From soft melting, pocket watches against the backdrop of northeastern Catalonia to a yellow eye rock fish bursting out of a pomegranate, in turn spewing out a pouncing tiger holding a rifle; welcome to the world of surrealists!
Who were these people with such bizarre imaginations and illusive fantasies, you may ask? Surrealists were the partakers of an artistic and literary movement, which mainly thrived in Europe, known as Surrealism. The movement spanned various styles, but indeed it’s underlying theme was notions of the unconscious mind, an unhindered and unbound source of artistic creativity.
The essence of the ideology cannot be better explained, than by the words of Salvador Dali: “Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.”
The advent of surrealism can be traced back to the early 1920s, as a reaction to the rationalistic and rigid philosophies of European politics and culture, that they believed lead to the horrors of World War 1. A few distinct icons of the movement were Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Frieda Kahlo, and Joan Miro. While some engaged in creating abstract paintings, some focused on hyper-realistic, dreamlike images, while others did wonders through poetry.
Soon enough, Surrealism started creeping its way into literature, photography, sculptures, interiors, and even architecture. The beginning of this collaboration though was tough, as surrealists thought very little of architecture. According to prominent surrealists like Dali and Breton, architecture was inevitably associated with an order, constraint, and bureaucracy, things they essentially meant to undermine. In the words of Breton, “modern architecture was the most unhappy dream of the collective unconscious”. *
In an attempt to defy these pre-existing notions, Austrian-American architect, Frederick Kiesler emerged with the Endless House. A form difficult to describe with just one glance, the Endless House somewhat resembles a complex shell that supposedly encapsulates, foreshadows, and controls certain parameters of the house inside a virtual elastic skin.
Kiesler calls this design a “sensual body that one desires to inhabit”. Its organic form allows a mentally relaxing and peaceful space; an environment that stimulates nurturing, comparable to that of a womb. Spaces seemingly folded into one another, while furniture folded out of the interior walls, and a traveling light guided the path through the ostensibly infinite volume. “The Endless House is called ‘Endless’ because all ends meet, and meet continuously,” Kiesler explains. *
Although the design remained unbuilt, it brought forth Kiesler’s affinity towards surrealism. He firmly believed in organic forms as opposed to rigid techniques used for the modern box-like architecture. He was known for his spheroid eggshell structures and psychically stimulating interiors. These philosophies are mainly seen in two more of his surrealistic works, the Endless Theatre and Space House.
The Endless Theatre project was designed to accommodate sports and theatre facilities for up to a million people. It was characterized by open platforms suspended by cables which would be enclosed within a spheroid matrix shell, upon which images could be projected. The entire theatre would have no columns and would be built of some transparent balloon material ensuring a free interaction between the actors and spectators. According to him, “the elasticity of the building should reflect the elasticity of living”. *
Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil created from scratch half a century ago, serves as one of the greatest specimens of surrealist architecture today. The chief architect Oscar Niemeyer envisioned the city to provide “an indescribable sense of shock that would lift visitors out of their everyday life”. The design and construction of the city is the largest project of modern architecture, far surpassing cities like Chandigarh and Singapore in terms of extent.
It is said that Niemeyer was concerned with form alone and thought that other factors such as the functionality of a building, weren’t as important. It may not be easy to pinpoint where exactly the surrealism lies, but one thing is for sure that the buildings of Brasilia may not be comfortable, but neither are they ordinary.
The cathedral, for example, is a concrete framed building with sixteen ribs that are generally interpreted as a ‘crown of ribs’. One has to walk through a dark passage before emerging into the brightly lit cathedral. Subsequently, being built mostly of glass and located in an area where the midday temperature is quite high, the building becomes very hot, and a sudden drop in temperature can be felt as one leaves the cathedral. This experience of shock by the visitors was what pleased Niemeyer, as his only aim with architecture was to create something different. “You will see the palaces of Brasília, which you may or may not like, but you will never be able to say you have seen anything like them” was what he would tell his visitors, often with a smirk on his face.
It is said that of all the art movements affecting the design of buildings and cities, surrealism has been the least explored, its influences largely gone unnoticed. In today’s world where form follows function is the norm, surrealism is a gentle reminder that maybe, the form can follow just about anything you want it to, even your dreams!
