Alice Y. Choi Intensity and Architecture
Alice Y. Choi Intensity and Architecture : Three Methodologies Towards Architectural Intensity.
The University of Melbourne 2014
Towards Architectural Intensity
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Repetition
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Tectonic
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Narrative
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Intensity is Everywhere
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Towards Architectural Intensity
Intensity is everywhere. Like monad. And Architecture is there to assemble monads. This can be done by three methodologies, which will be discussed in this book. Architecture by intensity is real, which is not copied but stolen from its place, typology, water, wind, smell, wealth, poor, tears, smiles, pains, memories, weathers, surroundings, histories, stories, narratives, lives and death, people, users and clients, cities and naturals, and other requirements.
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Ball, Philip. The music instinct : how music works and why we can’t do without it / Philip Ball. 205.: New York : Oxford University Press, 2010., 2010.
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IBID.,p224
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IBID.,p141
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Repetition (include irregular : variety in repetition)
Philip Glass has a fame of his style of repetition. In his Violin Concerto, all the instrument include violin repeats same melody and rhythm through out the piece. And the speed of the music instantly makes fog of intensity. However this is only smog of intensity, which could not make a fire, the intensity itself. And sadly it exaggerate the tense. And fail to make the listeners concentrate and rather the repetition become obstacle for intensity of the piece. It is distracted by its own repetition. Although the texture created by repetition of the sound of violin itself become object of beauty but the music itself dose not reach the point where it should reach. It creates only aura but not a thing. It fails to reach the top of the plateau. As if modular system has a great potential but not generally popularized nor fully implied to architecture (image 2). When a thing becomes a repetition itself, it loses the quality and that is not a repetition for intensity. In order to create the intensity in should be part of everything not just itself, even though it is flexible and has a great performance qualities such as high technology or fashionable and trendy, and logical.
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Final movement Ludwig van Beethoven, The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Variation of the movement 1.
Variation of the movement 2.
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However, when the repetition is used inside the context of the big picture as a methodology rather than theme itself, it is the strongest weapon. It starts to move us with the intensity, which it is repeating because it is needed by the truth rather than its own beauty. Symphony No.9 by Ludwig van Beethoven is the final symphony piece of his life composed in 1824. It is the one of the best known piece in human history and universal. It contains choral in the final movement with poem written by Friedrich Schiller “Ode to Joy�.
In religion, and its medium of transferring God’s voice which poems or chants are based on the repetition. If we keep repeating a words with our mind or mouth, it creates tension. It could be called rhythm. Because we have to breath while we speak. That limitation creates certain rhythm and it developed into song. Then this simple song could be composed into music. A great musician is who understand these qualities by their instinct or measured methods, then create a new piece of music. And this is the originality in creative art. When it starts from somewhere but it dissolve into something while still containing its qualities in their roots. Tree leaves dose not shape or colour like its seed or roots underneath of the ground. It grows out and creates its fruits. And no one can deny its roots nor the fruit started from the seeds although you cannot see the seeds anymore. And we should not forget this.
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Repetition is the most fundamental element in human. In his Symphony, Beethoven used the easiest scale and finds its natural rhythm for the words, voices, the instruments, and the messages, then developed into music. It has its variations by variety of its own rhythms and tones. The repetition, which made from simple notes that we all know, becomes structure of the music. Not only for its theme but also its structure and music itself. And at the end it came to our ear as one great music rather than repetition. The repletion is embedded into the music rather than it appears as the title. That is the differences between him and Philip Glass. And Beethoven’s music is still the same as before, now and the future, and that is why we call it classical music.
Salk Institute dose exactly same job in Architecture. The repetition is there not for repetition itself. And they are there, because it needs to be there. Like Yale art museum, the repetition also embeded into the architecture. They become the core but not for the repetition. And that is how the repetition should be used in architecture for its intensity rather than it own benefit.
