The birth of fiction architecture is similar to the birth of the novel

The basic idea of this blog is that a fictional mode of expression  should exist within architecture which is equivalent to the novel in literature.  So, how did the novel begin?

 The earliest ones were imitations of real accounts of adventures (eg Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe) and were originally published without the author’s name on them, but purported to be written by the ‘hero’. While most people would have been well aware of their fictional status, it is not unlikely that some readers would have thought they were real accounts!

Very soon the novel blossomed into a much fuller expression with complex plots, intimate descriptions of the thoughts and feelings of the characters, and the phenomenon of the ordinary person as hero.

It is hard to imagine life without novels but, before the eighteenth century, they didn’t exist.

It is this perspective that has led me to the position of proposing that a similar situation exists in the world of architecture at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and that there is a huge amount of pent-up energy amongst architects to explore a fictive mode of expression.

Like a novel, a work of fiction architecture is only possible if the architect adopts pretence as the starting point for the narrative aspects of the design. And like a novel, the building is ‘read’ as a pretence by the knowing viewer, and enjoyed as such.

Popular Fiction Architecture

The author

This blog was started in February 2009 by Simon Thornton, a Melbourne architect and partner in Simon and Freda Thornton Architects.

The purpose is to nurture a new type of built architecture known as Fiction Architecture, and any interested person is welcome to submit comments, queries and suggestions.

Definitions

FICTION ARCHITECTURE

‘Fiction architecture’  in the sense that I am proposing  may be defined as the expression of ideas through the medium of building, using strategies such as imitation, pretence, trickery and playful deception.

This differs from the main body of architecture, ‘non-fiction architecture’, which may be defined as the expression of ideas through the medium of building, using a direct, clear, honest and didactic approach.

Fiction architecture is not to be confused with architecture fiction writing (also called architectural fiction writing), where a novel or other piece of fiction writing  is organised around a plot or theme relating to architecture, or is an exploration of architectural themes. See works by Barry Maitland and Bruce Sterling.

Also, it should not be confused with imaginary or unbuilt architecture, or architectural drawings of a speculative kind.

Further, it should not be confused with non-fiction architecture which has been inspired by comic book depictions of future worlds, such as the influence of Dan Dare comics on British High Tech architecture (if indeed such influence actually exists). Nor should it be confused with ‘futuristic’ architecture deriving from earlier predictive work, such as the drawings of Archigram.

And again, for those who read architectural theory, it is not to be confused with Peter Eisenman’s idea that Modernism itself was a fiction. In my view Modernist architecture was generally didactic (instructive),  and was therefore a non-fiction expression. Like Marxist theory, Modernist theory may look naive and wrong in parts, but that does not turn it retrospectively into fiction. Documentary films may contain errors in fact or wrong beliefs, but that does not alter them from non-fiction to fiction. 

GENRES OF FICTION ARCHITECTURE

Fiction architecture may be subdivided into ‘popular fiction architecture’ such as houses built in the shape of castles, and the more intellectual and explorative ‘new fiction architecture’ which tends to be an open-ended exploration of fictive themes by an architect with a developed skill in design. (Here I have borrowed the word ‘new’ from ‘new music’, a term used by contemporary composers working within the discourse of classical music to describe contemporary compositions.)

Further genres include ‘science fiction architecture’, ‘historical fiction architecture’ and ‘fantasy fiction architecture’.

Gallery of Fictive Architecture

Here are some examples of work by architects which display a fictive premise or tendency.

Let’s start with a building of my own which uses literal representation in a way which makes the architecture unambiguously fictive.

The Gryphon

 The Melbourne Recital Centre

The implied motion of the partly-withdrawn white ‘packing’ is a playful deception – a fictive gesture within a non-fiction narrative.

The change of scale to ‘supersize’ is a also fictive aspect.  As we enter the building we experience a converse Alice in Wonderland sense of having shrunk. 

Definitely one of my favourites.     

The Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance Visitor Centre

This project is also by Ashton Raggatt McDougall. The project incorporates a non-fiction narrative (including fictive re-enactments) derived from the purpose of the building. The top photo shows  a fictive re-enactment of a shell or bomb crater adjacent to the original Shrine of Remembrance. This is repeated on the west side of the Shrine (not shown) and the two are linked with an underground chamber. This fictive spatial order echoes the architecture of the trenches and tunnels of war, and in so doing allows the visitor to connect with the  reality of being there.

The Mornington Centre

The Mornington Centre by Lyons.

In his article ‘Surface fiction: Lyons Architecture practice profile’ (Monument #37 ) Brent Allpress writes  ‘Lyons draw on a scenographic architectural tradition that can be traced back to the Picturesque movement of the eighteenth century. The picturesque image tended to efface its own artifice through an idealisation of ‘nature’ as a framed view. While Lyons also design more for the view than the plan, the fictive construction of the image is given overt prominence.’

http://www.architecture.rmit.edu.au/People/Allpress_Surface_Fiction.php

The Aqueduct and Tent House

Thinking about this weightiness reminded me of the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, where two ideas of existence are contrasted: Is a person’s action of no consequence and disappears into oblivion? Or should we act as if every action repeats heavily for all eternity, as Neitzche argued? This juxtaposition of lightness and heaviness suggested an architectural representation. As the aqueduct seemed to stand for repetition and heaviness, by contrast the rooms of the house could be in the form of tents – the lightest form of architecture. To refine the formal language of the house, I visited websites of contemporary Medieval pageants, and adopted the language style of the striped tents, and for the aqueduct part of the house, the aesthetic of the wooden battlements. 

This house invites reflections on conception, birth, death, time, morality, belief and faith within a fiction narrative unconnected with the context or purpose of the building.            

This gallery will be extended and updated.

Please send suggestions, photos and links to simonthornton@smartchat.net.au

What is architecture fiction? And what is fiction architecture?

Architecture fiction is something you write or draw.

Fiction architecture is built work which contains fictional ideas.