LVMDR
Thomas Ruff

When I did my first architectural series, in 1987-91, I chose the typical, undistinguished buildings my generation grew up surrounded by. I thought that high architecture might overshadow the image itself, that a Mies building would be too beautiful. I was worried that there would be too much Mies and too little Ruff. But after gaining experience making various series in the meantime, I thought I could transform even Mies architecture into a Ruff image. When Julian proposed the project in 1999, I realized I was ready for Mies–that I could make his architecture look different from the way it had appeared in previous photographs.

We decided to work on two Mies buildings that were near-contemporaries–the Barcelona Pavilion (completed in 1929) and Haus Tugendhat, in Brno, Czech Republic (1930)–as well as Haus Lange and Haus Esters. My idea now was to work in several modes: straight architectural shots, interior photographs like the ones I was making twenty years ago, stereoscopic photographs, and computer-manipulated images. Some of the computer alterations were done to create the impression of speed–something modernity has always been closely associated with. When Mies’s German Pavilion was built for the 1929 International Exposition, it must have looked like a UFO had landed in Barcelona. Speed in photography is always blurry, and my picture of the German Pavilion looks like a high-speed locomotive–modernity arriving at the train station of the present (albeit the present of 1929).

When Terence Riley saw some of these images, he asked me if I would work on the rest of Mies’s buildings in Berlin and Stuttgart for MOMA’S upcoming show “Mies in Berlin.” So I began shooting those buildings too, but I couldn’t photograph all of them–some were obstructed by trees or by traffic and parked cars. So another mode appeared: using archival material. At first I thought I might hand-color some old black-and white prints, but in the end I did all the alterations on the computer.

In this way, I have tried to do a contemporary-art exhibition about architecture from the past, using every technique available to contemporary photography. The computer is a great new tool for photography, an extension of the darkroom, allowing you to alter color, resolution, parts of the image, or even the whole thing. For the Krefeld show I was playing with issues surrounding the documentary aspects of architectural photography. What was in front of the camera is not what you see in the images, because I altered about 90 percent of them. In some I took out the color and made a new sky. In one there appears to be a ghost (is it Mies?), which was originally a bad exposure that I guided into an intention, let’s say. The curtain in the Barcelona Pavilion is red, but I wondered what would happen if it were blue or green. How might this change the reception of Mies’s architecture?

The main idea was to create a kind of resume of the photographic representations of Mies’s buildings and at the same time demonstrate that the reception of his work was hugely indebted to a relatively small number of photographs.

With stereoscopic photography, it’s obvious that our perception has less to do with what we see than with what our brain does with that information. If you look at the two flat images, nothing much happens; but look at them at just the right angle and the images become one–and it’s three–dimensional. We may look with our eyes, but our brain constructs the images. My idea was to make these 3-D interiors look even more artificial by altering the distance between the stereoscopic camera’s lenses, which are normally set apart about the same distance as a person’s eyes. To take stereo h.t.b. 06, 2000, I used two cameras set about ten inches apart, which creates a perceptual transformation: The viewer becomes a twelve-foot-tall giant peering into a dollhouse-size interior.

More about Thomas Ruff Work on American Suburb X channel  

See also Miesology from E2A

        and some other paintings here and there

(Un)City – (Un)Real State of the (Un)Known

Cedric Libert for the Instanbul Design Biennal

Le projet place la ville comme sujet de réflexion et de discussion : la ville abord.e sous l’angle des multiples réalités qui la constituent, la ville perçue en tant qu’héritage autant que projet en devenir, la ville envisagée par la superposition, l’imbrication et la sédimentation de strates singulières. Procédant d’une interrogation précise et vaste à la fois – celle de l’environnement au sens architecture du terme –, il s’agit de saisir la complexité des mécanismes qui façonnent agglomérations et métropoles.

Les aléas de l’histoire et épisodes successifs ont tant.t fourni une vision totalisante, tant.t des revendications localement émergentes. C’est de l’assemblage de toutes ces couches historiques et morphologiques qu’est issue la ville telle que nous la connaissons aujourd’hui. Elle est également le produit d’une s.rie de décisions antagonistes, voire contradictoires, et c’est probablement là que réside sa terrifiante beauté. Pour aborder cette question, la proposition suggère que l’on adopte un regard spécifique : celui qui consisterait à observer les phénomènes urbains à travers le prisme du diagnostic et de la dissection. Dès lors, apparait un dispositif ouvert – un terrain d’étude, de prospection et de négociation – par lequel il est question de d.celer les champs d’investigation et de recherche autant que les logiques territoriales héritées de l’histoire. C’est un terrain de jeu, une aire d’expérimentation ou encore un territoire mental qu’il est intéressant de comprendre au même titre qu’il est important d’en reconnaitre les aspérités.

