EXAMENSARBETE INOM ARCHITECTURE, AVANCERAD NIVÅ, 30 HP
STOCKHOLM, SVERIGE 2021
Episodes of feelings
Storytelling in Architecture DIYANA GUNEY
KTHSCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
TRITA TRITA-ABE-MBT- 20794
www.kth.se
BACKGROUND
How can Architecture act as a medium of storytelling ?
Architecture has been used as a physical medium that goes beyond providing shelter, but also to tell stories or document historical epochs. The architectural structures of old were designed to give its visitors an experience steeped in narrative such as biblical scriptures or even engender feelings of awe as they passed through a space. This is evident in the well
established culture of architecture being something you experience, not merely a thing viewed through images. A
building can not speak to you without you being beside or inside it. Architecture is an experience, an adventure and it is
storytelling.
" Understanding nor organising are not enough nor necessary' (John Hejduk). This project was an opportunity for me to go after my dreams and passion of exploring storytelling through
architecture. My love for film and cinema, fairytales, magic and myths. To somehow connect architecture to my passion of
storytelling, whilst being challenging, has taken me to places unknown and helped me rediscover architecture, space and the human itself.
To tell stories and exploring narrative driven architecture
The project is not about creating space for purpose, or purpose out of space, it is an experimentation of how space and design can be formed solely based on a narrative and the narratives view and understanding of the world. Is it not a psychoanalysis but merely an adventure where I invite you to feel and understand a person and his feelings through the help of architecture and design. The space will tell you everything that you need to think about.
"The private interiors which for the private man represents the universe" (Walter Benjamin, Passages de Paris).
Space and time as a reality of one self and the world visible through the eyes and mind of man. I have tried to create
architecture that reflects and represents the interior world of a private man. How he feels and experiences the world, is the result of the architecture he lives in.
METHOD
"I cannot do a building without building a new repertoire of characters, of stories, of language, and it's all parallel. It's not just building per se, it's building worlds" (John Hejduk).
A big part of my project is dedicated into researching and understanding the architecture of John Hejduk. Studying his Masques and methodology in design, I realised that there needs to be a manipulation and sacrifice of space, rules and norms if a narrative is to be succeeded. That architecture is not just
creating space and form but also about creating characters and worlds that inhabit these spaces. Realising and understanding this has given me the courage to explore new ways of design and has helped me see space and architecture as being part of a world and not being the world itself.
As a way to begin my own design process, I created two opposite characters. Each character I formed through words and phrases that explains and defines feelings and daily routines.
Object and Subject
The object is the solidified attribute and the subject is the character and their feelings and their perception of the world.
Ex: Object: Living inside of walls Subject: Screams with no sound. Thus, the object (the walls) is the solidification of the subject (the feeling of screaming but no sound comes out).
Chapter I ~
Episodesof
FeelingsTo understand these characters I tried to translate their feelings and what they are going through into episodes of feelings. These episodes are solidified into different situations and each episode is a part or section of a complete structure.
The episodes of feelings are sometimes immaterial, uncertain and sometimes zoomed in concentrating on one specific
situation and sometimes zoomed out trying to give an overall feeling.
Chapter II ~
Coming together to form a new story And so, the episodes of feelings have come together to form a story. A story of two fictional characters, him & her. Each character lives in their own world, in their own mind. Each character unfolds and changes the space around them. Chapter II is wearing rose or brown tinted glasses and seeing the world through the eyes of these two fictional characters. Please do not try to make sense of the story. There is no chronological order.The story sometimes will resemble a dream, where you don't know how you found yourself in a situation or space, but you will just happen to be there. The architecture will try to give you a glimpse of their inner world and it will be told through the gradually unfolding of spaces, and be presented as a means of storytelling and not as an analysis.
Each design element was used to uplift the storytelling and the characters. Using this concept as a design template has helped me bring the narrative to the core foundation of my project.
SUBJECT
6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The Summer Visitor holds up her mirror The Bargeman pulls in the rope
The Transient sits on the edge of the bed The Sentinels watch
The Retired General adjusts his field glasses The Retired Actor applies the mascara
The Weatherman begins to perspire The Surveyor puts on his tan knickers The Farmers hum
The Community curses
Solidity
~ Models
OBJECT
6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
1 The caboose is hooked up to the freight train 2 The bilges of the barge are opened
3 The Hotel awnings are lowered
4 The wind begins to blow on Tower Hill 5 The telescope zooms in on its subject 6 The curtain is raised
7 The barometer remains steady at 29.05 8 The Sexton receives the oil
9 The Farm Land is covered in snow 10 The trees are protected
The characters develop into Stories
~ Ex. A man obsessed with crows ends up living like them
J O H N H E J D U K
A personal interpretation of his work
P R O D I G I E S A N D
P R O D I G A L S
Snail shape - Slow in motion Ears
Mouth
Body
going out to work at dawn & return at dusk
Row Houses
~ This is a slow-paced snail walking
~ A frozen, stand still insect solidified
~ Eyes, ears, mouth, brain
~ The ears are light intakes, they hear everything
Subject
~ Workers live here
~ They live near the voided centre
~ They leave their units at dawn & return at dusk
~ They are under the supervision of the Proprietor
~ The Row-houses tenant make applications for the apartment houses
~ They want to become dwellers
Object
~ Single family houses
~ High with skylights
~ Masonry, Plaster
~ Minimum facility
Scare - crow house
~ the house is to keep the keeper living inside safe from crows
~ Because of the keeper’s behaviour, the crows now recognise the keeper and they are after him
Subject
~ The keeper fabricates scare crow in his house
~ For his scare-crows he selects the finest straws, the strongest rope & the darkest coal
~ in 1968 he crucified all the scare-crows &
sprinkled bird seed over the bodies. When the birds came he set them all on fire.
Object
~ The scare-crow’s hat is adjusted
~ The crow will teach it fellow crows if a human has been mean to them
~ The crow does not forget a face
~ Crows usually live in solidarity
~ When one crow dies, the murder will surround the deceased
~ The group will surround to find out what killed their member --> The murder of crows will chase the predator
Uplifted from the ground --> living on air --> living like a bird --> A lonely bird?
Time keeper
House in a Ferris Wheel
~ was a machine carrying dead bodies
~ is a machine carrying an empty home
~ Troopes & Allegories
Subject
~ The Keeper of the Time fears a delay
~ The owner is the keeper of the time
~ Ferris wheel collapsed & ended his employment
~ The collapse was a tragedy because there were children on it when it fell
~ He boarded a train for Naples and
convinced himself that it was a hallucination.
Object
~ Time/Still-Life/Nature morte
~ Ferris wheel with no seats
~ A minimal housing unit attached to the wheel
~ The wheel completes one cycle in 24h
~ steel construction
~ A house turning/ Veering through time & seasons --> moving architecture. Only a machine can move
~ Therefor the story must start with the house
Home
A scrip ~ what is he going through / What has he been he been through?
Solidity ~ part ANIMAL, part HUMAN, part MACHINE, part CONCRETE
”ORGANISING NOR UNDERSTANDING ARE NOT ENOUGH NOR NECESSARY”
J.Hejduk
Photo Cred: N.T. Raimi
