Poetic Space
Poetic space is everywhere, when one sees the world with an eye of a poet. To think like a poet is to see things subjectively. But we can only know it when we acknowledge it, when our eyes and minds are observing the surroundings. The ordinary walking people in the street, for example, could be seen as moving patches of color if one wants to see it that way. The observer, in this case, poeticize the environment surrounding him or her. It reminds me of an afternoon stroll in Chinatown, where I got lost in space while walking, I can “see” the poetic space not with my eyes, but my ears. Here I heard people speaking Cantonese, there I heard Italian, German, French, and so on, and I kept getting lost into that space, whenever a strange word opens up in space, one after another. I woke up in the middle of my daydream when the foreign words make ways for something that sounds familiar. All I heard, then, was Rolex, Gucci, Channel, and a chain of other luxury brands. It happened that I reached a corner where Chinese people sold luxury items illegally. It was my perception of language and place that enhanced the experience of entering other’s culture “door.” For other people, the crowded and messy streets of Chinatown might not be as pleasant. The poetic space is mainly subjective. It is subject to the beholder’s eye who tends to poeticize his or her spatial experience.
But what about spaces like the Oculus mall? As much as I dislike commercial “architecture,” this space is beautiful, for me – a spatial poetic enthusiast, but also for most people. The grandeur of the space with the sunlight shining through the skylight on the top of the giant white wing is just spectacular. I could argue, then, that it holds a quality of universal beauty. Unlike the ubiquitous skyscraper in the city, where each one of them “eat” out a piece of sky, in the Occulus, the sky was reintroduced to the indoor by the skylight. It is the natural light that appeals to most of us. It is nature in its most primitive form. Even the structure of the Occulus is a mimic image of the natural environment. From the outside it looks like a giant bird wing, and from the inside it’s like people are inside a skeleton of a dinosaur. There is no wonder why so many poets and painters are inspired by nature. Nature, therefore, can be said as an universal poetic space. Its patterns and languages are so vast that every element can be a source of inspiration.
There could be argued that there are two kinds of poetic space, one of the imagination, and one of the reality, as discussed in the above two different scenarios. Modern cities have been revolutionized since the modern age, with the industrial revolution. With that architecture becomes more and more efficient. People seems to overcome nature in making things work for their convenience. Now, regardless of seasons and the outside environment, we have hot water, air conditioned air, and other things that suit our needs in house. But efficiency also comes with a price, the comfort offered by modern technologies associates itself with the omniprese nt devices that look alike everywhere. We live in a web of products: the refrigerator, TV, sofa, and so on. Even our house has become a product, and our environment a market. Our belonging to nature has reduced into small screens and images that remind us of nature, whose presence has been increasingly reduced. If nature is become more and more scarce in our urban everyday life, our poetic space of reality is reduced. To see poetic space, then, we must rely once again on our imagination. But to imagine we need a pallette of materials, if not nature, it would be people in their everyday life. To be poetic, it needs to resonate with the one who experience it – the people-user. In this line of reasoning, to design a poetic space is to get to know and analyse the users’ perception of space. Some architects are gifted in designing good human scale environment. However, it needs to be something different than just analyzing the human body and its functions in space, for instance the ADA requirement for handicap people to move easily in buildings. Universal architecture might become boring, with all those buildings that are compliant with the building codes. They can enhance safety but definitely not guaranteeing delight. Design for safety, in fact, has been improved over the years. But in the name of safety, our contact with nature and with people has been reduced greatly. Even space for people gathering has become more and more uncommon. There are parks but usually not surrounded by dwellings. Social interactions now need to be scheduled, we need to make plans to go out to the parks to see nature and interact with others. There are many example for that separation of functions in modern cities, from the neighborhood scale to workplace and home.
For some reasons, I think that safety comes firstly from danger. If there is no danger than there no safety is required. In ancient towns, at least in a small scaled neighborhood, people don’t confront danger in their everyday life. There were always “eyes in the street,” to quote Jane Jacob. It is unfortunate that we needs to take that design element as a safety measure against its pleasure.The street in the ancient towns are there for people to meet and have conversation but not for safety. This is interesting since this poetic of space could be an argument for poetic space is inherently safe. Then if we strike for designing poetic space instead of making sure that everthing are compliant for safety we can have both a safe and wonderful built environment.
It is the architect’s job to draw the line between the two. To imagine poetic space. Architecture needs to nurture people and nature.
– Tuan Manh Nguyen