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1987
THOUGHTS ON TRANS-CENDENTAL (RHAPSODIC) ARCHITECTURE - BEYOND FUNCTION
AND CULTURE
At the outset
I want to say that the future of architecture is very bright. In Asia,
it is particularly so because the possibilities for the development of
architectural ideas and themes can be greatly expanded by gaining access
to deeper levels of thought and sensing which the Asian intellectual tradition
gives us. To be precise, there are at least 479 million alter-native design
strategies we can draw from. Although I lay stress here on the aesthetic
dimensions of design, I do not mean to overlook the other aspects which
are important.
It is easy while we are here in Bali, in this beautiful and apparently
tranquil life of cosmic harmony, to admit that there is a crisis in modernism.
That there is a crisis is certain when the integrity of human life is
being pulled apart by the drive for material goods at the expense of spiritual
harmony, community equilibrium, good taste and good manners. The modernism
crisis spills out of the advanced industrial cities into the countrysides
of the world and especially into the lives of newly-urbanised peoples.
Life is instantly robbed of its sacred qualities, of its equanimous acceptance
of fate spun on the wheel of life which translated means structured stations
in life and the calm acceptance of death determined by the inexorable
cosmic dance. Despite its sweeping powers, modernism has a flaw at its
core notwithstanding its obvious triumphs in technology, large-scale bureaucracy,
systematic economic development, mass education, hygienic living, etc.
The flaw
is in its systemic incapacity to deal with the aesthetic, the intuitive,
the spiritual or even the natural dimensions of human life. Man is left
less-dimensioned as societies separate and divide, the traditional equilibrium
between the rational and the non-rational breaks down and humans become
like Herbert Marcuse's "One-Dimensional Man" -effective but
empty.
Now, rationality relies entirely on ciphers and codes. Only things which
can be coded can be processed rationally. Since much of the inner life
of humans are not codifiable they are left undeveloped, ignored or atrophied.
In the face of dominant modern-rational culture, despite Dada and the
Abarchist's fighting spirit, all non-conforming sensibilities are swept
away, the non-codifiable aspects and tendencies receded into obscurantism
and superstition.
From their
recesses, the bruised and hurt sensibilities strike back at the rational
order with a surprising ferocity when the time is right. That's how the
cookie crumbles. Superstition, religious extremism and militant ethnicity
have their appeal precisely because they offer a respite and a recourse
from reason. The rational order seems powerless when such a contest arises
- all parties lose - witness the ethno/religious wars that seem to erupt
in different parts of the globe today. The bureaucrats, the expert human
engineers and the power mechanics who rule the world have become embattled
warriors of exclusivistic rationalism. They are bewildered. They can't
really understand the phenomenon and they can't predict where the next
flare-up will take place. Architecture is faced with these problems too
as the rational design ideologies reel under the deconstructivist, playful
and mocking siege of "pop architecture".
Make no mistake
- this kind of architecture is popular - it is recognised as a cry for
freedom. Freedom from the tyranny of rationality - it is a deliberate
biting of the hand that feeds. Yet there ought to be a distinction between
Disneyland architecture and "serious" pop. The work of Kazuhiro
Ishii represents precisely that kind of serious pop or controlled laughter.
Not the crude jokes with no punch line which we see appearing everywhere
under the banner of "post-modernism". Mind you, "pop architecture"
pays well but where is it leading? Is it attempting to heal the rift in
the human psyche or is it substituting laughter only to drown the sorrows
of the moment?
There is however a deeper vein which the proponents of the non-rational
or humorous architecture may unknowingly be mining.
It is the
vein of imagination. Rhapsodic imagination is that aspect of the human
mind that has been put aside for too long by modernism's pragmatic utilitarianism
during the heavy industralisation phase. The human spirit yearns for deliverance
from reductionistic logic and simplistic functionalism within the insecure
and tiresome catching-up process which month after month the glossy magazines
stimulate. The seduction smothers any tiny tentative new shoots with so
much goodness that they happily shrivel up.
In the past, architects have always been the "undangis" (traditional
Balinese architect or giver of order) of their societies. It is only in
the modern period that we have become more specialised and therefore more
narrow. We must regain the special position in society wherein we served
the role of mediator between the mundane and the sublime as we create
form and ambience imbued with meaning and hope. We must insist that our
essential role is to project a vision of life's special potentialities
giving wholeness and healing the rifts in contemporary life's compartmentalised
conveniences. We must connect people to time, to nature and to other people
in the spaces and places we build with care and with wit.
