Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auschwitz_I_(Main_Camp)_-_Oswiecim,_Poland_-_NARA_-_305903.jpg
Source Image: Article PROCESSES OF DEVELOPMENT AS REFLECTED IN LAND USE CHARACTERI...
Image Source: https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/51175
The buildings are like jugs. They can store water or sewage. The Marseilles unit or Versailles under certain conditions can be a prison or a infirmary. Modernism is not only a certain style, but also a certain geometric type with a completely different spatial potential, which is difficult to judge from photographs. Otherwise, you can fall into the error that the apartments of Egyptian workers have not changed since the time of the Pharaohs.
Volodymyr Durmanov under what conditions do they either store water/ sewage?
Tieu-Tieu Mars Le Phung. The storage conditions for clean and spoiled water are not important. What is important is that we understand that these are two forms of water with different properties and we can control its transformation, understanding the consequences of our actions.
Volodymyr Durmanov thanks, though I think you elaborate more. Would you please do so? How does the Transformation occur?
In my opinion, the geometric transformation of things is carried out on the basis of dominating images existing in the spatial consciousness of society.
State and architecture? Most likely Power and Architecture. The way of spatial understanding inherent in Modernism was born in the depths of the French Revolution, but its appearance is due to the First global war. The Second global war consolidated it for the next few decades. The buildings you presented, of course belong to the era of Modernism. Are they generated only by architects or artists- of course not.
Volodymyr Durmanov
Please explain:
The way of spatial understanding inherent in Modernism was born in the depths of the French Revolution, but its appearance is due to the First global war.
Рay attention to the works of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Pierre Fontaine, read the texts of Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Jencks.
With “modern” and its cognates (pre-modern, early modern, late modern, modernity, modernism, postmodern, etc. etc.) being bandied about so much these days, and with no general agreement as to the time periods or ideological scope falling under such designations, a few words to the unwise in the subtext to the question would have been helpful. Some would argue that the Third Reich was an antimodernist reaction to modernity, much as might be said of Islamism today. Others would claim that these reactions constitute a reactionary modernism, insofar as it adopts the technologies of modernity without giving up premodern conservatism. As they say, it's complicated. And aerial photographs are ambiguous enough to allow one to find both similarities or dissimilarties to support one's favored POV. Some portions of the camps, for example, look much like the layouts of the holds in nineteenth-century slave ships.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23308222
Modernization understood as the improvement of existence from above for the benefit of an abstract or concrete community is the essence of modernism. Therefore, the division of the phenomenon into "pre", "early", "late" or "post" modernism is conditional. We continue to live in the era of Modernism. The stylistic features of the works of Giuseppe Terragni and Tadao Ando are close. Ricardo Bofill and Phillip Johnson changed the style of facades with the same ease with which street art covers the mas production buildings of the last century.
Here I would like to formulate the concept of TAXONOMIC ARCHITECTURE.
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung, I am glad to receive your question again.
In the early 70s, in the countries of Eastern Europe, which tried to create a unified living environment by constructing buildings based on serial standard design were discovered negative social consequences. It became clear that the quality of construction in the country could be improved by bringing the geometric organization of premises to the social hierarchy of the community closer together. At that time, in the theory of architecture, in addition to the concepts of functional type and visual style (borrowed from philosophy and biological science), the concept of a geometric taxon also began to be used ( a set of premises with similar parameters). Identifying the causes of the formation, expansion and disappearance of a geometric taxon is one of the problems of modern architectural theory. If someone sets the task of finding such an organization of the premises (both at the level of an urban development object and at the level of an individual building) that does not require their constant transformation due to the cultural dynamics of the community, then such architecture, in my opinion, can be called taxonomic.
Dear Volodymyr Durmanov
I had to read your contribution above many times. I still am not sure how I would join the dots, though intuitively, I know you've given me much to glean. I am visual in my thinking, what this struck me about such arrangements is that it's very much like how one organises books in a physical library. The ARCHITECT/ URBAN PLANNER gets THE BIRD'S-EYE VIEW, the INHABITANTS LIVE ACCORDING TO HOW THEY ARE ASSIGNED BY THE POWER THAT BE.
