A pirouette on the orthographic hinge

Author: Lois Weinthal Year: 2018 Source type: chapter (Ch. 26 of The Interior Architecture Reader, ed. Gregory Marinic, Routledge; pp. 215–23)

Raw file: raw/chapters/weinthal_2018-a_pirouette_on_the_orthographic_hinge.md

Summary

Lois Weinthal (interior design theorist, editor of Toward a New Interior) probes the orthographic projection drawing system — plan, section, and elevation joined by "invisible hinges" — to find "where it loses its grip on supporting the work of the designer." Her claim: time-based events distinguish interiors from the static form of architecture, yet both defer to orthographic drawings as "the unifying form of representation," and the system "provides true data under the assumption that only physical elements are documented" — so the temporal occupation of the interior is systematically left off the drawing. Through four scenarios she tests "how dynamic elements can be made visible": Virginia Woolf's Orlando (servants' movements made visible by the lights they carry, watched from a distance); the ballet pirouette ("dynamic and static at the same time" — capturable as a dot in plan at the pointe shoe, lost as blur above roughly one inch); Anna Pavlova's cancelled 1931 final performance, in which the absent dancer was "represented by a point of light moving across the stage"; and the 1944 industrial-engineering studies of Jane Callaghan and Catherine Palmer (Measuring Space and Motion), who documented bodies performing domestic chores with multiple 35mm cameras, mirrors, and "dark technique" light-tracing photographs, producing three-dimensional "space-shapes" — "the precursors to current motion capture technology." The chapter closes by proposing that movement, like the baroque anamorphic technique developed out of perspective's conventions, could itself "be distilled down to a set of rules" — if rules are first derived from the documentation of movement.

