Fashion in Architecture - Thesis Magazine 2014

FIT Fashion in archi Tecture

Thesis 2014 SOPHIE CHUNG

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“FASHIONis ARCHITECTURE” CocoChanel

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| Abstract

Abstract Fashion is, some would argue, an inferior craft compared to the so-called weightier, intellectual and preeminent discipline that is akin to architecture. Fashion garners a lot of criticism as it breeds on society’s prevailing and questionable values of kitsch, consumerism, profit, fame and self-promotion. However, this thesis argues that fashion is boundless, pervasive and omnipresent. Fashion is irrepressible.

Culture is inevitably determined by its economy, therefore, it is safe to say that architecture has also become subservient to the goals of the capitalist economy… so why is there such a big consumer society conundrum? How can the commodification and spectacle of architecture be used to expose, embrace and submit to the corporate, commercial, narcissistic but pleasurable realm of fashion?

Fashion haunts all debates and discourses about modern architecture. The very gesture of excluding fashion is so institutionalized that fashion becomes a vital part of the system and its exclusion defines architecture itself.

The contretemps between the two disciplines is tangled and folded over on itself in a series of knots and this convolution is what provides the frame of the discourse in this thesis.

Narcissism is a popular descriptor used for socialites and has a derogatory stamp, but the very people whom we label narcissistic are those who attract as well as repel.

This project accentuates the narcissism that is pervasively entrenched in the fashion society. A theatrical, grandiose and fantastical three-dimensional consumer experience is proposed that stresses the enjoyment in shopping itself as a means of enthusiastic fantasy and escape even as it makes apparent the dilemmas of narcissism.

Collage is employed as an artistic, analytical mechanism

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to design, assemble and produce an interpretation of the process and the envisioned product. The interior will be dominated by a wild, dynamic and sculptural central element that offers a grandiloquent public catwalk as circulation. The project is situated on Degraves Street; a short, narrow laneway that runs north from Flinders Street to Flinders Lane in the CBD of Melbourne, Australia. The site expresses a rich, playful, eccentric and quirky vibe epitomizing Melbourne’s laneways. The design articulates the ostentatious exhibitionism embedded in the fashion world and questions our society’s self-centredeness, superficiality and vanity. However, with the aid of a (my) narrative of a (self-proclaimed) modern day journalist/blogger, this thesis aims to both exploit and embrace the fashion for what it is.

Introduction |

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| Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments First of all, I would like to express the deepest appreciation to Sarah Treadwell for encouraging me throughout the year, believing in me more than I did and maintaining high spirits in times of doubt and uneasiness. Without her guidance, the thesis would have been an unstimulating and monochrome project with shoddy seams. I am ever so grateful to have had such a caring, supportive and attentive supervisor that continuously inspired my so-called outrageousness.

ChloĂŤ Litchfield, my best friend and heaven-sent angel, I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for rescuing me from the numerous inopportune predicaments and for your relentless support, wisdom and positivity while I was jaded or in a quandary. I could not ask for a more benevolent and compassionate friend than you. Thank you so much for holding my hand and willingly riding in the passenger seat of this diabolical rollercoaster called architecture with me.

To Iva and Olivia, thank you so much for accommodating me while I was a homeless vagrant and being my second and third mothers. I would not have been able to finish this thesis without you.

Fig. 1 ‘Photograph’ taken from ideal ground level vantage point of building.

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Table of Contents |

Table of Contents III

Abstract

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Acknowledgements

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Table of Contents

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List of Figures

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Chatting with Chatty Chung “Confessions of a Fashion Wannabe

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Introduction:

Scope of Thesis

Significance Method

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Chatting with Chatty Chung “Living in a Haphazard Kaleidoscope”

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Chapter 1: History and Theories

Mark Wigly

Manfredo Taufuri

Luis Fernández- Galiano

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Chatting with Chatty Chung “All I want for Christmas is…

Alexander Wang”

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Chapter 2: Precedents

Peter Marino

Marc Jacobs

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Chatting with Chatty Chung “I defend the proliferation of technology”

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Chapter 3: Methodology

A brief discussion on collage

Conceptual Collages

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Chatting with Chatty Chung “#Throwback and other minor cogitations

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Chapter 4: Project Site Program

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Drawings: Section Plans

3-D Drawings

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Chatting with Chatty Chung “The last Chat”

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Reflection

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Bibliography

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Appendix

Fig. 2. Architectural Document - Kenzo

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List of Figures |

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List of Figures Fig. 1 ‘Photograph’ taken from ideal ground level vantage point at Western entry of the building.

Fig. 2. Architectural Document - Kenzo.

Fig. 3. “Eluxe Collection/Pre-Order” November 14th, 2014. We Wore What by Danielle Bernstein. http://weworewhat.com/ Accessed November 19th 2014.

Fig. 4. “Camel Coat and Leopard Skirt” November 12th, 2014. Song of Style by Aimee Song. http://www.songofstyle.com/2014/11/camel-coat-and-leopard-skirt.html Accessed November 19th, 2014.

Fig. 5. “Steady” November 17th, 2014. Happily Grey by Mary Seng. http://www.happilygrey.com/personal-style/steady/# Accessed 19th November, 2014.

Fig. 6. “On time!” November 12th, 2014. Camille Over the Rainbow by Camille Charriere. http://www.camilleovertherainbow.com/ Accessed 19th November, 2014.

Fig. 7. “The Cool Girl” September 18th, 2014. Peace Love Shea by Shea Marie. http://peaceloveshea.com/the-cool-girl/slide-1 Accessed November 19th, 2014.

Fig.. 8. A catwalk design by the application of collage as a design method.

Fig. 9. Architectural Document - Andrea Crews Fig. 10. Architectural Document - Givenchy Fig. 11. Alexander Wang x H&M sports bra. http://www.thegloss.com/2014/10/16/fashion/hmalexander-wang-new-collection-clothes-bad/. Accessed 28th November, 2014.

Fig. 12. Alexander Wang x H&M mesh top. http://glamazonsblog.com/2014/09/alexander-wang-hmprices-ads/. Accessed 28th November, 2014.

Fig. 13. Error message from H&M online shopping website during Alexander Wang x H&M release. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/alexander-wang-launch-crashes-hm-websiteand-items-are-already-for-sale-on-ebay-for-more-than-500-9844511.html Accessed November 24th Fig. 14. Alexander Wang x H&M Fashion show. Vogue. Photos by H&M. http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/celebrity-photos/2014/10/17/alexander-wang-h-and-m-debut/ gallery/1276421. Accessed November 28th, 2014.

Fig. 15. Alexander Wang x H&M Fashion show. Vogue. Photos by H&M. http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/celebrity-photos/2014/10/17/alexander-wang-h-and-m-debut/ gallery/1276417. Accessed November 28th, 2014.

Fig. 16. Alexander Wang at Alexander Wang x H&M Fashion show. Vogue. Photos by H&M. http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/celebrity-photos/2014/10/17/alexander-wang-h-and-m-debut/ gallery/1276423. Accessed November 28th, 2014.

Figure. 17. Chanel, Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 2008. Photos by Paul Warchol. http://www.petermarinoarchitect.com/www/#/archive/category/retail/57 Accessed 18th September 2014.

Figure. 18. Chanel, Beverly Hills, California, 2007. Photos by Martin Mueller. http://www.petermarinoarchitect.com/www/#/archive/category/retail/53 Accessed 18th September 2014.

Figure. 19. Chanel, Ginza District, Tokyo, Japan, 2004. Photos by Vincent Knapp. http://www.petermarinoarchitect.com/www/#/archive/category/retail/55 Accessed 18th September 2014. Accessed 19th September 2014.

Figure. 20. Chanel, New Bond Street, London, 2013. http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2013/06/10/

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chanel-london-flagship---new-bond-street---largest-chanel-boutique-stor.e Accessed 20th September 2014.

Figure. 21. Peter Marino and Marc Jacobs. http://fashionweekdaily.com/shot-of-the-daily/. Accessed 27th September 2014.

Figure 6. Cindy Sherman and Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs Campaign. Screenshot from video of interview http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/talks-and-lectures/john-edwards-lecture-seriespeter-marino-and-marc-jacobs. Accessed 23rd September 2014.

Figure. 7. Richard Prince Collaboration with Louis Vuitton, 2008. Screenshot from video of interview http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/talks-and-lectures/john-edwards-lecture-series-petermarino-and-marc-jacobs Accessed 23rd September 2014.

Figure. 24. L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) by Marcel Duchamp. http://www.contrapoder.com.gt/es/edicion17/blogdearte/610/Reflexiones-sobre-el-arte-(Duchamp-elabsurdo-como-representaci%C3%B3n-de-una-%C3%A9poca).htm. Accessed 27th September 2014.

Figure. 25. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign. Photos by Steve Miesel. http://www.scottsdalefashionista.com/todays-little-bit-of-lovely-louis-vuitton-fall-ad-campaign/.

Accessed 23rd September 2014.

Figure. 26. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign. Photos by Steve Miesel. http://www.scottsdalefashionista.com/todays-little-bit-of-lovely-louis-vuitton-fall-ad-campaign/.

Accessed 23rd September 2014.

Figure. 27. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign. Photos by Steve Miesel. http://www.scottsdalefashionista.com/todays-little-bit-of-lovely-louis-vuitton-fall-ad-campaign/.

Accessed 23rd September 2014.

Fig. 28. “You Autocomplete Me ... or Are You Taking Over?” by Kowalskivision http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/andrew-ohagan-technology/?_r=. Accessed 26th September 2014.

Fig. 29. Screenshot of my Instagram post. November 20th, 2014. @oheyitsfifi Fig. 30. PRADA Real Fantasies Spring/Summer 2013 by OMA. http://www.fashiongonerogue.com/prada-real-fantasies-springsummer-2013-lookbook/ Accessed 26th September 2014.

Fig. 31. PRADA Real Fantasies Spring/Summer 2013 by OMA. http://www.fashiongonerogue.com/prada-real-fantasies-springsummer-2013-lookbook/ Accessed 26th September 2014.

Fig. 32. PRADA Real Fantasies Spring/Summer 2013 by OMA. http://www.fashiongonerogue.com/prada-real-fantasies-springsummer-2013-lookbook/ Accessed 26th September 2014.

Fig. 33. The first architectural document I did based on the brand KENZO. Fig. 34. KENZO X TOILETPAPER Spring/Summer Campaign 2014. http://www.findkenandzo. com/# Accessed November 26th, 2014.

Fig.35. Kenzo Fall/Winter 2013 – The Flying Tigers https://www.kenzo.com/en/blog/prints-andpatterns-season-6-flying-tigers_9139/. Accessed November 26th, 2014.

Fig. 36. Detail close-ups of the architectural document for KENZO. Fig. 37. Kenzo Eye Motif. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/290341507199849633/. Accessed 28th September 2014.

Fig. 38. Plans and axonometrics of form designing process.

Fig. 39. Architectural documents - GIVENCHY Fig. 40. Architectural document - KENZO

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| List of Figures

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Fig. 41 . Architectural collage - KENZO Fig. 42. Social media as a knife. Illustration by Charlotte Fassler. http://www.manrepeller.com/minor_ cogitations/why-do-you-post-to-social-media.html. Accessed November 26th, 2014.

Fig. 43. Instagram of Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne.

Fig. 44. Instagram of Torquay, Great Ocean Road, Victoria.

Fig. 45. Instagrams of my Melbourne trip.

Fig. 46. Site Plan. Scale 1:1000 Fig. 47. Photographic amalgamation of site study.

Fig. 48. Exterior of building Fig. 49. ‘Photograph’ taken from ideal ground level vantage point.

Figure. 50. Photograph’ taken from ideal ground level vantage point. Western entry.

Figure. 51. Level two - retail space Fig. 52. Level Three - Retail Space Fig. 53. Photograph’ taken from ideal vantage point on Level Four.

Fig. 54. Fifth Floor - Restaurant Fig. 55. Section A 1:200 Fig. 56. Ground Floor Plan 1:200 Figure. 57. First Floor Plan 1:200 Fig. 58. Second Floor Plan 1:200 Figure. 59. Third Floor Plan 1:200 Fig. 60. Fourth Floor Plan 1:200 Figure. 61. Fifth Floor Plan 1:200 Figure. 62. Roof Plan 1:200 Fig. 63. West elevation. These undulating ledge-like balconies mimic a theatric stage where the user becomes both the performer and the audience.

Fig. 64. Views of the interior ramp Fig. 65. View of ramp from above.

Fig. 66. Ramp from Ground floor.

Fig. 67. Looking up at ramp from below.

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••Blog Entry #01••••••••••••••••••••••••

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“Confessions of a fashion wannabe” It’s the end of September now, and there has been photo after photo after photo of double-tap worthy images on my Instagram feed covering runway shows from fashion week. *Green with envy*. The fashion blogosphere is riddled with sartorial inspirations that are continuously being added to my never-ending list of things I want NEED.

Personal style bloggers are not just pretty, rich, stylish girls who upload their #ootd on social media.

Production quality, editorial strategy, and affiliate marketing programs are a pre-requisite in order to get your foot in the door in this competitive world. And while some people say that the age of the personal style blogger is over, I say that this blogging community isn’t going anywhere. If you’re good enough, bloggers create publications that are viewed by millions. Speaking of millions, that’s what they earn too.

They’re not just journalists, they are brand stars and when they ‘subjectively’ comment on companies on social media, they get huge commissions from affiliate marketing programs like ShopStyle. Simply click on the trackable link that sends you straight to the product where you can buy it then and there, it’s easy shopping. Not to mention sponsorships, brand collaborations and advertising campaigns, the fame and cash just keep rolling in – it’s basically a huge advertising gig.

Song of Style, Man Repeller, Camille Over the Rainbow, We Wore What, Sincerely Jules, The Blonde Salad, Peace Love Shea are a few of the many visual and cultural arbiters that I follow religiously, looking at the hyperlapse of selfies and lifestyle posts every single day, admiring their life, possessions and dreaming that one day, maybe, I could live like them.

But please, stop with the #healthy #dairyfree #glutenfree health food smoothies. Your green juice is an eyesore and it upsets me. If I want caffeine, I will have the traditional, plain, dirty brown, black coffee, thanks. I don’t believe in this healthier alternative surpassing spirulina to a green tea concentrate called matcha that when coupled with chia seeds will give me so much energy! Since when

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Fig. 3. We Wore What by Danielle Bernstein

Fig. 4. Song of Style by Aimee Song

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has healthy become so cool? I respect the unrelenting determination for longevity but I really enjoy NOT being a vegan and sometimes eating away my sorrows with a big tub of Chocolate Haagen-Dazs whilst watching TFIOS (teenage love stories are so sad and heartbreaking). This instagram phenomenon is a new cultural movement permeating our society – come and join the collective! Perhaps, we are a generation of extremists concerned with doing “it” bigger, better and louder than everyone else. My collective is the fashion collective. Following these style gurus offer a gateway into the behind-the-scenes-world of fashion, which many girls would kill for… like me. Although, bear in mind that social media is a window into a controlled perception through the camera. There’s a plethora of amateur groupies desperate to carve their paths into a moonlit limelight as a fashionista. Posing and preening outside the fashion tents, the paparazzi are gagging for the “celebrity circus of people who are famous for being famous,” as said by Suzy Menkes in her article for T Magazine. But in the world of fashion, there are very few traditional fashion jobs, which are why these people are becoming entrepreneurs and creating jobs from the sheer hunger for editorial work – how ingeniously brilliant.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. equals hyper-speed information consumption. I don’t know how these fashionistas can keep up to date with every single brand and line that is produced. The top bloggers are labeled ‘top’ for a reason. There’s only a handful that are able to canon that raw portrayal of an unedited opinion without having their integrity and motives being questioned from sponsorship. Free gifts, free trips, free entry – bloggers can’t help but garner cynicism and skepticism… oh, and street style? That meaning has been lost when brands wily align themselves with power people. Nevertheless, I’m addicted to their self-aggrandizement, knowing in the back of my mind that it is probably not a genuine post, but an advertising strategy. Although, to be honest, how could I – a middleclass, nearly twenty-three-year-old (an indication of my ‘nearly about to embark on the quarter life crisis journey’ of “what am I going to do with my life?”) Korean girl living in New Zealand by herself, and also a full-time student, afford this without the help of incredibly wealthy and generous parents, which I don’t have? “Poor girls with expensive taste” is what my friends and I label ourselves. First world problems, I know… but the struggle is ever so real.

