#today this is about bachelard's poetics of space

[essektheylyss]

I do love reading theory because it's really the perfect outlet for me to be polemical, especially when I come across writing that's like, "Damn, dude, you got like 38% of this right on the money and the rest of it is fucking whack."

[guybitesatgames]

TMAGP 08 - They Already Named One "The Architecture of Fear"

Okay so obviously everyone is going to go bananas about what happened after the 19 minute mark (its me, I'm everyone, my response was undignified). However, Alex's tweet put me on high alert so lets dig our claws into some incredibly specific inclusions from just the case section of today's episode.

There have always been nods to real-life locations and historical figures across the Magnus-series, but this episode is particularly grounded. The case takes place here-

-Forton services - a service station that still exists, I assume entirely thanks to its listed status. It's a semi-historical site, which means lots of pictures have been taken of it, including its interior. Behold, the restaurant Terrance Stevens was sucked into, both (likely) the version he saw vs. what he should have expected at the top of the elevator:

I've not been to this place, but it is highly documented. I was able to find out that, just as it is in the show, the button for the restaurant floor has been disabled (unless you have the manufacturer's key). In fact, I think I might have found the exact website as whoever was doing research for this episode (Alex?) because they both mention seating for "700 people, with 101 toilets and 403 parking spaces".

And Terrance Stevens was doing such a good job with his sources up until this point! And I mean that - early in the case he cites (Zumthor, P. 2006), (Augé, M. 1995), (Bachelard, G. 1994) and (Trigg, D. 2012). Now, it'd be super easy for a writer to make up some names and append some years on them and call it a day but- no! Peter Zumthor's lecture Atmospheres: Architectural Environments, Surrounding Objects was published in 2006. We can similarly find Non-Places by Marc Augé, The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard (reprinted in 1994), and The Memory of Place: A Phenomenology of the Uncanny by Dylan Trigg.

Given the emphasis on Smirke's architecture in The Magnus Archives (and the preponderance of liminal spaces as a source of horror, generally) I shouldn't be surprised that the authors have read up on academic papers linking structures to emotions. I was just a little blindsided that they would hand us a "further reading" section.

The real question at the end of all this is: will any of this be on the quiz?

Surely, surely if the writers wanted to be so precise as to get information about which elevator buttons are currently accessible in a real life truck stop correct, there must be something important about Forton services, right? Thankfully, we have an answer, from the Q&A for The Magnus Archives Season 3.

Well done, I am slightly worried.

Though the details of specific locations may not really really matter, I think the idea that there are nexuses of fear - places that themselves just aren't right - was laid out quite plainly in this episode. Forton services could harbor another gap in reality much like Hilltop Road, and I don't think this will be the last we hear of "hungry architecture."

[dewy-highway-median]

“When a dreamer can reconstruct the world from an object that he transforms magically through his care of it, we become convinced that everything in the life of a poet is germinal.

Then Rilke, on polishing his childhood piano: politeness tinged with mischief was my reaction to the friendliness of these objects, which seemed happy to be so well treated, so meticulously renovated. And even today, I must confess that, while everything about me grew brighter and the immense black surface of my work table, which dominated its surroundings…became newly aware, somehow, of the size of the room, reflecting it more and more clearly; pale gray and almost square…well, yes, I felt moved, as though something were happening, something, to tell the truth, which was not purely superficial but immense, and which touched my very soul…

There is also the courage of the writer who braves the kind of censorship that forbids ‘insignificant’ confidences. But what joy reading is, when we recognize the importance of these insignificant things, when we can add our own personal daydreams to the ‘insignificant’ recollections of the author! Then insignificance becomes the sign of extreme sensitivity to the intimate meanings that establish spiritual understanding between writer and reader.” —Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

[northwindow]

where the heart is

a domestic syllabus [x]

"lecture on the history of the house" by claire schwartz

poem by american poet claire schwartz, published in poetry magazine and her 2022 collection civil service.

"the house. from cellar to garret. the significance of the hut" by gaston bachelard

the opening chapter to bachelard's seminal work the poetics of space. bachelard theorizes that the house's role as a site of reverie lends it a profound influence on the psyche. coining his own term, topoanalysis, to explore this influence; he surveys different poetic images of houses as representations of mind and soul.

the bedroom: an intimate history by michelle perrot, trans. by lauren elkin

french historian michelle perrot's history of the western bedroom as the site of birth, sex, illness, and death; from the ancient greek kamára to the postmodern bedrooms of today. perrot traces developments in the bedrooms of royalty, families, laborers, women, children, recluses, monks, and travelers. see also "black in bed" by art historian ella ray on the legacy of black bed art and "the bedroom of things" by caitlin blanchfield and farzin lotfi-jam for a discussion of private space through digital images.

rooms by rohan mcdonald

animated short film by illustrator rohan mcdonald featuring interviews with participants about their rooms and homes.

never home alone: from microbes to millipedes, camel crickets, and honeybees, the natural history of where we live by rob dunn

book by biologist rob dunn about the nearly 200,000 other species that live in our homes, from welcome pets to reviled pests. dunn's work researching the ecosystems of houses has illuminated the sheer scope of creatures that thrive there, often unbeknownst to both inhabitants and scientists, as well as the benefits of a biodiverse household.

"human stains" by heather havrilesky

author and "ask polly" columnist heather havrilesky on the endlessness of housework and "the strange gift that laundry brings to our lives."

the midcentury kitchen: america's favorite room from workspace to dreamscape, 1940s-1970s by sarah archer

a visual history of american kitchens, using examples of advertising and deisgn photography to show the evolution of their aesthetics, technology, and cultural ideals. see also sarah archer's episode of you're wrong about on martha stewart.

"full spectrum" and "if these walls could talk, listen, and record" by emily anthes

excerpts from the great indoors by science journalist emily anthes, which investigates the intersections of health and design in indoor spaces. "full spectrum" (republished by next city as "everyone has a basic right to good design") follows an apartment complex designed for autistic adults. "if these walls could talk, listen, and record" (republished by slate as "senior care homes are becoming high-tech medical devices") reports on the promise and limitations of smart home technology for the elderly.

"inside out, or interior space" by rebecca solnit

essay from rebecca solnit's collection of work on place, the encyclopedia of trouble and spaciousness. solnit discusses the pursuit of the "dream home" through decoration and renovation, examining our desire to craft the perfect nest.

windowswap by sonali ranjit and vaishnav balasubramaniam

a collaborative online database of user-submitted videos shot from windows around the world. conceived as a way to "travel" during early phases of the covid-19 pandemic, visitors can shuffle through videos to experience the views from homes in a plethora of different environments.

