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The Zone

Athanasios Kanakis

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The old Nanterre School of Architecture is situated close by the business district of  La Défense in Paris. It was designed  in 1968 by Jacques Kalisz whose intention was to implement his teaching methods and ideas within his architectural ideas. He aimed in designing a building that arouses curiosity among students and among residents and facilitates meetings, inside as well as outside of its walls. The structure of the building itself tends to „create a set that allows constant changes, which accepts a continuous metamorphosis that operates as: it is a „structural design analog to the principles of biology“, imagined on the mode of „proliferation“, composed of „cells formed of an inner patio of square frame [...], circulations and sanitary are grouped in cylindrical carrier nuclei [...] called viruses ...“

After closing down the School in  2004, the territory remains inaccessible to public being assigned the identity of an abandoned utopian architecture project. A revolutionary concept that failed to develop further or to adapt in the current system of ideas. The current proposal for reusing and reanimating the space is using the idea of "Metamorphosis" as introduced by Kalisz himself, allowing the open structure to evolve into something new. Still the possibility of ending up in a similar situation after a couple of years might still be there.

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By visiting the space repeatedly I feel that this open architecture operates like a reversed labyrinth. The fact that the building is missing a facade and other distinctive elements allows only references from what surrounds the building. Its is a vacant ruin that indeed integrates and opens a dialogue with the outside paradoxically still remaining closed to everyone. The patios that are spread and repeat on the different levels of the skeleton give the feeling of being captured in an endless loop.

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Inspired by the architecture of Kalisz, I wish to explore the following themes: I - A video Installation - documenting the emptiness of space (homage to the architecture of emptiness), portraying the architecture as a zone - the projection could be either in the territory of the school or outside - (ongoing) II - A photo series presented through a rotating slide projector  that serve in a way as  documentation of the patios of the building (trying to portray eventually through the same frame) - emphasizing to the concept of repetition - modular - labyrinth - alienation (ongoing)

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