The biggest takeaway I had for this week’s class and reading is that nothing in architecture is unintentional. As a kid, I was intrigued by buildings that looked like they have human faces on them. When I pointed them out to other people, they were as surprised as I was and we all think they are interesting coincidences. However, after reading about and seeing pictures of the concepts of anthropomorphism, I realize that the faces I saw in buildings are not coincidence but a special style that was intentionally created.
Another example is the concept of “disharmonious harmony”. Some of the buildings shown in class give me very unsettle feelings and it is hard for us to imagine what are the functions of these buildings because they look familiar yet strange. They look like they are different elements from different kinds of “regular” buildings that were put together. Most buildings we see in daily basis have a harmony to our eyes: they are rectangular or in other regular shapes; they have windows of the same sizes; they are symmetrical; they have single material for the entire building…… But the buildings we see in class challenge the conventional ideas of the regular buildings, making us stop and stare. However, the unsettling feelings are exactly what would draw audiences’ attention, because of its unexpectedness.
After this class, I started to pay attention to buildings around me that look different and unconventional. Rather than feeling uncomfortable with the disharmony in it, I remind myself it is all intentional and try to see the playfulness in the design of it. It also challenges myself to reflect on where I learned what kind of buildings are “normal” and different functions that assumed for different buildings. I realize that like anything I learned, they are from seeing certain buildings were repeatedly assigned certain functions and we learned to associate the buildings with the functions.
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