Evolution or Regression (?) of Organic Architecture

This picture belongs to a competition I participated with my partner arch. Luis Makianich, " Proyecto Utopia", in 1989. It is an Utopian city, where the buildings grow as organisms. They were feeded by a cyclotron. We had a second award. Personal files.

There could be a dialogue between past and present architectures. This dialectic exists in particular situations in history.

Frank Lloyd Wright introduced the word “organic” in 1908, as part of the philosophy of architecture. Organicism was an interpretation of Nature, a guide for the design process, by looking at Nature’s principles, harmony between human constructions and Nature would be promoted. It was an answer to industrialized cultures, a resistance to science and technology but not a rejection to them. Buildings were considered as organisms in themselves. The organism would include urban planning, the building, furniture and surroundings. It is important to point out that this philosophy does not mean imitation of Nature, forms would never copy the morphologies found in it. Organic architecture was an element of social reform that involved concepts of organic society and organic economic systems: the universe as a whole organism.

Overtaken beliefs of inhibited tradition of decades of '20s to '50s, where architectural demonstrations had components of a mystical fundamentalism to dominate the masses, we face the new theories of the 60s, where most of the studies were not based on history, although they considered the existence and distribution of historic buildings; architects shared with Le Corbusier's the idea that architecture could socially transform to men and should reflect some ordering principles of nature. This idea of considering the architecture underlying a cosmic scale, is expressed as "metaphysical school" and its leader, Louis Kahn, in 1960 defined what "the building should be": The order is intangible, while organic architecture was a total break from the association of order and geometry. The most prominent critics of this position were Kevin Lynch, Christopher Alexander and Jane Jacobs, who urged a more humane approach to urban planning, based on information of what happens in cities. Alexander was the first one to incorporate mathematical concepts in his studies, realizing that the city was a complex organized in the manner of a biological organism.

Over the last three decades there has been new developments in organic architecture. Though it is difficult to recognize where the organicism lies…

The organic analogy is not based on biological science, but rather in the shapes, the metaphores and the ecological analogy, it means the adaptation of the building to its environment. We find zoological and botanical allusions; there is a “zoomorfic” architecture, a botanical architecture assisted by softwares that mimic the biological evolutions, we also find organicing principles in Nature, as the Fibonacci series and the spiral habits of shells (P. Steadman, 2008), or fractal patterns. In general, these designs are connected to green (environmental) architecture. The main critic for botanical and zoological mimic is that these buildings are ruled by the form, but do not work as full organisms do.

Nautilus by Senosiain architects. http://unusuallife.com/category/outrageous-architecture/

Plantis. By Elena Pavlidou. 2007. From worldarchitecture.org.

The design process follow six tendencies:

1) Composition that works from inside-out. The designer takes into account the user’s needs, the program. The organic form grows and develops out of the material. Forms is not imposed a priori, it is discovered by the future users’ goals and the environment. The client is usually involved in the process, even in construction.

2) A more universal tendency is the rejection of the Euclidian forms by accepting curvilinear and “organic” shapes. This is the reverse of the composition from inside-out. The architecture is originated in the form, function follows it. The designer refers explicitly not only to the shapes in nature, he also incorporates the local terrain. There is a desire for continuity, rooms have no boundaries and spaces are overlapped. (Biodynamism).

3) An intermediate option is organic but not essencialy an anti-functionalist one. The analysis of the users’ program and the properties of materials result in non orthogonal shapes, for example when using branches, stones, bamboo. Though, bricks can also be used, hanging from a steel frame. If steels usurped the forms produced by bricks, the product would be a conceptual hybrid.

4) Designs that reflect the desire to live in a rural way of life, in harmony and contact with Nature, as a rejection to global cities. House and landscape interpenetrate, boundaries between them become indistinct. (P. Steadman, 2008). Rocks, water an trees could be incorporated inside the structures.

Window looking like an eye. www.simondale.net/house/intview.htm

5) Biomimetic technology. Designs where Nature is implicit, but only in the substance of their component materials. For instance, goats raised by Nexia Biotechnologies in Montreal, have a spider gene that produces the protein of spider silk, developed in their milk. This protein is being used in a new fiber that is five times stronger than steel. It would apply in sutures and then in the construction industry. (National Geographic, January 2003) “Life has had millions of years to finely-tune mechanisms and structures (such as photosynthesis, or spider’s silk) that work better than current technologies, require less energy and produce no life-unfriendly waste. The emulation of this technology is the goal of biomimicry, the art of innovation inspired by nature.” (Holverstott, Brett. What Can Architecture Learn From Nature. GreenBizSite. September 7, 2008).

6) Organic architecture that embodies the human spirit, it goes beyond the minimum shelter, it has to be something that enhances human lives. It is the theoritical idea of the seed, landscape and spirit. And it reminds me the whale bones dwellings in the Artic, all of them embeded with religion and symbolism. It is like returning to the origins. The result produces original forms. In this sense, there is a close connection between the new organic architecture, land art and Natural architecture.

Land art, Earthworks, or Earth art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. Sculptures are not placed in the landscape; rather the landscape is the very means of their creation. (wikipedia.org). Land art is a different appreciation of Nature, to be understood as a protest against the austerity of the gallery and commercialization of art. Now, it is also focusing on “environmental” art, in order to offer a new understanding of the place in which we live. And Natural architecture is an emerging movement that is exploring man’s desire to reconnect to the earth, through the built environment. It is a link between man and nature, a new appreciation of Nature that combines Art and architectural design, by means of activism but no protests. The results, often resemble Indigenous architecture, though without the primigenius symbolism.

