paravent, means “against the wind”, thus the name “Wind Against Wind”.

PROCESS During the Project Wind Against Wind, we tried not to think like an architect but like a product designer. Focused on a single concept and a single product,

we were supposed to think about various parameters at the same time while designing. The design of the Wind Against Wind responds to all those parameters and presents itself as a profitable useful and visually attractive product both for the manufacturer, the seller and the user.

MODULAR The design is the result of reflections over the product’s production, transportation, marketing, clientele and functioning. Its modular composition allows it to function in spaces of various scale for various different functions, thus it appeals to a larger clientele.

THE MODEL A plexiglas sheet of 1.25 by 0.75m is thermaformed and given a curved shape.

The folding screen is designed a freestanding structure through its curved form allowing it to stay in balance.

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Top: Deformation of the solid Bottom: Wind in

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WIND AGAINST WIND 風への風

Top: The folding screen module Bottom: Glossy texture of plexiglass

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REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE 文学上の熟考 L.01

Architecture with Letters (in French)

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文学上の熟考 文学と建築

L.01

Reflections on Literature

Literature and Architecture

一

Le Capitalisme digéré

Il fait très beau, c’est un de ces jours à Paris où on peut sentir sa peau qui se joui des chaleureux rayons du soleil.

Je mets mon nouveau short A.P.C. et ma chemise préférée de la Maison Ralph Lauren. Je sors de chez moi pour aller vers Opéra. J’observe la ville à travers le verre de mes lunettes Cartier très à la mode. Je regarde les beaux bâtiments stupéfiants d’Haussmann.

Je ne sais pas ce qui précédait cette image de Paris dite “classique”. Je ne sais pas non plus ce qui était derrière leurs histoires. Mais je m’en fous. J’adore. Je me balade dans ces rues débordées d’idées, de mémoires et de sentiments.

En s’approchant vers la Galerie LaFayette, le nombre de gens dans la rue augmente.

Même s’il devient difficile de marcher, celà ne me géne pas de me méler en tant qu’acteur dans cette ville “spectacle”.

Les portes de LaFayette ne sont jamais fermés. Des groupes de touristes entrent dans le magasin, en passant devant une

publicité géante représentant des jambes féminines très sexy, symbôle du shopping à Lafayette d’après Monsieur Jean Paul Goude.

Ces touristes arrivent à Paris avec un objectif hautement sacré, célébrer l’histoire de la culture du shopping Haussmannien. Je tourne la tête avec un triste dégout vers l’autre coté da la rue.

En face de LaFayette, le magasin Uniqlo, un shopping post-moderne japonais d’une approche technologique en contraste avec le shopping Haussmanien. Je me suis demandé si le problème ne provénait pas de la ville de Paris qui diffuse, de manière continue, cette image du shopping parisien plutôt que des consomateur euxmême qui auraient perdu l’intérêt dans l’art, l’architecture et la culture.

En voyant le magasin minimaliste aux “prix maximalistes” d’Apple, je pris conscience que je me posais les mauvaises questions.

La vraie question était d’une autre échelle, plus grande et d’un contexte différent.

Est-ce qu’on vit aujourd’hui dans un

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monde de l’idéal négatif et détourné?

Est-ce que le criminel à l’image de Dexter est-il considéré comme une vedette sympathique de ce film mondial de à grande échelle? Si c’est le cas, le complice principal du criminel de la féerie du shopping doit être l’architecture tout simplement parce qu’elle lui propose l’hébergement et un milieu d’existence.

Tout d’un coup, ma promenade innocente se transforma en cauchemar. Paris me semblait désormais comme une troupe des monstres en pierre qui mangaient avec plaisir les hommes. Les hommes sont comme des souris qui s’avancent inconsciemment vers un piège délicieux alors qu’en réalité ce sont eux les délicieux de cette histoire. Le bâti ne distingue aucune personne. Il mange tout. Il mange sans arrêt. Il est violant. Il n’a ni sens, ni sensation.

A ce moment-là, je me suis dit je devais sauver l’architecture de son apocalypse créé par elle-même. Mais bon, pas tout de suite parce que j’ai faim.

Avec la sensation d’un vide créé par ma faim diabolique dans mon ventre, je m’assois sur la terrasse dans un restaurant banal devant l’Opéra Garnier. Pour une expérience typiquement française, je commande un Steak Tartare de la cuisine de Gengish Khan. Durant l’attente de mes proies parisiennes sur une assiette bien blanche, je regarde un combat entre deux chiens sur les marches de l’Opéra. Je finis deux cigarettes. Je n’aime pas attendre pour manger. 20 minute plus tard, le Steak est enfin arrivé. Je le regarde bien. Je le menace en montrant mes dents qui peuvent défragmenter toutes choses. Je commence par manger la viande parce qu’en tant qu’homme de sensation, son aspect épicé, ornementé et délicat proviennant de sa base impérialiste et carnivore, me plait. C’est la viande Haussmannienne qui est en train de laisser des petits bouts de la sauce

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LITERATURE & ARCHITECTURE 文学と建築

Worcestershire sur la peau intérieure de mon oesophage. Puis, je continue avec les frites. Même si elles sont très simples à produire, elles fonctionnent très bien si notre désir est seulement de remplir notre ventre de manière brutale. Cette curieuse nourriture provenant de la culture américaine, possède une forme prismatique, des façades purement nues et une fonctionnalité à très haut niveau.

