| Yawning
Bread. October 2006
Two architects, two paths by Jyanzi Kong
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Graves's project is grounded with the architecture of certainty lifted from the pages of history more akin to Singapore's own colonial architecture from the solemn façade of the high court to the pastel colors of the shop houses. It is orderly and predictable, representing an era of architecture that fed on axisymmetric orders and formulas. It was an era of prescriptive, methodological and systematical architecture.
If this becomes the project of choice, then it reflects a sector of our society, which is firmly grounded on the belief that we must adhere to our colonial traditions of law and order, Asian conformist values and respect for hierarchy. Surely there is room for this type of architecture in many other circumstances and locations. On diametric opposing proposition is Gehry's architecture of the "uncertain truth" which hinges upon notions of ambiguity and unpredictability. It also strives to seek the "truth" which is enigmatic and unforeseeable.
Analogically, the project at once evaporates into the atmosphere of the tropics and melts into the surrounding waters of the "islands in the sun". Metaphorically, nothing seems to be solid and there is no ground upon which one can firmly stand. Gravity seems to have ceased. Each and every move is determined less by conceptualization but more on perceptualising spaces. No "remembrances of things past", no pages of history to lift, the visual experience disturbs our sense of being to the fullest. As it roller coasts the senses and sights, questions of where we belong and come from no longer apply. Here, we are not who we are, historically or otherwise but where we are at the moment. It has the qualities of destabilization and efflorescence urging us to fly with the music of "Brazil". If there is an attempt for one to conceptualize this project, it may be simply "existential". This is the architecture of infinity of past as well as future as it truly represents the moment of here and now. If, on the other hand this becomes the project of choice, then it also means that we will have evolved from the cradle of certainty and ready to take on whatever comes our way. It gambles on our state of being in ways that are beyond imagination. Perhaps, on an inclusive
speculation, the projects' opposing bi-polarity may create euphoria of
"complexity and contradictions" which is so necessary and
relevant to our ever-changing Global City.
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Footnotes None Addenda None
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The IR projects of Graves and Gehry present two of the pantheons of
prevailing architectural thoughts albeit on opposite ends.
