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    Architecture is often defined as the art-or science-of building. Yet architects when they build, influence construction only indirectly, at a distance. Projections are the architect's means to negotiate the gap between ideas and material.

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    Allen Const w Lines

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    Architecture is often defined as the art-or science-of building. Yet architects when they build, influence construction only indirectly, at a distance. Projections are the architect's means to negotiate the gap between ideas and material.

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    411 views15 pages

    Allen Const W Lines

    Uploaded by

    Carolina Jimenez
    Architecture is often defined as the art-or science-of building. Yet architects when they build, influence construction only indirectly, at a distance. Projections are the architect's means to negotiate the gap between ideas and material.

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    of 15
    constructing with lines on projection From Frachice Allon, acchitechure, technique. and representekio yy ‘hunting the shadow 1s quite possible to project whole formsin the mind without recourse to the material, by dsignatingand deter. mining a fixed orientation and conjunction for the various lines and angles Leon Batista Albert Architecture is often defined as the art—or science—of building, Yet architects, when they build, influence construction only indirectly, ata distance. As Robin Rn Evans has succinctly put it, “architects do not make buildings, they make draw. A ings for buildings” In Alberti’s treatise, a privileged place is assigned to the abstract, intellectual work of lincaments—lincar constructs projected “in the faa ‘mind as opposed to material constructions in the world," But to see the work- ing constructions of the architect—drawings, models, notations, or projection of a pyramid and Prism, Elements of Descriptive Geometry, projections —as simply opposed tothe concrete physical reality of building isto Blessing and Darling, 1913. ‘miss what is specific to architectural representation. Projection, in particular, plies an acti ranstive condition. By the translation of measure an pro- Portion across scale, architectural projections work elect transformations of realty ata distance from the author. Projections ate the architect’ means to negotiate the gap between ideas and material: a series of evasions, subterfuges| and ruses through which the architect manages to transform relity by neces sarily indirect means? ‘Many discussions of drawing begin with the classical legend of the origin of drawing. As narrated by Pliny the Elder his Natura History, the story is ‘marked by themes of absence and desir, Diboutades, daughter of « Corinthian potter, races with charcoal the outline ofthe shadow cast bythe head of her {departing lover. To point out that projection is fundamental to this story is obvi ‘018, Diboutades traces not from the body of her love but from his shadow—an abstract projection cast on the surface ofthe wall by the soon-to-be-absent body. At the moment of tracing, Diboutades turns away from her lover and ‘owarhis shadow, Information is always lost in projection: the fllnes and Dhysicalty ofthe body i reduced toa two-dimensional linear abstraction. onsmucrne wrt ute o}eTON tracing works asa substitute, am incomplete image to recall somethinglost. The presence of the drawing marks the absence of the lover The legend of Diboutadesstagesa relationship between abody(thelover) and its representat ‘mediated by a form of projection (the tracing ofthe shadow on the wall) The drawing records something that already exits in abstracted form. It will act aba token to recall the memory of the lover when he is no longer present. The legend enacts classical theories of mimesis art {imitates nature, nature exists before art. In classical thought, the representa tion can be more or less accurate, but it wll always be secondary, shadowy simulation of reality Representation in architecture works differently. In “Translations from Drawing to Building” Robin Evans contrasts the typical product ofthe acade 'mic history painter to a version of the Diboutades story painted by Karl Friedrich Schinkel Twn significant iferences emerge. In the version fate academic tradition, the light from a candle Hor setting, Schinkel’s version is set out-of-doors, and the rays ofthe sun ot a Francesca, De Prospectiva Pingendi, «1482 Provide the source of ight The sun's ays, forall intents and purposes consi «red parallel, produce an orthographic projection, wile the radiating vectors of the candlelight, effect a type of projection more closely related to single Point perspective The architect's ve ion employs the abstract projection of the ‘mechanical drafisman—measurable and precise, capable of