UNIT PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Redesigning the Garden of Eden: Granny Smith in the Garden of Earthly Delights

Grounded in the concept of the copy and referring to Hieronymus Bosch's ''Garden of Earthly Delights'' (ca. 1500), the project proposes a re-enactment of the Garden of Eden challenging the meaning of a mythical space and original location within past and present architectural cultures through the technique of copying.

As the object of original sin, the apple operates as a point of departure symbolising idealised nature (through its association with the picturesque), industrialised agriculture (through its manufacturing as a prototypical fruit), human culture (through its figuration in art history), techno-utopian corporateness (through its contemporary use as trademark).
While exploring the natural and artificial contexts developed from the cultural image of the apple through drawing and modelling techniques (collage, fragmentation, superposition, juxtaposition, trompe l’oeil, simulation model, digital reconstruction), the narratives, activities and programs are synthesized using the organisational tool of the grid and the architectural type of the greenhouse within the pictorial space of Bosch’s triptych.

Thus, the concept of authenticity entails an entire dictionary of copying (comprising ideas of multiplication, duplication, architectural doppelganger, vernacular, popular culture, replication , preservation, conservation, memory, reconstruction, imitation, mis-figuration, stage, re-enactment, parody, satire, fake, intellectual property, copyright, plagiarism, piracy, forgery, crime) which can be used as analytical and communicative strategies to understand the ambivalent theoretical and practical relationships of architecture and its post-modern context.