[burlveneer-music]

Tomaga - Intimate Immensity - the final album, out today; marvelous rhythms and textures, a Fourth World masterpiece

The last, outstanding release of the London based experimental duo (Tom Relleen and Valentina Magaletti), accomplished just before Tom’s passing in August 2020, is the distillate of two years of new creative enhancement. Mostly recorded at Tom’s “Bunker” – as he called his house in London – during the days off from live performances and challenging collaborations throughout the world, Intimate Immensity collects ten intense tracks that outline a breath-taking epiphanic journey revisiting the multifaceted worlds explored by the band in seven years of non-stop and mostly live activity. The wonderful blue artwork especially created by the acclaimed artists Icinori is a perfect match with the gist of Tomaga’s aesthetics of intimacy that is well expressed by a few lines in the gatefold: “I just found an interesting book by Gaston Bachelard called The Poetics of Space, with chapters on ‘house as universe’, nests, shells, ‘intimate immensity’, ‘the phenomenology of roundness’... I think it ties in with our feelings about bunkers and the urge to partition the universe to create our own spaces, vs cleansing or colonising the everyday to make it empty of anyone else's taste.  I think Tomaga tracks with their individual micro worlds are a bit like that…" – in this way Relleen introduces us into Tomaga’s pulsing universe where space and meaning, articulated by sound, acquire breath and character as an expressive place where you can feel at home. It is a quite similar aesthetics that could be perceived through Derek Jarman’s quotation from Blue (1993) used in the video of Intimate Immensity realised by Noriko Okaku together with some of Tom’s favourite stones collected from different places throughout his life. Blue protects white from innocence Blue drags black with it Blue is darkness made visible Blue protects white from innocence Blue drags black with it Blue is darkness made visible. The dialogical richness of musical influences, that has always been a peculiarity of all Tomaga’s performances, finds its peak here. The sonic spectrum is really wide, ranging from modern composers such as Laurie Spiegel and Pauline Anna Strom who has recently passed away, to the British refined dance aesthetics of Muslimgauze and Ossia. The somewhat deceitful approachability of the ten tracks, their crystal clear and elegant surface, is in fact the outcome of the deep process of transformation that has personally and musically involved the duo during the last two years.

[micnicfiu]

QCQ : Corners

Quote :

“Sometimes the house of the future is better built, lighter and larger than all the houses of the past, so that the image of the dream house is opposed to that of the childhood home…. Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts—serious, sad thoughts—and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.”

— Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Comment :

This idea of a future home is one that resonates well with me. I have dreamed of what my ideal future home would be and it is something that I strive towards. Dreams are the propeller of man. Without dreams, ambition and aspiration where would people be today? Granted not always good may come out for climbing up and maybe people have ill intention. However it is important to have some motivation to do what we as a society do every day. It stems from one of man’s oldest questions: Why are we here, and what is our purpose? In this essence dreams are our way of creating a temporary purpose, but we must always think of a bigger and grandeur purpose to thrive in the world. Thoughts on future always elude to technology in my mind. The retro and the futuristic movements of the world and how popular the ideas became are the essence of the fact that people often think of the future in a dreamlike state. The Jetsons is an example that drew people in to the robots and flying cars and advances of society. People dream about this future where technology advances society and it has really. The future home is at hand with Alexa, Hello google or other home assistants. People have smart refrigerators and televisions. However with all these advances, there is always a room for improvement. Thus, there is always a need to dream of the future and a seeking or searching for more in life.

Question :

How does looking towards the future and the ideas of the future home resonate in the art works of other artists and your own?

https://sites.evergreen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/2015/05/Gaston-Bachelard-the-Poetics-of-Space.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poetics_of_Space

[lapislazuliooli-blog]

FWT Update #1

For the 1st half of my FWT I have been working at the Albany International Center which is a school that opened just this past fall for newcomer, refugee, and immigrant students. I work 4-5 days a week with students grades 6-12 which means I am working with ages ranging from about 12-19 years old. For my time with them, I wanted to come up with a large scale installation that would appeal to all ages yet also be challenging both technically and conceptually. 

I decided to create a globe installation that is currently titled “We Share This Home.” This project consists of 100 paper squares that are 9x9 inches. On each paper square, or as we are referring to them, “tile”, there is a snippet of land, or water, or both. When the tiles are assembled in the correct numbered order, it will form an image of the globe. On Monday I finished drawing each tile, and designating what parts should be painted blue or green. Yesterday and today students each chose a tile and began painting with acrylic paints. Once each student has completed painting their tile, they will add a drawing on top using oil pastels. For the drawing, I am giving students the prompt to draw something that is “home” to them, or makes them feel at home. As an example of a completed tile, and in an effort to separate the idea of a “house” and “home”, I presented a completed tile that I made with a drawing of my brother. 

I wanted to introduce the concept of “home” to the kids at the school because - first of all, it is connected to what interests me in my own work, but secondly I am interested in the students engaging in the concept of home and thinking about it in terms of their own experiences. Many of these students fled their countries where their houses were destroyed, many have spent time in refugee camps, and others have experienced instability in multiple living situations along their journey and process of immigrating to the U.S. What I hope to achieve while working on this project with the students is an understanding of the difference between a “house” and a “home” - in that home need not be a physical house, but instead, it can be an idea, a feeling, a memory, or a person.

We also created a GoFundMe to raise money for art supplies to fund the project. (We raised over $400 dollars!)

As for my own work, I have been reading Baudrillard’s System of Objects, Bachelard’s Poetics of Spaces, and Bachelor’s Chromophobia. These have all helped and reinforced ideas related to interior space and anthropomorphic objects. On the same thread, I have been drawing a lot of radiators and thinking of them as “vertebrates” in the anthropomorphic, fixed furniture, all seeing-eye-sort, of way. And my next painting will very likely be including, if not starring a radiator :)

I will keep you posted!

[katiewattsart]

WALKING PRACTICE LECTURE

Today, we had a walking lecture with Jason Hirons. I did not know what to expect from this lecture, but it was very thought provoking and interesting. We began by walking outside and around the college and Jason explained some interesting experiences that he had in certain spaces around the college. He explained that he primarily uses his mobile phone to document everything he can see whilst walking. When walking with Jason, he pointed out specific everyday things that I walk past every day, oblivious to the history of them. It was very insightful what Jason had to say about particular monuments or buildings that has made me think different about the way I walk every day; to become more observant to the surroundings that I past and think more deeply about them. He took us around local areas and began questioning why they were there and what stories could have occurred there in the past and try to incorporate that into our practice. 

Notes I undertook during Jasons presentation: 

Walking and photographing

“A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities. Just as language limits what can be said, architecture limits where one can walk, but the walker invents other ways to go.” – Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust

Walking & Photographing

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera” – Dorothea Lange

“Walking is the best way we have to explore and exploit the city” - Iain Sinclair

On pathways and dead ends. All the roads in the city of Discovery are through-roads but beware the paths. They lead you down dead ends and take you back in time.

