The Body in Repose An installation for ‘Fabrications’
at SFMOMA Kuth/Ranieri Architects San Francisco
r ecent trends in architectural methods of production have shifted architectural dis- course from form and typology to assembly and manufacturing. Fabrication in simplest terms is about building or constructing. Our parallel interest is the skillful construct of a specific story or reality. The Body in Repose , an installation at San Fran- cisco Museum of Modern Art, revolved around themes of body, material, and fabrication.The methods grew out of our commitment and interest in synthetic systems and the integrated confluence of surface and structure.The wall skin revealed a running subtext of psycho- logical associations of body made evident in how the singular and synthetic membrane is inscribed. the museum The whole idea of trying to present archi- tecture in a museum begs the question of context, physically and textually. We began by looking at the nature of Mario Botta’s design for SFMOMA, a masonry veneered monolith, and challenged the pastiche of his architectural narratives. Our first interest was to unveil the rep - resented fiction of an authentically crafted masonry exterior wall construction. Second, was to critique the museum’s internal narrative of surface, the so-called ‘white wall’, and the myth of its neutrality. We intervened with a new narrative, a surface that created alternative readings to what con- stituted specific moments of enclosure; re- writing the gallery wall, corner, window, and floor. We stripped off the gallery’s trim, sheet rock, plywood and insulation revealing a three foot deep hollow cavity of steel, mechanical, and electrical systems. By excavating the wall we exposed the backside of the exterior brick veneered panels of concrete, showing its crane anchors and assembly.
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O n S ite review
S urface
I ssue 9 2003
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