Beneath the Shadow of a Fig Tree: Exploring the Intersection of Memory, Architecture and Narrative

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course Masters of Architecture (professional coursework) Nelson Mandela University 2020 All Rights Reserved All work submitted is the author’s own, apart from the inclusion of quotes and the reproduction of referenced images not belonging to the author.

BENEATH THE SHADOW OF A FIG TREE Exploring the Intersections of Memory, Architecture and Narrative through the Design of a Memoryscape for South End, Port Elizabeth

by Daniella Patsalos

WITH ALL MY GRATITUDE...

To my parents and family for their unending patience, love, help and support, always.

To my boyfriend, Shane, for everything and more and for being the best thing to come out of long nights working in the studio.

To Andrew and my lecturers, for their guidance, inspiration and patience.

To Nibonge, for her friendship, time and wisdom throughout this journey.

To all those whose role, large or small, knowingly or unknowingly, has helped in the creation of this thesis and the completion of this course.

To South End and its people.

Operating within the fluctuating boundaries shared between memory, architecture and narrative, the following treatise explores the possibilities of magical realism as an architectural mode for the expression of hybrid realities, hidden narratives and imaginative worlds.

Magical realism, in its essence, creates space for the interactions of diversity and the disruption or transgression of accepted categorical boundaries. As such, it facilitates the fusion or familial co-existence of possible worlds, spaces, systems or ideas that in some contexts would be incongruous, making it a useful medium for the voice of postcolonial cultures. Magical realism is subversive in nature, adopting an in-betweenness and all-at-onceness that resists, or rather inverts, conventional perceptions of what is ‘magic’ and what is ‘real’.

In testing the potentialities of an architectural interpretation of magical realism, the project assumes a collective form as a magical realist memoryscape, representative of the tangible and intangible narratives that constitute the selected site of South End, Port Elizabeth.

More than just the merging of the ideas of memory and landscape, a memoryscape is expressive of the interdependent, entangling manifestations of place and remembrance while also portraying an unravelling of the stories, mythic narratives, materialities and metaphysical phenomena of space. A memoryscape is therefore the point of homogenisation at which the concepts of memory, culture, emotion, narrative and landscape converge.

South End was once a spirited and multicultural community faced with the involuntary trauma of displacement and loss as a result of the Group Areas Act of 1950 and the destructive ideologies of the Apartheid regime.

Thus, drawing upon the themes of dreams, nightmares, memories and consciousness, the memoryscape is composed of a series of four metaphorical ‘cities’ that translate the chronologies, traces, ruins, embodied experiences and subjective iconographies into architectural realities that reflect a true cartography of the South End narrative.

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1

From Memory to Magic Realism: A Narrative Enquiry into Memory, Place and the Fantastic

CHAPTER 2

Cartographies of Memory and the Imagination: Understanding the Physical Context

CHAPTER 3

Programming Narrative and the Aesthetics of Remembrance

CHAPTER 4

Principles and Inferences: Defining the Points of Exploration

CHAPTER 5

Designing a South End Memoryscape

CHAPTER 6

Final Presentation Beneath the Shadow of a Fig Tree

LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF REFERENCES

INTR O DUCTION

“Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”

- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

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rchbishop Desmond Tutu, during an interview for the podcast, On Being, by Krista Tippett, reflected upon the suppressed trauma that 300 years of colonial occupation has had on his own and others’ psyche, recognizing that reconciliation is (or ought to be) an ongoing project. However, it was his amazement at the profound power held in finally being able to express one’s story that resonated with me and which set up the springboard for the rabbit-hole of explorations undertaken within this thesis. Storytelling is an act of survival, a way of keeping yourself alive, a means of briefly escaping the reality within which you have come to be.

This story, that permeates the self, the places we inhabit and the places that we don’t, is intrinsically tied to what the poet and philosopher, David Whyte, has termed ‘the conversational nature of reality’; that is, the vulnerable and exquisite frontiers of life, the conferring threshold between who (or what) we think we are and who we are not, or more appropriately, the ebbing confluence of the past, present and future.

In traversing this undulating boundary, the following treatise encompasses the design of a memoryscape for the suburb of South End, Port Elizabeth. Taking form as an architectural scape borne from the material and immaterial layers of memory, narrative and place, the design encompasses the creation of four fictional and metaphorical cities that draw from the principles of magical realism and which transcend, reflect and engage with a range of issues, emotions and temporal positions pertaining to the story of South End. Place, memory, identity and narrative (text) have existed within a reciprocal conversation for centuries, sharing, influencing and transposing the qualities of one to that of another in an almost labyrinthine relationship. Within the self, memory anchors our identities and defines our personal and collective narratives, which in turn are derived from and harboured by place and spatial experiences. Memories are thus both situating entities and situated actions arising from a conscious and subconscious recollection of place and time. Alternatively, architecture manifests as a physical expression of our mental cognition - our ideas, desires, beliefs and memories - and a reflection of changes in time and society. As such, cities and architecture have come to be read as palimpsests, mimicking the chronicles of an ancient parchment that has been written over and written over, with

the texts of the past emerging through those of the present. However, far from reducing the city simply into text, the simultaneous reading, re-reading and ‘re-writing’ of urban spaces historically, intertextually, constructively and deconstructively can be used to discuss configurations of the city and allow for an imaginative and cognitive pluralism through which a creative and meaningful architectural experience can emerge (Huyssen, 2003:7).

In literature, the broad genre of magical realism is a narrative strategy that stretches, or altogether ruptures, the boundaries of reality, doing so through the incursion of an impossible element (the literary Fantastic) into a realistic frame shared by the narrator and reader (Garcia, 2015:2). But beyond it’s formal definition, the genre has morphed into what Homi Bhabha refers to as ‘the literary language of the emergent postcolonial world’ or as Suzanne Cesaire puts it, a means of surpassing the crushing colonial ‘real’ and strengthening rather than diluting a revolutionary attitude towards life (Cesaire, 1996:126). Designing via literary models and narrative techniques, such as those of magical realism, exposes new ways of addressing and managing the complex political and social issues that every city and person face, broadening the design imagination and enabling a far more expansive interrogation into the layers and issues inherent in every project (Jackowski & de Ostos, 2008:5).

In contemporary South Africa, the inscription of memory through architecture and heritage practices within cities and public spaces has acquired a voracious salience and topicality following the end of the oppressive regimes upheld during Apartheid, but has arisen not without its fair share of issues and contestations (Murray, Shepherd & Hall, 2007). However, while affected communities all over the country seek justice and expression for their memories and the stories of their homes, heritage practices within South Africa have often favoured the voice of the national narrative as opposed to that of the local voices affected. At present, and possibly as a result of the limited tangible past-South End resources left behind, little has been done outside the activities of the South End Museum to actively and dynamically engage with the public at large in order to foster a broader knowledge of and sympathy with South End and her past, particularly as a means of contextualizing and generating a more impartial history and narrative of the Apartheid struggle for future generations to come.

In the case of this treatise, the parallels shared between architecture and literature as art forms of transcendental world-building and postcolonial expression materialise along a spectrum, purposefully locating itself in the liminal territory between fictional impossibility and architectural reality and bearing the double burden of representing both actual architecture and mental structures. As such, the project is constructed as a palimpsest of conflicting cartographic systems that make use of narrative techniques and literary theory to interrogate, interpret and unearth a renewed vision of the tale of South End, exploring the boundaries rather than the ‘centre’ of architectural possibilities and spatial mnemonics.

Serving as the motive force for the research conducted throughout this treatise, the first chapter begins with a topical enquiry, seeking to understand the theoretical attributes surrounding the subjects of memory, landscape and the Fantastic and exploring how the literary mode of magical realism serves as an appropriate proprietor for the telling of postcolonial and previously subjugated narratives. These ideas are then applied to an analysis of the chosen site wherein thematic cartographies are created that express the material and immaterial layers and narratives of South End and form part of the establishment of the magical realist memoryscape intended for within this treatise. Having done so, the nature of a memoryscape as an architectural program is explored, clarifying its function as both a memorial and a landscape and contextualising it as a type through an interrogation of relevant precedents that manage particular issues relating to the type and treatise. From these first three chapters, a set of core principles is derived that serve as a basis for the development of the final design project that follows - of which its technical and aesthetic strategies, iterations and final cumulative expression is presented in the final two chapters of this document.

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Figure 1: Diagram idenitfying the structure and position of this treatise. Author.

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METHODOLOGY A

ny (formal) research process is based upon underlying philosophical assumptions regarding what a ‘valid’ research may be and which methods or means are appropriate for the development of an impartial and justified research strategy (Vosloo, 2014:299). Therefore, a research methodology provides a theoretical framework that establishes an intellectual position dictating the methods or best practices to be applied within the process of interrogation.

On the basis of the nature of information available for the study as well as the particularities of the information to be obtained, two categories of research can be classified: quantitative research is used to quantify a problem by means of generating numerical data or data to be transformed into usable statistics and is applicable to phenomena that can be expressed in terms of a quantity.

Alternatively, research may be qualitative, which in its essence is primarily exploratory and subjective. It is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions and motivations, uncovering trends in thought as a means of delving into a problem (DeFranzo, 2011). Furthermore, one’s process may be either inductive or deductive based upon the process to be chosen from the previously discussed categories. Most often, when one follows a quantitative process a hypothesis will be generated against which an existing theory will be tested, with the aim of deducing a result that either supports or refutes the statement being interrogated. However, when one is observing and interrogating research intuitively, drawing information from a variety of sources and generating a new theoretical route, one’s process is both qualitative and inductive.

The discourse of architecture, as well as the nature of the treatise at hand, is situated within the paradigm of qualitative and inductive research. The design is thus allowed a degree of flexibility and able to evolve with the process. The researcher becomes the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, engaging with multiple realities and making sense of multiple interpretations (Vosloo, 2014:300). Additionally, the conditions of the architectural thesis are as such that it constitutes both applied and pure research. As an academic interrogation, it falls within the mode of pure research as it aims to develop and achieve a better understanding of topics within the architectural discourse and produces a project that remains ‘theoretical’ or purely academic.

However, applied research is conducted as the treatise critically engages with and seeks to solve specific and practical problems.

The methods with which research is conducted are defined as the research tools or specific approaches implemented in the collection of research data. Within the qualitative paradigm outlined above, the investigation utilizes both primary and secondary data types conducted through different methods. Primary research comprises information obtained from first-hand experience and thus includes observations and information gathered on site through site visits and surveyance of the qualities and characteristics of the site by means of sketches and photographs taken while there. Visits will be made to the South End Museum in order to garner a further understanding of the history and characteristics of the area. Additionally, information relayed from discussions conducted with lecturers, professionals and other knowledgeable members of the public will be obtained. Secondary methods include the reading of historical documentation regarding the site, various writings, books or theories that provide insight into the topic being researched and the design process/techniques to be followed, as well as the analysis of historical photographs and maps of both past and present South End from which informed inferences are to be made. In the case of this treatise, the data collected through secondary research methods will be the primary source of information used.

The design process includes the establishment of the treatise topic, the creation of four metaphorical cities and a final composite design, to be accompanied by physical models, images and text reflective of the process and methodological investigation conducted. In turn, the process will be iterative, comprising of five formal iterations that although set out linearly, will be conducted in a cyclical manner. The adopted methodology and research methods used allow for a process and the conclusions that follow to be more engaged, introspective, interpretive and as such, multi-vocal.

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A city is a machine with innumerable parts made by the accumulation of human gestures, a colossal organism forever dying and being born, an ongoing conflict between memory and erasure, a center for capital and for attacks on capital, a rapture, a misery, a mystery, a conspiracy, a destination and point of origin, a labyrinth in which some are lost and some find what they’re looking for, an argument about how to live, and evidence that differences don’t always have to be resolved, though they may grace and grind against each other for centuries.

Each of us is an atlas of sorts, already knowing how to navigate some portion of the world, containing innumerable versions of place as experience and desire and fear, as route and landmark and memory.

So, a city and its citizens constitute a living library.

- Rebecca Solnit

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FROM MEMORY TO MAGICAL REALISM: A NARRATIVE ENQUIRY INTO MEMORY, PLACE & THE FANTASTIC A component of the collective investigations conducted within this thesis, the following chapter seeks to outline the theoretical ideas guiding the design and research explorations pursued, in turn, establishing the philosophical and ideological position from which this treatise is to be understood. The discussion that ensues follows a distinct line, beginning with a foundational exploration into the relationships shared between the topics of memory, identity, place and narrative and culminating in an examination of magical realism as an appropriate lens for postcolonial thought and the stretching of architectural space and mnemonic practices.

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erceptions of history and memory have drastically altered in our increasingly globalised and digitised world, collapsing space, voiding temporality and destabilising previously upheld boundaries between the past and the present. Having there once b een a clearly defined relationship between a community or nation to its past, the advent of digital technologies and a mediatised culture, as well as a voracious museal one, has conflated the then and the now in a manner unparalleled (Huyssen, 2003:1). Additionally, the explosion of historical scholarship and memory discourses has resulted in a ‘memory boom’ and a new found obsession with the past that seemingly, and problematically, is replacing a twentieth-century activist imagination of the future (Huyssen, 2003:6). What is needed, however, is for a view of the two as interdependent – both the past and the future are needed as a means of articulating our social, cultural and political position and dissatisfactions with the present state of our world. And while the hypertrophy of memory presents potential issues of self-indulgence, melancholy fixations and a problematic glorification of traumatic experiences (Huyssen, 2003:6), the regaining of a strong temporal and spatial grounding of life and the imagination is futile without the subject of memory.

