Keywords

1 Introduction

The course units presented in this paper are offered to students of architecture during the third and fourth semester of the bachelor study. Being part of a relatively small course, they are worth 1.5 ECTS, or less than one percent of bachelor study total credit. Units are aimed at enhancing perceptive sensitivity and at developing processual discipline and resource consciousness. Units explore the exactitude in precise use of simplest of resources to produce artefacts whose presence is perceived to be more than the sum of their parts. The experience of a finalized product, an impression of its correctness and a memorable image is hoped for as a reward for a student’s work.

Study develops, inspires, and affirms architectural discipline by research into its specific tools, limits, and essences. Architecture study continuously exposes causality between exact processes and ephemeral outcomes as valuable architecture lessons about constituencies of architectural presence and its defining feature: a real perceived quality.

Architecture develops its own reality, its own state of being and the specific intensity of its presence we perceive.

In his book For an Architecture of Reality, Michael Benedikt wrote about intensity of our perceptions in a way which corresponds beautifully with specific role of architecture lessons as presented in this article [1]. While reading his description of our experience, in times when the world is perceived afresh, with our perceptions freed from being sentimental, one thinks about students of architecture at the beginning of their study. At the dawn of a new sustainable paradigm, could their perceptions be set to neutral and undesiring, and their inspiration encouraged by the simple correspondence of appearance and reality or by the perceived rightness of things as they reveal their origin.

2 The Meaning

The purpose of lessons presented here is to reveal processual origin of things, their perceived value, their presence. The presented processes are not descriptive. For the purpose of discourse, and as a reference, [2] we call them “meaningless”. Meaningless work is liberated from direct purpose. While seemingly “useless” or “unprofitable”, it can be encouraging when the result produced outgrows our initial expectations. It rewards a student’s commitment and determination to proceed with the process. It deepens our perception, makes us resource conscious, and reminds us of sensations of the ordinary, often hidden by a routine.

Explaining the idea, Walter de Maria wrote that Meaningless work exists between mediums, in transmutable form, and against interpretation. He says Meaningless work makes us aware of the experience, its context and reality, enabling new ways of seeing and liberation from superfluous and superficial categorizations and explanations [2].

Our experience of the real is independent of references; the presence of a work is produced every time anew. To produce it, one must invest time and creative force, some courage and anticipation of the result, into intensive production. This is exactly where seemingly meaningless comes to its full purpose: to enable meaning to grow out of process and to shape whole of measurable and immeasurable, accurateness of a work and the ephemerality of its perceived state.

The concept of Meaningless work is presented to students as an ironic, conceptually consistent tool against superficial creativity. It encourages appreciation of work whose perceived ephemerality levitates in the presence of the material object as a certain clarity and self-evidence of its origin.

3 Lessons

3.1 Anamorphosis: Production of Ephemeral Presence

Students of architecture perceive the world of architecture afresh.

As an attempt to produce real and resource conscious, ephemeral presence students were asked to produce an anamorphosis, a direct relation with viewer. Each student produces an unfinished object. Three sides of a cube were produced in firm paper, cardboard or foamboard. Several sets of surfaces and lines are marked on them in different techniques including collage, cutouts, linear or shaded drawing. Seen from the right position in space, these points, lines, or surfaces would seemingly complete a cube in multitude of positions. An ephemeral presence occurred at viewpoints in the expanded field [3] of the object, as seen in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

The origin of the object; graphite pencil, acrylic paper 400g/m2.

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Drawing is transcended beyond being descriptive. Rudolf Arnheim proves that the visual combination of lines is controlled by the law of simplicity. He observed that when a combination of lines produces a simpler figure than the mere sum of separate lines would, it is then seen as one integrated whole [4]. When seen from a correct position, thinner lines which form a simple shape seemingly come forward, in front of the more intensive executed elements. An airy impression of transparent spaciousness is produced and could have been modulated by technique and intensity in production of these elements.

Searching for their position in space would bring them into ephemeral state between a moment before and moment after the emergence of a cube. A small object produced transitions of one’s horizon plane, transforming the line as visual element into a “transitive verb” [5].

The surprising impression of transparency was recorded by photography or video sequence. To proceed with the technically exact process, a cloud of cube-emerging viewpoints was then drawn accurately in plans of a studio room and could have been visualized in several ways: by overlapped photographs of a student searching for viewpoints, in relation to other objects arranged in its field or marked by light and recorded with long exposure camera action, as seen in Fig. 2.

An important lesson to students of architecture is communicated here. Ephemeral as immaterial, perceived quality of object can emerge out of precise use of simple resources. In his Six memos for the new millennium, Italo Calvino, for example, describes Exactitude primarily as a well-defined and well calculated plan of the work. For him Exactitude evokes a clear visual image and arises by precise use of a language [6]. He argues that exactitude is precondition for vague or open. Students are invited to understand it as a metaphor or some advice for an understanding of some fundamentals in architecture discipline’s value system.

Fig. 2.
figure 2

Origin of the drawing: visualization of the “cloud” of viewpoints, Martinovic Mia, student, 4th semester.

