FEBRUARY 29–APRIL 10 2016 DESIGN AT RIVERSIDE GALLERY
THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
Opening Reception
MONDAY FEBRUARY 29, 6:30–8 :30 PM DESIGN AT RIVERSIDE GALLERY 7 Melville Street South | Cambridge Ontario Opening Hours Tuesday to Thursday 12 - 8 pm Friday 12 - 5 pm Saturday 10 am - 5 pm Sunday 1:30 - 4:30 pm Symposium
REPRESENTING AMBIENCE TODAY: TRACING THE MATERIALITY OF VIRTUAL OBJECTS APRIL 2 2016, 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
7 Melville Street South | Cambridge Ontario
Drawing Ambience The title of this exhibition refers not only to the imaginary space that architectural drawings evoke, but also to the physical ambience in which they were displayed, collected, and discussed in the 1970s and 1980s under Alvin Boyarsky’s leadership at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA). In the AA’s club-like atmosphere, Boyarsky displayed and encouraged dialogues about drawings. Through a series of purposeful renovations, he further enhanced the inviting Georgian atmosphere of the school’s Bedford Square premises—converted from former residences—by replacing studios with galleries and gathering spaces for lectures and exhibitions, eating and entertaining. The chandelier, fireplace mantle, and bar were important accoutrements to, and even became symbols of, Boyarsky’s pedagogical reform, and the activities and exchange of ideas it generated among participants across the world. As exhibitions proliferated in the galleries, hallways, and at the popular AA bar, personal encounters and dialogues flourished. Students met with teachers to exchange drawings, ideas, and drinks, frequently in the company of visiting lecturers and practitioners who contributed to the special ambience that characterized Boyarsky’s office and the halls of the AA. Traces of these interactions are found in Boyarsky’s collection, which includes sketches made by teachers and students as well as guests. 1 Jeremie Frank American The Macrophone, 1981 Technical pen and ink, airbrush and ink, collage, and graphite underdrawing on paperboard With its ambitious composition and meticulous technique, Jeremie Frank’s The Macrophone evidences the competitive drawing spirit of the AA, which affected faculty and students alike. Frank made her drawing as an exercise under her tutor Mike Davies, who, according to Frank, asked the students to take “an existing building plan [and] create your own design that expresses the same articulation but is developed vertically in a different way than the building from which the plan was drawn.” Frank scaled up a cutaway illustration of injection molding into a gigantic structure for the production of energy from sound: the Macrophone. The project melded her interests in music and architecture.
Reflections on Modernity While some architects of this period turned to the pre– industrial era for formal inspiration, others continued to find productive possibilities in modernist expression. Zaha Hadid, in the foreword to her AA Folio claimed that the modernist project was not finished and called on her generation to have the audacity to continue it. Hadid, like the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and Bernard Tschumi, appropriated the legacy of the early 20th-centuryavant-garde,inparticularRussianconstructivismand the work of Kazimir Malevich. Their proposals for Parc de la Villette in Paris—all on view here, with Hadid’s plan visible as a miniature reproduction within The World—reflect both a modernist language of abstract forms and the evolving nature of contemporary culture. These proposals actively promote the idea of the park as a space of dense social interactions. Especially relevant to this section is the efficacy of drawings to advance and promote a global discussion of public space through their display, publication, and appearance in international competitions, where many of these architects competed externally (as they did as unit masters with the school). Most of the designs were not only drawn but printed, offering the possibility for wide distribution and the corresponding international dialogue. 2 Zaha Hadid British, b. Iraq, 1950 Sperm Table, 1988 Photographic print with hand-applied bronze paint mounted to foamcore This drawing is from Zaha Hadid’s first built work—five pieces of furniture for William Bitar’s home in London. Sperm Table “was based on a squiggle I drew,” Hadid stated. The curving shapes were created using French curves with changing radii, tools that were fundamental to drafting at that time. A small measured plan is provided at the bottomright section for both the sperm-shaped bronze base and an irregular glass top. Overlaying this 1:5 scaled plan is a fullscale planar representation that is not contained within the sheet size. A visualization of a quick initial thought— a squiggle—as a piece of furniture, this drawing anticipates the built forms that would soon surface worldwide in Hadid’s architectural work. 3 Zaha Hadid British, b. Iraq, 1950 The World (89 Degrees), 1984 Print with hand-applied acrylic and wash on paper This is one of Zaha Hadid’s best-known drawings, and was originally made as a measured drawing, remade as a print, and later painted by hand. The drawing itself is a collection of miniature reproductions of Hadid’s earlier professional and student projects, including her Irish prime minister’s residence scheme in the lower left. Showing many distant geographical sites in a single drawing—from Dublin and London to Hong Kong—The World also represents an increasingly internationalized architectural culture, with Hadid’s own practice as one of its main expressions.
