The Venice Bienalle of Architecture
The Venice Biennale’s theme for this year was “Freespace”. Some of the questions that were asked are; how can a space be free, does free spaces mean free by its structure or usage or users, how free space can be defined… These questions and so more were understood, answered and represented differently by each country within the context of their own thoughts and history.
Although I could not visit the Venice Biennale in person, as far as I researched, there are a lot of interesting pavilions. Each country designed a free space from very different perspectives and histories. But the one that I most wanted to see and experience in person was the Argentinian Pavilion, “Horizontal Vertigo”. This pavilion was curated by the architects Javier Mendiondo, Pablo Anzilutti, Francisco Garrido and Federico Cairoli. . Their main idea was to challenge ourselves, rethink the already existing earth we have and how can we work together with it and how can we use its generous capacity in each project with care. In this pavilion there is container right in the middle of the room. In this container there is earth and plants inside of it, there are mirrors on the sides of it, and on the top layer there is a bluish screen that represents the sky. So when you look from in front of it, you feel like you are in an infinite nature (or I can say that it feels like that from the pictures). In my opinion this pavilion made the “Freespace” an infinite space that is in the nature and this space can be used by anyone for anything. And for my understanding, that can be called a qualified free space.
Istanbul Design Biennial A School of School
Istanbul Design Biennial’s this year’s theme was School of Schools. There were six different locations, which are placed in Beyoglu that represented six different methods and understanding of schools. They were, Unmaking School, Earth School, Time School, Currents School, Scales Schools and Digestion School. Each school tries to combine the education, design and learning progress with its own context. As I visit the biennial, I did not exactly understand the connection between the exhibited projects and the theme. Most of the projects were designed in the past and it seems like they tried to connect and fit it with the theme “School of Schools”. As much as I was confused with this biennial, I enjoyed visiting the “Scales Schools” in Pera.
The one that is named “To Photograph the Details of a Dark Horse in Low Light” took my attention. It was a large scaled photograph compilation of dark skinned people’s portraits. These photographs were taken by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. The name of the exhibition comes from a new photographic film that is found by photo manufacturer Kodak in 80’s. This phase masks the basic dilemma for the photographic industry that, photographic films captures dark skinned people poorly.
In my opinion, the main idea and the problem that is tried to shown in this exhibition was quite interesting and appropriate for the theme, considering it is exhibited in “ Scales School”. It can be interpreted that it shows the scale difference between races.
From Modernism to Post- Modernism
Modernism is a movement that emerged in the 20’s as an answer to fast industrialization and social changes. The main aim is to create
ordered and universal architecture. It is about using new materials and new technology in architecture. A modernist architect rejects the old, traditional ideas and styles. Mainly, modern architecture can be sum up with the phrase “form follows function”. So that they reject the ornaments, they find it unnecessary and useless.
As opposed to modernism, post-modernism was emerged. It began as a critique of modernism in late 60’s. Architects and designers began to question modernism’s principals and create new things against it. The famous phrase in modernism “less is more” by Mies van der Rohe was changed to “less is a bore” by Robert Venturi. Post-modernism gives opportunity to more variety then modernism. Modernism has strict rules. So it is very easy to define it. On the other hand post-modernism is hard to define, because it has a wide definition. It includes so many styles and ideas that it becomes a blurred area. But if a definition is needed to describe the post-modernism; Mary Mcleod said, it is “a desire to make architecture a vehicle of cultural expression”.
Utopia
The first think that comes to mind when talking about utopian cities, is probably going to be Constant and his “New Babylon” project. Inhis vision, a utopian city is a place that technologically optimistic. By mean that, a city that fully automated, a society that can do what they want and play freely, in a nutshell a city that liberates people from work force.
He designed this utopian city with multiple different techniques such as drawing, painting, and sculpture. The whole project and its long process is a blurred area between art, architecture and fiction. According to Constant, “New Babylon” is a anti-capitalist city that the people of that city are freed from the “bourgeois shackles of work”. There is an infinite opportunity for play, and do what you want freely.
Heritage and its Entanglements with Violence
The definition of heritage is, any characteristic or immaterial possession that is passed down through the years, from one generation to the next; an inherent from ancestor. This definition creates a positive image of the heritage. But in truth heritage includes both positive and negative things that happen in the past. As a negative thing violent actions are becoming more and more common in this century.
And the heritage that is passed away from the next generation theme will be “violence”. The places where these violent acts are done are as important as the act of violence and they can also be counted as heritage. These places can be battlefields, concentration camps, damaged neighborhoods, houses, monuments. Although heritage has its positive side, it should not be forgotten that it also has a negative side and they embrace each other.
Psychogeography
The term psychogeography was invented by Guy Debord who was a Marxist theorist in 1955. He used this word to investigate the feelings and behaviors that different places makes us feel. He was inspired by Charles Baudelaire who was a French poet and writer in 19th century. Baudelaire’s concept of the flaneur, which means urban wanderer, was the basic of Debord’s idea of psychogeography. With this inspiration he found a new way of exploring the place with a playful and inventive method. Wandering the city with these methods creates a new understanding of its architecture and spaces.
