The Construction of an Image: in pursuit of a non-content/non-context architecture

01

STUDENT: Tanner Whitney.

02 PROJECT TITLE: The Construction of an Image in pursuit of a non-content/non-context architecture.

03 INSTRUCTOR: Stefano Passeri.

04 RENSSELAR SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE. 05 BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE. 06 MAY 2019.

i PREFACE 01.02

iii PREFACE 03.04

00 preface

v

01

part i context

000

02 part ii content

023

03 part iii architecture

031

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part iv non-context

037

05 part v non-content

051

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part vi non-architecture

085

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works cited

103

v PREFACE 05.06

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THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN IMAGE Maybe hindsight is 20/20, but the deep end gets pretty murky by the time you hit the bottom. You can fill your cache of random access memories to the very top, but when it spills over, it has to go somewhere. Out of sight of course, but where to then?

From a sea of forgettable buildings something foreign and something familiar emerged. It didn’t seem to have anything to say so much as it was trying to not say anything at all. A camouflaged ugly duckling chimera of sorts. A mannerist composition of post-industrial shrapnel, to put it plainly.

Frustratingly, its careful sculpting was not enough to muster a unique identity - more than just a knock-off but not much of a good idea.

Inside, the wreckage had taken on a new life, now estranged from its original functions and forms. Without the restraint of familiar pragmatics, exuberant ideas of gravity, tectonics, and material came forward. Through the collapse of the same context, entirely different realities transpired on the outer face and the inner sanctum, to the point that they may never realign. No longer context, no longer content.

000 CONTEXT 00.00

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CONTEXT part i

1km

Frauenkirche, NĂźrnberg, Germany.

Completed 1361.

001 CONTEXT 01.02

01

RENAISSANCE PERIOD Urban organization through the Middle Ages centered around the idea of a public gathering space, originating earlier with the Greek agora. These gathering places served as places of worship, as forums for politics, and as marketplaces. In such a case, the city is conceived “as a tabula rasa dotted with a few existing landmarks� of Christianity.1 Religion constructs a holy skeleton for the city yet to be skinned.

1 Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.

1km

Princeton University Nassau Hall, Princeton, United States.

Built 1756.

003 CONTEXT 03.04

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AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT The privileged occupation of scholarly pursuits, as separated from working class jobs, manifested spatial differences during the 18th century Enlightenment, primarily in Europe and North America. The inflected university campus attempted to reconstruct the fallacy of the agora as the intellectuals’ domain for sharing knowledge, resulting in a pocket for academia situated against the proletariat city.

1km

Ford Motors Piquette Avenue Plant, Detroit, United States.

Built 1904.

005 CONTEXT 05.06

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INDUSTRIAL ERA During the first industrial revolution of the 19th century, the separation of one’s place of residence and place of work were inscribed in the layout of young cities. Also at this time, large scale infrastructure becomes prominent in the image of the city. The effects of carving up the urban sprawl into zoned functions are visible today in these vast swaths of land that have fallen into disuse and disrepair as their hosted programs grew irrelevant.

1km

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, Alaska, United States.

Built 1951.

007 CONTEXT 07.08

04 GLOBAL AGE Globalization has made getting far away from the city of equal importance to getting around the city’s interior. An extensive network of international trade (and, by definition, capitalism) has made possible the settlement of cities in humanly undesirable, but geographically advantageous locations.

Corporations and their supporters withstand the harsh conditions of unforgiving climates, like that of Anchorage, Alaska, in the name of optimizing logistics. Another motivation (sometimes beneath the surface) is the exploitation of natural resources, such as gold and oil, in the case of Anchorage.

“The family, the hometown, the local church, and so on, no longer carry much weight in a society where factors such as divorce, social fragmentation, and a waning of religious interest have undercut their authority.�

Neal Leach - Camouflage

05

ANCHORAGE ALASKA

011 CONTEXT 11.12

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TED STEVENS ANCHORAGE INTL AIRPORT (ANC) The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is the largest airport in Alaska. The enclave sits near the waterfront, a few miles southwest of downtown Anchorage. The airport’s runways are shared with a huge commercial shipping facility, a distribution and customs hub used by shipping giants like FedEx (Federal Express), UPS (United Parcel Service), and DHL (Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn). The Kulis Air National Guard Base flanks the site as well.