Hirons, 2010

Rock breaking away in the Valley of Rocks

Glacier breaking away off the Cape Crozier penguin rookery.

Herbert Ponting, 1911.

Walking & Writing

“Walking is a state of mind in which mind, body and world are ideally aligned – three notes made into a chord. It allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. We can think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.” – Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust (2000)

What did you see?

What did you feel?

What did you want to know?

What happened?

Why?

Key texts

Marc Auge, Non Places(1992)

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space(1958)

Guy Debord,Perspectives for Conscious Alterations in Everyday Life (1961)

Ben Highmore, The Everyday Life Reader (2001)

Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust (2000)

Wrights & Sites, A Mis-Guide to Exeter (2003)

Here are some images I took within the Walking Practice Lecture:

Rocks of the building of one of the main university- fossils of sea creatures. 

Information on the pedestrian crossing- apparatus used by blind people to support them in crossing the road. 

[mcmansionhell]

The McMansion Hell Big List of Books, Websites, and Films about Architecture

SURPRISE!!!! 

Edit: I had to take out the “Read More” tab because it killed all of my links, so Sorry for the long post!

Hello Friends! I feel as if I haven’t really been giving back to the community as much I should be in these last few weeks, and that while my latest Sunday posts have been mildly amusing, nobody is really learning anything from them. 

I shared some recommended reading on my Facebook page a week or so ago, and want to expand on that list here. Architecture is a wonderfully rich field with a plethora of resources. This post is a master-list of the architecture books, blogs, websites and films I have accumulated since my early teens. 

While extensive, this is in no way a definitive list, and I’m sure many others will have quite a bit to add on in the comments. I hope you enjoy!

Books

Links are to Amazon. A ** next to the title indicates the link is to an open-source copy of the book, or that it is easily available online. 

General Architecture (non-academic, general interest)

Paul Goldberger, Why Architecture Matters

Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

Witold Rybczynski: 

Looking Around

How Architecture Works

Home

Matthys Levy/Mario Salvadori, Why Buildings Fall Down**

Mario Salvadori, Why Buildings Stand Up**

Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn 

Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House** 

Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language** 

Bill Bryson, At Home

Matthew Frederick - 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

Architectural Style (Field Guides)

Virginia McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses

If you want to buy one book on this list, I highly recommend this one. It’s the best book out there about American residential architecture. If you’re curious about houses, it’ll sate your curiosity. 

Carol Davidson Cragoe, How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architectural Styles  (this one is neat for traveling about because it’s small)

John J. G. Blumenson, Identifying American Architecture: A Pictorial Guide to Styles and Terms, 1600-1945 (an old but good small guide) 

Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture**

Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions [Houses • Churches]

Richard Apperly, A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present

Cities, Suburbs, and Housing (of course not a complete list)

Jane Jacobs: 

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The Economy of Cities

Cities and the Wealth of Nations

Vital Little Plans: The Short Writings of Jane Jacobs

Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City **

Lewis Mumford: The City in History

Aldo Rossi: The Architecture of the City**

Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow

Witold Rybczynski: 

Mysteries of the Mall

City Life

Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities

Kenneth T Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States

Joel Garreau, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

James Howard Kunstler: 

The Geography of Nowhere

Home from Nowhere

Dolores Hayden, PhD:

Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work and Family Life

A Field Guide to Sprawl

Building Suburbia

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck: Suburban Nation

It’s only fair to put the New Urbanists in here. 

John Archer, Architecture and Suburbia (a favorite reference of mine)

Tracy Kidder, House

Sarah Susanka, The Not So Big House

Peter Marcuse & David Madden, In Defense of Housing

Matthew Desmond, Evicted

Alex F. Schwartz: Housing Policy in the United States

Architectural History:

Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (personal favorite)

Francis Ching, et. al. A Global History of Architecture (a standard college textbook)

Carol Strickland, The Annotated Arch: A Crash Course in Architectural History (a lot of fun!)

Daniel Borden, et al. Architecture: A World History

Leland M. Roth & Amanda C. Clark, American Architecture: A History

William J. R. Curtis: Modern Architecture Since 1900 (a classic)

Edward R. Ford, The Details of Modern Architecture

Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History**

Heinrich Klotz, The History of Postmodern Architecture

Charles Jencks, The Story of Postmodernism

Architectural Theory & Criticism Essentials

General Architectural Theory:

Leland Roth, et al. Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning

Francis Ching, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order** (AKA freshman year of architecture school)

Siegfried Gideon, Space, Time, & Architecture

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space **

Roger H Clark & Michael Pause, Precedents in Architecture**

Mark Foster Gage, Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts for Architecture & Design

Geoffrey Scott: The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste **

M. Fil Hearn, Ideas that Shaped Buildings** (a great handbook of architectural theory through history - always by my side.)

Lewis Tsurmaki Lewis, Manual of Section (not quite architectural theory, but a super cool book)

Alexandra Lange, Writing About Architecture - not quite theory but a v good and useful book. 

Kate’s Top 4 Very Old Dead Guys (all public domain)

Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture

Andrea Palladio, The Four Books of Architecture

Leon Battista Alberti, The Ten Books of Architecture

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

Modern Architecture

Adolf Loos, Ornament & Crime **(fake summary below):

Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture**

Henry Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style **

Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age**

Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestos on 20th Century Architecture**

Kenneth Frampton, A Genealogy of Modern Architecture

Ada Louise Huxtable, On Architecture: Reflections on a Century of Change

Current Architectural Theory / Contemporary Classics

Vincent Scully

Architecture: The Natural and the Manmade

American Architecture and Urbanism

Modern Architecture

The Shingle Style Today (this book completely blew my mind in high school, and remains one of my favorite books about architecture to this day.)

Robert Venturi + Denise Scott Brown

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture**

Learning from Las Vegas**

Rem Koolhaas:

S,M,L,XL

Delirious New York**

Peter Zumthor:

Atmospheres

Thinking Architecture

Bernard Tschumi, Architecture & Disjunction**

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows **

Films

Most of these films have the full version online for free. I won’t link directly to them because I don’t want to get yelled at.

Films About Architects:

My Architect [film about Louis Kahn]

Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe 

Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Frank Lloyd Wright (Ken Burns)

First Person Singular: I.M. Pei

Eames: The Architect & The Painter

Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture

Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner

How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?

Loos Ornamental

Films about Architecture:

Kochuu [film about contemporary Japanese architecture]

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth [about the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St. Louis]

Unfinished Spaces [About Cuba’s National Art Schools Project]

Urbanized [about the design of cities]

Visual Acoustics [about the photographer Julius Shulman]

Great Expectations [general architecture]

I’d like to make a shoutout to my colleague Thomas Bena, whose film about McMansions, One Big Home, is making the film circuit now. I’ve seen the movie and will be writing a review on this blog in the coming weeks. In short: go see it if you can!!! 

