from Ihsan Hassan

DATUM was a fantastic avenue for exchanging ideas but it was too conservative with little critical examination of the desperate state of our architecture. New ideas emerged but it remained in the same paradigm of old ways of thinking about architecture. Nevertheless it begs a question – to whom does architecture serve?

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This year Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia’s annual conference DATUM (titled as “Second Nature”) delved into the idea of “Nature” – an exploration of how and where it sits in our time and architecture. The conference moderator’s opening speech set the tone of the event – with an academic perspective, beginning with the historical analysis of the English word, “Nature” to the philosphical basis of the idea and its relationship to our experiences in space. The international panel of speakers were no academics, but created their own take on the topic giving the needed dose of diversity. The prolific portfolio of each speaker is arousing to any architect, but rather than leaving you inspired, the conference left you numb with the stagnant air of conservatism.

Needless to say, this topic remains rooted in Western thought as many of us here in Southeast Asia have a different relationship to Nature than what has been discussed. It required you to assimilate into the idea that our civilisation is now part of a singular thread whose origin is in the glorified imaginations of Greece. Without such assumption, the title does not make any sense.

Nevertheless, good ideas do emerge. Malaysians Wee Hii Min of DNA and Chris Chong Chan Fui of Tanjung Aru Pictures were one of the best speakers of the conference. Theirs were honest and interesting presentations that truly brought the discussions from the heights of the ivory tower back into our everyday lives. Wee Hii Min spoke about the economic realities of Borneo that led to a kind of restraint in architecture rarely seen in the more prosperous parts of the world. His observations on the different modes of life and social fabrics of the Sarawakian cities also led to enlightened works such as the mosque they designed in Kuching and the Sibu Heritage Centre. All this was done with very few pretentious jargons and a little bit of Hokkien to spice it up.

Chris Chong Chan Fui (Tanjung Aru Pictures) shamed many architects by successfully revealing a cross section of Kuala Lumpur in a beautiful film about life in Brickfields. Its simple, static shot of a multi-storey flat told several narratives of different characters in the expatriate Indian community with poetic realism so evident in independent cinema. His ability in transforming the multistorey flats – now a ubiquitous symbol of inhumane planning in KL – into a colourful and delightful place where people meet and fall in love is a subtle lesson in good urban planning. His other works (such as “Karaoke”) were an impressive, perhaps accidental, critical exploration of Malaysian process of urbanity and how architecture can be examined with respect to our own history.

Also of note was Sou Fujimoto of Japan whose idea of Architecture as a “Cave” was a brave departure from the modernist mantra “form follows function”. He suggested that functions shall emerge spontaneously from less designed spaces, as people would find ways to use their spaces, citing our prehistoric ancestors who did the same in their cave habitats. These less designed spaces were to be like staircases – whose occasional wide landings create possibilities for a bed, kitchen and shelves. He kept the conference in good spirits – his design for a small library drew enthusiastic applause and his Japanese wit and humour made him a hit among the audience.

The speakers from Southeast Asia were less inspiring. Singaporean Ko Shiou Hee for example was an architect of good taste – and nothing more. His bungalows were picture-perfect compositions that seem to come out from the most stylish coffee table books. His presentation was mostly of houses of extremely rich people, one which even boasted a columnless post-tensioned floor slab to house the owner’s many expensive cars. He is no eco-warrior and did not pretend to be so. His own work of a house for a foreign couple had sustainable features like extensive natural ventilation, but this he called a foreign and “romanticised” notion of living in the tropics.

Wiyoga Nurdiansyah and Muhammad Sagitha of Indonesia however were not at all bad; perhaps in relation to Malaysian architectural culture, their critical thinking was more advanced, but their works were concealed by their good graphics and like the rest of the presenters, they did not show enough plans and sections that can help you understand what they were talking about.

Duangrit Bunnag of Thailand gave what I thought was one of the most excruciating lecture I’ve ever attended. His ego-centric manner was another story altogether but his ramblings on truism such as “the world is getting more populous” and his unsound historical/philosophical analysis (“1960s an era of icons” – isn’t today one as well?) were difficult to endure. His works showed a complete disconnection from his rather watery “philosophy” but were simply another exercise in good taste.

