Same place, different time: new interpretations of old designs

Alternative Histories, a new exhibition from Drawing Matter and the Architectural Foundation, is an intriguing proposition. For this, curators Jantje Engels and Marius Grootveld selected more than 80 architectural practices from across Europe and assigned each a work from Drawing Matter’s extensive collection of architectural drawings. They were then challenged to create an architectural model in response that imagined an alternative future for the project in the drawing. The only restriction was that the footprint of the model had to fit within that of the source drawing. The result is a stimulating mass of collaborations across time.

The matchmaking curators have clearly enjoyed selecting the right drawing for each practice. Sometimes architects were paired with a source drawing they were felt likely to have a particular affinity with. On other occasions, architects were provocatively given something very different to react against. Some architects – such as Tony Fretton and Sergison Bates – are present as both responder and source drawing. Sometimes more than one architect is given the same source drawing.

According to Grootveld, the nature of the exhibition chimes with a recent trend in contemporary architecture. ‘People are becoming more explicit about their references – they are almost scientific in that they really cite a reference in their work,’ he says.

He hopes that the exhibition provides fertile ground for debate and conversations between objects and drawings, and that the resulting architectural models give an insight into the research processes of the architects.

There is a fantastic diversity of material and form on show here, with a double-sided display installed within an otherwise vacant property on Cork Street. Made variously of wax, tree-root, clay, card, concrete, brick, these make for intriguing objects in themselves quite apart from the architectural games they may be playing.

Each has a story to tell. Caruso St John’s ceramic response to Hans Poelzig’s sketches captures something of the verticality and texture conveyed in the original c1920s drawing. Hayatsu Architects’ spindly bronze model draws the eye – a delicate reaction to Abbé Laugier's primitive hut frontispiece from Essai sur l'architecture, 1753. Wim Goes Architectuur’s response to Cassius Goldsmith’s single storey lodge in cottage ornée style, 1827, is fascinating. This picks up on the two key elements - the pitched roof and tree trunk columns, while dispensing altogether with the building accommodation within. Instead of the tree branches in the original drawing, in the new model, an actual root forms a structure to hold up the roof, its corners weighed down with stones.

Some of the models are full of intricate detail, others more enigmatic.

Tom de Paor realises his response to Poelzig’s drawings for Grosses Schauspielhaus, Theater der Massen, Berlin, 1919 using a piece of furled card with a few incisions fixed with a single paper clip. Eagles of Architecture have gone the whole hog in their large scale model inspired by a Superstudio Colosseum drawing by Adolfo Natalini, 1969-70. Ablaze with tiny lights, this is topped with a neon ‘Diner’ sign.

For his response to Le Corbusier’s 1956 drawing for the Bhakra Nangal Dam, near Chandigarh, India, Philip Christou of Florian Beigel Architects used engineering bricks to construct a model that, when liberated from the context of the valley landscape, he noted, looks quite like a Corbusian building. Nice to learn that after the exhibition, he is thinking of using the bricks to build retaining walls in his allotment.

Alternative Histories is a terrific endeavour that no doubt has been highly stimulating for the participants. If I were to gripe, I’d say that communication of the crux of the project– how the architects choose to interpret their sources drawing – feels a little hampered by the presentation of the models alone in the exhibition, which requires visitors to refer to an exhibition booklet to reveal an image of the original drawing. A brief explanation from the architects on their responses would have been welcome - anyone less than familiar with the architects and sources may find it hard to shake the feeling that there is all sorts going on in these models that they just haven’t got.

Fortunately, there are plans for a publication, which will no doubt do the rich contents of this project full justice.

Displayed four models high, the exhibits nonetheless make for a fine array, and Grootveld is both surprised and pleased with the ‘kaleidoscopic diversity’ of the responses on show.

‘All the architects were making something and thinking on the same subject together. So even though they weren’t in the same room, I really think it was like a dialogue between them all,’ he says.

Alternative Histories, until April 14, 2019 (weekends only, 11am – 6pm), 6 Cork Street, Mayfair, London