Accidental Reality
While reading the Culture of Congestion, Koolhaas states that metropolis architecture is creating "an alternative reality that is invented and designed, instead of accidental and arbitrary." But couldn't the same be said for all architecture? He criticized how Coney Island's development removed everything natural that brought people to the island, and replaced it with a mechanical, substitute for "natural reality." I found the concept of accidental reality quite intriguing, and found myself pondering whether I considered nature the true reality, and if it is indeed all accidental and arbitrary. But that's a philosophical conversation for another time.
Is architecture just a means to create an alternative reality? And how much of it is driven by consumers? Even the creation of a public plaza, or the Las Vegas strip have skewed the natural reality of their place but instead created a new reality. The Venturi article states about Las Vegas, "if you take the signs away, there is no place." Las Vegas is, in essence, what it grew to become - accidentally. The years of growth and human interference have rewritten the reality of what was once a lonely desert. Is that a bad thing? Is the city, the metropolis, and this idea of turning fantasy into reality a negative concept? Without it, where would we be? If no one had said, "I dream of living in building that reaches towards the sky," would the elevator have been created? Would the skyscraper have come to fruition? Koohlaas states that this idea of establishing fantasy as reality is a megalomaniacal product of modernity, but I would disagree. The idea of yearning for an augmented reality is human behavior. Reading, storytelling, art and architecture are all ancient techniques of changing "reality" in some way - either by presenting the idea of a fantasy or actually generating one.
The topic of the metropolis brought me to a quote by author Mark Helprin from his novel "Winter's Tale":
"A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed. For the whole world has poured its heart into the city by the Palisades, and made it far better than it ever had any right to be."
It's a really interesting to think about the relationship between architecture and reality. When we design a building, we want to use our architectural gestures to change people's life and make it better. Do we try to create a new ideal reality for people? To achieve our goals of designing, we need to research the current living condition of people. Who lives here? What those people like? How they arrange their daily life? Are they satisfied with their living conditions right now? So it seems like following rules of one reality before creating a new one.
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