Doctoral Project
“Performing Nature”: Towards the Design of Heinz Isler’s Shells
Doctoral Project
Egor Lykov
Prof. Dr. Laurent Stalder
Since 2018
Heinz Isler (1926–2009) is one of the most important Swiss civil engineers of the post-war period who dealt with thin concrete shells and, resulting from his experiments, designed their “natural” shapes. With his critical view of the built environment, Isler opposed the mechanisation of the comprehension of nature and advocated reflexive thinking about nature in connection with architecture. Isler’s understanding of nature and architecture was based on his preoccupation with the juxtaposition of nature and culture. From this point of view, Isler’s experimental approach can be grasped as a life-long project, conceived, realised and disseminated by the architect.
The proposed study fits into the natural-cultural research controversy, a classical dichotomy in the humanities, and aims to reflect on Isler’s contribution to contemporary natural aesthetics. The perception, cultural construction and staging of nature through Isler’s experiments (above all with free-form hills, pressurised membranes and hanging cloths) plays an important role in this approach. The engineer’s contribution to contemporary natural aesthetics is firstly examined with regard to the reception of (contemporary) philosophical ideas and their further development or rejection by Isler. A point of emphasis in this context is the post-war discourse on nature, according to which nature possesses a “creative productivity” that enables the engineer to become a second creator. Thus, Isler is not presented as a lonely genius but as one of the important actors in a collective thinking. Secondly, Isler’s stagings of nature in the course of his experiments are a key focus in this architectural-historical investigation, involving a reconstruction of his working practices and their effects on the understanding of nature and culture. Thirdly, special attention will be paid to Isler’s influence, in the sense that his possibilities to assert himself in the architectural field had a significant influence on the dissemination and further development of his ideas alongside original architecture-related natural concepts and ways of working. In particular, the contemporary, intrinsic and sustainable value of Isler’s ideas and concepts will be taken into account, and Isler’s programme, and its philosophical roots, realisation and impact on the architectural field will be comprehensively examined. All possible forms of medial objectification of nature serve as sources, namely image, writing and number. Isler’s estate in the gta Archives and the original documents retrieved from it as well as his theoretical architectural publications build the source base for the project. The method to be used is that of critical discourse analysis, which interprets nature (its stagings) as a reality-inducing “material dispositive” and as a “habitual procedure” that influences the structures of perception.
Egor Lykov
Egor Lykov
Prof. Dr. Laurent Stalder
Since 2018
Heinz Isler (1926–2009) is one of the most important Swiss civil engineers of the post-war period who dealt with thin concrete shells and, resulting from his experiments, designed their “natural” shapes. With his critical view of the built environment, Isler opposed the mechanisation of the comprehension of nature and advocated reflexive thinking about nature in connection with architecture. Isler’s understanding of nature and architecture was based on his preoccupation with the juxtaposition of nature and culture. From this point of view, Isler’s experimental approach can be grasped as a life-long project, conceived, realised and disseminated by the architect.
The proposed study fits into the natural-cultural research controversy, a classical dichotomy in the humanities, and aims to reflect on Isler’s contribution to contemporary natural aesthetics. The perception, cultural construction and staging of nature through Isler’s experiments (above all with free-form hills, pressurised membranes and hanging cloths) plays an important role in this approach. The engineer’s contribution to contemporary natural aesthetics is firstly examined with regard to the reception of (contemporary) philosophical ideas and their further development or rejection by Isler. A point of emphasis in this context is the post-war discourse on nature, according to which nature possesses a “creative productivity” that enables the engineer to become a second creator. Thus, Isler is not presented as a lonely genius but as one of the important actors in a collective thinking. Secondly, Isler’s stagings of nature in the course of his experiments are a key focus in this architectural-historical investigation, involving a reconstruction of his working practices and their effects on the understanding of nature and culture. Thirdly, special attention will be paid to Isler’s influence, in the sense that his possibilities to assert himself in the architectural field had a significant influence on the dissemination and further development of his ideas alongside original architecture-related natural concepts and ways of working. In particular, the contemporary, intrinsic and sustainable value of Isler’s ideas and concepts will be taken into account, and Isler’s programme, and its philosophical roots, realisation and impact on the architectural field will be comprehensively examined. All possible forms of medial objectification of nature serve as sources, namely image, writing and number. Isler’s estate in the gta Archives and the original documents retrieved from it as well as his theoretical architectural publications build the source base for the project. The method to be used is that of critical discourse analysis, which interprets nature (its stagings) as a reality-inducing “material dispositive” and as a “habitual procedure” that influences the structures of perception.
Contact
Egor Lykov