Perhaps you also have something to add to these lines of enquiry:
(3) How Do REAL Physical Library and Codex of Paper Books Inscribe REFLEX Cognition & Memorisations? Why We're Burning Books? | ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_Do_REAL_Physical_Library_and_Codex_of_Paper_Books_Inscribe_REFLEX_Cognition_Memorisations_Why_Were_Burning_Books
(3) Why ROTATING/ BORROWING BOOKS should come back in fashion? What are the ETIQUETTES of adding one's commentaries to book margins; how 2 improve eBooks? | ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_ROTATING_BORROWING_BOOKS_should_come_back_in_fashion_What_are_the_ETIQUETTES_of_adding_ones_commentaries_to_book_margins_how_2_improve_eBooks
(3) Why must one still use PHYSICAL LIBRARIES, from Primary to Higher Education? Why is it connected to developing Encyclopedic Knowledge? | ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_must_one_still_use_PHYSICAL_LIBRARIES_from_Primary_to_Higher_Education_Why_is_it_connected_to_developing_Encyclopedic_Knowledge
(3) Why & how are PHYSICAL LIBRARIES important for long term MUSCLE MEMORY encoding & why do they need to be revived, especially for CHILD DEVELOPMENT? | ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_how_are_PHYSICAL_LIBRARIES_important_for_long_term_MUSCLE_MEMORY_encoding_why_do_they_need_to_be_revived_especially_for_CHILD_DEVELOPMENT
(3) How can one begin to theorise these different DESIGNS: TAXONOMIC, THESAURIC, ENCYCLOPEDIC, METONYMIC, METAPHORIC, & ANECDOTIC DESIGNS? | ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_one_begin_to_theorise_these_different_DESIGNS_TAXONOMIC_THESAURIC_ENCYCLOPEDIC_METONYMIC_METAPHORIC_ANECDOTIC_DESIGNS
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung,
In the process of creating an architectural project, it is not enough for its author to know how someone understands the phenomenon of architecture. It is important for him to be in demand and wealthy - which means the ability to change the customer's premises so that they are more beautiful, comfortable, useful and have mutually beneficial financial success. Everyone develops this ability and skill independently, resorting to different models of career behavior.
For thousands of years, most people did it without an professional architect. Even today, people build buildings based on their private ideas. As a rule, such buildings are regularly improved, quickly abandoned or completely destroyed (Villa Savoy miraculously escaped destruction).
Today, architectural activity is testing by time, therefore an architectural education is focusing on the understanding the essence of spatial transformations, which is not limited to their description.
Yours,
VD
Volodymyr Durmanov
How I understand, as someone who has designed houses herself, architecture is very much influenced by the narrative of the users in one's conceptualisation.
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung,
The interconnection, interdependence and interaction of the premises in which people live, exist and being is a problem of modern architectural science.
Some scientists believe that the high ability of a person to adapt to any premises with biophysical properties close to an open premises of a moderate climate excludes such a dependence. Apologists of this trend argue that everything that is built is good. They believe that an infinite number of geometric forms of premises can be constructed based on infinite production of one type of room, house or districts or on their unlimited multiplicity combinations produced by artificial intelligence. The application of the theory of mass standard design in the state construction of Eastern European countries led to a change in the political system. Despite this, such a theory exists among those who have not felt the consequences of using such a doctrine.
Another part of scientists, who in their studies observed the influence of the geometry of premises on health, well-being and professional activity, argued that the density, intensity and structure of premises affect the quality and standard of their living. Evidence of this was regional studies of rural and urban European housing, conducted in the last and before last century. They explained the limited diversity of geometric forms of housing by territorial political and economic transformations. They also see a threat in the unjustified waste of energy on the endless search for an unusual composition of buildings leading to the production of empty or constantly modernized constructions.
Modern knowledge allows us to assert that the evolution of the geometric characteristics of premises and their architecture are subject to conceptual influence from both consumer-producer groups (consciousness of the society) and hierarchy of authorities (the dominatin pablic consciousness). Therefore, it should not be assumed that the opinion of clients or architects is decisive in the matter of improving the premises for the better life of a social community.That's why not only books burn, but also buildings and people.
Volodymyr Durmanov
There's lots to unpack what you've written. Wow!
3 kinds of Architectural Practices came to my mind as I read your input.
