THE ORDER OF SILENCE
130560951 ENCLOSED ORDER
THE ORDER OF SILENCE
CONTENTS
Ground Floor Plan ... 1-2 First Floor Plan ... 3-4 T he Be ginning ... 5-6 Silence ... 7-12 Repetition and Hierarchy ... 13-20 Afterwords ... 21-22 List of Figures ... 23 Bibliog raphy ... 24
Ground Floor Plan 1:200
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First Floor Plan 1:200
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THE BEGINNING
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It is believed that in order to rid themselves of worldly desires and to devote their life wholly to God, novice Catholic monks have to strictly discipline themselves by taking a vow of Silence and through undergoing the endless repetition of the monastic daily rituals in the monastery. The elements of silence and repetition when present alongside each other will affect the flow of time for the monks inside the monastery, who have vowed to lead a monastic life and to never leave the monastery, making time feels infinite. I wanted to adapt this concept of silence and repetition in my design project to represent the monastic life of the monks and also to create a monastic atmosphere, holiness, the presence of a higher being that can be achieved and enhanced through silence. In this essay, I will firstly argue on the architectural definition of “silence� and how it may affect the atmospheric quality of a space. I will then discuss on how silence leads repetition and finally how this repetition may suggest the hierarchy of spaces in the monastery complex.
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SILENCE
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What is silence? It is difficult to define what silence is. Silence is usually associated with being “very, very quiet” or the absence of sound. It is, but it is not negative and merely the absence of sound; silence is positive, it is of an entire world in itself.1 It can be understood as something that is always present, it belongs to nature and therefore has experiential and atmospheric qualities. Albeit, I believe that in order for silence to act, light needs to be present. This is because light gives birth to all presences, when there is light, a threshold can be sensed; Light into Silence, Silence into Light, creating an ambiance where the desire to be, to express, overlaps with the possible.2 This attribute of silence and light is the reason why they are essential in the design of monastic architecture, the ability to give “presence” that something is there, representing the presence of God.
1. Max Picard, The World of Silence (1945). p. 1. 2. Robert Twombly, Louis Kahn Essential Texts (2013). p. 229.
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The apple orchard of the monastery is surrounded by concrete walls which are good insulators of sound, thus it blocks off all external noise. The orchard offers atmospheric silence as the monk is surrounded by greenery and unintentional noise from nature.
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Silence might also be branched into two different categories: it might be interpreted to be either human or atmospheric.3 Human silence can be defined as the absence of language. But, as stated earlier, silence is always present; it is not born from when language vanishes. It might simply be that the presence of silence is more experiential and apparent when language is absent. Picard believes that “speech came out of silence” and that “whenever a man begins to speak, the word comes from silence at each new beginning.”4 Thus, silence can be understood to be the origin of speech and when language is uttered, silence does not cease, instead, it will exist alongside silence independently by itself. On the other hand, Atmospheric silence is the kind of silence that comes out of nature. It can be defined as something that is more than the complete absence of noise, rather it is created through the ambiance that originates from unintentional noise in the surroundings.5 Unintentional noise can be interpreted as necessary noise; such as the sound from footsteps, birds chirping, wind bustling through the trees. They are the sound of nature. I believe that atmospheric silence allows one to experience solitude, which is essential in the practises of the monks in a monastery. Pallasmaa stated: “A powerful architectural experience silences all external noise; it focuses our attention on our very existence, and as with all art, it makes us aware of our fundamental solitude.”6 It is being connected with nature through silence, the experience of realising our own existence, solitude, that are needed by the monks as part of their daily practise in order to get rid of their worldly desires and then devote themselves wholly to God.
3. Christos Kakalis, “Silence, Stillness and the International Competition for the Arvo Pärt Centre”, Architecture and Culture (2016). p. 304. 4. Max Picard, The World of Silence (1945). p. 8. 5.Brandon W. Joseph, John Cage and the Architecture of Silence (1997). p. 15. 6. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses (2012). p. 55.
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Fig. 1 A corner from Louis Kahn’s Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban. It shows how he really utilises and relies on natural lighting to lit up the space, how it represents silence.
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An attempt to create an atmosphere based on silence and light in the church.
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R E P E T I T I O N & H I E R A RC H Y
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In the midst of silence and darkness, Light gives life to presences with the help of structures and materials. As Kahn stated, “Light is the giver of all presences”, he believes that the phenomenon of shadow does not occur due to the absence of light but rather, it is caused by light’s interaction with material, thus “the shadow belongs to the light.”7 It can then be understood that silence and light give birth to shadow as a result of their exposure to structure and materials. Thus, it can be said that the repetition of structure that creates a rhythm of light-shadow, light-shadow, light-shadow can be interpreted as a playground for silence and light, as it gives an opportunity for silence to act, showing off more of its characters. The repetition of light and shadow might contribute for a stronger atmospheric materiality, and allows for more creativity and experiential qualities. Through repetition we can experience the beautiful metamorphosis of rhythmic beauty based on silence, created by the openings and penetrating light; that are constructed by the structure and its material.8
7. Robert Twombly, Louis Kahn Essential Texts (2013). p. 228. 8. Ibid. p. 231.
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Fig.2 Museo de Romano. A precedent study on structural & atmospheric repetition.
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9. Max Picard, The World of Silence (1945). p. 5.
Fig.3 Axonometric of the internal structure.
