w/ 020 PS

type: image / object
function: furniture
location: jikugaoka, tokyo
material: –
collaborator: en shi

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one drawing found between the pages of a vintage book by Frank Stella

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October 12, 2024, Saturday, clear sky

My friend is giving a lecture in Kokubunji, so I take the Chuo Line for the first time in a while to the venue in the early afternoon.

The lecture was commissioned by an architect and photographer, and consisted of a critique/explanation of the renovation of a room in an apartment building designed by the architect, based solely on the blueprints (and some other drawings), completion photographs and the architect’s text (without experiencing the actual building space).

Untitled (The Residence in Jiyugaoka #37), 2023 ©︎ Gottingham
Image courtesy of En Shi and Studio Xxingham

The focus of the talk turns towards ‘completing the medium’, such as drawings and photographs. While three-dimensional space is the most delicious and luxurious, it is hypothesised that ‘completing the medium’ is also architectural. He dreams that non-architects will be able to imagine spaces from those mediums. And that architects should create the mediums that make this possible.

Such thinking seems to parallel that of historians, who try to decipher architectural space, its materiality and sociality from the limited material that remains. When recreating drawings, historians should also aim to complete the medium and try to engage in a dialogue with it.

photographer’s sequence on BIOTIANTAH’s floor plan

Text: h***** k*******