The Media Equation - All of Us, the Arbiters of News - NYTimes.com

The Media Equation - All of Us, the Arbiters of News - NYTimes.com

Escape from Flatscape

Escape Flatscape

e.scape

Flat space | Flat.scape

Scape
n.
1. (Bot.) A peduncle rising from the ground or from a subterranean stem, as in the stemless violets, the bloodroot, and the like.
2. (Zoöl.) The long basal joint of the antennæ of an insect.
3. (Arch.) (a) The shaft of a column. (b) The apophyge of a shaft.
Scape
v. t. & i.
[imp. & p. p. SCAPED ; p. pr. & vb. n. SCAPING.]
[Aphetic form of escape.]
To escape. [Obs. or Poetic.] Milton.
Out of this prison help that we may scape.

As an architect, designer and a photographer, I am sick and tired of flatness… and flat space, both, literal and phenomenal … metaphorical. Architecture has it easy: it deals with depth and by default has spatial attributes it cannot escape. But in spite of that, it can still be flat… not merely compositionally, but also in terms of its capacity to create depth that is not simply dimensional. In any case, here I want to discuss more about the Flatscape in design and photography…. In a given space of a page, a paper, a poster, which is pure white space that graphic elements or light are to invade, draw upon, paint or illuminate… The elements and tools with which to do that is clear but the methods are varied… constructed graphics as opposed to applied graphics along with typological interventions or typographical, textual definitions are much more interesting than mere arrangements, compositions, geometries of images interspersed with texts or type. The former approach defines Emotional Space rather than pure given white space one starts with. It is this emotive and ephemeral space that also allows for ‘slowness’ that is of interest to me as an integral part of aspect of design process(es) that targets to grab, allow it to linger and engage peoples’ attention…..

I find Photography’s pretentiousness about depth arrogant and overbearing. It dematerializes depth into a Flatscape by virtue of its two-dimensionality – by investing light into a surface it brings to life a representation rather than reality itself. This is fascinating but erroneous, making the viewer traverse back in space (and time) to unfold the image being viewed; reversing it into am imagined reality (a kind of reversal of perception/process). Even this is fascinating. So, what am so bothered about? I think we need to celebrate Flatness in photography and flatten it even more. When I started doing photography, I mainly did architecture but have now moved into other things including portraits, people, objects and am focusing a more on the ‘graphic’ quality of light, space and flatness of forms.

With the advent of web design, interactivity and interface design, graphic design now is in a position to escape the flatness that has imprisoned it for the longest time….

Image 1: ‘Liberation’ by M. C. Escher; Image 2: Unknown; Image 3: Drawings Hands by M. C. Escher
1 phenomenal
adjective
Composed of or relating to things that occupy space and can be perceived by the senses: concrete, corporeal, material, objective, physical, sensible, substantial, tangible. See body/spirit, matter.
Philosophy. In the philosophy of Kant, an object as it is perceived by the senses, as opposed to a noumenon.

Divided Cities | Textual Readings of New York

Textual Cities | Notes on New York

By their very nature, most global cities are divided. Cities by necessity have to be divided for one reason or the other; if not anything else, at least from land division and real estate point of view. But beyond that, they get further divided in more ways than one. Apparent equity or equitable ‘sharing’ gets defined and redefined to suit various good and not so good purposes… politics, socio-economic disparities, physical boundaries, use (or abuse) as well as disuse due to certain limitations of the fabric…. Psychological barriers and lack of potential, economic downturns/upturns or mobility either social or economic play out their part too. But at the heart of it, the most interesting and intriguing issue in such textual readings of cities is the notional divisions that occupy human minds… and reflect in social as well as physical fabric of our cities. New York is a great example of this phenomenon - and others mentioned above. The ‘neutral’ landscape of New York in reality is cluttered with ruptures, disjuncture and at times not easily decipherable layers of complexities…. Politics of space rather than poetics constantly define, redefine, complicate, recombine or rupture civic space, social structures, and other physical attributes of the city for whatever reasons. In spite of such textual neutrality based on rational logic of land division, zoning and use, there are other ‘divisions’ that remain… subtle, hidden or stubbornly and blatantly obvious at times…. New York’s potency and promise as a city lie in the fact that it allows and calls for multiple ‘readings’ of itself from everybody… it remains one of very few cities in the word that reads like a map and at the same time has a maze-like experiential attributes that require encyclopedic deciphering of its taxonomies without allowing the observer or the inhabitant to loose interest, awe and amazement. Architects/designers at times remain oblivious to the fact that there are theses multiple readings of the city, its fabric and (text)ure by people who inhabit them that define what cities are or ought to be; and overtly rely on their self-indulgent, technocratic and data-based observations that are self-limiting and represent only a limited view.

