BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE

THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

(ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Chin Vin Yan ID No.: 0320311
Lecturer: Ar. Prince Favis Isip Tutorial Time: 10am
Reader/Text Title: Space, Place, Memory and Synopsis No: Text 3
Imagination: The Temporal Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
This reader discusses phenomenology in architecture, opening up the emotion of
time and memory in space and place. Pallasmaa mentioned newness is not only an
aesthetic and artistic value; it is a strategic necessity of the culture of consumption and,
consequently, an inseparable ingredient of our surreal materialist culture. This reader
discusses space and place stimulate the memories and imagination

Pallasmaa mentioned that architecture serve as significant memory devices in

three different ways which is, they materialize and preserve the course of time and make
it visible, they concretize remembrance by containing and projecting memories and, they
stimulate and inspire is to reminisce and imagine (Pg.190). Beside that, memory is also
the ground of self-identity; we are what we remember. Our recollection are situational
and specialized memories; they are memories attach to places and events. The
significance of object in our processes of remembering expand and reinforce the realm
of memories, and eventually, out very sense of self (Pg.192). To distinguish the lived
space from the physical and geometrical space, ‘existential space’ structured on the
basis of meanings, intentions, and values reflected upon by an individual, either
consciously or unconsciously. Hence it has to interpret through the memory and
experience of the individual (Pg.193). Furthermore, remembering is not only a mental
event; it is also an act of embodiment and projection. We are in a constant exchange
with our settings; simultaneously we internalize the setting a project our own bodies, or
aspects of our bodily schemes, upon the setting. Hence, all our senses and organs think
and remember (Pg.194).

Compare to text 2, both author mentioned human construction also have the task
of preserving the past, but Pallasmaa focuses human experience that inhabit cultural,
mental and temporal in architecture. In conclusion, Pallasmaa discusses how memories
engage our entire to recollecting and stimulate fragmentary through space and place.
Word Count: 307 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.