Tacet
Painterly Architectonic
2022
Comparative Study
Instructor: Steven Holl, Dimitra Tsachrelia
Comparative Study
Instructor: Steven Holl, Dimitra Tsachrelia
This project seek for bridges between Russian constructivist architecture by Iakov Chernikhov and Cubo-futurism paintings by Lyubov Popova. Seminar explores the interconnecting relationship between Arts and Architecture in history.
Lyubov Popova had a short but prolific life. Her early stage paintings reveal how her artistic ideology was formed from studying the human body and the conjunction of the parts. In her sketch of figures, she analyzed the human body with multiple three-dimensional axes. Her composition features very angular shapes, emphasizing edges and the intersection of volumes. In this sense, she constructed figures with edges, starting from a joint, and developing bones and muscles. This style carried on to her later practice, and she coined the term “Painterly Architectonics”, pointing out that to paint is to construct.
Popova’s painterly architectonics and Chernikhov’s architecture on paper share very similar methodologies: intersecting planes and volumes, and extreme abstraction. If we look into the details, both were particularly interested in the joints. For Popova, it’s embedded in the parts of figures and joints; and for Chernikhov, it started with pure geometric forms. His geometric compositions experiment with orthogonal and dynamic intersections. Architectural Fantasies included his constructivist architectural imagination, but intersecting volumes is still a motive.
Having found this connection, given all these moments of structural intersection, I merged the two worlds together and reinterpreted Popova’s Seated Figure (1916) with architectonics. Architectonics gives the painting spatiality and connects volumes directly to architectural elements. The very angular and machine-like interpretation aims to explore spatial indications of the original painting. It also ties to her later works on both textile design and her societal engagements: the human body being seen as machine, strength, and resource.