BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (APRIL 2019)
Name: Wesley Wong Teck Won Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Ng Reader/Text Title: A Global Sense of Place
ID No.: 0330496 Tutorial Time: 11am Synopsis No: Reaction Text 1a Author: Doreen Massey
Approaching this progressive and informative era of internationalization, place, Massey asserts, is not simply a geographic location with a well-spring of identity. Rather, it is an amalgam of influence from social networks and relations. Increasing uncertainty about spaces and its relation causes time-space compression and challenges the sense of locality and particularity. The era of coherent and homogeneous communities are displaced by wide movement and intermixing communities with current geographic fragmentation and spatial disruption. Nationalism, sanitized `heritage’ and antagonism are thus the defensive and reactionary responses. Massey urges us to rethink our sense of place. Two assumptions that people make about the space time compression, which Massey argues against include it is a very western new millennium, colonizer’s perspective. She believes capitalism and its developments determine out understanding and spatial experience. Next, race and gender influence time-space compression. Due to the complex mix of colonialism, ex-colonialism, racism, changing gender relations and relative wealth, women`s mobility is more restricted by men today than before. Besides, time-space compression is not globally accessible. Time-space compression as the conceptual point needs differentiating socially. With the advance of technology, physical trade and media broadcasting are moving rapidly across the globe with the marine transportation and land transportation blooming in Asia and Africa. I admire how Massey relate time-space compression produce insecurity and people`s ability to generate multiples identities to a place. She also states that places have single, essential and identities. I totally agree with Massey on places are not static but motionful social interactions and processes. She argues that places do not have boundaries for place conceptualisation. Next, places do not have single, unique ‘identities’;they are full of internal conflicts of present and future development. Lastly, as the result of globalization of social relations, uniqueness of place is important as its specificity is constantly reproduced. To conclude, in Malaysia, our diverse and pluralistic society welcomes and adopts various culture from different all walks of life, allowing a global sense of place whereby places are interrelated with each other, crafting its very own uniqueness. Word Count: 340 Assessed by:
Mark Date
Grade Page No.1
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (APRIL 2019)
Name: Wesley Wong Teck Won Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Ng Reader/Text Title: The Eyes of the Skin
ID No.: 0330496 Tutorial Time: 11am Synopsis No: Reaction Text 3a Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
The excerpt begins with Merleau-Ponty`s philosophy of human body as the centre of experiential world. This is enhanced by psychoanalytic theory proving that body is the centre of sensory integration. In his view, bodies and movement are constantly interacting with the environment, redefining each other without separation. According to Pallasmaa, architecture is the extension of nature into man-made realm that provides perception, experience and understanding of the world. We see eye to eye in believing architecture provides conceptual and material structure from societal institution to our daily life. For example, the course of the sun is perceived through architecture. Every architectural touching experience is multi-sensory that involves several realms of sensory experience fusing into each other. Hence, I support architecture strenghthens our existential experience of being in the world, stressed again by Gibson who embraces all visual,auditory,taste,smell and haptic system. Visual apprehension of materiality, distance and spatial depth is only possible with haptic memory cooperation, related Berkeley. Pallasmaa further agrees that touch assists vision for solidity, resistance and protrusion. Is it not contradictory to his previous multisensory position when he asserts in the line ‘Vision reveals what the touch already knows. We could think of the sense of touch as the unconscious of vision.’? The excerpt continues with analysis of art in general, with the author claiming just as we sense the temperature in painting, so too we sense much more than sight in architecture. He emphasizes that architectural work generates indivisible complex of impressions in its physical embodiment and spiritual presence. He also elaborates on images of one sensory realm feed further imagery in another modality. To conclude, Pallasmaa repetitively remind us the importance of multisensory integration as the visual sense is overdramatized in his time of contemporary art. Personally, architecture is not just an isolated entity of either sensual pattern, but is ultimately a whole orchestra of sensations!
Word Count: 320 Assessed by:
Mark Date
Grade Page No.2
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (APRIL 2019)
Name: Wesley Wong Teck Won Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Ng Reader/Text Title: Learning from Las Vegas
ID No.: 0330496 Tutorial Time: 11am Synopsis No: Reaction Text 2a Author: R.Venturi, D.S. Brown, S.Izenour
Does symbol or form determine a genius loci? Aiming to analyse symbolism and architectural form, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour with twelve students from Yale University have studied Las Vegas to reevaluate the architectural position from modernism emphasis of programme and structure to post-modernism emphasis of signs and symbols. Permissive modern architects prefer altering existing environment to enhancing it. They do not exclude commercial vernacular completely. However, they reject symbolism as an expression of content and tradition of iconology. I support their view on architectural form as program and structure, should be a logical process, free from past experience. Nonetheless, criticisms claimed that some modernist architects turn their back to iconology and symbolism until they are blinded to the value of representational architecture along highway. The authors later suggest the symbolic architecture that shapes the commercial value and method of the Las Vegas Strip, and how the streetscape within this vast space impact the experience of the local community. Large graphic designs and billboards become the ‘symbols’ along the street, ‘they make verbal and symbolic connections through space, communicating a complexity of meanings through hundreds of associations in few seconds from far away.’However, I strongly feel that there is a sense of disconnection exists between the actual buildings that are overshadowed by its sign and the people traveling on the main street. This reminds me of the Mendaling street at Kajang old town where the disproportional signboards are placed on the building facade, disrupting the roofline continuity and causing visual clutter without architectural appreciation. When sign outshines space, the authors observe ‘duck and shed’.The duck is a literal sculptural piece that acts as an architectural shelter while the shed is a decorated building where the false frontage looks larger and more attractive than the interior. In conclusion, I am more favoured to symbolism as the more effective tool for architectural expression that can be redefined according to the needs of current over-changing society than just a space. Symbolism determines genius loci not only in Las Vegas Strip, but also the world we are shaping today!
Word Count: 350 Assessed by:
Mark Date
Grade Page No.3