REVIEWS

Exhibition Review
— Amery Calvelli and Justin Loucks

Present Tense

It can be easy to draw contrasts in style and scale between Tokyo-based architecture practice Go Hasegawa and Associates and OFFICE from Belgium. With the two offices being 9,000 kilometres apart, they practice in entirely different cultural, political, and economic systems. However, it is their shared interest in romancing history and the conscious influence it holds over the design and conversation of their work that draws parallels.

Bringing the two practices together into a dialogue about history and architecture, the exhibition Besides, History: Go Hasegawa, Kersten Geers, David Van Severen, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture endeavours to reveal a renewed and unique historical influence over contemporary architecture. The provocation is contemporary, differing from postmodern references, seeking instead a response to history that confronts the character of architecture under a constellation of historical influences. What is produced is a celebration of banal aesthetics, a long-awaited modesty in the profession, with a renewed authenticity built upon by the rich foundation of historical references and associations.

The main investigation of the exhibition is how history influences contemporary architecture. Framing a dialogue between the two practices, Besides, History employs the tools of architecture: plans and sections are traced and redrawn, models are measured and remade, and references are left for interpretation. Contrasting the work of the two practices assists in revealing a generality in appropriating historical contexts in the design process of contemporary practice.

“History is fundamental to us,” explains Kersten Geers, who co-founded OFFICE with David Van Severen in 2002. He continues in the interview, “I would add that nobody desperately wants to emulate something from the past. Yet on the other hand, we operate in full knowledge of the past. Because that’s our context.”[1]

Throughout the exhibition, history is represented and produced in a uniform, homogenous format, blurring the lines of authorship of the work. OFFICE provided drawings of six of their projects for Go Hasegawa and Associates to model as a prototype for one gallery room. The precision of Japanese aesthetic is present here, and it’s nearly impossible to identify whose work is whose, not because of the craftsmanship of the media but by the qualities of the work. The columns modelled of a residence by OFFICE are given a precise reading, one that accentuates the elements in a way that the originator may not have emphasized. What can be discerned in Hasegawa’s projects however is a strong density and compactness, a response likely drawn from his urban Japanese experience and the history of land subdivision in Japan.

To understand Go Hasegawa’s buildings, you need to look in section to see the vertical relationships. OFFICE's work is best understood in plan where the demarcation of boundaries, thresholds and the politics of space are best expressed. By appropriating Hasegawa’s plans—blackening in the perimeter walls—OFFICE gives a new reading of the exterior. Openings are accentuated in a way that departs from the light original lines of Hasagawa’s original plan drawings. This acquiescence of authorship deepens a discourse between the two practices. This difference of approach is experienced through life-size models at 1:1 scale. Go Hasegawa’s model is a two-storey house with a gabled roof. It’s the shape that most children draw for a house: a square base with a triangle roof on top. Ubiquitous in form, a banal shape in fact, the strength of his work is the emphasis placed on relationships (adjacencies) and craftsmanship in the articulation of boundaries. There is an intense focus on proportion and the qualities of light.

In early conversation as part of developing the exhibition, Hasegawa reveals his connection to history: “A constraint like history is very important in helping me go beyond my imagination, my context, or my experience.”[2] His House in Kyodo model has a low ground floor ceiling and taller second level, inverting traditional house proportions. The standard-size cement board facade is given pattern through the use of different size boards for each storey. In a photograph of the house, Stefano Graziani (who curated a room on representation) cropped the architect’s digital print to obscure reference to the roof. Laid bare is the pattern of the facade as an architectural remnant. The image reveals the ambiguity of reference; the contemporary and its past embodied as one.

In an alternative approach, the OFFICE 1:1 model of Villa Schor expresses a platonic pursuit of idealized, pure form. Form is abstracted until it emphasizes pure geometry. OFFICE employs craftsmanship to abstract building elements, producing a metaphysical quality to the work. The architecture finds itself somewhere between paper space and physical space; allowing the visitor an experience of entering a physical diagram. The reduction of detail and information embedded in the visual form discloses a quiet, calm, and intellectual sense of space.

Historical references from the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s permanent collection are peppered between the new works in the galleries. What is the weight of an historical reference? And, if a refresh button is pressed, what references seem relevant at this moment? A wall text of an early conversation between the three architects reveals a collective pursuit of historical reference. Kersten Geers offers: “I think what both our practices are doing with history is constantly and implicitly looking for references—the kind of references that are part of the cultural world. If your work loses those references, there’s nothing left.”[3]

What’s revealing from the exhibition is that history and contemporary culture are not at odds. Architectural history is far from static. By framing the exhibition around dialogue—allowing for appropriation and reinterpretation—a widened definition of potential emerges. There is a responsibility in architecture to be conscious of history, but at the same time, architects must exercise the freedom and playfulness to transmute historical references into future architecture. In the words of Portuguese architect, Alvaro Siza, architectural history is “not invention or anything new, just continuity.”[4]

References:

[1] Go Hasegawa, Conversations with European Architects, (Japan: LIXIL Publishing, 2016) p. 213

[2] Besides, History exhibition wall text

[3] Besides, History exhibition wall text, gallery titled Common GrouL

[4] Go Hasegawa, Conversations with European Architects, (Japan: LIXIL Publishing, 2016) p. 46.

Besides, History: Go Hasegawa, Kersten Geers, David Van Severen is on view at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Quebec through October 15, 2017. A Catalogue on the exhibition will be available in late fall.

In follow-up, both architecture offices will be part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Make New History later this fall.

Amery Calvelli and Justin Loucks co-wrote this review using a process of borrowing and reinterpretation that was inspired by the curatorial structure of the exhibition, Besides, History: Go Hasegawa, Kersten Geers, David Van Severen. Amery lives in Calgary and Justin is an Architect in Toronto. They both volunteer for FOLD.