Interdisciplinary approach

In the case of architectural design and fashion design, can we speak of an interdisciplinary approach to the creative process? Do these areas influence each other, overlap and mix?

“Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.”¹ - claimed the famous fashion designer Coco Chanel. Head of Chanel house, the artist, photographer and fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld

1 Coco Chanel Quote in: Marcel Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets (London: Robert Hale Ltd,1972)

Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning

100 believes that: “We need houses as we need clothes, architecture stimulates fashion. It’s like hunger and thirst — you need them both.”¹ Tom Ford, a contemporary fashion designer and film director who graduated with a degree in architecture states: “Fashion is everything. Art, music, furniture design, graphic design, hair, makeup, architecture, the way cars look - all those things go together to make a moment in time, and that's what excites me.”² Even Salvador Dali did not divide creativity into subcategories and saw the broader context of the arts, believing that they cannot be separated from other areas of life: "If you do not intend to study anatomy, art and perspective, mathematics and aesthetics and the science of colours, let me tell you that this is more a symptom of laziness than a genius."³ The above statements suggest the unbreakable bond between seemingly different fields of creation such as architectural and fashion design.

3.1 Surrealism and deconstructivism

Following in the footsteps of Salvador Dali, both fashion designers and architects have gained inspiration from the surrealistic trend represented in his paintings. The desired effect here intended to demolish the logical order of reality through the visual expression of inner perception.

Artists obtained such an effect by trying to move away from rationalism and be guided by the world of dreams, fantasy and hallucination.⁴

In the spring season of 2010, Dutch designers Viktor and Rolf presented a collection inspired by a surrealistic trend, where tulle dresses were arranged in absurd atypical forms. (Fig.1a b c) Sometimes certain pieces of the creation seemed to be missing, while the remaining parts hung in the air around the model, other times the cut of the dress suggested that it was accidentally being worn sideways. In architecture, deconstructivism with its interference in static impressions⁵ can serve as a reference to the above ideas. Curvilinear shapes, fragmentation and a sense of chaos and unpredictability can be found in projects such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, and the UFA-Palast in Dresden by Coop Himmelblau (Fig.1d).

1 “Interview with Karl Lagerfeld and Zaha Hadid”, Wallpaper magazine 91 (September 2006)

2 Brenda Polan, Roger Tredre, The Great Fashion Designers,( New York: Berg Publisher, 2009), p.239

3 Salvador Dalí, Richard Howard (transl.) Diary of a Genius, (London: Creation Books, 1994)

4 Mary A. Caws (eds), Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001)

5 Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt.(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995)

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a. b. c. d.

Fig.1(a),(b),(c): Surrealistic fashion collection by Viktor and Rolf, source: http://www.viktor-rolf.com;

Fig.1(d): Surrealistic architecture design, source: http://www.coop-himmelblau.at

3.2 De Stijl

Artists of various disciplines have also drawn inspiration from Piet Mondrian and his De Stijl. De Stijl, or neo-plasticism (fascinated by the mystical Schoenmaekers) was based on the principle of opposites, where verticals contrasted with horizontals, and the active forces with the passive. The vertical line in the composition meant dynamics (masculinity), and the horizontal stability (femininity). The style used three fundamental colours – yellow, blue and red three non-colours - white, black and gray. De Stijl rejected decorativeness, and admired simple angles, nature and the belief in the power of abstraction.¹

In fashion design, the Mondrian Collection by Yves Saint Laurent (Fig.2a) can serve as a reflection of the above style. The collection consisted of six dresses made of wool, silk and jersey. The A-shaped dressed were not printed, but formed a composition of pre-dyed fabrics, where each colour in the design was an individual piece of fabric. Mixing graphic white lines and white or colour blocks accounted for the rather direct translation of Mondrian paintings into clothing.

Similar example is the Herzel de Bach shoes collection. (Fig.2b)

1 Bernard Jaffé, De Stijl, 1917–1931, The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art. (Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, 1956)

Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning

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a. b. c.

