The miniature sublime

Abstract

This thesis explores the miniature sublime through shifting scales. The sublime is traditionally associated with an experience which induces a sense of awe, supported by the alternating effects of pain and pleasure. In eighteenth century discourse, both Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant developed the sublime through the representation of a grand scale and the suggestion of the infinite. Contemporary practice continues to adopt this deliberate expression of the sublime to exceed the human subject. This thesis considers the sublime at a smaller scale. To test this enquiry, two methods of design research are implemented. The first addresses research for design to provide the theoretical context of the sublime. This thesis traces the philosophical bearings of Burke and Kant in pursuit of a contemporary argument towards the sublime within the small. Building on the historical and contemporary understanding of the sublime, conditions of scale, form, colour and light are identified as sources of the miniature sublime. As such, scale, form, colour and light structure the framework for the case study analysis of Marin Hartt, Anish Kapoor, and Steven Holl. This research is extended through design, carried out primarily using analogue drawing, model making and graphic representation. Three design outcomes, with increasing levels of architectural complexity, test the appropriation of the theoretical understanding of the miniature sublime into contemporary practice. The first design, the installation, operates at a human scale to question the sublime’s dependence on physical greatness. Scaling up to the house, the sublime is internalised within a larger habitable space. In the final design of the library, where the building itself is vast, the miniature sublime is expressed through a symbiotic respect to the traditional sublime. This thesis concludes that the manipulation of scale, form, colour and light, within these design explorations, prompts the experience of the miniature sublime at varying scales.