Thinking Out Loud

This post is just to put out there what I'm thinking and my approach to this project (in case I forget or lose track).

Joseph Cornell is a surrealist, he uses antique, precious objects/victorian styled fragments to fill his shadow boxes to make them look like poetic theatres. This project I am thinking like Cornell would to architect a city, to architect means construct buildings. If Cornell was to architect a city it wouldn't be jam packed with buildings, it would be spacious, surreal, victorian, antique, precious, collaged. Also he had an affinity for culture.

After watching Inception I started thinking of this project as Cornell has to become the architect of this team to architect a dream space and using his quotes I can get into his head to figure out how he would.

"Look at everything as though you are seeing it for the first time, with eyes of a child, fresh with wonder." Dreams aspects you know conscious or not, yet dreams give you the chance to look at what you know or have already seen as if it were for the first time and then you wake up fresh with wonder.

"Shadow boxes become poetic theatre or settings wherein are metamorphosed the elements of a childhood pastime" "Collage = reality" His collaged boxes aren't just works of art, it's his mind, his reality and city where he lives - his mise-en-scène.

So if he was to create a city digitally he could use any object to whatever scale he wanted, his doll in a tree could be giant and the painting cutouts he could walk through and explore. But I need to focus on architecting the actual buildings - what would he do? He would use objects to structure a building - to form a skeleton of it and use objects to add flesh to it. But being old fashioned (Lived: 1903 - 1972) he would probably include victorian houses or grand hotels in the background??? 

Thinking about what he means by "metamorphosed the elements of a childhood pastime" metamorphosed means to become an adult so my city will reflect that metamorphose from child to adult. The front of the scene (the edge of Merveille) will look like a bit like a park to reflect childhood and as you venture further into this maze of wonder you'll grow up and find yourself in the big/centre city of Merveille - the district to reflect adulthood and sophistication (hence chess pieces). Also everything in Merveille will seem gigantic like everything would to a child - even grass.

Dungeness is a good example of how big objects or unlikely materials can be transformed into a lived in building e.g. the train carriage.