COLLAGE STORYTELLING.

Architecture is a kind of corporeal time machine where the past, the present, and the future are related architecturally through memory.

Marco Frascari, “Monsters of Architecture”

 

Architects design stories that seek to seduce us through images of buildings. The projection of meaningful experience through drawing uses conceptual tools and references that link specific narrative elements with associative ideas, images, and cultures.

Collage techniques create narratives using pre-existing elements, dramatizing the signifier without opposing the signified. A collage's meaning results from the interaction of numerous components. This form of storytelling uniquely enriches the qualities of the interaction of the parts, allowing the interpretation of a diversity of fantastic stories that involve memory and its metaphysical qualities. According to architect Marco Frascari, fantasy, and memory are the stars guiding the faculties of the imagination in architecture. From the union of different materials and Images, each with a particular physiognomy, results monsters - (de)monstrations of architectural conceptions.

Building upon the history of collage in art and architecture, this design methods course will consider the role of collage in architectural design. Students will create three collage works along with short ekphrases of 500 words throughout the semester related to their studio or thesis projects or existing buildings using hybrids of computer- and hand-made technics. The critical aspects of collage - collecting, fragmenting, selecting, cutting, combining, and gluing - will each be discussed and treated experimentally and experientially.