Friday, May 28, 2010

architecture, space, body , costume

"The use of the term facade is in itself revealing. It signifies recognition of levels to be penetrated and hints at the functions performed by architectural features which provide screens behind which to retire from time to time. The strain of keeping up a facade can be great. Architecture can and does take over this burden for people. It can also provide a refuge where the individual can "let his hair down" and be himself."
(pg 104 , 'The Hidden Dimension', Edward T. Hall )

This is exactly what the costume does for the body. Within carnival the body carries the architecture instead of being contained by it. Like the facade,the costume acts as a mask allowing the wearer to loose all inhibitions and in doing so, reveal his or her deepest wants or desires.
SPACE
Space can be, at the same time Contingent - formed at the moment of its use, territorialized and then dissolved - homogeneous for all practical purpoed and at a large scale, and yet discontinuous and heterogenous in its minute detailed operations... Space is, by definition, that which defines difference in bodiesand objects and, by doing so, exceeds them. Space can envelope bodies and objets but in order to do so, it must also depart from them - unaffected , indifferent."
(pg 198 - 199 Ingraham, Catherine 'Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition')
ARCHITECTURE AND THE BODY ( ref. to virtruvius man)
" an analogy between one thing that is in motion, psychological, dynamic, and animate, and another thing that is inert, without mind, an object, inanimate. What architecture attempts to mimic are salient properties of the body - bones, skn, bilateral symmetry, the equinose of the feet. " Mimics" in this case means the formation of an approach to, the formation of a desire. The desire for movement and wholeness compel architecture in the direction of the body - a neoclassical dance enacted through the symbolic homage of the motif and the gesture."
" The approach to the human body, whether inscribed geometically as in leonardo's man or Le Corbusier's modular. or literally, as in the caryatids ( the special case), requires that the body become more biologically and psychologically simple, more animal-headed, and formal, but less distinct than human beings. "
(pg 225 Ingraham, Catherine 'Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition' )


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