FedEx Express is the airport’s largest cargo facility, processing nearly 13,400 packages per hour. UPS’s hub processes about 5,000 parcels per hour. Anchorage is an ideal location for a distribution hub, since it is less than a 9.5 hour flight from 90% of the developed world. top cargo destinations AMS Amsterdam Airport Schipol HKG Hong Kong International Airport MEM Memphis International Airport NRT Tokyo Narita International Airport PVG Shanghai Pudong International Airport SDF Louisville International Airport TOP CARGO + PASSENGER DESTINATIONS ATL Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta Airport FRA Frankfurt International Airport JFK John F. Kennedy International Airport LAX Los Angeles International Airport SFO San Francisco International Airport

013 CONTEXT 13.14

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Threat of Volcanic Ash - The Ring of Fire Air traffic in Anchorage is in sever danger of being delayed or redirected due to volcanic eruptions across Alaska. Pumic deposits ejected from an eruption are strong enough to break crucial instruments and components of all types of planes, including the windshield of a commercial jet.

MOSCOW

WASHINGTON

BEIJING

ANCHORAGE SEOUL TOKYO

015 CONTEXT 15.16

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STRATEgic Political LOCATION As a state, Alaska allows the United States to become an arctic nation. This strateigic location, being so close to the north pole, positions the US with significant access to other world capitals, more than any of the other fourty-eight states. Thus, Alaska and Anchorage become critical for national security.

017 CONTEXT 17.18

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Oil Presence in the Arctic Region A 2008 United States Geological Survey estimates that areas north of the Arctic Circle have 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil (and 44 billion barrels of natural gas) in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum.

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The History of Oil in Alaska Oil was first discovered in Alaska in 1957. From there, the U.S. Congress granted Alaska its statehood, deeming it a secure economic base. The discovery of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s North Slope in 1967 further established Alaska as an oil and gas province.

In recent years, the production of crude oil has been in decline, and not for lack of resources (though oil reserves are being rapidly depleted). The government tax under the previous tax system was so high that Alaska was unable to compete with other oil provinces in the U.S. The state is making efforts to encourage investment in Alaskan oil, spurring some new growth.

PRUDHOE BAY NPR ANWR

TRANS-ALASKA PIPELINE

ANCHORAGE

EXISTING OIL & GAS WELLS

NPR - National Petroleum Reserve ANWR - Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

019 CONTEXT 19.20

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Alaska’s Oil Industry The oil industry in Alaska provides some of the most essential and highest-paying jobs in the state. Over one third of all Alaskan jobs are in the petroleum sector, and the state estimates that 90 percent of its revenue comes from the oil and gas industry.

In 1976, a portion of the state’s oil revenues was set aside, and an annual dividend is distributed to every eligible Alaskan.

Since the annual dividend started being distributed in 1982, a family of four has received a total of $133,461.

90% of Alaska’s state budget comes from the oil and gas industry.

billions of barrels

Alaska Crude Oil Reserves

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crude oil reserves expected to decrease

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1980

021 CONTEXT 21.22

1990

2000

2010

2020

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Resources in Decline The importance of the oil industry in Alaska’s economy means that, without oil, Alaska’s economy would tank. Unfortunately for Alaska, its oil production has been in decline since its peak in 1988, when the state accounted for 25 percent of U.S. domestic production. Now, Alaska produces approximately seven percent. New oil fields are more and more treacherous to develop, as many are located in remote areas.

Prudhoe Bay remains one of the largest oil fields in North America, with three other of the top ten producing oil fields also located on the North Slope. Yet, Alaska’s reliance on its rapidly diminishing natural resources is alarming. The resources it thrives on are also non-replenishable. What becomes of Alaska once its oil fields cease production?

023 CONTENT 00.00

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CONTENT part ii

cindy sherman Untitled Film Stills. 1979.

oma Très Grande Bibliotèque. 1989.

