Taboo and Trangression

"Each setting, each fragment, was aimed at seduction, but always dissolved at the moment it was approached. And then each time it would be subtituted by another fragment. Desire was never seen. Yet it remained constant. The same goes for architecture.

Pleasure, to be implied in architecture, some said it's decadent. This is an ambiguous issue to talk about. Pleasure as in seduction, in sensuality, in erotic act. Some architects seem to behave their design to comply with ideologies and also financial wise, to make no confront with rationality. There are still somebody dare to express and indulge sexuality into the space/ building. However it's not an easy task.

Did a little research on this, having said that building has its own gender. Curvy buildings are more to female however rough and tough outlook more to derive male. (http://architecture.about.com/od/architectureandsex/ss/gender.htm) Architect like I.M Pei is more on producing "male architecture" eg.Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. While another example for "female architecture", The esplanade in Singapore.

How do architecture arouses sensuality?


Firstly, through eyes. While a space illustrate the experience of bodily libido. It's the direct way. Eg. India's Kama Sutra Temple. 10% of the carvings contain sexual themes. But to avoid the hassle of people on behalf of the morality, it's likely to create a space of geometry speaking for it (with veil). "Presence of absence" Architecture is a "thing of the mind" a geometrical rather than a pictorial or experiential art. The pleasure of a space can only be experienced in the existence, it can't be told in drawing or words before it's built. For my opinion, space that offer more privacy with soft light and nice scene, and maybe more curvaceous element will be arousing sensuality.

Whoever knows how to design a park well, he will know to plan a building of a city. Garden is the practice of expressing pleasure and eroticism. Landscape has to be organized in which have to be dismantled, which have to be ordered to generate a rejuvenating space for people to loiter on. By that kind of exploring, one can really appreciate the existing, and enhance it. Garden merges the sensual pleasure of space with the pleasure of reason.

Architecture provides salubrity of cities, guards the health of men, protects their property and works only for the safety, repose, and good order of civil life. Undoubtedly architecture is the main resource of recalling the past. What and how ancient people live will be revealed on their buildings. "Artistic supplement" a.k.a ornamentation is useless but we had always found that in old buildings. It's not prevalent nowadays because of profit/financial wise. People will favour simple less ornamentated layout to get rid of not neccesary cost.

Bondage- While we know there are many rules that restraint the design of building. However, the myth is that how you play with this rule and create a sense of "bondage" which carry the means of "the more numerous and sophisticated the restraints, the greater the pleasure" It's a challenge on human, human loves challenge and evilly might wanted to do what cannot do/ not supposed to do. Unspoken pleasure will come to them.

Eroticism brought by the architecture is how concept and space interrelated each other, brought to excess and that is the immediate experience of the space. Architecture actually seduce people by facade, arcade etc. It's the disguise that whoever will have different perception/ thought on it. It's the mask of the city. There are stories behind. People will love to discover it to know whether it gives pleasure?

In conclusion, architecture is not interesting because of what they represent or not represent, it's the reflection of what our desire can be revealed. It might be set in the way to seduce but it's unconscious.