MISSING ASSOCIATIONS

Associations are very important. This has been said many times in these pages. And has also been said here, the means the methods of strengthening these associations is completely missing from our architectural / design education and dialogue.

So it was with great interest that we happened upon an exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum titled Book for Architects. While not intended to be a book, it is a presentation of photographs by the architect Wolfgang Tillmans.

In Mr. Tillmans’ words, “Book for Architects is not a book design but a video installation, presented as a looped projection of still images on two walls. My interest is not a typological examination but to show a sequence and and arrangement of images that echo what examples of the built environment look and feel like to me.”

The photo below is one that I took of the installation. Images of various sizes and quantities were projected on two walls. Mr. Tillman took all of the photographs.

What I found to be the most compelling of this exhibit was the associations that linked the images across the walls. Many times there was a theme to each set of projections. So for example, a majority of the images at any one time were of glass reflections. Or they might have been of sink faucets.

Yet completely missing from Mr. Tillmans’ description of his work is the word associations. Yet all of us as we look at online images, or our own images, are constantly making associations. And as has been said here before, it is the strength and depth of these associations which is the basis of our creative solutions.

So I guess it is no surprise that associations is missing from understanding this exhibit. The teaching and understanding of associations are missing everywhere in design.

Yet the exhibit was fun. We sat there for quite some time as the various images appeared and disappeared. And we started to sense a rhythm, construct and form to what at first glance seemed to be completely random.

Which only proves that we do categorize and structure our associations. We simply need to develop this capacity.