SCENT & SPACE- The Ephemeral Expression

SCENT & SPACE the ephemer al e xpression

By HUZEFA SAIFUDDIN BID-12B

indus university karachi, pakistan 2016

&

SCENT SPACE t he ephemer a l e x pr e s sio n

By HUZEFA SAIFUDDIN BID-12B

indus university karachi, pakistan 2016

&

SCENT SPACE t he ephemer a l e x pr e s sio n

In relation to the ephemeral expression of the scent, as described in the novel ‘Perfume’, which is uncontrolable and irresistable, which can only be enjoyed, though for a brief moment; how we could create harmony with the ephemeral phenomena and appreciate its presence in the built environment?

By Huzefa Saifuddin BID-12B

This thesis submitted in partial fulfilment to the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF INTERIOR DESIGN, from Indus University.

Internal Advisor:

Sir Iqbal Ahmed Ms. Madiha Salaam

External Advisor:

----

Submitted to:

Sir Iqbal Ahmed

faculty of arts and design indus university karachi, pakistan 2016

&

SCENT SPACE t he ephemer a l e x pr e s sio n

In relation to the ephemeral expression of the scent, as described in the novel ‘Perfume’, which is uncontrolable and irresistable, which can only be enjoyed, though for a brief moment; how we could create harmony with the ephemeral phenomena and appreciate its presence in the built environment?

By Huzefa Saifuddin BID-12B

This thesis submitted in partial fulfilment to the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF INTERIOR DESIGN, from Indus University.

Internal Advisor:

Sir Iqbal Ahmed Ms. Madiha Salaam

External Advisor:

----

Submitted to:

Sir Iqbal Ahmed

____________ Signature/Stamp

faculty of arts and design indus university karachi, pakistan 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Foremost I would like to thank the Almighty ALLAH for the Graces He continues to pour upon me and in answering of my prayers.

I take this opportunity to express gratitude to my research supervisors, Mr. Iqbal Ahmed and Ms. Madiha Salam, whose assistance and dedicated involvement in every step throughout the process, helped me complete this thesis project. I would like to thank you very much for your support and understanding over these past four years.

I am extremly thankful and indebted to Ms. Sadaf Raza for sharing expertise, and sincere and valuable guidance and encouragement extended to me. I also thank my parents for the constant encouragement, support and attention. I am also grateful to my friends specially Iqra Moazzam, Rana Abrik, and Jaweriya Jady, who supported and encouraged me throughout this venture.

i

ABSTRACT Architecture and the enclosed interior space is the art of place which acquire a clear sense and understanding of our existence. The character of places demands continuity. Impressions of time on materials and other changes that occur through time are supposed to further the sense of the ‘spirit of place’ and deepen qualities of the local place. This phenomenon than highlights the importance of ephemerality in nature and the idea of enjoying and appreciating the transience of things in nature; instead of confining it in a fixed moment in time.

Since the natural phenomenon of impermanence is stitched to everything including the architecture, which cannot be detached from the influence of human exploitation and from the impressions of time. This paper aims to provide an understanding on how we could create harmony with the ephemeral phenomena and embrace its presence. The thesis is inspired from the novel ‘Perfume- the story of the murderer by Patrick Suskind, which relates the ephemeral impression of scent to the built space, describing similarities between the scent described by the author in the novel and the architectural space. The research than further extends to provide a built-guiding-tool for the new constructions to learn from by exploring the various domains of embracing ephemerality in a bookstore design.

ii

Contents 1.

2.

3.

Acknowledgement ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� i Abstract ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ii List of Figures ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������v

Chapter I Introduction ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 »» Research Methodology �������������������������������������������������������������������������2

Chapter II Literature Review ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4 • Definitions and Descriptions ��������������������������������������������������������������������5

4. PERFUME:The Story of a Murderer |Patrick Suskind |review ����������������������������� 8 5. Ephemerality |Being in Transition ������������������������������������������������������������������� 13 • Form is Emptiness |Dependent Existence ���������������������������������������������� 14 • Nothing Gold Can Stay ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15 6. Taming the Urge of Freedom |Longing for Perfection ����������������������������������19 • Fear of the Fatal Circumtance ����������������������������������������������������������������20 »» Disempower and Disconnect: Alienating Ourselves ������������������������ 20 »» Distrust ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 22 »» Integrity |Issues of truth ������������������������������������������������������������������� 22 • Imprints of Time and Impermanence |A Dialogue �������������������������������� 23 7. Wabi Sabi |Art - Embracing Ephemerality ����������������������������������������������������25 • Cliff Hanger |A Short Story ��������������������������������������������������������������������26 • Wabi Sabi |Design Principles ������������������������������������������������������������������ 27 »» Authenticity �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������27 »» Organic �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������27 »» Freedom of Form ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������27 »» Material ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 28 »» Color ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 28 • Tea Ceremony |Cultural Practice that Appreciates Ephemerality ������28 8. Experiencing Transience |Elements of Nature ��������������������������������������������� 30 • Langhorne Pavilion |In Puerto Rico ������������������������������������������������������ 31 9. Less Becomes MorE| synecdoche ��������������������������������������������������������������������� 34 • A Pause ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 35 • Presence In The Absence ������������������������������������������������������������������������36 • Heteroglossia |Presence of Two Impressions ����������������������������������������38 10. The Palimpsest|Appreciating the Ephemerality Through Layers ����������������41 • Token Of Abondanment ������������������������������������������������������������������������� 44 • Victoria And Albert Museum| The Scar of the War ������������������������������� 44 iii

11. The Igualada Cemetery |Barcelona's Industrial Peripheral City of Igualada

(1995) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 47

Chapter III Research Design ����������������������������������������������������������������������������51 • Problem| Identification �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 53 • Problem| Observation ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 53 • The Elbow Room |Analytical Study �������������������������������������������������������� 53 • Lucky Shophouse |Analytical Study ������������������������������������������������������ 55 • Site| Identification ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 57 • Re-Inventing Our Heritage |Bookstore ��������������������������������������������������58

Chapter IV Case Studies ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 59 • L’Institut by LUNDI et DEMI ����������������������������������������������������������������� 60 • Rong Bao Zhai Coffee Bookstore by Archstudio ������������������������������������ 61 • Bookshop and Coffee Bar by Plural &Totalstudio ����������������������������������62 ChapterV Site Analysis ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 65 • Swot Analysis ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������67 »» Strength ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 67 »» Weakness ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 67 »» Opportunity ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 67 »» Threat ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 67 12. Conceptual Framework �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������71 • Design Philosophy ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 72 • Design Concept| Development ���������������������������������������������������������������� 73

Chapter VI Design Proposal �����������������������������������������������������������������������������75 • Design Strategy ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������76 • Development program ����������������������������������������������������������������������������76 • Design Parameters and Variables ����������������������������������������������������������76

iv

LIST OF FIGURES Figure i: Grenouille| From the movie ‘Perfume’ (https://youtu.be/zTIOHm-o-Ks) Figure ii: Emptying the ‘angel’s scent’ on himself| From the movie ‘Perfume’ Figure 1: Ephemera Danica| Mayfly Figure 2: Desert Sand Verbena Figure 3: Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia Virginica), an ephemeral Figure 4: Desert Paint Brush Figure 5: ‘Impermanence’| a sculpture by Xanthe White Figure 6: The Architect’s Dream| A painting by Cole Figure 7: Natural stone showing the imprint of time; and harmony with its surroundings Figure 8: Salk Institute, US, 1965 Figure 9: National Assembly, Dhaka Figure 10: ‘Karesansui’| The solitary rock surrounded on all shores by a sea of gravel homogeneous to the ephemerality that envelops us.

Figure 11: Impressions of time on a metal bolt- a wabi sabi expression Figure 12: A variegated and random textures formed by natural sporadic processes- a wabi sabi expression Figure 13: Use of natural material in the traditional Japenese tea house interior Figure 14: Weather generated movement projected on the floor Figure 15: Frank Lloyd wright’s falling water residence- emphasizing relative permanence of architecture with water Figure 16: Pantheon Rome| The movement of the solar shadow visible a few distance above the floor Figure 17: Langhorne Pavilion| Peurto Rico| Designed for Karsten Harries and his wife, embraces ephemerality and time Figure 18: Paradise Point- HawksBay, Karachi Figure 19: Empress Market- Saddar, Karachi Figure 20: The broken pottery |Wabi Sabi - Synecdoche expressions Figure 21: Gordon Matta-Clark| Artwork, 1970 Figure 22: Bodie State Historic Park| Ghost Town, California Figure 23: Bodie State Historic Park| Ghost Town, California| furniture and artifact left by the inhabitants those once lived here Figure 24: The false-fronted buildings that line the town’s main street are punctuated by empty spaces where other buildings once stood.

Figure 25: Kolumba Museum| Peter Zumthor, Cologne| the new brick wall juxtaposed with the ruins of the religious building Figure 26: The circular steel columns, carefully inserted into the historic piers Figure 27: Kintsukuroi| The art of repairing pottery with gold or silver Figure 28: Palimpsest: Unstable Paintings for Anxious Interiors| Artwork| Kamrooz Aram, 2014 Figure 29-31: Kleopatra Haritou (from the Prosfiyika exhibition| Benaki Museum)| Trac-

v

es of things forgotten or left aside in a rush, and physical signs of human presence are scattered stories without a narrator.

Figure 32: Aston Webb facade of the V&A, Exhibition Road, showing bomb damage still visible today.

Figure 33: Commemorative inscription on the Aston Webb facade of the V&A. Exhibition Road, David Kindersley.

Figure 34: The Igualada Cemetery, constructed between 1985 and 1994 as a replacement for the Old Cemetery, designed by Enric Miralles, reflects the authenticity of the place.

Figure 35: The life of the church is unfinished and slowly returning to its origins. Decay and deterioration shoe the passage of time.

Figure 36: ‘The Elbow Room’- foyer view Figure 37: ‘The Elbow Room’- interior Figure 38: The fading signage near the entrance| Figure 39: To retain, reveal, and protect the original structures, finishes and detailing of the old shop.

Figure 40: Thomas&Thomas Booksellers entrance Figure 41: Appreciating the 19th century building and expressing its own personalityL’Institut bookstore Figure 42: Re-modeled traditional bookstore by interconnecting two programs: coffee house and bookstore Figure 43: Flexible space that facilitates various collateral events along with selling books Figure 44: Cascades also serve as an auditorium during collateral events and allow customers to sit, read relax , and communicate Figure 45: Site location Plan| Road links| Site surroundings Figure 46: Site pictorial analysis Figure 47: Existing Layout Plans Figure 48: Conceptual mood board Figure 49: Proposed Layout Plans| Thomas & Thomas Booksellers Figure 50: Proposed Layout Plans| Qissa Khuwwa cafe Figure 51: The Power of Persuasion Figure 52: ‘Yaad’ space- a view Figure 53: The sculptural chair Figure 54: The loft wall Figure 55: Ladder handrail Figure 56: The loft seating Figure 57: The loft grill Figure 58: Island of Books Figure 59: Wall display rack Figure 60: The ‘Darzi’ tea table Figure 61: The west side interior view of the cafe Figure 62: Typical cafe chair arrangement of four Figure 63: The Typography wall

vi

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

1

scent & space

“For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live.”[1] The scent – the richness of the world perceivable by smell is no doubt a vital element of our existence. The scent perhaps is almost imperceptible, yet it can bring about in us feelings of well-being, affecting mood, perception and influencing our behavior. Despite its ubiquity and deep roots it’s impossible to record and sustain the impressions of scent, because they are ephemeral and elusive by nature. They cannot be contained and preserved for long periods of time. Smells are born and killed immediately afterwards.

This expression and impression of the scent is well described in ‘Perfume- the story of the murderer’, a novel written by Patrick Suskind, in great detail. The author correlates the evanescent nature of the scent and the lives of people and develops the continuing motif of transience using flower imagery, the idea of virginity, and constant reminders of shortness and fragility of the human life. The novel discusses the art of the perfumer in great detail and accentuates the fact that the scent could not be contained and preserved; it can only be appreciated in its ephemeral state. It also describes the enchanting power of the scent and its ability to enslave the mind that forces other senses to match what the nose tells to believe.

Understanding the artistic conception of the novel, the thesis than finds parallel between ‘scent’ and ‘space’; relating the art of the perfumer to the architect/designer.

The thesis provides a different perspective to the novel; how the imagination of the author relates to our understanding of the place and place identity and how the ephem1 Perfume: The story of a murderer| Patrick Suskind (1985), p 61

eral expression surrounds us and how it can be appreciated. This is achieved through observing and identifying the problem and then providing guidelines for solutions through various examples and studies.

Research Question ㅧㅧ The main question I asked myself for this research is: In relation to the ephemeral expression of the scent, as described in the novel ‘Perfume’, which is uncontrolable and irresistable, which can only be enjoyed, though for a brief moment; is not better to read ephemerality on the same ground in our built space? ㅧㅧ How we could create harmony with the ephemeral phenomena and appreciate its presence in the built environment?

Sub-Research Question ㅧㅧ If human use and experience, along with the inevitable material decay, which necessarily happen over time, are excluded from built spaces as anticipated, how can this have an effect on place-integrity?

When places are commissioned, designed, built and maintained without loving care, what encouragement is there for care in their use? ㅧㅧ How ephemerality help amplify details, which in pristine and perfect form was been camouflaged? ㅧㅧ How architectural ruins- remaining fragments of decorative or structural devices or objects within the building- work as synecdoche on the viewer, who imagines the building in its complete and prime state?

Research Methodology I have started this research by creating a theoretical framework around a selection of authors who have written about ephemerality and impermanence or related topics.

The research is collected through various scent & space

2

articles, books, documentaries and studying different approach towards design and experience by other architects. The analysis are made through text, images and drawings.

The observations through research are then linked to analytical studies, which shares a common attitude towards designing meaningful buildings and place that engages in a specific relationship with their context and show a respect for tradition and history. The intent is not to limit to solve the issues but also to get the better understanding of our identity and ‘sense of reality’ experienced by us.

The design primarily focuses on Thomas & Thomas Booksellers; an old local bookstore and only literary torch bearer in the town, which reflects the glories of the past: a town that used to be the social hub for the elite of the society gathering at bistros and bookshops. The module acts as a built-guiding-tool for the new constructions to learn from. The proposed design while preserving its identity, integrates past with the present, defining continuity in the character of the place through materials and craftsmanship, and appreciating the ephemerality of the place. It also celebrates the memories of the place, announcing its importance to the visitors and the passerby.

Observing, addressing and after undertaking the concerns, the scope of the program extends further to a café next to the bookstore, the ‘Qissa Khuwwa café’, in order meet the needs of today and attract more readers, based on the idea of the traditional storytelling and human as a ‘story’ itself. The café reflects the identity of the place, which used to be a tailor shop in the bygone era, by designing every element in the space on the concept of ‘stitch’. It then becomes a communal space where literary people can meet and enjoy a cup of tea while listening to the stories of each other.

