reaction papers toward theories of architecture & urbanism

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303/ARC2224)

SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (MARCH 2015) [5 MARKS]

NAME: LEE JO YEE ID: 0314880

LECTURER: NICHOLAS NG TUTORIAL TIME: 4-6PM

SYNOPSIS NO: 1 READER TITLE: THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES

AUTHOR: JANE JACOBS

As the author for the widely discussed and debated urban studies book, Jane Jacobs’s background

was just mere journalism. Coming from a layman’s point of view, she has openly or rather severely

criticized the orthodox urbanism and urban theories proposed at that time such as the radiant city,

garden city and etc. She was frustrate and desperately trying to change the perception of the mass

that a city cannot be built based on the theories and knowledge given that time because it would turn

out to be a dull, automobiles-driven city inhabited by cold-hearted residents. The same blind spot that

the mass has encountered yet unsure how to solve. (E.g. Morningside Heights area in NYC, pg. 5)

Curiosity has caught her when she visited The North End in Boston again in 1959 and discovered the

improvement that this infamous slum area has made. Both its vibrant street life and the diversity in

neighborhood has formed the mutual support system which she thinks is essential to a city and later

supported her in the pitch of humanitarian design of a city.

However, one of the main concern that modern planners or the mass are criticizing are of its age.

According to Chris Herdt on goodreads.com, he wrote:” Jacobs longs for diverse neighborhoods with

fruit stands and butcher shops that aren’t coming back, filled with bored housewives that can spend

their time staring out windows and scolding naughty children playing with marbles…I, for one, would

not find it charming to hear a midnight bagpipe serenade!” Jane, in a matter of fact, was trying to revive

the scenario in the 18-19th century way before industrialism or even 21st century technology. Skeptical

readers found Jane has overestimated the approach whereas in my opinion, I would believe is the

matter of execution. Looking back history, humanity has gone through ups and downs in various

movement such as renaissance, art and craft movement versus industrialism, modernism and

postmodernism etc. It is not impossible to put Jane’s theory in current century with the same essence

being put into different forms.

WORD COUNT: 343 DATE: 11/04/2016 MARK: GRADE:

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LECTURER: MR.NICHOLAS NG TUTORIAL TIME: 4-6PM

SYNOPSIS NO: 2 READER TITLE: “Semiotics and Architecture: Ideological Consumption or Theoretical Work

AUTHOR: Diana Agrest and Maria Gandelsonas One need read both Diana Agrest & Mario Gandelsonas’s writings and Charles Jencks’s “Semiology and Architecture” in order to get the whole image on what the relationship of semiotics in the field of architecture. In general, both readers emphasize how people perceive architecture through the system of signs and propose the theories of their own on how building form and function should be design in response to that. Throughout this reader, I have particularly interested in one of the definitions of semiotics given by Ferdinand de Saussure which are on the notion of communication and signification. The phenomenon of the prior analyses how signs are send and received, differs from and distinct from the later which analyses the content of the sign and the rules governing them. In architecture, to put it bluntly, the system of signs can be interpreted as architectural language or elements in a building design such as columns, plinth, skin etc. Saussure has proposed that these elements can divided into the two categories above which one is concerned with its use and effects (structural or functions) and another indicates the internal relation within a system determined by the social and cultural context.

In my opinion, I have acknowledged the signification aspect of the buildings and found it rather important when giving an identity or impression of an architecture. For example, the Oculus, the circular opening in the centre of a dome that exists in ancient Roman building Pantheon, apart from it being a structural support or a solution of light, it has much more to do with the religious belief and tranquility of the environment. The oculus is believed to allow those inside the temple to contemplate the heavens or the cosmos. Furthermore, it is a feature of Byzantine and Neoclassical architecture and has a rich history originating in antiquity. Hence, we can justify that the Oculus is a sign of significant and supported by the cultural context. In contrast, modern architecture has more sign of communication than signification if we put the notion in numbers. With the propaganda “Less is more” or “Form follows function”, buildings are less interesting without social and cultural aspects. People perceives the form as it is in function and relationship of arbitrary is rarely occurs.

My point of argument is that I believe the notion of signification is more impactful to the users, in a subtle way even it is unnoticeable of its nature.

To relate the theory above with public relation, such as building a community library, one has to investigate the political, historical, social and cultural background of the community as part of the proposed system of signs to the new building. Semiotically speaking, signs such as reading area for elderly (symbols), David the Thinker sculpture (referent) or any space that the users find meaning of it associate with them or the library. It has to typically deal with the connotation layer of the image rather than denotation for instance, when the user of the community library from a urban poor background with find the green gathering space with kiosk more appealing than a café selling refreshment.

According to Umberto Eco, a semiotician and architectural critic commented: “If semiotics, beyond being the science of recognized system of signs, is really to be a science studying all cultural phenomena as if they were system of signs…” In a nutshell, the impacts from the system of signs not only to provide meaning

*any architectural form can be a symbol, reference, referent according to Charles Jencks


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LECTURER: MR.NICHOLAS NG TUTORIAL TIME: 4PM – 6PM

SYNOPSIS NO: 3 READER TITLE: THE GEOMETRY OF FEELING

AUTHOR: JUHANI PALLASMAA

Does Beauty has a Form?

