Nineteen Points On Knowledge, Architecture And The City  

Knowledge, like architecture and the city, is collectively produced.

Although there is no virtual limit, knowledge is limited by what is yet to be known.

Knowledge can be classified into three broad streams Memory, Imagination and Reason

Memory marks the deepest point of knowledge.

Imagination marks the farthest limits of knowledge. Sometimes imagination is more important than knowledge.

Reason is what gives knowledge its validity and places it in space and time.

Knowledge is no longer taught, but is inevitably produced through sets of social relations.

Inevitably, today, everyone is a knowledge producer.

All knowledge produced inherently is of common property.

The Capitol Complex is too far cut-off from everyday life of Chandigarh.

Hence, the Museum of Knowledge has a vast habitable plinth called the House of Knowledge.

The House of Knowledge has patio rooms for the individual knowledge producers.

Every year, knowledge producers from different backgrounds are invited to inhabit the plinth. Close proximity will inevitably lead to sociability and collaboration, generating and expanding knowledge.

During their year- long residency, the Knowledge producers assume the role of the temporary inhabitants of the Capitol Complex.

At the end of their residency the cumulative effort of the producers are exhibited in the Museum of Knowledge.

The Museum of Knowledge does not have a permanent collection or a theme. Essentially it is an indeterminate box waiting for content.

The Museum is a monolithic volume -with brise soleil on the North and South façade opening to the views of the Himalayan foothills and the city.

The Museum building itself is a derivation of Le Corbusier’s projects based on the squared spiral and the swastika.

The Museum is no longer just a building, but a narrative machine, putting things in context and enabling the formation of new social relations.

The combination of the plinth and the squared buildings addresses both the issue of inhabiting the capital complex and the production and sharing of knowledg

TEAM

Felipe Guerra, Altiplano, Bogota, Colombia.

Nazmy Anaur, Normal Architecture, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Nineteen Points On Knowledge, Architecture And The City  

Knowledge, like architecture and the city, is collectively produced.

Although there is no virtual limit, knowledge is limited by what is yet to be known.

Knowledge can be classified into three broad streams Memory, Imagination and Reason

Memory marks the deepest point of knowledge.

Imagination marks the farthest limits of knowledge. Sometimes imagination is more important than knowledge.

Reason is what gives knowledge its validity and places it in space and time.

Knowledge is no longer taught, but is inevitably produced through sets of social relations.

Inevitably, today, everyone is a knowledge producer.

All knowledge produced inherently is of common property.

The Capitol Complex is too far cut-off from everyday life of Chandigarh.

Hence, the Museum of Knowledge has a vast habitable plinth called the House of Knowledge.

The House of Knowledge has patio rooms for the individual knowledge producers.

Every year, knowledge producers from different backgrounds are invited to inhabit the plinth. Close proximity will inevitably lead to sociability and collaboration, generating and expanding knowledge.

During their year- long residency, the Knowledge producers assume the role of the temporary inhabitants of the Capitol Complex.

At the end of their residency the cumulative effort of the producers are exhibited in the Museum of Knowledge.

The Museum of Knowledge does not have a permanent collection or a theme. Essentially it is an indeterminate box waiting for content.

The Museum is a monolithic volume -with brise soleil on the North and South façade opening to the views of the Himalayan foothills and the city.

The Museum building itself is a derivation of Le Corbusier’s projects based on the squared spiral and the swastika.

The Museum is no longer just a building, but a narrative machine, putting things in context and enabling the formation of new social relations.

The combination of the plinth and the squared buildings addresses both the issue of inhabiting the capital complex and the production and sharing of knowledg

TEAM

Felipe Guerra, Altiplano, Bogota, Colombia.

Nazmy Anaur, Normal Architecture, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

MUSEUM OF KNOWLEDGE, CHANDIGARH: 19 POINTS ON KNOWLEDGE, ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITY

The aim of this competition - as stated in the competition brief -  is to design the Museum of Knowledge (MoK) at the original cumulative site of the then proposed MoK and Martyr’s memorial in the Capitol complex. The competition hopes to achieve the following :

• Defining the purpose of a KNOWLEDGE/ CONAISSANCE MUSEUM in the Chandigarh of 21st century. • Contemplating the relevance and importance of Le Corbusier’s version of modern architecture in present time. • Intensify the democratic principles of the Capitol complex by incorporating the civil society inside the Museum of Knowledge. • Enrich community life by injecting, activating and rejuvenating the public space in and around the Museum of Knowledge.

