Degree Project Proposal- THESIS

To the memory of my grandfather, Abdullah Al Mohasen, a calligrapher, poet and essayist. May your stories live within us and around us.

Everything must change, for everything to stay the same.

-Giuseppe Tomasi

Without memory, without reading traces of the past, there can be no recognition of difference, no tolerance for the rich complexities and instabilities of personal and cultural, political and national identities. (Huyssen 1994, p. 10)

Abstract

Architecture only came to preserve memories and represent it on tragic events, or when a crisis occurs, and to praise victories or iconic people. While architecture failed to take into consideration on keeping and remembering the smaller things and objects that shape our everyday life. The project explores ways in which architecture could fill in the gaps that we fail and continually struggle to fill by erecting monuments, walls, museums and memorials, I am exploring the unfolding elements of peoples memories of the past, as Craig Barton wrote in his book Sites of Memory “ In our everyday lives, memory is a natural, perhaps automatic, by-product of the manner in which we think about an unfolding episode. Unfolding implies that episodes are not static but dynamic recollections. They are encoded and retrieved, evoking the exploration of stored memories”

As Henri Bergson wrote in Matter and Memory “whenever we are trying to recover a recollection, to call up some period of our history, we became conscious of an act subgeneric by which we detach ourselves from the present in order to replace ourselves, first, in the past in general, then in a certain region of the past- a work of adjustment, something like the focusing camera”

Exploring the different segments of memory, this thesis responds on how to document, preserve and interpret our memories and represent it in built environment. The theory that the scale of tragic or heroic events could be on a smaller scale that occurred over time rather than on a certain event.

This project will explore executing the different elements, by defining different geometries, looking at different forms and materials, extracting from written journals and photographs and also archiving photographs and journals. “something like the focusing camera”, zooming in and out of the elements will also be a technique in which I will explore, to zoom-in and looking closely at the form and zooming out to see how it sits in the space and environment.

Content

1

2

3

4

Degree Project Statement

Memory Crisis

Memory and Architecture

Memorials and Monuments

5

6

7

8

Site

History

Preservation| Identity| Envirnoment| Heritage

Case Studies -The Vietnam Veterans Memorial -September 11 Memorial -The Jewish Musuem

9

10

11

12

Context

Typology

Form and Matter

Response

13

14

15

16

Spatial Concepts

Methodology

Time

References

1

Degree Project Statement

What we consider to be “collective memory” refer to humankind history regarding significant loss, this overlooking the loss of craft and process. “memory crisis” is searching to certain architecture elements that may seem insignificant to most. Losing these ‘minor’ elements will not only lose cultural heritage, but also unique craft. An archive must be created to memorialize possible loss of such notion, as well as how to incorporate this into everyday lives.

MEMORY

mem·o·ry mem(o)rē/ noun 1. the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.

2. something remembered from the past; a recollection. synonyms: recollection, remembrance, reminiscence; impression

2

CRISIS

cri¡sis krčsis/ noun 1. a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. synonyms: emergency, disaster, catastrophe, calamity.

2. a time when a difficult or important decision must be made. synonyms: critical point, turning point, crossroads, watershed, head, moment of truth, zero hour, point of no return, Rubicon, doomsday.

3. the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death.

3

Memory and Arhitecture

Memory During the 1980’s, many studies came out about collective memory and the shapes and forms it can take. This was the beginning of the ‘memory boom’. Places of memory- Katie Digan The memory boom was out to discover how and why buildings and places transform from regular places to ‘carriers of memory’.

History plays a vital role in our everyday lives. We learn from our past in order to achieve greater influence over our future. History serves as a model not only of who and what we are to be, we learn what to champion and what to avoid. Everyday decision-making around the world is constantly based on what came before us.

Therefore, memory and recording memory is a vital method to revisit the past.

Places are saturated with memories and the knots of memories gradually loosen up when a person enters into a dialogue with the past.

Memory And Architecture Over the years we have become so profound and interested on documenting and preserving memories. But how do we preserve memories into built form? Memory is an intangible space, its all mental and a series of thought process. Architecture is tangible, it’s physical, we can see it and touch it.

When we first thought of documenting memory, we began writing journals, taking photographs and painting. Architecture sought to look for a new way to preserve memory into built form. Those methods are still applicable and in them like architecture, it evolved overtime.

Buildings gather meaning to them by their everyday function. By there presence in the townscape and by their form. They can have meaning attached to them as structures or, sometimes, simple act containers of meaning and history. Each role evokes memory.

As I go into different places and try to discover the memories of the past, I loose connection. For generations we have put memories into memorials, into monuments, into museums, but we have failed to find memories in all the little things, such as the roads, the sidewalks, the doors, the windows, that plays a vital role in our everyday life and shapes who we are and what we do. We found ways into praising people’ for example The Lincoln memorial’ or to display a tragedy’ world war ||, the Kolumba museum’ and events such as the holocaust’ the jewish museum, but there are things that over time change and slowly become “extinct”.

