warped space = warped brain

Folded forms from Leibniz to Lynn... From reading the chapter, I felt that these folded forms that Leibniz talks about are polar opposites to that what Lynn produces! Maybe I've missed something in the reading, but I got the innate gut feeling that The House of Folds talks about folds as a spatial concept, while Animistic Architecture views folds as a formal concept, thus rendering whatever the space is as residual space.

Starting with The House of Folds, the mind and soul are ever evolving and rely on outside forces to feed this evolution. Man does no evolve from standing in a corner, avoiding contact with the outside world, he evolves through constant interaction with his surroundings. These forces that are continuously fed to him throughout these interactions, are not linear, are not predictable, and are not measurable. Lets observe a man walking down the street, and pin point ten seconds of his journey. What are the forces effecting whatever he is feeling/thinking during the ten seconds? Well there are elements that address all of his five senses (what he sees, what he hears, what he smells, what he feels whether by his feet touching the ground or with his hands, and possible the taste of the air the slams his face), there are also the forces that affected him before these ten seconds (possible in the ten seconds before that, or even the ten years before ) and whatever he is thinking about, maybe his gf dumped him a few days earlier and that is affecting his mood, or a song on his ipod is blasting through his ears and is making him sway to the beat... all of these forces (and a hell of alot more)are affecting whatever is in his mind or soul at this exact moment in time. So in a sense, he does not see the toad hopping down the street as merely a toad hopping down the street; the information that is a toad hopping down the street is taken in through his eyes, yet mixed in and intertwined with feelings like his gf dumping him a few days ago and the relentless sensation of the aftertaste of the chicken  he had at yesterdays lunch.

Head hurting yet? mine sure is. This goes back to the Leibniz curtains (diversified by folds) and Locke's camera obscura references in the chapter. The folds (which are always in constant motion) filter in information (or using Locke's camera analogy, the image): "...Not only do we receive images and traces in the brain, but we form new ones from them when we bring complex ideas to the mind..."

Which brings me back to an idea I threw out in last week's class, and one that claudia touched upon in her reaction towards Lynn's furniture. Let built two cubes, and place one in the middle of a heavily condensed downtown hustle and bustle city in africa, and the other on in a cool chill climax climate like in the bahamas (try finding a spot oblivious to spring break idoitics). Both cubes should be identical in virtual materiality (made out of the same gooey stuff that would allow it to be permeable, the kind of gooey stuff that someone hasnt invented, but what computer models are made of). As time passes, each cube would deform into what the context wants it to be. Each deformation is a resultant of multiple forces filtered through a series of Leibnizian curtain folds, and is an evergoing process, even if these cubes are torn down and replaced by newer ones, the memory of the old cubes still remains and affects the form of the new cube.

In a sense, this happens today, and has happened since the beginning of time. Any piece of architecture is affected by its context, no question about it, and nothing can stop that. Even globalization, that tends to make societies more homogeneous, get affected by the surrounding culture, forming new ideas of what globalization has to offer. McDonalds is a prime example of corporate domination of the world, bet even McDonalds is subject to being affected by its surrounding forces. We all remember the infamous "royal with cheese" combo meal that prefers to put mayonnaise on its fries than ketchup, well to twist things around even more, McDonalds Egypt have come out with a new line of fastfood sandwiches, including the McFalafel, McArabia, and McKofta. 

But its easy to include or disclude something on and off a menu, what if, in a hundred years of now, maybe due a political uprising or something, the contextual deformation of our cube is not enough, and there is a need for a more drastic recubing of our cube. We've seen this issue happen throughout history ALL the time, important buildings need to be reused due to abandonment, destruction, or a simple change in philosophy. Some hire architects, and we get modern installations implanted or attached. Examples of these would the Foster's Reichstag (i would argue that Foster follows Lebbeus Wood's notion of showing the scars, but that is a whole other discussion) , Pei's louvre (the national building could be considered under the same umbrella too, wouldnt it?), and Herzog and De Meuron's Tate (to name a few). Whether these examples, and others like it are succesful or not is up for debate, but the fact remains that these installations are temporary, and solely reflect the 20th/21th century ideology, what about after that? Some dont hire architects, they hire 9th rate architects with questionable licenses. This usually happens to 3rd world countries, where the end result is something worthy of destruction. This is where I would suggest that we find this virtual gooey material and turn this concept into reality, and use if to deform our architecture whenever possible.

The next part of the chapter, Animistic Architecture, provides Lynn's solution to the problem, one that I do no entirely agree with. Over and over again, it mentions that Lynn is after the formal solution of the problem. For me, the beauty of his ideas of  "bloblike" and "viscous" architecture are in the fact that they are malleable. Why is he then solidifying them and creating exactly what he says he is reacting against, everlasting monumentality. I feel that there is somewhat of a disconnect here, and I hope Im wrong (please, if this is a misunderstanding of the reading, let me know). Where I agree with Lynn that prescribe interior spaces offer little for the individual to interact with, and residual spaces provides opportunity to transform it into something  new the user identifies with, but I will say this, all the residual spaces in history evolve through time and interaction, they are residual spaces because of this interaction with it. There is a rational order for them, not one of geometry of mathematics, but one of constant back and forth, addition and subtraction, reaction and interaction.