Memory forms the basis of our personhood and moors our bodies to our minds. It is an essential segment of everything we do and everything we are (or come to be) and yet its scope and importance evades us – we take for granted the profound privilege we hold in being able to remember, to recall, to recollect and to reminisce on experiences both past and present.

In her book, Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M (2014), an insightful chronicle into the workings of memory, Suzanne Corkin writes: As we walk, talk, and eat, we are not aware that our behaviour stems from information and skills that we previously learned and remembered. We rely constantly on our memory to get us through each moment and each day. We need memory to survive — without it, we would not know how to clothe ourselves, navigate our neighbourhoods, or communicate with others.

Memory enables us to revisit our experiences, to learn from the past, and even to plan what to do in the future. It provides continuity from moment to moment, morning to evening, day to day, and year to year (Corkin, 2013:xvi).

This continuity, powered by memory, is the seedbed of our identities. The complex relationship between the body and its changes and actions, its surroundings, and the mind (memory) creates a broadening and deepening sense of self over time (Rosenfield, 1992) and when we look in the mirror, the recognition and experience we have of our self is intrinsically linked to a dynamic, complicated and memory-laden awareness of who we are. Far from existing as stored images in the brain that reside both consciously and unconsciously, the very essence and act of memory is an evolving and subjective relation to our self, to others or to past experiences and previously perceived stimuli in an ongoing negotiation and selection of what is remembered and what is forgotten. In a similar vein, we are, each of us, a narrative, a biographical story, whose continuity and construction by, through and in us is the very essence of our lives and our identities. As we live and shape ourselves, the narratives we embody shape the environments around us, bestowing upon our memories a sense of habitation that goes beyond mere setting or backdrop (Casey, 1993:165).

Place, memory and identity are intimately and inseparably bound - from the knowledge and feelings developed from our experiences of everyday places to the multiple ways in which place fosters a sense of belonging, constructs meaning, nurtures attachments and mediates change (Gieseking, Mangold, Katz, Low & Saegert, 2014:74). Environmental autobiographies are created from the memories we hold of the places and spaces that shaped us, feeding, forming and defining our position as individuals, communities and nations and contributing to social formations, cultural practices and political actions such as desires for independence and a strengthening of national identifications (De Nardi, Orange, High & Koskinen-Koivisto, 2020:1). The enigmatic, powerful and pervasive energy that is memory, permeates place and attaches itself to objects and markers within our perception. However, beyond the visual and physical realm, memory finds refuge within the sensory dimension, coalescing around a sense of place that is closer to feeling and the subconscious as opposed to a concrete ‘thing’ (De Nardi et al., 2020:2). The city is a solid cast of historical moments but also an active and altering ground where society constructs its novel views and reactions about the world in spatial forms. The city is thus a palimpsest, layering stories, emotions, opinions and histories that merge the present condition with traces of the past and imagined alternatives of what could be, gathering meaning or surrendering to the force of forgetting.

The re-examination and re-theorisation of this relationship between land, memory and identity

acquires greater resonance when one considers the political, cultural and historical changes that have occurred in recent years. Mass global migration, ethnic wars, natural disasters, or more recently, pandemics, are but a few incidents that have brought the concepts of land and identity to the forefront and which have forced a reflection on and reconsideration of how we feel about place, the significance of place within our lives and how we define ourselves and others in relation to landscape (Berberich, Campbell & Hudson, 2012:18).

Within this notion of ‘Landscape’, the term land is indicative of something physical or tangible, but far from simply referring to the earth’s surface or the visible terrain, the term embodies a much broader scope of meaning, one that is more aptly suggestive of the conversation between the represented world, the encounters, experiences or exchanges we might have with the world, and the emotions and sensations to which they are bound (Berberich et al., 2012:22). The term, therefore, embodies what David Matless describes as a “relational hybridity”, bringing together a variance in tensions, combinations, representations and sensations, “shuttling between fields of reference” (Matless, 1998:12). While landscapes serve as the referential basis with which we come to define ourselves as individuals, neighbourhoods or countries, such a view risks reducing the concept of landscape to a fixed and nostalgic sense of ‘belonging’ when it should be seen as fluid and full of potentials for ‘becoming’ (Berberich et al. 2012:21). Prominent landscape architect and theorist, James Corner, argues for a similar view of landscape, one that recognises it not only as a physical phenomenon but also as a cultural schema encoded with meaning by way of visceral perceptions and human interventions. As time passes, the inscribed landscape alters, weathered by change and the overlay of new markings and new meanings. Thus, the landscape becomes a heterogeneous ‘text’ or a ‘suspended conversation’, open to change and interpretation and developing new meaning as it is ‘re-read’. (Corner & Bick Hirsch, 2014:101). This embedded dialogue, that reveals the varying remembrances, desires and transfigurations of an individual’s and culture’s relationship to the land, sways between the material and immaterial, the conscious and subconscious, the human and nonhuman, and is, like our identities, continual, always unfinished and always processive. A similar idea is argued for by Anne Whiston Spirn, who writes: Landscape is loud with dialogues, with story lines that connect a place and its dwellers. [...]

A coherence of human vernacular landscapes emerges from dialogues between builders and place, fine-tuned over time. [...] The context of life is a woven fabric of dialogues, enduring and ephemeral (Whiston Spirn, 1998:17).

Although we may perceive landscape continuously in our daily lives, it is also something within which we inhabit. So, while the interpretation and ‘reading’ of a place as a ‘text’ is an important response and has served as an important concept in explaining landscape’s interaction with

Figure 2: Landscape’s cultural agency diagram (Corner & Bick Hirsch, 1996:40).

humanity, it forms only part of this shared relationship. Landscapes, both built and unbuilt, are complex and layered fields of experience and interwoven narratives that are meant to be read, felt, used, imagined, remembered, performed and sensed. Our understanding of landscape has thus evolved, existing simultaneously as ‘space’ and ‘place’, borne from both of our cognitive and corporeal experiences and connected to the realms of memory and consciousness as much is it is to our physical bodily practices (O’Keeffe, 2007:4).

Narrative and landscape are two seemingly opposing, or rather, unrelated concepts - and yet either one cannot function without ‘performing’ particular actions of the other. While often the typical view of narrative is that of a form of representation bound by a sequence in space and time (Psarra, 2009:2), it serves more than just that of the content of a story or its varying interpretations by readers, encompassing, also, the processes of selection and arrangement and the manner in which it is structured and ultimately presented (Psarra, 2009:2). It is this relationship shared between narrative structure, perceptual experience, representation and conceptual expression that is most relevant to the operations of architecture and which underpins the interdependency between it and narrative. This encountered frontier between architecture and narrative, therefore, not only relates to forms of architectural representation or the expression of meaning - what the design speaks - but contributes equally to the construction of meaning by way of the composing of spaces and social relationships, orchestrating a viewer’s experience and arranging conceptual and perceptual layers of order (Psarra, 2009:2).

In recognising architecture (landscape) as a narrative force, both as an embodied palimpsest and communicative tool, a relationship between architecture and literature (as the formalization of story) is extended. This parallel is anchored in the two arts’ capacities as builders of fictional and factual realities, with both mediums having the potentiality to remove the reader or viewer from the spatial constructs and realities that may currently surround them (Popko, 2014:1). Continuing with the metaphor that reality (and as such, fictional reality) is ‘constructed’ or rather, ‘constructible’, narrative, literature and architecture, and their respective configurations and philosophies, share as their basis what has been identified as four spatial ‘stages’ (Garcia, 2015:9). To begin, the architectwriter (or writer-architect) conjures a space to house the activities of their ‘characters’ and the objects of their story. This dimension is inescapably linked to that of the Body or subject. The relationship between the body, as the referential axis, and space (or the derived, ‘position and being’) is a fundamental principle for both architecture and narrative and one which is in itself tied to the phenomenology of perception as proposed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945 in Garcia, 2015:9). Secondly, the notion of Boundary arises as the architect-writer differentiates, partitions and distributes elements in an attempt to ‘furnish’ their created worlds and establish spatial frames of reference within which a ‘realistic’ environment may be articulated (Garcia, 2015:9). Thirdly, these elements, both in the textual and physical world, need to be arranged and distributed in the form of a Hierarchy, ordering movement and the sequence of experiences, and defining the relationship between spaces as container and contained or part and whole. These first three stages, Body, Boundary and Hierarchy are critical principles in the formation of narrative space and textual realism as they provide a consistent, ordered and defined impression of the physical space within which people move and act. However, the fourth principle, or spatial stage, recognises the capacity for narrative space to embrace a higher level of abstraction, one that conceives narratives as full, coherent ‘worlds’ as opposed to just a temporal sequence. (Garcia, 2015:134). From this position, space is no longer seen as just a simple, objective container within which a human being dwells, but instead is a multitudinous universe of worlds and a means with which we organise and articulate our reality.

From the beginning of the twentieth century, the confluence of advancements in physics, such as Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (1905 and 1915), and the occurrence of a series of life-altering historical events, reconfigured our perception and experience of space and sparked an impassioned interest into the dimension of space within a multitude of academic discourses (Garcia, 2015:4). This paradigmatic shift, which has come to be known as the ‘Spatial Turn’ of Postmodernity, accentuated the significance of narrative space and restructured our notion of the real and in effect its counterpart, the fictional, by questioning the objectiveness of reality. During this time, extensive volumes of work and texts were produced that questioned the neutrality of reality, ultimately giving rise to a form labelled as the literary or postmodern Fantastic.

The observation then is made, that the literary Fantastic – a term defined here as the incursion of an impossible element into a realistic frame shared by the narrator and reader (Garcia, 2015:2)

– arises out of the disruption and transgression of the above principles and does not just appear or take place within the referential frame of physical space but rather that space is the Fantastic, and the Fantastic is an event of space (Garcia, 2015:2). Similarly, ‘fantastic space’ can serve as a metaphor for an array of conditions, such as the infraction of literary genres, the unconscious or even the confrontation with the realm of the other (Garcia, 2015:6). Magical Realism, therefore, as an operative lens of literature (and now architecture) is a fitting continuation of these explorations into the Fantastic, capturing the paradox of the unity of opposites and shattering the boundaries of reality.

Following the success of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Latin American literary boom of the late 60s and 70s, magical realism garnered global attention and established itself as a literary phenomenon. However, in spite of all this, a singular definition of the genre has remained elusive, with many key works also finding overlap with other types of literature and critical currents, a quality that perhaps feeds its allure and capacious power as a mode of expression. This power has found particular significance within postcolonial contexts, providing productive ground for significant cultural work and literary masterpieces of marginal voices and submerged traditions to develop (Faris, 2004:1). At its simplest, magical realism employs five primary characteristics, as suggested by Wendy Faris (2004), in order to achieve these cultural and literary possibilities: first, the narrative contains an “irreducible element” of magic; second, descriptions within magical realism articulate a strong presence of the phenomenal world; third, in the process of reconciling the contradictions presented within the events of the story, a reader may experience some unsettling doubts; fourth, the narrative merges disparate realms; and lastly, magical realism disrupts accepted ideas about space, time and identity.

The “irreducible element” denotes that which we are unable to explain by way of the laws of the universe as perpetuated by Western, empirically-based discourses, or as David Young and Keith Hollaman describe it (1984), by way of “logic, familiar knowledge, or received belief.” Extraordinary (magical) events are reported by the narrated voice using concretely detailed descriptions in the same way other, ordinary (‘real’) events may be recounted. The magic, therefore, seems to grow imperceptibly out of the real without acknowledgment or surprise from the narrator, a circumstance that normalises the magical event but defamiliarises, highlights or critiques the outrageousness and extraordinary aspects of the real (Faris, 2004). Descriptions within magical realist texts are steeped in sensory detail and articulate a strong presence of the phenomenal world - the realism in magical realism - differentiating it from some realms of fantasy and allegory (Faris, 2004:14) and creating fictional worlds that resemble the world we live in. However, apart from magical events, magical realist fiction also includes magical details, extending the role of detail away from its traditionally mimetic position. As such, the interweaving between the phenomenal real and the inconceivable magical is what lends magical realism its power and further accentuates the ideas of the previous point, “the mysterious, sensuous, unknown, and unknowable are not in the subtext, as in realist writing, but rather share the fictional space with history” (Cooper, 1998: 36). The third quality, as mentioned above, is that a reader may encounter some unsettling doubts as they confront and negotiate the two contradictory understandings of events presented within the text.

Stemming from the implicit clash of cultural systems within the narrative that undulates between the material and immaterial world, the acceptance or decline of the events presented is dependant upon the readers beliefs or narrative traditions, and the extent of hesitation will therefore differ from one reader to the next. By extension of the narrative contradictions encountered, the fourth quality of magical realist text is an experience of the closeness or convergence of two realms or two worlds. In respect of cultural history, magical realism often merges ancient, traditional or indigenous worlds with modern ones, but ontologically integrates the magical and the material.

Generally, it combines realism with the fantastic. The potentialities of the magical realist vision lie at this intersecting frontier between the two worlds within that in-between space of uncertainty and infinite possibilities - a double-sided mirror that reflects in both directions (Faris, 2004:21).

Ultimately, magical realism blurs the boundary between fact and fiction as categories and simultaneously dissolves the very nature of these categories themselves; the elements of magic and the fantastic as realistically constructed fictions question empirically constructed perceptions of reality such that the real is deemed absurd and the magical viewed as ordinary. Magical realism, therefore, reorients our accepted views of space, time and identity.

In its depiction of history, Geoff Hancock describes magical realist time as ‘not linear’ and notes that ‘precise dates mingle with the mythic qualities of a place’ (Hancock, 1986:44), manipulating

and distorting time in an attempt to capture a true perception of the complexities of history that have been chosen for commentary. In magical realism, time itself is hybrid, managing the tensions and alignments between sequential and non-sequential time and negotiating the space between the linear time of history and the circular time of myth without assuming the form of either binary position (Cooper, 1998:33). Time within such texts is therefore poised as liminal, operating within a third space tied neither to the boundless imagination of fantasy nor any real place found on a map.

