Episode 09: SPATIAL FICTIONS | FROZEN DAYDREAMS Clement Luk Laurencio
A storyteller and master artisan of (architectural) pencil drawings, Clement Luk Laurencio is a recent graduate of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. His surreal, poetic drawings capture the dreams, inventions, memories and flashbacks of places he has lived, visited and cherished. He calls them ‘spatial fictions’. He says they are an invitation for pause, and wandering, in its timeless labyrinth. He probes the question ‘How is the dwelling a place of reverie and protection for the dreamer?’ His work, which has won numerous awards, depicts themes of the pandemic; loss of connection, forced enclosure and fantasies of the future and past. When I came across his work, I was struck by the depth of his imagination and skill. He is just at the beginning.
Of Filipino origins and born in the South of France, Clement Luk Laurencio studied architecture at the University of Nottingham (UK), after which he travelled to New York to work for Bernard Tschumi Architects and then on to a small firm in Geneva. He returned to the UK to complete his Masters of Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He is currently an External Design Critic at the University of Nottingham, while pursuing and furthering his drawing practice and other professional projects. His work has won numerous prizes:
The 2020 Architecture Drawing Prize, an international competition that celebrates the art and skill of architectural drawing, curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane’s Museum and the WAF.
1st Place in the Drawing of the Year 2020 Competition held by the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark
Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize and Distinction from the Bartlett School of Architecture
High Commendation Runner Up: Jonathan and Victoria Ball Student Drawing Competition by the WCCA Prize
Bronze Medal Nomination by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
Recipient of the Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize 2020 from the Bartlett School of Architecture
Runner-up for Architizer’s One Drawing Challenge 2020
RIBA/ARB Part II
UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, Dist. M.Arch
University of Nottingham, Hons. B.Arch
Instagram: @clementluklaurencio
TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT
“For a lot of us, we just want a moment of pause. I was lucky enough to find in the drawing process itself, that moment of pause for me, that reverie, that escapism. I would totally agree with this idea of space and place, in that it is a bit of a choreography between movement and pause. I think the drawing, in particular, the 'Pavilions for Conversations' drawings, many of those spaces are spaces in ruin. But there are also positive spaces of pause and contemplation, a place where people themselves, as they're looking at the drawings, can feel a sense of pause themselves. And, conversely, the 'Memory Palace' drawing, is a bit more of a cacophonic experience of these spatial memories, that I imagined. But, at the same time, as I was drawing it, there were moments of pause. In a lot of my drawings, I don't put lots of people in. It's this idea of letting the viewer project themselves, within that place of the drawing. So, then they can move around without being rushed by the people who, if I drew them in, would give that sense of rush. So, it's a bit of both, where I do try to give the viewer the space to move and wander around, and to pause, within those places.”
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