Architecture of Nothing

“The AF’s headline event and trans-disciplinary meeting of minds this year presents architect Liz Diller (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) in conversation with artist Christian Marclay. A headline annual event provides a unique opportunity for the public to engage in a lively conversation across borders, offering a wide-ranging discussion of architecture and its relationship to the wider world”.

Aside from keeping the rain out and producing some usable space, architecture is nothing but a special-effects machine that delights and disturbs the senses.
– Liz Diller

Elizabeth Diller, who is known initially for the Blur building at the Swiss Expo 2002 told the audience about how she wanted to create a space that has “Nothing to see or do”. This radical idea comes from her interest in blurring boundaries and anti-monument buildings. She is more interested in the dynamics of the building and space – changing buildings.

More recent work is the successful High Line park in New York that has created a global High Line movement of revitalising and transforming inner city derelict areas into urban recreation parks for the public. She described how designing the High Line was like Industrial Archeology.  ‘Agritexture’ of evolving ecosystem that changed block by block . She wanted to create a space for New Yorkers for doing nothing. The urban park provides ‘Moments of nothingness’ and preoccupation in a middle of a hectic city.