In“A day in the life”, Rem koolhas illustrated a series of narratives by perspective photos. Through different point of view, it tells the different experience of people in the building. This makes me realize that the perspective has the ability rather than other drawing skills to describe the experience at a special moment. Also, it reminds the designer to consider the relationship between space and experience. I think this reading gives us a way to figure out what kind of experience or memory we want to create and express to the user. On the contrary, we reconsider what kind of perspective could represent the experiential imagine.

Odd.

So man has need to express the wonders of his soul, to ask his questions about the order of things, to visualize the vast system in which he is part. (These thoughts articulated by Kahn in beautiful ways.) Peter Wilson opens a reading on the competition for the Parc de la Villette suggesting two types of architectural responses to the lodged sensation, both borne of this age of the ‘cult of the new.’ The opposition he bears to mind is engendered in the alternate approaches of the crowd of a “Euro- intellect” (Tschumi, OMA, and from Schneider’s article, Eisenman), and the work of those propelled with a more direct “designers intuition” (Hadid chief on this side). Though offering no moral leaning towards one mode or the other, Wilson provides a background platform for the criticisms Schneider carries into his work on perspective and axonometry, and the House El Even Odd.
The now, proposed by Wilson as a time characterized by disjunction, elicits the trope of layering for expressive and multi lateral means towards spatial formation. With this strategy, clarity in the individual layers prior to their montage stands more essential, so too articulation. (Grids, points, lines, surfaces, recognition of the separate systems of objects, movements, and spaces, linear forests...) Towards the precise need, the Parc de la Villette reading witnesses a breaking down, or logical maneuvering within the schemes of both OMA and Bernard Tschumi’s work (similar to the operational “logics” of Eisenmans El Even Odd- the name itself a play with words). These works of design are proposed and carefully and exactly navigated with a linguistic approach, by the frame of “linguistic imperialism,” while they more than likely would stand ambiguous systems in reality.

These readings helped me to both reflect on our processes of diagramming and frame the perspective drawing exercise ahead of us. This semester, our uses of axon and perspective are closely in line with Bernhard Schneider's disscussion of these methods. As the axonometric drawing does not prescibe itself to the laws of visual perception, it opens up to presenting relationships that may not be understood from a perspectival vantage point. Axonometric drawings in our class have described construction diagrams and programmatic relationships. Our task of drawing perspectivally will force us to think at the scale of person in space and to test relationships from eye-level. The perspective's reference to human visual perception leads to a "tangible" representation, understood by the senses. As a tangible space, the representation must necessarily have a temporal and narrative component because it references real experience and direction. Rem's perspectival photographic sequences in "A Day in the Life" poetically describe the narratives of several workers in his space. The human figures and vantage points at eye-level are compelling instruments that persuade the viewer to visually stroll through his representation of space. These representations speak to the persuasive power of a perspective to be instantly accessible. Both the trained and untrained eye can understand how a perspectival space is occupied because the method of representation follows the rules of our everyday visual experience.

Bernhard Schneider's article was a much needed reminder of the opportunities that perspective and axonometry afford. For example, the intentional deception of perspective allows you to reconsider space and place. I was reminded of a Lee Miller (or maybe tina Modotti) photograph of two people standing outdoors. One person is located in the foreground and the other person is located in the background about 80+ yards back on an incline. The person in the foreground has their hand raised as if holding an imaginary tray. The photographer and subjects are along the same axis - and from the photographers vantage point, it appears that the person in the background is a tiny figure standing on the open palm of the person in the foreground. The distance/space between the two subjects disappears and they become one unit inhabiting the same place. I'm intrigued with the idea of perspectival shifts that lead to heightened, perhaps thought-provoking (or maybe just plain confusing) experiential shifts.

Bernhard Schneider’s article addressing geometric representation and human perception was interesting to me. In particular, the idea that our understanding of space relates to its perception by the eye seems to be an opportunity for architects. I am reminded of one such instance of delight which I experienced observing a walkway approach to Saarinen’s Morse and Stiles Colleges at Yale. The walkway goes between the nine story gothic tower of the gym and the faceted walkway that rises and falls as it passes between the colleges. Although the vast majority of people walking this pathway would say that it has a constant width, it is actually twice as wide near the colleges compared to near the gym. The result was very different impressions of approach compared with leaving. My impression of leaving the colleges was that the gym appears very large and at great distance, since from the vantage point of the colleges, the reduced pathway width heightened the sense of distance and scale. My impression of approach, on the other hand, was compressed since the expanded width approaching the colleges tended to flatten the perception of the scene. As a result, the walkway seemed much shorter and more like a grand approach. In thinking about the effects of a simple move such as this can shape perception of a space, I wonder now whether and to what end this idea was employed within the spaces of the colleges themselves.

In my process to organize the various programs of our project, I've found it rather difficult to integrate the different users into one another's programs. I think this is largely due to the fact that it the users have been the organizational driver. This is where I take from OMA's proposal for the Parc de La Villette. OMA states, "The 'design' should be the proposition of a method that combines architectural specificity with programmatic indeterminacy." They describe the process of layering different general programmatic elements, such as circulation, connection, and planting. With this method they have achieved a certain degree of flexibility in their program which is capable of, "absorbing an infinite number of extensions of meaning."
Tschumi's proposal for the Parc de La Villette also resonated with me in it's description as, "combining a variety of activities that will encourage new attitudes and perspectives." This is exactly our objective with the program at Murano. Although I don't see a gridded system of follies as an effective model for our site, the way in which Tschumi organized program into point-like activities, linear activities, and surface activities, could be very useful in creating a more symbiotic relationship between the users of our program.

When considering Parc de la Villette, both Tschumi and OMA were similarly and highly concerned with the social implications of their design. What is interesting to investigate, then, is the differences that manifest themselves in their proposals. This is an especially timely investigation because both teams set forth a word, or set of words, which influenced how they conceived of creating space and managed program. This, I feel, can be instructive and inspirational to us as we move forward with our nascent designs, which for the most part have similar ambitions, yet all are using different vocabulary to inform the design.

OMA clearly applied one vocabulary word—layer—to how they created space and managed program on the site. They have accounted for the unpredictability of the user in their scheme for access and circulation which promotes both axial and more random movement through the site. What I find most interesting and perhaps a bit counter-intuitive about their choice of the word “layer” as the driver for their intervention is that they are constructing an experience which will mostly be experienced in plan, rather than in section. While the layering system does allow for the conceptual interaction/intersection/overlap of the different “layers”, I’m not convinced that this would be legible to a user of the park. This, to me, sets up a perhaps undesirable dichotomy between the actual experience and the rather compelling presentation drawings of the proposal.

Tschumi, on the other hand, used the vocabulary of points, lines, and surfaces to create his proposal for the park. While being less concise, his vocabulary is one that does directly translate into the users experience. The follies most definitely will serve as “points of intensity”, as Tschumi asserts, while the lines of the highly-used grid will most definitely guide the user experience. While I actually like OMA’s proposal more in proposal form, I do think that Tschumi’s vocabulary helps to more convincingly situate his ideas off of the page and into reality, a testament to the strength of consistency all the way through a project!