Websites

Architecture News / Popular Websites:

Curbed

Dwell

Dezeen

ArchDaily

Architizer

Wallpaper*

FastCo Design

CityLab

Architonic

Domus

Archinect

Inhabitat

Blogs:

Life of an Architect

Life of an Architecture Student

Build Blog

Soapbox Architect

My Favorite Websites:

99 Percent Invisible (disclaimer: I write for them)

Archinform - an online encyclopedia of architecture

Monoskop - a huge database of amazing archival resources for architecture and design.

Arts & Architecture database 

US Modernist Magazine Library - incredible collection of primary sources from modernism

Docomomo (preservation of modernist architecture)

Failed Architecture (analyzing failure in architecture)

Places Journal (my favorite online journal)

Emporis (it has every tall building!)

On Tumblr

Tumblr seems to have killed my links. This is devastating.

Like McMansion Hell:

@uglybelgianhouses - the best, really the best. @terriblerealestateagentphotos

General Architecture: @architecture-drawings @archidrawings @archatlas @archidose @archimaps @archiclassic @architecturalmodels @an-architectural-statement @conceptarchitect @rationalistarchitecture @wherearchitectureisfun @archivemodernarchitecture @luciotuzza @drawingarchitecture @dailybungalow @victorianhouses @ofhouses @architorturedsouls

Modern Architecture: @20cmodern @fuckyeahbrutalism @architectureofdoom @modernism-in-metroland @theimportanceofbeingmodernist @modernistestates @germanpostwarmodern @decoarchitecture @englishmodernism @midcenturymodernhomes @bauhaus-movement @artfuckingdeco @iheartnouveau @sosbrutalism @americanmodern

Postmodernism: @aqqindex​ @palmandlaser​ (these two blogs were why I got a tumblr) @memphis-milano​ @80sdeco​ @blockygraphics​ @thetriumphofpostmodernism​

Vintage Stuff: @midcenturymoderndesign​ - mid century modernism @scanzen​  - an assortment of cool stuff @midcenturyblog​ - mid century stuff @superseventies​ - 70s @cardboardamerica​ -vintage postcards @theswinginsixties​ - 60s @70sscifiart​ - 70s Sci Fi Art @driveintheaterofthemind​ - great vintage blog @80stechnology​ - 80s tech @imperialgoogie​ - the 50s @ephemera-phile​ - old print stuff from various eras @heck-yeah-old-tech​ - old technology @quadrafonica​ - vintage hifi @homophoni​ - also vintage hifi @holespoles​ - all kinds of stuff @system32dreams​ - 80s/90s tech @monochrome-monitor​ - 80s/90s tech @beautifulcentury​ - 1890s-1910s @oldadvertising​ - vintage ads @back-then​ - amazing photographs from history @fifties-sixties-everyday-life​ - 50s/60s @y2kaestheticinstitute​ - turn of the 21st century @lpcoverlover​ - record covers @classical-vinyl​ - my first tumblr (I comment as classical-vinyl, fyi)

Favorite Architecture Photographers:

@phdonohue​ @archivemodernarchitecture​ @archivemoderninteriors​ @veronicadelica​ @new-brutalism​ @wmud​

Design/Art/People Who Consistently Post Awesome Things: @archiveofaffinities @zeroing @design-is-fine (one of my favs ever) @c86 @norequeststaken @scavengedluxury (another fav) @99percentinvisible @magictransistor @transistoradio @klappersacks​ @designstroy​ @ffactory​ @instereo007​ @contac​ @publicdomainreview​ @detailsofpaintings​ @modernizor​ @nemfrog​ @bluecote​ @graphicgraphic​

Visual Artists I Like: @sunday-thought @jimharrisart @jacobvanloon @michaelwardartist

Also shoutout to @maverick-ornithography who is not only hilarious, but who was also my first ever follower, so now I’m returning the favor. 

I hope you all enjoyed this post! Next up is Florida on Wednesday, so stay tuned! I’ll finish up Great Britain after that; I’m currently reading books on British vernacular architecture and its history so I’m more informed. I barely dodged some bullets in that last post and had to go back and correct a lot…

Have a great week! 

If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Tonight, I’m doing a live Discord chat with my $5+ Patrons at 8:30PM EST!

Not into recurring donations? Check out the McMansion Hell Store - 30% goes to charity. 

[dowrabeesmith]

NaPoWriMo2017 Day 25

I am not strictly on prompt today. This is the set task for NaPoWriMo2017. “In 1958, the philosopher/critic Gaston Bachelard wrote a book called The Poetics of Space, about the emotional relationship that people have with particular kinds of spaces – the insides of sea shells, drawers, nooks, and all the various parts of houses. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that explores a…

[homepictures]

This Is Why Houses Design Pictures Is So Famous! | houses design pictures

This Is Why Houses Design Pictures Is So Famous! | houses design pictures – houses design pictures | Welcome to help my own blog, in this particular moment I will demonstrate with regards to keyword. And today, this is the very first impression:

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Surrealism Home – expression of the faith in our mind （800 words reflection)

There is a rule of beauty things, the fantastical structure or images are amazing because to some extent people find the exact proportion give a strong visual effect. The beauty and the connections in those art can be explained in a mathematics way. Sometimes if a person wants to create a beautiful picture, this person just need to follow the golden ratio rule. And for example, one of the greatest artists Leonardo da Vinci, he is also a genius scientist (En.wikipedia.org, 2018). Not only own a wealth of knowledge in art, but also in math etc.

On the other hand. Dadaism and surrealism as avant-garde kinds in their time had such a huge influence during last century. By breaking the old restrictions, it is obvious that the elements of anti-proportion, anti-rule, anti-logic can be found in the art era of them. Before talking about Dadaism and surrealism more, I will simply mention futurism. After the industrial revolution, futurism focus more on triumphs of science, futurist regard it as a return to the life which is transformed by science (Lista, 2001). It can be said as an opposition of the value of religion and old society in traditional art.

And why am I interested more in Dadaism and surrealism? By answering that I would quote this first, “For our house is our corner of the world.” (Bachelard and Jolas, 1994, p.4) what a space means to us? Especially when everything is happening so fast in today’s life. In a room we call it home, it has much more meaning than what we can imagine. We do not only put objects in our house, it is more a carrier of consciousness. This is the closest place we can get and it is a private place where we can muse. And with the rapid advancement of modernization and urbanization, skyscrapers have lost the height and breadth of traditional homes in cities, because in cities we hardly find traditional cellars and lofts. This leads us a feeling we have no roots and no dreams. And for surrealism, when consciousness is detached from everything, leaving reality, then we return to the original and this is how we get rid of all constraints and limitations. To achieve a true state and back to where we were originally, for Dada itself it is nothing (Short, 1980), make everything nothing, without any limitations, combine fakeness and reality, we can be lead to the true original.

