Michel Serres – Atlas, Philosophy Part 1

Our last research was about Michel Serres. In “Atlas” we found a lot of interesting links to the text from Cartographic View (Buci-Glucksmann). We were still occupied with Maps, Diagrams, Diagram-Maps.

“Mlle de Scudéry, Carte du tende”

• Map = a portrait, a picture within denotation und figure.
• Map = the interface (or maybe the gateway) to the world


We are also working on “Aufklärung” from Michel Serres. 
This book is defining questions – so for us it is essential to immerse into the philosophy of Deleuze, Kant and Plato whom Serres is also quoting in his work.
Some of the questions we figured out are the following: 
- What is (the) world, from what point of view we are watching on things?
- Can we work with time – in a major point of view (universe). 
- We are researching about scale, perspective and energies.

In the chapter “Lokaler Raum - Da Sein”  Michel Serres describes an architectural floor plan:
„…der Grundriss des Hauses definiert als die Menge jener Wege, die eine größtmögliche Nähe ermöglichen. Zugleich aber gewisse Abstände halten. Das Bad ist nicht weit vom Schlafzimmer entfernt, die Küche nicht weit vom Esszimmer, die Stühle in der Nähe der Tische, Beziehungen,“

The work as an architect is to create a project/plan within short distances. The buildings have to be comfortable. The aim is to create building in which we feel at home – without any secrets or surprises. It should be a “House” or an “Office".


At this point we are looking for further reason to create something. Le Corbusiers “promenade architecturale” made us aware of another kind of motivation. In the picture below you can see a few sketches of his Maison La Roche – Jeanneret, 1923.
 

“Elisabeth Blum, Der Weg als Ausdruck”

The physical experience – the path one follows through a building - gives us another input. We frequently can find such intentions of this kind in the projects of OMA.

M.Serres defines a floor plan as follows:
“…Ein energetisch-offenes thermodynamisches und informationelles System, dessen interne Topologie bei formaler Darstellung die genannten Nachbarschaften und Abstände beschreibt.“

At this point we want think about energy and on different specifications of systems, and the term of "Globaler Raum".