170531 mrunal panchal 9th semester walking as (nomadic) act

Walking as (nomadic) act.

A critical written reflection . Spring’17 Arkitektskolen Århus . Studio 2C Building cultures & tectonic . Semester 9

Mrunal Jitendrakumar Panchal

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“……..So then, yours is truly a journey through memory!”

The great khan, his ears always sharp, sat up in his hammock every time he caught the hint of a sigh in Marco’s speech. “ It was to slough off a burden of nostalgia that you went so far away!” He exclaimed, or else: “ you return from your voyages with a cargo of regrets!” And he added sarcastically: “ Meagre purchases, to tell the truth, for a merchant of the Serenissima!”

For an hour he had been toying with it, like a cat with a mouse, and finally he had Marco with his back to the wall, seizing him by his beard:

“This is what I wanted to hear from you: confess what you are smuggling: moods, states of grace, elegies!”

These words and actions were perhaps only imagined as the two, silent and motionless, watched the smoke rise slowly from their pipes. As the puff carried the smoke away, Marco thought of the mists that cloud the expanse of the sea and mountain ranges. The sponge swollen with vital matter that no longer flows - the jam of past, present & future that blocks existence calcified in the illusion of movement: this is what you find at the end of your journey.

An explorer’s account illustrated from the dictionary of imaginary places.

MANGUEL, A. & GUADALUPI, G. (1980) the dictionary of imaginary places, Houghton mifflin harcourt publishing company, New York.

CALVINO, I. (1978). Invisible cities.

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Chicago

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Preface

This narrative is a tale of reading, perceiving and mapping of a territory in the countryside landscape of Denmark. In this process of writing, the form is proved to be catalyst to reflect upon the architectural matter. Over the course of the tale, the approach would carefully be balanced between practical & fantastic.

Therefore, the reader should take for granted that the fiction is fact in this tale and should treat the text as one treats a report of an explorer.

The project is based on a journey in countryside Lime. A journey that strengthens its meaning with reading of ‘Walk-scapes’1.

This has resulted in a tool for reading and designing of the place that celebrates events & acts along the path.

The site consists of three geographical elements; such as a gravel pit, woods and an ancient burial mound in the outskirts of Lime.

Depending on these three elements, there are three operations inserted within the territory. The slow operations are scattered though connected through a path. This journey along the path in this landscape is a combination of spaces; each representing a peculiar geographical situation:

space of perceiving, space for pause space of going

Establishing an order to this path is initiative, connecting both the external and internal context of the human mind & body.

Here, the architectural path of events is thought of as “walking - an aesthetic practice”. A practice that celebrates and creates peculiar conditions making the architectural matter of it’s utmost endemic nature.

Three geographical elements Burial mound . Forest . Gravel pit 1

CARERI, F. (2002) Walk-spaces : walking as an aesthetic practice Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona

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Three operations introduced

A path designed to initiate walking - as an aesthetic practice

space of perceiving . space for pause . space of going

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A space constructed by vectors of erratic pathways, by a series of geographical features connected to memories, mythical events and assembled in sequence. Keeping with the fixed vertical & horizontal reference: the sun & the horizon.

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Approaching the site:

gravel pit as an ‘urban void’ in Lime: The site is located at one of the highest places around Lime.

In the past, the area was richly occupied with burial mounds which has now worn out. One of the last remains of these burial mounds has shifted from being called pløskjærhøj, pyskærhøj to pluskehøj. The land is owned by the Syddjurs kommune today which originally was owned by a farm house in Lime, built in 1920. It was used as farm-land for many years before the mining & quarrying took place for the purpose of producing cement.

....to another urban void, bringing new portions of order into the chaos of the periphery

The gravel pit has attracted many memories of Lime citizens as it used to function as a place for recreational activities. Today the gravel pit is merely a void, where the activities of Skt. Hans Aften is held. This for my interpretation is seen as a symbolic act of worshipping nature & celebrating seasons.

The initial readings of the village, lead to concern about the identity in the age of constant mobility. Mobility that has become a characteristic of our period and a concept of fragmented community. Lime used to be thriving mercantile community until 1950. Districts (with guilds) in association generated the need for a richer scale of activities which in turn gave identity to the ultimate community.1 But with modernization in agrarian landscape, what has remained is a fragmented community where the inhabitants struggle to find their sense of belonging & identity to the place.

