the 5 obstructions

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.