The Architectural Body
Per Axén 2010
This work explores the architectural system of body and dress through a series of body-sculptures based on a defined architectural construction in a certain relationship with the body. The work is concluded in a single model that proposes a formal theoretical perspective of dress and its bodily relationship to space based on its structural expression. For one informed in dress, the model has a clear point and direction as a generic model of architectural construction and bodily relationship. As such it formulates, proposes and concludes, just as Kant (1974) would argue, an aesthetic evidence of an unknown universality based upon a set of given particularities. At the same time the quality of the work also suggests ways of application. The model reveals certain particularities about its construction. How it was made is evident through the simplicity of its composition as well as the roughness of its craftsmanship. In terms of validation the question is not so much if it is true, but instead if the model is plausible, reflected, and if it works. Through its vagueness as a garment, its clarity as a model, its distinct position in space, its situation in a place, and its fit with the body the model demonstrates and validates itself as both epistêmê and technê.