ADO ‘on Reverse Perspective’ / Maig34, 2024-25
Images: Tarkovsky, scene from Nostalgia, Soviet Union.1983 / Tadao Ando, Lee Ufan Museum, Naoshima, 2010
Studio Wim Goes
Engagement: Mediating Tactics
Quote
“What is landscape? Is it the familiar view from the window, the unknown streets of the neighbourhood, or is it the sublime beauty of nature, the wilderness of the jungle? Wherever we find our definitions, landscapes exist at the opposite ends of perspective – from a very personal space, where we attach meaning, context, derive safety, and aspects of identity, to the often-compulsive apprehension of the unknow, in views of wilderness.”
Watts, E, (2012). Images in a Meta Landscape – The work of Ng Sai Kit, Klock, Hong Kong
Studio assignment
How to be at the opposite ends of perspective?
We start from references. Something affects, time and space invites in, elements unfold…
Something motivates us to measure depth and set relations.
How to activate imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety (adventurousness), intellectual curiosity, and challenging authority (psychological liberalism)? (‘openness to experience’ Five Factor Model ref. Wikipedia)
Can we unframe elements of reverse perspective?
Are we able to install potential shifts, to disjoin unity (unity as in perspective)?
Preferring indirectness to rhetoric, with openness for changing interpretations (being able to be reversed)?
To make it available to appropriation or access.
Amplifying the spatial conception through the actions of the user, participating in the conception (so not as a exclusivity of the architect designer).
This re-search results in an intermedium workpiece using such an element.
From this intermedium workpiece we question how it could relate to an architectural context/landscape (see below).
Let’s make an architectural proposal from the opposite end.
The student creates an individual workpiece designing a ‘refuge’ (to sleep, protected from natural elements) integrated in nature.
During the studio we interact with the elective ‘Art & Architecture’* and studio ‘Learning from Japan’ (to be confirmed)
(*We might share sessions with the elective on Friday morning.
If possible, please keep your Friday morning free from other assignments when choosing the studio!)
The cross sessions are organized between the faculty of Architecture and LUCA School of Arts.
Architects and artist meet and discuss.
Wim Goes, philosopher dr. Volkmar Muhleis of LUCA School of Arts and dr. Hera Van Sande (to be confirmed) will lecture.
We will present our books ‘Reverse Perspective’ and ‘Doppler effect and reverse perspective’ (two methods’ compared).
architectural context/landscape
A site in Luxemburg (Belgium).
What used to be the walled garden of the neighbouring castle
Overtaken/overgrown by nature
Mystical elements define the site, traces of cultivation and culture remain
With a view on the valley…
We will visit the site together to inhale its atmosphere, to search and re-search.
Landscape feeds the proposal.
The site will ‘form’ the dissolution and disintegration of the architectural proposal as it becomes a part of the context itself (how to appears / disappears).
Ecology, sustainability inherent partners
Outcome
Working model / drawing site
Intermedium workpiece
Free medium
Architectural proposal
Drawing / model
Working on an exhibition?
Cross session with elective Art and Architecture
Jury
With guests
Activities (adjustable timing / to discuss)
W1 Introduction (ref. / who – why?)
W1 and W2 reading Reverse Perspective and Doppler effect
W2 Presentation chosen element of RP
W 3 (to agree with students): site visit (weather conditions?) (15 and 16 October?)
W 7 Intermedium work: jury
W14 Final jury
Research question
As part of the elective
We focus on the relation of image and architecture to establish presence, not via linear perspective, but elements of Reverse Perspective as professor C. Antonova described. We do a practical test, before there is a theory. First engagement of the studio forms the exploration of the relation between icons and space in the horizon of the study of Antonova (I), second the relation of images configured by Reverse Perspective and architecture (and art) in general (II), as in cubism or recent paintings of David Hockney in comparison with possible architectural responses. This means we also have to explore by design: the relation of image/representation and architecture/presence (III) and the difference between a secular, historical (modernist and contemporary) understanding of Reverse Perspective and its orthodox, ongoing history (IV).
As part of the studio ‘on Reverse Perspective’
Within a contemporary context we recognize elements of reverse perspective in Architecture.
We name them through the medium of drawing/model.
We test in practice its potentiality to presence.
We group the elements and name them.
We search and re-search.
We re-search by practice.
We practice and re-practice.
We come to architecture by the play of making and designing.
About
At a very early stage the practicing architect Wim Goes was confronted with contemporary art. Meeting and discussing with artists and art curators changed his vision on the position of people in and towards art and architecture, a position allowing the human presence to complete the art and architectural work.
Exhibitions, lectures, … ‘on Reverse Perspective’ to find on the website of the office: www.wimgoesarchitectuur.be
Network:
Harvard GSD, dr. Sarah Whiting and Ron Witte, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
School of Architecture, Victoria University, dr. Sam Kebbel and Mark Southcombe, Wellington, New Zealand
Institute for the Human Sciences, dr. Clemena Antonova, Research Director of the “Eurasia in Global Dialogue” programme, Vienna, Austria
LUCA School of Arts, dr. Volkmar Muhleis, Gent and Brussel, Belgium
Bibliography
Books:
Whiting S, Goes W., Volkmar M., Ron Witte (2024), Doppler effect / reverse perspective. Ghent: Grafische Cel
Mühleis V., Goes W., Antonova C. (2020), Reverse Perspective. Ghent: Grafische Cel
Alberti, L. B. (2004). On Painting. London: Penguin Books
Antonova, C. (2010). Space, Time and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God. Farnham: Ashgate
Aureli, P. V., Giudici, M. S. (eds.) (2016). Rituals and Walls: The Architecture of Sacred Space. London: AA Publications
Damisch. H. (2000). The origin of perspective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
Florensky, P. (2002). Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. London: Reaktion Books Ltd
Gombrich, E. H. (2002) Art & Illusion: A study in the psychology of pictorial representation. London: Phaidon
Huylebrouck, D. (2016). Mathematics and popular painting in Congo. In Cueppens, B., and Baloji, S. (eds.) Congo Art Works (pp. 86 – 105) Lannoo: Africa Museum Tervuren;
Kuma, K. (2008). Anti-Object: The dissolution and disintegration of architecture. London: AA Publications
Pallasmaa. J. (2012). The Eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses. West Sussex: Wiley
Panofsky, E. (1997). Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone books
Tarkovsky, A. (1988). Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. University of Texas Press
Articles/
Notes around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of Modernism
Author(s): Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 33, Mining Autonomy (2002), pp. 72-77
Antonova, C. (2010). On the Problem of “Reverse Perspective”: Definitions East and West. Leonardo. Vol. 43, No. 5. pp. 464-469
Avci, O. (July 2015). Rethinking architectural perspective through reverse perspective in orthodox Christian iconography. A|Z ITU Vol. 12. No. 2. pp. 159-171.
Marcikic, I., Paunovic, M. (2017). Inverse perspective in Cézanne’s art. FME Transactions. Vol. 45. No.2. pp. 301-306.
Rowe, C., Slutzky, R. (1963) Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal. Perspecta. Vol. 8, pp. 45-54