The study of “quality of life” is the job of an architect.
Most of what we built in our towns during the last 50 years is exteremly ugly and depressing. The ugliness makes the people that use the buildings depressed. The depression makes the people mentally and physically sick. Many modern building materials are highly poisonous. Very few of our modern buildings enhance our "quality of life".
The secret of an exotic architecture is not only the physical buildings, but more importantly, the understanding of people’s subconscious needs. Our subconscious needs can also be described as our "human primordial code".
The concept of “civilization” is the distance that the person has moved away from nature. Our primordial code is our nature. To become civilized we have to transcend, and even reject, our primordial code. As such most of our modern buildings are not in harmony with our human primordial codes. Just like how we civilized humans disregard our primordial codes, we create buildings and urban environments that completely disregard nature
This blog is an attempt to convey the secrets of designing little paradises that are more than just normal architecture. It is an attempt to give our human primordial code, and subconcious needs, not only its rightful place, but make it the basis of our design of our modern buildings and urban environments.
OUR PRIMORDIAL CODE
Modern civiized society does not spend much time in considring our most basic human needs, other than to misunderstanding it enough so as enable industry to exploit it for profit.
The scriptures confirm that the most basic need of every human is to be loved, and also to love. Intemacy is a natural basic human need as from birth. Intemacy is the foundation of passionate love, emotionally, physically and intelectually. Pasionate love is our natural primordial code.
THE CREATOR, THE STAGE SET
AND THE PROTAGONIST
The person experiencing a space becomes an “protagonist”. The protagonist interacts with the space, and with the others in the space. The created space becomes the stage set. A successful stage set will challenge the hidden subconscious needs of the protagonist.
Without a “successful” stage set, the hidden subconscious needs of the protagonist will not be set free to create the magic moments that everybody craves.
PROVOCATIVE SPACES MUST RELATE TO THE SUBCONSCIOUS NEEDS
The honest passionate love impulse of any person is created by transcending normal cerebral experiences. The honest passionate impulse is deeply seated in the subconscious mind.
Honest passionate love experiences are normally strongly contrasted with accepted day-to-day social standards of behavior.
EMOTIONAL FULFILLMENT IS DIFFERENT FROM THE "PASSIONATE LOVE" SUBCONSCIOUS NEED
It is important to define the difference between emotional fulfillment and the passionate love subconscious needs.
The elements of a fulfilling life must not be confused with the hidden passionate love subconscious needs of the protagonist.. A person’s need for emotional love, emotional peace and security cannot be ignored. Procreation is normally a very fulfilling act, as it gives meaning to a person’s life. The feeling of fulfillment (of a person’s emotional needs) is the result of positive actions.
Passionate love is another very important aspect of the subconscious inner life of most people. Through passionate love the human being can transcend “reality”, deliberately.
Passionate love is not about the feeling of fulfillment, but of moments of extreme excitement created when a person dares to go beyond the normal. Experiencing the incredible feeling of doing what has never been done before.
PASSIONATE LOVE VERSUS
ACCEPTABLE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
The feelings of extreme excitement occur when an event relates to the deep inner subconscious psychological quest for a person to satisfy some desire.
The feeling of extreme excitement will be enforced if such a desire is repressed, or possibly taboo.
PASSIONATE LOVE: A PRIVATE
EMOTION
Passionate love is always based on private emotions and needs.
STATE OF
A person’s state of mind will determine the level of involvement in actions that create intense excitement.
DEFINING “A PASSIONATE LOVE SPACE”
What might have a passionate impact on one person might leave another person indifferent.
What a person might
find passionely provocative one day, might leave the same person cold the next
day.
Like desire, passionate love spaces is in essence provocative spaces. But, this provocativeness constantly escapes distinct definition, although it normally causes a response. The quality and meaning of spaces are closely related to the associations it triggers in the mind of the spectator, whom might be encouraged to become an actor within the space.
