What Architecture Is (Part 3)

This is the 3rd part and the last part of the story, but definitely not the end of Architecture.

I shall keep the story short.

It was 5 days ago I came across the following quotes by George Bernard Shaw:

Life is not about finding yourself,

It's about creating yourself.

Isn't it the same with Architecture?

(the end)

What Architecture Is (Part 2)

The story continues...

When I was in my second year in Architecture,

My curiosity in Architecture rise.

What is Architecture?

I searched but I did not expect to find any answer.

The process of searching itself content.

I once asked my second year tutor, Kenghua,

"What is Architecture?"

He told me the question is not easy to answer.

He told me a story of onion.

"Architecture is like an onion," He said.

"When you first saw it, you would think that it is all about the space.

But as you look deeper, you'll realize that it is only the very first layer of Architecture,

Just like the first layer of an onion.

You'll find as you learn, that Architecture is about the structure,

Because your Architecture has to be stable enough for people to live in.

But that's not really it, isn't it?

Architecture is the materials.

Architecture is the people, the social.

Architecture is art.

As you peel away layer by layer of an onion,

You'll have nothing left.

So Architecture is Nothing."

The conversation was interesting.

I wondered, instead of concluding Architecture is Nothing,

Why can't Architecture be Everything?

I asked my other tutor, Ken, the same question,

"What is Architecture?"

He told me, "Architecture if Life."

I did not quite get it,

And I don't think I still remember what his explanation was.

(to be continued)

What Architecture Is (Part 1)

Here is my little story:

When I was in my first year in Architecture,

I was having a chat with my teacher, his name is Kimnam.

I was really curious (and I am still so) and I asked him:

"What is Architecture?"

Kimnam smiled

Paused for awhile, he answered me:

"I don't know."

Perhaps we really can't define what Architecture is, I think.

Still curious, I asked him again"

"How are we supposed to design if we do not know what Architecture is?"

He frown and said to me:

"That's a very good question.

Even if you have practiced Architecture for 5 years,

You will still find yourself learning something new about Architecture."

That was the end of our conversation.

(to be continue)

Waiting for the Question

‎Everybody, in their lives, is really waiting for people to ask them question

So that they can be truthful about who they are and how they become who they are.

Marc Pachter

The Sound of Space

Listen!

Interiors are like large instruments, collecting sound, amplifying it, transmitting it elsewhere. That has to do with the shape peculiar to each room and with the surfaces of the materials they contain, and the way those materials have been applied.

Take a wonderful spruce floor like the top of a violin and lay it across wood. Or again: stick it to a concrete slab. Do you notice the difference in sound? Of course.

But unfortunately many people are not aware of the sound a room makes.

The sounds we associate with certain rooms: speaking personally, what always comes first to my mind are the sounds when I was a boy, the noises my mother made in the kitchen. They made me feel happy. If I was in the front room I always knew my mother was at home because I could hear her banging about with pots and pans and what have you.

But there are sounds, too, in a great hall: the noises in the grand interior of a railway terminal, or you hear sounds in a town and so on.

But if we take it a step further - even if it gets a bit mystical now - and imagine extracting all foreign sound from a building, and if we try to imagine what that would be like: with nothing left, nothing there to touch anything else. The question arises: does the building still have a sound?

Try it out yourselves.

I think each one emits a kind of tone. They have sounds that aren't caused by friction. I've no idea what they are. Maybe it's the wind or something.

But you only really feel there's something else there when you enter a space that's soundproofed.

It's lovely.

I find it's a beautiful thing when you're making a building and you imagine the building in that stillness. I mean trying to make the building a quiet place. That's pretty difficult these days, because our world has become so noisy. Well, not so much here, perhaps. But I know other places that are much noisier and you have to go to some lengths to make quiet rooms and imagine the sound they make with all their proportions and materials in a stillness of their own.

I realise the sound I am making must remind you of a sermon - but isn't it more simple than that, and more pragmatic?

How does it really sound, when we walk through it. When we speak, when we talk to each other - what will the sound be?

And what if I want to sit in a living-room and talk to three good friends on a Sunday afternoon and read at the same time?

I've got something written down here: the closing of a door.

There are buildings that have wonderful sounds, telling me I can feel at home, I'm not alone.

I suppose I just can't get rid of that image of my mother, and actually I don't want to.

taken from:

Atmospheres

Peter Zumthor

Walls

A good wall, as you call it, is a matter of its physical relationship to people and the way it can create space around us, a system of spatial relationship. It is very basic, but something that people, including architects, often forget.

If you look at one wall in front of you, you can perceive it as an object.

If you see it from the side, you understand that it divides space.

If it then connects with another wall, you begin to see it as a container of space.

At that point, the wall functions as a shelter, protection, a sense of security from the elements. This is the most primitive function of a wall, but it is a part of any important architecture. Creating spaces that inspire a sense of well-being is the main goal of the building walls.

A wall must assert its presence in terms of its form and materiality, to make you understand that it has its own power or presence, but it must do so in a way that inspires and does not force or intimidate.

It is important to be forceful without being intimidating or overly elaborate.

by Tadao Ando

Creating Yourself

Life is not about finding yourself,

It's about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw