As stated in the Research Methodology section of Chapter 1 of this document, the research process followed has involved the analysis of secondary and primary data. Through following the Theoretical Framework as outlined in the same chapter, information has been obtained that informs the research problem and has enabled the formulation of conclusions that together serve to answer the primary question: How can art generate built-form?
Answers to this lie in man’s relation to art, examined in Chapter 2 through evaluating the relevance of art in contemporary society which is seen to be narrative, providing a forum in which human emotion can find satisfaction. As resistance art is seen to embody an intense emotional response in conception and execution to the political environment at large, its social importance cannot be over-emphasised. The ‘language’ of resistance art communicates the message of a work to a viewer and is primarily seen to be achieved through the identity giving components of culture and symbols and metaphors. Through these, resistance art provides comprehensible emotional cues to an individual, culture and society.
More broadly speaking, the understanding of art is achieved through memory which seen to be composed of collective and personal components. The visual knowledge accumulated in art binds idea to expression and gains meaning through collective and personal memory which broadly place art in context and enable the interpretation thereof, respectively. These components of memory can be seen as external and internal extensions of art and are defined through the modes suggested by the evaluation of resistance art, namely, the identity giving components of culture and the meaning of symbols.
An answer to the question of how art can generate built-form can already be gleaned from this. By engaging with memory, composed of collective, external memory as manifested in issues of cultural identity, and personal, internal memory bound in the world of semiology, a response begins to take shape. What is required is a set of theoretical tools that will permit the conceptualisation and resolution of built-form as generated by art and as such memory is considered in more detail.
It quickly becomes apparent in Chapter 3 that art engages with memory on two levels. Firstly, art is comprehended and defined by memory and secondly, it is a product of memory. The former is seen to relate directly to the duality of collective and personal memory as explored
116 through cultural identity and semiology, respectively, and informs the relationship between art and built-form. The latter addresses issues of the sub-topic and alludes to the manner in which built-form can cater for art.
In both cases, the mechanisms of memory involve the survival of memory-images acquired through interaction of society or self with the environment with constantly intermingle with present perceptions and enrich and layer the overall experience implying that perception involves more than merely the object present but a host of images that are strung together as a narrative inspired by the real.
In the case of collective memory, this narrative involves a corpus of shared experiences that ultimately define a culture which in turn is seen to shape human behaviour and thus forms that group’s identity which shifts under varying stimuli. Under the conditions of globalisation, responding to the fluidity of identity involves the acknowledgement of the local in discourse with the global. In this way, the impending loss of local culture and identity can be mitigated through selective connection to the global and as such retain that which distinguishes it. In the context of this document, the closest relation of cultural identity, and hence art, to built-form is expressed through the vernacular as seen in the dynamic response to evolving demographic, social, climatic and economic conditions through the place based characteristics of forms of context, materials available, local techniques, expressive structural elements and scale and proportion. In this way a local population can identify with a place and its history through the collective memory of human interaction within that specific environment and thus is both a product and determinant of place and hence the vernacular as a theoretical extension of art can generate cultural cohesion and contribute meaningfully to the material landscape.
In contrast, personal memory builds on the memories acquired by an individual which enable comprehension and negotiation of the perceived through the symbolic, explored through semiology. Meanings of the perceived are acquired primarily through denotation and connotation but within the realm of the built-environment, these can be further defined as technical, syntactic, semantic and human codes. Critically, the inclusion of the human code formalises a ‘super-code’ in which the constellations of architectural and human codes as notional extensions of art communicate through and with one another enriching the built- environment from the user’s point of view and lending cognitive significance to the to the
117 forms employed.
The theoretical tools contained in these further assist in the answering the primary research question by suggesting the means in which art can generate built-form. In order to generate a comprehensive response, however, the method in which these tools are to be employed remains to be elucidated and as thus Critical Regionalism and phenomenology are explored.
