Three in/visibilised surfaces outside CIEs : shaping matter through minor architectural tactics

Abstract

Let’s observe three surfaces that can be found in the outskirts of any city. The frst is a concrete wall covered with yellow paint; each hole is covered with a perforated steel plate painted in blue. The second is a white wallpaper that covers the whole surface of a small room. The third one is a thick layer of navy blue paint coating the furniture of another small room, similar to the previous one. Apparently, none of them is remarkable; the walls are completely ordinary. But, the urban pieces to which they belong are not ordinary at all: they are architectures made invisible from many perspectives – not only urban and architectural, but also legal and normative. We will see however how three minor actions carried out on the fesh of certain urban enclaves can turn the situation around. Minor architectural tactics, precarious and temporary, dispel the opacity of surfaces and bring to light a dark interior. They show both the architectural interior and the spatial conditions of the bodies therein enclosed; they ofer three diferent ways of reading, operating and forming new surfaces to connect an in-visibilised interior with a carefully withdrawn further interior.