We live our lives today without much thought about the way we are reacting to things… we walk on roads, sit on chairs, lean on walls…without much thought at all. These subtle yet natural ways of “reacting” to our “civilized” environment can almost be described as instinctive in our human nature. It is fair to say that it is imprinted in our brains that walls are solid, and thus we hold this fact for our sake of safety, we built walls around us…to protect us from the unexpected outside. I do notice that I (and many others) developed a similar habit of liking to sit next to a wall, beside a solid element, as it feels more secure and less exposed. However, what would happen if our way of “beliefs” had been destroyed. During the class, my instructor, Taylor introduced asked an interesting question of “why are we scared of ghosts?” The answer didn’t lie upon the way they look but much more on the fact that ghosts often do unexpecting, abnormal things as they have the ability to walk through walls, floors and ceilings, hence, they’re inescapable.
Moreover it was ultimately interesting when the Israeli army
decided to use the war tactic of “moving through walls” which were derived from
the notion of architectural theory when they invade the Palestine town of
Nablus. Using the principle of “inverting architecture” by altering the way we
instinctively react to architecture. Roads and doors are treated as walls while
walls, ceilings and floors were treated as passage way. The Israeli troops
“swarmed” through the city, blasting through walls, ceilings and floors into
private homes with explosives. After the discussion in class, it was obvious to
understand why this “moving through walls” tactic was so successful. The
Israeli troops had broken the people’s “trust” in the architecture; Walls is no
longer a protection from the outside, floor can no longer separate us from the
ground, hence, the people can no longer rely on their common instinct and thus,
leaving them feeling insecure in their own home. This leaves the locals
traumatized, always afraid to get invaded from all sides, even within their own
homes, which they no longer feel secure in. Thus, this means that the people can
not run away, they were able to find a single place that they would feel safe,
like ghosts, these army are able to travels through solids walls and floors,
they had destroyed the architectural rules that were imprinted in our instinct.
The only linkage to Alexander Brodsky’s lecture that I can make was that the theory is somewhat similar to the way the Brodsky chose to create most of his work. My understanding is that, most of Brodsky works derived from older ideas, he didn’t create a whole entire “new” form of architecture but he used the ideas that already existed such as the Japanese tea house and “manipulates” and “modifies” this idea to fit with the new context in the order to make it his own. Thus, the Vodka house he designed has a strong reference to the traditionally Japanese tea houses but here, he added in his own touch and interpretations, but at the end, he still have to admit that the idea started form the Japanese tea houses. Other noticeable things was that Brodsky is more fascinated with older objects that in a way, were not in perfect conditions, many of the pieces that he used in his architecture have flaws which made them unique and at the same time, it adds personalities/characters to his buildings. Thus, to put it simply, the clear link between Brodsky’s work and the “moving through wall theory” theory is similar in the manners that both uses the existing idea as their based but escalated and modified that idea to suit their own unique conditions which was the main thing that made their works successful as it combined the already well-thought idea with the adaptation to the local context.
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| Traditional Japanese Tea House |
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| Alexander Brodsky’s Vodka Pavilion, interior |
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| The facade of the Vodka Pavilion |
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| Brodsky’s Vodka Pavilion; an adaptation / manipulated Japanese Tea House made to works / fits with the new context. |
***p.s. Lastly, to all my architectural friends who would see my blog on every Thursday night, I’m glad you find my blog helpful but keep in mind that most of this information is what I’ve interpreted through my own understanding, you are very welcome to discuss the topics etc. with me but please don’t steal a whole sentence... and yes, I know who you are.... lol, cheers