As a final note on memory itself, the principles of action and attention in the comprehension of art, suggest that built-form designed to house art should allow art works to communicate freely with the viewer. In the context of this document, these principles can perhaps be restated as process and pause, with process implying the appreciation of the act of production of art works, and pause, suggesting contemplatory opportunity. Through appreciating these, a built-form has the potential to appropriately and effectively weave conditions of the local into the global discourses relating to art and built-environment.
The manner in which the theoretical tools acquired may be employed lies in their capacity to create place, as discovered in Chapter 4, and literature reviewed indicates that place defined by built-form as a product of art is effectively controlled by two factors explained through the theories of Critical Regionalism and phenomenology. The former stresses the importance of locale and its relation to the world at large in which the nature of place, region or locale is acknowledged, reviewed and celebrated, whilst the latter holds at its centre the consciousness of man and the primacy of feeling through which built-forms gain meaning and thus it is seen that the nature of man determines the nature of place.
From this, it can be deduced that meaning in built-form as generated by art and the subsequent place that develops is equally dependent on the nature of locale as it is on the nature of man, effectively two sides of the same coin, and through the critical assessment of the tangible and intangible, elements can be extracted that inform the manner in which art can generate built-form. Together, Critical Regionalism and phenomenology stress the importance of place creation through built-form that gathers meaning by bringing the inhabited landscape close to man. In this way, forms can build the site and through their presence resonate with the inner world of man and as such if Critical Regionalism and phenomenology are indeed two sides of the same coin, place becomes the coin.
118 This conclusion, together with those above are illustrated by two precedent studies, namely the Contemporary Art Museum in Naoshima, Japan by Tadao Ando and the Hedmark Museum in Hamar, Norway by Sverre Fehn, which through their respective emphases confirm that place is indeed a product of both the nature of locale and the nature of man. As seen in these precedent studies, the ability of art to generate built-form relies on both the nature of man and environment but equally important in the context of this document it also relies on the nature of the art in question and must consider the micro-context of the art itself, described through material, technique and the craft of its production.
In order to finally test this proposition, primary data acquired in the form of a first-hand case study of The Museum of the People’s Struggle in Red Location, Port Elizabeth by Noero Wolff Architects. The study finds that the built-form generated by cultural artefacts in this context draws heavily on issues of memory expressed through the vernacular and semiology as mediated through Critical Regionalism and phenomenology, respectively, and as such the built-product exudes place, acquiring meaning on numerous levels through significant links with memory. The vernacular employed in this case is not nostalgic and sentimental but a clear response to the current conditions as filtered through the principles of Critical Regionalism. Similarly, the symbolic links and metaphors employed in the built-form are selected to augment the ‘super-code’ drawing the building into the realm of consciousness through feeling. Although convenient to separate these theoretical approaches in this document, in reality they exist together and are often seen to part of the same individual elements, acting as a mediator between man and his/her environment and are thus bestowed with meaning from within and without, crafting place through their sum. Moreover, it is found that in the relationship between art or artefact and built-form special attention is given to the treatment of how memory in itself is to be treated in built-form that is to gather memory-artefacts highlighting the notion of process and pause as discussed above.
As such, the hypothesis of this document is supported and extended on, however in the relationship between art and built-form it is perhaps an oversimplification to state that the subjective and objective qualities that inspire art in a specific environment can be used to produce built-form that resonates therewith. More correctly, the generation of built-form in response to art is effectively centred on memory made tangible through the provision of place: meaningful space defined by built-elements derived from both the nature of environment in all its manifestations and the nature of that man, arrived at through the
119 vernacular as a product of contemporary culture and the implementation of contextually significant semiological architectural elements, as filtered by the principles of Critical Regionalism and phenomenology, respectively. In conjunction with this, the consideration of the nature and micro-context of the art in question, with a key emphasis on the appreciation of the nature of memory in relation thereto will ensure a contextually linked, meaningful built-environment in which art and the memory it embodies can find its place.
What follows is a discussion on how this acquired knowledge can be used to inform and execute the second part of this document which deals more specifically with the conceptualisation and resolution of the subtopic, concluding debate of the topic in this document.
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