nathan
cilona
info
200 plan libre : anatomy of an architectural journal
plan libre 200 : neither building nor demolishing
plan libre 198 : happy medieval time
plan libre 197 : tinies
plan libre 196 : roundabouts
plan libre 195 : disappointment of the form
new fictions for architecture
architecture’s photogenicity at the instagram era
altered memory of space
[coll.] synopsis
juliette picherit, portfolio
atelier d’architecture david huet
places
faces
jars
plan libre 195
Disappointment of the Form
"The forms disappoint, this disappointment is irrevocable. We now inhabit an environment made up of waves: those that warm, those that inform. Furniture and buildings fade away, obsolete, almost dispensable."
This disappointment with forms in architecture introduces the fourth chapter of the exhibition "Impasse des Lilas" at arc en rêve, Bordeaux's center for architecture01. It is also a recurring and underlying subject of Plan Libre's contributions for over two years. This disappointment is, in fact, an embarrassment that follows the formalistic enthusiasm of recent decades. This assertion leads us to explore alternative, non-formal modes of design and representation.
Since the late 1990s, the new mediation of architecture has initiated a rediscovery of the multiple narratives that make up the history of architecture. This exploration of architectural histories has been accompanied by a picturesque bias, which, from conception to communication, has turned the image into the ultimate goal of architecture. However, notable forms generate pleasant images. Formal and mannerist design produces architecture whose exclusive subject is architecture itself. If we consider the observable, complex, and debatable realities that give rise to project situations, formal designs and traditions seem both too stable and irrelevant.
Form has a totalizing, prescriptive, sometimes definitive effect that fails to accommodate the multifaceted nature of our current reality. In continuation with the protagonists gathered by MBL for the "Impasse des Lilas" exhibition, we have invited contributors from landscape design, graphic design, architecture, and literature to address this formal embarrassment in this issue. All the contributions in this issue seek to qualify, identify, and share another dimension of design: non-figurative, non-formal, perhaps relational, circumstantial, and unstable.
Sébastien Martinez-Barat
This is a personal translation, it may vary slighlty from the original text.
01 — "Impasse des Lilas," curation by MBL architects, arc en rêve center for architecture, Bordeaux, exhibition extended until September 18, 2022.