Similarly, if we extend this thought, space within magical realism is also hybrid, characterised by the co-presence of conflicting opposites or by the convergence of the recognisable and verifiable real with the abstract or experientially impossible fantastic. Magical realism embraces the chaos, absurdity and mundanity of life, bringing together daydreams, fantasies, mysteries and history into an organised story.

Magical realists, by means of the plot, endow their stories with the ability to represent the chaos of history, syncretising unbalanced and contradictory forces. Out of this, the recurrent theme of Utopia emerges in magical realist dreams as a representation of the possibility that such unity may be reached in societies where this idea shines only dimly with hope (Cooper, 1998:36).

Such societies operate within the interstices and collisions of different cultures, belief systems and economic and social positions, always in transition or transformation and negotiating the thresholds of hybridity (Cooper, 1998:36). As mentioned earlier, the form and function of a magical realist plot is the syncretism of disparate elements and the rendering of these mixtures as meaningful.

Magical realism’s capacity for subverting and questioning dominant or received perceptions of reality is tied to the mode of postcolonialism whose primary desire is to shift the dominant ways in which the relationships between Western and Non-Western people and their worlds are viewed.

Magical realism has thus become, as Homi Bhabha puts it, ‘the literary language of the emergent postcolonial world’ (Bhabha, 1990:7).

The destructive force and effects of colonialism extended far deeper than just the imposition of one nation’s political rule over another, but included attempts to change the colonised people’s beliefs, way of thinking and way of way of life to accept that of the colonial power. The consequences of these actions and the disrupting and dislocating effects they have had on cultural life and identity as a whole within the colonised nation have proven the most difficult to change and are a fundamental aspect of what postcolonialism seeks to redress. John Mcleod, in his guide to postcolonialism, highlights that: ‘Postcolonialism’ recognises both historical continuity and change. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the material realities and modes of representation common to colonialism are still very much with us today, even if the political map of the world has changed through decolonisation. But on the other hand, it asserts the promise, the possibility, and the continuing necessity to change, while also recognising that important challenges and changes have already been achieved (Mcleod, 2000:33).

Magical realism’s potentiality for the destabilisation of a dominant form renders it an effective decolonising agent and one of the qualities that make magical realism so suited to the expression of postcolonial issues. Summarising her view of the relationship between magical realism and postcolonialism, Elleke Boehmer claims that: Drawing on the special effects of magic realism, postcolonial writers [...] are able to express their view of a world fissured, distorted, and made incredible by cultural displacement…

[T]hey combine the supernatural with local legend and imagery derived from colonialist cultures to represent societies which have been repeatedly unsettled by invasion, occupation, and political corruption. Magic effects, therefore, are used to indict the follies of both empire and its aftermath (Boehmer, 1995:235).

Furthermore, magical realism is able to express three elements of the postcolonial: the first, due its dual narrative structure, magical realism is able to portray the postcolonial context from the points of view of both the coloniser and the colonised; second, it produces a text that is able to expose the tensions and gaps of representation prevalent in such a context; and third, it provides a means with which to fill in these gaps, exposing and recuperating the forgotten voices, subjugated histories and cultural fragments of a people and place (Bowers, 2004:92). Magical realism operates under a system of narrative tension or rather, as an ongoing conversation between two opposing

discourses (magic versus real; colonial versus the postcolonial) but presents a defocalised position in which neither perspective subordinates or contains the other. The battle between these two oppositional systems forms an in-between fictional world wherein neither one fully comes into being, creating a disjunction or series of ‘gaps’ within the narrative. These gaps, moreover, can be both ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, reflecting either the difficulties of cultural expression in the face of the colonialist power, or providing a productive space in which to generate new or alternative perspectives from the colonised point of view (Bowers, 2004:93). Exploring this point, Amaryll Beatrice Chanady states that “what the magical realist does…is to present a worldview that is radically different from ours as equally valid” (Cooper, 1998:34).

Magical realism answers an emergent society’s needs for renewed self-description and asserts, without nostalgia, an indigenous pre-industrial realm of possibility within a questioned Western conception of culture, space and time (Sangari, 1987:162). Thus, in challenging polarities such as magic versus history, the real and the incredible, the absurd and the ordinary or the pre-colonial past and the post-industrial present, magical realism proves an apt language with which to explore the boundaries and liminalities that exist within the conversational nature of reality, memory and space, encouraging the re-emergence of submerged narrative traditions and exposing new ways of conceptualising and viewing architectural scapes.

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CARTOGRAPHIES OF MEMORY & THE IMAGINATION: UNDERSTANDING THE PHYSICAL CONTEXT Drawing upon the discussions of the first chapter, the following section examines the context within which this thesis is located, delving into the notion of map as a tool of power and narrative imagination in contexts of erasure, memory and oppression. The analysis that is then carried out attempts a comprehensive ‘reading’ of the site, aiming to peel back and unearth the material and immaterial layers and stories that constitute South End, Port Elizabeth. In line with creating a magical realist memoryscape, the context is mapped and interpreted through the conditions of four themes - dreams, nightmares, memories and consciousness - that form the foundation of the narrative journey and metaphorical cities created for this project.

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ithin this era of rapid technological advancement, the distance between the real and its representation has greatly diminished. What has not disappeared, however, is the challenge that arises between the depiction and translation of three-dimensional information into a two-dimensional image, particularly where the paradox of misrepresentation as a necessity for a closer perception of the real is concerned.

As a fundamental sense making mechanism for the world, maps have served as a means of data visualization, creative projection and communication for centuries and in recent decades, have also come to dominate design culture, moving away from the status of a convenient tool to that of a necessary and ubiquitous component of the design process (Desimini & Waldheim, 2016:9). Maps brilliantly condense and record complex notions of space, scale, topography, politics, memory and more; and despite its seemingly objective façade, is there any motif as malleable or easily appropriated as that of the map? Maps can act as functions of power and control, making statements about politically imposed borders, territoriality and prejudice. Simultaneously, maps are narratives, reflecting our stories and defining the geosocial constellations of our lives – they are propositions of what is, what was, what will be or what can be. But beyond its quotidian function, cartography as a projective, imaginative and narrative device holds all the power necessary to reveal subjugated stories and to dismantle the systems of selective memory and selective forgetting upon which a presiding, and merely representational, map may be based. The agency of mapping, like that of narrative, lies in its capacity for potential and its ability to uncover realities previously unseen or unimagined, establishing conditions for new eidetic and physical worlds to emerge (Corner et al., 2014:197). Continuing this argument by James Corner (2014), “[…] mappings discover new worlds within past and present ones; they inaugurate new grounds upon the hidden traces of a living context. The capacity to reformulate what already exists is the important step. And what already exists is more than just the physical attributes of terrain […] but includes the various hidden forces that underlie the workings of a given place.” As such, the function of mapping, like magical realism, can be used to challenge systems of power and oppression, destabilising dominant ideals of reality and serving effectively as a decolonising agent. In keeping with this and the explorations of the previous chapter, some of the mapping exercises and techniques employed within this treatise are somewhat antagonistic to the traditional practice of mapping and emerge at that elusive intersection between the rational and the experimental or more appropriately, the magic and the real. The cartographic imagination is explored as an abstract, conceptual and generative design tool for the representation of multiple realities and multiple tangible and intangible narratives.

SITE CONTEXTUALISATION

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anifesting as an amalgamation of human memories, experiences and performances of everyday life, and a reflection of time and culture, cities (and their structural and spatial constituents) are also tools of power, revealing, accentuating or challenging the ideologies they support or oppose. As in many countries with histories of colonial oppression, South African cities are material reflections of racialized legislations and policies of power, control and privilege. It is impossible to discuss any South African city without recognizing the far-reaching implications that Apartheid has had on the shaping of space. A key feature, architecturally speaking, was the adoption and adaptation of international modernist planning principles by the Nationalist Party as a tool in their unjust regime. The creed of the Apartheid system was the desire for racial separation and the maintenance of white supremacy as the status quo, with cities serving as the perfect device with which these ideas may be upheld. The Group Areas Act of 1950 was the foundation of Apartheid policy, disrupting and destabilizing people’s lives and the areas within which they lived. The Act imposed control over interracial property transactions and occupation and legalized the forced removal of hundreds and thousands of non-whites from their homes to allocated ‘group areas’ designated by race on the outskirts of the city. Once residents were removed, entire neighbourhoods were demolished, preventing any need for return. The consequences of the Act (among others), have affected every corner of the nation, influencing the inefficient development of South African cities and leaving lasting spatial, social and psychological scars.

In Port Elizabeth, the suburb of South End forms part of a group of neighbourhoods across the country that suffered similar traumatic fates as a result of Apartheid legislation (fig.4a), each of who’s story colours the history of forced removals in their own way. As such, the suburb is a particularly compelling site wherein the ideas and theories of this treatise may be further explored.

One of the oldest areas in Port Elizabeth, South End was once an uninhabited area of rich, indigenous fauna and flora within which the Fengu ethnic group wandered in the early 1800s (Redgrave, 1947:72). In 1863, the group was moved as part of a segregation plan established by the British colonial government (Hendricks, 2017:40), beginning the string of segregationist policies to affect the area and the city. Eventually becoming Papenbiesjesfontein, a large farm nestled between the Baakens Valley, Gomery (now Humewood) and Walmer (a once independent municipality), the ‘place over the river’ as it was described, was largely empty apart from the existence of the Malay fisherman who had settled along the coast in the 1840s (Hendricks, 2017:44). Overtime, more Malay families moved into the area, possibly as a result of forced removals from the Malay Quarters in Central (Hendricks, 2017:44). After some time, a few English families trickled in and with the growth of the harbour, the boom in trade and South End’s strategic position and attractive views, a number of Afrikaans, English, Jewish and Indian families had settled (around 1880-1892) resulting in a considerably cosmopolitan South End society (Hendricks, 2017:47).

The neighbourhood developed into a vibrant, bustling and multicultural neighbourhood in which everyone mingled freely, supported and respected each other. However, with the instatement of the National Party into power in 1948, the legalization of Apartheid rule and their racial rezoning and homogenization of cities, everything was to drastically change.

In 1963, the racially and ethnically integrated neighbourhood was declared a ‘whites-only’ area and by 1965 the first expropriation notices were received by members of the community. Residents were forced to move and abandon their homes with little to no compensation in what was a period of extreme distress and agony. Reflecting on his feelings at having to leave his home, former South End resident, Shun Pillay, said (Agherdien, 1997:101): You thought of all the moments of joy and suffering, the friends you made before the guillotine dropped, whether it was going to be worse or good were to be seen.

The pain the people had to go through, with all the sacrifices people had to make under difficult circumstances. It was a feeling of tremendous amount of pain and no amount of words can describe it.

Non-white families were identified, categorized and moved to areas established on the outskirts of the city. Indians to Malabar, Chinese to Kabega Park, Coloureds to Bethelsdorp and Africans to New Brighton (fig.4b). By the end of the 1970s, the suburb was almost completely flattened – dismantling the rich social and cultural tapestry that had formed, and ensuring no former (nonwhite) residents could or needed to return. The suburb was consequently ‘rebuilt’ in accordance with the planning wisdoms of modernist urbanism resulting in an enclaved, isolated and static area separated from the historical grid of which it was once a part. Presently, South End remains a middle-class suburb comprised of numerous, gated townhouse complexes that uphold the planning principles established by the Apartheid government. There is very little that remains, physically and socially, of the once thriving, multicultural community that shared the area and apart from the efforts undertaken by past residents and the South End Museum, few are even aware of the history, memories and emotions entrenched within the land.

Despite the telling of the historical and developmental narrative of South End, the representation of the ‘real’ story is far more nuanced, complex and multitudinous. Adopting magical realism as an architectural mode and interpretive lens, the site is analysed from the vista of its layers of infinite realities and narratives. The creation of some of the images that follow thus extends beyond the pragmatic plotting of tangible information but pursues the creation of collaged atlases that communicate the material and immaterial ‘worlds’ of South End. The overarching themes through which the site is analysed have been selected for their relation to the identity of South End and form the basis of the metaphorical cities created in this thesis.

Figure 4a: Neighbourhoods across the country altered by the Group Areas Act of 1950 (Author, 2020).

Figure 4b: Forced removals from South End, Port Elizabeth (Author, 2020).

a

b

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CENTRAL

SOUTH END

WALMER

HUMEWOOD

FOREST HILL

LOCATIONAL MAP

34 SITE OVERVIEW

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DREAMS dream /ˈdrēm/ n. 1 a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep.

2 an experience of waking life having the characteristics of a dream, such as: a a state of mind marked by abstraction or release from reality.

A

dream - that atemporal, liminal, surreal world in which anything and everything is possible and where opportunities and choices are limitless – is a fantastic and seductive mystery that has captured the imaginations of people, poets, authors, scientists and the like, inspiring stories, driving decisions and harbouring the desires and hopes of many. A dream is, by nature, a conversational frontier between our inner and outer worlds, a meeting of our perceived reality and that fantastical space that lies just parallel. In art, literature, music and film, dreams have served as the plots, the settings and the subjects, opposing the ‘tyranny’ of realism, offering an altered glimpse of what could be (rather than what is) (Powell, 2013). Science has attempted a similarly fervent investigation into the what and the how of dreams, but much like attempts to remember the details of our nocturnal escapades, it continues to evade our grasp.

