Untethered

a speculative investigation in Bauhaus drawing techniques

The isometric drawing as an architectural staple, illustrates spatial details that other conventional drawings such as the plan, section and elevation cannot achieve simultaneously. Rooted in drawing techniques of the Bauhaus, this project attempts to question the potentials of isometric drawing in two and three-dimensions by way of untethering the two. Through a series of translational drawings and objects, Untethered focuses on pushing the misreading of isometry as a representational tool to become spatial while maintaining fundamental rules of orthographic projection. Existing isometric drawings, produced during the Bauhaus era, are used as a point of departure to transmute surfaces into lines and back to surfaces while oscillating between two and three-dimensional territories. This speculative negotiation between line and surface is meant to activate the static nature of the drawing into a spatially dynamic state in both dimensions that offer architectural potentials absent in their originally drawn conditions.

It must be noted that although highly influential on the works of art and architecture of the twentieth-century, the Bauhaus actively discouraged female students from studying the three-dimensional realm. Most of these students were directed to study interior design and weaving therefore resulting in a large gap in the production of isometric drawings by women. As an attempt to address this gap, this project has undertaken a number of drawings, models and one object derived from works of two women, Margarethe Fröhlich and Friedl Dicker-Brandeis among other works originally drawn by male scholars.

Design, fabrication, drawings and objects by Anali Gharakhani.
Special thanks to Matthew Corbitt, Greg Dulgeryan, Scott Wilburn, Richard Lucero and Juanita Estrada.

Untethered is an on-going research and design project; this installation was made possible by the generous support of the Woodbury Faculty Development Grant.

Untethered was on view from Sep 6 to Oct 4, 2019 at the Wedge Gallery.
Photographs courtesy of Richard Lucero.