OSA Magazine Volume 3 Issue 7 | April 2017 sample

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OSA Magazine

kInDlY sPoNsOrEd kInDlY sPoNsOrEd bY: bY: ROBIN PARTINGTON AND PARTNERS www.rpplondon.com ASSAEL ARCHITECTURE www.assael.co.uk

With thanks to: EDITORS Sonia Tong James Barrell Maria Mavrikou Kate Ridgeway Jing Zhi Tan Maira Tzanidaki GRAPHIC EDITORS Engeland Apostol Roxanne Cowley Ang Shaw Hern (Shawn) Germaine Tan Wan Zheng OSA TEAM Katherine Birkett Ayanna Blair Ford Ivona Georgieva Stephany Govier Susan Krzyzanowska Amy Johnson James Redman Sanjeevani Veer PRINTING GREENPRINT Room 1/OARC East Oxford Community Centre Princes Street OX4 1DD You’re more than welcome to share, modify and distribute this publication in any form, but we think it’s good manners to get in touch with the original authors first if you’d like to republish any of their content. All

Matt Gaskin Head of the School of Architecture Stig and Deborah Oxford Greenprint Oxford Greenprint Rekha Giddy Programme Administrator Programme Administrator OxArch OxArchStudent Society School of Architecture School of Architecture Student Society

eDiToRiAl Subtext: what is unspoken, what is hidden or masked, what is written and also what is read between the lines. In a world where propaganda, agenda and media bias blurs into “fake news” and “alternative facts”, the ability and need to distil opinion from truth is becoming increasingly critical in our society. Subtext disguises ulterior motives but can also be harnessed for satire and protest. Ambiguity is its shield; metaphor its weapon.

Our contributors have fittingly offered views on the theme from different perspectives, from the cultural differences in social etiquette and behaviour to examining latent expressions of division in politics and identity. We have been furnished with drawings of contentious, unbuilt projects and speculative wearable technology that detects the invisible. A choice selection are published in this half-issue as our juicy trailer: from the next academic year, our biannual magazine will now be published in full in October and February.

images are the author’s own unless otherwise noted.

CONTACT t: @OSA_Mag i: @osabrookes w: www.osamag.co.uk e:osazine@gmail.com

For weekly studio updates, reviews of OxArch lectures

We’d like to thank the OSA team for their dedication and enthusiasm whilst juggling their degrees with producing two and a half issues and a structural overhaul of our committee, as well as our sponsors for supporting us financially over the last year. As we look forward to becoming more integrated with OxArch and the activities of the school of Architecture next year, we hope that OSA will continue to be a platform for Brookes students to explore writing as a way of articulating and understanding architectural critique. As we asked in our brief for OSA Issue 7: Subtext, if a picture paints a thousand words, why do we bother writing about architecture at all?

and much more, follow our new improved blog at osamag.co.uk/blog

- The Editors

OSA O SA Magazine Maga aga ag g zine zin i ine

mOsTaR 1993 : sOcIaLiSt cUlTuRe rEsTaRt Carine Chin, second year MArchD student, provides an insight into the narrative that forms the basis for a design project in Mostar, Bosnia.

Project : Mostar 1993 dives back into an alternate world, where the allied powers of the Croats and the Bosniaks lost the Bosnian War in 1992, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia continues to rule its six republics, including Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993.

The Ministry of Post Conict Rehabilitation of Yugoslavia was immediately set up by the federal state government to heal the destruction. Vena, a Serbian architect and the founder of VENA & Partners in Belgrade, is commissioned by the Ministry to propose a design strategy to reconstruct the war torn city of Mostar. Here follows excerpts from her diary.

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25 March 1993 Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina What a hectic but fruitful first day in Mostar!

Today marks our first presentation of Project : Mostar 1993 to the Ministry of Post Conflict Rehabilitation. About a month ago, I received an unexpected phone call from Minister Dobroslav to take up a reconstruction job for Mostar. In the conversation, he sounded rather positive and constantly expressed his high expectation for the project as the state government is ready to invest more in Mostar, due to its potential of becoming another socialist catalyst city in the Bosnian region after Sarajevo. He wanted the damaged city to be redesigned from a utopian point of view, which should reflect the characteristics of Yugoslav architecture - experimental, decentralised and permissive.

