The ideology of "Place" in Architecture...

The meaning of "place" in the architectural concept is far beyond the generic meaning of "location". Place, in this case, is also link to the atmosphere of the area and thus has a more constructed social quality. Place has a memory that is tied to it and hence there is also an essence of the particular  place in the space as well.  Thus, from this, "Place" is more complicated in a way how they responded to humans. Moreover, "spatial practices" can helped defined the "place" from the space that "The earth, the sky, the people and the divine (transcendent), All are brought together in dwelling. Dwelling takes a place by sparing and preserving - letting things be and become" , a street is a street when there's an action of walking filling in the space, hence, the character of a space could became recognized as a "place" from the action/activities that is going on inside. Furthermore, the ideal concept of place is that there is an essence of surrendering to the surrounding context of the space - which will in a way, helped it to survive for longer, as it surrendered to the environment, in other word, it blends in, allowing it to morph with the context of the landscape.

Since the concept of "place" expressed this unavoidable link between the man-made structure with the existing natural landscape - the "memory" of the space , "places" are very connective in general. Thus it would be ideal to give some examples of an architect whom, many admired so much and how his creations expressed this theme of "place" through connectivity. Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect that always bear the thought about the relationship between his buildings and the existing landscapes. The Uzonian Home, started with the concept of building a home with less expense and building cost. Hence, as a result, he used this strategy that all of the materials and labor were to be from within the range of 5 miles - while this method obviously helps to reduce the building an labor cost - it also enables the building to capture the essence of the space around it, for instance, the materials are the same from the nearby trees. Another good example is the magnificent "Falling Water " where Wright brought the outside in, through the use of materials and textures, to the point that he mentioned that he wants "People to step inside and put on their hats". Eventually, it is fair to say that Falling water  captured the essence of the water fall, and thus , becoming a "place" of its own. Moreover, the ever -so famous Wright's style of the prairies is inspired by the horizontal nature, long span area of open glass.

Accordingly, it is the context, the people and the activities inside the space, which could be almost immediately identified as being specific to a "place" - it created the ideology of where things "take place" and thus, this technique is often used in films to illustrate or create a more vivid image of how the "place" would be like. One clear example is the film "Powaqqatsi" where it's more like a collection of series of sceneries being filmed with some details that are more specific to the "place", for example in many scene , we cannot determine  exactly where it is in the world when the film only portray the landscape, we needed clues such as the people and their activities in the order for the film to "take place" in that particular place. In other word, the activities of the people inside the film helped us determined the space, once determined and realized the hidden essence of the space, that space potentially developed into a place.

In summary, place is different from location and space is that "place", architecturally speaking contain the "essence" of the particular place and that could be done in several ways  through different processes. Also, a place or the essence of a place could also be defined from the spatial practices such as the activities of the people in the space as seen in the film "Powaqqatsi".

The Return of The Erotic

The ideology of erotic sounds quite familiar to us, since we've experienced and experimented on this concept for the entire term last term in design studio, but now, we're introduced to the erotic once again, in a different light, in the world of theory. "Erotic is not the excess of pleasure but the pleasure of excess" is a term used by Colletti to describe the nature of erotic in the book, "Ornamental Pornamentation" and surprisingly, many theories that we've learnt can also be linked to the idea of erotic in their own way. Firstly, to define exactly what is "erotic" is a difficult task, as erotic's aim to "stimulate" and "impact" us, however, we as individuals response differently to different things - however, as a general rule, most of us should be able to be "affected" by a "phenomena" that erotic created.  One of the most clear descriptions of the theory of the erotic is that erotic delivers the "sublime". The sublime expressed the idea of a "delightful horror", a sort of feeling that is similar to as if you came back from death - that moment of awe and delightfulness would create a vivid, perhaps exuberance experience. Notice the usage of the word, "experiences" - like how many other theories linked together, the erotic also linked to the idea of how we perceive the world around us, about our perception and the level of "erotic" depends on our personal choice and how some particular phenomena can create an array of different effects that speaks to us the most.

