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.