Hell is very badly done // First year AD

Over the year, we have conducted architectural design projects based on representation and city, making life size models for hawkers (understanding anthropometrics and the body) and dealing with architectonics through crafting light. Thus, in some or the other way we kept making the course very formal. In the current project, we wanted to open up the dimension of imagination for architecture through everyday mythical spaces. We wanted students to think beyond the existing conventional ways of conceiving space. 

We introduced the students to the following:

"Hell is very badly done"

-Maxim Gorky

This one line statement was the brief that would drive the project.

Methodology:

We introduced the students to surrealist works of various artists (like Dali, Margritte, Dunchamp etc.) who have brought together different kinds of ideas together and other works. The students were asked to do the following stepwise:

1. Bring an interpretation, in any form (image, text, collage, painting, drawing, sketch, etc.) of the above line. (Note that we consciously played with the nuances of the statement - whether to prove or improve the claim)

2. Formalizing a single image using charcoal on large news print paper(s)

3. Detailing spatial character of this generated image

4. Asking students to get drawings of ten objects that come from their spatial imagination and further select a few to detail and hybridize to explore semantics and form.

5. Working with details of space - mechanics and function taking further hybridized concepts.

6. Translation of images into three dimensional models

7. Exploring models for materials, textures and further concepts through materiality of things.

8. Translating model back into a perceptive drawing of space.

As a part of the final work, the students were asked to present a single A1 sheet which explained the spatial character of their idea along with a brief write-up on the way they perceived "Hell"

Postscript:

"Hell" has remained a concept in the mythological narratives of most religions. It has been a part of all of our childhood imagnation. Our grandmothers and  mothers induced in us fear for this place thus preventing us from engaging in any 'wrong' acts. In doing so, they created within our minds an imagination of a specific place that equally evoked feeling of repulsion and interest to know more about. It was perhaps the curious mind wanting to expand its boundaries of visualization. Every grandmother created a new 'place' of hell through her description and programmatization - whether it be the devils who punish you by dipping you in hot oils or contraptions that chopped off your body parts. All of these activities were contained in a space or created a space of its own. However, we have never acknowledged and explored hell as a space having a definite program. A program that has been overtly described in various mythological texts seems to have no architectural / visual imagination. This dilemma of a concept that seemed present in our everyday mythical imagination, and so spatial, not having any visual imagination made us pursue it as an architectural project.

Although, we did caution ourselves of getting into too many of cutting-chopping projects. We definitely wanted to avoid dealing with bloodshed and physical torture: after all, architecture is a humanist practice (and I do not intend any ironies or paradoxes here). So Gorky's statement, which was essentially expressed in a different context, was chosen to be explored for the universal idea of 'Hell'. Here students explored ideas of a space that evoked tendencies that may seem socially, physically, behaviourally or logically misfit in the real world. 

We often mix up architectural programs with architectural aesthetic. This is not to say that each program has its own (or creates its own) aesthetic - that a school must 'look like' a school and a hospital must 'look like' a hospital. This project was critical for the fact that it allowed a difficult program to continue having a pleasing aesthetic. The core question is whether the difficult could also be beautiful? Or what could be an aesthetic of the unpleasing? (I am not using 'aesthetic' in the same way as 'beauty'). Thus, in doing so, we also challenged our own notions of beautiful. 

To talk of  beauty (which is more often understood as visual) in context of the questions above, we discussed ideas like "why are we not able to see a dead rat ran over by a truck lying on the street - with its blood spilling out and intestines all split apart? Why are we not able to engage with a heap of garbage containing all kinds of waste lying on the roadside, why don't we like the idea of sleeping on organic waste?" Haven't we seen crows feeding on human spit or vomit?; haven't we seen dogs sleeping on litter, haven't we seen vultures preying over the dead or haven't we seen micro-organisms creating spaces within garbage dumps? The comparison of  engagement of animals with things we reject raises the question of validation of beauty. To me, this project opened up methods through which one could face the other side of conventional aesthetic. 

Further, this project reminds me arguments of Georges Bataille and the surrealists who emphasized on the dual role of the perception; the question of disciplining the senses. Bataille raises many important questions. One of which includes reference to the Cross we see in most Churches - that which depicts Chirst is nailed onto it, he asks, what makes such a horrific image acceptable? What is so sacred about such an image? What provides pleasure in this image for worship? In his writings, Bataille explores the notion of guilt, of what goes on with negative emotions...

However, the project for Hell developed its own trajectories and aesthetic. We shall try and compile it for future discourse and archive. Following are some process images of student works: