Sofía Quiroga Fernández

When living in tiny apartments without proper ventilation, sunlight, contact with nature, or the possibility of social interaction, people tend to generate creative and flexible design strategies to overcome these difficulties. Private and public spaces can be reconfigured into multifunctional areas by using simple but effective means
to create links between home and nature.
This text-based essay identifies existing and historical architectural discourse that addresses social, cultural, and perceptual issues as a means to locate conceptual solutions suitable for buildings and flats. An inquiry into William Heath Robinson’s (1872–1944) drawings indicates that these images, while satiric, were inspired by complex issues that crossed disciplinary boundaries, taking architectural narrative into the political, cultural, economic, aesthetic, and social discourse. The satirical engines created by Robinson constitute a socio-political critique through the representation of biting solutions to the difficulties found in new settlements in the post-industrial city. During this period, many people living in the United Kingdom (UK) moved from the countryside to the cities, and consistently found themselves living in small apartments. The difficulties arising from the lack of space were addressed by Robinson’s unbalanced and hypothetical design solutions that included proposing indoor space fabulations that would extend traditional forms of users’ occupation. Though an engineer who identified problems and then invented solutions, his creative work was a strange contraption rooted in impossible ideas. He illustrated the possibilities of bringing life to the common areas of shared housing by transforming tiny apartments by adding mobile solutions with the aim to improve the lives of inhabitants. The concepts behind these creative solutions traced back one century ago can be seen as a counterpart to contemporary transformative interior design strategies.

László Moholy-Nagy worked on the prototype for Light Prop for an Electric Stage for eight years, from 1922 to 1930, developing several sketches and designs. The final drawings and model were made with the collaboration of the Hungarian architect Stefan Sebök (István Sebők). The device was built by the AEG company, and it was displayed for the first time in the Werkbund exhibition held in Paris in 1930, where it appeared as an autonomous aesthetic object. This was clearly captured in the film Light Play: Black-White-Gray, in which Moholy-Nagy recorded its kinetic quality in the spirit of the abstract films developed at that time. The film clearly shows the motion of the lighting device as a formal exercise of abstraction using double exposures, special effects and close-ups. The Light Prop underwent several alterations over time to keep it working in a variety of exhibitions around Europe and America. In 1956, after Moholy-Nagy passed away, his widow, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, donated it to...

Panoramas and dioramas became popular visual entertainments in the nineteenth century as optical-mechanical playhouses that created illusions on a stage. Their special architecture and representations recreated virtual travel experiences in enclosed rooms. The viewer was seemingly immersed in places previously experienced only by pioneers, travelers, aeronauts, or sailors. The unique characteristics of panoramas and dioramas enabled them to be used as propaganda tools in World Exhibitions.
The panorama represents one of the first attempts to construct a virtual space. Its architecture was a fundamental tool in creating an ephemeral optical environment that depended on spatial relationships between representation, space, and spectator. The spatial layout changed the perspective of the viewer, requiring a tour to complete the perception. The panorama system evolved toward the moving panorama and contributed directly to the diorama’s invention. The diorama meant a change in the observer’s position in a predesigned performance, incorporating a motionless viewer in a mechanical device subject to a temporary display of the visual experience. It stripped the viewers’ autonomy by placing them on a rotating mobile platform, allowing different views and changing optical effects to produce a virtual experience.
This paper examines the significance of these immersive spaces in changing the traditional relationship between viewer and space in the nineteenth century.

La propuesta analiza el espacio de la desaparecida ciudad amurallada de Kowloon a través de las fotografías de G. Lambord e I. Girard y de los dibujos de Terasawa Kazumi, apreciando lo urbano desde el punto de vista etnográfico social y resaltando la idea de comunidad como elemento fundamental e indispensable en el desarrollo de este laberintico slum vertical. Lambot y Girard, fascinados por este espacio urbano describen un espacio que a pesar de sus deficiencias logra entender la ciudad como una mega estructura orgánica que se adapta espacial y socialmente a los requisitos cambiantes de los usuarios. Sus fotografías recogen la vida cotidiana de este lugar durante sus últimos años, convirtiéndose en un documento público urbano y social que facilita la recreación y entendimiento de un lugar desaparecido. Por su parte, los dibujos de Terasawa Kazumi reflejan a raves de secciones, vistas panorámicas y detalles de diferentes areas, la organización espacial, las actividades desarrolladas y la vida en los pequeños espacios que constituían cada bloque incluyendo la relación entre estos. El concepto de alta densidad y la disolución de los limites entre lo público y lo privado es claramente mostrado en la sección general y en los detalles. Ambos enfoques investigan aspectos sociales y arquitectonicos en relacion a la ciudad de Kowloon que sirven como base para la recreacion espacial de la misma, ilustrando conceptos y reflexiones sobre el desarrollo del lugar, permitiendo la observación y el análisis.