C’est maintenant l’école de Chicago que mes dents sont en train de décomposer avec une frustration nostalgique qui me plait bien.

A la fin, je vois qu’il me reste encore quelques feuilles vertes anodines dans mon assiette. Je n’avait pas remarqué leur présence depuis le debut, mais je les mange quand même parce qu’on me dit 5 fois par jours “Mangez 5 fruit et légumes par jour.” Je regarde mon assiette. Désormais vide de toute existence, elle se jouit d’ellemême de la manière nietzschéenne en se moquant de moi. Je suis frustré . J’ai encore faim.

CHEVRE ABSOLUE Je ne sais pas où je suis. Je ne sais même pas si je suis quelque part. Mais, en fait, j’ai ni besoin et ni envie de le savoir. Je me sens bizarrement comme chez moi même si l’espace tout autour est sombre et je ne peut rien voir et rien distinguer dans cette luminosité noire. Je me dis que c’est peut-être parce qu’il fait la nuit mais on ne peut voir aucune étoile dans le ciel non plus. Je regarde l’espace qui m’entoure.

Il n’y a rien. Il n’y a absolument rien mais ça ne me fait pas peur. Au contraire je ne suis bien à l’aise dans ce vide infini composé de l’immatérialité éternelle.

De plus, je me sens ironiquement très puissant et important en accomplissant rien comme d’habitude. Je m’y sens dans un état parfait de l’architecte absolu. J’ai

un état parfait de l’architecte absolu. J’ai le pouvoir de créer tous ce que je veux dans ce vide parfaitement homogène. Je me même demande, pour un moment, si je ne suis pas le dieu? On ne peut pas le savoir sans essayant. Donc, j’essaie. Au moment déjà du développement d’un désir de création dans mon esprit et du débordement de mes veines avec l’amour, la chèvre parfaite est devant mes yeux créée dans un instant. Elle est très belle.

Je commence à courir vers elle. Je veux la manger et la garder dans mon corps pour ne jamais l’oublier. Mais, tout d’un coup elle se casse en petits morceaux comme si elle était en verre. En même temps l’ambiance mystique de la lumière noire est dérangé par des nouvelles lumières de différentes tons d’orange. L’homogénéité de l’espace se disparait au moment où je sens qu’il y a un froideur vers mes pieds. Je me tiens à un morceau de la chèvre à fin de rester un peu plus long temps dans cet espace mais je n’y arrive pas. Je me sens comme si je dois aller quelque part, comme si je suis en retard pour quelque chose. Merde, je dors en fait, et je suis encore en retard pour l’école.

PARIS ANTARCTIQUE, MOI TROPIQUE Il fait encore froid! Je n’ai jamais réussi à m’adapter à la froideur de l’air dans ses supermarchés parisiens. A chaque fois devant les produits du lait, en peur d’être congelé, je me dépêche pour aller au caissier et sortir de ce mini-climat polaire situé au milieu de Paris, conçu pour les aliments variés du monde et non pas pour un jeune méditerranéen. Après la froideur de ses super-frigos il faut maintenant supporter, avec patience, celle du regard du caissier qui arrive à me congeler télépatiquement dans l’esprit. En sortant à travers les portes glissantes en verre de la nature neutre et du protège climatique avec un espoir désespéré pour avoir de la chaleur, je suis encore déçu. Même s’il ne

fait pas super froid, les chaleureux rayons du soleil sont bien cachés, encore un jour, derrière les sombres nuages parisiens. Il y a aussi les vieux monstres métalliques non-vivants de Renault qui débordent les rues bitumés en rendant difficile à trouver une belle scène post-moderne de la vie parisienne dans cette grise nébuleuse urbaine. Cette expérience de frustration visuelle s’arrête dans quelques minutes devant la porte de l’immeuble. Afin de rentrer dans le bâtiment il faut appuyer sur quelques boutons métalliques comme au moins 100 d’autres personnes font chaque jour avec leur doigts qui touchent je ne sais même pas où au cours de la journée. De plus, cette action salissante de l’interaction sociale dans la temporalité circadiene n’est que pour entrer un code composé des éléments abstraits comptables dites “chiffres”. Bon, s’il me faut vraiment d’appuyer quelque part, je préfère quand même d’entendre une jolie voix d’une parisienne qui me dit “Oui, c’est qui chéri?”. En entrant dans le bâtiment grâce à cette composition abstraite, il me reste qu’une seule étape de circulation avant que je trouve la chaleur dans mon lit; c’est celle de l’ascenseur. Je rentre dans cette boite métallique de l’ordre de l’artificiel qui défie l’ordre naturel. La seule action qui y me plait c’est de regarder mon reflet sur le grand miroir. Mais même cette action d’auto-satisfaction narcissique est perturbée avec les bruits inquiétants causés par la friction des vieiWWlles plaques métalliques. En arrivant au 4e étage la porte de l’ascenseur s’ouvre en me laissant pénétrer directement dans un espace bohème de l’ordre de l’homme romantique, dans un espace bien tropique.

