Collage and Architecture

Jennifer Shields, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, NC, USA

Abstract: Pablo Picassos frst act of collage-making in May of 1912, in its conceptual, material, and
technical originality, has profoundly infuenced numerous artists and architects throughout the twen-
tieth century and into the twenty-frst. Collage inherently emphasizes process over product, offering
the potential for a multiplicity of readings while re-conceptualizing three-dimensional space. This
ambiguity creates opportunities for multivalence in the architectural design process and the resultant
work of architecture, responding to the richness and complexities extant in sites and cities. Collage
can be considered in the following ways in its relevance to the feld of architecture: collage as
autonomous work of art, collage as analytical and/or design tool, and architecture as collage. The
richness and potentiality of collage as a tool for analysis and design lies in the diversity of media and
techniques. This paper will address the effcacy of collage as a representational medium integrated
into the design process in the work of Le Corbusier and Eduardo Chillida, whose work proves a lineage
of the Cubist conception of space through the translation fromcollage to built form. Considering collage
as an instrument for analysis and design, drawing on decades of relevance in art and architecture,
offers a diverse set of material, technical, and conceptual precedent for designers.
Keywords: Collage, Architecture, Representation, Cubism, Le Corbusier, Eduardo Chillida
O
NE CENTURY AGO, collage entered the lexicon of the contemporary art world.
Pablo Picasso, in May of 1912, frst appropriated a found material into a work of
art. In his Still Life with Chair-Caning, Picasso affxed a piece of oil cloth printed
with the design of chair-caning into an oil painting, creating what would come to
be known as a papier coll
1
. This was the frst deliberately executed collagethe frst work
of fne artin which material appropriated from everyday life, relatively untransformed by
the artist, intrude upon the traditionally privileged domain of painting.
2
[Figure 1
3
] The
founders of Cubism-Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris-valued collage as a hy-
bridization of painting and sculpture existing at the threshold of two and three dimensions.
As a means of image-making in which to investigate the potentialities of three-dimensional
space in a two-dimensional medium, collage facilitated a new conception of space. These
frst acts of collage-making in the Modernist canon, in their conceptual, material, and tech-
nical originality, have profoundly infuenced numerous artists and architects throughout the
twentieth century and into the twenty-frst.
1
Papier-coll is a French phrase meaning glued paper.
2
Poggi, Christine. In Defance of Painting: Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage. New Haven: Yale
University, 1992, p. 1.
3
Pablo Picasso. Still Life with Chair Caning. 1912. Artchive [online]. Available on World Wide Web:
(www.artchive.com).
The International Journal of the Image
Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012, http://ontheimage.com/journal/, ISSN 2154-8560
Common Ground, Jennifer Shields, All Rights Reserved, Permissions:
cg-support@commongroundpublishing.com
Figure 1: Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair-Caning, 1912
Collage, as an art formunique to the modern era, emphasizes process over product. Acollage
as a work of art consists of the assembly of various fragments of materials, combined in
such a way that the composition has a new meaning, not inherent in any of the individual
fragments. According to Diane Waldman in Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object, a
collage has several levels of meaning: the original identity of the fragment or object and
all of the history it brings with it; the new meaning it gains in association with other objects
or elements; and the meaning it acquires as the result of its metamorphosis into a newentity.
4
Simultaneity of spatial, material, and intellectual content is inherent in collage through a
synthesis of unrelated fragments.
We might understand architectural experience in a similar way. In Questions of Perception,
Steven Holl illuminates the nature of our perception of the built environment, saying:
A city is never seen as a totality, but as an aggregate of experiences, animated by use,
by overlapping perspectives, changing light, sounds, and smells. Similarly, a single
work of architecture is rarely experienced in its totality (except in graphic or model
form) but as a series of partial views and synthesized experiences. Questions of meaning
and understanding lie between the generating ideas, forms and the nature and quality
of perception.
5
In our experience of the world, we perceive human artifacts as an amalgam of sensory phe-
nomena understood through personal experience and memory, rather than completely and
objectively through a formal evaluation. Like a collage, revealing evidence of time and its
process of construction, a work of architecture contains accumulated history as it is lived
and engaged rather than observed. Just as a work of architecture is only fully created and
4
Waldman, Diane. Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992, p. 11.
5
Holl, Steven, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Alberto Perez-Gomez. Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Archi-
tecture. San Francisco: William Stout Publishers, 2006, p. 130.
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comprehended through bodily, sensory engagement, collage offers a counterpart, providing
the medium to interrogate spatial and material possibilities. [Figure 2
6
]
Figure 2: Max Ernst, La Puberte Proche ou Les Pleiades, 1921
Collage can be practiced not only to capture spatial and material characteristics of the built
environment, as an analytical and interpretive mechanismthrough this understanding, we
can also build with a consciousness and intentionality to respond to the multivalence extant
in sites and cities. The dialogue between collage and architecture can be evaluated in the
following ways:
1. Collage as autonomous work of art
2. Collage as a tool for analysis and design
3. Architecture as collage
Beginning with an overview of collage as an investigatory tool for spatial analysis, we must
consider the evolution of collage throughout the past century. The Cubists, for the frst time
in 450 years, had rejected the Renaissance approach to representation in which visual exper-
ience was privileged. The Cubists instead represented aspects of daily life through abstraction,
6
Max Ernst. La pubert proche ou Les Pliades. 1921. Artchive [online]. Available on World Wide Web:
(www.artchive.com).
87
JENNIFER SHIELDS
material juxtapositions, and fragmentation and synthesis of form, capturing spatial and ma-
terial qualities. The genealogy of collage and the infuences of Synthetic Cubism on art and
architecture are illustrated in the Collage Genealogy Map, demonstrating the conceptual or
technical affliations between various artists and architects throughout the past century.
[Figure 3
7
]
7
The legacy of Cubism as demonstrated in this genealogy has its foundation in Alfred Barrs chart for the MoMA
exhibition in 1936, Cubism and Abstract Art, in which he illustrated the movements that infuenced Cubism and
the movements that were subsequently informed by Cubism.
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Figure 3: Jennifer Shields, Collage Genealogy, 2012
89
JENNIFER SHIELDS
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The Analytical Premise of Collage
Tracking the diffusion of the Cubists reconception of space both geographically and ideo-
logically, we fnd that the bold geometric forms of the Cubist collage were quickly adopted
by artists outside France, while political unrest in Europe leading up to World War I saw
the appropriation of collage for political and cultural purposes. The work of the Italian Fu-
turists and the Russian Avant-Garde was highly politicized, the goal being to direct art towards
a social purpose and demonstrate the ideals of a modern society. Formally, they emphasized
materiality and typically focused on the two-dimensional plane of the canvas. Artists of the
Russian Avant-Garde were often architects as well, using collage, a two-dimensional medium,
as a means of generating concepts for three-dimensional architectural forms. [Figure 4
8
]
Figure 4: Kazimir Malevich, Private of the First Division, 1914
Dadaism was founded in Zurich at the outbreak of World War I in protest and considered
itself anti-art, Dadaists seeing their work as a rejection of existing cultural and aesthetic
values through their adoption of collage. Most Dadaists eliminated painting and drawing in
their collages, and instead used photos and catalogues almost exclusively. Their use of
photomontage was due to their desire to be seen as engineers or mechanics rather than artists.
9
The social commentary of the Dadaists was represented formally through changing perspect-
ives, sharp diagonals, and contrasting materials and images, using rich textures and repres-
entations of the human body. Surrealism developed in the period of peace following World
War One, an outgrowth of Dadaism in Paris that become more internally focused. The Sur-
realists opposed the formal and rational order of Cubism, seeking to unify the inner world
of the imagination with the outer world of reality, a synthesis termed surreality by Surreal-
isms founder, Andr Breton. This dreamlike quality was often achieved through photomont-
age and the juxtaposition of unrelated objectsthe often fuid and indistinguishable boundaries
8
Kasimir Malevich, Private of the First Division, 1914. ARTStor [online]. New York: New York. Available from
World Wide Web: (http://www.artstor.org).
9
There is debate over the birth of photomontage, as both the Russian Constructivists and the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann
claim to have invented it.
91
JENNIFER SHIELDS
between layers magnifes this effect. At the same time in Germany, the Bauhaus design
school was founded, intending to integrate all of the design disciplines, greatly infuenced
by De Stijl and Constructivism: professors including Lszl Moholy-Nagy employed pho-
tomontage in their own research and pedagogical pursuits.