Natural Art-architecture. 'weidendom' by sanfte strukturen, 2001 http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/naturalarchitecture.html

Natural Art-architecture. 'toad hall' by patrick dougherty, 2004 http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/naturalarchitecture.html

Ideas seem to be the same at this point, but, after all, primitive huts made by whale and mammoth bones and-or trees were built with cosmological principles and cultural ideologies that have played an important role in primitive dwellings patterns, as they show traditions and myths. Maybe instead of evolution of organicism, architects and artists have a regression to the primitive roots. There is too much we can learn from Nature: systems, materials, processes, structures and aesthetics. It is a matter of choice.

Further readings
http://sensingarchitecture.com/1374/biomimicry-architecture-inspired-by-nature/http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/naturalarchitecture.html

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Principles of Organic Architecture. By Kimberly Elman
http://www.pbs.org/flw/legacy/essay1.html
Holverstott, Brett. What Can Architecture Learn From Nature. GreenBizSite. September 7, 2008
B. L. Powel http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-08252008-31295012212030/unrestricted/31295012212030.pdf
Steadman, Philip. The evolution of designs: biological analogy in architecture and the applied arts. New York, 2008

Urban Image Analysis through Perception

Facades in La Boca, Buenos Aires. See the cables, wires, hanging clothes. Personal archives.

A lot has been advanced in the possible representations of a city, and the most significant changes have arisen in the abstraction of images that represent the complex urban phenomena with a simple reading: the development of Google Earth of public and free access, improved satelital images, digital images in general. The whole access to information that we are allowed, added to the multiple digital tools, makes us reconsider which is the best visual way of analyzing the city.

Although the urban image is fundamentally built with elements studied as objective realities where the researcher supposes the urban fabric as the only geometric constituent of form, we intend to speak of sensitive experimentation, keeping in mind all the senses. The tact, related with the vision, the sounds and aromas, contribute to the apprehension of the materiality, its distances and depth, everything possible thanks to the cooperation of the haptic memory.

¨Perceptions are framed by experience and motives, and therefore images and symbols play an important role in sharing thought and action. It would be foolish to claim that all studies of ¨objective¨ morphology ignore human agency, but such studies certainly have tended to leave human action implicit in the results…¨. (M. Conzen, p.10, 2001)

An authentic experience of the city consists then, in the approach and confrontation of the building; in the act of enter and look through a window more than the window in itself; to occupy the space of cold-heat, instead of examining objects that produce it. The lived space always transcends the geometry and mensurability (J. Pallasmaa), and the understanding that the space outside the building is used differently from the interior space, will conform a transition area that is a representation of the dependence among internal and external areas.

Humans take the information of the built environment and understand it according to their own cognitive capacity and their point of view of models of interactions in the real world. Therefore, the resultant is IMAGE PLUS BEHAVIOR. What suggests that the urban images we analize, will include a logic of image with all its plastic-geometric attributes and a social intrinsic behavior that responds to the social group.

In facades, it is recommendable to utilize pictures that reflect the user's real perception, not by means of individual elements, but as a systems of configurations of great richness of shapes. The researcher-designer will also contribute his knowledge to interpret what is visually significant for the user; the elements that the users have incorporated along the history, should be considered like inseparable part of the building to analyze.

So, we are joining here the concepts of OBSERVATION AND PERCEPTION.

This is an interior patio of a "conventillo" in La Boca, Buenos Aires. Notice again, the repetitive elements: wires, water pipes exposed, clothes. Personal archives. 

This is the Fourier transform corresponding to the patio above. The Fourier transform application has the quality of showing hidden patterns. Notice the repetitive elements are clearly exposed in the Fourier analysis. Personal archives

It might be questionable then, if we speak of perception, how many elements we will include in our image cutting. In my work on La Boca immigrant neighborhood, Buenos Aires, I have proceeded to analyze pictures of the area through the years. The pictures from the museums and those of conventillos interiors published in "Todo es Historia" (Everything is History) by Félix Luna, show the same domestic praxis until the present time, to hang clothes crossing the patios; addition of strings or wires to cables of illumination, exposed water pipes, etc. This demonstrates the users's intentions that have taken root in the time and were included in my considerations.

Overpopulation in cities: John Calhoun´s experiment with rats

That´s terrible overcrowding in India. apublicdefender.com/.../page/2/

Asian overcrowding. nerdnirvana.org/tag/building/

Overpopulation is a term that refers to conditions by which the population density enlarges to a limit that provokes the environment deterioration, a remarkable decline in the quality of life or a population collapse. (Nasif Nahle, 2003). It has a detrimental effect on people; it is the cause of the destruction of natural habitats of many animal and vegetal; people die more and more from illnesses associated to organic and inorganic wastes; water, will be desperately needed….

Some social and psychological consequences are: tendency to dominate spaces; violence; depression, anxiety, emotional stress, quarrels in families and among neighbors; early marriage and divorce; incest, school drop outs.

Many years ago, I have seen an impressive documentary film about rats and overcrowding in comparison with humans –laboratory animals are a good substitute for humans in hazardous environments-; the documentary was based in the ecologist John B. Calhoun´s experiment with Norway rats. And, to my surprise, I found its complete explanation in Edward T. Hall´s book ¨The Hidden Dimension¨. This is the experiment, and conclusions for urban overpopulation are obvious.

