#1
CHAPTER: ORNAMENT AND AUSTERITY
Times Square Public Parasitic Architecture
by Yudi Tri Utomo | 08111940000065
What if putting a billboard in an area is a crime? That is what happened to Sao Paulo, which applied a clean city law that prohibits and forces several people to take down billboards and signage on buildings and their city streets. This law creates several impacts both in terms of the appearance of their buildings which expose more slum buildings and in terms of the economy which is feared to weaken due to the loss of identity and also promotion of their stores. There have also been many crimes caused by the lack of lighting since the billboards were taken down on the roads. Therefore, the design speculation emerged which was taken from the phenomenon of the glittering billboards on the New York Times Square road, and this speculation was “what if all the billboards on the New York Times Square road were removed?” therefore, there are lots of questions and also unique thoughts from an architectural and non-architectural perspective. This speculative design also comes from the theory put forward in the book The Theory of Architecture with the sub-chapter “ornament vs austerity”, where this design tries to minimize the use of non-essential ornaments and apply ornaments in the form of basic compositions only. In the case of New York Times Square on the daily basis, a billboard is an ornament that in this design will be removed and used as a
medium for human activity. Therefore, a typology was chosen in the form of a social balcony with a parasitic architectural structure. However, there is a problem where an ornament in the form of a billboard is a generator for generating a profit and has economic value. Therefore, every activity carried out on this balcony must also be based on economic principles and
generate a profit. Every activity carried out on this balcony is divided into 3 zones, where these three zones are also existing billboard advertisements. These advertisements include products (ex: fashion), music, and food. Therefore, changing this activity will adjust the space and also the ads that are displayed.
Frac/tal #1 ; New Tunjungan Art Gallery
by Eusibius Diananto Putraadi | 08111940000036
With tech advancement, we have and gonna have, better the communication. Better the communication, the more effortless to exchange culture. the more effortless to exchange culture, the more effortless for it to melt, reducing and enriching each other until every human has the same culture before God disperse humans after they tried to build that tower. I mean don’t you see it? You can easily find someone who wears batik and jeans at the same time. Or maybe you can find Pope wearing a yukata with His picture drawn over it rather than the local motif. Thanks to those conservatives there are still differences, but who knows about tomorrow as everything assimilates each other right now. Now the question is : We usually fight each other with some differences, e.g. pop culture with dangdut et cetera. But when everything is the same now, how it will be when we try to against wit no other culture?
And one of the common parts of a building and one of the most visible ones is : the ornament. There is some theorist debating about it. Loos said the (old) ornament is a sin as we got no more context for it and now it was a waste of resources. Benham another side told us as we build the shape to be beautiful, paradoxically it became an ornament. And for the middle ground Rykwerd said that that is not about an ornament or no ornament, but the value behind it. And upon this question, while the building can be the “ornament, “ we tried to answer the question now how the shape will be.
And as there is no substitute, we can find that every building consists of programme that is usually replicated by means of culture, dogmas, events, or even effectivity. And back to sentences that circulating about the building shape that good to be seen can be classified as the ornament itself then playing the programme from the effective and modest usual, to be thrown here and there, creating the new programme, creating the new shape, creating the new building, creating the new Ornament. Or in other words simply using the spirit of the new-moderns.
