What is the origin of life on Earth? From intracellular spaces to formation of separate land masses due to natural phenomena, scientific architecture has been of paramount importance in helping humans get closer to solving the question. How is architecture, what do we see any different from scientific architecture? Architecture has evolved multifolds along with the evolution of man.
Man made family, families made friends, families made neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods made communities. Architecture shaping communities isn’t completely true; On the contrary, Communities shape architecture and that architecture is a mere tool to strengthen the communities further
Humans, as a species, have always been driven by the desire and lust to conquer. Tracing back to the times of monarchy, the rulers have sought out blood wars to conquer, preach and propagate. And with time, architecture has been proof of it. Leaving back shrines, temples, institutions that withheld knowledge, stories and the history of the precedents.It leaves behind legacies, inspirations, belief systems into our ancestors to achieve, make progress and always expand into the soaring skies If architecture is to be negated from the timeline, will history be erased? Do humans as a species get a chance to understand evolution as a part of their lives?
Architecture as a Marker of Memory For Human Existence
Aristotle had interests in how the mental picture was associated with knowledge and memory for understanding the thinking processes. Memory was placed in the same area of as that of imagination, because imagination was the source for inspiration and knowledge.The ability to identify an image from our memory and relate it in terms of architecture in the vicinity, enables architecture to be a part of our lives which is so close to humans than they can ever imagine. To disclose how human beings make intelligible the world within which they find themselves, Gaston Bachelard( 1964) reads the world as it is spontaneously, and links memory to imagination. Identification of landmarks based on architecture is a thought that occurs to humans organically. Therefore, architecture is and will be a huge part of human existence till the very end.
Imagine a World Without Architecture.
Imagine a World With Architecture, but a pandemic outbreak (COVID)
Covid- 19 confined the whole world into four walls and spaces that humans couldn’t accommodate.
Existing spaces were redesigned on the basis of household needs and quarantine regulations. In a way, pandemic disciples turned civilians into temporary architects of their own home. Such a wide impact on a global level destabilised human minds and forced them to think and work in accordance with architectural measures tactically for their own survival. People began noticing architecture more and associating with it on a more personal level. Imagine if not the spaces confining humans in quarantine would the survival of humans had lasted?
Idenburg said. “But, subconsciously, people will really take it into account as they assess their home in the future.”Architects have long been preoccupied with the concept of “existence minimum” or “the minimum dwelling,” as the critic Karel Teige titled his 1932 book. Teige proposed, to solve housing shortages, “for each adult man or woman, a minimal but adequate independent, habitable room. Covid made people question the use of space. Making changes in accordance to the need started becoming the first priority and everything worked on an effective minimum or effective maximum basis. The importance of open spaces was then taken into consideration and the quality of air, the quality of well designed spaces aiding the relief was highlighted. The need of a home or four walls wasn’t ever in question at this extent ever. It only takes a virus, and a million lives to truly understand what’s important is completely ignored and what’s not is completely accepted. Human existence and its ever rising quests leading to near perpetual wars, destroying homes, bombing lands and harming the ecosystem it’s up to the people to really answer the paradox- Human Existence With Architecture Or Human Existence Without Architecture
Images/visual mediums:
Image 1_Life without architecture_.Edwin Carton Booth (1876), “Queensland”, in Australia […] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Virtue and Company, Limited