One of the newest example of the concept of erotic we were given is the film "Fight Club", underneath the outer layer of the fights and violence. the concept of the film can be linked to the theory of erotic with ease. The story is about a man who was bored with his boring mundane life, working his life as a "recall specialist" - to the point that it has became so predictable, that he felt that he is living in hypereality where he is longing to "feel" the emotions, to "taste" the essence of being "alive". Hence, he tried several ways, from faking to be a cancer victims and attended cancer meetings in the hope of tasting the raw emotions of people, experiencing the so-called "sublime" moment of the cancer patients - however he realized that all he could do was to be an "observer", he still couldn't reach the feeling of "being alive"  until he entered into the realm of "Fight Club" where the ideology of this secret club was basically a place for working-class people to fight - releasing their stress and in return, feeling alive. Nevertheless, the story escalated into the peak when even fighting in an enclosed club is too predictable and thus, starting a fight with total strangers  would be the only moment where the idea "sublime" is being recreated as with the concept that "if you haven't started a fight ,you haven't really live", hence you could see the linkage of the theory of erotic  and the essence of being "alive" - that delight fullness  and contentment  which were a key that tie the idea of the sublime with the theory of erotic and accordingly; the film. To explain more, it's like that Fight club is a place that could create those sublime moments - the moment where you fight with all your might and survived to live life - that is the moment of the sublime, which is where, according to the theory, when the readers experienced and unforgettable experience that stimulated their senses and challenge their understanding of erotic. Thus, the theory of erotic linked to many other theories that we've study earlier since "erotic" plays directly to our reactions and responses - which relates to our perceptions and how we interpret phenomena , how we take in these "effects" - how we are moved / provoke by a particular aesthetics such as textures etc. All of these can be considered as belonging in the realm of erotic. The erotic is ambiguous  yet inviting, it is mysterious yet it engages with the audience in the order to maximize the phenomena being created for the maximum effect on the observers. Nevertheless, one conclusive "label" that we could use to label such broad and ambiguous ideology of erotic is the "sublime".

The Theory of the Aesthetics.

Most of us here, in design school, are familiar with the term "aesthetics" as the appearances of things and unavoidably, many of our decisions on a daily life is based upon this concept of aesthetics, we are drawn, attracted to the things that are aesthetically pleasing to us. The common term; "beauty is in the eyes of the beholders " is widely used, and the concept behinds it is quite clear, that aesthetics, or "taste" is a personal, subjective manner. However, when we looked deeper into this concept, the question of it being totally subjective is questionable, since, our taste is mostly influenced and defined by our upbringings and societies, hence can we really called it subjective when we are actually talking in the manner of such "trends"? Thus, society adds values to a particular aesthetic, in which most people tends to conform and adapted that into their own taste hence, the subjective manner of "personal taste" is not really personal at all, in fact, the same aesthetics value is probably shared with others in almost a universal scale.

Furthermore, the simulation of choice on each individual can also be coercion, which is the choice that comes from rules such as uniforms while hegemony, is a choice that is made freely. Generally, people will tends to lead toward hegemony choices since it allows us to think that we are expressing ourselves through this chosen aesthetics, while really, in many cases, that chosen aesthetic, is a shared ideas of the society in which we live in, in other word, through this, we are still in a way, conforming to a particular trend of a society. Interestingly, aesthetics is what most of us used to express, whether it's a particular idea or statement, about ourselves; Modernism or the international style is famous in most post-colonial countries such as Singapore, since it represents newness while does not imply on any messages. The International Style is universal in terms that it could be used in any context, any nations, acting like a blank canvas, its main feature is its function. Also, there's an essence of newness, something totally inventive that came along with the birth of modernism, this unique quality is perhaps, what the post-colonial nations found to be worth celebrating. Thus, the aesthetics of modernism buildings represent freedom from the past, its independence and its success in the architectural world is what many post-colonial countries are striving for, in my opinion.