As a Yugoslavian, I always acknowledge the fact that our architecture has been a contrast to the principles of Socialist realism, serving the late President Josip Broz Tito’s wish to emphasise our country’s independence from the Soviet Union since the late forties. Bogdan Bogdanovic’s work is one of the best examples to represent Yugoslav architecture for its experimental, archaic and mythological forms. Ever since Tito’s death in 1980, Yugoslav architecture has been losing its sparks, mainly due to political instabilities. We almost forgot how Yugoslav architecture excelled at its technology advancement after World War II, how we attracted worldwide attention for our intensive experiments in reinventing social relations, how we plunged into experimentation and utopian thinking without reservation for creating futuristic yet pragmatic architecture.

In today’s meeting, we presented the utopian architecture of Mostar through some designs for postcards and collages of some of Vjenceslav Richter’s works. The Ministry was very impressed by the design methodology as well as the idea of continuing and realising Vjenceslav Richter’s concept of “sinturbanizam” (synthesis urbanism), probably the only full-fledged utopian vision ever imagined in the socialist Yugoslavia back in the fifties. The idea is to compress the cities into “ziggurats” to solve the problem of mobility and to minimise time wasted in travelling. Its signature shape is formed by apartment units cascading down its sides, each with a generous terrace. The intention is to have each ziggurat functioning as a self-managing community, with all living functions as part of the collective organism, gaining a sense of belonging and responsibility.

Richter’s sinturbanizam is contemporary to Yona Friedman’s urban voids, Japanese Metabolism and Archigram due to their shared characteristics: a focus on mobility, a technocratic approach to solving problems, organicism as the underlying metaphor for the solution and megastructure as specific form of solution.

Despite the Ministry’s ambitious vision for the future Mostar, we also have a concern with preserving a handful of significant and repairable post-war monuments in Mostar, like the Neretva Hotel, Razvitak Mall, Beirut Apartment and Mostar Railway Station, which we have successfully incorporated in today’s proposal. We are glad that the Ministry shares our thoughts, as we believe this city needs a proper representation of its past for a dynamic and optimistic future, carrying the mutual culture and symbolism vital to its society. Speaking of preservation, I have more good news from today’s meeting - because it is not an effective means integration off functional functi fu fun c ona cti ct o l inte nte te egr gr tio gra gratio tion n and and doe doess not not join the divided portions of the Ministry has nally cityy of cit of Mostar, Mos Mos o ar, th ost the e Mini M ini n stry strr y h a fi as fin nallllllyy agreed agre agre grreed not to reconstruct the Old Bridge, Stari Most! be able Bridge Bri dge,, Star dge S ta i M tar ost!! IIn ost n tthat hat case e we we wil willl b ea ble to spend the funds on practical meaningful more mor e prac p ractic rac ra t al a and nd meani m eani an niingf n ngful ng ngf ul projects ul pr jec pro e tss to to create job opportunities and accelerate accele acc elerat ele rate rat e the the e economic econom eco nomic nom ic c recovery. rec ec

“tHe iDeA iS tO cOmPrEsS tHe cItIeS iNtO ’zIgGuRaTs‘ tO sOlVe tHe pRoBlEm oF mObIlItY aNd tO mInImIsE tImE wAsTeD iN tRaVeLlInG”

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OS OSA OS SA A Magazine Mag Maga ag z zin zine ine ne

No Fascists Allowed Site: Spanish Square, Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina A ruin located in a pedestrianised route next to the Spanish Square is labelled by graffiti as a “FASCISM FREE ZONE”. Perhaps this anarchic act doesn’t represent the community’s interests, since it doesn’t seem to have many supporters.

