Bartlett Summer Special 2 In the Land of Imaginary Buildings: A Compendium of Wondrous Architectures

Tutors: FleaFollyArchitects

FleaFollyArchitects, Grimm City, 2012

...as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, Can you see anything? it was all I could do to get out the words, Yes, wonderful things. Howard Carter, Tomb of Tutankhamen Taking inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges Book of Imaginary Beings, we will imagine a place which brims with a miscellany of fantastical structures, set within a distant fictional land. Each student will discover, record and archive a series of architectures that reside within this land and collectively these findings will form a comprehensive archive of a wondrous world. These architectures may be wholly fantastical or they may be visions or distortions of what is real or has the potential to be so. We will start by transporting ourselves into a distant time where the built environment is not what we know it to be. It has instead evolved, progressed or digressed through a process of (un)natural selection into a curious yet strangely familiar landscape. Borges compilation of 120 imaginary beings is like a map of the endless labyrinth of human imagination and its contents. It holds, as it were, a mirror up to dreaming. By reading and drawing on these fantastical creatures we will hold a mirror up to Borges visions by developing our own architectural interpretations of these and henceforth giving these fictional beings a physical presence. Through drawing, sketching and modeling these individual architectural fragments we will create a sort of cabinet of curiosities that describes the Land of Imaginary Buildings through fossil-like imaginations. The workshop will focus on applying analogue craft and drawing techniques in order to deliver highly articulate and specific architectural fragments. The works will range from 2D collages and drawings to 3D crafted elements. Each student will work with a number of key pieces of narrative text from The Book of Imaginary Beings. Through investigation and speculation we will translate these literary chapters into physical architectural manifestations. Alongside this process we will help students document, record and edit the work in order facilitate the development of individual design portfolios. Throughout this workshop we will be looking at the works of artists and architects such as Charles Avery, Joseph Cornell, Mark Dion, The Quay Brothers, Brodsky and Utkin, Walter Pichler, James Wines (SITE) etc... FleaFollyArchitects are spatial storytellers who use narrative and fiction to discover, explore and invent unique architectural propositions encompassing all scales. Operating across, and blurring the boundaries between the fields of architecture, design, art and installation, they use craft as a key component of their work in trying to bring speculative worlds to the wider audience. Their work has been published extensively in books and journals such as Mark Magazine, Blueprint, Icon, Domus and the Architectural Review. They have exhibited around the world, notably at the Design Museum in London, RAW Gallery of Architecture in Winnipeg, Sci-Arc in Los Angeles and the Beijing Biennale. FleaFollyArchitects was founded in London by Pascal Bronner and Thomas Hillier who met whilst completing their Masters in Architecture at The Bartlett School of Architecture. Since graduating both founders have worked for award-winning architecture practices in London. They currently teach Architecture at The Bartlett and University of Greenwich. Drawing upon their multidisciplinary experience in both architectural practice and through architectural teaching, their objective no matter what the subject remains the same: to surprise and delight!

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1. Mark Dion2. Etienne Louis Boulee3. Horniman Museum4. Brothers Quay5. Magritte6. Max Ernst

7. Coin-Operated Automaton8. Brodsky and Utkin9. Joseph Cornell10. Francois Schuitten11. Anatomical Drawing12. Walter Pichler