Architectural Design V-IX: Voluptas - S1E5 - Dionysos (F.Charbonnet/P.Heiz)

Abstract

Dionysos/Apollo is to become a rambling exploration on the lookout for an urban environment beyond reasonable or irrational, good and evil. Considering humankind as embedded in (and dependent on) its geological era, we look upon history’s intertwined layers as torpid raw potential to be fully deployed, appropriated and composed with – joyfully disrespecting historical authenticity.

Objective

The semester Dionysos aims at designing erratic hyper-contexts generated by hypothetical ruling incentives: as a marker of singularities, it is to become the passionate catalogue raisonné of elemental urban idiosyncrasies. Through the generation of a positive utopian frame steadily based on history and by expanding the defining limits of the discipline to a multiplicity of fields, Voluptas aim is to encourage students to propose projects which critically address contemporary problematics in a proactive manner, propelled by the students’ profound desires.

Content

“Time for it [Humanity] to question whether it solely wants to live, or to further make the effort required for the accomplishment, even on our refractory planet, of the essential function of the universe, which is a machine to produce gods.” Henri Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion (1932) “An idea – the antagonism of the two concepts Dionysian and Apollonian – is translated into metaphysics; history itself is depicted as the development of this idea; in tragedy this antithesis has become unity.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1908) Dionysos/Apollo is to become a rambling exploration on the lookout for an urban environment beyond reasonable or irrational, good and evil. Considering humankind as embedded in (and dependent on) its geological era, we look upon history’s intertwined layers as torpid raw potential to be fully deployed, appropriated and composed with – joyfully disrespecting historical authenticity. The visionary Hístor seeks, finds novelty in the old, rather than an unfounded assertion of the present with the past. Simultaneously, all his/her thoughts and actions are rooted in essence in the terrestrial now. Students first construct an argumentative Arsenal, based on an encyclopedic compilation of evocative historical sources. Specific techniques further extend the ordinary architectural tools to address and critically reconsider the contemporary urban environment. Google Earth serves both as a survey backdrop and as a performative tool of investigation and design. Singular metropolitan Orthoimages (2m x 2m) become the recording canvas of proliferating storylines. Overthrowing socio-economic status quo, a written Constitution postulates a groundbreaking social contract, thus crystallizing the fictional Metropolis’ shared desires and aspirations. Additionally, a telling but suggestive Movie Montage portrays life as it unravels within it.

Resources