Impossible Architectures

Architecture begins as a way of bringing order to space. It builds boundaries, establishes directions and separates inside from outside, above from below, beginning from end. This series begins where that order ceases to obey. Impossible Architectures imagines buildings that might exist if the rules of space were slightly different. A house can have walls without an interior. A staircase can pass through itself. A door can open onto its own reverse. A building can be held up by its shadow. A corridor can exceed the building that contains it. Two buildings can occupy the same space. A room can have four floors. A tower can grow downwards. A bridge can connect two points that coincide. An architecture can change place when observed. These are failures in our certainties. Each work begins with a recognisable form and introduces a single impossibility. Everything else remains simple: geometry, matter, light, shadow, silence. The impossible has no need for spectacle. It only needs to be credible enough to make us doubt what we are seeing. In this series, architecture constructs paradoxes. Space gradually ceases to be something we inhabit and becomes something we must interpret. Perhaps the true limit of architecture lies in what the mind considers possible. Where matter obeys, but space lies.