Contemporary art
10
has witnessed the use of collage by numerous artists, including the
Abstract Expressionists originating in New York and Pop Artists in New York and London.
Abstract Expressionismderived directly fromSynthetic Cubismwith infuences of Futurism,
the Bauhaus, and Surrealism. This movement began in the 1930s in the US, drawing from
Surrealisms concept of automatism, or the power of the subconscious. These artists intended
to merge the real and the imaginary by combining the familiar with the unknown, the personal
with the universal. The process of collage-making in its manual engagement with the media,
refected both process and product, the same way the Abstract Expressionists paintings
simultaneously represented the creative act and the fnal image.
11
Pop Art developed in the
1950s as a response to Abstract Expressionism, employing found objects and images like
the Dadaists, with a desire to capture the complexities of contemporary culture. Collage
artists today have appropriated found physical artifacts as well as virtual image fragments,
expanding the palette of collage-making materials into the digital realm. [Figure 5
12
] Refect-
ing on the genealogy of collage, the value and meaning of collage intertwining art and archi-
tecture has transformed throughout the past century as the conception of space has evolved.
Materially, the choice of fragments is also distinctive, revealing evidence of the time and
place in which the collages were constructed as the artists incorporate readily available ma-
terials from everyday life into their collage compositions. The interconnectivity and overlap
of collage methodologies in art movements of the twentieth century provide a diversity of
ideologies, techniques, and materials from which architects have drawn, and will continue
to draw, inspiration.
10
Contemporary art in this paper refers to art movements after World War II.
11
Waldman, p. 231.
12
Jennifer Shields, Spatio-Temporal Thresholds digital collage, 2009.
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Figure 5: Jennifer Shields, Spatio-temporal Thresholds, Digital Collage, 2009
The Generative Potential of Collage
Shifting fromthe analytical to the generative, collage has been implicated in the architectural
design process in a range of scales and conceptual and technical collage methodologies in
the feld of architecture over the past century. Though collage as a theoretical concept in ar-
chitecture only became widely discussed after the publication of Collage City
13
by Colin
Rowe and Fred Koetter in 1987, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and other early 20
th
century architects made use of collage in their design process to experiment with spatial and
material juxtapositions. Architects have since exploited collage for both its conceptual pos-
sibilities and its material, formal, and representational potential. [Figure 6
14
]
13
In Collage City, the authors were interested in collage for its metaphorical value, a means of understanding the
potentialities in the rich layering and complexity of the built environment.
14
Nicholson, Ben. The Appliance House. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.
93
JENNIFER SHIELDS
Figure 6: Ben Nicholson, The Appliance House, 1990
Considering collage as an instrument for design, drawing on decades of relevance in art and
architecture, offers a diverse set of material, technical, and conceptual precedent fromwhich
to drawinspiration. Collage, as it has evolved, brings with it a number of dialectics, including
representational/abstract, gestural/precise, texture/image, surface/depth, and literal/metaphor-
ical, all of which are considered within the methodologies of art and architecture. The variety
of methods can be hybridized and tailored to suit the conceptual framework within which a
work of architecture resides. The multivalence and synthesis of spatial and material conditions
inherent in collage-making creates the potential for a multiplicity of interpretations and ex-
periences in the design process and the resultant work of architecture.
As we consider the role of collage in design, we must consider the legacy of the Cubists
and proximate movements in modern art, and their adoption of collage as a means of syn-
thesizing unrelated fragments. Themes of fgure/ground reversal, phenomenal transparency,
and simultaneity are signifcant in architectural works in the Modernist canon. As these
themes are translated into the realm of architecture, it becomes evident that the recognition
of spatial as well as temporal conditions and the value of process play a crucial role. In our
experience of space and site, [The fragment] cannot be grasped in a single intuition; it relies
on a sequence of stages bringing together individual phenomena and the universal ground
in a process that may be described as the restorative mapping and articulation of the world.
15
This simultaneity is what the Cubists were attempting to capture in their collage-making.
15
Vesely, Dalibor. Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation: The Question of Creativity in the Shadow
of Production. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004, p. 334.
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Time fnds expression through architecture both spatially and materially, while collage, as
a two-dimensional medium, must express time materially, implying spatial conditions.
Space, according to philosopher Martin Heidegger, is parceled into places by human
activity and experience.
