Communicating Disorder
Brown provides a critique of our ability as architects to analyze form in Learning From Pop, which, since its writing, has rippled into architectural pedagogy. Namely, she argues that our technique in analyzing and communicating form lacks the ability to convey the relational qualities of a space. Instead, she proposes new visual tools and new applications of old ones that can explore a space's relational, comparative, and dynamic qualities, considering its context both literally and societally. In school, we’ve been asked to represent/convey architecture as writing, artifacts, podcasts, videos, drawings, and more- all in an effort to speak to the intangible, conversational disorder inevitable when people occupy a place. I believe this approach encourages us to imagine our architectural project past our own deterministic ideals and to recognize and anticipate popular culture, as it is and how it may be, in the spaces we design.
Rachel, this is a really insightful comparison into how we approach analysis in architecture, as well as plan our own unique projects. Your reflection on Learning from Pop, as well as our class discussions leaves me with many questions on what the 'true' way to look at architecture is. In various studios and theory classes throughout our education path, we have been taught different means for understanding architecture, and from my standpoint, I see the societal conditions extremely influential in how we do so, yet not all traditional modernists would agree. I am curious to how others' take on this dilemma, and whether there is a balance to be found in how to analyze the form of architecture itself, in conjunction with its social and moral context.
ReplyDeletePost-modernism in architecture struck on something really interesting, the need to expand the reach of our knowledge as architects, something that the pure modernists didn't seem overly concerned with. I'm with Brown here, it's our duty as arbiters of the built environment to be aware of all that permeates architecture which absolutely includes pop culture. I believe this idea even goes back to Vitruvius when he writes "The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varies kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by the other art is put to the test."
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