Warren Techentin: La Cage aux Folles

La Cage aux Folles explores the little used craft of pipe bending in architecture and joins form, computational procedures, and fabrication processes. Using ‘Schedule 40’ steel tubes, the installation explores the idea of constructing parametric surfaces with fields of linear strands which simultaneously define variable spatial conditions in synchronicity with structural needs. The tubes are organized in shifting and layered continuities, using bends to transfer loads and rigidify the structure at the same time as conveying a sense of space and form. Each of the members is looped and variably arrayed through a generative algorithm. As each loop crosses others, connections are made in some places to take advantage of triangulation while in others the space is turned inside-out. If one were to calibrate these bends and transitions to habitation and use, new types of porosity are generated, folding together

inside and outside / captivity and protection / function and ornament / shape and line / stasis and dynamism.

(Warren Technentin, 2014)