 Another reason why I think that we're drawn to the aesthetic of modernism architectures is that there's an originality to it. even though, modernism existed long ago, its aesthetics "survives" to today and is stilled regarded as desirable. In a way, the aesthetic of modern building is so flexible that it does not only allow for the style to be use "internationally" (hence, the so called "international style") but other than the places, it is also very flexible in terms of time as the aesthetics is still often use and counted as "fashionable" today. So what makes good aesthetics? from my point of view, I feel that there's no such ideal aesthetics, there're only a particular aesthetics that one's prefer, however,  this liking can differ from societies to societies as well as different time periods as well. since the desirable aesthetics are actually values that society had chosen in which we are influenced by, the concept of aesthetics was never actually totally subjective in the manner that our preference had to be inspired from somewhere, where this same values is shared. Hence the reason why, aesthetics is subjective yet universal at the same time.

The Profane and how do you "play" with the idea of Architecture...

The act of profane is to make away the God, made the thing which was once sacred, available to a common man, it is to make things which are once untouchable into something ordinary. In fact, many things in society are the results of a some kind of profanity, most games that we played derived from old rituals which was once sacred but people had stopped believing in them and thus they manifested into something else, that are available to everyone.

Profanity can also be describe as such perception of a particular subject, takes Andy Warhol, the father of pop art for example, he  was the one who profane idealistic perception of art in the old days and through pop art, gave birth to what we defined as art today. Warhol brought art down to the ordinary, the old perception of art being sophisticated and high-class is disrupted by the use of the ordinary subjects in his painting such as the Campbell soup can and the Barbie dolls. Hence, ordinary people can now relate to art and thus, the perception of art is now changed and touchable by the ordinary. Moreover Warhol does not challenge the old sacred perception of art through the art but also the way he produces art, he erased the old concept of art being time consuming, precious and valuable into mass-produced and fast through screen printing, thus, now anyone can own an art piece. Today, we see many similar things in the art world which was the result from the first movement that Warhol did years ago, sculptures today are no longer carefully carved marble with incredible details but comes in a wider range of everyday material from bottles to vacuum cleaners. However, it is interesting to mention that even though the modern subjects of art is now more ordinary, art itself is still held high, a piece of sculpture today can be nothing more than a rusty vacuum cleaner and still sells at a price that would be out of reach for ordinary, working citizens.

However, when it comes to Architecture it can be different, the question of whether sacred architecture should be "play" with or should we "profane" the sacred architecture can be quite hard to answer. I believed that everything have two sides and to have one answer for this is unfair. Firstly, yes, architecture could be profane, and we see many successful examples in Western society. Rem Koolhas was one architect who played with sacred Architecture, for instance, his building teases the nearby Mies' building with the similar idea of glass facade only to pissed Mies off when it is bright orange. Also his addition to the old architecture building was also a kind of profane, where he took the traditional European style building and flipped it, turn it inside out to achieve a totally new creation when a dome is only seen from in the inside and the exterior is super modern. Thus, in this case, Koolhas played with the idea of the sacred classical dome, where traditionally, no one's would came nearby to it, and brought it down so close to the inhabitant s of his new building and thought this, he had achieved newness, a new form, which was derived from the old. Hence, as we can see, playing with the idea of the profane can actually be helpful in helping to create newness and uniqueness , this seem like a good thing, but is there a boundary to this, to how far you can profane architecture? One such example of profaned architecture is the Mandarin Oriental Chiangmai, where the hotel was designed to look like a temple or a palace. Even though this can be counted as playing with the sacred architecture, the form generated is pretty much the same, thus, there's not really any newness being created, while at the same time, it received many  critiques, mostly about the appropriateness of using the form of a temple for a hotel. Hence, my honest opinion about  playing with the sacred architecture, profaning it can be successful, if you go beyond just using the physical form to create the new architecture, Koolhas shown a great deal of thinking, playing with the existing context to create newness, unlike what we can see in the Mandarin Oriental Chiangmai, where the form of the temple has just been taken but replaced with a new function, in a way, there was actually nothing "new" being created here, the temple has no connection to the hotel, instead they remained two separated elements, the form and the function.