A funny (?) overcrowding cartoon. www.wfsd.k12.ny.us/.../Page651.htm

The research began at Johns Hopkins in 1946 and continued through the '60s, when Calhoun, then a research psychologist, initiated his studies of population dynamics under natural conditions, in a disused land in Towson, Maryland, by introducing five pregnant Norway rats in a quarter acre outdoor enclosure with plenty of food and no predation issues. He observed them for 28 months. The population expanded to conform a ¨rat city¨, it never exceeded 200 individuals and at last stabilized at 150, as social fights were so disruptive to normal maternal care, that only a few of the young survived. The point is that female rats, in a natural environment could have produced 50000 progeny in 28 months, but available space could not have accommodated this number.

Rat´s pen.nihrecord.od.nih.gov/.../07_25_2008/story1.htm

Calhoun´s behavioural sink, 1970. Wikipedia.org

These animals grew up in confinement, for generations, without the ability of escape or migrate to a frontier. They developed social pathologies similar to humans in overcrowded cities or settlements (let us think about slums). Behavioral disturbances reached the levels of deadly fights, sexual deviation and cannibalism.

In response to invasion and the large number of males, females became aggressive and this attitude generalized to their baby rats. And so became the beginning of mortality. Overcrowding produced dramatic results ranging from aggression to many forms of abnormal behaviour, to mass die off.

Calhoun's goals are unusual because psychologists conducting this type of research, mostly apply to individuals and not social groups. Calhoun´s work remains unfinished; they should continue to produce new insights. His experiments could include a frontier or many frontiers, as this is the case of refugees and immigrants in real life.

References.
All this text is based on chapter III of The Hidden Dimension by Edward T. Hall, including some sentences.

Further reading:
Winn, Larry. Universe 25. September 1998
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/frontier_theory/10037
Nahle, Nasif. Overpopulation. Published on 10 November 2003 by Biology Cabinet Organization. http://biocab.org/Overpopulation.html.

Architectural Space in the Gothic Novel

Castel of Otranto.www.tate.org.uk/.../heimozobernig/exguide8.shtm

YOU, WHO are blessed with shade as well as light, you, who are gifted with two eyes, endowed with a knowledge of perspective, and charmed with the enjoyment of various colours, you, who can actually see an angle, and contemplate the complete circumference of a Circle in the happy region of the Three Dimensions - how shall I make clear to you the extreme difficulty which we in Flatland experience in recognizing one another's configuration?(Abbot, Edwin A., Flatland. 1884)

The interest of the authors of Gothic novels about the symbolic or allegorical space was founded in Christian roots that sustained that the spirit prevailed on the matter. In theory, they were seeking for physical, moral, and spiritual analogies. However, the analogy was not already between God and the Nature, but the man and the Nature. In this process, the objects represent psychic questions and moral problems.

It is therefore explained that in the atmosphere of the Gothic novel, the man is connected to the space atmosphere, immersed in the psychic or moral conflict developed along the text. From my point of view, the most explicit exhibitor of these concepts is Edgar Allan Poe.

It is important to highlight that the Gothic architecture arose before the homonymous literature. Horace Walpole was the first one in combining both in his book ¨The Castle of Otranto¨ that takes the subtitle ¨A gothic story¨, where two interdependent speeches, that of the literature and the architecture, take place.

Starting from the book of Walpole, the space of the Gothic fiction has been represented with castles, monasteries, convents, prisons, often in ruins, in a dark landscape.

The materialization of the atmosphere takes advantage of the size of these buildings, so overpowering for the human scale, the interiors are shown dark, cavernous, labyrinthine, invoking feelings of fear, surprise, confinement. And beyond these characterizations, the building is physically alive - still more than its inhabitants -.

Roger Corman, director and producer of ¨The Tomb of Ligeia¨ recalls that in a meeting with the producers Nicholson and Sam Arkoff, while they discussed the project of 'The fall of the house Usher', Arkoff asked him:

- "But, and the monster? ".

- "The monster is the house", he responded. (from ¨El Mundo.es¨. Cultura. On line).

The internal conflicts are transferred to the spaces and the objects, they are incorporated to them, and at the same time, in a continuous cycle, the space materialization generates the psychological conflicts of the characters.

The interest in the non rational experience, was a Romantic reaction against the hard rationalism of the SXVIII that evolved in two ways, one in the search of the spiritual reality, and the other one in the personal and social exploration of the personal subconscious of the characters, hopelessly attached to the world of the memory and dreams, many times induced by the opium.

The symbolic character is shaped in the psychology and the reader's imagination, who is submitted to the ¨first person¨ narration; then, metaphors are apprehended and transformed in symbolism.

In his Philosophy of Composition, Edgard Allan Poe provides a reason for this attitude, when explaining the main character's location with the crow, not in the forest (that would be a more natural suggestion), but in a chamber:

"that a close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident: -- it has the force of a frame to a picture. It has an indisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention, and, of course, must not be confounded with mere unity of place.

I determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber — in a chamber rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The room is represented as richly furnished —"

Notice the importance that has been given to the incorporation of furniture whose form, color, magnitude, are expressive in themselves. They can force the atmosphere so that it seems strange or normal, threatening, familiar. The pure ornament becomes in a new dramatic form; the interior space is emphasized in disregard of the exterior. The sounds, the movements, the lights and shades supplement the creation of the disturbing atmosphere; the optic games are caused by the decoration, to such a point that is difficult to separate the illusions of the hallucinations.

Shot of the movie ¨The Tomb of Ligeia¨, 1964. Representation of the threatening, tenebrous atmosphere, through the color and the objects. Web download.

