Between Daedalus and Ariadne

Ed Frith

doi:10.51588/eaaeacp.56

Abstract

This paper investigates the hidden body in architectural education, and the importance of place over space (Ingold, 2012), through three body, architecture, and movement research projects, where explicitly, at the centre of the architectural investigation, is the body. In the first research project, a mapping of the body in a social environment; in the second, an environmental and spatial audit of the places of drowning across the South West of the UK for the RNLI, reveals the mental and physical pressures that the body can be under; and thirdly, an installation project in the British Pavilion in Venice, which exhibits an experiential journey of mutability between architecture and the body. The position and context of the mythological Ariadne (Colomina, 2011) versus Daedalus (McEwen, 1994) as either architect or choreographer is graduated across the projects set with the ecological context of Guattari’s, ‘Three Ecologies’ (1989)

Highlights

INTO THE LABYRINTHThe body in the curriculum of schools of architecture is lost
This paper introduces three recent body, architecture, and movement research projects, by architecture postgraduates at AUB, where explicitly, at the centre of the architectural inves‐ tigation, is the body
The performative body research that moves between architecture and choreographer is reflected by the binary nature of the mythological metaphor between Daeda‐ lus and Ariadne (Colomina, 2002)

Summary

INTO THE LABYRINTH

The body in the curriculum of schools of architecture is lost. It is always implicitly there, as the architectural design process acts, both with and for the body. This paper originally started out arguing for revealing, from within the hidden school, the movement of the body, as both maker and receiver of architecture, and the importance of place not space. When the programme emerged at the conference, the paper found itself, in the ‘content’ (curriculum) section of the conference This appeared to raise the importance of the return of body’s role in architectural education in the curriculum, and the need for its return and embodiment within the projects and research. In the first research project, a mapping of the body in a social envi‐ ronment, explores aerial notions of a social ecology with Zaha Hadid Architects; in the second, an environmental and spatial audit of the places of drowning across the South West of the UK for the RNLI, reveals the mental and physical pressures that the body can be under; and thirdly, an installation project in the British Pavilion in Venice, exhibits an experiential journey of mutability between architecture and the body

Spatial Mapping with ZHA in the AUB Gallery

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