Exhibit: ‘Subdivided Columns’

When you take a Doric column and input it into an architectural algorithm, you get architect Michael Hansmeyer’s Subdivided Columns. They appear to expand like an M.C. Escher illusion, only this illusion is measurable: The cardboard columns are subdivided eight times into 5.8 million faces. Hansmeyer, an architect at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, uses algorithms not as frameworks of formalization but as a design tool to generate endless permutations of a scheme. He designed a Java program that he uses to create the columns, then cuts the individual 1-millimeter-thick layers of cardboard with an industrial mill. The almost 10-foot-high structures are currently on display at the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. Through Oct. 23. • gb.or.kr