Collage in architecture

Abstract

This text reports on a research project investigating collage and its use in architecture. The text presents a definition of collage, discusses collage in architecture in relation to this definition, addressing its theoretical situation by placing this discussion within the historical context of modernism and postmodernism, in order to provide a framework for understanding the use of collage in architectural design. The nature of the project involves the comparative association of architecture with other arts, attempting to see architecture in the wider artistic context of twentieth century of which it is a part. During this time collage is said to of "influenced virtually every major movement of our time", Waldman, Diane. Collage, assemblage, and the found object. New York : Harry N. Abrams, 1992, p8. referring to all the various -isms of modern art from cubism, the origin of art collage, onwards. This is also a narrow view, as aside from these visual arts, collage is to be seen existing in poetry, music, theatre, literature, criticism, and architecture, existing, in short, in all creative enterprises. Gregory Ulmer discusses the use of collage/montage in criticism, theatre, and music. Ulmer, Gregory. 'The object of post-criticism', in Hal Foster, Postmodern culture. London and Sydney : Pluto Press, 1985. Collage is everywhere, which is one reason why its use in architecture needs to be addressed. The other - the main - reason in addressing collage in architecture is because apart from being merely influential, collage is held to be fundamental or revolutionary in its affect on twentieth century art in terms of the visual arts. In its historical understanding through art history, architecture is placed in relation to painting and sculpture, making up the visual arts, understanding them together as created objects sharing closer affinities than that shared with music, poetry, theatre, dance, literature, etc, for instance. It therefore seems important to gauge the impact of collage on architecture given its position in relation to the other visual arts. My basic hypothesis is thus formed by analogy; if collage is a fundamental innovation that spreads across the arts in the twentieth century, architecture should be fundamentally affected by it. Given that the received place of collage in twentieth century art is in modernism, originating in 1912 in cubism, collage should by extension have a place in architectural modernism, a manifestation of architecture's newfound modernity. What I attempt to show is that this place is unstable and unclear because collage's place in artistic modernism is itself anything but assured, manifesting as it does a close affinity with postmodernism and its artistic values. A development of my hypothesis, narrowing it somewhat, is that collage has only really had its architectural awakening in the time of postmodernism, the time then, of the now.