tansmitting information—while the painters version employs ore pictorial projection, producing an iconographicimage. Second, and more significant isthe scene ofthe drawing itself. In Schinkels Painting, the tracing is executed by a young shepherd, under the command ofa woman who directs the at of drawing while steadying the head of the model The painting depicts not an intimate interior setting, sheltered by an aleeady fally formed architecture, but a pastoral scene, anda complex social exchange, Instead ofa dressed plaster wall, the shadow is traced on the more or less even surface ofa stoneledgein the landscape. As Evans points out, for Schinkel—the neoclassical architect—drawing necessarily preedesbuilding and its subsequent codification ofthe norms of socal behavior and civilization. Without drawing, there is no architecture (or at east no architecture as Schinkel would have Understood ita classical architecture of regulated proportions and integrated formal orders) wing identified with abstract speculation and geometry, andi tr with social formation. Despite his portrayal of drewingas amore «complex social scene, Schinkel as depicted the act of tracing (perhaps ron «aly? aexactly the moment when the sys reson the shadow ofthe eye, a8 ifto indicate the naturales of vision. Schinkel’ punting suggests that dass theories of tation fallshort of ‘explaining the workings of architectural drawing, In architecture there is no preexisting object to imitate: no body to cast a shadows Once codified, ach tecture tends to imitate preexisting architect s but what does it originally imitate? Alberti, for example, states that architecture imitates nature by sub- scribing tothe same set of abstract ordering principles, Architecture imitates nature, then, through harmony, number and proportion. In enlightenment atchitectural theory, the construct of the primitive hut is introduced; architec ‘ure imitates nature by finding its origins in the most basic and “natural” of architectural forms. But if clasical architecture imitates nature in the form of | ‘the primitive hut, it does so only through 2 highly abstract and idealized geo- ‘metrical mediation. Even later attempts to ink architecture more closely t a mimetic idea of nature—E, Viollet-1e-Du' idea that the logics of structure imitate natu oF Gouttied Semper’ woven walls—do so through conven- tionalized (and abstract) means. Each ofthese stories of origin returns to an Void space, The desie for stable origins always turns up empty. a ‘Asin thelegendof iboutades architectural dravingis marke by thesign of absence. But unlike classical theories of imitation its abject snot prions but jmmanent; not something that once was and is no longer present, but some: thing nor yet present, Buildings are both imagined and constructed from accumulated partial representations. The drawing as object like the musical score in performance, disappearsat the moment of enstruetion. But howsthis teansformation accomplished? I is difference, rather than a system of corte. spondence that makes posible the transations betwen drawingand building. ‘The capacities and logics of drawing are necessarily distinc from the potentials ‘of construction, If drawings are disembodied indexes of absence, construction sezmsto be hatateriza by fllnessand presence. But practice disrupts the easy «haractetization of drawingas the realm ofabsence and buildingas the realm of Dresence, In what follows, I examine the interplay between the abstract con- structions of drawing, andarchitecure'sspeciticeapacty to transform realityby looking closely at specific practices of projection: perspective, anamorphosis, ‘and axonometric procton in their historical and theoretical context, ‘To foreground techniques of representation in this wey is not to locate the activity ofthe architect exclusively inthe abstract realm of geometry and epre- sentation, Infact, by calling attention to the active character of projection, 1 ‘want to unpack the recived view that would see representation asa detached, sbstract real that stands in contrast to unmediated contact with the physial ‘abricof architecture. propose instead to pay close attention tothe transactions bberween the culture of drawing and discipline of building, and to suggest that Aificult as it may be, the architect must simultaneously inhabit both works Tnstead of establishing fixed categories, what seems important today isto ree: nize the interplay of though and reality, imagination and realization, theory cand practice Inhis treatise on architecture Vitruvius hal already pointed out that "archi tects who haveaimed at acquiring manual kil without scholarship have never been able to reach a postion of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the ‘shadow, not the substance” Architecture proposes a transformation of realty ‘ried out by abstract means. But the means of representation are never with ‘out their own shadows? Inthe case of