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Eureka!David McAlmont // Hila ShemerDip. 82020//2021
"Entre la vida
y la muerte", G
onzalo Lebrija, 2008
from antiquity, inspiration is seen as a significant factor in thedevelopment of human thought, political activity and culture.Yet, the future is, presumably, professional, and althoughhistorically bonded with divinity, theology, progressive andfantastic thinking, Inspiration is constantly perceived atcompletion rather than during practice. Therefore, the ever-growing need to craft creatively cannot rely on arcane concepts ofdivine intervention, and so, inspiration theory and, moreimportantly, inspiration engineering becomes a fundamentalfactor in the conceptual development of art and architecture.
Eureka Unit speaks directly to that moment in antiquityWhen thephilosopher Archimedes noticed that his body mass adjusted thelevel of water in a particular vessel. Eureka students are assuredsimilar moments of revelation through the mechanics andtechniques of inspiration engineering. The guarantee is thatstudents will grasp how their personal “mass” can adjust thelevels without. Conscious individuality guarantees unique output.
You are Eureka!
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“ALL ARE ARCHITECTS. EVERYTHING IS ARCHITECTURE”.
Hans Hollein, BAU Magazin, Alles ist Architektur, 1968
Self-portraits of the architect as a future operator are devised toidentify self-reliance for creating beyond the academic institution;creative inventories are instituted and researched to emboldenpersonal expression; etymology is investigated to engineer clarity onand the joy of linguistic evolution; the importance of soundtracks isaccessed to aid appreciation of musical expression and its ubiquity;links between contemporaneity, the classical world, and that whichpassed between are unearthed to precipitate function; art spaces andinformation centres are deconstructed to decode their transmissions,revealing what can be conveyed by spatial manipulation;conventions of academic-speak are abandoned to create space forcourageous, personal points of view; performance is activelyencouraged; creative adventures are featured as a means ofcircumventing creative blockage.
Yves Klein, Leap into the Void, 1960Photographed by Harry Shunk and János (Jean) Kender© Yves Klein, ADAGP, ParisPhoto: Shunk–Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
Yasumasa Morimura, A Requiem: Theater of Creativity/Self-Portrait as Yves Klein, 2010© Yasumasa Morimura, courtesy Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid, and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo
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Eureka! Unit establishes and promotes a post-self view, tocultivating creative thinking gestated from the scholarly gaze,seeking diversity over “one-ness” or singularity. Essentially, theprojects will be based on each student's means of expression, andtheir position regarding the Academy as a generator for creativity.The Eureka methodology is a research driven process fused withpersonal interest to create original architectural scenarios.
How unique or original do you want to be? To what extent do werecognise that our unique way of seeing is vital if exceptional use ofthe professional tools we acquire is intended? The unit, whichoperates as a research group for students in search of inspirationmethods, is a unique academic opportunity to develop additionalinterfaces between Architecture, other fields and territories; apluralistic agenda of generosity, optimism and sharing.
Eureka is a surprise rush! Eureka is considered divine. Its recipientsthink themselves inspired by the extramundane, but Eureka does notmagically appear; it is omnipresent. With Eureka, racial identitycan impact form, gender can be asserted in design, or outcomes canbe queered. Adhering to technique and convention is not Eureka!Showing up and complying is not Eureka. A good degree from aworld-class institution is not Eureka. You are Eureka!
Inspiration Engineering is a developing, student-driven theory;it presumes that inspiration can be engineered. Discussions oncreativity tackle the subject of inspiration, and it is oftenperceived as an issue, a problem or something that is lacking.Inspiration engineering identifies inspiration as the falsifiablehypothesis/problem that the inspiration engineer must renderreliable/solve. The theory deliberately reconciles engineeringand creative parlance(s) to enable commissioned structures - ifand when “the brief” lands on the architectural/artistic desk.
“Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world”.-Archimedes
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YEAR OVERVIEW2020//2021
TERM IWho we are
The unit aspires to illustrate the concept of the gaze reflecting aposition, defining the role of the architect in ways that movebeyond the diminution of literal and expected workspaces, and torecognise its projection in both the visual and performance arts aswell as in the conceptual arena of architecture.
Eureka! Unit will start with a self-gaze exercise to define theunique and particular interest of each student. A series of intenseworkshops exploring and definingThe Portrait of the architect as a Young Wo-manThrough writing, film, photography, drawing alongside
will serve each student with the opportunity to statetheir position regarding the social-political-public field in which weoperate as creatives.
Operate as creatives, architects, artists, in a time of a world crises.
Fra
nçoi
s R
oche
Im
age
sour
ce
-St. Jerome, letter I, written A.D. 370
TERM IIRead it and write it
Jero
me
and
John
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abou
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iona
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TERM IIRead it and write it
The casestudies will provide a solid ground for writing a strong individualargument regarding each student’s personal doing.
Eureka!
This research approach is to be based on an important chapter in thehistory of architecture, yet also arises from urgent and crucialcontemporary issues. By academically confronting both thehistorical and the contemporary, radical and optimistic tools of viewwill open -up to leading a change for the better. With these tools, wewill then re-examine common divisions and categories such as:private/public, still/growing, fixed/dynamic and rethinkingboundaries to the point of generating moments of Eureka!
Janu
s is
the
two
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od
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ary
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ary
and
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Hot
Pla
teE
liza
beth
Dil
ler,
Ric
ard
o S
cofi
dioTERM III
Eureka! Carnival Comes to town.
Term three will be the moment that Eureka! Unit preforms. Byoccupying the school, the students of Eureka! Will welcome theacademic world back to Bedford square.We will operate our mechanics and techniques of inspirationengineering. Test them on our peers in hope to boost ourenvironmet with inspiration.
The unit will operate as a research group, and will offer a uniqueopportunity to develop additional interfaces between the academywith other fields and territories, as part of a pluralistic agenda ofsharing, generosity and optimism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bauman, Ole, ‘Designing to Socialize’, in Volume #4 2005, pp. 5 - 13Coleman, Nathaniel, “Introduction: utopias and architectures?”, in Utopias and Architecture, (New York, Routledge 2007), pp. 1-6Lefebvre, Pauline, ‘From Autonomy to Pragmatism: Objects Made Moral’, in Architecture Philosophy, Vol.2 Number 1, Winter 2016, pp.23-37Smithson, Alison (Ed.), Team 10 Primer Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968, pp. 20-3Tschumi, Bernard, ‘Spaces and Events’, in Architecture and Disjunction Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994 pp. 139-51Wigley, Mark, ‘Towards the Perforated School’, in Volume #1, pp. 36-50de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life, chap. 7, trans. Steven Rendall, University of California Press, Berkeley 1984Rorty, Richard, ‘Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989Foucault, Michel, "Of Other Spaces" , trans. Jay Miskowiec. 1986.Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix (1987). A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Duncan, Carol. "The MoMA's Hot Mamas." Art Journal 48, no. 2 (1989): 171-78. Accessed September 9, 2020. doi:10.2307/776968.
McCarthy, Dr Natasha., 2020. Articles - Philosophy In The Making. [online] Ingenia.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.ingenia.org.uk/Ingenia/Articles/f057de84-7330-4b4e-9abe-45f41e57ec88> [Accessed 9 September 2020].
Rosenwein, Barbara., 2003. Problems And Methods In The History Of Emotions. [online] Passionsincontext.de. Available at: <https://www.passionsincontext.de/uploads/media/01_Rosenwein.pdf> [Accessed 9 September 2020].
Smith, Zadie., 2020. What Do We Want History To Do To Us?. [online] The New York Review of Books. Available at: <https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/02/27/kara-walker-what-do-we-want-history-to-do-to-us/> [Accessed 9 September 2020].