...from one urban structure to....

How could these fragmented communities be replaced with a more balanced organism which is suitable to modern times?

Because attempt of re-identifying man with his environment cannot be achieved by using historical forms as the social reality they represent, no longer exists with the changing times.

The project thus intent to investigate into the following research question: How can architectural intervention become an entity to re-gain & retain the psychological momentum of the place that is well integrated within it’s immediate context?

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“ .......the voids are fundamental part of the urban system, spaces that inhabit the city in a Nomadic way. Moving on every time the powers that be try to impose a new order.......”

Transurbance - Walk-spaces: walking as an aesthetic practice.

Smithson Alison & Peter (2005), The charged void: Urbanism the monacelli press; first edition.

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Methodology and approach The way movement, density & velocity of the sun, water and wind creates a specific condition within the nature, the act of walking on the designed path creates a very site specific story in-side the gravel pit. As mentioned in the text ‘the innermost being of architecture’ by Jørn Utzon, the architectural intervention can be compared with that of nature of seed.

The seed reflects the admirable workings of the earth that are specific to the place it stands - making the architecture of its utmost endemic nature.1 This atmosphere allows ability to grasp the unconscious details of man’s surroundings that often is celebrated in form of memory. The tale inside the gravel pit, celebrates these layers of memory in Lime’s fragmented community by practicing the mundane act of walking. It is by walking that man begun to transform the natural landscape of his surroundings.

An erratic space inside the pit is seen an abstraction of its past without a direct imitation. In this act, interaction of foot-steps with the three geographical elements creates three site specific atmospheres.

The nomadic practice consists of three operations in the territory which consists of following acts:

a. act of arrival in the landscape (where the landscape is container for the mind & body)

b. the dynamic act of archery which involves ritual of repeating the acts of drawing, holding & losing of the bow. The repetitive act is an instrumental for mental equilibrium.

c. Menhir in the landscape that orients & guides to the next act of sitting where one concludes the journey in this landscape. The act of sitting which is as per the Japanese philosophy is an important posture - oriented towards nature.

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Sambuichi, H. (2016) Architecture of the inland sea, Toto publication, Japan

To elicit our unconscious reactions until they become conscious to us ought to be our starting point. By rehearsing our ability to grasp these differences & their effect on us, by being in contact with our surroundings, we find our way to architecture’s innermost being...... The true inner most being of architecture can be compared with that of nature of seed and something of the inevitability of nature’s principle of growth ought to be fundamental concept in architecture.

Jørn Utzon Logbook Vol. V, Additive Architecture.

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Table of content 1.1

map showing weaving of narrative

1.2

the acts

1.3

first impressions

Landscape as protagonist

three geographical elements:

gravel pit . woods . burial mound

1.4

Thoughts & reflections on text references

1.5

Genesis of space of going

space of staying

1.6 Genesis of three operations

1.7 An architectural translation through representation

1.8

Conclusion

1.9

References

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Mapping showing span over which the narrative is built..........

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06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

visit to the five villages in country side midtjylland

collective manifesto : Lime

individual manifesto Symposium on Tectonic cultures

lectures & readings Utzøn centre Michel Sheridan on Ralph Erskine Mary Hvattum (tyranny of place) Sambuichi: architecture of the inland sea

study trip - wanderings in Skåne & north Sjælland

City hall extension by Eric Gunnar Esplund in Gothenburg

St. Petri’s church in Klippan by Sigurd Lewerentz

walk in the forest of Hellebæck

in conversation with Jan Utzon

A walk with Michel Sheridan at

Louisiana : museum of modern art

Visit to Cisternerne _ conversation with Alex H. Lee

Mid review

Introduction to the text Walkspaces by Francesco Careri--------------------- Hiroshi Sambuichi Lecture at KADK Insight into spelwell as an indegenous specie of architecture in western India

Hand - In...........

