v5 Projects in Poland, 1993–94

Glen Seator: Making Things Moving Places

v5 / Projects in Poland, 1993-94

I made two site visits, and I determined that I wanted to acknowledge the renovation and the fragility of the situation. I also wanted to perfect the room, in a sense, to render it perfect in classical form – in a way, to invert the Miesian dictum of form following function. I decided to eliminate things like windows.

…I wanted to render everything as something that was not functional as architecture, or not functional as something that had communication with other space.

I brought many rolls of masking tape – something like one hundred cases of masking tape – which we use in this country to protect a place that is undergoing a renovation from the very materials of improvement. In the spaces [across doorways] there were thin pieces of wood that were hot glued in place and then masking tape was stretched over them. After a while, after getting the hang of it, you could mold very quickly. This technique is something I learned from a painter when I was doing carpentry. Instead of covering bookshelves and portions that were to be protected from dust and paint, he would build incredibly quickly with masking tape, build from the ground up like construction. Essentially the entire room was rebuilt and most of the room was breakable. It’s quite a large space.

The tape covers the floor as well as what become walls – which were windows, niches, blind windows, and doors – and it goes to the tops of the walls. The tape is then pulled across the floor, over the step, and is then tucked under.

[Preventative Measures, 1994]

v5 / Projects in Poland, 1993–94
Lay-flat softcover binding with a stitched book block and reinforced spine
Page dimensions: 19 x 26 cm (7.5 x 10.25 in.)
96 pages
2 works / 71 color reproductions of sources from the archive

cat 094 Untitled (Wallraising #6) 1990-93, 1993
cat 098 Preventative Measures, 1994

Shown above:

v5 / pages 30-31; 34-35; 38-39; 52-53; 70-71; 78-79; 88-89

works / cat 094 Untitled (Wallraising #6) 1990-93, 1993; cat 098 Preventative Measures, 1994

sources / v5: 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 33, 34, 52, 53, 60, 61, 69, 70