Dear colleagues
I wish you all a Merry Christmas !
Thursday, 25 December 2008
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Values guiding architecture
I don’t know about the others, but I feel I am being in a continuous race with time. Hours seem to be going faster than a few decades ago and, as I try to keep up with solving tasks, more problems seem to appear. I somehow believe this is a general feeling.
The human being today is pressed with time. Technology advances so fast that we can hardly keep up with it. Perhaps it is a matter of competition with the purpose of being the best on the market and remaining on top. But the main problem resulting is the lack of reflection time. We have to build fast and the conception period is shortened. We don’t have time to find a true meaning to the spaces we create and we give them a shallow signification, that fades in time.
The most repeated words or syntagmas nowadays are: financial, market, consumers, economy, efficiency, crisis, emergency - along with: experience, live the moment, feel, taste, escape. In architectural language we talk a lot about image, technology, experiencing the space, reproducing situations from past or from other domains, nature, a sort of mimetism, of amnetic recollection. The architectural market is dominated by financial interests, but, in spite of that, its personality sometimes appears stronger than expected, as manifestation.
We can observe different types of architectural immages depending on the general flow of ideas that generate them .
In “architectures” that embrace art’s direction (as, sometimes, the path of architecture was going followed the path of art) I find weird, dark expressions, ermetic shapes. Or, as photography is a very popular domain, pictural buildings result – in the sense that the building in itself is a model, or the people inside the posers.
Other types of architecture make use of the highest technology and the resulted buildings go sometimes further than the images we had about Star Trek cities. There is an enormous amount of background studying the human being in relation to technology and I will limit my comment in this direction to saying that Jules Verne’s immagination became reality to us. Therefore, I think everything is possible, and maybe architecture will become a part of high technology and digital evolution. I somehow hope that, in the not very far future, there will still be someone to like and ask for a house made of stone.
There are different examples of directions architecture is taking. But only one of them I favour the most. That would be swiss contemporary architecture.
In my former examples, the human being has been perceived as a meer consumer of space, an actor in an artistic shot, a unity module for digital space, or a collector of immages capable of transcending time and becoming at times a little bit classic, renaissance, baroque, ’60-ies, ’80-ies and so on, a sad recaller who cannot find his place in time.
In swiss contemporary architecture, and not only, I found a little bit of the honestity Louis Kahn had in his projects and theory, a honestity I so much liked. I found the questions and not the answers; I re-found the interest in the pure material and in the research for the human scale. I found again the natural light, spaces that I can describe and not finnish talking about. I found the light and the silence. I found buildings that I am sure will last in time (as phisical presence and not only).
Feeling so close to this kind of spaces I choose to underline more of the aspects that define their values in the becoming of architecture.
Analizing the projects of Zumthor, Snozzi, and more swiss architects, I am impressed with the respect they have for the human being. The person is invited to smell, to taste, to hear and touch architecture. Is invited to remember the essential gestures, to get out of thoughts and to feel. This approach is, on one hand, a manifesto, but on the other, a statement, a research for the essence.
They regard the person as having been alienated (dragged) from his true nature by technology, media, economy and other factors. Evolution cannot be stopped, but in its process, the human being needs to be recalled of his more sensitive part. Architecture’s purpose would be to signal missing links to reality and to underline the essence of actions and things. The person is a central figure and all directions of perception are emphasised because of him. The path is conceived especially for the viewer, not for the outsider. This person is an explorer and he is being given so many situations to explore that one could never get bored. The explorer is in search of stimuli to make him question himself, to make him wonder; probably in search of light, in search for truth.
The human being inside this architecture is a complex one in search for truth and, at the same time, for sensible, discreet and not obvious, intelligent gestures. The real value of this designing manner is that the individual and his complexity are respected. This is the reason why I think it will and should contribute with an important percentage to the becoming of architecture.
The above-mentioned respect is only one of the important values for our future in architecture, and maybe it will be forgotten in some manifestations. In spite of that, I am convinced that its strength as argument will not fade and, in different times and places will be re-taken as a leading concept.
Every region’s architecture will evolve in its own way – as it was and still is obvious nowadays. An european city will, most probably, never look like a japanese one. Sometimes that is a relief to acknowledge that history cannot be globalized, nor erased. and that the human being will always be regarded to have its unique personality in different places of the world, even if the differences will not be as obvious as before (due to glabalization).
The human being today is pressed with time. Technology advances so fast that we can hardly keep up with it. Perhaps it is a matter of competition with the purpose of being the best on the market and remaining on top. But the main problem resulting is the lack of reflection time. We have to build fast and the conception period is shortened. We don’t have time to find a true meaning to the spaces we create and we give them a shallow signification, that fades in time.
The most repeated words or syntagmas nowadays are: financial, market, consumers, economy, efficiency, crisis, emergency - along with: experience, live the moment, feel, taste, escape. In architectural language we talk a lot about image, technology, experiencing the space, reproducing situations from past or from other domains, nature, a sort of mimetism, of amnetic recollection. The architectural market is dominated by financial interests, but, in spite of that, its personality sometimes appears stronger than expected, as manifestation.
We can observe different types of architectural immages depending on the general flow of ideas that generate them .
In “architectures” that embrace art’s direction (as, sometimes, the path of architecture was going followed the path of art) I find weird, dark expressions, ermetic shapes. Or, as photography is a very popular domain, pictural buildings result – in the sense that the building in itself is a model, or the people inside the posers.
Other types of architecture make use of the highest technology and the resulted buildings go sometimes further than the images we had about Star Trek cities. There is an enormous amount of background studying the human being in relation to technology and I will limit my comment in this direction to saying that Jules Verne’s immagination became reality to us. Therefore, I think everything is possible, and maybe architecture will become a part of high technology and digital evolution. I somehow hope that, in the not very far future, there will still be someone to like and ask for a house made of stone.
There are different examples of directions architecture is taking. But only one of them I favour the most. That would be swiss contemporary architecture.