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The acts…………………… to cross a territory

to recognise a place to attribute aesthetic values

to walk on a path…

to comprehend symbolic values to explore

geography

to venture into…..

to descend to climb to trace

a ravine a mountain a form

to tread to visit to narrate to traverse (to travel across)

a line a stone a city a map

to guide oneself to observe to listen to celebrate to navigate to sniff

though smell…. the plants to ditches dangers a desert a forest

to err

to breach to meet to populate

a continent an archipelago sensations

to submerge

to construct to find to take to trail

relations objects…. seashells ……a leaf……a stone… phrases People & traditions

to wander

to track

animals

to enter to interact with to hurdle to investigate

a cave a grating a wall an enclosure

to follow

your instinct………..

to leave to not leave

a station platform traces……

The list contains a series of actions that have only recently become part of history of art. As a whole they can become a useful aesthetic tool with which to explore and transform the nomadic paths & spaces of the contemporary civilisation.

to get lost

“Before erecting menhirs - known as benben in Egyptian, man possessed a symbolic form with which to transform the landscape around him. This form was walking -an act that comes naturally after a continuous practice in the initial months of human life. It was by walking that man begun to construct the natural landscape of his surroundings.”

CARERI, F. (2002) Walk-spaces : walking as an aesthetic practice, Editorial Gustavo Gilli, Barcelona

to penetrate

……………………………….....To cross the territory

The act of crossing a space stems from the natural necessity to move & find the food & resources required for the survival.

But once this purpose is satisfied, walking takes on a symbolic form that has enabled man to dwell in the world. By modifying the sense of space crossed, walking becomes an aesthetic act - penetrating the territories of unknown, constructing an order on which to develop the architecture of situated objects. A mundane act like walking from which springs menhir, sculptures, architecture & landscape. This simple act has given rise to the most important relationship man has established between the land & territory.

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First impressions from gravel pit

After aimless wandering that started

from the village square near Brugsen; It is holding its own space - a hid-out in the periphery of village. The thick forest from far makes it seem like a mysterious place.

I assumed it to be a place for

‘diffused dwellers’ who came to grow vegetables without permit, to walk

their dog, to have a picnic or probably to make love in the woods.

As I descend, my horizontal reference to horizon gradually replaced with

the trail formed by the footsteps of by-passers.

At this point my care-free wandering was replaced by a more conscious act of walking and observing the territory. As I moved through the

territory, I was being contained by the earth around me & the scantily grass

on the highland. I crossed the terrain,

until I found a much cavernous space in the north-west corner which lead me to the woods.

I ascend reaching for the thick woods which creates almost a screen-like

effect before revealing what the land holds on the other side. Only upon

reaching the woods I discovered the

burial mound on the other end. Sitting at the highest place around the

village it provides a stage for vantage point to the countryside landscape.

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Thoughts & reflection of text references

PEREC, G., & STURROCK, J. (1997).

Species of spaces and other pieces.

London Penguin Books. a tale of a wanderer a narrative is a way of depicting the world; it is descriptive yet abstracting. “is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank paper.” - Perec,G. (1974) species of spaces.

The narrative is the path; an im-material architecture speaking of time and space, not fully belonging to it.

The drawing is the particular place; a re-presentation of a material architecture described through the illusion of space and time.

The travel is controlled by impulses and a reactions and the tale is told inbetween - in the gaps of vast spaces and species of places. A true traveller is pending between attraction and repulsion of the explored excavations; of the familiar unknown.

The tale becomes a landscape - a blanket embroidered and stitched by events. the path is an immaterial architecture. It is “a rhythmical space, geographically defined” -Careri,F. (2002),

....................attributing character to each operation walkscapes.

The rhythmical space is the home of the risen stone (the menhir) and of the eternal walk - and becomes an erratic path of ‘forking futures’ - JOHNSON, B. (2005). A garden of forking paths.

CARERI, F. (2002) Walk-spaces : walking as an aesthetic practice, Editorial Gustavo Gilli, Barcelona The landscape deciphered by man probably resembled that of the walkout: a space constructed by vectors of erratic pathways, by a series of geographical features connected to mythical events and assembled in sequence, and it was probably ordered in keeping with the fixed directions of vertical and the horizontal: the sun and the horizon.

The mere physical presence of man in an unmapped space and the variations of perceptions he receives crossing it constitute a form of transformation of the landscape that, without leaving visible signs, culturally modifies the meaning of space and therefore the space itself.

Before the Neolithic era, and thus before the menhirs, the

only symbolic architecture capable of modifying the environment was walking. An action that is simultaneously an act of perception and creativity, of reading and writing of the territory.

HERRIGEL, E. (1971).

Zen in the art of archery.

New York, Vantage Books.