Plan. Level 14. “Storage” michael hansmeyer Digital Grotesque I. 2013.

025 CONTENT 01.02

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FLOODING AND WITHHOLDING Withholding information is one method of achieving obscurity, or camouflage, employed by Rem Koolhaas in his Paris library proposal wherein an entire plan is depicted as poche, or solid material. As architects, we can infer that the amount of infill such an operation would require is enough to sink the entire building, and as such the designer most likely had undisclosed intentions. Koolhaas’s juxtaposition of Cindy Sherman against this cryptic plan in his competition entry then takes on a deeper meaning beyond the generic label of ‘Storage’.

By contrast, Michael Hansmeyer’s claim that his Digital Grotesque I grotto is “undrawable” is referring not to the digital capability of producing a line drawing, but that the geometry exceeds human capacity for comprehension when reduced to that medium. Flattening into two dimensions (in the absence of light and shadow) melts the meaning of the eccentric detail into pure chaos.

In the case of Cindy Sherman, the photographer is able to reposition herself to simultaneously take on the role of the subject in nearly all of her work. Rather than expose herself, however, Sherman has completely shrouded her identity by propagating hundreds of different personas through her images over several decades. The work functions both as a cloaking device for the artist, and as a feminist manifesto calling into question the imagined context for the photographs: she is in fact challenging the viewer’s biases in reading the photograph by alluding to a nonexistent context.

rineke dijkstra Olivier. 2001-2003.

bas princen Refuge 05. 2007.

TANNER WHITNEY Completed. 2018.

027 CONTENT 03.04

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IMAGE AND MASQUERADE Bas Princen deploys a mastery of premier architectural photography principles in his journeys to document pristinely normative spaces. Trained as an architect, Princen spends most of his effort depicting landscapes in flux where the built environment is in conflict with nature. This is meant to bring the uninteresting into a consideration at the level of fine art, but also to tease out an elusive beauty from simple constructions. One might question why someone would be captivated enough to spend the time on such deeply boring work, but the photographs stand as a testament to the power of composition and presentation as tantamount to the content.

As Dijkstra displays her subjects in their purest form, the photos read as generic or detached from artistic expression.

Simply put, much of her work could be easily mistaken for ID photos or stock imagery, though there is a complex narrative latent to each still. By comparison to portraiture of her contemporaries, Dijkstra’s Olivier photographs take on the look of non-art: of mass-produced, bland images confusingly branded as masterful art photographs. By force, the subject’s personality has been annulled in the name of a collective machinic solidarity.

“Like an accelerated film sequence, this series shows the dissolution of the original identity of a man subjected to the conditions dictated by an apparatus of power.”1 1 Price, Cassandra, and Trish Anne Roque.

“Olivier | Rineke Dijkstra.” Strozzina, September 22, 2012. https://macaulay.cuny. edu

filip dujardin Untitled 6. 2013. thomas ruff Image from ‘JPEGS’. 2009.

bAS PRINCEN Ringroad (Houston). 2005. kanghee kim Street Errands. 2017.

029 CONTENT 05.06

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IMAGE AND MASQUERADE Thomas Ruff takes to task collective memory and cultural trauma in his reproductions of iconic scenes, distorting them toward grotesque or fantastical ends. His depiction of the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 is at once able to at once strip the content of its originally-intended connotations of disgust and anxiety, all the while evoking a similar rage, distance, and uncertainty.

Artist Filip DuJardin uses a vast library of his own photographs to carefully construct new (sometimes impossible) buildings using digital photo manipulation software. In a similar vein, photographer Kanghee Kim depicts semi-surrealist scapes just beyond the threshold of reasonable doubt (shown on the previous page). By layering images from her own archive, Kim is able to encrypt fantasy destinations in her everyday encounters. Often the sleight-of-hand is not revealed without a closer inspection, giving way to the viewer’s own daydreams.

031 ARCHITECTURE 00.00

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ARCHITECTUR part iii

eduard francois Hotel Fouquet Barrière. 2006.

Elevation and Details.

