Studio Description

Cathedral’s Speciation

We are becoming monsters - a species aroused by non-perfect images coming from perfect methodologies. Here is where the true transformation is happening. We are subverting the logic of perfection: what used to be about mastering the result of a non-perfect process is now about the production of monstrosity and the grotesque through the mathematical perfection of an evolutive mechanism. So why not be optimistic? In the end such is life, such is love...
The studio proposes to re-examine the possibilities of form generation as an autonomous entity.In the context of these conditions, the studio will focus in the generation and production of mutant microbehaviors that will accumulate to create species from systems.

Cathedrals and Churches has been the blueprint for mutation and transformation of ARCHITECTURE with capital A.

The ultimate creepy / grotesque / horrific / Affective Space

The vehicle for innovation in design techniques, perspective, structure, ornament, scale, etc…

With all the transformations of the field in the last 15 years is time to revisit the ultimate Architecture specie.

In a mileu of genome mapping, terabyte-scale personal media management, nano-scale meicine, and private space tourism, the majority of Americans still believe in Creationism over Evolution. Is this a paradox or logical correlation?

America is not just a religious country, it is a country of religiosity. Everything --shoes, cars, soda pops, diet regmines, operating system preferences -- is not just marketed, they are evangelized. Herethe intertwining of personal redemption and self-realization is deep in the local character.

Like cheap software, America invents and exports religions with an enthusiasm and efficiency that is mesmerizing and frightening. To be sure, secular capitalism’s charisma was learned on the road, converting customers one at a time.

As has been noted since it’s very beginnings, capitalism is a double edged blessing. The market is a cruel and uncompassionate community. It also renders under that which it provides

In an American landscape of dying malls, overgrown offramps, zoloft for kids, 1000 cable channels, and no actual human friends and neighbors, a sense of spiritual malaise is inevitable. This malaise is both the the product of the religion of the market, and the raw source material for the market of religion.

One reason America is good at desiging new spiritual products is because it is so good at creating the demand for them.

In this studio we will design a new Cathedral for New York.

We will do so with an interest in the profound social and political purpose that these ecstatic temporary cities of faith and communal proclamation fulfill (or at least promise) for the millions of people to attend them every week.

We will carefully study Gothic religious architecture (among the most beautiful spaces ever created) to consider their success in marrying the social, spiritual, political and sensual into a single design.

The contemporary religious architecture is sometimes an opportunistic adaptive re- use, taking over basketball arenas, warehouses even parking lots as needed, and always inheriting some of the atmosphere of these. As forms, they have scale but often not sufficient sacrality; they don't achieve the same resolution of political and sensual grandeur of Cathedrals of the past. Part of our task is to give a more official, more contemporary, more fantastic form to these emergent political bodies.