The meeting of cultures

The concept for this paper and for my thesis comes from a personal desire to facilitate cross-cultural interaction in a space. I began by questioning whether architecture can bring together people from different backgrounds and cultures, and if so then what type of architecture does this? And how does it do this? I believe the city is a psychological as well as physical reality. The city exists as a series of doubles; having official and hidden cultures, it is both a real place and a site of the imagination. Its elaborate network of streets, housing, public buildings, transport systems, parks, and shops is paralleled by complex attitudes, habits, customs, expectancies, hopes and popular culture that reside in us as urban subjects. (Cbamber5 I. ( 1986) Popular culture, the metropolitan experience, USA; Methuen & Co. P. 183) I believe that public architecture should represent and reflect popular culture in order to arouse and attract people together in a space. By doing so, the art and magic of architecture becomes accessible to the general populace. Architecture is a public art whereby the creator of the work should think of designing for pleasing the people on the street as much as pleasing the client of the project. A building that is able to communicate with people adds depth to people's lives and daily experience. I am interested in architecture which makes you fantasize, dream, marvel, act, jump in fountains, climb up walls of buildings, lose your inhibitions, and break taboos in society. A work of architecture thus becomes a stimulus for discussion, exchange and pleasure. This study is my opportunity for developing a number of ideas about popular architecture as well as to express my own love of vibrant popular places in order to enable creative design for my architectural thesis. Through this theoretical investigation I hope to discover innovative ways of realizing my concepts of building for 'the people'; of giving the people what they would like to see in a public building. I believe that fascinating structures can be made for the built environment by applying knowledge from popular culture.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• De Moyencourt, Lucie Bernadette Joan

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Steenkamp, Alta
• Noero, Jo
• Carter, Francis

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/24365

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/24365