Wilfrid Almendra
12 Dec 2009 - 13 Mar 2010
WILFRID ALMENDRA
"Killed in Action (Case Study Houses)"
Opening on Friday, December 11, 7 pm to 9 pm, 7 pm to 9 pm
On view until March 13, 2010, Wednesday to Saturday, 2 pm to 7 pm
The Case Study Houses were experiments in residential architecture, aimed at building modern, efficient, affordable houses; it took place on the US West coast, mainly around Los Angeles, between 1945 and 1966. Sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, the program's ambition was to create model houses that could help face the real estate boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers, young men about to start a home and family.
The program's announcement stated that each 'house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an individual "performance"; (...) the houses will be conceived within the spirit of our times, using as far as is practicable, many war-born techniques and materials best suited to the expression of man's life in the modern world.' Major architects of the day were commissioned, including Richard NEUTRA, Charles and Ray EAMES, Pierre KOENIG and Eero SAARINEN. Out of 37 projects (35 detached houses and two apartment buildings), 26 were built (25 houses, amongst which some became icons of architecture, and the first part of a block of apartments) and stand, for those still existing, as one of the major architectural programs of the 20th century.
The ten projects that were not built Wilfrid ALMENDRA's new series Killed in Action (Case Study Houses), a set of ten works each taking after one of the projects. The series takes its title from the official military expression and suggests that these aborted projects, whose 'raison d'être' and building processes were directly linked to the war, were soldiers of Modernism fallen to the field of honor. Wilfrid ALMENDRA made ten 'wall sculptures', low or high reliefs which switch architecture from horizontal to vertical.
Each sculpture draws inspiration from the corresponding project's floor plan for its shape, as well as from the techniques and building materials planned for its construction. Wilfrid ALMENDRA finds here an opportunity to practice his art of assemblage from a wide palette of materials: wood, concrete, metal, stone, glass, metal, plaster, tiles etc. As often with him, who considers the production process as part of the artwork, these materials tell parallel stories: a piece of asphalt cut from a road with an industrial lapidary becomes the ground for a house; the pyramid-shaped top of concrete fence poles from a neglected house, pavilions' roofs; the old door of his own family house in Portugal, the platform on pilotis for these pavilions.
Wilfrid ALMENDRA also plays with characteristic architectural details of the various projects, which become as many abstract forms: here a monumental roof is turned into a totem of metal and wired glass; there a staircase or a ramp access, a terrace or a swimming pool, or a monumental indoor / outdoor fireplace are integrated into the compositions. Other elements, having to do with the context of conception of the projects or with their marketing, are similarly put into the sculptures. Thus, this project for which all sketches at the time were staging a model family, with the father coming back home in his personal helicopter, tomorrow's common means of transport – a naively optimist vision of the future; in Wilfrid ALMENDRA's sculpture, the helicopter blades themselves merge with the house.
But Wilfrid ALMENDRA also extrapolates on what the projects, if built, would have become, hence questioning the suburban destiny of the Modernist utopia. Many of the Case Study Houses that were built were indeed long neglected, or undergone significant transformations, even sometimes deep denaturations, to be adapted to the needs of their inhabitants, before the historical importance of the whole program was recently acknowledged. ALMENDRA's sculptures tell at the same time about the ageing of architecture – and through it about the passing of time –, and its 'customizing', whether it is with thick roughcast or unauthorized building modifications. For instance, in one of the works made out of cast concrete, the prominent reinforcing bars recall at the same time those who appear under the eroding concrete and the houses begun without authorization and never finished –skeletons of concrete with metal bars pointing, familiar silhouettes in the South of Europe.
The works of the series Killed in Action (Case Study Houses), shown here along with preparatory drawings and reproductions of original documents, thus subtly combine several levels of reading: at first sight of a remarkably abstract aesthetic quality, they offer a reflection on Modern architecture and its becoming while investigating with empathy the way people adapt (to) their homes and environment.
"Killed in Action (Case Study Houses)"
Opening on Friday, December 11, 7 pm to 9 pm, 7 pm to 9 pm
On view until March 13, 2010, Wednesday to Saturday, 2 pm to 7 pm
The Case Study Houses were experiments in residential architecture, aimed at building modern, efficient, affordable houses; it took place on the US West coast, mainly around Los Angeles, between 1945 and 1966. Sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, the program's ambition was to create model houses that could help face the real estate boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers, young men about to start a home and family.
The program's announcement stated that each 'house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an individual "performance"; (...) the houses will be conceived within the spirit of our times, using as far as is practicable, many war-born techniques and materials best suited to the expression of man's life in the modern world.' Major architects of the day were commissioned, including Richard NEUTRA, Charles and Ray EAMES, Pierre KOENIG and Eero SAARINEN. Out of 37 projects (35 detached houses and two apartment buildings), 26 were built (25 houses, amongst which some became icons of architecture, and the first part of a block of apartments) and stand, for those still existing, as one of the major architectural programs of the 20th century.
The ten projects that were not built Wilfrid ALMENDRA's new series Killed in Action (Case Study Houses), a set of ten works each taking after one of the projects. The series takes its title from the official military expression and suggests that these aborted projects, whose 'raison d'être' and building processes were directly linked to the war, were soldiers of Modernism fallen to the field of honor. Wilfrid ALMENDRA made ten 'wall sculptures', low or high reliefs which switch architecture from horizontal to vertical.
Each sculpture draws inspiration from the corresponding project's floor plan for its shape, as well as from the techniques and building materials planned for its construction. Wilfrid ALMENDRA finds here an opportunity to practice his art of assemblage from a wide palette of materials: wood, concrete, metal, stone, glass, metal, plaster, tiles etc. As often with him, who considers the production process as part of the artwork, these materials tell parallel stories: a piece of asphalt cut from a road with an industrial lapidary becomes the ground for a house; the pyramid-shaped top of concrete fence poles from a neglected house, pavilions' roofs; the old door of his own family house in Portugal, the platform on pilotis for these pavilions.
Wilfrid ALMENDRA also plays with characteristic architectural details of the various projects, which become as many abstract forms: here a monumental roof is turned into a totem of metal and wired glass; there a staircase or a ramp access, a terrace or a swimming pool, or a monumental indoor / outdoor fireplace are integrated into the compositions. Other elements, having to do with the context of conception of the projects or with their marketing, are similarly put into the sculptures. Thus, this project for which all sketches at the time were staging a model family, with the father coming back home in his personal helicopter, tomorrow's common means of transport – a naively optimist vision of the future; in Wilfrid ALMENDRA's sculpture, the helicopter blades themselves merge with the house.
But Wilfrid ALMENDRA also extrapolates on what the projects, if built, would have become, hence questioning the suburban destiny of the Modernist utopia. Many of the Case Study Houses that were built were indeed long neglected, or undergone significant transformations, even sometimes deep denaturations, to be adapted to the needs of their inhabitants, before the historical importance of the whole program was recently acknowledged. ALMENDRA's sculptures tell at the same time about the ageing of architecture – and through it about the passing of time –, and its 'customizing', whether it is with thick roughcast or unauthorized building modifications. For instance, in one of the works made out of cast concrete, the prominent reinforcing bars recall at the same time those who appear under the eroding concrete and the houses begun without authorization and never finished –skeletons of concrete with metal bars pointing, familiar silhouettes in the South of Europe.
The works of the series Killed in Action (Case Study Houses), shown here along with preparatory drawings and reproductions of original documents, thus subtly combine several levels of reading: at first sight of a remarkably abstract aesthetic quality, they offer a reflection on Modern architecture and its becoming while investigating with empathy the way people adapt (to) their homes and environment.