果冻影院

Research

Subject

An Architect in the Footsteps of Ethnographer Carl Lumholtz

First and second supervisors聽

• Professor Murray Fraser (The Bartlett School of Architecture)
• Professor Susanne Kuechler (Department of Anthropology, 果冻影院)

Abstract

Under the Par铆cutin volcano in Mexico, a local Pur茅pecha community rediscovers its village destroyed by the lava through the work of Norwegian ethnographer Carl Lumholtz. His books show pictures of the ancestral trojes 鈥� typical huts 鈥撀燼nd describe the everyday life of the village, a hundred years ago. Starting in 1890 from cliff dwelling studies in Chihuahua, Lumholtz鈥檚 research lasted five years and studied multiple cultures and architectures such as sacred caves, temporary altars in the desert, dancing squares, shaman lodges in the woods, and the aforementioned trojes. Later, Lumholtz explored Borneo, where his architectural discoveries are similar in variety: communal longhouses, sacred ephemeral huts, monumental fisher structures, and funeral monuments in the jungle.聽
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As this Pur茅pecha community, what can we discover from Lumholtz鈥� archives, photographs, and writings? Both the natural and cultural contexts have changed today. Multiple forms of imperialisms have destroyed some of these cultures as the Par铆cutin has burned its surrounding villages. Furthermore, ethnography practices have evolved today and have to be questioned. This research by design proposes to rediscover Lumhotlz鈥檚 archives and sites from an architect鈥檚 point of view.聽

Traveling across Mexico and Borneo, the project will use ethnographer鈥檚 technics to study various architectural forms; vice versa, this project by design will introduce architecture technics to document ethnographic fieldwork. The objective is to associate two practices, in order to complete each other. On one hand, the ethnographer methodology includes interviews, notes, and photography; on the other hand, architecture techniques combine drawings, models, and construction studies.聽

This project is inspired by a post-modern ethnographic approach, including the point of the local as the point of view of the researcher. This experimentation will question the act of building in a given social and natural environment, and will propose a participative and perspectivist ethnography combining the knowledge of indigenous people, academics, artists and architects.聽

Biography

Olivier Bellflamme is a Belgian architect based in London. He graduated from La Cambre Horta in Brussels and the Architectural Association in London and is now the founder and curator of the art project Lucr猫ce. Today, the art residency Lucr猫ce is collaborating with many internationally renowned artists, such as Viriya Chotpanyavisut, Alexis Gautier, I拧tvan I拧t Huzjan, Sophie Nys, and Rometti Costales,聽in art projects around the globe, including France, Mexico, Peru, Laos, Ethiopia and Norway. Currently, he is studying for his Architectural Design PhD research about architecture and ethnography, at The Bartlett and at 果冻影院 Department of Anthropology. As an architect, he has mainly built in Mexico where he also worked for Frida Escobedo.聽

滨尘补驳别:听Pur茅pecha altar for the Saint of the Miracles, Par铆cutin volcano, Mexico, 2018.聽