sameness

When I think of repetition, I think less of standardisation but more of music and art, I think of the city and of the everyday. Repetition implies the replication of an element, over and over, and while I experience intensity in this sameness, brought about by the repetition of pattern, I also see the potential in the difference of sameness. Nature shows us that there is no true replicability but instead a collective of subtle difference consistently evolving from a given character. When I think of repetition in terms of architecture and urbanism, I regard it as a strategic concept that may be explored in formal, social and emotional terms. This strategy is phenomenological by nature, rigorous in expression, yet loose fit and adaptable as it is able to be modified to suit a place, use or way of life.
The spread of standardisation through mechanised reproduction achieved ways of precise replication. Injection moulding, casting, pressing, jigs, templates and the assembly line have progressively transformed industrial production. These processes allowed industries to grow rapidly to satisfy an increasing demand for consistency, quality and low cost. The transference that occurred between the car and component industries to the construction industry satisfied both a pragmatic and abstract position demanded by the modernist era. These processes provided the ability to construct large buildings quickly and at lower cost. The language of this architecture expressed the process of making, through the replication of prefabricated elements. This embodied a Universal Modernism with ambitions to create a new and separate identity, which, in itself, would create a new context. The celebration of the object was achieved by using groundworks to absorb the tolerances required for topography onto which could be stacked prefabricated elements. The resultant character is one of object uniformity and systematic regularity. Specific expression of use and the idiosyncrasy of place are removed in favour of an exactness of sameness.
Buildings and streets developed by Georgian developers in London in the late 18th and early 19th Century pre-empted the ambitions of the modern movement for standardisation and replicability. The architecture and urbanism however, did not disengage these industrialised ambitions with humanist ideas of proportion, hierarchy and the ability to absorb the specifics of place and tolerances of on-site construction. This can be seen in the pattern book facades of Gray's Inn and other areas in Bloomsbury.
Looking carefully at the Georgian buildings on Doughty Street reveals the multitude of differences possible within the repeated typology of the terrace.
The perception of the street is one of repetition, however the adjustments made whether to respond to building boundary lines or to mark the end or middle of the terrace breaks the linearity of form. These terraced streets are the result of independent building developers, carrying out singular developments in accordance to a masterplan and using an established pattern book of types. The skills of the builders and their own specific interpretation of the replicable patterns each affect the continuity between one development to another.
The buildings are proportioned within the classical tradition with stringcourses at first floor level to register the piano nobile and ultra tall windows which reduce in proportion on upper floors. The alignment of windows at ground floor level is offset from the symmetry of the upper storeys due, in part, to the addition of the front door and perhaps also to densify the ground storey, most proximate to the street. Ground floor windows are often sized to be larger in width than upper storeys. Their scale provides a generous visual engagement with the pavement and street while the sunken area and railings give physical distance from these spaces. In other places a step in the plane of the fa∫ade is made which results in a pace change in the otherwise repeated rhythm of the fa∫ade. When seen from a diagonal, or when walking alongside the buildings, the step achieves a visual misalignment of window heads.
These terraced buildings accommodate a significant level of tolerance in response to the variance of quality in workmanship, changing topographical conditions across the length of the street, the realities of procurement involving many developers and the availability of material. Cast iron rainwater pipes create a secondary vertical dimension to the buildings. The downpipe is cut into the dressed string course at first floor level. It is then, often and inexplicably, re-aligned and adjusted and yet it remains to provide a regular vertical dimension, like a musical bar. Separate developments may often be identified by the subtle change in brick. Courses may line through between buildings but the presence of a vertical joint displays the independence between developments.
Brick is used consistently, giving these streets an overall identity. Individual brick components are brought together with great rigour to form a conglomerate surface. This is achieved by suppressing individually stacked units with flush thin-bed mortar which emphasises the overall surface of the wall. Exposed headers and flat arches formed from radially cut brick emphasise the monolithic qualities of the fa∫ade. The variation achieved at the window reveal with either a deep and plastered return or a one-third brick return goes some way to contradict this expression of weight as they instead imply that the wall is thin and screen-like.
Everywhere there is an expression of use and ownership. Variation in the choice of detail to door surrounds and railings often reflected the speciality of individual craftsmen and a constant change in the treatment of window displayed the way of life of the inhabitants. The shifting patterns of use over time from residential home to a place of work has been comfortably accommodated by the simple arrangement of rooms, modest spans and regular windows.
Many of these observations are evidence of an expedient and pragmatic tradition of building matched with a culturally inherited preference for a particular proportional expression. However, the ability for this approach to absorb such variation and the perception of sameness achieves a richness of presence with a direct emotional effect. The conceptualisation of this pragmatic tradition may form the basis for an architectural strategy engaged with convention, awkwardness and repetition. Artists have been exploring repetition within a conceptual framework and in a way that examines the relationship between the singular within a repeated whole.
The modular plywood boxes of Donald Judd, explored modular seriality and the way thematic variation may be achieved within a given module. As an installation, the boxes function like the constituent elements in Judd's previous work, each being at once fully independent and fully integrated into the whole. The 1981 installation 'untitled' comprising of a 24m long row of triple tiered plywood boxes, each cut by a diagonal plane slanting at various angles from the upper edge of the front to the back of the box, embodied Judd's interest in empirically unresolvable structures. The shifting diagonals created variations not only in the division of space within each box but also in the height of the horizontal bands, whose dimensions varied in accordance with the degree of bevelling. The visual experience is of ordered disorder, a state analogous to the provisional and fragmentary nature of reality.
The asymmetrical positioning of the linear bands across the horizontal axis, coupled with the fluctuations in the plans and volumes of the boxes, elicited an illusion of movement along the fa∫ade that replaced the static quality of his unitary sculptures. Instead of the simple declarative statements of Judd's earlier work, here was a visual expression which could aptly be compared with musical counterpoint.
Claes Oldenburg was central to the growing interest in the early 1960's in quantitative or 'multiple' art. A mutiple referred to identical artworks produced in relatively large numbers using industrial processes and technological advancement. Oldenburg's multiples are souvenirs, emblems of a particular generation, locale or culture. He chose commonplace objects which surrounded him, using them often to define a moment in time, a celebration or a ritual.
'Wedding Souvenir' was conceived as a multiple in the form of a single slice of wedding cake, made to celebrate the marriage of two friends in 1966. Several moulds were made from which 250 slices were cast in plaster. These were presented on paper plates at the wedding reception for guests to take home with them. Putting 18 slices together formed a complete cake. The variance achieved between moulds and the unpredictability in the poured plaster, particularly in the resultant surface of the exposed face within the mould achieves an inherent uniqueness to each slice. Yet when seen together, either as an arrangement on individual paper plates or assembled to form a single cake, a repetitive multiplicity is perceived
These examples suggest how rich expression is possible in variation within a repeated whole. This difference in sameness makes possible greater connections to the natural phenomena of the everyday and it engages with the notion that repetition is perceived rather than realised.