ABSTRACT
Nader Tehrani writes on the body, the object and the enclosure as investments in the art of figuration. Drawing on historic case studies as well as his own work, Tehrani asserts that behind this investment in figuration lies a historical discourse on the nature of representation. Tehrani describes how the body, as subject, is prone to two very different forms of registration: The first as a pictorial icon, whose recognizable parts speak to the narrative of the whole; and the second as an index, whereby traces and imprints of the body may be present without any visual resemblance to the body itself.
Tehrani breaks down his argument in three areas of focus. The body: Tehrani describes how the presence of the body in architecture is registered through dimension, scale and ergonomics whereby the torso, limbs, head and especially the hand all establish a special relationship with the built environment. The object: Tehrani calls on architects to gain a deeper understanding of materials and the discrete forms of production that lie behind fabrication in order to claim the integrity of the discipline. The enclosure: Tehrani questions to what degree architecture is bound to communicate its content on the form of its body, what of the interior gets represented on its skin, and how the organs of a building’s systems become registered in the morphology of the envelope.
In conclusion, Tehrani projects that although the discipline has thrived for several hundred years almost single-handedly with a bias toward optics, the shift to the digital may redirect historical thinking allowing for new forms of intellection, where the ability to navigate codes will have an expanding impact on the figure.