The act of drawing the bow, holding & loosing itself is a way to achieve the state of ego-less soul - sunk within itself, stands in the plenitude of its nameless origin.... that was not this letting go of oneself, of which the master had spoken, a stage on the way to emptiness and detachment?

The demand that the door of the senses be closed is not met by turning energetically away from the sensible world, but rather by a readiness to yield without resistance.

The more one concentrates on breathing the more the external stimuli fade into the background.....In due course one even grows immune to larger stimuli and at the same time detachment from them becomes easier & quicker.

GENESIS of

‘spaces for staying’ and ‘spaces of going’ The history of walking, of migrations of peoples and cultural and religious exchanges that took place along intercontinental trajectories. The slow operations of appropriation and mapping of the territory was the result of the incessant walking of the first men.

In one of the chapter he talks about the primordial separation of humanity into nomads & settlers results in two different ways of living in the word & occupying space. As we read in Genesis, the first sexual division of humanity - Adam & Eve is followed in second generation by the division of labor and therefore of space.

The two great families into which the human race is divided have two different spatial experiences: one that of the cave and plough, excavating the space from the body of the earth, and that of the tent that moves across the earth’s surface without leaving any lasting traces in which shifting traces remain visible only until they are erased by the wind.

These two ways of dwelling correspond to two conceptions of architecture: an architecture seen as physical construction of space, and architecture seen as perception and symbolic construction of space. Observing the origins of Nomad- settler polarity, the commonly held belief is that architecture was born of necessity for a space of going as opposed to wanderings and nomadism - understood as spaces of going. There is much more profound relation that connects architecture to nomadism through the notion of the journey or path. In fact it is probable that it was nomadism or are precisely the ‘wanderings’ that gave rise to architecture, revealing the need for a symbolic construction of landscape.

Just as the sedentary path structures and give life to the city, in Nomadism the path becomes the symbolic place of life of the community.

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GENESIS of three operations

spaces for perception . spaces of pause . space of going

The text references have shaped the atmosphere of each operation introduced in the gravel pit - strengthening the journey along the path. Walking, though is not the physical construction of a space, implies a transformation of the place & its meaning.1 The first operation contains space of perceiving landscape, as one descends to the gravel pit. A realisation of losing the horizontal reference of horizon and gaining the consciousness with need of orientation.

The path guides further until the Kyudo pavilion initiates another operation that contains space for pause. The act of archery which is in Japanese called Kyudo - is hovering over the borderland between sports, arts & self development. The martial art of archery has a strong spiritual side but not a religious. The ceremonial act inside the Kyudo has it’s own functions supporting the programme.

From where act of pause sets a wandered on the path again, it leads to the Sacred ritual chamber which is operation of connection between the act of archery & the concluding act at the burial mound. The ritual chamber is where the mythical events & the seasons are being celebrated on your journey to the third operation. The chamber acts as ‘Menhir’ in this landscape that guides or orients the passage to emptiness & detachment.

The spaces inside the chamber serves more of contemplation chambers - where archers could practice on the repetitive act of breathing, which is important part of the training as an archer at the Kyudo pavilion.

The last & concluding operation reveals itself as one wanders through the thick woods, which represents the act of sitting concluding the journey in the gravel pit and orienting towards the countryside nature.

Landscape - a blanket embroidered and stitched by events in gravel pit.

1

CARERI, F. (2002) Walk-spaces : walking as an aesthetic practice, Editorial Gustavo Gilli, Barcelona

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An architectural translation through representation

Landscape as an experience ..........and suddenly the architecture became a path of erratic, vertical and horizontal points. architecture came to be consisting of a water, sun and landscape where each celebrate the path. Surface consisting of points of events connected by lines, whereas “roads no longer merely lead to places, they are places” (JACKSON, J. B. quoted in walkscapes from a sense of Place, a sense of time).

The

island

is

Nature as artifice

Drawing, as a conceptual strategy in ‘the articulation’ of an idea; and parallel to this is the narrative, which became the programming strategy and a means for a ‘critical written reflection’.

quintessentially

feminine.

She gives birth, holds together,

for a balanced organism

There are countless devised theories generated about concepts of regionalism. All explicitly proposes to regain the architectural connection with the place. This can be attain mostly by two methods as it has been seen in the practice: one approach is of engineered optimization while the other is the approach of architectural intuition going by idea of genius loci with which a spiritually gifted architect can grasp an illusive immortal changeless spirit of the place. The works of Hiroshi Sambuichi reflects on this striking balance between the energy scape available in form of natural elements of the place and the built spaces.