3

scent & space

Chapter II

LITERATURE REVIEW

scent & space

4

Definitions and Descriptions

ish; fade away.[17]

• personage: (n) a person of rank, note, or distinction; especially : one distinguished for presence and personal power[1] • grotesque: (n) a very ugly or comically distorted figure or image[2]

• emanate: (v) to come out from a source[18] • cynical: (adj.) contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives[19] • degeneration: (n) decline or deterioration[20]

• frenzied: (adj.) wildly excited or uncontrolled

• unstinted: (adj.) not restrained or restricted : generously or freely given[21]

• transient: (adj.) passing especially quickly into and out of existence[4]

• evasive: (adj.) directed towards avoidance or escape[22]

• ephemeral: (adj.) lasting a very short time[5]

• ossify: (v) to become hardened or conventional and opposed to change[23]

[3]

• volatile: (adj.) difficult to capture or hold permanently[6] • permanence: (n) the quality or state of being permanent[7]

• obscene: (adj.) repulsive by reason of crass disregard of moral or ethical principles[24] • nuance: (n) a subtle distinction or variation[25]

• insubstantiality: lacking substance or material nature[8]

• dissonance: (n) lack of agreement or harmony between people or things[26]

• ambiguity: (n) a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways[9]

• melancholic: (adj.) feeling or expressing pensive sadness[27]

• substratum: (n) the material of which something is made and from which it derives its special qualities[10]

• dangle: (v) to hang loosely, especially with a jerking or swaying motion[28]

• agitated: (v) to excite and often trouble the mind or feelings of[11] • fatal: (adj.) of or relating to fate[12] • tame: (adj.) made docile and submissive[13] • epistemology: (n) the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity[14] • impervious: (adj.) not capable of being damaged or harmed[15]

• inception: (n) an act, process, or instance of beginning[29] • variegated: (adj.) having discrete markings of different colors[30] • sporadic: (adj.) occurring occasionally, singly, or in irregular or random instances[31] • devolution: (n) descent to a lower or worse state[32] • subdued: (adj.) lacking in vitality, intensity, or strength[33]

• mutable: ( adj.) prone to change[16] • evanescence: (n) to disappear gradually; van17 https://goo.gl/ZDDqJ0

5

1 www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/personage

18 https://goo.gl/pXvaya

2 https://goo.gl/aqSFZG

19 https://goo.gl/w6yCHK

3 https://goo.gl/6RhKqK

20 https://goo.gl/uUxB5w

4 https://goo.gl/LRi3IW

21 https://goo.gl/onrheg

5 https://goo.gl/kp9T7q

22 https://goo.gl/55Yun1

6 https://goo.gl/Ahyq60

23 https://goo.gl/pS0ehC

7 https://goo.gl/5d7f8g

24 https://goo.gl/HdoP9k

8 https://goo.gl/QMpybE

25 https://goo.gl/bwwV1k

9 https://goo.gl/AuYksx

26 https://goo.gl/gP9Dje

10 https://goo.gl/Y5EHaf

27 https://goo.gl/ShBngn

11 https://goo.gl/cnfkBp

28 https://goo.gl/yU71zb

12 https://goo.gl/1xrQ7q

29 https://goo.gl/T3AHWF

13 https://goo.gl/TG77Lv

30 https://goo.gl/eR7G3T

14 https://goo.gl/5xXApJ

31 https://goo.gl/JF35Q3

15 https://goo.gl/IG9BPB

32 https://goo.gl/IEkqQp

16 https://goo.gl/Htfihu

33 https://goo.gl/OxgViQ

scent & space

• beatitude: (n) a state of utmost bliss[34] • mundane: (adj.) of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one[35] • austere: (adj.) having a plain and unadorned appearance[36] • unrivaled: (adj.) better than everyone or everything of the same type[37] • verdant: (adj.) green with growing plants[38] • consummate: (adj.) complete in every detail[39] • discernible: (v) to detect with senses other than vision[40] • oculus: (n) a circular opening at the top of a dome[41] • substantial: (adj.) ample to satisfy and nour[42]

ish

• loathsome: (adj.) causing hatred or disgust; repulsive[43] • synecdoche: (n) a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa[44] • tedious: (adj.) tiresome or monotonous[45] • contiguity: (n) a series of things in continuous connection; a continuous mass or extent[46] • vestige: (n) a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something[47] • heteroglossia: (n) a diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work and especially a novel[48] • chronology: (n) the science that deals with measuring time by regular divisions and that assigns to events their proper dates[49] • remnant: (n) a usually small part, member, or trace remaining[50]

• mottle: (n) a surface having colored spots or blotches[51] • hybrid: (n) something heterogeneous in origin or composition[52] • palimpsest: (n) writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased[53] • obliterate: (v) to remove from existence: destroy utterly all trace, indication, or significance of[54] • blisters: (n) any similar swelling, as an air bubble in a coat of paint[55] • sag: (v) to droop; hang loosely[56] • edifice: (n) a large or massive structure[57] • provenance: (n) the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or literature[58] • bewilderment: (n) the quality or state of being lost, perplexed, or confused[59] • mildewed: (n) a discoloration caused by fungi[60] • pristine: (adj.) not spoiled, corrupted, or pollut[61]

ed

• bistro: (n) a small, modest, European-style restaurant or café; tavern[62] • lusterless: (adj.) not bright or shiny; dull[63] • sommelier: (n) a wine steward[64] • intersperse: (v) to place something at intervals in or among[65] • collateral: ( adj.) accompanying as secondary or subordinate • intimate: (v) to make known especially publicly or formally[66]

34 https://goo.gl/sM2reH 35 https://goo.gl/eYkAdn

51 https://goo.gl/CA7bOQ

36 https://goo.gl/k9oaYM

52 https://goo.gl/ZZJKDP

37 https://goo.gl/t3VqFA

53 https://goo.gl/Lar0QU

38 https://goo.gl/rfZGq7

54 https://goo.gl/5UaEj1

39 https://goo.gl/Drkeqy

55 https://goo.gl/yG5YnD

40 https://goo.gl/gvu4Kf

56 https://goo.gl/PHfuEf

41 https://goo.gl/h9PnZV

57 https://goo.gl/rDNdS5

42 https://goo.gl/mJGivj

58 https://goo.gl/xuwRsC

43 https://goo.gl/bNIKEZ

59 https://goo.gl/frSzO9

44 https://goo.gl/qzOu8Y

60 https://goo.gl/HCG9QI

45 https://goo.gl/p1Icbc

61 https://goo.gl/0MG4zr

46 https://goo.gl/sDaA3w

62 https://goo.gl/FdZ8LA

47 https://goo.gl/VN5Wtq

63 https://goo.gl/5yNxKo

48 https://goo.gl/Ff4LGB

64 https://goo.gl/KBjgvh

49 https://goo.gl/WvqGoE

65 https://goo.gl/L1XsJb

50 https://goo.gl/nDbJbf

66 https://goo.gl/aM1j6R

scent & space

6

Perfume

|Patrick Suskind directed by |Tom Tykwer

the story of a murderer

https://youtu.be/zTIOHm-o-Ks

7

scent & space

PERFUME:THE STORY OF A MURDERER |Patrick

P

Suskind |review

erfume is a work of artistic conception and execution, rich in detail and truly a masterpiece of imagination, weaving precisely the details of France during eighteen century. The long-lasting motif of Perfume is the ephemeral nature of substance[1]- the material world. The story revolves around a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.

His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. His gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent.[2] The protagonist (or perhaps more the anti-hero) Jean Baptiste Grenouille is an unlikable amalgamation of the worst human traits imaginable. His thirst for the solution to his unfathomable loneliness should be a tear-jerking quest; however, his emotionless hatred is a sensation that mankind just cannot understand.[3] "....All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all" (P.Suskind) The sense of smell can never be fully described, even in the words of the book; the readers must enter a trance, just as Grenouille does, to imagine the intermingling of various scents and smells and sort this collection in the libraries of the mind. The 1 The Evanescence of Smell and Sympathy| A Study of Transience in the Filmic and Written Forms of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume |JUSTIN HAEJOON YI* Duke University (Vol. 2, 2011), 218 2 Patrick Süskind – Perfume| The story of a murderer (1985), 03 3

Ibid., 217

lives of people and the evanescent nature of the scent are co-related throughout the novel. All of these things are merely moments in transition, steps of an indefinable process.

The main thematic element, the sense of smell, works perfectly with this idea of transience because scents themselves are ephemeral; the wisps disappear almost as soon as they appeared. It is impossible for them to be recorded in history because they cannot be contained and preserved for long periods of time. Smells are born and killed immediately afterwards.[4] "There are scents that linger for decades.

A cupboard rubbed with musk, a piece of leather drenched with cinnamon oil, a glob of ambergris, a cedar chest' they all possess virtually eternal olfactory life. While other things-lime oil, bergamot, jonquil and tuberose extracts, and many floral scents-evaporate within a few hours if they are exposed to the air in a pure, unbound form. The perfumer counteracts this fatal circumstance by binding scents that are too volatile, by putting them in chains, so to speak, taming their urge for freedom-though his art consists of leaving enough slack in the chains for the odor seemingly to preserve its freedom, even when it is tied so deftly that it cannot flee."

(P.Suskind) The transient nature of all things is shown through the lives of people as well. Almost every character in the world of Perfume who comes into contact with Jean-Baptiste Grenouille meets a ghastly, short demise. His own mother, who tried to abandon him in a pile of rotting fish guts, is hanged for her attempted infanticide after his squeals alert passersby. Madame Gaillard, who, because of her lack of nasal abilities, treats Grenouille with the same care as she does the other children in her orphanage. The book immediately describes the conclusion of her life once Grenouille departs; she succumbs to various diseases and dies a slow death. The next 4

Ibid., 218

scent & space

8

"And then he had sprinkled himself all over with the contents of the bottle and all at once he had been bathed in beauty like blazing fire.....

They felt themselves drawn to this angel of a man. A frenzied, alluring force came from him, a riptide no human could have resisted, all the less because no human would have wanted to resist it, for what that tide was pulling under and dragging away was the human will itself: straight to him." (Patrick Suskind, 1985)

9

scent & space

caretaker, Grimal the tanner, meets a quick end after he negotiates a trade with Baldini for Grenouille. Overjoyed by his good deal, Grimal becomes drunk, is knocked over by a carriage, and drowns in the river. After Grimal's death, Baldini the perfumer enters the scene and trains Grenouille in the art of mixing and preserving scents. But as soon as his relationship with Grenouille is finished, his house collapses on top of him and his hundreds of formulas for potent perfumes.

Marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse, under whom Grenouille next serves, is a noble obsessed with his scientific endeavors, such as locking his subject in a ventilation box or leaving Grenouille stripped on a pedestal for his lectures. When Grenouille runs away, the Marquis climbs a mountain to reach the- zenith of intellectualism, only to never return. Once Jean-Baptiste settles in Grasse, he works with a scent maker named Druot.

Even though it is Druot who discovers the clothes and hair of the missing victims, the crowd turns against him once Grenouille escapes his execution and blame him for the murders. Each character that dares to interact with Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is silenced the moment that their relationship ends, demonstrating the transient nature of life that surrounds the scent collector.[5]

them uncomfortable, for they were dealing with someone who had the physical characteristics of a man, but without the substance that fully established him as a human being.

Scent becomes crucial in defining the human soul. Grenouille's quest for the scents of various people can be seen as an act of harvesting souls to create one for himself. Thus the human bodies that house the scents that he seeks are nothing more than empty bottles once he has extracted their essence.

The ephemeral nature of smell throughout the novel develops the continuing motif of transience of scents using flower imagery, the idea of virginity, and constant reminders of shortness and fragility of the human life.

The scent of the flower is described like the nature of the soul. The scents of jasmine and tuberoses, as described in the novel, are so exquisite and so fragile that they demanded the most gentle and special handling. Virginity is the peak stage of life, and its pure essence indicates the treasured quality of this brief moment of a woman's life.[6] The human soul as a scent is extremely delicate and requires careful procedures to extract.

The soul, which is so intricately tied to the physical body, would be destroyed if forced apart from its original host.[7]

".....Those clothes contained an olfactory diary of the last seven, eight years. Only one odor was not there-his own odor, the odor of the person who had worn them continuously all that time."

(P.Suskind) A smell is more than merely the ingredients of a perfume or a means of manipulating people; the scent of a person is that person's soul. Jean Baptiste's lack of a scent wasn't just the lack of a body odor, but also the lack of a heart. Ever since he was a child, it was not that people hated him, but that people could not sense his humanness. The lack of the soul confused people and made

"The murderer was not a destructive personality, but rather a careful collector.

For if one imagined-and so Richis (Laure's father) imagined-all the victims not as single individuals, but as parts of some higher principle and thought of each one's characteristics as merged in some idealistic fashion into a unifying whole, then the picture assembled out of such mosaic pieces would be the picture of absolute beauty, and the magic that radiated from it would no longer be of human, but of divine origin."

(P.Suskind) This idea that Antoine Richis stumbles upon shows the running motif of the novel in which each murder is insignificant on

5

Ibid., 218, 219

6

Ibid., 219

7

Ibid., 221

scent & space

10

its own and can only be meaningful if these pieces are all combined, the lives of humans are temporary, but when collected under the jurisdiction of a god, then the ephemeral quality of life can be set aside to produce a divine, eternal existence, which the ultimate perfume was supposed to do. With the perfume's ability to control and manipulate the minds of humans, Grenouille now held the power to lengthen and shorten life as he willed.[8] "..And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men."

(P.Suskind) The concluding part of the novel describes the enchanting power of the scent and its ability to enslave the mind that forces other senses to match what the nose tells to believe.

The volatile and easily swayed minds of the masses throughout the novel, whether they are people who are deceived by Grenouille fake scents during his market runs or those who partake in the massive, delirious orgy, demonstrate the speed at which smells overtake the mind.

8

11

Ibid., 224

scent & space

“

Grenouille was terrified.

What happens, he thought, if the scent, once I possess it?

What happens if it runs out?

It's not the same as it is in your memory, where all scents are indestructible. The real thing gets used up in this world. It's transient.�

(Patrick Suskind, 1985, 74)

scent & space

12

EPHEMERALITY |Being in

Transition

Ephemerality (from Greek- ephemeros, literally "lasting only one day"[1]) is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly, but particularly something with a beautiful yet tenuous existence. The ephemeral surrounds us every day. Ephemera abound in nature and their transitory nature typically follows seasonal or other natural rhythms. From the changing of the seasons to the phases of the moon, ephemera act as clues speaking of the ongoing changes occurring in the world. The term proves appropriate for the transitory beauty of nature and the arts due in part to the word's pronunciation, which carries a pleasant sensibility. Looking to nature, the ephemeral is on conspicuous display. The natural phenomenon, such as the fall colors or a sandbar owes their brevity to a combination of cyclical events tied to the weather, season or the moon. 'Ephemeral' often describes plants and insects, portraying them with a fragile, beautiful existence. Certain flowers are commonly known as 'ephemerals' due to their short existence and the fact that they may not bloom every year. When the rains arrive, the plant completes an entire lifecycle in a matter of days or weeks and then returns to dormancy, awaiting the next rainfall.[2] A few examples include the Desert Sand Verbena, Desert Paintbrush, and the Ocotillo. Insects are another group with a famously short lifespan. Ephemera danica is a species of mayfly in the genus Ephemera.

The lifetime of adults is very short-around (From top) Fig. 1: Ephemera danica| Mayfly Fig. 2: Desert Sand Verbena Fig. 3: Virginia springbeauty (Claytonia virginica), an ephemeral.

Fig. 4: Desert Paint brush 1 Barnhart, Clarence, and Robert Barnhart, ed. The World Book Dictionary, Volume One A-K. 1981 ed.: Doubleday & Company, 1981.

2 Ephemeral Architecture| Towards A Definition| Brian D Chappal, 13

13

scent & space

four days at the most.

FORM IS EMPTINESS |Dependent Existence

'Form is emptiness' is one of the fundamental principles of Zen that can be understood as meaning that everything changes; nothing stays the same. Form is the quality of solidity, permanence, separateness, continuity, and definition, whereas, emptiness is the quality of insubstantiality, impermanence, indistinctness, discontinuity, and ambiguity.[3] Emptiness does not mean nothingness, nor does it imply a vast permanent, undifferentiated substance or substratum. It means that not a single thing exists substantively or independently. This means that nothing can be fixed or static. It is the nature of things to change. In fact, dependent existence enables functioning because it enables change and transformation.

Everything lacks independent existence, an essential nature, its 'own being'. If anything existed independently, fixedly, it would not be dependent upon other things.

There would be no way for it to be influenced by anything else. It would have no way to arise, grow, change, or pass away. Its separation would necessitate that it be inaccessible, unchanging and therefore absolutely timeless. Yet this is often just how we think things are. Without interdependence and mutability there is only permanence and time can have no place.

Timelessness implies an existence beyond all dependent interaction and change. Time is also inter-relational. The idea of time existing apart from phenomena is inconceivable.

