Igor Siddiqui / Oblique Fragments: In Search of Claude Parent’s Praticables

Igor Siddiqui (b. 1974 in Rijeka, Croatia) is an architect and associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as a full-time faculty member at the School of Architecture since 2009, where he currently holds the Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair for Design. Siddiqui’s practice, teaching, and research explore the relationship between design innovation and public engagement. He current projects examine the status of the interior in architecture and as a space of artistic collaboration.

Siddiqui frequently works with cultural organizations that support public art initiatives and projects. His work has been published and exhibited throughout the US and internationally. Siddiqui received his Master of Architecture from Yale University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Tulane University in New Orleans. He previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design, and California College of the Arts and has a visiting professor at ENSA—Paris-Belleville and the Cranbrook Academy.

 

The lecture presents in-progress research centered on Claude Parent’s temporary installations—les praticables—designed between 1969 and 1975.

The purpose of these projects was to test Parent’s theory of the oblique function through public engagement and collaboration. Some of the designs were built, others are only known through existing models and drawings, and some are barely documented at all. Based on fragment of archival materials, nine of the installation designs are reconstructed through new digital drawings and models. As such, they can be examined not only individually but also as a series of design iterations that form a cohesive body of work, responsive to varying contexts and inextricably linked to the accompanying activities, artefacts, and narratives without which our understanding of them is incomplete. Fifty year later, these projects inspire new possibilities for conceptualizing design practice within and beyond architecture.