Architecture of Madness

between Order and (dis)Order

 

 

 

 

 

the least architectural thing

                                                             image from: architizer.com

Is there too many of us around that we started to make the profession seem cheap to the public? With too many architectural agendas around, has the value of an architectural idea become almost no existent? What does it take to be noticed in a sea of preachers? How far are we welling to compromise the architectural product to make it in the profession?

acéphale - headless

 

a revolt against architecture?

Olgiati on destroying the Father figure 1

Death of the Architect

Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France: Le Corbusier's tomb

Source: www.interiordesign.net



the architectural uncanny

Bernard Tschumi's acropolis museum uncanny plan

Freud states that "many people experience the feeling- of the uncanny- in the highest degree in relation to death".

the architect as an archaeologist digs the ground searching for meaning... tracing any evidence for the existance of the other... not realising that the closer one digs into the ground, the closer one gets to... ?

no longer home - Christina's world 3

deconstructing CW- a collage of Doha skyscrapers by author

As a young kid who grew up in a small town, C always desired an outside world he always heard of and read about in text books... big buildings and bright street lights... the atmost level of development a civilization could achieve...

C was finally granted an opportunity to see the big city, only to find out that civiliztion is not as great as he thought...

disapointed, he returns back to his old town... only to confront a new reality... the outside world he always sought, has now come to haunt and torment him...

realism deconstructed - Christina's world 2

analysis of a spectator's field of vision (by Author)

home - Christina's world

Andrew Wyeth 1948

doors 2

the vertical and the horizontal- proportions of life and death

"Death waits living on our time.
Our death is outside of us.
The death of a house is announced by the only standing structure- the brick chimney.
...
The height of a door of a house is for man's entry; the width of a door of a house is for man's exit: one dimension for life, the other dimension is for death..."
(from 'such places as memory: poems, 1953-1996' by John Hejduk)

bedroom door pic taken at a horizontal position (by KDscopes author)

hindsight

3 books that could have made the MArch thesis 10% better
but were not available at the time

the scenes of the street and other essays - anthony vidler

the possibility of an absolute architecture - pier vittorio aureli

the alphabet and algorithm - mario carpo

when language fails...

We always seem to refer things that are open for interpretation to language. Hence, the idea that architecture is constructed like a language is ancient. Similarly, Freud and Lacan believe that our dreams and; therefore, our unconsciousness is also structured like a language.
Nevertheless, understanding architecture as a language, was only capable of explaining architecture through form- think of letters as symbols and architectural forms as symbolic letters convying meaning. Thus far, the discipline has suffered from using form as it's only language as this method falls short when it comes to understanding architecture in terms of space. However, if architecture should be compared to our unconsciousness, the similarities between the two is more apparent in terms of space than it is through form!


*going through a tunnel... to be continued*

MArch thesis

the strangely familiar;
allegory of architecture and the self

a year in the making, and a life long itch

part 1 of 3; prologue

part 2 of 3; imaginary theatre


part 3a of 3; a house is a machine for living dying

architecture as a layering device

a house is a machine for living dying (2)

the concept of using architecture as a layering system for social status can be traced in the works of Corb and Andrea Palladio before him. A building becomes a make belief environment, where masters live at top levels looking at a sky lit dome representing the heavens above, while lower level is kept for servants and demeaning jobs. (Unwin's twenty buildings every architect should understand)

Similarly, in his chapter on self-consciousness, Hegel talks about a master-slave dialectics. Once one senses greatness in the other, he sees his salvation in the success of the other. But, they are interchangable. When one decides to become the other, he would realise that what he wished for is not so great after all... echoes of Lacan's diagram of desire and the missed encounters with the Real?

a house is a machine for dying

coming soon...

