Exercises in Style - Reworked

In the 1930’s Raymond Queneau got the idea for his seminal work Exercices de style, while he was listening to a concert in which Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge was performed. He realised that the piece was divided into segments, which were all variations of the same theme. He was convinced that the same logic could be applied to a literary piece, and around 1946 he had composed 99 variations of the same theme. The story is simple; on a crowded Paris bus the narrator observes a funnily dressed man accusing another passenger of deliberately pushing him. A seat becomes empty and the man sits down. In the second scene the man is in a different part of Paris once again spotted by the narrator. He is advised by a friend to sew on an extra button on his overcoat. This story is then repeated 99 times in 99 different ways and styles. 

Rather than looking at these literary exercises as purely an experiment in style, I believe that it is more interesting to analyse them from a perspective of limitations. By representing a scene, whether it is through drawing, collaging or other  ways of visualization, we are constantly limiting ourselves through these tools and methods. Many times limitations are considered to be negative, but I think that Raymond Queneau shows in his book the wonderful potential of restricting yourself when telling a story. It allows you to focus entirely on the idea that is being conveyed. This way of thinking can be extended to situations where limitations are not self imposed. Whether these limitations are geographical, economical or practical, it is equally important to see the potential in them and use that to your advantage. In the context of the architectural publication, it is the way that each zine individually tackle these conditions that really define them and make them unique.

The two scenes are here interpreted by PAPER from an architectural point of view, loosely based on the work of Atelier Bow Wow’s Pet Architecture and Bernard Tschumi’s The Manhattan Transcripts. Below is the first chapter (Notations) from Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau:

In the S bus, in the rush hour. A chap of about 26, felt hat with a cord instead of a ribbon, neck too long, as if someone’s been having a tug-of-war with it. People getting off. The chap in question gets annoyed with one of the men standing next to him. He accuses him of jostling him every time anyone goes past. A snivelling tone which is meant to be aggressive. When he sees a vacant seat he throws himself on to it.

Two hours later, I meet him in the Cour de Rome, in front of the gare Saint-Lazare. He’s with a friend who’s saying: “You ought to get an extra button put on your overcoat.” He shows him where (at the lapels) and why.

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Samuel Michaëlsson is a co-founder and editor of PAPER and is currently studying architectural visualization in Sweden.