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Above: Philip Glass, Violin Concerto No.1, Movement I. 1987, Below : Kurokawa, Nakagin Capsule Tower, 1972 : Repetitions for themselves. Fail to create Intensity.
Final movement Ludwig van Beethoven, The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ,1824. :Repetition become a music towards intensity.
Louice Kahn, Yale art centre : the triagle concrete ceiling is not for its own beauty it is there for the whole building. The repetition used for create the intensity. Louice Kahn, Salk Insitutes,
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Tectonic
The dictionary definition of the term “tectonic” to mean “pertaining to building or construction in general; constructional, constructive used especially in reference to architecture and the kindred arts,” It is a little reductive to the extent that we intend not only the structural component in se but also the formal amplification of its presence in relation to the assembly of which it is a part. From its conscious emergence in the middle of the nineteenth century with the writings of Karl Botticher and Gottfried Semper the term not only indicates a structural and material probity but also a poetics of construction, as this may be practiced in architecture and the related arts.1
Without understanding the word tectonic, a building for human should stands itself. Whether it is rely on high technology, huge rocks or soft mud. It is the most fundamental element. As human have to be born and die, to be called human. And the intensity could be created by these fundamentals, the rhizome of human being. Reminding of the birth and death of life is always intense to human and especially in religion. The Bruder Klaus Field Chapel is
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the good example of this. the poetics of construction is used to create intensity. Like our memory the timber form work is physically gone but it stays at the chapel forever until it is destroyed. It is the structure and it is interior and it is the chapel but it is not there physically. Only the memory is left. Like our childhood is alive in our memory neurons in our brain. Although we cannot see them anymore, it is true and real. And the great arts always remind us the truth and the real.
Aristotle discussed the reason of why we are fascinated by story of death, murder, and accidents like tragedy such as King Lear and King Oedipus? Is it because we are evil? NO. He argued that it is not because we are cruel or brutal or born to be murderers, instead through this tragedy we experience humanity, sympathy, sorrow, ashamed, and all the emotions that we go through our real ife, and these deliver catharsis that nothing can produce. In tragedy, there are extreme situations human can stand, the choices we have to make, to avoid but cannot avoid, the inevitable decisions and results‌.Tragedy makes human feel human by facing the core of life by projecting the end/exit of life, the death. And we are still driven into tragedy like in 384 BCD, because we are human.2
I believe architecture should do the same. Architecture with its tectonic, it could create a great intensity with its material and struc26
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ture, as they are inevitable element in architecture. The tectonic already has great potential intensity. It is there not because it wants to be, but it needs to be. The intense relationship between materials and structure is inevitable. And this inevitable tectonic creates great intensity. It is the intensity of architecture.
The term “tectonic” cannot be divorced form the technological, and it is this that gives certain ambivalence to the term. In this regard it is possible to identify three distinct conditions: I) the technological object that arises directly out of meeting an instrumental need, 2) the scenographic object that may be used equally to allude to an absent or hidden element, and 3) the tectonic object that appears in two modes. We may refer to these modes as the ontological and representational tectonic. The first involves a constructional element, that is shaped so as to emphasise its static role and cultural state. This is the tectonic as it appears in Botticher’s interpretation of the Doric Column. The second mode involves the representation of a constructional element which is present, but hidden. These two modes can be seen as paralleling the distinction that Semper made between the structural-technical and the structural-symbolic.3
We might need to go back to the first elements of intensity ‘the repetition’ to discuss how tectonic is related to the intensity. As I mentioned earlier, when the repetition and their variations be28
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come the structure of the music rather than stay as a element of the music, then repetition creates the intensity. This when, is the tectonic. When the construction become poetic instead of just material itself. When building comes into being, that is to say, comes to be articulated as a presence in itself.4 And also this is what the tectonic dose, the assemblage. The joint of variation of repetition, that guarantees the probity and presence of the overall form while alluding to distinct different ideological and referential antecedents. 5
Johan Sebastian Bach’s music has strong tectonic elements. His music is started from structure then to joints, and suddenly the tectonic become music itself. When tectonic become something else, it creates enormous intensity. And only when this happens in music we are truly moved. Because, it is real. The material and the structure are real in architecture without any doubt.
