M1 | Bluets

"Try, if you can, not to talk as if colors emanated from a single physical phenomenon. Keep in mind the effects of all the various surfaces, volumes, light-sources, films, expanses, degrees of solidity, solubility, temperature, elasticity, on color. Think of an object's capacity to emit, reflect, absorb, transmit, or scatter light; think of "the operation of light on a feather". Ask yourself, what is the color of a puddle?" (Maggie Nelson, Bluets)

Within the experimental M1 project "Bluets" we will explore the color of blue in many different ways – such as reading, philosophizing, designing, writing and describing.

Part One  – Words to Space
To do so, we will first examine the autobiographical work of the same title by the American writer Maggie Nelson, in which she reflects on an episode of her life deeply connected to the blue by means of 240 miniature propositions. We will attempt to distill a highly personal architecture for the protagonist from the poetic text and to rationalize it – entirely in the sense of a scientifically-literary motivated design process. The following questions will be of interest to us: How "spatial" are Nelson's bluets? And in general: What is biographical architecture? Where might it be located in this case? Which role do colors play, in particular: The blue? How much of blue is possible, and at what point is it too much? In other words: how fascinating, how tolerable is the monochrome?

Part Two  – Space to Words
At the same time, we will examine actually built blue architectures diachronically, across cultures and typologies, and compose small contributions for the book publication currently being produced as part of the "Blue Architecture" research project. In this part of the project, then, we are taking the opposite approach: We translate a space into our own, somehow also highly personal words.

Note: Participating students should have a strong affinity for architectural design as well as for writing, and should have good to very good English language skills: The basis for the design part of the project is the original English version of Maggie Nelson's "Bluets", and the above-mentioned contributions for the book publication are also to be written in English. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Verena Hake.