John Hejduk (1929-2000) is a significant American architect who demonstrates his art work specifically and only on paper, through drawings, collages, and scale models. Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hejduk was interested in developing characters and communicate architectural language through his works. He later believed that architecture contained meaning within them – such as narratives, actions, or symbolic ideologies. Through techniques like repetition, appropriation, fragmentation and layering, Hejduk was able to adopt semantic aspects to his explorations in architecture. One challenge that risen during his career was to “generate architectural character(s) as based on the imagination of the architect”. Hejduk started to investigate the “possibilities of making proposals with no regards to specific realities.” (Søberg, 2011) During his long years of art career, Hejduk developed sets of characters for his art to explore his questions.

Character” is an architectural lingo that is defined as the “meaning and readability of a building and the appropriateness of its visual expression in relation to its functional purposes.” This notion then became a formal style later, particularly in the eighteenth century. Hejduk’s Berline Masque (1979-1983) was a complete exploration of the notion of character. (Søberg, 2011) Masques are architectural drawings that were embodied with stories of characters, “specified […] by the construction of relationships with other elements” instead of embodying the problematic relationship between humans and symbols. (Fabrizi, 2018) This notion was named after the tradition of masked dance ceremonies that were once popular in royal courts during sixteenth-century Europe. Hejduk would relate objects with these characters to create masques, such as “resembling a cross between a playground and a concentration camp.” (Angelidakis) Masques could build connections between different elements, and thus is a technique of repetition, specifically used to signify.

By using this concept of masque, Hejduk intervenes with places that have collective memory while the project itself stays in a state of abandonment. This allows him to take the figures that once inhabited the place and relocate them in a relationship with the current users by connecting elements from the past and contemporary, and thus demonstrating a future aspect of the place. (Fabrizi, 2018) In his project Berlin Masque, the art project consists of 28 structures placed in complex relation and their descriptions of how they are handled by their users. At the time of its creation, West Berlin was an isolated island in the centre of the German Democratic Republic. (Søberg, 2011)

Berlin Masque also inspired Hejduk to develop another project, Victims.  In this project, he suggests an intervention of a site for over sixty year – composed of two thirty-years periods. He comprised the structure’s elements and characters into other drawings, “shown schematically in either silhouette or perspective.” Hejduk did not draw these structures in strict grid forms, instead, he chose to arrange his structures in a scattered form. While there is one sketch still lined up in order, other sketches are more spread out and look like a map of a small and tightly packed town. (Søberg, 2011)

Berlin Masque also inspired Hejduk to develop another project, Victims.  In this project, he suggests an intervention of a site for over sixty year – composed of two thirty-years periods. He comprised the structure’s elements and characters into other drawings, “shown schematically in either silhouette or perspective.” Hejduk did not draw these structures in strict grid forms, instead, he chose to arrange his structures in a scattered form. While there is one sketch still lined up in order, other sketches are more spread out and look like a map of a small and tightly packed town. (Søberg, 2011)

Hejduk inspired me to also apply the technique of masque and character to create a catalog of architectural monsters based on objects around me. My collection consists of three drawings that I drew digitally on my iPad – three monsters, inspired by the objects: type writer, old fashion telephone, and the combination of the former and the latter.

The first drawing looks like the side of a type writer without keyboards, but only a few buttons in the frontal surface serving like monster eyes. It has a small head on top with not facial features, and multiple limbs. It walks like a pet dog with four small legs on the bottom. The overall structure is small and chubby, giving the type writer monster some cute elements while combining with some scary features like its eyes.

The second drawing is also a combination of cute and scary features. The drawing of the monster is inspired from an old fashion telephone. The ear phone part is omitted. The main structure of the telephone is used as the body for the monster. The handle of the phone is vertically attached to the main body, acting like the head and the neck. The joyful and cute elements kick in with the large eyes of the monster – inspired by the dialing plate and buttons. The speaker is added on top of the face, acting like a hat or accessory. The bottom of the monster is wired components that make up its “legs”.

The last drawing is the combination of the type writer and the phone. The head component is inspired by the top part of the type writer and the face is from the dialing plate of the telephone. The wires and a head phone is used to create it antennae. The facial expression is viscous with sharp teeth. The body part adapted the design of the side of the type writer, with hands and wires that resemble the handles of the phone and pointy parts of the type writer. This monster has a lot of sharp components, and a fierce facial expression, making it the most terrifying out of the three.

I drew all three drawings with loose sketch lines that are ambiguous and allow for future edits. My ideas are still evolving and I didn’t want to make it so strict. All drawings were made in a frontal portrait perspective, the viewer’s position would be right in front of the monsters. I intentionally left the background white so I am not limited to my current ideas and also not to limit the abilities of the monsters. If I drew the monsters on the ground, it may seem as if they are limited to walking only. The sequence of the collection is intended to develop from least terrifying to most terrifying, as well as to introduce the two separate elements of the two objects first before showing the combination design.

By combining these features of daily objects with certain characters, I want to reflect some aspects of the colonising history of Australia, as well as connecting the past and contemporary era. When the colonisers first arrived Australia, the indigenous people found technology from the West to be new and consequently felt fear from the unknown. What was seemed as useful and efficient tools to the colonisers may not give the indigenous people the same type of feeling. Today, old fashion telephones and type writers are seen as stylish and decorative vintage accessories. Not many people still use them or think of them as useful, but many find them to be cute. This difference in perceiving the two objects is combined in my design through masque and character.

References

Angelidakis, A. (n.d.). Cemetery for the Ashes of Thought. Retrieved August 11, 2020, from https://www.documenta14.de/en/south/675_cemetery_for_the_ashes_of_thought

Fabrizi, M. (2018, February 10). A Growing, Incremental Place – Incremental Time: "Victims", a... Retrieved August 11, 2020, from http://socks-studio.com/2015/11/01/a-growing-incremental-place-incremental-time-victims-a-project-by-john-hejduk-1984/

Hejduk, J. (n.d.). Victims [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://socks-studio.com/img/blog/Victims-John-Hejduk-13.jpg

Hejduk, J. (n.d.). Victims [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://socks-studio.com/img/blog/Victims-John-Hejduk-09.jpg

Hejduk, J. (n.d.). Victims [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://socks-studio.com/img/blog/Victims-John-Hejduk-07.jpg

Søberg, M. (2011). John Hejduk’s Pursuit of an Architectural Ethos. 6(1-2), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.6.1-2.753

Li, X. (2020). Monster A [Drawing]. Sydney.

Li, X. (2020). Monster B [Drawing]. Sydney.

Li, X. (2020). Monster C [Drawing]. Sydney.

[John Hejduk]. (2006). Retrieved from http://www.arch.ttu.edu/people/faculty/Neiman_B/bebop06/2006_01_13_hejduk.pdf