In my former examples, the human being has been perceived as a meer consumer of space, an actor in an artistic shot, a unity module for digital space, or a collector of immages capable of transcending time and becoming at times a little bit classic, renaissance, baroque, ’60-ies, ’80-ies and so on, a sad recaller who cannot find his place in time.
In swiss contemporary architecture, and not only, I found a little bit of the honestity Louis Kahn had in his projects and theory, a honestity I so much liked. I found the questions and not the answers; I re-found the interest in the pure material and in the research for the human scale. I found again the natural light, spaces that I can describe and not finnish talking about. I found the light and the silence. I found buildings that I am sure will last in time (as phisical presence and not only).
Feeling so close to this kind of spaces I choose to underline more of the aspects that define their values in the becoming of architecture.
Analizing the projects of Zumthor, Snozzi, and more swiss architects, I am impressed with the respect they have for the human being. The person is invited to smell, to taste, to hear and touch architecture. Is invited to remember the essential gestures, to get out of thoughts and to feel. This approach is, on one hand, a manifesto, but on the other, a statement, a research for the essence.
They regard the person as having been alienated (dragged) from his true nature by technology, media, economy and other factors. Evolution cannot be stopped, but in its process, the human being needs to be recalled of his more sensitive part. Architecture’s purpose would be to signal missing links to reality and to underline the essence of actions and things. The person is a central figure and all directions of perception are emphasised because of him. The path is conceived especially for the viewer, not for the outsider. This person is an explorer and he is being given so many situations to explore that one could never get bored. The explorer is in search of stimuli to make him question himself, to make him wonder; probably in search of light, in search for truth.
The human being inside this architecture is a complex one in search for truth and, at the same time, for sensible, discreet and not obvious, intelligent gestures. The real value of this designing manner is that the individual and his complexity are respected. This is the reason why I think it will and should contribute with an important percentage to the becoming of architecture.
The above-mentioned respect is only one of the important values for our future in architecture, and maybe it will be forgotten in some manifestations. In spite of that, I am convinced that its strength as argument will not fade and, in different times and places will be re-taken as a leading concept.
Every region’s architecture will evolve in its own way – as it was and still is obvious nowadays. An european city will, most probably, never look like a japanese one. Sometimes that is a relief to acknowledge that history cannot be globalized, nor erased. and that the human being will always be regarded to have its unique personality in different places of the world, even if the differences will not be as obvious as before (due to glabalization).
RESPONSE TO COMMENTS
MINIMALIST SPACE - OTHER CHOICE
My theory is based on that aspect of the contemporary world as a consumer society intoxicated by image, so well exposed by proff. Neil Leach. This theory of intoxicated city appears before Leach along with the development of the industrial towns.
According to Simmel’s theory “the individual who lives in a modern metropolis is continuously bombarded by the city’s stimuli.” He has to intensify non stop his emotional life because of the speed of change. He has to change non stop within (psychic) and without (behavior). In such a way he gets an abstract being, sick of everything and depressed. For Simmel that sickness is just the result of excessive nervous stimulation, to the point of exhaustion. In the minimalist space the law of continuous circulation imposed by the actual state of things is interrupted. The rest is the result of that space. A rest in movement, a rest in changing, a resistance to change, that still didn’t result in a void. That rest is manifested thorough subtle changes of forms and interplay of spaces. That is in opposition to the street images, the riot of colors, etc, so that system offers a serene, calm, subtle interplay of forms, in the light. O homogenous description of minimalist architecture can be considered part of a cult, a bizarre one, making simplicity a reaction against intoxication through images in the architectural spaces of industrialized culture in the capitalist society. From the beginning of the modern architecture the artist denounced the degradation of the urbane image, which became merchandising of a decadent society, repeating classical styles at infinitum. The minimalist space, as a heterotopy of des-intoxication rebels less against convention and more against the false newness of merchandise, ment to blind the client by the dazzling emptiness of the product’s lack of usefulness. People are really bewitched by the idea of getting new things, discarding everything else of value, material or spiritual.
Kandinsky and other artists understood the realistic expressionism as a triumph of capitalism. “What else can replace the object?” he asked in his search for a so called pure form. Also C. Brancusi is perhaps the best example of minimalist philosophy in art. Matisse also achieved the same thing in sculpture and painting. The simplified form is easier to be received and stored in the brain. Lets think about the simplicity of an African hut, a Bedouin tent, an Eskimo igloo.
A minimalist approach is a return to basics, lack of clutter, a demise of baroque, rococo, of everything opulent, crowded, overdressed, ostentatious. It is in fact a revolutionary approach in which less is better than too much, creating spaces aloof from the uniformity of contemporary urbanity, spaces that can be called deviant. Simplicity is the key to many doors. A return to simplicity, to minimalist spaces, can extend the very life of the person, or even of the planet. Simplicity means equilibrium. The minimalist design helps to retain easier the shape, the outer lines, forgetting the details. In art, the trend “cubism” did just that. In fact architecture is just an interplay of simple forms structured creatively by the architect, and after dressed inside by the interior decorator, in a desire to reach perfection—which is nothing than equilibrium, a perfect symbiosis between exterior and interior, achieving the goal of functionality as well.
The birds have perfect nest, and animals perfect burrows that suit their needs. They are perfect in their sphere. We humans should achieve the same results in our sphere. That’s why a minimalist approach can have ecological answers, can help build with nature, not against it. Minimalism is freedom from the fetters of conventionalism and contriving.
On this general background I made , using the value of contrast, the interior minimalist theory as heterotopy of desintoxication. I must point out that the paradigms analyzed I, as an architect practitioner, match the creative paradigm. So, being at the beginning of my research I did the combination of the two notions intuitively. I think is not hard to observe the contrast of the common city scene and one of Tadao Ando’s minimalist interiors. It comes out that the minimalist interior is the other space, other choice to live in it, other image to watch, other form to be surrounded with, others that the usual provide us. It is the mission of my doctoral these to prove with scientific methods that theory.