As our lives become both increasingly connected and increasingly divided in a number of ways, the once integrated, multi-ethnic South End community was an achievement that many now only hope for (or dream of). Sports games, dances, musical performances, fishing and religious gatherings are only some of the shared activities occurring daily that added to the dynamism of South End. The gridded urban layout and the street as a public recreation space are additional qualities that defined South End as an ‘ideal’. An ex-South Ender, Soopiah Muthayan, perfectly captures the community spirit (Hendricks, 2017:13): Nobody used to starve because everything was cheap. And what people didn’t have they shared… If you needed something people come borrow next door. When somebody was ill, you call somebody next door, to come and help. There wasn’t by arrangement, by appointment, people just help each other. It was a normal thing to do.

The analysis that follows is temporally located within South End prior to the forced removals and seeks to reflect the qualities of a dream, the elements of the old South End that contributed to its ‘dreamlike’ condition, as well as attempts to capture the energetic soul of the community.

Some of the layers included: - Vibrancy of South End - Built Form, Qualities of the Street and the Neighbourhood Grid - Activity and Community Interplay - Connections and Frequencies - Notations of Jazz

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DREAMS

NIGHTMARES nightmare /night·mare/ˈnīt-ˌmer/ n. 1 a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper.

2 something (such as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror.

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s an extension of the experiences of our nighttime imagination, our nightmares exist parallel but emotionally opposite to our dreams. They are often mediators of our negative emotions or reflections of fears and catastrophes. Similarly, ‘a nightmare’, is used as a description for events that have caused great distress in someone’s life. We oscillate daily between sleep and awake, encountering the expansiveness of a dream and the shadow of a nightmare and living in the consciousness of the in-between. Place, identity and people, as discussed in the previous chapter, are so entwined that it is no wonder sociologists have to come find that the sorrow for a lost home is similar to the mourning of a relative (Pallasmaa, 1994).

Between 1968 and 1975 the ratification of the Group Areas Act of 1950 resulted in the forced removal and dispersal of its residents and the consequent destruction of a vibrant community.

Additionally, the suburb was razed to the ground and the urban conditions that contributed to it being a positive space were destroyed, replaced by internalised enclaves and townhouse complexes.

The events that transpired in South End as a result of the Group Areas Act and Apartheid regime are akin to a nightmare and are attributed to nightmarish acts of a ‘devilish’ government.

The inclusion of this theme is not intended as a traumatic lament but as a recognition of South End and its multi-faceted identity, a face defined as much by its spirited unity as it is by the sadness, disruption and loss endured by the residents, both in their personal capacity and in the intangible and tangible heritage of a bustling community.

Expressing the darker and more sorrowful story of South End, the consequent map attempts to communicate the transition of the suburb, the feelings endured, the destruction and changes that occurred and the loss suffered by a people and a city.

Some of the layers included: - Destruction of South End - Apartheid Planning and the Altering of the Grid - Forced Removal and Traumatic Displacement - An Experience of Remoteness and Isolation - Fragmentation

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NIGHTMARES

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MEMORIES memory /mem·o·ry/ˈme-mə-rē/ n. 1a the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms. b the store of things learned and

retained from an organism’s activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition. 2a commemorative remembrance. b the fact or condition of being remembered.

3a a particular act of recall or recollection. b an image or impression of one that is remembered.

c the time within which past events can be or are remembered.

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o view memory as a synonym for the past would be to deny its multilayered existence as both a continuance and conflation of the past, the ever transitory present and the enduring future.

Memory passes like a waveform through the epochs of time and space, like life’s whisper, or a gossamer thread that appears, disappears and permeates our self and the environments around us.

This spirit of memory is perfectly captured by David Whyte in his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (2015): We actually inhabit memory as a living threshold, as a place of choice and volition and imagination, a crossroads where our future diverges according to how we interpret, or perhaps more accurately, how we live the story we have inherited. We can be overwhelmed, traumatized, made smaller by the tide that brought us here, we can even be drowned and disappeared by memory; or we can spin a cocoon of insulation to protect ourselves and bob along passively in the wake of what we think has occurred, but we also have other more engaging possibilities; memory in a sense, is the very essence of the conversation we hold as individual human beings (Whyte, 2015:79).

This included analysis is positioned within South End in its altered state, but delves more into the essences of these changes, the traces of moments forgotten and the presence of those which persist in lingering. The map is an amalgamation of these narrative layers, and a reflection of memory’s space of simultaneity, flowing between growth and decay and between objects, images and emotions of the past, present and future. Lastly, it is an image of nostalgia, not in the indulgent longing for the past, but rather, the articulation that the past as we know it is coming, or has come, to an end (Whyte, 2015:82).

Some of the layers included: - Remnants of the Old within the New - Built Form Remnants - Fragments of Memory - Transience and Migration - Nostalgia - Storytelling

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MEMORIES

CONSCIOUSNESS consciousness /con·scious·ness/ˈkän(t)-shəs-nəs/ n. 1a the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself. b the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact. 2 the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought.

3 the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes.

C

onsciousness, in all its dimensions, is one of the most difficult notions to both define and investigate. Occupying that great, fathomless abyss between our mental and physical worlds, consciousness is instrinsically tied to the operations of the body and the mind. As the psychologist and chronobiologist, Marc Wittmann (2018), writes: The brain does not simply represent the world in a disembodied way as an intellectual construct… Our mind is body-bound. We think, feel, and act with our body in the world. All experience is embedded in this body-related being-in-the-world (Wittmann, 2018:82).

In this, the body, self, space and time are interwoven in a shared elasticity, a living inhabitation of the confluence of our dreams and desires, nightmares and fears, memories and experiences – in a manner that is fully present and fully aware of this multi-dimensionality. Thus, in exploring the convergence and dissolution of these boundaries, the analysis that follows is a recognition of South End in the now, a palimpsest of layers, some erased, some still visible and some, of course, that are new; evidence that nothing lasts in the form it is first constructed or understood.

After the traumatic forced removals by the Apartheid government and the almost complete demolition of the neighbourhood, the re-construction of South End in the form of introverted enclaves populated by numerous townhouse complexes still continues to this day. Dotted throughout, however, are a multitude of histories embedded within the everyday urban landscape - ordinary street corners, architectural and material remnants and other unassuming spaces - remain, holding the stories and markers of a lost past and the life and memory of a once bustling community.

Present day South End is, therefore, undeniably a palimpsest, caught between the interstices of a multitude of dichotomies - dreams and nightmares, the past and the present, the permanent and the ephemeral, the tangible and the intangible.

The map presented is an interpreted composition upon which the conditions and qualities of South End in its entirety coincide – as discussed and as unpacked in the maps of the previous themes – reflecting a conflated and conscious awareness of South End in all its dimensions.

CONSCIOUSNESS

To complete the explorations of this chapter, the following map presents a composite view of South End and forms the basis of the magical realist memoryscape and narrative journey to be developed further.

COMPOSITE NARRATIVE MAP

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PROGRAMMING NARRATIVES & THE AESTHETICS OF REMEMBRANCE The following section extends the discussion to include explorations into an identified building type. With regards to this treatise, the notion of ‘memoryscape’ is introduced as the main programmatical lens and appropriate typology for the conditions of the context, the expression of palimpsestic narratives and a manifestation of the Fantastic in architecture. This chapter begins with a brief theoretical contextualisation of the type in relation to the outcomes of the preceding sections, followed by a brief overview of memorial and landscape architecture as constituent types and an analysis of relevant precedents for both the program and issues pertaining to this treatise.

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or the purposes of this treatise, the design of a South End memoryscape is deemed the most appropriate response for the needs and conditions of the site, context and theoretical explorations conducted. The notion of a memoryscape, while appearing to be the compound of ‘memory’ and ‘landscape’, is as much and far more than the melding of these two ideas. A memoryscape is the point of convergence for concepts such as culture, memory, emotion and landscape and is expressive of the interdependent, entangling manifestations that occur between place and remembrance (De Nardi & High, 2020:117) wherein the stories, mythic narratives, materialities and metaphysical phenomena of space are unravelled. Memoryscapes are therefore palimpsestic, subjective and culturally specific phenomena that reflect the dynamic malleability of meanings and identities inscribed in cultural and urban landscapes. All human beings, whether as a group or as an individual, dwell within a memoryscape.

For the intended project, operating as a memoryscape allows for the extrapolations and architectural manifestations of both the tangible and intangible qualities of the site, creating a multi-narrative landscape of South End and the city. The project is thus envisioned as a place of return, gathering, remembrance and reflection and one in which opportunities for new memories to be made and stories to be told are presented.

Programmatically, the memoryscape explored in this treatise falls within the categories of both memorial architecture and landscape architecture, of which the nature of each will be discussed and analysed further.

Figure 5: Structure of the discussion for chapter 3 (Author 2020).

MEMORIAL ARCHITECTURE

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hroughout time, from our ancient past to our current present, objects, sculptures, landmarks and temples have been erected for the commemoration of one or another event, place or person, and with their power to privilege certain emotions and stories over others, declarations of remembrance have always had a place in cultural, political and spatial systems, serving as a way to legitimate that which is to be remembered. Memorials preserve memory and store a society’s significant beliefs and ideals, however, the ideas that are ‘built’ into the permanent form are hardly ever complete or truly objective. Oftentimes, the message being communicated is diluted, curated or in favour of one selected narrative. Similarly, the memorial scholar, Jay Winter (1999 in Hristova, 2010:32), argues against the creation of memorials only at a national scale, believing that memorials of more localized expressions are far more effective in their role as connectors of people, place, experience and remembrance. Memorials hold the unique capacity of being able to provide an appropriate public setting that fosters deep emotional reflection and restoration around a specific event. Architecture’s ability to withstand time (or rather to conflate the past and the present) and materialize selected memories and ideologies has long made it the preferred medium for the practice of public memorialisation. Monuments and memorials contribute to the public and historical fabric of a city, defining space and reflecting the narratives of the past within that of the present. While not much has altered regarding the function of a memorial and its position within the civic realm, the spatial and physical attributes of monuments have grown more varied, evolving away from that of the figurative, free-standing object towards more abstract expressions and interpretations of memory as spatial landscapes.

Although programmatically diverse, memorials as a typology can be classified into four groups: monuments, landscapes, museums or historical markers.

MONUMENT

This first grouping is inherently tied to overt form and symbolism, making use of recognizable signifiers that embody and communicate clear and important meanings. Inscriptions, relief carvings, figurative statues and familiar architectural elements such as large columns or arches encompass some of the components used in the creation of monuments. Memorials of this type often dominate the line of vision and seek a sense of monumentality. This assertive physical presence is pursued through an exaggerated scale, a use of more permanent and robust materials and a positioning within the site that sets it apart from its surrounds or establishes it as a singular object in space. (fig. 6)

Figure 6: The Horse Memorial in Central, Port Elizabeth represents a monument memorial a figurative sculpture atop an inscribed stone plinth, established as a single object in space (Author, 2020).

LANDSCAPE

Memorials constructed as spatial or collective landscapes have gained prevalence in recent times as they allow for the creation of narrative and temporal journeys through which people can move.

While we all may resonate with the bronze-cast image of a fallen soldier, a local hero or an inscribed plaque, landscape memorials extend this emotional, visceral and memorial experience, allowing the visitor an engagement with the past in a tangible present. This type of memorial, however, does not exclude the use of non-landscape memorials (and in some way it is a mere extension of the previous type) but instead of a single monumental object at the centre of a space, they exist as parts to a whole of more complex spatial organisations. Additionally, the memorials of this type that have emerged as of late lean towards more abstract interpretations and forms of memory, emphasising the physical expression of the intangible over identifiable imagery (fig. 7).

MUSEUM

For centuries the museum has existed in all its differing forms, housing and containing a collection of objects and fragments of memory. Architecture played its role as the ‘house’ and physical container for what was being held within, and of course, reflected a certain quality and monumentally befitting of the time. In recent times, however, the world has seen a museal boom and the role of architecture is no longer just that of the outer structure, but instead has become a critical component in the assortment of memories on display. Thus, the museum as a building type has become a memorial in itself, creating atmospheric experiences and journeys that reflect, both outwardly and inwardly, the stories, emotions and ideas of the exhibit itself, the context of its memories and the city that surrounds.

HISTORICAL MARKER

The following type is a little more ambiguous and is linked more to location than physical expression. It is included here for its relation to aspects of the intangible and its position as a true reflection of the past and present merging. Historical markers exist on sites of primary importance to the person or events being memorialised – in other words, demarcating the site or space within which the commemorated event took place. The manner with which this is done could be through a monument or landscape memorial, or alternatively, through fragments and leftover remnants specific to the event that occurred (ruins of an old building, a remaining tree or a small indicator within an open field). The site speaks for itself becoming in essence the memorial. As a result, such memorials may achieve an elevated air of sanctity.

Figure 7: Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe by Peter Eisenman (Eisenman Architects).