16
Heidegger postulates that the identifcation of place is not logical
or systematic, but rather subjective and personal. Edges and boundaries are critical to an
understanding of space: the boundary is that fromwhich something begins its presencing.
17
Concepts of edge and boundary are critical to architectural design and similarly, to collage.
Boundaries (in our lived experience and images) are created in our minds: they can be
physical and defned, such as by a wall or a row of trees, or vague and imprecise, like a ho-
rizon. Although a threshold, a horizon cannot be marked or precisely located. These imprecise
boundaries are evidence of the ambiguous relationship between architecture and context, as
well as between architectural spaces. The implied boundaries and spatial overlap defned by
phenomenal transparency are demonstrated in the work of designers throughout the past
century who employ collage. In this analysis, the works of Le Corbusier and Eduardo Chillida
prove a lineage of the Cubist conception of space through the translation from collage to
built form.
The following interpretation of work by Le Corbusier and Eduardo Chillida considers the
fragmentation and synthesis of spatio-temporal conditions as a physical manifestation of
place, intertwining built form and context. Le Corbusier, as a contemporary of the Cubist
artists in Paris, was signifcantly infuenced by their work both conceptually and technically.
Both Corb and Chillida acknowledge an underlying order that is manipulated or disrupted
by conditions of site, program, or perceptual intent, creating an ambiguity between fgure
and feld. In the words of Steven Holl, When a work of architecture successfully fuses a
building and situation, a third condition emerges.
18
These considerations have been captured
through the collage-making process, drawing on themes and techniques of the Cubists and
subsequent art movements.
Le Corbusier and Collage
Influences
Le Corbusier, as a seminal fgure in the development of Modern Architecture, was greatly
infuenced by the Cubists re-conception of space and form. When the Swiss architect settled
in Paris in 1917, Cubism was in its seventh year following its frst written account in The
Architectural Record. As an artist working in painting, sculpture, and collage in conjunction
with his architectural practice, Le Corbusier was clearly infuenced by the work of Juan Gris
in the superimposition of regulating lines and grids, reducing objects to simple geometric
forms mediated by the established order. Le Corbusier formed a response to Cubism in his
exhibition with Amde Ozenfant entitled After Cubism. Though they investigated the con-
nection between Cubism and architecture, they sought a more rigorous geometric analysis
16
The scientifc revolution of the 17th century created a disconnect between measurement and human experience,
as the mathematical rationalization of spatial dimensionsthe equality of value in the x, y, and z dimensionsdevalues
the human experience of space.
17
Heidegger, Martin. Building Dwelling Thinking. Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter.
New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1971.
18
Holl, Steven. Anchoring. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1989, p. 9.
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JENNIFER SHIELDS
in the deconstruction of form, a respect for the inherent properties of the objects (specifcally
weight), and opposed decorative elements in Cubist works.
Figure 7: Le Corbusier, Icone, 1961
In conjunction with issues of space and measure, Corbs interest in temporal conditions of
simultaneity and the value of relationships/context over individual fgures as investigated
by the Cubists is revealed in his artistic and architectural work. This theme was also reinter-
preted in the collages of the Dada, Bauhaus, and Constructivist movements after World War
I, serving as precedent for Corbs artistic endeavors. [Figure 7
19
]
Content, Materials and Techniques
Corbs collages (like his architectural projects) are evidence of a collage mindset in which
he sought a synthesis of forms. These collages were often papiers-colls, constructed in the
design process as a prelude to the fnal fabrication of his tapestries. He primarily worked in
painted newspaper, gouache, and ink, employing collage at two scales: frst, in the initial
maquettes, and second, in the full-scale cartoons.
20
According to Cristopher Green, The
tapestries share their rough clat, and indeed, even when working on the scale of the cartoons,
Le Corbusier kept intact the open-ended immediacy of his approach to papier-coll,
21
While documentation primarily points to Corbs use of collage in the design process for
two-dimensional media, the formal content of his collages has clear ties to his architectural
work. His collages include an underlying order juxtaposed against fuid lines and forms,
employing phenomenal transparency as a means of implying depth in the composition. There
19
Le Corbusier. Icone. 1961. Collage, gouache, and ink on paper, 22 1/4 x 18 in. Modernism Inc. [online]. San
Francisco: CA. Available from World Wide Web:(www.modernisminc.com).
