During class discussion and lectures I have gained a more focused perception of the relevance of architecture and design to people, and how the success of a building is determined as much by its consideration of cultural factors as it is by its footings. While I believe much of the subject’s content has been in relation community, a large group of people, I think some of the messages have been pertinent to individuals. Overall the ideas put forward here have made aware of design for people, be it a large group, small group or individual, though I remain unsure of the concept of designing for ‘culture’ because I believe that the term is loaded with too much preconceived implications when designing by it. Throughout discussion in this subject, there has been lots of talk of functional and aesthetic interpretations of culture. While I have attempted to explore functional interpretations in my blog, aesthetics have been looked at tutorial and the seminar. In particular, the research and discussion connected to my group’s seminar helped me to initiate, and also reinforce, thoughts about semiotics and representation in architecture. The seminar focused on the symbolism featured in the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. Here, we discussed the effectiveness of symbolism in a building as a way of talking to the user and representing locale and culture.“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used 'to tell' at all."
Trattato di semiotica generale (1975); English Edition: A Theory of Semiotics (1976)
This Umberto Eco quote was quite useful in the process of the seminar presentation, even though it was not used in presentation itself. It provided a useful counterpoint to the arguments for semiotics we presented at the seminar and initiated further opinions about the value of symbolism and representation in architecture. Generally, much of the discussion at the seminar consisted of the success of GoMA in relating to the public through familiar imagery that was exaggerated, hence a symbol. The Eco quote above provides reasoning that semiotics is not a useful concept for creating relevant buildings, it can distort the expression of the building and is ultimately not genuine or relevant. This is one of the key points for me to take out of this ideal, and also this subject in general; to focus on the mere representation of a culture is a flawed idea. In saying this though, there are lots of examples of symbols and decoration in architecture in history throughout architecture, but it is important to remember that they are borne out of the needs of the community and its history. One thing that we said was a good part of the GoMA was that the typical qualities of Queensland residences were employed, its just that these qualities are predominately functional and had no real application here.
During tutorial dialogue there was heavy focus on similar issues, specifically the notion of symbolism in aesthetics as opposed to functional relevance to culture. Whilst there were no definitive processes or ‘answers’ it was generally universally agreed that the latter was the most relevant. I felt that while the lectures provided a good source for further discussion, and quite often extended into opinion, the discussions that took place in the tutorials rarely extended beyond the endorsement of function that is influenced by standard cultural behaviours. While exemplars were discussed in length during such seminar presentations as the Marika-Alderton House and tatami/ken modular talks, I felt that there could have been much more discussion on identifying a process to create the successful outcome, which I think has been accurately identified in the tutorials and lectures. However, I have attempted to do this in my blog entries.