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sNaPsHoTs fRoM mOsTaR Photographs taken by Davide Peressutti expose a city still showing the scars of its past conflicts

Blinded Window Site: Sniper Tower, Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina One of the most signiďŹ cant buildings in Mostar due to its important role played out during the war, the Sniper Tower was a hideout for professional snipers.

As the tallest structure in the city, the building was chosen as a strategic spot. In order to avoid any attack or assault from the outside, all the window were walled. Therefore it reduces this vulnerability, whilst at the same time also severing any possible connection with the external world.

OSA O A Maga Mag Magazine ag g zine ine

HELP ME UP Site: Sniper Herzegovina

Tower,

Mostar,

Bosnia-

Inside the Sniper Tower, a heap of trash and a written help request addressed to anyone was passing by. Hard times were experienced throughout the war, with people desperately and constantly seeking for help or hope, even through grafďŹ ti on a wall.

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a cOnCeAlMeNt oF iDeNtItY

The feminist philosopher Judith Butler) questions how gender is perceived, in a way that “congeals” and “solidifies” into our consciences (1990, p.139). She investigates the idea of gender as a process of decision making rather than an exclusive choice of gender identity at birth. Her most prominent book, Gender Trouble, concludes that gender can be perceived as an abstract and “fluid variable” (1990, p.139) whereby all gender is unnatural. She tackles the common assumptions that a female should behave in a feminine way, stating that the consciousness can adopt and manipulate the ideas of gender to mould each individual’s personality.

“tHeRe iS nO rEaSoN tO aSsUmE tHaT gEnDeR aLsO oUgHt tO rEmAiN aS tWo. tHe pReSuMpTiOn oF a bInArY gEnDeR sYsTeM iMpLiCiTlY rEtAiNs tHe bElIeF iN a mImEtIc rElAtIoN oF gEnDeR tO sEx wHeReBy gEnDeR mIrRoRs sEx oR iS oThErWiSe rEsTrIcTeD bY iT.” (bUtLeR, 1990, p.16)

Butler’s work informs an understanding of gender performativity in architecture. She proposes that gender is a “fluid variable which shifts and changes in different contexts” (1990, p.2) and not, in fact a fixed attribute. Butler’s theory that gender should not be a fixed variable, stems from Freudian theory of gender which proposed that infants had a “psychic bisexuality” (Freud, 1949, p.24), therefore, maturing as a male or female is a result of social influences, and in fact not a predetermined resolution. Therefore, this actively questions the dominance of male and dynamically challenges stereotypical female roles within the realm of architecture.

Architecture began as a solely masculine profession; the model of a successful starchitect is almost always a white male. Butler claims that “gender is a choice” (1987, p.128) whereby to “choose a gender is to interpret received gender norms in a way that organises them new”. In this sense, each individual can enact as much femininity or masculinity as they so desire to create their own personality and gender performativity.

It is apparent that women have always been “associated with ornament” (Betsky, 1995, p.41). The image of a woman has been constructed in a way that her beauty and aesthetic qualities completely overshadow her functionality as a contributing member of society. For centuries, women have been disregarded as not contributing to an equal extent of their male counterparts. At the turn of the modernist era, a woman’s aesthetic and reproductive qualities form the basis of the image of her gender.

Alison Ali A lison so Sm S Smithson mit ith i t th hso hson so on n

Third year undergraduate student Katherine Birkett explores fluid nature of gender and its relationship to architecture

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Eileen Gray

Throughout history, architecture as a profession, has failed to challenge gender binaries. Most significantly, the practice of architecture has been unable to simultaneously re-evaluate sex differentiation, stereotyping and gender imbalance, while also arguing for a practice and discourse that celebrates feminine strengths. According to Butler, gender is not a stable and fixed identity; it is a repetition of acts whereby gender becomes more a behaviour and an act to be performed. The theory of the enactment of gender, proposes that the performativity of gender can be feminised or masculinised according to how an individual practises their gender. Within the rigid structure of heterosexual binary of male and female, gendered stereotypes and expectations influence one’s own performativity of gender, which spans to influence social and professional aspects of life. The relationship gender holds with societal hierarchy, and by extension, expected gendered roles, results in women having lower social status than men within the realm of architecture. Moreover, gendered stereotypes act as a catalyst to prompt reactions which effectively penalise powerful and assertive women for violating their expected gendered roles and character.

