Teleportation by Symbols

Modernism is the age when all the ornamentations and representation are eliminated. We try to avoid any kind of ornament and symbols, as they are the sign of luxury and unnecessary. We avoid anything that are representatives and do things more pure, using pure forms to create original spaces. The purity in the form of modern architecture gives us aesthetics. This type of architecture gives us the good quality of spaces, good environment for us to perform our daily activities. Even though these architectures integrated well to our lifestyles, but they are less integrated with our mind. Space that eliminated all symbols is the space that doesn’t tell any story; there is nothing much for a user to be able to connect what they see to what they have experienced. Users would not be able to create their own unique mental space, from what they see. The space without mentally interaction would clearly be defined, therefore has no potential to evolve.

In Dubai, one of the newest and most extravagant cities in the world, it makes all sorts of ornamentation possible, in shopping malls, hotels, mosque and etc. There are many themed shopping malls in the Dubai, and these enhanced the experience of the shoppers. It gives the sense of different reality to the space, this gives the potential for the space to change from people to people. For example the ship that is in the main China room of the Ibn Battuta mall. The fake ship in middle of the room is the representative of the real ship, by just looking at the ship, it tells a lot of stories. Even if we don’t know the real story behind it we created our own story from our own interpretation of what we perceived. When we see the ship we would immediately refers to the ship that we have seen before, we would referring it back to our own experience from the past, or the photographs and filmed we saw, and in that moment that we referring back, we are teleported into that space. We would felt the context that the memories we have were taken place. We would remember the sound the sea breeze or even the people inside the memories. This is when our imagination and the symbols are linked together. If the thing that we are referring to is strong enough, the space that reminds us would become a very special space to us. Another example is the Sheikh Sayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi; it is a very impressive and stunning space. It was a large space that mainly has the white and golden components. The beautifully ornamented columns, dome, and ceiling make the place full of stories. On the ground, we see the greenish carpet. This remind me of a grass, A beautiful garden, with beautiful with column on it. This green carpet may have no meaning at all, but to me it reminds me of a beautiful garden. In the moment that I think about it as a beautiful garden, the new narrative of the space is created. It teleported me into a heavenly space, where the carpet turned into a beautiful garden and the column became unknown culture’s sculpture, with unknown purpose, but impressive looking structure. In the moment the simple Mosque turned into a paradise by our own imagination. Then being in the space makes us feel differently, the experienced we had was enhanced by our own imagination.

The space that well integrated with our own imagination would be a unique and special experience. It is the moment that we were teleported into our own imagination, this make the space very unique from person to person. To do that we need something that would be able for us to referring back to something. And the ornaments and the symbolic of the different component would be a very effective example.  

 This is when there is no symbols

new space created by our imagination.