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REFLECTIONS ON FASHION ファッション上の熟考

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F.01

Fashion Hits The Streets Of Paris

F.02

Døgme

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ファッション上の熟考 ファッションはパリの通りを変える

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F.01

Reflections on Fashion

Article

一

Fashion “Hits” The Streets of Paris

“What was the role of fashion in the perception of the modern urban space of Paris in the mid-19th century, the period in which Paris presented itself to the world not only as the “capital of modernity” but also as “the capital of fashion”?”

Contre l’idée que la mode est un phénomène consubstantial à la vie humaine-sociale, on l’affirme comme un processus exceptionnel, inseparable de la naissance et du dévélopement du monde moderne occidental.[i] – Gilles Lipovetsky

What was the role of fashion in the perception of the modern urban space of Paris in the mid-19th century, the period in which Paris presented itself to the world not only as the “capital of modernity” but also as “the capital of fashion”? The designation of two such denotations to the same city and period was not a mere coincidence but a fact indicating a relationship between modernity and fashion. At the same time that the two key institutions of contemporary fashion, the confection and the Haute Couture were founded, new kinds of urban sociability and experience were developed, and the transformation of Paris as the first modern metropolis was effectuated.

The foundation of the Haute Couture in 1857 institutionalized novelty through the imperative seasonal renewal of outfits at fixed dates by a group of designers. On the other hand, the confection, the earlier form of prêt-à-porter, undertook the task of diffusing the product of novelty by imitating the constantly changing models of the Haute Couture and offering them to a larger group of people by lowering the prices. This ephemeral world of appearances undertook an influential role in the daily life of Parisians through the increasing influence of pleasure factor after the catastrophic events of the Terror and the depreciation of the old norms after the Revolution. Mercier in Le Nouveau Paris explains how pleasure gained such an influence on the daily lives of Parisians as a reaction to the Terror: “If all the disastrous circumstances are not forgotten in the midst of our fests and our pleasures, they are covered with a curtain which one fears to raise, or rarely raises.”[ii] The rising notion of pleasure and the detachment from the past in the post-revolutionary Paris provided

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a suitable context for the frivolous world of appearances. The ephemeral character of fashion, as well as the value of novelty, diffused themselves into the Parisian society and its institutions: …Elle a diffusé dans toutes les classes le gout des nouveautés, elle a fait des frivolités une aspiration de masse tandis qu’elle concrétisait le droit démocratique à la mode institué par la Révolution.[iii] This influence of novelty is also revealed in the multiplication of the names given to the fashionable people of Paris throughout the century: the dandies, the Merveilleuses, the Incroyables, the cocottes, the cocodette and the lionnes… as well as adjectives such as urf, chich, copurchic, v’lan, rupin, sélect, ha, pschutt.[iv] They were the consumers of dream-like spectacles and commodities of fetishistic novelty.

The development of the first consumerist society invented new architectural typologies of modernity to fulfill their requirements of short-lived fashionable images and fetishism of commodity: the arcades. The arcade was, as Esther Leslie describes, “the Ur-form, the originary form

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of modernity, for it incubated modes of behavior –distraction, seduction by the commodity spectacle…”[v] In the second half of the century, as Benjamin shows, the arcades evolved into the grands magasins.

The period’s zeitgeist and how they were perceived by the society of the period is already present in the name of one of the earliest department stores, the Galeries LaFayette, which opened on the rue La Fayette in 1893. While why it’s called LaFayette is obvious, the utilization of the word “galerie”, which signifies a certain kind of space, reveals how the Parisians perceived these department stores.

Originally the word signified a religious space. According to the information from Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales, in Medieval Europe, the Latin word “galeria” was used for the narrow corridors of churches spanned by a series of vaults. It signified a space that is being passed through. As an extension at the end of Middle Ages, it was used for long and narrow spaces that were used for passage.

Until then, the term gained its signification of a passage, a short-lived experience and transitoriness. In the 17th century France, in a jeu de paume the covered space of aisles from which the spectators watched the players was called a galerie. At that moment, it obtained its signification of watching a spectacle as a group and being apart from the event as a spectator.

