Takeover #13 Lucas Burtin
Between science fiction and sunday stroll
Fifth takeover of the season dear subscribers. Let’s go.
Only for the Takeovers my text will be in italic, just to distinguish it from the guest’s. My name is Federico and welcome to Representations of Architecture #37.
Intro
Aseptic architectures are just one of the elements that Lucas Burtin let us encounter. In his images is narrated a story that aims at the universal through single objects or situations. His work has the grace of Encyclopedia illustrations of the 70s. Found images that earn an additional grain thanks to the risograph print. There is also a mystery hidden inbetween the tiny particles of the print, but I don’t want to discover it.
Insights
First of all the picture below is a kind of trailer I did for a comic I'll never finish. It was supposed to be the story of an alien who is forced to land on earth. Not ready to give up yet, he decides to create his own colony. He imagines a glorious capital which will trounce the biggest cities of the cosmos. ''Here he'll build an infinite palace for the council could meet, here, the governor mansion. Here will be a workers area, which will extend far away beyond the horizon. Here is the future spaceport, where the spaceships from all the known universe will land.
On the center of the image is a view of ''la Cité radieuse'' of Le Corbusier while it was built. Above there are three drawings which came from ''La Villa Cavrois'' by Robert Mallet-Stevens. This house has an interesting story. It has been commanded by a rich industrialist near Lille in France (where I actually live). This was a crazy project with different sorts of marble and type of wood in each room. But following the history of this deindustrialized region which is the North of France, the house have been abandoned and forgotten for year before being restored recently.
These images came from the time when the house was ruined. Look how the perspective of the door shapes the space ! The idea of putting together an inbuilding structure and a ruined house pleases me a lot. Maybe, the fact is to build the dream and the fall at the same time. The house has been built on the top of a hill. Down the hill there are worker residents. Further you walk up the hill there are bigger houses to finish with this big ocean liner on the top (what by the way remind me quite a lot ''Fitzcarraldo'' by Werner Herzog).
Very beautiful links
Here I'd like to share this blogspot, and specifically this article : Bofill : la dimension magique de l'architecture (in french unfortunately but you can scrolling it just for the images).
First of all, I'd like to talk about it, because David Liaudet was my etching teacher and he shared a lot of his passion about brutalist architecture. Secondly, talking about architecture through postcards is quite cool, it allowed a step aside through this overwhelmed object, with a whole history behind, sometimes it’s close to what is represented, sometimes not at all.
Also for an image scavenger like me, that's a marvelous inspiration source (always captioned from the architect to the photographer).
The (abovelinked) article is a sweet and ambivalent tribute to Ricardo Bofill. In it, he underlined a quite relevant posture : the architecture as a way to complete the landscape. This posture instantly put me in mind the Allmannajuvet Zinc Mine Museum, by Peter Zumthor. To illustrate this idea, I didn’t want to show you directly a picture of it but this drawing by Liam Cobb extract from the comics Conditioner.
In the article David Liaudet also talked (Still through the work of Ricardo Bofill) about the architecture as a way to force the utopia. One of my first strong awareness of the architecture came from a district of Bordeaux (where I come from) : Meriadeck. It's a district that inherited the modernist architecture principles. I still remember this strong feeling of pasted utopia. Although nothing works well, It`s almost the future.
You would tell me the architecture is not about imposing your dreams to the other and wanting them to live inside. Then... maybe yes actually. That's what it is only.
Maybe I exaggerate...
Sweet IG Pages
Elegie en bleu is an IG count curated by Geoff Vallon. He shows a very picky selection of illustrations, comics and animated films. With Chloé Thomas, he co-founded recently Collection croisée, a platform dedicated to contemporary art from all over the world. I try not to miss any of his stories where he always finds in a large panel of different artists images that are the most relevant
I specifically chose this image because of Yoshikazu Ebisu. He is I guess my last artistic punch in the face. Published by Breakdown press, Pits of the hell is a super cathartic nightmare.
The second Ig Link is a publication of Mania press, a publishing house from Bordeaux. I discovered the work of Christopher Forgues with one of their books : Relay. Formally perfect : an A3 format, staple and printed in one color (a dark purple). The object beautifully spotlights the drawings of C.F. Just wonderful!
Misc
Just thank you for staying that long. Just a little precision, the image on the header is an extract of the future Tape (maybe available when the newsletter will be out) of Alcôve a small label of experimental music (Field recording I think they say). I illustrate all their tapes since the beginning, each tape describes a planet. This will be the first release I printed myself (quite proud of it).
Thanks Lucas for this pleasant journey through forgotten references.
You can support Lucas’ research via this link.
That’s it for this week kids.
Take care, CIAO
Federico