Culture Entwines with Building Designs
Observe the buildings in different countries and the difference in their designs are noticeable. The reason is actually the change in culture from one place to another. Culture is a similarity of behavior between various people in a certain area and time. Being humans who always have a culture in one way or another, we unconsciously apply it in all aspects of life; in this case, building designs. Architects act as a mediator between culture and buildings, merging both of them together when designing. In a design of a building, culture influences the concept, appearance and distribution of space.
In terms of concept, a good design of a building is strongly based on the concept of culture. By doing so, the building would not be just another empty book, but a book written with meaningful words. In the Chinese culture, cultural values are strongly translated into the concept of buildings. Traditionally, the Chinese generally don’t lay emphasis on strong self-expression but seek gentleness and modesty. Therefore, the traditional buildings of palaces and temples in Chinese architecture often consisted of outer plain walls which do not really catch attention. However, if one were to enter the building, the best feature of the building would await the person and put them in awe. Intricate carvings on the walls, patterns on ceilings and the illusion of endless corridors would reveal themselves like how a shy Chinese girl slowly uncovers her veil to reveal her beautiful face. There are also literal translations of culture into a building such as the Chinese delicacy, bird nest. It became the main inspiration for the bird nest stadium in which the Olympic Games 2008 took place in.
The modern culture on the other hand is all about daring to experiment and discovering breakthroughs in designs. Therefore, modern buildings look very “out of this world” with various designs of curved and flat planes. If you were to analyze modern buildings, you would find that designs are becoming more abstract and less detailed compared to literal, complicated carvings in traditional buildings which exhibits things seen in daily life such plant geometry and animals. This concept of “ less is more” and “ original yet out of this world” is perhaps a way of expressing our rebellion against the complicated stress of the modern century and escaping away from the rigidness of reality. In fact, the culture of modern, abstract art is gradually written all over buildings across the world.
Other than concept, culture also strongly influences the appearance of a building. The appearance of a building consist of materials and colour scheme. This can be clearly seen in Chinese buildings yet again. In ancient China, the concept of feng shui which sprouted from the culture of Taoist belief influenced the use of natural building materials to create a sense of harmony with nature. In feng shui, there are five basic elements which are Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal and are considered the building blocks of life. The constructive or productive sequence is as follows: Water nourish plants and trees: producing Wood, Wood makes Fire and burns into ashes to form Earth, Earth is the source of Metal. Metal can be condensed to water or can be melted into liquid; for example, `Water’. Therefore this process is known as the productive sequence. Therefore, in traditional Chinese buildings, the building materials chosen balances these elements so that the inhabitants would be prosperous as they are harmonious with nature. Their culture beliefs that through this, qi energy recycles in nature fluently, creating a prosperous life. In terms of colour schemes, murals ranging from outlines of dragons and phoenixes and depictions of myths to paintings of landscapes, flowers, and birds found on a traditional Chinese building which have both symbolic and aesthetic significance, are in various bright colours. In Chinese culture, bright colours represent life whereas dark shades such as black is associated with death and is are therefore avoided.
Building materials utilized in modern buildings also exhibits current culture. Nowadays, building materials used often combine several elements to produce new and improved structures such as reinforced steel, tinted glass, concrete and many more. These materials give a modern look to buildings and expand the horizon of building appearances. Various beautiful shapes can be designed, such as swirls and long arches compared to the ancient times where shapes were repetitive and more limited. The new age appearances of buildings shout the culture of wanting to break free from the norm which limits design. Our current culture is more rebellious as it is all about standing out and creating new trends, gradually abandoning the traditional views. In terms of colour, the current culture of open mindedness influence colour schemes to be more flexible, clashing and daring to experiment.
Space on the other hand, is shaped based on culture. It is crucial to accommodate the culture of its inhabitants so that the they can live in comfort, familiarity and relation to their activities to it well. In the Chinese traditional buildings, Chinese architecture often exhibited the basic feature of rectangular-shaped units of space joined together into one. This showed that the Chinese culture is often conservative as they stuck to safe and basic shapes which symbolized security, practicality and maximizing of space. The combination of units of space in traditional Chinese architecture abides the principles of balance and symmetry. The main structure consists of the axis, whereas the secondary structures are positioned to exhibit this basic principle. The distribution of interior space reflects Chinese social and ethical values. The seniors are often respected and given main priority, followed by the younger generation. In traditional residential buildings, for example, members of a family are assigned living quarters based on the family hierarchy. The master of the house which are usually the parents or main guardian occupies the main room, the elder members of the master’s family live in the compound in back, and the younger members of the family live in the wings to the left and right; those with seniority on the left, and the others on the right. This arrangement shows how the main master of the house acts as the leader to the younger generation, whereas the young ones symbolize wings of flight that carry the future and finally, the elders are the supportive backbone of the family who pass down wisdom to the younger generations.
In the modern culture, everyone seems to be rushing for time, money and getting the maximum out of everything. Since the modern culture of humans is to focus on the city where it is considered the frontier in terms of education and work, the design of buildings are affected by the culture as well. Residential houses become compact and small, just enough to accommodate the inhabitants, making way for many other small residential buildings to be built so that it can accommodate the dense population. Besides that, it clearly exhibits the culture of being economical in terms of saving cost to build the residential building. In the same manner, large offices are built upwards instead of sideways because it is the culture to emphasize on the economical value of a building where less land is used thus saving money. The current culture stresses on getting the maximum out of the minimum, just like a “ Nescafe 3-in-1”. Buildings are designed in such a way that there will be no unnecessary space unlike the olden times where houses were built as large as the owner wants within the plot of land. In other terms, there seems to be more restrictions on the size of buildings when it comes to design as the current culture is to save cost as much as possible.
Culture plays a vital role in building design. It exhibits self identity of the community, causing the building to be significant and relevant in the people’s eyes. With a building based on the community’s culture, the community can be proud of the building and call it one of their own instead of viewing it as just another alien building which tries to look beautiful. Therefore, architects and interior designers should always consider culture when it comes to designing buildings so that buildings will not be just a mere structure but contain values which are meant to be interpreted through its amazing structures.
( Dedicated to Shu Lyn who tought of the word concept and to Joel who likes intellectual-ish stuff. Chooi Si is finally becoming intellectual!wootz)
