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Fictions as Practice

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soweto.jpg (7796 octets)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Folding

Soweto, 1997, South Africa
Architect: R&Sie(n)… Paris
(name of the agency at this time : Roche, DSV & Sie)
Creative team and associates partner : François Roche, Stephanie Lavaux, Gilles Desévédavy, Gilles Clement
Key dimensions: 2,200 m2
Client : African Institute of Contemporary Arts / Johannesburg and Frac Reunion.
Cost : 4 M$

Text:

Design of a museum-memorial on the tomb of Hector Peterson, integrating the archives of the township (exhibition hall, archives, conference room, restaurant) and a landscaped area of 3 hectares.

Scenario:

1) Undulation of the skin of the bush (high vegetation burned by the sun) to preserve the tombstone and its destitution.

2) Deformation of the programming layers according to this movement (basement).

3) Random positioning of the glass containers emerging from the bush tablecloth

(referring to the usual township installations done by ship containers).

4) Ownership of the new “groundunderground” for people who were “used and abused” in the gold mines, under the apartheid regime of South Africa.

 

digitalprehistory / Soweto-Orlando the main township of "Joburg" / NewT First Digital Scenario in 96-97 / Proto-Computation was not engaged to entertain lobotomized happy few or to flatter computer based Narcissus's onanism design. The revolt 1976 The government’s announcement to educate children in Afrikaans instead of English was met with massive protests in Soweto. During one of the student marches, 13-year-old Hector Pieterson was shot and killed by the police. Folding The undulation of a territorial fragment in the service of its emptiness. The movement of the Graminaceae burned by the sun (the bush), is imprinted on the surface, surrounding the grave of Hector Peterson in the center of the dell, folding the functional strata underground (for a population involved in the gold mining labors). The topology takes advantage of the nature of the location, without projecting onto this township the models of an imported, exogenous, exotic or colonial architecture. It distorts existing situation rather than stamp an icon /// Including the archives of the township / exhibition hall, archives, conference room, restaurant / to feed-back the need of cash

 

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