An Architecture of Experience
“In doing so, it endeavors to balance the priority accorded
to the image and to counter the western tendency to interpret the environment
in exclusively perspectival terms.”
Kenneth Frampton
6 Points for an Architecture of Resistance
This weekend, I visited Kiawah with some fiends. As we biked
the island admiring houses, I noticed (and expected) my friends to comment on a
certain typology. It was always the house that was elaborate and traditional.
However when we approached a contemporary home that I found beautiful (designed
by a former professor of mine, Jim Thomas), I said so but got no response. So I thought as
we quickly rode away that if they could only approach the house, go inside, and
experience the architecture (as we were able to do as a class last year), they
would feel differently. This house is so much more than merely a “scene” for
the passersby, but designed for a heighten experience of the place. I think
this is what Frampton refers to in his 6th point: the visual versus
the tactile. Kiawah is a place that is built upon a strong visual aesthetic,
and this is what visitors, like us, appreciate as we bike along the island.
However, we fail to consider how much our other senses serve in recognizing
Kiawah as a distinct place. The smell,
the weather, the humidity, the light, the sounds, and the feel of transitions from
marsh to woods to sandy beach to ocean are features of the place that are so
much more than a scene. This home, I feel, spoke to these aspects in ways the
typical Kaiwah beach house do not. This emphasis in connecting the user to the place
is so much more important and lasting than an emphasis in a scenographic façade that serves to blend into the surrounding typography.
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