Copiousness

COPIOUSNESS ...

HoiYing Chan Studio 8 Sem 2, 2021

STUDIO 8

CONTENTS

TRIPLICATE

STIRLING AT CA’ CORNER DELLA REGINA

The institutional setting of the museum functions paradoxically as the place for the generation, display and disappearance of architecture, at once affirming and suspending any evidence of architecture actually ‘being’ there. This architecture in pseudo-absentia has an uneasy relationship with the museum’s institutional order – it’s codes, practices, perceptual histories and blockbuster exhibitions.

Architecture’s unease in the museum buttresses claims for the disciplinary autonomy of architecture and supposes the probability of the museum interior as a site for the emergence of new architectural modalities, co-dependent, and perhaps even independent of the museum.

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Prologue

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Wayfinding Plans

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Interview

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Materials

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Works

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Critics Review

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Appendix

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Notes

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Knowledge Bank

…Architecture born in the museum Students will work with material from the James Stirling Archive at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), drawings and other documentation of the Venetian Palazzo Ca’ Corner della Regina (the Fondazione Prada venue in Venice), and catalogues of the current exhibition on show at Fondazione Prada Venezia titled Stop Painting (conceived by artist Peter Fischli).

Studio Leaders: Scott Woods & Kim Vo Semester 2, 2021 Melbourne School of Design

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PROLOGUE

A museum is not just a container for artworks. Modern museums are usually designed in empty minimalistic interior design with white and clean partitions, but is it the best way to design a museum? Can a museum be designed with copious amounts of ornaments? Artworks should be the shining star to attract visitors, so museums are usually designed in the plain interior to emphasize the artworks.

However, the museum itself is also a shining star. A museum is not only a stage of artwork, it also can shine with the artworks.

‘Copiousness…’ aims to enhance the circulation system and exhibition technology in the Ca Corner building. To make the museum shine with the artworks, the historical features and ornaments are kept in the Ca Corner building. The existing circulation route is designed in a repetitive way, the new one are incorparated with the flow of the exhibition. In the exhibition rooms, the grid structure grow throught the ceiling and the parttition to maintain a new exhibition technology. ~Iris Chan

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WAYFINDING PLANS First Floor

Ticket Counter Cafe Baggage storage room Back of House

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WAYFINDING PLANS First Mezzanine Floor

Lounge Back of House

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WAYFINDING PLANS First Piano Nobile Floor

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Let’s Go and Say No Delirum of Negation Readymades Belong to Everyone Next to Nothing Mensch Maschine

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WAYFINDING PLANS Second Piano Nobile Floor

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When Painting Become Things Niente de Vedere Niente da Nascondere Word Verse Image Spelling Backwards Die Hard Strib Langsam Duri a Morire

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Let’s Go and Say No - Exhition Room 1 & 2

Delirum of Negation - Exhition Room 3 & 4

Readymades Belong to Everyone - Exhition Room 5 & 6

Next to Nothing - Exhition Room 7

Mensch Maschine - Exhition Room 8 & 9, Atrium

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When Painting Become Things - Exhition Room 10 & 11

Niente de Vedere Niente da Nascondere - Exhition Room 12&13

Word Verse Image - Exhition Room 14 & 15

Spelling Backwards - Exhition Room 16 & 17

Die Hard Strib Langsam Duri a Morire - Exhition Room 18

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INTERVIEW ON STIRLING (ARCHIVE) 1.What did you find most challenging when working with Stirling’s material from the CCA archive?

Not having known much about Stirling to begin with, I think primarily familiarising myself with his practice and the deep layers of his conceptual thinking. Also, not getting caught up in the bold formal gestures (form and colour) in the genesis of the work, by understanding what else is at play underneath the surface.

2.Do you think Stirling is still relevant for contemporary discourse?

Why or why not?

Yes, I think mostly anything can be relevant for contemporary discourse, when something is not simply represented in its existing state.

Ideas can constantly morph and be reapplied to the contemporary. Like Stirling looked for inherently modern elements in historical and classical architecture, there are so many elements of Stirling we can look to and reapply to the discourse.

ON MUSEUM 3.What are the challenges of thinking about the museum beyond a container for art? What is exhibited and what does the exhibiting in your museum project? Is it that simple?

The museum is an institution, with so many deeply embedded societal and cultural values, for example, Rosalind Krauss speaks about the

‘cultural capital’ of the museum in the sense that the museum is a marketplace for the trade of artifacts and the social and economic success of its artists. Since art is a vessel through which to observe shifts in culture and thinking, the Museum, although not immediately responsive, so too, carries these complexities and shifts.

I’d like to think about the exhibition and the exhibiting as a merged entity, in that although the art from the ‘Stop painting exhibition’ is explicitly present, it is inextricably linked to the architecture and surface interacting with the work.

4.What are the challenges you have encountered when working with the Ca Corner building?