033 ARCHITECTURE 01.02

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MEMORY AND INVENTED REALITY In an architectural setting, context plays a crucial role in establishing identity or anonymity. While some designers exercise a degree of self-restraint in order to harmonize with the surroundings, there remains an impulse to bend the rules to impart meaning or value. Perhaps due to ego or at least a disciplinary sense of obligation toward progress, context (and cannibalism) has reinvented its role as a design factor, in otherwise homo- and heterogeneous urban environments alike.

To the dismay of many Parisian officials and citizens alike, the Hotel Fouquet Barriere desecrates its history in the interest of exercising contemporary architectural ideals. Here the facade is liberated from the building’s interior organization in plan and section as registered by tactically-placed windows situated among the classical order of surface relief. Francois uses small hints to display his best efforts to not blend in: subtle misalignments of the facade against the neighboring property, conspicuous display of the rainwater downspout, and material ignorance as the entire project is clad in precast concrete units.

hans murman architects Juniper House. 2005. doug aitken Mirage. 2017. allthatissolid Gamuda Town Center. 2017.

035 ARCHITECTURE 03.04

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CONTEXT AND IMPOSTERS In their Gamuda Town Center proposal, ALLTHATISSOLID superimposes the facades of civic urban typologies from around the world, on one hand highlighting the futility of latching onto a thin shred of local context in an era of globalization. At the same time, the project is able to selectively draw upon the unique advantages of the source materials to create distinct microcosms in a large public space.

Hans Murman’s Juniper House goes so far as to invent a context amidst which it can camouflage itself, through the deployment of a thin veil. From a distance, the residence seamlessly fades into the treeline. A few steps closer and, upon realizing there is in fact a house in the woods, one might presume the design has a sort of symbiotic relationship to its neighboring greenery, with which it is so intimately acquainted.

Upon reaching the front door, it becomes clear, however, that this is merely a normal house with a printed wrapper made to look like juniper trees. To label this approach as good, bad, or ugly can only fall into the trap of naive hypocrisy.

Doug Aitken’s construction of a proverbial single-family home clad in mirror panels represents a similar interest in the thresholds of visual registration. What is different here, is the production of new psychedelic effects upon close inspection.

The mirage reads first as something quite complicated, then very simple, and at last especially clever in its ability to produce such intrigue from a simple scheme with only one move.

“Assimilation emerges as a mechanism of defense.”

Neal Leach - Camouflage

037 NON-CONTEXT 00.00

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NONCONTEXT part iv

039 NON-CONTEXT 01.02

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INLET AND OFFRAMP As Keller Easterling posits, architecture in the contemporary city exists as “stones in the water”. Designed monuments act as catalysts for determining the morphology of the city. A majority of built urban work, or “infrastructure space”, is made without an architect but is responsive to the magnetism of the “stones”. Infrastructure space becomes the language of the city itself. While some have taken this to signal the downfall of architecture’s stature, this condition is an invitation for camouflage and other subversive tactics to infiltrate the urban conditions of late capitalism.

“Architecture makes unique objects—like stones in the water—while a constant flow of repeatable spatial formulas constructs a sea of urban spaces…

Infrastructure space, with the power of currency and software, is an operating system for shaping the city.”

Keller Easterling - Extrastatecraft

041 NON-CONTEXT 03.04

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INLET AND OFFRAMP In fact it is not such an absurd proposition to adopt the techniques of the normative, brutish buildings that have come to define a new international anti-style. Both the hyperdesigned and un-designed operate with economy and excess, only toward different ends. Simply put, the thesis stands to prove that neither can be fully discredited, and that neither is the catch-all savior. The method then is to adopt the building elements of utilitarian boxy architecture in a way that confuses type, program, and form.

Such an approach seems only fitting, considering how the warehouse buildings of Anchorage (and infrastructure economies around the world) successfully liberate the generic facade and building envelope from the highly specific program-driven arrangements housed within. The content and the expression are independent at outset; this is not an invention of the project.

043 NON-CONTEXT 05.06

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TIME TRAVEL AND THE VEIL

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IF YOU CAN SMASH THE EGO...

