CULTURAL MEANING IN ARCHITECTURE. Technical University Gheorghe Asachi, Faculty of Architecture, Iasi, Romania

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1 CULTURAL MEANING IN ARCHITECTURE Liliana Petrovici 1 Technical University Gheorghe Asachi, Faculty of Architecture, Iasi, Romania Abstract: The paper analyzes architecture of the XXth century as a phenomenon influenced by culture, as an integral part of culture and as an expression of culture in three aspects of this notion: 1. The way of life, behavior and ideology present architecture with a characteristic way of building, of using spaces, of embellishing and decorating them. 2. The ensemble of artistic and intellectual events, the cultural tendencies of a certain historical moment influence, at a conscious or subliminal level, both the creator and the public. 3. The degree of education and training gets manifest in architecture through the aesthetic qualities of the built environment, through good taste and common sense in designing and decorating, in project implementation, usage and quality evaluation. Key words: cultural trends, cultural reality, cultural symbols, cultural meanings, identity, diversity, globalization, elitism, accessibility, aesthetic common sense, spiritual elevation INTRODUCTION The culture influences architectural communication not only by the communities traditions, beliefs and way of life, by fashion and spirit of time (zeitgeist), but also by the way of thinking, perceiving and understanding, specific to some individuals or groups of people in certain historical periods. Architecture is influenced by culture, and it is an integral part of culture and an expression of culture that embraces three different aspects of this notion: 1. ideology, the ensemble of artistic and intellectual events; 2. way of life, behavior, beliefs, aspirations; 3. degree of education and training. 1. Culture understood as ideology and ensemble of the artistic and intellectual events, influences, at o conscious or subliminal level, both the architectural creation and the demands of the public. The contemporary culture, marked by the economical and technological development, is defined by individualism, freedom of expression, variety in time and uniformity in space. The culture of the traditional society used to be spiritually loaded; its system of values had been changeless for a long time and had a collective character, being generally accepted by the communities members, and individual originality had been limited. These determined a harmonious relationship between man, community and built environment, and a unitary architectural display inside the settlements, during a long period. However, the modern culture, characterized by individualism and instability, determines inventiveness and formal diversity within the architectural phenomenon. The coherence and the 1 Liliana Petrovici, PhD student, teaching assistant, Technical University Gh. Asachi, Iasi, Faculty of Architecture mailing address: strada Luca Arbore 24, bloc 511, scara A, etaj 2, apartament 8, Iasi, Romania, liliana.petrovici@yahoo.com, lilianacostandachi@gmail.com III - 35

2 identity of some urban areas can still be hold only by means of the institutionalized direction through urbanistic regulations and by means of educating people to respect the historical and cultural context. Technological and economical reasoning and demands of the financial and insurance institutions may also interfere, imposing limitations for formal and aesthetical options. The variety of cultural forms determines the ramifying of the architecture in a plurality of tendencies and currents. The built environment becomes dynamic and multifarious, expressing the individuality specific to every customer or historical period. But the context must preserve a unitary character; the cohesion between its composing elements has to be maintained. Only the specific features of the place and the urbanistic regulations are still able to reconcile between the various architectural trends or customers preferences in order to have the buildings within an urban space connected with a related atmosphere and a common appearance able to shape identity. The cultural trends marks more or less both the creator and the customer, without displaying awareness or will for it; or they can turn into a deliberate action, a desire to express a certain spirit of the moment [ 2 ]. This is the case of the Modern Movement or of the high-tech architecture, wherein the expression of the latest innovations and conquests turns into a slogan; or the case of the Euralille project, in which Rem Koolhaas aims to express a new dynamic of the market floods and of the economical and political context affected by globalization. As an inner part of the culture, the architectural meanings develop along with it and interfere with other artistic and intellectual realms. Expressive buildings become a source of inspiration for various arts, while architecture borrows themes and semantics from art and literature works. The co-operation between architecture and cultural forms is for a better adjustment to the spirit of the present time and for a better serve of the society. These principles were part of the Walter Gropius visionary concept for the Bauhaus teaching system, after the First World War. ( 3 ) ( 4 ) ( 5 ) The intellectual and artistic acts are a precious source of inspiration for architecture, because they translate the spirit, the ideology and sensibility specific to certain cultural landmarks into figurative and verbal languages. The art trends may even become architectural themes or concepts, as, for instance, the contemporary media art is transformed in building skin and space element in the works of Jean Nouvel. The rock culture, an artistic phenomenon with strong influences in European and American society during the second half of the XX th century, is the central theme for Experience Music Project, from Seattle, USA, work of the architect en.easyart.com 4 commons.wikimedia.org 5 Vincent van Gogh, Cafe at night III - 36