Extinct in a way that it is no longer remembered, but slowly forgotten. How can we turn our memories for future generations to learn from, to see, to feel, to experience without the need of building something monumental.

In the Oklahoma City Federal Building, a field of empty chairs was used to mark where ordinary people fell victim to an attack on a government. This was to honor the victims who were employers to the government for there service.

The Kolumba Museum, was put together after World War || in a city that was almost completely destroyed by war. The museum houses the Roman Catholic Archdioceses collection of art, that is a thousand years old.

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, was built to bring back the jewish presence into Berlin. The Lincoln Memorial, provides a nation conscience into us. The Vietnam Wall, representing the names of who died in service in the Vietnam war. The Berlin Wall, has become a cold iconic war symbol.

These iconic walls, museums, monuments and memorials have made us loose track of maybe connecting with future generations at a deeper level of just surface visual interaction. How can we

4

impact and leave an imprint on those that follow us, to teach them or to remind them of what was” through our memories and those that passed before us. We create meanings through our memories. why is it that we only present our memories at times of tragic events and iconic people? what if we are living in a tragedy of forgotten memories, memories that didn’t occur in a certain event, but overtime. Breaking memories into “elements”, not just one. These elements eroded form what was once a “whole”?

Memorials and Monuments are built to recall the past and provide conditions for new responses in the future.

we are living in a tragedy of forgotten memories, memories that didn’t occur in a certain event, but overtime.

Monuments and Memorials

Memorials were built to signify the importance of past situations or influential people. It gives us the security of “keeping a memory”. Some memories could be tragic and painful, so how can you represent something without giving a reminder of the pain, but rather the “complete memory” of what was. We should wait until a good time after a certain tragedy, rather that build the memory right away. We should find the purpose of why were building it. is it to remember them? or not to be like them? or sometimes the memories are too painful that we don’t build anything and bury it forever. In the creation of place, Douglas takes the memorial of Abraham Lincoln as an example.

We learn from our past. We build it to consider trauma and rethink and reactualize the past.

It is also there to warn us and remind us of the past for the future. Memorials and Monuments is, a place of memory, a place for mourning, a place for reflection and healing, a place for ceremony and a place for collective action. These spaces and structures become the re-creation of a person, or a deed, or an event.

“A monument in its oldest and most original sense is a human creation, erected for the specific purpose of keeping single human deeds or events.. alive in the mind of future generation” Alois Reigl

They are created for future generation to see the truth, the lesson and the projections it wishes to project. they are there to tell us “Remember this, this was important- others sacrificed something of themselves here for you” Douglas Allen

Memorials create a space where the non-physical is housed and evoked, enabling a fusion of the viewer’s own memories and those of the creators. They are spaces where specific mem-

ory, physically located, is guided as a catalyst to a direct experience in which time can collapse and we join the past in a truthful, comprehensible way.

Memorials are spaces of dreaming, reflection, not otherwise accommodated in our market driven world. They present what is absent. According to Alois Riegl “A monument in its oldest and most original sense is a human creation, erected for the specific purpose of keeping single human deeds or events alive in the minds of future generations.”

“Remember this, this was important- others sacrificed something of themselves here for you” Douglas Allen

what is worthy of being preserved for future generations and what is not. This obligates future generations to hold the lessons we leave behind for them. Thus, better understanding who we are and how we relate to each other. This is where people could internally connect with themselves, discover some attributes such as “identi-

ty�, but also for them to care, love and cherish that area or place by feeling a personal connection to it.

When each person feels this connection within themselves and then comes in as a community and shares this internal feeling of connection, the community becomes stronger, and the energy will become stronger.

Our built environment functions as a text narrative. Memories remain embedded in the form, remain to be unearthed, read and decoded.

Built structures serve as memory devices.

They materialize and preserve the course of time and make it visible. They concertize remembrance by containing and projecting memories. They stimulate and inspire us to reminisce and imagine.

Societies have long sought to protect and preserve their cultural heritage, for reasons ranging from education to historical research to the desire to reinforce a sense of identity. The benefits of preserving is good for the neighborhood, for the environment and for the economy. Building on the past for our future.

The process of memory characterizes every human society constantly by choosing, for both cultural and political reasons, what is worthy of being preserved for future generations and what is not. Its hard for someone to grow up without the real sense of a family history or heritage.

We fear the thought of being forgotten and we can’t bear the thought of leaving with no trace of our existence. We don’t want to disappear. we want to be remembered, we want to keep our memories alive and we want to say that our lives matter even when we are long gone. Every community should contain a social order element that reminds the members of there obligations to others, both past and future. This obligates future generations to hold the lessons we leave behind for them.

