Outsider Art and Digital Design: An Architectural Research Inspired by Outsider Art, Art Brut and Marginal Practices

Authors: Katherine Lapierre

Abstract:

The research engages with the notion of the irrational in the conception of digital architectural design. Following this line, various projects are developed and proposed explorations in the form of plans and 3D models that expose the precarious balance between feasibility, viability, and impossibility due to standards and physical and technical constraints. These different experiments are a testing ground for new practices and media, such as the exploration of different techniques of 3D printing for building construction. The work focuses on outsider architecture, directly referring to the expression “Art Brut” (or "Outsider Art"). It represents an unprecedented potential sphere of action, broadening the debate on the status and possible contribution of Art Brut notions to architecture and design in constructing a global architectural discourse. The project focuses on the design of models/sculptures inspired by empirical practices drawn from the Catalog raisonné of outsider architecture, a database. The works use enlarged-scale versions of chosen artifacts of nature that have been scanned and transformed. Outsider architectures revive Bachelardian theories silenced by the paradigm shift that accompanied modernity. The research-creation work follows this line of thought, linking the unconscious with the Bachelardian concept of material imagination. The model and plan studies are based on a process halfway between sculpture and architecture, used to create living units that explore the potential of digital architecture as a trigger for the imagination. The different representation techniques used in these creations contribute to developing various skills in computer modeling, 3D scanning and 3D printing. Outsider creates the opportunity to investigate methods of representation sidelined by architectural practice. The logic of construction shifts, emphasizing the creation of spaces with numeric tools of representation that follow empirical design methods drawn from the field of architecture. Model-making becomes a laboratory for the formal exploration of various numeric transformations: anamorphism, scaling, piercing, extruding, and erasing.

Keywords: singular architecture, outsider art, architecture, archisculpture, maquette-sculpture, photo mount, collage, 3D print

References:

[1] Pirson, Jean-François, La structure et l’objet: essais, expériences et rapprochements, Liège, éd. P. Mardaga, 1984, p.76.
[2] Chavardiés, Benjamin, Quand le post-modernisme s’expose, Montpellier, Éditions de l’Espérou, École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Montpellier (ENSAM), 2016, préface p. 7.
[3] Lyotard, Jean-François, Le Postmoderne expliqué aux enfants : correspondance, 1982-1985, Paris, Éd. Galilée, 1986, p. 22.
[4] During, Simon, « Jean-François Lyotard : Defining the Postmodern? » (Introduction par l’éditeur). The cultural studies Reader, Routledge, 2007, p.143.
[5] Eisenman, Peter David. Cité dans Voyé, Liliane, « Architecture et urbanisme postmodernes : une expression du relativisme contemporain? ». Revue européenne des sciences sociales, T. 41, No. 126, Sociologie et relativisme : Hommage à Jacques Coenen-Huther, 2003, pp. 117-124.
[6] Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1966.
[7] Moore, Rowan, « Luigi Moretti: From Rationalism to Informalism, Rome, Italy ». The Architectural Review, Londres, juillet 2010. Voir aussi, David Langdon, AD Classics: Casa "Il Girasole" / Luigi Moretti, Août 2014.
[8] Beardsley, Monroe C., « Critique de l’ouvrage « Learning from Las Vegas » ». The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Critism, Vol. 33, No.2, Hiver, 1974, p. 245.
[9] Venturi, Robert, Scott Brown, Denise et Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (1972), Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1977, p. 32 et p. 246.
[10] In Scalbert, Irénée, « The Architect as Bricoleur ». Essai 69, Candide No. 4. Juillet 2011, p. 73.
[11] Lévi-Strauss, Claude, La pensée sauvage (1962), Paris, éd. Plon, Collection Pocket Agora no. 2, 2010, p. 30, p. 73.
[12] Scalbert, Irénée, « The Architect as Bricoleur ». Essai 69, op.cit., p. 73.
[13] Enrmann, Gilles, Les inspirés et leurs demeures, Paris, Le Temps, 1962.
[14] Lapierre, Katherine, Catalogue d’architecture outsider, 2004-2011. www.architectureoutsider.com password: outsider
[15] Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space, Penguin Classics, London, 2014, translation Maria Jolas.
[16] www.katherinelapierre.com
[17] Ragon, Michel, Où vivrons-nous demain, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1963.
[18] Cardinal, Roger, Outsider Art, London, Studio Vista, 1972.
[19] Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène, Diagrammes de l’étude géologique du Mont Blanc, 1876. In Corboz, André, The Land of Palimpsest, Diogenes, École polytechnique fédérale, Zurich, Sage, http://dio.sagepub.com, 1983, p. 28.