BETWEEN MEMORY AND IM AGINATION
JARRI HASNAIN
Between Memory and Imagination
Jarri Hasnain Bachelor of Architecture, Undergraduate Thesis 2010 - 2011
Advisors David Dugas Patrick Doan
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University School of Architecture + Design Blacksburg, Virginia
Table of Contents
Abstract
4
Program
6
Site
8
Ruin
18
School
30
Studio
54
Gallery
78
Icon & Idea
102
Acknowledgements
112
Selected Readings
114
Photography Credits
116
ABSTRACT
The study is concerned with engaging an existing artifact. Through the exploration of a Buddhist monastery in ruins emerges a spatial and tectonic comprehension of architectural elements: wall, column, floor, ceiling, roof and others. The ruin informs the new, and reveals the complimentary and contradictory nature of ancient tectonics and layered modern assemblies. It is an exercise in working between ancient and modern, waking and dreaming, reality and projection, memory and imagination.
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PROGRAM
The program serves to facilitate the stone craftsmen of Taxila. Each of the new buildings is specific to a purpose.
A school for apprentices to learn. Studios for craftsmen to create. A gallery for visitors to explore.
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SITE
Taxila, an ancient city dating back to the 5th century BC, lies between the Jhelum and Indus rivers on the Potohar plateau twenty miles northwest of Islamabad, Pakistan. Ruins lie scattered across the mountainous landscape like an architectural stream of consciousness. The thread of stone craftsmanship binds the disparate eras and civilizations that claimed Taxila as their own. Each successive generation of craftsmen built upon the methods and skills of the previous civilization. Massive stone walls reveal these layers like geological strata. Taxila reached its apex as an eminent Buddhist center of learning. Knowledge was accumulated and disseminated through monasteries situated upon tranquil hills around the city. These places were made for and of silence and stone. The use of stone as a building material and as a material for artistic expression has continued from ancient times to modern day. Stone craftsmen still inhabit the modern Taxila, practising their craft in ways similar to their ancient predecessors.
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RUIN
The ruins of Jaulian lie upon a hill, a short distance from the modern city of Taxila. The ruins consist of two primary parts, the stupa and the living quarters of the monks; however, these parts are joined into one monastic complex. The monastery dates back to the 5th century BC. Upon visiting the monastery the spatial configuration characterized by the walls casts a strong impression. A rhythmic pattern of moving from open space of the exterior into the semi-enclosed space of the courtyard and ultimately into an enclosed space of a room. This repeated spatial system, along with material and tectonic considerations became a point of departure for the spatial organization of the new buildings. Remains of the old built site became groundwork for the new. Remnants of existing plans, sections and elevations informed new thoughts and atmospheres. There was a desire for repairing and reusing present elements and thus making them into artifacts which constructed the site as a new whole.
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WALL
The study of the ruin began with a wall section to understand how stone was once used as a building material. This invoked tectonic comprehension as well as the realization that the ancient methods of construction, in some senses, paralleled modern ways of building. The raw natural rock and refined slabs of cut stone complete and stabilize the wall. The raw and refined exist simultaneously; this pairing begins to be repeated in the new buildings.
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WALL
The walls have an emplecton construction. Loose rubble and mud filled the space between the finished faces of the wall. The wall rose course by course as finished faces were laid and then filled. Similar to how a concrete wall is constructed by constructing formwork and then pouring concrete. However, the walls of the ruin retain their formwork permanently.
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ROOM
The material and tectonic spatial analysis had begun with the unit of the wall. The wall multiplied, formed corners and edges and bound space. A room was formed. Traces of where columns had been supported on the ground could be perceived. Questions arose. How had the columns and the wall related? What was the dialogue between roof and wall or column? Imagining the answers to these questions led to new possibilities.
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SCHOOL
The school for apprentice stone craftsmen was approached as an extension of the ruins. The school continues and reinforces the spatial organization of the monastery. Stone craftsmen continue to primarily work directly on the ground outdoors under the shade of large canopies of Peepal (fig) trees. Fittingly, legend speaks of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, attaining enlightenment while meditating under this species of tree millennia ago. Specifically, relationships emerged between the new school and the existing assembly hall where Buddhist monks had once convened. Today, only walls along the perimeter and stone foundations remain under a thin layer of dust, revealing where columns once stood in the center of this large room. Columns, beams, and roof become collaborators with the exiting wall to form the school. The elements of the school building provide an environment that respects the austere traditions of the craftsmen which have an emphasis on the earth below and the sky above.