In the 19th century, it was used in many expressions in common parlance and literature. When Balzac wrote, Rabourdin était allé se confiner dans un salon voisin où l’on jouait, et il resta planté sur ses pieds à faire galerie,[vi], he used the term to describe being a bystander. Colette used it to represent an action done to deceive people with an illusion: Un romancier… me chuchota: ‘Quel vilain temps!’ avec l’attitude et la figure −soignées pour la galerie− d’un homme qui pantèle au bord de l’extase.[vii] Throughout history, the term gained its meaning of transitoriness, passage, watching a spectacle and illusion,

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which actually constitute the modern urban experience and perception of the flâneurs as described by Benjamin. In the end, it is not a surprise that this term, which originally signified a religious transitory space was chosen for the temples of the new religion, the phantasmagoric consumption of fetishistic novelty, the department stores.

“The development of the first consumerist society invented new architectural typologies of modernity to fulfill their requirements of short-lived fashionable images and fetishism of commodity: the arcades.”

During this very active century of transformation and the development of the consumerist society, in urbanism, and fashion as well as sociability, there is but one striking common decisive factor: the novelty. In the capital of fashion and modernity, the novelty, progress and change functioned as the organizing principles of modern urban life. While the fashion of the 19th century brought the imperative of change and novelty in appearances, the members of the influential Parisian social movement of the period, Saint-Simonians, who are referred to as the “apostles of modernity”[viii]

by Abi-Mershed, were supporting social and industrial progress and continuous development. Thus, my research on the fashion’s role in the transformation of Paris into the first modern metropolis starts with an inquiry into the dialogue between modernity and fashion through the rising notion of novelty, which is followed by an analysis of how this dialogue was reflected on the urban space.

Fashion: The Modern Agent of Novelty Tandis qu’aux âges de coutume règnent le prestige de l’ancienneté et l’imitation des ancêstres, aux âges de mode dominent le culte des nouveautés ainsi que l’imitation des modèles presents et étrangers: on veut davantage ressembler aux novateurs contemporains et moins à ses aïeux.[ix] – Gabriel de Tarde

In order to comprehend the state and the transformations of fashion and its effects on the urban space of Paris during the 19th century, it becomes necessary to make a definition of fashion. Fashion, as Simmel describes, “is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation… At the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need of differentiation, the tendency towards dissimilarity, the desire for change and individual contrast.”[x] His trickle-down theory suggests that this dialectic of imitation and differentiation offers the upper strata of society the means to keep their difference from the others; for those standing at a lower position it provides a means to gain social recognition.

Following this definition, two key elements appear to be playing an important role in the development of fashion as well as revealing the reasons behind the

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reputation of Paris as “the capital of fashion”: the city and the attachment to the present social norms. For Simmel, fashion is an urban concept since its dialect requires and develops a certain amount of sociability. The developments in communication and circulation during the 19th century allowed Paris to provide fashion with an intensified multiplicity of social relations and an increased social mobility. In 1928, the first line of omnibus, public transportation at fixed hours on a horse-drawn vehicle, was started in Paris.

As explained by Harvey through the Daumier sketches of railway travel, the growth of railroads in 1830s altered the traditional notions of intimacy and privacy, the situation, which he refers to as end of space and time: “The annihilation of space and time was a familiar enough theme in Balzac’s time… and by the 1830s and 1840s the idea was more broadly associated with the arrival of the railroads.”[xi] In 1843, Hippolyte Meynadier proposed the construction of a more rational system of roads that is integrated with the railroads as well as a large-scale park project for Paris. In the 1850s, influenced by such propositions, Haussmann transformed Paris into a more functional whole.

Through these developments in sociability, Paris ensured the fashion’s dialectic of

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imitation-differentiation by permitting the individuals of the lower strata to become aware of the styles and fashions of the upper classes. Furthermore, the increasing power of the bourgeoisie in the Parisian socioeconomic scene assured them a stronger buying power, and the confection fulfilled their demands through mass production.

“Through witnessing, looking and observing, people could learn and imitate the outfit of the affluent while the high society could gain distinction and even distance themselves from those who are socially below through self-display.”

However, Paris’ suitable urban and social conditions alone were not enough; in order that the reign of novelty and frivolities would shape the modern urban experience, it was necessary that the present had priority over the past. For Lipovetsky, the uncontested legitimacy of the ancestral heritage and the valorization of social continuity blocked the development of fashion and modernity by imposing a strict conservatism on appearances and the repetition of inherited models of the past. Fashion is, as Barthes describes, “a refusal to inherit, a subversion against the oppression of the preceding fashion.”[xii] Thus, it was in the post-revolutionary Paris with a society under socio-cultural reformation, which developed a certain depreciation of the old norms that fashion could enter its modern age, and the modern urban experience could make their first appearance. Uzanne describes the priority of the present over the past as such; “The French Society reforms itself

