Posts in the ‘Building Material’ Category

Building Material 19 Art & Architecture excerpts: Material Imprecision by Elizabeth Shotton

Material Imprecision

“…I began to wonder how I could use paint merely as material, as an industrial found object; I did not want to use it to make something else, to create an illusion…”
Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipses

There is a sense of delight about the primitive character of the concrete at the Monastery of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette. Yet perhaps delight is too passive a word to describe the condition, it is closer to revel: the impression that Le Corbusier is revelling in the rawness of the surface. One can still sense the very plasticity, the viscosity of the concrete in its prior state as it seeps unevenly down the formwork. A condition captured in stasis as an embodiment of experience and memory of its other nature.

Concrete is more often used in an illusionary way, detailed and executed with precision to ensure a surface that bears no association with either the material or the process. Yet it is an approach which effaces the very nature of the material itself. In contrast, the way in which the inherent duality of concrete is celebrated throughout Le Corbusier's work suggests a love of both the tectonic of the material and the hand of the maker, eschewing precision in deference to a more tangible embodiment of process.

Architects do not, as a rule, make but rather speculate about making, leaving the act itself to others. It is perhaps this distance from the process that leads to the common treatment of material as an instrument of graphic effect rather than an expression of material consequence. In contrast Serra, as a maker of both painting and sculpture, could readily understand the evocative power of the material itself. Serra’s attitude toward the exploration of paint as an artefact in and of itself is suggestive of a different reading of Le Corbusier's approach to making, that as a painter Le Corbusier could also have appreciated the nature and expressive potential of material. While the transfer of form and image between his work as a painter and his architecture is easily recognised there is perhaps another common preoccupation, that of a desire for a more candid expression of material consequence and the processes of making. As Le Corbusier himself once wrote, ironically in his publication Precisions, “Techniques are the very basis of poetry.”


Biography: Elizabeth Shotton

“In chronological order: economist, architect, architectural educator, writer, displaced Canadian.
That’s really all I can say about myself...”

Building Material 19 Art & Architecture excerpts: Artists Studios by Clancy Moore Architects

Clancy Moore Architects

Andrew Clancy and Colm Moore established Clancy Moore Architects in 2006. Both partners teach at Dublin Institute of Technology and are visiting critics to Queen’s University, Belfast and Dundee School of Architecture.

See: http://www.clancymoore.com/

Building Material: UCD Research As Is Seminar Series

The primary aim of the series is to promote critical thinking and discussion between related disciplines at research, professional and post-graduate level. The seminar series was designed to provide a forum for the advancement and acknowledgement of the very valuable research currently being undertaken at this level. Each session provides an opportunity for airing of new ideas and approaches, wherein the value of diversity, particularly as it occurs in thematic approaches, perspectives, interpretations and methods, is recognised. The provision of such a forum has already begun to establish a sense of character, presence and communal scholarship within the postgraduate and research network in architecture and related disciplines. 

Each year the seminars are broadly addressed under an overarching theme. The theme of the 2009 calendar year was “Fieldwork”, whilst that of the 2010 seminar series is the same as the title of our research community, “Research As Is?”1 . As a theme, it is to be considered in its widest possible sense.

It can epitomise the state-of-play of personal research, encapsulate, interrogate or broaden accepted disciplinary boundaries, address ideas of interaction, introduce processes and methods or describe aims and aspirations within a field or across fields. Essentially, the aim is to promote research and ideas by providing an informal forum for presentation and discussion, and by creating a strong “research community” with a range of diverse interests and background. Generally, the majority of presentations are largely concerned with works in progress, rather than completed bodies of work, although this is not a stipulation for participation.

The website related to the seminars is a platform for further discussion on the subjects presented and will have latest news on conferences, symposiums and calls for papers that might be relevant for the participants’ research.

All interested participants welcome. For further information see the researchasis website - www.researchasis.webs.com - or contact one of the organisers:

Fiona Smyth: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Elizabeth McNicholas: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address);

Agustina Martire: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Mariana Francis: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Building Material design award

We are happy to announce that Building Material 19, Art & Architecture was commended in the recent IDI (Institute of Designers in Ireland) awards. Congratulations to Ronan Devlin at LittleSeal.

See: http://www.idi-design.ie/designawards/2009winners.html for a full list of winners.

See: http://www.littleseal.com/ for information on our new graphic designers.

Images from Building Material 19, Art & Architecture launch

Please find below some images from the launch of Building Material 19, Art & Architecture at Dublin City Council’s The LAB in October 2009. The Architectural Association was pleased to have Ali Grehan, City Architect, launch the journal.

Preceding this, there were presentations by artists Dennis McNulty and Grace Weir, followed by a panel discussion and presentations by Blaise Drummond (artist), Georgina Jackson (curator), Orla Murphy (architect) and Ruiarí Ó’Cuív (DCC Public Art Officer). The panel discussion was moderated by Brian Ward (architect and lecturer).

Building Material 19, Art & Architecture: more outlets

We are pleased to announce that Building Material 19, Art & Architecture is now also available from:

The Winding Stair Bookshop 40 Ormonde Quay, Dublin 1 
http://www.winding-stair.com/

The RIAI Bookshop 8 Merrion Square, Dublin 2
http://www.riai.ie/about_the_riai/riai_bookshop/

The National Gallery of Ireland Bookshop National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square West, Dublin 2
http://www.nationalgallery.ie/

PLACE, The Architecture and Built Environment Centre for Northern Ireland 40 Fountain Street, Belfast BT1 5EE
http://www.place.uk.net/

Noble and Beggarman Books, 28 South William Street, Dublin 2

http://www.nobleandbeggarmanbooks.com/

Building Material 19, Art & Architecture

Copies of Building Material 19, Art & Architecture are available from the Architecture Association of Ireland. Please contact Stephen Mulhall, Editor at: buildingmaterialeditor@gmail.com