Allowing for the impermanent and relative notion of time counteracts the idea of a self or any phenomena, mental state or realm, as fixed, static, fundamental or self-generating. It challenges the existence of eternity, as if anything could be separate and divided from the temporality of the relative. There is no escaping the relativity of time. The only timelessness is in the enduring of the rela3 Zen Architecture: The Building Process as Practice| Paul Discoe with Alexandra Quinn, 2008| 43, 44

tivity of time.

The past too can only be conceived in relation to the present. After all, non-existence doesn't exist. There is no independent past that actually ceases before some present could magically be said to appear out of nowhere. Additionally, there is no essential 'thingness' to get stuck in time, nothing that stops and becomes timeless. If things existed independently, all phenomena would be their own things, in a frozen and dualistic mode of existence.

Similarly, the present does not inherently exist as an essence called 'presence.' It is an interdependent experience requiring, among countless conditions, an-experiencer. Death then is not some entity, foreign and distant, off in the future. It is always right here, in the emptiness of every moment as it comes and goes. Not one moment is identical to another. It just appears that way when one tries to jump from one form of solidity to another, from one known to another, one certainty to another, one memory to another, not noticing that everything, being empty and therefore ungrounded, is impermanent.

Like everything else, memory is a relational phenomenon. Memory is not stored and then retrieved. Without connecting to present conditions, memory could not be recalled or added to. Similarly, the present needs memory to be interpreted, comprehended. It could be said that past lives within the present. It is kept alive through present conditions, as part of and dependent upon ongoing interconnections.

Realizing impermanence is the opposite of attachment and fear. It is to break free from ideas of what is and should be and to open to the continuous change and fluctuations that are life, as nothing exists statically, as its own thing. People spend their lives trying to hold onto things as solid. People want to maximize what they see as gain and to minimize what they see as loss. People want to hold on most especially to their identity and not to die. When impermanence is recognized as life, then life and death are scent & space

14

seen as mutually dependent and the fear of loss loses its ground. The recognition of impermanence nurtures the acceptance of what comes and goes, instead of resisting ever-changing waters.[4]

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is a reflective poem describing, via an extended comparison with nature, the descent from the perfection of early life to the corrupted, imperfect nature of adulthood.[5] How the early perfection of nature and life is quickly lost and corrupted by the imperfect world. This is emphasized by the last line which describes dawn descending to-day, a metaphor for the loss of perfection and beauty. In this poem Frost, repeatedly gives the understanding of the essential phenomenon of nature, impermanence, using symbolic expressions for beauty, goodness and perfection. Change is the most fundamental driving force of life and existence. Frost in his poem indicates that nothing lasts forever. In the first line is a paradox; green cannot be literarily be gold.

Gold is a beautiful color and a symbol of goodness and perfection, so the underlying meaning behind the paradox is that in the beginning nature is beautiful and perfect.

Frost immediately follows this with a line declaring that this is the most difficult state

4 http://www.emptiness.co/susan_kahn_impermanence| Impermanence: The Emptiness of Time and the Timeless| Susan Kahn| 05 5 www.scribd.com/doc/193919113/An Nothing Gold can Stay (2012) | Lukas Nabergall

15

scent & space

Analysis

of

for nature to hold.[6] Change or impermanence is the essential characteristic of all phenomenal existence. We cannot say of anything, animate or inanimate, organic or inorganic, 'this is lasting'; for even while we are saying this, it would be undergoing change. All is fleeting; the beauty of flowers, the bird's melody, the bee's hum, and a sunset's glory.[7] The decisively characteristic thing about this world is its transience.[8] In this sense, centuries have no advantage over the present moment. If impermanence meant change all the time towards better and happier states how excellent our world would be!

But impermanence is allied with deterioration. All compounds break down, all made things fall to pieces, all conditioned things pass away with the passing of those conditions.[9] Everything and everybody deteriorates, ages, decays, breaks up, and passes away. And we, living in the forest of desires, are entirely composed of the impermanent.

Thus the continuity of transience cannot give any consolation; the fact that life blossoms among ruins proves not so much the tenacity of life as that of death.[10] As everything is impermanent, they cannot be made the basis of permanent happiness. Whatever is transient is by that very fact unsatisfactory. For the things that one gets attached to, are constantly changing.

Hence attachment to them would only lead to unrest and sorrow. But when one knows things as they truly are one ceases to get agitated by them, one ceases to take refuge in them.[11] Early Buddhism declares that in this 6

Ibid, 01

7 www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/ wheel186.html| | The Fact of Impermanence| Piyadassi Thera 8 www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/ wheel186.html| Franz Kafka 9 www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/ wheel186.html| A Walk in the Woods by Phra Khantipalo| The Jewel Forest Monastery, Sakhon Nakorn, Siam 10

Ibid, Franz Kafka

11 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel186.html| The Buddhist Doctrine of Anicca (Impermanence)| Y. Karunadasa, Ph.D. (London)

world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent. Everything is subject to change and alteration. "Decay is inherent in all component things", declared the Buddha and his followers accepted that existence was a flux, and a continuous becoming. This is analogous to 'time' as Husserl proclaims that time resembles and indefinite series of "nows" (like seconds) passing from the future through the present into the past (as a river flows from the top of a mountain into a lake)... which implies: the future as not-yet-now, the past as no-longer-now, and the present as what now-is, a thin, ephemeral slice of time.

Moreover, one never experiences the now in isolation from the past and future, and that one experiences the relation between now, past and future without collapsing these three modes of appearing.[12] According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life.

It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

Old cells in our bodies die and yield place continuously to the new ones that are forming. Like the waves in a sea, every moment, many thoughts arise and die in each individual. Psychologically and physically he is never the same all the time. A person is what he is in the context of the time in which he exists.

So long as man cherishes the idea of the 12 www.iep.utm.edu/phe-time| Phenomenology and Time-Consciousness| Husserl, E. Zur Phänomenologie des inneren ZeitbewuĂ&#x;tseins (1983-1917). Ed. R. Boehm. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966; On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1983-1917). Trans. J. Brough.

Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.

lasting self or ego it will not be possible for him to conceive the idea that all things are impermanent, that there is, in reality, an arising and a ceasing of things. It is said that through insight meditation (vipassanaa) one sees things as they really are (yathaabhuutam) and not as they appear to be. Viewing things as they really are implies, seeing the impermanent, unsatisfactory, and no-self nature of all conditioned and component things. To such a meditative disciple of the Buddha the "world" is not the external or the empirical world, but the human body with its consciousness.

Impermanence and change are thus the undeniable truths of our existence. What is real is the existing moment, the present that is a product of the past, or a result of the previous causes and actions. Because of ignorance, an ordinary mind conceives them all to be part of one continuous reality. But in truth they are not.[13]

13 www.urbandharma.org/udharma8/imperm.html| The Buddhist Concept of Impermanence

scent & space

16

impermanence |sculpture by landscape designer Xanthe White |New Plymouth , New Zealand (fig 5) photo courtesy: Bianca Brons, Bianca Brons.

It constitutes of three boxes of Corten steel, 1.5m2 and 3m in length. A variety of coastal natives, including toitoi, hebes and carex, spill over and out of mesh inserts. (Kathleen Kinney, 2016)

“

Working in the landscape, with natural growing things – everything begins to change the moment you put it in. Architecture represents control, while the natural world pushes and pulls against it......

We think it’s permanent, but it’s not”

17

scent & space

Xanthe White

“

.....and many floral scents-evaporate within a few hours if they are exposed to the air in a pure, unbound form. The perfumer counteracts this fatal circumstance by binding scents that are too volatile, by putting them in chains, so to speak, taming their urge for freedom-though his art consists of leaving enough slack in the chains for the odor seemingly to preserve its freedom, even when it is tied so deftly that it cannot flee.�

(Patrick Suskind, 1985, 75)

scent & space

18

TAMING THE URGE OF FREEDOM |Longing for

Perfection

Embracing impermanence in architecture means embracing change. That is acknowledging that buildings are not fixed, static objects rooted to a single moment and impermeable to change, but mutable subjects much affected by everyday use. But, in large, modernity has been obsessed with novelty and a perfectionist formal language that do not register this.

"Within the form and figure of a building there resides some natural excellence and perfection that excites the mind and is immediately recognized by it. I myself believe that, form, dignity, grace, and other such qualities depend on it, and as soon as anything is removed or altered, these qualities are themselves weakened and perish."

(Alberti 1988, 302)[1] The epistemological root of the notion that has led us to expect a piece of architecture to be perfect and complete permanently is the way of equating beauty with perfection, which is so universally accepted that it is almost naturalized among professionals who design and laypeople who appreciate architectural pieces, even if they may not necessarily know its specific source. And, as long as we uphold this definition, it seems necessary to acknowledge that imperfect buildings are less desirable and that, once beauty is achieved, we need to maintain it at all cost. In addition, Alberti successfully promoted the equally influential idea that a building's perfection is intertwined with its immutability, and that any subsequent change to the original design would mar that beauty.[2] Analogous to how Suskind in his novel 1 Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent: Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature| Rumiko Handa, 2015| Alberti’s Definition of Beauty , p 54 2 Marvin Trachtenberg, ‘Building outside time in Alberti’s De re aedificatoria’, RES Anthropology and Aesthetics, 48, Autumn 2005, 123-34

19

scent & space

describes the crucial art of the perfumer to counteract the freedom of the 'pure' scent, and put them in chains; architects have always strived to make the building perfect, and defend against the reality of impermanence, and wish to keep it so permanently. But, perhaps, a piece of architecture is a setting for people's daily conduct of life and, as a consequence, it never remains as the architect has left it. After construction is finished, people move in, and events take place, and alterations inevitably are made as people's needs change and the building becomes obsolete. The language of beauty is essentially the language of timeless reality.[3] Here the notion of timelessness implies the encounter of idealized permanence, unaffected by the inherent fragility and temporality of life. The longing and quest for beauty is an unconscious attempt to eliminate the reality of vanishing time, erosion, ageing, decay, entropy and death. Jorge Luis Borgges makes a strong remark to this effect: "There is an eternity in beauty."[4] Beauty is a promise; the experience of beauty evokes the presence of apparently permanent qualities and values- an illusion, no doubt, but mentally an important one. As deterioration, erosion and entropy are the unavoidable fate of all material constructions; the ideal of perfect and unchanging form is bound to be a momentary illusion, and eventually a false ideal.[5] In fact the afterlife becomes the very life of the building.

Cole created The Architect's Dream for prominent New York architect Ithiel Town, who commissioned a landscape from the artist in 1839.[6] The odd combination of buildings, stage like setting framed by an arch and curtains, and exaggerated contrasts of scale indicates that the scene before 3 Karsten Harries, ‘Building and the Terror of Perspecta’, The Yale Architectural Journal, 19, 1982, pp 59-69 4 Joge Luis Borges, This Craft of Verse, Har University Press {Cambridge, MA and London}, p 115.

5 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)| Form Tactility and Time, p 57 6 www.explorethomascole.org/tour/items/91/about| The Architect’s Dream |Thomas Cole: National Historic Site

us is a fantasy. In fact, The Architect's Dream portrays an ideal realm imagined by the architect, who reclines with eyes closed in the foreground atop a monumental column.

Perhaps unintentionally, Cole has portrayed the idealizing of architecture as immutable, physical objects, beautiful at their moment of completion before they are ever occupied and assumed to be impervious to the effects of use or ageing.[7]

Fig 6: The structures that the architect in the foreground is imagining are pristine and perfect, untouched by use or time, forever empty of inhabitants.

FEAR OF THE FATAL CIRCUMTANCE Buildings are physical entities and, just like any other such objects, are under the influence of time. Their chemical compositions of building materials change either on their own or because of the natural forces of the sun, rain, wind, or temperature (Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow 1993). [8] A building can be considered mutable and changing: an open and unstable system composed of flows of energy and matter; a series of layers subject to change (site, structure, skin, services and space plan); or a dynamic and adaptable system intended to accommodate change. Alberti was fully aware of all-altering time. And, for him, changes brought forth in the course of time were undesirable, and he took it to be the role of architect to design the building 7 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016), p 16 8 Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent: Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature| Rumiko Handa, 2015| Mutability of Architecture, p 06

to avoid the changes or keep them to minimum. Throughout the treatise he applies his knowledge in recommendations to the architect who tries to defend the building against time and age.[9] The quest of an architect/designer to arm buildings against external forces and resist ephemerality has led material longevity to become a selling point to the building industry, which supplies durable materials and protective coating against scratches or ultraviolet rays. But the fear of mutability has led imitation a subject of trust, which has ultimately weakened the rootedness of place.

"One must subdue its evanescence without robbing it of its character-a problem of the perfumer's art."

(Suskind) Moreover, architecture involves people in more ways than painting or sculpture does in the sense that people use it every day in addition to viewing it occasionally from a distance, and especially because the reality of architecture is that once it is completed, the conditions of human existence do not allow it to maintain either its original physical state or its metaphysical connection to the people.[10] If human use and experience, along with the inevitable material decay, which necessarily happen over time, are excluded from built spaces as anticipated, how can this have an effect on place-integrity?

When places are commissioned, designed, built and maintained without loving care, what encouragement is there for care in their use?

Disempower and Disconnect: Alienating Ourselves It seems that we have lost our capacity to dwell in time is an aspect of the new homelessness of the modern man. Edward Relph writes about the 'placelessness' and 9 Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent: Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature| Rumiko Handa, 2015| Alberti’s Definition of Beauty, p 57 10

Ibid| Authority of the Author, p 66

scent & space

20

alienation arising from an 'existential outside-ness'[11] and we are similarly alienated by the absence of time.

Most of our everyday environment is man-made. Largely buildings: their rooms, faces, skylines. Buildings enclose, modify and bound places. Form and line are human concepts. Forms work very differently from spaces. The energies, both 'chi' and 'meaning' generated by an object, decline with distance. Objects therefore have fields of influence. While form can emanate a spiritual presence - as in totemic sculpture - space is needed to 'house' spirit. Spaces contain energy. They have boundaries. We see objects, forms, but we live in places.

Alienation is a fact of modern life. When feeling, thinking and bodily experience are disassociated, our relationships to people, place and nature become one-dimensional, disconnecting us from the multi-layer effects of our actions. However striking are individual buildings, we never see them except in context. Relationships between things are what make places harmonious or dissonance. Relationship-sensitive buildings are moderated by, and in conversation with, their surroundings. Beauty depends upon this wholeness.[12] "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

Alan Watts Sensitivity - something latent in us all - is more significant than skill. This is built on loving care. The more this penetrates every detail, relationship, layer of connection, the more can we discover, engage ourselves with, deepen our own connection to, places and the layers of context that have given them form. The spirit of a place feeds, and is fed by, the attitudes and actions of those who administer, build, maintain and use it. No wonder I'm ill-at-ease in superstores 11 Edward Relph, Place and Placelessness, Pion {London}, 1986, p 51.

12

21

Ibid, p 133

scent & space

dominated by the attitude of 'take', without 'give' through craft and service. Likewise craft-boutique holiday villages are given 'character' by activities peripheral to the real issues of life.[13] Nonetheless, there's universality about ugliness. In everything ugly, there's something of disrespect, cynical disregard. Ugliness always has something of human arrogance. It is anti-spiritual. Buildings built of un-maintainable materials don't get attention; they stand independent of love. Conversely, something about beauty has to do with unsparing given care, compassion, love.

No wonder natural beauty induces reverent, even religious feelings. It is about spirit.[14] Time is related to life: living things age, lifeless ones don't. Some building materials show the imprint of time. Others seek to defy it. Materials close to their natural origins age gracefully; maturing (as people do) they harmonize with their surroundings, and also the more you know what things are and where you are; the more rooting and stabilizing their influence. Moreover, they can generally be repaired. For lifeless materials, time is merely a degenerative process. Old plastic is just split and grungy.

They can only be replaced or left to decay.

For materials still on their life journey, like wood or leather, or tied into the living world, like stone and clay, ageing is the acquiring of life-imprints.[15] Similar to the art of the perfumer, who puts enough freedom for scents to maintain its ephemerality. The new is always a stranger but time changes this.

