Poetics of subtraction

Abstract

We think of architecture as an additive or accumulative process: a process where elements are added in order to create architecture. After you lay a brick, you lay another. But architecture can also be seen as subtractive, where portions of volume are removed to clarify an entity. In architecture school we learn how to create a building; to create something out of nothing. During my studies I started to get interested in a way of thinking of architecture in reverse, doing the opposite. To do a proposal for preservation and activation of empty space. To recognize empty space as a complex, multi-layered reality. In this graduation project I elaborate on this concept of subtraction. In which creating is still the essence, but instead of creating something out of nothing, something is being created out of the existing. I felt like the act of subtraction within the spatial environment has not been studied extensivelly. There is a relevance to reveal the potential of substraction as an act within our discipline. Therefore I collected relevant reading in this booklet. It started more as a sculptural fascination and exploration, and it developed towards a multilayered study — where I also explored and discovered a meaning of the act, the making, of subtraction. And therefore I call this project: Poetics of Subtraction.