Anna Wild

The Way of All Built Flesh: Translations on a Workspace

First Supervisor

Prof Nat Chard

Second Supervisors

Abstract

While it has always been important for architects to consider what buildings do for us, architecture does things to us, too: it communicates on many different levels, takes hold of us, speaks to our senses – and we do things to it, in return. Anna’s research explores the reciprocal relationships between buildings and people through a literary lens, focusing on the theme of “lack of fit”.

Architects traditionally look for the perfect fit for a person or an activity, but this is impossible, as both buildings and their inhabitants change over time. Rather than seeing this lack of fit as a problem, it might be seen as a fundamental aspect of being human that can be celebrated, inspiring lively interactions between buildings and people. Anna’s research draws from the works of W. G. Sebald, whose writing explores themes of exile, non-belonging, and emigration, all of which relate to the lack of fit between humans and their built environments.

Anna’s methodology is interdisciplinary, incorporating elements of writing, translation, spatial awareness, and (auto)-ethnography. She weaves together these diverse practices to create stop-motion animations that depict conversations between spaces, characters from Sebald’s writing and life, as well as her own workspaces. Through translating, writing, and animating these scenes, her research sheds light on shifts in roles and relationships between people, objects, and spaces, while examining how her interactions with her own workspaces evolve.

The thesis challenges the notion of architecture as a passive backdrop and highlights the agency and liveliness that arise from the lack of resonance between buildings and inhabitants. It also interrogates the role of translation practices in the context of architecture. Can translation, with its awareness of differences, interruptions, and transformations in meaning, serve as a means of engaging with the gaps and interruptions in the reciprocal relationships between people and buildings?

Sebald’s works provide a scaffold around which Anna assembles her research. By looking at his own relationships with his own workspaces, as well as his descriptions of relationships between people and their spaces, she investigates these awkward human-building relationships characterised by a lack of fit.

Biography

Anna Wild is in the third year of her PhD about the interrelationships between buildings and people at The Bartlett School of Architecture. She also runs courses on translation, exploring its complexities and creative benefits for The Brilliant Club, and she supports teaching at The Bartlett as a PGTA. She has previously practised internationally as an architect. In between her other pursuits, she is working on a middle-grade book about a little fox’s adventures in a changing world. She shares animations from her PhD research on Instagram.

Publications

Wild, A. (2021) ‘Hölderlin and the purple words: translations on a living building’, in Research Encounters via Architecture’s Methods: 17th Annual PhD Student Symposium. 17th AHRA PhD Student Symposium on ‘Research Encounters via Architecture’s Methods’, Newcastle: School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, pp. 111–118.

Funding

Fully funded by the Janggen-Pöhn foundation, Switzerland (http://www.janggen-poehn.ch/).