20
Green, Cristopher. The architect as artist. Le Corbusier Architect of the Century. London: Arts Council of
Great Britain, 1987, p. 130.
21
Green, p. 130.
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is simultaneously a frontality and collapse of space in his work (like the Cubist compositions)
while movement of the viewer is suggested. According to Colin Rowe, The fgure is simul-
taneously static and set in motion. There is the primary surface of attack, the frontal picture
plane, and then, there is the convoluted and serpentine territory which lies behind.
22
The
dynamic spatial conditions captured in two-dimensional collage compositions are evident
in Le Corbusiers built works of architecture, including Casa Curutchet and the Unit
dHabitation.
Interpretation
In Sigfried Giedions Space, Time and Architecture published in 1941 in the midst of Le
Corbusiers career, Giedion states, the interpenetration of inner and outer spaces in modern
architecture corresponds to the simultaneous presentation of the inside and outside of objects
in cubism.
23
The spatial overlap identifed by Giedion was subsequently characterized by
Rowe and Slutzky as phenomenal transparency, referring to the stratifcation and densifying
of space in Le Corbusiers work and thus its relationship to twentieth-century cubism.
24
While there are clear correlations between the architecture of Le Corbusier and the two-di-
mensional work of his Cubist contemporaries, Corbs collage-making serves as a formal and
conceptual bridge between the two.
Two late-career projects of Le Corbusier demonstrate the translation of these themes from
two to three dimensions. Slutzky described the exploration of metaphor and collage in Le
Corbusiers urban projects and buildings of the late twenties and after.
25
Both Casa Curutchet
in La Plata, Argentina and the Unit dHabitation in Marseilles, France were completed under
the design supervision of the young Swiss architect Bernhard Hoesli, a seminal fgure in
architectural education in the US and an ardent collage-maker himself.
26
Casa Curutchet
(1948-53), incorporates the free plan with the overlapping L-section, with evidence of phe-
nomenal transparency in its spatial confguration. This ambiguity of spatial defnition occurs
in the overlap of interior spaces as well as in the overlap of interior and exterior spaces, as
recognized by Giedion.
The frontality of the composition in Casa Curutchet creates a density of spatial overlap,
varying conditions revealed through temporal and spatial progression. Considering Casa
Curutchet planimetrically, identifying a geometric order superimposed with organic forms
speaks to the spatial organization of the canvas and the plan as generator of architectural
space
27
A regular grid establishes a structural metering for the house while sculptural
22
Rowe, Colin. The provocative faade: frontality and contrapposto. Le Corbusier Architect of the Century.
London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1987, p. 26.
23
Gideon, Sigfried. Space, Time, and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1941, p. 432.
24
Caragonne, Alexander. The Texas Rangers: Notes from the Architectural Underground. Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 1995, p. 167.
25
Blau, Eve and Nancy J. Troy. Architecture and Cubism. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002, p. 4.
26
A protg of Corb, Bernhard Hoesli, further abstracted and geometricized his collage compositions, contributing
to the articulation of phenomenal transparency as a condition of overlap in his work with Colin Rowe and Robert
Slutzky at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1950s.
27
Caragonne, p. 167.
97
JENNIFER SHIELDS
forms, both built and natural, disrupt the grid, creating a dynamic spatial experience. [Figure
8
28
]
Figure 8: Phenomenal Transparency in Le Corbusiers Casa Curutchet, 1948-53, and Taureau
XVIII, 1960
After Hoeslis work on Casa Curutchet, Corb appointed him project architect for the Unit
dHabitation in Marseilles. Like Casa Curutchet but on a much larger scale, the Unit
dHabitation shows the infuence of Corbs artistic investigations, testing systems of propor-
tion juxtaposed against sculptural forms. The multivalence of space and formis most evident
in the roof terrace, a surface populated with and interpenetrated by numerous sculptural
fgures. [Figure 9
29
] According to Maurice Besset,
28
1. Casa Curutchet. Le Corbusier and Bernhard Hoesli. 1890. New York Times [online]. New York: New York.
Available from World Wide Web:(http://www.nytimes.com); 2. Taureau XVIII. Le Corbusier. 1960. Modernism
[online]. San Francisco: CA. Available from World Wide Web:(www.modernisminc.com); diagrams by author.