4 Zaha Hadid British, b. Iraq, 1950 Kurfürstendamm Office Building, West Berlin, 1986 Color photo-offset lithograph reproduction of drawing Zaha Hadid’s plan for an office building in West Berlin proposes slim wall plates that peel off to expand beyond a tight rectangular footprint. Through a combination of exaggerated linear perspective and twisted planes, this image emphasizes the nascent dynamism of Hadid’s buildings, which seem to emerge from the curvature of the horizon line. Reproduced as a photo-offset lithograph, Kurfürstendamm Office Building is ultimately made for global consumption and collection. The affectionate inscription “with love” from Hadid to “Alvino” Boyarsky is a sure sign of this drawing’s transition into the world of collections. 5 Zaha Hadid British, b. Iraq, 1950 Residence for the Irish Prime Minister, Dublin, 1980 Photostat on Mylar sheet mounted to paperboard Zaha Hadid’s competition entry for the Irish prime minister’s residence presents an existing walled garden with new spaces for the residence and state functions suspended above it. The drawing is dominated by irregularly shaped floor slabs stacked on top of each other, freely floating above the garden. This spatial concept is directly linked to Hadid’s idea of “X-ray drawings” made of transparent layers, allowing all floorplans to be visible simultaneously. While Hadid links the X-ray drawings to her time as a student at the AA, where she spent countless hours drawing on Mylar and tracing paper, they also foreshadow her later built work, known for its interwoven, twisted, and often transparent floor plates. 6 Office for Metropolitan Architecture Rotterdam, established 1975 Rem Koolhaas Dutch, b. 1944 Elia Zenghelis British, b. Greece, 1937 Site plan for Parc de la Villette, Paris, 1983 Negative photostat with applied color film on paper In 1982, the French government organized an international competition for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. The competition called for public space replete with museums, play areas, scientific discovery areas, gardens, and entertainment, athletic, and shopping facilities. OMA’s novel concept, drawn up by a team led by Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, took the idea of a skyscraper and spread it horizontally, creating an urban park as a series of programmatic strips, each serving a different function. Each strip is a flexible shell for various functions, as humorously suggested in the drawings.
7 Bernard Tschumi Swiss / French, b. Switzerland, 1944 Studies for the folio La Case Vide: La Villette, nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, K-Series, 1985 Photostats with hand-applied enamel paint on paper In these studies, Bernard Tschumi reflected on his winning competition scheme for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. They were made for an exhibition at the AA titled La Case Vide and the related volume in the AA Folio series, which coincided with the commencement of the park’s construction. The geometry of points, lines, and surfaces gives particular prominence to the series of empty structures, called follies, that could be freely appropriated by park visitors and that recall, with their accentuated structural elements and bright red color, both Russian Constructivism and the history of the property itself, which was once the site of a slaughterhouse. Another meaning is implied in Tschumi’s spelling of the word folie, a wordplay that suggests madness, delusion, and mania. In destabilizing all notions about signification and meaning, this linguistic reference mirrors the poststructuralist philosophical trend of the time. The incorporation of photographs of potential park users evokes Tschumi’s allegiance to cinematic, performance, and installation art. 8 Office for Metropolitan Architecture Rotterdam, established 1975 Rem Koolhaas Dutch, b. 1944 Stefano de Martino Italian, b. 1955 Boompjes, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1980 Color screenprint on three sheets of paper A triptych named after a street in Rotterdam, Boompjes visualizes a development of vertical structures nestled within a tiny sliver of land encircled by a network of highways, waterways, and other forms of infrastructure on the banks of the Maas River. In fusing buildings with the surrounding infrastructure,thisOMAproposalemphasizesthefirm’sapproach to urbanism and their idea of cross-programming—assigning building functions in unexpected ways to mediate a contemporary metropolitan “culture of consumption.” 9 Office for Metropolitan Architecture Rotterdam, established 1975 Alex Wall American, b. 1948 The Pleasure of Architecture, 1983 After section drawing for Parc de la Villette, Paris Color screenprint on paper The Pleasure of Architecture, a tip-up section drawn directly on top of the plan, replaces the site plan’s abstractness with figurative representations of people, landscapes, and animals. It was made by Alex Wall specifically for the second stage of the international Parc de la Villette competition, as a concluding image in the project packet. Its animate appearance was meant to convince the jury that the abstract plan could indeed work well as a park.