Sincerly Sophie

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Fig. 5. Happily Grey by Mary Seng

Fig. 6. Camille over the Rainbow by Camille Charriere

Fig. 7. Peace Love Shea by Shea Marie

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| Introduction

Introduction Scope Culture is inevitably determined by its economy, therefore, it is safe to say that architecture has also become subservient to the goals of the capitalist economy… so why is there such a big consumer society conundrum?

This thesis questions how the commodification and spectacle of architecture can be used to expose, embrace and submit to the corporate, commercial, narcissistic but pleasurable realm of fashion.

The idea of fashion is inseparable from architectural design. At first, the parallel tendencies between these two disciplines may intuitively be imagined as wildly different; however, both practices express ideas of personal, social and cultural identity that are reflective of the ambition of the age and are engaged in the creation of the contemporary city. The temporalities, materialities, techniques, rhythms, operational scales and spatial vocabularies of fashion and architecture are often portrayed as incongruent and discordant due to their profoundly different speeds.[1] Transience, pliability and ephemerality resonate with the ideas of fashion whilst architecture calls forth notions of longevity, permanence, solidity and durability.[2]

However, no matter how much critics and theorists resist and oppose the spectre of fashion, architecture is a social phenomenon that has never been and never will be, immune from the fashion system. Fashion haunts all debates and discourses about modern architecture. The very gesture of excluding fashion is so institutionalized that fashion becomes a vital part of the system; it is never simply excluded, it is everywhere inscribed within the very system it delimits, its exclusion defines modern architecture itself – “Fashion is the key.”[3]

Mark Wigley, author of White Walls, Designer Dresses, and Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, demonstrates modern architecture’s relationship with the psychosexual economy of fashion, drawing on the arguments formulated in the middle of the nineteenth century. Discussing theories of the status of surface, Wigley is a major theorist whose analysis’ accompanies the discussions in this thesis. There is indubitably an undiluted loathing amongst theorists and historians or self-appointed, vigilant watchdogs that defends the pure logic of architecture against the contamination of the degenerate, deviant, malignant disease that is fashion.

Louise Crewe, “Wear: where? The convergent geographies of architecture and fashion” (University of Nottingham, 2010) 2 Crewe, “Wear: where? The convergent geographies of architecture and fashion.”

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Ibid., 52.

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Significance Fashion is considered to be superficial, fleeting, trivial and in more psychoanalytical terms, narcissistic.

‘Narcissism’ is a popular descriptor that has a derogatory stamp but the very people who we label narcissistic are those who attract as well as repel us. The myth of Narcissus is about the Greek youth who was fatally enamoured of his own reflection. In today’s world, everyone is (arguably) at least a little bit narcissistic and concerned about his or her appearance. The hit song “#SELFIE” was released in January 28th 2014 by the American dance music duo, The Chainsmokers, and it went completely viral.[4] It features a monologue from a narcissistic girl at a club talking about taking selfies and uploading it to her Instagram account. She also criticizes other people in the club in an unimpressed tone. The catch-line is “first, let me take a selfie” which is said after every spoken verse in the song. Selfies have become more than a trend, it has become a phenomenon. The act of taking a self-portrait with your phone (typically at arm’s length or in a mirror) and sharing it on social networking services such as Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook has become commonplace. By the end of 2012, Time magazine considered ‘selfie’ to be one of the “top 10 buzzwords” of that year. Even President Barack Obama was snapped taking a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service at the Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium with various world leaders such as the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and the British Prime Minister David Cameron.[5] This made newspaper headlines, obviously these selfies were considered to be in poor taste. This demonstrates the acute selfcentered and narcissistic generation of ‘Millennials’.

Narcissism is especially apparent in the fashion world where admiration and grandiosity is embedded in it. This thesis will attempt to question the consumer society conundrum of the corporate involvement in all things cultural whilst embracing this inevitable and unavoidable fate of “architainment”.

Taggart, Andrew. #SELFIE. The Chainsmokers.

Dim Mak Records/604 Records. Digital Download.

5 Alyssa Newcomb, “President Obama Poses for Selfie at Nelson Mandela’s Memorial Service,” abc news, accessed November 20, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ president-obama-poses-selfie-nelson-mandelas-memorialservice/story?id=21162957.

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The ‘locating’ mind state is what retailers have built their offer around so far. In this mind state, shoppers already know the specific brand, product or service that they are looking for.[8] The ‘dreaming’ dimension is still a largely untapped market that can be employed as a curating strategy for the retail market. The Joy of Shopping 2012, a survey by FITCH, polled 7250 shoppers in China, India, Brazil, Russia, USA, UK and UAE in an effort to explore the shopper mind states as a quantitative study across age, income and region. Their degree of involvement was measured against a three point scale of Enthusiasm, Enjoyment and Chore while their Satisfaction with their shopping experiences were measured against a five point scale from Overjoyed, Happy, Disappointed, and Distressed. The survey was explored across the shopping categories of electronics, groceries and fashion apparel.

For this thesis, the study of shoppers’ mind states in the category of fashion apparel is paramount: 37.4% of shoppers categorized themselves as enthusiasts, 51.9% enjoy the experience while the remaining 10.7% consider it a chore.[9] It is interesting that shopping enthusiasm is most strongly felt in emerging markets of China, India and Brazil compared to the more mature markets such as the UK and US. There is, perhaps, a novelty effect of shopping itself in which the burgeoning middle class society is truly enjoying the expanding retail choices with their disposable income. They also prefer ‘seamless retail’ in which they can drift between in-store and online shopping. A 2011 Deloitte survey of retail executives found that three quarters believe that in five years’ time the roles of bricks and mortar stores will shift to providing compelling and immersive brand experiences, with meaningful interactions and technologically savvy brand ambassadors who are specialized in product experience.[10] It is clear that “The joy of shopping: It’s all in the mind,” Fitch, accessed May 3, 2014, http://www.fitch.com/the-joy-ofshopping-its-all-in-the-mind/.

7 “The joy of shopping: It’s all in the mind,” 8 Ibid., 9 Ibid., 10 Ibid., 6

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FIT shoppers are expecting a shopping experience that will satisfy all of their mind states, however, retailers are failing to keep pace. The gap between what shoppers expect and what they are experiencing is significant. Kevin Ervin Kelley said, “We architects should be leading the way… If we continue to avoid marketing in the built environment, it will be at our peril.”[11] This is an interesting speculation and should be duly noted. Retailing strategies have been left primarily to our allied professions such as graphic, industrial, technology designers and obviously advertisers, marketers, banks, etc.

There is, of course, a debate about the immorality of consumerism and the devaluing of architecture – how gravitas in architecture has vanished and how corporate involvement is necessary to disseminate any type of cultural message. Many have mourned for the waning of highbrow architecture and in turn, condemned the new architecture as a cancerous growth or metastasis, colonizing the earth with flashy, fleeting edifices that fail to value excellence over popularity. But if net portals have higher stock prices than established companies, how can one expect buildings of depth for the peripatetic elite? These ideas about the hegemony of vision and image in today’s architecture are further discussed in chapter one, referring to the observations made by Luis Fernández-Galiano.

| Introduction In Questions of Perception, Steven Holl illuminates the nature of our perception of the built environment:

“A city is never seen as a totality, but as an aggregate of experiences, animated by use, by overlapping perspectives, changing light, sounds and smells.

Similarly, a single work of architecture is rarely experienced in its totality (except in graphic or model form) but as a series of partial views and synthesized experiences. Questions of meaning and understanding lie between the generating ideas, forms, and the nature and quality of perception.”[13] Numerous architects have used the idea of collage as an artistic method in architecture. Collages have the capacity to stimulate our imagination and take advantage of the intricacies of our perceptual, imaginative and empathetic processes.[14] According to Juhani Pallasma, an architect and professor, collage and montage are “quintessential” techniques in modern and contemporary art and filmmaking: “Collage combines pictorial motifs and fragments from disconnected origins into a new synthetic entity which casts new roles and meanings to the parts.

It suggests new narratives, dialogues, juxtapositions and temporal durations.

Its elements lead double-lives; the collaged ingredients are suspended between their originary essences and the new roles assigned to them by the poetic ensemble.”[15]

Method Holl proposes that “we perceive human artifacts as an amalgam of sensory phenomena understood through personal experience and memory, rather than completely and objectively through a formal analysis.”[12] Architecture is comprehended more through a sensory engagement rather than mere observation. In this thesis, collage is undertaken as a design method and representational medium to capture the spatial and material characteristics of the designed environment.

Collage comprises of an accrued compilation of history and is therefore considered as an artifact. It operates as an analytical and interpretive mechanism.

Kelley, “Architecture for Sale(s): An Unabashed Apologia.” in Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture, ed.

William S. Saunders (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 50.

12 Shields, Jennifer A.E., Collage and Architecture (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 2.

Jennifer A.E. Shields argues that architecture, in its apparently inherent permanence and penetrating, preconceived order, is not associated in the bracket of the visual arts or cinema; it indubitably carries an artistic strain in which collage and assemblage can be applied to bind a juxtaposition of images, emotions and ambiences to concoct an articulated and engaging spatio-temporal Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasma, and Alberto PerezGomez, Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture (San Francisco: William Stout Publishers, 2006), 130.

14 Shields, Jennifer A.E., Collage and Architecture (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), x.

Jennifer A.E. Shield’s Collage and architecture has proven to be a vital book for this thesis. Other books offer explication, exegesis and provocation of architecture in the sense of preconceived philosophy or visions that are very interesting and valuable to read but are seemingly abstruse and irrelevant to this particular thesis.

15 Shields, Jennifer A.E., Collage and Architecture, ix.

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experience.[16] At first glance, it may seem that our minds are working in a continuously coherent mental state, but, in fact, our awareness is continuously shifting from one percept to another, “from actuality to dream, association to deduction, and from recollection to imagination. Our very consciousness is an ever-changing collage of mental fragments held together by one’s sense of self.”[17] The art form of architecture itself becomes a varying and variously completed entity as the collage of human activities; furnishings and objects are everychanging around it. By employing collage as a method, the narrative of a story is told. This can include the progressive scenes of a catwalk show, or express the aura of a space in which the image-maker specifically chooses a vantage point, where carefully selected furniture, objects and human activity are represented in one moment in time.

Collage stimulates our imagination and allows us to piece the various fragmented images back to its irreconcilable identity. This collage and assemblage technique has a very hands-on tactile element with its temporal narrative that gives a certain poetic vibe and also a rich experience for the maker and the viewer.

According to Diane Waldman in Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object, a collage has several levels of meaning: “the original identity of the fragment or object and all of the history it brings with it; the new meaning it gains in association with other objects or elements; and the meaning it acquires as the result of its metamorphosis into a new entity.”[18] In the modern era, when collage is assembled, process is emphasized over the product, in which the accumulation of the various fragments of materials creates new definitions. Architecture can be experienced in a similar way – the spatial, material and intellectual content is constructed through the process rather than the resulting product. This idea is appropriated and utilized as a design method in creating instinctive fashion collages, envisioning catwalk installations and representing the processional qualities of the designed building. The methodology of collage is further discussed in chapter three.

Ibid., ix.

17 Ibid.

18 Diane Waldman, Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992), 11.

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Fig.. 8. Catwalk design via collage method

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| Introduction

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Fig. 9. Architectural Document - Andrea Crews

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••Blog Entry #02••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Living in a Haphazard Kaleidoscope”

A

rchitecture is the coalescence of the real and spiritual, the objective and subjective, the pragmatic and aesthetic. Practical, objective, rationalist, shelter-providing necessity vs. Subjective, desirable, beautiful, aesthetic sculpture.

Angels vs. Demons, Good vs. Bad, Right vs. Wrong… But architecture is not so Black and White. This whole polemical altercation is actually a migraine-inducing, confusing, blur… it’s like a really, really bad hangover. Talking about subjectivity is like an endless pit of ceaseless squabbling. But let me put my two cents in it seeing as no one can talk back to a piece of paper. The real is objective and the subjective is spiritual… But, when subjectivity resonates with an almost universal agreement and approval… what happens then?

So-called objectivist aesthetics instantly triggers the structural diagrams of Mies Van der Rohe or the expressive rationalism of Louis Sullivan, and then here comes Frank Gehry with his a-tectonic gestures of deconstructivist funkiness.

It would be euphemism to say that Gehry’s work has not always been well received. But wow, kudos to you Gehry for trucking along, doing what you want, even though you get emotionally assaulted with a tonne of criticism…“Corporate branding”, “Bilbao effect”, “Wasting structural resources”, “functionless forms”… blah blah blah. After five years of being in architecture school, it’s amazing how the architects that wowed you in first year, like Zaha and Frank, no longer do. That’s why critics admonish them but to the layman’s eye, that stuff is mind-blowing awesomeness. They’re on the right track pleasing and catering for the general public because how many people in the world are architects? Not that many!

The basic dispute is the dissension between Apollonian and Dionysian. Apollonian resonates with discipline, restraint, order and rationalism whilst the latter respects expressionism, the desire to play, and break free from corporeal constraints like structure, programme, budget, brief, client, and gravity.

Nietzche wrote that the Apollonian seeks out truth or is an

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expression symbolic to that of ‘truth’. It’s very… catholic. It denies contradiction, is very inflexible and deems itself an expression of timelessness (uh, we live in an ever-changing temporal world. Timeless? You are certainly mistaken.) So actually, Apollonian is whole-heartedly contradicting itself, because, it sounds like it is utterly and wholly spiritual. On the other hand, Dionysian is … liberal. It’s open to interpretation, nebulous and well aware of the effects of time.

Temporality is embraced and therefore, the torrid nature of perception is acknowledged. Dionysian buildings have a lifespan. “Reality” is an opposing force against the artistic poetry of creating shelter. Architecture is a manifestation of the frustrating duality in the paradigm between the aesthetics of fantasy and beauty and the aesthetics of pragmatism and constraints. Once you acknowledge this duality, you can appreciate and create great architecture.

In this chapter, I casually but assertively name drop Le Corbusier, Mark Wigley, Manfredo Tafuri, Luis FernándezGaliano, Kevin Ervin Kelley and Neil Bingham – their theories are more or less in chronological order. It’s all about acknowledging the past, living in the present, and accepting the future. Today, the symbolic obsolescence of real architecture fuels a dazzling carousel with a dizzying rollercoaster of images, riding on the waves of erratic, capricious and temperamental mood swings of our society. We live in a blindingly bright haphazard kaleidoscope. That is today’s built environment. But don’t be mistaken, this is what you wanted, this is the result of riding a wave of mass culture, meaning global culture, and more recently… the oxymoron of glocal culture. And now, architainment offers a NASDAQ of its own. If you’re looking for gravitas, you’re preaching in the desert, mate. The response will be a rumble of hearty guffaws.