29
1. Le Corbusier, Picasso, and Bernhard Hoesli at the Unit dHabitation, 1952. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre Complte
1946-52. 2. Le Corbusier and Bernhard Hoesli, Unit dHabitation, Marseille, France, 1947-52. Photograph by
Ezra Stoller, 1952. ARTStor [online]. New York: New York. Available from World Wide Web:
(http://www.artstor.org).
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By multiplying the number of views taken of an object in order to acquire fuller cog-
nizance of it, Cubismat the same time introduced a factor of relativity. By superimposing
non-concordant, discontinuous images, it stripped the object of its opacity, its density,
rendering it at once transparent and permeable to the medium which surrounds it, and
with which it then engages in an interplay of unstable, shifting relations.
30
The value of the relational qualities over those of individual objects was recognized and
tested by the Cubists in their collage-making and shortly thereafter by Le Corbusier. His
artistic and architectural work, like that of the Cubists, experimented with themes of phenom-
enal transparency, ambiguity of fgure and feld, distillation and synthesis which subsequently
impacted the collage-making and design and pedagogy of Bernhard Hoesli and many others.
Figure 9: Le Corbusier, Picasso, and Bernhard Hoesli shown during Picassos Visit to the
Unite dHabitation, 1952; Roof Terrace of the Unite, 1952
30
Besset, Maurice. Le Corbusier: To Live with the Light. New York: Rizzoli International, 1987, p. 41.
99
JENNIFER SHIELDS
Eduardo Chillida and Collage
Figure 10: Eduardo Chillida, Lithographic Collages for Heideggers Die Kunst und der
Raum, 1969
Influences
Chillida began an architectural education at Colegio Mayor Jimnez de Cisneros in Madrid
in 1943. An interest in sculpture took him to Paris in 1948 where he began working in clay,
then carving in stone and plaster. Chillida returned to the Basque region in Spain in 1951 to
work with a blacksmith, a traditional trade of the region. After returning to the Basque
country, Chillida wanted above all to capture and penetrate space rather than occupy it, and
primarily for that reason he rejected working with massive blocks of stone or plaster and
turned to a ductile material, iron, which when heated suffciently can be bent to shoot and
curve into space.
31
Chillidas architectural education clearly infuenced his conception of
space, augmenting a fascination with the dialogue between solid and void.
Martin Heidegger and Chillida met in 1968, fnding common ground in their work.
Heidegger subsequently wrote Die Kunst und der Raum [Art and Space] in relation to the
work of Chillida in 1969. In this essay, Heidegger asserts, In plastic embodiment the void
acts like the searching and projecting establishment of place.
32
Chillida created a series of
seven lithographic collages to accompany Heideggers essay, in which the compositions
play with a reversal of fgure and feld. [Figure 10
33
] As for Heidegger, boundaries were a
signifcant consideration in Chillidas work, evidenced in these collages and by his statement
that Limit is the true protagonist of space, just as the present, another limit, is the true
protagonist of time.
34
Chillidas focus on space and boundary was further refned by his
material investigations, interrogating the potentialities inherent in plaster, alabaster, and iron,
to delimit space.
31
Selz, p. 11.
32
Selz, p. 116.
33
Eduardo Chillida, lithographic collages for Die Kunst und der Raum with Martin Heidegger, 1969. Available
from World Wide Web:(www.arcadja.com).
34
Selz, p. 116.
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Content, Materials and Techniques
Tactility as a consideration in spatial perception is evident in the translation from collage to
sculpture to architectural intervention. Chillidas collages include lithographic collages, as
seen in Die Kunst und der Raum, as well as subtractive paper collages, in which voids are
inscribed in the top-most surface, revealing layers beneath. The spatial implications of this
method of collage reveal themselves in his three-dimensional work. Three of Chillidas large
scale works demonstrate the value of the void: two works in collaboration with architect
Luis Pea Ganchegui Peine de Viento [Wind Comb] and a plaza in Vitoria-Gasteiz, as well
as a proposal for the Canary Islands. Each project reveals an evolution fromcollage to three-
dimensional sculpture to full-scale work, investigating the ambiguity of boundaries and the
meaning of the void.
