A Fragmentar y experience
WaschhĂźsli, Sankt Ottilien
CONTENT
PREFACE I
Subconsciousness of a house
II
The absent-minded visitor
III
The fragmentary experience
VI
Aesthetics of the everyday
V
Appropriation of space
ENVOI
P R E FAC E
An assignment that opens up opportunities to approach and discover architecture in another way than we’re used to do. While visiting and experiencing the washhouse, I felt I would not be doing a regular architectural project. To me, it is not so much as to place a program on this building, but to think about architecture in general and what it means. Taking a step back from the traditional method and devoting time to relfect on architecture within our modern society. Rather than designing the renovation of a building, I decided to write a text. This text starts out from one of the earlier works of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, which I always thought of as having quite a lot of similarities with architecture.
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Jacques Lacan states that from the moment, we as humans, see ourselves in the mirror and figure out that we are a subject, we try to find an identity. From this moment on, we understand that there is an inside and an outside. Ourselves and desire. This is what he calls the mirror stage. The desire is central to our subjectivity, which comes from the soul, our consciousness and the mind. Desire does not lay within us; it is something we reach for. It is fluctuating yet it is constant. When one desire is fulfilled it is replaced by another and we are continually longing for more. Over this, we have no control or agency, derived from our interaction with locus and context.
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Furthermore, the subconscious (concerning the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware, but which influences one’s actions and feelings). Something we have no grip over; from an elusive nature. In contrary to the desire, the subconscious lives inside of us. The fourth topic of Lacan that intrigues me is seeing and being seen. As humans, we believe that things exist by our ability to see it. Wanting other people to see us is a way of searching for existence; the desire of being seen by others. Which again is linked to us, trying to find identity.
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Within the Washhouse, there is place for a recoverybased environment through functionless architecture. A place in which one can find itself in its own search for identity and existence. How can one find theirselves in architecture? What does someone need, to feel at home and how is the feeling of home created without it even being a house? The mind works in a fragmented way and is constantly fluctuating. A series of thoughts and fragments going through your head, while walking in space. Behind a fragment, there is an imaginary universe to find. You see a frame and the imagination shows the rest. This is where you get confronted with your desire. In this place, the subconsciousness of the house becomes visible through the layers of time, assimilated as a result of the decay of the washhouse. The subconscious, which is shaped by the past, and assembled by former experiences. As Jacques Lacan stated, the search for existence goes through wanting other people seeing us. This leads to places such as stage architecture, fragments and heterotopia. Places that are not applied on the conventional rules we are used to. Here, the laws of architecture can be turned upside down.
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CHAPTER I
SUBCONSCIOUSNESS OF A HOUSE
Let us see the existing site as remains of a ruin. Remains that are in need of repair. An open-ended process of healing with respect for what is still there. Considering where it penetrates. The structure becomes the material of the building. Crafting and thinking of how you can adapt this site without disturbing of what is left. Toying with what is touched and what remains unaffected. The context goes beyond the visible. Structures – forgotten, antiquated or hidden – physical or not. Materials hidden beneath layers of time. Within these layers you find the translation of how this building was crafted.
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A place of rich history. It has been lived and relived and left alone. You want to find these traces of history. Can you rediscover the story of this building? Can you uncover buried parts of its internal life? Can you make its infrastructure visible? These traces of decay intrigue me. The subconsciousness of the house. Examining the remains of the place - pictures, sketches, drawings ... Collect and register everything - in objectivity, without focusing on the obscure and the intriguing. The Waschhüsli offers great traces in its decline. The dilapidated roof hints at more material elements of the inner structure. Where plaster is peeling, the material layers are being uncovered.
“The house never forgets the sound of its original occupants.” – John Hejduk
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The renovation - a scene that was abandoned, as someone or somebody has just walked away from. Seize this opportunity to re-program a space which is otherwise being forgotten about. The landscape of Sankt Ottilien can be reordered, remodeled with the washhouse. Joining old and new - the elevation of the building will be engaged with the landscape and with its spiritual worship.
The appearance of dynamics. Massive brick building can create movement through the tension of mass and opening, of vertical and horizontal walls and cantilevers. Sunlight is an eminently present topic. You feel how one ray of sunlight changes its emergence. The broken remains of the windows change the reflections of this light - broken apart on a shattered piece of glass, it enters the space in an unusual manner. Lighting as a building block.
