Material Misuse:

The constructive misuse of materials has led to some of the most radical architecture in the 20th century.  The ‘Maison de Verre’ by Pierre Chareau used materials normally found in factories to create a luminous architectural space with moving elements. Such practices in architecture occurred in parallel with surrealism: Duchamp’s urinal, and collage – the constructive misuse of materials on paper. Kennedy and Violich have offered more contemporary examples of material misuse, such as the ‘hollow walls’ we construct nowadays, replete with their hidden service technologies – and the paranoia surrounding the unknown spaces they occupy. ‘Material misuse’ is a technical study of the invisible.

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