“When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls bearing resiliently on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory.” -Marcel Proust, Sense of Touch

5

Places are good and necessary in our lives, they create memories. We need to think about where we are and what is unique about the place we are in. Thus, better understanding who we are and how we relate to each other. The mental connection people have for a certain, or at a certain place is what makes architecture interesting.

“Memories lodge in places that are distinct.

Axes, orchids, platforms, boundaries, openings, canopies, and markers, when interwoven with our movements through them and the light that plays cross them, set out an intricate web of relationships that can ensnare moments from our lives and hold them in safekeeping.” Castello Di Gorgonza describes, the roof, the flooring, how you walk through the spaces, how narrow the hallways are, the angle of the walls, the physical attributes of these spaces become a chamber for your memory of that place.

Places could also be a place where community members could come in open this safe lock of memories and share it among each other, thus bringing the community closer together. Memories could be shared as an ongoing dialect.

This is where people could internally connect with themselves, discover some attributes such as “identity”, but also for them to care, love and cherish that area or place by feeling a personal connection to it. When each person feels this connection within themselves and then comes in as a community and shares this internal feeling of connection, the community becomes stronger, and the energy will become stronger.

How do we make people care about their environment, of places, objects and things? Is it by connecting them to it? The human body, “humanity”, cant connect if the person themselves cant connect to themselves and there own community and looking within themselves and that what surrounds them.

Memories could be shared as an ongoing dialect.

Preservation.

Identity.

The sense of identity is essential to survival, of individual, family, group and neighborhood. When we go too far from identity and loose connection, we become alienated and dissociated from our surroundings and our environment. We no longer feel the connection between people and place.

As said by Paul Brislin in Human Experiences and people, in 2012, “The making of space has an inseparable and complex place in the making and sustaining of human identity”, spatiality, that of which mankind has defined through geographies, urban planning and place is what determines the power of relationships that we create and how we operate our societies and individuals and that reflects on the human body, conditioning their and our behavior. Our understanding of the world begins defining through the space around us. “Our body, our consciousness and the space we live in- we live in it, and it lives in us”. Architecture and the spaces we make and shape, inhabits us, it defines how we feel and respond to our surroundings. “We, our identity and the physical world, are intimately and inseparably connected by the way we create space, and the way we exist in it”.

“Cultural identity, a sense of rootedness and belonging is an irreplaceable ground of our very humanity” Juhani Pallasmaa. Homogenization is slowly eroding the feeling of belonging and its flattening and equalizing the differences between people from different geographies. The sense of identity that nurtures us is slowly becoming lost. The human population is not doing anything about this, there response to this loss is unspoken.

Envirnoment.

“If identity is essential to our survival, if spatialization has an implicit and essential part in the making of identity, and if this sense of identity is being eroded, then what are the qualities of an architecture that can nurture people and provide an equilibrium between rootedness and alienation?”

The sense of identity is tied to our surroundings. Our surroundings is being eroded along with our identity. What makes our surroundings a “whole”? Our environment is composed of everyday elements, such as the door knob on the door, the door itself and where the door is placed, are just a few of these elements that compose this “whole”, the whole that makes up our daily routines, from sleeping, waking up, eating, and moving along with your daily activities.

Memory is a key tool. To retrieve and to maintain all that has been lost and all that should remain and not be forgotten.

“Our body, our consciousness and the space we live in- we live in it, and it lives in us”.

Heritage

6

Case Studies

Maya Lin

Vietnams Veterans Memorial

“The night is over. We see these men and know them once again and know how much we owe them, how much they’ve given us, and how much we can never fully repay” ( Reagan 2). Ten years after the end of the Vietnam war, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall was completed.

We will deconstruct the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. into three main parts: the black wall cutting into the earth, the names inscribed on the wall, and the statue of the soldiers as they were.

The purpose of the VVM is to honor members of the United States Armed Forces who fought and died during the Vietnam War. The memorial is a 250-foot polished black gabbros walls sunk into the ground. 58,000 names are inscribed, of servicemen who were declared killed or missing during the Vietnam War. The names are listed in chronological order, visitors who come to view the names are able to see their own reflection on the black walls. The memorials end points on one side, points to the Washington Monument and the other to the Lincoln Memorial.

In her commentary on her design, Maya Lin states, “I wanted to create a memorial that everyone would be able to respond to, regardless of whether one thought our country should or should not have participated in the war” (Lin 2). For some the wall was a symbol of shame, for others the wall evoked a lot of different interpretations and reflections.

The wall acknowledges past forms of memorials, by pointing at there direction, The lincoln Memorial and the other at the Washington Memorial, but because the wall is different from the traditional forms of memorials, the pillars of white granite replaced by black gabbros, its highly controversial. The wall is also not visible, because how it is placed onto the ground and sunk inside of it, that the only way you could see it, is by approaching the site.

