Architectural thesis on the preservation of a mansion and its stories in historic Jacmel
Vèvès & Loas by Raymond Salvatore Harmon
A reconstructed version of Maya Deren’s Divine Horsemen. Using secondary refilming, compositing, and frame manipulation Veves & Loas takes its source imagery from Maya Deren’s footage of Vodoun practices filmed in Haiti.
Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren
“Whether drawn in flour on flat ground or traced in the air, the sign of the cross roads is always the juncture where communication between worlds is being practiced”
In April 2012, I proposed a scheme for the Plaza of Jacmel in which an elevated platform, accessible by a set of narrow scaffolding stairs, would allow views of the historic district. Partly inspired by New York City’s High-Line, this design gesture was triggered by the magnificent views of the historic district and bay of Jacmel one could obtain by climbing to the roof-top of Hôtel de La Place (former Pension Kraft). In this design, the platform proposed would reach the same level of Hôtel de La Place’s rooftop and provide the same views I was lucky to experience during my first research trip in November 2011.
When I visited Jacmel last March 2012, I met Ebby, former Cine Institute student, avid writer and talented poet. I met Ebby one evening in the restaurant/bar area of Hotel Florita. It was about to rain.
Versailles in July 1789. There’s growing disquiet at the court of King Louis XVI: the people are defiant and the country is on the brink of revolution. Behind the scenes at the royal palaces emergency plans are being made. Although nobody believes that this spells the end of the established order everyone is talking of escape, including Queen Marie Antoinette and her entourage. One of Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting is Sidonie Laborde who, as the Queen’s reader, is a member of the monarch’s inner circle. Little does she know that she is about to witness the downfall of her beloved queen.
Farewell My Queen, Summer 2012
Au mariage d’Hadriana, les soeurs Kraft s’étaient trouvées en tête du groupe fascinant des demoiselles d’honneur, en meilleur position que les pulpeuses jumelles Philisbourg qui étaien également des jeunes Haïtiennes très proches de Nana. Mélissa n’avait-elle pas déchiré sa toilette à l’église en voyant son amie s’écrouler avec son “oui” de perdition?
Hadriana dans tous mes rêves, René Dépestre, 1987
Gilot Casimir, Carnes Belle-Vil and Yves Valescot, students from the very first graduating class of the École Atelier de Jacmel (Jacmel’s Preservation School) helped me measure the Manoir Alexandra. The picture below taken in front of the mahogany stairs on the first floor of the Manoir.
Photo Credit: Andreas Nicholas
During my Spring Break (March 2012), I traveled to Jacmel with my good friend Andreas Nicholas, a film student at RISD. The main purpose of our trip was to take the measurements of the Manoir Alexandra with students from Jacmel’s Preservation School and to collect stories from locals of various generations, through video interviews.
I measured the house for four days with three students from the first graduating class of the Ëcole Atelier de Jacmel (Jacmel’s Preservation School), an institution founded by the Haitian Historical Society (ISPAN) and the AECID (Spain).
Wang Shu came to visit RISD during the Fall of 2011 and made a speech about his practice in China. At the time I knew very little about Mr Shu but developed an interest in his approach to architecture. His lecture in the Fall consisted for the most part of the way traditional Chinese paintings inspired his work. This made me think about my interest for the “naive paintings” in Haiti as I approached my thesis back in the Summer of 2011. In the progression of my thesis, I decided to work on the Manoir Alexandra, and also focused on designing spaces of exhibition for the classical painting “Oath of the Ancestors”. The traditional Haitian art (mostly renown through Haitian painter Ismael Saincilus) took the back-burner. Upon critiquing my work, a teacher who had spent a year at the China Academy of Art praised Wang Shu’s campus for the many performance spaces it allowed. She encouraged me to go back to the Haitian “Naïve” paintings, two-dimensional pieces of work that reveal layers of depth. She also encouraged me to watch the movie Piña for inspiration because in designing the dance spaces of the Manoir, I always dealt with dance and movement through space.
Below are some pictures of the China Academy of Art selected via a google search. Most recently Wang Shu has been written about in this NYTimes article: An Architect’s Vision: Bare Elegance in China
Le Manoir Alexandra 