Soutar, deconstructed

Monday 12

out of the darkness of the womb

into a bed, into a room:

out of a garden into a town,

and to a country, and up and down

the earth; the touch of women and men

and back into a garden again:

into a garden; into a room;

into a bed, and into a tomb;

and the darkness of the world's womb

from Soutar's 'autobiography- diaries of a dying man' pg114

The surrealists fascination with man's first home, the womb, is apparent in many of their work. Kiesler endless house was to resemble a mother's womb. The protection that man had in that house was shortly followed by a detachment and forceful rejection into the outer world where he is unprotected; adam's exile from paradise. Being exiled from that home, we are always eager for a return; not too different from Hejduk's running houses quest to return to the mother. Perhaps, this is the reason behind our fascination with dark subterranean buildings. However, for soutar, this darkness of the womb is not that different from the darkness of the tomb that is his bed.

imaginary theatre

to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools.. The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale.. told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.(Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5)

teatrino scientifico
Instead of human actors, the players are all buildings- rather language of buildings. The theater is scaled down to the size of a puppet's theater. But, there is also the clock.. a projection of time. The building's language that used to hold meaning, has no meaning anymore. All that is left is an analogy of fathomable forms; reminiscent to a projected past, but using modern materials. Tormenting itself in a continuous lack and desire, mourning a death that is never grasped- echoes of Heidegger's ungraspable Dasien?

Aldo Rossi; theater of science 1978

doors

still: secret beyond the door

As fragile beings we fear the unknown. Too insecure to accept any new knowledge, we are threatened by anything that might shatter our realities. Superstitious when it comes to peculiar doors, thirteen tread staircases, or even broken mirrors.. yet conscious that they have the power to turn our existence into nothing but a mere hallucination. (in reference to Beatriz Colomina; Sexuality & Space)

"Outside and inside form dialectics of division, the obvious geometry of which blinds us as soon as we bring it into play in the metaphorical domains. It has the sharpness of the dialectics of yes and no, which decides everything. Unless one is careful, it is made into the basis of all thoughts of the positive and the negative." (Gatson Bachelard; The Poetics of Space)

still: cabinet of Dr. Caligari

pandora’s box
"Chests, especially small caskets, over which we have more complete mastery, are objects that may be opened. When a casket is closed, it is returned to the general community of objects; it takes its place in exterior space. But it opens! For this reason a philosopher mathematician would say it is the first differential of discovery. From the moment the casket is opened the dialectics of inside and outside no longer exist. The outside is effaced with one stroke, an atmosphere of novelty and surprise reigns. And, quite paradoxically, even cubic dimensions have no more meanings, for the reason that a new dimension has just opened up." (Gatson Bachelard; The Poetics of Space)

gazing

The human brain is wired for perceptual pleasure. When experiencing the spaces around us we never absorb the whole image at once. Instead, we analyse the objects within the space and relate them to previously accumulated knowledge of these objects in order to form a perspective of the space. In literature, the formalists approach was to take everyday used words out of context to better engage with the reader's most intimate memories. Similarly, the surrealist strived to create juxtapositions from everyday used objects.

Meret Oppenhiem - furry cup

strangely familiar

Shlovsky describes this (de)familiarization as a way of restoring hidden sensations- sensations we ditched as part of our evolution in favour of sight- as if making “the stone stony”.

a small affair

A rationalist approach towards architectural design would suggest considering the program of the building to achieve a functional solution that would satisfy the client’s needs. Once the building fulfils its function, the building becomes free to take any form or shape that satisfies the architect’s ambition. However, this approach would, in many cases, result in generic buildings that could be copied everywhere. Plus, architectural design is never a straight forward process.

sketch of the plywood house in Bottmingen

In the plywood house by Herzog & de Meuron in Bottmingen, the architects decide to engage the building with an existing Poulownia tree on site. The building is pushed against the tree and the side facing the tree is curved inwards. Hence, the building starts to prevail a guilty pleasure. A predetermined relationship is established with the context. The tree became the focuse of the design. This kind of "as found" architecture, has a passionately subressive aspect.. something binding.. a small affair.. (Architecture is not made with the brain, As found is a small affair; Schregenberger)

on love
if music be the food of love, play on.. give me excess of it; that surfeiting.. the appetite may sicken, and so die.. - Orsino from Twelfth night; William Shakespear