Beauty and Entropy Diploma 1
Architectural Association School of Architecture
Key Information
Campus location
Bloomsbury, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
Request info
Duration
Request info
Pace
Request info
Tuition fees
Request info
Application deadline
Request info
Earliest start date
Aug 2023
Scholarships
Explore scholarship opportunities to help fund your studies
Introduction
This is the old hotel, and you can see that instead of just tearing it all down in one stage they tear it down partially so that you are not deprived of the complete wreckage situation. That’s very satisfying to me: it’s not often that you see buildings being both ripped down and built up at the same time.’
– Robert Smithson
Picture this: it is 1969 and artists Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt are on a visit to Chiapas, Mexico. They are planning a site-specific art piece and staying at the shabby Hotel Palenque. Smithson records the hotel – part building site and part ruin – in a series of 31 photographs.
Cut to 1972: the scene is Smithson addressing a packed lecture theatre at the University of Utah, School of Architecture in Salt Lake City. Instead of hearing about the architectural merits of archaeological sites and land art, the bemused students are treated to the 31 slides of the Hotel Palenque and Smithson’s deadpan commentary. Smithson’s exposition focuses on the incomplete and the banal and the fascinating beauty he sees in these phenomena.
The lecture, with its rambling repetition, was an art piece in itself. Smithson revealed his delight in the entropic decay of the hotel, but did so in a way that manifested the self-same characteristics. The slide show and commentary were one of a series of art pieces by Smithson and Holt that focused on the natural processes of time, material and entropy. The provocations within the lecture pointed to these processes and their relation to social and cultural values.
About the School
Questions
Similar Courses
Diploma in Architectural Technician (ARTC)
- Barrie, Canada
- Online
Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practice Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 3 exemption)
- Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom
Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practice Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 3 exemption)
- Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom