Cavities of Sainte-Genevieve

The continuity of space and monumentality of scale internal to a cathedral inspires in us a sense of awe. This sensation is achieved by a parts to whole relationship where the continuity and grandeur of space takes primacy over the disparate elements of the interior. The exterior of a cathedral swells up to declare monolithic permanence and iconic presence at the urban scale. Central Park is an iconic center within Manhattan. The economic and cultural networks within the city are secondary to the park. A cathedral in the park would establish a shift in power structure within the city and as such needs to have an exterior expression equivalent to such a stature.

Soufflot’s Sainte-Genevieve is a leviathan in the Latin quarters of Paris. The neighborhood fabric is surgically cut, opening up avenues like arteries with the cathedral inserted at its center. Sections through the cathedral reveal a series of nesting volumes within the monolithic mass pressing up against one another and sharing space. Space is experienced as a whole but configured by multiple cavities extracted from poche. The volumes collect like bubbles under the ice, wrapped in an envelope and allowing for structure to occur between. Soufflot's desires for a visually unobstructed space, a space of lightness, is emphasized by the freestanding columns thinned out to the point where their structural integrity became concerns for political debate amongst his contemporaries.

By embedding one pocket within another and using different scalar values Soufflot is able to differentiate between program. The portico, nave, aisle, crypt, and dome are contrasted by a scalar change. The multiple volumes of the aisle shrink in scale in relation to the naïve and subtract from the mass in a way that gives form to the buttress. The three volumes of the dome go through a phase transition from a scale appropriate to interior to the iconic scale of the exterior.

I want to investigate how a cellular system that aggregates through nesting behaviors can achieve a similar type of primacy of space exemplified at Sainte-Genevieve while also negotiating program. The volumes within Sainte-Genevieve act like cavities in a solid block, in this way too the cells need to address thickness and poche as well as envelope, to define interior and exterior. Natural Light in Sainte-Genevieve is always experienced through successive layers of volumes acting as a plenum creating an effect that attenuates the thickness of the poche and diffuses the boundary of volume/program, again qualifying the continuity of space and the sensation of awe.

outline

There are two issues about cathedral as an icon.

First one is what aspects make the cathedral an icon. In other words, it is why people perceive a certain building different from other buildings. In the case of Gothic Cathedral, its vertical mass and plan support this iconic character. These are basically derived from the religious meaning and that is the original meaning of icon. As a result, this different appearance helped Gothic Cathedral become a cultural icon. To strengthen this aspect, the main mass of new building is emphasized in vertical way and overall size needs to be huge. As all the cells are scaled up, the primary structure cell can be as large as it can be occupiable volume.

The other important issue is relationship with landscape and urban context. Because an iconic building can be inharmonious with surroundings, it is important to react to each other. Two introduced movie in presentation show how heterogeneous qualities meet and interact. In regard of locating in Manhattan, the new cathedral needs to be connected to the geometry of central park and high rise buildings around site. Cells or clusters close to surroundings are influenced and mutated by them. This transformation also is connected to programs.

Therefore, main idea of cathedral as an icon is how it can be related to context as well as how it can be an icon.

Obscura

The traditional spatial logic of the mosque is designed to effect a processual shedding of the outside world. As the patron enters the structure, he or she is confronted by a carefully regimented series of spaces that enforce very specific processes of separation and exfoliation: muslims from non-muslims, men from women, formal attire from casual, dirt from body. Intended to purify the faithful before gaining admission to the sacred inner sanctum, this spatial passage reifies the core conceptual binarisms that constitute Islamic religious doctrine. The mosque's architectural logic therefore privileges the crystalline over the organic, repetition over variation, the insular over the open, certainty over ambiguity, difference over affirmation, division over multiplicity.

My proposal Obscura seeks to construct an alternate experience of religious devotion by reconfiguring experientially the entry procession of a traditional mosque. As its name implies, Obscura emphasizes the concealment of what lies therein: the mosque is shrouded in an aura of mystique. Certainty and rationality of the gridded streets of Manhattan, planned design of Central Park, and the Museum of Natural Science give way to uncertainty and faith as patrons permeate the enclosure. Initially encountering spatial disorientation, those unwilling to trust blindly are sifted out, while those who continue undergo a reorientation of spatial sensibilities, thus preparing themselves for a renewed engagement with religion. Tantalizing yet disorienting, each subsequent step empowers the patron contrary to the imposed ritual of a traditional mosque.

Obscura seeks to contaminate sky/earth, interior/exterior, open/enclosed, and floor/ceiling. With expansion and contraction behaviors, perforations in Cell A offer an array of scales ranging from screen to window to portal. In aggregate, its sinuous form creates passageways, walls, and chambers of varying depth and thickness. The horizontality of Cell B lends itself to function on a variety of scales as floor/shelf/ramp/stair/ceiling/platform(dikka)/podium(minbar). Dual levels allow for a flexible yet hierarchical configuration. Through contamination of Cell A + Cell B, the dichotomy breaks down and a multiplicity of conditions arise: multiple circulation paths, ambiguous floor levels, excavation and earthworks.