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SPACE
Trees, vegetation, traces of old boundaries and proportion assisted the new building in finding its place in relation with the monastery. The monastery and site became a palimpsest with the school building designed over and around the context to complete a new whole. The school building continued the spatial pattern of open space, semi-enclosed space and enclosed space manifest in the ruins.
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SPACE
Visitors and craftsmen approach the complex from the south to a courtyard which is the entrance to the complex. The courtyard is enclosed by the west side of the school and the monastery walls forming the edges. Rough cut tiles of stone form the floor and also define the courtyard. Apprentice craftsmen continue on to a covered path between the ruin and school. This path extends from the courtyard to a covered veranda leading to the entrance of the school on the east side. Visitors to the monastery continue forward from the courtyard via a path leading north.
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STRUCTURE
The presence of the massive stone walls of the ruin heightens the awareness of the absence of columns, beams and roof. These absent elements therefore become the tectonic and material juxtaposition to the ruin.
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STRUCTURE
The ancient stone wall is stabilized with a concrete layer poured above. Notches in the concrete allow for glued laminated timber beams to rest in the wall. The beams reach out to rest on wood columns reinforced with steel which use excavated rock from the site as a base.
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STRUCTURE
Large operable windows along the north and south facade of the building can be used to ventilate the space naturally, making use of the prevailing wind in this direction. The floor is made of terrazzo with glass inlays as joints between the tiles. The aggregate in the terrazzo is schist, the same stone used to construct the walls of the ruin. Use of terrazzo is a common method of constructing floors in the region. The glass inlay joints in the floor align with the wood beams above.
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ROOF
The glued laminated timber beams are doubled and reinforced with steel. This allows for a longer span while integrating steel elements of the structure for the frosted glass roof. The roof illuminates the school from above with diffused and dappled light during the day. At night, lighting elements integrated in the ceiling illuminate the school.
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Glass is used to enclose the school building, while sheets of fabric become the moveable partition walls within. Fabric is commonly used as an element to provide shade and privacy in the regional architecture. The thin and billowing fabric and glass contrast the five foot thick stone walls of the monastery.
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JOINT
The existing stone wall stabilized with concrete supports the glued laminated timber beams which extend into the school building. These beams rest on columns which use excavated rock from the site as a base. These moments allow for the raw and refined to join together.
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The existing stone wall and the new building are separated by a covered path along the length of the wall. Craftsmen and apprentices walk along this corridor to enter the school building from a veranda which serves as a covered exterior work space.
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STUDIO
The monk’s cell became an inspiration for the individual studios for master craftsmen. Instead of a living garden that the monks tend, the craftsman tends the stone garden; the material for his work. A simple room and garden compliment each other as interior and exterior working spaces. The materials and structure of the studio are presented clearly. The new buildings reveal themselves in a clarity present in the ruins while creating atmospheric and spatial conditions in relation to the context. The challenging terrain, the movement of the sun and wind, the mitigation of light, water and sound, the programmatic complexities inform and forward the design.
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SPACE
The cluster of studios is inspired by the system of interlocking walls of the cells in the monastery. The studios lock together to form the third space of the individual “stone gardens� where the craftsmen work. The craftsmen enter the studio from the garden. The spatial progression of open, semi-enclosed to enclosed space found in the monastery is reinforced once more.
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ROOM
The garden is approached as an outdoor room. The tree anchors this outdoor space and provides a roof for the craftsmen working outside. The steel column and roof within the stone and concrete walls of the studio serve the same purpose. The steel column in the studio is aligned on axis with the tree in the garden.
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WALL
As the study of the monastery had begun with a wall section, so did the design for the studio. Issues regarding the use of stone as a modern building material without complete knowledge of the spatial organization of the studio were explored. Could a layered wall assembly be made as profound as the stone walls of the ruin.
