BABEL
TEAM: Melina Anzaoui, Maria-Kyriaki Papadopoulou, Vasiliki Zochiou – Greek – Patras School of Architecture
The heterotopia of mind
‘As for the heterotopias, in the proper sense of the word, how can we describe them? What meaning do they have? […] Museums and libraries have become heterotopias in which time never stops building up and topping its own summit.’
Foucault, M. (1967) Des espaces autres: ‘Hétérotopies’.
After a visit to a museum, someone departs with various accumulated impressions based on the exhibits they met. A ‘mountain’ of disorganized and stacked knowledge is created in their mind. In our proposal, these impressions cease to be an abstract concept, acquire a spatial substance and are visualized. The museum has a shape that constantly changes based on the number of visitors, the route they choose and the exhibits they discover. The inside becomes outside. The top becomes down. Items are moved, added or removed during the day. The museum is a body that can continually grow in height or spread throughout the city, constantly changing its skyline. In this way, a space is created, that, according to M. Foucault’s theory of heterotopias, exhibits different characteristics than its environment, since time and exhibits accumulate there unceasingly, creating a hill of varying eras. The concepts of time and museum are, thus, blended and correlated. For us, the museum is ultimately, the pure imprint of the visitor’s mind, off – real time, where all epochs, ideas and forms are concentrated, are brought to the foreground or to the background, are deliberately searched for or are found accidentally.