A. Epistemological Pavilions – Etude Series
Etudes, at least for composers, are studies or exercises intended to provide a pupil with a range of possibilities for practice while being, at the same time, a worthwhile composition. Many composers have produced etudes where they have probably concentrated on the second purpose. Chopin’s etudes where the inspirastion for this series. Each model was commenced prior to me having any clarity about what I was making, and with only a limited idea about how I would make it; I engaged in making and through this generated ideas to direct further making. Titles came during this process as I began to gain confidence about a work. Some models had their titles refined near or at the end of making. Titles were intended to be evocatively descriptive.
1 Prospect Raft (Refuge Raft)
Upon the epistemological sea, this raft affords a refuge from which to contemplate one’s surrounds. The raft must be tethered close to the shore, as surely the epistemological sea is in roiling turmoil and treacherous for a raft. Seats are sheltered by the roof gathering up about the four columns forming the axis mundi in the centre. A red doorway can slide, and frame ideas chosen for contemplation. A sliding panel allows relief from intrusive ideas impinging on the occupant. The rear wall of copper rods protects the back of the seated occupant in the timeless manner of the species. It is a refuge offering a prospect to be surveyed: the ledge-borne hunter-gatherer protected from predators, the urban coffee-house occupant, back to the wall with an eye on the entrance.
In making the model I drew on ideas from philosophy, behavioural ecology, and complex systems that I had been writing about for some years as well as on architectural elements. For the roof, I had in mind cusp forms in René Thom’s Catastrophe Theory and the Lorenz attractor (popularised as the butterfly effect). As the roof form needed framing for support, Guimard’s cast-iron and glass, Type B Paris Metro entry canopies from 1900 came to mind. I started by drawing without questioning, fixed in the means I employed as a student then subsequently in my spasmodic practice. The first page of sketches when compared to the final model shows the theme of central columns with a circling, swooping roof. This evolved, but broadly remained intact.
Eclecticism as a view of architecture was intentionally explored: there is an expression of a sweep of influences and an effort to meld them into a whole. A singular view is eschewed. This was a starting point; eclecticism was equally unavoidable in subsequent pieces. Underpinning this eclecticism in many of the earlier models were images of models from Morphosis Architects as were the delights of Daniel Libeskind’s trio of machines installed at the 1985 Venice Biennale covering reading, remembering, and writing architecture.
This model now exists only in its second iteration and a pair of photos of the first one. In 1998, the styrene roof and struts of the first model softened and warped from the temperature of overbearing photographic lights. Colleague Pia Ednie-Brown working in another part of the photographic studio reacted to my cries of horror at this trauma and found emergent delight in the curly outcome. I was not consoled. There were no accurate drawings to guide its rebuilding; I had to make a model which in intent was like its former self, but which now drew on a family of forms found in three subsequent models. After explorations of a transparent roof alluding more to Hector Guimard, the roof shape evolved into a skewed and dipping ‘fat’ ellipse which was more sheltering and structurally plausible than its predecessor.
Base: 235mm x 159mm. Height: 155mm.
Initiated: 21 February 1996. Construction: February – April 1996 and December 1998.