Here is what I wrote during the writing workshop on Saturday:

For Jeffrey: You had asked that I email you about some suggested readings you had for me. If you see this could you please post them as a comment to the list.

October 14, 2006

Written during the Language of Desire Workshop

To challenge the notion of landscape. Landscape is often confused with topography but rather than being mere physical place, it is an experience that is a near fictional narrative written by the play between physical sensation, memory, both personal and that imbedded in place, and imagination. It is through this “fiction” that we experience landscape. Thus if landscape is thought of as the experience of place could landscape refer to a piece of built architecture and not only natural topography.
Assuming a cross between physical sensation and memory, how can physical interaction with architecture open the possibility of recollection? As Bachelard states, “Through dreams, the various dwelling places in our lives co-penetrate and retain the treasures of former days.” “The house shelters daydreaming.” But should the house not also facilitate dreaming? How does the architecture imbed a place with a physical history that when interacted with sensually, provide the possibility of recalling other places, creating architecture of an extended ground of memory and imagination?
A carefully planned and tactile architecture that challenges the notion of landscape. It redefines landscape not as the mere topography of place, but as an experience that helps us understand place through the blending of physical sensations and the memories of many places.
The criticism I received from Jeffrey during the seminar was that choosing at least a potential program and site would help sharpen my ideas through increased specificity.