xR artist Paula Strunden has recreated British architect and author Alison Smithson’s original workspace in order to experiment with new narratives, combining an immersive experience with historical design analysis. Special tools, buttons and a talking cat help to guide visitors through the story. As they move through Alison’s Room and interact with the objects on display, visitors are invited to explore the multisensory nature of memory and how it can lead to new forms of knowledge.
An xR Archive
Alison Smithson (1928-1993) was an early protagonist of New Brutalism in architecture and a founding member of Team 10 with her partner Peter Smithson (1923-2003). They worked from Cato Lodge in South Kensington, where Alison had a private workroom separate from their combined home and office. The Smithsons’ home and office, including Alison’s workroom, no longer exist in their original state. The life-size installation reconstructs the room from a photograph taken by family friend and photographer Sandra Lousada, combining spatial experiences with text documents and image collections.
Special tools, buttons and a speaking cat help visitors navigate storylines, allowing them to experience designs like the House of the Future (1956), the Hexenbesenraum (1996), and the Parallel of Life and Art (1956). As visitors move through Alison’s Room and interact with the objects, they explore the multisensory nature of memories and speculate on knowledge production through new forms of embodiment.
Bio
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Paula Maya Strunden
DE/FR
Paula Maya Strunden is a transdisciplinary artist and founder of xR Atlas who studied architecture in Vienna, Paris and London and worked at Raumlabor Berlin and Herzog & de Meuron. She completed a design-led PhD within the European network TACK and received the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna “Award for Scientific Works 2023/24” for her dissertation on multisensory perception through xR models. Her XR works have been exhibited internationally and nominated for the Dutch Film Award “Gouden Kalf”.
Credits
Artist: Paula Strunden, Curator: Dirk van den Heuvel, UX Coding: Joelle Galloni, Malou Minkjan, Sound Design: Daniel Helmer, Max Liebich, Voice Over: Laura Cameron Wilson, 3D Modelling Support: Daana Bolot, Bats Bronsveld, Ruben Cahors
Building Support: Eric Crevels, Henry Holmes, Tanja Drinhausen, Stefan Strunden, Joshua Neli, Team Nieuwe Instituut: Fatma Tanış, Ben Sharnier, Stefan Prins, Tom Prins, Bart Smits, Graphic Design: Delphine Lejeune, Special thanks to: Anna Bach, Louisa Hutton, Evert Klinkenberg, Soscha Monteiro de Jesus, Bodo Neuss, Max Risselada, Simon Smithson, Soraya Smithson and Ines Zalduendo
Alison’s Room was developed as part of Paula Strunden’s doctoral thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme “TACK: Communities of Tacit Knowledge in Architecture,” and in close collaboration with Dirk van den Heuvel and the Jaap Bakema Study Centre at the Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam.
‘Alison’s Room’ is part of Paula Strunden’s doctoral thesis on multisensory perception through extended reality models, supervised by Angelika Schnell at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, within the framework of ‘TACK: Communities of Tacit Knowledge Architecture and its Ways of Knowing’, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 860413. The installation was developed and first presented at the Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam in November 2022 as one of the prototypes for a Virtual CIAM Museum, a collective archive-based project of the Nieuwe Instituut, the Jaap Bakema Study Centre and TU Delft, initiated by Dirk van den Heuvel.
Presented in the context of the Realities in Transition project. Realities in Transition is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
