Metaphor and Blanking
- 2023 Fall Architectural Studio
- Individual Academic Project
- Site: South China University of Technology, Guangzhou,China
This slope is located in the campus where I have lived for five years. I didn’t pay much attention to this land. When I climbed up from the bottom of the slope again, I noticed an interrupted axis. The huge cylindrical building volume stretched between the School of Arts and the gymnasium. If this slope remains blank, with only a few buildings floating on the surface, it may create a brand new axis experience.
"You must use other mysteries to solve the mysteries in your life. Just like some dreams can only wake up through other dreams, you must go through them one by one to get out of this series of dreams." Lai Shengchuan's "Dreams Like a Dream" is one of the classic dramas of the 21st century. I hope to use the story of this drama as an introduction to introduce its abstract symbolic meaning and spirituality into my design. Those pure spaces turn abstract storytelling into concrete experiences, and the emotions contained in those points, lines and surfaces will resonate with people about drama. People can rediscover their truest selves.
The formation of architecture is a process from abstract to concrete. Human emotions transform architecture from concrete to abstract spirit. It humbly hides under the slope and gently participates in the formation of the axis. It constantly responds to the spiritual symbol of drama and tells stories with intertwined curves and inclusive arc containers.
"A Dream Like a Dream" tells the story of Patient No. 5's pursuit of life when medicine cannot diagnose his terminal illness. The themes revolve around pursuit, death, pain, liberation, and the repetitive life patterns brought by life. The story presents a looping and nested structure, with the life stories of different characters intertwined in different time and space.The paths of the actors and the audience show opposite trends, circling counterclockwise from the top, just like the action of "circling the stage" in a play, and finally entering from the bottom of the stage. The corridor is attached to the "small bowl" on the inside, forming an entrance like a crack at the bottom.
The most theatrical feature is the "Millennium Ceremony" in Act 12, Scene 2. The audience is asked to participate in the millennium ceremony near the end of the story. People see their own reflections in the clear lake water, forget the suffering of the past year, and pray for peace and joy in the new year.
"For a midnight show, I enter at around eight o'clock and watch until six in the morning, with a midnight snack in between. I feel that eight hours is just like a night's sleep, like a night's dream. After the show, I wake up, walk out of the theater, watch the sunrise, look at the city in the early morning, and return directly to life from a distant spiritual realm..." Walking out of the dim corridor, there is a large shallow water where people can see their own reflections, as well as the reflection of the School of Arts in the distance. Architecture, drama and human emotions blend in an instant.
The dark corridor spirals upward and intersects with the circular corridor outside the auditorium, and sunlight shines through the arched entrance. After the show, people continued to climb up the corridor, and the waves and the Faculty of Arts in the distance gradually came into view.
To the audiorium
To the lake
To the hilltop
To the stage