Sexism and gendered practices in architecture condemn all to a set of expectations centred on gendered stereotypical behaviour. For those whose gender and sexuality do not conform to the binary conception of male or female, resistance is encountered on entrance to the profession.

Despite not only the traditional binary definition of gender, but also a mono-dimensional conception of gender along a spectrum, one that ultimately categorises everyone between the same binary. From analysis of the three case study architects, female architects seeking to belong to the minority starchitecture canon, their success is contingent on assuming gender androgyny rather than a fixed identity.

“wOmEn wErE dEpRiVeD oF pOwEr bEcAuSe tHeY cOuLd uSuAlLy nOt gAiN aCcEsS tO, bUiLd, oR dEfInE tHoSe fOrMs tHaT wOuLd... iNvEsT tHeM wItH rAnK, pRiViLeGe, wEaLtH, aNd a pArTiCuLaR iDeNtItY. wOmEn wErE nO pLaCe aNd tHuS wErE nO oNe... sHe wAs pArT oF tHe bAcKgRoUnD, pArT oF wHaT tHe mAn oWnEd; sHe wAs rEaL eStAtE iN tHe sTrIcTeSt aNd mOsT eLeMeNtAl sEnSe.” (bEtSkY, 1995, p.32)

Zaha Hadid

Eileen Gray: Independent of Sex The image of Eileen Gray, can best be described as androgynous. The way in which she performed her gender, transcended the very notion of gender itself. Her appearance was effectively a concealment, a mimicking of the more masculine, ‘pale and male’ architectural models; Gray portrayed the wrong sex stereotypically, therefore presenting gender subversion.

She thus drags biological sex into the gendered gaze, fully subverting the distinction between inner and outer psychic spaces (Butler, 1993, p.2). In this way, the gender subversion displayed proudly by Gray was remarkable in the fact that her image acted as a transgressive strategy which aided to break down rigid gender categories and facilitated the reconceptualization of gender.

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mUsEuM oF fAcT aNd fIcTiOn MArchD graduate Annovab Deka speculates on the spatial qualities of a Museum of Fact and Fiction, entered for the RIBA Silver Medal in 2016

Everything in life is as much fiction as it is fact. The inherent contradiction ignites a sparkling processus which enlightens consciousness and illuminates the view of the world. (AApress,May,2009) Fact and Fiction and the boundaries that separate it can be explained in a multitude of ways and yet still have a sense of obscurity. The statement holds true to the fact that every fiction has a basis in fact and permeates through constantly morphing and modifying.

The objective is to create a similar phenomenon of space which the mind holds and creates. A space that is in choreographed or unchoreographed motion, revealing its histories and excavating embedded fictions within the landscape and through the journey of enclosures and exposures will make us question between what is fact, and what is fiction.

sOlItUdEwHaT dOeS mAnHaTtAn nEeD?

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sYnAeStHeSiAsTrAdDlE bEtWeEn tHe aMbIgUoUs tHrEsHoLdS oF fAcT aNd fIcTiOn

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rEsUrReCtIoN-tHe wOrLd fOrGeTtInG, bY tHe wOrLd fOrGoT.

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tHe sUbTeXt oF cOnTeMpOrArY aRcHiTeCtUrE: tHe sHaPeLeSs aRcHiTeCtUrE oF pTs ‘Hitler liked to say that the purpose of his building was to transmit its time and its spirit to posterity. Ultimately all that remained to remind men of the great epochs of history was their monumental architecture (...) Our architectural works should also speak to conscience of a future Germany centuries from now.’

Second Year MArchD Student James Redman attempts to put a face to the architecture of today.

So said chief Nazi architect, Albert Speer, in his somewhat intellectually bland work, The Value of Ruins.

