Initially trained as an architect, Carlos Silva's work now takes as ist point of departure the city as a modular set of numbers and equations that tell us the proper proportions of things. Seen in this light the city is not a random assortment of cubes and rectangles, it is full of complex interrelations governed primarily by mathematics.
We don't need to look to much further back than the promised architectural utopias of the early twentieth century, or indeed the idealization of geometry and proportions in the Renaissance to recognize the deep currents running through humanities desire for pleasing proportions. But not only do these geometries, equations and rules of design have aesthetic consequences, it is their functionality that makes them so useful in the complex mega-cities of today and also what interests Silva.
At the greenhouse at Super bien!, he has selected what could be described as a random point in space, the middle of this greenhouse in Berlin. And he has used this spot as a viewpoint to construct a drawing on the transparent walls based on the surrounding architecture. Rather than merely faithfully render the buildings, he has improvised a kind of homage to the underlying structures of the man-made space. Further reinforcing this approach is the use of comercial tape as a drawing tool whose very colours, forms and thicknesses conform to the same standards as the architecture.
Silva's work is therefore reversing the usual order of function over form; the geometries inherent in the architecture have been transformed into a playful and colourful aesthetic language. The resultant forms are drained of their functionality and enter into a broader dialogue with modernist formalism. In some ways what he is doing is not just highlighting the existence of these standards, but he is willing these invisible structures into our field of vision.
We can't see how the city is really constructed; there is no viewpoint from where you can come to an understanding of its complexity. This is one imagined viewpoint that is possible among many.