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

The origins of what we now call landscape architecture, the second constituent of the memoryscape type, are based within the gardens of Eastern and Western antiquity which served as figurative representations of the theoretical, mythical and religious world (Corner et al., 2014:50). Even the paradise-inspired gardens of medieval Europe that provided sensual comfort away from the untamed wilderness ‘outside’ contained religious symbols and figures (Corner et al., 2014:52). The built landscapes and domesticated gardens of the past served ultimately as representational art forms embodying divine order. However, during the 17th century, the secularization of thought and practice was beginning, and the gardens of Versailles - no longer constructed as a mediation between humans and God - are a perfect reflection of this. Moving away from being centred around a church, the grand plan of the palace complex was designed in relation to the royal point of view and sought to express a sense of infinite limitlessness (Corner et al., 2014:61). The garden still maintained a sense of symbolic power for the people of the time, but this was no longer a religious operation. It wasn’t until the mid-18th century and the advent of the Industrial Revolution that the construction of green spaces in the city was done for purely social and civic purposes. This process of industrialization was not without its negative consequences. Rapid mass urbanization ensued and cities and towns were overwhelmed by the influx of people, the effects of which were dire: intense over-crowding, substandard housing, poor sanitary and environmental conditions, extreme disease levels and an inadequate water supply were just a few of the problems to arise. In reaction to this, the development of city parks became a town planning trend and a means of including the picturesque countryside within the industrial city. By the 19th and 20th centuries, the notion of green spaces became a fundamental element in the new urban and architectural propositions emerging and the aesthetic pre-occupations of the landscape gardening of the past had become more ecologically focused. One of the most influential schemes that was produced was the radial Garden City by Ebenezer Howard (fig. 9). His concepts offered a vision of towns free of slums, enjoying the benefits of both town and country. Similarly, La Ville Radieuse by Le Corbusier was a defining moment in Modernist urban planning, functionally dividing the city and leaving large open spaces that served as public landscapes and transport thoroughfares filled with a mass of lush greenery across the city.

In current trends, landscape architecture as a type and as a profession has become a critical component in the planning of our cities and the design of our buildings, centred on sustainability and public well-being. Landscape architecture is of course concerned with a site or place, but more than anything it deals with the spirit of a place (or genius loci) (fig. 8). Operating within this typology requires a ‘reading’ of the landscape and an understanding of the cultural, environmental and political forces that have shaped its formation – the landscape, as described in the first chapter, is a palimpsest, a document of its past and present and the potential of its future. The forms and means of expression within this field are extremely varied, encompassing spaces such as public squares, plazas, parks, green belts or ecological corridors across the city.

Figure 8: Diagram outlining the spirit of a place (Holden & Liversedge, 2014:82).

Figure 9: Plan for the Garden City by Ebenezer Howard (Melia, 2016).

PROGRAMMATICAL ISSUES PALIMPSESTS & SUPERIMPOSITIONS

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he overlaps and linkages between the above two types are definitively apparent, with memorial sometimes becoming landscape or landscape architecture serving as the container for various monuments or memoried remains. In the case of a memoryscape, the two are of course inseparable and the principles of a memorial as a landscape and landscape architecture as a connector in the city or a public place of leisure and respite, are fundamental ideas related to the programming and production of a memoryscape.

In the following section a study of several precedents is provided, selected for their appropriateness and success in managing a series of issues specific to this treatise and the theoretical, contextual and programmatical investigations that have been conducted in relation to the design of a narrative memoryscape of South End. The issues include: -

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PALIMPSESTS AND SUPERIMPOSITIONS: How does one architecturally handle the layering of diverse information, particularly with regards to the intersection of tangible and intangible qualities and experiences?

MEMORY AND NARRATIVE: How do aspects of memory and narrative conflate and what are the ways in which this may be explored architecturally?

ABSTRACTION AND EXPERIENCE: Moving away from literal and figurative representational techniques, how can the characteristics of abstraction and the notions of experience and atmosphere be used to portray an intended message or feeling, or as a means of influencing an emotional and temporal journey?

PUBLIC PARKS AND ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPES: How can a public park or landscape serve functions of memory and identity while also being a place of recreation and urban connections? What are the ways in which architecture and landscape merge?

When does landscape become architecture – when does architecture become landscape?

1. SERPENTINE PAVILION 2012 - HERZOG & DE MEURON AND AI WEIWEI: Taking an archaeological approach, the 2012 pavilion inspired a view beneath the surface of Kensington Gardens into the embedded and hidden history of the park and back in time across the ghosts of the earlier installations.

Upon ‘digging’ into the ground, the designers encountered a range of constructed realities, discovering the remnants of foundations of the past eleven pavilions layered together in a jumble of convoluted lines, and out of which the distinctive excavated landscape of the pavilion emerged.

The process adopted by the designers involved the superimposition of a series of layers relating to the site and its constructed past, beginning with an overlay of the footprints of the previous pavilions. On top of this, the traces left behind (and uncovered in the ‘dig’) of the past installations were overlaid creating a palimpsest of the garden’s and gallery’s inscribed past. As such, in a process of cutting, carving and pulling, an ‘archaeological’ topography emerged that reflected this concealed history. On the foundations of each past pavilion, a single load-bearing structure was extruded, creating eleven columns for eleven pavilions (and a twelfth placed at random for the new installation) that supported the new roof floating only just above the grass, which in its own way made reference to the layers of the site, collecting a thin layer of water representative of the groundwater flowing beneath the park while simultaneously reflecting the sky and the garden surrounds.

Similarly, with the nature of the pavilion being that of a temporary installation, it was destined itself to become part of the trace and hidden narrative it sought out to reveal.

Figure 10a: Section of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012 by Herzog & De Meuron and Ai Weiwei (Domus, 2019).

Figure 10b-q: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012

by Herzog & De Meuron and Ai Weiwei (Andreani, 2019; Serpentine Gallery, 2012; Arch2o, 2012).

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Footprints of Previous Pavilions

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Footprints as Topography

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Topography and Foundations

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Traces of Previous Pavilions

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Overlaid Trace Plan

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2. PARC DE LA VILLETTE - BERNARD TSCHUMI: Arguably one of the first built works to explore concepts of superimposition and dislocation specifically, the park design, a competition-winning entry by Bernard Tschumi in 1982, has become a primary referent for this mode of operating within architecture. Reinforced by developments in philosophy, art and literature at the time, it was sought that the park’s scheme propose a strong conceptual framework that suggested potentialities of multiple combinations or substitutions whilst still maintaining the identity of the park overall. As such, the general intentions of the project were to find an organising structure that could exist independent of use and that would mitigate the typical causal relationships between form and function, structure and economics and, of course, form and programme, questioning other architectural conventions by replacing these oppositions with new concepts of contiguity, permutation, substitution and superimposition (Tschumi, 1989:177).

Tschumi’s design scheme explores the principle of superimposition with the layering of three autonomous systems of points, lines and surfaces as expressed in the respective forms of the point grid (Folies), the co-ordinate axes (covered galleries) and ‘the random curve’ (cinematic promenade), questioning in the process their conceptual status as ordering machines. The significance of the point grid as a spatial organiser rested not only in its ‘anonymity’ but in its regular and repetitive markings that defined a potentially infinite field of points of intensity, incomplete and lacking centre or hierarchy. The superimposition of each different, autonomous system, therefore, made impossible any ‘composition’ and maintained their differences without privileging any one over the other. The nature of this organisational system imposed was to ensure that another layer or another system could be introduced (by other professionals even) among the three preceding layers, insofar as discordant juxtapositions were inserted maintaining a specific aspect of the park’s theory. To quote the architect: The principle of heterogeneity - of multiple, dissociated and inherently confrontational elements - is aimed at disrupting the smooth coherence and reassuring stability of composition, promoting instability and programmatic madness (“a Folie”) (Tschumi, 1988:vi).

While many question whether Parc de la Villette is a built theory or a theoretical building, in its ultimate position as an explorative and disjunctive work, it sought to prove that it was possible to construct a complex architectural organisation without resorting to traditional rules of composition, hierarchy and order; deconstructing programme through a series of superimposed points, lines and surfaces into intense areas of activity placed according to existing site characteristics and use, enabling maximum movement through the site and wherein new discoveries and a variety of events and programmes may be encountered by visitors.

Figure 11a: Programmatic deconstruction of Parc de la Villette (Tschumi, 1989).

Figure 11b: Superimposition of points, lines and surfaces (Tschumi, 1989).

Figure 11c: Structure of the layers of Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette (Author, 2020).

MEMORY AND NARRATIVE a

1. FREEDOM PARK - MASHABANE & ROSE, GAPP AND MMA ARCHITECTS Symbolising a reconciled nation and overlooking the country’s administrative capital, the Freedom Park complex is a monumental scheme that seeks to reveal subjugated local histories and practices whilst addressing the gaps, distortions and biases of the country’s past and present, providing new perspectives of South Africa’s heritage.

The conception of this project, and its main determinants, centered around debates and explorations into the unique properties of African indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and cultural practices, the recovery of traditions and a search for ‘authentic’ forms of representation (Noble, 2011:213). The envisaged narrative of the park is re-conceptualised across an expanded timescale, starting at the beginning with the existence of early life forms and geological formations in South Africa, moving right through to the triumph of democracy and the undertaking of a renewed vision for the future of the country. Architecturally, the narrative journey created is comprised of five key elements that interpret the above explorations, they are namely the //hapo, Isivivane, S’khumbuto, Moshate and Tiva, linked by a sixth element, the Vhuwaelo, which is a contemplative journey spiralling up the hill. Additionally, this quality of narrative is extended into an explicit, if not ‘confrontational’ dialogue with the Voortrekker Monument - an infamous symbol of Afrikaner nationalism - that sits on a hill opposite to Freedom Park, a stark reminder of the country’s oppressive past.

The main features of the complex’s narrative and memorial expression are the Isivivane, S’khumbuto and //hapo museum: The Isivivane (fig. 12b) forms part of the Garden of Rembrance and is a sacred shrine and space of contemplation. Comprised of a stone circle that symbolises the final resting place of the spirits of those who died in the struggle for freedom, the composition makes reference to its originating (referential) form as a heap of stones placed at regular intervals on a long journey to mark the way ahead (Noble, 2011:235). The eleven boulders making up the Isivivane are each significant in their own right, nine of which were taking from places of ‘historical significance’ within each province and the last two are representative of the national government and international community.

The S’khumbuto (fig. 12 a, f, g) serves as a Place of Remembrance and features a long Wall of Names inscribed with the names of those who played a significant part in the eight conflicts of South Africa’s history. Its most visible feature, however, is the Sculpture of Ascending Reeds, an assemblage of steel ‘reeds’ signifying the rebirth of the South African nation. The structure marks the presence of Freedom Park atop Salvokop Hill and is visible from across the capital, in a manner that successfully dematerialises and enables a dissolution of monumental mass - a contrast to that of the Voortrekker Monument.

The //hapo (fig. 12c) museum attempts to unravel the complex tale of Africa across both time and space, exploring the great questions of, who am I and why am I here, what comes before birth and after death? Named after the Khoi word for ‘dream’, the interpretive centre tells the story of Africa and South Africa through seven distinct parts relating to the evolution of the continent and country. The building draws together all the park’s elements, organising and amplifying the embodied narratives. Additionally, the final expression of the building in the form of seven, angular, boulder-like structures is derived from the significance of boulders in indigenous practises and beliefs and serving as a primal image of stability, home, the ancestors, healing and power, and therefore outwardly illustrating its internal narratives as well as the conceptual, cultural, historical and social narratives and memories exemplified by Freedom Park as a whole.

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Figure 12a-g: Freedom Park (Auhtor, 2020; McManus, 2020; MMA, 2012; Mashabane & Rose; Newtown Landscape Architects; Archdaily, 2012).

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ABSTRACTION AND EXPERIENCE

1. VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL - MAYA LIN: Drawing upon the notion of a scar, the memorial takes the form of a V-shaped wall of black granite inscribed with the names of more than 58 000 fallen soldiers. As opposed to typically vertical war memorials, the horizontal meandering wall sits like an incision within the landscape aligned with the axes of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, tying the three together in a conversation of remembrance and history.

The experience of the memorial begins with the compositional interplay between the two planes and the movements of ascension and descension. As you move along the wall the ground descends and the height of the wall increases until you reach the centre point, where the ground begins to ascend and the height of the wall diminishes once again, disappearing into the landscape. This movement emphasises a transition between life and death, presence and absence and the context of the Washington Mall with the hallowed space of the memorial. Apart from the engraved names, no other imagery or figurative symbols are used but the polished and reflective black granite of the walls creates an interstitial space between the past and present and the living and the dead, and wherein visitors looking at the names of the soldiers will simultaneously find themselves gazing back at their own reflections.

As such visitors become active engagers with the memorial and its themes of loss, tragedy and remembrance. The abstract, minimalist design creates an experiential space that promotes contemplation, introspection and healing.

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Figure 13a-h: Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin (Klein, 2020; ASLA, 2020; 500 Random Artworks, 2013; Gintoff, 2019; Simulacra, 2009; Profiling Great Americans, 2013)

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2. IN ABSENCE PAVILION

- EDITION OFFICE & YHONNIE SCARCE Exploring the fallacy of the premise of ‘Terra Nullius’ or ‘nobody’s land’ - a justification for colonial land theft in the 18th century and which declared Australia as an emptiness awaiting ownership - the In Absence pavilion, erected in the garden of the National Gallery of Victoria, invites commentary and awareness of the ongoing legacy of the premise, bringing to light and celebrating 3000 generations of Indigenous design, industry and agriculture.

Within its placed context, the elemental exterior of the cylindrical monolith pavilion exerts a tangible presence upon the garden, rising up to meet the scale and stature of the adjacent gallery. In doing so, a dialogue is created between the two structures that speaks to the reciprocal relationship between culture and history embedded within architecture and the contextual narrative. The visual simplicity of the pavilion, with its black-stained timber construction, asserts its physical presence, invites interaction and enhances the complexity and visceral experience of the installation. The void cutting through the centre (fig. 14d) references a false absence of a people and leads the audience inwards to two ‘carved’ circular chambers that frame the sky and the dance of light and relate to the permanent stone and thatch dwellings of the Indigenous communities of Australia. Similarly, the hollows also recall the interior chambers of smoking trees used by these communities in the preservation of eels and fish. In keeping with this reference to Indigenous food and agricultural practices, the inner walls of the caverns are adorned with 1600 black, handmade, glass Murnong (yams) (fig. 14c) - a staple crop for many Indigenous communities that’s been grown and harvested for thousands of years. Additionally, these figures take on an anthropomorphic form, representing the enduring body and spirit of Indigenous culture, tradition and presence.

