The photographic work of Lee
Yoon-ha (李玧河) has a
quiet but absorbing presence in “Parallel
Vision”, an occasion to sample works by contemporary Korean and Japanese photographers. Not meant to typecast,
the all-female
line-up has managed to strike a slightly different cord.
Lee, a housewife turned photographer,
combines digital photography and ink work with the aid of graphic software to
produce a series of images that speaks out in a male dominated country. The storyboard-format work is not a report nor narrative on an event as traditional
photography would embrace. The black and white inkjet prints, a purist
might argue, pertain more to graphic art than
photography. Their compositions are more naïve than sophisticated for a minimalist to appreciate.
The photo-graphic work, in reflection to its hybrid nature, tells an allegory of dried anchovies imagining possible
lives at sea or
elsewhere. These creatures are small in
stature but their presence in the Korean food context is indispensable. They are the ultimate metaphor of the sexes
in the eye of the photographer.
Sonatas of anchovy
(Digital photo-montage with Chinese ink on Korean paper)
(photos∣Lee
Yoon-ha李玧河)
The
Forest, Yi Hyuk-Jun (李赫焌)
It is
another digital composition of half hidden temples juxtaposed among heavy foliage
for viewers to explore. The print-out
with shiny varnishes is presented as a column of oriental styled scroll
paintings.
(photos∣Yi Hyuk-Jun 李赫焌)
Hamel’s
Boat, Kim Ok-Sun (金玉善)
The
series of portrait photographs documents the personalities of 70 foreigners in
Korea. Inspired by the innocent story of
Hendrick Hamel, who was held in closed quarters in Jeju Island from 1653-66,
Kim touches upon the fringes of a seemingly homogeneous population of her
country.
Dawn,
the dreamer
Rich,
the naturist
(photos∣Kim Ok-Sun 金玉善)
Parallel Vision: Japan and Korea Contemporary Photography
Exhibition
平行視野：日本韓國當代攝影展
(Hong Kong Arts Centre from October 14 to November 4, 2012)
Hong
Kong has a population of 7.3 million (excluding visitors) in a territory of
1104km².
Given this brimming density, the city is already suffering from multi-layered
problems in health, environment and development issues. Most deplorable of all and especially to the underclass, basic human
conditions are slipping by the day. Photographic exhibition of poverty in Hong Kong at here.
The
roving exhibition in Hong Kong from October 13-21, 2012.
3D
animation originally conceived for the 12th International
Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2010.
(photo ∣ www.infrabodies.com)
Urban Cyberspace
Co-created
by Ivan Rijavec and John Gollings, “Now and When: Australian Urbanism” toured
to Hong Kong featuring an approx. 20-minute cinematic 3D video animation and
photography in a makeshift darkroom set-up.
The quality of digital graphics was stunning, comparable to that of
Pixar-styled cinematography. Perhaps due
to budgetary or technical reasons, there was no commentary or any sound effect. The exhibition catalogue was too brief to
provide any information concept and design intents either.
Negotiating through the thick curtain on the way out, all was left
spinning in the head were endless impressions of phantasmagoric urban
landscapes of Australia in future.
Attention
seeking Ivan Rijavec with shocking statements that breaks the day - Sunday Morning Post October
12, 2012.(article ∣ www.scmp.com)
Sunday Treat
It was
Rijavec who made a blood-curdling statement in the local newspaper that drew me
to the exhibition show in the first place.
He suggested that Hong Kong, a well known city with massive population
should build twice as dense per capita, based on the high density of inhabitants in
the Forbidden City durig Qing dynasty. Having seen the
exhibition I chose to believe that this tiny metropolis foothold, if Rijavec’s
suggestion be implemented, would only conjure up bleak imageries from films
like Blade Runner and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
I hate to
barb on our fellow professionals, but as an architect myself, I hope we should
offer at least minimum research studies before making wild statements in
public. This is only common to all other
professions. The reality-free video
discourses are imaginative, but they also borderline on being unscientific if
not downright nonsensical. Too heavy a dose of sensationalism will only numb
the audience as well as architect. It is
a vicious cycle that can only escalate further.
Acceptance
has been duly granted to the growing trend that architects are becoming image makers. Architecture and especially urban planning
are art form only if rigorous considerations on subjects like geography,
town-planning, economics and other relevant disciplines are met. We don’t need architects to provide mere
visual stimulus if there are already writers and film-makers in the sci-fi
markets.