Thinking materials Tailoring and thinking through the efficiency, parts of the structure expressed in the interior as well as the exterior of the building. This is an open-ended process of interpretation of the structure. Find the materials that complement the existing parts. Rethink of how new spaces can be imagined, or old spaces can be given a new meaning and protect the existing being.
Images give descriptive views on how the photographer sees this particular space; interpretation is in the eyes of the beholder. Through images you try to reinstate the good which is already there; the good which then again differs to one another.
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In Sankt Ottilien you feel the vernacular. Its presence is everywhere; through the craft, material and texture. It tends to come from the context. It is honest in its simplicity. Both this reference and its context talk to each other. The vernacular and its landscape are in dialogue, affected regardless of the scale of this small building in its immense environment. This conversation is what makes it pure. The site is constantly readdressing the whole, in an integral design.
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This is not about an architectural design. It transcends this as the only performance and continues in a combination of landscape, psychology, physical treatment and perception. To see this renovation as wear and tear / scratching / healing / sedimentation / material fatigue / deformation / dislocation
To dismantle the existing context and transform it into a new reality. Another, only partially destroyed, and rather more rapidly ‘healed’ matter. Though it is precisely here that the very different stone colours belie the amalgam of history, the material hybridity of the reconstruction. Overflowing with the evidence of the past and therefore foregrounds the question of how we strike a dialogue with what has gone before.
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CHAPTER II
T H E A B S E N T- M I N D E D V I S I TO R
I believe in architecture without function that is the preeminent way of treating the mind of the visitor. We are living in a society where the value of a space is measured based on the economic value. We need to take a step back from the mindset that has been instilled in us since birth and going back to a simpler way of living. To value this space based on human development. Living in a society of “where are we going? How fast are we developing?� we need to find a place to stop. A space in which we are not going anywhere. A place were different meanings of time can assemble. Spaces of different speeds. Containing references to different means of transit. In an ultimate freespace where it all coexists and worrying about moving forward can be left behind. There is no specific need for planning. The only way of organizing appears in planning the unplanned. Here we allow accidents to happen. These are things that cannot be forced, but you set the space for it. For a needed in-between space.
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Can we lose boundaries and exchange them for alternative ways of indicating different spaces? We try to find delusive boundaries and our state of the inbetween. There are many ways to define the inbetween space and they are purely personal. Here, is how one user senses these spaces/moments. You are being transmitted from one area to another, while trespassing through scales. This moment that you are leaving one zone and entering the other. Living through the space happens in a fragmented way as you walk. In these places, worlds are submerging. Worlds that are contrasting or complementing, diverse or amplifying. Can these boundaries become faded and potentially redefined, within the public and the private worlds?
Mirrors,
frames,
thresholds,
staircases,
columns,
reflections playing with illusion and your mind. A visitor can be aware or in total oblivion. The absent-minded visitor. A series of spaces. Additional spaces in arrangement that extends in escape. Escape from our everyday lives. The transition happens through tectonic elements. For example, the current faรงade. A wall that becomes a passage where you enter a space. Two sides of these walls, one that faces the landscape, another that faces the inbetween space. It turns its back to the street, and dances away from the public.
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A new possibility that is brought to light by these architectural elements is the labyrinth stage of observing and being observed. The circulation opens up possibilities, meeting spaces. There is a need to figure out these moments of interaction, hiding, seeing. The impossibility to distinguish between interior and exterior, a metamorphosis within a space that itself is ambiguous. During the transition of these passages, commonly there is also a gradation in accessibility. To what extent is a space or a room public? Is there any territorial claim? Is there an appropriation of space? When a space is designed, the architect is aware of the territorial appeal and accessibility of what lies next to it, with the threshold as ‘the connection of areas with different territorial claims.’ A meeting and dialogue between different determined spaces. A reconciliation of the opposition private & public; The shape of the inbetween.
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The street is a common form of a freespace. A space where social interactions between inhabitants/residents materializes. Outside our front door, or the fence of our garden there is a world that is strange to us. A world we have no control over and where we have barely any influence on. The inbetween space is what connects us from our own familiar space to this bizarre, foreign world. This transition can happen at a threshold. With the front door, dethroned as its only moment of conversion. In a gradual way of moving from public to the private. There could be a series of steps, movements, actions. As I see it, this could be split up in three components. The physical, the mental barrier or the expectations created by the distance. Feeling welcome or discouraged to enter a place? What distance to overpass before entering a new zone? The longer it takes to reach, the more the expectations grow and the imagination of the visitor can do its thing.
