Phase 01: the object

studio 08 - triplicate: hejduk at neue nationgalerie

Object 1: column as sculpture

The positioning of the column in the cloakroom and the lack of response to the modular repetition that is seen in the rest of the gallery’s organisation can be suggested that the column is an extension of the sculpture garden as an incidental architectural sculpture. The object seeks to respond to Hejduk’s dislike for the exteriority posed by sculpture as he saw it to be an absence of spatial experience. The object reacts as a chipping away of the existing concrete form an an insertion of an asymmetrical, curvilinear steel plate that lightly touches the rough edge of the exposed concrete and extends down to the floor. In doing so, the observer is able to walk around and underneath the column as an experience of the space the original column would have volumetrically occupied to create a spatial experience of it.

object 2: deterioration of mies that reveals hejduk

Object two appropriates Mies’ modular ceiling grid, utilising Hejduk’s 9-square grid exercise to explore volumetric possibilities and spatial composition. The 9-square grid exercise was initially utilised by Hejduk as an ordering device for spatial planning but developed as an abstract open-ended problem that created possibilities for spatial order with the construction language of points, lines and planes without considering external contexts. Mies used the modular ceiling grid to create clarity and a rationalized neutrality in expressing a higher unity. Contrasting that, the object creates a vertical expansion of the grid in section that breaks down the ceiling datum to create an open and exposed density of services that were hidden. The concept is a deterioration of the ceiling’s flatness that reveals elements interweaving above and below the ceiling grid, suspended in spatial tension while maintaining within the confines of the 9-square grid in plan. The object responds to Hejduk’s idea of poetic simplicity found in the juxtaposition of positive and negative space, substance and shadow.

object 3: new age decadence and the heightening of experiential quality

Rejecting the flatness of Mies’ marble wall, in favour of spatial ambiguity, is an exploration of Hejduk’s idea of phenomenal transparency. Hejduk had an interest in the simplicity, isolation, and directness he observed in American architecture. The object aims to respond to the American phenomenon of spatial isolation by creating an otherness represented in the spatial collective of organically shaped parts where the void space in between the massings become spatial connectors. It replaces the decadent marble cladding with a new-age expression of refined steel. The object is frankensteined with remnants of the Miesian marble wall such as the brick and concrete base and the marble capital that create the volumetric outline of the monolithic solidity that once existed. Through this object, I attempted to explore the expression of decadence in a technological age and the creation of spatial ambiguity and space-time by breaking down the flatness seen in the Miesian marble wall.

Together, the three objects explore spatial experience, tension and ambiguity in contrast to Mies’ expression of clarity, flatness and neutrality in The Neue Nationalgalerie creating a series of objects that respond to the idea of an otherness interrogated in Hejduk’s work.