Faculty of Architecture

University of Ljubljana: Ljubljana, Slovenia



"The Form of Absence: radiographs|paintings|reliquaries"



Paul Robinson was born into a family of musicians and taxidermists and raised on the

Atlantic coast of northeast Florida. After studying music he pursed a five-year traditional

apprenticeship in the shop of an industrial, marine and architectural pattern-maker. He

credits his experience at the side of his mentor and master craftsman as teaching him

how to see space. Robinson recalls: "A pattern-maker must view the way things are

made in reverse. There is inherent dyslexia in the way a pattern maker thinks and, in my

mind, views the world. It is a world where things emerge as a matter of reduction; a process

of subtraction: starting with mass and working outward to find form - always plastic

- sculptural." By default Robinson unknowingly existed within an environment where a wall

or object was considered an imprint - a joint, not merely separation or an isolated form -

at once tectonic and stereotomic. The result, this casting, was a pattern: a reciprocal

measure of manifold realms holding the symbols and constituent artifacts that bear

witness to its construction.

Subsequent to his apprenticeship culminating with the designation of Master Pattern

Maker, Robinson opened his own studio designing and constructing commissioned furniture,

yacht interiors and specialized architectural millwork. Only after spending seven

years running his business did he begin his formal architectural education at the University

of Florida where he received a Master of Architecture. While in school, Robinson obtained

his contractor s license and began designing and building architectural projects. Upon

graduation he received the AIA Henry Adams medal, the highest honor bestowed by the

American Institute of Architects upon a student graduating at the Master s level, and

founded his design and construction practice while teaching at the University of Florida

and lecturing throughout Europe on theories related to Interventional Design.