3 Frank O Gehry. The symbolism of colors (blue for Fender, yellow for Les Paul, red for Jimi Hendrix, for Purple Haze and the old red trucks), the unusual volumes taking the shape of the sound and the inner ambiance are homage for the rock music and its heroes. 2. Culture understood as way of life, behavior, values, aspirations, beliefs is set in architecture with a characteristic way of building, of using spaces, of embellishing and decorating them. The cultural meanings are assigned to the edifices of the cities as symbolic signs, expression of the values and aspirations of a community, or as iconic signs those elements that become representative and specific for a certain culture, thus shaping the national or regional styles. In both forms, the cultural signs inserted in the built environment give people the feeling that they share a common world of values and aspirations, the sensation of belonging to a community, to a certain time and place. Representative buildings, as the entire city, are symbols of the culture of a community. Edifices that are remarkable for their beauty and expressive power, for their public importance or asserted meanings, become for the human settlements iconic signs with symbolic value: Sydney Opera, Eiffel Tower, Noumea Cultural Center, Petronas Tower, for instance. For their positive visual impact, as for their suggestive shape and harmonious site insertion, such buildings become symbols of the cities and cultures and inspiring themes for other art creations. The built environment of the human settlements is the result of some cultural types. It talks about the presence of the people, about their values and beliefs and about their specific way of feeling, living, and interacting with their fellows and with the environment. The psychological and affective structure of a population and its bonds with natural or built environment, determines the preference for certain architectural shapes, the degree of introversion or extroversion, or the tendency to preservation or renewal. The spirit of man and place is deeply manifested in architecture. For those people who live in a rough climate, the house has to have a sloped roof, whereas this offers them the feeling of having a shelter and psychological protection, while the terraced roofed houses of the modern architecture are perceived as unfinished or headless. The sloped roof is a cultural archetype, which due to its frequent use becomes an iconic functional sign; Charles Jenks considers that the architect has to adapt to this convention, reassessed in the postmodern architecture. Some communities preserve very strictly the old and valuable architecture, while new buildings gets subordinate to it (Belgium, Italy, Czechs); other are directed towards innovation and modern technology and promote an architecture that symbolizes the change and the progress (Germany, Holland). In The Czechs Republic, the subtle charm of the local architecture is the result of some moral principles: respect for the cultural heritage and the refuse of individual assertion by all means, allowing the predomination of the responsibility for the historical context, universally perpetual [ 6 ]. The special common sense of the Czechs architects and their unique sensitivity for the context, cultivated since the beginning of their career, have been generating works of remarkable quality, real symbols of cultural identity. Osamu Okamura, the chief editor of the architectural Czech magazine Era21 from Prague, explains how iconic buildings such as the Dancing House designed by Frank O Gehry or Golden Angel of Jean Nouvel, have never been accepted by the local architects: they still consider that these expensive and exclusivist buildings, with an overly obvious lack of structural logic, are unethical for the Czech contemporary conditions and even for the global ones [ 7 ]. The modern society is defined by an increasingly bigger and denser network of interconnections and interdependences. This phenomenon determines a new way of designing ARHITECTURA no.51, February 2007, p.27 III - 37

4 the urban spaces, such as the case of Euralille project of Rem Koolhaas, but also a tendency of cultural homogenization, which has recurrences over the individual architectural objects. The social and cultural acts all over the world interfere more than ever and they are increasingly forced to consider each other as they are valuated according to their global consequences. This is obvious in the case of the economical integration process within continents or in the case of worldwide ecological risks. People are more and more confronted with a world wherein their own destinies are connected by a unique global frame. The cultural sensitivity is changing and some opinions and trends determine people to connect particularities of their lifestyle with their global consequences for instance the green thinking [ 8 ]. The local life is not perceived anymore as an independent, autonomous world, but as a part of a cultural and economical global world. The feeling of cultural belonging, of being at home, is transformed by the invasion of the globalizing communicational means in our daily life, by the mass media influences and by the consumerist global intoxication. Obviously, all these effects influence the way of conceiving and organizing life environment; they get in and transform not only the general elements of urban composition, but also the most intimate and particular daily experiences inside home space. In his work Globalization and culture, John Tomlinson partially resiles from the supposition of the world cultural homogenization and notices that the effects of the globalization are limited by the fact that local life is the most concrete from a physical point of view and takes up most of the time and space. Although the movement capability has been increasing physically and virtually, it is in fact derived and subordinated to the sphere of time and space that we perceive as home. The local life, the reverse of the global life from the airspace or internet, represents the ample space of social human existence that continues to dominate due to the constraints of the psychical materiality, even in a global world [ 9 ]. 3. Culture understood as level of education and training gets manifest in architecture through the aesthetic qualities of the built environment, through good taste and common sense in designing and decorating, in project implementation, usage and quality evaluation. Culture determines the professional competences of the architects and the attitudes of the promoters, institutions, and customers toward architecture as well. Not only for the other meanings of the notion culture, but also for this meaning as education and training, there might be appreciated that architecture is the expression of the society and of the costumers who commission it [ 10 ] (11) and of those who execute or officially approve it as well: 8 JOHN TOMLINSON - Globalizare şi cultură, Armacord, Timisoara, 2002, p JOHN TOMLINSON - Globalizare şi cultură, Amarcord, Timisoara, 2002, p IOAN AUGUSTIN Zece arhitecţi de zece, Noi Media Print, Bucharest, 2003, p29 11 interventions on communist block of flats, 2008, Iasi, Romania III - 38

