Marc Leschelier's exploration of architecture as a metalanguage, with Pavilion X

The Paris-based architect and sculptor built Pavilion X, a demountable structure that exists at the intersection of sculpture and architecture, which is a structure sans function.
Almas Sadique, Stir world, 3 December 2023
All of those who are familiar with the practice of architecture are aware of the multifarious mechanisms, legislations and regulations that pervade the discipline. What begins as a free-flowing, gratifying and creative exercise in constituting abstractly shaped components (to reflect the moods, emotions and narratives) in the first year of architectural education, soon becomes encumbered with the continual addition of new constraints in subsequent years. Despite these limitations, imparted in the form of project briefs and levied through local and national by-laws or reference books compiled by European authors and architects, the condition of the architect who graduates after five or more years of education is dreary. Their entrance into the workforce is met with further revelations. In addition to fragmenting work such that each worker—whether those developing the blueprints or those implementing them on the ground— is blissfully unaware of the complete picture, each step in the process is saddled with the responsibility of fulfilling laws and demands that seldom leave any room for creative expression.
 
This culture of control and ambiguity further seeps into the way buildings are finished, presented, and photographed. Clean lines, evened-out plasterwork and several coats of paint hide the skeleton that supports the structure. This packaging rarely reveals the structural systems that keep the building standing erect. It is no wonder, then, that it takes years, if not decades, for architects to gauge the complexity of architecture and building construction. An architect’s career begins at 40, they say. In a system that presents the illusion of efficiency under the garb of monotonous repetitive tasks that do little to enhance the designer’s knowledge, gaining expertise in the art of building will come only after decades of practice. This way of practice also translates into the way spaces are presented and photographed—again, cleanly engineered, with not a soul in sight. These images, devoid of life and its impact on shaping designed spaces, manage to further alienate the process of creation from the process of inhabitation and in tandem, the requirements that emerge from it.
 

Disenchanted by aspects such as these, Paris-based architect Marc Leschelier embarked upon disparate paths, to research and to build as a form of art. The Parisian architect, now also a sculptor, constructs without the intention of conflating his creations into habitable or usable spaces. The French sculptor scours spaces that are exempted from urban regulations, to utilise the 'construction process as a visualisation of one of architecture’s inner dimensions: the union in the masonry of opposing materials, the fluid and solid matter, the brick and the mortar.'

He believes that the nature of architecture is intrinsically linked to the dichotomous union of disparate materials and elements, and the complementary aspects that attribute contrasting entities. Leschelier refers to his way of building and sculpting as ‘pre-architecture.’

 

The French architect and sculptor constructs both permanent and temporary installations. His work, an expression of dualities that pervade the discipline of architecture, seeks to raise the question: what can architecture be if it is not designed for use? This query establishes architecture as a metalanguage, which is now employed by Leschelier to sculpt architectural installations evocative of construction sites. His latest creation, Pavilion X, is a demountable structure that was designed and built to be presented by Ketabi Bourdet gallery in the gardens of the Hôtel de Maisons, in Paris, France, as part of the Design at Large program for the first edition of Design Miami/Paris, held from October 17 to the 22, 2023.

 

Pavilion X, just like Leschelier’s other works, exists at the brink of sculpture and architecture. Aluminium frames are clad in cement textile that was previously crumpled and stiffened by the action of water. The sculptural installation, cuboid in shape, is decorated with uniquely configured panels on each face. “Each of the façade panels is unique, allowing the pavilion to contrast the plastic qualities of a sculptural form with those of a rational object. The function of the building is not defined, however, the user is offered a space that engages the impression rather than the use,” an excerpt from the press release mentions, describing the prefabricated installation.

 

 

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