European Radicals Some of the earliest pieces in the exhibition are by members of European radical groups working in 1960s and ’70s: Archigram of London, Coop Himmelblau of Vienna, and Superstudio of Florence. Much of the work they produced countered modernist ideals of permanence and stability in architecture, exploring instead temporary and nomadic projects that reflected on the potentials and predicaments of global technological advances. At the core of their experiments was a renewed emphasis on visual imagery. These artists often used photomontage to situate visionary proposals within actual photographic images, cannily blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary. Reproducing these montages as posters with a finely honed concern for typography and graphic design provided a means of disseminating the proposals internationally. Boyarsky likely acquired these works when the architects participated in his International Institute of Design (IID) Summer Sessions in London (1970–1972). The summer sessions were a major platform for radicals to disseminate their ideas, serving also as a foundation for Boyarsky’s larger international network of collaborators and a precursor to his work at the AA. 10 Coop Himmelblau Vienna, established 1968 Super Spaces, ca. 1969 Color photo-offset lithograph and screenprint Wolf D. Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky, the founders of the architectural firm Coop Himmelblau, and their collaborator Rainer Michael Holzer explored self-contained, nomadic experimental architecture (like David Greene’s LogPlug). The transport vehicle portrayed here is similar to one they designed to manipulate two inflatable rooms for the project The Cloud (1968–1972)—an unrealized installation for the international exhibition Documenta 5 in Kassel, West Germany, in 1972. Much of their graphic work extended beyond traditional architectural drawing to encompass a finely honed concern for typography, graphic design, and a collage aesthetic. 11 Superstudio Italian, active 1966–1978 Film Script, 1971 From Il monumento continuo (The Continuous Monument) Photocopy 12 New-New York, 1969 From Il monumento continuo (The Continuous Monument) Color photo-offset lithograph on paper 13 Antologia 1969–1971 (Anthology 1969–1971), 1972 Color photo-offset lithograph on paper 14 L’architettura interplanetaria (Interplanetary Architecture), 1971 Color photo-offset lithograph on paper
15 Le dodici città ideali (Twelve Ideal Cities), 1971 Color photo-offset lithograph on paper Superstudio, founded in Florence in 1966, quickly became one of the dynamos of the Italian Architettura Radicale (Radical Architecture) wave. With other Florence-based groups, Superstudio responded to the limitations of modernism and to the particularities of its own context, including the devastating Florentine flood of 1966 and the social tensions that culminated in the 1968 student protests. Superstudio’s dystopian visions were put forth in montaged posters that called attention to contemporary conditions such as the relationship of technological progress to social, cultural, and environmental issues. With their posters, they connected to a global web of contemporary discourse. The Continuous Monument, one of Superstudio’s best-known projects, orders cities within one large, empty mega structure. It is represented in the Boyarsky Archive with the famous New-New York photo-collage, depicting the monolithic monument as it wraps around Manhattan and continues around the globe. The project’s storyboard, with its subtitle “an architectural model for total urbanization,” situates The Continuous Monument in a historical lineage of monumental architectural forms. 16 David Greene British, b. 1937 LogPlug and other drawings, 1970 Color screenprint on gold Mylar David Greene, a founding member of the experimental British architecture group Archigram, abandoned permanent architecture in favor of absolute mobility; he conceived of cars, pickup campers, and trailer homes as mobile rooms. This screenprint recycles drawings from several projects: the Logplug and Rokplug (in the left two panels), and the elements from his L.A.W.U.N. (Locally Available World Unseen Networks) projects (in the right two panels). In his Logplug and Rokplug project, artificial (but completely camouflaged) logs and rocks concealed energy-supply outlets that would distribute essential services without disrupting the natural environment. Greene’s L.A.W.U.N. projects pushed the idea of nomadic architecture even further; L.A.W.U.N. #1, Bottery, for example, proposed an entirely pedestrian landscape fully serviced by robots, such as the Skinbot shown here.
