Casa Da Musica, Porto, Portugal- "Make a Public Building or a Building Public?"
I decided to use the work of Rem Koolhaas as the inspiration for this project. This was because I was particularly attracted to the textures of the materials that the architectural buildings were made from. Therefore, using fabric and paper I tried to recreate the effects that are given by manipulating the materials and using various decorative techniques such as tucks, gathering and weaving. I think that I investigated a range of techniques well, however if I were to do it again, I would probably look at ways of manipulating the fabric, using more innovation and less of the traditional techniques.
When beginning my research, I just looked at the architecture as an object without further looking at the context that surrounded the design of the building. By focusing solely on this, it would mean that the piece would be too superficial and my own personal response would not show through in the piece. Therefore, I had to research more into Koolhaas to find why he chose to design each building the way he did. Through doing this, I discovered that the main cause of the designs was not to shock, and try to be diverse, as I had originally thought, rather to fight against the globalisation of the architectural market that began in the 1970’s. The aim of his work was to bring people together again by creating spaces that allowed interaction between individuals through the use of public buildings.
I was particularly inspired by the building ‘Casa Da Musica’, especially what Koolhaas said about it; ‘Make a public building or a building public?’ the aim of this design was to redefine relationships between a public space and those who actually used it. I liked the idea of looking through a window into a life that is very different to your own. Therefore, by using the layers of fabric within a window-like shape I tried to give the effect of this. I think that it depicts this quite well, however I would have liked the depth given to be much greater. I chose to use satin fabric as it is easily manipulated into the shapes that I wanted. There was a disadvantage of using this fabric however. Because satin is a very traditional fabric, it ages my work and does not reflect the new and innovative materials used by Koolhaas. Therefore, next time I will probably travel further afield in order to source my fabrics so that I will have a bigger range of fabric types.