STYLE
VERSES EMOTION
Most modern architecture is guilty of using attached fashion symbolism to try and give “the styles” credibility. And so we live in a “birthday cake environment”.
Prostitution, pornography and fornication are based purely on the physical element. Because the emotional element is omitted, the initial passionate love impulse of these acts disappears like mist in front of the sun. Instead of fulfilling the deep passionate love needs of the participant, it leaves a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. The passionate love experience is based on the essential and very delicate relationship of emotional excitement and physical beauty.
Within industry, emotion is not productive. Emotion wastes money. Emotion is to be avoided. The passionate love impulse of modern Western architecture is physical only. High fashion modern buildings must have an impressive “wow factor”. Because the “wow factor” is only physical, this initial exotic impulse cannot last, and soon loses its impact. These buildings are like prostitutes.
Successful spaces will always mix the very emotional with the physical. Only then can the result promote passionate love. It is an feeling that lasts. It is an relationship that is fulfilling and that constantly renews itself.
THE CURSE OF MODERN
TECHNOLOGY
Modern technology has the ability to give a false impression of reality. It is like a mind alternating drug.
Although this false sense of reality might seem highly exotic and erotic, it will always simply remain “a false sense of reality”. Anybody who has been drunk and had committed a “one night stand” will know that it is true.
INDUSTRY: THE DARK
FORCE
The western industrial society is very much driven by power and greed. People’s behavior and interaction with each other is strongly influenced by the rules of power and greed. In such a situation, passionate love loses its foundation, and can only become a shadow of itself, and try at most, to exist through consumerism.
THE RELATIONSHIP:
ARCHITECT AS SCIENTIST, ARTIST
versus INDUSTRY
Generally speaking, architects and engineers have betrayed their calling. Most of these professionals simply perform repetitive small actions as part of the greater industrial system.
For the true scientist, and true artist, the end result is in the challenge of breaking the existing rules, and making new rules.
IMMORTALITY
All things were made to be born, grow, mature and die.
For some strange
reason, man has the silly preoccupation of always trying to make life, and
especially the built environment, immortal.
PASSIONATE LOVE
For anything to have a spirit, it needs to be loved.
To love something, or
somebody, is more than to have respect for that something or somebody. Love
means that you care for that someone or something all the time, that you notice the
smallest details and continuously try to make the world around the thing, or
person, you love, better.
The person that loves
does not have to deny himself or herself. However, love is an act of
"giving and caring".
No matter how good
the architect is, without this act of care and giving, no building can ever
transcend from being a "building" to a place with "spirit".
It is this
"love" that one feels in old cathedrals? It is this
"spirit" that is missing in most modern buildings and cities.
The problem is that love is not financially profitable, and so it has become very scarce.
FREEDOM
Without "freedom", man cannot perform beyond the mediocre.
The notion of
“freedom” has many different meanings, for many different people. It could mean
the condition of being free of restraints, such as slavery, detention, or
oppression. It could mean the capacity to exercise choice and free will such
as political independence and civil liberty. It could mean the ease of movement
and exemption from an unpleasant condition. It could mean the right or the
power to engage in certain actions without control or interference.
The industrial system
gives people choices, but not freedom. Democracy is the tool used for change,
and it gives the illusion of freedom and power to the individual person.
No matter the
propaganda, industry, government, society and the church all strive to limit
man’s freedom. Rules are aplenty. From the way in which the sewage leaves your
toilet, to how you shall pay taxes and raise your children. In the industrial
world, almost all facets of life are regulated.
Mass media and
advertising strive to further regulate and indoctrinate the way we think. Money
is the tool that is used to mobilize. The driving force behind money is the
fear of sickness and death.
To find freedom and the strength to continually break the rules, the individual must lose this fear of sickness and death. Only then, the need to think about tomorrow is eliminated, and the moment becomes the end product.
The "act of daring" becomes the passionate love moment. If it is enjoyed like it should be, it can never be qualified in monetary terms. It cannot be regulated. It can never be industrialized, or become a commodity. It will be pure. It will be worth living for.
