Constructing the Absence
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WHAT: Urban Parks as Historic Memorials for Vanished Community Opposing to what we invent, this thesis would emphasize on what we lost. The thesis is to commemorate the history and development of Hong Kong, by investigating the spatial and spiritual experience of memorial and designing acts of memorials for the vanished communities at their corresponding urban parks. Blake Garden, signifying the Tai Ping Shan Area as one of the earliest settlement of Chinese before the plague and the subsequence clearance, was proposed as a design ground to mediate the past and present. The design and analysis could focus on the interplay of solid and void, aboveground and underground, internal and external, light and porosity, etc in order to celebrate a sense of absence which strikes our memory and awareness on the dead spaces, buildings or even cities once marked an importance on history and architecture. Time and scale as quantitative factors, space and perception as qualitative factors would be taken into the design of memorial in a conversation of how space enables practices of reflective judgement in the face of the past that can neither be forgotten nor changed. Meanings of memory and thus memorial are consolidated in the pursuit of absence, which is recognized by cognition and knowledge, amplified by visual and spatial perception. WHY: Lost and Memory among Time In the midst of the concrete skyscaper forest, urban parks in Hong Kong are the pause of the high-density and fast-pace development, which return human back to the natural ground. Unlike country parks which are unexploited, urban parks are fragmented in the city with each signifying a long history of settlement which vanished among the advancement of the society. The history and memory of many of these communities turn merely into generic parks with a plaque at the gate. Why not bravely celebrate our past and revitalize the park space with historic significance? Memorial is usually built for the great loss of human lives like warfare, accidents or natural catastrophes. The lost spaces, buildings or even cities, which embed great collective memory and identity are rarely commemorated outside documents. Architecture as memorial can also take the role in commemorating history and retaining memory among change of time so as to build a tighter connection between people and the city. Memory and history remind us who we are and what today is. Could architecture be a witness of time, with memories that traces the past, present and future? Could city be a collage of history and development in a way which promotes opportunities? HOW: Presence and Absence Dynamics First, develop sectional drawings and models of building scale to analyze and examine the precedent works about presenting the absence through manipulating solid and void and interplaying between perception and memory. Second, design and test the techniques to celebrate the sense of absence in light and spatial experience through models. Third, investigate the history and memory of the vanished communities in Hong Kong and their corresponding parks. Finally design acts of memorial for Tai Ping Shan Community at Blake Garden as a testing ground.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Theory: 1. Rosenau, Helen, 1953, Boullée’s Treatise on Architecture. London: Alec Tiranti Ltd. 2. Andreas Huyssen, 1994, The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History 3. Robert Bevan, 2006, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War 4. Daniel Libeskind, 1995, Raoul Wallwenberg Lecture: Traces of the Unborn 5. Jorge Otero-Pailos, 2009, Spatial Recall: Memory in architecture and landscape 6. Kengo Kuma, 2008, Defeated Architecture 負建築 , 山東人民出版社 Techniques: 7. James E. Young, 1993, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, Yale University Press 8.Karla Britton, 2010, Constructing the ineffable: contemporary sacred architecture, Yale University Press Seminal projects: 9. Ian Lambot, 1999, City of Darkness: Life In Kowloon Walled City, Watermark 10. Stella So, 2008, City of Powder- the disappearing Hong Kong, Joint Publishing HK |