Sincerly Sophie

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“ I’M THE ONLY

ARCHITECT WHO IS NOT AFRAID OF THE WORD

pretty ”

Peter Marino

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Chapter 1|

Chapter 1:

History

&Theories

“What is fashionable is, by definition, bad.”[19] Words such as “DISORDER,” “CHAOS,” “CONGESTION,” “INTOXICATION,” “PLAY,” “DISHONESTY,” “ILLUSION,” “WEAKNESS,” “SENTIMENTAL,” “TRIVIAL,” “LIES,” “PROSTITUTION,” “CAPRICE,” “ARBITARY,” “DISHONESTY,” “DEATH,” “COSMETIC,” “SEDUCTION,” “SUPERFICIAL,” “VENEER,” “FAKE,” “SUBSTITUTE,” “SUPERFICIALITY,” are terms that are used by Le Corbusier to identify symptomatic moments of fashionable clothing styles as opposed to the rhetoric of “ETERNAL TRUTH,” “SPIRIT,” “WORK,” “ORDER,” “VIGOUROUS,” “ERECT,” “VIRGINAL,” “RATIONAL,” “STANDARD,” “ESSENTIAL,” “HONEST,” “LIFE,” “DEEP,” and “ITERNAL,” which are used to describe architecture.[20] Modernism was explicitly launched against fashion. Architectural theorist, Mark Wigley points out in his significant book White Walls, Designer Dresses, that, in L’art décorative d’aujourd’hui, Le Corbusier condemns and eliminates the superfluous, inessential surplus that is decoration and reactivates the white wall in an attempt to credit it with a trans-historical status and liberate a new visual order that gestures a civilized society.[21] Like Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion, Bohemian-born Swiss historian and critic and active secretary of C.I.A.M (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) condemned stylistic eclecticism and described modern architecture as “the effect of an ethical refusal of the seductions of fashionable clothing”.[22] However, by investing everything in the surface that is the white wall, the architecture becomes exposed to the degenerate potential of the surface that modern architecture is meant to stand against – drifting somewhere between the fickle world of fashion and the permanence of art, architecture was to be disciplined against the dangers posed by its very means of operation.[23] The white wall was meant to simultaneously be up-to-date, timeless and precede fashion, but in the end, modern architecture cannot help but participate in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 54.

20 Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture, 52.

21 Ibid., 2.

22 Ibid., 39.

23 Ibid., 36.

19

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FIT the economies from which it so loudly announces its detachment.[24] By sustaining the logic of clothing to communicate the principles and virtues of this new architecture, the internal contradictions sourced the point of vulnerability of the white wall.[25] According to Wigley, Vers une architecture is arguably architecture’s most influential manifesto. For Le Corbusier, clothing is a superfluous accessory added to the body of architecture that is dictated by the latest fashion, and irresponsibly so. Buildings are also subjected to this seasonal mentality of fashion because “architects work in ‘styles’ or discuss questions of structure in and out of season.”[26] However, with the relentless emergence of new technologies, the old clothes or ‘styles’ no longer fit the body of structure, “construction has undergone innovations so great that the old ‘styles,’ which still obsess us, can no longer clothe it; the materials employed evade the attentions of the decorative artist.”[27] He strived for “the return of the transcultural and transhistorical truth” associated with the architecture of ancient Greece, “What I seek to fathom is its deeper, its constructive sense. Is not this the essence, the very purpose of architecture?

Differences of style, the trivialities [frivolités] of passing fashion, which are only illusions or masquerades, do not concern me.”[28] Le Corbusier goes on to say that his work was proceeding while “the architects of all countries were still busy decorating …with or without the direct application of ornament.”[29] The crime of the “architect-as-decorator” is not simply adorning architecture with aesthetic fantasies and fashionable Ibid., xviii.

Ibid., xxi.

26 Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture (Paris: Editions Cres, 1923). Translated by Frederick Etchells as Towards a New Architecture (London: John Rodker, 1931), 17, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 37.

27 Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture (Paris: Editions Cres, 1923). Translated by Frederick Etchells as Towards a New Architecture (London: John Rodker, 1931), 286, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 37.

28 Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complete 1910-29 (Zurich:Girsberger, 1929), 11, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 38.

29 Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complete 1910-29 (Zurich:Girsberger, 1929), 11, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 38.

24 25

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| Chapter 1 gimmicks, but rendering architecture decorative by making it “subservient to the fickle sensibility of fashion rather than fixed standards like those offered by the new means of industrialized production.”[30] Fashion becomes the greatest danger of ornament, an “instability of the surface that effaces the ancient sense of order” and extreme case of the “mere” decoration against which architecture must preemptively discipline and defend itself against the insidious phenomenon that is fashion.[31] In Teorie e storia dell’architettura (Theories and histories of architecture), Manfredo Tafuri identifies fashion in a pejorative manner: “One cannot sufficiently condemn the naïve or snobbish attempt to read historical phenomena by ‘present’ yardsticks of those, who, for the sake of feeling ‘alive’ and up-to-date, reduce critical transvaluation to exhibitionism and fashion.”[32] However, while opposing history and fashion in this way, Tafuri later acknowledges that fashion has its own history: “The proliferation of studies on the semantics and semiology of architecture is due not only to a snobbish keeping up with the current linguistic vogue: every snobbism, anyway, derives its reasons from historical events, and the snobbisms of architectural culture do not escape this rule.”[33] Simply put, it can be said that fashion is everywhere.

Fashion is boundless, pervasive and omnipresent. No discourse can evade or be impervious to the realm of fashion. The clash between fashion and architecture is substantially obvious – fashion is characterized by rapid Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture, 38.

31 Ibid., 38-39.

32 Manfredo Tafuri, Theories and Histories of Architecture, translated by Giorgio Verrechia (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 169, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 54.

33 Manfredo Tafuri, Theories and Histories of Architecture, translated by Giorgio Verrechia (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 174, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 371.

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Chapter 1| temporality and neophilia, which is incongruent to the substantive and monumental qualities of architecture.

However, the consolidation of these disciplinary boundaries has potential to create exciting developments and offer some insight into the ways in which we understand and inhabit spaces. The theorizing across disciplines or evasion of subject-specific boxes does not imply dilution of significance but is said to more rather, reveal unexpected mutual effect and offer transformative or alternative dominant consumer culture.[34] In Spectacle and Its Discontents; or, The Elusive Joys of Architainment, Luis Fernández-Galiano argues that highbrow architecture has been replaced by contemporary designs that serve the taste of the mass and global culture.[35] Architecture has been seen as a discipline that yearned for permanence, but more recently its image plays the game of fashion in which its “only rule is that today’s big thing is tomorrow’s big yawn”.[36] The metastasis of a new architecture is spreading globally with only a representation of gravitas on the surface conveying nostalgia for materiality than its physical nature. In our world of political and economic freedom, we live under the sovereign rule of the consumer in which the built environment rides the tidal wave of mass taste resulting in architainment – the trivialized and thematized panorama of McVillas and McBuildings. As much as it is disdained as “the prophets of doom”, it is also regarded as “the princes of the market” – architainment is here to stay.[37] Herzog & de Meuron’s Dominus Winery in Napa Valley exhibits refined rigor and exceptional detailing where the light and air filters through the lattice walls and Peter Zumthor’s Baths at Vals is a geometric labyrinth of layered gneiss stone, a visual delight that echoes the beauty of water in the luminous cavern.[38] However both buildings had yielded to the public’s voracity for images. The winery was featured on the cover of New York Times Magazine as a backdrop for men’s clothes, and the baths were used in Wallpaper as a setting for the display of fashion.[39]

Louise, Crewe, “Wear: where? The convergent geographies of architecture and fashion” (University of Nottingham, 2010) 35 Luis Fernandez-Galiano, “Spectacle and Its Discontents; or, The Elusive Joys of Architainment.” in Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture, ed. by William S. Saunders (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 2.

36 Luis Fernandez-Galiano, “Spectacle and Its Discontents; or, The Elusive Joys of Architainment.” 5.

37 Ibid., 2.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

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FIT Buildings that imbue gravitas, tactility and materiality are quick to become spectacles. However, Kelley claims that we designers don’t produce what people need; we produce what people want. It is not immoral to buy things to satisfy your wants or your guilty pleasures: “People enjoy the experience of buying, sometimes more than having the products themselves, because the moment of buying is one of enthusiastic fantasy and escape.”[40] Retail environments can profoundly affect consumer perception and behaviour and this realization is compelling advertising and marketing agencies to acquire architecture firms to build these three-dimensional consumer experiences. “Until we architects begin to think like capitalists, these agencies will continue to take work we could have.

For them design is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Nevertheless, even instrumental design can be appreciated as design: we all enjoy well-crafted, witty, and beautiful ads.”[41] To succeed in today’s corporatedriven world, architects need to provide design expertise and also strategic business consulting, branding, marketing and advertising. In retail planning and design, the architects need to incorporate psychology, sociology, anthropology, advertising and marketing positioning in order to understand the client within the context of their industries, corporate cultures, brands and consumers’ minds. Only after acquiring this knowledge can we create successful branding environments for the retailers.

As Neil Bingham argues, “The skeptical opinion is that today’s collaboration of architects with fashion and fashion powerhouses is nothing but a travesty, a commercial sell-out, the brainwashing of branding”, that fashion is sponging off the high credentials of architecture to be used as propaganda.[42] However the more widely held view is that fashion and architecture explore common territories. Gianfranco Ferré, a fashion designer and qualified architect says, “Architecture is basically a discipline that is poised delicately between creative flair and method, between intention and logic. Clothing… is textile architecture that has been designed for the human body, which brings the garments to life.”[43] Kevin Ervin Kelley, “Architecture for Sale(s): An Unabashed Apologia,” in Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture, ed. by William S. Saunders (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 49.

41 Kelley, “Architecture for Sale(s): An Unabashed Apologia.” 51.

42 Bingham, Neil, New boutique : fashion and design (London: Merrell Publishers, 2005), 21.

43 Bingham, New boutique : fashion and design, 21.

40

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FIT The argument between fashion and architecture is tangled and folded over on itself in a series of knots and this convolution itself is what provides the frame of the discourse in this thesis. Their relationship is entwined with broader theoretical and political debates about branding, design, commodification and consumption and its alliance has the potential to become “a vehicle to seamlessly meld design, branding, signature, and corporate commercialization into a mediatized, promotional selling machine driven by celebrity designers and archistars.”[44] Intertwined in the focus of wrapping, revealing, sheltering and protecting the body, both disciplines of architecture and fashion become the second and third skin of the body: the mediating layer between others and the environment. The convergent vocabulary and practices of fashion and architecture scrutinize notions of temporality, space, form, fit, interactivity and mobility. The juxtaposition of these two disciplines reveals the limits and possibilities of materiality and recast a physical and metaphorical space through which the politics of consumer culture and commodification will be revised.

Louise, Crewe, “Wear: where? The convergent geographies of architecture and fashion” (University of Nottingham, 2010) 44

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| Chapter 1

Chapter 1 |

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Fig. 10. Architectural Document - Givenchy

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••Blog Entry #03••••••••••••••••••••••••

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“All I want for Christmas is…

Alexander Wang” Today is Monday 24th November 2014… it means one month before Christmas Eve… and exactly one week before the unofficially official initiation of the holiday season. Per usual, this is the time to start stressing about Christmas gift ideas for your loved ones, including yourself. If you have outrageously picky, critical, demanding, difficult, high maintenance, and downright painstakingly fastidious friends like me, then you know some bamboozling and flustering times are ahead. I don’t think being selective is necessarily bad. It’s good to be assertive in knowing what you want.

Wouldn’t you say so? Apparently, according to some, I am exceptionally over-particular…. well, maybe, sometimes I can be a little bit fussy. Since it’s the crux of the holiday season, I’ll share with you a short story. It’s not a salient Thanksgiving memory but it involves the spirit of gift giving and perhaps a time for me to reflect on my … idiosyncrasies.

Not too long ago, November 6th, to be exact, the Alexander Wang x H&M collection was released. Let’s just say that this was a pivotal point in the year of 2014. If you are unsure about this historical moment in time, perhaps it would be a good idea to google it, or better yet, go here ››››› http:// wangxhmlive.hm.com/ and watch a video of the live fashion show. (I’m not that demanding, it’s just a suggestion!) Since the collaboration was announced in April, I have been keeping tabs on sneak peeks, teasers, ad campaign previews, etc. The release date this collaboration was the day after my crit, so in my mind, the gods have aligned the stars so I can be a part of this once in a life time opportunity, right?

That’s how I understood it. But, since I live in the home of the wonderfully remarkable Middle-earth, also meaning the country that’s separated and disconnected from the rest of the world … I could not shop at H&M IRL (in real life) because there is no H&M in New Zealand! Not to worry though, because there is a phenomenal invention called the Internet and online shopping (H&M doesn’t ship to New Zealand, but Stan lives in New York and he’s got my back!).

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Fig. 11. Alexander Wang x H&M sports bra

Fig. 12. Alexander Wang x H&M mesh top

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In London and New York, it was reported that customers were camping overnight outside of H&M stores. Note that these stalwart devotees queued for hours in the freezing winter month of November. But to take that one step further, in Singapore, there were customers that started queuing a full 48 hours ahead of the launch. How silly and naïve of me to think that I would be lucky enough to get my hands on even one item online whilst competing with these kind of unrelenting and indefatigable creatures. I’m a budgetconscious fashionista, not an animal. I shop for pleasure and I certainly am not one to sharpen my elbows. Needless to say, the H&M website crashed from the heavy traffic and the whole collection was sold out. Without further ado, the much-coveted items were being sold on eBay for more than £500. Crafty bastards. (Unless it’s the result of buyer’s remorse – better luck next time?)

Fig. 13. The most heartbreaking notification I have ever received from a computer.

I guess when you shed (very real) tears of sorrow from missing out on the chance to own a small piece of an extension to Alexander’s creative genius (we’re on a first name basis because him and I are spiritually close) … you could say I’m suffering from Alexander Fever. For the past ten years, there have been thirteen collaborations in total – Karl Lagerfeld (Nov 2004), Stella McCartney (Nov 2005), Viktor and Rolf (Nov 2006), Roberto Cavalli (Nov 2007), Comme des Garcons (Nov 2008), Matthew Williamson (April/May 2009), Jimmy Choo (Nov 2009), Lanvin (Nov 2010), Versace (Nov 2011 and Jan 2012), Marni (March 2012), Maison Martin Margiela (Nov 2012), Isabel Marant (Nov 2013), Alexander Wang (Nov 2014). At these times, H&M does not stand for Hennes & Mauritz AB, it stands for “Hysteria & Mayhem”. They have revolutionized the high-street fashion game. Although major design corners

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Fig. 14. Alexander Wang x H&M Fashion show

Fig. 15. Alexander Wang x H&M Fashion show

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| Chatting with Chatty Chung

are cut (referring to glue and polyester. Ew.), it provides a satisfying hit of high-octane high fashion design. “The days when designers could lose their jobs because they were linked to a collection for an inexpensive brand are over… H&M has made inexpensive desirable,” says Karl Lagerfeld.[45] That explains the furor over H&M’s high-low collaborations.

Owning a piece that is specked with a designer’s name is exhilarating. What’s the one thing that keeps us from having a wardrobe full of that A-Class stuff? Money. Price is key.

Albeit the epithet “For H&M”, it still provides real fashion for the everyman and everywoman and their standard everyperson’s wallet.

“H&M is fashion at its most democratic.”

– Viktor and Rolf My chances of being united with an Alexander piece are as slim as butter paper. All I can do now is wait for the next collaboration in November 2015 and hope that I befriend someone who has a solid foot in the door of fashion.

Whoever H&M collaborates with next, I’m sure I’ll be lapping it up, and even if only for two frenzied days, I’ll be convinced that I need a piece of it.

Sincerly Sophie Alexander Fury, “H&M’s 10 years of high street cred: The retailer’s link-ups with designers such as Alexander Wang have revolutionised the fashion industry,” The Independent, accessed November 24, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/ life-style/fashion/features/hms-10-years-of-high-street-cred-theretailers-linkups-with-designers-such-as-alexander-wang-haverevolutionised-the-fashion-industry-9842405.html 45

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Fig. 16. Alexander Wang running and applauding after his fashion show.