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A more contemporary description of ephemeral quality occurring through the exactitude-indeterminacy duality is found in Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto’s Atlas of novel tectonics. Drawing upon Edmund Huserl’s concept of protogeometry, a science dealing with vagabond or nomadic morphological essences, a particular tectonic quality is described as “anexact-yet-rigorous.” [7].

According to it, and of importance to this discussion, an ephemeral presence is produced when exact geometry is superimposed to matter in real space. A potential in sophistication of production processes which can control and alter projections of geometries into matter is recognized, producing new tectonic quality and perceived presence of an object. To process further a lesson about potentially an-exact-yet-rigorous origin of the ephemeral, a more material course unit is offered to students.

3.2 A Cast: Atmosphere of an Ordinary Room

Unit translates a real space of students own or well-known and daily used room into an artefact, and space of an artefact into imaginary space whose presence is in distant resonance with existing everyday space it begun with. A real and imaginary, exactness of the geometry and the resistance of the material interfere.

A precisely executed geometrical shape is cast in gypsum through the production process whose logic is as evident as cause-and-effect. Unit also emphasizes importance of a key, Beuysian, processual balance between chaotic and thoughtful as productive of real plasticity. According to it, a real shape is processed between two opposing principles, as Beuys would call it, a chaotic willingness and a thoughtful shaping which meet and are in mutual conflict [8].

Within a relatively small cube, 10cm in size, a robust artefact and its atmosphere are produced in several phases: at the beginning, the student thinks in reverse mode to produce a core element, a precise Styrofoam shape of a room’s negative space to which secondary elements are added. Their architectural role is dual – while they hold a core element in position within mold, they will also become light and viewing openings to the inner space of the cast artefact – a cast of a room. The Styrofoam negative is then photographed in two ways: held by hand which shows its real scale, and against neutral background to reveal its shape and plasticity, to provoke thoughts about its formal qualities and, more importantly, to trigger curiosity about its soon-to-be cast inner space. The process steps from the negative to the produced artefact are shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.
figure 3

Styrofoam negative, 10cm mold, a 10cm cube with cast interior of a room inside.

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Styrofoam negative is positioned into mold and gypsum is poured. This is an irreversible point in a production process, an ephemeral moment; the end of Styrofoam construct’s life and a beginning of a memory of it. It is exactly at this point when a wet and muddy process of materially limited accuracy is confronted with its tectonic opposite: a precise, CAD axonometric drawing of a student’s own room being processed. To avoid any trace of sentimentality, a spatially provocative drawing is required; an axonometry is constructed in a way that all walls, floor, ceiling, and furniture is visible from two equal and simultaneously active viewpoints. El Lissitzky’s Proun Room [9] and Joseph Albers’s Structural Constellations [10] are used as illustrative references. To remain complementary with the general materialness of unit and the real, physical size of an artefact, this CAD drawing wanted to give an impression of scaleless space of continuously active spatial transitions.

Finally, a cast is being extracted from mold and after drying and maturing for couple of days it is being sanded, repaired minimally, and photographed. A structured photography process included light to plasticity modulations. It showed the atmosphere in cast inner space of the artefact, provoking ephemeral presence balanced between its resonance with existing space of an ordinary room and an impression of scale open to imagination. See Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.
figure 4

Atmosphere of an ordinary room, student: Bobetko Rebecca., 4th semester.

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3.3 Concetto Spaziale: Imaginary Within Real

As opposite to the substantial materiality of previous unit, a complete resource free unit is offered to students to provoke and intensify observation within the space of their everyday living. The unit explored an inflexion point between the stare and seeing, and a shift between observed and finally perceived. Students were asked to look and see the potential spaces in between, around or in objects of everyday use in their surroundings. Interspaces and inner spaces are photographed, modulated by simple photographic tools, and presented as atmospheres on a different architectural scale, suggested by human figure mounted in a photograph.

Lucio Fontana’s paradigmatic work title was used as a reference for imaginary cut through the real by power of student’s imagination. There is no suggestion of action or use, just stillness, atmosphere, and scale. Simple drawings were made, suggesting possible architectural structures behind produced atmospheres, as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5.
figure 5

Origin of an atmosphere, student: Matušić Nikolina., 4th semester.

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3.4 A Field

When understood as transient, impermanent, or open-to-chance quality we perceive within presence of exactly executed work, ephemeral becomes an almost ethical value of its own production process. In his seminal Field Conditions [11], Stan Allen’s interpretation of progressive shift in ethics of artistic productions is of great pedagogical importance to students of architecture. He described transfer of object conceptualization to structured distribution and designed interference of local rules. A predictably ephemeral, designedly coincidental outcome is enabled when repeated local rule or its exact value is open to material quality in spatial field. Anexact-yet-rigorous quality is produced when local rule meets the material world. A moire effect occurs as vibrant yet unsteady presence upon overlayed grids and produces constant change when its geometry meets spatial shift. A precise design of production process is capable of controlling and conceptualizing indeterminacy of its outcome. If architecture is understood as a production of presence, then processual exploration of conditions for “openness” of its perceived state is a valuable pedagogic tool.

