BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303) SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (AUGUST 2018)
Name: Wong Teck Poh
ID No.: 0327462
Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Ng
Tutorial Time:
Reader/Text Title: Global Sense of Place
Synopsis No: 1a Author: Doreen Massey
In the reader – “Global Sense of Place’’ by social scientist and geographer Doreen Massey, the conventional interpretation of ‘sense of place’ is questioned and challenged. Written in 1991, Massey proposes a new look at the meaning of ‘sense of place’ that reflects the internationalization that is happening at the time, but is still applicable in our age of globalization. The author first discussed ‘time-space compression’, a phenomenon where the rapid technological advancement of this era merges communities and cultures – and sometimes even places. This disrupts the feeling of locality of a place, as the increased mobility that results from this phenomenon discourages a permanence of the ‘sense of place’ due to the ever-changing elements of a place that can evolve from movement. Defining a ‘sense of place’ for a certain place has an adverse effect, as it emphasizes the individuality aspect of the ‘sense of place’. The feeling of a place may differ among individuals due to social and economic reasons. The author wrote that places could have multiple identities, much like a normal person. In reference to this, I find it particularly expressed in situations where locals and visitors of a place experience a disparity, where the absence of familiarity creates an intangible barrier for the visitor. Therefore, Massey envisioned an alternative to the usual interpretation of the ‘sense of place’. In this new outlook, the ‘sense of place’ does not disregard the social link between individuals in a community, but instead takes note of the effects of this network, resulting in a place that has no boundaries, is constantly changing and has no single, ‘unique’ identity that has been so freely suggested by the old concept of the ‘sense of place’. The final point of Massey’s proposal is interpreted as recognizing the unique patterns of a place, be it social, economical or even geographical, as the combined mixture of these elements are what creates a difference in a ‘global sense of place’. The ‘global sense of place’ is thus a progressive identity of a place, as it is informed by layers upon layers of changing relations. This well-constructed ideology of a ‘global sense of place’ begs the question in me in regards to its effect on architecture. If the ‘sense of place’ is constantly changing, how does architecture portray this? Personally, I can see architecture responding by performing a role where it becomes a dynamic element in a community, serving the community by providing adaptable and flexible spaces that can respond to certain needs for different people. The ‘global sense of place’ will then be discovered among its usage, determined by the community of the place itself. Word Count: 439
Mark
Grade
Assessed by:
Date
Page No.