The more worked on by time are materials, indeed buildings as a whole, the more they belong. Stones and bricks rounded by weather, timber weathered grey, the patina of old paint, mosses, lichens, climbing plants, blend buildings into place.[16] 13 Spirit & Place: Healing Our Environment, Healing Environment| Christopher Day, 2002| Beneath the Surface Today , p 7 14 Ibid| Place and People: How environment works on us, unseen influences, p 111 15

Ibid| Spirit nourishment, p 223

16

Ibid| The elements of Life , p 37

Maintenance is expensive. Low maintenance buildings make obvious sense - but not unmaintainable ones. The imprinting of care helps to build the spirit of a place.

Things made or maintained with unstinted time speak to us of care and involvement - values beyond appearance. The simplest hand-made item, however graceless, radiates more spirit warmth than the most elaborately formed injection molding. The more human imprint in a place, the more it is fit for humans and the more fully human can we feel free to be.[17] Discouraging from care, invite litter, vandalism and worse.

Distrust Connection to source is about truth. We have an innate, unconscious demand for truth in everything and everybody around us. Buildings manifesting integrity in structure, their forms generated by materials, construction, climate, use and moods matched to function, help satisfy this. But a small step extends this into dishonesty: plastic grained like leather, timber framed buildings and steel-structured arches pretending to be brickwork. In some areas, the false outnumbers the honest. Honest interaction is the foundation of social life; a lie seed uncertainty and mistrust, breeding evasiveness and alienation.[18] Truth also applies to the materials a place is built of. Materials close to natural source manifest integrated sensory messages. A wooden table feels sounds and ages solidly. Cotton-covered wooden chairs can feel inviting in a way that plastic and steel ones can't. Though some manufactured materials make no pretense, many imitate natural ones, but they have none of that life-given unevenness that so enriches the way they catch the light, nor do they feel, sound or smell the same. Synthetic materials are made to be sold - namely sold when new. Natural ones are borrowed from nature's cycles; they

grow in attractiveness over the years.[19]

Integrity |Issues of truth Architecture is the art of place-making relating the new to the place already there.

Every place has been formed by the past, but every idea for a building is inspired by the future. Past and future need to be brought into marriage, otherwise ideas are brutally imposed or places lifelessly ossified. Organic development allows the future to grow seamlessly out of the past.[20] Roots in time and place give context to individual life, connecting us with community, nature, even our identity and self-esteem.

Fig 7: Natural stone showing the imprint of time; and harmony with its surroundings

Authenticity isn't just about what places look like, but also why they are where they are - the historical roots of the present. People shape places and places shape people.

No longer are building needs, techniques and materials unique to each locality. We can still imitate past architecture, but this is like changing our identity by changing our clothes; only the appearance changes.

The best anything not founded on meaningful roots can be is seen not obscenely out

19 17

Ibid| Place and People, p 145

18

Ibid, p 118

Ibid, p 119

20 Ibid| Issues of the Twenty-first Century: Choice and conciousness, p 09

scent & space

22

of-place. But it'll never be in-place either.[21] In artificial surroundings, weather is either cold or hot: bleak winter or stifling summer. They lack the moderating realm of life that brings delight between unpleasant extremes. In living ones, the light, color, scents and sounds of nature distinguish week from week. In even the biggest cities, however, birdsong can enchant daily life and flowers and leaf development enhance the passage of the seasons.[22] Honesty of place means much. We know where we are in places of integrity, but not amongst grand facades with bleak utility rears or imitation materials. If we don't value honesty in places, what about its value in society? Though pre-industrial builders used toxic and work-hazardous materials like lead and quicklime, nearly everything was built of locally abundant earth-surface materials like stone and clay, or renewable ones, like wood, straw and leather.[23] If we ignore its poverty, cruelty and narrowness, the past can seem appealing. Its buildings are honest. Things were made as they had to be. One reason why wilderness touches the soul more deeply than contrived parkland is its uncompromised integrity. Only those plants grow there that belong there. Its shapes of land and water are only those that elemental pressures form.

Another aspect of integrity is legibility and visibility. The more visible nature's cycles and processes, the more anchored are we in the truths underlying daily life. Being aware how the sun heats and cools us by season, surrounded by materials from life and locality, anchored in life and place, attune our inner rhythms to those of nature.[24]

21

Ibid p 145-146

22 Ibid| People, Place and Process: Anchoring roots in a global world, p 146 23 Ibid, On discussing the attribute: the fall of Rome to lead from drinking water pipes p 25 24

23

Ibid, p 119

scent & space

IMPRINTS OF TIME AND IMPERMANENCE |A Dialogue Since, time is stitched to life: living things age, lifeless ones don't. Some building materials nearer to the source show the imprint of time. But the speed of change determines how satisfactorily we can adapt and how deep our relationship with the new. Materials close to their natural origins age gracefully; maturing (as people do) they harmonize with their surroundings.

Architecture articulates our experiences of time as much as of space, though we are often not conscious of it. There are slow and patient spaces as well as hurried ones.

A distinct slowness and silencing of experience is an essential ingredient of artistic greatness. Materials crafted both naturally and by human skills, narrate this silence.

Their fragments and nuance have carried past well into the present. Great buildings of the past are museums of a time unaffected by the nervous rush of the contemporary world. The experience is liberated from the flow of time, and we encounter the work as duration or permanence rather than a passing impression.[25] Similar to how Suskind describes about the scent which a perfumer with his artistic skills binds it, as such it can not fully observe its freedom; its ephemerality is slowed down to a lesser degree. In some modern buildings, contrary, a gradual quickening of time is observed, as if time is about to disappear altogether. Where buildings are replaced every 10-15 years, continuity is so disrupted, sense of place dies. With no place, community and civic-responsibility don't readily grow. This architectural hurry is expressed in two opposing ways: in the overwhelming number of motives, materials and details on the one hand, and the forced simplicity of buildings intended to impress us through a single simultaneous image on the other.

We can also experience a similar dense 25 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)| Inhabiting Time, p 55

and tactile temporal reality in the master works of modernity. These buildings do not merely communicate the dimension of 'now-ness'. They invite us into a deep timeless space by activating the historical depth dimension. Great works always enter into a dialogue with the past, making us sense time as an authoritative and calming presence an continuum, not a momentary or disappearing instant.[26] The masterpieces of Louis Kahn, such as the Kimbell Museum, Salk Institute and National Assembly, halt the flow of time equally dramatically.

So far, we examined some root causes of our modernistic perspective of novelty, perfection and the parallel we created to beauty of our built environment. Understaing the important phenomenon of ephemerality that is very part of nature and the existence Fig 9: National Assembly, Dhaka Unadorned precast concrete integrates the building to past- monolithic age. Presence of natural elements: water, sunlight, concrete stone and air, brings ephemerality into the space

Fig 8: Salk Institute, US, 1965 The impressions of weather on the wood panels and concrete wall shows how the building resonates with nature 26

Ibid, p 55-56

of all things, through different philosophical perspectives and understanding the Zen notion of 'Form is Emptiness', that is relative dependancy of all things in nature including time; we understood our unconscious fear of fatal circumtance, by finding similarities between the act of a perfumer to control the freedom of the scent, and ourselves.

We examined how this fear lead to resist inevitable transience, which became the ultimate cause of alienation, dishonesty, creating dissonance from nature.

It should not be translated that the designer or architect can do nothing to provide the building the ability to attract viewer through its imperfections and impermanence. Instead, understanding about how building materials age and insightful about how human behave in and react to physical environments. Although this may not guarantee the expectations which may take place in the passage of time, yet it would rather be effective to design the form and materiscent & space

24

al with the humble awareness that it never is completely controllable. We may gain a way to appreciate architecture by the realization that it not only is a part of man-made environments but also belongs to the natural world.

"The environment is what we all share, the natural world is the comprehensive framework of what all people and things hold in common. Behind these visions are two interpretations of human existence: ...in the first, there is the world view normally call anthropocentrism (which puts man at the center of things), in the second, biocentrism (which puts man in the context of other living things, as if there were no center but a widely extended range)."

(Leatherbarrow, 2007)[27] By recognizing all these aspects, and knowing that the natural phenomena of impermanence is stitched to everything including the architecture, which cannot be detached from the influence of human exploitation and from the impressions of time; how can then we embrace ephemerality?

"For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts

and irresistable, which can only be enjoyed, though for a brief moment. Is not better to read ephemerality on the same ground in our built space? How we could create harmony with the ephemeral phenomena and appreciate its presence?

WABI SABI |Art - Embracing

Ephemerality

As early as the 13th century Zen monks combined the worlds of art and philosophy into a mutual whole where the functions and goals of the two became almost inseparable. Zen seeks artistic expression in forms that are as pure and sublime as the Zen tenets (principle and beliefs) they manifest; it avoids intellectualism and pretense and instead aims to unearth and frame the beauty left by the flows of nature. The renowned monk Hakuin had a favorite expression that 'meditation in the midst of activity was far better than meditation in stillness.' For the Zen monks, everything they undertook became a spiritual task in which they had to immerse themselves totally, and in doing so they absorbed themselves in the activity rather than in their ego's understanding of the activity. The Japanese, along with many other cultures, have long understood the value of this and have sought through the arts to promote and share this awareness.

of men."[28] Like the scent, as described by the author of the novel 'Perfume', which is uncontrolable 27 Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent: Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature| Rumiko Handa, 2015| Articulating the properties of Engagement , p 179 28 Perfume: The story of a murderer| Patrick Suskind (1985), p 61

25

scent & space

Fig 10: 'Karesansui' The solitary rock surrounded on all shores by a sea of gravel homogeneous to the ephemerality that envelops us.

Japanese art, infused with the spirit of wabi sabi, seeks beauty in the truths of the natural world, looking towards nature for its inspiration.

Wabi sabi is an intuitive appreciation of a transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world.[29] The term wabi sabi suggests such qualities as impermanence, humility, asymmetry, and imperfection. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things. As our feelings are in constant flux so is the world we perceive, and in order for us to catch the fleeting beauty our minds and motivations must be clear and free from the folly that prevails. Wabi sabi art challenges us to unlearn our views of beauty and to rediscover the intimate beauty to be found in the smallest details of nature's artistry.

The four system of belief of wabi sabi: ㅧㅧ Everything in the universe is in flux, coming from or returning to nothing. ㅧㅧ Wabi sabi art is able to embody and suggest this essential truism of impermanence. ㅧㅧ Experiencing wabi sabi expressions can stimulate a peaceful contemplation of the transience of all things. ㅧㅧ By appreciating this transience a new

and more holistic perspective can be brought to bear on our lives.

CLIFF HANGER |A Short Story "Long ago, one day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine. Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!"[30] Wabi sabi is in many ways like the bittersweet taste of the last strawberry in this old Zen tale. It is an expression of the beauty that lies in the brief transition between the coming and going of life, both the joy and melancholy that make up our lot as humans.

It seeks beauty in the imperfections found as all things, in a constant state of flux, evolve from nothing and devolve back to nothing.[31] Within this continuous movement nature leaves arbitrary tracks for us to contemplate. The small nuances of color, the curve of an opening petal, the crack in a bamboo vase, or the decay of a knot in old timber all came to symbolize wabi sabi, and it is these random flaws and irregularities that offer a model for the modest and humble wabi sabi expression of beauty. It demotes the role of the intellect and promotes an intuitive feel for life where relationships between people and their environments should be harmonious. Rooted firmly in Zen thought, wabi sabi art uses the evanescence of life to convey the sense of melancholic beauty that such an understanding brings.[32]

Fig 11: Impressions of time on a metal bolta wabi sabi expression 30 www.theunboundedspirit.com/10-short-zen-stories| 10 short Zen Stories| Sofo Archon 29 Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence| Andrew Juniper (2003), p 51

31

Ibid, p 01

32

Ibid, p 02

scent & space

26

WABI SABI |Design Principles Zen monks and tea masters were aware of the effect a well-designed room or garden could have on one's psychological well-being and made every effort to fine tune their arts to maximize these positive effects.[33] Some of the properties of wabi sabi design and how they embody the underlying philosophical ideology are as under:

Authenticity To the Japanese mind, purity and honesty of an object is be vital, as within any design the eye is naturally drawn to a feeling of sincerity. ㅧㅧ Reality of impermanence used to add a sense of perspective and finality ㅧㅧ All design work approached with humility and sincerity ㅧㅧ Clarity of personal motives ㅧㅧ All aspects of design kept to a functional minimum ㅧㅧ Pieces those are intimate and personal[34]

Organic It is important that some part of every piece of wabi sabi art is organic in nature, whether it is clay, wood, textile, or any other naturally occurring material. The tides of time should be able to imprint the passing of the years on an object, leave the object with a rough and uneven surface. It is the physical decay; the changes of textures and color that provide the space for the imagination to enter and become more involved with the devolution of the piece. This is not limited to the process of decay, but can also be found at the moment of inception, when life is taking its first fragile steps towards becoming.[35]

Fig 11: Art defined in Artlessness- uneven with diffuse color pottery - a wabi sabi expression

Fig 12: A variegated and random textures formed by natural sporadic processes- a wabi sabi expression

materials ㅧㅧ Materials that clearly show the passage of time ㅧㅧ Materials whose devolution is expressive and attractive ㅧㅧ Variegated and random textures formed by natural sporadic processes

Freedom of Form

Unlike the Greeks, who had a special formula to decide matters of balance and proportions for many aspects of architecture and design, wabi sabi rule for design is that all aspects of the design must be in harmony with the physical balances found in the natural world.[36] The form of the piece should be personal and intimate with little attention given to symmetry or regularity.

The form of the piece is usually dictated by the properties of the material used and the function it provides.[37] An example of this Design criteria: is a bamboo vase. Nature has already proㅧㅧ Rough and uneven, non-uniform vided the shape; it is up to the craftsman to select the most attractive section and to cut

27

33

Ibid, p 103

34

Ibid, p 120

36

Ibid, p 117

35

Ibid, p 106

37

Ibid, p 107

scent & space

it according to the size required.

Design criteria: ㅧㅧ Asymmetry or irregularity ㅧㅧ The form comes from the physical properties of the materials used. ㅧㅧ Artlessness not artistry ㅧㅧ The piece evolves in a natural and unforced way ㅧㅧ No symbolism[38]

Material Material choice is a key factor in the creation of wabi sabi atmosphere. The original exponents of wabi sabi advocated the use of materials that occur naturally - mud, clay, wood, bamboo, cloth, paper, hemp, grass, and even iron. The idea was to use materials that were easy on the eye with subdued colors and a propensity to physically change with the passing of time. Nearly all wabi sabi expressions require an element of the organic, as without it there is no feel of time and no sense of impermanence.

Color With the use of natural materials and dyes, wabi sabi rarely strays from the boundaries of subdued colors and lighting.

On careful inspection one can almost get lost in the wondrous flux of colors coming from a slowly rusting iron bowl, a decaying tree trunk, or even a dew-soak rock. The Zen monks and the tea masters preferred the more mundane colors such as browns, greens, and grays. They also tended to favor darker shades over light. The colors were often toned down by the medium in which they occurred, such as the mud walls inside the tearoom. The result is a whole spectrum of colors that blend together.[39]

ㅧㅧ Colors and dyes from natural sources ㅧㅧ Diffuse and murky colors ㅧㅧ Matte colors that lack uniformity

TEA CEREMONY |Cultural Practice that Appreciates Ephemerality

Japan's cultural relationship with tea goes back to the eight century when the imperial court dispatched missions to the continent to bring back various cultural artifacts and practices, among which were those related to tea. In Rikyu's theory and practice of tea, which he developed in earnest in the ten years before his death, intentional imperfection was the leading design strategy to encourage the participant to contemplate the meaning of life and to stir their imagination. Applying this strategy to every aspect of the ceremony, he created the physical environments for tea ceremonies, including the architecture, interiors, and gardens of tearooms. The material features were no target of aesthetic appreciation. Creating a parallel between then imperfection to both the physical and the ephemeral surroundings, he succeeded in enticing the participants to aesthetic and ethical engagements. If Rikyu's guest was to look for beauty in imperfect or incomplete objects or to appreciate time's passage and nature's forces on objects, the guest needed to be readied for these types of experiences

Design criteria ㅧㅧ No harsh or strong colors ㅧㅧ Subdued lighting 38

Ibid, p 109

39

Ibid, p 112

Fig 13: Use of natural material in the traditional Japenese tea house interior

scent & space

28

and appreciation. He stated that the principle of tea is only to boil water, make tea, and drink it. What transcends is to rid oneself of self-inclined desires, and to contemplate their own imperfect and ephemeral existence.

