6 beauty

The definitive gesture of this cement board siding is its confirmation of the unpredictable. Not only are the complex processes of build- ing held accountable by this detail, the artful rendering of the elevation reflects the surprise of mere existence in the everyday. The scale of the winery lends itself more to the industrial than the agricultural building, yet from a distance the building presents itself as a sensitive apprecia- tion of local context and scale. Inventively using the flexibility of the cement board, a flexibility not available with the masonry, the architects designed oversized siding that, when viewed at a distance, visually scales the building down allowing it to be accomodated within the region’s agricultural vernacular. As one approaches the building the ‘actual’ scale of the siding is realized. At over three times the size of typical siding the subject is presented with an unexpected change in perspective. Adding the dimension of surprise to the experience of the building - ‘a condition in which the variation of the truth appears to the subject’. In the end the final appearance of the building may have been a surprise even to the architects. Yet, in an age where there are no absolutes, and solutions can only be a reconciliation of many diverse opinions and conditions, Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg Architects have embraced the unpredictable and exploited its opportunities to create a simple detail that reflects, through an aesthetic, manners of thinking and doing in the early twenty-first century. 

Tom Strickland writes about and practices architecture in Alberta. He is currently developing a theatre proposal for the 2002 World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education.

ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

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