Architecture As Landscape Of Memory

With Constructing the Good Life, we’ve looked the ways in which architecture and specific places in the environments we inhabit are defined by a sense of cultural and personal connection or significance, beyond the physical conditions or even basic function of the space. This week’s readings, “Subconscious Landscapes of the Heart” by Randy Hester and “Replacement” by W.G. Clark in particular, help to show the ways that meaningful spaces are often designed and constructed by the people who use them, and the deeper connections to the land that may develop.

Architecture is a physical manifestation of the needs and aspirations of a society and is determined by few factors – context, climate, environment, and socio-cultural aspects of a place or a region. It includes not only monumental and professionally designed monuments but also quaint residential structures built by craftsmen and lay people for their own use. It includes the interrelationships of the built and open spaces within the larger landscape. (Tipnis, 2012)

A sophisticated house or dumpy gas station catches the eye for a moment then becomes lost amongst other thoughts. However, like the art in our homes, a building's purpose is not to be stared at like a museum painting. They influence the mood of those who occupy the space. Even for people who live far away, it creates a happy thoughtfulness that these places still exist in our throwaway

Salvador Dali’s 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory is a hallmark of the surrealist movement. Dali famously described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs” and The Persistence of Memory is a prime example of that description. The Persistence of Memory depicts striking and confusing images of melting pocket watches and a mysterious fetus-like structure all sprawled over the dreamscape representation of Dali’s home of Port Lligat, Spain. Dali uses strange images, color, and shadows in The Persistence of Memory to convey an abstract view on dreams, time, and reality.

In particular, the researcher examines how the architectural program reflect the needs of the cultures that utilized it, the features that distinctly represent it, features borrowed from other cultures, and how these architectures fit into

Modern day architecture has been immensely influenced by the use of public structures, theaters, and columns once developed by the Greeks. The influence of Greek architecture has made the impossible possible, throughout our world today. As the man awakes from his daydream his is amazed by the impressive architectural elements. The elements in his dream are scattered throughout society today. The majestic columns, mighty aqueducts, and roaring theaters in within blocks of his home. The influence of the Greek architecture has shaped the world he lives

Architecture should be nurturing, responsive and alive, dynamically shifting spatial balances, organically expressive forms, subtly luminous colors and biologically healthy. To achieve such life-enhancing architecture, it has to address all the body senses simultaneously and fuse our image of self with experience of the world. By strengthening our sense of self and reality, architecture serves its all-important function of accommodation and

On his book on Modern Architecture, Curtis writes that modern architecture was faulted for it’s “supposed lack of ‘recognizable imagery’” towards the end of the 1970s. This statement supports the idea of Jencks’ double coding where architects must now make

As suggested by the title, this piece of literature attempts to highlight the importance of sensory experience in architecture. It is indeed a response to what the author terms as ‘ocularcentrism’ of Modern Architecture. Ocularcentrism is the act of prioritizing visual stimuli to all other sensory stimuli available to a human perception. He quotes famous German poet, Goethe, in his defense, “the hands want to see, the

Memories like these contain the deepest architectural experience that I know. They are the reservoirs of the architectural atmospheres and images that I explore in my work as an architect.

I have never attributed a poetic memory or experience to merely the building itself; therefore, does architecture itself elicit an emotional response or is it a combination of factors which creates a sense of architectural poetry? Can you really apply poetics to architecture? What comes to mind first and foremost is the blurry relationship between art and architecture and then the interpretation of poetics. As a realist and mostly sensible person I cannot help but be cynical of human beings who try to create poetics and a relationship that in my mind does not exist; in order to either rationalise abstract or as a tool to manipulate people into buying something they

In the book Horror in Architecture, horror is defined in various ways, from horror being the truth about abstraction to horror reorienting the notion that what exists is not necessarily all that might be. Eight different typologies of horror are identified which includes Doubles and Clones, Exquisite Corpse, Partially and Mostly Dead, Reiteration and Reflexivity, Incontinent Object, Trojan Horse, Homunculism and Gigantism, Solidity, Mass, Stereotomy, Distortion, and Disproportion. The typology I’ll be basing my argument on is the Trojan Horse which has been defined by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing as a less obvious but equally disconcerting form of duality. It can also be perceived as a lack of indication about what is going on within. This paper intends to discuss the Trojan Horse typology of horror through the works of the architect Zaha Hadid who has produced a number of projects that fit into the Trojan Horse typology of horror. Projects which include the Vitra Fire station in Weil am Rhein, the MAXXI museum in Rome and the 1st floor interior design she did for the Hotel Puerta America in Madrid, Spain illustrate the Trojan Horse typology because they have unpredictable interior spaces which subjects the exterior to some kind of random or stylistic treatment.

Everyday we live and move through spaces without realizing the influence they can have on our daily lives. Built environments are designed to directly affect behaviour and attitudes in a specific and intended way; this can be referred to as architectural determinism (Marmot 2002). Almost all architectural patterns use the physical arrangement of elements, and materials to influence behavior. This can range from placing design elements in specific places to encourage or discourage people’s interaction with them, placing them to prevent access to a specific area, or placing them to direct or

Architecture is the design of a building, just like the bones that make up the structure of a human being, and the way it forms as a basis for a design. The Rubik’s cube is the pencil I use for drawing. The pencil is occasionally used, and sometimes, left alone. When I am focused, I can solve my difficulties, calm and controlled. Nevertheless, I can draw my imagination, however hard it maybe. However, when I am inattentive, it seems like a brick wall is stopping me from my solution. Although this pencil may cause me to stress out, it can also encourage me to try harder, and seek out the hidden solution even with the massive brick wall in the way. My love of architecture connects with the cube because solving problems in puzzles is just like thinking through and designing something. In addition, whenever I open my vision to the many designs in the world, it brings me back to the Rubik’s cube and architecture. The many designs act like the algorithms in the cube, you sometimes make errors, and you sometimes

Architecture is the physical construct of humanity’s creative processes. Through architecture, one can derive many facts about the society’s values and goals. Furthermore, architecture is art physically anchored to the geographic location it was created in; architecture directly represents the aspirations, socioeconomic status, and technological advances accessible to the creator in their respected time and location (Serageldin, “Architecture and Society”). The communicative abilities of architecture are evident in Gesche Würfel’s collection of art Oppressive Architecture. In this collection, Würfel explores the connection between architecture and oppression during both the periods of American slavery and Germany Nazism (Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, “Gesche Würfel: Oppressive Architecture”). The two photographs show how the architecture reflected the social constructs present during American Slavery and Nazi Germany. Wüfrfel accomplishes this by using the complexity of design, the layout of the properties, and the use of color in the photographs.