Architectural Cosmetics is an exploration of the topic ‘Back of Real’. It explores the formation of reality by layers of history and knowledge.
A first interpretation consists in acts of wrapping a selection of architectural elements with plaster bandage, in the place of residency at l’Escaut. The performative event encompasses the naked body of the building, the process of covering, the drying and cutting of the skin, and at last peeling it off. By way of recursive actions, fragments of the building are disconnected from it and made more abstract.
The project started on small scale with a doorhandle, a radiator, a connection between steel beams, and so forth. In a later stage it was applied at a bigger scale to OMA’s building de Rotterdam. Seemingly impossible to execute, the collages and calculations are meant to emulate the feasibility and viability of the intervention by providing an air of scientific and technological control.
The stripping of the stiffened fabric layer exposes what is underneath anew. The imprint that is revealed, and the collection of broken skins, hint at and trace back to the body of the building and its inhabitants. They also become independent and unstable small and very big samples, more susceptible to be affected by time and decay.
