Applying materiality for visualisation purposes

Once the form of the model was complete, material could be added in order to generate a near photorealistic interpretation of the design. The issue of adding materiality to digital representations is open to debate; as it is important not to mislead the viewer into believing what they see is real as discussed in section 3.5. In other words, one has to acknowledge that a near photorealistic interpretation is based on inferences from other designs. However, it was felt this was an appropriate representation technique because of the overwhelming use of concrete in Perret’s built schemes, as well as the indication of the material on the original drawings meaning deductions could be made with relative confidence. Perret’s Musée des Travaux Publics in Paris was used as a material swatch. This was an appropriate source as it contains all of the elements that are apparent in the Musée Bourdelle design, such as square and round columns, infill panels and a high level of detail on finishes. Photographs were taken of the building then digitally ortho- rectified to form the correct sizes for the digital construction (see Figure 6.13). These were then used as analogies and applied to the digital model.

Figure 6.13: Ortho-rectified material swatches taken from the Musée des Travaux Publics ready to be applied to the digital model.

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A key element of the Musée Bourdelle design is the inclusion of friezes designed by Bourdelle himself forming part of the front façade, which were originally designed for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (see Figure 6.2). Copies exist of the friezes in the current Bourdelle museum in Paris, which were photographed so they could be included in the digital model. Of the five original friezes, it is possible to determine from the archive perspective drawing exactly which two Perret decided to include on the front façade (see Figure 6.1).

6.3.5 Serendipitous results

The process of constructing the digital representation of Perret’s Musée Bourdelle was particularly productive in generating results that occurred serendipitously. The first of these was found in relation to the beam and column design in the central area supporting the dome; the corner columns did not meet the beam they were intended to support above. This was because Perret offsets the beams inwards enabling the columns to be expressed internally, which can be seen in his original section drawing (see Appendix B-6). This arrangement is acceptable in most circumstances, as the columns simply shift inwards along the structural grid in a single direction. However, the corner columns need to shift along the structural grid in two directions, hence becoming unaligned (see Figure 6.14). Studying the archive drawings did not offer a resolution; therefore it was decided to look at Perret’s built works. At the Church of St Joseph in Le Havre, the city Perret helped to rebuild after the Second World War, it was noticed that a similar offset arrangement of column and beam occurred. Perret resolved this by adding an extra section internally to the beam structure (see Figure 6.15). It is arguable that at Le Havre this was for aesthetic rather than structural qualities; however it gave enough justification to provide an analogy for inference purposes using the Church of St Joseph (see Figure 6.14).

Figure 6.14: Digital model based on the original drawings (left). An extra section was added to the beam taking inspiration from the Church of St Joseph at Le Havre (right).

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Figure 6.15: Church of St Joseph at Le Havre. Perret adds structure at the corners of the beams as a method of ending the columns.

This raises an interesting question regarding Perret’s work; the thicker column and beam design around the octagonal dome area emphasises stability in the scheme. However, similar to the Church of St Joseph, it was realised that the corner columns do not have to carry as much load as the rest as they do not directly support the dome. This suggests that in a minority of cases, Perret’s strict structural grid is primarily used for aesthetic purposes with the structural qualities becoming secondary.

When adding the infill blocks based on Perret’s standard dimensions to the digital model, it became clear that this method does not always create such a neat design as suggested by Collins (2004) and Britton (2001). For instance, the column widths are either 450mm or 650mm depending on the load they are supporting. Bearing in mind that the structural grid of the Musée Bourdelle is 5720mm square, this meant that the infill area was 5070mm between two 650mm columns, 5170mm between a 650mm and 450mm column and 5270mm between two 450mm columns (see Figure 6.16).

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Figure 6.16: Three scenarios of different infill areas for the Musée Bourdelle design based on the structural grid of 5720mm square compared with different column widths.

As the infill blocks were based on the 5070mm width between two 650mm columns, this resulted in an extra gap of up to 200mm. This could have been resolved by making the corner columns wider to compensate for the gap where possible; however this would contradict Perret’s drawings considering he places most importance on structure. Another solution would be to redesign the infill blocks, as Perret utilised a custom system anyway. However, this would mean amending dimensions that were crucial to his design philosophy, for example panels based on a perfect square or the golden section. Therefore, the issue was resolved by investigating whether this situation occurred in the design of Perret’s other built work. Again, the Church of Saint Joseph at Le Havre provided an analogy. Here a similar relationship could be seen between differing column widths, and Perret

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resolved the matter by increasing the mortar joint between the infill blocks to compensate for the extra width (see Figure 6.17). Therefore this technique was replicated for the Musée Bourdelle digital representation (see Figure 6.18).

Figure 6.17: The mortar between the infill blocks at the Church of St Joseph has a greater vertical width than horizontal width. This retains the overall dimensions of the structural framework as well as

the square design of the infill blocks.

Figure 6.18: Diagrams demonstrating the construction of Perret's non-load bearing blocks. Their classical proportions fit within Perret's structural grid perfectly (left), however, once the column width changes shape (centre) a gap is left. Therefore the solution seen in Perret's other built works was to

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