1. The Courtyard, especially the Hu
2. Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language
3. Daniel Libeskin's Death Structures.
Starting backwards with Libeskind's ARCHITECTURAL DEATH. One can go through lots of intellectual detours like such:
Image Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/monuments-of-ruination-in-postwar-berlin-and-warsaw-the-architectural-projects-of-bohdan-lachert-and-daniel-libeskind/7B4D1FAE81D68810451BA0B1F9C34D36
Essentially his RUPTURES pretty much break EVERY FENG SHUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES. I prefer to call his structures as HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE. This could land me in lots of hot water. And that's the point.
Then there's CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER'S PATTERN LANGUAGE which shapes lots of SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT. How is it that NOBODY QUERIES THAT YOU CAN'T MOVE THE FURNITURES?
How is SUCH INFLEXIBILITY BE ANYTHING BUT OPPRESSIVE?
Image Source: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-timeless-way-of-christopher-alexander/
More here:https://www.berkeleyside.org/2018/04/14/christopher-alexander-designed-house-with-dreamlike-qualities-for-sale-in-albany
And then, there's the HU. Frankly Volodymyr Durmanov
I don't really want to over think this: but it's related to this question:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_one_begin_to_theorise_these_different_DESIGNS_TAXONOMIC_THESAURIC_ENCYCLOPEDIC_METONYMIC_METAPHORIC_ANECDOTIC_DESIGNS
Image Source: Conference Paper What Forces that Shape and Retain the Beijing Courtyard Houses?
Volodymyr Durmanov
I would add the HUTONG is clan-based living arrangements.
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung,
What bothers you about this beautiful building, this famous philosopher and this traditional type of house?
Volodymyr Durmanov
I am not sure out of the 3 examples you are referring to.
If it's Libeskind, it's all the jaggedness. I keep searching for one example I have in mind, it's basically a slope. I label it as hostile architecture because it's a design for deterence. It seeks to elevate one set of victims from the industrialisation of death. It makes no attempts to venture beyond it's statement of EXCEPTIONISM. If one were to justaposed Libeskin against DESSEAU, BAUHAUS, Warsaw Ghetto (attached image), & AUSCHWITZ, there's lots of commonalities from a bird's/ God/ Urban Designer perspective. They are all TAXONOMIC. They are all precursors of Levitt Towns. They are not very open to communal interactions. They function like STACKS.
As for Christopher Alexander, the fact that furnitures are fixed and embedded into the architecture is oppressive. Furnitures need to be mobile, reconfigurable and have legatures in spaces of MODERNITY. Because PATTERN LANGUAGES are deployed in immersive software spatialities, so too is the user constrained by such rigidity.
Here I think back to my childhood experience of the Hutong, Modernist Architecture of Cholon, and the Mekong Mud Hut. All these spaces encourages flexibility. I recall the Hutong being both protected and open. Th Apartment blocks of Cholon, outwardly looking like an East German orifice, is altogether totally different. It's because there are 2 floors and an open courtyard internal to each Apartment.
Image Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%A3_L%E1%BB%9Bn
The Hutong is NOT a MODERNIST DREAM/ NIGHTMARE. It's infinitely malleable and adaptable. I fondly recall fire crackers bustling, and that neighbours of my aunty's house downstairs, inviting me to sing for them. Of course, I sang badly. But they found me cute, and so I got my Laisee.
Image Source: https://www.exoticvoyages.com/blog/get-lost-in-cholon-the-chinatown-of-ho-chi-minh-city-35675.html
Image Source: https://www.exoticvoyages.com/blog/get-lost-in-cholon-the-chinatown-of-ho-chi-minh-city-35675.html
Image Source: https://jackfruitadventure.com/26-highlights-in-ho-chi-minh-city-chinatown/
I happily recall how these front alleyways serving all sorts of purposes, not least even as children playgrounds, collecting wax from Festivals of the Dead, and getting up to huge mischiefs like using these wax for our toy woks, and almost burning these open corridors.
According to: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-1972-3_108
Transitional space plays an indispensable role in traditional architecture in many Asian countries such as Viet Nam, Japan, and China. Depending on different positions, either at front, back or in the central of the house, transitional spaces are to fulfill unique values such as climate controlling, multi-purpose functions including family gathering, fengshui solution/manipulation, business support space, preserved space for further development, and so on bringing environmental, social, economic and spiritual values.