We, architects, use different representations to communicate an idea, a design, a description. Among them, descriptive memoirs, perspectives, sketches, drawings. In general, the visual aspects are shown, but it is very difficult to transmit the phenomenological effects of the architecture previously described.

To express the concepts of the Gothic architectural space better, I have selected the movie ¨The Tomb of Ligeia¨ that was filmed for the first time in 1964, performed by Vincent Price, directed and produced by Roger Corman, as the last of a saga of low budget movies based on stories of Edgard Allan Poe. Although Corman shows a technical advance in ¨The Tomb of Liegia¨, since he also uses shots in the exterior, the scenarios were basic, they were adapted for several movies and the fog used to cover the similarity among scenarios of the saga .

Picture of the preliminary images in the movie ¨The Tomb of Ligeia¨, 1964. It belongs to Castle Acre Priory Ruins. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3215/2895421716_91dc090f66.jpg?v=0

In his book "Vincent Price: The Art of Fear¨, Denis Meikle quotes the actor, who took some of the credits of the unusual film set: “The Tomb of Ligeia was vaguely based on an idea that Roger and I had once. I had said I had always wanted to do a picture in a ruin, but actually using the ruin as an actual place, with real furniture in it and the ruin around it, which I thought would be very effective¨. (TMC Archives. http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/index.jsp.) The movie was filmed at an Abbey in Norfolk, England. Perhaps Vincent Price has captured the atmosphere of the architectural space of the story, I understand his proposal of set, like a coalition among the place in ruins and the furniture, where the furniture is indispensable part of the architecture of the pentagonal tower, it transforms it, giving it the final character and form.

A shot of the movie ¨The Tomb of Ligeia¨. Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd. 1964. Notice the decorative elements of the set, behind them. http://movies.sky.com/review/the-tomb-of-ligeia

The ornament of arabesque in the curtains and covers was another device to relate the Nature with the geometric abstraction.The structure of arabesque consists basically on a stylized leaf with its petiole, to which it is inexorably tied. In the Gothic novel, the petiole forks ad infinitum. In this respect, let us notice that Poe mentions the Greek philosopher Democritus (460-370 BC) who speculated that the whole matter of the Universe consists on atoms (indivisible matter) that move everywhere. The allusion of Poe is a clear reference to the expansion to infinite.

Once the ornamental outline of the furniture is exceeded, we focus on the small scale, that not for being small is innocent, but rather it expresses the summum of the anguish and the terror, since the decoration becomes indivisible part of the oniric images and hallucinations. With these methods, it is achieved an intensification and dramatization of interpersonal relationships, between the man and the architecture (or rather space) that surrounds him.

In the symbolic space of Gothic novels, the aesthetics of the Renaissance perfection, that of the normative speculation and the symmetrical resultant, -banner of classic beauty-, is left aside . It faces the concept of ¨without geometry there is no truth¨, because in fact, there is geometry, but a different geometry, that is not summarized in the anatomy and the focal perspective, but has other more complicated and darker roads. And, perhaps Poe is correct when quoting Bacon: ¨There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion¨

REFERENCES
- Abbot, Edwin. Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimension.
- Gordon, Rae Beth. Poe: Optics, Hysteria and Aesthetic Theory
http://www.cercles.com/n1/gordon.pdf
- Hoffmann, Gerhard. " Space and Symbol in the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe," from Poe Studies, vol. XII, no. 1, Washington State University. June 1979 http://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/PS1970/P1979101.HTM
- Poe, Edgar Allan. The Philosophy of Composition. 1846
http://www.eapoe.org/works/ESSAYS/PHILCOMP.HTM
- Stamps III, Arthur E.; Krishnan V. V. Spaciosness and Boundary Roughness.
- Stein, Mandy. The Use of the Arabesque in Edgar Allen Poe’s Short Stories “Ligeia “and “The Visionary“ Scholarly Paper, 2007
http://www.grin.com/e-book/119284/the-use-of-the-arabesque-in-edgar-allen-poe-s-short-stories-ligeia-and

Urban Participatory Design

" Tribulaciones Tribales" (Tribal Tribulations). By Luis Makianich. http://luismakianich.blogspot.com

Participatory design is an approach to design that has mainly been concerned with the development -and design- of computers and information systems. It attempts to actively involve the users in the design process to ensure that the final product meets their needs and is usable.

It is also used in many social contexts, from working life and technological development, general politics, urban design and regional planning, architecture, landscape architecture, as a way of improve environments to be more appropriate to their inhabitants and users for their cultural, emotional, spiritual and every day practical needs. Therefore it is a mutual learning process.

Participatory Design traces its roots to Scandinavian work with trade unions in the 60's and 70's, but its ancestry also includes Action Research and Sociotechnical Design (http://cpsr.org/issues/pd/)

There is a growing community of scholars in Europe, Japan and USA that support the urban participatory design, though their contributions vary significantly in the conceptualization of processes to be applied. Practitioners may have very different criteria, which depends on the situation and the scale involved. For instance, Huntington Beach workshops are open to all neighbors and professionals, discussions about many problems in Downtown area are exposed, as parkings, pedestrian streets, retails, landscape, etc. In Chaco, Argentina, architect Victor Pelli organizes workshops with people dealing with poverty and lack of dwellings in areas with no urban infrastructure; in this case, a main problem to solve is the water supply, water connections, bathrooms, bedrooms; in Berlin, it could be related to Turkish immigrants and living quarters in post war massive buildings…

Example of problem solving: solar energy application in El Chaco dwelling, Argentina. www.solutronic.com.ar/energias_alternativas.htm

This approach is usually focused on processes, but depending on the neighborhood, it can also be focused on style and design issues.

Sometimes, it has a political dimension, and I have clearly noticed it at UGYCAMBA planning Symposiums at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of Buenos Aires. The participants were urbanists and architects, gathered to express ideas on different areas of Capital of Buenos Aires, but it was implicit no neighbor would be present. UGYCAMBA exhibitors showed facts, participants could contribute with their opinions, but there would not be any influence on the projects shown by the City planners. I still remember Dr. Max Welch Guerra, a Chilean urbanist from Bauhaus University at Weimar, Germany, though giving courses at the mentioned Faculty of Architecture in Buenos Aires at that time, was not invited to expose his ideas in 2002, as he was a great defender of the real participatory design. Those limited participations are called “pseudoparticipations”, with no real interactions.

In his PhD thesis, John Gotze, based on Masao Hijikata’s theory, explains the importance of counting on a third party. “They are all important participants, but there is a need for an independent, "neutral" mediator and facilitator function, in other words, a third party. This could be a person or an institution. An experienced facilitator who understands and acknowledges the essence of this approach is crucial. It means that success or failure of applying this approach depends on the talent, characteristics and deep knowledge of managing information by the facilitator, who should stay in neutral position, he or she should never try to guide the conclusion. His main role is to offer a creative communication environment, bringing together different parties and interest groups”.

Graphic models need to be appropriate for the participants’ comprehension, abstract drawings would be disregarded; they could be: maps, floor plans, aerial pictures, videos, schematic cross sections, 3 D renders-perspectives, elevations, massive models, digital simulations.

Basically, we advice to follow this praxis:

Address problems that exist and arise in settlements, towns, neighborhoods, cities, articulated by or in collaboration with the affected parties (sociologists, urbanists, architects, historians on one side, inhabitants on the other).

Consciousness of problems
Evaluation of problems; assignment of priorities.
Creation of ideas: find concrete ways of improvement of the built-non built environment plus social issues, by the exercise of creativity.
Evaluation of the ideas.
Communication: models to be clear, graphic representation addressed for inhabitants’ understanding, not directed to professionals.
Attempt to be reflective and respectful practitioners; deal with conflicts, specially if the “dialogue” has angry tones.
Deal with cultural issues, understading of different cultural points of view.
Take part of it: individual attachment and personal engagement.
Share in. Collective action and cooperative activity.
Participation. Learning from each other.
Professional organizers to provide ideas and theoretical experiences.
Participants: listen and judge, provide real experiences
Emphasis on goals and possible achievements.
Take action!

The moral, based on Victor Pelli’s ideology: we cannot force people into our designers’ idealizations of what their lives must be.

“The resident has the right to be a participant, with an ample measure of power in decision making, in the general definition of his/her dwelling ... in the aesthetic definition, not only in the aesthetic codes (signs and styles) but also, and most important, in the priority that achieving the aesthetic effect will have on the application of financial resources destined for his/her house. (Habitar, Participar, Pertenecer. By Victor Saul Pelli. Excerpt from p. 31, 2006).

Workshop in Chile.www.laciudadviva.org/blogs/?p=1797

Further readings:

http://gotzespace.dk/phd/masao.html#infopar
http://cpsr.org/issues/pd/

Religious Altarcitos in Chicano's Houses

Domestic Altarcito in a family room. Personal archives

In the XIX century, two factions arose in the Catholic church in Mexico and Texas: priests that reviled the Chicanos for their religious traditions and, those who, on the contrary, worked in the community offering them their help. This indefinite situation, caused that the Chicanos interpret the Catholicism in their own terms. They observed the traditional sacred days, but often they ignored religious prescriptions; the non sanctioned tradition was then taken to the home, with the realization of altars. With them, the Catholicism was used to palliate the social subordination and to affirm the cultural identity.

The geographical isolation gave birth to a religiosity centered in the home, and this manifestation can still be seen in small tables with iconography, everything surrounded of flowers and with a great cross hanging in the wall.

Chicanos, as poor and oppressed people, selectively took of the Church what helped them to make sense of their lives, and to proclaim their identity.

The Chicano women have a spiritual and social force sustained by the Altars. As guardian of the religion and the home, they influenced to the community and they transmitted cultural values, giving emotional support to the families that lived in a hostile environment.

With the combination of crucifixes, statues of the Virgin María, Jesus Christ and saints with pictures of the extinct members of the family, plus the objects associated to them, the altar in the Chicano home surrenders honors to the family, while it connects to the alive ones with the deads. (Teresa Malcom, 2003).

Altar del Día de los Muertos in Plaza Olvera, Los Angeles. Personal archives.

The altar of the Day of the Deads is a variant of the domestic altar. The day of The deads is a religious celebration in all Mexico and California, November 2, and it surrenders honors to the memory of the members of the family that "left". The ceremony is tied to the prehispanic agricultural calendar, since this was the only celebration that took place when the crop began. The Aztec concepts of life after death must be related: determining factors for a man´s destiny in the next existence were his social position and the circumstances surrounding his death. Scholars suppose they did not believe in retribution after death based on his conduct in this life. This might have been expected as confession of sins and penance were usual ocurrences. (Ake Hultkrantz, 1984).