Another question is that should be play with this idea of the profane, my answer is that it depends on the context, in Thailand, people feel strongly about religions, thus, you shouldn't really touch that if you want to stay out of trouble, however, in many cases, it is worthy to try playing with this idea, only that the outcome should contained a certain depth that it creates "newness" that is worthy of that profaned sacred architecture.

touching the untouchable god of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe, Rem Koolhas playfully plays with the context and teases Mies by taking his famous steel and glass structure and painted them bright orange. Mies face screened on to the glass facade of the restroom was a nice touch, all together, even if Koolhas had taken Mies' as an influence, he had made the final result "new"and "unique" yet playful.

The Mandarin Oriental Chiang mai also sort of play with the the idea of the profane, by taking the sacred form of a Lanna temple and turned it into a hotel. With many negative critiques about the appropriateness, the final outcome is not "newness" in any means, the two elements, despite being mixed together into one building remianed separated, one as a external form and one as the function.

Empty Space vs. Empty form..

The concept of "Empty Space" and "Empty form" is not the case of something that is quite clean cut. In themselves lie ambiguity and thus, explaining the ideas let alone expressing the ideas can largely depends on the individuals and the personal understanding of each person. Personally from my understanding, "Empty form" is harder to create than "Empty space", what is considered an "Empty space" is not always necessary an "Empty form".

 "Empty space" is talking more about the physicality of a particular space, as when it is seen as empty, like an abandoned building as no one inhabits it, In the order for a space to be an "Empty space" it can be seen that there's an absence of people, nevertheless, this absence is present  because an empty space has a defined "function" which in a way, "restrict" the building from being more "flexible" for other possible usage, hence, when the space is too restrictive, it can fail to survive through social or even environmental changes unlike other buildings that are more adaptive, which in a way, closer in being an "Empty form".

 One example of a building that is an empty space but not yet an empty form is "The Crown Hall" by Mies van der Rohe, The Crown Hall was designed with an intention in being an "empty form" which actually communicates multiple functions and being highly adaptive to many uses and it was well on the way in becoming an empty form as it has no previous "sign" that would tie it to a particular usage. However, as it turned out today, The Crown Hall is more or less and "Empty space" as even though the physicality of the actual space inside allows for a number of possible activities, the fact that it is so restrictive in that you can't touch the glass surface or else they'll have to replace the whole frame due to the stain you'll make or you can't stick anything on the wall except for a special kind of tape that will not ruin the surface. Hence, due to these restrictions, despite the hall, not having the "designated function" in its ultra simple form which represents the utmost flexibility and being very adaptable, this absence in the visual sign which the users would use to define the function of the space is one of the good qualities that an empty form should have. Nevertheless, due to the materiality and finishing of The Crown Hall, it limits the users from doing all those possible activities in their minds and thus, resulting in the building becoming only an "empty space" and at the same time, it can be said, a new sign is imprinted on to it, as a place for architectural students. 

 However, an empty building which is considered as an "Empty space" could becomes an "Empty form".  It can be argued whether we can create an "Empty form" or not since "Empty forms" will be determined through the usage of the space by the inhabitants. As architects, we can try to design spaces that allow itself to be used as an "Empty form", that space would have multiples interpretations and uses by the users that the physicality of it would not be the factor that defines its possible functions. In other words, if human recognizes the "sign" of each function through a kind of "physical representation" or "symbol" then an Empty form would ideally, has no "sign" that would tied it to a particular function or the signs existed would not be related to the actual functions of the space, this absence of a still, restrictive visual sign would  gives the freedom for the users to invent the new functions for the space. hence, Empty form is, in a way unpredictable in terms of how people would interact or use the space, thus, "newness" can be created through an "Empty form".

