Palimpsest
For the context of the essay see Palimpsest.
DESIGN PROCESS AS A SYNTHESIS OF THE DISSOLVED FORMS.
This essay is part of the Bachelor-Thesis “Palimpsest” completed in 2019 under the guidance of Prof. Heike Büttner, Bauhaus-University.
In the design process, parts of the overall composition are gradually decomposed: extracted, disintegrated, transformed. The synthesis of the deconstructed image is conduct- ed on two levels: on the one hand, the progressive decomposition of the overall image is a synthetic sequence that can be read in both directions; on the other hand, the design process is a montage of the individual elements into the new whole.
The analytical reading of the facade is followed by a desynthesis of the repeating sequences and motifs and results in layering the facade into levels of windows, bossage, details as well as vertical and horizontal components. These in-depth analysis, in form of linear drawings, lead to the speculative extraction of a vertical façade module that became subject to further experimental transformations. As a result, a new resonance arises between an element within its hierarchical position in the façade and its potential independence as a free limb that can be upscaled and transformed. The transformation of the bossage stones demonstrates how their robust surface and the tectonic heaviness of the first stories is contrasted with a tectonically light high-rise building which was created from the deconstructed bossage forms. As if the scaled up elements, after achieving a critical mass, had to decompose into themselves and could only reappear with a changed plasticity. The same occurs in the transformation of the column: at first enlarged to create a perception of perspectival depth (so that the eighth floor follows the fifth), it eventually scales up to the height of two stories, while the fluting of an upscaled column is suggested in the slits of transformed windows. Thus, the immanent nature of the facade elements becomes apparent, allowing them to merge into one another after a critical series of transformations and transitions of scale. The extraction of layers and façade elements as well as their progressive transformation result in the dissolution of the original overall image of Riehmer’s façade.
The new synthesis of the dissolved “world of forms” 1 (Eisenstein, 1980) unfolds in a cinemat- ic way, as a montage of individual motifs (understood here as façade components) into arrays, scenes and consequently into a dynamic sequence. Those motifs are turned around the corner and juxtaposed at different stages of their analytical decomposition. This dynamic field of elements can find parallels in the painterly work, as in a woodblock print “Awabi Divers” of the Japanese artist Utamaro or in the frescoes from the Casa Bartholody in Rome2. In both cases, the human figures can be interpreted as elements that relate to each other with their postures and lines of sight, at the same time retaining their autonomy within the overall picture. “If one follows mentally the direction of the gaze of such a figure, one touches the unclear outlines of the flora, the slopes and mountain slopes and then inevitably finds oneself in the “nothing” on the (...) white background of the picture” 3 (Eisenstein, 1980). Eisenstein’s comparisons to landscape painting point to the fragmentary character of a panorama which, despite being a subjective and incomplete representation, hints the existence of the entire natural landscape.
Following this observation, the synthesis of the dissolved may have happened at an too early stage, whereas the outcome of analysis presents significantly more than a collection of forms. The series of isometric representations creates a sign language which, constructed in a virtual space with a set of variables, is open to further evolution. In this sense, the repre- sentation of the three new buildings - a densification of the historical ensemble Riehemers Hofgarten - is to be read as one possible sentence that could be written in this new language. The analytical phase, on the other hand, explores the very nature of a single limb, extracting in a series of isometrics an individual component from its hierarchical façade arrangement and determining its tectonic, material and spatial features. A section through the façade limb, column or boss stone, enforces a (design) decision whether they contain mass or cavity and whether they posses a soft or hard, transparent or opaque, massive or planar plasticity.
All of these considerations challange the relation of historical architectural vocabulary in physical and virtual model space. The initial analysis with physical models in plaster and pergamin, in which joints between the bossage stones were “overwritten” in different ways, initiated a series of similar palimpsest experiments in virtual space. The elements modeled in virtual space according to the original were passed through an analytical sequence of trans- formations: the decomposition of the ornament, the imprints of mass to surface or mass to cavity, extraction of surfaces, overlapping of surfaces, decomposition of surfaces, up to a full deconstruction of the extracted components, a full overwriting and a degré zéro of the ressamblance to the original.
In this way, the analytical process in virtual space opened up new ways of thinking about the critical interpratation of historical heritage or its experimental preservation. Released from the gravity and materiality of the original physical world, the elements hover partly weigtlessly in space, giving hints of a new tectonics and substance. Here, the palimpsest takes form through rewriting the original with a new tool, as if the literary work was translated into a binary language and back into our language, producing novel, uncanny meanings aside. Which informations would be irretrievably lost in the process of secondary translation, which elements remain a silent reproduction and which can potentially lead to new architectural expressions? I intend to research these questions, addressing the historical building stock by means of digital fabrication in my future educational path.
1,3 Eisenstein Sergej „Eine nicht gleichmütige Natur“, Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft Berlin 1980
2 Casa Bartholody, “Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams”, 1816
All copyrights reserved to © Natalia Wyrwa 2020.