Our proposal is out lined in the text below:

19 POINTS ON KNOWLEDGE, ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITY

- Knowledge, like architecture and the city, is collectively produced. - Although there is no virtual limit, knowledge is limited by what is yet to be         known. - Knowledge can be classified into three broad streams Memory, Imagination   and Reason. - Memory marks the deepest point of knowledge. - Imagination marks the farthest limits of knowledge. Sometimes imagination is   more important than knowledge. - Reason is what gives knowledge its validity and places it in space and time. - Knowledge is no longer taught, but is inevitably produced through sets of social   relations. - Inevitably, today, everyone is a knowledge producer. - All knowledge produced inherently is of common property. - The Capitol Complex is too far cut-off from everyday life of Chandigarh.    Hence, the Museum of Knowledge has a vast habitable plinth called the House    of Knowledge. - The House of Knowledge has patio rooms for the individual knowledge        producers. - Every year, knowledge producers from different backgrounds are invited to    inhabit the plinth. Close proximity will inevitably lead to sociability and      collaboration, generating and expanding knowledge. - During their year- long residency, the Knowledge producers assume the role    of the temporary inhabitants of the Capitol Complex.  - At the end of their residency the cumulative effort of the producers are      exhibited in the Museum of Knowledge. - The Museum of Knowledge does not have a permanent collection or a theme.    Essentially it is an indeterminate box waiting for content. - The Museum is a monolithic volume -with brise soleil on the North and South    façade opening to the views of the Himalayan foothills and the city. - The Museum building itself is a derivation of Le Corbusier’s projects based on    the squared spiral and the swastika. - The Museum is no longer just a building, but a narrative machine, putting    things in context and enabling the formation of new social relations. - The combination of the plinth and the squared buildings addresses both the    issue of inhabiting the capital complex and the production and sharing of   knowledge.

This proposal was shortlisted in the Top 50 from a field of 308 international submissions for ideas competition Chandigarh Unbuilt - Museum of Knowledge.

"We become stuck in a feedback loop..."

I'm interested in auteurship - how an artist links their work from content, to concept, constructing a specific idea or stylistic, conveying a narrative that both supports and communicates this idea and ultimately constructing an environment or conditions where that idea can exist and thrive on itself.  I'm interested in the processes an artist goes through in developing their idea from concept to finished piece - where that journey takes them, it's not only a documentation of physical changes but also the emotional pathway we tread along in order to realise what it is we wish to create or communicate. 

In this sense I'd like to draw some comparison between the nature of journalistic enquiries into narrative, such as the work of Adam Curtis (featured above) or toward the more artistic application of auteurship, as seen in the work of Tracy Emin. In her often controversial but also confessional editing of herself and the things she chooses to share with the audience, her self-awareness contradicts how we perceive her apparent "honesty" and in turn we begin to question her motives and in essence our own motives when communicating personal information to one another or to push the idea to it's extreme - how much personal information about ourselves that we so willingly share with each other in the vast expanse of data-exchange that is the internet. 

I begin to wonder if this in turn confuses and blurs the boundaries of who we imagine ourselves to be in with how we imagine everyone else. Where does our sense of identity come from? How do we tell ourselves apart from each other, amid the throng of infinitesimal voices that is the Jungian collective consciousness?

YouTube Link to a trailer by Adam Curtis for the Manchester International Festival 2013 commission, "Everything Is Going According to Plan". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv_S8GdylEA#t=12

YouTube link to documentary "Tracy Emin In Confidence" (originally posted here on 14 December 2014). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSNXVjU_Tdo

In particular I think this concept links with very well with the idea of "staged reality" (part of the Self/Image brief) and also the Encyclopaedia brief, in context with the nature of information exchange and identity. In a sense I think I've unified the two through a sense of environment and space and time. These themes have been running throughout my work since before I began my specialism in Time-Based Media. Now I am acutely aware of it, I'm struggling to let myself flow more organically, at times over analysing and losing scope of my intended message. What emerges is often so much smaller than it's true meaning - only a momentary fragment of perceiving before the next sequence of images flashes before our eyes.  Perhaps there may be something in terms of losing meaning when confronted with the vast ocean of information we have before us.  Does the medium lose the message within itself? Did the medium ever have a message in the first place?