Esquisse 2

The premise for the second esquisse derived from discussion about Boullee’s Monument to Newton. Words that I attach to that project are: visionary, monumental, sublime, timelessness, collectivity, and continuity

My task was to design a building that exists only on paper, architecture of the imagination that explored the idea of monumentality in architecture.

 

The design resembles that of a 35-storey skyscraper of the type familiar to us, but which is built in a mammoth excavation beneath the ground. Only a single storey protrudes about the surface. The building is cylindrical, with a hollow centre and a large reflector above the surface collects sunlight.

By my emphasis is on the significance of the ideology behind this earthscraper. It is not a monument; it is in fact the antithesis of monumentality. A monument beckons us to remember and reminds us of power. Skyscrapers are perhaps our modern answer to monumentality because they recall the power that commands the building of such big imposing structures. They reinforce power and authority, and perhaps a hint of vanity. However by inverting the skyscraper underground, the structure looses its visual height, and becomes an earthly element connecting people to earth, there is no view, only an oculus admitting light.

Buried underground, the building is unpretentious, unassuming. It debunks totalitarian ambition and ridicules human vanity. The design is not a positive preaching, or an utopian vision, but more important to me, I hope it’s a moralising image.