Volodymyr Durmanov
With the above examples, I wish to delienate the differences between TAXANOMIC VERSUS THESAURIC DESIGNS.
TAXONOMIC ARCHITECTURE are conveyor belt like, it restricts the inhabitants to function according to some CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES.
THESAURIC ARCHITECTURE are highly organic despite appearing maybe even similar to TAXONOMIC DESIGNS from a bird's/ God/ planner perspectives. They provide lots of ELASTICITY and multiple layering of functions to the inhabitants.
Of course, one needs specific CULTURAL ARRANGEMENTS. I CAN'T see THESAURIC DESIGNS OPERATING IN PLACES LIKE GERMANY where TERRITORIALITY reign supreme. THESAURIC PLACES JUST LEAK EVERYTHING: AROMAS, ODOURS, NOISE, etc. INTERIORITY and EXTERIORITY are highly NEGOTIABLE. This is NOT to say THESAURIC DESIGNS CAN'T PROVIDE PRIVACY.
They do, but for example, my household was the first to have a TV. Neighbours would just watch it through our front window. Behind our lounge room, which can function in other ways such as holding a big feast, is our parents room. Then behind that is a stair that leads to everyone else's room. Below is a light shaft which brings light to our dining area, kitchen and bathing. I recall we had even live chickens in the kitchen. Everything would look really rudimentary to an untrained eye. But I do recall that food preparation is a whole day task reserved for our live in cook (aka my mum's younger sister). My bed was just a mat, and we barely had anything else. I do recall it was mostly experiential. Festivities were the dominant type of activities.
It is a real pity because I doubt I can reaclimatise to such lifestyles. I do however have lots of cherished memories. It had nothing to do with acquisitions. These kind of arrangements can only function if they are plugged into wet/ night markets, schools, and relatives living nearby. I think THESAURIC DESIGNS have a lot to us in post/ pre-consumerist configurations. Cottage industries run rife in these places. A tailor across the block, a tutor in another. Cousins living next door. A Buddhist temple above, where one could smell the co-mingling of incense and rotting Chrysanthemums disposed outside. In fact, my dad's mother's ashes were stored there.
For all the fanciful kitchen as laboratory that we have today, the meals cannot compete with the complexities of meals coming through a kitchen that has only a stove with wok, a wet area and a rice cooker. I recall incredible variety of dishes.
Image Source: https://www.alamy.com/hanoi-vietnam-image397316215.html
Image Source: https://jackfruitadventure.com/awesome-things-to-do-in-chinatown-cho-lon/
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung
Thank you for your text.
I understand your feelings, but it is also necessary to deepen the understanding of what you feel and realiz.
If we accept in our reasoning the position that in reality there are only building materials that have changed the properties of a previously existing space (smell, light, color, texture) due to the fact that they are laid out according to certain ideal ideas (architecture), then everything that you feel and realize depends on who you are.
If you are a resident who is aware that he lives in this building, then what does its flexibility mean to him (moving chairs, walls or neighbors)?
If you are a tourist collecting amazing pictures, then you will certainly find a certain potential flexibility in it (changing inhabitants or turning a home into an office).
Therefore, architects build buildings not thanks to theoretical speculations, but thanks to knowledge about the real relationship between nature and man (who is not only a resident or a tourist). Modernism and other ideal constructs (THESAURIC,TAXONOMIC) exist in an ideal world, which is as objective as the real one, and are often replaced by one another.
Volodymyr Durmanov
Interesting indeed, that ARCHITECTURE IS SOMEONE's iIDEALISED DISTILLATION. Suppose, now just to drive you crazy, we have the ANECDOTIC ARCHITECTURE...
These configurations are inherently ANARCHIC. The best example being KOWLOON WALL CITY... often they are SLUMS. ANECDOTIC ARCHITECTURE, where there's no singular architect. If you like, they are the literal opposite of TAXONOMIC ARCHITECTURE. They are ruleless, shapeless, basically seeming chaotic, such that they DEFY CLASSIFICATION.
Image Source: https://www.archdaily.com/361831/infographic-life-inside-the-kowloon-walled-city
Volodymyr Durmanov
To answer/ engage with you on the following questions:
If you are a resident who is aware that he lives in this building, then what does its flexibility mean to him (moving chairs, walls or neighbors)?
