The Poetics of Place

I just read a book titled Tropical Retreats-The Poetics of Place --written by Tan Hock Beng, in the campus library.

PAST AND PRESENCE IN THE POETICS OF PLACE

"The taste of the apple... lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate not in the fruit itself; in a similar way.. poetry lies in the meeting of the poem and reader, not in the lines of symbols printed on the pages of a book. What is essential is the aesthetics act, the thrill, the almost physical emotion that comes with each reading."

--Jorge Luis Borges, forward to Obra Poetica

Though only a glance, I have noted several important points on tropical architecture. They are...

TACTILITY

Beyond architecture, our culture at large seems to drift towards a distancing, a kind of chiling, de-senzualitzation and de-eroticization of the human relation to reality.

--Juhani Pallasmaa

 LIGHTNESS

Someone guides us through its spaces. We glide along. Talking seems superfluous; everything is unique, yet never demanding.

--Alvaro Siza

TRANQUILITY

All good architecture which does not express serenity fails in its spiritual vision.

--Luis Barragan

TRANSPARENCY

And how here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what essential is invisible to the eye.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

AMBIGUITY

In the West, when you fail to describe, things fail to exist. In the East, when you fail to describe, thing emerge.

--Kunto Kundo

SHADOWS

Like the musician's breath in a wind instrument, light and shadows bring out the rich qualities of materials, qualities that remain silent in clarkness.

--Steven Holl

SYNTHESIS

If architects are to continue to do useful work on this planet, then surely their proper concern must be the creation of place -the ordered imposition of man's self on specific locations across the face of the earth. To make a place is to make a domain that helps people know where they are and by extension who they are.

--Charles Moore