100 Series* / Restless Cube

During the winter of 2012, I had submitted myself to the space-making exercise of drawing a different isometric cube every night, for 100 consecutive days. In accordance with this spatial vision, subtraction was the only allowed operation in order to create variation. This led to a playful exploration of a new territory shaped through the repetition of a process. The use and reuse of this same grammar generated a series of comparable objects that is bigger than a mere collection of hollowed cubes.

Despite the fact that it is essentially an abstract exercise not meant to produce architecture, it is definitely possible to discern real-life spatial and figurative qualities in some iterations. But more importantly, by presenting all of them in the same way in a ten by ten matrix, we lose trace of their individual characteristics and begin to see them differently. They permeate each other and we assist to the creation of a family of infinite variations.

In 2018, these restless cubes were celebrated in the inaugural edition of the International Architecture Drawing Prize and found their way to Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. _RZLBD

*
100 is an ongoing theme/project at rzlbd that explores serial works, taxonomy, typology, and iteration as a means to explore possibilities, to search for the best solution, if there is any; while remaining faithful to a set of rules, core beliefs, or a modus operandi if you will. Of course, this has been an old tradition among many artists and architects to investigate the creative potential of defined rules to articulate a body of work with coherence.

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Restless Cube
One hundred freehand drawings (each 10 cm x 10cm)
Pen and black ink on paper
100cm x 100cm

© Atelier RZLBD / Reza Aliabadi / Toronto, Canada