047 NON-CONTEXT 09.10

Ext 3-Lr.jpg Search

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YOU CAN SMASH ANYTIHNG

Ext 8-Lr.jpg Search

049 NON-CONTEXT 11.12

Ext 3-Lr.jpg Search

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YOU CAN SMASH ANYTIHNG

Ext 8-Lr.jpg Search

051 NON-CONTENT 00.00

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NONCONTENT part v

053 NON-CONTENT 01.02

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BUSINESS AS USUAL

scene i

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BUSINESS AS USUAL

scene i

frame 0765.1055 / 5460

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CAMERA 6.1

scene ii

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CAMERA 6.1

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CAMERA 6.1

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CAMERA 1.3

scene iii

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CAMERA 1.3

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CAMERA 3.5

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CAMERA 5.7

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SAVED PLACES

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SAVED PLACES

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085 NON-ARCHITECTURE 00.00

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NONARCHITECTUR part vi

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097 NON-ARCHITECTURE 11.12

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DUCT TAPE CLOSURE For one last trick, the shapeshifter reconsiders itself in a new skin. Born from image, raised as object, tested in a dizzying bout of exposures, back and forth again. While this (not so) final resting place brings only a moment’s reprise, it should serve as an opportunity to let the work breathe. Once more we can recount the masks and phases taken on by the project, from warehouse-induced nausea, to a shredded mess of identity, to low relief carved in conflict, and brief clarity in sandstone. Surely it will die and it will live again in new form, barely recognizable save for it’s aura.

In a balancing act of showing too much skin (and guts) versus not enough for anyone to bat an eye, there still remains a significant amount of viscera unseen. These things are laid bare only for the right person at the right time, here instead left to the imagination. Some things are better left unsaid, and sometimes you just have to look harder. While doing so, don’t forget the fleeting ephemera that first struck you; you’ll never catch them again once you let go. No one else can tell you what it feels like, it’s always better to see for yourself.

01

IMAGE CITATIONS ALLTHATISSOLID - https://allthatissolid.net/ Doug Aitken - https://www.desertx.org/doug-aitken Rineke Dijkstra - http://archive.mariangoodman.com/ exhibitions/2003-09-10_rineke-dijkstra/# Filip Dujardin - http://www.filipdujardin.be/ Michael Hansmeyer - http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/ digital-grotesque-I Kanghee Kim - http://kanghee.kim/Street%20Errands Murman Arkitekter- http://www.murman.se/projekt/juniperhouse/ Bas Princen - http://basprincen.com/ Thomas Ruff - https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-ofart/2006.92/ Cindy Sherman - https://www.moma.org/ artists/5392?locale=en All other images in this project are originally produced or creatively transformed. Such material is copyright of Tanner Whitney 2019.

103 WORKS CITED 01.02

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aureli, Pier Vittorio. “Toward the Archipelago.” In The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, 1-46. MIT Press, 2011.

Easterling, Keller. Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. Verso, 2014.

Farago, Jason. “Cindy Sherman Takes Selfies (as Only She Could) on Instagram.” The New York Times, The New York Times. August 6, 2017.

Koolhaas, Rem. “Strategy of the Void.” In S,M,L,XL, 602-660.

Monacelli Press, 1995.

Leach, Neil. Camouflage. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

Price, Cassandra, and Trish Anne Roque. “Olivier | Rineke Dijkstra.” Strozzina, September 22, 2012. https://macaulay. cuny.edu Princen, Bas, Vanessa Norwood, and Geoff Manaugh. The Construction of an Image. London: Bedford Press, 2016.

Sehgal, Parul. “The Ugly Beauty of Cindy Sherman’s Instagram Selfies.” The New York Times, The New York Times.

October 5, 2018.

Syme, Rachel. “Lady Gaga Isn’t Done Shape-Shifting Yet.” The New York Times, The New York Times. October 3, 2018.

Weizman, Ines. “Architectural Doppelgängers” in AA Files, No. 65, 19-20, 22-24. AA School of Architecture, 2012.

Zago, Andrew. “Awkward Position.” In Perspecta, Vol. 42, 205-218. MIT Press, 2010.

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