Très librement inspirée d’une série de documents historiques ou récents, dont l’intérêt consiste à ouvrir la pensée du réel . l’univers poétique de la fiction, la proposition réunit 100 projets d’architecture(s). Dans l’idée d’un récit entre imaginaire et réalité, il s’agit d’une collection de bâtiments et situations urbaines emblématiques de Bruxelles, décrits séparément dans le présent ouvrage et assemblés par ailleurs, sous la forme d’une grande maquette de 4m x 4m. Celle-ci est construite au départ de situations qui ont existé, existent ou pourraient exister. Sous la forme d’un territoire imaginaire, elle rassemble des projets passés, présents et prospectifs : le Palais de justice de Bruxelles, le Cinquantenaire, la Maison du Peuple de Victor Horta, le Pavillon du Bonheur Temporaire de V+, le Théâtre National,

le projet de Jonction Nord-Midi de Luc Deleu ou encore le siège Glaverbel . la Chaussée de la Hulpe. Bref, une petite histoire de l’architecture envisagée par éléments distincts – chacun d’entre eux constituant un prototype  pour la ville. Ce faisant, c’est ouvrir les tiroirs de l’histoire, en sortir des projets et les observer comme spécimen unique, bien qu’issus d’une espèce plus largement répandue dans la ville. Par la reconfiguration autrement de tous ces projets sur la maquette, il s’agit d’une part, d’être attentif au vide entre les architectures construites – l’espace entre les volumes agencés – parce qu’il révèle l’existence de rapports inédits entre les éléments : et d’autre part, d’explorer l’idée que chacun construit son expérience personnelle de la ville – une cartographie sensible, propre et unique, voire une mythologie intime.

Les 100 projets collaborent dans un grand récit, celui d’une ville qui existe autant qu’elle est rêvée. Elle pourrait être l’une de ces Villes Invisibles  racontée par Italo Calvino. Toutes sont le pur produit d’un fantasme alors qu’entre

les lignes chacune evoque les réminiscences d’une ville que l’on a parcourue.

Pour chaque projet, un seul aspect a été retenu, soulignant son importance singulière dans la construction d’un imaginaire collectif. Les 100 projets véhiculent leurs lots de petites anecdotes ou illustrent des chapitres de la grande Histoire. Qu’importe, ensemble, ils font la ville.

(Un)City – (Un)Real State of the (Un)Known lays down the city as a subject of thought and talk. Addressing through its constituting multiple realities, the city is perceived as heritage as well as project-in-becoming, envisaged by superposition, interweaving and sedimentation of singular layers. 

Proceeding from both a concise and vast interrogation – the environment in its very architectural meaning – it is first about trying to grasp the complexities of mechanisms that shape towns and metropolis. Hazards of history and successive episodes sometimes brought up comprehensive approach or locally emerging claims. It is the gathering of all these historical and morphological layers that constitute the city as we know it today. Likewise it is resulting from a series of antagonistic if not contradictory decisions. There lies its terrifying beauty. 

In order to raise up the question, the proposal suggests to observe urban phenomena’s through the prism of diagnostic and dissection. This roughly defined idea of the city then suggest an open apparatus – a common ground for prospection and negotiation – that allows for fields of investigation and new research as well as the recognition of historically inherited territories. It is a playground, an experimentation area and a mental territory that is interesting to understand as a whole but important to recognize in a logic of differentiations.

A large model (4m x 4m) gathers100 Projects for Brussels. As a proposal between fact and fiction, it assembles a collection of emblematic buildings and urban situations found in the city of Brussels. Freely inspired by historical and recent representations, the model is constructed from situations that existed, exist or could have existed. Shaped as an imaginary territory, it brings together past, present and prospective projects : the Brussel’s Palace of Justice, the Cinquantenaire Monument, Victor Horta’s Maison du Peuple, le Pavillon du Bonheur designed by architects V+, The National Theatre, an utopian project of Luc Deleu and Glaverbel headquarter in La Hulpe, among others. A sort of architectural short story, implemented from distinct elements – each one engaging a prototype for the city.

Reconfiguring differently all these projects on the model implies a double fold new approach of the so-called urban reality: on the one hand, it is about carefully recognizing the void between the architectural objects – a space between volumes – while on the other hand exploring the idea that each one of us as individual establishes its own experience of the city – a personal and unique cartography, if not an intimate mythology.

You can get more information about the Istanbul Design Biennal here and in real time here

I will recommand you to go around the 14&15 november for a consortium around the question of the city leads by Cedric Libert