International Conference on Architectural Research

”Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism

Memory Architecture vs. Inception

Section: Rethinking architecture by redefinition – Communicating architecture

Topic: Architecture – built environment memory

author: Ana Maria Crisan

abstract:

In everyday life architecture, the opportunities to dream and to imagine seem to be linked to perspective experiments. The present paper explores the built environment of Inception, the reference movie directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2010, as a base for the architecture/memory binomial experience.

The ideas behind the utopian worlds are rooted in the attempt to reintroduce the architectural representation of imaginary perspectives as a focal point of the mechanics of construction. The analysis focuses on the distortion of space and the specific mechanics, linking the reference example with similar imaginary architectural worlds.

The topic is discussed following Gilles Deleuze’s theory of Difference and Repetition, which explores the idea of folding. One distinctive approach is the particular baroque perspective in contemporary architecture, involving present examples, as well as references such as Escher’s mazes and Piranesi’s Carceri d’Inventione. What is the built environment memory?  Is it of an experiential nature or a formal adaptation? Are the perspective hinges the intro point for the metaphoric imagination?

On the subject of current realistic architecture, the intrigue is that of the contemporary metaphysics. The contested static, the folding spaces, the multiplied access, the mirrored surfaces – these are aspects discussed as a part of complex system of distorted reality. In the terms of Deleuze’s theory, the virtual reality replaces the possibility.