This is already the best clip from YouTube:
Exhibition in Summary
The
stereoscopic visualization is comprised of 2 parts, namely Now and When.
Now is
a 3D photographic study by John Gollings on existing Australian urban conditions juxtaposed with mining landscapes.
(photos ∣ John Gollings)
When is
emerged from an ideas competition on exploring Australian urban planning and
architecture of the future. 17 selected entries vary
from private practices to academics. The
resulting animation was developed jointly by John Gollings and Ivan Rijavec, with
visual production by Floodslicer.
(all
below images and write-ups ∣ www.architecturemedia.com)
[1] Multiplicity - John Wardle Architects and Stefano Boscutti
Growth is no longer on its periphery but at our heart. Melbourne has grown not
out, but up and down. In the future our city will tell multiple stories. A building
of narratives and possibilities.
[2] Symbiotic City - Steve Whitford (U of
Melbourne) and James Brearley (BAU Brearley Architects and Urbanists)
Layered networks of urban and rural systems allow nature and the city to
combine in a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit.
[3] Mould City - Colony Collective
An urban system that reconfigures the relationship between humans, shelter and
collective settlements. Mould will not save us, but if we learn how to tend it,
new and rich possibilities will emerge.
[4] Terra Form Australis - Hassell, Holopoint and
The Environment Institute
Asks what strategic moves Australia would have to make to accommodate a population of 50 million people in the year 2100.
[5] The Fear Free City - Justyna Karakiewicz, Tom Kvan
and Steve Hatzellis
Seven desperate dreams are followed by seven desiring dreams in a project that
attempts to flush away fear and reveal the opportunities for a rewarding,
sustainable city.
[6] Survival vs.
Resilience - BKK
Architects and Village Well
From an assumption that cities have to be planned before they are formed, this
project explores the conventional wisdom of the multi-centred city.
[7] Ocean City - Arup Biomimetics
Tackling the large-scale migration of the Australian population from land to
sea, necessitating a rise in biomimetic practices.
Looking at how ideas recycle and morph over time, this project looks 41 years
into the past to see 41 years into the future.
[9] Sydney 2050: Fraying Ground
- Richard Goodwin
Art/Architecture and Terroir
Urban strategies of fraying, knotting and parasitism are realized through a
process of remapping and drawing across all scales.
[10] Island Proposition 2100 - Room 11
Embodying hyper-connectivity, the IP2100 spine contains a looped system of
hybrid infrastructures, initiating a new symbiotic relationship between the
urban centres and their supporting territories.
[11] Aquatown - NH Architecture
As water and resources diminish the need for a new kind of infrastructure
increases, bringing new urban forms with it. Australia’s growth cities respond
like tree roots searching for nourishment, spreading into new borders and
territories.
[12] A City of Hope - Edmond and Corrigan
A specialist city of 50,000 located on the boundary of Little Desert National
Park in the Wimmera region of Victoria.
[13] A Tale of Two Cities - Billard Leece Partnership
Excess consumption has bankrupted cradle-to-grave industrial economies and
cities have contracted, condensed and multiplied. Visible as a holographic
projection, the city’s doppelganger audits and guides the city’s development
far below.
[14] Implementing the
Rhetoric - Harrison
and White with Nano Langenheim
Optimistically imagines that by 2050 politicians and planning authorities will
have the power, conviction and know-how to decisively address critical urban
issues. Using de-fragmented design techniques we visualize a literal, undiluted
sustainable urbanism – solar amenity, strategic density increase and walkable
cities.
[15] Sedimentary City - Brit Andresen and Mara
Francis
The sedimentary city of Brisbane is layered city-on-city, its layers existing
in time and in space. New layers carry the trace of past cities with potential
to draw in missed fragment catalysts.
[16] Loop-Pool / Saturation
City - McGauran Giannini
Soon, Bild + Dyskors and Material Thinking
A manufactured crisis – a 20-metre rise in sea level – enables an exploration
of the future of Australian urbanism through four distinct typologies.
[17] How Does it Make You Feel?
- Statkus
Architecture
Based on the premise that gravity is able to be controlled, fundamentally
changing the way structures are realized and opening up the possibility of
floating cities.
Two
years after opening, with plenty of accolades on the design and unanimous criticisms on the workmanship, I went to Guangzhou to visit the opera house with relative
cool head. The public attention has gone
but the review with less hype would only do justice to all.
A
comforting reassurance to able architects, I have had the experience most of
them would love to hear - that is the concept of the project is manifest
visually before the eye through its architecture. The subversive thought of
unreadable architectural concepts in most buildings does not apply in this
occasion.
To
be fair with Zaha Hadid’s efforts, the above observation is pure
incidental. I have never read any critique
on this project prior to the visit. At
the same time, I must declare to be a non-believer of deconstruction architecture
and even after writing this article, I am not a particular fan of her.
Aerial
view with an array of landmarks and
the Pearl River bank towards the south.
A Visual Concept
According
to its architect, the opera house had its inspiration from the Pearl River, which
is the source of drinking water and a host of activities for the inhabitants of Guangzhou.
With the biomorphic forms akin to two
giant pebbles drifting ashore along its bank, the two expressive looking performance
venues incite comparison with scholar rocks, which are much adored by the
locals.
Almost
imprinted in the psyche, the appreciation of unusually shaped rocks in China, or
suiseki in Japan, has a long tradition in the Orient.
(photo
∣ www.bonsaitonight.com)
From
top to bottom: Level One, Level Two, High level plan
and Section through the
grand auditorium.
(drawings ∣ www.zaha-hadid.com)
Formalistic
layout of the new Guangzhou CBD centred along
the grand boulevard that is
terminated with
two iconic buildings towards the south.
(photo
∣ www.lifeofguangzhou.com)
Given
that the Guangdong Museum, strategically located with the opera house as a pair
of new cultural icons perpendicular to the central axis, has the same plateau-cum-main
building arrangement. It can only be
deduced that the setting was a predetermined criterion for both competition
briefs. All said, the analogy of prized
stones rested above a river bank is conceptually viable as an installation. In the eyes of the Cantonese, it easily make
image associations pertinent to the school of Lingnan still life wash paintings.
Luxembourg
Opera House in 1997. Though not
materialized,
it might have laid foundation for the more mature
Guangzhou
project in 2003-2010.
(images
∣www.ademirvolic.com)
Nudging Tensions
Daunting
to view at first instance with the low lying concrete masses, the opera house
is surprisingly easy to orientate and navigate.
As the site faces south and the main approach comes from the north,
Hadid did a skillful job of channeling pedestrians either from east and west
via underpasses, steps or ramps. People
are easily directed to the foyers where the solid stone shells are punctuated with
irregular stripes of glazing and entrances.
The
two performance buildings of grey and white, their volumes reflecting the
programme of housing a formal auditorium of opera and small scaled experimental
theatre, are raised on a platform of circulation routes, entrance foyers and
ponds. The two “pebbles” create
interesting solid and void relationship, the resultant tension are compelling. Apart from the main cast, other public
facilities especially the catering venues and exhibition space are though too dispersed
and not strategically located.
A
photographer may find it hard to shoot
the Guangzhou Opera House. The building has one of
the most unusual
building expressions to be captured but
the result seems to be far from
desirable.
Disconcerted neighbours
On
another sour note, the relative tight plot for a grand project of this scale
has one particular drawback – the amoebic buildings with interesting nooks and
crannies are blocked by the high plateau ground floor at certain angles. Worse still, the nearby tall buildings incongruously
standing among themselves, are in complete discordance with it. Their close proximity leads to the unspeakable
thought that the opera house might be better built somewhere else.
Glimmering Inside
Interiors
of two performance buildings provide fluid flow of spaces that are breathtaking
but somehow expected of.
Public
galleries with triangular shaped fenestrations
cast different shades of light
and
darkness depending on the time of day.
Perhaps
due to the triangulated structure that captivates the eye, the glazing does not
induce view out of the building envelope.
It generates certain introverted countenance.
In
stark contrast to the monochromatic exterior, the grand theatre is painted with
gold on walls and ceilings.Together
with the velvety red chairs, they suggest that the architect is determined to appease
local tastes.It is a pleasant
encouragement to find a bold enough architect like Hadid to consciously apply colour
to architecture, inside or out.While
the public foyers are fragmentary and angular, the voluminous auditorium is fluid
and cavorting with streamlined plastering.
Views
of the Grand Theatre
The scaled walls, apart from fulfilling
acoustic needs, reinforce the idea of triangulation on the structure. The interior, as remarked by the tour guide, further
hints at the presence of the carcass of a giant fish. The metaphors of pebbles, fish scales and carcass
can be tied together under the tradition of the maritime theme. Both methodologically and thematically
speaking, this radical stream of architecture, no matter how progressive it
appears, cannot shake away inherently from the language of Modern Movement.
Views
of the Rehearsal Room
Tokenistic
design of lavatory in black and white that
do not aspire to much quality.
Worse
still is this door design that would be
better off with conventional detailing.
Awkward-looking
stonework at front corner. It is the
setting-out by the designers not the resulting
workmanship that calls for
improvement.
Analyzing Charges
The
construction quality of this project is laden with criticism, in my understanding,
many of which are unjustified against the contractors. With a highly irregular shape on the exteriors,
the segmentation of cladding into triangular pieces did not resolve properly all
the geometrical surfaces of the enclosures.
It is often noticed at pointed protrusions and awkward indentations that
the stone cladding patterns seem to stray.
This has to do more with the setting-out by the design team rather than the
workmen.
Restaurant
spaces in the form of paddy fields
according to the designers.
There
was apparently a misunderstood intent between the architect and the
client. A restaurant space outside
theatre could be a success in other projects.
However with performance not scheduled on a daily basis, any dining
facility high above in the building would be a challenge to customers. The purpose design space has thus been left
vacant since the building was open in 2010.
Black
box theatre interior is unassumingly lacking in design and size compared with
other high-profiled interior spaces.
Interesting
space and light sources that are not
used to the fullest.
There
is the creeping issue of maintenance that seems to be overlooked by the
designers such as the replacement of defunct LED lights at the high ceiling of
the grand theatre, broken exterior glazing at unreachable surface and water
seepage with no control of where water might flow.
Unacceptably
bad craftsmanship and installations that
the three-party-relationship of architect,
contractors and client must share criticism.
Of
course there are the badly applied sealant joints, haphazard cladding and
missing finishes at odd corners that could have been prevented by the contractors. The fledgling property management of this
building and those in other parts of China, all the more, exacerbates its inadequacies
especially related to the venues’ unique features and construction technology.
Artworks at a Glance
No doubt the best artwork at the opera house. “Dreams of the White Collars” (白領之夢) by Ma Han (馬晗) uses white shirts to ignite both
thoughts and sensations. It is fragile
and temporal, two values that interact well with the triangulated curtain wall
of the background.
We
were told during the architectural tour that
the origins of some artworks from
overseas could not be traced. Besides
having no titles and attributions,
some of them are real oddities in the
context.
Deconstructing Architecture
The
exhibition of “Deconstructivist Architecture” at MoMA, 1988 marked the beginning
of massive attention from students, architects and the public on the new
expressions.
(images
∣www.ahrachodesign.com)
Time
has proven itself that the movement of Deconstruction Architecture has crumbled;
and its protagonism is an event of the past.
The theoretical basis of semiotic analysis under the philosophy of Deconstruction
applied to architecture has demonstrated to be unsustainable. The operators of the two disciplines can
hardly be transcribed. If it was a disapproval
against Post-Modern Classicism of the 1980s, the exercise has succeeded in
making a stance and the pastiche architectural movement had itself run out of
steam. If it was a reaction against the
modernist dogmas like functionalism and other dead-end parameters, the revolt sparked
many debates.
When
looking at Deconstruction under a condensed time span, it may be better merited
as an architectural development process rather than an end in itself. The loosely connected characteristics of its
architects in play of fragmentation, distortion and controlled chaos defy
tradition for the sake of anti-tradition.
Their disdain for form-making only results in another version of
form-making.
With
projects consuming much more than others, these architects do not aspire to
lofty ideals or clear goals. Since the budgets
of such buildings are many times their conventional counterparts, they are
often seen as elitist. For public
buildings including the Guangzhou Opera House, these high-profiled developments
might help serve social and political intents by means of glorifying the ruling
regimes.
In
my opinion, the Guangzhou Opera House as a stand-alone piece of work is undoubtedly
a success. It has the lyrical simplicity
and abstraction other heavily contrived works
under the name of deconstruction do not
possess. However, beauty is
not the only virtue, we do not live in an
era of isolated values. Far from this
case, architecture today are often exploited
to serve social, economic and even political ends,
none more so than these deconstruction buildings. The glamorous architectural profession has
been developed into an operation of money-can-buy existence. Most of these
high-profile buildings are relegated as consumables and its architects
as mere tools.
