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The Dom-ino Effect Pier Vittorio Aureli, Diploma 14 Unit Master, and Eleanor Dodman discuss the legacy of the Maison Dom-ino, soon to be built 1:1 in Bedford Square.
Eleanor Dodman: Thank you for organising the Dom-ino Symposium. I was interested in how the representation of this drawing is the only thing that we see when we think about the Maison. Pier Vittorio Aureli: Thomas Weaver and I organised the symposium to go beyond this image and to reveal not only the process that produced the Dom-ino, but also the concept, which, in Le Corbusier’s words, was a ‘paradigm for modern housing’. In the morning you had the Corb scholars who delved into this story and showed us what the project was about. It was a project that Le Corbusier did when he was very young. I had this idea to show, especially to students, what it means to be a young architect – to start with an idea that might not be technically resolved, but at the same time is a driving force in your work’s conception. In a way the Dom-ino is about that: an idea that is technically not yet resolved, but is conceptually very powerful to the point that we are still using that drawing to describe something that is even more contemporary than what was when Le Corbusier did that project. It was interesting how he actually worked through the project again and again, which is actually different to the way we work as students. In a way, if you don’t put enough time in something it will not be interesting. Le Corbusier really wanted to practice in what today we would call a research-orientated way to the point of self-initiating these projects that very few people would really take seriously. I mean Max Dubois, the engineer that was helping, was reluctant to support this idea which he thought was banal. The Maison was, in fact, not very original or special because the use of concrete was already happening. What was actually new was the conceptual aspect – the idea that we would conceive dwellings in those radical terms. Kipnis starts his lectures by showing drawings of the Dom-ino no one really sees and he says, ‘This is the most important project in the world and none of you know it.’ Yes. At the same time I wanted to use the Dom-ino to open up a conversation on self-building which now is a huge obsession for architects, especially after the last 10 years with the economic crisis. More and more people are trying to push this romantic idea of housing as a kind of self-customised place. Le Corbusier proposed something that would really confine people to this small single family
Unit: Four / Twelve / In a Relationship / 2D