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Metropolitan
Landscapes #3, pastel/mixed media, 46" x 58".
Coalescent
Constructions #45, pastel/mixed media, 46" x 58".
Coalescent
Constructions #46, pastel/mixed media, 46" x 58".
Coalescent
Constructions #48, pastel/mixed media, 46" x 58".
Coalescent
Constructions #49, pastel/mixed media, 46" x 58".
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Architectural Art by Christian CulverCategories: Personnel
contributed by Margaret
Wazuka
August 24, 2001
Young architect wins
international design competition for artwork.
Editor's note: Christian Culver's art, beautiful
hand-drawings of three-dimensional environmental design, recently
won an international design competition, the Nagoya Design
Do, Japan. The competition was created to provide
an opportunity for young designers to develop their skills and
exchange ideas. Competing against more than 1,000 entries, Culver
was the only American entrant to win. The theme was 'the future
passed through,' and the competition asked for work that depicted
'the power of life encapsulated in space and time.'
Presented here is a
statement by Culver about his artwork.
The notion that architecture has been reduced to simply
an object, void of cultural, societal, environmental, and historical
affinity raises the question whether individuals and society are
losing the capability to empathize. Our constructed environment is
primarily dependent upon and made comprehensible by means of vision,
the ability to 'see.' To 'see' is to not just look, but to observe
any and everything, and to be curious to learn. To 'see' is to
empathize.
Today we see art and architecture of the past as
nobody saw it before, we perceive it in a different way. All of us
see hundreds of images everyday in the cities in which we live. In
no other form of society in history has there been such a
concentration of images, such a density of visual messages. One may
remember or forget these messages, but briefly one takes them in,
and for a moment they stimulate the imagination by way of either
memory or expectation. The image belongs to the moment. They never
speak of the present, but often refer to the past and always speak
of the future. We are so accustomed to being addressed by these
images that we scarcely notice their total impact. A person may
notice a particular image or piece of information because it
corresponds to some particular interest they may have. The fact that
these images belong to the moment, but speak of the future, produces
a strange effect, which has become so familiar that we scarcely
notice it. Usually we pass the image - walking, traveling, or on the
TV screen, somewhat different but even then we are theoretically the
active agent - we can look away, turn down the volume. Yet despite
this, one has the impression that images are continually passing.
What does this way of seeing mean for architecture and objects in
general? Do we still consider the subjective aspect rather than the
objective? Is architecture continuously being reduced to simply an
image or object? Do we still 'see?'
My work combines shape,
color, form, and architectural 'citygraphs'. The work literally
translates a physical reality into a two-dimensional 'constructed
map'. A map as a vehicle for a phenomenological way of 'seeing.'
The contemporary Metropolis is a series of fragmented
'instances' that, when rarely visualized as a whole, become a series
of blurred locales referenced only by shape, color, and image. The
transformation from a three-dimensional environment into two
dimensions, or from an 'architectural environment' into an 'art
environment', becomes the 'in between' through which my work is
generated. A Metropolis is a navigational landscape; a series of
adventures for the engaged. My work is the two-dimensional journey
of such a landscape. It is a completely unique journey for each
individual - always taking on new meanings.
My attempt is to
engage the viewer on two levels, one on a large scale, and secondly
on a small scale. The large scale investigates the relationships of
colors, fields, and the viewers' sense of place. The small scale
focuses upon very detailed, fragmented, yet linked 'instances' or
'discoveries', that as a whole create a relationship; hence
'Coalescent Constructions'.
To 'see', an individual must
elicit/explore their emphatic tendencies to absorb a two-dimensional
visual impression - an image with direct links to a physical
reality; displaced from its reality yet maintaining a coalescent
cultural parallelism. The individual obtains an abstracted image -
an image that attempts to clarify an environment and an
architectural condition. Empathy must be employed in order to obtain
a reading, observation of detail is crucial to the way of seeing.
Ideally, the image would ultimately allow the individual to
assimilate a method of seeing, which becomes directly applicable to
a three-dimensional environment from which the image was detracted.
The 'image' in this case is an image void of action/representation.
It, however, portrays an inherent method of acting and seeing. The
image belongs wholly to the past, present, and future. The
message presented by the image becomes a catalyst for the
imagination; eliciting a process of curiosity, questioning,
understanding, assimilation, and reposition.
If this process can
translate and apply itself to a three-dimensional reality, an
'architectural cultural biography' is assimilated. It can then
establish itself as a precedent for further qualification of
acquisition and inquiry into cultural edifices, identities, and
repositories.
The action transposes itself into the
assimilated map - a subconscious map through which a new identity,
created by the individual, elicits cultural identities and actions
that provide transparent vehicles for the future.
Christian
Culver
Christian Culver is currently an
Intern Architect at Rosser
International in Atlanta Georgia and
works on large sports arenas. He has a bachelor of design degree
from the University of Florida and a master of architecture degree
from the State University of New York at Buffalo. |
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| NGuyen : ilike this architect |
| Luis Vallejos : Me parece interesante el uso del
fragmento, como una parte univoca de la ciudad una imagen de
identidad, una proximidad al entorno inmediato, y la percepcion del
medio a traves de herramientas morfologicas, culturales, de
significado, espaciales. que dan cuenta de una estructura de
analisis y diagnostico claro de una realidad. la arquitectura y el
arte deben permanecer unidos, y potenciar los vinculos mutuos. Luis
Vallejos. arquitecto escultor
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