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Chapter 2 |

Chapter 2:

Precedents On the night of 5th December 2013, the Architecture Foundation held its fifth John Edwards Lecture at the Tate Modern’s Starr Auditorium: an annual transdisciplinary meeting of minds in which Peter Marino and Marc Jacobs conversed about architecture and fashion. The following chapter revolves wholly around this lecture as it provides a very rare and relatively public dialogue between two prestigious panjandrums.

They have done so much, not only in their respected fields of architecture and fashion design, but have also influenced the way we shop, dress and socialize in the many international cities in which they work and we live.

They discussed style, desire, design, the nature of luxury brand retailing and the territories in which fashion and architecture interlink, dissolve and diverge. The lecture provided an opportunity to unpack and understand, in a broader sense, a reflection of the enormous wealth of interests that thread throughout both of their creative lives. It is available for viewing at the Tate website.

Penny Martin, the editor-in-chief of The Gentlewoman, chaired the conversation, covering their respective fields and the intersection between the two. Peter Marino, a multi-award-winning New York City-based architect is the principal of Peter Marino Architect PLLC, founded in 1978. Most well known in the retail sector, he has helped redefine and own the field of contemporary luxury worldwide by dissolving the borders between commerce and art. Marino’s most notable clients are the iconic luxury fashion houses Chanel and Louis Vuitton in which Marino collaborated with Marc Jacobs in the latter brand. For the past twenty years, Jacobs has consistently anticipated and nailed exactly what women want to wear and how they want to be seen. From the two-pound distinctly marked Marc by Marc Jacobs key rings to his opulently embellished overcoats, Jacobs has created a total universe of charactable, desirable, femininity that is recognizable in each of his campaigns.

Within ten years of his appointment at Louis Vuitton, Jacobs had quadrupled Louis Vuitton’s profits, turning what was solely a luggage firm into a global fashion powerhouse that it is today.[46] 46

“John Edwards Lecture Series: Peter Marino and Marc Jacobs,”

His 16-year tenure with Louis Vuitton ended in October 2013 and has been replaced by Nicolas Ghesquière, the previous creative director of Balenciaga of 15 years.

In the video of the lecture at the Tate Modern, Peter Marino took to the podium dressed in his signature black bondage leathers, his hair shaved into a sharp Mohican, showing off his serpent ink work on his right upper arm. In his earlier years, Marino claims to have worn conventional and comparatively timid clothing such as suits and tweeds, but now, he looks like a cross between Mad Max and a modern version of the Village People Biker. During the lecture, Marino presented a brief chronological slide show of an assortment of his works including residential, large-scale design competitions, hotels and of course, retail projects.

Seven years ago, Marino exclusively worked on private residential projects, catering to a select crowd, that of “Swiss bankers and Dutch Hedge fund Operators” and it was noted that his designs are “obviously not for poor people”.[47] (Refer to Appendix A for information on Peter Marino’s work) Marino currently boasts seven flagships on New Bond Street in London, including Chanel, Dior, Vuitton and Graff Diamonds.

Marino deems Chanel to be a company that is very “forward-thinking” and a “very big patrons of the arts.”

[48] In the interest of brevity, this chapter will refer to a small selection of Chanel stores out of his prolific manifolds of retail works. Also, as Marino has worked for Chanel for twenty years, and because “Chanel is Chanel”, it seems logical to discuss the following slivers of his enterprise and as a result, will aid in the understanding of our moral obligation to consume.

47

Peter Marino, interview by Penny Martin, December 5, 2013,

Tate, accessed September 17, 2014, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-

Tate Modern Museum, London.

modern/talks-and-lectures/john-edwards-lecture-series-peter-marino-and-

48

marc-jacobs

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Peter Marino, interview.

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| Chapter 2

Fig. 17. Chanel, Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 2008. Photos by Paul Warchol.

Robert Green’s paintings are literally all over the interior plaster walls, as frescos, of the Los Angeles Chanel boutique, winning the AIA New York State Award of Merit for Design in 2009 and also the AIA New York

Fig. 18. Chanel, Beverly Hills, California, 2007. Photos by Martin Mueller Marino commissioned Italian artist Paola Pivi, who makes pearls, which is one of the icons of Chanel and also, a video artist Emily Weil. This store has become the new focus on Rodeo Drive and has since been dubbed “the Madison Avenue of Beverly Hills”.[49]

49

Jeanne Lawrence, “Chanel unveils newly-redesigned flagship in Beverly Hills,” New York Social Diary, accessed September 18,

2014, http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/across-the-nationacross-the-world/2007/la-social-diary

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During his presentation at the Tate Modern, Marino showed a short clip of a model walking down the runway wearing the signature monochrome Chanel tweed jacket in order to demonstrate his design process.

He says, “This is how we work. This is how we conceive buildings. I go to fashion shows all the time. I look at designers’ products and I take inspiration from what the fashion designer does.”[50] Zooming in on the detail of the weaving pattern, it morphs into a graphic version that becomes the latticed façade of the Chanel Ginza tower in Tokyo, Japan (figure 19.) Over 600,000 light LED diodes twinkle day and night, serving as a lighting source, a communication medium for commissioned artistic imagery and of course, promotional objectives.

This project received the New York Section Illuminating Engineering Society Lumen Professional Achievement Award in 2006, the International Association of Lighting Designers Special Citation 2006 and the AIA New York State Citation for Design 2005. This ambitious concept employed solar-control glazing and optical materials in a triple glazed wall system with integrated white LEDS and electro-chromic glass, which changes in opacity depending on the applied current.[51] During the day, the double layer of grey-tinted Low-E laminated glass provides solar control and during the night, with privacy glass switched on, the façade becomes a huge monochrome backlit screen.

“With part of this lecture, I hope the point comes out how closely I watch what fashion designers do,” Marino asserts his direct approach in referencing the designers’ creations.[52] He also communicates how he feels “refreshed by the energy” in the open-minded attitude that Asia has for the potential of the buildings’ form and aesthetics. He claims, “Tokyo for architects is Nirvana.

It’s Mecca. It is heaven - because the contractors there bend over backwards to make beautiful buildings and to make you happy. Europe and the States do not have this attitude on the part of most contractors. I’m sad to say the contractors are really in it for the money.”[53] The immensity in the flow of funds in the fashion industry is absolutely mind-boggling. Marino says, “It’s difficult to imagine raising the bar much higher. I have astounding budgets. It’s a challenge to make the shopping experience better and better and better for the customer but the feedback is so positive that is seems to be paying off. It is a fact that all of these brands have become big business.

50

Marino, Interview.

51

C.C. Sullivan, “Retail Projects: Chanel Ginza, Tokyo,”

Architectural Lighting, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www. archlighting.com/retail-projects/chanel-ginza--tokyo.aspx.

52

Marino, Interview.

53

Marino, Interview.

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Fig. 19. Chanel, Ginza District, Tokyo, Japan, 2004.

Photos by Vincent Knapp.

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Introduction |

Fig. 20. Chanel, New Bond Street, London, 2013.

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FIT They are bigger than US Steel. It’s crazy. It’s a different game.”[54] Although it may appear unethically avaricious, it is apparent that future business for architecture lies in the mercenary world of hedonistic sybarites.

The new grand Chanel flagship boutique in New Bond Street, spanning 12,600 square-feet is the largest Chanel shop in the world to date.[55] The whole building was built to historic standards but they definitely shook it up inside. The 63-feet-high sculpture by Jean-Michel Othoniel plays on the strands of Coco Chanel’s pearls.

Made from hand-blown Venetian glass and German steel from Gundelfingen, this beautiful centrepiece is a massive undertaking engineering wise, suspended from the ceiling over three storeys (fig. 20.). He commissioned 25 artists to create pieces for this Chanel store adding to the homely feel of the boutique. Each section is divided into separate rooms, featuring coffee tables adorned with Chanel books, fireplaces, plush carpets and unique décor of the boutique and the detailing is of course, immaculate.[56] The curtains feature hand-stitched pearls and real crystal chandeliers. The glass and mirrored walls feature gold ribbon encased within, which is an original feature devised by Coco Chanel and her collection of Coromandel screens. Each piece of furniture has been custom made for the store: the tweed chairs, the handbag bar, recliners and sofas.[57] During the lecture, it became clear that Marino is instrumental in conceiving the most decadent architecture for high-flying brands. Although he went to college like any other architect and didn’t learn specifically about retail, he was brought in to the retail world because “the private homes I designed were very, very, very, high quality… I’ve ridden a rising tide of the luxury brands wanting to give the customer the idea that ‘you see this shop which is luxurious, hand-made and with incredible finishes? – So is our product’. It never existed before, nobody cared.”[58] He truly conveys the essence of what a luxury product is – it is not something that the Chinese sewing machine has knocked out but a Chanel handbag that has been hand made in France.

Marino is indubitably, not inconspicuous. He is controversial and some might say, shallow, in his thinking. He says, “I’m the only architect who is not 54

Marino, Interview.

55

Sarah Karmali, “Inside Chanel’s New London Flagship,” Vogue,

chanel-london-flagship---new-bond-street---largest-chanel-boutique-store.

Sarah Karmali, “Inside Chanel’s New London Flagship.”

57

Ibid.

58

Marino, Interview.

afraid of the word pretty. Architects shudder when you use that word. We’re supposed to be more intellectually elevated. I think of it as a compliment.”[59] Without being as public as the projects of starchitects, his work is just as ground-breaking. He constructs spaces that are visually extraordinary. If you want something comfy and white or in his words, “shabby chic” – he is not the right person for you.[60] He is an avid artist and self-confessed obsessive-compulsive collector of artwork, rare French books, American silver, 18th century French furniture, modern paintings and 19th-century ceramics. Marino works with the troika of art, architecture and fashion.

Fig. 21. Peter Marino and Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs and Peter Marino have been instrumental in building Louis Vuitton’s international profile as a luxury brand – “Both Marc and I were appointed in the 1990s when Louis Vuitton was worth around 800 million dollars. Now it’s worth something like 11 billion dollars.”[61] This gives a good idea of the trajectory but looking at the statistics, between 2006-2012, Louis Vuitton was named the world’s most valuable luxury brand with a 2012 valuation of an impressive 25.9 billion USD.[62] Ingrid Abramovitch, “Unconventional Wisdom: Peter Marino on the art of luxury”.

60 Ibid.

61 Marino, Interview.

62 Johanna Agerman Ross, “Marc Jacobs and Peter Marino in conversation,” Disegno Daily, accessed September 22, 2014, http://disegnodaily.com/news/marc-jacobs-andpeter-marino-in-conversation 59

accessed September 22, 2014, http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2013/06/10/ 56

| Chapter 2

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Since leaving Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs expresses a somewhat candid nervousness about focussing solely on his eponymous brand, “I’m a little scared, I mean, it wouldn’t be me if I sat here and pretended to be super confident about everything.

On a good day I believe it’s going to be amazing and on a bad day I think I need that other place to hide.”[63] The dialogue at the John Edwards Lecture was incredibly fascinating as it gave the opportunity for the public to gain a tiny glimpse into the workings of the ingenuity of these two contemporary designers.

Fig. 22. Cindy Sherman and Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs Campaign

The catalyst for what constantly gives him inspiration is the work of other artists and collaborating with people who express their creative vision in different mediums – be it architecture, or film, or contemporary art.[64] Cindy Sherman collaborated with Marc Jacobs on a campaign on the condition that she would do it as if she was doing her own artwork (fig. 22). As the photograph of Cindy Sherman and Juergen Teller shows, it wasn’t the most commercial campaign that one in fashion would normally produce because very few people want to look like them when they spend large sums of money. The art dealer Barbara Gladstone said, “The ads are really for people who get it, and I think Marc and Juergen happily dispense with those who don’t.” Marc Jacobs doesn’t need to justify his ads, they are original narratives that are inspirational and provocative, and I guess you just have to let the judgmental people make their judgments.

.

63

Jacobs, Interview.

64

Jacobs, interview.

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Marc Jacob’s talks about his all time favourite work of art – Marcel Duchamp’s 1919 readymade of the black and white postcard reproduction of Mona Lisa. Defaced by a moustache and beard with the appended title L.H.O.O.Q., the title sounds like “Elle a chaud au cul” meaning “She has a hot ass”, it also makes reference to the vulgar expression “avoir chaud au cul” implying sexual restlessness. As an objet trouvé, it adheres to his penchant for transforming and elevating the mundane and utilitarian objects to a position of high art in a Duchampian way. Employing this method, Jacobs collaborated with Richard Prince in 2008. Prince’s iconic nurses came to life on the Paris runway creating ‘Louis Vuitton after dark’ (fig. 23). His Joke painting texts were on the side panels of the handbags with snakeskin handles and the Louis Vuitton monogram was scaled, woven into denim, embroidered onto multicolored fabric, printed on vinyl and expanded exponentially.[65]

| Introduction

Fig. 23. Richard Prince Collaboration with Louis Vuitton, 2008.

This appropriation echoes the mannerisms of collage.

The merging of objects with the rich layering of materials produced a fantastically ironic and playful concoction of the two genres. The designer became an artist and the artist became a designer.

Fig. 24. L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp, 1919

65

Hannah Cohn, “The 50 Best Artist Collaborations in Fashion,”

Complex, accessed September 23, 2014, http://www.complex.com/ style/2013/04/the-50-best-artist-collaborations-in-fashion/

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For the Fall-Winter 2012-2013 Paris fashion show, Louis Vuitton’s locomotive and train station was built in Cour Carée du Louvre creating a huge Vincente Minnelli spectacle of a stage. Jacobs thought that a permanent porter following you around and carrying your things would convey ultimate luxury.[66] Therefore, all 50 models in the show each had a short and masculine porter carrying the bags for her. For the campaign, the aim was to convey the idea of a journey and exude the ambiance of the distant romantic glamour of travel, which was evoked in the fashion show.[67] (fig.

25) Ten models were cast as the role of travellers to be photographed by Steven Miesel. The opulence of the brocades and the embellished jewel buttons on the beautiful A-line cuts of the suits with the iconic

years.[69] Jacobs words are incredibly inspirational as he feels that fashion is alive and moving and should be experienced in that way, “I don’t ever think of fashion as art. But I do think of it as part of the art of living…

I think a room is beautiful when people inhabit it. You can look at something, the pure form of the building but if that retail store isn’t alive with people and if those dresses hanging in that store aren’t being tried on in dressing rooms and left to sort of roll around on a curb after a party or taken off in a fancy bedroom by some guy, I don’t understand the point of them. So seeing a dress nicely displayed in a museum, it’s not alive.”[70]

Jacobs, interview.

67 Jacobs, interview.

68 Bengt Enrique, “Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign, ILVOELV, accessed September 23, 2014, http:// www.ilvoelv.com/2012/07/louis-vuitton-fallwinter-2012-adcampaign.html

69

From looking into the cognitive thinking of these two visionaries, it is proven that fashion when in collaboration with other creative people who express themselves in a different creative medium such as artists, architects, musicians, film directors and photographers, this love for superficiality can become a dramatic spectacle that transcends itself into something new, remarkable, magnificent and unforgettable. Fashion itself undergoes a cyclical rhythm in which 6 months of preparation is over in 7-9 minutes of spectacular theatre followed up by production, merchandising and campaigning.