An example of  a successful empty form is the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews" by Peter Eisenman, as it's clear that despite the rather heavy concept, through the design which implies no "visual sign" that would link to the idea of death too obviously, multiple responses can be seen from the people interacting with the space, which is what Eisenman wanted. The space is so flexible and adaptive that it can house a wide range of activities and that the "visual signs" that defines its concept or functions is absence or too varied to be capture in a single shot, like a blurry photograph, the object is moved too fast and at times appeared "invisible", that is what an Empty form is, based on my understanding.

The Crown Hall has no "visual sign" that would determines its usage.

However, its many restrictions and rules prevent it from being an "Empty Form".

The Memorail to the Murdered Jews has no obvious visual signs that tied it to
 a function,thus, the users are left with the freedom to create their owns.

As a result, multiple reactions are created; walking on the blocks, sitting or even, fashion shooting

The simulation, the hypereality and “Borat”..

 Talking about the film, “Borat”, most people would somewhat heard of its name before, the film is known amongst the crowd as being funny and to some extends, outrageous. Yes, we all know that Borat is hilarious, but what actually made us laugh so much? Underneath the neon green bikini and the funny accent, the core of the humor actually lied within the way the Borat interacts with his surroundings. The way he response to the world, is different as that he is different from us; his view of the world is ought to be different…. But is he really? Well, as we may guess, Borat is a character played by the actor Sacha Boron Cohen, Borat is a news reporter from Kazakhstan, trying to make a documentary of the United States. What made the film hilarious is to see Borat’s reaction to such common thing in the American modern life, since Borat is from Kazakhstan; all of his perceptions and understanding are based from his cultural background. Well, we entirely believe in this character when actually Borat doesn’t resemble much of the real Kazakhstan and the people at all, the whole “tradition” and the image of Borat’s Kazakhstan has been created entirely in this film, hence why the country’s response was furious. However, as the audience, we couldn’t care less about the fact that the image being portrayed as a developing, nuclear filled, polluted nation is actually pure creation because for us, it seems too real. With every details during the scene, we linked this image of Borat’s Kazakhstan with images of the developing part of eastern Europe and Russia and hence, due to the fact that not much people actually know Kazakhstan prior to the release of the film, we believe in the image being shown, honestly, I actually believed that the scene in Kazakhstan was real, while in fact, as I realized later, the villagers, the chickens and donkeys were all staged. Hence, this firstly introduced us to the idea of simulation, where the idea of “pretending” goes beyond just wearing a mask but actually being the character, having the real symptoms, as a result, a simulation is much more effective into making people really believe in it.

Borat and his version of Kazakhstan

Moreover, as we believed in the recreational Kazakhstan, the character of Borat is much more real to us, in fact, just like the country, Borat himself is a simulation. Hence, there were moments during the film where it appeared to be real, despite the fact that some parts were more likely to be staged, we would still believe in it, since the characters and even the settings were simulations. As a result, Borat was successful in being funny as it was able to transform itself, from a film to a “documentary” through the realistic details in the scenes and in the characters. Thus when we entirely believe in the character of Borat as a real person, everything he did had much more impact as we feel that it was so truthful and original. Hence, that is why, personally I think Borat is funny, the fact that it was able to exaggerated some humorous with the innocence and honesty of the character as he seems so real.

Actual Kazakhs wearing their traditional costume
- can you see any relation to what’s portrayed in Borat?

The city of Aktau, Kazakhstan

Another aspect of Borat that made it funny was the fact that, in many times, the funny parts were quite unexpected, despite the mundane, ordinary situations, Borat’s responses often came to us as a surprise, as we are so used to the modern culture that we didn’t expect such reactions from the character. Thus, we laughed at his way of thinking and his reactions to American culture, as we never thought of such responses before. To add more, those funny-moments are often situations where we all could relates to, combined with such well simulation by the character, the whole scene or even the whole film was able to make us believe that it was real.