If we raising the issue of contradiction-as contrast-, as value in architecture, can bring on both, the principles of composition, among which the concept of contrast and his values is located, and how that Deconstructivism understand the knowledge and find new ways of express and design the architectural space.
My theory is based on that aspect of the contemporary world as a consumer society intoxicated by image, so well exposed by proff. Neil Leach. This theory of intoxicated city appears before Leach along with the development of the industrial towns.
According to Simmel’s theory “the individual who lives in a modern metropolis is continuously bombarded by the city’s stimuli.” He has to intensify non stop his emotional life because of the speed of change. He has to change non stop within (psychic) and without (behavior). In such a way he gets an abstract being, sick of everything and depressed. For Simmel that sickness is just the result of excessive nervous stimulation, to the point of exhaustion. In the minimalist space the law of continuous circulation imposed by the actual state of things is interrupted. The rest is the result of that space. A rest in movement, a rest in changing, a resistance to change, that still didn’t result in a void. That rest is manifested thorough subtle changes of forms and interplay of spaces. That is in opposition to the street images, the riot of colors, etc, so that system offers a serene, calm, subtle interplay of forms, in the light. O homogenous description of minimalist architecture can be considered part of a cult, a bizarre one, making simplicity a reaction against intoxication through images in the architectural spaces of industrialized culture in the capitalist society. From the beginning of the modern architecture the artist denounced the degradation of the urbane image, which became merchandising of a decadent society, repeating classical styles at infinitum. The minimalist space, as a heterotopy of des-intoxication rebels less against convention and more against the false newness of merchandise, ment to blind the client by the dazzling emptiness of the product’s lack of usefulness. People are really bewitched by the idea of getting new things, discarding everything else of value, material or spiritual.
Kandinsky and other artists understood the realistic expressionism as a triumph of capitalism. “What else can replace the object?” he asked in his search for a so called pure form. Also C. Brancusi is perhaps the best example of minimalist philosophy in art. Matisse also achieved the same thing in sculpture and painting. The simplified form is easier to be received and stored in the brain. Lets think about the simplicity of an African hut, a Bedouin tent, an Eskimo igloo.
A minimalist approach is a return to basics, lack of clutter, a demise of baroque, rococo, of everything opulent, crowded, overdressed, ostentatious. It is in fact a revolutionary approach in which less is better than too much, creating spaces aloof from the uniformity of contemporary urbanity, spaces that can be called deviant. Simplicity is the key to many doors. A return to simplicity, to minimalist spaces, can extend the very life of the person, or even of the planet. Simplicity means equilibrium. The minimalist design helps to retain easier the shape, the outer lines, forgetting the details. In art, the trend “cubism” did just that. In fact architecture is just an interplay of simple forms structured creatively by the architect, and after dressed inside by the interior decorator, in a desire to reach perfection—which is nothing than equilibrium, a perfect symbiosis between exterior and interior, achieving the goal of functionality as well.
The birds have perfect nest, and animals perfect burrows that suit their needs. They are perfect in their sphere. We humans should achieve the same results in our sphere. That’s why a minimalist approach can have ecological answers, can help build with nature, not against it. Minimalism is freedom from the fetters of conventionalism and contriving.
On this general background I made , using the value of contrast, the interior minimalist theory as heterotopy of desintoxication. I must point out that the paradigms analyzed I, as an architect practitioner, match the creative paradigm. So, being at the beginning of my research I did the combination of the two notions intuitively. I think is not hard to observe the contrast of the common city scene and one of Tadao Ando’s minimalist interiors. It comes out that the minimalist interior is the other space, other choice to live in it, other image to watch, other form to be surrounded with, others that the usual provide us. It is the mission of my doctoral these to prove with scientific methods that theory.
If we raising the issue of contradiction-as contrast-, as value in architecture, can bring on both, the principles of composition, among which the concept of contrast and his values is located, and how that Deconstructivism understand the knowledge and find new ways of express and design the architectural space.
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Of other(‘s) values.
Every culture has had its own way of understanding the world, has dreamt its own dreams, and has built its own cathedrals and brothels. And if we look at history we can see that each society was built upon a set of values, and values have never stopped changing ever since man became aware of his self-consciousness.
Traditional societies considered the world as the creation of gods, and it was them who imposed a set of values to the people. Values were then a matter of religious belief. With Renaissance (or the Reform) man started seeing himself as a rational being, its world view changed; he started setting his own values and his own personal interpretation of these ones. And it was by rejecting the existing that revolutions occurred, whether we talk about politics or art. When Baudelaire said he could make beauty out of mud, the French bourgeoisie was outraged, but this reject changed then the entire concept of beauty.
But what about today? What about our values? Ever since truth is no longer considered to be pre-established (ever since Post-Modernity has put an end to the search of progress and other Positivist ideals of Modernity), and any statement might be right and wrong at the same time, how do values work in this type of context? In fact maybe that is why values started to be the first step towards a building attitude now-a-days.
The question is now:” why?” (and no longer how), in the name of what values does one take a certain decision, how does one justify its acts, since there is no longer an universal ideal? If we take into consideration the six paradigms and their specific sets of values, we may notice that they can all be true at the same time. Neither one is false; man is indeed a biological being, as well as a psychological being. He is a social being, zoon politikon as Aristotle had said long before, but also a cultural one, without any doubt. And he is an individual with a unique identity and well alive with its unique DNA at the same time. Both the one and the other are true at the same time. If heterotopia is, as Foucault defines it, “a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted “, then each starts by acting as a heterotopia, each one rejects the other in order to impose itself, and finishes by being rejected and replaced by another. Postmodernism wanted to escape the functionalist world for its lack of meaning and emotion, and created Las Vegas, an accumulation of images and symbols with a consumerist aim which has been, in turn, criticized and rejected by minimalism, and in a similar way so did Frampton’s critical regionalism come against international style, and against globalization as uniformisation process, and so on. And yet they all live together in the same place, one next to another, in our cities, in our memory or in our imagination, as a consequence of the Post-Modern rejection of the universal subject, and the acceptation of the multiplicity of values, and the differences between them. Which is the way out of this uncertain context where everything can be good and bad at the same time, depending upon the relativity of the system of reference?
