“Notes on the Architectural Cartoon”
MONU, no. 29: Narrative Urbanism (October 2018)
The
notion of an image-based “architectural narrative” is generally thought as a
set or collection of graphic representations ordered in some hierarchical
arrangement to tell a spatial story. From Auguste Choisy’s perspectival
vignettes of the Acropolis in Histoire de
l'Architecture to the cinematic action-event sequences of Bernard
Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts,
to the presentation panels and slides produced by firms and
architecture schools alike, sequential narrative organization has lodged itself
firmly into architectural presentation and is by now common practice.
But can architectural narrative exist outside of the series format? Can it operate critically at the scale of the social, beyond the formal channels of professional representation, and indeed beyond the oft-inescapable insularity of tectonic terminology, ‘masterplan myopia’ or aesthetic seduction that distances self-serving architects from their publics? The architectural cartoon (a simple drawing, typically within a single frame and accompanied by a brief caption, which uses exaggeration or parody to satirical ends) has historically existed as a potent representational tool for intellectual critique and formation of new (counter)narratives which can indeed transmit socially, politically, and spatially complex stories.
Related work:
Cartoons
But can architectural narrative exist outside of the series format? Can it operate critically at the scale of the social, beyond the formal channels of professional representation, and indeed beyond the oft-inescapable insularity of tectonic terminology, ‘masterplan myopia’ or aesthetic seduction that distances self-serving architects from their publics? The architectural cartoon (a simple drawing, typically within a single frame and accompanied by a brief caption, which uses exaggeration or parody to satirical ends) has historically existed as a potent representational tool for intellectual critique and formation of new (counter)narratives which can indeed transmit socially, politically, and spatially complex stories.
Related work:
Cartoons
