Architect and Lecturer specialising in spatial agency and material practices, research inquiries into the life and work of Pierre Jeanneret and vernacular structures in India. Lecturing in the History of Construction and leading a design unit at the Dublin School of Architecture, T.U. Dublin, Bolton Street, Dublin 1, Ireland. Address: Dublin School of Architecture,
Dublin Institute of Technology,
Bolton Street,
Dublin 1.
Digging in the Dirt
An Indian Habitacle*:
Mud and moisture in the bricks of Bihar.
The thesis a... more Digging in the Dirt An Indian Habitacle*: Mud and moisture in the bricks of Bihar.
The thesis aims to unlock the tacit knowledge of an archaic building tradition to discover the pulse of a Bihar village, knowing of flash flood , earth shake and drought in north eastern India, ‘and he said to me once that while his work so far had been a counterpoint to nature, he now realized that he had to have a pact with nature.’1 The work attempts experiment with mud brick by means of large scale pencil drawings and material assemblages that build an architecture from responses to local custom, climate and materiality. ‘Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas, lay down its arms.’2 Reflective parables tackle the boundaries between the real, the imagined and the symbolic in response to ‘Mud, Hair and Dirt’3 Plato’s ingredients for the body of the world, ‘what matters is not ideas as such but their resonances and suggestions.’4
1. Balkrishna Doshi on Le Corbusier, in interview with Carmen Kagal, 1986. 2. Sigmund Freud, Dostoevsky and Parricide, Collected Papers, vol v. 1928. 3 . Timaeus, Plato, circa 360BC. 4.Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, 1962. * Habitacle, from the latin habitaculum ; a dwelling place.
This work sets out to explore the role played by Pierre Jeanneret in the design and construction ... more This work sets out to explore the role played by Pierre Jeanneret in the design and construction of the city of Chandigarh between 1951-65. In the enormous task of anchoring the Chandigarh project Jeanneret played the role as faithful executioner of Le Corbusier’s visions both for the Capitol complex and the wider city.
Jeanneret was an innovative bricoleur leaving a trail of his furniture and architecture across the city. The paper begins to explore the dynamics between Jeanneret as the anchor to Le Corbusier’s architectural acrobatics.One must hold up a Corb shaped filter to try and find Pierre in the half light behind the glare of Le Corbusier’s persona. Pierre quietly floats by on a car tire in the sea of architectural literature fixated on Le Corbusier. Although there is currently little architectural writing directly focused on Pierre Jeanneret, he was never far from the thoughts of Charlotte Perriand or Le Corbusier, who respectively left to posterity an autobiography and copious archives of correspondence from which much can be deduced. This text aims to uncover something of the complex relationship between the Jeanneret cousins and the individuality of Pierre Jeanneret’s work.
Jeanneret’s career is a case of hiding in plain sight, his contribution to the success of Le Corbusier’s life time corpus has largely been obscured by the passage of time, by his reserved personality and the endlessly propelled Le Corbusier’s mythology. Perriand, Xenakis and Wogensky also never managed to fully escape the Corbusian event horizon.Drawing on direct observation of the multitude of built work in Chandigarh executed by the cousins the text examines something of the humanity of both protagonists, and acts as is an introduction to their lost time zone.
Digging in the Dirt
An Indian Habitacle*:
Mud and moisture in the bricks of Bihar.
The thesis a... more Digging in the Dirt An Indian Habitacle*: Mud and moisture in the bricks of Bihar.
The thesis aims to unlock the tacit knowledge of an archaic building tradition to discover the pulse of a Bihar village, knowing of flash flood , earth shake and drought in north eastern India, ‘and he said to me once that while his work so far had been a counterpoint to nature, he now realized that he had to have a pact with nature.’1 The work attempts experiment with mud brick by means of large scale pencil drawings and material assemblages that build an architecture from responses to local custom, climate and materiality. ‘Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas, lay down its arms.’2 Reflective parables tackle the boundaries between the real, the imagined and the symbolic in response to ‘Mud, Hair and Dirt’3 Plato’s ingredients for the body of the world, ‘what matters is not ideas as such but their resonances and suggestions.’4
1. Balkrishna Doshi on Le Corbusier, in interview with Carmen Kagal, 1986. 2. Sigmund Freud, Dostoevsky and Parricide, Collected Papers, vol v. 1928. 3 . Timaeus, Plato, circa 360BC. 4.Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, 1962. * Habitacle, from the latin habitaculum ; a dwelling place.
This work sets out to explore the role played by Pierre Jeanneret in the design and construction ... more This work sets out to explore the role played by Pierre Jeanneret in the design and construction of the city of Chandigarh between 1951-65. In the enormous task of anchoring the Chandigarh project Jeanneret played the role as faithful executioner of Le Corbusier’s visions both for the Capitol complex and the wider city.
Jeanneret was an innovative bricoleur leaving a trail of his furniture and architecture across the city. The paper begins to explore the dynamics between Jeanneret as the anchor to Le Corbusier’s architectural acrobatics.One must hold up a Corb shaped filter to try and find Pierre in the half light behind the glare of Le Corbusier’s persona. Pierre quietly floats by on a car tire in the sea of architectural literature fixated on Le Corbusier. Although there is currently little architectural writing directly focused on Pierre Jeanneret, he was never far from the thoughts of Charlotte Perriand or Le Corbusier, who respectively left to posterity an autobiography and copious archives of correspondence from which much can be deduced. This text aims to uncover something of the complex relationship between the Jeanneret cousins and the individuality of Pierre Jeanneret’s work.