Cultural products embody a certain worldview, and express certain values, and their creation, as any creation, supposes something new. Ever since man started to produce art, it was a fight for giving shape to the dream, to the unborn, to the other. Whether we see creation as “creation ex nihilo”, as Christians understand God’s creation of the world, or as a matter of creativity (and imagination) as western societies have considered it by the Age of the Enlightenment, creation has always been about producing a new statement. The difference with architecture and space is that even if they are cultural products too, unlike art, they have a strong impact upon people’s lives. And happily not all the dreams for the other, not every fight against the existing are materialized, when it comes to the city, its space and politics too. Happily Le Corbusier did not have the chance to see his plan Voisin for Paris become reality.
Sometimes looking for other values must not only be a means towards creation of new ideas, as not always new stands for better, but it must also be a process of decision making, a choice between different options, things to reject and things to accept. It is the radical decision of total rejection of the existing that can be very harmful sometimes, the city is not a work of art, it is the environment where we live, and if architectural intervention is about creating and giving life to the other, it must also be about dealing with the existing, everything is in the way one chooses the values, and the way he gives shape to these values.
If values can provide inspiration as well as a working method, one should be careful about the way one uses these values. One has to be careful when taking decisions in the name of values, let’s not forget that many crimes have been committed in the name of certain values, and unjustifiable acts were justified in the name of these values, so maybe one should take into consideration also whose values are those in the name of which we intend to act: the architect’s? The power’s values, or the institution’s? The people who will be using and inhabiting those spaces? And which people are we talking about? Everybody, as modernist planning considered? Or specific people, in specific places? It seems to be difficult to talk about values without referring also at other’s values, as living in society is always about dealing with the other.
Every culture has had its own way of understanding the world, has dreamt its own dreams, and has built its own cathedrals and brothels. And if we look at history we can see that each society was built upon a set of values, and values have never stopped changing ever since man became aware of his self-consciousness.
Traditional societies considered the world as the creation of gods, and it was them who imposed a set of values to the people. Values were then a matter of religious belief. With Renaissance (or the Reform) man started seeing himself as a rational being, its world view changed; he started setting his own values and his own personal interpretation of these ones. And it was by rejecting the existing that revolutions occurred, whether we talk about politics or art. When Baudelaire said he could make beauty out of mud, the French bourgeoisie was outraged, but this reject changed then the entire concept of beauty.
But what about today? What about our values? Ever since truth is no longer considered to be pre-established (ever since Post-Modernity has put an end to the search of progress and other Positivist ideals of Modernity), and any statement might be right and wrong at the same time, how do values work in this type of context? In fact maybe that is why values started to be the first step towards a building attitude now-a-days.
The question is now:” why?” (and no longer how), in the name of what values does one take a certain decision, how does one justify its acts, since there is no longer an universal ideal? If we take into consideration the six paradigms and their specific sets of values, we may notice that they can all be true at the same time. Neither one is false; man is indeed a biological being, as well as a psychological being. He is a social being, zoon politikon as Aristotle had said long before, but also a cultural one, without any doubt. And he is an individual with a unique identity and well alive with its unique DNA at the same time. Both the one and the other are true at the same time. If heterotopia is, as Foucault defines it, “a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted “, then each starts by acting as a heterotopia, each one rejects the other in order to impose itself, and finishes by being rejected and replaced by another. Postmodernism wanted to escape the functionalist world for its lack of meaning and emotion, and created Las Vegas, an accumulation of images and symbols with a consumerist aim which has been, in turn, criticized and rejected by minimalism, and in a similar way so did Frampton’s critical regionalism come against international style, and against globalization as uniformisation process, and so on. And yet they all live together in the same place, one next to another, in our cities, in our memory or in our imagination, as a consequence of the Post-Modern rejection of the universal subject, and the acceptation of the multiplicity of values, and the differences between them. Which is the way out of this uncertain context where everything can be good and bad at the same time, depending upon the relativity of the system of reference?
Cultural products embody a certain worldview, and express certain values, and their creation, as any creation, supposes something new. Ever since man started to produce art, it was a fight for giving shape to the dream, to the unborn, to the other. Whether we see creation as “creation ex nihilo”, as Christians understand God’s creation of the world, or as a matter of creativity (and imagination) as western societies have considered it by the Age of the Enlightenment, creation has always been about producing a new statement. The difference with architecture and space is that even if they are cultural products too, unlike art, they have a strong impact upon people’s lives. And happily not all the dreams for the other, not every fight against the existing are materialized, when it comes to the city, its space and politics too. Happily Le Corbusier did not have the chance to see his plan Voisin for Paris become reality.
Sometimes looking for other values must not only be a means towards creation of new ideas, as not always new stands for better, but it must also be a process of decision making, a choice between different options, things to reject and things to accept. It is the radical decision of total rejection of the existing that can be very harmful sometimes, the city is not a work of art, it is the environment where we live, and if architectural intervention is about creating and giving life to the other, it must also be about dealing with the existing, everything is in the way one chooses the values, and the way he gives shape to these values.
If values can provide inspiration as well as a working method, one should be careful about the way one uses these values. One has to be careful when taking decisions in the name of values, let’s not forget that many crimes have been committed in the name of certain values, and unjustifiable acts were justified in the name of these values, so maybe one should take into consideration also whose values are those in the name of which we intend to act: the architect’s? The power’s values, or the institution’s? The people who will be using and inhabiting those spaces? And which people are we talking about? Everybody, as modernist planning considered? Or specific people, in specific places? It seems to be difficult to talk about values without referring also at other’s values, as living in society is always about dealing with the other.
