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At times all I need is a brief glimpse, an opening in the midst of an incongruous landscape, a glint of lights in the fog, the dialogue of two passerby meeting in the crowd, and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city..." Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Travel transports people on a journey and it is the time and process of displacement from one location to another. Three men followed the star to Bethlehem; Hansel and Gretel left themselves a trail home of breadcrumbs; the more conventional voyages were navigated by wind and compass.
Migration, trade, commuting, and pilgrimages have always provided motives for travel. Many cultures have been traditionally nomadic; the Mongolian nomads move herds from pasture to pasture, while industrialized cities rely on peripatetic nomads for manual labor. Vasco da Gama, the first explorer from the Age of Discovery, sailed directly from Europe to India and brought spices to Europe from distant lands. In Hitchcook's "Strangers on a Train", a chance meeting between two commuters took an evil turn aboard a moving train. Sometimes, travel can be a journey to a sacred place of faith; "The Journey to the West" provided us the enduring travel myth of a Buddhist monk to India to obtain the Sutras.
Tourism is the world's largest industry today. A round the world tour with Thomas Cook + Son, started in 1872, for 200 guineas included a steamship across the Atlantic, a stagecoach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan, and an overland journey across China and India. That same year, Phileas Fogg and Passepartout made their own momentous journey around the world in 80 days!
Borders define geographic boundaries of political and cultural entities. Travel allows us to have first-hand experiences, not only the physical details of the environment but also its impact on ecologies, climate patterns and civilization. We travel to study the past: William Petrie Professor of Egyptology at University College London and Howard Carter were early English explorers to Egypt. We travel to find the future: in "The Motorcycle Diaries", Che Guevara and Alberto Granado traveled across South America to end their journey knowing what each man's destiny had become. During the Franco-Prussian War, the painter Monet took refuge in England where it served to inspire Monet's innovation in the study of color.
Souvenirs are a material memento, for just as photographic imagery evokes the experiences of our foreign travels. Both signify the experience of ownership and aspects of cultural otherness. While I was writing these words, I was recollecting a small memento I "stole" from the Alhambra. I rubbed a tiny sprig of myrtle into my sketchbook; time has passed but the infused smells still lingering between the pages and manages to awaken the emotions I had for the place as if I am there at this moment.
Crates of measuring instruments along with a large library containing practically every book on the land of the Nile sailed with Napoleon's scholars to Egypt; they mapped the country. Like most visitors today, the Unit will fly into Luxor, the open-air museum city on the Nile, with preferably a lot less luggage! Light clothes and a pair of good walking shoes essential. The recommended mode of transport there is by camel, by donkey, by "felluca" sailing or if you are brave, by hot-air balloon over the ever-clear skies.
Fasten your seatbelt! We start our architectural and cultural odyssey from DEPARTURE, a series of assemblage-based workshops exploring the issues and myths of travel. Our interest lies in the physical potential and the intellectual relationships between "drawing", the "assembly" and architecture as "built assemblage". Duchamp, Schwitters, Rauschenberg and Cornell made their art by assembling found objects; they recycled materials, reconfigured the everyday and re-evaluated conventions. Similarly, can this intellectual process piece together architectural programs, conceptualise space making and be a construction tool? The initial 2D and 3D assemblages will form an itinerary of architectural explorations and narrative for ARRIVAL, the eventual architectural propositions. We encourage experimentations ranging from physical fabrications with emphasis on materials to computer visualizations, whilst developing unconventional working methods and ideas. Expect to take intellectual and creative risks on this journey!
[ 本帖最后由 回锅肉 于 2008-7-20 15:18 编辑 ] |
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