17 Eduardo Paolozzi British, 1924–2005 Untitled, 1980 From the portfolio Art Zanders 80 Color screenprint on Chromolux paper Mechanical diagrams and collections of figures are the foundation for Eduardo Paolozzi’s Untitled print, which is configured like a game board: “Games of a stupendously ridiculous comic format,” Paolozzi is chronicled as stating. The circuit-board-like imagery becomes a playground for the gymnastic figures set within the composition. This project provided the highly experimental artist an opportunity to work with new materials and new technicians. The print was his contribution to a multi-artist portfolio produced by Zanders Feinpapiere AG to promote new papers, including the high-gloss Chromolux paper used here. Paolozzi applied a matte printing ink that sat on top of the shiny surface to create a dimensional effect. 18 Eduardo Paolozzi British, 1924–2005 B.A.S.H., 1971 Color screenprint and collage on paper One of the founders of Pop art, Eduardo Paolozzi built imagery, as seen here, through collaging elements from a vast collection of printed ephemera, then reproducing the composition through a variety of print techniques. Paolozzi described the topical subjects in B.A.S.H.—the astronaut, soldier, robot, human heart, Marilyn Monroe, and John F. Kennedy—as “a collection of metaphors which add up to the 20th-century experience…. They’re a scattering of what you would see just sitting down to a television…. turning the knob from one channel to another.” Paolozzi had been a regular presence at the AA since the 1950s, and his aesthetic playfully augmented conventional forms of architectural representation. 19 Michael Webb British, b. 1937 06 0/P2, 1987 From the series Temple Island Graphite, ink wash, colored pencil, rub-on letters, and ink stamp on paper mounted to paperboard While Michael Webb’s drawings recall Archigram’s appropriation of new technology and pop culture, they also engage subtleties of drafting and perception. In this drawing, Webb explores the idea of a submersible that could traverse the famous regatta course at Henley-on-Thames. The numerous construction lines and control points used to suggest the submarine’s form evoke the open-ended nature of a working drawing. The delicate use of a shaded wash accentuates the capsule’s complex curvature. Deeply embedded in the drawing’s system of lines and surfaces is a faint representation of a reclined human figure gazing in the direction of the river flow. With the figure’s cone of vision clearly drawn, Webb not only reaffirms the importance of observation to his larger architectural project, but also hints at the pervasive primacy of vision in contemporary culture.
Reflections on History As some architects assumed drawing as their primary form of practice in the 1970s and ’80s, they increasingly focused on questions of history and memory. For many institutions and as seen in the first Venice Architecture Biennale in 1980, this meant a fairly literal historicist turn. Yet the AA under Boyarsky maintained a more balanced approach, promoting the work of architects who re-examined modernity (see the section Reflections on Modernity) and those who made contemplative works centered on the questions of meaning in architecture. Many works in this vein were exhibited attheAA,includingtheetchingsoftheRussian“paperarchitects” Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, who wanted to recapture a past rejected by Soviet policies of progress and standardization; visual ruminations of the terrors and tragedies of the 20th century, especially the Holocaust, in the work of John Hejduk and Daniel Libeskind; and reflections on the city, historical memory, and society in drawings by the Italian architects Franco Raggi and Franco Purini. As these prints and drawings included references to past structures, events, and the passage of time, they went beyond mere historical citation, acting as an open-ended repository of collective memory and historical narrative. 20 Franco Raggi Italian, b. 1945 Untitled, 1977 Ballpoint pen and ink on paper In this quick sketch, Franco Raggi references two important preoccupations of his time. First, the use of historical allusions, as seen in the classical columns, and second, the exploration of mobile and portable architecture, in the mattress-topped vehicle. Drawn in ballpoint pen—a tool as portable and as ephemeral as the idea he illustrates—this ironic image also captures the particular enthusiasm for symbolism in Italian architecture and design of this period. 21 Franco Purini Italian, b. 1941 La terra desolata (The Waste Land), 1984 From the series Around the Shadow Line Technical pen and brush and ink with graphite underdrawing on Fabriano paper This drawing evokes a multiplicity of historical references and allegorical allusions, with a quality of playful absurdity behind the brooding, overgrown landscape. Included is an image of the iconic work of Russian Constructivism, the Vesnin brothers’ Leningrad Pravda Building (1924), hovering like an illuminated beacon in the upper right. Underneath is a series of modern and postmodern skyscrapers deeply shaken by the force of history, signified by the rising classical column in the center.
