Architecture and Industry in Performance

“The real power of site-specific work is that it somehow activates, or engages with, the narratives of the site … That might be with its formal architecture, or it might be with the character of the building. It might be to do with the history of that building.”[1]

Now underway with the construction of ideas for our site-specific performance my group has settled on a project to explore further. The main theme of our work will be the history of architecture and industry of the GCW Library site and surrounding area. The library building itself now has many modular additions onto the brick core, most of which have floor to ceiling windows allowing for a large amount of natural light to enter the space. From the outside these windows can give off an almost reflective look but certainly make no attempt to blend in with the older part of the building contrasting the old and new. Our idea would take inspiration from Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Reichstag (1995). Their work which involved “a work force of 90 professional climbers and 120 installation workers”[2] was done over a series of days using a woven polypropylene fabric. The artists who designed the piece claim it “represents not only 24 years of efforts in the lives of the artists but also years of team work by its leading members … the symbol of Democracy … [and] the very essence of the Reichstag”. With this in mind our idea is not to externally wrap the entire building but to instead, throughout the day, return the architecture of the building to its original brick appearance by decorating the floor to ceiling windows with a selection of materials that resemble brickwork. We feel our piece will “engage with, the narrative of the site” through the architecture revealing histories, potentially to people who may not be aware of them, and bringing them into the present day.

 “To construct another architecture within the existing architecture, imposing another arrangement, floor planning, map or orientation … confounds everyday hierarchies of place and patterns of movement.”[3]

For the second part of our work we will reconstruct the industrial railway lines that companies used to transport goods. Where possible we want this to be historically accurate. To do this we have looked at photographs of the area, paying specific notice to one aerial shot clearly displaying 3 tracks and one off shoot. That said we have decided to reconstruct the lines, using bamboo canes, based on the architects plans and maps of the area in order to write over the current use with history interrupting the “patterns of movement” of the people who inhabit the space daily. Our wish is to construct these lines during the night like workers on the railway as not to disrupt industry. We feel imposing this architecture in the early hours will provide an overnight transformation of space. Both ideas are subject to clearance.

---