Key Claims

Woolf's Orlando epigraph accomplishes two "spatial maneuvers": the characters' movements are "mapped by their direct connection to light" (an Elizabethan world of oil lanterns and candles), and "Orlando's view from a distance resulting in a degree of objectivity, setting apart the observer from the observed." Light makes domestic labour's movements visible across interiors — the tracking of a body by the single point of light it carries.
"Time-based events distinguish interiors from the static form of architecture, yet the documentation of both these spatial realms defer to orthographic drawings as the unifying form of representation." See temporality, representation.
Orthographic drawings record forms "that foresee no change until a renovation prompts a new set of orthographic drawings"; occupants moving during the drawing's making leave no trace — "orthographic drawings like it that way; it keeps the space clean and objective rather than muddy with the ephemeral shoes of people walking through it." See orthographic-projection.
The system's hinge: "The conceptual hinge that binds the framework of plan and section follows a set of logical rules that provide true data under the assumption that only physical elements are documented. This system is conducive to the static nature of architecture. In contrast, interiors align with time-based activities but are typically absent in orthographic drawings."
Definition of the system: "a field of parallel lines meets a perpendicular surface"; "Plan, section, and elevation inform one another across invisible hinges that result in a collection of two-dimensional views folded up to convey a three-dimensional form"; the picture plane must be flat ("a ripple in the picture plane would disrupt the rules"); "Point, line, and plane help translate back and forth between one, two, and three dimensions, where the point can be seen as the fundamental element upon which everything else is built" — hence multiple views are needed, since what is a point in one view may be a plane in another.
The still-life requirement: "the drawing requires that the form being recorded hold still, as if being drawn for a still life. This works for static elements but is unaccepting of the temporary and fleeting. This matters not so much for architecture, but it matters in interior design, where the practice is responsible for designing the temporary and fleeting." See interior-design.
The dancer is "a myopic representation of how the body moves through space. It is choreographed and predictable, unlike the casual occupant who walks through a room and can make an unpredictable decision about their trajectory based upon environmental cues as simple as the placement of furniture, light, and other occupants." See movement-perception.
The pirouette as test case: "It is dynamic and static at the same time. The body is twirling in motion around a single point: the pointe shoe of the dancer." In plan the body locates as a dot, but "the movement takes place in plan drawing but there is no distinction as to whether it is static or dynamic"; in elevation "the body becomes a blur, which the orthographic system does not like." The pirouette "allows for the body to be captured at about an inch above plan, but loses connection beyond that" — the system "fractures at approximately one inch above the plan view." See orthographic-projection.
The Pavlova anecdote: on the eve of her scheduled 1931 performance in The Hague, Pavlova died; "the performance went on but rather than being danced by Pavlova, she was represented by a point of light moving across the stage to mark her movements. The point of light was a projection that registered on the floor, similar to an orthographic plan view marking one-dimensional points." Since the system "is not conducive to the recording of a person, perhaps light as a replacement for the body can be considered an intermediate step toward an alternative iteration of the drawing. After all, the same rules and variables apply." See light-tracing.
Programming vs. anthropometrics: designers categorize Woolf's chore-list of movements ("bending, kneeling, rising, receiving, guarding, and escorting") with programmatic terms; the alternative "situate[s] the actions in the context of anthropometric studies"; "the distinction between them is what separates programming spaces through diagrams versus empirically documenting the body in action." See empirical-methods.
Callaghan and Palmer (industrial engineers, 1944, Measuring Space and Motion, John B. Pierce Foundation) documented the moving body undertaking domestic chores (washing hair, getting dressed, putting on stockings) to "design for ergonomically improved domestic interiors" — their stated intention: "the development of techniques by which space used by the human body in action can be recorded, measured, and reproduced in tangible three-dimensional form useful as the basis of house design." See space-shape, domestic-interior.
Their method mimicked orthographic projection: a "stage" setting with multiple 35mm cameras and mirrors in key locations producing "three or more simultaneous views of these definitive motions, a method of correcting for perspective, and a method of presenting a final space-shape to scale"; the photographs were "aligned around a core vertical axis, upon which multiple elevation photographs were centered. In this case, the central axis provided the hinge for connection."
Technical challenges as system diagnosis: front views photographed at greater distance than side views "necessitated enlargement of the front view before the two composites could be joined"; views had to be captured simultaneously (a raised arm appearing in one view at the same time and location in the others). "Theoretically they were early pioneers chipping away at the challenge of locating the moving body in orthographic projection."
The space-shapes: beyond x, y, z planes, they "interpolated the body's movement from one view to another to fill in the diagonals," producing models in "clay models, cardboard collages, wire figure armatures, papier mâché, and straws" — with the recurring difficulty "how to coalesce the views and represent the body in motion as a static model when the movement of the body is inherently fluid." See space-shape.
The "dark technique" photograph: the actor wore "lights attached to head, hands, elbows, feet, and back… The shutter of the camera was left open throughout the action and the moving lights recorded the paths of motion" — time-lapse photographs that were "true data… while simultaneously fulfilling a phenomenal graphic," and "could be seen as the precursors to current motion capture technology." See light-tracing.
The system already contains a licensed fiction: "a moment of disbelief is already inherent in the orthographic drawing – such as the rule that allows the dotted line to represent what is behind or in front of the picture plane, while still allowing the variables to remain constant." See truth-and-illusion.
The anamorphic precedent for rule-change: "Is it possible that the outcome, if still following a set of rules, would result in another reading, much like the anamorphic drawing technique developed out of the conventions of perspective did during the baroque? There is still precision in the anamorphic technique." (Citing Pérez-Gómez & Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, 1997.) See anamorphosis, perspective.
The system's status and its gap: "The degree of objectivity that the variables and principles of orthographic projection have arrived at result in a set of rules distilled to fundamentals that are unarguable. The missing piece is the integration of movement that has yet to find a way into the drawing that can become part of the professional construction document set."
The programme: "movement also has the potential to be distilled down to a set of rules, but it may have to be derived from the documentation of movement first, which can only help designers become better aware of how the body moves in space."
The frame thesis: "the fleeting can always be grounded in true data, and the means by which the fleeting is documented can be captivating due to the invisible forces that are being made visible."
The closing gender hinge: Orlando "goes on to challenge another kind of hinge, one that bridges male to female and opens up discussions in multiple disciplines" — and the roles reverse: "observer and observed now change roles as it is the servants that watch Orlando as 'a light passing along the galleries, through the banqueting-halls, up the staircases, into the bedrooms, and knew that their master was perambulating the house alone.'"