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Carlson, Neil R. Physiology of behavior / Neil R. Carlson. 474.: Boston : Allyn & Bacon, c2010., 2010.
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Peter Zumthor, The Bruder Klaus Field Chapel , Mechernich, Germany 2007
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Peter Zumthor, The Bruder Klaus Field Chapel , Mechernich, Germany 2007
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The autograph of Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor (BWV 1001)
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Narrative
Narrative is joint of events. And the events contains information and knowledge. With narrative one can translate one story to another. It can be abstract but it has still the information and knowledge. It is a way of telling a story. It could break down to scientific or photographic images. It can be assemblage. It is how human keep their story to pass onto another generation whether it is recorded on paper or memorized on their brain. It can be a book, the bind of data. And also it can be tectonic. The strong tectonic naturally create strong narrative. Therefore Narrative is a style. It is created by intense tectonic. But their contents do not necessarily have obvious relationship each other. Because regardless of their characters, it is from the same seeds and joined by their tectonic. Architecture cannot avoid narrative. If it has repetition and tectonic, it shall have its narrative. However, not all narrative can hold the intensity. Bernard Tsumi theatre definitely put his narrative at the front amongst all other elements in architecture. It dose not mean it has intensity. Same as that all musical pieces or classical operas are not necessarily have intensity by its form of narratives. Because it stuck into narrative itself. Intensity is becoming. The movement from one state to another. Only when it become a real thing from methods, it could have intensity.
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Miles Davis plays trumpet. And his music has a story. When you listen to Bitches Brew or Sketches of Spain, he become a story teller and painter rather than musician. The tone and scale of composition is for the narrative and narrative is there for tones and scales played by vairous instrument. If there is a conductor in Miles band, he/she shoud be an architect. Because he writes songs, then play them in a bands with others while coducting pieces. And then his narrative creates the intensity. We lost Miles, trumpet and the band but know the story inside of the music.
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John Hejduk. House of the Suicide, from the Lancaster/Hanover Masque. 1980-1982. Coloured wash with glaze and white and red pencil, 20.3 x 22.8 cm. CCA Collection. DR1988:0291:026
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Intensity is Everywhere
Intensity is everywhere. Like monad. And Architecture is there to assemble these monad with three methodologies. It is for not copying anything but to steal from its place, condition, users and other requirements. They will become concept. There should not be concept before it is completed. There will be only repetitions, tectonic and narratives. If we lie in architecture, would it be still architecture? Or if the architecture lies, would it be still architecture? When a thing lost its truth, the real of itself, and deceive oneself, it would not be regards as real. And only real could have the intensity. What is real? My birth is real. And my death, your birth and your death. The sun and the moon is real. The earth, and the ocean is. Whether you understand them or not does not matter in realness. And only architecture, which steals these instead of copying, can be real. And become an original. Become a concept itself not for the concept or by the concept. When its repetition, tectonic and narratives finally lost its way inside, it becomes the intensity itself. This will be our architecture. When the architecture become the place, the memory, the death, and the birth, it finally has intensity. When it steals from the real, instead of borrowing, it become architecture and the architecture become real. This is my manifesto and it is real. Now the final step of creating intensity in architecture is burn or lost this book in order to not copy it but to steal this manifesto! 41
Intensity Diagram
Repetition
Tecto
onic
Narrative
1.Frampton, Kenneth. “Rappel A Lordre.” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture : An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, edited by Kate Nesbitt Editor, 500. New York: Princeton, 1996. 2. Project Adaminaby, Alice Choi, 2014 3. Frampton, Kenneth. “Rappel A Lordre.” In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture : An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, edited by Kate Nesbitt Editor, 520. New York: Princeton, 1996. 4. IBID.,522 5. IBID
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