E.g. the Venetian context, the architectural ornamentation, the spatial structure, etc. How did that challenge inform your approach to the museum?

The History of Venice and its classical architecture is such fertile ground on which to deploy a project. However, I found it easy to get caught up in the complexity of say, the architectural elements, the ornamentation etc. There are an infinite amount of things that could be explored here, dealt with, but I guess what is essential in dealing with the varied conditions of site and culture, is developing a logic, or a specific set of ‘attitudes.’

Knowing that you don’t have to acknowledge/touch everything. Also realising that although historical architecture in itself almost feels

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like this architectural condition around which one should tread gently, it certainly doesn’t have to be that way.

ON EXHIBITION 5.Considering the role of technology in exhibition design, is this a concern for your design? If so, in what capacity?

The technological aspect of my design is incredibly important. At first, my material strategy of galvanized and brushed steel was a way to showcase a gap in the economic ecology of the venetian museum, particularly the heavy ornamentation, carved stucco and fresco.

Further, Stirling’s archive is a repository for technological innovation, there is an obvious connection here and a capacity to engage with display technology within the museum. All of my architectural responses engage with innovative, and at times banal display technologies as part of the architectural apparatus.

6. Does this idea of exhibition or display technology change your conception of museum architecture?

I think since working together with the museum, the display, and the archive I understand the potential for these to be synthesised. Before going into the studio I broadly categorized the display technology as separate from the architecture, which I think in a lot of museums is still very much the case.

ON THE FUTURE 7.How would you describe an architecture that exists solely inside the museum? How is that different from architecture that exists outside of the museum?

An introverted architecture and an extroverted architecture can have equally complex underpinnings at play. I think it’s a matter of choosing what conditions you want to work with and what parameters you have set for yourself so as not to have a diluted project or one that does not effectively engage with its surroundings. Personally, I think I avoided having to deal with the complexities of the face of the building, with the canal and the surrounding context, purely because I felt like I had so much to work with internally.

8.Has your project for a museum changed your position or attitude to architecture more generally? If yes, how?

Definitely, it has certainly augmented my thinking in a variety of ways. This idea of the apparatus - the synthesis of concept, architecture and program, is key here. It is within these relationships that existing elements can create novel conditions. I think working with the Stirling archive and with the Ca Corner building has also changed my relationship with classical and post-modern architecture. In that I won’t be as tentative to negotiate within a historic condition nor will I find a brightly painted giant mushroom column so offensive.

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MATERIALS Stirling Archive materials from CCA

Entrance Canopy Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

Mushroom columns Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

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Grid Frame Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

Grid Frame Intermezzo II: Harvard, Arthur M. Sackler Museum

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MATERIALS Stirling Archive materials from CCA

Entrance Canopy Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

Mushroom columns Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

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Door Frame Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

Skylight Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

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MATERIALS Stirling Archive materials from CCA

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MATERIALS Stirling Archive materials from CCA

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MATERIALS Stirling Archive materials from CCA

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WORKS

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

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LEGEND 1. Entrance Lobby 2. Cafe 3. Ticket Counter

4. Baggage Storage Room 7. Courtyard 5. Meeting Room 8. Machine Room 6. Back Office

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FIRST MEZZANINE FLOOR PLAN

LEGEND

8. Machine Room 9. Art Works Storage Room

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FIRST PIANO NOBILE FLOOR PLAN

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1:200 31

FIRST PIANO NOBILE FLOOR REFLECTED CEILING PLAN

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1:200 33

SECOND PIANO NOBILE FLOOR PLAN

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1:200 35

SECOND PIANO NOBILE FLOOR REFLECTED CEILING PLAN

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1:200 37

SECTION A

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1:200 39

SECTION B

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SECTION C

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SECTION D

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APPARATUS DRAWING 01

Painting Frame Hanging from Ceiling Grid Structure

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APPARATUS DRAWING 02

Display Desk Hanging from Ceiling Grid Structure in Atrium

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APPARATUS DRAWING 03

Painting Frame Displayed in Tunnel Structure in Courtyard

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APPARATUS DRAWING 04

Blow up Detailed Diagram of Painting Frame

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AXONOMETRIC DRAWING 01

Exploded Axonometric of Exhibition Rooms

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AXONOMETRIC DRAWING 02

Construction Technology of Ceiling Structure

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EXHIBITION ROOM 01

View from Exhibition Room 1 Looking at Artworks

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Let’s Go and Say No

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EXHIBITION ROOM 02

Let’s Go and Say No

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View from Exhibition Room 2 Looking at Artworks

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EXHIBITION ROOM 03

View from Exhibition Room 3 Looking at Artworks

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Delirum of Negation

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EXHIBITION ROOM 04

Delirum of Negation

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View from Exhibition Room 4 Looking at Artworks

