Based on Lars von Trier and
Jurgen Leth’s movie The 5 Obstructions
(2003) and Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in
Style (1947), this studio explores the multiple ways one can rethink
architecture and its representation. At their core, both of these works investigate
the ways of repeating pre-existing stories or cannons through new systems or
representational strategies. In the movie, von Trier asks Leth to redo his 1967
movie, The Perfect Human, to respond
to new and current filmic and personal concerns. In Queneau’s work, we simply
find the reiteration of the same story using different styles.
The idea for the studio is,
then, just that: to reiterate the existing. Each student will be asked to rework
a canonical architectural work five different times; each time with a different
“disruption,” limit, or, best, obstruction. These new “requirements” will be
primarily representational, historical, programmatic, theoretical, and formal.
For the projects’ success, one must critically
approach the projects; allowing design investigations to help determine the
final outcome. They will also need continuous
exploration as well as quick thinking and actions. In the end, the goal is
introduce and explore a wide range of design and compositional strategies as
well as representational systems based on drawing, model-making, collage, and
their iterations.
Many of these iterations will
materialize in the development of presentation-ready investigations
characteristic of a “design-thinking-while-making” mentality.
