Projects

DESIGN DESCRIPTION
Theoretical Research

What is laughter? Why do we laugh? Why are certain things hilarious and some others not? And when they are funny and when they aren’t? And finally, what is funny in architecture?

Totonaca sculpture, around 700 AD, Totonaca civilization (in southern Mexico), among many others, Mesoamerican cultures played a game called the “Ball Game”. The act of playing is the essence of rituals, and in this one, the winner got decapitated. These stone-sculpted heads represent winning players… and they are laughing. By winning, they will be allowed to go with the goods.

Creation is a game. And goods obviously have the greatest laughs.

This overtly cheerful expression figures represents a breakthrough, liberation from the human condition. “Now they can laugh like gods”. In many ancient cultures, the world was perceived as a cruel game ruled by a higher existence where we are just disposable toys. In all mythologies, the world comes from a gratuitous act, and it seems that the main kind is not indispensable. There is a sort of will beyond.  Rite is meant to guard the human world; they are a rough imitation of the divine game. The frontier between the secreted and the profane is the same one that separates the ritual from the work, therefore, laughter from seriousness.

Work destroys rituals. In our everyday life, there is no time to play.

In rite paradox rules: “the last ones will be the first ones” “god made the world from nothing” but in the sphere of work there are no paradoxes: “you will earn your bread by the sweat of you brow” or “every man is the son of their work” Work to exist has to be something that product something else, in other words, need to be productive.
The rite is entirely the opposite: risk and sacrifice for lives naturally within the logic of the game; therefore, there is no precise control, and the game seeks any productivity.

Totonaca Gods scarify themselves in order to create the world, which is why all creation is a game… Architectural design work is considered a very creative endeavor; it is often said that an architect is an innovative, imaginative person… so… where is the “Fun Game, Funny part” of architectural practice? To develop a language of significant “Fun, Funny things” in architecture, this project proposes a set of “rules” that will hopefully establish a new “Lexicon” for funny things in architecture and Architectural Practice.

Credits:
Design, Research, and Production: Paul Cremoux W.