Research Part 3 pg. 65 Museum typology as an instrument

from The Global Theatre

by Narindath.Maraj

Bibliography pg. 214

Design Part 1

Objective and translation of research.

The design phases in this thesis are based on the research chapters. Leading from the hypermodern conditions of excess, knowledge, and virtual impulses, to the evolution of the Panopticon, and finally, the museum research, provided sufficient information, imagery, and symbolism to start designing. The research question that this thesis started with was:

How can architecture spatially and critically explain the hypermodern period?

Through the research, the conclusion is that architecture can spatially explain the hypermodern period by using the museum function to exhibit the three hypermodern conditions. More precisely, the museum as intended during the French Revolution; a Musaeum. A space to transmit knowledge and to engage people for a new period. At this point, an additional research question is developed to gare the design chapters. This is:

Is the hypermodern period so seamless in the context of modernising, that the only way to become aware of this period is to go through some form of architectural experience, that will leave the individual provoked to the operation of things, to the hidden layer of the virtual, and the all-encompassing aspect of surveillance?

This additional research question is developed through the museum chapter. In the research, architecture needed to create a space for the public based on knowledge and a type of superior space for challenging intellectual domains. The way that architecture first approached this was through the programmatic function and the spaces needed for this execution. However, Boullée challenged this by reverting knowledge to experience. Gaining knowledge through the very space that architecture can capture. The architecture of the space gave higher properties for expressing an experience. More than art exhibitions, but the space as art in itself. The museum aimed to provide a space for a critical experience, that was not connected to a subjective form but an objective space that can reveal the progressing period. In this design chapter, the view is that the metaphoric space of Boullée is interesting but not sufficient. Boullée challenged the position of the human in the period. While this design desires to challenge the human’s awareness of the systems and conditions of this period. Therefore, the design must be more than a metaphor. The objective of the design follows two simple points. The first is to formulate an architectural design to express the fusion of technology and the Panopticon. The fusion is considered as the establishment of the virtual theatre that is interweaving the social conditions. This stage of the design is done to create a strong impression of the hypermodern, like the Boullée project, the Newton’s Cenotaph, which theoretically created a strong impression of the spatial immensity of modernity, as a result of Newton’s discoveries. The exterior condition is to act as a container space for the three hypermodern conditions. Like the Pompidou

Centre in Paris, which used the hi-tech style to show a new way of architecture to confront modernity. In the Pompidou, the exterior conditions were a container for the interior space and were independent of the interior spaces. However, this design does not act independently of the interior because the virtual theatre is the container for the three hypermodern conditions. Therefore, the exterior condition is interweaving the condition of excess, knowledge, and virtual impulses inside its body. However, at this point, the use of the metaphoric expression to represent the fusion of the Panopticon and technology appeared the most appropriate way. The exterior of the building should have an intense projection to the public, and because the Panopticon is a post-structural metaphor for surveillance, numerous metaphoric symbols are created to represent surveillance. Such as the ‘Eye’. Therefore with the use of a metaphor for the exterior, give rise to a question:

Are metaphoric spaces in architecture still vital for the hypermodern period, or is the cliché to simplifying for the hypermodern?

The second point in the design phases is to use the museum design to exhibit the three hypermodern conditions. The architectural design is viewed as a container space to both exteriorly exhibit a strong impression and interiorly to showcase critically the hypermodern conditions. This is achieved through designing in terms of systems. The interior spaces use the rhetoric of interconnecting spaces, routing, and making the possibility of overview difficult. Additionally, the design process explores ways to illustrate the virtual layer. This is mostly done through artistic drawings to witness the spatial implication of the virtual, which is viewed as penetrating and morphing the physical space, individuals, and social structures. The virtual has a strong physical space also, the idea of data centres and physical devices that allow access. However, the invisible, or hidden layer of the virtual domain in the physical space is the space that these drawings are trying to capture. The artistic tool of using constructed spaces and inverting or blurring through the threshold method demonstrates a space that has hidden layers. In the case of inverting a space, the information gathered is the spatial quality of light, the reflections, refractions, and the depth of inverting a light source to have a glimpse of the beyond. With the threshold method, the spatial quality blurs the space with the reflected space and gives a stronger impression of a hidden data space. All in all, the objective of the design chapter is to explain the hypermodern period critically, and with a strong impression through using the museum architecture. The situation of the design should be confronting and provocative. The museum is designed with rhetoric and expressive symbolism to demonstrate the post-structural importance of the Panopticon. Further concepts are added to the design phases such as Mise-en-scène, and Scenography. Both concepts are part of the museum and theatre setting that formulate the merging of written narrative through spatial scenario and performance.

Image [12]: Architecture is used as a container space for the three hypermodern conditions.

Mise-en-scène is defined as: “the places that surround us in everyday life. The architecture of a city or a public space might be described as a mise-en-scène and our self-decorated rooms in our home as a personal version of the notion.” (Corrigan & White, 2008, p.42)

This definition of the concept is also viewed in the relationship of elements to have a significant experience. The idea that elements in a context create a type of background also implies that a spatial background gives a notion of an atmosphere. Something like an emotional response, like the comfort of being in an own room, or the feeling of wonder when in an ancient city. Therefore, the point taken from this concept is that elements of an existing context will have a setting that contributes to everyday life and everyday space. Therefore, to confront everyday life and everyday spaces, a location where the Mise-en-scène is intimate, strong, and almost not considered otherwise will be the situation to design. This will be discussed further in the Situation chapter. Mise-en-scène is the staging of text, or idea through physical arrangements, which pronounces a framework for some activity to take place (Mckinney and Butterworth, 2009, p.4-5).