A friend recently asked which part/aspect of New York City I enjoy the most…. It is a difficult question to answer because, unlike most, due to my professional background I have a very different relationship with the city, I guess. But as an inhabitant and an observer who has lived here for many years… the city has come to mean a lot of different things to me.

There are two answers: one is more abstract than the other. In abstract terms, I like the city for its capacity to challenge traditional notion of how you develop a sense of belonging and practically ‘own’ it. New York disallows it or at least challenges you in that notion. You are immediately restricted and confined to the space around you and feel like an island within the island city we live in…. This is not to be interpreted as ‘limiting’. It is a city that behaves and operates like an enterprise, an economic and financial machine – and all who live here have a definite, defined role to play. This is also, I think, due to the fact that there are many of us who have come here as outsiders in more ways than one…. And we remain so in spite of making it a home. I love this fact about New York as it constantly makes me define my role, my place and my relationship with the city everyday, every time. It is more like a relationship between two people where you constantly work towards establishing, maintaining and nurturing a dialogue, more an amorous discourse, with the city and space you inhabit or occupy. New York offers this intellectually stimulating…. and engaging opportunity as well as a challenge to connect, relate and refine one’s relationship with the city, its people and oneself…

On a more immediately intuitive and emotive level, (which may contradict what is stated above), it is also a city that makes me feel at home… with it and with oneself, more immediately than any other city in the world, because of its diversity, people, languages and neutrality (in physical as well as how it invites, accepts and adopts people from all walks of life, nationalities, cultures etc…). It is a crowded city but it allows me to be myself, my personal space and be alone in a crowd …..

The less abstract answer is about particular place/experiences I enjoy and cherish everyday. It is when I ride my bike along Hudson every evening to the Battery Park and back up. It reminds me of being on an island (New York is an island city) and how it actually makes me feel…. to be on the ‘edge’ in both, physical as well as metaphysical sense. With the river, Nature on one side and Culture on the other (with the city and its neighborhoods of varying types from residential/tribeca, village, SoHo to meat-packing to art galleries in Chelsea). Second part of this, and it is related, are the sidewalks of Manhattan that I enjoy…. rivers of people that you flow with or away from. They immediately put you in the ’public’ space, always there, make no distinctions, are about chance encounters… seeing and being with strangers and yet be comfortable…. They surround you, wrap around and are the connective tissue between the different parts of the city and between the people - you and the city…

WORDS: Legible | Visible

Words are legible, definitely; that is the purpose for their existence and why we invented them in the first place but we designers forget at times (though we use them as such) that words are also visible and at times audible... if you can strike the right notes... Another beautiful aspect about written word that is lost is about its tactile quality. Since the Gutenberg, we no longer touch 'words' as they are now printed as opposed to being carved, engraved or constructed.... That is why I think Brail is beautiful because it is a language of touch that touches you… Years ago, Victor Hugo wrote in “This will Kill That” about the ill effects of the printing press… describing the fear that the printed word would kill architecture, will replace our need to record history through great buildings, architecture and the sculpted, constructed word…. People no longer would need to visit historical places, buildings that incorporated and recorded history, culture and time itself through built words, paintings and sculpture… I am not sure if the printed word has actually killed art of architecture or not but is has definitely deprived us of the visual and tactile qualities of the word….

