Sam Jones - Design 5

This Project achieved First in Course Award ARCHDES300.

D5: A House for an Artist - Marcel Duchamp, Tutor: Matt Liggins. Semester One, 2020

Design 5 was my largest-scale project yet, and I think it's fair to say that a lot of the ridiculous workload may have been my own doing! Tasked with designing a house within NZ for the visionary conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp, it was never going to be *that* easy. A seemingly simple, yet incredibly complex mind; the intellect of this man simply cannot be understated. Attempting to tap into the mind of a speaker of several languages, a writer, sculptor, professional chess player, cross-dresser, atheist, introvert, comedian, painter, philosopher and blatantly-controversial genius was a challenge to say the least: This man could do it all, and my architecture needed to somehow facilitate all of that. To summarise:

I built two sites for him: An Urban site that was deeply embedded in the conceptual art scene of K-Road, and a rural site in Horopito that gave isolation, resources and space.

Using characteristics of his eclectic personality to inform the architecture, the Urban site ended up being an outrageous act of Facadism upon the Heritage-Protected Pitt Street Buildings. To stir the pot further, Duchamp's new home rises 3cm higher than the neighbouring Pitt St Methodist Church - A comical decision for the home of a sworn Atheist. Not just a home, his Urban site facilitated spaces that both glamourised and critiqued aspects of K-Road culture. The shopfront ground level of the Pitt St Buildings is transformed into a performance space that entertains and glamorises the colourful nature of Karangahape Road, inviting street-goers to take part in a cross-dressing runway, chess duels against Duchamp himself, and even to come and look around Duchamp's fake studio.

But it's all a facade: Like Duchamp and his artworks, the building is a veil for a larger truth. The shelter of the building combined with distraction to onlookers provides a shadowed corner of space behind the building for 'the ugly truth' of K-Road to occur.

For the rest of this project, including Initial Models and a Rural Site, click below.

Models

Rural

Initial Site Massings; Concrete Model & Corten Addition

Context Map: Karangahape Road and its' many art galleries

Site Map: Site in relation to Michael Lett, Karangahape Road and the Methodist Church.

Axonometric: Facadism, the Spire, the Ugly Truth, the seen and the unseen, appropriation, the interrogation of the church, the Viewer and the Performer - All on show in this exploded drawing.

Elevation: Highlights the humourous relationship between the Church and Duchamp's new home

Duchamp's home glorifies the artist through storefront windows that advertise his work to the masses. But whilst onlookers are caught in the spectacle of Duchamp, three pavilions of 'ugly truth' are unknowingly tucked behind the building. These frosted glass structures facilitate the guilty realities of Karangahape Road - Sex; a bed. Addiction; a gambling machine. Poverty; also a bed. The frosted glass gives the illusion of privacy, yet it instead provides onlookers with the silhouettes of occupants. The users identity is kept private through this frosted veiling, but their actions remain publicised through this mysterious shadow-play. These pavilions are an example of Duchamp's manipulation of human desires, using us like pawns to twist our guilty pleasures into his own artistic expression.