Sunday, May 10, 2009
Where is the spirit of Adelaide?
This is what I wrote on the 'Adelaide Architecture is boring…?' comments to CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO FROM PCA’s Nathan Paine!!
This video is great!! Gavin Kain definently has a point about Architecture being a reflection of society, and that it doesnt necessarily mean Adelaideans are boring.
I am an architecture student at the University of South Australia, and recently went to the National Architecture Conference in Melbourne, it was a great experience, especially the SuperTute with the architects. I happened to talk to Bijoy Jain from Studio Mumbai and in talking about my studio work on my groups masterplan for the Bowden Village Site, (my groups main idea for the Bowden Village is to create a permanent attraction for Adelaide involving the theme of ‘extreme’, and adrenaline, as a tourist attraction and and an involvement of different communities and ages all grouped together) I explained to him about this debate about Adelaide Architecture being boring. He talked about how you define cultural orientation of the community. He believes that there is a spirit about a place, and we should always be in search of ‘Where the spirit is?’. For Bijoy it was his first visit to Australia, and he felt that Melbourne has no nostalgia, and he sees Melbourne as a young city of 40 years where the spirit has created a thriving and progressive city. Then we explained to him about Adelaide and that to some extent came to a conclusion that if Melbourne has been at it for 40 years, Adelaide has been going for maybe 5-10 years or maybe not even born yet. We explained that there is strong public and council view about keeping the ‘1940’s style residential housing’ even in some extent to new housing developments, and he pointed out something quite interesting that, obviously there was something in the spirit of that time, that those people want to keep, but ‘the obsession’ has chipped away the spirit, as seeing it aesthetically doesn’t necessarily mean the spirit is still alive. Therefore nostalgia is not a good thing. It does not allow a city to progress. And in comparison to Melbourne, the large diversity of cultures and people have allowed it to thrive.
Therefore, I personally think that the question ‘Is Adelaide Architecture boring?’ should be more like, what and where is the spirit of Adelaide? and, how do we use that spirit in creating something of quality?
Have your say...http://voice.architecture.com.au/
This video is great!! Gavin Kain definently has a point about Architecture being a reflection of society, and that it doesnt necessarily mean Adelaideans are boring.
I am an architecture student at the University of South Australia, and recently went to the National Architecture Conference in Melbourne, it was a great experience, especially the SuperTute with the architects. I happened to talk to Bijoy Jain from Studio Mumbai and in talking about my studio work on my groups masterplan for the Bowden Village Site, (my groups main idea for the Bowden Village is to create a permanent attraction for Adelaide involving the theme of ‘extreme’, and adrenaline, as a tourist attraction and and an involvement of different communities and ages all grouped together) I explained to him about this debate about Adelaide Architecture being boring. He talked about how you define cultural orientation of the community. He believes that there is a spirit about a place, and we should always be in search of ‘Where the spirit is?’. For Bijoy it was his first visit to Australia, and he felt that Melbourne has no nostalgia, and he sees Melbourne as a young city of 40 years where the spirit has created a thriving and progressive city. Then we explained to him about Adelaide and that to some extent came to a conclusion that if Melbourne has been at it for 40 years, Adelaide has been going for maybe 5-10 years or maybe not even born yet. We explained that there is strong public and council view about keeping the ‘1940’s style residential housing’ even in some extent to new housing developments, and he pointed out something quite interesting that, obviously there was something in the spirit of that time, that those people want to keep, but ‘the obsession’ has chipped away the spirit, as seeing it aesthetically doesn’t necessarily mean the spirit is still alive. Therefore nostalgia is not a good thing. It does not allow a city to progress. And in comparison to Melbourne, the large diversity of cultures and people have allowed it to thrive.
Therefore, I personally think that the question ‘Is Adelaide Architecture boring?’ should be more like, what and where is the spirit of Adelaide? and, how do we use that spirit in creating something of quality?
Have your say...http://voice.architecture.com.au/
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