The architectural profession has always been concerned predominantly with the containment of space. Linking the containment of space with the manipulation and representation of surface, this investigation questions the methodology of the architectural thesis by experimenting with media traditionally thought of as outside the field of architecture. In his book, entitled Warped Space, Anthony Vidler describes“A warping of space produced by the forced intersection of different media—film, photography, art and architecture—in a way that breaks the boundaries of genre and the separate arts in response to the need to depict space in new and unparalleled ways.”1
Analyzing the aesthetic, psychological, and sociological components, Vidler argues that this warping of space is the basic framework for the uneasy relationship of subject and object.
This subject-object relationship raises the question; can contemporary architecture infuse processes from disciplines such as art, fashion, photography, or film into its own design process?
As professional collaboration continues to surge within design fields, this thesis will borrow processes from art disciplines such as illustration, painting, and sculpture to define an architectural process. The investigations are inspired by the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940's, and by artists such as Richard Serra and Andy Goldsworthy, whose work addresses concepts of time, scale, depth, place, light, and composition and have succeeded in producing a critical efficacy. Through literature research, indexical studies, and installations focused on experimental failures, the concluding piece will be a dialogue between a building and a site-specific installation.
1 Vidler, Anthony. Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture.(Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, USA. 2000), ix.