22 Alexander Brodsky Russian, b. 1955 Ilya Utkin Russian, b. 1955 The Intelligent Market, 1987 Etching and plate tone on paper Brodsky and Utkin’s The Intelligent Market combines a labyrinthine plan and a small section at the upper right with a series of perspectives and textual explanations to portray a seemingly infinite structure made of endless corridors and niches. Appearing as a mausoleum, the architecture implies that knowledge needs to be exhumed from an obsolete era of obfuscation, visually indicated by a film of ink left on the plate before printing. The significance of history is also reflected in the aged appearance of the piece, which is amplified by the fact that the copper plate on which the lines were etched was intentionally abraded and blemished. 23 Alexander Brodsky Russian, b. 1955 Untitled (Person Holding Building), 1984 Etching and plate tone on Johannot paper The somber three-armed figure embracing an enchanting hillside town suggests the Herculean effort needed to protect historic architecture. In the 1980s Alexander Brodsky, often working with Ilya Utkin, was among a group of young Russians who rejected becoming a part of the rigidly standardized Soviet building practice. In order to work creatively, they became paper architects—practitioners concerned with visual reflections and debates on paper rather than on the construction site. Their imaginary projects often commented on the moribund state of the last days of Soviet society and its architecture. 24 Alexander Brodsky Russian, b. 1955 Untitled, 1988 Etching on faded blue laid paper
25 Lebbeus Woods American, 1940–2012 Center for New Technology, Montage 1, 1985 Marker ink and technical pen and ink with graphite underdrawing and printed collage on Paus or Mylar mounted to paperboard Created for a competition published in the Pratt Journal of Architecture, this collage was produced for the proposed Center for New Technology. Woods focused on the repurposing of a military-industrial complex for a “new” technology that would strive to integrate human and natural processes, using drawing as a broad reflection on the past and future of architecture. His design imagines spaces for both individual work and research (in the large vertical towers) and collaboration (in the horizontal spaces connecting the towers). In the description for his competition entry, Woods conflates the center’s intended use for scientific inquiry with the iterative nature of drawing. Interestingly, we see more of Woods’s “research” today than when this work was first drawn: as the drawing has aged, its original color has faded, rendering Woods’s handwork fully visible in the areas where a less stable ink was used to fill in the space around the plan. This area, now presenting warmer orange-brown tones, would have originally read as solid black—a somewhat literal, yet still powerful metaphor of history itself as it unfolds. 26 John Hejduk American, 1929–2000 Studies for Berlin Masque, 1983 Pen and ink on three nonconsecutive sheets from sketchbook and one sheet from lined notebook John Hejduk’s freehand sketches for his theatrical project Berlin Masque emphasize the carnivalesque quality of a series of imaginary, temporary communal buildings. Hejduk’s sketching technique conveys a perpetual and even nervous search for the buildings’ shapes through his rapid, continual reworking of various ideas in plan, section, and axonometric views. He not only used both sides of the paper but also layered words and images on top of one another. Occasionally the text appears to be written sideways or upside down; one can envision him holding his sketchbook in his lap or at his desk, or quickly pulling it out during travel to record new ideas in passing. 27 John Hejduk American, 1929–2000 Victims: New Site Plan, West Berlin, 1986 From the series Victims Photographic print 28 Study for Victims, 1986 Black and red felt-tip pen and ink on lined notebook paper The Victims project comprises 67 structures located on the grounds of the former Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. The structures were to be built one at a time over a period of 60 years. Like many of Hejduk’s other projects, Victims is not only a proposal for a memorial but also a visual
