Abstract
Critiques of contemporary culture - and ideas about how we could live differently - have been explored through a variety of media, including drawing, collage, film, and literature. While these images and texts may seem implausible, “Visionary projects cast their shadows over into the real world of experience, expense and frustration. If we could learn what they have to teach, we might exchange irrelevant rationalizations for more useful critical standards. Vision and reality might then coincide,” according to Arthur Drexler, Director of MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, 1951-85. This paper describes the methodology and outcomes of a course taught for both architecture majors and non-majors in which we examine alternative realities and their representations as visualized by architects, landscape architects, urbanists, filmmakers, and writers throughout history, with an emphasis on the twentieth century. The concept of montage – assembling fragments of images and/or text from various sources into a new entity with new meaning – underlies most visionary work, as it layers existing conditions with alternative possibilities. There are four typologies through which these urban fictions (graphic and written) are manifested, which provide the structure for the course content: IDEALIZATION: creating geometricized urban forms 2. AGGREGATION: hybridizing existing forms 3. SUPERIMPOSITION: layering new forms on existing urban contexts 4. SUBSTITUTION: inhabiting alternative or hostile contexts The diversity of modes of communication in the precedents being studied necessitates a multi-modal analysis. Students employ analytical writing extensively, but augment their writing with sketches and collages to produce a more thorough analysis.
Presenters
Jennifer ShieldsAssociate Professor, Architecture, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
Architecture, Literature, Collage, Montage