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WALL
The assembly of the studio wall followed the same pattern of construction as the ancient stone walls. Formwork made of hand chiseled schist masonry is laid upon a concrete foundation. Steel rebar provides tensile strength and anchors the walls to the foundation. Aerated concrete is poured within this formwork. Layer by layer, the wall rises up.
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ROOF
The thin steel-framed roof rests gently on steel beams notched in the walls, letting soft light in through clerestory windows. The roof appears to hover over the stone and concrete walls.
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OPENINGS
Openings framed and finished in steel and enclosed with glass provide views to the garden and to the valley below. The opening for the door is also framed and finished in steel.
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Steel beams rest in notches in the walls. A steel column supports the beams and divides the space within the studio. The column is welded on a steel plate and bolted into the concrete foundation. The floor is finished with stone pavers with a layer of sand underneath. The craftsman can feel the subtle shifting and settling of the surface, a reminder of working outside on the uneven ground.
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GALLERY
The gallery serves as a space for stone craftsmen to display their work for visitors to view. The compressed circumambulating path of the existing stupa area informed the spatial nature of the gallery. The idea of man and object in such personal contact within the stupa area reflected on thoughts about how an exhibition space might function. The gallery is also the entrance to the site as a whole. The weathering steel path connecting the various buildings has its origin here. The setting of a building into the earth also began to dictate tectonic and spatial ideas. The relationships between the ruin and new buildings did not remain one to one. Various parts of the design began to inform one another and developed simultaneously.
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SPACE
The existing stupa informed the meander within the gallery. Monks and worshippers had engaged with the space intimately, circumambulating the main stupa while pausing along at each of the smaller shrines to offer prayers. The narrow area of circulation and the impressive shrines creates a charged atmosphere. Objects on display in the gallery and the viewer are engaged in a similar fashion by means of the structure and manipulation of light.
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ENTRANCE
The gallery building is the entrance to the site. Therefore elements such as parking are carefully considered to become part of the spatial sequence of moving from open, to semi-enclosed to enclosed space. Poplar trees bound the parking creating the semienclosed space. From here visitors, apprentices and craftsmen begin their respective journeys on a weathering steel path which weaves the buildings together. The rust red of the path contrasts the gray and black of the schist paved parking; an invitation.
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Cast-in-place concrete retaining walls hold back the earth and create a space for the gallery to exist in between. Rock columns support the vaulted precast concrete roof above. Lateral support is provided by the retaining walls. Precast concrete light cannons join into the voids of the roof structure to light the gallery.
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Repeated forms in precast concrete are used to create a seemingly complex space. The ceiling of the gallery emerges from the twilight by reflected light from glass pavers of the floor below. Light cannons pierce the concrete roof and orient the observer within to the sky and earth above. The light cannons direct light to the exhibited work; an architecture that slows down and enhances experience.
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COLUMNS
Rock columns hold the precast vaulted concrete roof. These immense piers serve as the primary vertical structure with the concrete retaining walls stabilizing the roof laterally. The finished objects of the craftsmen are placed in front of these unfinished columns within the concrete vessel of the building. The refined work of the builder and craftsman comes face to face with the raw material from the earth.
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FLOOR
The finished surface of the floor is composed of cast glass tiles. Light from above illuminates the soft glowing surface. Cast glass tiles had been used in the ancient city of Taxila. Impurities in the glass making process gives the tiles a dense green color.
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Reveals between the retaining wall and the roof and between the retaining wall and floor create pockets for light and shadow to exist. A thin reveal exists between the glass tiles and rock column as well. These joints define the structural duties of the elements and provide a transition for material changes.
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ICON & IDEA
An introspective study by Valerio Olgiati of images which guide his work as an architect inspired this exercise. The following words and images shape my thoughts, sensibilities, and desires. The selection is not an exhaustive one, but rather a curation of works that resonates deeply in relation to the nature of the study. The act of thinking and making having been carefully considered, these works help to give context and a place for my work to exist within the larger fabric of architectural thought.
