FIGURES 18 and 19

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Ink on paper

PORTRAIT OF A ROOM

JOSE A. ORTEZ

Room 312, the subject of these drawings, is a multipurpose classroom in the third floor of the Foundation Building at The Cooper Union whose character transformed as the activities within it changed. I wondered whether the room could have its own personality. Through the drawings I discovered secrets about the room and the nature of the life it could house.

In the process of capturing the essence of these changes, I became fascinated with the chairs that occupied the room because they were never in the same position twice. Their changing configurations were a record of the activities that had previously taken place there. By reading their positions in the space in relation to one another, the chairs told the story of the room—revealing where the professors had been sitting, the kind of class that had been held, and sometimes how many people had attended the class. After three months of observing the room I discovered a direct relationship between drawing a space and understanding its history.