ARCHITECTURE should not be ostentatious — instead, it should genuinely devote itself to SERVE its users.
Cynthia Senangsyah | 913950
PAIMIO’S CHAIR
PAIMIO’S DOOR HANDLE
COMMUNITY BUILDING HOUSE TOGETHER
ARCHITECT-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
PAIMIO’S NOISELESS BASIN
CONTEXTUALITY
HUMAN SCALE
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PREFACE
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OSTENTATIOUS?!
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GENUINE ARCHITECTURE??
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SERVE SERVE SERVE.
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SO...HOW?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
PREFACE Architects often subjectively consider themselves as heroes, driven by individual measures of aesthetics, taste, feel, and style, consequently shifting the public’s perception of architecture to a mere display object, which lacks compassion and goodwill. Demeaning parameters, based only on less important, temporal matters, suffuse architectural discourse. In today’s prevailing era of consumerism, it is very unfortunate that architecture is seen as another consumerist commodity, likewise any other product.1 This insensitive, disregardful attitude towards the users, who will potentially occupy the built design, conceives the ever-increasing number of today’s ostentatious architecture.
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1. John Chase, “The Role Of Consumerism In American Architecture.”
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OSTENTATIOUS?! Ostentatious architecture positions architecture as sheer display objects, abandoning its fundamental agency to serve. This degrading archetype commonly exhibits superfluous decorations or unnecessarily flamboyant forms that misplaces architecture’s valuable role into an instrument of consumerism — irrelevant to its social, political and physical context.2 Moreover, it is frequently conceived by architects who hold firm their sole design authorship of the design, resulting in a non-inclusive built environment that fails to benefit the collective needs.3 These pretentious qualities that cheapen architecture’s actual weight are not just evident in the built environment today, but are sadly endorsed by the architects too, such as Frank O. Gehry and Alvaro Siza.
Fig 1. Luciana Sandrini Rocha, Simpsons Frank Gehry
The ostentatious, sole authorship of Frank O. Gehry is clearly evident in his design 4 process, as documented in Sydney Pollack’s 2005 “Sketches of Frank Gehry”. When designing, Gehry initially sketches the kinds of form he has in his mind, then uses physical models to additively merge different elements. Design approaches that are context-conscious were unfortunately unheard of in the documentary, ignoring the built design’s agency to serve the lives in it. His works are individually driven by aesthetic, taste, and style — “Pretty funny, it is weird… it seems a little pretentious… I still don’t like it… I know why I don’t like it… this has to get crankier”. An artist friend of Gehry, Chuck
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2. Reiner De Graaf, Four Walls and a Roof, 1-18 3. Till, Schneider, Nishat, Spatial Agency, 35-52 & 83-215. 4. Sydney Pollack, “Sketches of Frank Gehry”, Video.
Arnoldi, compared Gehry to an artist — “[like an] artist... [he] does whatever [he] wants… did what felt right, what looked right…”. Reliant solely on the architect’s intuition is insufficient to address the issues needed for a design that serves. Furthermore, also in the documentary, Hal Foster, an art professor in Princeton, also said that Gehry is a “great new form-giver… [creator of] sublime space that overwhelms the viewer and a spectacular image that can circulate through the media… ”. If the built environment is limited to picturesque form, architecture will eventually fail to link itself with its social, political, and physical context; architecture truly becomes ostentatious. Another example of ostentatious architecture is taken from Michael Blackwood’s documentary “Alvaro Siza Transforming Reality”.5 Alvaro Siza explained what initiated his design of the Portuguese Pavilion for Expo ‘98, which started when he was looking at a magazine. Siza saw Oscar Niemeyer’s works that have “big… sensational spaces in Brazil” and suddenly thought of creating a concave roof structure for the pavilion he was commissioned to do. While explaining the pavilion to architectural critic and historian, Kenneth Frampton, Siza talked about the pavilion’s form — “asymmetric… here is more inside then there… then it goes to the portico… here you notice, it has a slight...it goes down”. However, Siza never mentioned how the pavilion could serve the public, let alone why Siza designed the pavilion that way. This description Siza made about the pavilion goes to say that he did not based his design on the account of its social, political and physical context, but mainly rely on his imagination of how the pavilion should look like. Additionally, a journal by Tim Sieber described in one of his subtitles about the pavilion as “A National Icon That Stumbled”, in consequence to the lack of cohesiveness between the context and how Siza executed the project.6 Architecture’s inability to address its social, political, and physical context is another miss-opportunity to the profession as it identifies the architect’s aesthetics, taste, and style to be more valuable than the context and the lives it will dwell with. This situation regarding ostentatious architecture is indeed concerning, as it might damage the architectural profession as a whole. The subjective obsession towards visuals and the absence of social, political, and physical contextuality will eventually disconnect humans from the built environment completely. Furthermore, it will hinder architecture to serve the collective needs of humans, and support the myth whereby architects are individual heroes and architecture as a consumerist commodity. As humans are unable to relate to the built environment, it renounces the true duty of architecture, which is to add meaningful values for individuals, communities and society as a whole.
