Narrative Exercises The Use of Collage and Montage in Interior Architecture Maaïe Abou Ghali Bachelor’s Thesis BAU International Berlin Advisor: Prof. Dr. Carola Ebert Second advisor: Prof. Sigurd Larsen June 2018 PART I 1 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Collage in interior architecture 1 1.2 Methodology 2 2. Definitions and historical account of collage 3 2.1 Definitions: collage and montage 3 2.2 A brief history of collage 4 2.3 Collage and montage as a dialectical too 9 2.4 Findings 11 3. Case studies 12 3.1 Mies Van der Rohe, Concert Hall proposal (1942) 12 3.2 Superstudio, Supersurface proposal (1971) 15 3.3 Fala atelier, Garage House proposal (2016) 18 3.4 Findings 20 4. Conclusion 22 5. The different types of collage in a design project 23 6. Bibliography 53 1. Introduction 1.1 Collage in interior architecture Interior design – and by extension, architecture – can be seen as a form of art in light of the creative process necessary to its conceptualisation. This involves the use of multiple visual and structural elements which help bring to life the aesthetic effect pursued by the designer. We can therefore assume that the impact of art on archi- tecture is crucial in terms of visualisation. In this regard, Jennifer A. E. Shields argued that, as collage appeared in the art scene with Cubism and has gained much “artistic credit” since, it started to be used by influential architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Superstudio and Archigram or even Rem Koolhaas as a means of visual- ising architecture, but also as a way of constructing (alternative) discourses (Shields, 2014). Today, collage has become an essential instrument for analysis and design whereby images are treated as working tools and not pseudo-realistic photographs where ev- erything is decided. As a matter of fact, as realistic renderings presume to speak the same language as photography, we are faced with the desire to make the fictional seem “real”. With this said, however, collage explores artificiality and, as viewers, we become aware that space has been represented in a rhetorical form and can be seen as fictional. As a result, collage creates a sense of distance to reality. With the rise of digital tools such as Adobe’s Photoshop, architecture now possesses a new approach to manipulate information. Existing information can be interacted with but also reshaped according to the author’s ideals and artististic sensibilities. As such, visualisation becomes a true project by itself – a sort of graphical manifesto, per se. A number of contemporary architectural offices such as Fala Atelier aspire to recom- pose the world by mobilising all resources of the imagination in a singular narrative; their work is based on the evocative power of images in order to offer a renewed vi- sion of the world. In other words, they create visual metaphors as a means to convey a certain atmosphere rooted in social, cultural and political perspectives. 1 1.2 Methodology The present thesis revolves around a primary interrogation, namely « How is collage used in interior architecture to construct a narrative beyond technical drawings? » To answer this question, the thesis first offers a definition of collage and montage before taking a look at the emergence of the collagist technique in the European and global art scene. It goes to prove that beyond its technicity, collage is first and foremost a creative framework and a process of the mind. Secondly, it investigates how collage was introduced in architectural practice. This chapter is explored through three case studies, where three projects by Mies van der Rohe, Superstudio and Fala Atelier are analysed. One collage (or a series of collages belonging to the same project) per practice is inspected in order to understand the collagist approach in an architectural context. Here, the essay attempts to determine how collage can be seen as tool of representation that serves the purpose of order. After dissecting the methodology of each piece, it will be possible to grasp the nar- rative behind each proposal. As such, this chapter combines three analytical frame- works: contextual analysis, image analysis and spatial analysis. Lastly, the final chapter contains a creative application of the thesis topic in a water tower in Berlin, Germany. 