Galerie DESIGN, Frelighsburg, Québec

The leaves are direct impressions from the living originals, here immortalized by the printing process. The size of the leaves and their veinous structure have not been altered by the artist. The viewer, face-to-face with the leaves, is asked to stop for a moment in the 'here and now', the apex of time where the past is but a silent preservation and the future is but a continuation of the cycle. Perspective and dimension are offered by the light from within the print and the embossment of the print paper created by the pressure of the press against the leaf.

In both projects, the architect's maquettes and the artist's prints, the different scale used by each demands of the viewer to make reference to the physical self. The 1 to 1 scale of the leaf prints and the 1 to 64 scale of the maquettes makes for an unusual juxtaposition and a setting where 'house' is smaller than 'leaf'.

As the intricate process of photosynthesis within the leaf creates food for life on earth, the plans and measures of the architect create notations, food for thought, Pythagorean principles for man-made constructions. This symbiosis brings to mind Pythagoras' idea of the celestial music of the spheres that is only heard at the moment of birth. At that moment, when we take our first breath, do we realize unconsciously that the leaf is a tympanum through which we breathe and perhaps through which we hear this celestial symphony, in the rustling of the leaves?

Architect's Statement
August 25, 2006
Eden Greig Muir, Architect, OAQ, AIA

Architecture is impossible without scale. Scale provides the architect with a measure of design, the essential unit system, the coordinate space. Scale allows standardized representation to occur.

Scale also has a more subtle aspect, intertwined with the concepts of ratio and proportion which have permeated design theory from the Vitruvian man of Leonardo da Vinci, to the "Modulor" man sketched by Le Corbusier. Ideal scales, regulating lines and mathematical formulas have been a kind of Holy Grail in design and architecture, whether sought in the Golden Section, the Fibonacci series, or the precise ratio of human frame to architectural space.

Nevertheless, the architect's quest for "correct" scale remains largely an operation of intuition, vision, and experience. It is a search for the connective patterns, volumetric balance, underlying proportions, and relationship of part to whole that together deliver a sense of harmony and well being and contribute to what Vitruvius defined as the goal of architecture: "firmness, commodity and delight."

As visual beings, we crave scale. Confronted by a glass office tower with no surface ornament, our eyes search desperately for some indication of scale, such as a human figure, in order to understand the size of what we are seeing. At a museum we are often surprised by the actual dimensions of a famous canvas. This is a case of mistaken scale--published reproductions did not provide any visual clue to the painting's size.

Viewing Bernice Sorge's nature prints, on the other side of this gallery, we experience a similar kind of scale shock. Surely these giant leaves are not at 1:1 scale, at life size? The eye searches for evidence of photographic manipulation, and finally acknowledges that these fibrous freaks of nature are indeed represented at full scale.

Next, the eye focuses on some of Sorge's eerily familiar background textures and recognizes the most prosaic of modern construction components--particle board. This random conglomerate of wood chips and resin, stamped into perfect 4 ft. x 8 ft. sheets, provides the visual background noise of today's construction industry. Like all modular sheathing it acts as an over-scaled carpenter's square, providing an instant framing guide of almost Pythagorean precision.

Ironically, here it is the artist who works directly with construction-industry materials while the architect labours to shape space and create form by means of sketches, 3D computer-modeling systems and the very forgiving mind's eye. In the early stages of the architectural design process, dimensions can be approximate. Human scale and proportions are the main concerns, i.e. the size of building elements and spaces relative to each other and relative to the human body, and how that relationship affects mood, comfort, and the perception of space.

The drafting and printing of plans, however, must be done at appropriate scales, since "blueprints" must be legible and definitively dimensioned. Floor plans are often drawn at a scale of 1/4 in. = 1 ft. or 1:48; details may be enlarged to 3/4 in. = 1 ft. or 1:16. In this exhibit, drawings are at a variety of scales, hence the differing sizes of the 6ft.-tall cartoon figures, scaled to represent average adults, which we use to analyze and fine-tune the architectural scale. In contrast, the five white models are all built at 3/16 in. = 1 ft., to facilitate comparison. This scale (1:64) means that the actual houses are 64 times longer, wider and taller.

Rarely does the architect produce plans at 1:1 scale, since the drawing would be larger than the design studio walls! It is only much later, after the plans have been completed, permits acquired, and construction underway, that architect and client begin to see their creation at full scale. The experience can be a startling one--similar to that first glimpse of an enormous Sorge leaf print--the shock of 1:1 scale.

Atelier Muir design team: Eden Greig Muir, Architect; Susan Muir, Architectural Designer Models constructed by Susan Muir. Photos by Eden Greig Muir.

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