One day Sen no Rikyu, asked his son to clean the area surrounding the tearoom.

This took most of the day, and afterward his son protested that the stepping stones had been scrubbed 3 times, the floor had been polished, and every twig and leaf had been picked up. Rikyu then went over to a maple tree that was crimson with the autumn leaf and shook it so that some of its beautiful leaves fell randomly to the floor. He let the artistry of nature put the finishing touches to the earnest endeavors of his son, and in so doing struck a perfect balance between the two.[40] Wabi sabi is not solely the work done by nature, nor is it solely the work done by man. It is a symbiosis of the two.

"Tea has become more than an idealization of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life. The beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane." [41] (The book of tea, Okakura Tenshin) In the troubled Muromachi period, when the warring clans were all seeking to establish greater strength in their power bases, the samurai and warrior classes found great solace in the sublime world of tea. In entering the small room, they were existentially removed from their roles and responsibilities, from the hardships of combat, and taken to a place of harmony and peace where the world might make sense again. [42] The tea ceremony is a multilayered experience in which a participant is able to enjoy the tastes of carefully prepared foods and 40

29

beverages in a state of awareness heightened by the nurturing environment of the tearoom. The tearoom design was an extension of Zen monastery design principles, with an emphasis being put on simplicity and sobriety. The small fragile hut is a temporary refuge for the traveler, as the body is but a temporary refuge for the soul. Usually the tea ceremony (called by the tea master) date is decided according to natural event such as the blossoming of the cherry trees or the changing colors of the autumn leaves, to which a theme is made for the meeting.

Once all the preparations have been made, the tea master will signal his readiness to the guests by wetting the stepping-stones near the entrance. On arrival, the visitors wait in a special room called the machiashitsu and will have a chance to get acquainted and confirm the order in which they will each participate. After the tearoom has been carefully cleaned and all the artistic accents put in place, the tea master will then ask the visitors to pass through the garden to the small tearoom.

Usually small and intimate, a tea garden would have many elements of wabi sabi-style design, including irregular stepping-stones, used to reach the tearoom from the machiaishitsu(the place where the visitors meet before entering the tearoom); austerely sculptured pine trees; verdant moss on stones vibrant with subdued hues; and decaying bamboo fences[43]- all invite the spirit to abandon itself to the unrivaled beauty and natural imperfection of the fleeting world.

Once all the preparations are in place, the tea master can now use his consummate skills to properly welcome the guests and to serve them food and beverages. Every movement from the master is pure poetry as his concentration brings a fluidity and precision to every action. The perfect clarity of mind and seamless movements of the master evoke a hypnotic effect in the participants, who then can become one with the mind and spirit of

Ibid, p 42

41

Ibid, p 31

42

Ibid, p 33

scent & space

43

Ibid, p 74

the tea master. [44]

EXPERIENCING TRANSIENCE |Elements of

Nature

Confirmed scientifically, we have needs for both nature and change in our surroundings, but how it can be embraced by the occupants. As observed previously, some traditions in the East recognize ephemeral and the changeable as important aspects of architecture. The localized climate conditions affect seemingly impermanent building materials, such as perishable organic plant materials, that are both readily accessible and require regular maintenance or replacement. Our consciousness of time has changed dramatically through history, and this has been reflected in architecture. Experiential time has gradually changed from a motionless or slow presence to a chain of detached moments that disappears at increasing velocity. Along with this experiential acceleration, the practical measuring of time has also changed. Instead of dwelling a continuous duration, we now experience time as fragments that pass us and immediately vanish.[45] The ability to see architecture from different perspectives or as an object affected by a range of external parameters that includes time, seasonal change, daily activities and so on, indicates that a house/ object might be a transformative entity. An element that somewhat unexpectedly initiates an experience of time in juxtaposition with architecture is water. Images of water emphasize architectural permanence, since time is a relative phenomenon, and concretize the passage of time. The sound of the waterfall at Frank Lloyd wright's falling water residence creates a dense and sensuous weave of visual, auditive and tactile stimu-

li.[46] From indoors we are often made aware of outdoor air movement through its effects on external surfaces. Of these, foliage is probably the most common, and since familiarity makes perceptible change less distracting, planting can be an especially useful source

Fig 14: Weather generated movement projected on the floor

Fig 15:

Frank Lloyd wright's falling water residence-

emphasizing relative permanence of architecture with water 44

Ibid, p 40

45 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|Inhabiting Time, p 52

46

Ibid, p 57

scent & space

30

tinctively shaped shadow or patch of light on an indoor surface. In order for change to keep us alert, however, it has to be perceptible in real time. The slowest visible movement we can detect is approx. 1mm (0.04 in) per second and the projection distance needed to achieve this for a solar shadow is in the region of 15m (50ft). The famous disc of sunlight that travels across the interior of the Pantheon in Rome is often projected well beyond this distance, meaning that from a few meters away- on the floor, for example- its movement is clearly discernible. Air convection currents generated by the sun's heating of heating of metal or asphalt roof finishes, for example, produce much more obviously moving shadows that can be sunprojected onto indoor surfaces through roof lights or clerestory windows.[48] Fig 16: Pantheon Rome The movement of the solar shadow visible a few distance above the floor

of wind-generated indoor animation. One of the simplest ways of effectively bringing the movement of outdoor air inside without the moving air itself is to arrange for the sun to project the shadows of wind animated foliage onto an interior surface. If direct sunlight is not available, placing planting in an internal courtyard made to seem continuous with the surrounding interiors can be equally effective. Alternatively, two layers of a lightweight mesh placed outside a window will reveal even the slightest external air movement in the form of changing moire' patterns. The most effective wind-revealing device of all, however, is probably a simple surface of standing water in an internal courtyard, which can reveal both local and high-altitude air movement as well as reflecting wind-animated sunlight patterns onto interior surfaces.[47] Similarly, there are several ways of bringing the natural migration of sunlight over the earth to the attention of building occupants. One of the simplest is to isolate a dis47 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|The Presence of the Weather, p 70

31

scent & space

LANGHORNE PAVILION |In Puerto Rico

The small Langhorne Pavilion for sleeping and writing on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, designed by Long Island-based architect Edward F Knowles in 1995, is an good example that combines multiple natural ephemeral conditions into the space. Its structures are modest in size, and are placed and designed in ways that resonates with the surrounding, that is, to the sun and the sky, and how changes in time can be experienced.

An oculus allows the space to be a -sun-, moon-, and star-dial, mediating life-time and world time, giving views in the night of the constellations and the changing light of the moon on the floor and walls. Generous doors to the east bring the intense morning sun: "this active light activates the whole building, making it more substantial."[49] The pavilion's interior opens to the time of the landscape, marked by the sun, rising and setting, by the repeating rhythm of light and 48

Ibid, p 69

49 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|Visiting Karsten Harries and Revisiting his ‘Building and the Terror of Time’, Karsten Harries explaining about the pavilion, p 131

dark, by the rhythms of growth and decay, of birth and death. Unfinished concrete wall in interior and exterior of the pavilion, creates flexibility to imprint the impermanence as the building ages.

Fig 17: Langhorne Pavilion| Peurto Rico the small writing and sleeping pavilion, designed for Karsten Harries and his wife, embraces ephemerality and time

scent & space

32

“

It was to Amor and Psyche as a symphony is to the scratching of a lonely violin. And it was more. Baldini closed his eyes and watched as the most sublime memories were awakened within him. He saw himself as a young man walking through the evening gardens of Naples; he saw himself lying in the arms of a woman with dark curly hair and saw the silhouette of a bouquet of roses on the windowsill as the night wind passed by; he heard the random song of birds and the distant music from a harbor tavern; he heard whisperings at his ear, he heard I-love-you and felt his hair ruffle with bliss, now! now at this very moment! He forced open his eyes and groaned with pleasure. This perfume was not like any perfume known before. It was not a scent that made things smell better, not some sachet, some toiletry. It was something completely new, capable of creating a whole world, a magical, rich world, and in an instant you forgot all the loathsomeness around you and felt so rich, so at ease, so free, so fine.�

(Patrick Suskind, 1985, 35)

33

scent & space

History is an object that must be constructed, and expressed; beginning with scattered traces. Through architectural details, materials and drawings and narrating cultural memories and current needs, a dialogue is created between past and present at critical points in a building's history.

Instead of being viewed as a finished entity, as is common today, a building can be considered a fabric that, even when complete, is unfinished and open to change. The inevitable scars of decay on the architecture and the space dictate that it was complete, perfect at a moment in past. How we can appreciate this transience? How ephemerality help amplify details, which in pristine and perfect form was been camouflaged? Moreover, how architectural ruins- remaining fragments of decorative or structural devices or objects within the building work as synecdoche on the viewer, who imagines the building in its complete and prime state?

Fig 18: Paradise Point- HawksBay, Karachi the present picture of the deterioted rock by the seawater

LESS BECOMES MORE|

synecdoche

Synecdoche is a rhetorical device in which a part represents the whole or vice versa.[1] It places an emphasis on the ontological nature of the object; that is, the way humans relate to the relationship between the object and how the object relates to the whole, where the 'whole' does not necessarily have to be its actually existed whole, but the whole can be that which is imagined. As a result, if the ruins are to function as synecdoche, much of the viewer's imagination has to be engaged.

The scars on the fabric of architecture and the elements of space within are stimuli for the mind. They raise questions, about memories and imaginations of a foregone past, and of potential futures. They visualize the passage of time and the inevitability of collapse, reminding us of our own transience.

The complete building being imagined may 1 Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent: Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature| Rumiko Handa, 2015| The Incomplete- ‘Synecdoche’, p 97

and the photograph of a past moment brings attention to what has passed away

Fig 19: Empress Market- Saddar, Karachi the past looks incomplete when comparing to the present condition

scent & space

34

or may not be historically accurate; however the power of ruins to induce such imaginations is more important than historical accuracy. Synecdoche enlarges one element of space. It replaces the whole with a fragment and therefore amplifies detail.[2] Since the human body is not only the primary means of effecting change in the world but also, conversely, of detecting variations in that environment. As Diane Ackerman explains: "Our senses crave novelty- If there's no change .They dozes and register little or nothing- A constant state- even of excitement- in time becomes tedious, fades into the background, because our senses have evolved to report changes."[3]

Similarly the word fragment refers to the object's relation to the physical whole to which it actually belonged.

A PAUSE Urban and architectural, and on smaller scale: objects, degeneration often appeals to the imagination. While some consider the unfinished or collapsing parts of the city or built space as ugly or disturbing, others

Fig 21: Gordon Matta-Clark| Artwork, 1970 silence becomes a space more than a real void, a pause that is absence of sound but enriched by a tension of meanFig 20: Wabi Sabi - Synecdoche

ing, in itself as silence, or in relation with what was before

the uneven texture the asymmetrical piece, incomplete,

and after

holding imperfection with uneven textures offers an opportunity to get involved in the piece and to help complete the picture

2 Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies| edited by Paul C. Adams, Steven D. Hoelscher, Karen E. Till, 2001, p 27| Michel de Certeau, “Practices of Space, “ in On Signs, ed.

Marshal Blonsky (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), 137 3 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|The Presence of the Weather, p 67| Diane Ackerman, A natural History of the Senses, Vintage Books (NY), 1990, p 305

35

scent & space

feel they make an area more interesting than the pristine perfect fabric of past. On a smaller level, decay shows traces of faded lives, moved communities and shrunken economies. The voids provide space for the observer to interpret them as she or he likes to fill them with imaginations and meanings. In his essay, Space, Poetics and Voids

Simone Pizzagalli underlining the narrative importance of voids, he says: "void contains in itself all the potential of the space, all the relation not written and experienced. [..] Void is the place of tension of something that will be, a space in power, but also the only place where the recollection of reality, the composition of the parts, fragments, of life can happen".[4] Voids are not a lack, not nothing; instead they are important elements that help us interpret the space around us. The imperfect, incomplete, broken and illusionary fragments of the built environment are important components in narration and relate people, places, histories and futures.

Gordon Matta-Clark, an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s, who did not just use the void as a building block in his works of art, he created voids himself as an act of preservation. He physically cut buildings that were about to be demolished. By creating the void, he charged the structure with a certain tension, leaving an impression in the mind of the observer and by doing so, preserving the building.[5]

rewarded. Though what remains of Bodie is just 5% of the gold mining town that thrived in the late 1870s, the empty spaces are readily filled in by the imaginations of visitors and staff alike and filled with notions of a hardy pioneer heritage. They are reinterpreted by each generation and thus can covey new meanings and new associations now very different from what their original users had in mind.[6] Visitors gaze upon the ruins of the town, and through their eyes, they engage their mind's eye, their imaginations. It is like experiencing the ruins as a synecdoche; reading the remains of the town in its totality. They see things that are familiar to them from other places, other texts (films and TV programs, for example), things that evoke the mythic West. Literary scholars have long known that, when reading, people interpret

PRESENCE IN THE ABSENCE Dydia DeLyser, in her article Authenticity on the ground: Engaging the past in a California ghost town, indicates how the presence of the absence in the ghost town greets some two hundred thousand visitors annually to Bodie State Historic Park in the remote high desert of eastern California, once a booming gold-mining town, the ghost-town Bodie appears abandoned and devoid of hustles and bustles of the 1880s town. She describes how to some visitors the rough dirt road that leads to the town takes them simultaneously on a journey into the past in which their imaginative efforts to reconstruct the 19th century are richly 4 www.failedarchitecture.com/the-poetry-of-decay| The Poetry of Decay| Mark Minkjan| 2014 5

Ibid, Mark MinkJan (2014)

Fig 22: Bodie State Historic Park| Ghost Town, California deserted buildings and artifacts inside those buildings often remind the visitors of the mythic West they know from film and fiction

6 Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies| edited by Paul C. Adams, Steven D. Hoelscher, Karen E. Till, 2001, p 25

scent & space

36

Fig 23: Bodie State Historic Park| Ghost Town, California furniture and artifact left by the inhabitants those once lived here, lets the visitors to imagine the moment of time when it was in use

Fig 24: Bodie State Historic Park| Ghost Town, California the false-fronted buildings that line the town's main street are punctuated by empty spaces where other buildings once stood.

37

scent & space

texts not in isolation but rather in the con- history is built in time.[10] Built on the ruins text of other things they have read, seen, or heard: we interpret 'intertextually'.[7] Such experiences of the mythic West are meaningful to Bodie's staff and visitors, for they provide a tangible connection to American social memory- to a past that holds meaning for them in the present. One of the Bodie's staff members explains: "When you're really thinking about -you can let your imagination run and think about a 1880s town because that's one thing I do, imagine it as a working town. I sometimes try to do it when I'm working too; I see the horse and buggies going up the road. It helps me to deal with the visitors. I'm supposed to be here and now but technically I'm then."[8] In Bodie, the landscape is as important for what is absent, what is visually represented. Bodie's absences are significant: the false-fronted buildings that line the town's main street are punctuated by empty spaces where other buildings once stood. The firehouse topped by a bell tower stands alone in an otherwise empty field: the large commercial buildings that once surrounded burned in the 1932 fire. Numerous houses cling to upper Green Street, but nearly all of those along intersecting Wood Street are gone. Visitors are keyed in to these absences immediately. As Michel de Certeau writes, "We are struck by the fact that sites that have been lived in are filled with the presence of absences. What appears designates what is no more. {What} can no longer be seen."[9]

HETEROGLOSSIA |Presence of Two Impressions

Looking at heritage critically requires viewing it not as a bygone past, but also as a future to be imagined and constructed.