5. Michael Blackwood, “Alvaro Siza Transforming Reality”. Video. 6. Tim Sieber, “Public Architecture In A Postimperial Capital.”
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GENUINE ARCHITECTURE?? As the trend of ostentatious architecture is increasing, it is important to acknowledge the importance of genuine architecture for the built environment today. Juxtaposing ostentatious architecture who put forward the architect’s own interest, genuine architecture’s main intention is to serve the people by adding value to the individuals and communities. Genuine architecture desires to cater the collective needs of people, that goes beyond the visceral and the functional aspect. It bears in mind the root of design - which is to creatively problem solve, but goes beyond and addresses the social, political and physical context. More than just a building, genuine architecture creates an inclusive network ingrained to the built environment, that provides benefits to the lives influenced by it. With the intention of collective value, architecture could hold dear its potential of becoming a transform agent that far reaches the greater society. In order to achieve this, some case studies discussed here could help shape the better view of perceiving genuine architecture.
SERVE SERVE SERVE.
Fig 2. VSF, Aranya Housing
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7. “Aranya: Low Cost Housing”, MIT
Learning from Balkrishna Doshi’s Aranya Housing, it is a project developed for the economically weaker sections of Indore, India.7 According to Doshi, “architecture is not a building” but is a ‘habitat’—a space within a greater context that should benefit the lives in and surrounding it. The way Doshi approaches his design is through knowing the future residents and observing its physical and sociocultural context. In result, the project has similarity to its context, but when looked closely, residents’ own characters are celebrated. In the effort to further celebrate uniqueness of each resident, Doshi involved the future residents in the design process and gave them a choice to build their own house. Additionally, Doshi incorporates the principle of human scale to create an intimate space for the community through the dialogue that it generates—In example, the low brick wall that acts as a fence enables them to gather and use it as seatings. Differences within the community are celebrated by the client-architect relationship; through the collective processes that Doshi incorporated, the project is able to strengthen the community, and serve them through the deeply rooted identity it gives.
Fig 3. Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Ngibikan Village Reconstruction
Similarly to Doshi’s approach of designing, is Eko Prawoto, an Indonesian architect whose works are based heavily on the users’ participation. Prawoto discerns architecture as an “embodiment of interactions between human activities and its setting”, therefore he builds relationships with the local community first to make sure that the built design 8 could reflect the peoples’ lives. In Ngibikan village, a project that rebuilds a village after an earthquake in Yogyakarta in 2005, Prawoto talked with the affected residents and asked them how they wanted to rebuild their homes. They eventually came up with a design of a standard housing that reflects their cultural context and a system for collective labour. Within three months they had rebuilt the whole village, as well as a stronger relationship within the community.
8. Graeme Macrae, “Negotiating Architecture Worlds In Indonesia: The Work Of Eko Prawoto”
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The idea of locality and distinctiveness does not depend on a preconceived form by the architect, but it came to fruition in the development of community restoration itself, through reviving the community’s own awareness and its collective traditions. As a result of the dialogue between the community’s local knowledge and Prawoto’s understanding towards architecture, the built environment could better reflect and cater the lives it accommodates.
Fig 4. Maija Holma, Alvar Aalto Museum
A different approach of an architecture that serves is from Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium. Despite the fact that it is quite an enormous building in the middle of Finland’s forest, the desire to serve is clearly seen in the small moments that the details generated.9 Every feature of the design comes with a specific purpose behind it, and it all ties back to Aalto’s main intention that is to serve the occupants. The layout, the chair, the basin, the colours chosen, even the door handle is designed exclusively and is based on Aalto’s critical research, to serve the patients as well as the workers — to be a “medical 10 instrument” as Aalto named it. A small but impactful example is referred to in figure 4, whereby the door handle is thoughtfully designed so that the nurses’ coat will not get hooked by it, also Aalto’s noiseless basin to not distract the other patients. Through the small but resourceful approaches, architecture elevates itself from a mere built design that functions into a design that serves. Discerning from the different approaches these architects had done in their projects, it all stems back with an underlying desire to serve the people through architecture in every possible way.
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9. Ellis Woodman, “Revisiting Aalto’s Paimio: Completed In 1932”. 10. Diana Anderson, “Humanizing The Hospital: Design Lessons From A Finnish Sanatorium”.
