But even textiles are themselves multidimensional: membranes, nonwovens, meshes, agglomeration of fibers, fabric composites and other hybrids. Exhibitions like “Extreme Textiles” at the CooperHewitt, New York (2005) and “Skin and Bones” in the Contemporary Museum of Modern Art, LA (2006-07) and projects like the recent Expo Swiss Pavilion or the NOX architects’ Maison Follie are representative of this variety and reveal “a textile way of thinking” (Lars Spuybroek). Advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, electronics, 3-D weaving, shape memory alloys and biomimetics helped greatly to new material science and technologies offering extraordinary properties and high-performance products. For example, new materials such as glass, ceramic and carbon fibers, aramids, liquid crystal polymers and high-modulus polyethylenes are able to perform under extreme forces and combined into composites. The unprecedented and surprising range of properties of such supertextiles means they are not only able to substitute and surpass older materials, but are offering “a new materiality to architecture” (Mark Garcia, AD, 78). Diller + Scofidio’s Brain Coat (2002) for their artificial Cloud ‘Blur’ in Switzerland, Enric Ruiz Geli’s Hotel Habitat (2006) and ONL’s kinetic architectural experi-
ments such as ‘Muscle Body’ (2005) and the Textile Growth Monument in Tilburg (2005) have all combined new intelligent materials and interactive technologies with textile techniques. Socio-cultural and economic changes also contribute to this shift towards textile architecture. This is because conventional architecture proves to be too slow to keep up with the speed of changes in needs and/or in culture. For Herzog & de Meuron, fashion’s speed presents an interesting paradigm for architectural practice: “in the world of fashion … things move faster than in architecture – getting dressed, getting undressed, transforming oneself, giving shape, trying out new sculptural possibilities, examining the quality of surface texture, inventing a new style, and discarding it again.” Having the same logic of immediate response to the need of clothing the body, sprayon technology, demonstrated in London in 2010, creates a seamless fabric that may have applications in medicine as well as fashion. Manel Torres, a Spanish designer, joined forces with scientists at Imperial College London to invent the spray which allows for clothing that can be worn, washed and worn again. The spray consists of short fibers that are mixed into a solvent, allowing it to be sprayed from a can or high-pressure spray gun.
ABOVE Textile Growth Monument in Tilburg, Ilona Lénárd, 2005 MIDDLE Son-o-House, NOX Architects, 2004 BELOW Maison Folie, NOX Architects, 2004
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