Designs for a site-specifc installation in his hometown of San Sebastian, Spain began in
1952 but Peine de Viento wasnt realized until 1975-77. The sculpture consists of three iron
sculptural components in dialogue: two horizontal-one extending from the cliff towards the
ocean, the other extending from a rocky outcropping towards the cliff-and one vertical, oc-
cupying the middle ground. The two horizontal sculptures are positioned, according to
Chillida, as if in colonization of the horizon,
35
while the third is placed on the edge of the
town boundary. Martin Heidegger considered sculpture a thing occupying a place and
showing forth in space,
36
and Peine de Viento defnes this place through sculptural insertions
which imply boundaries to the vast context of the ocean, framing the visitors experience of
the void. [Figure 11
37
]
Figure 11: Eduardo Chillida, Around the Void 1, 1964, and Peine de Viento, San Sebastian,
Spain, 1977
Another work by Chillida and Ganchegui that asks similar questions is a plaza in Vitoria-
Gasteiz, Spain. Chillidas lithographic collages, particularly those using only two tones, in-
terrogate the perception of solid and void. This investigation continues in his subtractive
alabaster sculptures such as Gasteiz, a study for the spatial confguration of the plaza. Ac-
cording to Mexican poet Octavio Paz, The alabaster sculptures do not try to enclose inner
space; neither do they claimto delimit or defne it: they are blocks of transparencies in which
35
Selz, p. 120.
36
Selz, p. 89.
37
1. Eduardo Chillida. Around the Void I. 1964. Museo Bilbao [online]. Bilbao: Spain. Available from World Wide
Web:(www.museobilbao.com); 2. Chillida and Ganchegui. Peine de Viento. 1977. Inigo.txg [online]. Available
from World Wide Web:(www.panoramio.com).
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JENNIFER SHIELDS
formbecomes space, and space dissolves in luminous vibrations that are echoes and rhymes,
thought.
38
The resultant form in the full-scale plaza construct embodies similar qualities,
at this scale permitting the human occupation and full, bodily experience and perception of
the void. Subtleties of scale, perceived boundaries and spatial overlap offer potentialities for
multivalent experience within the plaza. [Figure 12
39
]
The third project, a controversial work proposed by Chillida before his death in 2002 to
be constructed in Tindaya Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, has been moving forward thanks
to his widow, Pilar Belzunce, and Canary Island authorities. In Chillidas Tindaya, he pro-
posed to excavate a 40m cube of rock from inside Tindaya Mountain: this space would be
connected to the surface via two 25m high vertical shafts for light and a 15m x 15m entrance
tunnel. Although the vast scale of the proposal is unique amongst Chillidas built work,
concepts of spatial overlap and the value of the void continue to be the conceptual motivation.
Studies beginning in a subtractive collage process and extending to alabaster sculptures test
the subtractive methodology. Similar to his completed large-scale sculptures, the dialogue
between Chillidas intervention and its context is vital. He states, The large space created
within it would not be visible from outside, but the men who broke into his heart would see
the light of the sun, the moon, inside a mountain facing the sea, and the horizon, unreachable,
necessary, non-existent
40
38
Selz, p. 42.
39
1. Eduardo Chillida, Untitled collage, 1966. Terminartors [online]. Available from World Wide Web:
(www.terminartors.com); 2. Eduardo Chillida, Gasteiz, 1975. Museo Bilbao [online]. Bilbao: Spain. Available
from World Wide Web:(www.museobilbao.com); 3. Eduardo Chillida and Luis Pea Ganchegui, Plaza in Vitoria-
Gasteiz, 1979. Wikispaces [online]. Available from World Wide Web:(http://arteplastikoak.wikispaces.com/
Eduardo+Chillida).
40
Eduardo Chillida, Tindaya Project website. Available from World Wide Web:(www.tindaya.org).
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Figure 12: Eduardo Chillida, Untitled Collage, 1966, Gasteiz, 1975, and Plaza in Vitoria-
Gasteiz, 1979
In this poetic language we see a complement to the writing of colleagues Martin Heidegger
and Gaston Bachelard. [Figure 13
41
]
41
1. Eduardo Chillida, Gravitacin, date unknown. Artfacts [online]. Available from World Wide Web:
(www.artfacts.net); 2. Eduardo Chillida, Mendi Huts (Hollow Mountain), 1985. Photograph in Chillida, Peter Selz;
3. Rendering of space and light in Chillidas proposal for Tindaya, unbuilt. Available from World Wide Web:
(http://cup2013.wordpress.com/tag/eduardo-chillida/).