Connections

Concepts: orthographic-projection · representation · perspective · anamorphosis · temporality · light-tracing · space-shape · movement-perception · time-geography · empirical-methods · indexicality · interior-design · domestic-interior · interior-architecture · embodiment Authors: Lois Weinthal · Gregory Marinic (ed.) · Alberto Pérez-Gómez & Louise Pelletier (cited, note 7, on the perspective hinge and the anamorphic technique) · (discussed, not paged: Virginia Woolf; Jane Callaghan & Catherine Palmer; Anna Pavlova; Jules Étienne Marey; Eadweard Muybridge — see log) Debates: truth-and-illusion — the licensed disbelief of the dotted line and the anamorphic "another reading" with retained precision · static-vs-dynamic-architecture — time-based events as the interior's distinction from static architecture, and orthographic projection as the static pole's representational apparatus · interior-design-vs-architecture — interior design as the practice "responsible for designing the temporary and fleeting," whose own object its shared drawing convention erases Related source notes: Hedges — The waiting room — the sibling diagnosis of drawing's temporal limit: "Plans, sections, and elevations are horizontal-vertical slices in a moment of time, a representation of space rather than time" (Hedges) meets Weinthal's still-life requirement; where Hedges answers with the waiting drawing (time marked by hand), Weinthal answers with the documentation of movement (space-shapes, light tracings) · La Coe — Quadrature — the representation-system cluster: La Coe's perspective (converging rays) and Weinthal's orthographic projection (parallel lines) as the two hinges of western spatial representation; both end at Pérez-Gómez & Pelletier's hinge book · Taylor — Shape shifting — Taylor's real-time responsive interior is one heir of the problem Weinthal states: a discipline whose practice designs the temporal while its documents record the static · Carraher — Technologies: The spatial agency of digital praxis — Allen's complaint that digital software still defaults to "a perspectival frame and an orthographic coordinate system" is the contemporary form of Weinthal's fissure: the inherited coordinate system constraining what can be represented · Webb — Inside out — Webb's drawings rotate the building around the driver's "Cyclopean line of sight": a representational datum (the occupant's viewpoint) built into the drawing, as Weinthal's hinge is built into orthographic projection · Spankie — Lines of Enquiry — the occupied interior that "conventional design drawings" cannot capture: Spankie's topological description and Weinthal's movement documentation are twin answers to representation's failure before inhabitation

Direct Quotes

The chapter carries no page numbers in the wiki's OCR copy; Weinthal's prose is located by section heading. Passages quoted from other authors carry the note numbers of Weinthal's endnotes; the chapter occupies pp. 215–23 of the Reader.

"Some were small hurrying lights, as if servants dashed along corridors to answer summonses; others were high and lustrous lights … and others dipped and waved and sank and rose, as if held in the hands of troops of serving men, bending, kneeling, rising, receiving, guarding, and escorting with all dignity indoors." (Virginia Woolf, Orlando, p. 20, epigraph)

"orthographic drawings like it that way; it keeps the space clean and objective rather than muddy with the ephemeral shoes of people walking through it." (introduction)

"The conceptual hinge that binds the framework of plan and section follows a set of logical rules that provide true data under the assumption that only physical elements are documented." (introduction)

"Plan, section, and elevation inform one another across invisible hinges that result in a collection of two-dimensional views folded up to convey a three-dimensional form." (§ Orthographic projection)

"The perpendicular relationship is neutral until the draughtsperson activates the latent field of invisible parallel lines received by the passive surface patiently awaiting the drawn line, also known as the picture plane." (§ Orthographic projection)

"As the design appears on paper, the drawing requires that the form being recorded hold still, as if being drawn for a still life. This works for static elements but is unaccepting of the temporary and fleeting. This matters not so much for architecture, but it matters in interior design, where the practice is responsible for designing the temporary and fleeting." (§ Orthographic projection)

"The movement of a dancer is a myopic representation of how the body moves through space. It is choreographed and predictable, unlike the casual occupant who walks through a room and can make an unpredictable decision about their trajectory based upon environmental cues as simple as the placement of furniture, light, and other occupants." (§ Dancing across the hinge)

"Rather than trying to pinpoint the occupant to one location captured at a precise orthographic moment, this chapter seeks to follow the dancer in space in order to provoke the orthographic drawing and its hinge." (§ Dancing across the hinge)

"It is dynamic and static at the same time. The body is twirling in motion around a single point: the pointe shoe of the dancer." (§ Dancing across the hinge, on the pirouette)

"In this case, the movement takes place in plan drawing but there is no distinction as to whether it is static or dynamic." (§ Dancing across the hinge)

"The pirouette is a unique example when placed in dialogue with the orthographic system. It allows for the body to be captured at about an inch above plan, but loses connection beyond that." (§ Dancing across the hinge)

"the performance went on but rather than being danced by Pavlova, she was represented by a point of light moving across the stage to mark her movements. The point of light was a projection that registered on the floor, similar to an orthographic plan view marking one-dimensional points, and similar to the pirouette discussed earlier." (§ Dancing across the hinge)