A landscape of Kangaroo grass, Murnong and basalt surround the tower and the introduction of scent is used to heighten the sensorial qualities and narrative echoes expressed within the work.

“In Absence seeks to use contemporary architectural strategies (site, program, structure, material), combined with the semiotic potential of architecture, art and landscape to reveal resonant stories, and by doing so to reject the systematic denial, destruction and erasure of Aboriginal knowledge and memory (design, agriculture, engineering) as part of a colonial strategy to legitimise dispossession.”

- Edition Office (Architects)

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Figure 14a-e: In Absence Pavilion (Pintos, 2020; Diosdado, 2020).

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Figure 15a-e: Superkilen Park (Archdaily, 2012; Wikipedia Commons).

PUBLIC PARKS AND ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPES

1. SUPERKILEN PARK - TOPOTEK 1 & BIG ARCHITECTS & SUPERFLEX: The almost 800m long urban space wedging through the Nørrebro neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Denmark, was designed with the intention of bringing refugees and locals together, promoting tolerance in one of the city’s most ethnically-diverse and socially-challenged communities. To the east and west of the park’s location the neighbourhood found itself cut off from the rest of the city by the presence of two major highways. Additionally, the area had become a hotspot for crime and was also subject to many instances of violence, riots and vandalism, particularly after the construction of a downtown mosque. As such, the architects turned their attention towards the creation of urban spaces that promote integration across different ethnicities, religions, cultures and languages. The park formed part of an urban upliftment scheme and was conceived as a kind of amalgamated world exposition representing more than 60 nationalities, each of which were invited to contribute their own ideas and artefacts to the project, creating what was intended to be an “artwork in progress” as opposed to a finite project. The design process of the architects followed a strategy of extreme public participation, reaching out to residents through various media to garner their visions, suggestions and inputs.

The conceptual starting point of the project was the division of the park into three distinct zones and colours: a red square, a black market and a green park (fig. 15a). The red square, brightly painted in red, orange and pink, focuses on recreation and acts as an urban extension of the sports and cultural activities of the Nørrebrohall (located within this red zone), providing a space for locals to meet through physical activity and games and wherein the events of the hall may spill out into the public realm. This zone houses a playground (made up of a slide from Chernobyl, Iraqi swings and an Indian climbing structure), a Thai boxing ring and a Jamaican sound system, to name a few.

The black market, or Mimers Plads, is the heart of the Superkilen masterplan and acts as an urban living room (or extension of the private patio) to create a space that encourages the meeting and gathering of locals around the Moroccan fountain, Turkish bench or under the Japanese cherry-trees.

The last space is that of the green park. The activities of this zone, with its soft hills and undulating surfaces, are centered around sport and interaction but also around the element of nature and recreation, establishing a space for picnics, walks, soccer games or sunbathing.

The park, a sort of surrealist (if not kitsch) collection of transposed objects and expression of global urban diversity, reflects the true face of the neighbourhood rather than perpetuating a petrified image of a homogeneous Denmark.

Some of the objects present within the park include: - Star-shaped Moroccan fountain that provides a place where parents can sit and chat while their kids play (fig. 15d) - Basketball hoops from Mogadishu - Exercise equipment from Muscle Beach in Los Angeles - Octopus playground fro children from Japan - Elephant slide from Chernobyl - Chess tables from Bulgaria for people of all ages to come together to play - Armenian picnic tables (fig. 15e) - Braai facilities from South Africa - Bus stop from Kazakhstan - Benches from Germany - Palm-trees from China - 3 tonnes of soil from Palestine, inspired by two teenage girls who had never touched their home soil The park is therefore an extended meeting place, both for the locals of the area and for the cultures and representations expressed by the park’s chosen objects, creating a dialogue between them while also asserting a new united and collective narrative for the community. While the success of the scheme, both in its construction and overall concept, has come under critique, the intention of the design was always to create, support and celebrate diversity and the surrounding community.

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PRINCIPLES & INFERENCES: ESTABLISHING THE POINTS OF EXPLORATION Comprising a critical summation of the investigations and conclusions of the previous sections, the following chapter presents a selection of points and ideas that serve as guiding principles for the explorations of the chapters to follow and for the development of the final design. These principles reflect the transmedial relationship between architecture and literary theory, providing strategies with which to approach the mediation and amalgamation of these mechanisms into a cohesive architectural project. Additionally, a series of precedents that have managed or operated within the framework of these principles is included.

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TRANSLATION AND METAPHOR

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alter Benjamin, in The Task of the Translator (1970), outlines the process of translation between two languages as a productive exercise, rather than a literal one, out of which new meanings may arise. From this view, the two independent languages exist in a reciprocal and supplementary relationship, where the interactions of their differences can bring forth new interpretations and understandings of the work and its concepts - in other words, the translation, decontextualisation and ‘deformation’ of the original may illuminate meanings and perceptions that may otherwise have been hidden.

Similarly, the concept of metaphor is directly linked to that of translation and by definition they are one and the same. As pointed out by the Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, metaphor is the use of a literal meaning in a figurative sense, so that it is no longer empirically true, thus engineering a creative lie by saying what an object is by means of saying what it is not (Young, 2003:139) - a principle inherent to the practice and function of magical realism as a critical voice.

Therefore, without resorting to abstractions of postcolonial theory, the concept of translation is closely tied to the activity and political dynamic of postcolonialism and one which helps bridge the diverse situations and issues encountered within a postcolonial context. In its quotidian function, translation begins as a matter of intercultural communication, but in so doing, always involves questions of power and dominance. The act of translation never takes place within a neutral space of absolute equality and therefore cannot avoid its political associations and relation to power.

Translation serves as both a literal and metaphorical displacement of a text from one language to another, transforming both its linguistic and material identity, an act resembling the process of colonisation in all its facets.

Expanding on the work of Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida in Des Tours de Babel (1986) and Mark Wigley in the The Architecture of Deconstruction (1993), explore ideas of translation through the lens of deconstruction, focusing on the dismantling of texts, signs and other networks of established relations. Employing the strategy of différance whereby meaning differs and is deferred from an expected definition, translation establishes a conversational frontier for the interaction between ‘us’ and the ‘other’, dissolving the boundary and questioning the implied hierarchies between these binary oppositions.

“Just as the translator must break open the language of the text to ‘liberate’ what is ‘imprisoned’ within it, the translation must equally ‘break through the decayed barriers’ of its own language. What is liberated from the text is not some fixed meaning, but a ‘state of flux’ as ‘alien’ to the language of the translation that releases it as to the text that concealed it.”

METALEPSIS

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- Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction

s a narratalogical term, first identified by the literary theorist, Gérard Genette, metalepsis refers to the paradoxical transgression of the boundaries between narrative levels or two distinct worlds. Metalepsis is therefore a clever trick based upon the division between the frame and the framed, diagesis and mimesis, or an infringement between the world of the telling and the world of the told. In doing so, it allows for the audience, viewer or reader to encounter some form of themselves, installed within the mimetic particulars of the work while equally allowing the characters or narrative elements to ‘escape’ from their mimetic prisons, breaking through their contained frames (Kunze, 2014:5). However, metalepsis is not simply an abstract condition but is instead a staged collapse of the spatial and temporal protocols that usually separate the ‘audience and the show’. The infraction of this boundary is directly tied to the narrative forms inherent in the literary Fantastic and the genre of magic realism, wherein the disruptions of accepted realities and an ‘architecture of detached virtuality’ are the norm (Kunze, 2014:6).

Within this realm of metalepsis and the Fantastic, four narrative motifs are identified that, despite serving the same purpose, are distinct in their operation and application:

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1. THE DOUBLE AND THE OTHER A common strategy created from the reflection of the self and/or reality into a projected ‘other’, it is similar to the motif of the doppelgänger or the paradox of encountering oneself as another whereby the uncanny is representative of something familiar.

Strategies: - repetition - multiplication - being inbetween - mirroring - inversion - figure/ground - positive/negative

2. THE STORY IN A STORY The ‘story in a story’ is a motif central to the actions of metalepsis. It is in essence the placement of the work inside the work such that it becomes an element within the mimetic frame. The audience/viewer/reality becomes part of this mimetic representation in the form of the fictionalised double, provoking skepticism and a feeling of the Fantastic.

Strategies: - overlapping - layering - offsetting - trace - palimpsest 3. DISPLACEMENT Displacement is closely related to the idea of parallax and the shifting of a viewpoint to provide new visions, new associations and alternative interpretations of a narrative or idea. The term implies a defamiliarisation and decontextualisation of the accepted view of reality, transforming or deviating from what would be received as the ‘norm’.

Strategies: - altered realities - oblique views - shifted depths - anamorphosis - fragmentation - scaling 4. CONTAMINATION Contamination involves the invasion of reality by a dream or story or more appropriately, the imposition of the magic within the real. It invites dissent, conflict or an interruption of the status quo, bringing about a philosophical self-reflection in a literal and dimensional way.

Strategies: - liminality - blurred boundaries - deformation - discord - distortion - hybridisation - interpolation

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PRECDENT ANALYSIS

MOVING ARROWS, EROS & OTHER ERRORS - PETER EISENMAN: Operating within the principles of both metalepsis and translation, but from a more abstract position, Peter Eisenman’s explorative project, Moving Arrows, Eros and Other Errors (also known simply as Romeo and Juliet) is, in essence, a series of site scalings and formal registrations (mere marks within the existing cityscape) that negotiate themes of union, division and relation in the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet, becoming - if ever built - a physical fiction or literary work of earth and stone.

Within this project, Eisenman employs an other discourse and attempts to debunk the false assumption that architecture must be anthropocentrically situated. Similarly, the project tries to expose the narrow and reductive ways in which the world is made known to us through architecture (Whiteman, 1986:76) arguing for an architectural representation that is less literal and more complex in its operation.

The architectural device utilised within the design is that of scaling. Not to be confused with architectural scale and its related notion of size, ‘scaling’ is a method by which certain properties of an object (its plan or structure, for example) are selected or isolated from their initial context and translated to a different location and represented at a different scale in juxtaposition to objects or representations within this new context (Whiteman, 1986:78). Scaling is not a measuring device nor does it base itself upon any single, privileged referent (like that of the human body in architectural scale), but instead offers a new mode of architectural intervention with the potential to destabilise often inflexible tenets within architecture. In the context of this scheme, Eisenman uses scaling as a means of rupturing our accepted spatial frames of reference by forcing us to confront images in their altered contexts and ‘artificial’ scales. The project, therefore, aims to avoid an architecture where formal and structural relationships are set in a fixed and ‘natural’ hierarchy, but rather seeks relationships (through scaling) that may be nested within one another ‘to produce an unending reflexive series of related images’ (Whiteman, 1986:78) that force us to rethink our ideas of the literal or ‘real’.

The mechanism of scaling used within this project proposes three strategies of destabilisation, namely discontinuity, recursivity and self-similarity that confront the notions of presence, origin and the aesthetic in three aspects of the architectural discourse: site, programme and representation. The first aspect questioned is the idea that site is a reality containing only presence and an entity that exists as a permanent, knowable whole. Instead, ‘the site’ must be treated not only as a presence but also as both a palimpsest and a quarry, containing traces of memory and immanence - it is non-static. The second aspect confronted is the notion that the programme is a source of originary value. Criticising the idea that from a properly elaborated programme good architecture will follow, the programme of this project was to translate the dominant recurring themes in the story of Romeo and Juliet directly onto the map of Verona at the site of two castles, thus allowing for the fictional text to provide the programme which in turn destabilises the established value placed on programme and function.

The project becomes a fiction of a fiction, superimposing individual entities into even larger unities.

The three themes or structural relationships of the narrative forming the basis of the ‘architectural programme’ consist of division (the separation of the lovers - the balcony), union (marriage of the lovers - the church) and their dialectical relationship (the togetherness and apartness of the lovers Juliet’s tomb) are also existent at a physical level in the actual plan for the city of Verona - the cardo and decumanus divide the city, the old Roman grid unites it and the Adige River creates a dialectical condition of union and division between the two halves. Additionally, the physical analogues of the fictional narrative themes (balcony, church and tomb) supposedly exist within Verona today, creating a strange overlap and presence of these fictional ‘realities’ within the physical conditions of the ‘real’ (an experiential simultaneity of both text and object) and further enhancing the transposition of reality and fiction attempted within this project. The final aspect confronted is that of representation. In architecture discourse is represented through figuration (object) and representation thus mediates and separates discourse from figuration. However, in the Romeo and Juliet project, figuration is merged with discourse to achieve an architecture as a ‘text’ that holds the capacity for an infinite combination of previous texts into new ones - narrative is no longer teleological but an infinite series of infinite superimpositions that yield open-ended readings in their three-dimensional experience.

Within the project, the fiction of the narrative is reconstructed through the fiction of the site and the fiction of the representation (elements that architecture can ‘manage’) utilising scaling as a way of putting fiction on the ground. The project presents a new reading of the legendary tale and a new reading of architectural representation and operation, seeking not to close or unify, but to open and disperse, fragment and destabilise traditional modes of architecture and the accepted oppositions between fiction and reality, the concrete and the abstract and the figurative and the formal.

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Figure 16a-q: Selected plates and exhibition drawings from Moving Arrows, Eros and Other Errors (Whiteman, 1986; CCA).