Image [15]: Mise-en-scène, the place surrounding us in everyday life.

Scenography is defined as: “Scenography is not simply a by-product of a theatre but as a mode of encounter and exchange found on spatial and material relations between bodies, objects and environments.” (McKinney and Palmer, 2019, p.02)

If Mise-en-scène is the spatial background of elements, objective, that will have a certain amount of impressions, then scenography is the event, experience, and actions inside the objective setting. Mise-en-scène forms an essential part of Scenography. It relates to scenography through spatial construction of the text, narrative, or in this design, spatial rhetoric, but scenography is not restricted to this. Scenography includes performance, presentation, routine, and action, which Mise-en-scène does not define. The concept of scenography plays a strong role in the museum design. It allows narrative spaces to take a strong foothold in the exhibitions of the three hypermodern conditions.

Image [16]: Drawing showing a narrative, which through the concept of Mise-en-scène and Scenography, can give life to a spatial design.

The original term that scenography was derived from can be traced back to Aristotle’s Poetics in the 4th century BCE. The word used then was, ‘skenographia’, and it indicates:

Skene – referring to the stage of a theatre, or exhibition. The stage is viewed as the platform to have discussions and to debate.

Grapho – meaning the processes of representation on the stage such as writing/communication, drawings, and models.

Through the historic readings of scenography, a later emerging reading of the term is viewed as a medium to communicate in real-time, between the audience and the performance on the stage (Grondahl, 2012). For some time, the concept of scenography was considered a translation of the text, the dramatization on stage, and the connection to the audience through performance (Ferguson, 2009). In the postmodern period, the concept of scenography changed from being a somewhat static instrument of communication to the audience, to a more dynamic and active engagement (Ferguson, 2009). Here stage designing and performance invigorated a scenery of movements, depth through elements (like mirrors and lights) performances, and manipulations of the body, which the observer experienced as an almost historic context within a scenic space (Grondahl, 2012). This type of scenography also represented a type of knowledge that the spectator would derive. The observer is aware that he or she was in a theatrical performance. Further readings into the postmodern scenography, suggest that the transformation of space to create a greater context to experience a narrative resulted in new ideas of places, times, and spaces (Ferguson, 2009). The use of elements engaged numerous horizontal and vertical movements through staircases and ramps. Space was divided on the stage by curtains, walls, and the use of heights. The whole ensemble worked together, and the concept of scenography incorporated a union with the concept of Mise-en-scène. Transitioning into the contemporary saw the concept of scenography becoming focused on the exploration of digital technology as an added element to the narrative. The added elements included the array of cameras, visual projectors, lighting effects, sound media, etc. This added a level of sensory experience to the narrative and resulted in a spatial experience fractured from reality. The observer is perhaps still aware that he or she is in a theatrical performance. However, these new technologies create a space where boundaries are not recognised, and the observer eventually loses grip of the spectacle. The effect of the experience is crushing space and time to form new versions of space and time. The concept of Mise-en-scène and scenography contribute to designing the museum building. The exterior of the building is confronting the existing setting of the context with properties like scale, lights, mirrors, and symbolism. The building acts as a container for the exhibitions to be a part of. This then gives rise to the concept of scenography that cultivates the performance of the space. The

performance of the exhibition. The use of technological elements, like lights, mirrors (to create expansive spaces), and scale are used to form a relationship with the observer.

The Virtual Layer

Finally in the design objective is to represent the virtual layer that is a strong part of surveillance technology and the hypermodern period. Technical objects, heterogeneous, are all working together to expand the flows of data. Equally, technical software works symbiotically to organize mass data in a post-structural surveillance scope, by linking this information to ‘data doubles’. The virtual space is an economic surveillance space that is seeping through all life spheres. Thus, Liquid Surveillance! The architectural design is engaging this view and trying to express the virtual elements as a design element. Considering this, the design perspective looked into the binary system and the use of 1s and 0s and how could this be interpreted as a design tool. The binary system is a counting system where information is transferred to and from other computers. Therefore, with this view in mind, the binary is most used as an impression in the drawings and with the notion that this is just a space of breaking matter down into data to transfer. Computer, to computer, is perhaps the more important link to take into the design as an element. This can be achieved through designing spaces, that are connected to other spaces, acting like computers connected to other computers. People, therefore, are the binary system, walking through the spaces as a symbolic representation of the binary transferring of data to and from places. Designing with the aim that people are the binary system results in the spaces acting like the physical space that exists all over the world. The Big data centers, that connect to sustain web browsing, online behavior, and constant chatting. In the design, the people are viewed as the binary element, therefore the figure’s places are vaguer and form-like, rather than emotion-full and human-like. In conclusion, the design aims to explain the hypermodern period. The elements of the expression are growing in complexity and the design may be hard to read by individuals. However, this is reflecting the hypermodern reading of scenography, meaning to say, the experience of the space is creating a fracture in reality that leads to the crushing of space and time, to a new version of space and time in the hypermodern theatre, space, and museum exhibition.