Fig.2(a): Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian collection, source: https://upload.wikimedia.org;

Fig.2(b): Herzel de Bach shoes collection, Fig. by author: J.Borucka

Fig.2(c): De Stijl inspired architecture, source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia

In architecture, De Stijl strongly influenced the international style and the Bauhaus. In the project Schröder House in Utrecht by architect Gerrit Rietveld (Fig.2b), which is the flagship of the De Stijl group, further inputs of Kazimir Malevich can be noticed. The object is designed as a geometric form with white plane walls, rectangular windows with black borders and simple handrails. Driven by the idea of elementarism, the building was divided into components, so that it was no longer a whole with separate details, but was the sum of deliberately isolated parts ignoring their hierarchy. Such a breakdown of solids creates separation as the coherent vision of the building and makes it more like a sculpture. As complementation, the furniture and interiors were designed in the same stylistic as the elevations.

3.3 Origami

Architects and fashion designers have also found a common source of inspiration in origami, the Japanese art of folding paper. Origami comes from China, but because it was developed in Japan it is therefore considered a traditional Japanese art. The rules of origami are simple: the starting point must be only a square sheet of paper, which must not be cut or glued, but in order to create a 3D form it can only be folded. The process of folding the paper is written using an algorithm of procedure.¹ Origami, as an example of algorithmic paper geometry, can be a strong base for experimenting with new forms while starting the design process. Creating small, easy to make models, for example paper miniatures, in order to search for the intentional form is an essential aspect of the artist’s or architect's work on the conceptual level.

The influence of origami can also be noticed in many other areas of art including fashion runways, for example in the collection called Sculpting Mind by Yuki Hagino from 2013 (Fig.3a) Examples of contemporary architecture inspired by the art of origami can be discerned in designs such as Ice Cube by McBrige Charles Ryan in Melbourne (Fig.3b) or Embedded Project by HDD FUN in Shanghai (Fig.3c).

1 Takeo Kanade, A Theory of Origami World, North-Holland Publishing Company (1980)

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a. b. c.

Fig.3(a): Origami inspired fashion collection, source: http://www.yukihagino.com;

Fig.3(b): Origami inspired architecture, source:http://www.mcbridecharlesryan.com.au;

Fig.3(c): Origami inspired architecture, source: http://www.hhdfun.com 3.4 Fractals

The issue of fractals concerns a new level of inspiration for contemporary artists, as their use announces a deeper level of complexity in the algorithmic record of geometry and indicates a movement towards the idea of parametrization in both fashion and architectural design. Fractals are a part of nature, which can be represented by mathematical algorithms, and they serve as inspiration for non-trivial geometry in interesting spatial forms. The word fractal (lat. fractus) means exactly broken, partial, or fractional. Commonly it refers to a self-similar object (the fragments of which are similar to the whole object) or "infinite subtlety" (showing the subtle details even with multiple enlargement). Due to a wide variety of examples, mathematicians avoid forming rigid definitions and suggest determining fractals as sets that have all of the following characteristics, or at least the majority of them: fractals in every scale have a non-trivial structure, which cannot be easily described in traditional Euclidean geometry; they are self-similar, if not in the exact sense, then approximately; they have a relatively simple recursive definition and their Hausdorff dimension is greater than the topological dimension.¹ Through the development of computational capabilities in modern technologies, fractals can be considered as inspired by the natural, algorithmic notation of the complicated language of mathematics. This gives a new insight for artists and architects to gain inspiration from the surrounding nature, as nowadays they can be inspired by “computerized” nature. Fashion and architecture have come full circle back to nature, but with completely new meaning that has adapted to the cybernetic world in which we live today. This is why the article points to the issue of fractals as the most accurate, symbolic indication of the idea of the parameterization in contemporary art and architecture.

1 Benoit B. Mandelbrot, The fractal geometry of nature.(NY: W. H. Freeman and Company 1983)

Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning

104 In the search for fractals in art and architecture, examples can be found in Hindu culture and art.

Fractal design often occurs in the form of ornamentation, for example on vaults (Fig.4a). Also in other parts of the world, we can come across fractals in various forms. As an example, in Tokyo, inspired by a simple geometric fractal, Kisho Kurokawa designed the Nakagin Capsule Tower - office and residential building, which represents the architectural style of metabolism (Fig.4b).

In fashion design, contemporary designer Lisa Shahno created a collection called “The Iteration”

(Fig.4c), which was inspired by fractal cosmology and driven by the idea that the universe may consist of an infinite number of levels that are similar to each other, but different in scale.

a. b. c

Fig.4(a): Fractal ornament, source: https://upload.wikimedia.org;

Fig.4(b): Geometric fractal of metabolism, source: http://www.kisho.co.jp Fig.4(c): Fractal cosmology inspired fashion, source: http://lisashahno.com;