If you are a tourist collecting amazing pictures, then you will certainly find a certain potential flexibility in it (changing inhabitants or turning a home into an office).
To a RESIDENT, I suspect flexibility in THESAURIC DESIGNS means perhaps a way economise on space because spaces overlap, as opposed to stacking in a TAXONOMIC ARCHITECTURE.
To a TOURIST, or rather the touring company, flexibility in a THESAURIC ARCHITECTURE means maybe something to do with extracting capital based on fabricated spectacles as experience. Authenticity here is maybe paradoxical?
Here I would like to plug the resident/ tourist into Walter Benjamin's Flaneur... who is a window shopper hoping to been seen as he is seeing...
TAXONOMIC ARCHITECTURE is probably of little value to the TOURIST AS VOYEUR, but rather maybe the TOURIST AS EYEWITNESS...
Volodymyr Durmanov
Regarding your comment about nature man (a natural vs artificial environment dichotomy/ continum?) is perhaps ENCYCLOPEDIC DESIGN.
Here I am thinking of the BOTANIC GARDENS, often built by by British colonisers, are solid examples. Zoos also fall in ENCYCLOPEDIC DESIGN. I think SOCIAL MEDIA are also ENCYCLOPEDIC.
ENCYCLOPEDIC and TAXONOMIC DESIGNS are probably closely related. How they differ is maybe to do with different, but potentially overlapping SIGHT REGIMENTATIONS. The AFFORDANCE OF ENCYCLOPEDIC SPACES is that one is meant to GAZE, TOUCH & INTERACT. Shopping MALLS and all kinds of produce/ animal stock MARKETS are also ENCYCLOPEDIC.
Where TAXONOMIC DESIGNS are principally top down CLASSIFICATIONS, ENCYCLOPEDIC DESIGNS are based on top down SORTING and bottom up RESORTING.
Consider the MEAT MARKET in LONDON, that's where one could see SORTING/ SLOTTING. EXPLICIT LABELS ARE THE MAIN GIVE AWAY.
Where TAXONOMIC ARCHITECTURE seeks to DISGUISE ITS CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES, ENCYCLOPEDIC ARCHITECTURE SEEK TO MAKE EXPLICIT ITS SORTING/ SLOTTING FUNCTIONS. ORIENTATION is central to ENCYCLOPEDIC SPACES.
Image Source: https://onlybyland.com/smithfield-meat-market-in-london/
That's right, observation is the first step to understanding and solving the issue of how to get rid of the architecture that creates modern slums
Volodymyr Durmanov
Are you suggesting that the TELEOLOGY OF SLUMS is THEIR RIDDANCE?
Slums are INTRACTABLE.
So is HOMELESSNESS.
If we consider that the copying machine thinks, then the projects copied by it are certainly encyclopedic design with its sorting - slotting.
Don't confuse a homeless person living in the forest with a rich living in the slums.
Volodymyr Durmanov
Is that SORTING OR DUPLICATING?
This AMBIGUITY also applies to WEB SEARCH. Then we have RANKING.
It's neither one nor the other, Please consider the last post only as an allegorical comparison, not related to architecture, but falling under the definition of creativity.
Volodymyr Durmanov
Regarding: Don't confuse a homeless person living in the forest with a rich living in the slums
I wish to highlight this story of a guy who did disappear for decades, surviving on the fringe of a holiday housing settlement.
See: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/15/stranger-in-the-woods-christopher-knight-hermit-maine
How is this different from HOMELESSNESS?
What type of architecture do you classify the structure created by this young man? Modernism or postmodernism? Perhaps it relates to taxonomic design?
Volodymyr Durmanov
Firstly, I think of MODERNITY as solid, liquid and vapour (so there's no post modernity)
Secondly, I think it might be ANECDOTIC. Slums, homeless encampments, etc.
Dear ieu-Tieu Le Phung,
Thank you for your answers.
We will come back to them later, because
this is a very important problem.
In order for its disclosure to be useful for each of us, I suggest answering my several questions first:
1) Do you consider the structure shown in the last photo to be architecture?
2) Do you think that the person who built such a building is an architect?
3) Do you consider this structure beautiful, useful and convenient ?