The Moholy–Nagy light device was built as a model for the scenography space to experiment with space modifications through the mechanical movement, creating changes in light and colour. It incorporated movement, mechanical energy and industrial aesthetics in the work of art. Moholy-Nagy worked in the "Light Space Modulator," also known as “the architecture of light,” for eight years from 1922 to 1930, developing several sketches and designs and making the final drawings and model with the collaboration of the Hungarian Architect Stefan Sebök. The AEG Company built the Device, which appeared for the first time in the Werkbund exhibition held in Paris in 1930, where the image appeared as an autonomous aesthetic object. He reduced industrial production techniques to an exercise of formal abstraction; filmed in the film "White, Black, Grey," Moholy-Nagy collected the kinetic quality of the device in the abstract films of the time. He would later use the knowledge acquired from it to achieve the effects reflected by the city of the future in the frames of the film “Things to Come,” directed by William Cameron Menzies in 1936. Moholy-Nagy managed to transmit –in a 90 seconds' frame– the atmosphere and dynamism of the city of the future through images based on the objects included in industrial processes. He defined the space light modulator as a mechanism to demonstrate the phenomenon of light and movement, trying to take to space the ideas that appear in his texts, where he poses new media as creative resources, not only capable of reproducing reality but as instruments of creation. Some authors refer to this type of work as a multimedia structure concerning the implication of dimensions, optics, kinetics and time for its restructuring, continually altering the relationship of traditional static order. His studies and experiments currently constitute a solid base for numerous researchers regarding space and perception.
The electric stage suffered several alterations to keep it working in several exhibitions around Europe and America. After Moholy passed away, his widow, Sybil Moholy, donated it to the Busch- Reisinger Museum at Harvard in 1956. After suffering several damages, they were finally reconstructed in 1970 because of an exhibition held in New York at the Howard Wise Gallery led by Harvard art historian and researcher Nan Piene, where other contemporary explorations around lighting were shown. Two copies were made, one for this exhibition and the other one for the Venice Biennale. These reproductions were kept and sent to the Bauhaus Archive in Darmstadt, and the Van Abbemuseum, where the original suffered several damages during a KunstLichtKunst (Tungsten Art) exhibition.

La Exposición Universal de Montreal de 1967 representa uno de los entornos experimentales más importante del siglo en cuanto a los medios de comunicación, distinguiéndose respecto a los anteriores por su particular uso de las tecnologías audiovisuales, la reivindicación de las pantallas y las nuevas tipologías teatrales desarrolladas para dar cabida a nuevas formas de proyección. El presente artículo explora algunas de las propuestas desarrolladas en Montreal, donde espacio y tecnología trabajan de manera conjunta en pos de una experiencia total.

En el presente articulo, se exploran algunos de los dispositivos luminicos, que constituyen un precedente para el dispositivo creado por Moholy Nagy (Light Space Modulator), y sus influencias en planteamientos posterio­res, estableciendose en los casos estudio, una correspon­dencia entre musica, efecto lumf nico y percepci6n espa­cial, y seiialando significativamente los planteamientos de Thomas Wilfred y Moholy Nagy.

The proposal analyses the space of Kowloon’s walled city through photographs and drawings. The images by Ian Lambot and Greg Girard and the illustrations by Kazumi Terasawa demonstrate a chaotic urban configuration from a social and ethnographic perspective, emphasising the idea of community as a fundamental aspect in the development of this labyrinthine vertical slum narrative. Lambot and Girard, fascinated by this urban space, portray a place that, despite its shortcomings, manages to conceive the city as a mega-organic entity that adapts spatially and socially to the changing needs of users. The photographs collect the daily life of this place, recording the actions of the inhabitants in direct relation to the urban configuration. Their work serves as both an urban and social document that facilitates understanding of the place.
Additionally, Kazumi Terasawa’s drawings reflect the disposition of private and public space. The illustrations depict the relationship between the living and working areas, showcasing the various activities developed within the tiny blocks comprising this unique city. The general depiction and the illustrated details demonstrate evidence of concepts related to high density and the dissolution of boundaries between public and private. The drawings provide a narrative that explores novel forms of use and occupation, guiding the viewer to discern the interplay between spatial performance and social life. By means of observation and analysis, both approaches explore the social and architectural aspects that provide insights and reflections on Kowloon’s spatial development.