B. The prelude series pavilions
Again, Chopin’s piano pieces were precursors, specifically the 24 preludes from opus 28. The pieces are stand-alone works that do not precede a subsequent piece. Only four models comprise this series and in this case each model was made in response to a title selected from a list I devised to serve as goads or, at best, as architectural design briefs. I had no idea what any of the things titled were – I generated them as word play to offer me difficulty prior to, and during, designing/making.
9 Dance Castle
Dunnottar Castle sits forebodingly on the east coast of Scotland. Although thirty years prior to construction of this model since I visited it, in my memory it remains strong. To approach the castle, one must descend from cliff top to sea level as the narrow neck of land was hewn away to form a near-island. The would-be entrant is met by a dour and forbidding wall towering blankly upwards; to the right a newer wall provides firing positions to cover the entrance. The site was fortified from prehistoric times; the wall denying entry dates from the fourteenth century, but within, a more humane set of buildings were constructed in the seventeenth century to house the complexities of a Renaissance life-style – including a large ballroom. The buildings of the castle span an array of lives and activities and offer the outline of a model to be followed. A castle is a type from many centuries ago, but something of the form lives on in often blank and large industrial buildings. The Dance Castle wall rises uncompromisingly from the ramped base, dark, inaccessible, and bristling with sharp ventilating grills.
Dance is a fluid form where shapes coalesce and evolve in denial of gravity. There is contrast here between the determinable solid form and the endlessly transposing forms of dance, between the protective, serving spaces and the open performance spaces. Dance is an often-emotional form evoking strong feelings of empathy and understanding in an audience. A castle under siege must have been flowing with strong feelings: terror, hunger, aggression. I sought ways of capturing the essences and portraying the contrasts while forming a whole.
The idea of the grill formed from shaving blades preceded all else; it was an idea in search of a use for years. A solid, dark block contrasting with light dancing platforms was the first, and only, parti conceived for this pavilion. I commenced construction and worked my way into it with little in the way of investigation or drawing. The painted aluminium platforms for dance conjure a porcelain-like fragility that is drilled to attain further lightness and mimic the flowing curved forms of dance, the interleaving, and the ephemerality of structure. The performance space is lightly sheltered.
Base: 236mm x 211mm. Model: 226 W. Height: 212mm.
Initiated: February 2002. Constructed: September 2003 – 27 January 2004.