Storm, Howard. “Calculated Madness: A Portrayal of the ‘True’ Principal.” The Clearing House, vol. 41, no. 7, 1967, pp. 387–390. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30183088. Accessed 9 Sept. 2020.
Vos, George W. “Art and Machinery.” The Soil, vol. 1, no. 1, 1916, pp. 16–18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20542237. Accessed 9 Sept. 2020.
Wright, Frank Lloyd. “The Art and Craft of the Machine.” Brush and Pencil, vol. 8, no. 2, 1901, pp. 77–90. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25505640. Accessed 9 Sept. 2020.
REFERANCEManifesto;
CIAM, "La Sarraz Declaration;” "Charters of Athens: Tenents,” in Ulrich Conrads (Ed.), Programs andManifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture. MIT Press,109-114; 137-145.Coop Himmelblau. "Architecture Must Blaze," in Charles Jencks and Karl Kropf (Eds.), Theories andManifestoes of Contemporary Architecture. Wiley, 2008.Gropius, Walter. “Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar,” in Ulrich Conrads (Ed.),Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture. MIT Press, 1970. 49-53.J.L. Sert, F. Leger, S. Gidion, “Nine Points on Monumentality,” in Edward Eigen and Joan Ockman(Eds.) Architecture Culture: 1943-1968. Rizzoli, 1993, 27- 30.Kahn, Louis. “Monumentality,” in P. Zucker (Ed.), New Architecture and City Planning. Philosophical Library, 1945, 577-588.Maki, Fumihiko, Masato Ohtaka. “Toward Group Form,” in Edward Eigen and Joan Ockman (Eds.)Architecture Culture: 1943-1968. Rizzoli, 1993.Muthesius, Hermann, and Henry Van de Velde. “Werkbund theses and antitheses in Ulrich Conrads(Ed.), Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture. MIT Press, 28-31.van der Rohe, Mies. "With Infinite Slowness Arises the Great Form,” in Edward Eigen and JoanOckman (Eds.) Architecture Culture: 1943-1968. Rizzoli, 1993, 163-166.Smithson, Alison and Team10. “The Doorn Manifesto,” in Team 10 Primer. MIT Press, 1968.Tschumi, Bernard. "Architecture and Limits I, II, III,” in Kate Nesbit (Ed.), Theorizing a New Agenda forArchitecture. Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, 150-167. C
ate
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David McAlmont’s performance at the 2020 AA Public lecture serieswith DJ Mista Pierre was Heraclean Angst, an immersive fusion of arthistory, Greek mythology and jazz composition; the third of whatcolleague at the AA Interprofessional Studio, Theo Lorenz, has called a“new genre,” performance presentation: beginning with Girl Boy Child acollaboration with the University of Leicester and the National Trust;followed by Portrait of a Black Queer Briton, the inaugural Berto PasukaLecture at London’s National Portrait Gallery. McAlmont is presentlydeveloping a new work with gender illusionists, Leicester University andthe National Trust.
*
Hila Shemer is a Tel-Aviv and London based practicing architect andresearcher, as well as an architecture critic publishing over 250 articlesthus far both online and in print. Shemer is an M.A. graduate withdistinction of the Architectural Association in London (2018), and holds aB.Arch. from Bezalel academy in Jerusalem (2010). For the past decadeshe has been a lecturer at renowned institutes both in a research based andpractice based studios mainly dealing with The Utopias of Tomorrow.Her field of research involves the relation between language and spaceand the visual and conceptual narrative of architecture.
David McAlmont and Hila Shemer bring the sheerweight of their experience and success in the worldsof activism, architecture, art history, artisticproduction, journalism, music and performance, witha corollary of dual expertise networks, to reveal thevitality of inspiration engineering. Eureka Unitdoesn’t hope for inspiration; it expects it. The unitprocess arrives at an architectural product thatuniquely embraces inspiration engineering,propelling Eureka forward in a clear and definableway.