a varying range of juxtapositions will be capitalized to create diverse spatial, emotional and tactile effects which will produce specific affects

affect will be created through the contrasting of moments:
light – dark
ornate – austere
visible – concealed
comfortable – uncomfortable
moments of intimacy will be polarized by collective shared space as a means to promote feelings of isolation within a monumental space
individual perception will be distorted as the architecture will blur what is real and illusory , like the use of false perspective in santa maria presso san satrio
this will be done through a manipulation of surface, space, light, sound, and air to produce a contrast of intense emotional and physical reaction through spatial interaction
while creating harsh juxtapositions between space, the line dividing is sometimes blurred, allowing for an unconscious transition
to generate this variation I pulled from the past:
Sedlec Ossuary’s deep seeded connection to place through ornament. while excessive and opulent ornament is embedded with intense imagery of the past
Santa Maria Presso San Satiro uses false perspective to shift perceptions of spatial reality
the small labyrinth like conditions of st. basil in moscow is in contrast to the monolithic western cathedral , allowing for a more intimate connection to place.
the architectural language of the basilica of the vierzehnheiligen weaves architecture, sculpture, and painting - blurring the transition from one art form to another.

separate, singular moments joined together through the layering of many skins which is traditional of the iconic church. however, in this situation this is no main space designed, but the main space is rather an accumulation of the left over dead space which is then reidentified as a main spaces. the main space of worship becomes the accumulation of forgotten space.

ultimately the architecture will be an open space with moments of intense intimacy. the intimate labyrinth like quality found within St Basils will be utilized to intensify the movement of the individual though a collection of spaces.

Contamination and conflict serve as productive forces in the generation of the multiplicity of experience, sensation and affect in a monumental and iconic space devoted the spiritual. The cathedral embodies the separation from the urban context and park landscape, mediating between these two dialectical conditions within their interface as a space of communication – communication with the mystery of the spiritual, communication with the intimacy of the self, communication generated through chance interaction within the multitude. The cathedral here does not represent Heaven on earth; it is rather a repository of the human condition, of collective memory, of a democratic plurality of beliefs – a symbol of shared experience and a foil for both secular and spiritual reflection. The multitude yearns for a space where communication with the spiritual and reflection are possible, space that cannot so readily be found in the binary condition of city/park. A multiplicity of spatial conditions is achieved through carefully mediated systems, spaces, forms, structure, enclosure, interaction, spectacle, excess and absence.
A matrix of historical precedent maps variable evolutionary trajectories that operate through space and time, across time, backwards in time or within a singular moment. The acceleration and exaggeration of these trajectories produces conflict and contamination. Within the matrix several basic and general behavioral traits reveal themselves: competitive or supportive interaction between systems in the tempio malatestiano; layering and hybridization of space and connection in the work of guarini; shifting relational hierarchies and material transformations in san stefano al ponte; surface effects and spatial consequences in the religious work of mario botta. What these create is a network of cellular systems [structure, enclosure, ornament] that operate within themselves, through other systems, with other systems, across other systems and against other systems.
The different cells accumulate in various ways – working independently and together, occupying the edge and reclaiming that thickness as not only occupiable but also layered space. The varying connections, overlays, interfaces and transitions create the multiplicity of hybrid conditions that house the multiplicity of reflections. Systems and networks are layered in such a way that they perform through varying strengths of influence, from the dominant to the submissive. Relational hierarchies are challenged and identities [of cathedral, material, cell, and body] are shifted. Simultaneously generated through these operations are mediations of the dialectics of light/dark, heavy/light, fast/slow, large/small, soft/hard, clear/confused, life/death.
The multiplicity of experiences, sensations, reflections and affects is the product of a contamination generated through robust cellular systems based on evolutionary religious material trajectories as vehicles in the production of shifting realities.

a violent lightness

Park Cathedral : A Vaulting Speciation

Structural mutation arises from the networking of the load distribution. Traditionally this evolved into the evenly balanced and symmetrical forms found in cathedral architecture. The arches sustain vaulting heights with the device of the pointed arch, so as to accommodate differing spans of the geometries of the church plan. From the roman barrel vault, mass is replaced as a load-bearing agent in ribbed domes that allow for a floating tent-like affect, performing as a system of frame and infill. This was done with great panache in the high gothic cathedrals, displaying a full array the intricacies of the networking shown in stellar vaulting.

The epitome of load efficiency was achieved in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia where a catenary system of weights informed the eventual form. It is however in Michelangelo's St Peter's dome that we see the play in destabilizing tension and compression forces, where by the ribbed arches are so tightly constricted at the base with the double column-pilasters that the oculus threatened to burst apart. He had to introduce the heavy lantern at the crown to cap off and weigh down the explosive force that was generated.

I seek to fabricate a system whereby different gravities in space act upon the structure to test the mutations of the cell, also in doing so, that the affect of extreme build up and tension be produced.

ICON _midterm presentation

Abra Cadaver II: The Midterm

"I became acquainted with the science of anatomy: but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition, or to have feared the apparition of a spirit.Darkness had no effect upon my fancy; and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm."

-Mary Shelley

skinless. skinned.

The metaphore of skin to describe surface has been a dominant part of the dialog surrounding cathedral design. Beginning with the greek temples that had no need for skin to the gothic creation of a skin like surface that no longer refrenced it's construction. Skin became a unifying element, as seen in the vertical lines of the columns thrusting up from the earth towards the light. it is my goal to use the metaphore to drive a new relationship of surface to mass through a literal perspective of skinning. the connotation is primarily in relation to the removal of skin, and seldom the addition of skin; as in to skin a deer etc. The result is a clear relation of the internal workings of the body. At this point of the project i have not developed the actual skin, but constructed the internal workings necessary to be revealed by the cutting, or removal of the skin. the disconnect of the continuous surface, broken by the cut. This video show the architectural equivelant to a knee joint without skin. The evolution of a cathedral in this case is not a rebirth, but a damaged or torn structure. The scar that is not easily hidden and defining of the city's charecter.

Public and private program separated by interior skin within the same cluster.

cluster