Beginning at the Day of All Saints (Día de Todos los Santos), November 1st, the families build altars in their homes and/or in cemeteries and squares, exposing the pictures of the deads, placed in turn next to religious icons and other allegories, such as baked food and symbolic sugar skulls. The foods are accompanied by the traditional Pan de Muerto (sugar coated breads adorned with bits of dough in a shape like bones and tears). Beverages served up are fresh drinking water, fruit flavor water, cups of chocolate. Alcoholic beverages as beer, pulque (aguardiente) and tequila are served up as reminders of the good times they had on earth. The myth says, when the sun passes through the zenith, all the souls return to town and to their former homes, to which they are guided by the smell of the food.

The altar may be personalized with the addition of the objects that were essential to the deceased’s daily life, accompanied by a small skeleton figure that represents the deceased’s profession. For a man, the typical displays are a machete, a hat, a serape; for a woman, kitchen utensils, a shawl, a basket filled with needlework materials. A defunct musician will have the musical instrument, a smoker, a pack of his favorite cigarettes. For the angelitos (little boys and girls died in infancy), the ofrenda would be wooden or tin toys, along with sweets and a cup of milk.

Display for the Día de los Muertos in Los Angeles. The tall figure at the right of the skulls is ¨La Calaca¨ (also known as La Parca, La Pelona, La Huesuda), the representation of death. To her right, the small figures represent different professions.

Altar del Día de los Muertos in Plaza Olvera, Los Angeles. Personal archives.

One of the key elements in the composition is the use of the paper cut-outs that derives of the Aztec practice of the use of paper banners in connection with important religious rites. Today, they are translated in Arts and Crafts of tissue paper perforated with geometric patterns or flowers, birds. The traditional colors are the purple that symbolizes the lament and the fuchsia or brilliant orange to symbolize the happiness of the return of the deceaseds. When the parties finish, paper cut-outs is thrown to the air, giving a certain tridimensionality to the topic of the partitions.

The candles represent the illumination of the souls’ way, they also constitute a significant part of the offerings and it comes from Christian traditions. In some homes, a candle is fastened by each member of the family. Four candles are located in a cross formation pointing out to the 4 cardinal points. Under the altar, a cross can be shaped with petals, earth or ashes.

This Christian celebration is a mixture of pre-Colombian beliefs and is sustained by the concept that only the meat decays, but not the soul. The life and the death are views in an unit, in an infinite cycle. The death can be a vengeance to the life, because it liberates us of the vanities in which we live and it converts to us all, at the end, in a sack of bones.

Therefore, the death can be interpreted as a joke; the skulls and corresponding elements, are exposed in the altar, in an non Euclidian order.

It is important to say that the ceremony does not end with the Altar. It is extended to the streets and evolves into a collective event. “Throughout the first two days of November, all the doors of the house remain open, to encourage visitors from all over town to participate in the celebration and to visit the family shrine. On the afternoon of the first, a coffin containing a white cardboard skeleton is carried through the streets of the town. As it passes by, women dressed in black and holding lit candles cry in sympathy. The entourage travels the streets, asking permission to enter the homes of the celebrants. Once inside, the casket is laid on the floor, and everyone kneels around it to give the prayer, ''Our Father". After the prayer, the owner of the home gives bread or sugar skulls as a farewell. The procession ends at the local cemetery, where a funeral is simulated.” (Gaceta Consular, 1996)

Altar del Día de los Muertos in Plaza Olvera, Los Angeles. Personal archives.

Finally, there is a more profane altar that is tied to the patriotism. The Mexican anthropologist Manuel Gamio has explained that mestizos or native living in rural districts of Mexico, did not have a good notion of their nationality or of their country, but when they became immigrants of U.S.A. at the beginning of the SXX, they learned immediately what the Madre Patria meant. Starting from there, they gave a place of honor for their Mexican heroes, building altars with their pictures in their houses, including the Mexican flag and giving this way a new religious quality to patriotism.

Chicano domesticity is embedded in mythical space. Yi-Fu Tuan provides this definition: “Mythical space is an intellectual construct. It can be very elaborate. Mythical space is also a response of feeling and imagination to fundamental human needs. It differs from pragmatic and scientifically conceived spaces in that it ignores the logic of exclusion and contradiction. … In mythical thought the part can symbolize the whole and have its full potency”. (Yi-Fu Tuan, 2007:100)

This definition is related to the concept of fractality: the minimum part has the information and characteristics of the whole. We cannot state that the domestic patterns are fractals but they have fractal dimensions in their physical configurations (as location of objects) and mythical thoughts have fractal conditions.

Altar del Día de los Muertos in Plaza Olvera, Los Angeles. Personal archives.

References.
Dale Hoyt Palfrey. Mexico Conjurs Spirits With Picturesque Ofrendas. August 19th, 2007.
http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/1555-mexico-conjurs-spirits-with-picturesque-ofrendas.html
Gaceta Consular. Number 25, Year IV, Austin, Texas. 1996.
Gagnier Mendoza, Mary Jane. Día de los Muertos: The dead come to life in Mexican folk art. En México Connect. On line.
Hultkrantz, Ake. The Religions of the Mexican Americans. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1984
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/mjmendoza/mjmdiadelasmuertos.html
Malcom, Teresa. Creating sacred space: altars in Hispanic homes have a long and rich history that feminists and new immigrants in the U.S. are reclaiming.(Family Life). In National Catholic Reporter, November 14th, 2003. (High Beam Research on line)
http://www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:110808636
Treviño, Alejandro. Mexican Americans and Religion. In The Handbook of Texas on line. Texas Historical Association. 2005
Yi-Fu Tuan. Space and Place. The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press. 2007

Essay on Haptic Perception

Detail of Tim Hawkinson’s painting. Web download.

