The Market Estate Project (I)

No very long ago I read somewhere in internet about The Market Estate project which will be taken action in February 2010. Fist time I visited North Road was in 2006 when I commenced to work on The Hut. The client's offices ( Islington Council ) were based in an adjacent building to the Estate.

Next to this 60's public housing development is Caledonian Park Clock Tower. Set back from the main road, the white clock tower seems to control the time and lives of everyone who surround it. It is a slim, large and elegant type of construction designed by J.B Banning in 1855. It was opened by Prince Albert with the intention of trading over 15.000 animals a day. It is also known as Metropolitan Cattle Market Tower and is all that is left of one of London's largest livestock markets which operated until it was flattered by aerial bombing in 1940 during World War 2.

Our studio, in collaboration with Richard Claridge, current historic buildings consultant and also a fellow RCA alumni have submitted an inspiring proposal with the intention of getting involve with such of fascinating project.

Loosely inspired by Plato’s Allegory of Cavern where references of people is played out in a transient narrative of shadow, our proposal aims to investigate the architectural patterns between existing and proposed Market Estate in the form of artificial or natural day light and shadow. We enjoy the way that fixtures and fittings, products and personal items are left abandoned in corridors and staircases – places which are transient by nature and therefore reflect the space between private and public, destination and arrival - as ghostly memories of former inhabitants: a slow erosion whereby the place takes on a new life and offers visitors a new and poetic inside to and otherwise forlorn space.

In our work we want to imagine a group of individuals who have lived their lives in happy and sad; positive and sometimes reflective or negative states of mind, perhaps lonely at times with the comfort that they can afford: comfort in the form of their possessions which over the course of the departure from the building have been discarded through neglect or want, all that is left is the rhythms of the past and the ephemeral decay that is its future. However the beauty of the work and the free spirited form of the discarded object is achieved with shadow as its next life, similar to how in Plato the observer is released of their chains through the metaphor of darkness over light.


We propose a series of installations fixed to the ceiling, wall or floor in corridors, landings, staircases and stairwells. The work will take the form of existing architectural fixtures and fittings, or installed pieces that refer to where original fixtures and fittings were once housed but have been removed (eg: light bulbs and electric fittings, fire prevention equipment including hose, bell and extinguisher, balustrades, occupant doors & windows and related furniture including door numbers. These and other fixtures and fittings will be presented with the aid of both electric and natural daylight, the effect will be shadows and play of light on adjacent surfaces

The work will be presented in such a way to encouraged audience participation, not necessarily to encourage tactile investigations but exhibition of objects seen at different positions, angles, heights and light qualities. Although we envisage each installation to be presented unframed as scale 1:1 pieces in addition we imagine a series of secondary works that illustrate in architectural scale diagrammatic explanations that for instance take the form or aesthetic of an electric diagram.

The objectives of our installations are for former residents and strangers alike to look at every day objects in a different light - literally and metaphorically – to react and examine otherwise discarded remnants of the Market Estate.

Mediateque

Michael Chadwick, one of my former tutors during my post graduated studies at RCA has recently contacted me offering the opportunity of teaching at the School of Architecture in the University of Brighton.

The course will be called 'Mediateque'. It will take the form of a workshop in which a series of different materials will be used with the intention of studying some of aspects of the early Russian Constructivist Theories. The course will be mainly focus to a group of architectural students from 1st and 2nd year degree. The starting date is January 2010.

At this stage, I have been asked to supply an image which might represent the contents of the course as well as a brief description of the objectives and aims. Because I had to do this with a very short notice I opted for selecting one of the many photographs I took during my birthday's visit last month to the old Kent & East Sussex Railway, defined as 'the country's finest example of a rural light railway.' The line gently wends its way from Tenterden -"The Jewel of The Weald" for ten and a half miles, though the unspoilt countryside of the Rother Valley, to terminate in the shadow of the magnificent National Trust castle at Bodiam.

The image illustrates a closed ticket counter from Tertenden's train station. Even I found the capture being quite vague (without any apparent indication of the course aims) in the other hand, I also think that - for many reasons, graphically it makes a clear reference to the starting point of a journey. Firstly, because that is the place where the traveler obtain a fare, but also it is the relevant door that allows you to apply for new experiences. The fact this service is unattended refers to an element of surprise. A capture with a considerable grade of poetry but also, - I have to admit, with certain levels of frustration.

My main intention for the course is to present a workshop which would explore the following 6 materials in their own isolation.

Stage 1: Paper and Cardboard
Stage 2: Wood and Balsa
Stage 3: Wire and Perspex

Once the 3 initial sketch prototypes have been completed, then students will be asked to create a higher level of complexity model during the last 2 stages. The final requirement is to design a Hybrid.

Stage 4 & 5: To create a Hybrid with the above 6 materials; an additional item such as Resin or Latex will need to be included

The purpose of the Hybrid is to explore the tangibility of the chosen materials (identifying the properties in relation of how they work with each other) e.g. Students will be asked to study a series of architectural qualities such as:

Cohesion, Transparency, Elasticity, Separation, Volume, Light, Mass, Shadows
and many more

John Hejduk and some of his abilities

Last week I received a phone call from Zhe, an architecture student I met back in 2003 while I was finishing my studies at University of Greenwich. Surprisingly, he saw The Hut's review by Studio Idealyc at Building Design a few weeks ago and was very interested in talking about John Hejduk, whose name was mentioned in the article. Zhe is completing his Diploma this year, and his final dissertation is, coincidently, about Hejduk's work.