To sum up, Borat might not be the most successful film, it has its own issues just like any other films but when looking at the humorous aspect, we have to admit that it had done a reasonably good job and I think that the main reason that we find the film funny is not because of the obvious things on the surface but more or so the reality and the believability of the film. Borat himself wouldn’t be as funny if he lacks that “truthfulness” and “honesty” which pushed him beyond the boundary of just “acting” to becoming a kind of a “simulation”, and that simulation is what created more impact on us, as it blurred the deceptive boundary of acting, which as a result, made us believe and relates to the film even more.  

Semiotics and the process of Translation

The architectural “signs”…. And signs in general…

What are signs?, this seemingly simple word that symbolizes a symbols in which used for representing a particular object seems physically easy to understand, yet, in the world of architectural theory, the notion of signs actually raises a lot of questions and strangely relates to many ways, we humans interact with the surroundings. Firstly, “signs are always referring to something seemingly real”, hence, the signs for a dog would be different from the actual dog and that “dog” would also be different when interpreted by different people based on their personal experiences.  Also, each signs have different effects on us that link to our personal judgments and emotions, for instance, when the first caveman discovered the first “shelter”, or as we know, the cave, he relates this unknown space with shelter, safety and warmth, thus, this is passed on to others, and the “cave” became a “sign” that relates to shelter and feeling of comfort. Moreover, the signs that each of us perceived today is actually interpretation of someone’s else understanding, and with that, we will also create our own image and understanding. Signs can be categorizes into three groups; icon – a sign that looks similar for what it stands for, eg. The Buddha sculpture. Symbols – a sign that doesn’t necessary look like what it stands for, but is understand from our society and experiences such as the Christian Cross. Lastly, the Index sign – it communicates to us through being a part of a process that we can imagine such as a bullet through a wall would communicates gun fired. Interestingly, we can see some artists and architects applying the theory of the sign into their building; in one of Mies building in Chicago, he uses the steel truss to stick onto the façade of his tower, not as a structural aid but as a kind of a “sign” that referring to the steel that is hidden underneath the concrete due to Chicago’s fire law. Thus, I see this as a way that Mies expresses himself and declared his signature to the world despite these trusses not having any function at all.  

From the class discussion, I feel that signs are so often used that we are often forgotten the simple truth that the signs and the objects are actually two different things, this is proved when we claimed that the image of a pipe is a “pipe” while the truth is that “it is not a pipe, but a painting f a pipe”. However, some signs are used to the extend of becoming its own “object” rather than the object that it is representing, a sign of a house is so widely used to the point that, most of us would recognize the simple “pentagon” in representing a “house”, in one way, I feel that this is the success of the sign, yet, because of this fact, designers are trying to “de-signs” their works, to de-sign is to removing the sign, which are quite common, making the outcome more unique and “new”. MURDV, is one of the well known architectural company that actually play with the theory of the signs quite well as they uses the process of “translation” to play with the new composition and create “newness” without entirely loosing the essence of the “sign”. Thus, the process used to arrive at this new form actually has logical reasons, through using the translation of form, it create a new transformed form that can be used which would deconstruct the common / generic semiotic and hopefully create a new “sign” of its own.

Overall, I was quite impressed with this session and the topic of “sign” as I think that it relates to most of us de-signers. Also, it sparks a controversial idea that if what we’re learning is also an “interpretation”, “the sign” of the ajarn, then is there anypoint in reading the texts themselves? As seen in the Phaedrus text that, rather than reading the book, Socrates suggests that he would rather “hear” it, this implies that the “interpretation” is more interesting, and valuable than the book itself. However, as I came into realization, because of this very fact that everything, every “signs” today are interpretation from someone’s else, to get to the core, we must de-sign those signs, and the only way to do this, is to try to go back to the original and try to interpret it by our understanding. Once we have our own interpretation, we can use the process of “translation” to transform, to deconstruct the object, which hopefully, will lead to the arrival of the new, unique de-sign.