Klenz' new work An Alluring Maquette (2024) showcases collage-like photographic pieces that draw from architecture, animal mimicry and traditional Japanese crafts such as wood joinery, ink marbling and lacquer painting techniques, inviting us to consider how we might build communities that better serve local people.
A century ago, Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier laid out his manifesto for a Modernist utopia, published under the title Toward an Architecture (1923). His vision of glass, steel and concrete, came to dominate the first half of the 20th century urban landscape. His ideas of rational and universal building principals, partnered with global systems of capital and development, transformed urban environments world-wide. Consequently, Modernist architecture come to dominate any other building style(s), becoming the prominent architectural movement until the 1980's.
The German architect Bruno Taut (1880-1938) was an architect who strongly believed that architecture had the power to reshape the world and society. Fascinated by his innovative cross-cultural model of Modernist architecture, Klenz' new project focuses on his Hyuga Villa (1936) in Atami in Japan, a building which synthesised Modernism with traditional elements of Japanese craft and design. Of interest to Klenz is Taut's resistance to Le Corbusier's assumption that Modernism is a neutral international model to be imported anywhere in the world. Instead of conforming to the ideology of standardisation based on Western norms, for Taut, form is of secondary importance while materiality and 'the local' are key. What makes the Hyuga Villa both distinctive and interesting is that it promotes place-specific concerns: it symbolizes Taut's resistance to this early architectural Euro-centric idea of globalisation as well as perceived notions of the superiority of the West.
Expanding on this, Klenz constructs multi-layered works including elements of the Hyuga Villa focusing on Taut's use of unusually bold colours as well as his integrated unusual building materials such as bamboo. This is woven with imagery of traditional Japanese wood joinery in particular tsugite and shiguchi joints as well as suminagashi ink marbling and urushi lacquer painting techniques. Studying these techniques and traditions during her visit to Japan, Klenz hereby inserts her own knowledge and appreciation for craft into the works. This extends to the intricately handmade wooden frames that surround them.
These elements are combined with imagery of the wunderpus octopus. Named after the German word 'wunder' meaning 'to marvel' or 'to wonder', the wunderpus, can be found off Japan's Ryukyu Islands. Klenz draws a connection between Taut - who strove to assimilate stylistically into his surroundings - with the wunderpus - who, too, can mimic its environment. Traditionally interpreted as a defence mechanism, French literary critic Roger Caillois (1913-78) theorised that animal mimicry is governed by the 'lure of space'. In this interpretation, the wunderpus chooses to find and copy an environment it finds attractive. In doing so the wunderpus blurs the boundaries between itself and its surroundings, making it difficult to distinguish between the two. Klenz also plays with this effect in her imagery as different components mingle and intertwine, becoming difficult to separate. Not just a metaphor for these optical illusions, or Taut who was lured by Japanese architecture, Klenz uses the wunderpus to ask why are we attracted to particular places? How are we affected by our environment and how do we affect it in return?
Unravelling the history of Euro-centric architectural Modernism led by Le Corbusier reveals stories of globalism, strategies for cultural and architectural assimilation and perceived Western superiority. Architectural taste and aesthetic opinions participate in a conflict over the control of space whereby dominant architects and their styles put into practice strategies of distinction by imposing aesthetic principles, or 'good taste'.
Taut challenged the Western architectural ideology of Modernist architecture as the dominant building style and instead acted as a 'cultural broker'. His Hyuga Villa opens up the wider contemporary question of how architectural ideas, concepts and building techniques move across geographies and nationalities. In exploring Taut's place-sensitive building, Klenz asks us to consider how architecture can better reflect local cultures, environments and contexts in our contemporary debate on the heritage of our built environment's andthe question of cultural translation, exchange and blending in architecture.
The exhibition is accompanied by a free publication: "Now You Hear Us" which seeks to amplify the voices of local residents. In the context of Bodø being on the threshold of redevelopment and a new airport, the publication presents seven interviews with Bodø residents who share their opinions on Bodø, its architecture and its future.
The publication was distributed to every household in Bodø and was available at the exhibition. Klenz also invited the public to leave their own answers to the questions in an installation in NOUA's Project Room, which was open throughout the exhibition period.
An Alluring Maquette, solo exhibition, NOUA, Bodø, Norway (part of the official 2024 European Capital of Culture, Bodø (Norway).