In his book “The eyes of the skin. Architecture and the Senses”, Juhani Pallasmaa emphasizes the significance of the tactile sense for our experience and understanding of the world, where architecture articulates the experiences of being-in-the world.

He explains the important difference between focused vision and peripheral unfocused vision. The first one, as in classic perspective, confronts us with the world. The unfocused vision immerses us in the world. “The very essence of the lived experience is moulded by hapticity and peripheral unfocused vision” (Pallasmaa,p. 10, 2005).

I’d rather clarify the concept first. Pallasmaa refers to the tactile sense, which has become more important in time.

Hapticity is a term related to organometallic compounds. “The term hapticity is used to describe how a group of contiguous atoms of a ligand are coordinated to a central atom” (Wikipedia.org). In this text, it would be correct to say “haptics” or “haptic perception”, both terms related to the sense of the touch.

“Tactus, le Touche” by Abraham Bosse. Wellcome Images Collection.

J. Gibson, in “The senses considered as perceptual systems” (1966) defined the haptic system as "The sensibility of the individual to the world adjacent to his body by use of his body", concept evidently related to body movement.

Touch has the highest rank among senses, though philosophers have ranked it differently. This contradiction goes back to the variable status proposed by Aristoteles who ranked it at the fifth order. The Arab scholar Avicenna (980-1037) provides an explanation of this conflict: Aristoteles meant that sight was honoured with the primacy, but from a point of view of natural aptitude, the sense of touch merited priority. (Martin Grunwald. Human Haptic Perception: Basics and Applications. 2008).

This is a picture of a house and a woman in Mongolia that I've downloaded from National Geographic.com. It's an excellent example of the sensibility in textures and the drama of shadows on the walls. A shot so simple and complex at the same time. I'm sorry I didn't write the author's name.

A man in a workshop with a hand over his eyes in anguish while dropping a sharp tool with the other hand. Wellcome Images Collection.

Haptic interaction could rely on a real or virtual environment. In the last one, mechanical variables (haptic signal) will be needed to provide haptic stimuli. In architecture, any building containing mouldings, colors, textures, provide stimuli for peripheral vision, in consequence, we are integrated with space in a body experience. The best example is the barroque building, opposed to the perspectival representation, where the eye was the center of the perceptions, in a concentration of the self.

Depending on the building, there will be a hierarchy of senses and the architect should emphasize those he considers more important, according to the users; for instance, the tactile sensitivity of the blind should be enhanced by textures, but also sounds could help them. In some cultures, the senses of smell, touch, and taste have collective importance for memories, behaviour and communication. Indigenous clay and mud constructions, with their plastic properties, seem to be generated more from the haptic senses than the eye.

Mishongnovi Pueblo. www.ancestral.com/.../north_america/hopi.html

On the contrary, Le Corbusier’s famous credo, “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light”, defines, without any doubt, an architecture of the eye (Pallasmaa, p. 27, 2005), it reflects the hygiene of the optical; in Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings, though he uses a central perspective, the richness in details make them haptic. A contemporary city, with so many freeways, is therefore, the city of the eye, where the body is detached of the tectonic city while being inside the car in movement.

Los Angeles freeways. Picture by Ron Niebrugge. WildNatureImages.com

But, tectonics –as an expression of the materials properties- has become a term with a blurry definition, when affected by humanism. Let us illustrate the concept with the Jewish Zarco family’s house description, in the words of Berekiah Zarco’s manuscripts (1507-1530 AD): “Can a house possess a body, a soul?…….As manuscript illuminators, Uncle Abraham and I had often modeled biblical dwellings on our home. For its walls we applied a milky ceruse, and to approximate the low and sagging chestnut wood ceilings which creaked alarmingly…….we applied the rich brown made from vinegar, silver filings, honey and alum. The sandy floor tiles which scratched one’s feet were given a moderated vermillion obtained from a marriage of quicksilver and sulphur”. (Richard Zimler. The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, page 27). It is clear that for him –and his Master uncle- the house was a privilege for their five senses and had a mystical meaning even in its organic materials.

There is a paragraph of O.V. Milosz’ novel “L’amourese initiation”, cited by Gaston Bachelard in his book The poetics of space (p. 141. 1994 edition), that clearly shows that the spatial sensation depends on one’s cognition also, and is independent of the scale. It is an interesting example of haptic description for details in combination with time, the environment is a simple corner, -it could be any corner- between the chest and the fireplace: “you find countless remedies for boredom, and an infinite number of things that deserve to occupy your mind for all time: the musty odor of the minutes of three centuries ago; the secret meaning of the hieroglyphics in fly-dung; the triumphal arch of that mouse-hole; the frayed tapestry against which your round, bony back is lolling; the gnawing noise of your heels on the marble; the powdery sound of your sneeze…and finally, the soul of all this old dust from corners forgotten by brooms”. A tension between conscious and unconscious intentions is necessary to trigger the emotional participation of the observer. Without tactility and considerations for the human body and its senses, the buildings become unreal.

Rights info:

Discussions about the Chinese arch in Chinatown, Buenos Aires.

Construction of the Chinese arch across Arribeños st, in Chinatown Buenos Aires. Picture from Skyscrapercity.com

Chinese arch in Buenos Aires Chinatown, almost finished. Picture from Skyscrapercity.com

Chinatown Buenos Aires. Internet download.

