The first part of a project exploring animation in architecture; the power of architecture to animate, and it's ability to be animated.
The project began with a series of drawings attempting to translate the events of a short-stop-motion-film I created exploring ideas of regenesis to (digital) paper. The film involved exploring a dense labyrinthine text-space constructed from the reanimation of a book so illustrating the non-Euclidean geometry was a real challenge.
Gladstone's Land is a high-tenement house on the Royal Mile, parts of which were originally built as early as 1550. In the tradition of the middle ages the building has been added to and modified many times over centuries.
By the 1930s the building, as with much of Old Town Edinburgh, had fallen into slum conditions and was scheduled by the city for demolition. However the National Trust for Scotland stepped in and saved the building. The conservation process, although pretty standard for the time, would likely be roundly criticized were it carried out today. The Trust at the time wanted to create a "visitor experience" and preserve the building as an example of a 17th century house, even though additions had been made since then. This meant they ended up effectively gutting the building down to the stone work and demolishing part of it, before rebuilding inside to look as if it were original 17th century details, acknowledging that in some cases they borrowed details from other contemporary buildings. The result then is almost a pastiche, certainly more a fantasy or idea of what a house would have been like at that time than what this specific house actually was.
Gladstone's Land then, throws up an number of questions for modern architects and conservationists about the nature of conservation and authenticity, and how we should work and live with old buildings. There is something quietly significant in the shift in thinking that took place in the 20th century, after 400 years of the building being an animate, changing thing, being adapted as people and the city changed, it becomes frozen in a fantasy of the 17th century, seemingly indefinitely. This was the starting point for my design project and the context to suggesting working with a building we might at first consider 'untouchable'.
By the 1930s the building, as with much of Old Town Edinburgh, had fallen into slum conditions and was scheduled by the city for demolition. However the National Trust for Scotland stepped in and saved the building. The conservation process, although pretty standard for the time, would likely be roundly criticized were it carried out today. The Trust at the time wanted to create a "visitor experience" and preserve the building as an example of a 17th century house, even though additions had been made since then. This meant they ended up effectively gutting the building down to the stone work and demolishing part of it, before rebuilding inside to look as if it were original 17th century details, acknowledging that in some cases they borrowed details from other contemporary buildings. The result then is almost a pastiche, certainly more a fantasy or idea of what a house would have been like at that time than what this specific house actually was.
Gladstone's Land then, throws up an number of questions for modern architects and conservationists about the nature of conservation and authenticity, and how we should work and live with old buildings. There is something quietly significant in the shift in thinking that took place in the 20th century, after 400 years of the building being an animate, changing thing, being adapted as people and the city changed, it becomes frozen in a fantasy of the 17th century, seemingly indefinitely. This was the starting point for my design project and the context to suggesting working with a building we might at first consider 'untouchable'.
Responding to the questions around 'authenticity' raised by 1930s conservation of Gladstone's Land, my project posed a counterfactual; what if the alterations to the building were driven not by a historic narrative but a fictional one?
The narrative I took came from a stop-motion film I had made at the beginning of the semester. Having previously drawn the events of the film, from a textual space to cartesian, I now transposed this drawing to the site, where events became associated with words from the text, which became objects from the old building, in a similar way to how words become objects within the film.
The narrative I took came from a stop-motion film I had made at the beginning of the semester. Having previously drawn the events of the film, from a textual space to cartesian, I now transposed this drawing to the site, where events became associated with words from the text, which became objects from the old building, in a similar way to how words become objects within the film.
