3RDRM

FINALIST

‘Architectural Fragments in the Shadow of Boullée’

The tapestry designs are simple fragments to a larger picture, to a larger aspect – they represent a fragment of our perception of the object, perceived through light falling on surface, shadow representing depth & movement and changing colour, the patina of materiality.

The tapestry designs are considered arranged either as a triptych or as an individual element; the representation of architectural references through the iconic, the modernist and the new contemporary falling within the round grey ‘shadow of Boullée’.

At what point does the perception of the object no longer become recognizable? What minimal extraction of the object can still maintain its purity, its restrained geometry and its fundamental characteristics?

The designs explore these micro observations of the object, fragments represented and connected through darkness, through light and patina– extracts of an architectural masterpiece stripped back to a single fragment.

The darkness in black: the modernist restrained geometry of Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany 1968; its purity of the line and precision, its absorption of light and its dark materiality.

The play of light on white: the iconic Le Corbusier model unequivocally represented by Villa Savoye, Poissey, France 1931; the play and movement of light on surfaces casting shadow, reflection and movement.

The changing patina: the new contemporary reference through RCR Architectes’ Musee Soulages in Rodez, France 2014; landscape and architecture in unity, the solid, the void and evolution of surface and materiality.

These three fragments are precisely that, fragments; perhaps recognisable or merely a ‘pixel’ of our perception of the greater picture.