 And now that’s why I want to dig more about surrealism when modelling a home came to my mind.

For surrealism, most of the artists use lots of unreal elements to express the complex and deep philosophical meanings.

Figure 1 Salvador Dalí | The Persistence of Memory

A famous painting from Dali, clocks that normally in our mind should be hard and shaped, but in this painting the clocks become like sand, and other elements such as torn tree branches, a group of ants, rock faces when they come together give a feeling of absolute time stopping world. These bizarre image and details create a reality of illusion. We see an interesting view which is impossible to be seem in real life. Like a relief from the constraints of real world. (Zhihu.com, 2018)

Figure 2 Newlyweds on the Eiffel Tower

And for some artists, they just want to show a world that with only happiness and peace, to give people a relaxing feeling in a powerful and unconstrained world, to show the pursuit of joy. Which can be seen in this painting above. It looks like a dream world of fairy tale. This surreal world is simple and full of gentle atmosphere. Everything in this world is not bonded to each other anymore. And the colors are also warm and happy. (Zhihu.com, 2018)

 By the research I have got, I started to think, “we feel warm because it is cold out-of-doors.” (Bachelard and Jolas, 1994, p.39) When the contrast comes into a situation, the expressions can be stronger. The outside cold environment makes home is a place with humanity value. And by this kind of contrast what if I want to explain the lonely feeling and powerful faith in our mind what I can do? If I put my model of the home in a universe with indefinite space. The faith of our consciousness can be stronger. Or under a sea, all around in water? A kind of transparent limit around a closed space. And for the beauty of the surrealism, create truth by giving unreal elements, what if I use a totally impossible material to create an object what the feelings can be created? For example, if I use water texture to build a bed, and cloth to be the water comes out of a sink.

And all above is my starting point now for my model.

 Bibliography:

En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Leonardo da Vinci. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci [Accessed 4 Apr. 2018].

 Lista, G. (2001). Futurism. Paris, p.46.

 Bachelard, G. and Jolas, M. (1994). The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press, p.4.

 Short, R. (1980). DADA&SURREALISM. London: Octopus Books Limited, p.57.

 Zhihu.com. (2018). The great artworks of modern surrealist. [online] Available at: https://www.zhihu.com/question/21394563 [Accessed 4 Apr. 2018].

 Bachelard, G. and Jolas, M. (1994). The poetics of space. Boston: Beacon Press, p.39.

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Homes – Underworlds of Reality

What does the home mean to us? How is that home connected with our (in)sensibility for the nature around us? The further discussion will deal with the concept of house and its representations and symbolism for us, human beings. The house will be presented as home connected with the feelings of safety and peace; a place where the memories and experiences are being recollected; a place within which we distance ourselves building a life which consists of both material and non-material things. The life in home and home-like places pulls people inside both physically and mentally separating them from the outside world; stimulating the further formation of delusional and secluded worlds. There I will discuss the results of seclusion which is the alienation of the human being from the world around him. Homes and home-like places reflect our social status while proportionally distancing ourselves from the nature.

When we think about our homes, we can notice the warm feelings which it usually brings to us. There is a subconscious representation and true perception of our houses. ''Transcending our memories of all the houses in which we have found shelter, above and beyond all the houses we have dreamed we lived in, can we isolate an intimate, concrete essence that would be a justification of the uncommon value of all of our images of protected intimacy?'' (Bachelard, 4) When we think of our homes we think of our shelters which are as valuable as our experience of living inside of it. According to the Bachelard, the non I protects the I which is the concrete evidence of the value of the inhabited places. (5) The house for itself is something material and insignificant until put in relation to us personally. That is the point where it gains the certain value and sense of protection. We give the empty house a meaning building the illusion of that protection and familiarity due to our imagination.

Bachelard indicates that a house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs of illusions of stability.(1994:17) The house's characteristics of protection and stability do not exist per se. ''...If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamers, the house allows one to dream in peace.'' (Bachelard, 1994:6)

That is, feeling protected in a house we are able to focus on our growth without being blocked by fears. So, the definition of a house given by the authors would be: ''In short, the house we were born in  has engraved within us the hierarchy of the various functions of inhabitating. We are the diagram of the functions of inhabitating that particular house, and all the other houses are but variations on a fundamental theme.'' (Bachelard, 1994:15)

The meaning and significance of one's safety place is also presented in Kafka's ''The Burrow''. Here we are introduced with a mole-like creature and its preoccupation with the burrow he lives in. The burrow is the typical subterranean of an animal and its safe place. The creature isn't necessarily animal and his (personified or not) thoughts and behavior indicate the human-like creature. The forehead he uses as a tool for digging through the tunnels might be interpreted as an intelligence or mind: "I was glad when the blood came, for that was proof that the walls were beginning to harden. I richly paid for my Castle Keep." (Kafka, 1971:357) His mental efforts put in building the perfect burrow show the results. This creature can be identified with all the creatures seeking to find or build a perfect safe place. Like all living creatures, this one also has the urge to escape the world into its non-realistic safe place. The burrow with its innermost sanctuary, the Castle Keep, is his painfully constructed bastion against the animosity of the world around him. The outside world is a stranger who intrudes our peace. Here, the Kafka's character tries to reach the perfection. He fights against irrationality trying to making it as rational as possible. Therefore, the rationality equals perfection while irrationality equals imperfection. The imperfections are not desirable and therefore, there should be none of them.

According to Bachelard, house is called ''a material paradise''. It contains our material world onto which we reflect our memories and give them a special meaning. We life fixations, usually those of happiness, and we comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection (Bachelard, 1994:8). The poetic depth of the space is what attracts us the most. This is where our material and non-material world collides and provides warm and secure feelings. But like Kafka's character says in one moment: ''At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over.'' (Kafka, 1971:356) All of it is illusion and built upon an imagination It is a fragile system which has elusive basis for its existence. In another second it can be a place where the threat penetrates and ruins everything. That is why reaching the perfection of that place is necessary, even essential. The more effort we put in making it perfect we are one step closer to feeling secure.

The author Bachelard give the example of the attic as a symbol: ''But in the daydream itself, the recollection of moments of confined, simple , shut-in space are experiences of heartwarming space, of a space that does not seek to become extended but would like above all still to be possessed. In the past, the attic may have seemed too small, it may have seemed cold in the winter and hot in summer. Now, however, in memory recaptured through daydreams, it is hard to say though what syncretism the attic is at once small and large, warm and cool, always comforting.'' (1994:10) The same duality is present in the Kafka's The Burrow, a small, dark place, yet comfortable and secure. Homes come in all forms and sizes but in any of them we are able to build dreams and illusions of protection and comfort.