architecture. itis the ephemeral shadow ‘of geometry cast on the obstinate ground of reality that marks the work of archi, tectureas such, onmucrne WT neo oon Vision id Perspective A deeam is, among other things, a projection: an extenalization of an internal proces, Sigmund Freud Inorder for clasical architecture to identify itself withthe exact sciences, archi tecture had to establish its foundationsin mathematical reasoning, Architecture ‘ould be sclentific only tothe extent that twas mathematical*Incasical the. 2° perspective offered a geometrical means to order the constructed workin ‘accord with nature Perspective linked the perception ofthe world 0 ideasabout the world through the vehicle of mathematical reason, But perspective also functioned asa concept of time ordering, surveying and re-creating the past {rom the privileged viewpoint ofthe present just as the distant Roman past was ‘ediscovered/cinvented on the basis of ruins and fragments so the viewing subject cou econstrut the naraive space of punting by means of perspec tial projection. Space is read in depth—locatng the spectator front ofandin ‘he presen, rom which the distnce/pastis entered and traversed, Perspective ‘stables a temporal td that supports maratve history The mathematical cllration ofthe visual world allowed other correspon ences, The analogiesbetween musical and visual harmonics were established on thebsssof thet common foundation in geometry: Cosmological, reigus and Philosophical consonances were played outon the basis of the geometry af space andits elation tan idealized body. Even emerging sciences of blliticsand for Lfcatons could be given a metaphysical overtone by contact with geometry Seeing was understood as «natural function ofthe eye; the paradigms of Renaissance painting naturalized an idealized concept of vision. As Erwin Panofiky has pointed out, perception and concept were unified in Renassonce Petspetive practices.”estetc pace’ and theo space’ recat percept space in the gus of oneand the same sensation: in the one case that sensation is ‘isually symbolized, in the other it appears in logical frm” In architecture, the smooth space ofmathcmatial reason alloyed the architect o reverse perspectives ‘temporal vector and project precisely imagined constructions into the The constructions of perspectval geometry then, appeat to enforce the Drege of the perecivng spectator. But Norman Bryson, elaborating on the speculations of Jacques Lacan concer ng optics has pointed out that the pres Abraham Bosse. Plate from Mantere universelle de M. Desargues, 148 {ence ofthe viewing subject implies a corresponding absence: “The moment the viewer appears and takes up position at the viewpoint, he or she comes face to face with another term thats the negative counterpart tothe viewing postion: the vanishing point... The viewpoint and the vanishing point are insepara ble" af, as Renaissance theory wants to suggest, the proper perspectival ‘onstruction contains within ian ideal viewing distance which Bxesthe posi tion ofthe spectator, the spectator isa this moment also eflaced. The viewer, in facing the vanishing point, is confronted with a. black hole of otherness Placed at the horizon ina decenterng that destroy the subject’ unitary self pos- session"! The very posit of the subject'sbeing in the picture isinextecably linked tits displacement from the picture. ‘In Albrecht Durer’s 1525 lithograph Artist Drawing a Lut, the paradox of the viewing point andjts decentering effect, is underlined. Laid out perpendic lular to the viewers ine of sight a lute sits on a table to which a wooden frame has been attached. A hinged panel holds the drawing that is being produced. It has been rotated ninety degrees from the frame, which turns it toward the viewer, wh can observea series of points forming the outline of the instrument. A string attached to counterweight is threaded through a metal eyelet on the wallbchind the artist, while his asistant holdsa stylusatached to the other end ofthe string” The assistant aligns the stylus to. series of points onthe edge of to the hte. By adjusting par of cross bats to mark the intersection ofthe sting ith the plane of the wooden frame, the artist transfers the series of points 10 their foreshortened location on the drawing surface. Through the repetition of this process, the thee-cimensional form ofthe insttument is converted into a sional projection. In this diagram, the viewpoint represented by the ‘mechanical eyelet attached tothe wall. Leaving aside the dficultyof replacing twordiny binocular vision of the human eyes wth single point itsclear that inthis con struction, the viewpoint is an abstract location that can never be physically ‘occupied. Iisa geometric pointan imaginary construction without dimension ‘Yetthereisanother interesting aspect this diagram. The construction of the \rawingis depicted asa mechanical activity The gaze of the ats, for examples sireted no at the