Master’s thesis · 2016 · The image as architectural medium
Strange Contextualism
the WEEKEND: a reality television show on a museum roofscape, and a collage of borrowed elements.
2016Year
Master’s thesisType
Architecture & Aesthetic PracticeSpecialisation
AIV Prize 2016Award
The image as architectural medium: how borrowed fragments produce specific aesthetic and social effects in contemporary architecture. A master’s thesis developed in the Städelschule Architecture Class in Frankfurt.
Architecture
v/s
the Image of
Architecture
The project
the WEEKEND: a reality TV show based on culinary drama.
A reality television studio proposed on the theatrical roofscape of the modern collection of the Städel Museum.
The aim was to use architecture together with a television reality show to extend, if not radically open, the institutional spaces of the Städel Museum and the Städelschule. The studio connects the campus physically and programmatically through a series of curated dining events, which are the show’s content.
Four studios
Where the drama happens.
The kitchen
The corridor
The dining
the WEEKEND reconstructs “The Feast”, a dining event at the Rundgang 2016, and takes it to an architectural expression of the contemporary: social aesthetics, built from Reality TV entertainment and weekend brunches. The politics of a space and the social drama of its consumers give it a subjective experience that the project places above formal representation.
Borrowed from
Etiquettes, themes, concepts.
- The television industry
- The culinary arts
- Netflix
- Fine dining
- Filmmakers
- Chefs
Concepts of spatial components and the idea of themes were brought together on one canvas and curated as a series of events. In the proposed setting they generated the content and footage for the show, and expressed a fusion of three borrowed elements.
Nostalgic social element · the social and theatrical space
The Feast
A dining performance held at the school’s annual exhibition: a multi-level dinner fused with a cuisine of eight core ingredients and a 50-minute musical. It gave the drama a multifaceted, event-based input. The thesis uses the social power of cooking and dining as the glue for the project’s reality.
Contemporary design tool · the core architectural space
The Collage
The thesis argued that contemporary architecture is not about design invention but a collage of elements borrowed from its surroundings to produce aesthetic effects. The project became a stage for the question “Architecture v/s the Image of Architecture”: the studio’s expression is a collage of photographs of its adjoining campus, recast in function and distorted and re-oriented until it contextualises itself.
Project medium · televisual space
The Weekend
Deeply influenced by Bernard Tschumi’s concept of “Space, Event & Movement”, the project needed architecture beyond space and form. Its façade is not only the physical reality of the collage but a curated, edited and post-produced version of how it needs to be captured. The series and its episodes are based on the drama of The Feast, staged twice a month at weekends.
Section
Through the proposed studio.
Trailer
the WEEKEND, on screen.
Extension
AI impressions & alternative realities.
An extension of the thesis: the same studio site re-imagined by AI as a set of alternative realities, from pirate ships and castles to glass futures.
Recognition
Prize, exhibition, print.
AIV Best Master Thesis Prize
Exhibited at ER-RE, Casa da Xiclet, São Paulo
Published in SAC Journal 4: Space of Food
Published in ER-RE: Estranhando o Real – Realizando o Estranho
Legacy
The foundation of my brand practice.
How an organisation’s “image” is curated to resonate within its specific cultural and spatial context began here.
AAP Städelschule · 2015–2016
Three projects, one thread: food.
Made in the Architecture and Aesthetic Practice class: a thesis, a feast and a pair of essays that follow the same ingredients.