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CHAPTER III
T H E F R AG M E N TA RY EXPERIENCE
Where does a process begin? With the start of an intuitive feeling? A dream, an incidental thought, a statement that comes to mind‌ The strength of drawing a thought, an idea, a notion about representation. It is a clarity of thought, no matter how clear or expressive the drawing is. These drawings become part of the history of the design, the building, the renovation. A process taken as an amusing path circling through surprises, observations. Almost as a treasure hunt. Drawing by memory, the mind, takes us back to something that does not exist anymore but is still wandering around in your head. Leaving the digital behind and working by hand helps us to get into these deep memories and helps to bring these to precision. Drawings show your interest through time. A timeline of thoughts. A production of atmospheres. A mediator between idea and place. A visual syntax. Extending the limits of a subject. And again, there are no rules.
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A mise-en-scène. Fragments on incorporating things that touched us in the past or made us feel something and translate this into scenes. Scenes that are created in a way to inspire and stimulate the imagination. Involve yourself in it. Experiences, scenario’s and sceneries where you get personally attached to. Not to try and convince another of your truth but to inspire the ambitions, the illusions, the mind. And represent them to one another. An aim. A desire. Thoughts are always fragmented. You built up this part. A part that worries you, a part where you got your mind stuck up on. A series of unfinished documents. Working with scenes helps you to understand the different moments your mind goes through. In one fragment there are clues to find. Clues that are coherent to the whole and reveals a great deal for the rest of the design, the project. But it keeps the visitor curious.
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Absolute present is blind. Humans live in the present but one shaped by experiences and sensations of the past. The scene can differ in light or context. Same scene, same material and yet somehow the light can make it feel so different. The fragmentary experience. Ones mind goes into fragments from beginning to end. Constellations of space depicting the unconscious. As if it was withdrawn of any sense of orientation. In one scene, the viewer gets to see an ephemeral glimpse, subjective visions that emphasize particular facets. And yet, it finds itself into the integral whole. There is a pattern, a sequence to follow and still this is purely personal. See the window as an ever-present element that unites two contrasting worlds, the inside and outside. In a fragment or a frame, you can dislocate it. Create an illusion, abstract compositions to mislead, confuse or to arouse and inspire. Behind a fragment there is an imaginary universe to find.
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CHAPTER IV
AESTHETICS OF THE E V E RY DAY
To strengthen and ease the process of identification, one can find a way to create the feeling of home without it being a house, within this heterotopia (rf. ‘of other spaces’, M. Foucault). This space exists in reality, but it obeys other laws. A space where we are not able to receive as clearly interior or exterior but connected to reality through a system of openings and closures. Here, you have the opportunity to put elements together in a way that would not happen in reality. Using the commonplace to make sense to its visitor. The usage of conventional elements in the ordinary; elements people can relate to. The banal. And then again, dislocate them to create illusions. From doorknobs to constructing elements. Elements that evoke associations from past experiences. Allusions; suggestive, slightly imprecise and strongly emotional. The atmospheric image that brings a common sense to mind and associates to something that the user has seen before. “the casual poetry of the familiar that leaves its traces in memory mixes with the foreign, which emerges through a distortion of the familiar elements.” - Anna Viebrock
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All organized in favor of the everyday; the banal. The opposite of spectacular. Pre-existing realities transformed into another existence. The material leads to a completely specific form and yet so personal. Opening up perspectives and ambient images. Within this tension between the familiar and the foreign, there is some poetic melancholy to find. The longing for what we know and still searching for the new and exciting. For example, within the washhouse, we stick to the vernacular. An architecture we all know but by adding and distorting elements, we play with the mind. A chimney, an element which is familiar to all. Replacing this object in a way that it gets a whole new meaning. What looks like the chimney is not a chimney anymore and gets the purpose of a light shaft. In an underground room we play with the light entering a dark space, depending on time and place.