2 2. Definition and historical account 1.2 Definitions: collage and montage The words montage and collage are habitually used interchangeably. However, there is a subtle difference between these two terms. The word “collage” has been characterised by the Oxford English Dictionary as “an abstract work of art in which photographs, pieces of paper, newspaper cuttings, string, etc., are placed in juxtaposition and glued to the pictorial surface”. (Bell, 2007). Nevertheless, a group of rhetoricians by the name of Groupe μ (Mu) posited that col- lage should not be defined as a static, frozen concept but rather, as an object that tends to “overwhelm the attempts of classification, reduction and closure”. Ac- cording to Groupe μ, we speak of collages “sometimes as a precise artistic activity, sometimes as an approximate metaphor, when we do not come to the extreme generalisation of “everything is collage””. Yet, they recognised a specific technical process relating to collage and called it one of the most significant innovations of the 20th century (Groupe Mu, 1978, 13). Groupe μ did however provide a broad definition for the term: “The technique of collage consists in appropriating a certain number of elements from works, objects, messages already in existence, and integrating them into a new creation so as to produce an original whole in where ruptures of various kinds are disclosed.” (Groupe μ 1978, 13). Invariably, collage involves one or more of three operations: the selection of already existing elements, the displacement of these elements in an artistic context and their combination in a unique work of art. In essence, it can be argued that the elements take on value in virtue of the fact that they are taken from their natural context and put in an original assortment. The history of art in fact demonstrates that collage has become a tool for questioning the bi-dimensionality of the painting by juxtaposing 3 different elements; this challenges the harmony of traditional art forms and the nar- ratives that go with them. In contrast, the terms “montage” and, by extension, “photomontage” have been de- fined by the Oxford English Dictionary as: “the process or technique of selecting, ed- iting, and piecing together separate sections of films to form a continuous whole; a sequence or picture resulting from such a process”. Along similar lines, montage is also defined as“the act or process of producing a composite picture by combin- ing several different pictures or pictorial elements so that they blend with or into one another; a picture so produced”. (Leibowich, 2007). According to Jennifer A. E. Shields, montage and photomontage are based on the principles of juxtaposition and the arrangement of contrasting elements; they are a subset of the foundation of collage. The subtle variations that can be spotted be- tween collage and photomontage pertain the source of material representation where this technique feeds itself. To illustrate this point, photography is a central element in the making of photomontage, and therefore, makes this technique more related to the “depiction of forms and spaces rather than abstract compositions, with some exceptions” (Shields, 2014, 127). Photomontage is the aftereffect of two distinct and constant stages. The very first step consists in selecting and cutting out fragments of photographic images, af- ter which one must assemble, recompose, harmonise and recreate. By their photo- graphic nature, the components of photomontage are part of a larger truth, pho- tography being a pure and simple retranscription of visible reality. Once cut and fragmented, however, this truth becomes partial, amputated. Assembled in a new order, these elements form a new whole, a new truth exposed to the subjectivity of the artist. With photomontage, photography interrupts the mimetic relationship that it has previously maintained with reality; it is no longer content to replicate, but rather give a (whole new) meaning. 2.2 A brief history of collage As the 1910’s took off, no art form was completely isolated from the collagist wave. This has created a new, freer approach for fields such as visual arts, performing arts, music and poetic literature. The year 1907 marked the birth of Cubism and announced a major turning point in representational and artistic thinking. In point of fact, this new way of conceiving art ran counter to the perspectival representational method. Louis Aragon brilliantly expressed this idea by describing collage as an art form to be understood as a resis- tance against norms of painting, and thus, as a “defiance of painting” (Poggi 1992, 6). 4 In the same manner, Christine Poggi described the Cubists’ project as “questioning and subverting traditional genres and forms of expression (…)” (Shields, 2014, 2). The founders of Cubism Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris intended to question, with what they firstly called papiers“ collés”, the two dimensionality of the painting by investigating tree-dimensional possibilities on a plane canvas. During the synthetic phase of Cubism, collagist art aimed to deconstruct forms (fragmentation) thanks to the process of addition of found materials and the use of multiple view- points (Shields, 2014, 2). As a matter of fact, the first collage artwork by Picasso entitled “Still Life With Chair Caning” (1912) (Figure 1) can be looked at as a flattened elevation. Alfred Barr gave an analysis of this art piece which he presented as the following: “ … The section of chair caning which is neither real nor painted but is actually a piece of oil cloth facsimile pasted over.