and textual narrative about social relationships, both real and imaginary. Unfolding like a series of characters and plots in a play, Hejduk’s Victims reconnects Berlin with its traumatic historical memory, laden with human emotion, heroism, and tragedy. 29 Daniel Libeskind American, b. Poland, 1946 V–Horizontal, 1983 From the series Chamber Works: Architectural Meditations on Themes from Heraclitus Screenprint on Rives BFK paper The series title Chamber Works suggests both architecture and music, echoing Daniel Libeskind’s background in music prior to studying architecture. V–Horizontal appears toward the middle of this progressive series, and its scattered clusters of serpentine and ruled lines still convey a degree of airiness. Architecturally related elements seem to sit on masses of lightweight, condensed parallel lines that act rather like blank music sheets for Libeskind’s composition. The exact iconography of the piece remains a mystery and was a subject of great discussion on the pages of the Chamber Works AA Folio, in which various critics interpreted the lines as hieroglyphs, musical notations, and subconscious visions. 30 Daniel Libeskind American, b. Poland, 1946 Untitled, 1984 From the series Theatrum Mundi Pen and ink, brush and ink wash, and graphite Daniel Libeskind described his Theatrum Mundi series as a representation of a “city besieged by an unknown infection… taking place within the nucleic medium that flows in the bloodstream of architectural thought.” This abstract idea is visualized in expressive pen lines and ink washes more closely related to writing or calligraphy than architecture. Is the infection related to the state of built architecture of the time? To actual biohazards and pandemics? Or is this a reflection on the terrors and tragedies of the 20th century, which saw as much architectural erasure as construction? All these questions converge in Libeskind’s cryptic drawing, allowing its composition to be read in multiple ways. 31 Daniel Libeskind American, b. Poland, 1946 The Garden, 1979 From the portfolio Micromegas: The Architecture of End Space Screenprint on paper The title of Daniel Libeskind’s Micromegas portfolio comes from the title of a 1752 short story by Voltaire—an early piece of science fiction that describes the journeys of Micromégas, an inhabitant of a planet millions of times the size of earth. The vast differences of scale alluded to in the character’s name serve as a theme within the story, and this play with spatial disjunction and conflation is also reflected in this print, The Garden. Familiar ruled architectural notations, without their expected logic, allow for the free play of precisely drawn lines and forms that often intersect in unpredictable ways.
Drawing Practice Drawing was the primary language of conceptual visualization at the AA during Boyarsky’s tenure, and central to how the school operated. The AA’s “ambience and alchemy,” to use one of Boyarsky’s favorite metaphors, was in part fueled by the unit system, a mode of teaching where faculty had to “sell” their design ideas, first to Boyarsky, in order to gain a contract for the year, and then to students, who were then admitted into these well-branded units based on their drawing portfolio. Drawing assumed a primary role in this system of exchange, and was further expanded by the increased attention Boyarsky placed on drawing exhibitions and publications. The Boyarsky Archive documents this ambitious curatorial program, and includes design proposals and theoretical investigations that, although conceptually diverse, are connected by a shared emphasis on experimentation through drawing. The breadth of these experiments reflects the diversity of architecture’s nascent international culture and links the beauty of the handmade drawing both to the intimate experience of the gallery and the global appeal of finely produced catalogs. Under Boyarsky, the AA bridged these two experiences by means of drawingproduction, exchange,anddissemination,flourishingas one of the last great schools of hand drawing before the digital shift of the early 1990s. This section emphasizes drawing’s diverse tactile and material abilities; it also informs current dialogues in architecture about the future of drawing, namely the interplay of the hand, the imagination, and the digital world. 32 Mary Miss American, b. 1944 Study for Untitled, Bedford Square, London, 1987 Technical pen and ink and graphite on vellum paper This study for a sculptural installation in Bedford Square was commissioned in 1987 by Alvin Boyarsky on the occasion of an exhibition at the AA of drawings by the artist Mary Miss. Miss’s work recurrently directs how viewers move through and experience the landscape or interior space in which the work is placed. Her Bedford Square sculpture was a response to a closed, gated garden in the center of the square; Miss gave visitors an alternative stopping place to the locked green space. Drawn as an isometric rendering, a standard form of 3-D architectural representation, this drawing recalls Miss’s installation works that similarly use methods more common to architecture than art.