4) How many such structures are there in your country, according to the latest housing census?
Volodymyr Durmanov
Thanks so much for plodding along my whole of inquiries in this thread. So far, I just went by intuition and hence why I didn't want to over think my ideas regarding:
TAXONOMIC
ENCYCLOPEDIC
THESAURIC
ANECDOTIC
METONYMIC
METAPHORIC
If anything, I WASN'T even necessary just coming from ARCHITECTURE THINKING. I am actually coming from SEMIOTICS and LINGUISTICS. But I think you are right, I stumbled into something VITAL (not just important). So many many thanks for facilitating the development of these ideas. And boy, you are asking some tough questions. I could end up making a mess of those questions, so I just going by gut. Here are my answers as follows...
Volodymyr Durmanov
1) Do you consider the structure shown in the last photo to be architecture?
This is tricky. I am resisting all impulse to google WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE.
Lets say ARCHITECTURE is the PERMISSIBLE OF SOME STRUCTURE THAT IS SITED, ACQUIRED, FUNDED, DESIGNED AND BUILT which in turn can be TEMPORARY or PERMANENT.
A pop up stall/ restaurant/ etc IS ARCHITECTURE. They are LEGAL and hence LEGITIMATE. And they BELONG to both the OWNER and their SURROUNDING/ COMMUNITY.
This definition of ARCHITECTURE is what I believe is how ARCHITECTURE OPERATE IN THE LEGAL SPHERE.
Do I personally fully subscribe to this definition?
Intuitively yes and no.
But ultimately no. Because I would call the tent/ slum/ etc ANECDOTIC DESIGN / ARCHITECTURE.
Volodymyr Durmanov
2) Do you think that the person who built such a building is an architect?
Going by my ANECDOTIC CONCEPT OF ARCHITECTURE, I think this person is an architect. But not by intentional, BUT BY IMPROVISATIONAL. Is like assigning if a Jazz player is a composer (architect)/ musician (builder) or not.
Volodymyr Durmanov
This is the most thorny question of all:
3) Do you consider this structure beautiful, useful and convenient ?
This is a question of subjectivies, as ALL ARCHITECTURE/ DESIGN ARE SUBJECTIVIES.
ANECDOTIC DESIGNS are beautiful, useful, and convenient TO WHOM?
There's much to be unpacked from SUBJECTIVITIES.
The difference between THESAURIC versus ANECDOTIC are THEIR LEGALITY.
IF we look at KOWLOON WALLED CITY, one might say it certainly has it beauty in the DIAGRAM above. Without that, SLUMS are DELAPIDATION. Is DELAPIDATION beautiful, useful and convenient to whom?
It so happens I lived in both the world's most and second most expensive cities: Hongkong and Sydney.
Much of HK's history is derived from the INFLUX OF REFUGEES displaced by the Cultural Revolution. Slums from 1950s to 1980s were gradually replaced by social housing. My previous HK students don't subscribe to the DOLE, but they wouldn't consider SOCIAL HOUSING as a handout.
SLUMS ARE ESSENTIALLY WARRENS. How should one even answer your question 3?
Hidden in both cities are warrens (be that vertical or horizontal).
We can think of the COFFIN BUNKS in HK as the ultimate deprivation.
But in Sydney, perhaps also HK too, there are even greater deprivations.
Enter the existence of HOT BEDDING. They make COFFIN BUNKS a LUXURY.
Sub tenements of tenements of tenements...
Given HOUSING SHORTAGES WORLD OVER, this not just important, vital, but URGENT CONCERNS. This does go back to my concept of MODERNITY AS SOLID LIQUID and VAPOUR.
Social Housing in HK was built to placate THE ANGER OF THE MOB. Now instead of building social housing, the RAGE OF THE MASSES are directed to constructed OUTSIDERS which result not in more equitable RESTRIBUTION. Under conditions of VAPOUR MODERNITY, this is so COMBUSTIBLE that they ARE TOPPLING WHAT'S LEFT OF SOLID MODERNITY.
Thus ironically, the top 0.0000000000000001% are building THEIR OWN WARRENS.