That seclusion leads to isolation and distance from everything that is undesirable to enter. The Kafka's character deals with the problem of imperfect isolation throughout the whole story: ''...it was there that I began my burrow, at a time when I had no hope of ever completing it according to my plans; I began, half in play, at that corner, and so my first joy in labor found riotous satisfaction there in a labyrinthine burrow which at the time seemed to me the crown of all burrows, but which I judge today, perhaps with more justice, to be too much of an idle tour de force, not really worthy of the rest of the burrow, and though perhaps theoretically brilliant -- here is my main entrance, I said in those days, ironically addressing my invisible enemies and seeing them all already caught and stifled in the outer labyrinth -- is in reality a flimsy piece of jugglery that would hardly withstand a serious attack or the struggles of an enemy fighting for his life.'' (Kafka, 1971:360) The entrance is the point which separates his home and his reality from the outer world and outer reality. He can never exclude himself completely from the outside world; therefore, he is unable to reach the perfection. In other words, the impossibility of creating a perfect inner world goes hand in hand with the impossibility of shutting himself off completely. 

This fact is pointing out another fact – that one cannot shut himself and have a full control over the things around him. He might have an illusion of control but the outside world is a world on its own which can end up as a destructive force in our small inner world. ''And the danger is by no means a fanciful one, but very real. It need not be any particular enemy that is provoked to pursue me, it may very well be some chance innocent little creature, some disgusting little beast which follows me out of curiosity, and thus, without knowing it, becomes the leader of all the world against me; nor need it be even that, it may be -- and that would be just as bad, indeed in some respects worse -- it may be someone of my own kind, a connoisseur and prizer of burrows, a hermit, a lover of peace, but all the same a filthy scoundrel who wishes to be housed where he has not built.'' (Kafka, 1971:365) 

No matter how deep we escape the outer world into our underworld, the outer world is there and affects our life constantly, at least in the form of fear we experience. ''But nobody comes and I am left to my own resources. Perpetually obsessed by the sheer difficulty of the attempt, I lose much of my timidity, I no longer attempt even to appear to avoid the entrance, but make a hobby of prowling around it; by now it is almost as if I were the enemy spying out a suitable opportunity for successfully breaking in.'' (Kafka, 1971:365) In this case the burrow starts to feel as a betrayal, as a disappointment because of the possible entrance. He concludes: ''...is one ever free from anxieties inside it? These anxieties are different from ordinary ones, prouder, richer in content, often long repressed, but in their destructive effects they are perhaps much the same as the anxieties that existence in the outer world gives rise to.'' (1971:367) The truth is, one is never away from all the things of which the outside world consists of. The interweaving of these two worlds is constant ad real.

''I intend now to alter my methods. I shall dig a wide and carefully constructed trench in the direction of the noise and not cease from digging until, independent of all theories, I find the real cause of the noise. Then I shall eradicate it, if that is within my power, and if it is not, at least I shall know the truth. That truth will bring me either peace or despair, but whether the one or the other, it will be beyond doubt or question. This decision strengthens me.'' (Kafka, 1971:376) 

This is the purpose that keeps the character going. Fighting for a better home is a common thing among all the living creatures. There is an everlasting motivation to make our homes and safe places better. ''Deep stillness; how lovely it is here, outside there nobody troubles about my burrow, everybody has his own affairs, which have no connection with me; how have I managed to achieve this? Here under the mosscovering is perhaps the only place in my burrow now where I can listen for hours and hear nothing.'' (Kafka, 1971:379) Being completely secluded from the outside world is obviously impossible and there are only attempts for achieving it. Therefore, being completely secluded and not involved in anything which comes from the outside world can be accomplished only in death.

The weak point in our lives is shown in Bachelard's essay: ''At times we think we know ourselves in time, when all we know is a sequence of fixations in the spaces of the being's stability - a being who does not want to melt away, and who, even in the past, when he sets out in search of things past, wants time to ''suspend'' its flight.'' (1994:8) Home is the place where we leave our mark and which brings our signet for a while. The common fear of death makes us feel we need to stop the time in some material form and the house is the best one which contains us saved in time. Sense of protection is the basis for our existence since our biggest fear is the fear of death; of vanishing without a trace; of being forgotten.

Bachelard connects the image of home with the Jung's dual image: ''Here the conscious acts like a man who hearing a suspicious noise in the cellar, hurries in the attic and, finding no burglars there decides, consequently, that the noise was pure imagination. In reality, this prudent man did not dare to venture into the cellar.'' (1994:19) The same can be interpreted in the context of Kafka's creature which stays in the cellar, and although it is empty, he is ready to confront the potential enemy. The cellar and its danger become his obsession and the comfort at the same time. The isolation is comforting but the outside world is always there lurking.

When thinking about the importance of our homes we have to take into an account some other fact about our homes. Today's houses are growing bigger, getting higher; adding additional yards around and therefore inevitably reflects our social statuses. There is a question whether there is a connection between the luxury of the house and the social isolation leading to alienation from the nature. Homes became shelters long ago, but they also gradually became a shelter from the nature and society.

Rebecca Riggs talks about this topic in her essay which describes Perth's house styles and living seen from the above. The central issue in this case is the pool and its significance in such society. ''Step out in that thin hour to see stars drowning in the gardens – every waterbody brims with the stars.'' (Riggs, 2010:13) The landscape of Perth is filled with pools. What does that say about homes? They are getting bigger and bigger trying to bring relevant pieces of nature inside while rejecting and isolating from the rest. Bringing a pool in the garden is just one more step to taking into control one more natural aspect in our isolated and protected home. ''These pools then, exist within matrices of meaning that go deeper than their superficial codes divulge; they exceed their function as designators of class status and privileged regimes of the body.'' (Riggs, 2010:15) The author here takes home to another level by presenting it as a place which put nature in human control and territorialisation; picking out the parts of it which are selfishly beneficial for us and leaving out the rest which is not. There the author poses a question if the water from the pool is really water claiming: Despite the fact that a pool can be made up of all water, it clearly marks an elision of nature...'' (Riggs, 2010:20). The fact is that we cannot define where the natural and artificial water begins and ends but the point is in the human's free and irresponsible taking of nature under control for selfish purposes and being disinterested for global picture.        

Backyard Pools, Perth

At this point starts the ecological and environmental insensibility. Riggs points that in a sentence: ''In the garden we are too busy acting to stop and consider how we should be feeling about the nature around us.'' (2010:16) The illusion of security, but also power, is carefully built in our houses. The result is that we are completely self-centered and inward oriented creatures which lack perceptibility of the real world around them.

The same can be found in The Burrow where the creature is entirely oriented towards himself becoming completely obsessive. His burrow is imperfect and that is his only preoccupation while everything outside of it presents an enemy. He experiences the constant fear that the outside world could enter his inner world: ''I can find nothing, no matter how hard I search, or it may be that I find too much.'' (Kafka, 1971:372)

That this issue is in progression we see in the fact that houses are no longer our only home where we build our comfort. Consciously or subconsciously that separation we made long time ago is growing bigger and starts to take different forms. In modern times we started to build places which have several characteristics of our homes; the places which offer consolation and warm feelings. Those feelings are, again, illusionary created.

