BEAUTY MEMORY ENTROPY

MAKING AND VISUALIZING

 

Revealing the Ghost of the Abandoned, Destroyed and Imagined, creating a complete Architectural Reality

Katie Graham, Carleton University

 

ABSTRACT

A piece of architecture is typically understood from what remains of it today: a finished product

that shows little to no evidence of what was once part of it or what it could have been. This

understanding unfortunately disregards a large portion of the architecture’s history, such as

design iterations and proposals that were dismissed, former built components that were

demolished or destroyed, and imaginative interpretations that embellish on the actual. If

architecture is defined as that which is the embodiment of the architectural idea, it is not

limited to the building and allowed to include the unbuilt iterations. Architecture becomes the

drawing, painting, physical and digital models, past, future, and possible transformations; not

just what stands at completion. Unfortunately, the unrealized, destroyed, and fictional

iterations of a piece of architecture are not present to the visitor of the physical construction,

causing them to have an incomplete understanding of the work. To correct this partial

experience of the architectural reality, the built architecture must contain a ghost or trace of

the unrealized, destroyed, or imagined. This presentation will cover examples that use a variety

of techniques to allow the visitor to glimpse this ghost of the possible architectural realities,

such as in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City where the architectural model of a possible final

outcome is given a controlled view through a window; the Heidentor in Carnuntum, Austria

which uses perspective and layering to show visitors the former completed work; and the

Shape Living Exhibition at Nottingham, England that uses mixed reality to let visitors see the

fictional and former interpretations of the castle. These examples will reveal that, despite the

difference in tools, the key elements of point of view, framing, and perspective are integral in

showing the possible with the actual.

 

BIO

Katie Graham is a PhD student at the Architecture School of Urbanism and Design at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Her PhD research focuses on how mixed reality can be used to reveal the multi-reality history of a building, including the failed proposals, demolished or destroyed elements, present condition, and the future iterations. Katie also works at Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS), a research lab affiliated with the school of architecture whose focus is on how advanced digital technologies and hybrid forms of representation can reveal the invisible aspects of architecture, heritage conservation, and construction. Current projects Katie has been involved in are the Senate Virtual Tour and Building Canada’s Parliament, which use a multitude of representation methods including panoramas, photogrammetry, photography, web, and virtual reality to create digitally enhanced storytelling of Canada’s Senate and the Parliamentary Precinct.