Friday, 12 December 2008
To which extend the investigation of values as the energy of architectural design can construct a better understanding of architecture? Do we really need this understanding? How can we use this understanding creatively? What is the operational value of such an investigation?
- from architecture understanding to city construction- what is missing?
Space and architecture, architecture and city, space and city are concepts strictly related between. What I think it is still missing in this relation is the understanding of the city, not as sum of architecture acts (good or bad, feasible or not, utopia or real), not as sum of spaces, but as a living organism, sum of relation created between its elements (humans, spaces, architecture objects). That understanding makes at least the difference between a successful or not architecture act, between a functional or bad functional architectural object. That understanding is based on a system of values…historical, political, evolution, social, economical… Space, at a smaller scale than a city is the resultant of all human, social, cultural, traditional values that characterized a period of existence. Foucault refers at this kind of space, as a resultant of relation; refer at city, as resultant of spaces interconnected (Foucault, 1967).
“The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, out time and history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogenous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live inside a voide that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreductible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another.”[1]
From that extend of understanding release at least the success of architecture act. Even if a construction is adapted and created in accordance with its unique user value system, even if it is right from artistic or compositional or functional point of view, it can simply not work inside the big city. That is the drama which marks the Romanian architecture in the last two decades. The building is understood like a creation act in accordance with all the paradigms known: values, ration, creative, typological, individualistic, digital…but it has to be more than that. First of all, architecture must be understood like a resultant of space, not only space like an empty and unused plot in the city, but like space interconnected and living in the city, like part of a system with inputs and outputs. I think this is the only way in which architecture can defined the user, not one, the all users, the inhabitants of an area or a city. The most appropriate example is Bucharest city- great contemporary architecture which doesn’t have the place there. Why? Because the act of creation began like un act of affirmation and filling empty spots in city. In the latest part of this period, this creation process started to be oriented to the user and to the space like empty plot defined by edges (or neighbors). The results are still far from a coherent insertion operation inside the city. They still don’t have the force to transform it or to integrate. That’s because architecture act still doesn’t take into account the city as system, the structure of this system. The function of a building must be dictated not only of the desire of its user but also of the city necessity and structure, the height or appearance of a building must be correlated with more issues than the immediate neighborhood, the functionality of the building must be correlated with all the components part of the system, which at least define it.
[1] M. Foucault, Of other spaces (1967), Hetereotopias.
- from architecture understanding to city construction- what is missing?
Space and architecture, architecture and city, space and city are concepts strictly related between. What I think it is still missing in this relation is the understanding of the city, not as sum of architecture acts (good or bad, feasible or not, utopia or real), not as sum of spaces, but as a living organism, sum of relation created between its elements (humans, spaces, architecture objects). That understanding makes at least the difference between a successful or not architecture act, between a functional or bad functional architectural object. That understanding is based on a system of values…historical, political, evolution, social, economical… Space, at a smaller scale than a city is the resultant of all human, social, cultural, traditional values that characterized a period of existence. Foucault refers at this kind of space, as a resultant of relation; refer at city, as resultant of spaces interconnected (Foucault, 1967).
“The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, out time and history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogenous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live inside a voide that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreductible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another.”[1]
From that extend of understanding release at least the success of architecture act. Even if a construction is adapted and created in accordance with its unique user value system, even if it is right from artistic or compositional or functional point of view, it can simply not work inside the big city. That is the drama which marks the Romanian architecture in the last two decades. The building is understood like a creation act in accordance with all the paradigms known: values, ration, creative, typological, individualistic, digital…but it has to be more than that. First of all, architecture must be understood like a resultant of space, not only space like an empty and unused plot in the city, but like space interconnected and living in the city, like part of a system with inputs and outputs. I think this is the only way in which architecture can defined the user, not one, the all users, the inhabitants of an area or a city. The most appropriate example is Bucharest city- great contemporary architecture which doesn’t have the place there. Why? Because the act of creation began like un act of affirmation and filling empty spots in city. In the latest part of this period, this creation process started to be oriented to the user and to the space like empty plot defined by edges (or neighbors). The results are still far from a coherent insertion operation inside the city. They still don’t have the force to transform it or to integrate. That’s because architecture act still doesn’t take into account the city as system, the structure of this system. The function of a building must be dictated not only of the desire of its user but also of the city necessity and structure, the height or appearance of a building must be correlated with more issues than the immediate neighborhood, the functionality of the building must be correlated with all the components part of the system, which at least define it.
[1] M. Foucault, Of other spaces (1967), Hetereotopias.
Paradigm
Instantly, when reading about the different architectural paradigms, I was thinking about the school of architecture I went to - which paradigm where they teaching us? Thinking, where do I stand now? Where do I want to go? Where should we all (architects) go?
Is one paradigm standing above the others, or can they all stand simultaneously besides each other, just representing different, but equipollent values?
Thinking deeper of the subject, one question turned out to be the most primary:
Isn`t every of those 6 architectural paradigms meaningless if standing alone? Not able to find appropriate answers to our diverse, heterogeneous and fast changing society? Shouldn’t they be merged to one “big” paradigm?
Taking the individualistic paradigm as an example:
The architect is expressing his own ideas (ego) as an answer to the individualistic society.
Our society might be individualistic, but there are more factors to society than only individualism. Even contrary to the idea of the individual, we are all part of different groups. These groups might be self chosen, like friends, or they might be given, like family.
We all belong to at least one community, since we all got educated by a community (e.g. school, sports-club, etc.). We are embossed by society which we were brought up in / live in. It is impossible to be a “pure”, not influenced individual.
The paradigm of individuality constitutes only one small part of society; imposing this self chosen part of the whole, as its only value.
All the other 5 paradigms do exactly the same to justify themselves. They pick one stalk out of a haystack and entitle that one stalk as the entire truth.
