The new issue of MAS Context, a quarterly publication released by MAS Studio, explores the actual and perceived divisions of space. MAS Context #17: Boundary contains varying in discussions of urban development, forced and naturally occurring segregation, the politics of such separations and ultimately, breaking the boundaries that frame our engagement. Of particular interest in this issue is the philosophical divisions between designers and non-designers and the specialized world that architecture school and the architectural profession construct to define themselves. Through a series of essays, projects, personal accounts and photographs, MAS Context crafts an argument around the boundaries exist in our built and un-built environment - and ways in which we choose to transgress them.
More after the break.
Boundary can have very different connotations within different contexts. It may define what is found within as well as outside of a set of parameters. It may be a division or a meeting point. It may be a point of contention or a point of compromise - "a line [or a] space", according to designer Lawrence Abrahamson whose short essay is also featured in the publication. Beginning with a photo essay by Brian Rose, the photographs chart the presence of the Berlin Wall between 1985 and 1989. In areas of desolation and in bustling cities, the wall stands as a beginning and an end, both physically and mentally. Looking at these photographs we already perceive the distance in years between the building of the wall and its eventual destruction. We see its transformation from a formidable architectural presence, to a mural, to a point of penetration. In just a few photographs, Rose summarizes MAS Context's 17th issue with subtle clues captured in still frames of photography.