The built space becomes merely a mean to sculpt these natural elements sun as ‘sun’, ‘wind’ and ‘water’. This has become an inspiration for carving out the built environments for my project as they emerge out of the earth revealing the details of the earth.

b

supports, serves and releases.

She is not a must, but a may. She is not either – or, but both – and.

a

She challenges everyone to come to terms with him- or herself daily.

a’

She is not a masculine field for organization, hunting, accumulation, Approx.

11 mtrs. deep

power and demonstration.

Karl-Heinrich Müller (1936-2007) Hombroich – An Open Experiment

Section aa’ 1: 1250

b’

2C l Lime

A place of remembrance

Archery (Bueskydning) Pavilion

Insel Hombroich 1982-94, Erwin Heerich Neuss, Germany - A unique ensemble of art, architecture and landscape

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“Each work of architecture must reflect the admirable workings of the earth that are

grasping the bow,

specific to the place it stands. The landscape of the earth that we find beautiful are the landscapes of the endless cycle: autumn leaves, snowscapes, trees silvered with frost, the ebb & flow of flow of tides - magnificent natural phenomena constitute landscapes that are wrought by earth’s energy. I think of these as ‘energy-scape’. It is the earth’s details that give rise to these energy-scapes. If we can understand these details, then we can realise works of architecture whose form & appearance reflect the marvellous

nocking the arrow, raising the bow,

drawing and remaining at the point of highest tension, losing the shot.

workings of the earth. This architecture intern will give rise to new energy-scapes and as a result, will become part of the earth something the earth accepts.

The differences between landscapes & waterfalls, fog and great rivers arise from the differences in the speed of the water in those landscapes. These beautiful landscapes are energy scapes each one as a product of the speeds in their specific topographies and climates give to wind, water, heat and other ‘moving materials’. In my thinking the form & appearance should be a product of the speed of materials such as water & air.”

- Hiroshi Sambuichi

Section through the tea pavilion in Kyudo 1: 200

Kyudo pavilion 1:500

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Conclusion My experience of walking in the countryside of lime is being translated in narrative. The functions are mere means to end of wanderings in

the countryside. Based on the nomad-settler polarity the architectural elements inserted in this landscape are the instrument to celebrate the events along the path inside the gravel-pit.

From

Francesco

Careri’s

text

‘walk-spaces’,

the

doctrine

of

transformation of landscape & menifestation in physical form, refers to

the horizontal & vertical fixed direction in the landscape such as sun, moon & the horizon. At the same time the functions introduced are oriented around the resources that are available in nature termed as

‘moving materials’ by Sambuichi. The spaces of staying & going in this

landscape emerge out of its immediate context making it almost that of nature of seed that follows principle of growth in nature - making the architecture of endemic nature. The atmospheres of these spaces are

seen as species that bridges the gap between the past & present that is calcified in the present within its changeless spirit.

My readings from the Dictionary of the imaginary spaces, All that is

solid melts into air & invisible cities have inspired the form of writing. In

this tale landscape becomes protagonist. Landscape & the functions Kyudo pavilion 1:500

are seen as complimenting entities. As mentioned in the excerpts in the beginning from invisible cities, I hope that the reader may be able to smuggle some of the vital matter at the end of his or her journey.

Good Transurbance!

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References

BERMAN, M. 1988 All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity.

New York, U.S.A., Penguin Books.

CALVINO, I. 1972 Invisible Cities Florida: Harcourt Brace & Company translated by WEAVER W., CARERI, F. 2002 Walkscapes: Walking as an aesthetic practice Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili HERRIGEL, E. (1971).

Zen in the art of archery.

New York, Vantage Books.

MANGUEL, A. & GUADALUPI, G. (1980) The dictionary of imaginary places, Houghton mifflin harcourt publishing company, New York.

SAMBUICHI, H. 2016 Architecture of the inland sea Toto publishing house, Japan Smithson Alison & Peter 2005 The charged void: Urbanism The Monacelli Press; First Edition edition Utzon, J’s Logbook, Utzon, J. - The Innermost Being of Architecture, written in 1948

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