This technique might work in a homogenous society, where one idea clearly stands out. In our heterogeneous, diversified society, we have to find a more complex paradigm. One that manages to contain many parts of our existing society.
PS: I apologize for the late posting.
Is one paradigm standing above the others, or can they all stand simultaneously besides each other, just representing different, but equipollent values?
Thinking deeper of the subject, one question turned out to be the most primary:
Isn`t every of those 6 architectural paradigms meaningless if standing alone? Not able to find appropriate answers to our diverse, heterogeneous and fast changing society? Shouldn’t they be merged to one “big” paradigm?
Taking the individualistic paradigm as an example:
The architect is expressing his own ideas (ego) as an answer to the individualistic society.
Our society might be individualistic, but there are more factors to society than only individualism. Even contrary to the idea of the individual, we are all part of different groups. These groups might be self chosen, like friends, or they might be given, like family.
We all belong to at least one community, since we all got educated by a community (e.g. school, sports-club, etc.). We are embossed by society which we were brought up in / live in. It is impossible to be a “pure”, not influenced individual.
The paradigm of individuality constitutes only one small part of society; imposing this self chosen part of the whole, as its only value.
All the other 5 paradigms do exactly the same to justify themselves. They pick one stalk out of a haystack and entitle that one stalk as the entire truth.
This technique might work in a homogenous society, where one idea clearly stands out. In our heterogeneous, diversified society, we have to find a more complex paradigm. One that manages to contain many parts of our existing society.
PS: I apologize for the late posting.
first comment
Sorry for the delay. Here's my first comment:
The emergence of the built environment
Foucault said that every heterotopias are a “constant of every human group”. Many examples are given but when can we first speak of these real places? When people begin to organize their living space?
Considering my preoccupation regarding the beginnings of the building environment or in other words of the European architecture, I would like to develop the problem of the emergence of the “Other”, considered as the reference point for the architectural space.
In the 7th millennium BC people settled in the Balkans area and transformed the natural environment in order to create a social space.
The natural question that arises is what made people settle down after many millennia of wandering across
More, in the same field of the first spatial organization, what made people separate the world of living of the world of death? We have certain evidence that at the beginning humans buried their dead fellow under or between buildings and it is only in the Chalcolithic age that the first necropolis appeared.
At another level, we can ask why people preferred certain plans for their houses and different techniques and buildings materials. The question that arises regarding this is why people used the circular shape for their houses at the beginning of Neolithic and at some point they made it rectangular? It is said that it has to do with the management of space when living in a restricted area. But can we be sure as for these ancient times only the stones speak?
Finally, another question is related with their concepts about households. It was said that they intentionally burnt their houses, based on archaeological evidence which can be found on many sites. But what were the reasons for such comportment? It was said that they were performing some kind of ritual. It is far from my understanding as a human being how can anyone deliberately burn his own house, which can be considered a deviant comportment. In the traditional thinking of rural
References:
D.Bailey, A.Whittle, V. Cummings (eds), (Un)settling the Neolithic,
D.Bailey, A. Whittle, D. Hofmann (eds.), Living Well Together? Settlement and materiality of South-East and Central Europe,
To change or not to change_Is there an option?
Going through the texts and combining my focus points with my own personal interests, I ended up with the following thoughts and questions, to which there might seem a lack of coherence. Hopefully through the following debates, they will transcend to a more clear state of understanding.
Quoting on the fist text (that is introducing the Other) “values are conceptions of quality driving human actions”.
As said in the first text, there was a fundamental philosophical shift in the mid seventies. The focus shifted from similarities to differences.
Everything changes though quoting on Foucault “Perhaps our life is still governed by a certain number of oppositions that remain inviolable…ex private space vs public space, family space vs social space, space of leisure vs space of work..”.
An easy guess having man as the reference point is certain basic man’s needs, since needs motivate his actions.
Are there some common needs the seek of beauty in the classical era, the seek of function in the modern era and the seek for access is our era, defend?
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Minimalist house- a heterotopy of desintoxication
In my study I used some concepts from the text of the philosopher M Foucault entitled ‘Other spaces’. I applied the concept of heterotopy to the minimalist space as a heterotopy of desintoxication. I’ll expose this idea in my doctorate thesis entitled “Minimalism in architecture design & interior decorating”.
It seem like a paradoxical liaison but if we live in the city intoxicated suffocated by images, cables, noise etc. the minimalist space offers something else is the breath of fresh air, the open window, the brake. The minimalist is also an answer to social necessity for the benefit of contemporary men.
Belonging and also being the result of contemporary capitalist world still detaches itself from it. This paradox is encountered in the concept of modernism, expressed by Compagnon as well. In my doctorate thesis, I’ll analyze in detail this type of concept, which made possible the existence of this contradictory space, and it’s structure: poor in colors & materials but rich in images, austere, simplified in forms but perfect in detail, in the same time cheap in decoration but quite expensive in workmanship. In this way it is created a permanent strong contrast between the image and the visualized background scene. Everything looking too white perhaps, stark, but projected on rich imaginative architectural background, perhaps too technical, too cartesian for a natural background also, where is found the same principle of paradox.
I considered Foucault theories like already known about the so-called “other spaces”. The heterotopias could be classified in two, considering the tenants relationship with society: heterotopias of crises & heterotopias of deviation. Starting with this concept, I created the concept of heterotopy of desintoxication, caracterizing the minimalist space projecting the idea of the general aspect of contemporary world . The post-industrial world is not really so much a world of machineries, but of connections . Walter Benjamin, for example, considered the modern town just a manifestation of a dream world, a place were the fantasy kaleidoscopically unusual, discordant reaches the point of intoxication. Inside, if we look with different eyes to a computer, we could discover just some parts, lost in a world of cables and connections – this could be a description of contemporary world. We become overwhelmed by the connecting cables, overcrowded by them, but the emotional interaction between us, as humans, is minimal. That’s a paradox of the contemporary world “we live in a world in witch there is too much information, but very little meaning. Our condition could be described like an ecstasy of communication. In his book entitled “Anaesthetics of Architecture” by Neil Leach he is arguing some painful points based on Robert Venturi book “Learing from Las.Vegas.” The grotesque image of LV is used by Leach to analyze some phenomenas common to all of us. He introduces some concepts witch he clearly demonstrates : the image as a drug, the seduction of image, the intoxication through image. The image becomes a catalyst in the consumable society.