If I have learnt anything from these two creatives, it is to trust your Fig. 25. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign. Photos by Steve Miesel. instincts – Success can be signified Monogram canvas luggage were true to the heritage through financial returns, however, it is only a successful of Louis Vuitton. It showcased the new Monogramfailure when you can’t sleep at night because you’re sequined Wooly Paillettes, the black and white Leopard, ashamed of what you’ve done. This humbling comment and the spectacular jewel buckle and dip-dyed goat from Marc Jacobs is what, I feel, encapsulates this thesis, hair Transsibérien hand bag. He says, “As opulently in a very candid manner, “We don’t need fashion, we dressed as the girls are, there is a lightness and a magic don’t need beautiful buildings with amazingly inspired to everything this season – and that is reflected perfectly facades and gorgeous marble floors. We need clothe to in these images.”[68] It was an exceptionally massive cover our body we need bread and water to eat and we production, and it marked his distaste for the display of need a place to live. But we want so much more. And fashion in museums. the world would be an awful place if we didn’t have so much more.”[71] The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris mounted a show to exhibit and compare Louis Vuitton, the man who invented the trunks and bags who is “basically famous for packing clothes”, and also Jacobs work over the

66

70 71

28

Jacobs, Interview.

Jacobs, Interview.

Jacobs, Interview.

Figure. 26. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign. Photos by Steve Miesel.

Figure. 27. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign. Photos by Steve Miesel.

FIT

Chatting with Chatty Chung |

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CHATTING with CHATTY CHUNG rative

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••Blog Entry #04••••••••••••••••••••••••

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“I defend the proliferation of technology”

A

ndrew O’Hagan, you angel(ou) and contrarian. Thank you for writing so accurately.

For the most recent issue of T Magazine, O’Hagan argues that being attached to one’s iPhone is a “godsend”. Quite a controversial approach to the nostalgists who believe that (bits of) humanity have been lost.

What is this nostalgia that my dad talks about? Walking home for miles in the freezing cold and getting frostbite on his toes to pocket his bus fare... nostalgia?

Heaving a huge watermelon up to the top of a giant hill so he could eat it all by himself to prevent sharing with his numerous siblings… nostalgia? And, (oh my god)… hacky sack? (WTAF, I wouldn’t be seen dead playing hacky sack.) Or, how my mum had an exceptional talent for memorizing phone numbers… Cool, mum.

That’s awesome. I’m from 1991, and I can tell you right now that life is better today.

I can’t even imagine living in the 1960’s.

They say in their invented memories that they were happy to have nothing, living on their wits and basic necessities… I’m sorry what? Basic necessities? The idea makes me want to heave. My seven-year-old cousin has a smartphone. A smartphone is now a Fig. 28. “You Autocomplete Me ... or Are You necessity. My life would have been infinitely Taking Over?” by Kowalskivision improved if I had a smartphone when I was younger. I don’t even remember how I used to meet up with friends. Did I use a landline? What if someone was late? ‘Punctual’ would have been a necessary character trait. Seems that ‘nostalgia’ is stronger when you’re longing for something you don’t actually miss.

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| Chatting with Chatty Chung

I believe in progress. I believe in the future. I remember the boring, fallow childhood watching cartoons and waiting for the Internet. I remember, during my trip to Vietnam, I would use proxy sites to access Facebook. But on my Hạ Long Bay cruise, (excuse the cliché) I was one with nature.

Provincialism is dead: unless you’re literally in the middle of nowhere. I experienced provincialism at its core when I was staying in Wainui. How? No reception. Might as well throw your phone in the pond because you don’t want the sheep to chew and choke on it. #countrylife Life is better; life is more convenient, but people get lazy.

Now, patience is really a virtue and an endeavoring attitude is rare. Fluttering your fingers over a keyboard, any time of day or night, at your own leisure can let you order food, furniture, clothes, groceries, a taxi and also information.

Spirituality? You can also bridge that gap online. Within this high-speed way of living, knowledge is imparted and the world becomes more aware and democratic.

I remember the days when I used to shop for a long and arduous five hours. That was surely a work out. Although that brick and mortar experience was fun, when you’re busy and running short on time, sometimes it helps to have the option of flicking through online and buying something you need within minutes. Time is money and you just saved a decent amount. Three hours later, while you’ve been showering, doing your makeup and making lunch. You’re outfit’s been express delivered to your door.

I don’t see anyone regretting the invention of refrigerators, so why complain about the invention of the Internet? Anything that is good can be abused. (Although, refrigerators have no downside apart from murderers having one less place to store their dead bodies.) The Internet can also be abused. Is it a blessing or a curse? At the end of the day it’s a framework for living today. The prevalence and growth of technology is a blessing and also inevitable. So why treat it as a dirty concept?

Sincerly Sophie

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Fig. 29. Screenshot of my instagram post

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Chapter 3 |

Chapter 3:

Methodology 3.1 A brief discussion on collage According to Juhani Pallasmaa, collage invigorates the experience of tactility and time.[72] Through the employment of collage as a design technique in my thesis, architectural assemblages will be created to interrogate spatial and material possibilities. In Collage and Architecture, Shields offers a survey of collage methodologies used by various artists and architects to illustrate the diversity and versatility in collage as an instrument for analysis and design that can be adapted into this thesis. Her analysis of collage informs the methodology of this thesis and shapes the discussion below. (Refer to Appendix C for a brief introduction on the historical framework of collage) In Intertwining, Steven Holl shows the correlative nature between architecture and Cubist collage: “The merging of object and field yields an enmeshed experience, an interaction that is particular to architecture. Unlike painting or sculpture from which one can turn away, unlike music or film that one can turn off, architecture surrounds us. It promises intimate contact with shifting, changing, merging materials, textures, colors, and light in an intertwining of flat and deep threedimensional parallactical space and time.”[73] Shields uses German philosopher Martin Heidegger to posit theories of the perception of space in terms of fragmentation and the interrelationship of space and time, asserting that humans understand things in terms of context and not as separate, self-contained objects.[74] Juhani Pallasmaa, “Hapticity and Time: Notes on Fragile Architecture.” The Architectural Review (May, 2000):” 80.

73 Steven Holl, Intertwining (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 12.

74 Shields, Collage and Architecture, 27.

72

Space is relative to subjective and personal experience.

Here, Shield emphasizes the importance of understanding the architectural ‘ground’ as a “richly layered physical and cultural construct” rather than a space that is enclosed by logical or systematic “politically imposed boundaries.”[75] These boundaries can be physical; for example, a wall, or it can be vague such as a horizon, which is an imprecise, and vague threshold created in our minds.[76] The process of abstraction, fragmentation, aggregation and synthesis in the making of Cubist collage is correlative to that of architecture. According to Colin Rowe, in Le Corbusier’s work, much like the Cubist compositions, “The figure is simultaneously static and set in motion. There is the primary surface of attack, the frontal picture plane, and then, there is the convoluted and serpentine territory which lies behind.”[77] Other architects in the Modernist canon have utilized the collage techniques of Cubists in their architectural work. This is conceptually tied to the fragmented forms, simultaneity, figure/ground reversal, phenomenal transparency, and multiple perspectives.[78] (Refer to Appendix D.) Collage-drawing is a sub-set of collage in which fragments of colour, texture and image are combined with line to exploit the canvas as a potentially infinite, three-dimensional space.[79] The general intention for using this dichotomy is to ‘construct’ a sense of geometric order or social order via formal means or narrative means, respectively, and therefore, framing utopic or dystopic conditions.[80] The addition of media such as charcoal or pencil in conjunction with photographs and pasted paper creates lines, which Shields, Collage and Architecture, 27.

Shields, Collage and Architecture, 27.

77 Colin Rowe, “The provocative façade: frontality and contrapposto,” in Le Corbusier Architect of the Century (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1987), 26.

78 Shields, Collage and Architecture, 11.

79 Shields, Collage and Architecture, 63.

80 Shields, Collage and Architecture, 63.

75 76

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“Collage challenges the notion of architecture as a synthetic construct - a mixture of various creative disciplines.

The idea of achieving such a synthesis by a hollow manipulation of heterogeneous elements can result only in ‘synthetic flaws’. Architecture cannot compete with film, total theater, technology, psychology, or sociology, to achieve relevance. By drawing from these motley disciplines it constructs only hybrid conglomerations without integral syntactic necessity or organic unity. The expedient definition of architecture as a ‘total environmental system’ is popular among designers, users, producers, critics, etc., because it allows the concurrence of all these points of view without provoking a conflict between them. The theory that architecture is a synthesis along Wagner’s theory of the theater, allows and in turn justifies, the complete exploitation of any devise; be it plastic, programmatic, or technical, in order to achieve a superficial stimulation of our sensibilities. In this way the accidental and arbitrary parade in the guise of a new methodology... The analytic approach, devoid of multiple means, limited to the existing materials, determined by historical realities, can fashion a new framework for concepts and ideas by releasing us from the determinism in both syntactic and semantic domains.”[82]

Shields, Collage and Architecture, 63.

John Hejduk, Education of an Architect: The Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, 1964-1971 (New York: Cooper Union, 1971), 280.

Libeskind’s formal language stems from his education at Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture – his work highly demonstrates experimentation with the construction and deconstruction of geometric order. He uses collage-drawings that are highly influenced by architects from the De Stijl and Constructivist architects in which-h overlaid grids become the basic framework where upon other geometries are further overlaid. This strategy in the construction of his collages creates an accumulation of physical materials but also of history and narrative that can be later unfolded in the future.

81 82

35

Fig. 30. PRADA Real Fantasies Spring/Summer 2013 by OMA.

establishes depth and collapses the space common to the Cubist papiers colles compositions.[81] Daniel Libeskind, an American architect and educator, postulates the following about collage:

Chapter 3 |

FIT

Fig. 31. PRADA Real Fantasies Spring/Summer 2013 by OMA.

AMO, the counterpart to OMA’s architectural practice operates in areas beyond the traditional boundaries of architecture – this includes media, politics, sociology, renewable energy, technology, fashion, curating, publishing and graphic design.[83] It is a research studio that is heavily involved in generating in-store technology and content-production in fashion. AMO is most notable for their contribution towards the Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles.

The Italian fashion house Prada and AMO have collaborated in developing a Fantasy Lookbook for the first time in the season of Spring Summer 2007. Every season, Prada creates a theme that is inherent and consistent in the textures, colour palette, materials and cuts per collection. The Real Fantasies illustrate the layers of thought and inspiration within these collages. This collaboration between AMO and Prada has been an ongoing tradition and since 2010, movement, animation and music have been added to the Real Fantasies Lookbook.[84] For Prada’s Real Fantasies Spring Summer 2013, AMO deconstructs the Prada collection, experimenting with a multi-faceted collage of hand-drawn and painted shapes, reconciling the themes and attitudes. The collages use the photographs from the runway show and artwork by Lok Jansen and Jeroen Koolhaas. Simplicity, poetry and sentimentalism is processed through imaginary cinematic scenes while the characters and textures wander from scene to scene in “a world of sophisticated feelings, eluding nostalgia to inspect longing and legacy.”[85] There is a distorted sense of normality and space as the models pose, walk and jump around 2-D collaged spaces. The layers of the collage, however, create a bizarre perception of depth, fabricating a seemingly banal and common story with a mysterious ambience. They play on the ideas of “Restraining versus revealing” and the conflicting attitudes in a series of intimate and social situations.[86] The film and collages are very sophisticated and romantic whilst carrying perverse qualities. Fashion and architectural spaces merge in the form of collage, narrating a sequence of stories.

The film can be viewed on the Prada website > http:// www.prada.com/en/collections/real-fantasies/RealFantasies-SS-2013.html?adv=adv-content1.

“OMA,” OMA, accessed November 25, 2014, http://www.oma.eu/oma 84 “Real Fantasies,” Prada, accessed November 25, 2014, http://www.prada.com/en/collections/real-fantasies/ real-fantasies-project.html 85 “Prada Catwalk and Lookbook Man SS 2013, Italy, Milan, 2012,” OMA, accessed November 25, 2014, http:// www.oma.eu/projects/2012/prada-catwalk-2013-ss-man/.

86 “Prada Real Fantasies SS13,” Prada, accessed November 25, 2014, http://www.prada.com/en/collections/ real-fantasies/Real-Fantasies-SS-2013.html?adv=advcontent2 83

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Fig. 32. PRADA Real Fantasies S/S 2013 by AMO

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| Chapter 3

Fig. 33. Architectural document - KENZO

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3.2 Conceptual Collages According to Shields, “digital methods in collage exploit the capacity for digital media to both facilitate analogue techniques and devise new techniques for collagemaking through direct and indirect manipulation.”[87] Collage can be seen as an extension of us, guided by mental and physical processes – “The interface, or shared boundary, between the body and the instrument is the first degree of separation between the artist and the work.”[88] This idea is shown in the following collages that were done intuitively, its production unprecedented by intention or researched knowledge about collage.

By doing so, the collages reveal a dialogue between the conscious and my intentional but subconscious and intuitive decisions as a collagist. The resultant meanings remain outside the control of the collagist leaving it to chance and the interpretations subjective to the viewer.

The first architectural document is based on the brand Kenzo, a French luxury fashion house that is known for its exotic and exuberant prints with a youthful energy.

As a design exercise, this particular brand was chosen to create an architectural document that is encompassing of Kenzo’s vision. Kenzo Takada travelled all over the world where he appropriated the dress codes of various cultures ostensibly without prejudices or reservations.

(Refer to Appendix D for a description of Kenzo’s trajectory in his career from childhood.)

Humberto Leon and Carol Lim are the current creative directors of Kenzo since 2012. “Kenzo, as a brand, has such a rich and fascinating history, it can be hard to determine what exactly we have changed… With our new collections, we hope that we have injected the brand with a youthful spirit and a sense of fun and cheekiness.

But we also want to respect and preserve the traditions of the Kenzo house, such as the importance of prints and the sense of worldliness and travel that has been intrinsic to every collection in the history of Kenzo.”[89]

Ibid., 179.

88 Ibid.

89 Ella Alexander, “Kenzo’s New Era,” Vogue, accessed July 19, 2014, http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2012/03/08/ kenzo-interview---humberto-leon-and-carol-lim 87

They have retraced Kenzo’s journey through Asia to Paris and the energy and spirit of Kenzo Takada’s language can be seen in the brand’s clothing. Kenzo Takada always created iconic pieces that were easily recognizable. With Carol and Humberto taking charge, the original label had a drastic makeover and has become the centre of “cool”. They struggle to keep their cult jumpers in store for more than two to three hours at a time.[90] This is the “driving force and secret ingredient for this brand which has the clever ability to tap into and feed the current zeitgeists.”[91] Kenzo has been reborn for a new generation but the two designers have continued Kenzo Takada’s tradition by creating a contemporary wardrobe that incorporates symbols such as the tiger, the eye, the fish and the logo. The following prints and patterns have been appropriated and manipulated into the architectural collage document that I have created. (figures. 2, 8, 9, 10, 33, 39, 40, 41) This collection draws inspiration from the ocean. The prints feature geometric and graphic hand drawn aqua motifs to bring awareness to conservation problems. The Bluefin tuna, rainbow trout, marlin and grouper are four endangered species that are protected by the Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE).

Carol and Humberto went on a trip to rural Thailand to find the essence of the jungle but also tried to find the jungles of the city. The designers brought back the tigers in a whole new jungle for them – the sky. The tigers are inspired by Chinese calligraphy. In Chinese astronomy, the white tiger is one of the four animals guarding the constellations and during the Han Dynasty; tigers were considered kings of all beasts.[92] The eye is the iconic symbol of this collection. The eye has multiple meanings throughout the world.

