Fictitious Interiors/Realistic Exteriors (2015)
8x10 Print
Edition of 10
In retrospect, I now realize why I had a desire to be an architect as a child. It was all the sets on TV sitcoms, most of which were the modern ranch and split-levels built in the 1960s, mostly the Brady Bunch A-Frame, but also the VanDyke house and several others. As a child, you see them as being real places and want to design ones like them, as they spark an ongoing curiosity about the worlds they inhabit.
Obviously, the front elevation of the real "Brady" house (Weddington-Carson) has no direct correlation with the set's floor plan. In fact, a window was added on the front upper level to make it appear it had a second floor (but the stairway is in the wrong place in the set). The fake interior needed some kind of prop as an exterior to consummate existing and suggested mental models.
I like how the fake and real floor plans are extrapolated here. It isn't just the CAD that's interesting; it's the detailed examination of the artifice of the Brady world and the approximated floor plan of the Weddington-Carson house, and how dissimilar they are--the idea that you took the insignificant prop and investigated its history.
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Post-script:
The idea of the fictitious interior in conflict with the reality of the exterior and vice-versa is an interesting dichotomy. At the personal level, it poses interesting questions about avatars and whether we might be able to choose them to represent ourselves in the future beyond physical life. (Fictitious interiors in context/conflict with real interiors).
#architecture #chicagoarchitecture #reflections #metaphors