And sites are considered not as mere inventories of the past, but rather as places where 7

Ibid, p 26

8

Ibid, p 28

9

Ibid, p 31| De Certeau, “Practices if Space,� 143

Fig 25: Kolumba Museum| Peter Zumthor, Cologne the new brick wall juxtaposed with the ruins of the religious building from the Gothic period in vertical contiguity

10 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)| Built Conservation and the Unfinished Fabrics of Time, p 33| David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi, On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1993

scent & space

38

of the Gothic Church of St. Columba in the old center of Cologne, not far from the city's spectacular cathedral, Swiss architect Peter Zumthor's Kolumba Museum stands as an equally uplifting and melancholic testament to the glorious and the bleak chapters of the city's past.[11] Zumthor's design delicately rises from the ruins of a late-Gothic church, respecting the site's history and preserving its essence.

He constructed the new brick wall of the Kolumba museum in Cologne (1997-2007) on the ruins of a religious building from the Gothic period in vertical contiguity with the vestiges of a historic stone wall. Similarly, circular steel columns, carefully inserted into the historic piers, reach down into the foundation. "They believe in the inner values of art, its ability to make us think and feel, its spiritual values. This project emerged from the inside out, and from the place", explained Zumthor[12] Architectural details offer concrete representations of time. They are 'time-junctures' that manifest material and cultural negotiations between past and present, in both a literal sense, by joining old and new materials; like knitwear masonry, stitched together, and in an allegorical sense through the articulation of meanings. The time lapse between additions leads to a Heteroglossia rather than unity of style. Gazing at time in a cross-narratives that occasionally resurface in a present condition, woven together through an open dialogue among authors separated by chronology yet united by a building's own fabric.[13] Zumthor used grey brick to unite the destroyed fragments of the site. The facade of grey brick integrates the remnants of the

church's facade into a new face for the contemporary museum. By articulating with perforations, the brick work allows natural ventilation, sound transparency, and diffused light to fill specific spaces of the museum, and hence conserving an ephemeral quality of the site as an open courtyard ruin, a condition that had persisted since the bombing of the site during the WW II. As the seasons change, the mottled light shifts and plays across the ruins, creating a peaceful ever changing environment.[14] Exploring notions of hybridity and multiplicity of authorship by Zumthor contributes to narrowing the gap between architecture and conservation, and reconciling the layers of history to the architectural continumm, while keeping and embracing the pre-existing fragments.

11 www.arcspace.com/features/atelier-peter-zumthor/ kolumba-museum| Kolumba Museum, Jakob Harry Hybel, 2013.

12 www.archdaily.com/72192/kolumba-musuem-peter-zumthor| Kolumba Museum / Peter Zumthor, Karen Cilento, 2010 13 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)| Built Conservation and the Unfinished Fabrics of Time, p 33 | George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Time, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1962, 99 1-4, 28-30, 96-9

39

scent & space

14

Ibid, Karen Cilento (2010)

Fig 26: Kolumba Museum| Peter Zumthor, Cologne the circular steel columns, carefully inserted into the historic piers, reach down into the foundation. By articulating with perforations, the brick work allows natural ventilation, sound transparency, and diffused light to fill specific spaces of the museum- preserving the ephemeral quality of the site as well

scent & space

40

THE PALIMPSEST|Appreciating the

Ephemerality Through Layers

The term palimpsest is derived from an ancient Greek word meaning -scratched or scraped again- and is typically used to refer to tablets that were written upon and scraped down to be reused, thereby revealing the layers of their own history. [1]In a more refined term, the notion usually refers to a writing surface on which the earlier, once eradicated writing has resurfaced after a passage of time. It gives physical presence to the past, which otherwise has been obliterated. In the epistemology of complete, perfect, and per-

Fig 27: Kintsukuroi The art of repairing pottery with gold or silver: appreciating the beauty of impermanence by highlighting the scar

manent architecture, we tend to forget the value of the sense of connection to the past, which architecture in general and architectural palimpsest in particular possesses beyond the aesthetic, functional, or structural aspects. And yet, recalling one's past through an everyday piece of architecture can be a meaningful experience. Purposeful revealing (by taking away layers added over time) or recovery (by adding back layers that have been taken away over time) allow the state of a work of architecture to remain matched to a specific time, most often the

1 Palimpsest: Unstable Paintings for Anxious Interiors| Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE| Kamrooz Aram| press release| 2014

41

scent & space

date of the building's construction.[2] Materials can speak, bear traces, indicate changes in time and trigger our memory.

When one debates about palimpsest, the notion of materiality becomes imperative.

It was due to the material specifications of parchment to which text was inscribed that kept its memory over time. Concerning materials, one should consider the quality of natural materials that age well (wood, weathered steel, granite, stone, brick), the juxtaposition of different materials, the manipulation of a material and traditional construction techniques. Craftsmanship, nature, color and atmosphere are also very important aspects. Regarding materiality, detailing is fundamental in order to experience spaces. Detailing is essentially about the joining of different materials. Palimpsest through detailing calls for the quality of natural materials, that is: the ageing of the material, the influence of time and nature on the material as seen through 'weathering' and the reuse ability of the building material.[3] There are some conflicting desires and expectations between the building of historical value and that of age value. When the observer wish the building as perfect or even read perfection into the eroded surface, than he deals with the building as a historical value. When he sees more of the incomplete state he tends instead to see its age value.

When the observer has extensive historical knowledge, it often takes away an opportunity of engaging otherwise, although this is not always the case. When the artifact is more complete, the observer tends to be drawn to its historical value, and vice versa.

Likewise, when the observer has more historical knowledge about the time the artifact is constructed, he tends to be drawn to the

2 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)| The Nine Lives of Building: Preservation, Conservation and Restoration, p 20 3 Palimpsest in Architecture| Robbert Verheij, Delft University of Technology| 2015, 32

Fig 28: Palimpsest: Unstable Paintings for Anxious Interiors| Artwork| Kamrooz Aram, 2014 Working serially, the artist begins each painting with the same floral form sourced from a Persian carpet. This motif is drawn across the surface of the canvas in a grid, creating an overall pattern. Aram then begins destroying and rebuilding this pattern through a process that involves additive as well as subtractive mark-making: wiping away and scraping down the painted surface over time to reveal previous layers.

scent & space

42

Fig 29, 30, 31: Kleopatra Haritou (from the Prosfiyika exhibition| Benaki Museum) An observer is drawn to a piece of architecture by way of the physical trace of past deeds and events inscribed on it- the building becomes an object of engagement beyond its building's function or aesthetics. Traces of things forgotten or left aside in a rush, and physical signs of human presence

are

scattered stories without a narrator.

43

scent & space

artifact's historical values, and vice versa.[4]

TOKEN OF ABONDANMENT The concept of palimpsest can be applied easily to the interior of a historic building.

Diverse layering over time contributes to the current essence of a space and can provide the basis for an environment that helps us remember what has come before and enjoy what takes place in the present as a new layer for future reflection. The architecture works like a parchment, a receptor that is affected by human maneuvers that leave a physical trace. An observer is drawn to a piece of architecture by way of the physical trace of past deeds and events inscribed on it. When this happens, the building becomes an object of engagement beyond its building's function or aesthetics.[5] Every house looks deserted when its owners move out, if only because it is scattered with tokens of abandonment. But they are stories without a narrator. Likely to the human presence in a space, his absence also marks impressions of his inhabitance; leaving behind traces of things forgotten or left aside in a rush. Kleopatra Haritou, through her documentary photographs of the Prosfiyika Housing Estate, exhibited at the Benaki Museum, shows that we leave behind as well the physical signs of our presence: the yellowish grey film on a now-not-so-fashionable wallpaper that speaks of smokefilled parties and burnt roasts, the cracks and gouges in a kitchen workbench, the grey outline on the wall that marked the presence of a sideboard. Our lives are witnessed in the warp and blisters and cracks in the space that was once home. A house may be a vessel for living, but it is one with a skin, and these marks contain a story just as the scars of surgery and accidents do, or the threadbare upholstery and sagging cushions of a worn 4 Allure of the Incomplete, Imperfect, and Impermanent: Designing and Appreciating Architecture as Nature| Rumiko Handa, 2015| The Impermenant- Palimpsest, p 145 5

Ibid, p 132

sofa.[6] Haritou was given the keys to the over 200 (mostly) abandoned apartments in the Prosfiyikahousing estate. She took them and wandered through the complex, taking photographs of the apartments and common areas, such as stairwells. The pictorial ephemerality in her documentary is not skulls and insects but instead abandoned toys and a pair of crutches. In one photograph we see a hook-studded grid of light and shadow that testifies to a gallery of family portraits that is no longer there. In another there is a telephone carnet in a room without a phone, in yet another single soiled mattress. We know nothing about the people who lived here other than they lived modestly, if we are to judge by the wire hangers, fold-out cots and old TV sets. We can perhaps also see that some may have left suddenly under the unhappiest of circumstances. But the photographs tell no story. Instead they are rich in suggestive detail, the domestic equivalent of the "empty road scattered with cannon balls, the mud encrusted on the caisson's wheels," of a wartime photographer who arrives at the scene of a battle only after it's been fought (Szarkowski).[7]

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM| The Scar of the War

Layering is used as a deliberate device of esthetic expression- the visible accumulation of overlapping traces from successive periods, each trace modifying and being modified by the new additions, to produce something like a collage of time. It is the sense of depth in an old city that is so intriguing.

The remains uncovered imply the layers still hidden.The historicity of the edifice and its parts turns into an archeology of time as the structure gradually reveals its layered archi-

6 www.sxchristopher.wordpress. com/2012/05/20/a-palimpsest-of-abandonment| A Palimpsest of Abandonment| SXChristopher|2012 7

Ibid, SXChristopher (2012)

scent & space

44

tectural narrative.[8] An additional important characteristic of the palimpsest is that the past perfect and the present co-exist.

The scars in the western wall of London's Victoria and Albert Museum retain the memory of the event that took place in 1944, during the WW II, when a flying bomb hit the other side of Exhibition Road. Today's passer-by often notices these imperfections on the stone surfaces. Although they quickly realize something significant has caused the damage, the may lack the specific knowledge of the cause or wonder why the damage has not been repaired. Some may interpret such imperfections as physical evidence of the institution's neglect of the building. The repair would have incurred substantial cost.

The damage to the wall was not threatening to the building's structure or the museum's function, and therefore it was left unrepaired.

A little more than four decades later, howev-

er, the institution received a letter from an innocent foreign visitor who demanded the reason why the building was left unrepaired.

At that point the museum decided to make explicit to the public the memory imbedded into the stone and commissioned a commemorative inscription.

Fig 33: Commemorative inscription on the Aston Webb facade of the V&A. Exhibition Road, David Kindersley.

Fig 32: Aston Webb facade of the V&A, Exhibition Road, showing bomb damage still visible today.

8 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)| Inhabiting Time, p 55

45

scent & space

The museum contacted David Kindersley to have plaque made that would state the significance of the damage. He proposed cutting the inscription into the building's Portland stone instead of producing a plaque to be attached to the wall. He realized that the 'inscription would be given greater significance by being cut into the surface of one of the sections of bomb- damaged Portland stone.'[9] Prominently located, the inscription was intended to draw visitors' attention. The stone that he selected has a blasted hole at the furthest right and had enough undamaged surface area for the commemorative statement. This gave more importance to the memorial. The clarity of the over writ9

Ibid, p 135

ing in comparison to the obscurity of the original writing makes the latter even more intriguing. In a similar manner, Kindersley's memorial is a text that is unambiguous in its message, which draws attention to the scar in the same stone, which otherwise may pass unnoticed. Kindersley's memorial gives univocal meaning to the scar by disclosing its provenance but at the same time closing possibility of multiple readings.

Some characteristics of how a building or its parts may work as a catalyst for recalling past deeds and events: in some cases, the original deeds may not have been destroyed physically by a human action, but instead the passage of time or the lack of historical knowledge on the viewer's part may be why the viewer does not pay attention. As to the agent of resurfacing, while time's passage brings the past into the present in palimpsest proper, a building that carries a trace from the past may require a designer's intervention to bring it to the public's notice. This is a telling observation about the way we interact with the building. We are not necessarily accustomed to reading what the building is saying by way of its physical characteristics even if it says something.[10] We sometimes need some clue to exercise our attention on a building. In the case of the Victoria and Albert Museum western wall, it is the imperfection of the stone work and the irregularity of the surface that allows this to happen.

We have expanded the meaning of palimpsest to the physical traces of past events that otherwise have disappeared to the present eyes, and we certainly can include them as architecture palimpsest.

10

Ibid, p 138

scent & space

46

THE IGUALADA CEMETERY |Barcelona's

Industrial Peripheral City of Igualada (1995) Architects are taught to resist the fatal circumstances of ephemerality. Yet some are willing to embrace it, using materials, spaces, ritual events and opportunities for participation to connect people to changes in their natural and social environment, for example by creating places for people to hear the sounds of children, see the weather change, join a neighborhood festival, or observe the decay of wood.[1] The Igualada Cemetery, constructed between 1985 and 1994 as a replacement for the Old Cemetery, designed

by Enric Miralles, is a project that challenges the traditional notions of what makes a cemetery. Miralles and Pinos conceptualized the poetic ideas of a cemetery for the visitors to begin to appreciate ephemerality and to understand and accept the cycle of life as a link between the past, present, and future.

"I want that my architecture has a quality of living beings, and it doesn't matter that they are imperfect, beautiful, or ugly. One finds that each work lives all the imaginable until its definitive disappearance. Only after arriving at its destruction can we think to build it."[2] The materials like concrete, stone, and wood, of the Igualada cemetery tie the project seamlessly back into the landscape, which reflects the authenticity of the place as well. The gabion walls, the worn/aged concrete, and the wooden railroad ties embedded in the stone ground-scape evoke the hard and rough landscape of the surrounding hills. The windy path is conceptualized as the river of life that moves from a wide 1 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|Time as Medium, p 62 2 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|Time as Medium| p 63| Monstserrat Bigas Vidal, Luis Bravo Farre’ and Gustavo Contepomi, ‘Espacio, Tiempoy Perspectiva en la Consttruccion de la Mirada Arquitectonica Contemporanea: De Hockney a Miralles’, EGA: revista de expresion’ grafica arquitectonica, 15, 2013, p 131

47

scent & space

open expanse in the Catalonian hills to a secluded memorial space excavated below the horizon.[3] At the Igualada Cemetery, the position of wood floor timbers cast into the concrete ground has been described as frozen in time.

The physical material decay of the same timbers dictates the notion of ephemerality of life, but it leads to hazardous conditions, forcing the owners to intervene to make repairs, to leave safety cones over hazardous openings, or to completely discontinue its use. Maintenance crews at the cemetery fill open gaps between the timbers with concrete. Timbers with significant decay are removed from the concrete ground and replaced with new ones. Similarly, many of the original Corten light fixtures at Igualda have decayed to the point that they have been removed, leaving their triangular bases as fragments of the past. Decay and deterioration shoe the passage of time, but due to safety issues also require careful judgment as to when to mark the final use of the work.

Replacing the timbers leaves new concrete adjacent to weathered older concrete- visible traces of the process of resisting time.[4] The growth of trees and vines at Igualada balances the decay of materials as if the architecture works to become one with the site over time: "It is impressive for a project to be placed in time through its use," states Miralles, "when you have a sensation that the thing is working on its own."[5] Space and vegetation are designed to be experienced over the course of a year through experiences of seasonal change and local rituals. The parking lot serves as both the beginning and the end. The faded color of the olive branches at the parking lot matches the color of the small stones covering the ground. In the 3 www.archdaily.com/103839/ad-classics-igualada-cemetery-enric-miralles| AD Classics: Igualada Cemetery / Enric Miralles| Andrew Kroll, 2011 4 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|Time as Medium, p 63 5 Architecture Timed| Guest-edited by Karen A. Franck, vol 86 (2016)|Time as Medium| p 63| Alejanddro Zaera-Polo, ‘A Conversation with Enric Miralles’, Enric Miralles: El Croquis, 72 (II), 1995, p 11.