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JENNIFER SHIELDS
Figure 13: Eduardo Chillida, Gravitation, 1988, Mendi Huts (Hollow Mountain), 1985, and
Rendering of Proposed Space in Tindaya
Interpretation
It is evident from this analysis of Chillidas work and the transformation from collage to
small sculptures to large-scale architectonic formthat Chillida, like Corb, tested the dialogue
between solid and void while inverting the normative value system and hierarchy. Chillida
has said,
My whole Work is a journey of discovery in Space. Space is the liveliest of all, the
one that surrounds us...I do not believe so much in experience. I think it is conservative.
I believe in perception, which is something else. It is riskier and more progressive.
There is something that still wants to progress and grow. Also, this is what I think makes
you perceive, and perceiving directly acts upon the present, but with one foot frmly
planted in the future. Experience, on the other hand, does the contrary: you are in the
present, but with one foot in the past. In other words, I prefer the position of percep-
tion.
42
In considering this question of perception, we again reference Heidegger who asserts that
we understand things in the context of other things, not as separate self-contained objects.
Conscious of these interrelationships, weak Gestalt in a work of architecture allows for
multiple readings and manipulations, offering new relationships: much like the collages of
42
Eduardo Chillida, Wikipedia [online]. Available from World Wide Web: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Eduardo_Chillida).
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the Cubists.
43
The ambiguity of space resulting from the dialogue between the intimacy of
individual space and the immensity of the landscape
44
offers a wealth of potential in the
fragmentary relationships. The occlusion or revelation of these spatial and temporal conditions
can be understood through collage: there is an inherent ability for collage to capture qualities
of time and a potential for collaged fragments to identify relationships within architecture
and between architecture and site.
Synthesis
Thematically consistent across the work of Le Corbusier and Eduardo Chillida are conditions
of simultaneity, phenomenal transparency, spatial and material overlap/interpenetration,
juxtaposition of fgure/feld, background/foreground, and order/disorder in both their collage-
making and three-dimensional constructs. In the resultant architecture, Architectural syn-
thesis of changing background, middle ground, and foreground with all the subjective qual-
ities of material and light forms the basis for an intertwining perception.
45
Both designers
acknowledge value in the thickened thresholds, the liminal spaces. Fragmentation and syn-
thesis offer meaning that is imbued as a result of context, as the relationships between ele-
ments are more important than the objects themselves. Le Corbusiers connections to Cubism
are clear: and although Chillida was not associated with a particular art movement, his work
is central to the modernist tradition in sculpture, which is based on the dialectic of solid and
void, of inside and out. His work would not have been feasible without the Cubist articulation
of space
46
Collage is valued by these designers in their analysis and design, as tangible qualities of
space and form are heightened and revealed through collage-making. Juhani Pallasmaa
proclaims that Collage and assemblage are favoured techniques of artistic representation
in our time; these media enable an archaeological density and a non-linear narrative through
the juxtaposition of fragmented images deriving from irreconcilable origins. Collage invig-
orates the experience of tactility and time.
47
The partial transference, transparency, and
layering of materials serves to incite a haptic engagement with the work, provoking a visceral
response and a multiplicity of ways in which to interpret this response. The works of archi-
tecture resulting from the implication of collage in the design process offer potentialities in
the rich and varied ways the inhabitant might perceive the spatial and material experience
of the architecture and landscape.
43
Pallasmaa, Hapticity and Time: Notes on Fragile Architecture. The Architectural Review, May 2000: 78-84.
44
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space, Boston: Beacon Press, 1969, p. 8.
45
Holl, Steven. Intertwining. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, p. 12.
46
Selz, p. 115.
47
Pallasmaa, p. 78-84.
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JENNIFER SHIELDS
About the Author
Jennifer Shields
Jennifer A. E. Shields, a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, is a
practicing architect with fux in Charlotte, NC, and a visiting assistant professor at the Uni-
versity of North Carolina-Charlotte School of Architecture. In addition to studio instruction,
she pursues research, teaching, and practice that investigate the multi-sensory experience of
place as revealed through collage. Her work has been published and presented in academic
and cultural institutions in the US, Sweden, and Spain. Collage and Architecture, a book
documenting the lineage of collage in art and architecture over the past century, will be
published by Routledge in spring of 2013.
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