Theories of Architecture and Urbanism Reaction Papers

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303/ARC2224)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (MARCH 2017)
Name: Lee Xiang Loon ID No.: 0322090
Lecturer: Nicholas Ng Tutorial Time:
Reader/Text Title: Learning From Las Vegas: The Forgotten
Symbolism of Architectural Form
Synopsis No.: 2
Author: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural
Form (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1977) focuses on the Las Vegas then, which involved the urbanism of
the strip, rather than the scenography of the Las Vegas today. Modernist movement limits freedom in its
architecture and Venturi cited how today’s architects barely enhance the existing environment but prefer
altering it, so symbolism rose as an employment when modernism adapted the vocabulary of the factory and
steel frames.
Defining architecture as space and form like how modern architects would these days is not sufficient but to
also allow the art itself to work hand in hand with architecture. It is true that hieroglyphs in Egyptian pyramids
or the ornamental mosaics in Byzantine churches, for example, sought to give essential meaning and story,
which unlike how expensive objects nowadays like paintings and sculptures are becoming dependable to
strengthen an architectural space. Conveying architecture by means of symbols was indeed very important
as an abstract and expressive architecture decades ago. Symbolism was the architecture form, which was
new and unusual at that time.
Las Vegas is accurately chosen, in my opinion, to proof Venturi’s opinions that he expressed in this book. The
tall and bold signs arranged throughout the strip showcased quick and effective messages to attract motorists
at high speed and from a distance when driving across the Las Vegas Strip. Signs were relevant and
stimulating, so symbol was part of the architecture which was the urban vocabulary at that time not just merely
forms. Symbols were the form of communication and they dominated over space itself.
Symbolism in Las Vegas was written as a reaction against the urbanism of Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, a
compact city with plots of high-rise buildings with intermediate green parks. The author looked at Las Vegas
as a smaller yet similar version as one would have witnessed in Los Angeles. However, buildings can be the
form of symbol itself as seen on The Long Island Duckling. Venturi went on by creating a comparison between
the power of commercial persuasion by merchants and window displays of supermarkets can both in their
own ways communicate to their customers.
“Visiting Las Vegas in the mid-1960s was like visiting Rome in the late 1940s,” as said by the author. Architects
learnt from predecessor cities and set out to develop similar ideas onto Las Vegas. Both of these cities are
common in some way but each city has its own vivid definition by having their own symbols; churches defining
a religious capital, and casinos and signs as an entertainment galore, which I think what Venturi had theorized
is relevant.
Traditional symbols in modern architecture is evidently fading away and fails to highlight their cultural value
but merely just to deliver a message. The content of the book changes my point of view and begins to help
me understand the architectural importance for a deserted town as a symbol, and learning the symbolism of
architecture in general.
Word Count: 500 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.

(ARC61303/ARC2224)
Reader/Text Title: The Geometry of Feeling: A Look at the
Phenomenology of Architecture
Synopsis No.: 4
Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
Juhani Pallasmaa’s The Geometry of Feeling: A Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture emphasizes
architecture as a human experience. Pallasmaa stated that although modern buildings today may have
impressive geometrical shapes and forms beyond one’s imagination, they do not, however, bring about a
sense of comfort the way how buildings before did. The human minds have to be stimulated through basic
feelings and connecting them to the building creating such experiences. Our sense of consciousness,
therefore, can relate itself back to the building through these stimuli.
Pallasmaa believes that architecture has slowly detaching itself from its core purpose which is the experiential
element rather than just the mere play of building forms. Both form and experience have to work back to back
but in reality, the experience in a building is simply ignored. Architecture should actively shape human
behaviour and affect our feelings and psychology. Forms without considering the play of different ambience
and atmosphere in space to create an experience are meaningless.
Building art exists only through the consciousness of the person experiencing it but not just the physical aspect
of it. The emotional impact has to be evoked from buildings to the users. Symbols in architecture are
meaningless if the intangible aspect forged through the interaction between our memories and the world no
longer exists. This is evident in post-modernism incorporating symbols that do not evoke an authentic
expression if they do not link phenomenologically to its architecture.
Architecture also emerges from the basic images and feelings through past memories attached to buildings
as studied by Pallasmaa. To me, buildings give certain impression and creates different perception to different
people according to their own experience. The recreation of feeling allows people to experience this element,
and as such, architecture is formed. The experience of space is a private dialogue between the designer and
the user of that space. The building is the work of art of that architect to transfer a message and it will be up
to the users of the space to translate and aware of that message. People need to grasp their visual
experiences and transform them into spatial experience through their physical experience.
Art and architecture are not two distinctively different things in reality. Memories are created as a form of
reflection from what a person is experiencing in a building. Different people will have different psychological
and emotional response towards spaces. Spaces can be fully enjoyed if a person has a maximum appreciation
by not just relying on visual experience, but also through the remaining four senses. If people enjoy to
experience the space and form, architecture will inevitably take place.

(ARC61303/ARC2224)
Reader/Text Title: Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six
Points for an Architecture of Resistance
Synopsis No.: 6
Author: Kenneth Frampton
Kenneth Frampton in his work Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance
focuses on the architectural approach in the 20th century of buildings reflecting the geographical, cultural and
tradition of its region through its design and materials. This movement strives to counter the placelessness
which was adapted by the modernists in the International Styles. Ornamentations were celebrated extensively
without meaning in modernism but critical regionalists insisted that stylistic flourishes can only be applied in
a measured and meaningful way.
In the fifth point of his book, “Culture Versus Nature: Topography, Context, Climate, Light and Tectonic Form”,
Frampton defines typology and topography, stating the importance for creating an architectural structure that
relates to cultural region and also responding to the demands of the physical landscape at the same time.
The form of the built environment is properly shaped by these two elements and eventually establishes a
regional identity, allowing buildings to manifest themselves from an existing site. By merging these two
elements together, a free standing object will not occur but rather cultivates a relationship to its surrounding
context. The geographical characteristics and cultural meaning of a place will be dependent on the climate
and symbolic aspect of place. This is evident in one of Frampton’s examples in which “placeless” practice of
installing artificial lights in art galleries rather than utilizing the outside climate and humidity to create a “place-
form” balance between natural environment and the cultural legacy. Frampton highlighted the importance for
an architecture to be appreciated not only by its aesthetics but as a structural form. The assembly and artistic
composition should be recognized as a whole for a much integrated experience. Architecture should be
appreciated not only just as an aesthetic aspect but also the structural achievement that integrates to the
surrounding context through the term “architectonic”. This provides a deeper value and understanding of a
place rather than the tendency of architecture which is reduced to only aesthetically pleasing scenes.
In point six, “The Visual Versus the Tactile”, Frampton went on by agreeing to incorporate human senses to
create a unique and deeper architecture by enhancing the experience of a place. The current society
emphasizes mainly on visual experience but lacks to realize the potential of a human body to read the
environment and experience it using all the senses, as supported by Juhani Pallasmaa’s The Geometry of
Feeling: A Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture as well. This concept supports the usage of materials
which targets all senses and that will allow variable emotional reactions. The uniqueness of a place can be
strengthen by establishing a deeper relationship with the built environment with our bodily experience.
Critical regionalism acknowledges the concept of exploiting regional qualities by embracing the regional
seasonal changes which allow emotional reactions, structures that provides certain human experience and
promoting the use of materials having certain local characteristics.

Theories of Architecture and Urbanism Reaction Papers

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