Igualada Cemetery, leaves and pine needs accumulate under trees and within the steel and stone gabion walls, creating sensations of being one with the natural world and its cycles. Everything feels incomplete here. The life of the church is unfinished and slowly returning to its origins. The columns, that reveal its underlying steel by an incomplete casket of concrete. Unfinished materials allow nature to change them.[6] The voids gradually fills the empty wall tomb with concrete covers, transforming it into an abstract homogenous surface of white marble covers marked with specific names, years, text and photographic images of the individuals who now rest inside. Incomplete spaces allow bewilderment of how to occupy them. Such fatal circumstance of ephemerality at the cemetery offers opportunities to engage the participation of individuals and society.

The rusted steel gate whose unhinged disposition looks permanent. It creaks as if this were the first time it's been forced to leave its weed-ridden post. Weather has not been kind to these tombs. Mildewed water stains create impressions of miniature rivers that has evaporated after the previous storms and trail every lip or break in the concrete. Each tomb has a small porch on which flowers, candles, and other tokens of remembrance rest, close to the home of the ghosts. These presents to the dead are also dying. Flowers wilt. Candles have burned to their last. Watches no longer tick. This cemetery contains symbols of the state of death.

Looking down at the ground, this motif of death's passage continues itself even in the floor. Dead wooden logs scatter about the pebble-laced concrete. The wood erodes sometimes, leaving only its imprint in the concrete. Over time every log completes this vanishing act. The disappearance of a material, already dead and now disappearing again, gives life to this cemetery.[7] Everything dictates ephemeral nature of life. In all 6 www.graymatters.gatech.edu/2011/09/13/the-entrance-is-quiet| The Entrance is quiet| James Murray, 2011 7

Ibid, James Murray, 2011

scent & space

48

Fig 35: The life of the church is unfinished and slowly returning to its origins. Decay and deterioration shoe the passage of time.

Dead wooden logs scatter about the pebble-laced concrete. replacing the timbers leaves new concrete adjacent to weathered older concrete- visible traces of the process of resisting time.

Unfinished materials allow nature to change them. The rusted steel gate and the columns, that reveal its underlying steel by an incomplete casket of concrete. Everything dictates ephemeral nature of life.

49

scent & space

these ways, architecture can be recognized and valued as an evolving and uncertain process extending over time rather than as an immutable, pristine object imprisoned by a single moment.

scent & space

50

Chapter III

RESEARCH DESIGN

51

scent & space

The aim of the thesis was to understand the artistic conception of the novel, and to find a parallel between ‘scent’ and ‘space’; and to relate the art of the perfumer to the architect/designer. The scent and the perfumer are considered as the metaphysical objects in order to understand the notion of ‘ephemerality’ and its importance in our built environment as well as our existence and our desire to defend against this fatal circumstance- our attempt to eliminate the reality of vanishing time, erosion, ageing, decay, entropy and death- to make the building perfect. Our perception for beauty is intertwined with perfection and immutability which is, however a momentary illusion, and eventually a false ideal. The fear of mutability has led imitation a subject of trust, which has ultimately weakened the rootedness of place.

Understanding the ‘fear’ that Grenouille had- the fear of losing the scent and translating it metaphorically, I started my research by understanding the notion of ephemerality by studying the principle of Zen of ‘Form is Emptiness’ and understood the dependent existence of all things, which enables functioning because it enables change and transformation. According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river, and time resembles an indefinite series of “nows” (like seconds) passing from the future through the present into the past.

After analyzing the problems associated with use of materials and styles as well, and its importance in rootedness of place, I analyzed how ephemerality could be appreciated in our built environment analogous to scent.

I examined the novel and translated plots in order to deduce the results. I examined the notion of Wabi Sabi; how it appreciates the brief transience of all things, and how it prefers artlessness over perfect art. And then explored the term ‘ synecdoche’- how small fractions can amplify the importance and details. The pauses created by Gordon Matta- Clark into the buildings engaged imagination. Similarly the absence of the things

in Bodie’s town engaged the imagination of the visitors. I then studied Columba Museum and explored the term heterolglossia by analyzing how Peter Zumthor’s design of the new brick wall enhances the old and actually announces the presence of the old.

I then extended my research to the next phenomena- the notion of palimpsest, and studied how diverse layering through time on the architecture engages imagination.

Observer is drawn to a piece of architecture by way of the physical trace of past deeds and events inscribed on it. Kleopatra Haritou, through her documentary photographs of the Prosfiyika Housing Estate, exhibited at the Benaki Museum, brings attention to the ephemerality of the place. Similarly the inscription on the stone affected by the WW II bombing, of the Victoria and Albert Museum, works as a palimpsest; annoucing the event which before was unknown to the passerby, and amplifying the scar of the war engaging the viewer’s imagination to happenings of the past event.

In order to explore all these four phenomena, I then took the analytical study of The Igualada Cemetery, constructed between 1985 and 1994 as a replacement for the Old Cemetery, designed by Enric Miralles. The materials used reflect the authenticity of place and tie the project seamlessly back into the landscape. The physical material decay of the timbers dictates the notion of ephemerality of life, and its arrangement describes the ‘river of life’. The wood erodes; sometimes leaving only its imprint in the concrete. Unfinished materials allow nature to change them. In short everything here at cemetery dictates ephemeral nature of life.

After deducing these conclusions I would now further explore how these phenomena can be used in the local context, and how these four phenomena could be set as guidelines for analyzing and designing future constructions. I would further study various built environments that has considered some or all these notions discussed above in the interior space. scent & space

52

PROBLEM| Identification

hadn’t changed their function as well as their outfit in terms of the materials and setting since then. However some shops, although tucked in an old building, looked alien in its surroundings. The place had lost its identity! The old interior outfit was totally eradicated to be replaced by new style- probably the mix of different imported styles. Some had changed the concrete tiled flooring that dated 1930 and replaced by new modern Chinese ones, the complete furnishing didn’t speak of time continuum or of past.

This seemed like a patch on a piece of cloth, which has replaced a small cut-of-piece; and not too long when patches will outcome that piece of cloth- then the small fragment of cloth will be the only existence of its truth.

The place identity will soon fade away from the scene.

By understanding the necessity of continuity in the relationship between old and new and the importance of the spirit of place, my hypothesis then tends to provide guidelines for historical place in terms of its integrity, functionality and preservation within an interior space, such that it reflects time continuum. The space would also provide a transparency between present and the past such that it could become a place of experience as well.

Historic buildings give neighborhoods their distinct character and at the same time provide a tangible connection to the past. However, their history and that of their settings and their style, particularly in the enclosed interior spaces, are often ignored and not honored as part of our cultural heritage. Although the concern for preservation has grown for some important historical and monumental buildings and sites due to their distinctive style, design or use, by taking into account the adaptive reuse or restoration strategies. But less consideration is put on the other historical buildings and their interior spaces. Today modern styles and techniques, and materials often alien to the local style are adopted in the interior spaces, creating a discontinuation in the relationship between new and old.

Architecture and the enclosed interior space is the art of place which acquire a clear sense and understanding of our existence. The ‘spirit of place’ is an outcome of the concrete historical process, and presents the production of places as a multi-layered interaction between nature and culture into which ethnic and aesthetic considerations enter. So continuity must be prioritized instead of tearing down if the character of historic places is to be preserved over the long term. Changes that occur through time THE ELBOW ROOM |Analytical Study are supposed to further the sense of the An old warehouse in a modernist/art ‘spirit of place’ and deepen qualities of local nouveau building, converted to a restaurant, place. If a place’s identity has continuity, it the Elbow Room, is located at I.I Chundriresembles the ‘sense of reality’ experienced by humans.

PROBLEM| Observation My expedition to various parts of old areas of Karachi during a research program conducted by ADRL, IVS Karachi, in which I visited various old shops and old apartments near Pakistan Chowk, Burns Road and as well as Saddar, I found many shops that were as old as 86 years. Most of them

53

scent & space

Fig 36: 'The Elbow Room'- foyer view

gar, the most influential business district in Karachi. Tucked into a tributary lane right next to the old BCCI building, the Elbow Room reflects the reminiscence of old Karachi- a time where every new restaurant is trying the minimalistic approach and the heritage buildings are being destroyed for

the newer and shinier outfit.

Every element seems to know its place in the holistic composition. There is an entire theme that follows through the restaurant from the selection of doors, grills, seats, handles, sofas, wall surfacing, lights even

scent & space

54

the fans. The earthy tones of brick work and rough plaster is accentuated with dark finished wooden chairs and tables reminiscent to the local dhabba. The floor is treated with terracotta tiles punctuated with pattern-cement tiles. The subtle illumination from the light fixtures hanged low from the double height ceiling brings the warm tone to the place. The drape hanged from the high ceiling demarcates one space from another; akin to how drapery was used in local houses for privacy and division of spaces in the bygone era. A delicate wooden stair, right next to the front desk, originally belongs to the warehouse. Its wood was refaced and cast iron grills were added to construct an ornate balustrade. This staircase leads to the coffee room, a small area with, bamboo sofas and relaxed seating. The façade has

Fig 38: The fading signage near the entrance

55

scent & space

been changed from a dead masonry wall to painted doors and windows of a bygone era.

The cast iron lamp post announces the presence of the place and enlivens the street as well. Thus the exterior buzzes with the interior and the character of the restaurant, as a whole, strengthens the place identity.

LUCKY SHOPHOUSE |Analytical Study

Built in the 1920s, this shop-house used to be a book shop called The Lucky Book Store, and is located along Joo Chiat Place, in a conservation shop-house district in the secondary settlement areas of Joo Chiat and Katong in Singapore. The plan was to convert the shop into a dwelling place and to conserve and restore the front portion and to transform the concrete land at the rear into a garden where a single-storey house extension sits.

Part of the brief was to retain traces of the old shop; to rediscover, reveal, and protect the original structures, finishes, and detailing. For the front façade, the multi-layered paint-coatings were carefully removed to reveal its original tone and color, and protected with transparent sealers to prevent the surfaces from flaking. The fading signage ‘LUCKY BOOK STORE’, spotted on a front pillar, was retained as a reminder to what this place was.

Internally, non-structural partitions were removed so that the spaces, the old brick walls, timber rafters and floor joists, can be better appreciated. These were carefully restored, cleaned and protected. A row of cavities on the walls are left exposed to provide clues of how the spaces were once configured, indicative of floor joists supporting a mezzanine for additional storage space.

The existing height was kept, congruent with the neighbors’. The original second-storey slab for a side passageway leading to a corner toilet was removed to create a double-volume dining space. This became the common, popular gathering space that visu-

Fig 39: Retain, reveal, and protect the original structures, finishes and detailing of the old shop.

scent & space

56

ally connect the ground floor and the upper level, and it also opens out to the central garden space and overlooks the new rear house extension.

SITE| Identification “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought” Percy Bysshe Shelley While walking through the streets of Saddar one often encounters the buzzing life running at a maddening pace. There are shops selling everything from a transistor to the promise of a lustful life. With emerging unplanned businesses thriving today, one often finds difficult to imagine a town that used to be the social hub for the elite of the society gathering at bistros and bookshops.

That was the era of relative permissiveness, with nightclubs, bars, cinemas, and restaurants hosting the city’s vibrant nightlife.

Today looking at the traces of these disciplines and hearing their stories often plunge our imaginations into the glories of past.

Similar is the story of booksellers in Saddar. It takes a day’s long expedition to find some of what has been lost. One by one these stores have been shut down, only to be replaced by electronics and jewelry shops. If they totally disappear from the social scene, Saddar would lose its little remaining charm even more.

In a bookstore, time can escape us.

There’s just something about walking into a bookstore that makes a true reader’s heart jump for joy, in the company of poets and writers, scholars and thinkers. Either way, the journey into a bookstore is a completely different experience than opening a website or downloading a file. The digital slosh of e-books and Amazon-style e-retailers has put bookstores in an existential plight. This leads us to think for a different perspective; a place more than to just buy books. A place to experience!

Inarguably one of the oldest book stores in the city, Thomas & Thomas near Regal

57

scent & space

Fig 40: Thomas&Thomas Booksellers entrance

chowk has been widely popular among book lovers over the years. Although customers are rarely seen at the store now, renowned poets, philosophers and politicians like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, AK Brohi, and Sir Cowasjee were once seen scanning these same book shelves years ago, flooded with social science books.

The store was founded by two Thomas brothers- British gentlemen- in 1942, before the current owner Mr. Muhammad Yunus’s father bought it in 1948. The two tailor shops were adjacent to the store. At that time, it wasn’t the only store in the area, Mr. Mohammed Yunus remembered, indicating some other bookstores in the vicinity like Paramount, Pak American, Kitab Mahal, Greenwich among many others.

Today, Thomas and Thomas remains the only literary torch bearer in the vicinity. Its interior environment has not changed since 1948 with neatly stacked books at display.

One may find publications as old as eighty • Literary sommeliers who advise you years. They have the smell of times gone on what to read next. (“Booksellers.”) by. However some shelves remain vacant at • A dedicated area specifically for back of the store, and the store maintains its events. dingy, lusterless illumination.

• Readers wanting a more social experience can gather on bleacher seating (“simple timber steps with cushions”) to take part RE-INVENTING OUR HERITAGE in book clubs. |Bookstore • Comfortable reading areas, with In the past few years, bookstores have ready access to drinks and food. been one of the many industries that took • Desks that can be rented. a dip because of technological changes in • Multimedia interfaces in the store how people buy and read books. Traditional that allow for digital purchasing, reading of bookselling has been hit particularly hard by the shift to online shopping, which pro- online reviews, and other “sensory” experivides convenience along with competitive ences.

It is to conclude that bookstores that prices. Bookstores are losing their place as would survive and thrive will be the ones an essential part of the reading experience.

What changes are needed for the physical that have made themselves essential in new retail bookstores to remain viable businesses ways. and to gain back their fame as more book sales is been shifted online?

Today the physical presence of the bookstore greatly depends on one big thing –the community experience. Jon Lee (20.20), a creative director, emphasizes on the experience of the bookstore: “People won’t go into a shop because the ceiling’s beautiful. They’ll go in because the experience is relevant to their lifestyle. It’s what you do in a space that’s really important.”-enable customers to do something in-store that they couldn’t do on a smartphone.

Alex Lifschutz suggests an array of approaches to improve the experience of buying books: “small, quiet spaces cocooned with books; larger spaces where one can dwell and read; other larger but still intimate spaces where one can hear talks from authors about books, literature, science, travel and cookery.” The atmosphere is vital, he adds.

Exteriors must buzz with activity, entrances must be full of eye-catching presentations and a bar and café is essential.

Hoffelder summarizes some ideas to “re-invent” the bookstore make viable for the present time: scent & space

58

Chapter IV

CASE STUDIES

59

scent & space

L’INSTITUT by LUNDI et DEMI Situated at the ground floor of the French Institute Bucharest, the bookstore- L’Institut, Library Cafe par Cărturești, has its main goal ‘the reinterpretation of the bookshelf – the core element of a bookstore – and its

side of the bookshelf, it gives a transparent silhouette. The decorative look is a result of the obligatory manner of the positioning of the wooden elements that cannot be placed one over the other.

Fig 41: Appreciating the 19th century building and expressing its own personality- L'Institut bookstore

functional, structural and aesthetic redefinition’, as well as of its relation to the hosting space and its users. The new intervention is in a dialog with this impressive architectural environment, expressing its own personality, but remaining respectful toward the 19th century building.

The cafe and reading areas are part of the main function of the bookstore and offer the readers a complete view of the rooms.

The bookshelves that define the bookstore are distanced from the walls, being positioned perpendicular to them. This relation between the furniture and the walls express the temporary nature of the intervention and creates secondary functional areas, such as reading corner or protected access to the balcony. The oak structural elements are placed between the metal plate shelves, and together with the glass panels at the backscent & space

60

RONG BAO ZHAI COFFEE BOOKSTORE by Archstudio A 300 sq. meter large Rong Bao Zhai coffee bookstore is located in a well-known street in Beijing called Liulichang, which originally was a book store, selling ChiFig 42: Re-modeled traditional bookstore by interconnecting two programs: coffee house and bookstore

61

scent & space

nese painting, calligraphy publications, and cascades also serve as an auditorium during ancient books. The book store was a pseu- collateral events and allow customers to sit, do-classic architecture, and was built in the 80s by the government unified construction.

