Tatti & Khoolas
Rem Khoolas Venice Biennale of 2014, today while being discussed in class, reminded me of a scene from Playtime by Jacques Tati. The movie presents the contrast of Modern lifestyle and architecture to the earlier times; But, one particular scene stood out in the movie. The scene describes an exhibition, where various tools of modern lifestyle are showcased, to explain the concept of "Modern Lifestyle" to the "people". It breaks down these tools into simpler elements, for everyone to easily comprehend.
This is the similar approach for Khoolas's exhibition at the Biennale, where he is attempting to break down architecture through its elements for "people" to comprehend and understand. The process is an additive one, rather than trying to convey a holistic idea together.
This made me wonder, why there was a need to fragment an idea to be able to understand it and what caused this issue to arise in the first place. Post-industrial revolution, technology has boomed, leaving very little time for us to understand it completely. Before we can even grasp the concept of the latest technology, there is something newer in the market. This has affected architecture tremendously as there is really no time to actually get into the thicks of a subject, rather a lot has to be learned faster. Hence architecture has now become a procreative process that expands so fast that it has become almost impossible to comprehend the complete picture, because of the limitation of time. This in my understanding, is one of the major issues with architecture today.
This is the similar approach for Khoolas's exhibition at the Biennale, where he is attempting to break down architecture through its elements for "people" to comprehend and understand. The process is an additive one, rather than trying to convey a holistic idea together.
This made me wonder, why there was a need to fragment an idea to be able to understand it and what caused this issue to arise in the first place. Post-industrial revolution, technology has boomed, leaving very little time for us to understand it completely. Before we can even grasp the concept of the latest technology, there is something newer in the market. This has affected architecture tremendously as there is really no time to actually get into the thicks of a subject, rather a lot has to be learned faster. Hence architecture has now become a procreative process that expands so fast that it has become almost impossible to comprehend the complete picture, because of the limitation of time. This in my understanding, is one of the major issues with architecture today.
I'd argue that this is one of the greatest strengths of today's architecture. With so much advancement of technology and systems, we are better able to improve the human condition. That said, there will always be the risk of technologies being misused, especially if they are new and not fully understood.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that architecture is becoming more and more fast-paced, which I have noticed a lot in studio, where we don't have very much time to develop and work out our early design schemes because we have to move onto the next step. I think that the purpose of Koolhaas's exhibition was to get us to step back and think about the individual components that go into making the whole and how each specific part has it's own role in the composition.
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