Repetition, together with other elements that contributes to silence – light, shadow, structure, materials, might also create a sense of timelessness and infinity for the Catholic monks who are unceasingly exposed to their experiential qualities in the monastery. Silence can be considered as the most basic phenomenon, with time coming right after it. I imagine that time started only after life is present, moving rhythmically with silence. While on the contrary, silence is pure, it originates from nothing and with nothing existing behind it.9 This intertwining relationship is what creates the poetics between silence and time. In reference to this concept, repetition and silence might be capable of creating a sense of infinity and timelessness because it plays with time – through the rhythm of light and shadow that provokes a unique experience for the monks, wherein time is acting as if it is moving in the rhythm of silence following that of the light and shadow.
Exploded Axonometric -
The axonometric to the left shows the layer of repetition in the living spaces of the monastery.
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The repetition of light and shadow as a result of the repetition of arches at the ‘cloister ‘stitch’ that connects the living spaces directly to the church.
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A view from the Narthex. The repetition of horizontal arches creating a rhythm with the help of light and shadow.
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Exploded Axonometric of the Church -
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Fig. 4 Penetrating light at Hans van der Laan’s Abbey at Vaals’ church.
Fig. 5 Axonometric showing the repetition & proportions.
Other than contributing to the aspect of timelessness, silence and repetition have experiential qualities that might also contribute to defining the hierarchy in the monastery complex. Hans van der Laan stated in his research on proportions and repetition: “The repetition of similar proportioned forms helps the spatial interaction between building and spectators, directing their movements, suggesting hierarchies among forms, and making objects and their morphological composition accessible by the human mind.”10 This suggests that the repetition of similarly proportioned forms in the monastery has the ability to provoke the minds of the monks, to suggest hierarchies within the complex through the utilisation of similar forms, scaled at different magnitudes and quantities in each space. Revisiting silence, I believe that it might also play a part in heightening the experience with its atmospheric quality that enables the monks to focus on their own existence, indulging themselves in the elements that each space offers.
10. Tiziana Proietti, “The Aesthetics of Proportion in Hans van der Laan and Leon Battista Alberti”, Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico (2015). p. 183-199.
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A F T E RW O R D S
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Silence is a complex phenomenon that is very difficult to explain. The atmospheric aspects that I have incorporated in the monastery (light, shadow, repetition, hierarchy, infinity) are very diverse but they all can be traced back to silence. Silence into light, light produces shadow, light and shadow creates rhythm due to the repetition of structures, and repetition suggest hierarchy and the sensation of infinity in the monastery. Silence has, directly or indirectly, affected all of these experiential qualities through its atmospheric materiality. Kahn believes that the design of a religious architecture that is capable to evoke us in expressing our innate joy, sadness, love, longing or fear cannot be solved through analytical thinking alone.11 Based on my research on the definition of silence and the affects it has on the atmosphere of a space, I believe that silence is the key to evoke the innate feelings of humans. This is the reason why silence is a very important aspect in any religious architecture, which aims to provoke emotions in people on a spiritual level.
James F. Williamson, “On Silence�, The Last Word (2014).
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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig.1 https://adiligentobserver.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/light-from-louis-kahn/ [Accessed on 26 April 2017] Fig. 2 http://www.arteguias.com/museo/museonacionalarteromano.htm [Accessed
on 26 April 2017] Fig.3 http://www.archdaily.com/625552/ad-classics-national-museum-of-ro
man-art-rafael-moneo [Accessed on 26 April 2017] Fig.4 https://www.locusiste.org/blog/2012/11/ecstasies-of-logic-reflections-on-van- der-laans-abbey-at-vaals [Accessed on 26 April 2017] Fig. 5 http://socks-studio.com/2014/08/17/the-st-benedictusberg-abbey-at-vaals-by- hans-van-der-laan/ [Accessed on 26 April 2017]
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dauenhauer, B. P. (1979). Discourse, Silence and Tradition. The Review of Metaphysics, [online] 32(03). Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20127222 [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. Joseph, B. W. (1997). John Cage and the Architecture of Silence. October, [online] 81. Available at: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0162-2870%28199722%2981% 3C80%3AJCATAO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J [Accessed 24 Apr. 2017]. Kakalis, C. (2016). Silence, Stillness and the International Competition for the Arvo Part Centre. Architecture and Culture, [online] 4(02). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1 080/20507828.2016.1178999 Pallasmaa, J. (2005). The Eyes of the Skin - Architecture and the Senses. 1st ed. Chichester: Wiley. Picard, M. (1945). The World of Silence. 1st ed. Wichita, Kan.: Eighth Day Press. Proietti, T. (2015). The Aesthetics of Proportion in Hans van der Laan and Leon Battista Alberti. Aisthesis. Pratiche, Linguaggi E Saperi Dell’Estetico, 8(2), 183-199. doi:10.13128/Aisthesis-17580 Twombly, R. (2013). Louis Kahn Essential Texts. New York: Norton. Voet, C. (2012). The Poetics of Order: Dom Hans van der Laan’s Architectonic Space. Architecture Research Quarterly, [online] 16(02). Available at: http://journals.cambridge. org/abstract_S1359135512000450 [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. Wlliamson, J. W. (2014). On Silence. The Last Word, [online] 47(02). Available at: http://faithandform.com/the-last-word/silence/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2017].
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T H A N K YO U