Grad Show 22

Liam Burke

Notes on Institutional Architecture [Towards an Understanding of Erasure and Conversation]

Material Conversations /məˈtirēəl/ /ˌkänvərˈsāSH(ə)ns/ noun 1. derived from an early memory of forming relationships to objects, a way to understand the physical environment through a scaling down process that follows, but is not limited to, space, element, material. 2. the way in which material components are tectonically related 3. a process which would inform one to work with materials in a way which is conceptually informed by both aforementioned definitions 4. an integral aspect of architectural design, Material Conversations enable the architect to establish a language with which to relate to the components of their work, to better speak to those they design for.

I was raised in a religiously adjacent home. Sunday mornings spent in a twill padded pew, the first half hour spent singing. I always mouthed the words, I hated the idea of my voice, out of tune, creating discord amidst the chorus. I was six, or maybe four, probably eight.

The twill of a pew, the wood of a bench, the concrete of a step, the powder-coated steel of a column; all these became moments of familiarity in spite of their setting. Here began an understanding of my relation to space; an imagined conversation between myself and these tactile moments gave meaning to that moment in space. Just as one seeks out familiarity in a crowded room of strangers, I sought out the familiarity of the material qualities of inhuman objects, elements, furniture, etc. These early memories form my architectural intent; to establish conversations between myself and the materials I work with, for the sake of creating a means to converse with others through built environment and informed spatial dialogue.

This intent drove me to architecture, as a means to learn the language I was speaking to those materials, with the hopes that in learning to translate those conversations, I could connect to others as a means to actualize their needs for spatial connection. But, what I have learned is that material conversation is not the substance of a masters degree in architecture, instead there is talk of societal change, political empowerment, projection of identity, institutional reform, and paradoxical theorization (just to name a few). These are conversations I have participated and reveled in. These are conversations which comprised my projects within the institution of architecture that I am writing this in. These are conversations which must be had to produce an architecture that is more than a selfish expression. But to leave out a conversation in the process of design is to ignore a foundation of what informs design as a greater concept.

Here I will explore how a conversation is erased, misunderstood, and retold. Material conversation is a core memory which has taken me four years within an institution of architecture to recall. With this recollection, I seek to express how the absence of this conversation as an integral foundation of a developing architectural practice can produce acts of erasure and misinformed recollections.

This is an archive of subjectified contexts and de-objectified subjects, which informs a culmination of both in a composed representation. By fragmenting and erasing both information that I find superfluous, as well as information I find vital; then ultimately collaging an amalgamation of these artifacts, I seek to demonstrate how the act of erasure is an intuition fostered and encouraged by the institution of architecture. The church, as a metaphor for architecture, is an entity which is rife with both constructive and problematic conversation.

[Working] Artifacts in this archive include: historical preservation designation documents, historic American buildings survey documents and photographs, postcards, false combinations, architectural drawings, photographs of ephemera, redactions, flagrant manipulations, acts of erasure, not-so-clever lies, and other assorted realizations.

Element fragments of eightish Grace Churches historical designation documentation photographs

Grace Church Element Fragments

Digital

2021

Element fragments recomposed, referencing Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs

Grace Church: One and Three Erasures

Digital

2021

Is a space erased of its objects still that space? If those erased are given new purpose; even one vaguely informed by their origins, do they retain their identities, or is the manipulator the determinant? Architecture as manipulation is ever more present in the written texts accompanying, describing, and instructing the built and unbuilt environments. These texts, often expressed as definitive, are here the objects erased. What begins with an intent to reveal all but the objects vital to the interest of the archive, succumb to the process in allowing each document to reveal what it wants. The manipulated here becomes aware.

Grace Church historical designation documents fragmented and recomposed into psuedo-poetry

Grace Church Text Fragments

Digital

2021

Text fragments of eightish Grace Churches historical designation documentation photographs.

Text fragments recomposed, referencing Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs

Grace Church: Two and Three Erasures

Digital

2021

Does a text subjected retain its meaning? In a more digestible reveal of the hand at play, it is obvious that words manipulated take on new meaning. I as architect and editor, am playing two roles with similar objectives; to better for the purpose of those to interact with my edited. But editing and erasing are intertwined, to redact one word is to overwrite another. To make better can have implications. When looking to these Grace Churches, institutions manifested to “better” lives, are they not simply overwriting existing words, conversations, and stories for the sake of their own?