The Buddha’s eye is omniscient: all seeing and all knowing, expressionless and non-judgmental. The term “Buddha” means “the enlightened one”. The ultimate objective of the Buddhist way of life is Nirvana and Ella Alexander, “How long would you wait for a Kenzo tiger jumper?” Vogue, accessed 19 July, 2014, http:// www.vogue.co.uk/news/2013/09/11/kenzo-tiger-sweaterdesign-process--inspiration 91 Jessica Bumpus, “Kenzo: Autumn/Winter 2013-14 Ready-to-wear,” Vogue, accessed April 20, 2014, http://www. vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2013/ready-to-wear/ kenzo 92 Kenzine, “Prints and Patterns of the season #6 – The Flying Tigers,” Kenzo Blog, accessed April 21, 2014,https://www.kenzo.com/en/blog/prints-and-patternsseason-6-flying-tigers_9139/ 90

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| Introduction

Figure. 34. KENZO X TOILETPAPER Spring/Summer 2014 Campaign – No Fish No Nothing

that bends towards orientalism. The richness in ornamentation and the high saturation makes the poster, as a presentation, very striking and staggeringly attention-grabbing. At its first presentation the scale was dramatic, 2500mm x 2500mm in size and tile-printed on 63 A3 pages, the image spread itself across three boards and draped itself on to the floor.

The graphic experimentation prioritized only one type of media. Some of the icons such as the fish and tigers were extracted from photographs of printed fabric and embroidered jumpers while the others were gifs or images posted on the Kenzo Blog. The eyes, originally blinking, had a somewhat perverse hair-raising quality.

The gif was screenshot while all the eyes are open and cropped into a circular shape and placed in the centre of a square – the blatant ‘look-at-me-in-the-eyes’

Figure. 35. Kenzo Autumn/Winter 2013 – Jungles in Paris

Clairvoyance. Meditation is the path to six types of higher powers in which the “divine eye” sees earthly and supernatural phenomena that cannot be perceived by the physical eye.[93] An integration of these Kenzo icons formed the aforementioned architectural drawing.

Kenzo is responsible for creating “it” or “must-have” items that young fashionistas yearn for. Various socialites, celebrities and fashion bloggers are seen wearing Kenzo ready-to-wear, which creates the hype and the raging demand for more. The collage document is an amalgamation and appropriation of the most popular and recent Kenzo icons of the tiger, eye, fish and select abstract textures. Once the images are brought together in one image, the status of the individual elements are disrupted yet they all carry the same amount of weight in terms of balance, importance and value. The icons are interpretations of style and specific elements from various parts of the world and by assimilating them; there is a sense of internationalism 93

Faustine Kopiejwski, “All eyes on us #10: Buddha’s

41

Figure.36. Architectural document - KENZO Details

demanded a centralized, attention-seeking composition.

The centralized blue depicts water. While the red, snakeskin pattern conveys a hot, dry desert.

The scaled texture creates a rich, ornamental skin, which was tiled multiple times to create the correctly scaled square background. In reflection, the block red colour seems to be a very bold move in terms of a background colour, but it is definitely effective in its eyecatching purpose.

The tigers, angry and growling, take up a surprisingly small section of the image considering that they are considered to be kings of all beasts – possibly to convey their endangered status. Floating on clouds, the tigers

Chapter 3 | are perched on the top left of the circle of eyes. The yellow hue of the tigers melt into the red background and the blue clouds fade into the cold hue of the eyes.

The illustrated Bluefin tuna, Rainbow trout, Marlin and Grouper fishes are spread around the all-seeing and all-knowing eyes. Even though the image is static, the swimming and jumping action of the fishes can be detected. The fish icon is the most recent Kenzo icon that requires publicity. This is why the huge fish is dominating the bottom right corner as if it is jumping for its life in the dry desert next to the pool of water.

The blue fishes are incredibly conspicuous in this red coloured background, exposed, precious and perhaps vulnerable, requiring protection. The scratchy texture layered on top of the background is from a print that was used in the spring/summer 2014 ‘no fish no nothing’ collection. Originally blue in colour, the hue has been inverted to create a yellow texture that balances the top left corner to be warmer and brighter than the rest of the corners filled with blue fishes. It also creates a gradual immersion from the yellow colour of the tigers into the red background. The poster can be read in an ecological sense and in a cultural or ornamental sense. Kenzo’s pallet has always been “internationally vibrant, filled with ethnic eruptions, play of pattern, and unorthodox color combinations. Kenzo’s work, in fact, argues strongly for the harmony of cultural influences, the most disparate and distinct expressions of dress coming together.”[94] This document was originally created to form a ‘backdrop’ in which figures could stand in front of the image, perhaps side-on, projecting a black silhouette onto the image. However, with its overpowering colours, patterns and prints, this clearly exceeded its ‘backdrop’ qualities and became a ‘cover’. After observing and analyzing the following collages, it became clear that I had an intrinsic tendency to produce images with a consistent form and pattern. Described as ‘religious’ and ‘ethnic’ it became clear that perhaps my Buddhist upbringing and interests became instinctively embedded in these collages. It was made apparent that all of the collages incorporated the form of a Mandala: a square with four gates containing a circular, central focal point. At first, refusing to believe any of the deeper meanings that the critics had subjectively analyzed, I was adamant that these collages were simply ‘cool’ images and merely an amalgamation of the brand’s icons. The intention was to make an image that served the fashionable mass taste. However, inadvertently but, fortuitously, I created a deeper meaning and quite possibly a representation of ‘gravitas’ that some are so desperately

FIT yearning for – or quite possibly, it is only a surface representation of gravitas.

This complicates the argument that is very perplexing and rather awkward to explicate. In yielding to the mass or global culture’s voracity for the surface or image, the intended ‘backdrop’ of the architectural document became a ‘cover’. In an attempt to cater for the layman’s eye, the collage became meaningful to the trained, architects’ eyes. Something spiritual was derived from the expression of aesthetic beauty. Does acknowledging the importance of Dionysian fantasy lead to the uncovering of the Apollonian ‘truth’? Maybe that question deserves derision for the callow naiveté, but perhaps it is a sign that architecture’s duality must be embraced with open arms in order to create something wholesome that encompasses both beauty and virtue.

Fig. 37. Kenzo Eye Motif

Richard Martin, “Kenzo,” Fashion Encyclopedia, accessed July 9, 2014, http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/ Ja-Kh/Kenzo.html.

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Fig. 38. Plans and axonometrics of form designing process.

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Fig. 39. Architectural documents - GIVENCHY

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Fig. 40. Architectural document - KENZO

Fig. 41 . Architectural collage - KENZO

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••Blog Entry #05••••••••••••••••••••••••

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“#Throwback and other minor cogitations”

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ow. Time flies doesn’t it. Doesn’t seem like that long ago when I was racking my brain trying to find a thesis topic. Didn’t take too long though – perhaps a solid thirty seconds before I realized the only thing I’m passionate about is fashion and following fashion. That might read to you as a typo, but no, it is not. Every morning, day and night, I will be “following” the lives of my aforementioned (and many more) favourite bloggers, checking my instagram feed countless times during the day, double-tapping their photos/ heart-warming or motivational quotes and being generous with my <3s. As my mother tells me, I have a very detached sense of reality. I require all these things that must be this specific brand or from this specific store…(I really must clarify that my spoilt-brat whingeing is all talk. I probably acquire 0.01% of the seemingly endless list of bags and rings I need.) But how could you expect any less when you’re constantly (but, willingly) exposed to Chanel and Céline on a daily basis? It becomes the norm and these things just don’t seem to be as unobtainable as they actually are. Admittedly, I have a knack for justifying purchases and convincing myself that it was the right thing to do. So yes, I will confess, I am slightly deranged. Blame it on social media.

It’s safe to say that we’ve all accrued some form of opinion on social media – or more the effects of it.

There are of course the sour, scathing and condemnatory theoreticians that delve into the deeper psychological aspects of why people feel the need to share every unremarkable and mundane moment in their life. It doesn’t take a genius to decipher that one out –it’s either Fig. 42. Social media as a knife a “popularity contest” or the addiction to receiving a stamp of approval (or quite possibly disdain). I admit, the latter conjecture does resonate with a 6 month younger me. However, these mental issues don’t necessarily concur with every social media user. There are those who use these media outlets for work, or actually do want to share an experience with their friends, family and followers. On my site-searching trip to Melbourne in early May this year, I was taken around by a friend on a full, two day tour of all the landmarks and quirky areas that make Melbourne, well, Melbourne. Albeit New Zealand and Australia being (mistakenly) considered to be one and the same, Melbourne was a still a new and refreshing place to be in (actually, that’s an understatement. I LOVED IT).

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Upon arrival at the Shrine of Remembrance and Great Ocean Road, my knee-jerk reaction was to pull out my DSLR and smartphone, take photos and share this experience. Not because I wanted to propel at the popularity contest, I just wanted to share the scene. Sometimes I wonder, what I’m implying in my posts and how others would react to it? Am I merely outlining an imposed opinion of my interests and myself ? How honest am I being with this post? What message am I sending? Do I portray myself as some snobbish know-it-all show-off? Would I care as much if there were no third-party onlookers? Have I become a willing participant in this global contest of ‘my life is so freaking awesome and it’s probably better than yours’?

Instagram and its ramifications is quite a hot topic amongst other IGers (with a conscience). It might seem like I’m oversensitive to what others perceive my image to be. But this dangerous game called Instagram is an ego-feeding monster that publicizes and commodifies the image of yourself a.k.a your ‘internet persona’. Why? So you can prove something?

Or, is it to perhaps earn the affection and attention that you deem otherwise undeserved?

Sincerly Sophie

Fig. 43. Instagram of Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne.

Fig. 44. Instagram of Torquay, Great Ocean Road, Victoria.

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Fig. 45. Instagrams of my Melbourne trip.

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Chapter 4 |

Chapter 4:

Project 4.1 Site In the words of Juhani Pallasmaa, buildings, in their longevity, are “assemblies of alterations, materials, textures and colours layered through decades of centuries of use. Often it is this very temporal layering that gives a building its unique atmosphere and charm; the geometric spatial and material configuration of architecture is embraced and enhanced by use, erosion and time; architecture turns from a spatial abstraction into a lived situation, ambience and metaphor.”[95] Contemporary and new buildings can often appear strained and severe in their relentless formal logic, however, when pre-existing buildings are recovered and recycled, a project can exude a more relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.[96]

The more complex and conflicting the logic and architectural themes are, the richer the materiality and, obviously, the character of the collage. By demolishing the interior of this existing building, it creates an associative and transcendent space for high-class shopping. This follows the method of Peter Brook, the radical theatre director who deliberately demolished his avant-garde theatre building Bouffes du Nord in Paris in order to generate a more responsive space for theatrical performances –“ A good space can’t be neutral, for an impersonal sterility gives no food to the imagination.”[97] Of much avail, this procedure retains the magic and poetry of the aging, vintage ambience of the site within the amelioration of a revamped commercial building.

The project is situated on Degraves Street, a short, narrow laneway that runs north from Flinders Street to Flinders Lane in the CBD of Melbourne, Australia. It forms a busy thoroughfare for commuters disembarking from Flinders Street Station moving toward the shopping area on Collins Street and Bourke Street Mall. Melbourne is a relatively close city to Auckland that is known for being fashion-forward and one of the best shopping destinations. The site (fig. 46 and fig. 47), expresses a rich, playful, eccentric and quirky vibe that epitomizes Melbourne’s laneways. The project uses an existing building in which the interior is hollowed and redesigned.

Shields, Jennifer A.E., Collage and architecture (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), ix.

96 Shields, Jennifer A.E., Collage and architecture (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), x.

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Joseph Brodsky, “Wooing the Inanimate”, On Grief and Reason, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1995, 343.

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Fig. 46. Site Plan. Scale 1:1000

Fig. 47. Photographic amalgamation of site study.

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Chapter 4 |

4.2 Programme “I believe fashion designers are the antenna to the zeitgeist.”

– Peter Marino Fashion designers have the intrinsic ability to pick up the changes in all of our sentiments much faster than poets, painters and, of course, architects. Marino claims that what architects design on the board is a lagging indicator of what was “hip” a year ago, whereas fashion designers require an incredibly sharp antenna to create a collection every 3 months for every line. For this thesis, the intended design is a ‘fashionable’ building that will need to capture the essence of being new and up-to-the-minute for an estimated 7-10 years. To design environments that can cater for this extremely fast-paced industry of fashion whilst avoiding falling into a “trend” is a very difficult brief to execute. Admittedly, designing ‘Timelessness’ is impossible.

The project proposes a theatrical, grandiose and fantastical three-dimensional consumer experience that stresses the enjoyment in shopping itself as a means of enthusiastic fantasy and escape even as it makes apparent the dilemmas of narcissism. The interior is dominated by a wild, dynamic and sculptural central element that offers circulation for the public and also serves as a catwalk during fashion week. The idea of a catwalk is pursued in this design, privileging movement and observation. This ramp design is articulated to highlight and maximize the exclusivity and hierarchy in the fashion world and also bring to light the current obsession of being seen.

It questions the extent of our society’s self-centeredness, superficiality and vanity, but the project aims to both exploit and embrace the fashion for what it is.

Fig. 48. Exterior of building

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Fig. 49. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Photographâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; taken from ideal ground level vantage point.

Ground Floor: The main entrance is located on the West side of the building, which is accessible from Degraves Street.

There are also entrance points on the North and South side, which are accessible via Flinders Lane and Degraves Lane respectively. This floorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programme is similar to that of a department store, where cosmetics, fragrances, jewellery and other products of similar worth are displayed and sold. The plan indicates a free and flexible system where the counters and furniture can be moved, removed or replaced accordingly for an event or specific occasion. During fashion week, the merchandise stalls and furniture can be cleared out and used as an exhibition or event space. The programme of this floor can be modified to accommodate a variety of large-scale events where the public can view the show from the ramp or from the boundary of the assigned event space. The service elements of the building have been pushed back to the East side of the building. This long strip is a hidden service zone designated for the bathrooms, fire escape and lifts.

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The central ramp is a load-bearing structure that consists of rolled-steel sections and steel sheeting. The white cladding is made of glass-fibre-reinforced concrete with a glossy coating. The inner steel structure will be prefabricated and assembled on site. This means that constructions cost and construction time will be reduced.

The internal furnishings and finishings on the all the floors are an extension of the whirlwind geometry and lines of the ramp.

Chapter 4 | First Floor: This floor serves as a small mezzanine on the West side of the building, which can either be accessed via the spiral ramp or from Degraves Lane via the undulating hill-like floor that extends its tongue pass the exterior walls. A café is situated on the North Western corner and peers over the ground floor allowing a tall double height space above most of the ground floor area. The opening on the Western wall allows the customers to go outside, arriving on the stage-like balcony. (Refer to plan and 3-D drawing).

Second and Third Floor: As indicated in the plan drawings, the second and third floor is where the shopping takes place. Chairs, platforms sofas, clothing racks, counters, display cases and a piano are carefully strewn over these two undulating floors. The arrangement and organization of these elements define the individual product areas. They aim to display as much as possible whilst being spacious to avoid elbowing during sales. The storage is enclosed within the service zone on the far Eastern wall.

One floor could be assigned for each gender’s clothing or the space could be shared and sectioned off by different brands. Interior designers would be hired to curate the space with artwork, sculptures, luxurious customized furniture, etc. to exhibit the brands’ vision and new season trends. These floors behave like window displays – the merchandise is displayed and tailored in a certain way to imply the story, vision and virtues of the brand.

The chairs and coffee tables allow an area to wait, relax or peruse through lookbooks. It adds an element of comfort and domesticity to this large-scale in-door urban space. During events, this area on both of the retail floors can be screened off as VIP zones.

Fourth Floor: (Surely a lot of consumers have been feeling nostalgic for the golden days of offline shopping. The process of “trying on” can sometimes be annoying and exhausting but old school shopping cultivates a story and a relationship. Memories are created when you try on a bathing suit that makes you look stunning in the warm, golden light, appearing more tanned and beautiful than you actually are. Or perhaps when you are experimenting with out-of-this-world cuts in a cramped dressing room with your best friend looking ridiculous rolling on the floor laughing and crying or convincing her and yourself that they are sensible purchases that you will wear all year round. A lot of life lessons are learnt in the changing rooms – “You can’t always get what you want” is a goodie, thank you Rolling Stones.