At their best, words are hieroglyphic and pictograms that perpetuate a meaning or two and are grossly abused for their multiple meanings or used effectively to seduce and be persuasive. In today’s technologically advanced and visually obsessed world, they have taken over our lives and have become bits and bytes that pixelate our imagination. Reading is constantly confronted by seeing and scrolling... while words float over and across the screen trying to draw our attention or distract us from reality as they bend every form of what is real. They have always been that way, actually! - But still, words are beautiful, however treacherous they may/can be... and as designers, we are always going to use them to seduce, persuade or dissuade; but more than anything else, never lose sight of the fact that they are 'visual' and graphic and can be used not only to tell a story but to also paint pictures....

‘Spaces between’, Oh the interludes!
Squeezed between words, silence hurts

Words turn my imagination into
A magical, legible, audible landscape.....

de.Sign | Manhattan Loft

ImaginArchitecture

Artificial Cities

Welcome to the 21st century world of Artificial Cities! Architecture has remained at the core of cultural production historically, and has played a pivotal role in defining cultural space and physical form of the cities while contributing to the cultural history of a place. Mumbai and other cities draw misguided references from the development in the other world cities including the new emerging architecture in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dubai or Singapore while blatantly ignoring larger contextual issues as well as local social structures and climatic concerns. This approach inevitably is likely to produce the same architecture everywhere irrespective of the place or program. Dubai is no longer different from practically ‘anyplace’ in the world nor is an example that may provide any meaningful dialogue towards a new architecture under globalization. The risk is that it produces the ‘sameness’ everywhere and is dressed as ‘new’ in more deceptive and seductive garb(s). In contrast, Japanese architects have demonstrated a definitive rooted-ness while embracing modernity (and Modernism) over the last 40 odd years and shown that it is possible to remain connected and be contemporary without being regressive. Japanese architecture has remained theoretically engaged with the question of critical modernism and modernity and opted for reflexive modernization, to use Ulrich Beck’s phrase . This provides a promising prospect for cultures in transition that are going through rapid transformation, urbanization and change in the society due to the population growth, economic, political or social mobility. -Viren Brahmbhatt




The Architecture Issue - The New, New City - Life in an Instant City - Shenzhen, China - Dubai, United Arab Emirates - NYTimes.com

In Praise of Shadows... ... ...

Much Maligned Le Corbusier Lives!

An artis, writer, teacher, architect and more importantly, a visionary, Le Corbusier has been one of the most prolific and yet at times, profoundly misunderstood genius of the Twentieth Century. He has been a source and a challange for many of us who practice architecture and urbanism.

His visions that were never fully realized and his ideas that were grossly misinterpreted by those who followed him have created urban blights that many of our large cities suffer from however, a closer look at Le Corbusier as an architect reveals his prfound sense of humanity and an extraordinary design sensibilty that simultaeously flatters and challanges our senses.

This review in the New York Times by Nicolai Ouroussoff discusses a small church he designed with a former student in the early 1960’s in France...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/arts/design/30ouro.html

unarchitecture

Is it possible to design architecture that disappears when 'life' takes over? Our cities are such collective constructs where individual acts of architectural singularities are absorbed into experiential totalities that remain whole inspite of fragmentary nature of their parts. Urbanity is not necessarily a moderated, unified field that remains unchanged through subsequent changes and passage of time.

Architecture For India

Friday June 2, 2006. Reception 6:00 PM; Lecture and Q/A 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Architecture for India

Location: Center For Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place R.S.V.P
Sponsored by the AIA New York Chapter International Committee and Committee on Architecture for Education.
Speaker: Prof. Balkrishna Doshi, Hon. AIA

Please come to Prof. B.V. Doshi’s lecture on “Architecture for India” at a time when India is on everybody's mind. He will explore spatial concepts and architectural themes in his work and examine contradictions and challenges posed by India’s unique cultural milieu and rapid urbanization and growth. The subjects will include institutional projects and housing as well as large-scale urban design and planning projects.