Grace Church peoples, places, and identities fragmented and recomposed

Grace Church Subject Fragments

Digital

2021

Subject fragments of erased cultures, peoples, and individuals.

Individuals' fragments recomposed, referencing Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs

Grace Church: Three and Three Erasures

Digital

2021

Erasing, manipulating, re-purposing, and re-contextualizing; all sharpened tools of an architect. In this archive lies a self-reflective repetition to understand a problematic series of processes, both identifying myself and how I am perceived, with the intention of establishing a counterbalance. Why apply these tools to the resident elements of the church? To remove moments to hide (pews), moments of respite (steps), and moments of awe (spires, stained glass, marvels, etc.), while mimicking the historical presence of the church and it’s introduction into existing cultures, is not a superficial attempt to propose a solution. Here I am conceptualizing how a place is changed by the change of the objects which, on a personal and anecdotal level, bring meaning to that place. These coincidental parallels question what was left of the sites and peoples when a religion and culture was erased and replaced with (take your pick of western concepts of superiority). Acknowledgment is vital. In the context of this archive and its series of produced artifacts, the church, its historical implications, and obvious metaphorical pertinence to the field of architecture are simply ways to understand a moment I felt a connection to a material. The wooden pew, the woven twill, the stained glass, the thin paper text, the probably-not-silver ciborium; these objects have been made elements by nostalgic inflation due to their roles in making an internal space (peace of mind & distraction) within an existing environment (church sermon). These things have been given meaning. The weapon I am using is manipulation, specifically, erasure. I have been erasing things important to me within the convolution of my nostalgia, as well as everything but the things important to me in the present. Material can make the basis of meaning, both in its existence and, possibly more so, in its manipulation. But who or what is erased in understanding material as a tool? When materials meet and an external force establishes relationships, what or who has been used, forgotten, erased, overwritten? Who or what has fallen victim to our weapons forged in institutes, academia, rhetoric, and self-importance? To use erasure is to emulate the church, to use erasure is to emulate architecture. Both institutions have used a tabula rasa approach to both their sites and the people inhabiting them. Both ask their followers to reconsider reason and intuition for a system substantiated by faith in a pre-ordained system. Both are built upon a hierarchy categorized by black boxes constructed by white men. Both have a historical legacy of projection of values upon their self-designated sites of importance, people of need, and cultures lacking civilized space. This archive could be an understanding of church as a metaphor for architecture, the tools utilized within the field, and an acknowledgment of how their use can harm the people and places in which they are proposed. Architectural and religious interventions do not intend to harm, quite the opposite. Religion can, quite literally, saves lives. By providing meaning and a higher power to those lost and in need of guidance, creating community, and even purpose to those without, religion and its spaces are a worldwide phenomenon with a majority net positive. Architecture can bring meaning to space, cohesion in community, even opportunity for those without a voice to create a manifested conversation which breeds and feeds communication. In drawing this connection, I seek only to understand aspects of each to utilize and exploit both institutions. This archive is a text in which I understand an institution which I did not choose to enter and another in which I did. Both problematic, both formative. I do not intend to use this information gathered and archived to dismantle either, but by gaining an understanding of the issues in their past (and by extension of the lowest in their hierarchies) my own past, a practice can be formed with purpose. Erasure is a reality, I do not seek to make amends for the practices of these entities. To use the problematic tools of an entity, with knowledge of their past, to construct future entities, artifacts, objects, and elements with the intention of revealing to those institutions the results of their tools used as (un)intended. This archive is not an actor of change, it is a whetstone. Tools sharpened for the sake of a different act, one departed from their uses in the past. One working against erasures in the future both by utilizing and revealing the reality of the past erased. This archive is a dirty mirror, held up to myself as a reflection of the architectural institution which I so desired acceptance and praise from.