The abstract form Maya designed for the memorial created an atmosphere in which one can have his own personal reflection instead of the the site containing a determined narrative memory, it gives you an opportunity to have your own analysis and your own interpretation of the memories. Although the form is abstract, the names inscribed on the wall are of a representational form, as Maya have said “a name directly represents an individual. It is a word that stands for a being. The names as representations of individuals tend to evoke very specific memories about that individual” By visiting the names and locating those they knew and lost, visitors are able to evoke and reflect upon very personal, specific memories. Maya Lin also discusses the representational nature of the names in her reflections on her design, writing, “the use of names was a way to bring back everything someone could remember about a person . . . the ability of a name to bring back every single memory you have of that person is far more realistic and specific and much more comprehensive than a still photograph”

The names are in chronological order of death, the chronological grouping of deaths would tend to group those who died around the same time together As Lin describes, “a progression in time is memorialized. The design is not just a list of the dead. To find one name, chances are you will see the others close by, and you will see yourself reflected through them”. The names do still have a slight abstraction to it, by allowing the viewer to see there own reflection. In a sense, this “created a psychological space for them that directly focused on human response and feeling”. This allowed the viewer to also portray there own sacrifice and at the same time memorialize the names inscribed.

FOOTPRINT 250 foot walls are angulated, in which one end of the wall points at The lincoln Memorial and the other at the Washington Memorial, thus creating these two angulated lines where the walls sit. A

ENTRANCE The VVM, unlike enclosed museums of memorials and monuments, is open to the public, with no enclosure.

It is sunk beneath the ground, that it cannot be seen unless you are close by the site. This allows people to interact with the memorial in an open urban context.

FORM The form appears to be emerging from the ground, the form also allows the walls to point at previous memorials and monuments, repecting there memories and past. It also determines the flow in which the names would be inscribed.

GEOMETRY Maya’s decision to place the names in chronological order of the death, allowed visitors to see the groups of soldiers who passed away together. Here we are reflected on time and connections among the soldiers.

ORDER The walls inscribed names begin at the top of the center east panel and ends at the bottom of the west panel, this allows a full cirular motion of time and connections, a continuous flow.

MATERIAL Black gabbros, which acts as a mirror reflects on the objects infront of it.

I wanted to create a memorial that everyone would be able to respond to, regardless of whether one thought our country should or should not have participated in the war... I had a simple impulse to cut into the earth. I imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up, an initial violence and pain that in time would heal. The need for the names to be on the memorial would become the memorial; there was no need to embellish the design further. It would be an interface, between our world and the quieter, darker, more peaceful world beyond. The mirrored effect would double the size of the park, creating two worlds, one we are a part of and one we cannot enter.

Davis Brody Bond

National September 11 Memorial

After the september 11 attacks in 2001, Davis Brody Bond was to design a memorial museum to honor the memory of those who tragically lost there lives during the attack. The museum was to be built at the location of the former World Trade Center in New york City. The Museum is to tell the story of 9/11 through multimedia displays, archives, narratives and a collection of monumental artifacts.

Entering the museum, the visitors pass through a pavilion, which provides natural light into the depths of the museum, displaying two structural columns rescued from the original towers. Then descent into the first, belowgrade level of the memorial hall, this transition moves your senses from the bright and active life of the plaza into a more quieter space. Then you walk into a gradually sloped path, which is described as a “meandering ribbon”, which is suppose to represent people to be drawn by gravity. At key points, there are composed views and overlooks into the space, showing artifacts and historic resources. The scale of the site becomes clear at this point.

The visitors will then reach the last viewing platform, which is the West Chamber. This space contains foundations from the original world Trade Center. This is the third stage of the experience. The column bases and concrete footings that suppose the twin towers are exposed in the floor slab of the museum, which outlines the former Twin Towers. There is also a exposed retaining wall, known as the “slurry wall”. This wall is covered with photos and written testimonies, because it is the last structure removed form ground zero.

The fourth stage of the museum experience is an escalator ride from “bedrock” back to the memorial hall. Walking back to the place you start seeing the life outside in the city, followed by the fountain.

The site sits on the former site, but the museum is reflected and built underground. Above ground, fountains take the footprint of the previous Twin Towers.

Daniel Libeskind

The Jewish Museum

“Between the Lines”

“The new design, which was created a year before the Berlin Wall came down was based on three conceptions that formed the museum’s foundation: first, the impossibility of understanding the history of Berlin without understanding the enormous intellectual, economic and cultural contribution made by the Jewish citizens of Berlin, second, the necessity to integrate physically and spiritually the meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness and memory of the city of Berlin. Third, that only through the acknowledgement and incorporation of this erasure and void of Jewish life in Berlin, can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future” (from Daniel Libeskind’s project brief).

The form is made up of two linear structures: One zig-zag the other straight. There is a void form the ground level to the roof, when the two structures intersect. This expressive form is used to explain, through form, by using solids and voids to explain the Jewish lifestyle before, during and after the Halocaust. The void is to express the feeling of absence and emptiness.

