Memories of Touch
things seen with our hand, most recently touched, yearned to be touched, or things that touched you. a memento to memories that are not solely visual, but bring us together around interesting surfaces of objects that we dint, mend, care for or forget. Contributors to this palette of tactility include : Ben Gommersall, Hani Salih, Andrei Brumboiu, Luis Hilti, Ionut Popa, Sotiris Frankos and Andreea Samoila.
There is a sea urchin shell on the windowsill which is the only object I can describe as beautiful in this room at the moment. I have always liked its surface texture. The ridges and bumps do create interesting shadows but I donʼt know if I look at them specifically rather than the object as a whole. My kindle on the day I received it, with its gloriously smooth surface.
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My kindle since the day I put my camera next to it in the backpack and scratched the top right corner with it.
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I wish I could touch the Cathedra by Barnett Newman at the Stedelijk Museum. Itʼs a giant painting of mostly blue with stitched cuts from a vandalism act. Itʼs not quite like before but they did an impressive job to restoring it, as it still looks like itself, and not a restored version of itself.
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My little red Swiss army knife gathered quite a few scratches, bumps and bends over the years. The emblem rubbed off, blade's bent from trying to loosen screws, the case has bumps and scratches from falling on rough terrain.
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The rusty old garage doors from outside come to mind. They're full of scratches and dents. I think they got there from carelessly flinging them open, bumping from car bumpers or damaged by old furniture and appliances that were being hidden away. I've definitely contributed to those markings, at least when it comes to the door to my garage.
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There's a big plant in the corner of my room that catches the sun in the morning beautifully. I recently painted my walls a deep green so shadows are really soft against it for some reason. The mirror next to this plant sometimes plays around with the sun whenever it sneaks in between the rolling grey clouds that we're just subjected to here.
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I think I wished I had a deck of cards around. When I was younger I used to keep a pack around the computer desk and I would shuffle them around while watching films. Yeah. I think I'd like to shuffle a deck of cards right now.
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I was doing some cleaning in the house over the first lockdown and I found an old toy of a Kangaroo that I used to carry around with me everywhere when I was a kid but the moths had gotten to it so it was in tatters. I spent the best part of a weekend stitching it up and now it somehow feels even more dear to me than it did before. Just the act of tending to it and repairing it actually made me remember a lot about it.
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I have this watch that my dad gave to me as a present when I was 15-16 that I used to wear only on special occasions but I kept wearing it for some reason, over time it just got more scratched because of the daily wear and tumble but it only makes it more interesting. I can't possibly remember which scratch happened when though.
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I notice scratches and bumps in public space objects and try to think about how they ended up like this. I love contemplating the history of people and objects, and maybe part of why I love it is because I know Iʼll never actually learn it so I canʼt really be wrong.
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Often I try not to attach too much on objects I have around me, but I can tell that I enjoy having my notebook with me. It became important to me because I found it on an evening, on the streets, exactly on the day that my previous notebook finished.
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All kinds of sketches, maps and plans are on the wall behind me. Some of them are hanging there for too long already, it is more exciting to hang them there than to have them there.
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My desk. Itʼs a wooden board sitting on two wooden chocks. Itʼs a simple and not particularly nice kind of wood but it has traveled with me forever. I think I had it in my room where I grew up before I left to study, then it moved to Zürich with me, then I stored it in a cellar until I had a place to put a desk again. It has been to at least 10 appartements, now it is back in Liechtenstein with me. I use it to rest my hands, slide along the edge, put things, let them pile up and every so often put everything away and make it completely empty, clean it and put only one book or the laptop there. It feels good, but never lasts long.
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There are some really fascinated rocks, whose presence I enjoy. Once I was walking in the highlands in Iceland and I came across a rock that was three meters high. I know I canʼt have that in my apartment, but [...] I would use it the same way I used it in the highlands, to study it, look at it endlessly in its material and formal wealth.
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A coffee-table I made and which is still used in the office mainly once a month when we stop working and talk about other things, what books we are reading, what projects we would like to do or just anecdotes from another time and plans to take over the world. We drink coffee in the beginning, usually beer or becherovka (due to the two Czech architects here) at the end. When I made the table I didnʼt put any protection on it, so it is gathering stains, scratches and slowly corrodes.
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I got a super nice ceramic jar from the window-builder of the first house I designed and built as a thanks for the nice collaboration. It was made in a town nearby by a century-old factory that has a hard time surviving. Itʼs yellow, very nice to hold. It broke, I glued it together, still use it.
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The german winter shoes my mom received when she was in her 20s. Now I wear them since 2014, they are older than me but donʼt look too torn down. Every step reverberates a comforting touch in my feet that this plastic sole is rugged and itʼs not eroding or going anywhere. Why donʼt they make them like this anymore? I “eat” through contemporary sneakers like Iʼm walking on sanding paper.
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The trousers I serendipitously found in a lost and found of the European Architecture Students Assembly, after most of the participants left and just piles and piles of cool hip architecture student clothes weren’t packed, and awaited new owners. I find it so ridiculous how trousers and jeans for women donʼt have normal sized pockets in the front, and this is one reason why I loved these pants even more so because I could now walk fashionably and comfortably with my hands in my pockets. I wore them A LOT and am starting to be afraid they are approaching the end of their life. A friendly dog from the park wanted a hug and he chipped the pants on the right knee. Now they have a first tiny hole, that acts as a micro-vase.
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I used to looove not getting rid of my old shoes as they looked like the amount of kilometers they traveled, and this used to drive my mom mad. The vans I have now have aged quite a bit, so they count too I guess A quite new ikea spatula that I say I want to keep for 20years at least and see how it ages with time and use. Itʼs so hefty and nice to the grip, I think it will last.
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The only scalpel I ever bought is still pretty intact since I have it, minus some glue that fixated to it with time and canʼt get rid of. Itʼs really not comfortable as a handle to hold when you need to go through grey-card, but it does look sleek, and a great system for replacing the blade. My cutting mat on the other hand has literally went through cutting. I realise now that objects in their nature try as much as possible to keep their shape. I mean they didn't try but their shape gives away in very very slow time, and this cutting mat is really putting up a fight against all the slices I have put it up to over the years.