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in oblivion of the past, carelessness of the future and the most utter Epicureanism of the present.”[xiii] According to Uzanne the society was attaching itself to a kind of mobility through luxury and a sort of Epicureanism, thinking only of the present moment. This valorization of the present and the epicurean way of living in the postrevolutionary Paris implied also a desire for change and a determining influence of the contemporaries. This new zeitgeist led to the transformation of the social space of the traditional norms to a new kind of inter-human relationship based on the present. Lipovetsky states that the Parisian fashion of the 19th century became the principal figure and the example of the modern socialization by liberating collective life from the authority of the past: Avec la mode, apparaît une première manifestation d’un rapport social incarnant un nouveau temps légitime et une nouvelle passion proper à l’Occident, celle du ‘moderne’.”[xiv] The Parisian high society developed a very strong interest in novelties and became passionate about all the recent inventions. The novelty became a source of value and a sign of social excellence.

a new kind of urban space. Because of the modern individual’s detachment from the past, his outfit was not being passed from generation to generation but it imitated and differentiated from the appearance of his contemporaries. As suggested by Simmel’s trickle-down theory, it was from the high society that the middle classes obtained their models. This new situation brought the actions of self-display and the observation of the ephemeral to the center of society through fashion’s relation to the pleasure of seeing and being seen. Through witnessing, looking and observing, people could learn and imitate the outfit of the affluent while the high society could gain distinction and even distance themselves from those who are socially below through self-display.

Novelty: The Modern Agent of Urban Life Avec la mode, les êtres ne vont plus cesser de s’observer, d’apprécier, leurs apparence réciproques, de jauger les nuances de coupe… Appareil à générer du jugement esthétique et social, la mode a favorisé le regard critique des mondains, elle a stimulé les observations plus ou moins amènes sur l’élégance des autres.[xv] – Gilles Lipovetsky As the decisive forces of daily life shifted from the ancestral heritage and the traditional norms towards the contemporary society and its present social norms, the society developed new ways of social interaction, which required

These new driving forces of life, selfdisplay, looking, observing and exhibition transformed the perception of the streets of Paris at which they found their context.

Uzanne points out this new role of the streets in the social life of Parisians: “All the world amuses itself together and in the open air! Society is only at home when not at home!”[xvi] However, as Benjamin explains in detail, in the first half of the 19th century, the narrow streets of Paris, which were besieged by carriages, were full of hazards to which the pedestrians were exposed. Not only being hazardous, they also lacked the very institutions that the new experience of flâneur required. At that moment appeared the arcades, the

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originary form of modernity.The streets are the dwelling place of the collective. The collective is an eternally wakeful, eternally agitated being that – in space between the building fronts- lives, experiences, understands, and invents as much as individuals do within the privacy of their own four walls…More than anywhere else, the street reveals itself in the arcade as the furnished and familiar interior of the masses.[xvii] According to Benjamin, the arcades are the exemplary environment of modern perception and experience. Leslie, in her analysis of Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, describes the modern urban experience as a string of Momentaufnahmen, recordings of moment or snapshots and the object of these snapshots being the commodity. “These commodities are short-lived; their life spans reveal the tempo of capitalism. Their existences are correlated to fashion’s caprices.”[xviii] Through the theatralization of the merchandise, seductive advertisement and the solicitation of desire, fashion prescribed the ritual according to which the commodity fetish demanded to be worshipped. Thus, in the very core of the modern urban experience and its originary form, the arcades, lies the very principle of fashion: fetishiziation of newness.

This fashionable fetishization implies a continuous cycle of novelty as the new loses its ‘newness’ constantly. It ensures, as Leslie explains, the development of the consumerist society by maximizing the profit. Through the fetishism of novelty and the commodity, fashion presents to the flâneur the modern urban experience with the short-living, dream-like seductive images of commodity that inhabited in the new inventions of the arcades: the magasins des nouveautés: “Just as in the seventeenth century it is allegory that becomes the canon of dialectical images, in the nineteenth century it is novelty.

Newspapers flourish, along with magasins

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de nouveautés.”[xix] They were the inventions of the new decisive forces of the society: the display, the seduction, and the novelty. They transformed the façade of the traditional Parisian boutique into a scene for the spectacle of commodity by decking out the shop from floor to ceiling and sacrifice a huge space just to garland the façade like a flagship.

“Through the fetishism of novelty and the commodity, fashion presents to the flâneur the modern urban experience with the short-living, dreamlike seductive images of commodity that inhabited in the new inventions of the arcades: the magasins des nouveautés.”

These centers of commerce in luxury items, according Benjamin, were the miniature models of Paris. Through the “chaotic juxtapositions of shop-signs, window displays of commodities, mannequins and illuminations,”[xx] they attracted the fashionable people of Paris, the flâneurs, the tourists and also the homeless, seeing these temples of spectacle as shelter.