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NORTHERN CAPE LEGISLATURE - LUIS FERREIRA DA SILVA ARCHITECTS: Taking a more figurative and expressive approach to the inclusion of magical realism within the architecture’s conception and expression, the Northern Cape Legislature by Luis Ferreira da Silva Architects is a project bringing together two distinct realms into a singular, ‘strange-familiar’, hybridised form.

After the end of Apartheid, the map of South Africa was redrawn and nine new provincial regions were established. As such, the province of the Northern Cape required a new provincial legislature, representative of South Africa’s new, hybrid identity and transition into a democratic state. Located in Kimberley, a town rich in colonial history and symbolism, the selected site for the project was once an apartheid-style buffer strip and was chosen as part of a symbolic and developmental attempt to bridge the divide between the former black and white residential sides of the town. Additionally, the project brief required that the buildings “reflect the cultural aspirations and characteristics of the Northern Cape” (Independent Development Trust, 1997:19), outlining an extensive list of contextual reference to be considered, which included reference to the natural, cultural and political heritage of the area, the local fauna and flora and the archaeological pre-colonial and indigenous settlement patterns, rituals, artefacts and rock engravings. Of course, being the first major public building of the Northern Cape, the new legislature needed to have a distinctive presence befitting of its role, but the architect’s sought not to create a ‘traditional’ building that mimicked the images of the institutions of the apartheid era but instead presented a creative design richly layered with diverse and complex inclusions.

Having inferred from the brief the need for a series of separate buildings, the architects drew upon the traditions of the Sangoma and the divine ritual of throwing bones, engaging in a design process that involved that shaping of each mass in Plastercine and then throwing the pieces on the ground (Noble, 2009:52). Having done so a few times, the patterns were recorded, studied, rationalised and eventually translated into the form of the plan. Additionally, the plan’s loose scatter of building fragments was also said to resemble the fluidity of pre-colonial architecture, like those at the nearby archaeological site of Dithakong (Noble, 2009:52).

The essence of the building’s design lies in its composition of a series of incongruous juxtapositions, from the scatter of the plan to the imaginative and unique tectonic forms of the five buildings on site, each exploring and expressing different visions and narratives. From the snake-like walls of the Members of Parliament building to the symbolic cone lookout tower contrasted against the sweeping, outstretched, winged facade of the Assembly, these complex, formal decisions are complemented further by an equally intricate and diverse play of ‘metaphoric’ surface treatments. Thus, as much as the building’s form sought expression of a new identity, its ‘skin’ simultaneously pursued the idea through the inclusion of symbolic and resonant architectural adornment. Taking clues from the tangible, intangible, indigenous and post-apartheid contexts of the area, the rich decorative palette, consisting of mosaics, protrusions, incisions, inserts, sculptures or enigmatic fragments, was employed by the artist, Clive van den Berg, who made use of the buildings’ surfaces (both internally and externally) as a large scale canvas for imaginative, ‘magical’ and decorative intervention (as opposed to hanging on art on the walls as is customary in Western, colonial/neo-colonial government buildings) (Noble, 2009:56).

This form of narrative artistry intended at giving a voice to post-apartheid subjectivity, drawing from material sources, landscape formations, expressive languages and other forms of subjectivity denied within the regimes of colonialism and Apartheid.

For example, the cone tower overlooking the People’s Square (fig. 17e), richly textured in van den Berg’s designs. Mosaic depictions of South African state presidents (such as Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki) line the bottom of the tower, with blank space left for the inclusion of future leaders and to emphasise an intent for incomplete and open narrative that may be altered over time. Above, glass bulb sculptures protrude from the cone’s edge, glinting in the sun, inspired by colourful beadwork adorning traditional Xhosa blankets. Further up, an enigmatic, floating, “sleeping head” mosaic, as the artist calls it, lies horizontally, looking down upon the square from another space and time - a “figure in the imaginary”, in the realm of spiritual reflection (Noble, 2009:64). This manoeuvre establishes a metaphorical and imaginative dialogue with the traditions of the ancestor and enhances the legislature’s stance as an architecture that promotes a cosmopolitan, African narrative that opens a dialogue for previously suppressed subjectivities and histories.

Recognising the multiplicity of cultural difference, the project operates within an expanded field of metaphoric reference, layering rich and diverse cultural, spiritual and political references - conceptually, ideologically and physically - into an amalgamated experience that superimposes the ‘marvellous’ and the ‘real’ in an open dialogue between the ancient, traditional or indigenous world and the modern one.

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Figure 17a-f: The Northern Cape Legislature with its magical realist surface treatments (Wikipedia; Northern Cape Provincial Legislature; Alexander, 2019; Noble, 2009).

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SUMMATION

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onducted as a collective exploration, the content and investigations carried out within the preceding chapters conclude the ‘theoretical’ premises upon which the ‘practical’ manifestations are founded or, more appropriately, that which the final design seeks to express.

The first chapter established an enquiry into the complex intra- and interrelationship shared between memory, identity, narrative and place, extending this discussion to include the literary genre of magical realism and its dependency upon the elements of space and time in its pursuit of unbounded limits. In this, magical realism was explored as a medium of the postcolonial voice and a means with which subjugated narratives may be unearthed. This condition of embedded narratives in postcolonial contexts and spaces of memory formed the basis of the second chapter, which explored the map and the notion of mapping as a function of power and storytelling. Consequently, the selected site of South End, Port Elizabeth, was ‘narratively’ and thematically mapped to reveal the tangible and intangible memories, stories, events and characteristics entrenched within the suburb. The third chapter followed with a more pragmatic analysis of memoryscape as the identified project type, understanding its position within the interstices of memorial and landscape architecture. This chapter also presented a series of precedent studies that were selected for their varying responses to particular issues outlined in relation to the type and to the aims of this treatise. Lastly, the fourth chapter identified a set of principles that encompass the intersections of architecture and magical realism, providing guiding concepts and strategies to be applied in the development of the design project to follow, ending with the inclusion of a precedent study of two architectural projects that productively managed and utilised the principles described.

The performative space between image and text is effortlessly inhabited by narrative storytelling and, when utilised, creates an active ground for observing and experimenting with space, time and other phenomena. In contexts of memory and erasure, what is remembered is multilayered and intrinsically subjective and often at the mercy of the selections of a time, place and people. But beyond the recall of singular facts, memory is about the making of connections within a complex network - one that consists of both the imagined and the experienced and their subsequent exchange. The co-existence of these different realms describes what the philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (1986-89), calls crystal-image, that is, the indiscernability between or co-existence of the past and the present, the real and the imaginary or the actual and the virtual. This, of course, is directly related to the conditions of magical realism wherein the paradox of these binaries are embraced, their boundaries are dismantled and their ‘realities’ are intertwined. Capturing these qualities, both experientially and conceptually, whilst appropriately negotiating and expressing the narrative of South End is central to the explorations of the chapters that ensue.

DESIGNING A SOUTH END MEMORYSCAPE Following an interactive process of exploration and development, the following chapter encompasses the application of the research and principles outlined in the previous sections towards an articulation of the project brief and the various atmospheric, tectonic and aesthetic strategies that comprise the final design presented in the chapter to follow.

PROJECT BRIEF PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The story of South End forms a major component of the identity of the city, but at present, and most likely as a consequence of the limited, tangible past-South End resources available, little has been done outside of the South End Museum and the gatherings of the previous residents that actively and dynamically engages with the public at large, in order to foster a broader knowledge of South End and its past.

With the task of designing a magical realist memoryscape, the project proposes a narrative journey through the suburb and along a route of four interventions taking form as metaphorical or speculative ‘cities’ that architecturally, abstractly and experientially represent the story of South End. Drawing upon the principles of magical realism and the explorations conducted within this treatise, these cities seek equally to disrupt the accepted perceptions of South End, revealing hidden narratives and opening up imaginative dialogues between the past and the present, the conscious and the subconscious, and the material and immaterial.

THE SITE:

While the suburb of South End serves as both the collective location and the conceptual inspiration for the developments to come, the ‘city’ interventions are each situated upon their own site within the area, determined via an interpretive process conducted within this chapter.

PROGRAMMATIC COMPONENTS: Subverting the recognisable and enabling opportunities for the familiar to be come strange, the four cities make use of juxtapositions, details, illogical compositions, layered imagery and surreal disjunctions to create an architecture that brings the ‘magic’ and the ‘real’ into a single choreography that is reflective of a narrative cartography of South End. The Dream City: is temporally located within South End prior to the forced removals

and seeks to reflect the qualities of a dream while also capturing the energetic soul of the community.

The Nightmare City: attempts to communicate the effects of Apartheid ideologies, the altering of the suburb, the feelings endured and the destruction and loss that occurred as a result .

The Memory City: is positioned within South End in its altered state, but delves more into the essences of these changes, the traces of moments forgotten and the presence of those which persist in lingering.

The Conscious City: is a recognition of South End in the now, a palimpsest of layers, some erased, some still visible and some new; it serves as a confluence of the Dreams, Nightmares and Memories explored and is the beginning and the end of the memoryscape journey.

For us, building a structure resembles the weaving of a story.

A thrilling fantasy begins in the familiar world around us, but then, at some point, carries us off to another world altogether.

Through architecture, we hope to discover methods by which the struggle with reality can take us beyond mere extensions of our daily lives, and by which we can create a peaceful yet variegated world that welcomes everyone and everything associated with it.

- Maki Onishi & Yuki Hyakuda

“

“

THE TREATISE AS MEMORYSCAPE

C

entral to this treatise is its position within the realm of magical realism, both from a postcolonial and theoretical perspective as well as a conceptual and expressive mode. The treatise, therefore, operates within the in-between of both literary fiction and architectural reality, where familiar places find themselves part of imagined and unexpected realities.

As such, the memoryscape of South End is constructed through the medium of architectural short stories manifested as metaphoric city visions that overlay, intrude or distort the reality of the suburb as it is at present.

To further understand this mode of working, two projects, both of which transgress or blur the boundaries between literature and architecture, have been read, explored and adopted as the referential basis for the nature of the memoryscape being developed.

The two projects in question, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and Short Stories: London in Twoand-a-Half Dimensions by CJ Lim and Ed Liu, combine the elements of architecture, fiction and prose as the central medium for the expression of their ideas, making use of metaphors, symbolism, fantasy and the like to either subvert, comment on or expose particular conditions of a city.

Exploring the imagination and the imaginable, Invisible Cities presents a variegated sequence of imagined dialogues between the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, and the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, wherein Polo entertains the aging Khan with a series of Fantastic tales regarding the metropolises he has supposedly journeyed through on his travels within the empire. The fifty-five different descriptions can be read as parables or meditations on culture, language, time, memory or death and are arranged within eleven identified categories that convey the realities and potentialities of the city as the ultimate reflection of human civilisation (Modena, 2011:2): Cities and Memory, Cities and Desire, Cities and Signs, Thin Cities, Trading Cities, Cities and Eyes, Cities and Names, Cities and the Dead, Cities and the Sky, Continuous Cities and Hidden Cities. These fictitious cities narrated by Polo, however distinct they may appear, are all descriptions of one city, Venice, a fact revealed in a surprising declaration made halfway through the book: “Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice” (Calvino, 1972:86).

This revealing and re-presentation of a real place through the elements of fiction and the Fantastic is a technique also adopted by the second project investigated. Set within different time periods, CJ Lim and Ed Liu’s Short Stories are intentionally located in the liminal space between architecture and fiction, transforming a variety of places and spaces within London into active protagonists. Unlike in Invisible Cities, whose medium is purely written text, the narratives within Short Stories are represented through an intersection of paper and text, making use of both a series of collages depicting a network of spatial relationships, and a written text that interweaves qualities from a number of different genres, such as science fiction, magical realism and the fairy tale. Through this, a new vision of London is presented and a space is opened up wherein architects, readers, inhabitants and even bystanders can behold, dream of, speculate on or re-discover the potentials of architecture and the narrative of the city.

Of course, operating within this mode raises some questions and concerns. Is there validity or substance to such an approach? Is the architect merely playing the role of a court jester, hypnotised by fantasies and fairy tales that take no cognizance of the ongoings of the real world around? In heeding these concerns, Geoff Manuagh (2011) argues for the potentialities of this mode: “[...] Architects telling stories with and through complex spatial representations—rather than merely supplying construction documents—brings them into contact with all the arts and sciences that have always and already used the built environment as a framework for larger, abstract ideas. Architectural mythology doesn’t cede anyone’s right—or political ability—to change the city, any more than cinema, games, music, poetry, or narrative fiction might do, despite fundamentalist claims that these operate as nothing but middle-class distractions; in all cases, these and other speculative entertainments are often precisely the reason why new visions of human community, spatial justice, and cathartic well-being arise in the first place.”

Figure 18: Excerpt from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, city of Eudoxia (Calvino, 1972:96).

Figure 19: Dream Isle (Manaugh, 2011).

PLACE-ING THE MEMORYSCAPE

W

ith the aim of creating a narrative journey through and of South End, the sites of the metaphorical cities are determined by means of a symbolic and translative process. The intersecting points of the superimposed layers (A) determine the places within South End where the architectural imposition may be located.

Adopting the view of South End as the base of the journey, the process in determining the form of the ‘route’ to be overlayed is as follows: 1. Origin - ‘real’ South End outline 2. Division - cutting the map in half 3. Inversion - reflection of the ‘real’ 4. Fragmentation - cutting the maps in half 5. Encounter - merging of the original and the subverted halves 6. Hybrid - new, amalgamated South End outline as journey route The notions of journey and migration have been central to the experiences of South End’s past, from its origin to its resultant present form. Therefore, in continuing this theme of journey and the exploration into the ‘route’ of the memoryscape, the new hybrid outline is overlayed by two other conditions of movement (9): 7. the Agulhas current of the Indian Ocean references the enslaved Malays brought over to South Africa and the first settlers of South End as it was to become 8. the lines of dispersal followed by the non-white residents as a result of the forced removals of the Group Areas Act of 1950.

