One chapter in particular addressed the notion of two dimensions in Japanese Fashion, discussing how the kimono is essentially a two dimensional object that gains its form only once wrapped around the body, it went on to explore how Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake, in particular, also worked from this principle, creating garments that have entirely different appearances when laid flat to when they are hanging from the body.
Looking at an example produced Rei Kawakubo whose appearance as a flat piece almost seemed to be derived from the plan of the Barcelona Pavilion, I started to realise how architectural this process or approach to design was.
The garment in question, shown flat in the frame on the wall, then as it would sit on the body, on the adjacent mannequin.
Plan of Mies Van Der Rohe's Barcelona pavillion.
The Pavillion was cnstructed as the German Pavillion for the 1929 International Exposition held in Barcelona. It was torn down a year after the exposition, but it's role in modern architecture was such to justify it's reconstuction based on records of the time, by a group of Spanish architects from 1983-1986. The reproduction still stands and provides an excuse for a cultural pilgrimage to Barcelona for architects world round.
The modernists designed architecture in a very similar fashion, beginning with a plan and the projecting walls vertically to give the building height, and thickening or thinning lines, to indicate materiality and create depth along the horizontal plane within a structure.
Modernism was also concerned with how these 2D, or rather planar elements, interacted with the body. Obviously a building will not be as immediate to a person as an item of clothing, but both these outcomes of a design process have the potential to encourage or restrict activities carried out by the body.
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