SPECTATOR CULTURE

The other evening, we made a design presentation in front of a municipal board for a new building.  As usual, we brought in an architectural massing model.  And we always work to give the most context that we can to our models.

So in this instance, we brought in scale trees, as well as a site plan on which the model sat.

A scale model on a scale site with scale surroundings is the best way we know to communicate a very large amount of information about a project.

Municipal planning and historical review boards have the responsibility to assess how the building fits in.  There might be concerns regarding the height of the building with regard to the context.  Or sight lines to the building might be a key consideration.  Or the placement of parking behind the building might be a key consideration.

With a scale model sitting on the table, all of these, and more, can be readily experienced.  By moving around the model, you are engaging the design with your body.  You are not just engaging it with your eye.

Yet people have a very passive reaction to the models.  Although they look at the models from where they are sitting, they never are compelled to get up and move around the model.  They are not compelled to get their eye down at pedestrian level to experience what that will feel like.  Even when I invite them to get up and move around so they can get a far greater sense about the building, and how the building fits into the context, they just keep sitting there.

This is the spectator theory in action.  At least I don’t have any other terms to explain it.  People are not used to engaging their world.  They do not have any experience in three dimensional analysis of the world they live in.  They therefore don’t know what to do when presented with the easy opportunity to get spatially involved in the 3D world.

As we saw (link above), we are culturally conditioned for art, images and the world to be out there.  As we saw, we are culturally programmed to be spectators.

And when given the chance to experience the design with a bodily perception;  when given the chance to actively engage in the perception of the subject, the building, we don’t know what to do.