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EXHIBITION ROOM 07

View from Tunnel in Courtyard Looking at Artworks

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Next to Nothing

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EXHIBITION IN ATRIUM

Mensch Maschine

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View from Stair in Atrium Looking at Artworks Hanging from Ceiling

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EXHIBITION IN ATRIUM

Mensch Maschine

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View from Stair in Atrium Looking at Artworks Hanging from Ceiling

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EXHIBITION IN ATRIUM

View from Second Piano Nobile Floor Looking at Atrium

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Mensch Maschine

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CRITICS REVIEWS

Written by Francis Robert Burne Thompson ‘Copiousness . . .’ by Iris Chan sees the home of the venetian arm of the Prada Fondazione; the Ca’ Corner della Regina colonised and reconfigured by a pair of expanding interventions that grow within the substrate of the 18th century baroque palazzo.

There is an awareness in the display and locating of works becomes both affect and effect as a new circulatory system and grid grow through the existing building like hyphae throughout the building.

A new system of circulation moves through the building, ignoring if not defying conventional means of concentration into some sort of vertical movement at an axial centre.

Instead, a ribbon of neon pink moves across and through floors, rooms, and voids dissolving established en filades and tripartite accretions.

To facilitate and exhibit this the central exhibition spaces on each piano nobile have been pierced, leaving the ribbon to move through this new void. Within the ribbon, works are found in defiance of its own circulatory program.

Works are found in both rooms proper and in interstitial circulatory spaces, achieving a blending of the conventional segregation between the circulation and gallery spaces, which was previously found within the Ca’ Corner della Regina and largely dominates the museum typology more broadly.

If the first intervention can be said to be concerned with circulation, then the second intervention can be said to be concerned with display technologies and the generic gallery space. Much as the sinuous ribbon of

circulatory neon has moved through the museum, a gridded network of metallic green has expanded into the gallery spaces of the museum, across the surfaces of both wall and ceiling. However, where the circulatory ribbon is confined to movement through spaces, the grid is not content with just coating or containing elements of the Ca’ Corner, instead expanding to replace walls at key moments and introducing a new systematise form of ornamentation that sees a synthesis of Ca’Corner’s rich textural ornamentation and the new regimented proportioning systems of the grid. The result of this is an expanding grid that simultaneously becomes the surfaces of the Ca’ Corner whilst consuming it in the process. This parasitising sees the grid collapse its Ca’ Corner substrate into itself, acting as a spatial, ornamental and display system simultaneously.

The mycelial grid, in tandem with the neon circulation ribbon, becomes a parody and critique of the Ca’ Corner. In dissolving the spatial and circulatory organisations of the building, the museum as an assemblage begins to be softened. The total effect of the interventions is one that simultaneously responds with great specificity to the Ca’ Corner della Regina whilst also proposing something that can perhaps become universal, and relevant to the museum typology as a whole.

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APPENDIX PHASE 1

OBJECT 1 MODERN AND CLASSIC 70

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PHASE 1

OBJECT 2 FORM OF ARCH 72

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PHASE 1

OBJECT 2 FORM OF ARCH 74

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PHASE 2

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PHASE 2

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PHASE 2

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PHASE 2

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NOTES

SECTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

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EXHIBITION TECHNOLOGY ITERATION

Iteration 1

Iteration 2

Final design used in exhibition room 1

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Iteration 3

Iteration 4

Final design used in exhibition tunnel between room 7 & 8

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EXHIBITION TUNNEL in COURTYARD

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SKETCH

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CEILING STRUCTURE

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CEILING STRUCTURE - Research

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AXONOMETRIC DRAWING

Exhibition Rooms Diagram

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Facade Diagram

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Circulation System

Grand Stair in Entrance Lobby

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Circulation System

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DIRECTIONAL OBJECTS

Ribbons Connecting Exhibition Rooms in Atrium

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Wall System in Exhibition Rooms

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DIRECTIONAL OBJECTS

Door Type 1 - diect visitors move through rooms

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Door Type 2 - block visitors move through rooms

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KNOWLEDGE BANK Articles James Taylor-Foster, Spotlight: James Stirling Kaley Overstreet, Revealing the Mystery Behind the Architect: What Was James Stirling Really Like?

Kaley Overstreet, The Revival of Postmodernism: Why Now? Tom Dobbins, Kere Architecture Designs Sceneography for Exhibition on Racism

Books Anthony Vidler, James Frazer Stirling: Notes from the Archive Colin Rowe, James Stirling: A Highly Personal and Very Disjointed Memoir

Projects James Stirling, Neue Staatsgalerie Coordination Asia, Shanghai Museum of Glass Park Stephane Beel Architects, Africa Museum in Tervuren Francisco Mangado, Fine Arts Museum of Asturias Architectural Services Department, Expansion and Renovation of the Hong Kong Museum of Art Vector Architects, Shenzhen Pingshan Art Museum Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects, Hirosaki Museum of Contempoary Art

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IRIS CHAN