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.
6 Parasite: Life: Adjustment
This pavilion was pivotal. Although my ways of working had been evolving, this model signals a fault line between making prior to it and my subsequent approaches.
One starting point was prior ruminations on the chapter houses of English Gothic cathedrals – the meeting places of the chapters (the bodies charged with keeping the physical fabric of the cathedrals alive). I think it is reasonable to claim chapter houses – at least when detached or semi-detached structures – as pavilion-like. From this rumination, cloisters entered my thoughts offering connections between manifestations of the ideas ‘physical life’ and ‘spiritual life’, without endorsing this dichotomy. I wondered about incorporating the Fibonacci series as an indicator of growth in a living, or previously living, form. These thoughts were had in a shower and recorded in a small spiralling scribble immediately afterwards.
The drawing became misplaced, but I retained the idea in mind over a gap of nearly six months until I began to build something without the drawing. I built a deck on the last available base by gluing planks and then laying out a partial cloister (dimensioned on the planks), drilling the necessary holes, experimenting with (and abandoning as either too literal or too unwieldy) a potential ceiling or set of ribs above the columns, and then positioning a dominant vertical for an uncertain parasitic form – all without any drawing. Something related to the drawing, but different, began to emerge. Having got this far, I instituted the rule that there would be no drawing for this pavilion. Much masking tape was therefore used to temporarily position parts and allow exploration. Between these two moments I had noticed some photos of, to me, a quite captivating model motorbike frame. I thought maybe I could use it as a frame for some curved roof shells – somehow. If one motorbike frame was good, three must be better. Having purchased three plastic kits of ‘likely’ frames I went to Europe for a conference to which we added some holiday.
On returning, I was still beguiled by the bike frames and began an ongoing process of fiddling to find a way to organise them spatially. Much later I re-discovered the tiny scrap of a drawing recording the initial idea but continued to strictly avoid drawing for this model. I worked with the pieces themselves without any mediated representations or symbols. It is certainly slow. A great deal of careful cogitation, holding together, taping and propping took place. Given the complex three-dimensional curves of these frames, any attempt to sketch the components and the ways they mesh together would have been very difficult. Scanning the pieces and manipulating them as computer images would offer most speed. Whatever the means, there is a process of constant adjustment. What is already in place must be explicitly acknowledged and accommodated in the current scheme. I assembled portions of the frames and used parts in combinations not intended by the manufacturer; I removed sections; I added other pieces from other sources; I purpose-made parts. It was this pavilion that explored and focussed the ideas of accommodation and adjustment for me. I realise in retrospect that they had existed as a theme previously, but they increased in importance with, and after, this pavilion.
Other work allowed nothing but fragmentary modelling moments for five months. On restarting, I found a container with five parts for a sub-frame made prior to this break; I could not use it, there were no guide drawings, and my intended assembly was embarrassingly inscrutable. Perhaps they were an incomplete set, but their fabrication and integration with existing parts defied me. I built a new sub-frame. While new ideas evolved after the gap, they centred on details and resolutions of areas started previously.
It was a difficult pavilion made with many interruptions from the rest of life. The elapsed time of 21 months was the longest until then, but later exceeded. It is hard to show its importance to the entire project. The designing was convoluted and introspective; it involved much trialing and re-doing with no clear, preconceived image of what it might become. The evidence of its importance is not in the drawing or photographic record of the model, but in the comparative evidence of the models before and after it and the effect it had on the way my designing and making merged to become a united activity.
Base: 230mm x 157mm. Model: 255mm x 172mm. Height: 197mm.
Initiated: November 1999. Constructed: April 2000 – January 2002.