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And within, there goes the production of its own reality in your mind. In the everyday, elements that would otherwise be forgotten, become visible and preserved. In an almost romantic way, these elements could serve as remedy for the visitor. To bring the memory to mind and recognize their own experiences. For every user, walking through, there is the search for unity of things. In everyone’s personal experience, the past is always present within the profane space of the everyday.
“The past has by no means passed” - Jean-Luc Godard
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CHAPTER V A P P RO P R I AT I O N O F S PAC E
Starting from ‘where am I and how do I respond to this space around me?’ and going to ‘how do the other users receive this same place?’ Here, imagination becomes introduced as a way of understanding. How can you dissolve architecture into the background and make the visitor its protagonist? Architecture is merely present, with its only function of meeting, trespassing, treatment, passing by and stopping. Now, the struggle between the planned and the unplanned takes place. This is a dialogue. Or maybe a discussion. In this state of flux, a subject to alteration and redevelopment over time, the planning of the unplanned is the focus. To make space and leave the rest to the imagination of its user. We could call it care. For every ‘consumer’ a personal experience, a treatment for its mind. No pre-definition, your own perspective is what counts. The designer is not the author of the encounter. It is you, on personal basis.
Perceptions are always linked to its social context, environment,
landscapes.
The
embedded
history
of a place is always present. Taking this object and rethinking it. How do you transform this into a different application in a way that another is possibly doing the complete opposite? On what scale is one aware of what is happening and how your mind is reconstructing these givens. This functionless architecture could be perceived as an empty space. For someone, somewhere this could be meaningless. And then again, imagination runs wild. This empty space is suggestive, applies or hides parts which awakens the curiosity of its user. Spatial
collages,
situations,
surreal
elements,
inconsistencies, shifts of proportions. Maybe these defamiliarizations only become apparent at second glance. What one user sees, becomes blind to another.
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“Looking up, one sees into the past: the previous time is always present. As traces.� - Anna Viebrock The idea of sedimental layers, in a personal sense of time. Resonant with our physicality and sensuality. Filled with atmospheric density and warm materiality. Seen through the layers of time. Impressions of these spatial figures through our own reflections on space. Reflections on how light encloses its space, On how the materials are telling the history, How transparent these layers are to its visitor? How the image of space and the impressions of spatial figures come through in ones mind.
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E N VO I
Space becomes a mere reflection of the program it holds. If there is no fixed program, the space grows into an utter openness. Exposed to whatever the visitor wants it to be; the options are endless. An endeavour for the nothingness. Perfectly insignificant yet, so meaningful. Does everything need a purpose? Can a space become a setting and nothing more than a setting? Almost as if it is designed for a stage. A stage that is set without a purpose and everyone can fill it with its own. Isn’t that the way we could find our purpose within ourselves? Buildings are schizophrenic. Meanings revealed very slowly. Expressions change as we encounter; reencounter space. Boundaries between inside and outside are dissolving, as the concept of the front door fades. No public, no private; everything appears inbetween. A space that means nothing and at the same time everything. Substantial. When boundaries and certainties are falling apart, desire is becoming visible. Open space to reach into our deepest thoughts and needs. Playful regarding the visitor. We see what we want to see, the rest becomes insignificant. What do you want it to be?
APPENDIX
The inbetween space
To dismantle the existing context and transform it into a new reality. Spaces of different speeds. Containing references to different means of transit. Trespassing through scales A reconciliation of the opposition private & public; ‘The shape of the between’. Series of steps, movements, actions. Not able to receive as clearly interior or exterior but connected to reality through a system of openings and closures.
A scene that has been left That was abandoned, as someone or somebody has just walked away from. The appearance of dynamics. The context goes beyond the visible. The subconsciousness of the house. Traces in its decline. Lighting as a building block.
Appropriation of space The labyrinth stage of observing and being observed. A metamorphosis within a space that itself is ambiguous. Ones mind goes into fragments from beginning to end. Constellations of space depicting the unconscious. %HKLQG D IUDJPHQW WKHUH LV DQ LPDJLQDU\ XQLYHUVH WR ¿QG The atmospheric image that brings a common sense to mind; associates to something the user has seen before.
Special thanks to Dieter GeissbĂźhler, Yves Dusseiller and Anthony Frank for the advice and support. And to Anna Viebrock, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Luc Godard and John Hejduk for always inspiring me. Emma