Metropolitan Studio Of Architecture: Assemblage

Technical drawings can tell a story, if you have the patience to tell it. With Assemblage, MSA’s principal architect Syed Fawad Hussain and principal interior designer Leena Hassan, attempt to do just that. Featured in 2016’s AD 50 for their project High Street House, Hussain and Hassan endeavour to present the studio’s body of work as more than a collection. The title, Hussain explains, is borrowed from French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who defined ‘assemblage’ as ‘complex constellations of objects, bodies, expressions, qualities and territories that come together for varying periods of time to ideally create new ways of functioning’. This is an appropriate summation of this monograph.

The monograph—the first to ever be published by a Pakistani architectural firm—attempts to move architectural conversation beyond description and pictography. Taking on the task of outlining the thought process that inspired every project, the book is a lesson in communicative representation. Depending on the development of the concept, the method of representation changes. The initial sketch for The Logic of Truth and Silk Cotton Tree, for instance, highlights the subtle nuances of two different starting themes—in fact, so do the project titles. Each project is expressed in a different style because of the different themes and ideas behind them. Take, for instance, the project titled The Opulent & The Excess—it presents technical drawing in a manner that entices a creative mind.