sketchbook musings:
my story
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When we had to write a
narrative for our pre-designed plaza, I checked out Peter Yeadon's stuff
because the way he approaches the designing process is by creating <FICTIONS>
i.e. narratives that have characters that live within or intimately interact
with the site/building and through that character's experience, the building
is revealed. So from looking at his PRIX DE ROME project, I drew
inspiration and started to be able to formulate what it was that I wanted
to express in this project/tower and event plaza.
Here's a brainstorm of
ideas:
Identity-to reinvent
himself, herself, themselves...
Experience of the immigrant
- expectations (unfamiliar) versus experience (familiar)
Memory of other places,
of home (longing for the familiar)
What it is and what
it could be?
To attempt to construct
a familiar territory in a new land - develop an affinity for new land,
leading to reflection of the familiarity of the new city and the exoticness
of the old city.
Transformation/metamorphosis
of the here and now to the there and then
I also went back to Invisible
Cities by Italo Calvino and took out all five "Cities
and Memories" stories. Here are some quotes:
"Cities, like dreams
are made of desires and fears."
"You take delight not
in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question
of yours"
"Or the questions it
asks you, forcing your to answer"
And this is my narrative.
I plan to continue with this storyline throughout this project because
it forces me to meditate outside the usual aspects of designing such as
invocation of memories, a real person (character) as they interact with
my design, that are not always evident in those drawings of plan,
elevations, sections, etc... Note: plan discontinued.
My story, titled "A
Familiar Memory"
Once you have arrived at this juncture
in the city, you feel a desire for your Old City and the beauty of the
comfortable and familiar. Lost in your memories, you find yourself
afloat in a sea of the unfamiliar and the mysterious, such that you begin
to construct a familiar memory, reinventing from the threads of what is
no longer before you, into and onto what is now in front of you.
So that what is now in front of you, becomes a place of familiar of what
could be and could not be. In that transformation of there and then
to the here and now the space at this juncture becomes something beautiful
and serene, reflective and encompassing.
At this space in the juncture, the
multicolored lamps cast a disposing glow on the dark of the pavement, lined
up in rows, alternating in distances to each other so that the children
who are running free amongst them can swing between them at a happy uneven
cadence. The parents of those children, pleased at the sudden and
simultaneous lighting of those lamps, cast a guarding and regulatory eye
on their children before returning to conversations they were having with
each other, today, yesterdays and in the many days of tomorrows.
The murmur from the parents' voices trail up into the air, caught up like
spiderwebs in the wind, away but grasping on, reminds you slowly and seductively
of conversations that have floated towards you, as you sat in the old park
talking always with your parents of the hopes of your future, your marriage
and your impending move. Seated on the benches that are cocooned
by the whispering leaves and branches of the trees behind, you glance above
at the giant of a tower, majestic yet unimposing. The presence of
that light tower draws you back to this place; a lighthouse that can weave
its way through your dreams and memories and bring you safely back home
to your new city. The tower, constructed out of graystone, is softly
textured and impressionable to the fingertips, and calls forth your longing
of a new identity such that you feel inclined to get up from the bench
and walk toward the limestone tower and impress yourself upon it.
With your face pressed against the smooth texture of the stone, you imagine
yourself being drawn up until you are at the top of this light tower.
At the top you delight in seeing all around the wide, incredible masses
that make up this beautiful and foreign city. Glancing below at the
open space that surrounds the tower and to the low semi glass-encased building
that mirrors the moonlight, you feel at home, once again in familiar territory.
Part 2: In A Familiar
Memory
"All these beauties will already
be familiar to the visitor, who has seen them also in other cities."
"As this wave from memories flows
in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands."
"Invisible
Cities" by Italo Calvino
When you have finally arrived
at this juncture in this new city of home, you can already trace the thread/patterns
of beauties that winds it way around the city. So that in tracing this
fine thread, going suspended from point to point, you can already remember
in succession all the memories that this city has soaked up through its
inhabitants. In this pocket of the city, at this juncture, you can draw
your hand in to recover a forgotten memory of having arrived at this space
before and understand that the beauties of this place, you have already
seen before in other cities.
From the cascade of steps down into
the plaza, gently caressing your entry into this part of the city, you
come to stand amidst tall lamp tiers and birch trees. Standing among
taller elements reminds you of when the soldiers came to your city and
you were able to weave between the taller shoulders of the people in the
crowd to warn your brothers. Winding through the narrow alleys you were
able to spot the tower of the cathedral where your mother was praying,
similar to the beautiful light tower of this plaza that draws you to a
desired location. As you cross the plaza toward the strong graystone
building, the pavement patterns of stirs up memories of...to be continued.