lute itseland not from the imaginary viewpoint, but wand ‘the point where the line of projection an the picture plane intersect. Thats to say hisatention is given overto the deviceitselfand the mechanicsof making the rocess imperfectly referred to 23 "rcading” drawing.) anamorphosis: monsters and aberrations? Besides, there canbe no doubt that the pencpion of space sa complex phe ‘Bomenon: spaces perceived and epresenedindsolbly. Roger Calis ‘erspective registers the distort nd foreshortening ofa perceived object by lines from its ou ine beck to an imaginary viewpoint, The image is 2rmed inthe intersection of thes lines and a picture plane—a screen perpen ‘cular to theline ofsight.Butasa geometrical system, perspective construction coMsTHUCHIE TH NES: OM PRoJECEN ‘Athanasius Kircher. Applicatio docs notalways depencl ona preexisting object. The impossible” pespectivesof GB. Piranes'’s Carceri (1760-1761) for example, show that perspective is not limited to recording the form of already exiting spaces or bodies, but can be «employed to imagine new spaces or objects. Further, within the logic of the sy ‘tem of perspectival projection, there exits the posibilty ofits reversal: the syste diagrammed by Darer to represent an object can be turned aroun Produce the illusion ofthe presence ofan imaginary object. A century before ‘Piranesi, Athanasius Kircher in his engraving Application of the Magic Lantern(c 1660) shows how the geometris of projetion might work to create the illusion ‘ofthe presence of an object. In Mario Betis Reproduction ofan Fy hy Moone of Catoprc Anamorphosis Upon a linda Surface (1642), the representation ofthe eye is multiplied ina series of projections. all more ores distorted, ‘The appearance in the seventeenth cntury of these apparent aberrations Within proectivesystems marks an important shiftin theunderstanding of per- spective, Perspective in these cases is not understood as @ means to visually teanscrbe realty butrather asa more oles coherent sytem that canbe manip. ‘ulated to produce various results. Prspectveisnot presented here asnsturalized sion, butas artifice andthe constructor of ilusion. These “artificial” uses of _rojection in tuen coincide with the more secure mathematial and technical Bettini Reproduction ofan Eye by Means of Gatoptric A Upon a Cylindrical Surface, 164. imorphosie bases for projection established inthe lat sixteenth and early seventeenth cen- tures The couification ofthe principles of stereotomy by Philibert de YOrme and the establishment of generalized principles of projective geometry by Girard Desargues demonstrate the interconnection of instrumental and scientific research on projection. The firs systematic descrip nsofaxonomettc (or par. allel) projection also occur in the late sixteenth century.” The emergence of ‘alculusand analytic geometry in the seventeenth century madeit posible to see ‘raphic data not asa more or les accurate approximation of sight but asa way ‘of calculating and predicting abstract quantities or behaviors. The discoveries of Diagram forthe construction of the by Richard Blome to his 1693 trans sgeneralis, Amsterdam, 1650. iquestereographic projection, added fonof ardus Varenius, Geographia projective geometry had applications ina wide variety offs such as astron- ‘omy navigation and map. making not recessrily connected tothe discourses of scsthetics or representation2! Theaberation ofanamorphosisand the mathe- ‘matical development of projective geometry.although apparently incompatible, epresent ferent aspects ofa generalized science of projection emerging inthe seventeenth century. Once projection as been detached from its imperative to transcribe vision, it can be utilized as aninstumental technique equally capable of producing instrumental das or irrational effects But from the point of view ofthe techniques drawing, the changesintco- duced are relatively minor. In anamorphic projection, for example all of the essential elements of perspectval construction arestill present: the objet (imag- ined or real) the viewpoint, the screen, nthe converging ines of projection are allpresent A series of small echnical adjustments produce major disruption. Simply tilting or warping the screen of projection in Direr’s diagram frexam- ple, would have theeffet of ntroucinga similar distortion int the image. The ‘exaggerated distortion of anamorphoss makes the viewer aware that all per ‘Anonymous maguzineillustration. Diagram of Cinematic Projection Apparat. spectives depend upon distortion. The effect sto make the construction visible. ‘The artifice is no longer hidden, and perspective can no longer be understood 45 the natural outcome of vision. The evidence of disorder (distortion, disso: nance) is contained within the rational limits ofthe system itself {might even go so farasto propose that itis anamorphic projection thats ‘the mote general case, and that perspectivecould be understood asa special case ‘of