In this book, the author Juhani Pallasmaa has addressed the way that we perceive architecture should not be a mere play of forms, be it from the perspective of an architect who designs it or the human who live in it. Instead, the image portrayed by the buildings that will provoke the emotional feelings of the people who live in them should be primitive. In the sub-chapter The Architecture of Imagery, I have learned and could not agree more on the line: “The artistic dimension of a work of art does not lie in the actual physical thing; it exists only in the consciousness of the person experiencing it.” I think, if architecture is an art, it is just a shell to its essence or memory. The shell is no longer important when the beauty of the memories have been embraced. Peter Zumthor mentioned that a painting by Rothko painted with vibrant field of color and pure abstraction. It is a pure visual experience and he concentrates on the painting that other sensual impressions like sounds or smell is no longer important. The concentration sets him free from the physical frame of the art, indulging himself into the realm of imagination.

I reckon the other day when I was sitting at the favorite spot of my hostel when I was reading. My hostel is a normal semi-terrace house and I have a room at the upper floor completed with proper chair and desk. But the favorite spot is a covered laundry room behind the house sandwiched between the kitchen and the back lane of the terrace. It is a long hallway with a washing machine at the far end, strings of clothes lines hung above me as I sat below them and pots of plants are placed randomly in this comfortable lane. I enjoyed when the morning sunshine shone through the high openings covered with loose wire mesh into the hallway or the sound of the rain droplets hit the plastic roof deck. I enjoyed the space so much that I have forgotten it is a laundry room. My childhood memory echoes as I used to play in the back lane at grandmother’s house with bare foot. I assume those are the architecture of memory mentioned by Pallasmaa. The feelings are evoked regardless of the form but from the elements that made the space what it is. The beauty is never concealed in a vase but appear rarely and often in unexpected places.

However, the way we perceive beauty of an art is another matter of question. Our perception is visceral. Reason plays a secondary role. I think we immediately recognize beauty that is a product of our culture and corresponds to our education. As a designer, it is selfish to just look at problem from our point of view because architecture should not be the manifesto of the architect’s ambition or ego but the people. Back to the beginning when architecture is a symbol of human existence.


ASSSESSED BY: MR.NICHOLAS NG




LECTURER: MR.NICHOLAS NG TUTORIAL TIME: 4-6PM

SYNOPSIS NO: 4 READER TITLE: TOWARDS A CRITICAL REGIONALISM

AUTHOR: KENNETH FRAMPTON

Critical regionalism emerged in the 20th century as a third school of thinking between the two extreme movements at the time: the Modernism and Post-Modernism. There was an enigma in moving forward and return to the roots quoted by Paul Ricoeur in his book History of Truth. Hence, critical regionalism came up with the goal is to find a middle ground whereby architecture is innate with traces of its culture and traditions shown through design and materials but with measured and meaningful adornment. In “Towards a Critical Regionalism”, Kenneth Frampton has proposed six points of resistance towards the phenomenon of universalization.

Under the fifth point titled “Culture Versus Nature”, he mentioned how Modernism favors the flat topography and climatic control as a quick and efficient approach of mass-producing architecture. Perhaps the dominance of these universal techniques or technologies that make our built environment a lack of “place-conscious poetic”, which is an interaction between culture and nature, between art and light.

Frampton acknowledged that fenestration as a critical element in the expression of architecture because it is the most delicate point at which the outer and inner realm rest across each other. I reckon it is a boundary that needed to be blurred in a sense that the interior quality of the space is coherent with the surroundings and community into one space, time and aura. Taken the example of Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum by Tadao Ando or the 2011 Serpentine Gallery by Peter Zumthor, the architecture is of minimalistic and seamless but it is the intangible measures that created from within lure you into new realm that retrospect the place as one.

The over influence of artificial lighting and air conditioners has become a confines that shut off the senses of human perception with the externals. Frampton has used the artificial lighting of art galleries as an example and described such motive will “tend to reduce the artworks to commodity” and “the loss of aura”. To put such statement in the local context, there are many student housing units in Subang Jaya whereby a single semi-detached house (around 2200 sq.ft – 2 floors) is compartmented into 18 rooms with a dimension of 3mx2m each room. There are no openings in most of the rooms and each occupied with a florescent light tube and a unit of air conditioner. The occupants study, sleep and entertain themselves in such claustrophobic confined place. It reminds me of the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong and questions me further more. Are human kinds no longer care about the quality of living and are all lazy and driven by profits including the designers themselves? Are we relying too much on technology as the quickest solutions to resolve our living conditions? And are the intention of an architect the same as the perception of the users?

Le Corbusier believes that there is an idealistic living form for human and hence created template in the modernism movement. The form follows its function and Le Corb was not wrong in producing a functional and responsive spaces. However, international styles has gone too far from its initial purpose and in my opinion misused by the society. Such idealism should not be a waste and is not completed without nature, context, culture or a trigger in human sense as proposed in critical regionalism.

References: http://home.earthlink.net/~aisgp/texts/regionalism/regionalism.html


ASSSESSED BY: MR.NICHOLAS NG

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