Re-discovering the Creative Collage in the Architectural Representation

Abstract

Collage has been termed the most important artistic device of the twentieth century in artistic representation. Collage proposed radically different ideas about the nature of order, and about the nature of artistic space. It is not limited to the visual arts, but also provides a means of contending with a diverse sense of order by association and dependence on the relationships of disparate elements, not necessarily the elements themselves. It is a unique means of presentation that has had a profound effect on art and architecture. This paper raises two critical questions: which new order does collage propose? How has the idea of collage affected the making of architecture? As a means of understanding the implications of collage as a method of representation, this study aims to describe how these principles – order, relationships, and communication – have been used in the contemporary architectural representation.