One of the best examples of such places is malls and shopping centers. We can notice that they come up day by day. It is no longer just one or two, but several big ones completely disproportional with the number of population of the city. Those places characterize isolation just like our homes. We simply replace one isolation with the other, new one and freshly attractive which offers a relief for a modern human being. That isolation moved on another level, excluding even more from the outside world.

With almost all the time spent in the safety of our imagined worlds, the problems of the outside world progress and wait for us to notice it. But we have no time to do that because less and less time is left in our days to stop for a moment and step outside to deal with the reality. The notion of shopping centers is a perfect new form of a protected bubble inside which we feel comfortable but only ostensibly. We can even speak of the shopping centers as a great tool for blurring our vision. As long as we spend our days in that illusion comfort manipulation can be carried out without any problems. An there lies the irony since our homes and home-like places are not entirely separated in a sense that they exist on their own. They are consisted of that nature, but the parts which we selfishly used. It is naively to think of a home as a place which has nothing to do with the nature around when the two are completely intertwined.

It is the ultimate time to think about how insensitive about the world around us we are. Our connections with the nature are at the bare minimum. Everything is consisted of one's individual reality which includes only him. We are becoming more and more self-centered while forgetting that nature gives us life. Being blind for the nature eventually leads to downfall. We cannot continue to exploit the natural resources, like in that case of gardens filled with pools, without giving the nature something in exchange. We are certainly in the age of unreasonable exploitation of the nature but that could change only if we find the strength to step outside of our safe places and start dealing with the problems of reality.

Maja Tramontana

 References:

1. Bachelard, G. (1994). The House. From Cellar to Garret. The Significance of the Hut.  The Poetics of Space, Boston: Beacon Press, 3-37.

2. Giggs, R. (2010). Swimming Fixations. The Rise of the Edge: New Thresholds in the Ecological Uncanny. Australia: University of Western Australia, 13-30.

3. Kafka, F. (1971). The Burrow. The Complete Stories, New York: Shocken Books Inc., 354-386.

[smoge15]

Script WS [FRIDAY]

Friday 01/12

Began a workshop looking at the tool of communication and text manipulation - similar to Potlatch and William Burroughs’ cut and stick and repeat philosophy - turning language into clay. We started with texts we have been looking at and that feel relevant to our thoughts and progressions. 

Critical Vehicles - Krzysztof Wodiczko

The Tao and Chinese Culture - Da Liu

T.A.Z. - Hakim Bey

Nomadology - Deleuze and Guattari

Refugees and the Meaning of Home - Helen Taylor

Dear Navigator - Hu Fang

The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard

So I flew therough these books over the course of an hour and scanned in pages I wanted to use in my manipulations. We then arrived to choose a song to initiate our communicative explorations, and from there it was a matter of scalpels and glue. 

What I arrived with in front of me was a conversation between person and space - the in looking at the out and the out looking at the in. In my head when I was formulating the character of these two vessels in communication - not necessarily directly, more indirectly - was the vision of a satellite high up in the sky with a God’s eye view of terrain and land down below, and then contrasted that with the wanderer below. The user of the arid landscape, looking for meaning and hope in the terrain it finds itself having to explore. A sole inhibitor of a destitute land and sun-kissed horizon. With no knowledge of the eye high above, meaning was being looked for on the ground in relation to the things in view. The satellite looked on from above with a steady and humming gaze, cataloguing and reviewing the changing ground it found itself grazing. What were the intentions of these two vehicles? One of metal and electric, and one of blood and spirit. 

I want to transcribe the wording I ended with, but it misses one of the most important aspects of the text I created on paper, as I wanted to inhabit the space of the paper like it was open to wandering and exploration, and so the shape of the lines and direction of the text comes into the narrative of what is being said, and as I learnt later on as we performed, how it is read and acted out in space and time.

There was no one in him; behind his face

the Japanese fighter, interminably still,

future thoughts of war

a succession of flights of 

The bird

The city is a monumental stage

t

o

p

t

o

b

o

t

t

o

m

of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity,

I incite blanks, spaces

through three years of natural disaster.

memory of the nameless world.’

“Why are you washing your ears again and again?”

So you don’t have to hear it in another place

Then you wouldn’t be forget

“I hate the idea of performing.

and expression.

There are millions on this planet today whose silence, too, is an answer.

“When I was little, we lived

h

o

r

i

z

o

n

t

a

l

I go to a new sheet of paper.

in that street, there is a house;

just a child

The scent of the neighbourhood plantings is 

dreamed

the hosue shelters day’

dreamer, the house allows

Thought and experience are not

Reflection on creation:

What I believe I created was a conversation between person and place. it was a locale, as Heidegger described it, playing out in words and space on a page. The subjective experience of space having an unknown, inner conversation with the forcefully, all-encompassing subjective eye of space itself. 

The way I read it out, jumping from one segment of locale dialogue to one segment of space dialogue aided in the creation of an atmosphere of isolation and scale I think. It forced me to steady my thought and it forfeited my ability to fall into comfort and habit when reading from a script of ordered lines and rhythmic pattern. It enabled me to perform a form of isolation and displacement, as text was displaced around the page and my ability to read from the script was displaced. This displacement then gave me power over the tex in having to search for rhythm and comfort in the lines and spaces I found my eyes inhabiting.

The decision to read from space and locale intermittently was one that came out of a brief conversation with Steve, who simply asked how I was planning on reading from the script. I hadn’t thought about the opportunity and sense in criticising how to read from the script I was creating. I was creating spaces on the page I would have to inhabit in the future, and so to make me move around and migrate around these future head-spaces, I came to the conclusion of reading from both at the same time, forcing me into a state of rootlessness amongst the page and words. I want to continue to build on this example of forced migration in the context of reading, as I feel it has great power in its delivery of a message and the ambiance it creates in the audience. 

TBC

[ahspatialdesignhonours-blog]

Literary Responses

Literary Responses from texts I have found key information from but have not read in-depth the full writings. This post will be added to every time I gain key information from somewhere. 

Kemsley, R., & Platt, C. (2012). Dwelling with Architecture. Oxon:      Routledge.  

This is a relatively new text and therefore provided me with an insight into how practicing architects design new homes. I think this will be a great resource for the next studio paper Research project. But what really caught my eye was the introductory text about how, often, design and architecture is caught up with how a building or a site visually looks, and its merits come down to how well it has been built or mathematically challenged. However Kemsley and Platt argue that the experience of a place, and the feel of it, is equally if not more telling of successful design. This is what I want to push my project - structures may be visually nice and corresponding to hoe (objects, big windows, expensive cladding) but that does not create the feeling of homeliness. This is modern phenomenology in architecture, and really helped me place the historic writings of Bachelard and Heidegger etc. into todays context. 