Unless we come up with NEW/ REVISED TERMINOLOGIES, we are DOOMED when concurrently the richest of the richest of the richest are channelling THEIR SURPLUS CAPITAL TOWARDS building DWELLINGS IN SPACE/ ON MARS. How absurd this is, no one seems to ask such a question. It DEFIES COMMON SENSE, but there's NO LONGER COMMON let alone SENSE. We are reaching TERMINAL/ TERMINATION of EARTH INHABITATION FOR CREATURES GREAT, not the greatest at least, and SMALL.
Maslow considers SHELTER as the most FUNDAMENTAL NEED. It maybe, but HABITATS are NOT an INALIENABLE RIGHT.
Heck, not even for CAVEMEN/ DWELLER/ HERMIT, which I suppose what this KNIGHT guy aspires to, because he can't SUBSIST/ EXIST as HUNTER & GATHERER.
Image Source: https://theconversation.com/20-people-in-a-two-bedroom-apartment-the-growing-health-and-safety-risks-of-hot-bedding-244279
Image Source: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff
Volodymyr Durmanov
Let perhaps say ARCHITECTURE is something WITH WALLS.
Image Source: https://weburbanist.com/2014/12/20/iceberg-homes-london-boroughs-curb-luxury-super-basements/
Image Sources:
Coffin Homes, Subdivided Flats and Partitioned Rooms in Hong Kong | South China Morning Post
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/hk-magazine/article/2035259/coffin-homes-subdivided-flats-and-partitioned-rooms-hong-kong
Inside Hong Kong’s miserable coffin homes where thousands live in spaces barely bigger than their bed | The Sun
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3743131/hong-kong-coffin-homes-pictures-size/
The 'Coffin Homes' of Hong Kong - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/05/the-coffin-homes-of-hong-kong/526881/
What are the notorious 'coffin cubicles' in Hong Kong, and what is it like to live in them? - Quora
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-notorious-coffin-cubicles-in-Hong-Kong-and-what-is-it-like-to-live-in-them
Volodymyr Durmanov
How do you consider such HOUSING? Cramping seems inadequate.
Volodymyr Durmanov
As to your last question, it a non Signatur.
4) How many such structures are there in your country, according to the latest housing census?
It's very likely that why my approach to ARCHITECTURE and DESIGN, being from SEMIOTICS and LINGUISTICS, plus not least as a LEARNING DESIGNER.
From Semiotics and FINE ARTS, it opens new ways of SEEING what's hidden, exposed or somewhere in between.
In my High School Chemistry, my teacher kick started it with WHAT IS OBSERVATION. One can open many cans of worms from that. There are so many differing REGIMES OF SEEING:
Observing
Looking
Gazing
Witnessing
Blinding
Envisioning
From Linquistics, it opens new ways of talking about SPACE & TIME.
From LEARNING DESIGN, it opens new ways of conceptualising the digital and physical fusion, difusion, separation, etc involved in the ART AND SCIENCE OF DESIGNING.
Volodymyr Durmanov
This brings me to bunkers, warrens, subterrean habitats.
But yes, ARCHITECTURE IS ANYTHING WITH WALLS.
DESIGNS ARE ANYTHING WITH IMMERSION.
Now I am definitely very very very curious to hear your feedback.
Volodymyr Durmanov
I would add this question: Are all ESCAPE DESIGNS THE SAME?
Such as Christopher Knight's encampment versus all these trillionaires' ESCAPE BUNKERS.
Do they need sub-classifications?
As I write this entry, EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS ARE PROMOTING EVERYONE'S NEED FOR BUNKERS.
In Germany, suddenly one is PERMITTED TO USE ONE'S GARAGE AS BUNKER. Normally, if NORMALITY EVEN NOW EXIST, the GARAGE is ONLY PERMITTED FOR CARS, irrespective of any conditions one may have to accommodate cars, or even if one has or so even need a car. FORGET THAT A GERMAN STEVE JOBS WOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO USE GARAGES AS THE FOUNTAIN SOURCE OF INNOVATIONS.
Again, just another ABSURDITY one finds particularly in Germany, the LAND OF THE UMPERMISSIBLE. It goes beyond the 是非 OF NYMBIES VERSUS YIMBIES.
I use 是非 which usually means not getting into ARGUMENTS of IS IT/ IS IT NOT. This is not the same as TO BE, OR NOT TO BE SOLIQUAY which is really a rhetorical question to one. I struggle to think if THESAURIC ARCHITECTURE even exists in GERMANY. The nearest possibility is a RETIREMENT VILLAGE. Heck, that's another story.