A

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

IDENTIFYING THE ‘CITY’ SITES

T

hrough the site selection process, seven sites were identified, with an eighth site, site A, chosen for its relationship to the fig tree, its frontage of the city and the remnants of the old South End that have remained on the site - thus, the site serves as the amalgamated start and end of the journey and the site of the Conscious City.

The other sites are all conditionally similar and are located within and between the enclaved residential complexes of the suburb. The sites that are between (C, D, F, G) are viewed as transitional spaces within the narrative and places wherein the particularities of each theme or story are blurred.

EARLY SKETCHES AND CONCEPTUAL EXPLORATIONS

T

he adjacent sketches are a collection of some early conceptual ideas and explorations into some felt expressions for some of the cities. A few of the ideas that were carried through and developed were the ideas of labyrinths, fragmented cities and the interplay between repetition/homogeneity and variation/heterogeneity.

DREAM CITY STORYBOARD AND NOTATIONAL EXPLORATIONS

1

2

3

4

5

6

DIAGRAMMATIC DEVELOPMENT

E

xploring the essences of South End prior to the forced removals, the concept of the Dream City draws upon aspects of verticality and looks to reflect South End as stacked, vertical city reaching into the sky or ‘dream realm’. The arrangement of the city looks to the gridded footprint of the old South End for its form, within which the footprint of one of the Griddlestone Houses is used to organise the linear pattern into unit blocks. These units form the vertical city towers of the Dream City.

1. Positioning the city 2. Establishing the organisational layout based on the old South End grid 3. Defining the built arrangement 4. Superimposing the Dream City grid on site 5. Dream City Towers based on the Griddlestone House 1 footprint 6. Final Dream City plan

NIGHTMARE CITY STORYBOARD AND NOTATIONAL EXPLORATIONS

1

DIAGRAMMATIC DEVELOPMENT

T

he concept of the Nightmare City is in someways an inversion of the Dream City. Reflecting the effects of the forced removals and the destruction and eradication of a community and neighbourhood, the concept demonstrates the conquest of a rich, multi-cultural community with the conditions of modernity, universality and repetition. The intention of the concept is to showcase that the South End of today and the ideologies that built it exists on top of the fragments of what once was.

1. Creating a connective grid from the places subjected to forced removals across South Africa 2. Inverting the Griddlestone House 2 footprint and overlaying the forced removal grid 3. Using the grid to create the arrangement of trench cuts 4. Fragmentation of the city and its footprint 5. Final Nightmare City plan and section

2

3

4

5

MEMORY CITY STORYBOARD AND NOTATIONAL EXPLORATIONS

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

4

DIAGRAMMATIC DEVELOPMENT

T

he Memory City is based upon the idea of both a cabinet of curiosities and the labyrinth of remembering and forgetting. The concept looks to reflect a city as a storage of memories, exploring our relationship with objects as repositories of the past, present and future.

1. Duplicating and inverting the Griddlestone House 3 footprint 2. Superimposing and intercepting the two footprints 3. Arranging the Memory City plan 4. Final Memory City axonometric

1

2

3

111

CONSCIOUS CITY STORYBOARD AND NOTATIONAL EXPLORATIONS

112

LAYERED NARRATIVES

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1

2

3

4

5

DIAGRAMMATIC DEVELOPMENT

T

he Conscious City is an amalgamation of the elements and ideas of the previous cities, overlaying and exposing the narratives of the past and present to create a more comprehensive reflection of the South End story and doing so with a vision of the future.

1. Establishing Grid A on the pattern of the old South End houses 2. Deriving Grid B from the Griddlestone House 4 3. Superimposing Grid A and Grid B 4. Overlaying the concepts and footprints of the Dream, Nightmare and Memory Cities 5. Final Conscious City arrangement

115

116

FINAL PRESENTATION

BENEATH THE SHADOW OF A FIG TREE

117

D M

N

C

THE DREAM CITY

121

122

THE NIGHTMARE CITY

124

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126

THE MEMORY CITY

THE CONSCIOUS CITY

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133

CONSCIOUS FIELDS: EXPLO

ORATORY SITE EXPRESSION

COMPOSITE CARTOGRAPHY: A N

NARRATIVE MAP OF SOUTH END

LIST OF FIGURES

INTRODUCTION

Cover: Erased Memories. Author. 2020 Figure 1: Diagram idenitfying the structure and position of this treatise. Author. 2020

CHAPTER 1

Cover: South End Fig Tree (detail). Author. 2019 Figure 2: Corner, J., Bick Hirsch, A., 2014. The Landscape Imagination: Collected Essays of James Corner 1990-2010.

New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

CHAPTER 2

Cover: South End Demolitions (historical photograph). Unknown.

Figure 3: Collage of historical maps of Port Elizabeth. Unknown.

Figure 4a: Neighbourhoods across the country altered by the Group Areas Act of 1950. Author. 2020 Figure 4b: Forced removals from South End, Port Elizabeth. Author. 2020

CHAPTER 3

Cover: Öhlander, F. 2017. Available: https://unsplash.com/photos/CbeApl8sxxw [30 April 2020].

Figure 5: Structure of the discussion for chapter 3. Author. 2020.

Figure 6: Horse Memorial Monument. Author. 2020.

Figure 7: Peter Eisenman Architects. Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Available: https:// eisenmanarchitects.com/Berlin-Memorial-to-the-Murdered-Jews-of-Europe-2005 [4 September 2020].

Figure 8: Holden, R. & Liversedge, J. 2014. Landscape Architecture: An Introduction. London: Laurence King.

Figure 9: Melia, S. 2016. Constellation - Neo Futurism. Available: https://shaymeliaa.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/ constellation-neo-futurism-24112016-session-8/ [4 September 2020].

Figure 10a: Andreani, S. 2019. Serpentine Pavilion, all the 20 projects. Available: https://www.domusweb.it/en/ architecture/2019/06/21/twenty-tests-of-serpentine-pavilion.html [4 September 2020].

Figure 10b: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012 by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. 2012. Available: https:// www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/serpentine-gallery-pavilion-2012-herzog-de-meuron-and-ai-weiwei/ [4 September 2020].

Figure 10c-d: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion - Herzog and de Meuron. 2012. Available: https://www.arch2o.com/ serpentine-gallery-pavilion-2012-herzog-de-meuron/ [4 September 2020].

Figure 10e-q: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012 by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. 2012. Available: https:// www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/serpentine-gallery-pavilion-2012-herzog-de-meuron-and-ai-weiwei/ [4 September 2020].

Figure 11a-b: Tschumi, B. 1989. Parc de la Villette, Paris. In A. Papadakis, C. Cooke & A. Benjamin (eds.)

Deconstruction: Omnibus Volume. London: Academy Editions.

Figure 11c: Structure of the layers of Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette. Author. 2020.

Figure 12a: Sketch of the S’khumbuto - Sculpture of Ascending Reeds. Author. 2020.

Figure 12b: Mcmanus, D. 2020. Freedom Park - Pretoria Building. Available: https://www.e-architect.co.uk/ images/jpgs/africa/freedom_park_gapp110808_10.jpg [5 September 2020].

Figure 12c: MMA Design Studio. 2012. Freedom Park – Phase 2 + Phase 2A – //hapo. Available: http://mmastudio. co.za/portfolio/freedom-park-phase-2-phase-2a-xhapo/ [5 September 2020].

Figure 12d: Mashabane & Rose Architects. Freedom Park. Available: http://mashabanerose.co.za/freedom-park [5 September 2020].

Figure 12e: Newton Landscape Architects. Freedom Park - S’khumbuto. Available: http://newla.co.za/projects/ freedom_park_intermediate.php [5 September 2020].

Figure 12f: MMA Design Studio. 2006. Freedom Park – Phase 1A – Isikhumbuto. Available: http://mmastudio. co.za/portfolio/freedom-park-phase-1a-isikhumbuto/ [5 September 2020].

Figure 12g: Archdaily. 2012. Freedom Park, Phase 1/GAPP + Mashabane Rose Architects + MMA. Available: https://www.archdaily.com/297678/freedom-park-phase-1-gapp-mashabane-rose-architectsmma/50af8717b3fc4b0cad000022-freedom-park-phase-1-gapp-mashabane-rose-architects-mma-photo?next_ project=no [5 September 2020].

Figure 13a: Klein, C. 2020. The Remarkable Story of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Available: https://www. biography.com/news/maya-lin-vietnam-veterans-memorial [5 September 2020].

Figure 13b: American Society of Landscape Architects. 2020. Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Available: https://www. asla.org/guide/site.aspx?id=35782 [5 September 2020].

Figure 13c: 500 Random Artworks. 2013. 436. Vietnam Veterans Memorial - Maya Lin - 1982 - Washington D.C. Available: http://500randomartworks.blogspot.com/2013/09/436-vietnam-veterans-memorial-maya-lin.html [5 September 2020].

Figure 13d-e: Klein, C. 2020. The Remarkable Story of Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Available: https:// www.biography.com/news/maya-lin-vietnam-veterans-memorial [5 September 2020].

Figure 13f: Gintoff, V. 2019. Spotlight: Maya Lin. Available: https://www.archdaily.com/774717/spotlight-mayalin?ad_source=search&ad_medium=search_result_all [5 September 2020].

Figure 13g: Simulacra. 2009. Case Study: Memorial, Vietnam Veteran Memorial. Available: http:// architecturalcasestudies.blogspot.com/2009/10/case-study-memorial-vietnam-veteran.html [5 September 2020].

Figure 13h: Great Americans A to Z: Maya Lin. 2013. Available: http://chontalikirk.blogspot.com/2013/04/greatamericans-to-z-maya-lin.html [5 September 2020].

Figure 14a-b: Pintos, P. (ed.). 2020. In Absence Pavilion / Edition Office + Yhonnie Scarce. Available: https:// www.archdaily.com/938826/in-absence-pavilion-edition-office-plus-yhonnie-scarce?ad_source=search&ad_ medium=search_result_all [5 September 2020].

Figure 14c: Diosdado, A. 2020. In Absence, A Black Pavilion Explores Colonisation in Australia by Edition Office and Yhonnie Scarce. Available: https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/absence-a-black-pavilion-explores-colonisationaustralia-edition-office-and-yhonne-scarce [5 September 2020].

Figure 14d-e: Pintos, P. (ed.). 2020. In Absence Pavilion / Edition Office + Yhonnie Scarce. Available: https:// www.archdaily.com/938826/in-absence-pavilion-edition-office-plus-yhonnie-scarce?ad_source=search&ad_ medium=search_result_all [5 September 2020].

Figure 15a-b: Archdaily. 2012. Superkilen / Topotek 1 + BIG Architects + Superflex. Available: https://www. archdaily.com/286223/superkilen-topotek-1-big-architects-superflex [5 September 2020].

Figure 15c-e: Wikipedia Commons. 2020. Superkilen. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superkilen [5 September 2020].

CHAPTER 4

Cover: Ferbugs. 2020. Grayscale Photography of Open Books. Available: https://images.pexels.com/ photos/3525384/pexels-photo-3525384.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260 [12 May 2020].

Figures 16a-g: Digitized Items for Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors, Romeo & Juliet.

Available: https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/search?page=1&digigroup=397021 [31 August 2020].

Figures 16h-k: Whiteman, J. 1986. Site Unscene - Notes on Architecture and the Concept of Fiction: Moving Arrows, Eros and Other Errors. AA Files, 12: 79-84. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29543520 [12 July 2020].

Figure 16l-n: Digitized Items for Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors, Romeo & Juliet. Available: https://www. cca.qc.ca/en/search?page=1&digigroup=397021 [31 August 2020].

Figure 16o-q: Whiteman, J. 1986. Site Unscene - Notes on Architecture and the Concept of Fiction: Moving Arrows, Eros and Other Errors. AA Files, 12: 79-84. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29543520 [12 July 2020].

Figure 17a: Wikipedia Commons. Available: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ ca/Northern_Cape_Provincial_Legislature_building.jpg/1200px-Northern_Cape_Provincial_Legislature_ building.jpg [4 September 2020].

Figure 17b: Google Earth. Author. 2020.

Figure 17c: Wikipedia Commons. Available: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/ Images_of_anti-apartheid_activists_at_the_NC_Provincial_Legislature.jpg/800px-Images_of_anti-apartheid_ activists_at_the_NC_Provincial_Legislature.jpg [4 September 2020].

Figure 17d: Photo Gallery. Northern Cape Provincial Legislature. Available: http://www.ncpleg.gov.za/whatsnew/photo-gallery/nggallery/members/Building [4 September 2020].

Figure 17e: Alexander, M. 2019. The nine provinces of South Africa. Available: https://southafrica-info.com/ land/nine-provinces-south-africa/ [4 September 2020].

Figure 17 f-g: Noble, J.A. 2009. Architecture and the othe[r]eal. South African Journal of Art History, 24(1):48-66.

Available: https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/14002 [4 September 2020].

CHAPTER 5

Cover: Baranwal, Y. 2020. Available: https://unsplash.com/photos/YQCZTzRnxVw [22 July 2020].

Figure 18: Manugh, G. 2011. Fiction and the City. Available: http://www.bldgblog.com/2011/04/fiction-and-thecity/ [29 October 2020].

Figure 19: Calvino, I. 1972. Invisible Cities. Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company.

CHAPTER 6

Cover: Olichon, A. 2019. Tree. Available: https://images.pexels.com/photos/2931290/pexels-photo-2931290. jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260 [22 July 2020].

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