The basic premise upon which his celebration of ruins was based proffered the ostensibly obvious notion that a civilisation’s architecture tells us something about its values.

Accordingly, it was his view that the Third Reich should wherever possible build in stone and concrete, as opposed to more perishable materials like timber or steel, as these embody a longevity to which the Nazis aspired towards.

Indeed, Speer’s plans for Hitler’s Berlin abounded with such architectural metaphors: eternity promised by materiality; order inferred by symmetry; and dominance threatened by the imposing scale of his imaginations.

Compare Speer’s vision then to the architecture of the Occident now, where biodegradability is valued over perpetuity; dissonance is embraced over harmony; and the frontage of buildings are made to be less ‘confrontational’ through the liberal use of glazing and permeable curtain walls.

In fact, architectural orthodoxy today demands buildings designed to a set of values that are the

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precise opposite of those espoused by the likes of Speer. And if we are to acknowledge Speer’s basic premise - a civilisation’s architecture tells us something about its values - clearly, it is reasonable to presume that by looking at our own buildings, we might infer that we wish for our civilisation to be nothing like that of Nazi Germany; its antithesis.

For ours is a civilisation of Social Democrats in which political dictate and social intervention are subordinated to the measures of a capitalist economy. In light of the disastrous adventures of totalitarianism that dominated the first half of the twentieth century, this would seem a shrewd move. Unlike human beings, who are fallible, the open market is blind to those things that divide us such as our creeds and colours. It ensures, at least in theory, democracy, social justice and egalitarianism.

It took a few years for the architecture of social democracy to develop; the early years after the second half the same century were replete with vast modernist experiments in concrete and vertical stacking. stacking Though adored ado d red by savvy v vvy today, such architecture students today d , creations suc su h as as failed Trellick Tower and Robin Hood Gardens Garrdens fail ailed ed to win the hearts of the general a public.. Whilst Wh st Whil they were conceived in the sam ssame e spirit of sociall

democracy - democracy, social justice, and egalitarianism, guided by the hand of technology – their architectural language was communicated in an altogether different tone that for most resembled the voice of totalitarianism a little too closely. They key ingredient they lacked was the individualism, enshrined by the measures of a capitalist economy, that almost defines social democracy. Too prevalent was the post-war architects’ will to collectivise; too sombre their utopian messages of unity. Those architects were too heavy handed, too controlling and they used far too much concrete.

It was not until 1977, when Richard Rogers completed the Pompidou centre, that social democracy was able to find lasting architectural expression. The movement that would follow, the so called High Tech architecture, has come to define the architecture of the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond and all of its democratically flavoured ingredients that can be found in Rogers’ seminal project: transparency, permeability, open plan spaces, modular components, exposed services, bright colours, anodised metal a panels. al panels pan nel els. would then, architecture It wou w ld seem then en, thatt just st as the ar archi chitec tectture architectural o the Third of Th hird Reich ich wa was fond of ar archi chitec tecttural metaphors, social democracy. metaph met aphors rs, so o too too is soc so ial democ mocrac racy. y. The

fOr oUrS iS a cIvIlIsAtIoN oF sOcIaL dEmOcRaTs iN wHiCh pOlItIcAl dIcTaTe aNd sOcIaL iNtErVeNtIoN aRe sUbOrDiNaTeD tO tHe mEaSuReS oF a cApItAlIsT eCoNoMy. eCoNoMy eC Co oNoM No oMy. y.

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historical mission of architecture as an ‘art of building’ is conceived not simply to provide shelter but to construct a subject. In so doing, architecture collaborates with any form of power by means of symbolic appropriation.

The architecture and whole aesthetic of the Third Reich was awash with this sort power play; symbolic embellishment was at the heart of how the Nazis constructed the way they saw themselves and wished for others to see them.

Contemporary architecture of social democracy is only different insofar as it represents the negation of this process, with its transparent surfaces and shapeless forms resisting the attribution of a subject.

By aligning architectural gestures with political, social or economical realities history assigns them a moral value in the same way that it does for attitudes towards different ideologies.