SITE

ENTRANCE Entering through a large concrete void, visitors descend to an underground basement level. On the outside the two buildings look like they are sperated, but the are connected underground the passage connects the old and the new building

There are three different underground axes that intersect, expressing the connection between three different stories of the German Jews.

1) Axes of Continuity: Leading to the exhibition galleries. (symbolizes the continuum of history) 2) Axes of Emigration: Leads both to daylight and to the Garden of Exile and Emigration, where a matrix of co ncrete boxes contains a series of willow oaks. (Recreating the sense of disorientation and instability felt by the exile) (Also, representing those who were forced to leave Germany) 3) Axes of Holocaust: Leads to a dark dead end where the Holocaust tower lier. Walking through a path that contains glass cases containing objects that belonged to some of the people killed by the Nazis.

AXES CIRCULATION It was designed for visitors to get lost, hiding and losing direction and to feel anxiety before reaching where the three routes intersect at the basment level.

FOOTPRINT The buildings footprint was created through the slicing and fragmentation of the star of David, overlaid on the plan of Berlin.

The form of the building also related to the surrounding site and its relationship to the streets that bind the exterior grounds. By allowing the form to twist and fold back on itself in plan it is able to produce courtyards within its own boundaries.

SKIN AND FACADE The non-oxidizes zinc coating, allows the facade to age, change color and accent the sliced windows that are cut through the building surface.

The strip windows on the zinc panels of the museums facade, projects dramatic displays of light onto the walls o the buildings interior.

The skin of the building acts as a physical materialized diagram of the city past. The apparently arbitrary fragmentation of the buildings facade is a map of the Jewish history within Berlin. The architect located the former dresses of residences Heinrich Von Kleist, Rahel Varnhagen, Heinrich Heine, Walter Benjamin, Mies Van der Rohe and Arnold schanberg. He connected these addresses through lines that bisect the site and projected those lines onto the buildings skin.

DECENT

CONTINUITY

EMMIGRATION

(EMOBIMENT) PHYSICAL

DECENET

LONG PASSAGE

COMPRESSION

EXPANSION

WASHED LIGHT

EXILE

DEATH

(EMOBIMENT) EMOTIONAL

CAUTIOUS FEARFUL

TIRESOME RELENTLESS

SUFFOCATING CONFINED

EXPOSED BE-LITTLEING

HOPEFUL ALONE

Qatif is a city lacking any kind of archive. The only archive available are photographs and personal journals taken and collected by the people. The historical heritage needs to be preserved and documented. The only tools we have of whats lost is our journals, photographs and our memories.

7

Site

Qatif located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and by the western coast of the Persian gulf, is one of the oldest settlements in Eastern Arabia. Qatif is derived from “Qattif ”, which means “harvest” or “grain”, from its name you know that the region is famous for its Agriculture and its very prosperous. For centuries Qatif also functioned as the most important trade part in the Persian Gulf.

Being inhabited for more than 4000 B.C and having many civilizations and dynasties emerging from it, an ancient area should be composed of layers and layers that are visible through its urban and architectural form.

Unfortunately, the history of this region can not be seen, but only through photographs and journals. Whats been lost, is lost, demolished and soon forgotten.

How did we end up where we are? suddenly everything that we once felt was a part of us, to being a stranger in your own hometown and a visitor in your own home. we once built our houses from the sand that surrounded us, now we import cement to build our concrete walls. we stopped teaching our children how to carve a wooden door and started buying ready-made industrial doors. We are loosing connection of place, connection between people and place and the connection between people and people.

to being a stranger in your own hometown and a visitor in your own home.

8

Year

Dynasty

899

Qarmation

988

Buyrids

1071

Uyunids

1253

Usfurids

1440

1515

Jabrids

Portugues

1549

1913

History

Ottoman Rule

Ibn Saud

The city of Qatif has went through many different dynasties and different rulers, yet there are no memorials, no monuments and no museums. Museum Crisis goes back in time and brings back what should have not been left behind and to bring it to the present day for others to experience, to see and to learn the different times the land has went through.

The city of tomorrow is yesterdays

ARGICULTURE Qatif is the prosperous in Agriculture.

Unfortunately the Agriculture fabric of the region is slowly diminishing and we are loosing fertile land.

Context

HYDROLOGY

8

ARGICULTURE

HYDROLOGY Qatif is located by the Persian Gulf coast.

The body of water gave the city an opportunity to be one of the most important trade locations in the past. Qatar is also known to have the largest fish market in the region.

URBAN FORM

HABITAT

HABITAT The desert is also not too far from Qatif, you get the harsh hot summers and the desert cold winters.

URBAN FORM The urban fabric changes from west to east, from irregular to regular from.

These elements shape our everyday life. soon they will vanish, taking away our memories, emotions and our identity.... Memory Crisis, breaks down these elements, to discover the memories embeded in these forms and materials and also discovers a deeper connection of emotions, identity, culture and heritage.

