a thought...

After watching the movie Inception I am left with the notion of tangability. what we percieve as sensory true may not be. I have the desire to look deeply into the tangable as well as the intangable as we move into designing a building. I suppose one might say I have my own agenda. These ideas are rough, but I would like to at least express them.

If Corbusier thought of right angles as organizing elements and curves as elements that would touch the human body, I feel I can use these ideas in my own quest. Right angles to me are tangable. These are what we use to understand our world. What, then, of curves? curves in a building are the intangable. these "touch" the sense of sight and invoke an emotion...

I feel I might be going to quickly. Rewind, about a year or so. I realize the spaces I have felt compelled to leave between buildings has been an attempt at touching what we call our souls. An example:

Space between buildings stirs an emotion.
The space here is harsh. Cold concrete seems to be abrasive. The space hear could be said to be bourdering on the intangable to the common person, as there is not much here to fix our known world on. However, there are two elements to soften the entire ensamble. The stream down the center leading off to the horizon makes the observer say, "I'm o.k. with this." The need to have a visual escape is ever important here. Also there is a need to be able to touch an element which is not man-made, aka water in this case. It could be wood, or stone, or any other item that lets us see true nature.

Here I must pause; I have other work that requires my attention...

the machines for seeing

These are machines for seeing. Sometimes in order to see something new all you need are new eyes... You can look at the same thing, and yet see something entirely different. Anyway, these "machines" are to make the viewer see the landscape in a different way.

Machine #1:

This is just a simple box, however in trying to see the model through this machine one must adjust the mirrors within to get a glimpse through the other side. As the viewer looks in the machine, however, we get in our own way. staring back at the viewer is the viewer themselves. This reflection is my attempt at trying to show how we have the need to see ourselves in our physical manafestations in an attempt at immortality. unfortunatly this will never work... nothing we build will last forever. we just want to see ourselves while we are alive.

This machine doesn't quite get across what I had hoped as the mirrors are too blurry and the distance between them is too great. One was supposed to be able to see through their own image to the clear image of the model. Instead all you can see is yourself.

Machine #2:

Based in my extra-curricular reading of Buddhism, I have made this machine for viewing nothing. there was not much instruction to this one, just make us see nothing. As said before, all we might need is new eyes so I will leave this discription at that.

the building

So here is the landscape I came up with. This is a building imposed on a landscape which could have been prestine, as it were. As the glasses in the painting are, in a sort, an imposition on the painting I used the shape of them to reflect this in the building. The table has become the water and the different levels of which reflect the different layers in the painting the table seems to be at. This composition is ment to be set at the preverbial edge of the world.

new assignments

We have moved on. Still working on the painting, now we must see a landscape in the midst of the lines. Add to this the use of a Corbu building and you get an interesting dialoge between a cubist artist and a designer who saw the world through the cubist glass. Let me explain; if cubism is about moving around an object to see it in its totallity, Corbusier's use of the ramp fits in with this phylosophy. Instead of a means to an end, going up stairs to get to the top, we find Corbusier wants us to experience the space he has given us as we gradually travel from one plane to the next taking in the space in its intirty.

The building I have chosen to couple with the work I have been doing on the Juan Gris painting is the Corruchette House. http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php?title=Curutchet_House (pretty good, quick reference). This house is on a small foot print but manages to pack a punch when it comes to architecture. Corbu ues the ramp to deliver the full oportunity for viewing this house. Placed on piloti, the house sits above the ground plane and allows nature to grow up and around the structure. These are the two main features I chose to borrow in this exersize. Getting to some work heres some pics:

As you can see in these section drawings I am attempting to break down the ground plane into verious levels to create a more complex fabric to inhance the viewing experience of the person walking around. Ramps are in use as well as the "hovering" blocks are both on piloti, as will become more evident in the model to come. 

Thoughts: 

The idea was presented that maybe the water I have in the landscape might relate more to the actual painting which I am getting all the lines from. This gave me the idea that maybe the table could be some sort of waterfall with the edge of the tabl being where the water spills off into the abyss being the floor in the painting. I would leave this section as a void in the model to emphasize the point. 

Here's the actual painting for reference.

understanding how we see

given the painting Glasses, Newspaper & Bottle of Wine by cubist painter Juan Gris we were told to, in a sense, "understand" the painting. Cut it up, push and pull and ultimately tease out what the painting was about.


the whole idea behind this is to stand up the fronts of the objects on the painting and keep flat the surfaces that were parallel to the table top. i also cut the painting along the strong vertical lines to try to align the table edge to better understand the space.

this was an attempt at further cutting and disecting the painting. i turned the different pieces into various planes. giving them a certain depth i was able to create something that while it looked like the painting head on became very distorted when viewed from an angle.

 this was an attempt at creating layers of color to "flatten" the painting by pushing the lighter colors to the back and bringing the darker colors to the front.

using clear plastic i used layers in this model as well but chose to layer the objects within the space. this is the least successful of the studies as it is the most difficult to read the painting through the modifications.