SO…HOW? Learning from the previous projects that serve, genuine architecture eagerly aspires to help tackle the problem that ostentatious architecture trend is affirming; seeing architecture merely as a visual object. First and foremost it should come from the architect’s own awareness that architecture is more than just a building, and that it is a serving tool for the lives it encompasses. Architects should realise that they are not the sole author of any projects, but architects are to humble themselves and act as an agent that help direct the design process to address the necessary information and 11 knowledge. Referring back to Doshi, Prawoto, and Aalto, there is a set of rules that could be a checklist to follow in order to keep architecture away from being ostentatious. When the architects are aware that architecture is a tool for better lives, architects should start to be proactive. Constantly observing and looking for ways that could help cater the lives of the people; means looking into behaviours and the way people live, whether those who will be directly influenced by the design or those who just pass by. Furthermore, we learned that contextuality is a must, and it is not merely replicating the architectural language of the surrounding context, or even responding to its environmental setting (which is a must!) — but to address and celebrate the sociocultural and political aspect of the place. Through observations and contextuality, it should then be translated into an architecture that reflects the people. Another strategy is by incorporating users’ participatory process in designing or constructing. These methods in itselves help give a strong sense of identity and belonging to the users, which will eventually lead to the improvement in their quality of living. Additionally, when we look at Doshi’s work, his design acknowledges the significance of human scale, and in Aalto’s approach of resourceful detailings, it completes the set by catering for the individuals. It is true that we need to look at the overall picture and how architecture could be of help to the society, but it will not be complete without the small particularity. Aalto’s approach dives deep to the practical things that will be needed by individuals, and it thoughtfully provides better than what the norm is. When all approaches are combined and are set as a standardised set of rules to follow, architecture could move further away from being ostentatious, into something that is intertwined with the lives of the people, and could benefit the individuals and society as a whole. On a final note, architecture should not be ostentatious because it does not acknowledge the reality but dwells in the tale of the architect’s. Architecture should genuinely intend to serve the lives of the people through celebrating the sociocultural, political, physical context, relationships, as well as critical thinking that produces details which favor peoples’ lives. In summary, architecture should strive to serve people, because at the end of the day it is the lives that matter. 11. Mathias Agbo Jr., “Teacher, Don’t Teach Them Nonsense: Reforming Architecture’s Broken Education”, (Archnewsnow).
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Agbo Jr, Mathias. 2020. “Teacher, Don’t Teach Them Nonsense: Reforming Architecture’s Broken Education”. Archnewsnow. Archnewsnow.Com. http://www.archnewsnow. com/features/Feature592.htm. Anderson, Diana. 2010. “Humanizing The Hospital: Design Lessons From A Finnish Sanatorium”. Canadian Medical Association Journal 182 (11): E535-E537. doi:10.1503/ cmaj.090075. “Aranya: Low Cost Housing”. PDF. MIT Web. http://web.mit.edu/incrementalhousing/ articlesPhotographs/pdfs/aranya-3-Details1146.pdf. Awan, Nishat, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremy Till. 2011. Spatial Agency: other ways of doing architecture. London: Routledge. 35-52 & 83-215. Chase, John. 1991. “The Role Of Consumerism In American Architecture”. Journal Of Architectural Education (1984-) 44 (4): 211. doi:10.2307/1425143. De Graaf, Reiner. 2017. Four Walls and a Roof. London: Harvard University Press. 1-18. Macrae, Graeme. 2013. “Negotiating Architecture Worlds In Indonesia: The Work Of Eko Prawoto”. The Copenhagen Journal Of Asian Studies 29 (1): 92-119. doi:10.22439/ cjas.v29i1.4022. \ Pollack, Sydney. 2005. “Sketches Of Frank Gehry”. Video. https://edutv-informit-comau.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/watch-screen.php?videoID=160755. Michael Blackwood Production. 2005. “Alvaro Siza Transforming Reality”. Video. https:// unimelb.kanopy.com/video/alvaro-siza-transforming-reality. Sieber, Tim. 2010. “Public Architecture In A Postimperial Capital: The Portuguese Pavilion At The 1998 Lisbon’s World’s Fair”. Visual Anthropology Review 26 (2): 105115. doi:10.1111/j.1548-7458.2010.01071.x. Swaranjali, Pallavi. 2020. “Learning From Balkrishna Doshi : A Canadian Scholar At Carleton University Recalls A Formative Time With Her Mentor”. Canadian Architect 63 (4): 10-11. https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=e1182135092a-4e08-aacc-e0666f7c4c8c%40sessionmgr103. Woodman, Ellis. 2016. “Revisiting Aalto’s Paimio: Completed In 1932, Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium’s Programme Was Revolutionary”. The Architectural Review 240 (1436): 111-116. https://eds.b.ebscohost. com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&sid=e1182135-092a-4e08-aacce0666f7c4c8c%40sessionmgr103. 12
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