33 Michael Gold British, b. 1939 Marion Masheder Site Plan, Typical Flats, and View of the Tower, Millbank, London, 1981 Dye-line print of technical ink drawing with hand-applied pastel, crayon, color pencil, graphite, pen, and gold ink on paper Michael Gold and Marion Masheder’s scheme for the Millbank Housing Competition, organized by the Crown Estate Commissioners in 1977, stands as a critique of the typical British high-rise housing estates and more generally of the modernist housing tower as an icon of social and technological progress. Gold and Masheder’s diamond-shaped tower is an ironic reference to the client herself—the Queen and her jewels—but also a refinement of the idea of housing towers. The striped area rug with oversized tassels calls attention to the domestic occupation of the space as a counterpoint to the austerity of modernist skyscrapers. 34 Nigel Coates British, b. 1949 Ski Station, 1982 Oil pastel, pen and black ink, gold marker ink, and white ink on dark gray paper Laced with visible indications of movement, Nigel Coates’s Ski Station captures the dynamism of skiing through fast, colorful strokes of oil pastel over the ink drawing. The lively gold script with words such as talk, watch, rush, and ski activates the lower quadrant of the drawing, conveying the intensity of the sport. As these golden words eclipse the solidity of the drawing’s structural lines, they also evoke Coates’s interest in contemporary culture, referencing popular magazines, fashion icons, and punk music. 35 Rodney Place South African, b. 1952 Three Chairs for Borromini, One, 1980 Graphite, white color pencil, varnish, gold ink, and thread on collaged paperboards Rodney Place’s drawing portrays a chair whose form is derived from two superimposed triangles in the shape of a star with concave and convex arcs carved from their corners. The plan resembles the complex curves of Francesco Borromini’s 17th-century Roman churches—a testament to Place’s interest in geometry in general and Borromini in particular—echoing also Place’s intersections with his tutors, the architectural historian Robin Evans, and the architect Fred Scott during his final two years at the AA. The intricacy and precision ofBorromini’sarchitectureistransformedin Place’s drawing by a number of ready-made elements, from the freeflowing actual thread to the drawn screw that enigmatically holds the composition together.
36 Christopher Macdonald Canadian, b. 1953 Lobby #2—Plan, 1979 Graphite, watercolor, and gouache on paper Having previously studied environmental science, Macdonald consistently interrogates the relationship between nature and the built environment in his architectural work. In this small drawing, his environmental awareness manifests as a tactile fascination with natural and manmade textures. Lobby #2— Plan, which combines an outdoor green space with a paved interior space of a lobby, contrasts the quick gestural marks representing the grass with the technically drawn pavement grid. While the functionality of the space Macdonald depicts is rather elusive, its forms and use of color are extremely evocative and open for interpretation. 37 Christopher Macdonald Canadian, b. 1953 Peter Salter British ICI Trade Pavilion, Stoneleigh, England, 1983 Technical pen and ink and graphite underdrawing with scraping, erasure, and collage on frosted transparent vellum paper ICI Trade Pavilion was developed by Christopher Macdonald and Peter Salter for the 1983 architectural competition at theRoyalAgriculturalShowgroundinStoneleigh,England.Using plan, section, and elevation, Salter and Macdonald’s proposal consists of a show ring and adjacent trade show pavilions built to serve the five-day festival. The structure conveys a skeleton-like organic quality consistent with its intended function to house farm animals. The cow at the bottom of drawing—its image applied to the back of the sheet and hence partly obscured—alludes to the building program but also to the fact that the vellum sheet was drawn on both sides to achieve greater spatial depth. The labor-intensive drafting process is visible in the wear and tear of the paper. 38 Peter Wilson Australian, b. 1950 “Auto” Windows, 1980 From the series Villa Auto Color pencil, graphite, watercolor or ink, and collaged cigarette papers on white paper mounted to black paper mounted to white paper Using an automotive aesthetic and materiality, “Auto” Windows depicts one of four structures in Villa Auto, a complex designed for the real site of Powerscourt, an 18th-century Irish mansion decimated by a fire in 1974. In this and other works in the series, Wilson employed cigarette paper as a major component of the collage. Musing recently on the work’s changing coloration over time, he observed that the ephemeral material, made to burn, has taken on a veneer of permanence, standing out in stark white against the nowyellowed paper onto which it was collaged.