Hejduk's abilities for creating such of beautiful architectural narratives have always been among my favourite interests. He was something more than an architect; he was an academic, an inspiring teacher, and a poet of great originality. He was the creator of a type of architecture which, for some reasons, was not fully accepted by every student. Somehow, I always felt attracted to his work. During the time I was at the school, he was one of my main references. His drawings and peculiar sketches were a vast source of inspiration to me. I remember wanting to draw like him, tracing over and over his images and not getting very close to such of wonderful style.

But above that, I also studied his theories and way of thinking. The existence of such of poetic and spiritual qualities was the base among the concepts for most of my educational projects. Particular interest I always had in his Houses, Texts/Images and more specially in his Masques. In fact, the Hut at Spa Fields, was the result of a very long and interesting discussion with who was, one of my first teachers at the school and I am very grateful to, specially for having being responsible of introducing me to John Hejduk's work: He is Ed Frith; who is nowadays current Zhe's tutor. They have both just came back from China in where they have been shortlisted for a very interesting architectural competition.

Zhe has offered me to read his text and give him my opinion. I have to say I am delighted of doing so because as much as I read, more than I like. To the point, this has made me get back to my bookshelf and re read some of my old Hejduk's books. Among these, I have found titles such as Vladivotok - a book I bought in the falls of 2002 during a field trip to Russia with my former tutors Vladimir and Ludmila Kirpichev ( "Vlad" saw it at the shop of one of the many Art Galleries we visited and advised me of the importance of buying it -which I now perfecttly understand!), or Sanctuaries, a small catalogue showing the last works of Hejduk. Both of them are truly inspirational. Same as Pewter Wings, Golden Horns and Stone Veils, in where the reader gets easily emerged in the magical landscape interpreted by Hejduk during his visit to south of Spain.

One of my favourite Hejduk's projects is House of Suicide, built in Prague. In 1990, Hejduk was invited by Czech authorities, including President Vaclav Havel to develop this project. Hejduk's narrative was inspired by the story of Jan Palach, who burned himself to death in Wenceslas Square to protest the Soviet invasion - a sacrifice that galvanised dissent in 1968. In what was perhaps the height of his career, Hejduk helped Havel dedicate his House of Suicide in the Royal Gardens of the Czech Palace. A truly inspirational and mystic project.

John Hejduk's project House of Suicide (1991) is characterised by a very special and irregular geometry. Despite the strange name Hejduk gave it, the project overall volume itself looks spiky, rather violent. This piece shows the essence of the allegorical and carnivalesque mode that Hejduk identified as architectural Masques. Yet it is easy to relate this piece of work with the term "suicide', the project also spread over the surface of lyrical, painterly and very deep architectural notations. Under Hejduk's hands, architecture is converted into a ritual; this particular project explores the theme of horror as a passage of transformation.

Le Corbusier and the occult

First time I heard about Dr. J.K Birksted was last year, when one of his students was preparing her dissertation at The Barlett School of Architecture. This student was Amy Sullivan-Bodiam and her descriptions were extremelly close with what I saw yesterday while I had the pleassure of assist to Dr. Jan's last book presentation "Le Corbusier and the occult" at the Darwin Theatre in the UCL. I have to admit that it was a fantastic lecture, very inspirational, rich of terms, theories and above all, of architectural ideas.

From the little I previously heard about him, it was not very difficult to recognise his presence into the lecture room. He is a tall, slim man, with short grey hair and which phisical appearance, easily differs, and very extensively, from all the new generation of trendy young architects. Perhaps the fact he is not one of them, stand out the reason of his academic look like style. Dr. Jan has indeed, a very interdisciplinary mind, which is clearly visible if you analyse the different fields of his long academic CV. By the way he expressed himself to the public, -wearing an inmaculate white, perfect ironed shirt and a black suit with a very classical pair of brown leather shoes, anyone could have easily understood, his sense of perfection for recopilating information. While I was taking my notes, I had the impression of being in front of a human archive of architectural history. He described us, and extremelly well, some of the most trascendental Le Corbusier's personal life experiences. And specially the connections of his work "to the compagnonnages, the survivors of the medieval carpenters’ and masons’ guilds, who were involved in the construction of the Unité d’habitation in Marseille".

I really enjoyed listening the contents of Dr. Jan's lecture. The main theme of discussion was clear and transcendental to nowadays interest in trying to understand what architecture is all about. Professor Colin Fournier was in charge of the event's introduction. Fournier's speech was short and concise, his words expressed certain admiration for his colleague Dr. Jan, but above all for his personal interests into Le Corbusier's life and work. After the presentation, I decided to buy the book and even had the opportunity to exchange some quick words with the author; who recommended me to see the new Le Cobusier's exhibition that, coincidentally , started yesterday in the Barbican and which hopefully, I will visit tomorrow with some old fellows from the University of Greenwich.