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Drawing by Carlo Scarpa
“For [Scarpa], the purpose of a drawing was not just to depict what any human could see, but somehow to convey the totality of what we feel. Students in his class would make drawings in which, of course, the trees were green and the bricks were red, and so on. But Scarpa did not like this. He was not interested in a drawing as a representation of a real building; for him, the drawing should express some essence—some perceptual presence of an architectural idea—rather than just pretending to be a photographic substitute. I did not understand all this at the time. Later, when I discovered synesthesia and its implications for design, I learned that all children are synesthetic, but we lose it just by growing up. Consequently, architects have to rediscover these child-like qualities and, by using drawing, have to perceive all dimensions, because we design buildings for totality—acoustics, smells, and so on are all part of the architectural design. What a drawing can do, by color or by manipulation of ink, is to achieve for the architect not only a visual rendering, but also an understanding of other perceptions that you don’t visualize.” Marco Frascari on Carlo Scarpa
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Hamar Bispegaard Museum, Hamar, Norway, Sverre Fehn
“There has been no attempt to repair or to restore a specific period in the barn’s history. It gives no signal of time in suspension; the building and objects openly continue a process of disintegration, but the temporal aspect is slowed. Rather than working with history as information Fehn approaches history as memory. The excavation and small ruins in the exterior courtyard, while protected, are still in nature, in time. The same situation occurs in the interior.” Per Olaf Fjeld on Sverre Fehn
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Row House, Osaka, Japan, Tadao Ando
“In the Row House (Azuma Residence), Suniyoshi, I took one of three wood row houses and reconstructed it as a concrete enclosure, attempting to generate a microcosm within it. The house is divided into three sections, the middle section being a courtyard open to the sky. The courtyard is an exterior that fills the interior, and its spatial movement is reversed and discontinuous. A simple geometric form, the concrete box is static; yet as nature participates within it, and as it is activated by human life, its abstract existence achieves vibrancy in its meeting with concreteness.� Tadao Ando
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Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany, Peter Zumthor
“I used to take hold of it when I went into my aunt’s garden. That door handle still seems to me like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells. I remember the sound of gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of waxed oak staircase. I can hear the heavy front door closing behind me as I walk along the dark corridor and enter the kitchen...” Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture
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Stone Craftsman, Taxila, Pakistan
“He could see the shape of individual dwellings bound together around a common purpose.” Peter Serenyi on Le Corbusier’s visit to the Carthusian monastery at Ema
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Chapel of Hope, Malmo, Sweden, Sigurd Lewerentz
“In the presence of Lewerentz’s later churches one is tempted to echo Heidegger’s words about Greek temples and suggest that here brick ‘comes forth for the very first time.’ A building such as Kahn’s Exeter Library offers a compelling demonstration of what brick is. For Kahn, as for most Modern architects, working ‘in the nature of materials’ meant immersing them in an appropriate functional, usually structural, role. Lewerentz’s aim was different: by emphasizing the ‘nature’ of bricks that we can directly perceive - their size, color and texture - rather than their more abstract structural properties, he aimed to build, not merely design, an atmosphere conducive to worship. And in handling bricks in this way he anticipated a major preoccupation of recent years: the materiality of materials.” Richard Weston
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Nordic Pavilion, Venice, Italy, Sverre Fehn
“Structure has the ability to link the measurable and immeasurable.� Per Olaf Fjeld on Sverre Fehn
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Wait, Sibtul Hasnain
“I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.� Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
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Acknowledgments
For Tamiya Bokhari, my grandmother, whose love and wisdom have been an inspiration and anchor.
With thanks, to my family, for their love, to my teachers, for their guidance, to my friends, for their constant support and insight, without which this journey would not have been possible.
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Selected Readings
Acocella, Alfonso. Stone Architecture Deplazes, Andrea. Constructing Architecture: Materials, Processes, Structures Fjeld, Per Olaf. Sverre Fehn: The Patterns of Thought Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture, A Critical History Kahn, Louis I. Louis Kahn: Conversations with Students Koenigsberger, O. H. Manual of Tropical Housing and Building, Part 1 Climatic Design Marshall, John. Taxila Nesbitt, Kate. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture of the Senses Schittich, Christian. In Detail: Building Simply Tanizaki, Junichiro. In Praise of Shadows Zumthor, Peter. Thinking Architecture
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Photography Credits
Ivan Bustamante
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Museo di Castelvecchio
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Tadao Ando
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Claudio Desteghene
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Bill Strong
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Josep Maria Torra
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David Marle
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