10

Typology

In the wake of modernization the traditional Saudi building materials and techniques were abandoned. The vernacular earthen construction was of dignity and identity, soon this representation was forgotten in this specific region. Master builders and crafters knew how to build and construct using traditional methods and materials, there skills and knowledge were suitable for local conditions and situations. These master builders would have fulfilled the local needs, financially, economically, energy and resources. Unfortunately, these lessons and knowledge is fading away.

We begin understanding cultures through the evidence of built form, the architecture. Built structures start acting as memory devices. They materialize and preserve the course of time and make it visible. They contain and project memories. They stimulate and inspire us to reminisce and imagine. Buildings are storage houses and museums of time and silence. The recollection of places and rooms generates the recall of events and people. Our built environment becomes functioning as a text or narrative.

The vernacular architecture used in Qatif uses the raw earth materials, which creates natural ventilation and depending less on energy, an optimum thermal comfort. Modern construction today, super heat loss and over heating.

The process of the structure, construction, use and modification becomes a give and take, between the environment, the individuals and society as a group. The practice of cob construction is an art taught and passed down from one generation to the next. With modernization, the tradition has stopped, training future builders the art of cob is lost. The modern system took away the time younger generations could be spent with the older generations, to teach them there experiences, there wisdoms and there lessons.

11

Modernization replaced vernacular practices. Load-bearing walls or rubble, stone, cob and adobe is being replaced by concrete. Local traditional craftsmen are being replaced by foreign specialists.

“Although Architecture is often defined in terms of abstractions such as space, light and volume, and buildings are above all physical artifacts. The experience of architecture is palpable: the grain of wood, the veined surface of marble, the cold precision of steel, the textured pattern of brick�

Built structures start acting as memory devices. They materialize and preserve the course of time and make it visible. They contain and project memories. They stimulate and inspire us to reminisce and imagine. Buildings are storage houses and museums of time and silence.

Form And Materiality

Architecture often forgets that one of its primary goals is to trigger an emotion. Architecture can create emotions and change the way we experience spaces. We need to keep talking about the kinds of emotions we want to create. The project triggers a linking mechanism between things, so they can assume a meaning to the user, becoming an efficient tool to know of the world. Things, objects, the world of references, transform our sensations into remembrance.

The fundamentals of architecture is not how it looks, but how we feel it, through the way it allows us to act, behave, think and reflect. Words, photographs, smells, sounds, and places trigger sudden outbursts of images of memory. With time, and repeated interchange, we color our memories with emotions and opinions. The individual images can eventually come to express complete attitudes or characters of oneself or the family, or of the feeling of a whole period of one’s life.

According to Suzanne Langer, when we perceive forms that correspond to analogs, they awaken the memory of the emotional structure of the original experience, they objectify the feelings.

Memory thus influences the cognitive process at the deepest level of perception, where the structure of feeling and the structure of form interact.

“Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this mediation takes a place through the senses” Juhani Pallasmaa

Our world is filled with stimuli that makes objects and events around us alive. This is how we connect with the world, by our sensations, by touching, by tasting, by seeing and by hearing. The stimuli gives us the opportunity to perceive, and through perceiving we give meaning to the environment.

As Le Corbusier said, “A house should be “constructed of sensation and memory” and merely function as “a machine for the living”

12

Response

The geometry take from different moments of the scale and relativeness of these elements. It gives us a tions between each. The interwind connections give These overall spatial concepts are fragmented and the city changed over-time to become what it is today.

13

Spatial Concepts

typologies, creates a new space according to the new understanding of these forms and the connecus the experience felt going through these moments. broken down to discover and see how the fabric of

The methodology i’m working through is breaking down these elements of archived photographs and possibly personal journals of the people of the city. I would take these pieces of archive and break them down into elements through geometries, spatiality, form and materials and understanding the process of each of these concepts. These concepts also hold meaings other than the outter surface results but also the reason of how it became the way it appears, such as how did alley ways end up with arched shaped entrance and why did it reflect on the doorways of some houses? Why dont we have courtyards in our houses anymore?

Psychologists define memory as “the processes that are used to acquire, store, retain and later retrieve information” (Cherry 1). This is traditionally broken into three phases: encoding, storage, and retrieval. While the encoding and storage phases both refer to the creation of memory, retrieval is focused on the process of recalling memory. I will use memory as a tool throughout my methodology, to “acquire” information of demolished places and information of the areas that should be preserved, to “store” and “retain” would be more of the design part of Memory Crisis, that is how this information will be transformed into built architectural form. The “retrieving” part of memory would be the outcome of the design, for future generations to see and experience.

On the right side of this page you will see the forms are broken down into the outlined geometries of these forms. Leaving out materiality and texture we see the spaces through a transparent language, in which we could plug-in our own imagination of how these spaces looked like and these projections would be the results of our own reflections.

