Portraits. Architectural Parables
This extensive black architecture book in a slender portrait format with an open spine and a transparent dust jacket provides far-ranging insights into the teaching practices of François Charbonnet and Patrick Heiz (Made In). More than 60 works by teams of students are presented in identical fashion: each over four pages containing a title and a brief description; 10 to 15 reference images/text excerpts from cultural history; three plans; and three atmospheric images taken from film, art, architecture, and so on. They are preceded by four longer canonical texts – by Marcel Proust, Oswald Mathias Ungers, Gilles Deleuze/ Félix Guattari and William S. Burroughs – that are often invoked in Charbonnet and Heiz’s classes. These four texts run in a narrow band and relatively large font across the bottom edge of the page and are illustrated with one or two large pictures per double page. The effect is similar to comments on a slideshow presentation or a voiceover on a film. All the pictures are from the image pools of the various study projects; they are published here for the first time (and greatly enlarged) in order to illustrate certain points in the canonical texts. What emerges is a remix of theory, cultural history and architectural plans which despite the overwhelming mass of contrasting material has something beguiling about it. At times it is reminiscent of science fiction, and while some of the portraitformat page layouts make a dramatic or almost ‘sacred’ impression, the lovingly detailed typography comes across like a quotation of classic book design.