By middle may 2009, the neighbors of Belgrano, Buenos Aires, living in the area of the train station of Belgrano C, were shocked to see at 3 am containers with the pieces of the new Chinese arch. The construction of the Chinese arch had just begun alike many important cities in the world….

The government of China authorized an investment close to half a million dollars to build a concrete and stone Chinese arch in Belgrano neighborhood, in Buenos Aires.

The arch has 11 meters in height and extends across Arribeños st., from sidewalk to sidewalk.

Transformations in Chinatown in Buenos Aires are not new, they began in the 1980´s, not long after the second wave of Asian immigrants landed in Argentina in the late 1960´s. The first polemic dates from 2003, when the government of Anibal Ibarra began with the experimental pedestrianization of Arribeños st., between Blanco Encalada and Juramento av. In December 2007, the neighborhood special zonification passed from U23 to R2B1, a Zoning Code classification for residential barrios with small retails. But, in the 4th article, approved by the Buenos Aires city government in 2006, the law contemplated the donation of an arch to the Govenment of the Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires by the Chinese Pacific Unification Association in Argentina.

So, the works are part of a process of transformation of the Chinese neighborhood. The neighbors have opposing viewpoints, some of them agree the arch would be the entrance to the Chinatown, but most of them disagree, saying that Chinese are not integrated to Argentine habits and the streets are dirty (well, I have never seen a clean street in Downtown Buenos Aires); Chinese do not express opinions…. Authorities say that the objective is to promote brotherhood between both cultures, -that would be fantastic-, but after living in Belgrano many years, I feel Chinatown in Buenos Aires serves as tourist attractions and not as real, living ethnic community. What reinforces my thought is that Argentine neighbors say that there are only 56 retails and the Chinese inhabitants are less than one hundred. I´m sorry I don´t have the official strict numbers yet.

Chinese immigrants to Argentina number to about 60,000. The Chinese in Argentina came mostly in two waves: the first arrived from Taiwan in the 1980s, while the second came in the 1990s, integrated by a majority of young entrepeneurs people who came often through the illegal smuggling route originating in Fujian Province. Chinatown and the number of Chinese owned business began to flourish. Many Chinese and Asian owned businesses began to open up around the city, mostly dealing in supermarkets, textiles, and buffet-styled restaurants. Recently, there has been a third wave of Chinese immigration: educated members of China’s growing middle-class , young employees of Chinese companies who have recently arrived to work for a two years period.

¨After almost 30 years here, many first-wave Taiwanese have become accustomed to the porteño lifestyle. They tell a story common to Asian immigrants in Latin America arriving around the same time: hoping to reach the United States or Canada, they were met with difficulties securing a visa. Their aspirations were temporarily halted and so they waited. Only waiting led to acculturating; and acculturating eventually led to staying.¨(Nancy Liu, January 13th, 2009)

The last time I have been there, in 2003, the four blocks in question were already considered the Chinese neighborhood. Though, it had not the strength of San Francisco or Los Angeles. It was only dispersed retails with signs in Chinese words, from the first generation of Holo and Mandarin speaking immigrants from Taiwan (Wikipedia.org), that were completely unintelligible for us. But it was nice to walk around and find exotic food, herbs, candies, noodles...

Now, the main street will be pedestrian, the neighborhood is changing its physiognomy for ever.

The resistance to a different culture has its explanation, that I can assume from the declarations on the newspapers.

“Despertamos y nos encontramos con esa estructura enorme sin que nadie nos avisara nada”, se quejó Carlos Basile, miembro de la Asociación Civil Vecinos de Belgrano, la agrupación barrial que comenzó a movilizarse el año pasado, luego de que la comuna confirmara la transformación de las dos cuadras principales de Arribeños en una peatonal.¨(We woke up and come up with this huge structure without anybody telling us¨. Carlos Basile, a member of the Civil Neighbors of Belgrano Association, a barrio grupping that began mobilizing last year, after the Municipality confirmed the transformation of the two main blocks in Arribeños into a pedestrian street).

The worst Argentine neighbors´ feeling is that Chinese are displacing them, little by little, and the arch is a consolidation of this idea. No need to mention that it was very frustrating that the City´s government never consulted Belgrano inhabitants about the changes. Another issue is the location of the arch. Isabel Baethgen said the problem is not the arch indeed, but to locate it across the street, ¨when it would have been installed in a plaza, respecting laws and Porteño rules for the location of monuments¨. (Isabel Baethgen: “El problema no es el arco, sino que lo pongan en medio del barrio, cuando deberían haberlo instalado en una plaza y respetando las leyes y reglamentos porteños para el emplazamiento de monumentos”.)

Failure to integrate and balance both cultures will be potentially harmful for the barrio inhabitants.

Maybe Argentine neighbors have forgotten that there is a third generation of Chinese in Buenos Aires that speak, dress, eat, live exactly like us. There are ¨middle¨ situations where East can meet the West. I had the opportunity to share those situations, at restaurants, parties, meetings, the strangeness immediately is dissipated in the first approach of a nice civilized conversation. Thanks to the Chinese community for sharing those great moments with me and my family!.

Chinese dancers at party to celebrate Christmas and New Year. Notice they are also celebrating Western New Year. Personal archives.

Same Chinese party, all performers on stage with typical costumes. Beautiful! Personal archives.

http://criticadigital.com/impresa/index.php?secc=nota&nid=24160
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1126997
http://www.danwei.org/guest_contributor/chinese_diaspora_in_latin_amer.php
http://www.danwei.org/guest_contributor/chinese-run_supermarkets_in_ar.php