Though the fragment is the inevitable and primary state in the mortality of all objects, it fails to be positioned as a positive element or conscious response in contemporary architectural expression.This shoptalk will focus on the intentionally created or designed fragment, as opposed to that which is encountered or accidentally made. Spanning from the reliquary to counterfeit classical statuary we will aim to discover how the fragment, with its intensity and allegorical power, can be positioned as a valid aesthetic response.

Centering on the body as a metaphor for architectural creation, we will then explore its inevitable states of fragmentation and dismemberment, and while doing so, build a new sensitivity to the decayed, the morseled, and the incomplete.

Javier Galindo is the James R. Lamantia Jr. Rome Prize Fellow in Architecture at the American Academy in Rome. He is principal at JGCH and associate principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox.