THE LABYRINTH. THE ECCENTRIC VISION ON THE FACULTY OF PHARMACY, UNIVERSITY OF PORTO AND INSTITUTE OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES ABEL SALAZAR

THE LABYRINTH. THE ECCENTRIC VISION ON THE FACULTY OF PHARMACY, UNIVERSITY OF PORTO AND INSTITUTE OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES ABEL SALAZAR

BY ANA CAROLINA VALE, LEILA CACILDA CARDOSO ALMEIDA , SABRINA CAMARGO, SOFIA PINTO

Lost, without any guide, bewildered between floors of long pathways, claustrophobia and isolation, represent some of the first sensations experienced while roaming through the physical space of the faculty.

The monumental characteristic of the building, its density and its presence in the context were aspects that led us to want to know the faculty. However, those were not the ones that left a mark in our experience there. It was the spaces that resulted from the constant repetition, ambiguous transitions, neutrality and bottleneck perspectives of the interior, resulting from the extreme order that composes the building. 

Claustrophobic spaces which provoke the desire of escaping, the anxiety of wanting to leave that place, serve as premise for a project that aims to explore a mental space through physical ones.  A purpose which is also present in many arts, such as literature, cinema and even history.

Nevertheless, the grandiosity that impressed us in the beginning, rapidly provoked the transcendence from reality to much more sensitive means associated with a mental chaos. Consequence of our perception of spatial successions, with no logic, which imprisons us in an endless cycle.

Something that takes us to a dissociation of the real route, as if we find ourselves in an imaginary world, similar to Alice who wanders aimlessly, deciding along the way. The diverse places succeed one another to some less used, where mysterious compositions of objects are arranged in dark places as unknowns that will never be answered. Characterizing a spatial experience we envisage as a labyrinth.