Dissection of Dissection Puzzles:

Reading AndAnds 3M Courtyard Plaza

By Jordan Darby *for a reference picture of the work, please see Appendix.

In their 2011 environmental design for 3M Corporations Plaza Courtyard, Los Angeles-based studio AndAnd in tandem with architect Atelier Hitoshi Abe rendered a patterned motif seemingly at once orderly and nonsensical. Although it might not seem labyrinthine, AndAnd has designed here a non-linear, almost postmodern labyrinth meant for play.

Not this kind of labyrinth.

This kind.

Descriptions are always more difficult than they seem, especially considering the source (me). Im cross-eyed and far-sighted, plus the source material at the time of this writing is a single-frame digital rendering of the proposed design. I was not able to visit the physical space.

They wouldnt let me in.

What we see in the concept drawing is a series of tangram tiles dissection puzzles each typically made up of seven pieces that can be put together to make different shapes in black and white, building the minutia of the courtyard. Upon further inspection, the courtyard itself is comprised of seven sectionals, each with a different variant pattern following the same initial structure. There are also seven gravel paths within the basic singular form. The larger form is given accentuating detail (presumably via Hitoshi Abe) by way of a scattered few green inlay hedges, two 3M-sponsored

NASCAR display models, various raised garden buckets and platforms, and a picnicking area with overhangs (possibly tangram-shaped). To contextualize the work a bit, we can start by getting comfortable with some of AndAnds design:

L-R: Beat Port Identity Proposal, Business Card Menger Sponge Poster (Detail), Takeshi Murata Poster, Beat Port Identity Proposal (Pattern).

We see here evidence of AndAnds affinity for geometric shapes, logic puzzles and labyrinthine pattern. To them, continuity is key (the repeating motifs, the numbers and so forth). At the same time, they display no real concern for the rigidity of modernism, at least in its purest sense. The conclusion from this is that the studio is cherry-picking elements of formal modernism to include in an intuitive, postmodern framework as a philosophical guide. In this way, AndAnd would not be uncomfortable sitting next to Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida or other Post-Structualists whose thought was that signs are more or less arbitrarily mediated by other inventions such as institutions. This is further evidenced by their collaboration with Hitoshi Abe, who describes his own work as hard and loose There is a . fluidity that allows for the architect and the designers to work both mathematically and intuitively. The first work I thought of when viewing 3M Courtyard Plaza was a different kind of puzzle, the chessboard field from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll:

This shits chess. It aint checkers.

This makes sense, as the puzzle board in that context - much like the structure of the 3M courtyard - is rigid yet surreal. The primarily black and white design with the interlocking geometric shapes moves us one step closer to the concept of the labyrinth, looking at artists and designers such as M.C. Escher:

The legend himself.

Regular Division of Plane Drawing III by M.C. Escher.

Escher was playing with the foundational structure of mathematical paradoxes (not unlike a tangram Two Monks Paradox) to devise a new visual world that was at once mathematically sound and surrealistic. This reminds us in turn of the Neoplasticism movement spearheaded by Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg the De Stijl school that pushed for an art of clarity . But while the Neoplasticists were concerned with the purity of form and the economy of color and shape to speak to a larger truth, studios like AndAnd seem to be deconstrutive in that exploration: they want to use the Neoplastic form (or model) to open up any number of truths and in this way the 3M piece has a postmodern twist.

Ocean & Tree 5 by Piet Mondrian.

Drawing closer to the conclusion that the plaza is labyrinthine makes sense; we need only to look at other current works doing the same thing in different media. Assuming that this project, rendered in 2011, was conceived or at least sketched in part in 2010, the first parallel in the popular low arts would be the movie Inception.

Admit it - your mind was blown too.

Director Christopher Nolans use of the labyrinth in a non-classical sense is perfectly in line with what AndAnd is doing over at 3M. Whereas the medieval usage of a labyrinth was meditative with a singular entrance (birth) and center end (God), this kind of labyrinth is open-ended and encourages meandering. Nolan, and many of todays artists and designers mining this territory, is taking a chapter straight from psychoanalyst Carl Jungs book (literally, from Man and His Symbols). Jung, a pioneer in semiotics, likens the labyrinth to the subconscious: The maze of strange passages, chambers and unlocked exits in the cellar recalls the old Egyptian representation of the underworld, which is a well-known symbol of the unconscious with its unknown possibilities. It also shows how one is open to other influences in ones subconscious shadow side, and how uncanny and alien elements can break in. This idea of the labyrinth for entertaining meandering permeates the culture. Just play any current first-person video game to enjoy a pseudo-logic puzzle in this form, such as Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or World of Warcraft. Common consumers have shed the meditative aspects of the labyrinth but still enjoy the intuitve playfulness and the problem-solving.

The only problem RPG players cant solve is how to get dates.

There is an element of spatial awareness in the labyrinth form that is exploited well in the AndAnd piece. We must remember the purpose of the courtyard to facilitate guests of all kinds: those coming, going and waiting. AndAnd comes to a nice conclusion in using this language, whether the audience notices or not. Hedged garden spaces and various paths that lead inward denote playfulness and encourage wandering. The alternative would be a flat plane with paths that delineate direct routes to specific doors of buildings. Being that this site is on or nearby 3Ms Innovation building, it can be seen as a place to get lost in thought through pattern exactly the kind of thing labyrinths facilitate. We can then regard this piece as successful in its function a piece meant for play and to embody 3Ms proclaimed ideals of innovation and functionality.

Appendix

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