Sypnosis

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2018) Name: Poh Jia Jou

ID No.: 0327192

Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip

Tutorial Time: 10am

Reader/Text Title: A Global Sense of Place

Synopsis No: 1a Author: Doreen Massey

Can a global sense of place be retained in this era of globalization without the territorialism? What are the implications of the networks of social relations, movements and communications on the notion of place? By exploring “A Global Sense of Place” by Doreen Massey, we may have a better understanding on the sense of place which is relevant to this era of time-space compression. (p.1) An era where things are speeding up and spreading out, time-space compression is more prevalent than ever as internationalization takes place (p.1). Today, individuals spend more time than ever before travelling to and from extensive parts of the world. Through the medium of technology, one can agree that distant places seem nearer. A person who is a thousand miles away can be seen or heard in an instant. The physical distance is squashed by technological advancements. Agreeing with the author, this is evident from the marketing of various products available globally today.

Nevertheless, time-space compression has led to an increased level of uncertainty about what we meant by places and how we relate to them (p.1). According to the author, power geometry is how the time–space compression affects people differently. Power geometry is described as the "very distinct ways in relations to flow and interconnections" between different social groups and individuals. This beckons the question: How has all these socially varied time-space changes, affect the true meaning of the places.

First, the author has argued that places are not frozen in time, they are in fact processes (p.7). As places may be conceptualized in terms of the social interactions which are implicitly tied together, these interactions themselves are not motionless phenomenons (p.7). Second, places do not have a clear, defined boundaries. Instead of regarding places are areas with boundaries, they can be imagined as articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings (p.8). Third, places, which the author argues, do not have single identities but multiple ones. People's routes through the place, the connections they make between here and the rest of the world vary enormously. If it is now recognized that people have multiple identities then the same point can be made in relation to places (p.8) In a nutshell, ‘time-space compression’ is a term that has been frequently used in everyday language for several decades. The argument is becoming more relevant as time goes by. Today, time is compressed, pace has accelerated, and the materiality of distance is shrinking. In reference to the arguments of a progressive concept of place made by the author, a space is not a dead flat surface across where we walk. Every place has its own uniqueness and importance. If one stops at any point in that walk, there will be a story to cross. Raymond Williams once spoke about looking out of a train window and there was this woman clearing the grate, and forever in his mind she was stuck in that moment. Of course, that woman is in the middle of doing something, it’ s a story, but maybe she is going away tomorrow to see her sister, but before she goes she must clean that grate out as she’s been meaning to do it for ages. Space is alive, it acts as a cut through the myriad stories going on. Space and time has become intimately connected.

Word Count: 563

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BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2018) Name: Poh Jia Jou

ID No.: 0327192

Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip

Tutorial Time: 10am

Reader/Text Title: Learning From Las Vegas

Synopsis No: 2a Author: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour

Does symbol or form dominate space in architecture? A surprising and thought provoking finding on the built environment of Las Vegas Strip, the meaning in its bright signage, ‘Learning From Las Vegas’ is published by architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour along with twelve other students. They learnt from the existing landscape and looked at things from a different perspective.

It is mentioned that modern architecture has preferred to alter the existing environment of Las Vegas Strip rather than enhance what is already there (p.3). The authors felt that the allusion of symbolism in architecture was lacking in present-day (late 70s) modern architecture. They argue that spatial relationships are created through symbols rather than forms. Las Vegas could offer that lesson in architectural symbolism and communication that was a break with modernism's heroism and individualism, the inappropriate and largely implicit symbolism of industrialism.

It is evident that Las Vegas Strip has an architecture of communication over space, achieved through different styles and signs. In the land of opportunity, symbol dominates space. Architecture however, takes a backseat. Because the spatial relationships are made by symbols rather than forms, architecture in this landscape becomes symbol in space rather than form in space (p.13). As billboards become a symbol and identity of Las Vegas, the architecture is overlooked in which they are given importance over everything else. This leads to the question: Why did Las Vegas relied upon symbolism over architectural forms?

A critique on modernist architecture is demonstrated in the comparison between the "duck" (modernist architecture) and "decorated shed" (pre-modernist architecture). Disapproving the “ duck ” , the author proposed the decorated shed. A building where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are submerged and distorted by an overall symbolic form is termed a “duck”, whereas a building only identifiable by signage, with systems of space and structure directly at the service of program, and ornament is applied independently, is called a “decorated shed”, such as big-box casinos, roadside hotels or restaurants with big signs.

In a nutshell, Las Vegas has redefined a new type of urban form where architectural symbols and information can easily be communicated rapidly in order to accommodate the modern rapid lifestyle. However, symbolism in architecture has caused buildings to lose their original meaning and they begin to fade away as empty shells.

Instead, architecture should create place-making, unlike Las Vegas whereby “ If you take the signs away, there is no place” (p.18). Wouldn’t a city be much more interesting if it had more unique buildings instead of generic ones?

Word Count: 439

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BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2018) Name: Poh Jia Jou

ID No.: 0327192

Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip

Tutorial Time: 10am

Reader/Text Title: The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture

Synopsis No: 3a

and the Senses

Author: Juhani Pallasma

“The hands want to see, the eyes want to caress.” by Goethe. Our experiences are the result of our perception and senses. We experience by what we see, what we hear, smell, taste and touch. Without our senses, there would be no experience. In the book “The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses” Finnish architect, Juhani Pallasmaa speaks about the importance of including all five senses in the art of shaping buildings. The author recalls that dominated by the visual sense we forget what is the most important – and that is the spatial experience we are invited to.

Since the late eighteenth century, architecture has been predominantly taught, practised and critiqued as an art form of the eye, prioritizing visual stimuli over other sensory stimuli available to a human perception. We constantly rely on it as we analyse our surroundings. Overwhelmingly, digital images such as advertisements, television and cinema also suggest that the spectacle of vision is dominant in society. Digital and virtual technologies have brought issues of materiality and embodiment against tactility (sense of touch). “ Every touching experience … is multi-sensory; qualities of matter, space, and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton, and muscle.” (p.41). Touch connects us to the world. Touching and being touched is essential to our well being. In the book, Merleau-Ponty and George Berkeley related touch with vision; and assumed that visual apprehension of materiality, distance and spatial depth would not be possible without the cooperation of the haptic memory (p.42). A haptic memory is information that can be recalled that was originally collected by the sense of touch (tactile sense). An example of a haptic memory would be recalling what a textured plaster wall feels like. Upon recalling it, we remember the feeling of the uneven surface and its roughness.

As humans, we seek sensation. If we leave out the physical sensations – be it enjoying the sounds and scents of nature, listening to music, moving our body – we will be losing our sensuality instead of inviting sensory intimacy. Design should be created using all senses, not for the sake of visual perfection only. Architects such as Steven Holl and Louis Kahn design architecture for all senses. Rather than impressing the users with an eye-catching design, the buildings stimulate those who wander through them with their atmospheric complexity. Both architects use one medium in particular: daylight. Holl designed Chapel of St. Ignatius with seven ‘bottles’ of light sitting inside a stone box, each of the light volumes corresponds to a part of the programme of Jesuit Catholic worship. Kimbell Art Museum by Kahn is designed to penetrate natural light into the spaces.

In conclusion, the author expresses the importance of the tactile in architectural experience in oppose to prevailing visual understanding towards architecture. In my opinion, it seemed that the thesis of this book was to express the author’ s discontent about the growing obsession and priority of the eye and the gaze above all other organs and senses. The eye for the author is a flattening and a distancing organ. In architecture all senses are important, the more senses we engage, the more aware and sensitive we are to our environment.

Word Count: 547

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