It seem like a paradoxical liaison but if we live in the city intoxicated suffocated by images, cables, noise etc. the minimalist space offers something else is the breath of fresh air, the open window, the brake. The minimalist is also an answer to social necessity for the benefit of contemporary men.
Belonging and also being the result of contemporary capitalist world still detaches itself from it. This paradox is encountered in the concept of modernism, expressed by Compagnon as well. In my doctorate thesis, I’ll analyze in detail this type of concept, which made possible the existence of this contradictory space, and it’s structure: poor in colors & materials but rich in images, austere, simplified in forms but perfect in detail, in the same time cheap in decoration but quite expensive in workmanship. In this way it is created a permanent strong contrast between the image and the visualized background scene. Everything looking too white perhaps, stark, but projected on rich imaginative architectural background, perhaps too technical, too cartesian for a natural background also, where is found the same principle of paradox.
I considered Foucault theories like already known about the so-called “other spaces”. The heterotopias could be classified in two, considering the tenants relationship with society: heterotopias of crises & heterotopias of deviation. Starting with this concept, I created the concept of heterotopy of desintoxication, caracterizing the minimalist space projecting the idea of the general aspect of contemporary world . The post-industrial world is not really so much a world of machineries, but of connections . Walter Benjamin, for example, considered the modern town just a manifestation of a dream world, a place were the fantasy kaleidoscopically unusual, discordant reaches the point of intoxication. Inside, if we look with different eyes to a computer, we could discover just some parts, lost in a world of cables and connections – this could be a description of contemporary world. We become overwhelmed by the connecting cables, overcrowded by them, but the emotional interaction between us, as humans, is minimal. That’s a paradox of the contemporary world “we live in a world in witch there is too much information, but very little meaning. Our condition could be described like an ecstasy of communication. In his book entitled “Anaesthetics of Architecture” by Neil Leach he is arguing some painful points based on Robert Venturi book “Learing from Las.Vegas.” The grotesque image of LV is used by Leach to analyze some phenomenas common to all of us. He introduces some concepts witch he clearly demonstrates : the image as a drug, the seduction of image, the intoxication through image. The image becomes a catalyst in the consumable society.
Short paper for Friday 12 12 2008
The title of my paper is “The Public Space Through the Others’ Eyes” and it is in relation with subject no. 2 proposed on the blog list.
The Public Space Through the Others’ Eyes
PhD.Arh. Liviu Gabriel Ghituleasa, e-mail: liviu_razvan@yahoo.com
"Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism-Department of Advanced Doctoral Studies: "Space, Image, Text, Territory", Bucharest
Making references on both texts posted on the site and taking them in the same time the starting point of our future discussions, from my point of view it can be said that the escape is always relative to an-other through two paradigms - the first is the policy, and the second is the individualist one.
Following this, I consider that you can not talk about any political or individualism in the absence of a common element, on which those two concepts interact.
Jointing those two terms is made by the existence of public space as an inter-space.
So, there are born existential questions about the nature of public space, about its’ publicity and its opposition to the private area.
The reference of the private can not exist only if this this etymologicaly correlated with the term privative, as a result of the second, generated by the first.
Is it the public space an another? How to report another to public space, and last but not least, how to regain an other through its’ living in the public space?
Another important question is related to the individualistic perception of the public space and if can we accept the idea of a different perception of common values.
On the other hand, if we look through the public policy approach, firstly we must de-limit the relationship between public and political space.
We can do this thing especially in the light of individual paradigm, as the public space is perceived by each and every time in a unique and personal experience, as a result of a single individual lived experience.
In my opinion, in this first framework scheme, in wich the text dimension is limitet, the policy paradigm is re-find exactly in the concept of the panopticon, thought by Bentham in 1791 and taken over by Michel Foucault in many of its texts, very powerful concept, that can transform society, having as zeung [Das Zeung as tool, used by Heidegger in 1935 in his work: „Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes“] the power of transformation of the environment in which this lives.
In these conditions we can talk about an "exaggeration of the role of panopticon [...]. Thus, the overall, it can be said that the forms of discipline are techniques in order to ensure human crowds. "[1]
However, it should not be forgotten that the essence of the idea of political is still founded in the texts of Aristotle[4], and this idea is resumed in 1958 by Hannah Arendt[2], when she talks about the πόλις and what is the meaning of being inhabitant of the πόλις, as a politician.
Foucault, when speaks about the panopticon, he corelates the power structures with the dimensions of the politics and the financial aspects.
Although originally designed to be an oppression system, with the passing of time, the waxwork was transformed, so that the place of the principle "taking-violence" was taken by the idea of "mildness-production-profit", especially because a number of problems could not be solved by the old formula of power-economy.[1]
Thus, from the new role of the panopticon system, this should be charged also as a zeung, which is used to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in work.
The second factor to should be taken into consideration when we are talking about reporting to another, is time.
Is there any possibility that the being thought by Heidegger to be seen in present as another?
Answering to this question through the light of the public space, this should be reported to the consumer of the public space, namely to the existence of his individualist way of living in the public space.
The passed time in the public space has, by its essence, "as time-to ...", the character of world.
For this reason, the time, who is passed in the public space through his temporalization of temporality is called „die zeit des weltbildes”.[3]
In those conditions, we are entitled to wonder if this is correct to talk about public space and its existence, in the same manner in which it was accepted in the ancient time or it would be more correct to analyze the result from the loss of its original attributions.
