Windows Without Buildings Notes, 4
1. Things that I would like examples of
1.1. Something that begins with the goal of one thing and ends with a completely different product, this usually happens due to misunderstanding or the ‘drift’ of natural effects
1.1.1. Homer Simpson building an above ground swimming pool and ending up with a barn
1.1.2. A Three Stooges episode, smoothed narrative non-sequitur
1.1.3. Something that gets co-opted after it is completed and released into the world, “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.”
2. This paper has the goal of working through the hypothesis or conjecture that ‘architecture’ as a practice or a product may exist or produce in forums outside the construction of built space
2.1. Yes, but even deeper probing conjecture is that these drawings actually possess some of the characteristics that built works have, not in their potential (which they might) or in their use (which they do not) but in their being for themselves
2.1.1. And also for their perceptual sleight
2.2. A common argument might draw the line at paper architecture whose sole aspiration is to delineate, represent, or construct on paper or in digital media, the required information to, without encumbrance, convey the scope, character, function, and form of an unbuilt building
2.2.1. This type of architecture relies on the ability of the reader to, through conventions of representation, link the possibility of the represented building to the limits of their body, to the memory and history of their experiences in constructed space, and also to their expectation that it could become reality. Without that expectation (let’s call it the eradication of disbelief), the architecture fails to utilize its connection to the perceptions and abilities of the viewer, which in this application, although myriad additional relationships are constructed (one would assert) in the development of the design itself, the aspiration to ‘conjure’ a built work is the trump
2.2.1.1. Someone who sets out to achieve this goal will have great difficulty failing, see a child’s drawing of a house
2.2.1.2. There is, and has been the potential, in the development of the unfortunately named ‘hyper architecture’ of the late 1990s, to eschew the connection to the experiences and scalar reference points of the viewer as well as the relationship of static physics and materiality that could invite the viewer to believe the projects into being. These typically relied more on disembodied renderings than accessible orthographic projections, as it was believed that their reality didn’t rely on such a static form of communication nor would their construction, which would be a one-to-one transformation from the scaleless ‘now’ of the computer’s golem-building
2.2.1.2.1. There are probably other points in history where the representations were not able to enable the leap into the projection of reality from the viewer back to the image, the ‘making of reality’ out of the stalled manifestation.
2.2.1.2.1.1. De Stijl, Art Nouveau?
2.2.1.3. Does this failure push these types of work into the realm that PK’s efforts inhabit? I would say no, that it is a question of intent, although this type of failure might be a bridge between the successful communication of the building, which ‘is’ the building, and those efforts which have no intent, to ‘complete’ a conception of space.