FIT This space brings back a meaningful aspect of being a shopper. They will feel an emotional rollercoaster from disappointment to euphoria when you find the last half-price dress in your size that fits you like a glove – congratulations, you have experienced true fate. The rejection, depression, affirmations, hysteria, negotiations, luck, serendipity and deranged irrational purchase decisions along with the tactility makes the actual ownership of the item pretty anticlimactic.)

From browsing through the merchandise on the second and third floor, the consumer must navigate his/her way up the catwalk ramp to the changing rooms on the fourth floor. Curtains are used to divide each changing cubicle so that the space can be easily transformed into a green room or backstage prep space during fashion week. This space must reflect a luxurious environment with atmospheric qualities that makes the shopping experience divine, enticing and memorable for the consumers. The ramp connects to the far side of the changing rooms, which forces the buyer to keep walking around the catwalk. This floor retains the shape of the mandala-like architectural collages that were shown in chapter three. This ring, when elevated above all the other floors, becomes a viewing mezzanine for the shopping activity in the floor below.

Fifth floor: The restaurant is located on the top floor. It can also be manipulated to become an event space for hosting parties and functions. The bathrooms, wine cellar and fridges are located on the North Western corner. The South side of this floor can be sectioned off as a VIP zone during fashion week or similar events. Studying the lines and shapes of this floor plan indicates how the collage’s composition and structure has been sustained. Emerging from the swirling physique of the staircase, the floor plans and furnishings echo and ripple this vigorous form.

It is clear that the form and configuration of the building has manifested from the architectural collages.

Roof Plan: The central shape of the fifth floor has been echoed in the roof plan to allow natural light into the floors below and also on the restaurant. From plan view, the protrusions of the floors beyond the exterior Western wall extend the element of exhibitionism. The whole building acts as a live commercial, constantly advertising and commoditizing the products and the people itself.

Architecture is employed as a marketing tool and advertising strategy for fashion.

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Fig. 50. Photographâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; taken from ideal ground level vantage point. Western entry.

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Fig. 51. Level two - retail space

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Fig. 52. Level Three - Retail Space

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Fig. 53. Photographâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; taken from ideal vantage point on Level Four.

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Fig. 54. Fifth Floor - Restaurant

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Fig. 55. Section A 1:200

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Fig. 56. Ground Floor Plan 1:200

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Figure. 57. First Floor Plan 1:200

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Fig. 58. Second Floor Plan 1:200

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Figure. 59. Third Floor Plan 1:200

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Fig. 60. Fourth Floor Plan 1:200

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Figure. 61. Fifth Floor Plan 1:200

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Figure. 62. Roof Plan 1:200

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Fig. 63. West elevation. These undulating ledge-like balconies mimic a theatric stage where the user becomes both the performer and the audience.

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Fig. 64. Views of the interior ramp

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Fig. 65. View of ramp from above.

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Fig. 66. Ramp from Ground floor.

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Fig. 67. Looking up at ramp from below.

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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••Blog Entry #06••••••••••••••••••••••••

“The last chat”

T

here is a tagline that forms the basis for retail philosophy, “Buy now, wear forever.” It implies that we should “find” our “signature style” and be committed to it, no matter what, for the rest of your life. Does this sound similar to a philosophy that echoes in the high and mighty discipline of architecture?! (If anyone needs me, I’ll be sweeping up the pieces of my exploded brain.)

So what is fashion? This question will present numerous subjective answers. One philosophy, a good philosophy, that I adhere to, is that fashion is an outward expression of something internal. As much as shopping is considered to be an activity performed by pompous, self-important pretentious panjandrums, it is also an amazing tool for introspection and self-knowledge. You adopt an ethos that informs your shopping for the next amazingly hedonistic occasion.

Shopping is spiritual! (You laugh now but you know it soothes your soul) Your style transforms with time; with time you grow, change, evolve and mature, which are all indications of life. In the spirit of really seizing the opportunity to express my personal individuality and feelings, I have been rocking faded, pilling sweatpants (but it was still Nike so don’t judge me too much), no makeup (freckles, dry skin heavily in need of exfoliation, dark-circles (those (under-eye) bags are definitely not Chanel)) and bad hair. Although, from what I remember, I think I still managed to spray du l’eau de toilette before I left the house. Intentional or unintentional, what you wear and how you present yourself says a lot about you. It’s inevitable.

My hideous “bad hair, don’t care” style co-ordination and attitude was not a modern-day-bohemian nonconformist proclamation.

It was more along the lines of “I, literally, woke up like this… not so flawless,” while my facial expression said, “I’m an architecture student and my thesis is due soon so don’t even talk to me about how you’re so busy because I don’t have the time of day for you and I already hate you for judging my hair right now.”

No one can argue that image isn’t everything… they don’t say, “first impressions last the longest” for no reason! Think of it like this, if you, as a person, was a window display, you would flaunt your best merchandise in the very best way! (I just want to point out that the

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rhyme was unintended but incredibly fortunate) Isn’t that what a resume is? Isn’t that what dating is? Isn’t that what life is? You are both the advertiser and the merchandise – you need to sell yourself to your employer, potential lover or life-long partner, the cool kids or queen-bees at school and whoever else you need to impress to get up that long, boundless ladder, surpassing the finish line overlooking the horizon that shines into a brighter future.

It’s very fortunate that I don’t aspire to “wear forever” because if that “comfortable” look portrayed the person I am now and will be in the next however many years, I would either be a jaded mother-of-ten or a homeless vagrant (I know it’s ironic that I am currently homeless and househopping at this exact moment in time…). It’s safe to say that one’s wardrobe is a powerful portal that has the ability to construct and portray your identity. But your identity, values, lifestyle and aspirations will constantly be in flux meaning your wardrobe will reflect this variability in your life. This applies to architecture too. It’s a living discipline that is continuously changing, developing and progressing, dipping its toe into new possibilities and creating previously inconceivable spaces. Styles come and go, you don’t need to stick with a specific Modus Operandi.

Fashion and architecture is a reflection of who you and your generation are; there is no pressure to keep it forever, the world is infinitely changing so don’t feel like you’ve become a backstabbing traitor when you think you’re “style” no longer appeals to your senses. Both fashion and architecture, though it works at different temporal speeds, is constantly changing under the influence of the same dimension that is time. This means that you, fashion and architecture will change and evolve eternally, and change means you’re alive. So stop with the criticism, the hating, and just embrace the beauty and the beautiful things that surround you. Where what you want, express yourself, just smile and keep dressing on because fashion is great.

Sincerly Sophie 80

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| Reflection

Reflection Recently, there has been a series of “fashion weeks” held in cities all over the world with Milan, Paris, New York, London and Berlin being the five most prominent and celebrated fashion capitals of the world. Clothing, obviously, is the intended focus of these events.

However, fashion houses have been employing architects and event staging companies to realize the designer’s vision and values as a physical space. Music, makeup, hair, lighting and the runway reflects this vision before each and every angle is analyzed by magazine editors, bloggers, and consumers, which is then shared online for millions to see, discuss and remember. No longer do we want to see a generic formula consisting of a plain, minimalistic, straight, white runway in a white room.

We want to see a spectacle of the mise-en-scène that vies for attention.

Indubitably, a fashion show is about, fashion. The runway, however, is responsible in shaping the public’s opinion of not only the collection, but also the brand.

According to Charlotte Clarke, director of INCA Productions, a high-end event production agency, it can cost upwards of £5,000 for a ‘showentation’ during London Fashion Week.[98] On the other end of the scale, extravagant shows by grand maisons can cost millions. Looking at the elaborate shows of the French high fashion house, Chanel, we can understand the huge budget that is devoted to the runway. Karl Lagerfeld has without fail, pleased and surprised the crowds with his collections and the grandiosity of the marvelously awe-inspiring shows at the Grand Palais in Paris – every runway show is customized for the debut of each collection. Each fashion house has a style that is sustained, developed and customized with every runway show for the debut of each collection.

Whilst the world of fashion breeds on the arguably corrupt, deplorable and nefarious ethical codes of hedonistic consumerism, egomaniacal conceit and senseless oblivion, it is nevertheless, inevitable.

Architects, designers and other visual arbiters are a vital cog in the demand and supply system.

Harriet Walker, “How to design a catwalk show,” The Independent, accessed September 16, 2014, http://www. independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/how-to-design-acatwalk-show-8135810.html 98

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We provide what people want. This thesis caters for those in the fashion world who demand luxurious, and decadent building environments that would generate feelings of complacency and proudness to be in. In today’s world, the element of self-promotion is prevalent in this generation. Finding the perfect photographic point is an essential requirement when you are elevating your imposed Internet persona. The interior photographs provide some photographic points that show the highlights of each floor and the overriding ramp element.

As Wigley mentions in White Walls, Designer Dress, the white wall was intended to simultaneously be up-to-date, timeless and precede fashion. However, as fashion is a fast-moving and volatile creative discipline, designing a long-term ‘fashionable’ building is a complex, experimental and high-risk scheme. The ramp aspires to be the ‘fashionable’ element of the building: with its wild form, it resonates with the temperamental whimsicality in the prognostication of fashion trends. The variability and flexibility in the programme, furnishings and finishings of the building provides an opportunity for the building to be restyled, redesigned and refashioned and therefore, be, à la mode. With the arrival of a new season’s collection and its respective campaigns, new themes and ideas will need to be publicized. Interior designers and decorators would be hired to envision, curate and customize the space in a way that depicts the brand’s essence and the collection’s conceptual motifs.

Like the great Oscar Wilde once said, “Fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it ever six months.” However, in the words of Coco Chanel, “fashion is architecture.” You can take your pick.

Bibliography |

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Bibliography Abramovitch, Ingrid. “Unconventional Wisdom: Peter Marino on the art of luxury”. Elle Décor. Accessed September 18, 2014. http://www.elledecor.com/home-remodeling/what-the-pros-know/peter-marino-luxury-2#slide-2.

Allen, Katherine. “Peter Marino and Marc Jacobs Chat about Design, Architecture, and Fashion” ArchDaily. Accessed September 16, 2014. http://www.archdaily.com/?p=461856 Bailey, Spencer. “Peter Marino”. Surface. Accessed September 19, 2014. http://www.surfacemag.com/peter-marino/.

Bengt Enrique, “Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012 Ad Campaign, ILVOELV, accessed September 23, 2014, http:// www.ilvoelv.com/2012/07/louis-vuitton-fallwinter-2012-ad-campaign.html Cohn, Hana. “The 50 Best Artist Collaborations in Fashion,” Complex, accessed September 23, 2014, http://www. complex.com/style/2013/04/the-50-best-artist-collaborations-in-fashion/ Fury, Alexander. “H&M’s 10 years of high street cred: The retailer’s link-ups with designers such as Alexander Wang have revolutionised the fashion industry”. The Independent. Accessed November 24, 2014. http://www.independent. co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/hms-10-years-of-high-street-cred-the-retailers-linkups-with-designers-such-asalexander-wang-have-revolutionised-the-fashion-industry-9842405.html.

Hamilton, William L. “The Palace Maker”. The New York Times. Accessed September 22, 2014. http://www. nytimes.com/2004/02/05/garden/the-palace-maker.html Karmali, Sarah. “Inside Chanel’s New London Flagship”. Vogue. Accessed September 22, 2014. http://www.vogue. co.uk/news/2013/06/10/chanel-london-flagship---new-bond-street---largest-chanel-boutique-store.

Lawrence, Jeanne. “Chanel unveils newly-redesigned flagship in Beverly Hills”. New York Social Diary. Accessed September 18, 2014. http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/across-the-nationacross-the-world/2007/la-social-diary Matt Tymauer. “Peter Marino’s Edgy Style”. Architectural Digest. Accessed September 22, 2014. http://www. architecturaldigest.com/architecture/2012-01/architect-peter-marino-article.

Newcomb, Alyssa. “President Obama Poses for Selfie at Nelson Mandela’s Memorial Service”. abc news. Accessed November 20, 2014. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-poses-selfie-nelson-mandelas-memorialservice/story?id=21162957.

Walker, Harriet. “How to design a catwalk show”. The Independent. Accessed September 16, 2014. http://www. independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/how-to-design-a-catwalk-show-8135810.html “John Edwards Lecture Series: Peter Marino and Marc Jacobs”. Tate. Accessed September 17, 2014. http://www.tate. org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/talks-and-lectures/john-edwards-lecture-series-peter-marino-and-marc-jacobs.

“OMA.” OMA. Accessed November 25, 2014. http://www.oma.eu/oma.

“Prada Catwalk and Lookbook Man SS 2013, Italy, Milan, 2012.” OMA. Accessed November 25, 2014, http://www. oma.eu/projects/2012/prada-catwalk-2013-ss-man/.

“Real Fantasies.” Prada. Accessed November 25, 2014. http://www.prada.com/en/collections/real-fantasies/realfantasies-project.html.

“Prada Real Fantasies SS13.” Prada. Accessed November 25, 2014. http://www.prada.com/en/collections/real-

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FIT fantasies/Real-Fantasies-SS-2013.html?adv=adv-content2.

“The joy of shopping: It’s all in the mind.” Fitch. Accessed May 3, 2014. http://www.fitch.com/the-joy-of-shoppingits-all-in-the-mind/ Rowe, Colin. “The provocative façade: frontality and contrapposto,” in Le Corbusier Architect of the Century.

London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1987.

Rowe, Colin, and Robert Slutzky, Transparency. Basel: Birkhäuser, 1997.

Crewe, Louise. “Wear: where? The convergent geographies of architecture and fashion”. University of Nottingham, 2010.

Cooper, Douglas. The Cubist Epoch. London: Phaidon Press, 1971.

Blau, Eve, and Nancy J. Troy, Architecture and Cubism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.

Fernandez-Galiano, Luis. “Spectacle and Its Discontents; or, The Elusive Joys of Architainment.” In Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture, edited by William S. Saunders, 1-7. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Shields, Jennifer A.E. Collage and architecture. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.

Holl, Steven. Intertwining. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.

Holl, Steven, Juhani Pallasma, and Alberto Perez-Gomez. Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture.

San Francisco: William Stout Publishers, 2006. Quoted in Jennifer A.E. Shields, Collage and architecture. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.

Kelly, Kevin Ervin. “Architecture for Sale(s): An Unabashed Apologia.” In Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture, edited by William S. Saunders, 47-59. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complete 1910-29 (Zurich:Girsberger, 1929), 11, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 38.

Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture (Paris: Editions Cres, 1923). Translated by Frederick Etchells as Towards a New Architecture (London: John Rodker, 1931), 286, quoted in Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995), 37.

Martin, Richard. “Kenzo”. Fashion Encyclopaedia. Accessed July 9, http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/Ja-Kh/ Kenzo.html Hejduk, John. Education of an Architect: The Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, 1964-1971. New York: Cooper Union, 1971.

Tafuri, Manfredo. Theories and Histories of Architecture, translated by Giorgio Verrechia. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. Quoted in Wigley, Mark, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture.

Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995.

Wigley, Mark. White Walls, Designer Dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1995.

Waldman, Diane. Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992. Quoted in Jennifer A.E. Shields, Collage and architecture. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.

