| Title | Reverse Perspective |
| Tutor(s) | Wim Goes |
| Campus (BXL/Ghent) | Ghent |
| Language (EN/NL) | EN |
| Engagement | Mediating Tactics |
| Semester (1/2/3) | 3 |
How to be at the opposite ends of perspective?
Since the Renaissance, Western spatial representation has been dominated by the rules of linear perspective, a system where space is fixes, depth is calculated and interrelations are pre-defined.This linear perspective is challenged by introducing Reverse Perspective, historically present in Byzantine iconography, Cubism, contemporary art (e.g. David Hockney, Henri Matisse, etc.),and rarely in architecture.
We explore elements of Reverse Perspective trough researching, unframing, making, and re-making. Through reading and analysing references from both the fields of art and architecture.
How can the conception of space shift towards new potentialities, beyond the conventions of fixed, linear perspective?
Responsive design engages the user, inviting in time and movement (both mentally and bodily).
An individual intermedium work — an installation, a drawing, or workpiece by a medium of choice — forms a spatial reflection from this process of re-search. Serving as an inspiration for the design of an architectural gesture: later to be transformed into a refuge integrated in an existing landscape.
The process unfolds through presence, openness, disappearance, and resonance with the site.
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.
How is time invited in? Something motivates us to install potential shifts, to disjoin unity as in perspective.
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? (through researching references, reading…)
Preferring indirectness over rhetoric, we keep an openness to changing interpretations (allowing for it to be reversed). It invites appropriation and access, rather than imposing a fixed meaning or use.
The spatial conception is not the exclusive domain of the architect, rather something that is amplified, or even transformed, through the user’s actions and experiences.
This re-search results in an intermedium workpiece using elements of Reverse Perepective
From there, we explore how this workpiece could relate to an architectural context or landscape.
The student individually creates an architectural proposal for a ‘refuge’ integrated in the existing landscape.
This studio occasionally intersects with the elective ‘Art & Architecture’* and may also collaborate with the 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 / Reverse Perspective’ (two methods’ compared).
architectural context/landscape
We will visit the existing site together to inhale its atmosphere, to search and re-search.
The site will ‘form’ the dissolution and disintegration of the architectural proposal as it becomes a part of the context itself (how it appears / disappears). Landscape feeds the proposal, ecology and sustainability are inherent partners.
Outcome
Reference Analysis
Through working models and group-research (discussions, reading..)
Through an Intermedium workpiece (analysis of elements of RP in a free medium.)
Architectural proposal
Through drawing / model / details
Curation of an exhibition?
Cross session with elective Art and Architecture
Activities (adjustable timing / to discuss)
W1 Introduction (references. who – why?)
W2 reading and Reverse Perspective and Doppler effect
W2 group-research on Potential Shifts and Elements of RP
W3 site visit + overnight stay on site (to agree with students, dependent on weather conditions?)
W7 Mid-term evaluation : Intermedium work and Analysis of elements of RP
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. 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 zoom in and zoom out.
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
Hera Van Sande
References/Further reading:
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 Pres
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