To elucidate: from our current historical perspective, National Socialism is generally considered to be ‘bad’ and Social Democracy is generally considered to be ‘good’. Accordingly, by association the architecture of the National Socialism is considered to be ‘bad’ and the architecture of Social Democracy is considered to be ‘good’.

This moralisation of architecture has had disastrous consequences for creativity in the discipline. When a type of architecture is considered taboo and another virtuous, design becomes not just about a matter of taste but of morality. One postgraduate student told me that a tutor had chastised him for a Neo-Classical flourish because of its Nazi connotations. Is it not troubling that in the highest echelons of education students regularly encounter censorship of this kind? It is not even a matter of potentially giving offence as an ionic column is really not the same as goose-stepping around studio in an SS uniform. Not the same at all. It is

a censorship of a comparable kind employed by the Nazis themselves with the suppression of what they called ‘degenerate art’.

It is strange then that an ideology such as Social Democracy; an ideology that enshrines democracy, diversity and individual freedoms; an ideology that completely opposes the tenets of National Socialism, should play similar sorts of power games with its architecture. Cedric Price, upon whose liberal ideas Rogers’ architecture are founded, was deeply suspicious of architecture’s role in consolidating authority by way of the built environment. That is why we largely have him to thank for architecture’s aversion to symbolic appropriation as witnessed by its transparent, permeable and shapeless forms. Indeed, the best way an architect could possibly hope to avoid being just another stooge of power is to build succeeded doing nothing at all, which Price succeede d d iin n d o g oin rather well. His disciples however, Rogerss and his star-chitect peers, were not so successful in n this capacity, having built and inspired others to build ild ratherr a lot. The problem is that architecture does not construct a subject just through ssymbolic sym b lic appropriation bolic ap ropriation alone: power inherently app develops develo de elops architecture’s very raison d’etre as the society. containment nt of soc ociet ie y. Thus, it is unavoidable that so long as we insist insis sistt on on aligning aliggnin ningg architectural architectural thus tropes with facets off ideology, id hus moralising moral mo ra ising contemporary architecture, them, that c the ontemp ont empora orary architecture ure,, despite d be anythingg but its be best intentions, intentions,, cannot cann b t bu dogmatic. dogmat dog matic ic.

The consequence is an enfeebled profession.

Gradually, the world is being filled with glazed office blocks of spindly atria and oxidised curtain walls, high tech spaces suitable only for the happy-healthy ghosts of 3D renders, media walls endlessly repeating advertisements or meaningless patterns of light, all thrown up in the spirit of regeneration. Where socialists and radicals could once read within the language of explicit engineering signs of redemption or change, the post High-Tech architecture in our cities has no such associations: it may not be historicist, like the postmodern architecture of the neo-liberal turn in the 1980s, but rather its anaesthetised formal language is a perfect complement to the hollowed out shell of Social Democracy; an ideology beset by the ghosts of 2009, food banks and Donald Trump in the White House. The insipidity of contemporary architecture architectture represents repre presen sents a society s lockedin wit inability express for within h its own wn ina inabil bility ity to ex expre press ss its itselff fo or fear of repeati repeating ting the th totalitarian total to talit itaria ian n nightmares nightma nigh t res of ye yesteryear. Its architectural archi h tec tectur tural al muteness mutene mut e ss resembles res esemb embles something like a patient patiientt suffering pat suffe suff eringg from post post-traumatic unable ost-traum aumati a c stress,, un unabl ab e to o move on from the event trauma. eve ent n of the he tr traum au a. The only l hope off recourse is to rescind the the architectural archit arc hitect ectura ral taboos tabo aboos os that prevent us from leaving the pas behind, past b ehind, ehi nd, not as provocation, but merely just to cha change nge the subject: we have talked about the warr lon long o g enough.

iNdEeD,, tHe bEsT wAy wA Ay aN aN aRcHiTeCt aRcHiTeCt aVo oId bEiNg bEiNg cOuLd pOsSiBlY hOpE tO aVoId jUsT aNoThEr sToOgE oF pOwEr iS iS tO tO bUiLd nOtHiNg aT aLl

