Typologies of Feelings

“the word type does not represent so much the image of something that must be copied or imitated perfectly, as the idea of an element that must itself serve as a rule for the model… The model, understood from the point of view of the practical execution of art, is an object that must be repeated such as it is; the type, on the contrary, is an object on the basis of which everyone can conceive of works that may not resemble each other at all.”
— Rossi, A., Architecture of the City, 1982, MIT Press, Quotation from Quatremere de Quincy, Dictionnaire Historique de L’Architectue (Paris, 1932)

On the back cover of this monograph we can read “This book is both a scaffold and a game” a phrase that seems refusing monumentalization and insisting on the idea that architecture, and the image of it, is an open-ended play that remains forever under construction and negotiation. A seemingly paradoxical statement for an architectural office like Kokkinou & Kourkoulas Architects & Associates that is famous for a rather monumental production of small and large scale architectural endeavours since 1987. We could speculate what their work could embody and mean, but what we can grasp is that k&k & associates have contributed to the liberation of the rather heavy Greek collective memory with its opulent static types by introducing play and upbeat solutions celebrating motion, individual freedom and emotion within build spaces. And here we have to think of play as a serious methodology, much like Johan Huizinga suggested in his ‘Homo Ludens’ that play is a necessary condition in the generation of culture.

“For us the chief point of interest is the place where the game is played. Generally it is a simple circle, dyutamandalam, drawn on the ground. The circle as such, however, has a magic significance. It is drawn with great care, all sorts of precautions being taken against cheating. The players are not allowed to leave the ring until they have discharged their obligations. But, sometimes a special hall is provisionally erected for the game, and this hall is holy ground. The Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the erection of the dicing hall – sabha – where the Pandavas are to meet their partners. Games, of chance, therefore, have their serious side. They are included in ritual.”
— Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

To evoke something of the endless ‘playful’ modifications of architectural typologies we proposed this publication to be covered by grey cardboard, a material that is known for its use in architectural models. This grey surface, that also could make us think of concrete the typical dough for many build spaces of k&k, is then perforated by four windows shaping a cross that crosses the inside with the outside the two-dimensional with the three-dimensional space. Also at one point the color red imposed itself that in its long semiotic history voices both ‘superficial’, ‘pop’ and ‘deep’ almost ‘religious’ feelings. Second non-less meaningful the color red is referencing in a typical way Maria Kokkinou (Kokkinou in Greek means ‘of red’) one of the founders of k&k & associates that passed away recently. Red is here thus the cycle of life that continues to give and to take with its endless ‘Typologies of Feelings’.

Editors:
Andreas Kourkoulas,
Hannes Livers Gutberlet & Katerina Kourkoula
aka en-route-architecture

Publishers:
ek Architectural Publications Ltd

Texts:
John Peponis, Ariadni Vozani

You can find the publication here