Anthony Vidler – Skin and Bone

In this reading Vidler introduces the idea of folds/folding through various theorists, artistic movements, and architectural concepts.

Folds it seems is more than just a formal exploration of bending lines or planes, it is a wormhole of sorts that connects space, time, ideas and things. Also metaphysically it joins the mind body and soul. This is described by a sketch, “Le Maison Baroque”, a two story house in which the second story is closed to the outside world but has openings in the floor to allow for a each sense to drape out into the ‘body from the ‘mind’. . The ‘curtain’ them becoming the receiver of imagery, like a camera. The difference between an ordinary camera and our minds though would be that as we receive imagery we immediately begin to build relationships to past imagery and thus our memories are not in a straight linier timetable but is a series of warped and folded combination of past images. But one thing that Vidler points out is that people have tended to take the idea of folding and taken it literally in terms of the envelope or skin of the building. I find this whole concept quite fascinating. I think is easy to see why some designers may choose to take folding literally. Formal folding makes for interesting seemingly fluid structures, but buildings are static. The only moving element in a building is us as we move through time and space of the building, and it is in the promenade and spatial organizations that that the folded reel of imagery is created.