39 Peter Wilson Australian, b. 1950 The Clandeboye Gate House, Bangor, Northern Ireland, 1984 Graphite and erasure with fixative on tracing paper Peter Wilson’s “Auto” Windows and The Clandeboye Gate House both imagine a future for decaying Irish estates. A major topic in British architectural culture after World War II, the repurposing and demolition of large estates merged questions of social transformation, historic preservation, and adaptive reuse. The Clandeboye Gate House project considers the estate of the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, located in Bangor, County Down. The project is represented by an axonometric projection, elevation, plan, and section, and arranged against an almost painterly rendering of a forest, exploiting the range of graphite’s expressive possibilities. In his precise articulation of the gatehouse, Wilson drew on the colonial heritage of the Dufferin family, incorporating Burmese elements such as the gate’s ornate, slender spire. 40 Peter Wilson Australian, b. 1950 Paradise Bridge, Amsterdam, 1986 From the series Bridgebuildings Color screenprint on paper As with his The Clandeboye Gate House drawing (on view in this exhibition), Peter Wilson combines several types of projections on a single sheet. This work shows the range of motion and moving parts for a swing bridge designed to provide access to the Paradise music venue in Amsterdam. Seen most easily in the plan second from the top, among the four drawings in the bottom half, the design featured hinged panels that could face inward or outward. Wilson anticipated that rock-music fans would add graffiti which would be displayed prominently when the bridge rested in its “home” position (shown in the top portion of the print) as a facade along the riverside. The pristine appearance of the bridge in this print belies its intended eventual appearance. 41 Shin Takamatsu Japanese, b. 1948 Untitled, 1988 From the series The Killing Moon Graphite on cartridge paper Inspired by the geometry of samurai swords, Killing Moon (also known as House at Shugakin II), is a house proposal byShinTakamatsuthatexemplifiesthetensionbetweenartisanal craftsmanship and industrial production. Takamatsu’s drawing, too, embodies subtle material attentiveness and precision. To achieve the delicacy of this work, he slowly layered a “wash” of graphite lines, adding a new level of definition with each stratum, resulting in a highly polished, industrial appearance. This aesthetic resurfaces in his built works, which often bear more resemblance to gigantic engine components than to conventional buildings.
42 Office for Metropolitan Architecture Rotterdam, established 1975 Zoe Zenghelis British, b. Greece, 1937 Site Plan of a Complex of Holiday Villas on the Island of Antiparos, Greece, 1983 Oil on paper with graphite underdrawing OMA’s proposal for a complex of villas on the Greek island of Antiparos emerged from the existing pattern of pedestrian paths, roads, and local vernacular structures. In developing this strategy further, Zoe Zenghelis intentionally edited out the conventions of a typical architectural site plan—representations of roads, trees, and contour lines, as well as labels and directional arrows—creating a purely painterly piece. An artist herself and moderator, together with Madelon Vriesendorp, of a series of Color Workshops at the AA, she produced a painterly drawing that straddles in-between art and architecture. Her delicate strokes are layered, embedding tones and forms the same way the proposed structures nestled themselves within the textured ground of the island. The palette recalls the terrain of the island. 43 Frank Gehry American, b. Canada, 1929 Goldwyn-Hollywood Library, 1983 Pen and ink on paper In this sketch for the Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood Regional Library, Gehry worked out the basic massing of the structure, which would eventually comprise three large pavilions housing the library’s light-filled reading rooms. Far from the orthogonal glass and stucco design that was eventually created, this sketch speaks more to the subjective ambience of the building: an intuition of the space that is simultaneously sensual, fluid, and temporal. It also speaks to the importance of drawing practice for an architect during his important, formative years, when he also participated in an exhibition at the AA featuring the work of contemporary LA architects.
Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association is co-organized by Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis. It is made possible by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. It is curated by Igor Marjanović, associate professor of architecture at Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and Jan Howard, chief curator and Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the RISD Museum. A scholarly publication of the same title, produced in conjunction with the exhibition, is available through the University of Chicago Press. Exhibition design by Boyarsky Murphy Architects Local sponsorship for Drawing Ambience at the Design at Riverside Gallery is provided by the University of Waterloo, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, with special thanks to Steven Hillyer, Director Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, Idea Exchange Art + Design, KPMB Architects, Diamond + Schmitt Architects, architectsAlliance, Blackwell Structural Engineers, Kohn Shnier Architects, Thompson CAD
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE