RASHES & HIVES: ALLERGENIC ARCHITECTURES, STIMULATION INSTRUMENTS & A NEW PURIFICATION CHAPEL FOR ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

by ALEXANDROS TZORTZIS DE PAZ

Name

ALEXANDROS TZORTZIS DE PAZ

Email

alextzodepaz@hotmail.com

Course

MArch Architecture

This project questions notions of purity and pleasure, exploring themes of (un)hygiene, pollution, deviance, and sensorial stimulation. Set on the grounds of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the proposed chapel extension provides the existing cathedral with additional sanitation and liturgical spaces, while also cleaning the air of the City through its various particle harvesting and filtering mechanisms. The project is embedded in a narrative where the chapel and its development are navigated and experienced through the eyes of two main characters, the Handler and the Subject. Inspired by the fetishist premise of J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash, the Subject is obsessed with hypersensitising his body and finding adrenalized, erotic contact with allergens and pollutants. In this pursuit, he is enabled by the Handler, a spiritual muse and designer, who devises choreography, prosthetic equipment, architectural details, and spaces for cathartic rituals, which in his mind, symbolically atone for greater ecological sins.