Balzac described the establishment of the arcades around the right bank of Paris in The Devil in Paris as such; “The great poem of display chants its stanzas of color from the church of Madeleine to the Porte Saint-Denis.”[xxi] The Novelty of the Masses In the social gained of the

second half of the century, the organizing factor of novelty a new dimension, the dimension masses through an accelerated

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and institutionalized rhythm of novelty developed in the bipolar system of confection, the future prêt-à-porter, and the Haute Couture. In 1857, ChalesFrédéric Worth founded his establishment on the rue de la Paix in Paris, the first one of a line of shops, which would soon be called the Haute Couture.

the institutionalization of novelty, the confection appeared as the diffuser of this novelty by imitating the constantly changing models of Haute Couture and offering them to a larger group of

“In the very core of the modern urban experience and its originary form, the arcades, lies the very principle of fashion: fetishiziation of newness.”

Until then, the designer was bound to the presence and direct wishes of the individual client. The innovations of Worth liberated the designer from such constraints and allowed fashion to be a part and a vector of the consumerist society. His unedited models prepared in advance and their presentation in the saloons of grands maisons as well as on living models called the “sosies”, the future mannequins, gave fashion the tools to be a part of the modern consumerist society of the spectacle. As Lipovetsky explains, the Haute Couture contributed to the modern commercial revolution, which took place in the grands magasins, the arcades and the Universal Expositions through its dream-like mannequins and luxurious and attractive shop windows.

Avec l’âge de la Haute Couture au contraire, pour la première fois, il y a eu une institutionnalisation ou orchéstration du renouvellement,…une normalsation du changement de mode, un rénouvelement impératif opéré à date fixe par un group specialize.[xxii] The second vector of the bipolar system of modern fashion is defined as the confection. While the Haute Couture was

people by lowering the prices as well as diversifying the quality of products addressing to the small and the middle bourgeoisie. The confection boomed in France in the 1840s and increased even more in breadth and speed as it entered the age of mechanization through the sewing machine in the 1860s. It is through this cycle of institutionalization and massification that the bipolar system of fashion introduced the modern value: the novelty for the masses.

The Grand Novelty “For the first time in history, with the establishment of department stores, consumers begin to consider themselves a mass. Hence, the circus-like and theatrical element of commerce is quite extraordinarily heightened.”[xxiii] – Walter Benjamin The increased breadth of novelty, as it rooted itself in the collective unconsciousness, required new institutions of a larger scale, which could provide the masses with dream-like images, spectacles

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and the fetishism of novelty: the grands boulevards and the grands magasins (department stores).

These two grands inventions and the culture of the masses signified an extraordinary

Expositions.”[xxv] The department store, originating from the arcades according to Benjamin, was the final destination of the flâneur, as it inhabited the novelty in masses for the masses.

“Department stores were the temples of fashionable commodity, transitoriness and death.”

change of scale on construction as David Harvey points out by citing François Loyer: “One of capitalism’s most important effects on construction was to transform the scale of projects.”[xxiv] The department stores and the Palais de l’Industrie, built for the Universal Exposition of 1855 represented the same fetishism of novelty and spectacle and were constructed with the same materials and forms as the arcades, yet there was a striking difference; the new massive scale.

The boom of mass production and mass consumption required a massive scale also in the modern urban inventions, the department stores.

During the Second Empire, the change of scale helped Haussmann to transform the fragmented city into a whole that could provide the modern need’s of the masses: “Haussmann tried, in short, to sell a new and more urban conception of community in which the power of money was celebrated as spectacle and display on the grand boulevards, in the grands magasins, in the cafés and at the races, and above all in those spectacular celebrations of the commodity fetish, the Universal

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Throughout history, many writers considered fashion in relation to death because of its aspect of “creative destruction.”[xxvi] In the Dialogue Between Fashion and Death, Giacomo Leopardi describes the power of fashion to destroy, change and renew things by personifying Death and Fashion as siblings.

Parallel to the relationship between fashion and death that Leopardi reveals,

Benjamin describes the journey of the flâneur through death, novelty and fashion by citing Baudelaire: “The last journey of the flâneur: death. Its destination: the new. ‘Deep in the unknown to find the new!’ Newness is a quality independent of the use value of the commodity. It is the origin of the illusory appearance that belongs inalienably to images produced by the collective unconsciousness.

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It is the quintessence of that false consciousness whose indefatigable agent is fashion.”[xxvii]

Paris: The Fashionable Commodity During the transformations of Paris under Haussmann, the city did not only provide the modern institutions required by the consumerist society in the age of fashion but it also became a fashionable commodity itself. While the streets of Paris were the theater of the phantasmagoric spectacle, they themselves became spectacles and perceived as such. During the urban transformation of Paris, many blocks of buildings and roads were destroyed and new avenues and grands boulevards were opened. While these boulevards, with their large scales, provided the suitable urban environment for the fetishistic society of mass consumption, they also became phantasmagoric commodities.

When a construction of a new boulevard was accomplished, before it was opened to use, Haussmann placed a curtain at the entrance of the street and opened it in front the crowd watching the spectacle.