anamorphosis.nthissens it might be possible tospeak ofa generalizes tem of projsetion utilizing vanishing points, converging projectors and picture planes, which, when aligned, produce “correct” perspectives but when placed in different relationships, produce “distorted” anamorphic effects. As such, anamorphesis functions make visible the limits ofthe prspectval system and its arbitrariness, A legitimate exercise of the established rule of the system has the capacity to produce monsters and aberrations.” Anamoxphosis makes explicit thesubject’s agency in viewing, It confirms tht viewing itself involves projection and participates in the construction ofthe illusion. Projection a8 sctive construct connects the history of representation forward in time wo the ‘pparats ofthe cinematic camera and projector, which also operate to con- struct animated illusions by mesns of projection, Tike conventional perepectival construction, anemorphosis locates the viewer, but now in an oblique and decen red position, The image coalesces ‘only in the moment of turningaay from the painting. The geometric cherac- {er of vsionis used in order to captue the subject. Lacan calls anamorphosis “trap forthe gaze”: in turning away the viewer see that which ishidden inthe construction ofthe picture; at this moment, the contingency of the act of view- ing, and the collaboration of the subjects desire, is underlined. The subject is always in the picture. For Lacan, the discussion of anamorphosis confirms thet ‘Buclidean grometry is inadequate to map the complexities of perception and. the uiity of the gaze. The constructions of subjectivity always exceed their ‘geometrical description. If projection is no longer understood as natural, sci entific and objective, but as the product of active subjectivity and the construction ofillasion through “crational” means, what for architectural practice? the consequences axonometric projection: new geometries and old origins Infact noone an imagine o project anything modern. By definition there ‘xistsan eset contradiction between the terms"pojet”an“modern:"To Projet italy ncansto throw forward. utinonderto throw something or ‘eardboththrowerand projectile mustbe behind Every project san misary fiom the ps. Jose Quarles 4m 1925, E Lissitzky wrote:“In the period between 1918 and 1921 alot of old rubbish was destroyed, In Russa too wehave torn A. [at] fromits bly pedestal “while spitting on its altar" For the revolutionary artists of this time, the old forms of representation could no longer hold together under the pressure of sus tained innovation. “Perspective'Lisitzky explained, "limits spaces it has made it finite, closed” The world is put into a cubic box, which creates stalic"acade view ofthe world."Suprematisy” on the other hand,“has extended theapexof the finite visual cone of perspective into infinity... Ithas broken through the blue lampshade ofthe heavens” In Lissitzky “irrational” space, viewpoint and vanishing pointare both located at infinity. The infinite extension indepth coin- cides with the suspension ofthe subject’ privilege of self-location. The viewing subject and the object of representation both inhabit the same extend fed Projection operates 10 si wltaneously prolong and collapse distance: “Suprematist space can be formed infront ofthe surface as wellasin depth ‘Suprematism has wept avay theillsion of thre- dimensional space ona plane, ‘replacing it with theultimate illusion of iraional space with attributes of in nit extensibility in depth and foreground”? Perspective andl anamorphoss, despite their nature as constructions, are still esentially pictorial, and work in the symbolic register. Perspective, while sapiring to be scientific and generalizable, was always linked toa fixed point of| et c) view. By extending the vanishing point to infinity, the constructions of per spective are rendered at one and the same time more flexible from an instrumental point of view, and more universal from a philosophic point of View. These revolutionary artists ofthe early twentieth century avant-garde wanted to go beyond arts traditional role of interpreting the world to imagine an art capable of constructing new works, Hence the attraction of axonomet ric profction. Axonometric, because it could transmit abstract information, and becauseit was measurable and precise, was the ideal tool to delineate the Frontal and Oblique Views of El Lissitzky’s 1923 Proun, Computer recon- struction by Stan Alle, assisted by Nona Yehia, 1997 avant-gatde’s vision of a new world Perspective records what already exists, whereas axonometrc projection constructs that which daes not yt exist Yetin the approach of Lssitly.asin other earl «wentieth-century abstract Painters (oras they weresometimes refered to,“nonobjectiv”artists—Kasimie Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, or Piet Mondrian for example) a curious contra

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