Archi-Couture! |
Archi-Couture!
The main theme of the collages made with the traditional cut and stick method is the relationship between building and clothing design, or the mutual interaction between body and outer surface. The splendidly showy sky scrapers cut off from the context they were built in (or more accurately, cut out with scissors) transform company headquarters into dazzling haute-couture outfits clothing their corporate bodies (or rather, are stuck on).
The Archi-Couture exhibition criticises the haut-couture architecture that is gradually enslaving our world of architecture. The universal criticism in the collages finds its focal point in transience, superficiality, or in other words, "a world of illusion". The clothing facades hung over a concealed structure, the dazzling materials used in the covering, prompt us to question why outer surfaces have been chosen that do not correspond to the inner spaces.
In the book entitled Learning from Las Vegas, which can be seen as the manifesto of post-modern architecture, Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour and Denise Scott-Brown term the post-modern design type in 1972 "the decorated shed". This is an ordinary shed put over the decor at a later date. Thirty odd years after Venturi and friends wrote about it, it would be true to say that the present day concept of the decorated shed has undergone a change. The decorated shed has been transformed into a garment, and what’s more, a haute-couture garment. Of course there are bodies to go with these clothes. Similarly, all the buildings in the collages have functional interiors. However, this lack of connectivity between interior and exterior makes it possible for the exterior to be more attractive, more charming, more enticing, and more resplendent.
The Archi-couture exhibition parades before our eyes once more the world of pretence and illusion in present day architecture.