Abstract

“Indeed, I am not able to comprehend how anyone can begin to ‘act’ (let alone to ‘think’) without resorting to precedent. (…) Are not precedent and invention the opposite sides of the same coin?” Colin Rowe wrote this in 1986, in “The Harvard Architecture Review” issue dedicated to “precedents and invention”. It’s clearly a follow up to his interpretation of the “city as a collage”, and to his teaching at Texas School of Architecture, where the “plan game” he played with his colleagues was actually a collage of precedents, represented in plan, and assembled to create a new architectural space (Caragonne, “The Texas Rangers”, 1995). According to this methodology, collage is an instrument of design and teaching. In these contexts, collage can be used, before designing, like a visual sketch, a concept statement, a design manifesto. Evoking, but not representing the actual future, it emphasizes the atmospheres and the concepts of a design proposal. The pieces of the collage acquire new meaning and significance, proposing new scenarios, through new and unexpected combinations. Using collage means also showing the designer’s world, references, cultural and artistic masters and obsessions: collage represents the “spiritual families” the author want to belong to (Focillon, “Life of Forms”, 1934). The study demonstrates how, in the studio environment, collage, interpreted as montage of precedents, is an instrument of invention (as composition of elements already existing); becomes the premise to the act of design, an evocative pre-view (as the act of seeing before) of the desired project.

Presenters

Patrizio Martinelli
Assistant Professor, Architecture+Interior Design, Miami University, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Design Education

KEYWORDS

Precedent, Invention, Montage, Collage, Design, Architecture

Digital Media

Videos