My Thoughts on
James Corner "Mapping"
What struck me the most about this article is how the methodology of creating architecture has changed over time. A quote in the article (that stands out to me most and) that applies to this notion stated, “What already exists is more than just the physical attributes of terrain (topography, rivers, roads, buildings) but includes also the various hidden forces that underlie the workings of a given place (p214).” Similar to many things in the world (e.g. books, people, places)that should be judge more for their content instead of their facades. Fortunately, architecture seems to be moving along the same path, where the physical importance of form in a building is not as much so as to the psychological experience and effect it has on the user, space, and time…
never really work with the mapping process before, but after reading this article, it seems like a great way to exploit this idea of discovering the potential of a site and creating it into an architectural form.
Interesting words and notes that was highlighted during my readings (more of a note to self).
ReplyDelete1. experimentation in contact with the real (214)
2. it constructs the unconscious
3. abstractness, unavailable to human eyes (215)
4. finished artifacts vs creative activity (217)
5. flexible, adaptive system, different sets of relationships (218)
6. reality; the changing nature of time-space relationship (221)
7. culture, space, place
8. map vs territory, territory vs map (221)
9. mapping, making visible?
10. simulacrum, representation vs real.
11. discovery through play (222)
12. science & art, experience, not a copy but a recreation of nature. (223)
13. relationship of pure judgment.
14. nature, situated yet shifting, potential, world of constructions (224)
15. milieu, surrounds, medium, middle, connections, relationships, extensions potentials.
16. maps, sites, imaging and projecting, alternative worlds. in between the virtual and the real.
17. digging, finding, exposing vs relating, connecting and structuring.
18. information vs concrete, fact vs fiction, space vs time (226)
19. memory, tradition, identity vs expansion, interpretation, renewal, contradiction (227)
20. effects. dynamic interactions, experiences, events, situated vs remade, everytime it encounter different people, medium, surroundings = new affiliations are forged
21. spatial concepts, active themselves, by operating on physical objects, evoking memory, action of arranging them = in the moment (229)
22. actions precede conceptions; order is the outcome of the act of ordering.
23. structures remain hidden until mapped, method for searching, meaningful design
24. drift, mindless, by intuition, re-territorialize, repressed (231)
25. layering, system of organization, complexity, system of play (238)
26. game board, players, agents, effects, system, continually reworking. Identifying then redirecting, relationship into effect. = dynamics and desires (244)
27. rhizome, inclusive, suggestive, less through collage, fragments, form of systematic montage, multiple and independent layers are incorporated as synthetic composite. Vectores of movement, topography, places, weather, temperature, time = systemic field of interrelationships (246).
28. mapping set of field operations precipitates, unfolds, supports hidden conditions, desires within the milieu. Less about form and space more about engaging, accelerating and networking interactions amongst forces in time.
29. infinite series of connections, switches, relays and circuits for activating matter and information (250)
30. perceiving is also thinking, reasoning is also intuition, observation is also invention.
31. ideas that enable and effect change.
Just as this article is trying to convey, I have never considered a map something to analyze or question. I take it as is, to gather factual information about a place. Maybe it is because our society presents maps as concrete, relatively unchanging, sources that allow us to see and get to places we have never been. It is surprising to me, after all that I question on a daily basis, that I have never wondered things such as why a map is oriented to the North. I am very intrigued by Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion map and the way in which it can be unfolded and placed together in different configurations. "Precisely where the map is cut and folded determines how the parts are seen in relationship to each other, each time in radically altered, yet equally true, configurations. It is an interesting concept for a map to reach to the user as opposed to the user reacting to the map.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ideas that Corner touches on, is the fact that mapping seems to have stopped evolving in the public's eye. Stripped down representational marks are seen as the ultimate, because of their supposed clarity and universal nature. In reality these marks originate from someone's interpretation. Then this idea spread in a way that the public transforms this opinion into reality/truth. In many ways this mirrors ideas about architecture, and the tearing away of centuries of thought on what buildings do. The result is the pitched roof house (for home) and the tall rectilinear building with punchouts for windows (for work) claiming dominance as the first thing that comes to mind when architecture is discussed.
ReplyDeleteCorner goes on to discuss that he is interested in what mapping can do to become an agent of cultural intervention. In some ways the response to opening up society's eye to what architecture is has been to try and turn the graphic ideas of a pitched roof and box on its head. The resulting mash-up of tilted planes and unusable space actually reinforces society's perception to the former. Instead of trying to produce a singular product that is universal, one has to change and engage with the process that is involved. Mapping and understanding of the process will help change ideas about architecture from some singular ideal to something that can work for society across all spectra.
The article on mapping was very interesting. The idea that through mapping of the world we measure and describe it isn't a new idea to me, but the notion that mapping as an exercise reveals and realizes hidden potential is.
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