As we know, in antiquity and especially in Greek society, the public was very closely related with politics, the second concept meaning the ability and skills that an individual entity had the right to engage in the leadership of the πόλις.
Thus, the ancient public area was perceived as an area of excellence, where everyone was trying to self-overcome in front of his others.
In these circumstances, the public, with all the advertising that results from it, could not and never have to be held in the family, the concept itself only being accepted at the level of the πόλις life.
In opposition with the idea of public is the concept of private, which in the contemporary sense, is no longer represented as in the past, as a condition of restriction or de-privation of something or against something, fact which resulted from the transformation itself to private sphere, as a result of modern individualism society.
If we assert the idea of transforming in time the public space, we can speak about off-balance his essential attribute of a space of excellence, and now it became, in our days a common space.
Thus, our reporting to another does not necessarily happen in public space but rather in common areas.
Can be the heterotopic space described by Foucault a way to escape from the panopticon system?
References:
1. Michel Foucault – A supraveghea şi a pedepsi, (Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison), Ed. Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997.
2. Hannah Arendt, Condiţia Umană, (The Human Condition), Ed. Idea Design & Print, Cluj 2007.
3. Martin Heidegger, Fiinţa şi Timp, (Sein und Zeit), Ed. Humanitas, Bucharest, 2006.
4. Aristotel, Politica, Πολιτικά, Ed. IRI, COGITO Colection, Bucharest, 1999.
The Public Space Through the Others’ Eyes
PhD.Arh. Liviu Gabriel Ghituleasa, e-mail: liviu_razvan@yahoo.com
"Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism-Department of Advanced Doctoral Studies: "Space, Image, Text, Territory", Bucharest
Making references on both texts posted on the site and taking them in the same time the starting point of our future discussions, from my point of view it can be said that the escape is always relative to an-other through two paradigms - the first is the policy, and the second is the individualist one.
Following this, I consider that you can not talk about any political or individualism in the absence of a common element, on which those two concepts interact.
Jointing those two terms is made by the existence of public space as an inter-space.
So, there are born existential questions about the nature of public space, about its’ publicity and its opposition to the private area.
The reference of the private can not exist only if this this etymologicaly correlated with the term privative, as a result of the second, generated by the first.
Is it the public space an another? How to report another to public space, and last but not least, how to regain an other through its’ living in the public space?
Another important question is related to the individualistic perception of the public space and if can we accept the idea of a different perception of common values.
On the other hand, if we look through the public policy approach, firstly we must de-limit the relationship between public and political space.
We can do this thing especially in the light of individual paradigm, as the public space is perceived by each and every time in a unique and personal experience, as a result of a single individual lived experience.
In my opinion, in this first framework scheme, in wich the text dimension is limitet, the policy paradigm is re-find exactly in the concept of the panopticon, thought by Bentham in 1791 and taken over by Michel Foucault in many of its texts, very powerful concept, that can transform society, having as zeung [Das Zeung as tool, used by Heidegger in 1935 in his work: „Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes“] the power of transformation of the environment in which this lives.
In these conditions we can talk about an "exaggeration of the role of panopticon [...]. Thus, the overall, it can be said that the forms of discipline are techniques in order to ensure human crowds. "[1]
However, it should not be forgotten that the essence of the idea of political is still founded in the texts of Aristotle[4], and this idea is resumed in 1958 by Hannah Arendt[2], when she talks about the πόλις and what is the meaning of being inhabitant of the πόλις, as a politician.
Foucault, when speaks about the panopticon, he corelates the power structures with the dimensions of the politics and the financial aspects.
Although originally designed to be an oppression system, with the passing of time, the waxwork was transformed, so that the place of the principle "taking-violence" was taken by the idea of "mildness-production-profit", especially because a number of problems could not be solved by the old formula of power-economy.[1]
Thus, from the new role of the panopticon system, this should be charged also as a zeung, which is used to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in work.
The second factor to should be taken into consideration when we are talking about reporting to another, is time.
Is there any possibility that the being thought by Heidegger to be seen in present as another?
Answering to this question through the light of the public space, this should be reported to the consumer of the public space, namely to the existence of his individualist way of living in the public space.
The passed time in the public space has, by its essence, "as time-to ...", the character of world.
For this reason, the time, who is passed in the public space through his temporalization of temporality is called „die zeit des weltbildes”.[3]
In those conditions, we are entitled to wonder if this is correct to talk about public space and its existence, in the same manner in which it was accepted in the ancient time or it would be more correct to analyze the result from the loss of its original attributions.
As we know, in antiquity and especially in Greek society, the public was very closely related with politics, the second concept meaning the ability and skills that an individual entity had the right to engage in the leadership of the πόλις.
Thus, the ancient public area was perceived as an area of excellence, where everyone was trying to self-overcome in front of his others.
In these circumstances, the public, with all the advertising that results from it, could not and never have to be held in the family, the concept itself only being accepted at the level of the πόλις life.
In opposition with the idea of public is the concept of private, which in the contemporary sense, is no longer represented as in the past, as a condition of restriction or de-privation of something or against something, fact which resulted from the transformation itself to private sphere, as a result of modern individualism society.
If we assert the idea of transforming in time the public space, we can speak about off-balance his essential attribute of a space of excellence, and now it became, in our days a common space.
Thus, our reporting to another does not necessarily happen in public space but rather in common areas.
Can be the heterotopic space described by Foucault a way to escape from the panopticon system?
References:
1. Michel Foucault – A supraveghea şi a pedepsi, (Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison), Ed. Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997.
2. Hannah Arendt, Condiţia Umană, (The Human Condition), Ed. Idea Design & Print, Cluj 2007.
3. Martin Heidegger, Fiinţa şi Timp, (Sein und Zeit), Ed. Humanitas, Bucharest, 2006.
4. Aristotel, Politica, Πολιτικά, Ed. IRI, COGITO Colection, Bucharest, 1999.
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