That we engage people imaginatively in the environment through what we
build is our sacred and special task. Only when we see such a role for
ourselves can we regain our lost seat in that special position reserved
by society for the "undangi" - the divinator of place and time.
To propagate the role of the architect as "problem solver" is
to short-change our role. The architect thus defined must ultimately lose
as more and more experts undertake the solving of problems with much more
ability than the architect. the architect's unique role is to be the poet
of space and form. In this, there is no other.
Thus, I give you the concept of "transcendental architecture"
or, if you choose, "rhapsodic architecture". In this regard,
I want to remind you of a sagacious remark by Geoffrey Bawa when he said
that,"no line should be drawn until the totality of the site, the
programme and all the factors of the users, the culture and the client
are thoroughly understood" - it matters not whether this understanding
is conscious or unconscious. In rhapsodic architecture, the totality is
the message. The totality flows from the internal reality of the designer
in terms of what he is, as thinking, encoded biological order which is
not discontinuous with the external reality. It forms one continuum punctuated
only by the practical strategies needed to temporise and concretise such
a consciousness to imbue a place for whatever intended purposes, within
the specifics of place and time, with magic.
Transcendental
or rhapsodic architecture is therefore the design approach which aims
at creating a bridge to transport the imagination from here to there,
to the past, the present or to the world of wonder. The specifics need
not be predicted or restricted. Each design situation has its own ingredients
for magic. As Asians, coming from a highly-developed intellectual and
cultural heritage, much of which is still alive and well, we should be
able to handle the mental shifts required in achieving a thought process
wherein a new balance between the tyranny of mono-polistic rationality
and the world of the spirit, of intention and of primary aesthetic response
is possible. As Asians, our intellect ought to be able to range from Zen
to Kebatinan, from transcendental meditation to mystical Sufism to Yoga,
Taoist Naturalism, etc. The extent and depth of rigour of the Asian intellectual
and spiritual disciplines are no less than those of modern science and
modern philosophy with which we ought also to be familiar. It is only
because of the lack of publicity of the Asian intellectual and spiritual
heritage, a result of colonialism and the continued economic and cultural
dominance of western industrialised cultures that Asian epistemologies
pale in contrast. A dialogue between the two intellectual traditions will
do a lot to inform and enrich our intellectual life and therefore influence
our architecture, and it can make a contribution to the development of
world culture. An Asian architecture can only come about out of the specifics
of Asian thought. Anything less is just surface treatment for propaganda
and political purposes.
Obviously we have to rediscover our intellectual roots and reflect on
them in the contemporary context. We will of course have to review the
myths of modernity itself, its mythic images and its methods. The simple
certainties of materialism and prag-matism which make it so easy to sweep
aside human intuition and wonder become less certain when the pro-mises
of these myths are examined. As with the certainties of material existence
when viewed at the level of particle physics, all certainties dissolve
except the notion of propensity to exist in the mysterious sub-atomic
world of transmutation between energy and matter. While as architects
we can never hope to penetrate the particle, we can take courage from
the fact that we are like everybody else in that crucible so-to-speak
of the uncertainty principle. A word of caution, uncertainty need not
mean licence or the lack of purpose or intent. Those wild dimensions of
the human mind which have been controlled by civi-lisation and rationality
and which lurk in the dark recesses need to
be vented with caution and with control. In design, this makes the difference
between the crude and the enigmatic.
The wild
and the wonderful. The non-rational dimensions and the deep structure
programmes can easily be defeated by superstition, sentimentality and
nostalgic indulgence and be sugar-coated to death. To be alive, the memory
has to be vigorously refused solidity so that preferred ideas of the past
do not freeze into formulas for mindless reproduction. Formula is the
death of creativity. That is why all comprehensive religions have injunctions
against idolatry and are against "taking the name of the Lord in
vain" or the worship of words and concepts in themselves. But it
is nonetheless a human predicament in that consciousness is not possible
without iconic language systems. Yet these in themselves constrain true
knowledge if clung to rigidly. Knowledge has therefore got to be a dialectical
process of constant conceptual renewal.