The streets were bound to the same commercial strategies of theatralization of the merchandise with the fashionable commodities of the grands magasins: “Opening of the Boulevard Sébastopol like the unveiling of a monument. At 2:30 in the

afternoon, at the moment the [imperial] procession was approaching from the Boulevard Saint-Denis, an immense scrim, which had masked the entrance to the Boulevard de Sébastopol from the side, was drawn like a curtain.”[xxviii] The flâneur, who observed the city like a landscape through the crowd, did not only experience and consume the phantasmagoric images offered by the grands magasins and the arcades but he also consumed the phantasmagoric images of the city, which became a spectacle at such moments. Furthermore, the speed of this urban transformation provided him with new urban adventures during his long promenades: La rapidité du changement dans Paris à cette époque se mesure aussi par la creation de nouvelles avenues…qui offrent un spectacle toujours renouvelé aux flâneurs parisiens.[xxix] The consumerism and the values of novelty and progress which characterized the Parisian society of the period, also revealed their influence on the first modern metropolis. The city was transforming itself everyday. Many building blocks and streets of Paris were destroyed and replaced by grands boulevards or new urban equipments. The map of Paris was changing according to the ideals of a consumerist society: “ An emblem of the power of fashion over the city of Paris: ‘I have purchased a map of Paris printed on a pocket handkerchief.’” [xxx] Novelty, change and progress. These are the organizing vectors of the first modern metropolis. With the detachment from the ancestral norms in the post-revolutionary Paris, fashion enters its modern era. The foundation of the Haute Couture and the boom of the confection introduce unseen developments in the production and diffusion of constantly changing outfits.

With the decisive forces of the present norms and the contemporaries as well as fashion’s imperative of novelty, the streets

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of Paris undertake an influential role in the daily lives of Parisians. The streets become the scene of spectacles, public balls and promenades during which the society continuously observes and witnesses each other as well as the city. The new values of display and observation of the ephemeral and the short-lived shape the new modern urban experience. From then on, the urban experience is characterized by short-lived seductive images. With the fetishism of novelty and transitoriness, the first consumerist society makes it appearance in Paris. The city adapts itself to the requirements of the new modern urban experience and the consumerist society by introducing new architectural and urban typologies: the arcades, the department stores and the grands boulevards. The arcade appears, according to Benjamin, as the originary form of modernity in the first half of the 19th century. The magasins de nouveautés, an invention of the arcades, inhabit the dream-like disorienting images and the commodity of fetishistic novelty. In the second half of the century, with the further developments in urban communication techniques, the construction of the grands boulevards and the boom of confection, the novelty’s diffusing institution, the novelty gains the dimension of the masses. Thus, the arcades evolve into the department stores in order to provide the masses with spectacles and transitory seductive images. However, the city does not only provide the spaces, which in turn provide the society with the commodity of fetishistic novelty but it also becomes a fashionable commodity.

Haussmann presents each new street of Paris through a spectacle as fashionable commodities, offering new experiences to the flâneur. The city becomes a fashion, a commodity of fetishistic novelty.

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NOTES

Modernity: Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria (Stanford University Press, 2010)

[i] Gilles Lipovetsky, L’empire de l’éphémère (Éditions Gallimard, 1987), 25. “(my translation).” Against the idea that fashion is something consubstantial to human social life, it emerges as an exceptional process, inseparable from the birth and the development of modern Western world. [ii] Sébastien Mercier, Paris Pendant La Revolution (Paris: Poulet-Malassis, 1862), 20. [iii] Lipovetsky, L’empire de l’éphémère, 91.

It has spread the taste of novelty into the all classes; it has turned the frivolities into aspirations of the mass while it materialized the democratic right to fashion which is instituted by the Revolution. [iv] Lipovetsky, L’empire de l’éphémère, 100. [v] Esther Leslie, Walter (Reaktion Books, 2007), 84.

Benjamin

[vi] Honoré de Balzac, Les Employés, 1837, 209.

[ix] Lipovetsky, L’empire de l’éphémère, 36.

While in the ages of custom reigned the prestige of antiquity and the imitation of ancestors, in the ages of fashion dominates the cult of novelty as well as the imitation of present and foreign models: we want to be more like the contemporary innovators and less like our ancestors. [x] George Simmel, “Fashion”, International Quarterly 10 (1904): 140. [xi] David Harvey, “City Future in City Past: Balzac’s Cartographic Imagination” in After-Images of the City, ed. Joan R. Resina and Dieter Ingenschay (Cornell University Press, 2003), 37 [xii] Roland Barthes, The Fashion System (University of California Press, 1990), 273. [xiii] Octave Uzanne, The French Woman of the Century: Fashions, Manners, Usages (London: J.C. Nimmo, 1886), 103. [xiv] Lipovetsky, L’empire de l’éphémère, 37.

Rabourdin had gone to shut himself in a room next to the one where they were playing, and he remained standing there as a bystander.

