FICTION IN ARCHITECTURE

2008 — 2009

SCI-Arc Bachelor of Architecture Thesis
Best Thesis Award

Advisors: Rob Ley, Wes Jones

Instructors: Dwayne Oyler, Devyn Weiser, Dora Epstein, Marcos Sánchez

Assistance: Yasmeen Kahn, Steve Moody, Caroline Dahl, Jae Lee, Julie Lee, Yupei Li, Amir Lotfi, Bin Lu, Mark Simmons, Chris Stewart, Gregory Grunsven, Nick Urano, Jiexia Xu

In "The End of the End" (1984), Peter Eisenman exposed architecture's fundamental values—representation, reasoning, and history—as fictional, synthetic a priori propositions. Yet, rather than instrumentalize this foundation, Eisenman advocated for undecidability. Consequently, contemporary architecture continues to subvert semiotic legibility, remaining trapped in an inescapable fiction.

This thesis embraces architecture's fictional foundation as an instrumental lie that defines the human condition. It proposes works that renegotiate representation and history through deliberate narratives, offering a refined telos and structural coherence.

The testing ground is the diplomatic embassy: a potent signifier and projective medium within a volatile urban landscape. Rejecting the nullifying secrecy of fortified compounds, the architecture operates as a physical facilitator of order and leisure. Through the materialization of fictional techniques, the embassy manipulates socio-political narratives to construct explicit conceptual and emotional outcomes.