So with necessary caution, I will now discuss the 12 transcendental design
aspects which by permutation and combinations factorise into 479,001,600
alternative formulations. There may be more than 12 but these seem to
me to be basic.
COMPLEXITY
Tantalisingly compre-hensible but eludes full comprehension. Confusion
or disorderly complexity does not achieve the same effect -it produces
despair. Orderly complexity, on the other hand, induces wonderment and
a pleasurable urge to seek resolution and completion. Complex geometrical
patterns in the Arab-Islamic design tradition is a good example of the
appeal of complexity. We also see the same design principle in Geoffrey
Bawa's design of his own house - the delightful incomprehensibility of
it.
SINGULARITY
The enigmatic singularity of an object revealed in its own utterness is
compelling. The mini-malist approach has been widely exploited in modern
architectural design as well as in
Zen art, Zen architecture and Japanese landscape design.
UGLINESS
The enigma of the contorted, the crude, the camp, the rustic, or gnarled
can be evocative if presented in its singularity. Hints of distortion
or ugliness in a composition or form produces a tantalising irresolution
of attraction and repulsion.
LUMINOSITY
AND GLITTER
Jewellery's appeal is universal and ancient. A world of wonder can be
seen in the glitter and ever-changing lights within a jewel. Jewellery
is the most directly recognisable mediator between the mundane and the
sublime. It is the perfect transcendental object.
ABSTRACT
FORM
Representational forms or figurative renditions cannot hold attention
for long as they are straightforward, descriptive and obvious. Non-figurative
or near-figurative form can extend attention. The continuum - figurative,
near-figurative, non-figurative to trans-figurative is a rich area for
design exploration.
DYNAMICS
IN COMPOSITION
Shifting attention, focus and directionality, in form and composition
will result in interest and involves the obser-ver's attention. It coun-teracts
the fatiguing tendency of a singular focus of attention.
SURPRISE
- NOVELTY
The quality of newness. The unexpected juxta-position of forms or contexts
or themes or events capture attention. It must however lead to other qualities
before familiarity also depletes it of its interest.
MYSTERY
- ANTICIPATION
Vagueness, implied directions, implied spaces, expectations, multiple
meanings can engage the mind and
the senses. Heightened sensory and intellectual involvement results.
RHYTHMIC
NARCOSIS
Sheer repetition of regular elements is designed to dull the senses -
prepares the mind and the senses
for surprise and change. It heightens other sensation. It calms through
its regularity.
DISCURSIVENESS
- NON-DIRECTIONALITY
Non-focused, wandering. It develops a no-stress situation - it is the
opposite of sequentiality. It also prepares the senses and the mind for
rewards and resolutions. It presents a field of possibilities. It contains
and acts as a backdrop to events in its field.
AMBIGUITY
-INDETERMINACY
The opposite of clarity. Duality and uncertainty, double meaning and double
purpose creates wonder and a sense of freedom and perplexity.
NUMERAL
AND FORMAL PERMUTATIONS
It engages the mind in its perceivable orders of transformation. A reading
of the under-lying order of the form is satisfied, is rewarded through
joy of comprehension of the nature of the concealed order and basis of
the permutations.
Now all the 12 strategies in themselves when repeatedly encountered will
produce fatigue and therefore boredom. To be effective, an overriding
strategy of mutability, changing quality or differentiated and naturally-changing
sensory conditions of encounter should be anticipated in designs. Stimuli
such as smell, sound, changing light, changing activity, can be choreographed
or enabled to spontaneously happen to alter the perception of the 12 combined
factors. Alterations in the mood of the observer including humour, quietness,
expectation, heightened consciousness, gloom, cheerfulness, etc. could
also be considered as inputs in design. The scope is vast. Architecture
need not become obsessed with historical, typological or stylistic assemblages
when a more basic and free architecture is so widely possible. Consider
some combinations. A complex patterning of shining and luminous dynamic
masses set enigmatically in an undulating landscape whose folds partly
conceal the building, expressed in changing light to thesound of tinkling
bells, etc. Consider an ugly object -all twisted, dark and contorted suddenly
punctuating the geometrical order which is established by a field of rhythmic
patterns incomprehendable to
the eye ... have fun!
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