THE PROJECT MUST GROW
AND CHANGE
People change. People’s desires change. Family structures change. Friendships change.
Projects must have
the freedom to change whenever a need requires it to change. Buildings must be
able to adapt to the needs of the creator and other inhabitants.
Buildings that
restrict change in function, purpose and quality of space cannot have an erotic
quality.
NEVER PRECONCEIVE A
BUILDING
Industry requires that buildings be properly planned, recorded and specified before construction. Preconceived buildings can never have a strong erotic spirit.
The creator must move
to the site, and continue every day to create the world around himself. The
needs, the spirit of the day and the interpretation of the world and its values
must be allowed to determine the life and growth of the project.
CHOOSING A SITE
Most creators will look for the prettiest, or strategically the best, site available. This concept is nonsense.
Beautiful sites
forces buildings to be extrovert and looking out. This modern idea has been
proven a failure. Only introvert buildings that look inward, and turn their
backs to the rest of the world, can become mysterious, and develop a sense of
the erotic.
If the creator
chooses the most beautiful site, the building will have to compete with the
beauty of the creation of God. The building will fail aesthetically. In
comparison to God’s creation, man’s attempts are always insignificant. Beauty
is instinctively measured against its terms of reference.
The strategically
best sites will always have to compete with other successful businesses, or
successful buildings. Strategically good sites will always have parameters in
place that dictate the rules of the area. Strategically good sites always carry
a corresponding financial burden.
The creator must
choose the ugliest site with the least strategic value for his building. Only
then does the possibility exist to create a true jewel.
ENTRANCES
The entrance to a building is symbolically probably the most feminine erotic aspect of a building.
JOURNEY THROUGH
BUILDINGS
The quality of spaces, and the layout of a building, should not be predictable. Standard plans, and open space buildings are boring.
Buildings must allow
people to journey. Spaces must allow people to explore. Spaces must interlink
in unexpected ways. Entering a space should always hold a sense of surprise
It is easier for organic
spaces to subtly change its qualities.
BEAUTIFUL BUILDING
MATERIALS
It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, industry is very competent at shaping the eye of the beholder.
Consider a simple
item such as a door handle. Open any building related magazine and you will
find a fashion type advert for the latest door handle designs. All hardware
stores exhibit huge ranges of door handles of all shapes, designs and colours.
When an architect
asks a client what the door handle should look like, the client will
automatically refer to a catalogue. The eye of the beholder has been
manipulated and shaped. The beholder has been taught how to think.
The magic of using a
special piece of scrap metal, beautifully rusted in natural colours, or a piece
of wood that was collected and shaped by the hands off the creator, is lost.
INTROVERT BUILDINGS
Modern Western architecture is normally extrovert. Large glass windows connect the private inside directly with the outside public domain.
For the passionate love to
flourish, building must be introvert and secretive. A sense of privacy and security must prevail.
Buildings must act as emotional sanctuaries. Psychological and physical
barriers between the public and private domains must be created. The transition
areas and transition elements such as doorways and windows must be clearly
defined. These transition elements must allow the inhabitants to secure the
private spaces both physically and emotionally.
The public domain
must be separated from the most sacred interior spaces by many space layers and
transition barrier elements.
A SPECIAL VIEW
Scopophilia is an important aspect of the sensual and passionate love. The deriving of pleasure from looking and watching is a normal human activity.
Pleasure may be
derived from looking at a specific topic of interest.
Buildings must
exploit all opportunities to allow the watching of interesting activities,
unnoticed.
THE HEART OF A
BUILDING
Every building must have a heart.
A space that is most
private. The heart is space that may only be entered by those that have earned
the privilege.
The heart of the building must be the space that contain in safety, the creator’s most treasured thoughts, ideas, passions, dreams and things.
written by Frenus Rörich
architect in Swakopund, Namibia
frenusrorich57@gmail.com
whatsup message: 00264 (0) 81 2636 427
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