Six attempts at conversation; isolate, cover, stain, deconstruct, deprocess, and listen

Material Miscommunications

Mixed

2022

In seeking out a more practical definition of Material Conversations, I return to the tactile memories associated with that time in the church. The home I grew up in, where three siblings and two parents were one unit, was a built imitation. The materials in the house were ornate, their execution elegant mimicries of various European influences. In the kitchen were counters clad in white tile, a delicate fresco of two peacocks was painted on those above the stove. In the dining room, a small groined vault of smoothed plaster supported a reproduction of an Italian chandelier. Beneath the house, an unfinished basement with exposed insulation foam stored tools and a family of skunks. The chevron wood flooring in the living room extended into the study; the wood panels interrupted with bookcases filled with texts in languages nobody in our family could read. A metal fence surrounded the small garden preceding the light-well which let a sliver of light into my and my brother’s subterranean bedroom. Roman bricks repeated the flooring’s chevron pattern, their pale reds and pinks long turned whites and blacks from the fires burned within. These six materials have been sourced in approximation in this section. With each material I seek to return to the ephemera of a Conversation, knowing the improbability of achieving such an interaction. Material Conversations were a child’s connection to the world around them, they were a naive truth, but a they were a truth. This authenticity is what I am seeking to manifest as a designer, authenticity in space and object, for the people who connect and will connect to begin to recall their own naivetés.

Four objects, each comprised of two materials, materials in conversation

Materials in Conversation: Title and Plaster, Plaster and Foam, Wood and Metal, Metal and Clay

Mixed

2022

The artifacts presented here are, in essence, Material Conversations. Though each of them ignores the second definition I have given the term. Each of the participants is unaware of the language of the other, and I, playing the translator, am equally ignorant. A. Tile and Plaster, A cast volume of plaster with affixed 2x2” tiles, the tiles have been removed from their sheet to increase their distance from each other, that separation has been carved to a depth of 1/4” to further separate the tiles from one another and their plaster base B. Plaster and Foam, A vaulted form cast from the foam negative of an over-designed form, constructed so that the negative is nearly impossible to remove without damaging the plaster casted positive. The removal forced upon it damages and warps the cast object. C. Wood and Metal, A forced suspension of wood planks, separated by metal runners, the connections are both suggested at being hidden, but celebrated in their function. The low quality of the wood is haphazardly stained with a whitewash. D. Metal and Clay, A series of metal mesh, layered and separated by clay shaped into spheres, loosely connected through a manipulation of the mesh’s grid to impale the manipulated clay What I have done in the production of these artifacts is forced them into dialogue, their conversations were supposed, tested, and executed. But in these executions, I was repeatedly reprimanded for my process. They were not honest to their components, they were projections of my intention to actualize these objects, for the sake of eventually constructing spaces from their conversations. The result is a series of objects which more or less ignores conventional material properties and tectonic relationships, to construct a space which can scale from them would result in an unstable structure, an architecture supposed by the designer, applauded by their peers; and yet completely removed from the reality of the materials which comprise it. This series of objects are Material Conversations in name only, they are examples in how the lack of material linguistics can produce objects; objects with architectural intent, but objects removed from architecture. This is a banal victim, but who is to say these acts of erasure, within an institution which is as informed and progressive as any other, for the sake of establishing narratives for its constituents to pursue as their educated practices, will not be carried out on other conversations worth having?

Neighborhood Church, Palos Verdes California vaguely recollected

Elements Recalled: Neighborhood Church

Digital

2022

Informed by the muddled memory of that church, elements which may have been of that space will inform four spaces to be constructed from the miscommunication inherent to those four objects, in an attempt to recreate the setting of that initial conversation which occurred those years ago in the church. The muddled memory of a tower sitting above a face with two doors, one open one closed, informs the first of four shifting spaces. These spaces will be spaces of miscommunication, informed by the one sided material conversation of A,B,C, & D, but embedded with an opportunity for participants to engage with forgotten conversations of their own. This moment, informed by the miscommunications and attempts at conversation, is as open ended as a conversation. The direction and tone will be the role of the participants, it is an ambiguous framework for an interaction to begin. It is a moment to be activated by those within it, for conversations that seem impossible to have. The moment embedded continues to grow within each space, until the space is the moment; the one sided conversation is only a shallow envelope, and the opportunity to converse is not a program projected by the imagination of a child, but a monument to the importance of the things often wished and yet, so often erased.