Using voids give us the sense of these spaces without those elements, the overall spaces start changing as these voids start to fill up the spaces. I will begin stitching the voids together to create a new typology of the spaces to see how past spaces could me interpreted into the present day.

14

Methodology

15

Time

Lamp of Memory is the sixth of the Seven Lamps of Architecture that was written by John Ruskin in 1849. There are a number of things that Ruskin writes about that is related to what is happening in the world today. Many of the themes Ruskin talks about are timeless and universal, he bases himself upon a moral matrix and develops his ideas from there.

In representing architecture in the future, Ruskin believes that when constructing a building today, the spirit of the building should be “the most honest” and in doing so, we should build by their age today. He refers to the Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton as an example, the industrial use of glass and steel were not the expression of workers craft but the demonstration of the large possibilities that industry and the diverse use of materials brought to building technology. With this we know that buildings are not only built as monuments to become of historical importance to us but by just using the “technological features” that is present.

Concluding that its not only important to build in a way that respects the social, economical, and technological needs of “a certain time” but also to build in a way that these can be remembered by future generations when looking and feeling a building in their time. This is why Ruskin describes two duties of architecture that mark the existence of architecture with a constant relationship with it’s past, “the first, to render architecture of the day, historical; and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of inheritances, that of past ages.” Chapter VI.

Society today does not nurture from the past and neither tries to direct the future. It only lives to administer the present. This is totally contrary to what Ruskin declares: “when we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, not for present use alone; let it be

such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone upon stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labour and rough substance of them, ‘See! this our fathers did for us.’” (chapter VI, § IX)

The arrival of the Internet has resulted in a growing number of new forms of memorials— digital and internet memorials. The Internet and Memorialisation is a Case Study of 9/11 Internets Memorial by Chan Khai Edwin and he studies the difference between the virtual memorial where people can go online and experience it and the physical and actual memorial “One of the most interesting features about the 9/11 memorial website is that one is able to take a virtual tour of the memorial. Visitors no longer need to be physically present at the memorial to see the design and the exhibits; it is now all online.” Halbwachs argues that a populace—the group living in a physical environment—remembers events within a spatial context and thus, all collective memory must occur within a spatial context.

16

References

Review, J. M. M. (1996). Review. Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 50(1), 68–70. doi:10.2307/1425289 Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/201/articles/80HalbwachsCollMemChap2.pdf Lyndon, D., & Moore, C. W. (1996). Chambers for A memory palace. Retrieved from https://mitpress.mit.edu/ books/chambers-memory-palace Treib, M. (2013). Spatial recall: Memory in architecture and landscape. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/ books?id=OXvdAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=analysis+Donlyn+Lyndon+in+Chamber+for+a+memory+palace&source=bl&ots=sVmSncO8py&sig=q0swVF0vMkF5rN0V3dujIfXRfh8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6oZuU5qvPAhXPQD4KHYuxBW0Q6AEIODAE#v=onepage&q=analysis%20Donlyn%20Lyndon%20 in%20Chamber%20for%20a%20memory%20palace&f=false Martinfdc. (2013, November 12). A personal interpretation of the “lamp of memory” by John Ruskin. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from https://martinfdc.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/a-personal-interpretation-of-the-lampof-memory-by-john-ruskin/ Pavoni, R. (1997). Reviving the renaissance: The use and abuse of the past in nineteenth .. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=maKLhJVGq1EC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=G.C+argan+on+memory&source=bl&ots=CrUx8pZH9e&sig=Z7M4laH4q1QGUaJUJFrlXRiL-og&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8-uc7KnPAhUM4YMKHZfqAFMQ6AEIIjAC#v=onepage&q=G.C%20argan%20on%20memory&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=WAaGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=G.C+argan+on+memory&source=bl&ots=hrvYwva9oJ&sig=zWtylp0PugMjN1XI7kWtI0gDOHw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8-uc7KnPAhUM4YMKHZfqAFMQ6AEIJTAD#v=onepage&q=G.C%20argan%20on%20memory&f=false Leach, N. (2003). Architecture and revolution: Contemporary perspectives on central and .. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=WAaGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=G.C+argan+on+memory&source=bl&ots=hrvYwva9oJ&sig=zWtylp0PugMjN1XI7kWtI0gDOHw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8-uc7KnPAhUM4YMKHZfqAFMQ6AEIJTAD#v=onepage&q=G.C%20argan%20on%20memory&f=false Guardia, M. (2016). Culture, urbanism and planning. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=pBQpDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=G.C+argan+on+memory&source=bl&ots=-eCYSH-oRE&sig=24esJh1WVursl6lGGPxFwjxV1To&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR8-uc7KnPAhUM4YMKHZfqAFMQ6AEIJzAE#v=onepage&q=G.C%20argan%20on%20memory&f=false Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic496136.files/Rossi_Architecture_ of_the_City.pdf @Sarahrich, F., & Rich, S. C. (2012, August 6). The architecture of memory. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-architecture-of-memory-14396375/?no-ist Freud, Civilization and its Discontents. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://courses.washington.edu/ freudlit/Civilization.Notes.html Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.alzhup.com/Reta/Docs/ArtOfMemory.pdf Allen, D. (2009). Memory and place: Two case studies. Places, 21(1), . Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/ item/0kc516qh#page-4

Bergson, H., Paul, N. M. M., Palmer, S. W., & Palmer, W. S. (1988). Matter and memory (6th ed.). New York: Zone Books.