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| Bibliography

Appendix |

FIT Marino claims that China is between 40-45% of his annual work at this point, “it makes sense if you think about cash-rich societies who can afford to build new buildings: it is very definitely in Asia. They are very open to new designs and they are actually incredibly forward thinking compared to the rest of the world.”[103] In the lecture, he continues to show a sequence of commissions in the new frontiers of Asia, including a 22-storey luxury hotel in China with “glossy red perforated aluminium panels that will be constantly moving, like fish going through water.”[104] His large-scale marble cube buildings for Samsung in Seoul, which will take up two entire city blocks and is currently under construction. He says, “I think it will be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever done. It’s my Guggenheim Museum commission.”[105] His most recent and ambitious commission yet is for a condominium on the site of a former Getty gas station at 24th Street and 10th Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan, which is the only area of New York that is seeing new construction. Marino accepted Michael Shvo’s commission in agreement that he could design only 12 apartments where no two are the same. Typically, real-estate developers want every floor the same where you can build quickly. Funnily enough, Marino says, “I have since regretted saying that… it really sounded good at the time.”[106] This condominium has cost Shvo a whopping $23.5 million, or about $850 per buildable square foot – “a record price for a development in the city”.[107]

Appendix A Residential projects makes up for approximately 25% of his work, another 25%-30% of his business are large-scale buildings, which he obtained via winning international competitions. The first competition he won was in the year 2000, for the Palm Beach Opera House in Florida. He adds, “What I quickly learned from doing competitions is you get a lot of press and you get no money.”[99] The Nassau County Museum of Iraq is another competition he won, “same story”.[100] The huge 250,000 square feet corporate headquarters of Datascope in New Jersey was a very exciting project for him. He anticipated meeting heart surgeons, scientists and medical professions; a very different bracket of people compared to the established clients in the fashion industry or financial institutions.

However, it turned out that that “they really don’t care what their building looks like so it was a little devastating.”[101] In 2006, he won the competition for the Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar, which was a big stepping-stone in Marino’s career as he competed with Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster. They wanted a building as iconic as Australia’s Sydney Opera House. He jokes, “they’ve threatened to put it on their currency. I’m still waiting.”[102] Marino followed up with a projected plan for the Qatar Government’s Embassy right opposite the United Nations, which indicates the influence of this new Switzerland of the Middle East. The international invitational competition for the mixed-use development of retail, spa and hotel in Beirut, Lebanon was another important progression in his career as he competed again SANAA and David Chipperfield. Located in the historic district, exactly between the Muslim and Christian quarters, the client, Solidere International was charged from the Lebanese government to redevelop the bombed out sections of Beirut. Measuring over 177,000 square feet, the project was funded by Middle Eastern banks and is scheduled for completion this year.

99 100 101 102

Marino graduated with an architecture degree in 1971 from Cornell University. In the late 1960s, Abstract Expressionism was leaving and Warhol had hit the scene meaning “Everything was painting, painting, painting, painting,” whilst architecture had its low point of the 20th century.[108] Post-graduation, he worked for big-name firms like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, I.M. Pei and George Nelson. American firms in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s were professional and “really knew how to build buildings.”[109] He had his doubts as he felt like “a square peg in a round

Marino, Interview.

Marino, Interview.

Marino, Interview.

Marino, Interview.

Marino, Interview.

Ingrid Abramovitch, “Unconventional Wisdom: Peter Marino on the art of luxury,” Elle Décor, accessed September 18, 2014, http://www.elledecor.com/homeremodeling/what-the-pros-know/peter-marino-luxury2#slide-2.

105 Abramovitch, “Unconventional Wisdom: Peter Marino on the art of luxury.”

106 Marino, Interview.

107 Spencer Bailey, “Peter Marino,” Surface, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www.surfacemag.com/petermarino/.

108 Spencer Bailey, “Peter Marino.”

109 Ibid.

103 104

84

FIT hole.” He wanted to go to architecture via art, “I wanted to be artistic and the actual profession of architecture is drudge… Working for other people is the bottom of the drudge pot… It was great to learn what I did, but not to be a very little cog in a 300- to 500-man firm.”[110] But Marino got his big break when Andy Warhol hired him as the architect of his Upper East Side townhouse in 1978. “It was a good chance, because I was just a Factory kid. I think the real reason he hired me was that I was willing to take artwork and some pay. Andy loved that… Back then, I was like, “Ah, man, you are so scamming me, giving me this shit instead of money.” [Laughs].”[111] Thanks to Andy Warhol and “The Warhol circle”, encompassing not only that of the art world but also Euro aristocracy-at-large, gave him exposure to a cosmopolitan milieu that would have otherwise been inaccessible for a kid from queens.[112] After designing for Warhol, Marino moved on to the Manhattan apartment of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, then a Park Avenue apartment for Gianni and Marella Agnelli. To name drop a few more, he was commissioned by Alain Wertheimer, the chairman of Chanel S.A., Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and Stephen Schwarzman, the financier who bought a 34-room, $30 million apartment at 740 Park Avenue. When Marino was 28, Warhol noted in his diary in 1977, “I can’t figure Peter out. He’s nutty. I told him how he owed his whole life and architecture career to us – how we gave him his first job – took him out of his business knickers and gave him his long pants, and he said that well now he was in Armani suits and that we sure didn’t put him in those.”[113]

| Appendix with a brand.[114] Marino says, “It was shit. It was the bottom of the smelly pickle barrel. No self-respecting architect at the time would do a dress shop. IT was so pooh-poohed. And I never gave a fuck. I was like, “Why not?” I loved Andy’s Pop sensibility. The same kind of people who said, “You can’t paint Heinz ketchup bottles,” would go, “If you’re a serious architect, you really can’t do dress shops.” I went, “Really? What happens if I take it seriously and make it into architecture?” They said, “You can’t. It’s impossible.” So I did, I took it seriously”.[115]

Appendix B Once upon a time, when Jacobs worked for the American label Perry Ellis, he was always trying to please the people who hired him as he thought that was his job – listening to what they had to say and doing what they told you to do, but, he says, “I found this didn’t make me very happy, it just made me busy.”[116] At that time in New York, when Jacobs was 25, there was a shift in music, art, photography and the ways models looked. Grunge music and high low art was his inspiration for the last collection he did for Perry Ellis with layered plaids, cashmere thermals, beanies and Doc Martens. “I bought a plaid shirt at St. Marks Place in New York for $2 and we turned it into a $2000 evening gown. I liked the idea of elevating things that were everyday, banal and low art… It was the first time, professionally, where I did what I felt. I felt much better about having done what genuinely inspired me rather than trying to do the job that someone else wanted me to do. Anyways, I got fired after this collection. [Laughs]”[117] If anyone believes in fate though, this was a blessing in disguise as Bernard Arnault of LVMH came knocking at his door and hired Jacobs to work for Louis Vuitton.

Jacob’s creative collaborator and business partner, Robert Duffy desperately needed LVMH’s funding to keep their Marc Jacobs label afloat. He lived an extremely busy life where he worked half of the year in Paris and half of the year in New York, working on both Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs.

In late 1984, Marino landed his big retail job with Fred Pressman at Barneys. At the time, Barneys was essentially a men’s dress shop but they were undergoing a huge construction program to reposition it as a high-fashion label. However, dress shop projects were highly frowned upon amongst architects but Marino proved that architecture could be a strong component of a shopper’s identification Ibid.

Ibid.

112 Matt Tymauer, “Peter Marino’s Edgy Style,” Architectural Digest, accessed September 22, 2014, http:// www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/2012-01/ architect-peter-marino-article.

113 William L. Hamilton, “The Palace Maker,” The New York Times, accessed September 22, 2014, http://www. nytimes.com/2004/02/05/garden/the-palace-maker.html 110

114

111

115 116 117

85

William L. Hamilton, “The Palace Maker.”

Spencer Bailey, “Peter Marino.”

Jacobs, interview.

Jacobs, interview.

Appendix |

FIT Rooted in physical reality, yet in flux and subject to multiple interpretations, these qualities were “central to the architectural project of the modern movement in Europe in the 1920s.”[123] This multiplicity of viewpoints works together with temporality to produce a wide range of interpretations of spatial and formal conditions, hence, corollary to architectural design. In Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky’s Transparency, they identify simultaneity to be ‘phenomena’ transparency: in Gyorgy Kepes Language of Vision, “Transparency means a simultaneous perception of different spatial locations.

Space not only recedes but fluctuates in a continuous activity.” [124] This ‘Phenomenal’ transparency describes a variety of viewpoints in which there is an ambiguity of figure and field, a condition in which a figure could be read as field and the field as the figure and as the condition is temporal, the perception of the viewer plays an active role.[125] In the same way that the Cubists used collage to organize, fragment and layer figures and fields, these foreign conditions were manipulated by the physical characteristics subject to the analysis of architects in which this conceptual innovation in representation is interwoven throughout twentieth and twenty-firstcentury design.[126]

Appendix C To gain a sufficient understanding of collage, it is important to know the historical framework in which this methodology begins with Cubism a century ago. 1907 was the birth year of Cubism in which it marked a fundamental shift in the understanding of space and its representation.

According to Douglas Cooper, a British art historian, critic and Cubist art collector, “Between 1425 and 1450 artists throughout Europe… abandoned the medieval way of representing reality, by means of experiential conceptions, and began to rely instead on visual perception, one-point perspective and natural light.”[118] This was the traditional framework for 450 years until the pioneers of Cubism, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, proposed a shift in representational thinking.[119] Picasso and Braque collaborated in Paris, starting with Analytic Cubism, which then evolved into Synthetic Cubism in 1911 with further simplified forms. However, albeit through multiple viewpoints, the objects in their paintings and collages were still recognizable and retained coherence and legibility, therefore, despite their blatant rejection of the Renaissance system of representation, their work was considered in terms of Realism.[120] The Cubists reckoned collage to be in limbo between painting and sculpture, simultaneously taking on variable identities of three-dimensional potentialities whilst in the form of a two-dimensional medium. Their techniques and materials are revealed in their papier collés in which layered paper fragments are used for form, color, pattern and meaning to show a shallow frontal space to create multiple, fragmented objects and perspectives.[121] The shifting of foreground, middle ground and background was, as initiated by the Cubists, reveal multiple spatial depths and material conditions and this dislocation heightens the sense of ambiguity between the represented objects and their context.[122]

Appendix D These concepts can be found in the Cubist collages and abstract compositions of Dada artist, Kurt Schwitters. Ben Nicholson called Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst “the bad boy collagists” for their capacity to challenge the connotation of media in two-dimensional works of art.[127] Architects such as Daniel Libeskind employ photographic fragments and line in their collage-drawings while utopic and dystopic narratives are portrayed in the collagedrawings of Superstudio, Archigram and Rem Koolhaas.[128] The act of collage-making offers a multitude of interpretations but it is a very successful tool in addressing “the relationship of the body to space and materiality”, in which it clearly references the haptic collages of the Dada and Surrealist artist and also the spatial dynamism of the Bauhaus and Constructivism.[129] On the contrary to analogue means, the work of contemporary artists and architects such as Point Supreme, Mathur and da

In Sigfried Giedion’s seminal book Space, Time and Architecture published in 1941, Giedion recognized that Synthetic Cubism marked a turning point in the way artists and architects conceived of space.

Douglas Cooper, The Cubist Epoch (London: Phaidon Press, 1971), 11.

119 Shields, Collage and architecture, 19.

120 Ibid.

121 Ibid., 20.

122 Ibid., 24.

118

Eve Blau and Nancy J. Troy, Architecture and Cubism (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002), 2.

124 Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, Transparency (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1997), 23.

125 Shields, Collage and architecture, 26..

126 Ibid.

127 Ben Nicholson, in conversation with author 128 Ibid., 11.

129 Ibid.

123

86

FIT Cunha, and FELD studio exhibit digital collages that use a hybridization of analogue and digital collage techniques to investigate spatial and material futures and captivate its sensory perception.[130]

| Appendix

Kenzo’s first show was staged at his first boutique, Jungle Jap, on 14 April 1970. “I wanted to call it Jungle Something. Jungle Jap sounded good—it had humour—so I painted that on the window,” soon acquiring the nickname ‘Jap’ in the fashion world.

Obviously, ‘Jap’ raised barbed issues of ethnicity as it clearly has racist pejorative overtones. He encouraged the conversion into a somewhat positive identity.[135] He brought out five collections in one year and gradually, his work appeared in magazines and became recognized. Buyers and journalists started flocking to his shows. Celebrating youth and pleasure, his designs exploded in a carefully harmonized kaleidoscope of colours and floral patterning. The flower arrangement asserted his own Japanese heritage into his garments, without aggression, expressing vivacity and the love of life.

Gaiety, freshness and poetry were used in the fashion press when writing about Kenzo and his work but Kenzo preferred the word ‘liberty’ in the sense of joy and to create, assert and exist.[136] He had unintentionally overturned the attitudes in the world of fashion through his series of coloured variations of the kimono. The sophisticated and slender, fitted silhouette of the western cut of garments in the sixties was modified – “I believe that this new proposition of mine formed the basis of the “Big Look” which has been so successful.”[137]

Appendix E His childhood and trajectory of his career assists an understanding of his fashion. He has lived an admirably adventurous life, waiting and following his calls of destiny – Sainderichin suggests Kenzo’s life and work follows a certain philosophy, “Time opens doors for those who know how to wait… A life does not reveal itself; it narrates itself.”[131] Born in 1939 in Jimeji, Kenzo Takada grew up in the machiai (tea house) run by his taciturn and rigid father near the castle of Himeji, in the Hyogo prefecture of Japan. Surrounded by the voices of singing geishas, the shimmering colours and flowers of the kimono fabrics, the abundant greenery and blossoming cherry trees, Kenzo lived immersed in a beautiful scene much like a Japanese print.[132] The language used to describe Kenzo’s childhood, paints an idyllic pictureperfect world, unspoiled and sublimely paradisiacal.

He grew up reading his older sister’s fashion magazines such as Sun and Himawari (Sunflower), studying fashion photographs and experimenting with prints and patterns, making dolls and their outfits for his sisters – “This is how I edged my way into fashion and how, in my dreams, I sewed dresses for the round-eyed daughters of the far-off West.”[133] Kenzo worked as a part-time tofu seller and sign painter while taking a correspondence course and evening classes in an institute of fashion design to pass Bunka’s entrance examination to be accepted into the prestigious fashion school Bunka Gakuen in Tokyo.

Buying a one-way boat ticket to Europe, Kenzo went on a six-week voyage and the string of wonderful discoveries of “sun, exoticism, landscapes, perfumes” are harvested in the credo of his creativity: “The world is beautiful.”[134] In Paris, he joined Relations Textiles, an advisory group on marketing and style, where he specialized in knitting techniques.

Throughout the seventies, his creations had a piquancy of sweet adolescence, appropriating the impertinence of youth and shaking up the conventions and formalities of the time.[138] Ever since leaving Japan, Kenzo travelled constantly: Peru, Africa, Greece, Egypt, India, Brazil, Bangkok, even Disneyland. “He immersed himself in their traditions, without prejudices or reservations…

He distrusted facile picturesque or superficial interpretations. He assimilated and acclimatized.”[139] Living in equilibrium between Japan and France, his taste for the foreign and exotic in his collections, stemmed from his nature – “I myself am exotic.”[140]

Ibid.

Ginette Sainderichin, Kenzo (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1999), 5.

132 Sainderichin, Kenzo, 6.

133 Sainderichin, Kenzo, 6.

134 Ibid.

Richard Martin, “Kenzo,” Fashion Encyclopedia, accessed July 9, 2014, http://www.fashionencyclopedia. com/Ja-Kh/Kenzo.html.

136 Sainderichin, Kenzo, 11.

137 Sainderichin, Kenzo, 6.

138 Sainderichin, Kenzo, 11.

139 Ibid., 13.

140 Ibid.

130

135

131

87

Appendix |

FIT

Kenzo retired from his 30-year career with his final spring-summer collection in 2000. Claude Montana once commented, “Kenzo gives much more to fashion than all the couturiers lumped together.”[141] Gilles Rosier filled the position of creative director until 2004, followed by Antonio Marras until 2011.

Currently, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim are the creative directors of Kenzo since 2012.

141 Richard Martin, “Kenzo,” Fashion Encyclopedia, accessed July 9, 2014, http://www.fashionencyclopedia. com/Ja-Kh/Kenzo.html.

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Fashion in archi Tecture