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vErTiCaL cIrCuLaTiOn mOdUlE bReAkEr zAtTeRe hOuSe ‘58 gArDeLlA

Stairs are an integral element to the evolution of Venetian building scale, housing in particular. During the transition from the Late Gothic to Early Renaissance, there was a vast progression in vertical circulation techniques. The typical external courtyard staircase could no longer provide service to the increasing sizes of palazzo. The use of this stair was to create a direct access between the piano terra and piano nobile for the people of nobility to use. As the scale of palazza rose, the external courtyard staircases became illogical in design due to weight and size. This served as a catalyst to the progression of vertical circulation. The scala leonardesca, inspired by drawings of double staircases by Leonardo da Vinci, was a pioneering design that would be autonomous to alternating landings. In the 20th century, stairs have continued to be reinterpreted in ways that develop the Venetian palazzo. The staircase in Zattere House by Ignazio Gardella, built in 1958, shows a modern interpretation on past techniques with the window module allowing light into the stairwell at half landing level. The idea of the whole building was to create a modern palazzo that was empathetic and responsive to its context. sitting in harmony with much older and more traditional buildings along the Fondamenta delle Zattere.

sTaIrWeLl hAlF lAnDiNg sPiRaL zAtTeRe hOuSe gArDeLlA

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pRoDuCt dEsIgN: aRcHiTeCtUrE oF sUgGeStIoN

by Isis Dapling

Third year undergraduate architecture student Isis Dapling dissects the relationship between cinema and architecture.

There is a conceivable dialogue between cinema and architecture; Production sets are spatial designs which provide a sub-narrative to a director’s concept. They can be an art form in their own right: the sets of Metropolis (1927) provided a form of artistic expressionism, as well as a visual for director Fritz Llang’s dystopian forecast of societal future. However, generally, set design is a form of spatial art produced to highlight its twin craftsmanship - performance art. Production design encompasses this role as well as taking a degree of control over lighting, cinematography and directing; it is essentially responsible for the overall look of the performance. Often, the cinematography of a film determines the relationship between the performance and the architecture presented, hence being a key pointer towards a hidden agenda. In this article, I shall briefly explain the sub-text created by the film sets/film architecture in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove and consider in what way this subtext was generated.

Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb (1964), draws upon themes of Cold War paranoia, the threat of nuclear annihilation of all life on Earth and psychotic narcissists in power to create a ‘visionary’ comedic performance.

Kubrick originally intended to film the story as a serious drama, following the tone of the book it was based upon – Red Alert by Peter George.

Influential production designer Ken Adam, whose long list of credits included the sets for six James Bond films, was a key player behind the success of this film. The embodiment of his “gleaming and sinister” set designs created the tense atmosphere Kubrick wanted to achieve.

Adam’s War room in Dr Strangelove, was perhaps one of the most critically acclaimed film sets in history, being described by none other than Steven Spielberg as ‘the best set that’s ever been designed’. It was an enormous concrete room, (Forty metres long by thirty metres wide, with an eleven-metre-high ceiling) in an expressionist, triangular shape resembling

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a bomb shelter. One side of the wall is covered in great strategic maps which reflect onto the floor’s surface.

The choice of any set, whether real or constructed, influences the audience’s view of the script; this one acted as an agent to the satire of the film, rather than mirror the dialogue itself. The vast empty space, accommodating its nucleus of one round table highlighted by a ring of artificial light, was the controlled vessel for the ‘lunatic antics’ of world leaders to take place. The absurdity of this immense spatial atmosphere being used by squabbling ego-maniacs to decide the fate of the entire world, was an intentional, satirical subtext behind the use of the acting and dialogue.