MonclĂşs, J., & GuĂ rdia, M. (2006). Culture, urbanism and planning; Ed. By Javier Monclus. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing.

Leach, N. (Ed.). (1999). Architecture and revolution contemporary perspectives on central and eastern Europe.

London: Routledge.

Niagara, P. B. (2016). Why preserve buildings? > preservation resources > buildings & sites > preservation buffalo Niagara. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://www.preservationbuffaloniagara.org/buildings-and-sites/ preservation-resources/why-preserve-buildings/ The importance of cultural heritage. (2013, April 5). Retrieved September 5, 2016, from Articles, http://www. cultivatingculture.com/2013/04/05/the-importance-of-cultural-heritage/ Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://centreforsensorystudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Sensory-Readings-in-Architecture.pdf Smell-designing Sheffield. (2012, January 3). Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://www.ediblegeography. com/smell-designing-sheffield/ leecalisti. (2012, April 9). Place and the other senses. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from https://thinkarchitect. wordpress.com/2012/04/09/place-and-the-other-senses/ Architecture for the senses: Thesis - Dennis Hargis. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://cargocollective. com/dwhargis/Architecture-for-the-Senses-Thesis DONNELL, & 2013, D. A. L. (2014, September 16). Donnell & day architecture. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://www.donnellday.co.nz/journal/memory-and-architecture/ 34, dmarch. (2010, May 18). Architectural means. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from https://experiencingarchitecture.com/2010/05/18/architectural-means/ THE ACT IS BEAUTY; space, memory and senses. (2014, March 24). Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http:// www.architectureoflife.net/en/the-act-is-beauty-space-memory-and-senses/ Retrieved September 5, 2016, from https://curve.carleton.ca/system/files/etd 5d985bb7-6243-4396-97ba66269e1ab678/etd_pdf/573adefa0b1df7c18fd720bc9f40aa8b/yeung theinvisablecommonsensesarchitecture.pdf Terms, P. I. (2016). THEORY- theater of memory & the Phenomenology of senses. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from https://prezi.com/ml8zoabjuztu/theory-theater-of-memory-the-phenomenology-of-senses/ Retrieved September 3, 2016, from http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_08/section_2/artc5B.html @Sarahrich, F., & Rich, S. C. (2012, August 6). The architecture of memory. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-architecture-of-memory-14396375/?no-ist

Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://centreforsensorystudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Sensory-Readings-in-Architecture.pdf Saieh, N. (2010, November 2). Multiplicity and memory: Talking about architecture with Peter Zumthor. Retrieved September 2, 2016, from http://www.archdaily.com/85656/multiplicity-and-memory-talking-about-architecture-with-peter-zumthor Lehman, M. L. (2009, June 15). Home. Retrieved September 2, 2016, from Articles, http://sensingarchitecture. com/1328/what-is-the-role-of-human-memory-in-architecture/ Pert, A. (2014, March 6). Build me up: How architecture can affect emotions. Retrieved September 3, 2016, from http://theconversation.com/build-me-up-how-architecture-can-affect-emotions-22950 Gander, K. (2016, April 19). How architecture uses space, light and material to affect your mood. The Independent - Design. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/how-architecture-uses-space-light-and-material-to-affect-your-mood-american-institute-architects-a6985986.html Space, memory and identity. Retrieved September 3, 2016, from http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_08/section_2/artc5B. html Ekman, M. (2016). The memories of space. An architect reading Aleida and Jan Assmann’s model of cultural memory in connection with the national gallery in Oslo. . Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/407077 Berry, S. (2012, April 23). Why preserving history matters. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-berry/why-preserving-history-matters_b_1446631.html Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://digital.library.okstate.edu/etd/umi-okstate-1794.pdf Stenning, S. (2015, August 21). About the voices magazine. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/destroying-cultural-heritage-more-just-material-damage Khan academy. Retrieved September 6, 2016, from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/ beginners-art-history/a/what-is-cultural-heritage wiliam, & Australia, S. Why is our heritage important? – history – Skwirk interactive schooling year 9, NSW. Retrieved September 5, 2016, from http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14_u-309_t-762_c-2863/why-is-our-heritage-important-/nsw/why-is-our-heritage-important-/investigating-history/heritage Patterson, M. (2016). In between public and private: Emerging spaces in cities. . Retrieved from http:// www.academia.edu/1465036/In_Between_Public_and_Private_Emerging_Spaces_in_Cities