Stories to revel in
A cool breeze blowing across the town, birds chirping but unheard due to the honking of horns, hawkers selling and screaming for customers, and the daily chatting of community dwellers on building plinths, it all seems so synergetic yet so distinctive. The sounds defy all knowledge that sight provides but the sight differs when it falls upon certain lines. Certain lines that define structures like the cool breeze you notice blowing only when you open your window to gaze upon the beautiful cityscape or the marketplaces for hawkers where temporary settlements intermingle with old and derelict sheds that were once part of huge mansions or the high plinths that make up the buildings in most historic and old towns of India. Who said you can only find a meaning in a story only when the protagonist is the super figure, architecture shows a different perspective.
Architecture is the work of humans, for humans and it is how we progress into society. We progress through orchestrating our way of life socially, physically, environmentally, and so on. Architecture or designing the way we interact with different kinds of environments is the primary goal of any individual during their lives. It is not just the architecture that defines the term architect in a true sense. It is someone who creates and develops a response to the world for phenomena prevailing and of utmost importance. Hence, we see a story in all that is architecture. Thematic representations or building along needs, every effort undertaken to make a structure or an edifice a success paves a path for understanding. Exploring the unexplored emotions and unearthing the essence of life while creating a new figure of art is what defines the experience that changed the author’s perspective.
The phenomena that is architecture
The perception of the human mind regarding the built environment is varied and quite nuanced, to say the least. The way we see public spaces like plazas, markets, or meeting halls is how the perseverance of built art and the mindset behind it wants us to. However, very few architectural pieces are such that only a few variations in interpretations are available. Mostly the scale of variations is huge and what drives us to believe and see a deeper meaning is our mindset, not the architect’s. Architecture is a lifestyle-driven activity; people see what they believe in, what they are, and how they channel their emotions. Does that change the way other people think? Well, no but they certainly are not an exception to thinking differently.
Have you ever experienced a certain pang, your chest constricting while visiting a monument meant to uphold the honor of soldiers who died on the battlefield or the feeling of despair for people who suffered in a plague while looking at an old sanatorium? While the feelings can only be triggered once you grasp a better understanding of the events and occurrences that sparked such situations, the known emotions and feelings always brim up to the surface due to such sights. Do they call it our judgment of those events? Do they call this a matter of time spent inside the monument premises? Yes and no. Time heals and creates wounds. Time makes you happy and content and so can be a driving force in triggering joy or sad feelings inside people during a certain visit. But it is our judgment of the events based on the knowledge and prior experiences of situations running along similar lines in our life that elucidates a certain building and its value for us.
Responses of clarity
Are behavioral responses generated only due to a certain event that led to the creation of a structure, or could it be the architectural style or the use of lines and materials to bring about clarity in one’s mental state? The degree to which this question can be answered depends on the type of architecture and the tryst behind that work. Clean lines, and uncluttered elements, for example, bring us face-to-face with a formal sense of living and a sort of organization to our eyes. While monumentality establishes a feeling of an imposing environment, a closed-off and uneven space can bring into being feelings of displeasure. The physiological changes or alterations in a human are set off by elemental and component usage as well.
Conclusion
Our mind’s perception of things changes but the core emotion that is associated with the topic never changes. Parks, buildings, water canals, what we view, and how we view it are manifestations of our own experiences. What people feel, they project, and how people feel determines the way they incorporate its existence into their lives. The reactions to architectural creations are way more rooted in thoughtfulness and there is a clarity in the sentiments that separate different structures from each other. The stories that we find lurking in the shadows of these creations anchor meaning to their physical being.
Emotions that are reflected by a monument or structure are usually a person’s innermost feelings and how they relate to a certain edifice is their own choice. In a world where every person, everything is different and distinctive, the envisioned environment is different for everyone too. The author’s perspective has changed over the years with increasing age and a widening mindset. Firstly, it was a way of expressing a certain theme or culture, it was the local people that defined it, another time it was the sheer beauty and meaning upheld by the architect, and finally, it was the effect of our great lives and emotions that brings meaning to the work. Although not sure how long this perspective will last, it is quite how the author perceives the world of architecture as of now.
