#vcharitaki

Once upon a time in a land – not that far away – there was a boy named Oscar. Oscar was a kid filled with imagination. He liked to daydream but most of all he loved to draw these images on paper! He organized his markers by color, and spent hours drawing all sort of shapes and forms with impressive color schemes. At some point his mother tried to pick up some of his markers in order to replace them with new ones, and Oscar stopped her saying “Please don’t throw this one away I like to draw the sky with that!” His mother did not quite understood why Oscar preferred to keep the old markers instead of the new ones but she let him be because she believed in his active imagination.

A few years later Oscar has to go to school. It becomes a difficult environment for him, as drawing now becomes a class, and Oscar’s drawings are not considered to reflect “reality”. Curvilinear shapes, do not exist, you need to focus more on the ground, said his teacher, try to think more “rectangular, try to draw shapes that can be found in the real world”. The problem was that he couldn’t think of any shapes like that, he was attracted by the curved forms and definitely was not interested in compromising them to match reality. He only hoped that one day his dreamy forms could become the reality for everybody to see. His best friend Charles was a bit older, yet extremely wise. Oscar liked Charles, because although he had strict views of his surroundings, he allowed Oscar to express himself freely. He encouraged him to daydream and ignore other people’s remarks.

Soon after these two end up separating, Charles went off to study architecture, he was passionate about architecture and was sure that Oscar was too, but he did not manage to convince him. By the time Oscar finished school he did not enjoy drawing. He felt that the forms he was asked to work on lacked imagination, for that sole reason he made himself believe that he was destined to be a teacher of some sort. He was good at mathematics at the time, so a mathematics teacher seemed like a good option. At this point Oscar only drew gloomy sceneries where one could not understand whether they reflect “reality” or “imagination”. He felt lost, and one could see that from the way he expressed himself on paper.

Oscar graduated from college as a mathematician but there were moments where he felt an urge for something greater. He loved mathematics, but he couldn’t find the creative part he was missing.

He started taking long walks, while pondering on his future. One day as he goes through his usual walk he bumps into Charles! The two men are so excited to see each other again and they have plenty to catch up! After a while Charles takes the first step to say that he feels that he is losing his imagination, he feels that he is repeating himself he misses his discussions the two had together. Oscar finds the courage to tell Charles, that he felt he did a mistake with his career. He wanted to study architecture, but he was afraid he was not going to be a good one. Charles responds with confidence to him, “everything is hard before it is easy” but this should not mean that you shouldn’t try at all, right? I believe in you, but this will never matter if you don’t believe in yourself, your ideas, your dreams. In order to built your reality you first have to believe in it.

Dear architecture,

It took a while for me to I like you. I read about your achievements in awe – I look at you and I it is clear that through time you have taken a stand and offered perspective. Your inheritance is undoubtedly visual. I see now how great histories are formed around you while you have been part of society’s fears, hopes & dreams.  

So what do you ask of me? A young architect in practice today? I use technology and connect virtually with others – I am linked to a computer that has become vital for almost any assignment. I learn to produce attractive images –still or moving – in order to assist the client better “visualize” the project. I research through digital sources of inspiration that have allowed clients to “craft” their dreams while we – as designers – use it to expand our mindset. All of which have undoubtedly resulted in a positive evolution in the field.

But what happens to our ability to converse? It seems that the architect’s ability to understand a client’s aspirations through dialogue are often replaced by online research & investigation. There are times where as designers we tend to become addicted to a beautiful representation through an image or an animation of you, dear architecture that we sometimes fail to truly listen what is needed. In a time where the Internet has helped us generate new ideas it may be that it is time to address how it can introduce the grounds for dialogue. For example if we think of a community project the architect could embrace social media in order to welcome feedback from a larger audience and explore their idea further. One can form an opinion on ones daily routine & interests, if they allow for some time to simply follow their twitter account. Crowd-funding can be a source of a plethora of small scale – large impact such as social housing. 

As I previously expressed, it is my opinion that we live in highly visual times – the question is whether as architects we have the ability to adapt without losing our humane nature. At times I enjoy looking back at past biennale themes – as I believe they introduce a stance of the time we live in. And I remember, back to basics? Political? People centric? They are all intriguing ideas that engage in a three-dimensional dialogue between the visitor and you, dear architecture. I believe that communication should be next, don’t you?

Literary methods, such as narrative, character, scenario and poetry writing can be viewed as tools in regards to architectural and urban analysis and design. A relationship between architecture and literature can result and could condition the way one perceives space. This process could be better described through the art of animation; as this is viewed in its early stages where it was constructed through a series of independent drawings. In particular, in order to visualize this process, one can think of a flipbook where each page consists of a drawing, while when you ‘flip’ through the pages quickly, a moving image is created. In this sense, as still images once effected in animations, could it be that the stillness of texts can helps us perceive space?

The methods of comprising a text can be viewed as method tools in the design process; a relationship in which one constantly informs the other. In the case of the flipbook, a series of selected images are placed in such a manner that when viewed as a whole one visualizes a story. In architectural research and design a series of drawings are used to explain a design concept for a set of users, while through the design the focus is shifted from the analysis to the construction.

Similarly, one can imply that literary methods act upon the same principles as in the design process. A narrative becomes a story or a series of experiences comprised together that can be either true or fictitious. The character usually involves the actors of this story; one that experiences the folding conditions of the narrative. Whereas, a scenario provides a structured approach to the story while poetry writing seems to offer a similar structure yet confined by certain limits.

‘Primitive hut’; the word ‘primitive’ implies an existence of the earliest kind while the word ‘hut’ suggests a simple construction –such as one made of natural materials- and can primarily provide shelter. These two words comprise a standard, by now, of architectural theory since Vitruvius. In his second edition of the book Essay on Architecture, Marc-Antoine Laugier re-introduced this idea while using an image of the hut that he believed it represented the form in which all architecture embodies itself. Joesph Rykwert, in his book “On Adam’s House in Paradise: the idea of the primitive hut in architectural history” examines the principles that compile the meaning behind the idea of the hut. In addition, he seems to infer that the divinity of the hut is tempting but by definition it becomes unreachable by human skills. Thus, he sees the hut as a pattern that is found in a place that he calls ‘paradise’; a human projection of a place that is closely related to memory.

In that manner, contemporary architecture may or may not have been imprisoned by liberal studies. This essay will argue that in order to understand the topic at hand it is crucial to investigate the apparent connection or disconnection between place and memory. The reason for that is because through this study one can question the idea of the primitive hut, the way it has established itself in time and whether a proposed shift of that idea can ‘release’ contemporary architecture from its ‘chain barriers’.

Specifically, the research will focus on the seductive space and the way it can embrace memory. For this purpose it chooses to perform this study through the lens of literature and the book by Jean-Francois de Bastide, titled ‘The little house: An architectural seduction”. The story describes an erotic encounter between a persistent man and a reluctant woman at the grounds of the estate “la petite maison”- that also constitutes the third character of this seduction. Bastide intelligently portrays the interchangeable relationship between eroticism and architecture one that can shortly be described in the following sentence: “I was very curious: it was no longer Madame de T*** that I desired, but her cabinet,”

Furthermore, this episodic format is used to set aside the mechanical manipulations of space that today seem to be endless. At the same time however, it puts forwards Bruno Latour’s argument that architecture seems to evolve into a project rather than an object. In addition, the essay will result in supporting Latour’s proposal of the need for architecture to use an inverse mechanism of the one followed by the by Etienne Jules Marey’s famous studies on the physiology of movement. Thus, it will suggest that architecture can be understood as a system of inter-connected systems or networks.