Edges as Portals begins with a single detail: the rough, irregular perimeter of a small spandrel currently housed in the V&A Cast Courts. Though seemingly inconsequential among the vast array of polished replicas, this cast stands out because of what it refuses to hide. Its rough edge, neither refined nor repaired, reveals an object that was never made for display. Instead, the edge carries the marks of use, handling, and circulation, and it is through this uneven outline that the spandrel’s entire history becomes legible.

Working through this edge, Edges as Portals adopts a stance of productive opposition. It explores a casting approach that welcomes overflow, spillage, and distortion. Rather than seeking the crisp boundaries typically associated with replication, the process encourages plaster to breach its container. Experimental clay moulds allow seams to rupture and forms to spill, generating objects whose edges accumulate rather than resolve. This methodology mirrors the spandrels own refusal to conform to ideals of completeness; the cast becomes a record of where intention fails and material insists on its own behaviour.

Ultimately, Edges as Portals proposes that the spandrel’s irregular outline is not an accident of preservation but a philosophy in itself. Its endurance suggests another mode of architectural value – one that resists polish, and persists not through authority, but through quiet, stubborn imperfection. Through this lens, the project treats the edge not as the boundary of a form, but as the place where new histories and readings begin.