Jeanneret’s career is a case of hiding in plain sight, his contribution to the success of Le Corbusier’s life time corpus has largely been obscured by the passage of time, by his reserved personality and the endlessly propelled Le Corbusier’s mythology. Perriand, Xenakis and Wogensky also never managed to fully escape the Corbusian event horizon.Drawing on direct observation of the multitude of built work in Chandigarh executed by the cousins the text examines something of the humanity of both protagonists, and acts as is an introduction to their lost time zone.
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An Indian Habitacle*:
Mud and moisture in the bricks of Bihar.
The thesis aims to unlock the tacit knowledge of an archaic building tradition to discover the pulse of a Bihar village, knowing of flash flood , earth shake and drought in north eastern India, ‘and he said to me once that while his work so far had been a counterpoint to nature, he now realized that he had to have a pact with nature.’1 The work attempts experiment with mud brick by means of large scale pencil drawings and material assemblages that build an architecture from responses to local custom, climate and materiality. ‘Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas, lay down its arms.’2
Reflective parables tackle the boundaries between the real, the imagined and the symbolic in response to ‘Mud, Hair and Dirt’3 Plato’s ingredients for the body of the world, ‘what matters is not ideas as such but their resonances and suggestions.’4
1. Balkrishna Doshi on Le Corbusier,
in interview with Carmen Kagal, 1986.
2. Sigmund Freud, Dostoevsky and Parricide,
Collected Papers, vol v. 1928.
3 . Timaeus, Plato, circa 360BC.
4.Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, 1962.
* Habitacle, from the latin habitaculum ; a dwelling place.
Jeanneret was an innovative bricoleur leaving a trail of his furniture and architecture across the city. The paper begins to explore the dynamics between Jeanneret as the anchor to Le Corbusier’s architectural acrobatics.One must hold up a Corb shaped filter to try and find Pierre in the half light behind the glare of Le Corbusier’s persona. Pierre quietly floats by on a car tire in the sea of architectural literature fixated on Le Corbusier. Although there is currently little architectural writing directly focused on Pierre Jeanneret, he was never far from the thoughts of Charlotte Perriand or Le Corbusier, who respectively left to posterity an autobiography and copious archives of correspondence from which much can be deduced. This text aims to uncover something of the complex relationship between the Jeanneret cousins and the individuality of Pierre Jeanneret’s work.
Jeanneret’s career is a case of hiding in plain sight, his contribution to the success of Le Corbusier’s life time corpus has largely been obscured by the passage of time, by his reserved personality and the endlessly propelled Le Corbusier’s mythology. Perriand, Xenakis and Wogensky also never managed to fully escape the Corbusian event horizon.Drawing on direct observation of the multitude of built work in Chandigarh executed by the cousins the text examines something of the humanity of both protagonists, and acts as is an introduction to their lost time zone.
An Indian Habitacle*:
Mud and moisture in the bricks of Bihar.
The thesis aims to unlock the tacit knowledge of an archaic building tradition to discover the pulse of a Bihar village, knowing of flash flood , earth shake and drought in north eastern India, ‘and he said to me once that while his work so far had been a counterpoint to nature, he now realized that he had to have a pact with nature.’1 The work attempts experiment with mud brick by means of large scale pencil drawings and material assemblages that build an architecture from responses to local custom, climate and materiality. ‘Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas, lay down its arms.’2
Reflective parables tackle the boundaries between the real, the imagined and the symbolic in response to ‘Mud, Hair and Dirt’3 Plato’s ingredients for the body of the world, ‘what matters is not ideas as such but their resonances and suggestions.’4
1. Balkrishna Doshi on Le Corbusier,
in interview with Carmen Kagal, 1986.
2. Sigmund Freud, Dostoevsky and Parricide,
Collected Papers, vol v. 1928.
3 . Timaeus, Plato, circa 360BC.
4.Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, 1962.
* Habitacle, from the latin habitaculum ; a dwelling place.
Jeanneret was an innovative bricoleur leaving a trail of his furniture and architecture across the city. The paper begins to explore the dynamics between Jeanneret as the anchor to Le Corbusier’s architectural acrobatics.One must hold up a Corb shaped filter to try and find Pierre in the half light behind the glare of Le Corbusier’s persona. Pierre quietly floats by on a car tire in the sea of architectural literature fixated on Le Corbusier. Although there is currently little architectural writing directly focused on Pierre Jeanneret, he was never far from the thoughts of Charlotte Perriand or Le Corbusier, who respectively left to posterity an autobiography and copious archives of correspondence from which much can be deduced. This text aims to uncover something of the complex relationship between the Jeanneret cousins and the individuality of Pierre Jeanneret’s work.
Jeanneret’s career is a case of hiding in plain sight, his contribution to the success of Le Corbusier’s life time corpus has largely been obscured by the passage of time, by his reserved personality and the endlessly propelled Le Corbusier’s mythology. Perriand, Xenakis and Wogensky also never managed to fully escape the Corbusian event horizon.Drawing on direct observation of the multitude of built work in Chandigarh executed by the cousins the text examines something of the humanity of both protagonists, and acts as is an introduction to their lost time zone.