Bricolage in architecture: fragments, assemblage, collage, the essence of bricolage in architecture

Abstract

This report examines the ideologies of both the essence of bricolage and of architecture. Lévi-Strauss terms bricolage as including four characteristics:découpage or severing; preformed or extant messages or materials; assemblage or montage; discontinuity or heterogeneity. The potential to inform, or to be informed by, the other conditions the basis for analysis. Fragments are presented as the implications of modern art and architecture collage theory through to postmodernity. Assemblage provides the juxtaposition and interaction of these fragments so as to stimulate the questioning of what bricolage means. Collage is the transfer of materials from one medium to another.