The Disappearance of the Gaze within the System of Objects.
The clinic/ a research center. The bridging of these two programs.

Veiling, revealing, Gaze, System of objects.


The veil performs as an institution. There are rules that are set up for people to behave under, and there is a classification of space through these rules, or a ritual that people have to go through every day, in order to cope with the system. I want to bring in the idea of dematerialization to this kind of every day system(frame) that invades the human life. Gender is not only a physical and psychological feature of human beings, but also a determinative aspect in the way we understand our surroundings. Sex segregation appears in private and public life.Some examples come to mind such as, the dormitories, the public bathrooms, the changing rooms.. Architecture becomes a tool through which we control the physical and the spiritual boundries, and how we behave.In the crossing of these spaces, there is the idea of engagement,gaze, defense, experience, and an abuse maybe .I believe in the existence of the gaze between the male and the female, the clinic is a somewhat a genderless space.When people seek for cure, they are genderless infront of a doctor. A clinic, is a mechanism that deals with the human body and medicine.

Michel Foucault, "in the birth of the clinic" talks about the ill, and says " they are the figures of pain, redistrubuted in the space where the bodies and eyes meet." He also discuses the patients and their bodies as the origin of diseases, and refers to a patient's bed as a "field of scientific investigation.."

The idea of a hospital is that, it would serve to anybody, without any regard to color, sex, age, race or social status. A clinic can become a research center for certain diseases and a place for treatment of patients. It would be a place to learn in between the appearances and the disapperances of the diseases.

I have been doing some research also on the islamic hospitals, and they had seperate wards, seperate nurses, baths and water supplies, musical theraphy, rooms for storytelling etc. This information led me to think of borrowing these objects of curing, treatment, that deal with sound, light and water. One of them was the idea of a water wheel, an object that represents this idea of the cycle and the water.
I am also looking at salk institute by louis kahn., and the university hospital in Aachen , Germany.The university hospital in Aachen has a huge system of all the mechanical systems, ventilation, exposed on top of the building. It looks like a parasite.It reminds me of the way a veil works, in the way these mechanical systems are revealed.

Self Assignements for Sunday:
I am working on the book, filling in the sections accurately, and organizing the earlier information.

To do drawings. I am looking at some precedents for hospitals, and research centers.

I have been looking at the Diderot Encyclopedia, to understand how actually some of these objects that i am interested in work, like the the vessels , the water wheel, the pulley systems....