EQUUS

Braque Gris Beckmann’s reclusive nature sees him trying to shield himself from the outside world. To achieve this feeling I created a building that feels as though it is wrapping around its occupant; as if to contain and protect.

The disjointed style employed in the wrapping takes influence from Beckmann’s love of creating Cubism art work. Featuring a lower and upper level, there many different rooms, each providing its individual experience. The mirror located high above can be viewed from unit 7 located on the upper level of which the ramp leads into from below.

Continuing with the Cubism theme, but leaving the curved nature of the first building, this structure takes seven different forms from within Cubist and Expressionist paintings. Those paintings were created by the three artists from which Braque Gris Beckmann’s name may have been contrived.

These seven shapes form the basic floor plan of the building. Walls have been simply extruded vertically to create an intriguing structure. Initially this structure took on a wrapping formation, each room linked in a kind of spiralling effect. Although there is an essence of this still present in the design, the building took on a different form through the design process. The step formation of the building leads up to the tower at the back allowing for the inhabitant to utilise both inside and outside areas of the house.

This first card model is essentially a more developed form of the previous sketchup model; it has become more refined through the shaping and proportioning of the various units both internally and externally. Sharp edges and Cubist forms are utilised to create an angular inhabitable space. It creates an image of heavy concrete intersecting planes rising out of the ground and morphing into this structural form.

This final model displays an intricate reflection of Beckmann’s mind. The use of the pristine structure derived from the Cubist type shapes is now torn apart much like Beckmann’s mind. Just as the memories of war have destroyed part of Beckmann’s mind, part of the building looks as if it has been ripped apart by war.

Once again the element of Cubism has been used in the construction of the war torn area of the building, stylising and augmenting the way in which it is viewed. This is truly an attempt to unravel and display the intricacies of one man’s mind through architectural form.