Architecture of wearing: clothing as a project in Florence and Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This essay is the result of a research that explores the relationship between body and space and art and architecture through a parallel drawn between the manifesto-works that involve the wearable artistic experiments carried out by the Florentine group Archizoom Associati (between 1960 and 1970) and the “Parangolés” (in the 1960s), by Hélio Oiticica. Although they are quite different productions, this work focuses its analysis on the works “Dressing is Easy” and “Dressing Design: Nearest Habitat System”, by the Archizoom group, and “Parangolé”, by Hélio Oiticica. Intertwining both contexts, we seek to investigate how the relations of the act of dressing lead to the extinction of the public's position as a mere spectator, since, for them, the experience/purpose is only fully contemplated by being incorporated, exalting the idea of ??movement as intrinsic to the body, and the latter as a radical critique of architectural space and its means of production. Of an experimental character, the research also resulted in the production of 21 pieces, wearable prototypes inspired by both axes of analysis, and a photographic editorial, which portrays those products.