Debord designed his own maps of Paris with the method of psychogeography. He searched beyond the normal limits of maps. He was more up to “derive”. This psychogeographical term is used for to define the wandering and observing the environment subjectively. The translation of this French word to English is an “unplanned journey through a landscape”. In this map there are 19 sections and all these sections are personalized experience from Guy Debord. They are all temporal experience and they can never be the same for nor Guy Debord neither anyone else.
Architecture, Nature and the Landscape
The relationship between architecture and the nature has always been kind of problematic. As though they should work together many people do not design and create buildings responsive to nature. We as humankind do not act responsibly and harm the earth. We built and destroy the existing landscape without thinking the outcome. We fill the needed void with the solids that are created for human
population. But as we built for our problems to solve, we create solids without designing the voids.
The voids are as important as solids and as though they are not visible, there is an existence of it. They could be nonfunctional spaces but in total design they are breathing points between solids. And what makes a good working design is that the solids and the voids embracing each other. We change the balance of the earth negatively and we should prevent it by working with the nature and respect it and what it gives us. We should stop just filling the empty spaces unconsciously and design voids and solids together.
Architecture and Migration
One of the biggest topic that has been discussed in the whole world is the migration problem. Some keywords such as host, guest, hospitality, border, door, migrant, citizen can be used when discussing this problem. The city and the citizens that accept the migrants, the guests, should host them with hospitality. As a citizens, we should understand and emphasize with immigrant’s feelings. They also do not want to be in this situation, they miss their home, they miss their normal life but they were just forced to be in this position.
Migrants leave their own country because they want to go somewhere safer or a place with more opportunity for jobs. So as they leave their country and go to another country, does that country’s border become a door, the citizens a host and the migrants a guest? ? As a host, the city and the citizens should welcome the migrants and give them opportunities to feel like them like they are in their homeland. We should use architectural solutions to solve this issue and create their home life in here.
Architecture in the Anthropocene
The definition of anthropocene is, the geological age that the human activities have been a dominant influence on climate and the environment. The world is changing and this change is caused by people. We affect the world negatively and do not even try to be more sensible. We as humankind destroy the existing, beautiful earth day by day and do not care. We should understand that we are also in this earth.
We should built and design considering the nature and what it gives to us or we cannot save it. Some questions may be asked and answered to understand to try to solve this problem. What is a human, a city and the nature? How can they work together and not destroy each other? How can humankind use nature effectively but not harm it? When we try to answer these problems with logical and useful answers and designs then the dominancy of humankind might be over and we can live peacefully with nature.
Architecture and Digital Technologies
Using digital technologies in architecturaldesign is one of the dilemmas in this century. Whether technology speeds up design process and makes this process easier, or does it simplifies the end product. This dilemma’s answer
can change according to the aim of the person that uses the technology. While some people use digital technology for faster process even though the result will be simler, some use digital technology for understanding and desining complicated things.
As an example, digital technology can be used for understanding the complex designs such as gothic cathedrals, plants, animals and more so. Using technology as a research tool and then from the data of that research, designing digitally a product. With this method complicated things can be understood easily and there can be more varied product.
References
https://www.archdaily.com/895621/11-must-see-exhibitions-at-the-2018-venice-biennale https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018/national-participations/argentina
https://www.archdaily.com/895249/horizontal-vertigo-argentinian-pavilion-at-the-venice-biennale-2018 https://www.dezeen.com/2018/06/01/top-10-pavilions-venice-architecture-biennale-2018/
http://www.broombergchanarin.com/text-to-photograph-the-details http://www.broombergchanarin.com/text-racism-of-early-colour
http://www.broombergchanarin.com/to-photograph-a-dark-horse-in-low-light/ https://aperture.org/blog/adam-broomberg-oliver-chanarin-to-photograph-the-details-of-a-dark-horse-in-low-light/
Prof. Dr. Bülent Özer, Post-Modernizm’e Sınıflandırıcı Bir Bakıs Ela Gönen - Filiz Özer, Çagdas Istanbul Post Modern Mimarisinde Neoklasisizm
http://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/architecture-dictionary/entry/postmodern/ https://study.com/academy/lesson/modernism-in-architecture-definition-history.html
Another City for Another Life, Constant Constant Vision, Lebbeus Woods Formulary for New Urbanism, Ivan Chtcheglov
A Utopiafora Dystopian Age, Espen Hammer https://medium.com/designscience/constants-new-babylon-485e6a6592f9
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/heritage
WhatI is Iconolash? or is there a world beyond the image wars?, Bruno Latour
Psychogeography; Merlin Coverley Theory of the Derive, Guy Debord
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/psychogeography http://homepages.phonecoop.coop/vamos/work/lecturenotes/documents/nakedcity.html
https://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en/ http://weppi.gtk.fi/publ/foregsatlas/article.php?id=12
https://thefunambulist.net/architectural-projects/report-from-calais-and-grande-synthe-two-political-architectures-of-inhospitality Deconstructing the Threshold:Waste Lands / Trauma / Hospitality, Merve Bedir
http://www.damnmagazine.net/2017/08/03/anthropocene-architecture/ http://www.designundersky.com/dus/2012/2/27/constructing-the-anthropocene.html
Organicism as a New foundation, Goethe Computer Animisms(Two Designs for the Cardiff Bay Opera House), Greg Lynn, Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto
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