With fashion, there appears a first manifestation of a social relation embodying a new legitimate time and a new passion proper to the West, that of ‘modern’.

[vii] Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Claudine en ménage, 1902, 136.

[xv] Lipovetsky, L’empire de l’éphémère, 43.

A novelist…whispered to me: “What an ugly time!” With the attitude and figurewith an illusionary treatment- of a man who breathes on the brick of ecstasy.

With fashion, the beings will no longer stop to observe, appreciate, their mutual appearance, to gauge the nuances…Device to generate esthetic and social jugement, fashion favored the critical eye of the worldy, it stimulated the observations

[viii] Osama Abi-Mershed, Apostles of

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more or less brought on the elegance of the others.

[xxix] A. Hussey, Paris, ville rebelle, Paris, Max Milo Éditions, 2008, p. 74.

[xvi] Uzanne, The French Woman of the Century: Fashions, Manners, Usages, 7.

[xxx] K. Gutzkow, Briefe aus Paris Volume I, Leipzig, 1842, p. 82.

[xvii] Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (Harvard University Press, 1999), 879.

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O. Uzanne, A. Lynch, E. Gaujeau, The French Woman of the Century: Fashions, Manners, Usages, London, J.C. Nimmo, 1886.

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ファッション上の熟考 ドグマ

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Reflections on Fashion

Døgme

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Location: 7 Continents Type: Concept Brand Launch Date: 7.7.2013

There is nothing on earth that is not a dogma. By accepting the presence of world and our existence as truth, we already have created the biggest dogma.

From then on, we have become like little worker ants creating dogmas in other dogmas.

DESTRUCTIVE CREATIVITY Dogme is not a t-shirt brand. It is about an elegant creativity and a particular point of view becoming alive in the form of t-shirt. For us, there is a singular element in all arts, that is destructive creativity.

In this context, we think of creativity as a phenomenon beautifying our world in many ways and with Dogme and our particular character we want to present this creativity to world.

A CONCEPT From “music”, the harmonious concert of notes, and “the visual image” that is opening itself towards new horizons today, to “video” the collection of these images telling an idea through time and “fashion” which we put on in order to both

gain acceptance and differentiate in the context of mode modern of Lipovetsky; we are presenting Dogme as a concept in various domains.

ORIGINS Dogme has three subjects of admiration: A romantic understanding of “space” with a drunkenness of a visual orgasm, mysticism and the mythology.

What we want to create is a metamodern phenomenon, a contradiction. Today, we are living in a world where, everything is questioned including the postmodernity itself. We don’t know what to believe in or on what information we rely. There is just too much information around and we are in constant attack. On the contrary, while we were creating Dogme, we wanted to present an elegant and cleverly applied simplicity, both visual and audible. We want to offer the fine simplicity that they are looking for or they have been forced to forget. On the other hand, in such a world where all is unstable, we try to go back in time and find a feeling of security

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in history. We want that the past offer us a safe port through its naivety that we find today somewhat cute. We wanted to offer this by using various “dogmas” which are deeply rooted in humanity’s history. The dogma is a collective perception spread in the prehistory, shamanism and the abrahamic religions.

We created dogma by amalgamating our admiration towards a mystic universe and the astrologic advancement of the ancient societies with the dramatic history of mythology.

We are desiging these t-shirts in order to convey our ideas to the world and to add something to the global knowledge and creativity. Thus, we wish that all the youth around the world would reach out to this project that we carefully prepared for them through a meticulous research period.

DOGME OF 7 Dogme, itself, is a dogma and it represents the ancient platonic universal dogmas.

Our first dogma is the number 7 which covers a 2 years long period. It’s the dogmatic understanding and presence of the number 7. 7, from bible to Quran, from our calendars to the mayans, is seen as a mystic number. We are the dogma of 7. We have project of 7 collections with 7 t-shirts. We have 7 short movies made for these 7 t-shirts telling the stories of 7 different passions and persons from 7 different country. We wanted to tell the 7th lazy day of God after 6 days of creating the earth, according to the old testament.

We united the motifs of universe, stars and nebula with the mystic aspects of the ancient world.

GREEN POLICIY This project being a global one is also naturally following a policy that is very careful about the global warming and other serious environmental questions.

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The t-shirt printings were applied with the latest environment-friendly vegetal and digital solutions. WWAll our t-shirts are completed through a process which produces the least amount of greenhouse gasses and plastic waste. Paper bags are used in packaging. We hope that this environment-friendly and clever packaging idea is going to be used by other major organisations or individuals.

All our visions and goals are in fact simply a way of trying to find and identify ourselves as the youth of this time and place. It is our way of getting to know and understand ourselves by using our intellectual world and the creativity of our fingers, in Istanbul, the city of civilisations where the worlds of asia and Europe are only separated by a fine water wander, and later in Paris the capital of both fashion and modernity.

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