Architecture Which Pays Respect to the Natural Environment in Which It Is in.

Resting upon the clay-abundant floodplain of the Bani River flood plain in Djenne, Mal, the Great Mosque of Djenne- or at least its architects - designed the structure to be made up of the materials drawn directly from underneath their feet - sun-baked earth bricks called ferey. The end product inevitably look like a building that literally rose from the ground, therefore making it very specific to the area that it was built in - the mosque would surely look absurd if it were to be placed in the British grasslands. It can be said that the building have acheived the 4 folds of architecture - sky, earth. dwelling, and people. The sky is from the many punctures that are made on the facade, the earth is, of course, its building material, the people is the religiousness of the place (a mosque) which draws people in, and lastly, the dwelling - a place for people to rest in. The Great Pyramids at Giza, Egypt is also another example of how building something out of the local material (in this case, lime stone blocks which are believed to be transported from nearby quarries) can attach the architecture to its context (the desert) very  tightly.

Contemporary architecture, with its aim of expressing the function and the context through form, is beginning to embrace this quality again, thereby paying respect to the place on which it sits on. The unbuilt Stonehenge Visitor centre and Interpretive Museum by Denton does this by sinking into the ground nearly all of its exhibition spaces and in doing so avoiding the disruption a normal building might cause to the flat plain of Salisbury. The curving form of the architecture also accentuate the relationship between the universe and men that is so important to the design of the stonehenge.

On a smaller scale, the Medition House in Lenbanon by MZ Architects did a similar thing by continuing the slope of the rocky hill onto the stone roof of the house. Many point out to the fact that the house resembles a giant fallen rock nestled on the edge of the hill. 

Both architecture shows how contemporary architecture can embrace the notion of the ‘sense of place’ that once give rise to majestic architecture such as the Great Mosque or the Great Pyramids.

The Erotics of Architecture

In a traditional sense, eroticism refers to the quality of a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire and sensuality. However, when applied to the area of environmental design, the erotic refer to objects that are sensually affective in nature in term of how they can provoke or affect the audience/user’s senses and feelings. One of the more interesting parts of the erotics that I would like to talk about the the erotics of the sublime – a phenomenological quality evoking an overwhelming emotion, which can be caused by several factors such repetitions of the infinite or exaggeration of scale. Many of these sublime qualities are incorporated into the design of architectural environments such as the Leviathan by Anish Kapoor. Installed in a 13,500 m2 space of the Grand Palais in Paris, the sculpture, which can be entered, took the form of a giant four-armed balloon. What makes this sculpture sublime is simply its majestic scale, its solid blood red colour, and its infinite smoothness which runs throughout its surface. Once inside the sculpture, the audience can get a feeling of awe, and therefore get affected by it erotically. 

The interior of the Volkshalle

Similarly, Hitler has planned a huge domed building, the Volkshalle, with a similar quality which were to evoke a high level of eroticised grandeur which reflects the immense power of the furer.

Speaking of power, buildings that are devoted to the sacred are also eroticised in a similarly sublime fashion, a notable example of which, include Ernesto Neto’s Leviathan Thot- a “ulle-and-polystyrene creature suspended under the dome of the Pantheon” in Paris, France. The work is erotic in how it plays with the notion of the untouchable quality of sacred architecture and how it brings into the space a fluid and sac-like form that becomes a vulgar language when placed in such a highly-sculpted and finely designed environment.