Blurred Architecture: Duration and performance in the work of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Performance Research, 2012

Architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio have questioned conventional approaches to spatial temporality and the situation of architecture since the late 1970s. Now joined by Charles Renfro, the installation and architectural projects of their interdisciplinary design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro are representative of the shift from the aesthetic architectures of post-modernism towards a critical architecture based upon the principles of time-based art. As a reflection on the question of duration and performance, this article returns to Diller Scofidio + Renfro's temporary structure for the Swiss Expo in 2002. Blur Building, or Blur, underlines the occurrence of time through its continuously shifting structure and ephemeral state. Located on a steel-viewing platform on Lake Neuchâtel, Blur was a literal performance of its lakeside site as a series of water jets formed a suspended mist cloud around its steel frame: an …