Concrete Geometries- the relational in architecture
Exhibition at the Architectural Association
‘Artistic activity is a game, whose forms, patterns and functions develop and evolve according to periods and social contexts; it is an immutable essence’[1] Nicholas Bourriaud
Concrete Geometries aims not only to map current architectural, design and artistic practices that explore the relationship between constructed space and its social impact, but also to influence architects’ attitudes towards thinking about space as a social environment. The exhibition, taking place at the AA until the 27th May, is the result of an eighteen month long research process led by Marianne Mueller and Olaf Kneer, directors of Mueller Kneer Associates.
The process of this research cluster is to uncover work that critically explores the relationship between architectural form and human processes/social processes, thus engages directly in a dialogue with the production as well as consumption of space through geometric means. ‘Concrete Geometries’ refers to immediate spaces and spatial processes. Underlining this is the concept of relationality, in this case, of architecture existing in relation to social models of behaviour and vice-versa. So what is relational architecture? Buildings that appropriate their social context, that aim to affect inhabitation and models of interaction, that push the boundaries between social and public space and directly affect behaviour.
The exhibition brings together thematic areas developed through the research process, and is curated according to how space is perceived and used, charting the works of a variety of artists and architects working at different scales. Perception and cognition looks at work that specifically addresses issues of perception of space. Chrstine Rusche’s Room Drawings, for examples, show spaces transformed using graphic art. This is a subtle intervention in the already existing architecture that manipulates and directs the gaze of the body present in the space. The artist’s intervention is a direct challenge to the construction and reception of space, blurring the boundaries between 2 and 3D, diverting the focus of the space. Sensory engagement looks at the direct, emotional and sensorial interaction between body and space. For example, Dymaxion Sleep by Jane Hutton& Adrian Blackwell is a design for a garden – a net structure placed on top of the garden that allows visitors to lie, walk and interact differently with the plants. The name stands for ‘dynamic maximum tension’, which describes the qualities of the construction. This installation removes the usual hierarchical distance between body and plant via a constructed space that is flexible, allowing the body freedom to engage with the natural environment.
Social Contracts is an area that looks at how space can organize societies, starting from legal systems and their manipulation of social spaces. Oderberger Strasse 5 by BAR Architekten is a mixed-use building in Berlin that directly fosters social interaction- it contains sliding walls, stairs, ramps that provide constant access and mix between living and office units. This is an area of huge potential for architecture, allowing for buildings to completely rethink the rules of social behaviour and co-habitation to affect social change. The last curatorial area is Relational Space, which looks at space as a way of creating human relationships, influencing social interaction, creating ‘intersubjective encounters’. Fran Cottell’s House Installation Project, a platform built inside the artist’s house that served as walkway, sculptural installation and flexible space, has also provided the central features of the exhibition- a platform that appropriates the motifs of the room’s ceiling, creating a central focus to the room, as well as a space on which people can sit and stand, without any clear suggested routine or hierarchy.
The concept of the relational is certainly no novelty; born out of postmodernism and articulated by curators and theorists such as Nicholas Bourriaud, it underlines a contemporary mentality about perception- in a networked society, we think in relation to, never in isolated- a constant, rhizomic process. Concrete Geometries underlines the importance for architecture to consider its social environment, but also suggests how we might re-think our interaction with space at the moment of production as much as its reception.
This is a highly performative notion- buildings that are active in influencing social process. Performance and scenography have capitalized on this notion in order to influence audience’s participation in the event, but also manipulate their physical and aesthetic reactions, blurring boundaries between routines, rituals and theatrics. From performances that capitalize on social situations, such as a dinner party or a social gathering, to site-specific work that uses the history of the building to devise a story, performance subverts the formal and spatial manifestations by subverting contexts- architecture has the power to influence this even more, as it can create its own context and dictate interaction and social situations- this is how relationality can best serve architecture is what Concrete Geometries underlines.
‘The space is produced collectively but not necessarily communally, and includes different notions of authorship and ownership’ This is Kathrin Bohm’s response to relational spatial production, one of the essays included in the exhibition. Indeed this discrepancy between the collective and the communal is one thoroughly disseminated by both architecture and performance, giving rise to questions about choreographing public space. Splendid Modernism by Kai Schiemenz, also featured in the exhibition, subverts the idea of the cinema space and distance by creating a space in which the screen is wrapped around the audience. Here the dominating circularity poses a question about the audience as viewer and participant.
Matthias Ballestrem argues that architecture is firstly a sensuous experience before an aesthetic one in his essay also featured in the exhibition. With works such as Elmo Vermijs Studio’s Connecting Corridors, where two buildings are connected by a corridor so thin it forces people to physically interact, this notion of the sensuous is crucial, as it directly affects the social behaviour of its inhabitants.
What the works presented in the exhibition map is the beginning of architecture’s concern with bridging dichotomies: formal/informal, viewer/inhabitant, horizontal/vertical, gloom/directional. The structure in the centre of the room transforms the room into a dialogic space, interactive, relational, where the movement of the visitors is directly controlled but also allowed to transform. At what point does the viewer become the inhabitant? What are the boundaries of an architectural construction, and how much can it intervene in social space?
Concrete Geometries suggests the potential of architecture to rethink the way it influences social gathering and behaviour, bridging gaps between public and private, intimate and collective. It brings together disparate discourses in an active and successful attempt to capitalize on these discussions, inviting architects to consider the relationship between ways of building and the role of function in contemporary architectural practice.
Cover Image: Social Clusterings: Canary Wharf (part of a series) - Antony Coleman, UK
[1] Bourriaud, Nicholas, Relational Aesthetics, 2002, (Paris: Les Presse Du Reel, 2002)
Tagged: AA, Architecture