04 May 2011
Iconic architect praises RMIT Gallery exhibition
Iconic Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa had just arrived in Melbourne, but jetlag didn't stop him from signing autographs, answering the questions of his many fans and speaking to the artists before opening three exhibitions at RMIT Gallery last month.
RMIT Gallery Director Suzanne Davies and Juhani Pallasmaa.
Ainslie Murray discusses her work, Dissolution and Departure, which fills one of the gallery spaces, with Mr Pallasmaa.
RMIT PhD graduate Chelle Macnaughtan with Professor Daine Alcorn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation and Vice-President and Mr Pallasmaa in front of her work 74'56" (Sound in the Space of Architecture).
Malte Wagenfeld, Program Director, Industrial Design, RMIT with his work "Atmospheric Complexity" which incorporates scanning laser, fog machine, electronics and mixed media.
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Mr Pallasmaa, who was in Melbourne for the Australian Institute of Architects 2011 National Architecture Conference, was delighted with what he saw.
Spatial listening, by Chelle Macnaughtan, Intangible Architecture by Ainslie Murray and Aesthetics of Air by RMIT University's Malte Wagenfeld are connected by a theme of exploring sound, light and air in contemporary architectural space.
The works resonated with Mr Pallasmaa's philosophy of urging architects to strive for emotional engagement within buildings.
RMIT Gallery Director Suzanne Davies said that having Mr Pallasmaa open the exhibitions was "the perfect confluence of interests, passions and opportunity".
Mr Pallasmaa agreed, praising Ms Davies for curating the exhibitions and describing the works on display as "subtle, evocative whispers."
"I congratulate RMIT Gallery for having the heart and the courage to show these works," he said.
"These exhibitions are not about loud noise or violence. These are works by artists going against the prevailing trend. These works tap into the unconscious, and I think that all great artists are neurologists as are all great architects."
Ms Davies said Mr Pallasmaa was held in high esteem by architects and artists, with his book The Eyes of the Skin: Architectureand the Senses influencing a generation of creative people.
She said his philosophy that the ultimate meaning of any building was "beyond architecture" and that it directed our consciousness "back to the world and towards our own sense of self and being", had a perfect union with the works on display.
"RMIT Gallery is always exploring new ways to experience different creative practices," she said.
"This exhibition of selected works by Chelle Macnaughtan, Ainslie Murray and Malte Wagenfeld in their transdisciplinarity and poetic yet rigorous expansions of current discourses in design and architecture, were irresistible to us.
"We thank the artists for providing us with three distinct but highly complimentary deep, slow, sensual experiences of space."
Industrial designer Malte Wagenfeld, Program Director of Industrial Design at RMIT, unveiled a series of installations using lasers and fog.
A delightful moment occurred when a toddler watched smoke rings blow out from a wall and gasped "Oooh – look!", while Mr Wagenfeld's "fog shelf" was irresistible to the "big kids" who lined up to blow smoke off the work and onto the floor.
His research, The Aesthetics of Air, is a phenomenological investigation into sensual and perceptual atmospheric encounters (sound, light, air, breezes, smells, humidity and temperature) and how these can lead to new possibilities for a design typology of air and atmosphere within interior spaces.
"If 40 per cent of the world's energy is spent heating and cooling buildings, then air is a really important – though invisible – component of architectural space," Wagenfeld said.
The work of Munich-based Sydney architect and artist, Ainslie Murray, work enthralled visitors, who were fascinated by the shimmering reflections of hanging panels of punctured and woven paper and Perspex and the shadows on the walls which they created as they moved around the work.
Ms Murray's work is based on her research, which considers how air responds to human gesture and movement.
Visitors were tentative about stepping onto RMIT PhD graduate Chelle Macnaughtan's pristine work, although she encouraged it.
Ms Macnaughtan was looking forward to those first footsteps sounding on the etched black aluminium panels. She said that the marks left and the resonating echo invited an inward journey of deep listening "which engages the mind as well as the ears."
Chelle Macnaughtan has a background in music, interior design and architecture. Her work draws on sound, architecture, music, drawing and movement, crossing the boundaries between media and reinterpreting the parameters of each.
Her research in architecture at RMIT addressed indeterminacy as understood through the work of American composer John Cage.
Spatial Listening (Chelle Macnaughtan), Intangible Architecture (Ainslie Murray) and Aesthetics of Air (Malte Wagenfeld) are at RMIT Gallery until 28 May.