Alejandro Zaera-Polo of Foreign Office Architects is a figure from the Pantheon of architectural celebrities, so it was rather dissapointing that he slimmed the topic to just “building envelope”. Nevertheless I must say few architects have FOA’s qualification to talk about the building envelope and he did manage to make the topic rather more intellectual, moving it beyond aesthetics and onto issues like sustainability. Another well-known figure was Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio + Renfro who gave an overview of his office’s work but unfortunately did not delve deep enough into each project to reveal their real complexities. These rather weak presentations from the two major figures left many disappointed as they were expecting more of these critically acclaimed architects.

On that note, Julien De Smedt of Denmark, another relatively well-known speaker, gave a presentation that left you with the ominous future of architecture. It is steep in the iconic architecture of the most instantly-gratifying graphics. Almost all work presented showed the intense effort to privilege the visual over all other aspects of architecture. His mega tower proposal for Shenzhen was almost obscene when you think about the luxurious excesses that go with it. He closed his presentation with a suggestive remark that his Ski jump slope in Oslo was a seat for the Gods, which left many either queasy or dumbfounded.

Sustainability was barely mentioned but one speaker that spoke extensively of it was Bjarne Masenbroek of SeARCH (The Netherlands). He began the presentation with some thoughts on Nature vs. Culture which was quite interesting. Their Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia is an Aga Khan-winning project which has an inspiring social aspect to it – they trained a few talented young Ethiopians, who after the project went on to have successful careers in their respective fields. Masenbroek’s beautiful circular house dug out of the Swiss hillside is now iconic in the major architectural press and blogs.

Lucy Bullivant (England) was one of the lesser known speakers but her presentation on interactive environments was eye-opening. She showed works from Europe that use interactive electronic devices to make spaces respond to users, but unfortunately restricted this discourse to a narrative of art history. Perhaps responding to her audience’s love for academic detachment, she only ever so lightly touched on the power of such interactive devices to return the ownership of public space to the public. The installations she showed were not only fun and beautiful but made their ever-changing spaces more democratic. Kim Herforth Nielsen of 3XN’s more humane architecture was also in the same thread of thought but somehow did not explain further on the social and political impact of their works.

The conference this year continued to be a conservative forum for re-affirming the usual paradigm of architecture – buildings of the elite few, the rulers and the corporations. The users, the people that inhabit architecture, were almost absent and where they were mentioned they were merely an abstraction in architectural concepts and not active participants of architecture. It is a familiar scene of imposing the architect’s plan on the lives of ordinary people with little regard to their opinion. Architecture shown in the conference was mainly an autonomous discipline detached from everyday lives – exemplified by the images of beautiful and scenic sites, of course devoid of the people.

That absence made it easy to forget where you are and the real issues we have here in the region. The presentations showed a strong tendency to globalise and uproot oneself from the realities of our own world to join the “trends” in the international architectural scene. The topic is so culturally biased that one must think of oneself as citizens of the Western civilization – to accept the same aloof scientific relationship to nature as in Western societies because here, we inherited a different perception to nature.

We have more or less preserved the pre-scientific intimacy towards nature – now almost lost in the West – and sometimes had it morphed to reconcile with modern thought. Nature as the English language permits it is a small part of the Asian imagination. To many of us, it is the dominion of the invisible powers – the world of spirits. For example, in the open-air car parks that dot around KLCC one still stumbles upon shrines to honour “spirits”, usually at the base of old trees. Recently in Glenmarie Road in Subang Jaya close to where I live, a Hindu shrine was set up spontaneously by the roadside perhaps upon a discovery of a linga in the bushes. This difference is even more obvious in the lives of rural peoples of the farmlands or the interior rainforests. Besides, we are so much more in contact with Nature – we swim in our rivers, we still know the medicinal qualities of our plants, our built environment is invaded by insects of all kinds on a daily basis,  and the cities are usually half an hour away from dense rainforest– the list goes on. To discusss the idea of “Second Nature” is to exclude so many from “architecture”. The conference is a depressing illustration on how Architecture in our country remains within the framework of Western discourse.

Going beyond the topic itself, the issues presented in the conference were far from being the most pressing. This is after all a country where abject poverty is real and cities are being savagely devastated in the name of profit as well as irresponsible politics. In our rural interiors new townships that cause environmental damage are spreading unchecked like wild fire, often built with the brief from greedy developers rather than the needs of residents. We are about to pass (or have already passed) the peak-oil production and yet our architectural discourse remains in ignorant bliss with visions of buildings and cities drenched in plastic and oil.

Nature as artifice or nature as architecture is too academic, too Western, too disconnected to the realities of our lives here. If architecture and architects are to become relevant again, isn’t it time to think of architecture in radical terms?

IH