But back to my above question: Are ESCAPE DESIGNS all the same?
In some ways, they are. Namely to the common DESIRE/ NEED to WALL ONE OFF THE GRID.
In the Trillionaire's versions is this FANTASY that, despite WALLING OFF THE GRID, one STILL SOCIALISE in one's SWIMMING POOLS, HOME CINEMA and GAMES ROOMS. Just whom they have in mind for all these EMPTY CHAIRS (not BEDS) in an ACROPOLYPTIC SITUATION/ SCENARIO doesn't seem be COMPUTED INTO SUCH DESIGNS.
Ha! I'll drive you even crazier: Why is there a PROFILATION OF PANIC ROOMS AS ENTERTAINMENT?
Volodymyr Durmanov
All these meandering thoughts got me thinking, I might need to include ACROPOLYTIC into my HEURISTIC FOR ARCHITECTURES AND DESIGNS.
Why HEURISTICS and SCHEMATICS?
Volodymyr Durmanov
This is indeed a very fruitful exchange and I truly thank you for plodding me along.
Best of all, this has enabled me to elaborate on my CONCEPTUALISATION OF MODERNITY AS SOLID, LIQUID, & VAPOUR.
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung,
Thank you for such an emotional attitude to the subject of our conversation.
However, let us try to organize our communication and consistently move from one problem to another, otherwise, having lost our bearings, we will fall into a ditch of misunderstanding.
It should be taken into account that I express my own point of view, which may not coincide with the views of other architectural schools.
1)In answer to the first question, it is important that most scientists believe that there is a broad understanding of architecture, uniting all material things created by nature and people, and a narrow understanding of architecture, which covers only those ideas, projects and their construction implementations that a community has during its period of civilizational development. This is sacred, folk industrial or defense architecture, as well as urban planning, landscape, interior or theatrical scenery and virtual constructions. When they cease to correspond to the community's way of life, they become either cultural monuments, are reconstructed or simply destroyed. However, there is also a view that Notre Dame Cathedral (reflecting medieval scholasticism) and the Villa Savoye (created according to the philosophy of purism) are architectural art. The building shown in the photo can be considered in the broad sense of the word a human building (built by man). However, the degree of its closeness to an architectural work or art can only be determined by public assessment. For me, the difference between architecture and anti-architecture is like the difference between life and existence.
You, as a citizen, must decide for yourself where lies this boundary.
2)The answer to the first question allows us to approach the second. If a person is able to conceive and build a structure relying on his existing knowledge and skills that meet the professional requirements of the community, he is an architect. If he built a structure that differs from a bird's nest only in size, and no one else needs it, then he can hardly be considered an architect. The demand for a community is the main feature of any art, including architecture. The skill and knowledge of the intellectual Imhotep made it possible to solve an important social problem of Pharaoh Djoser, which became the starting point for understanding the social significance of the role of the architect as the main and only generator of the spatial image of the structure needed by the owner. Therefore, I cannot determine whether a homeless person who built himself a hut is a professional architect, knowing nothing about how he lives, what kind of house he dreams of and how he perceives what he built. (see Le Corbusier's Cabanon).
3) The answer to this question also requires clarification. In order to build something, you need to at least imagine the purpose of what you want to do. But as soon as you touch a log, clay or stone with your hand and try to move them or change their shape according to your ideas, you will feel the power of the material world and will be forced to take it into account. The interaction of the material and the ideal is objective, so every creator who intends to create something beautiful, useful and convenient should take into account what it means for nature and society (social order). The main task of the architect is to present and implement the architectural image needed by the client. Whether the constructed structure is convenient, beautiful and useful should be objectively decided by both the owner and the architectural critic.
4) If you have fragmentary information (no based on government statistics, public opinion and people's lifestyle), then you can hardly hope for an effective and not speculative solution to the architectural problem.
Dear Tieu-Tieu Le Phung,
I am also glad that I have inspired confidence in the construction of your personal theory. Every architect must formulate his own creative ideology in order to be useful to those who need a solution to a construction problem.
Good luck
VD
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology
- Mental Processes
- Learning