Tag: architecture

engulfedcathedral:

absalon, ‘solutions’  1992; video (7:30 min), color, sound

“In the course of six years Absalon created a series of one person living units based on everyday routine actions and designed entirely in relation to his measures. The inside of the cell is all covered in white in order to reduce distractions or elements that can disturb the eye. In his video Solutions (1992) Absalon demonstrate the study of measurements and calculation of movements like eating, sleeping, taking shower which later will define the form of his cells. In 1993 Absalon started to construct six cells which were supposed to be installed in six metropolitan centers[6] as Absalon described in interview: “I would like to create my own setting and belong to nothing else. My living unit will be comprised of the six habitation units which I construct, and my homeland will be in-between them.” [7]“

—Wikipedia 

Source: arndtberlin.com

Vito Acconci, Making Shelter: House of Used Parts, 1985

Materials

aluminum ladders, pup tent, rubber tires, wooden doors

Description

The compact shelter constructed of discarded materials sits in an inner city garden, lush with flowers and foliage behind a plain wooden fence. Four chair backs, made from aluminum ladders, hold up a pitched roof consisting of two doors in a wooden frame. Between the chairs is a pup tent which doubles as a table base. Climbing one of the ladders up into the attic-room, you find rubber tires fastened closely together to form a hammock.

Source: mattress.org

Rachel Whiteread, Water Tower, 1998

“Commissioned by the Public Art Fund and originally installed in 1998 on a rooftop in the Soho neighborhood of New York, Water Tower is Whiteread’s first public sculpture to be conceived and displayed in the United States. The British artist scoured the city in search of a quintessentially New York subject. Looking across the East River to Manhattan during a visit to Brooklyn, she admired the water towers perched high above the streets and was drawn to their uniqueness and their ubiquity in the architectural cityscape.

Whiteread is known for her castings in resin and plaster of familiar objects and the spaces they surround, such as the interiors of a bathtub and a row house in London’s East End, and for her ability to make people see these objects and spaces anew. Water Tower is a resin cast of the interior of a once-functioning cedar water tower, chosen specifically for the texture this type of wood would impart to the surface. The translucent resin captures the qualities of the surrounding sky; the sculpture’s color and brightness change throughout the day and it becomes a near-invisible whisper at night. Whiteread has called this work “a jewel on the skyline of Manhattan.” Soaring and ephemeral, it inspires city–dwellers and visitors alike to look again at the solid, weighty water towers they usually see without noticing”

—MoMA