BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2019)
Name: Esther Wong Jia En ID No.: 0332188 Lecturer: Mr Prince Favis Isip Tutorial Time: Wed, 4-6pm Reader/Text Title: Urbanism as a Way of Life Synopsis No: 1 (Set B – Text 1) Author: Louis Wirth What was the first city you visited or stayed in? How was it different to where you came from e.g. a small town? How did people behave? What made you think that the city, is a city? I imagine that Louis Wirth also had these questions in mind as he wrote his paper “Urbanism as a Way of Life”. Urbanism, in concept, refers to a way of life, usually implying a dissemination of urban culture and progression of urban society. According to C.B. Mamoria, his opinion of urbanism is a cultural-social-economical occurrence that ascertains the relationship between social-technological processes. Wirth believes that it is a form of social order that is detrimental to culture, though people are gradually adopted urbanism as a way of modern life in light of rapid globalisation. He presents three concepts in his definition of a city: the population size, or total amount of people; density which is the amount of people within a certain area; and social heterogeneity, referring to the various races and ethnicities among the people. Following that, he proposed numerous arguments regarding the impacts of having large population size, high density and high heterogeneity. Wirth goes on to depict several characteristics of urbanism, or things that might be experienced living in a city, which are considerable amount of conflicts between social roles and norms, rapid social and cultural changes, anonymity and superficiality, emphasis on materialism and individualism, greater social mobility and increasing formal social control. In my opinion, these can also be seen as effects of the city, based on Wirth’s belief that living in a city also alters people’s personalities and behaviours. In regards to this reader, I personally hold an objection to Wirth’s desire to generalize the descriptions of all cities, which in fact only a margin of his deductions is applicable to industrial cities. For instance, small businesses in preindustrial cities which manage to survive show that the unifying and equalizing control associated with economies of scale are much less distinctive than within an industrial city. To conclude, Wirth was able to formulate a solid form for the concept of urbanism based on extensive empirical research and analysis, and allowed for a better understanding of what urbanism as a culture is and social interactions within a city. However, we should also be reminded that the urban life pattern is also developing and constantly evolving, hence urbanism should be regarded as a developing concept and be receptive to further analysis and debate. Word Count: 412
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Date 25/10/2019
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BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2019)
Name: Esther Wong Jia En Lecturer: Mr Prince Favis Isip Reader/Text Title: The Geometry of Feeling
ID No.: 0332188 Tutorial Time: Wed, 4-6pm Synopsis No: 2 (Set B – Text 3) Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
“The quality of architecture does not lie in the sense of reality that it expresses, but quite reverse, in its capacity for awakening our imagination.” (pg 452, Pallasmaa) Pallasmaa’s statement in “The Geometry of Feeling” tells that the main task of architecture, through phenomenology, is to restore the essence and value of human experience. He believes architecture is a journey where building, environment and the individual interact and connect through designs and atmosphere, and engages physically, emotionally and intellectually with the user. Neglecting human experiences would result in an incoherent journey, which in fact is a problem faced by most modern buildings today. In this reader, Pallasmaa analyses the different relationships between architecture and human experiences in terms of primary feelings, imagery, memory, illusions and multisensory experiences, which further supports his stand of the importance of human experience in design. He believes that successful architecture or design or even art, should be measured in terms of the users’ experience through interactions with space and emotions evoked thereafter. He also states that other than sight, sound and smell can trigger memories of the past, leading the user to experience mixed emotions interweaving between past and current experiences. Personally, I find this very relatable. In my hometown, I used to sleep in a room next to a zinc roof, and I remember being not very fond of the awfully loud sounds produced by it whenever it started raining. Now as I am studying away from home, whenever I hear the sound of raindrops hitting the zinc roofs, I am immediately overwhelmed by nostalgic memories of my hometown instead of feeling irritated. “The artistic dimension of work of art does not lie in the actual physical thing; it exists only in the consciousness of the person experiencing it.” (pg 449, Pallasmaa) This statement reaffirms his belief that human experience dominates the result and outcome of a designed space. In addition to that, he also successfully brought to attention the relationship between architecture and human experience. However, in my opinion, there seems to be a certain degree of fragility to his phenomenology, which I believe is due to the neglection of the relationship between architecture and place, or to say lacking regard for the genius loci of a place. In this sense, Kenneth Frampton in his essay of “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance” has a more thorough and all-rounded approach in including sense of place and poetics within architecture. Word Count: 411
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Date 25/10/2019
Page No. 2
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2019)
Name: Esther Wong Jia En Lecturer: Mr Prince Favis Isip Reader/Text Title: Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance
ID No.: 0332188 Tutorial Time: Wed, 4-6pm Synopsis No: 3 (Set B – Text 4) Author: Kenneth Frampton
Following a quotation by Paul Ricoeur from “History and Truth”, it is stated that modern buildings and culture are gradually gravitating towards a state of homogeneity, in a sense that the urban form is under the restriction of universal building practices and mechanisms. Frampton’s answer to this is critical regionalism, an approach to counteract the placelessness and lack of identity through an architectural language that is mediatory – to re-enact indigenous solutions and translate the capabilities of modern technology. Based on the reader, Frampton seeks a critical comparison between these three conceptual couples: place-form, culture versus nature and visual versus tactile, providing us with a new theoretical perspective on architecture. In contrast to Pallasmaa’s “The Geometry of Feeling”, I strongly agree with Frampton’s view that architecture must be studied hand in hand with contextual features instead of being a free-standing structure. “Critical regionalism necessarily involves a more directly dialectical relation with nature than the more abstract, formal traditions of modern avant-garde architecture allow.” (pg 26, Frampton) He analyses the necessity of these two elements while striving to create architecture that is able to achieve a “place-form” balance, in other words, associating local culture and geographical qualities into the architectural discipline. An example to illustrate this is that, if a building is to be built on flat land, it should aim to acquire the sense of horizontality as it sits and blends into the flat landscape. Moving on to talk about the visual versus tactile, here Frampton stresses the need for a cultural response of architecture towards the site context. In this sense, it aligns with Pallasmaa’s belief that there must be cooperation between all senses, not just sight, to imbue deeper and more special meaning to architecture through taking advantage of all materials to evoke tangible and intangible feelings. As stated by Frampton in page 29, “Critical regionalism seeks to compliment our normative visual experience by readdressing the tactile range of human perceptions.” On an ending note, my personal opinion is that as globalization threatens to wipe clean all preconceived notions of an area within the context, there is actually a unique opportunity for architecture, not by fighting globalization, but to embrace and be empowered by it to redefine the place and create new built landscape. Globalization can be utilized to gather different materials and construction methods, causing exaptations for this purpose. As H.S. Solie claimed, “…to fight placelessness by looking backward is counterproductive and countercultural; to fight placelessness by looking forward and empowering architecture is visionary.” Word Count: 416
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Date 25/10/2019
Page No. 3