Recently this traditional bookstore model was improved, by interconnecting two programs- coffee house and the bookstore, in order meet the needs of today and attract more readers with its compound management model and diversified experiences.

Accompanied by a cup of fragrant coffee, people communicate with others, books and nature, creating a relaxing and comfortable reading environment with slow rhythm.

Unlike the traditional bookstore design, new design uses iron block to integrate transparency, functions, transportation, equipment and illumination and put green plants in the stores to make their internal space more continuous and open as well as full of vitality. The central district is islandstyle space surrounded by iron bookshelf walls. The central island on the first floor is used as cashier desk and coffee operating table; the second floor is the meeting room-a shiny box enclosed by switchable glass. The switchable glass can modify internal and external transparent state to make the meeting room more flexible for use. With soft membrane ceiling, the center island has a homogeneous integral illumination, which is just like indoor lanterns, and the coffee booths are interspersed around the center island.

BOOKSHOP AND COFFEE BAR by Plural &Totalstudio

Located at Bratislava, Slovakia, the Bookshop and Coffee Bar is a flexible space that not only sells books but also facilitates various collateral events such as projections, readings, minor concerts, workshops, etc.

Two focal points of the bookshop are placed at both ends of the longitudinal space. A check out is next to the entrance and a coffee bar is on the opposite side on an original elevated gallery, connected by cascades. The

Fig 43: Flexible space that facilitates various collateral events along with selling books

scent & space

62

read, relax or communicate through regular opening hours. Books are stored in long shelves along both sides of the bookshop, while new titles and bestsellers are displayed

at several mobile stands. The storage, deposit, office and lavatory are placed under the gallery and accessible via a staircase at the edge of the coffee bar and cascades.

Fig 44: cascades also serve as an auditorium during collateral events and allow customers to sit, read relax , and communicate

63

scent & space

scent & space

64

ChapterV

“

SITE ANALYSIS

You don't stumble upon your heritage. It's there, just waiting to be explored and shared”

65

scent & space

Robbie Robertson

Site Plan Thomas & Thomas Booksellers |Saddar, Karachi

Primary Road Secondary Road Tertiary Road

Road Accessibility

Parks/Landscape Old Bookstores Temporary Parking (Motorbikes) School Markets Old Cafe Residential areas Old Restaurant Other Business Centers

Analysis of the site surroudings scent & space

66

SWOT ANALYSIS Strength ㅧㅧ One of the oldest well known booksellers in Saddar. ㅧㅧ It has maintained its unique style of selling political, social sciences books alongwith other novels and books of national and international authors, instead of switching to publishing technical and other school books. ㅧㅧ Upon entering the shop, one experiences the essence of an old bookstore that is difficult to find in other bookstores in the town. ㅧㅧ The site is surrounded by various business centers including electronic market, cloth market, and historical buildings, some of which are of unique Renaissance style of the prepartition era. ㅧㅧ The impermanence of the bookstore resonates in harmony with the surrounding buildings.

Weakness ㅧㅧ Huge advertisement and shop sign boards, makes a visual chaos which makes Thomas & Thomas bookseller almost unexposed to the passerby. ㅧㅧ Inadequate measures are taken to announce its presence. ㅧㅧ Inadequate illumination within the shop creates unneccesary glare in one part and complete dark at the other, which discourages the visitors scanning through the shelves. ㅧㅧ No adequate gathering space for the book lovers visiting the bookstore ㅧㅧ The deodar/pine wood shelvings and the door as well as the wrought iron grill at the loft area above are been coated with thick cream paint layers from time to time. ㅧㅧ Some shelves are bent due to the weight of the books on the shelves

67

scent & space

and due to the humidity conditions. ㅧㅧ The shelves support/fittings doesn’t have any craftsmanship quality; thereby doesn’t encourage attention to the viewer. ㅧㅧ The height of the island rack at the entrance breaks the visual connectivity of the space, making the space look more dense as well as making the wrought iron grill at the loft not visible to the visitor. ㅧㅧ Inadequate placement of the wooden ladder. ㅧㅧ There is no opportunity to learn about the historical significance of the site.

Opportunity ㅧㅧ A tree near the entrance partially buffers the chaos of the pollution from the roadside. ㅧㅧ The floor storage cabinets fitted with hinged pull-down shutters with a chrome finish pull knob brings attention to it. ㅧㅧ The wooden ladder bears the impression of the usuage. ㅧㅧ The concrete floor tiles in the interior and step tiles at the exterior have become the identity of the past, since all other shops have removed them completely. ㅧㅧ The geometrical pattern grill at the split level gallery area welcomes the attention of the viewer’s eye, extending the experience of the space vertically upward.

Threat ㅧㅧ Open street second-hand book market is regularly held every Sunday at Regal chowk- a few steps away from Thomas & Thomas Bookstore, attracting many book lovers from various part of the city. ㅧㅧ The already claimed electronic market now, the bookstore has now become a ‘fish out of water’

scent & space

68

A

Open shelvings book display

B

Island book rack

C

Corner rack

D

Window display unit

E

Reception counter

F

Floor cabinets

G

An old ladder

H

Shed

F

A

A

E

G

B

A A

E

C

D

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

THOMAS & THOMAS existing ground layout plan

floor

46’-2”X 11’-7” SHAHRAH E LIAQUAT

69

scent & space

H

G

THOMAS & THOMAS existing loft plan 27’-9 X 11’-7”

scent & space

70

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

71

scent & space

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY “The door handle is the handshake of the building.”

Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses Different physical objects, from a brass knob attached to a door, or ornamentation or the architecture in large and its presence in the urban fabric, carry gestures and emotions and meanings. Objects may have existing symbolic significance that we recognize through their overall structure, and its meaning could be understood through our extensive interactions with them. Their functional design indicates how we may use them, their color and materials express the aesthetic qualities of the culture and their forms convey a combination of both logical and expressive meaning. The details of the form of the object and the craftsmanship can extend these underlying meanings to convey a more individual character.

As discussed, different physical objects express ephemerality by carrying the impression of time- not instantly but through a stream of moments, bit by bit extending far into the moment in future, bearing stories of events that bring imperfections. Analogous to the author who perhaps takes years to write a novel. He knits words to words, phrase to phrase. At the end of the book he remains not the same man he was at the beginning. He has developed his characters and has developed with them, and this always gives a sense of roughness to the work. Moreover, a novel/ literary piece have an influence on the reader; every word, the plot stirs up his imagination. His imagination becomes subdued, and his thoughts are captivated by the storyline that author created. His imagination becomes the slave of the story. Similar is the case when a person comes across an historical site or an object that has impression of time bore into it, or physical absence of the object of significance, it engages its imagination- subduing mind and mood. Their stories, the care and

love woven in its form and truth in its materials become a novel for a reader. It brings a momentary joy or sorrow in a person’s unconsciousness.

“Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it.

We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.”

Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness Understanding the sketch of the perfumer, Grenouille, in the novel ‘Perfume- A story of the murderer’ and the notion of perfume described in the novel, I found parallel between them and also to the notion of the novel and the reader and as well as the effects of place or object on the imagination of the subject of influence.

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it. ..And he knew that all this was within his power. For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”

The character of the perfume, by contemplation, explained by the author, is to lure and tame the emotions and mood of the subject that comes under its influence. It scent & space

72

takes away the power of our own feeling for a brief moment, and pours into us the heat of desire, lust and, joy and sorrow. It is then the unexpected situation, an unexpected joy, which is in between perfect joy and perfect melancholy.

The perfumer on the other hand, who himself doesn’t possess his own scent, which then tries to capture other scents, thereby taking away their desire to live. The art of the perfumer is also to bind scents in order to tame its freedom, keeping enough slit between those chains to keep its ephemeral condition. By contemplation, the perfumer could then be said to be the perfume himself, whose brief presence stirs the unexpected situation of joy, and bringing the desires and lust under his control, taming the emotions and mood of the subject. Its absence brings agony of the same intensity.

DESIGN CONCEPT| Development Understanding the notion of the perfume and the perfumer and the relation

between the novel and reader with physical objects, expressing ephemerality through the imperfections, and the viewer, and how they influence on each other, I extended my research further in order to translate these relations, the feelings, the moods, the emotions of imperfect joy and imperfect melancholy. I observed various artworks, abstract paintings, studied a couple of Arabic, French scents- how their smell stirred the emotion, the style of that emotion, the intensity of it, and also studied lighting mood that could be related for my conceptual framework. By listening to the soundtrack ‘Lost Love’ of the movie Perfume, I tried to translate it into visual form. All these were strictly personal observations.

The word Entice means ‘to lure’, and in relation to the novel ‘Perfume’, the scent lures the mind, the imagination such that it entangles the person’s emotion between two extremes: ‘joy’ and ‘melancholy’. This could be understood by looking at a flower that is at verge of death; the color variation becomes the visual image of the ‘entangle-

Fig 48: concept board: setting the mood for the interior of the bookshop

73

scent & space

ment’. This leads us to relate the word entice with another word enslave: meaning to cause (someone) to lose their freedom of choice or action. This parallel between these two words can be observed in various objects surrounding us, the diamond crystal- whose internal structure tames the freedom of light that has entered into it. Similarly are the ice crystals. The light piercing through the dust particles in an old room gives the impression of the entanglement and desire, and the softness of the light thus established relates to the subdued soul that has been brought into control.

scent & space

74

Chapter VI

DESIGN PROPOSAL

“

What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”

75

scent & space

Neil Gaiman, American Gods

DESIGN STRATEGY The action plan is to study the existing condition of the bookstore in terms of its existing layout, material and mood of the interior space, and its necessity within the town as a historical mark on the town fabric; and develop and propose a design framework in terms of integrity, functionality and preservation so as to announce its existence as well as to provide activities and strategic solutions to invite better economic possibilities. Strategies to be proposed within the interior space to provide a transparency and continuity between present and the past such that it could become a place of experience as well.

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM The development program is divided into four domains: ㅧㅧ Integration of the new materials and elements with the old such that it announces the presence of the old ㅧㅧ Maximising the functionality of the visual display of the books ㅧㅧ Preservation of the style of the racks and mood of the space. ㅧㅧ Qissa Khuwan- a social cafe lounge

expression) and putting text indicating the historical significance of the place. ㅧㅧ New racks to be introduced to accomodate more shelving space for the books ㅧㅧ Old wooden pieces to be re-used scraping the old thick paint, bringing the raw finish ( Wabi Sabi expession), and retaining some pieces with its original paint finish. ㅧㅧ The wooden ladder to be positioned on the central axis of the main entrance, binging it into the attention of the visitor. ㅧㅧ A social cafe lounge to be provided at the adjacent shop on the concept of ‘Human as a Book itself’- highlighting the story telling tradition. ㅧㅧ The cafe would highlight the use of the space in 1950s as a ‘ tailor shop’ and would highlight the concept of ‘Stitching’ in the design.

DESIGN PARAMETERS AND VARIABLES Understanding the notion of Wabi Sabi, synecdoche, heteroglossia and palimpsest and how we can create harmony with the ephemerality of things and appreciate its existence; and the connotation of the word ‘entice’ and ‘enslave’ and its relation to the feeling and mood of imperfect joy and melancholy, I deduce following parameters and vairaibles for the design: ㅧㅧ Removing some racks in order to accomodate seating, keeping most of the racks intact to its place. ㅧㅧ Creating voids/pause (a synecdoche scent & space

76

B’

A’

N

A

Bench

B

Window display unit

C

Large book rack

D

Rolling ladder

E

Reception counter

F

Sculptural art piece chair

G

Magazine display unit

H

Open shelving for books with slanted floor cabinets

I

Island floor book display unit with angled-shelf protruding at one side

J

‘New arrivals’ books display

K

Old ladder with designed metal handrail

L

Open shelf display unit

M

Coffee table

N

‘Yaad’- accent wall with text indicating the importance of the space

M

C’

D’

L

K

J

I H G

G E F

D C

C

B

A

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

B

THOMAS & THOMAS proposed ground layout plan 46’-2” X 11’-7”

77

scent & space

A

C

D

A’

B’

H

Open shelving for books with slanted floor cabinets

I

Island floor book display unit with angled-shelf protruding at one side

K

Old ladder with designed metal handrail

L

Open shelf display unit

O

Seatings for the visitors

H

I

C’

D’

C

D

L L

K

O

B

A

THOMAS & THOMAS proposed loft layout plan 36’-7” X 11’-7”

scent & space

78

B’

A’

C’

A

Bench

B

C

Traditional cafe chair with the ‘darzi table’ 2- seater bar stool seatings

D

Local cafe inspired stove

E

Tawwa

F

Brass canisters for milk and water storage

G

Refrigerator

H

Washbasin

I

Flat wood log piece of thickness 1.25” with metal joints

D’

H

G

F

D E C

I

B

A

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

B

CAFE QISSA KHUWAN proposed ground layout plan 30’-0” X 14’-0”

79

scent & space

A

C

D

B’

A’

C’

J

3- seater tradional cafe seatings

K

A fixed window slit, providing a transparency between bookstore and the cafe

L

Banquet style seating with stools and cushions

D’

L

K

J

B

A

C

D

CAFE QISSA KHUWAN proposed loft layout plan 20’-70” X 14’-0”

scent & space

80

section BB’| Thomas & Thomas Booksellers

Fig 51: The Power of Persuasion- Inspired from the observation of the typical gentleman otfit. The overlapping legs at the front dictates a man sitting on a chair with his legs crossed.

section AA’| Thomas & Thomas Booksellers

81

scent & space

Fig 52: view of the ‘ Yaad’ area - a reading corner to tribute the legends

Fig 53: the sculptural chair tucked between the weathered style wooden rack

scent & space

82

Fig 54: The Loft Wall - the weathered painted loft wall speaks of its entity. the inscription describes the typical smell of old books. the ventilation at the south-west wall brings fresh air inside and a hint of natural daylight through the slit- relating to the word ‘entice & enslave’

The Slanted Shutters Respecting the identity of the shop, the slanted shutters are retained with the original metal knobs; partially removing the paint creating a weathered style effect.

The display for new books and magazines have been improved so as to offer visual clearity of the stock.

Fig 55: Staircase railing design- corelating with the existing

Fig 56: The Loft Seating - The concept of the 'flower near to its death' is been reflected into the design of the legs of the table. the brass sphere at the bottom is a reflection of the hint of 'joy'

Fig 57: The grill at the loft gallery now painted with black metal color, grabs the attention of the viewer.

83

scent & space

Fig 58: Island of Books- the new replaces the old- angled shelving at one side makes easy for the visitor to look for the book.

Fig 59: The display for new books and magazines have been improved so as to offer visual clearity of the stock.

scent & space

84

section CC’| Qissa Khuwwa Cafe

Fig 60: The 'Darzi' tea table inspired from the sewing machine relating it to the tailor shop- the identity of the past

section DD’| Qissa Khuwwa Cafe

85

scent & space

THE ‘DARZI’| TEA TABLE The knife edge wooden table top is fused with the designed sewing machine legs.

The metal joinery then highlights the concept of stitch in the design, thereby indicating the joining between the two materials

QISSA KHUWWA| THE STORY TELLER Based on the idea of the traditional storytelling and human as a ‘story’ itself. the café reflects the identity of the place, which used to be a tailor shop in the bygone era, by designing every element in the space on the concept of ‘stitch’. It then becomes a communal space where literary people can meet and enjoy a cup of tea while listening to the stories of each other.

Fig 61: The west side interior view- the weathered wooden log with metal strips highlights the concept of ‘stitch’

scent & space

86

Fig 62: The typical cafe chair with the ‘darzi tea table’- arrangment of four

THE BAS RELIEF TEXTURED WALL The idea of the textile pattern knitted on the fabric is reflected on the wall, with low releif pattern camouflaged at the lower part of the cafe.

The idea then indicates metaphorically the palimpsest notion- revealing the layer of the past usuage.

Fig 63: A view from the kitchen counter- the typography wall

87

scent & space

SCENT & SPACE the ephemer al e xpre ssion

indus university karachi, pakistan 2016