Under a work title A Field, a group of units is offered to students of architecture to thermalize and interpret formative potential within a distribution of a local rule. Units are characterized by iterative processualism and serial work, as they produce a pattern, or a work in progress. Students experiment with repetition and distribution of a local rule to gain insight in production of ephemeral presence by exact processes and basic resources.

A Field as a condition for student group work. In this case, distribution of local rules is interpreted as distribution of instruction for work. When instruction meets the individual labor of each student, it becomes the exact frame for an-exact outcome. Each student makes one unit according to the same instruction. In a final work, an individual sensitivity of a draftsmen is regulated by the given instruction - a local rule.

Example:

An ordinary blue ink pen is given to each student. Each one of them produced a simple unit according to instruction: a sketchbook sheet of paper is cut along marked lines to form a square fold measuring 20x20 cm. Before cutting, an intensive, almost tactile coating of blue pen is layered down for two hours over right, inner side of a fold. Paper is cut, fold and fixed into a marked position on a white board as one of twenty-five elements forming a square meter, to show individual differences, a small deflection within an exactness of produced whole and to bring a new meaning to each student’s uniquely executed work.

An ordinary blue pen is given an unconventional role. As a result, almost as a discovery, beauty of one square meter of-almost-Yves Klein Blue hue emerged, its hapticity saturated through twenty-five individually different hand/body pressures, as visible in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6.
figure 6

Origin of one square meter of-almost-YKB.

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Field as a condition for individual student work. Given for an individual student production, the unit called for exploration of repetition or seriality.

Student work is a documentation of research in which beginning, and outcome are connected by logical order of decisions while idea is being developed and confirmed by systematically conducted production process. Student conceptualizes individually, produces work, and writes down a concept, a sequence of conceptual decisions in the form of a script detailed enough to enable reproduction without the author being present. Instruction is a tool of exactitude, a declaration of concept. As a pedagogical tool it is aimed at objectification and translation of ephemeral presence into purely technical instruction. Student works are in range from purified variations of CAD graphics to processual little actions. Exactitude of their limits could have been set in range from quantity of material to duration of action. The resulting work is not referential, it does not have a narrative. It temporarily denounces its immediate purpose being an attempt in research or production of authentic self-evidence.

Fig. 7.
figure 7

Origin of a Blur, Pavelić Iva, 4th semester.

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Figures 7 and 8 show an example:

  1. 1.

    Six reels of adhesive tape, length 66m in total and 48mm wide is pasted onto a room window, in layers, following defined pattern, one reel to cover three layers for window size 60 × 12 cm;

  2. 2.

    After the end of each reel, the window was photographed, the photographs record the emergence of dimly, opaque, and translucent membrane made of transparent material;

  3. 3.

    As the final step, this, now firm material is to be peeled from the window, cut into equal pieces, and rearranged to form a rectangular prism.

Fig. 8.
figure 8

Origin of a Blur, Pavelić Iva, 4th semester.

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4 Conclusion

Architecture study teaching process is technical, efficient, and exact, where architecture is measurable. Its learning outcomes are regulated to achieve needed qualifications. Today, discipline’s own search for sustainability and participative societal role are normative. But this ecological and societally aware intentions do not guarantee architecture its presence, a unique value to complement and improve spaces and landscapes of our everyday existence. Architecture is a creative practice; it starts genuine creative processes and a search for atmospheres that produce its defining values. Its own tools need constant reaffirmation and protection from decay. This is especially relevant in time of study which itself is introductory, preparatory, and formative phase of practicing architecture.

Study ensures a time for thinking about architecture, its defining frames, and ephemeral margins. It goes beyond architecture. The search for the ephemeral is part of architecture’s essential sensitivity. It enables the occurrence of its identifying difference. This difference is described as minimal, almost negligible, something that objectively does not exist [12]. Architect’s ability to construct this difference is architecture discipline’s vital interest. To produce it, one must search for it. One of architecture’s pedagogy goals is to trigger and encourage this search, to motivate students by showing that occurrence of this difference is achievable by conceptual thinking and processual approach to even the simplest of resources. Architecture lesson of appropriate tectonic shows student that meaning emerges with consequent production within conceptually framed conditions.

In time of study, the search of ephemerality through tectonics of architecture lesson wants to develop a special vigilance and sensibility. Just as Yves Klein wrote decades ago, man will inhabit space by force of his sensitivity [13]. For students of Architecture, architectural space arises impregnated with sensitivity of an architect.

Along with its professional goals, the study of architecture could be a beautiful way of student’s personal development. If architecture persists on irreplaceability of an architect, the study of architecture should encourage its students into diverse research into origins and meanings of architecture’s presences.

Study is a foundation for architecture’s cultural and human role. In times of intertwining disciplines, architecture must keep tools for protecting its disciplinary identity and intangible, defining differences. That’s why, in addition to all its lessons of exactitude, architecture pedagogy still must provoke idealistic research into satisfying and meaningful presences as primary and most beautiful mode of societal usefulness. And a course unit where intensive production of an ephemeral idea leads into meaningful presence is an important tool for the affirmation of the Architecture’s immaterial, unmeasurable identity.