Balkrishna Doshi appears to speak to current sensibilities when he said in 1987: "I learned from Le Corbusier to observe and react to climate, to tradition, to function, to structure, to economy, and to the landscape. To an extent, I also understand how to build buildings and create spaces and forms. However, I have in the last two decades gradually discovered that the buildings I have designed seem somewhat foreign and out of milieu; they do not appear to have their roots in the soil. With the experience of my work over the years and my own observation, I am trying to understand a little about my people, their traditions, and social customs, and their philosophy of life."

Balkrishna Doshi, an Indian architect, educator and planner worked with Le Corbusier in Paris from 1951 to 1954 as senior designer, and then in India to supervise Corbusier’s projects in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh. In 1955 he also established the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design, known for pioneering work in low-cost housing and city planning. He maintains an office, Vastu-Shilpa Consultants, in Ahmedabad.

Prof. Doshi has been visiting the U.S.A. and Europe since 1958, and has held important chairs in American universities. He has received numerous international awards and honors, including Padma Shri from the Government of India and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1995, he received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Aranya Community Housing in Indore, India.

Anthony McCall and the Deleuzian fold

Anthony McCall and the Deleuzian fold: You and I, Horizontal
Photo: Viren Brahmbhatt

A preview of one of Anthony McCall's[1] most recent "solid light" installations, You and I, Horizontal at The Kitchen (at 512 West 19th Street) on November 12, 2005, is an experiential fluidity that architects may find stimulating. It is pure ‘poetics’ of light and space: an experiment with a single jet of light projected into the dark space through a projector: A line describing a cone, and space … the projected light through intense darkness translates itself into a visible/perceptible light-scape that a viewer may traverse through or travel along. The spatial negotiation and the travel through the resultant hyperspace is all personal and almost ethereal. The light enfolds the viewer as they enter in and out of the cone of light that wraps around them; and the movement through the cone warps and swerves the conical space into a series of loops or folds - evocative of baroque space. The spatial dimension of light is rarely experienced in such an intense and intimate manner; this is as close as one may get to experiencing a Deleuzian Fold.

In The Fold[2], Gilles Deleuze suggests that the concept of the monad[3] - a model for expression in contemporary aesthetics, is viewed in terms of folds of space, movement, and time. Similarly, the world is interpreted as a body of infinite folds and surfaces that twist and weave through compressed time and space. According to Deleuze, Leibniz also anticipates contemporary views of event and history as multifaceted combinations of signs in motion and of the "modern" subject as nomadic, always in the process of becoming. In this installation, Anthony McCall pushes the boundaries of physical space (and psychological space) by compressing and expanding light and with the viewer (the “modern” subject, a nomad) as a body in motion; the installation becomes a commentary on Body, Space, and the Continuum in a profoundly Deleuzian sense.

Light x Time = Space Warp: The equation produces a swerve with no constant, only variables. It is a “world without center" as Deleuze would describe it. It is a space without edges and is composed of nothing but difference(s). The installation creates an infinite possibility for ‘space’ to exist as continuously displaced variables. Plotting it out on a piece of paper or mapping it in your mind, one can find a line that "swerves" - a perfect expression of Deleuze's thought. The plotted curve could be described as a diagram or map of Deleuzian concept of thought.


[1] Anthony McCall is an artist, and designer, who lives and works in New York. His film Line Describing a Cone was shown in the Whitney Museum’s exhibition Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977.

[2] The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque by Gilles Deleuze, Tom Conley (Translator); University of Minnesota Press (November, 1992)

[3] An indivisible, impenetrable unit of substance viewed as the basic constituent element of physical reality in the metaphysics of Leibnitz.