5 Architects, as they would have a well shaped public image and a well defined status within society, are able to contribute to the education and turning of the people towards aesthetical and cultural values. The access to the architectural culture is conditioned not only by the knowledge of the professional values, but also by their acceptance by the society. The basic elements of the architectural language and the architectural symbols has to be known, their use has to be learned and left free to develop and assert. Therefore, training and instruction in this direction are necessary, starting from the basic learning system, and there is also need for promoting architectural values and reinforcement of the architects public image and professional authority. Architecture should not have an elitist attitude towards society, but it would rather start from current realities and provide possibilities of interpretation for various understanding abilities and cultural improvement opportunities for every individual. Moreover, François Mitterand criticized the excessive rationalization and intellectualization promoted by the modern architecture, that had drown the society away from the cultural values and he proposed a populist program able to make the public architecture accessible [ 12 ]. Within every society, there are inherent differences between educational levels, which architectural communication should take into account so that they would not become a strictly professionally specialized language. On the other hand, the architectural symbols made intelligible for everyone would sink in the scale and became a mere fashion shape; unfortunately many people are disposed to perceive and understand only such kind of shapes. Beside the over purified and univocal functionalist language, the postmodernism s intention was to bring back within the built environment meanings which are closer to people and their common values. In order to reconnect with the receiver, the postmodern architecture applied principles such as tradition, convention or familiarity, made use of many signs, symbols and duplications of popular texts and metaphors. Trying to approach a wider public, some postmodern buildings come to have a uniform and poor code with a low meaning level, Charles Jenks notices. The diverse significance systems and ways of understanding architecture are equally allowed to assert, that is the reason for which the signs and symbols inserted in buildings should afford not only elevated interpretations, but also more accessible readings. Sean Griffits thinks that architecture must be conceived in a way that makes it simultaneously receivable to very different levels: Our works contain elements of high architecture that may be read in a more accessible way as well. A method we use is to take familiar elements and to manipulate them in a way that can be read as high art [ 13 ]. Therefore, the architectural ideas may have multiple leveled cultural interpretations, and their communications can be adapted according to their receivers. The elitist approach of the architectural commissions leaves at random some considerable aspects of the cultural life and built environment. Daniel Herman notices in his work High Architecture. Fear and Loathing of Shopping that commercial architecture is often seen as a trivial commission for respectable architects and that by their elitist refusal of involving in shopping commissions, the professional milieu has failed to approach the largest urbanistic contribution of the XX th century [ 14 ]. The consumerism is one of the main features of the contemporary culture. This is the reality of the nowadays society and, unfortunately, this is the project theme: shopping malls, large and compact buildings that valorize the brand and the product through colorful scenery made of plastic and plaster stone. The art of the mall lies in the chance to make a difference between the artificial, the fantasy, and simulacrum and find the essential core. The image and the brand are important, and architecture gets subordinated to it. 12 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, 65 no 3-4, march-april 1995, p ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN 71, 6/nov 2001, p DANIEL HERMAN: High Architecture. Fear and Loathing of Shopping, Harvard, Guide to Shopping 2002,p.392 III - 39

6 Yet there are examples that get over the consumerist and economical servitudes of the program and manage to promote architectural values starting from the current cultural realities and then proposing a higher level of communication. For instance, Funf Hofe, conceived by Herzog & de Meuron, is a transformation of an isolated urban space from Munchen into an exuberant mall area with a dynamic and refined atmosphere and, at the same time, close to the wide public and their concerns. The shopping mall from Timisoara is also a successful urbanistic and architectural approach of this large and problematic theme, being designed by Radu Mihailescu as a vivid and forceful urban fragment, a free articulation of volumes around two atriums opened to the city, with a poetic and warm, though diverse and attractive ambiance: ( 15 ) The value of the buildings increases as they are conceived to be multi interpretable, flexible and realistic from the cultural meanings point of view, at different levels of understanding. The architectural signs and symbols should be made comprehensible for the public and should start from the current cultural and social reality, with its diversity of values and levels of perceiving and understanding, and concurrently to become a vehicle of spiritual development and of promotion of the authentic professional values. CONCLUSIONS: The insetting of the cultural meanings within the built environment is essential for the assertion and the preservation of the human communities values. Among the variety of meanings of the word culture, there is the wholeness of the concrete and visible displays of the human sensing and thinking that are specific to certain places and historical periods. Rich and complex, the culture phenomenon represents for architecture an important source of creative inspiration, generating identity and spiritual elevation. REFERENCE BOOKS: 1. HERMAN, DANIEL: High Architecture. Fear and Loathing of Shopping, Harvard, GSD Guide to Shopping (2002, GSD) 2. IOAN, AUGUSTIN: Zece arhitecţi de zece, Noi Media Print, Bucharest, TOMLINSON, JOHN: Globalizare şi cultură, Amarcord, Timisoara, ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN 71, 6/nov 2001, 65 no 3-4/ march-april ARHITECTURA no.51, February Iulius Mall, Timisoara, architect RADU MIHAILESCU III - 40