From paper to inflatable architecture

Many of the most radical architectural ideas throughout history were only realized on paper. From Piranesi and Boullée to Superstudio or OMA – whose competition entries might hold more influence than their physical buildings. Actually architecture does not exist without drawing. The power of an idea has a life of its own. Conceptual art is a good example of it. This is the case of François Dallegret’s Environment-Bubble drawing, which 52 years after its publication in Art in America has become three-dimensional, thanks to French architect François Perrin, who in collaboration with Dallegret has turn the drawing into a concrete structure for the Perfomance Art Biennial PERFORMA, revolving among other things around performance and architecture (for more information you can read the interview with its founder RoseLee Goldberg for DAMn in the upcoming issue and now online as well).

DAMn went to its first presentation on November 8th at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York to interview briefly both architects.

DAMn: What’s the story behind this project?

François Dallegret: the project originally was a drawing, which I did for an article of Reyner Banham for Art in America in 1965. I met him in New York through the magazine. We loved each other. I went back to Montreal and I did the drawings. His article was called “A home is not a house.” When I came back to New York to present him the drawings he loved them. So that’s when we became friends.

DAMn: And it was never built before?

FD: No, it was never built. It was a series of line drawings made with graphos. Graphos were German pens very tinny; a kind of Chinese ink that made a very fine line. I used to do these kinds of drawings at the time. I did 6 drawings for the article, and one of them was the drawing of that bubble.

DAMn: And what was the function of the bubble originally?

FD: The bubble was a place to be, and the idea was that Reyner and me would be seating in it naked -- our bodies only, confronted with the actual space. But the fact is that he didn’t want to pose naked, so I had to cut out his head and glue it on a photograph of my body. And that’s what happened somehow. Anything can happen…

DAMn: And what do you think about doing this now?

FD: I think it’s fantastic! The fact that it’s here in 3D, that it’s alive and that people is dancing inside of it and doing all kinds of things. I really love it.

DAMn: It’s going to move around, isn’t it?

FD: Yes, tomorrow in Central Park, then it will go to California, then to France, and so on. It will be moving for 3 years.

DAMn: Wonderful!

FD: We have to take advantage that it’s built.

DAMn: And how did your collaboration start?

François Perrin: This drawing was an iconic drawing of the architecture utopia of the 1960s. I wanted to use it in a book I wrote on Yves Klein’s Air Architecture. This is how I got in touch with Dallegret. Then I organized a retrospective of his work last year in Los Angeles and wanted to bring it to New York. We decided to build the Environment-Bubble for the first time and the organizers of Performa became interested to have it part of their program this year, which explores architecture and performance.

DAMn: How was the collaboration?

FP: Dallegret is amazing to work with, very positive attitude, good sense of humor and professional. He is a real inspiration -- how to stay relevant and fresh more than 50 years after starting your career.

DAMn: And about the dancers? Who are they? How did they got involved?

FP: Dimitri Chamblas is a dancer and choreographer I met through common artist friends he was collaborating with. He runs the workshop with participants that register for the project. He was trained at the Paris Opera but has been involved for more than twenty years in avant garde performance with other dancers and choreographers. We decided to collaborate on this project for Performa and bring together our love of new challenges and experimentations. He is now based in Los Angeles where he is the New dean of Dance at CalArts where we will continue the project next year.

DAMn: What is the concept of the performance inside the bubble?

FP: The performance inhabits the bubble where Dimitri leads 60-minute workshops of dance practice. They explore themes of domesticity, technology and body movements in new spaces.

DAMn: How the architecture affects the dance and interacts with it?

FP: The bubble offers a radical new space to experiment with. Almost invisible but very present at the same time. The simple volume with the clear material offers a very new type of environment for the dancers to interact with.

DAMn: What do you think about the relationship between performance and architecture, one of the themes of this year’s Biennial?

FP: Architecture is performance and performance is architecture.