annie's journal of inspiration

Thesis Prep 2 - Site/Program Fit

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:49:38 -0500

After discussing my site/program fit today, I am going to revisit the programmatic aspect of my thesis. I was originally going to have two programmatic elements, but it seems the second programmatic element is controversial (the birthing center). I am now leaning towards dropping the second programmatic aspect and just focusing on the hostel. This would enable me to focus more of the surrealist experience that I want to create, instead of so much on the program. I think the birthing center was a great fit of program for the ideas I had for the space, but perhaps because the experience of giving birth is already so emotional and different, it would take away from the architecture. The issue brought up was that the families visiting the birthing center might not want to deal with surrealist experiences of architecture while dealing with such an emotion packed time in their life, whereas the guests for the hostel might be more open to new experiences. I am conflicted, because I think the idea of the birthing center would be great.. but I suppose the few issues that were brought up might detract or take away from my thesis intent. Lots of things to think about!

Thesis Prep 2 - Program Diagrams

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:54:00 -0500

During my consultation, we talked about trying to adjust the doctor’s office program to be more active during the same times as the hostel, so that there is the overlap and the presence of another programmatic space in use. I’ve also decided to use Boston’s abandoned underground Tremont street tunnel as my site.

Thesis Prep 2 - Site Analysis Models + Drawings

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:14:13 -0400

The Tunnel:

Steinert’s Music Hall:

architizer: Suburbia is spooky.

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:08:57 -0400

architizer:

Suburbia is spooky.

Another video of the architects talking about the TUT project.

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:55:13 -0400

Another video of the architects talking about the TUT project.

Just watched this presentation of Sapir Ng and Andrzej...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:47:40 -0400

Just watched this presentation of Sapir Ng and Andrzej Zarzycki’s proposal for the Tremont Underground Theater - the same space I am proposing for my Thesis project.

This is another short video I made about the feeling of my...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:56:02 -0400

This is another short video I made about the feeling of my Wellesley site in Morton Park.

Thesis Prep 2 - Site: Wellesley's Morton Park

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:54:28 -0400

Thanks to the photos from this website, I was able to see inside...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:48:32 -0400

Thanks to the photos from this website, I was able to see inside Steinert’s Music Hall (that is, before I was able to go and see for myself!). I combined two of my potential thesis sites - the abandoned subway tunnel and Steinert’s underground abandoned music hall, to make a short video to convey the feelings of the sites. Both are about 100 years old and have lots of history, as well as the passage of time, and the layering of distant noises.

Thesis Prep 2 - Site: Abandoned Subway Tunnel

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:48:05 -0400

Thesis Prep 2 - Site: Steinert's Music Hall

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:36:03 -0400

Thesis Prep 2 - Updates + Site Criteria

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:30:28 -0400

Question:

How can the fundamentals of surrealism, as manifested in filmmaking, be translated into a way of thinking about spatial experiences and architectural design?

Claim/Hypothesis:

By using surrealist filmmaking techniques, architectural spaces will intertwine the real and the surreal, that is the physical and the mental, to the point where the user combines both realities into one.

(Both the real and fantasy are valid ways of viewing the world, and should be equally considered. Unifying the two.)

Definition of Surrealism by founders:

Andre Breton:

Although interior reality and external reality are in the “process of unification, or finally becoming one,” Breton makes clear that these “forces” don’t act on each other “simultaneously” or even as a “contradiction” to one another, but rather they act “one after another, in a systematic manner, allowing us to observe their reciprocal attraction and interpenetration” so that we can finally perceive that they “become one and the same thing.”

Matta:

Matta quickly took to automatism, which he defined as the ability to “read at the speed of events … the irrational and rational run parallel and can send sparks into each other and light the common road.”

Surrealist Films Under Investigation

Luis Bunuel

Un Chien Andalou (with Dali) (1929)

L’Age D’or (1930)

The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

The Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

David Lynch

Eraserhead (1977)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Lost Highway (1997)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Inland Empire (2006)

Peter Greenaway

The Belly of an Architect (1987)

The Cook The Thief His Wife & her Lover (1989)

Alfred Hitchock

Spellbound (1945)

Stanley Kubrick

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Michael Haneke

Funny Games (1997)

The White Ribbon (2009)

Site Criteria:

A place with a past, element of time.

Underground or partially dug into site (topography).

Elements of dark and light.

Distant noises. (train?)

Urban. (Existing structure?)