Bachelard, G. (1969). The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.  

An interesting piece of writing, and one which I wish I had so much more time to pursue. It is exactly what I hope to write about and discover, exactly what I hope to write like in that certain tone of voice. But it is a reading that needs time, and time was not abundant, only finding the whole text in the last week of the essay. Bachelard was a philosopher, science scholar and lecturer in France in the mid 20th century (poetics of space therefore translated from french). Poetics of Space came about after the destruction of World War II, just as Heideggers Building Dwelling Thinking. Bachelard is famous for the coining of ‘daydreaming’ in houses, the original influence for peace, silence, dreams. It is a beautiful thing to imagine and to hope for all houses. But it is hard to apply in today’s society of consumerism, mass production, the turnaround of a materialistic mindset. People want a new house and they want it now. Bachelard also taught the word ‘oneiric’ in relation to childhood homes, and this was a sentiment I completely agreed with - if you grew up in a warm, sheltered home we will always place our memories in a warm, sunny, happy place. This I hope to reflect back in my research. 

Allen, J. S. (2015). Home: How Habitat Made Us Human. New York: Basic Books.    

When I first encountered this title and the blurb, I was excited thinking I had found a really in-depth research and relevant piece of work that I could apply and learn from. However, Allen’s directive is that Home takes time, and effort. It is not a instant creation. That our ability to create home is passed down through an inherited need for security. However, this is not my opinion and it is not the angle I am arguing in my research. I am arguing that Home is instantaneous, that you and your innate self understand that you are/could be at home the first second you move into the interior space. Although differing opinions it gave me pause to stop and consider what I was hoping to achieve through my research and development. I knew that this construct of home could happen in a split second because I had experienced it in the house I currently dwelled. Both mine and Allen’s were very Western views of home but they were at different ends of the scale of the process of experiencing space. Why is this? And why does my research resound much deeper in the literature of past decades - Heidegger, Bachelard, Bollnow? It was a question I couldn’t work out without more research but at least this source of information made me pause in thinking my experience of home was what everyone felt. 

 Gibson, J. J. (1962). Observations on Active Touch. Psychological Review, 69(6), 477–491.  

This article was mentioned in Bloomer & Moore’s (1971) book Body, Memory, Architecture one of my key texts in introducing the felt body in space. Bloomer and Moore critiqued J.J. Gibson’s reintroduction of the Aristotelian five sense. Gibson’s haptic touch was one of his necessary elements of experiencing space with your body. It is the innate touch, the sensation and the knowledge of feeling something inside as well as with the external tools for touch such as the hands. Observations on Active Touch is a dated text but is still referenced to considerably in the fields of architectural atmosphere’s and phenomenology. It is a text I would like to get to know and understand considerably as it would be great to utilise in the next stage of designing this research. It can also help in context of thinking-through-making, trying to understand the home through our ‘active touch’ sensory system rather than just how a certain texture may feel for example. 

 Smitheram, J. (2011). Spatial Performativity/Spatial Performance. Architectural Theory Review, 16(1), 55–69.   This article gave me a phrase for how we perform in space, how we react in space, how we simply understand space: spatial performativity. It was a key phrase that filled a gap in my research as a base understanding for why we feel such a way in a space, how we react to the certain elements in a space. When I feel at home I am reacting to the elements in a space - tangible and felt elements. I am performing in space. This was a phrase I had not come up against before, and before this I knew that I felt and was encouraged to feel a certain way in space but I could not articulate it through words - spatial performativity gave me this ability. This phrase gave me a goal. To define and build a framework for developing a sense of homeliness is designing a spatial performativity. It is recent literature and I can then understand that what Smitheram is writing about can be related back to my immediate environment also. This will be used in my research document and hopefully prolifically throughout my major Research project next semester as it is a term that has its own direction and actions. 

Alexander, C. (1979). The Timeless Way of Building (Vol. 1). New York: Oxford University Press.   The Timeless Way of Building is a pre-lude to Alexander’s well-known framework A Pattern Language. A Pattern Language was actually written first and took 8 years to write. Howard Mansfield (as posted previously on blog as a key text) referenced A Pattern Language in his book Dwelling in Possibility (2011) giving voice to the idea of “a quality without a name”. Alexander wrote and referenced extensively for 8 years about space and architecture that held this “quality”, A Pattern Language the result of this research and submitted as a framework for creating the quality. However, clients and other designers in the field, having read A Pattern Language, applied this to their work. Alexander was shocked at the result of this research. There was no evidence in any new design of holding this Quality. So The Timeless Way of Building was written two years later as a pre-lude, Volume I, to clearly layout all of Alexander’s thoughts. Many other volumes were added after this. Although a framework, Alexander has written this almost in poetic prose. It is a flowing, clear piece of writing that really feels as if it were directed at you, the reader. This precise pocket of research I will further look into, as well as any literature that has been influenced from it since its publication. 

[wang-dsr-2017-blog]

Introduction to the Research

Design was traditionally a process that moved between ideas and their embodiment. Most architects in the past engaged themselves with the laws of the world of matters. Louis Kahn’s famous inquiry to brick was one of the examples. Material has the power to teach us about the physical world, the spiritual realm and local convention. To engage with material is not only a visual practice but a physical interaction with the real world. Architecture is grounded in the physical environment, and it is the material that a building proves its presence in its unique space and time.

Once the flesh of western architecture, stone had given cities evidence of durability, sensuality, and spirituality. Stone reminds us of traces of our history, our past. Today, stone as a structural material is substituted entirely by steel and concrete. The use of material in many cases is reduced to facade applications. Stone is seen more and more as an archaic material which symbolizes the past.

There is a renewed sensitivity towards this inert material. Masonry works by Peter Zumthor and Eduardo Souto de Moura, to name a few, illustrates powerfully the intimacy between architecture and landscape, material and experience. Stone regains its affective relationship with humans. Unlike ancient structures which placed stone firmly in the cultural and religious context, these project derives their regional or spiritual meanings through expressions of the elemental qualities of the stone: its solidity and heaviness, textures and colors.

Perhaps it is the inherent discontinuities and inconsistencies between the classical and modern understanding of the stone that altered the contemporary reading of the material. The reading of stone will less be based on iconographic association, but more on a personal, creative interpretation. The value of stone will likely be born out of the elemental reverie, elaborated by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard.

Compare to ancient buildings, there is a rarity of contemporary stone works executed with artistic vision and excellent craft. How can we bring out the materiality and poetic meanings of stone through the making, crafting and assembling of the material? Can we re-enact the archaic power of stone in the transient, non-sacred world we live today?