"Since this system is not conducive to the recording of a person, perhaps light as a replacement for the body can be considered an intermediate step toward an alternative iteration of the drawing. After all, the same rules and variables apply." (§ Dancing across the hinge)

"the distinction between them is what separates programming spaces through diagrams versus empirically documenting the body in action." (§ Space-shapes)

"the development of techniques by which space used by the human body in action can be recorded, measured, and reproduced in tangible three-dimensional form useful as the basis of house design." (Jane Callaghan & Catherine Palmer, Measuring Space and Motion, p. 13, quoted)

"three or more simultaneous views of these definitive motions, a method of correcting for perspective, and a method of presenting a final space-shape to scale." (Callaghan & Palmer, p. 5, quoted)

"It also happened that the front views were photographed at a greater distance from the camera than the side views. This necessitated enlargement of the front view before the two composites could be joined together to make the model." (Callaghan & Palmer, p. 15, quoted)

"In this case, the central axis provided the hinge for connection." (§ Space-shapes, on the photographs "aligned around a core vertical axis")

"theoretically they were early pioneers chipping away at the challenge of locating the moving body in orthographic projection." (§ Space-shapes, on Callaghan & Palmer)

"At times, it appeared that the greater challenge was how to coalesce the views and represent the body in motion as a static model when the movement of the body is inherently fluid." (§ Space-shapes)

"lights attached to head, hands, elbows, feet, and back… . The shutter of the camera was left open throughout the action and the moving lights recorded the paths of motion." (Callaghan & Palmer, p. 14, quoted, on the "dark technique" photograph)

"Through their multiple experiments of documentation and representation, the collection of Callaghan and Palmer's work could be seen as the precursors to current motion capture technology." (§ Light tracings)

"As for the pirouette, it challenges the orthographic system to fracture at approximately one inch above the plan view." (§ Light tracings)

"The fracture initiates an opportunity for another type of drawing to enter into the Cartesian relationship and form a new hinge." (§ Light tracings)

"a moment of disbelief is already inherent in the orthographic drawing – such as the rule that allows the dotted line to represent what is behind or in front of the picture plane, while still allowing the variables to remain constant." (§ Light tracings)

"Is it possible that the outcome, if still following a set of rules, would result in another reading, much like the anamorphic drawing technique developed out of the conventions of perspective did during the baroque? There is still precision in the anamorphic technique." (§ Light tracings)

"The degree of objectivity that the variables and principles of orthographic projection have arrived at result in a set of rules distilled to fundamentals that are unarguable. The missing piece is the integration of movement that has yet to find a way into the drawing that can become part of the professional construction document set." (§ Light tracings)

"In the examples given throughout this chapter, movement also has the potential to be distilled down to a set of rules, but it may have to be derived from the documentation of movement first, which can only help designers become better aware of how the body moves in space." (§ Light tracings)

"the fleeting can always be grounded in true data, and the means by which the fleeting is documented can be captivating due to the invisible forces that are being made visible." (introduction)

"observer and observed now change roles as it is the servants that watch Orlando as 'a light passing along the galleries, through the banqueting-halls, up the staircases, into the bedrooms, and knew that their master was perambulating the house alone.'" (closing; Woolf, Orlando, p. 68, quoted)

Open Questions

The pirouette "fractures" the system "at approximately one inch above the plan view" — is the fracture a height (a band of representational failure) or a point of transition where a different drawing convention should take over? What drawing occupies the space above one inch?
Pavlova's light-point and Callaghan & Palmer's dark-technique tracings both replace the body with light the system can accept. Is the light-point a representation of the moving body or its absence made drawable — and does the discipline want the body back in the drawing, or only its path?
Weinthal asks whether altered rules "would result in another reading, much like the anamorphic drawing technique." What would a genuinely anamorphic orthographic projection look like — and would it remain part of "the professional construction document set," or a parallel, interpretive convention like the one it cites?
If movement "may have to be derived from the documentation of movement first," what is the archive of movement for interiors — Callaghan & Palmer's chore studies, motion capture, sensors? Does the responsive-interior paradigm (Taylor) already generate the documentation whose rules Weinthal awaits?
Woolf's reversed gaze (the servants watching Orlando's light perambulate the house) makes observation itself mobile and mutual. Does the closing gender hinge (male-to-female) suggest that the orthographic system's "objectivity" — the observer set apart from the observed — is itself a gendered position, and what would a representation look like that refused that distance?