Path/Sequence

Thesis Prep 2 - Idea Map

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:17:00 -0400

Thesis Abstract

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:10:00 -0400

My thesis idea is to translate the fundamentals of two-dimensional surrealist art into a three-dimensional spatial experience in architecture by analyzing surrealist film, photography and literature. The philosophies of surrealism deal with irrational juxtaposition, symbolism, exaggeration, and automatism, which can hopefully be translated into architectural ideas. My goal is to create a space where the user questions reality and starts to think about their consciousness in the world. Because my project will have to be an inhabitable space, perhaps the program should be visitor oriented, where many people would experience the space a few times, instead of a place where the same people experience it daily.

The surrealism movement started in the 1920s, moving into many realms of the creative world – painting, literature, film, music and photography. Architecture has always been very closely linked to the ideas manifested in art. Surrealism had a significant influence on modern art in America, but was never expanded into the architectural realm. Why not? Are the surrealist ideas too hard to put into a reality? Surrealism needs to be explored as a possible way of thinking about design. I want to prove or disprove if it is a valid way to think about designing a space in which people inhabit.

To be able to challenge this idea of surrealism in Architecture, first I need to gather all the information I can about the fundamentals and techniques of surrealism, mostly within paintings and literature. Next, I am going to look at how film and photography, as well as installation or performance art, used these ideas in their work since it is the closest to three-dimensional work. After that, research on attempts to create surrealist architecture must be analyzed. I will need to see if any exist, if they were successful or not, why or why not, and what approach they took to designing their space. Hopefully after that research, I will have guidelines to designing in a surrealist mindset.

Thesis Prep 2 - Visual Abstract

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:41:00 -0400

This image is showing the idea of my thesis question, represented by surrealism in many different creatives mediums - film, literature, art, sculpture, installations, and architecture. There are references to Rene Magritte’s Personal Values (art), Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou (film), Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House (installation), Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret’s Bestegue Apartment in Paris (architecture), and the poetry of Isidore Ducasse (literature).

Blog Analysis

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:40:39 -0400

Thesis Prep 2 - Collages

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:46:45 -0400

For the second round of collages, I reinterpreted the term “passage of time”. The idea with this new collage is that you can see what the building is now, but also what the building used to be. The glimpses into the past represent your memory of the place. (The building used in this image is the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston).

The other collage I decided to work on was with the term “surreal”. Here are some of the important things I found on surrealism:

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur. As they developed their philosophy, they believed that Surrealism would advocate the idea that ordinary and depictive expressions are vital and important, but that the sense of their arrangement must be open to the full range of imagination according to the Hegelian Dialectic. Beside the use of dream analysis, they emphasized that “one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects.”

I decided to try to make my own surrealist collage. I combined many different objects together without any thought to what it might mean. I think this allows the viewer to realize different symbolic meanings for the objects.

Neat brick wall

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:53:00 -0400

Neat brick wall

Ice Typography

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:49:59 -0400

“A personal typographic experiment using ice.

The scope of personal typography experimentation is incredibly large. It’s anything you haven’t done before. The scope of experimental typography that will advance the field of Graphic Design and Typography is very small.”

- Cameron Zotter

http://www.filmgazing.com/guymaddin.html

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:54:24 -0400

http://www.filmgazing.com/guymaddin.html:

Review of Guy Maddin’s film “My Winnipeg”. When I first saw the movie, I don’t think I really understood it fully so I’d actually like to view it again. It’s a “docu-fantasy”, where the narrator/director of the film is “stuck” in Winnipeg, where he’s lived all his life, and he tries to “film his way out”. There are many dreamy sequences, words flashing on the screen, historical stories and myths, and exaggerations about what it’s like to live in Winnipeg and the quirks behind the city. It’s extremely imaginative and surreal (the horses frozen in the river?!)

Here’s a quote from the review:

Maddin has admitted he was having a form of a mid-life crisis around the time of the film’s production. He explains: “Time’s once-sweet passage, my comfort within buildings, avenues, and memories that have always meant so much to me—everything’s gone flavourless. It feels like I’ve used those memories too much, that I’ve sucked the flavour out of them and I can’t reconstitute any of it” (Melnyk 41). So Maddin, being a cinephile, calls upon early film methods, casting choices, and content in order to “film his way out” of this predicament. He “sleepwalks,” unknown to himself and his strange nostalgia for things he’s never had. In a city that is the heart of the heart of the continent, where there are forks beneath the forks, a pool beneath the pool beneath the pool, and streets on top of streets, Maddin, the puzzled nostalgist, looks to find a past before his past.