Kubrick originally intended for the round table in the war room to have a ‘poker’ feel to it – referring to the stakes being played with as if it were a game - however the green baize on the table surface could not be seen in black and white motion picture when it was revealed to audiences.

as ‘unentertaining’. Nevertheless, it is certainly one to learn from in terms of how the film architecture and cinematography is used for sub-text. A man, driven by idealism and a desire to do good for the “common man,” wants to be the biggest and the best newspaper publisher in the United States in the early 1900s. However, on his ruthless pursuit in doing so, he alienates himself from his friends and family, and slowly regresses from a sympathetic character, rooted for by the audience, into an ill-favoured personality.

pRoDuCtIoN sEtS aRe sPaTiAl dEsIgNs wHiCh pRoViDe a sUb-nArRaTiVe tO a dIrEcToR’s cOnCePt.

Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Wells, attracted incredible critical reviews, but largely for its technical brilliance. The expert reviews were so complimentary they led to an anticlimax in the eyes of the public, often stated

The production design of Citizen Kane grew progressively more extravagant as Kane’s wealth and distance from his old friends and relatives increased.

‘The sets are instrumental in helping the audience feel that Kane is losing “sight of his original humanity.”’ A series of shots at the point of the film in which Kane campaigns for the ‘working man’, follow him through several speeches. The set design decisions throughout the campaign highlight the change from sincerity for the common good to a loss of connection with who he’s campaigning for. The earlier shots are set in a dank alleyway, where Kane’s friend and colleague stump for him amongst a small gathering of working class individuals, whereas the last shots of his campaign utilise lighting, sets and camera angles in such a way that Kane’s image is lost within a sea of men in

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suits. Using a single perspective view, focusing on the distant stage from behind the tens of drab, identical rows, the cinematography draws attention to the symmetry of the seating and impersonal hierarchy imposed by the stage, decoration and enforced light.

Cinematography is the main enhancer of film sets, indicating when set features become important and how they are spatially utilized.

In the Citizen Kane scene where a bitter argument of few words is held between Charles Foster Kane and his second wife, Susan, the ‘180-degree rule’ was used to expose the living room of Xanadu in the clearest way possible; the camera oscillates amid two opposing points of view, following the conflictive dialogue for the audience to get a balanced perception of the space throughout. The enormous space, in conjunction with the sparse, ornamental furniture resembles the interior of a cathedral rather than a home, and subtly underlines the torn, detached affiliation between the two characters, whilst signifying the worthlessness of ostentatious materiality and abundant wealth.

Production design and cinematographic techniques can be beneficially employed when representing newly designed spaces; the use of film in representing architecture is becoming more widespread, especially by means of CGI technologies. As an effective way of portraying atmosphere and mood, architectural companies such as Factory Fifteen have taken ‘A design led approach to film making / A narrative led approach to architectural visualisation’. Hans Richter’s ‘Die neue Wohnung’ (1930) is one of the earliest examples of this using one short, silent film to expose problems with existing housing design and present alternative solutions.

For the interested reader, other recommended films with powerful cinematographic spaces include The English patient (1996), The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Happy together (1997), The Name of the Rose (1986), Avatar (2009), Minority Report (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002).

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tHe hIdDeN rElAtIoNsHiP bEtWeEn aRcHiTeCtUrE aNd sPiRiTuAlItY

Stephany Govier, third year undergraduate student interviews professor of architecture and Grandmaster in Martial Arts, DanHoria Chinda about the unseen relationship between architecture and spirituality.

Stephany G.: Professor Chinda, you are an architect, a writer, an academic and also a Grandmaster in Martial Arts. Please take us through your story - how did you find these passions?

Dan H. Chinda: My immediate passion was architecture and design. esign. Then came the Martial arts, which slowly became a way ay of life. As a student in Bucharest I was practicing Judo, at that time as a wrestling form, without too much philosophical implication.

However at the same time, I was impressed by Kenzo Tange, the architect behind the Tokyo 1968 Olympics, I guess. I was fascinated by his understanding of tradition in architecture (which implies spiritual values), and his sincerity ity in using materials, forms and space. And I started to “dig” on Japanese culture and found about Bonsai and…Karate Do, the Way of empty mind.

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