Back to basics

>> In the CCA’s Laboratories, local architects look for answers in an uncertain world

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

Warning: those sick to death of post-9/11 musings are encouraged to steer clear of the Canadian Centre for Architecture—at least until next September, when the present exhibit will be dismantled. See, the show, titled Laboratories, is a response to the Terrible Events and to the effects of an uncertain world on the language of architecture. Still interested? You should be.

Two landmark monuments of modern architecture cannot be reduced to rubble, without architects around the world rethinking the way they work. “The question was: given this uncertain world, how do you believe that architecture can act as a language?” explains Nancy Dunton, project director of the exhibit. Though vague as a query, it left things open for the participating Montreal firms (all under 15 years old, most under 10) to create unique works—with a common thread. “All of the firms wanted to return to the fundamentals of architecture, asking, what is a wall, what is shelter?” says Dunton.

Upon entering the exhibit, you encounter Atelier Big City’s “Interchange” installation: a red, tilted platform taking up the entire room, which one can walk across in many ways, climbing and descending different steps—a sort of off-kilter meeting space. Then there’s Pierre Thibault’s “Writing Memory,” a musing on graffiti and written testimonies wherein folks can leave their mark on hanging sheets of paper. With Atelier BRAQ’s “Typical Wall: An investigation into the wall, the site of architecture,” one peeks into a space closed off by a wall, bringing up ideas intrinsic to walls: exclusion, inclusion, fortification of property, the separation of haves and have-nots. BUILD’s “Code Zero” consists of a makeshift corridor made of 24 hanging aluminum rods over which a screen hangs, showing large images of hands in movement, to an eerie effect.

Things lighten up with Bosses design’s “Contraption,” a topsy-turvy funhouse take on the mobile showroom, with plywood walls and an Astroturf floor as wobbly-wavy as an acid trip stroll. Finally, Atelier In Situ’s “Test Chamber” offers more hands-on jollity: a room-size box complete with pivoting trick-doors, strange, distorting window-mirrors and peepholes.
“These are installations for a museum, not a client; they’re expressions of who these architects are,” says Dunton. So despite the tragedy that inspired this show, the feeling is hopeful, even playful—the difference, Dunton points out, between responding to events rather than reacting to them. “Reaction is what you do right away,” she says. “Response is when you have time to think about it.” :

Laboratories is at the CCA until September 15