© Aditya Mehta – 05/13/2020

ii

Abstract

This work investigates the visual legibility of architectural details as a tool for strengthening the perceiver’s subjective identity. It studies architectural details like

inscription, sculptures and other ornaments from historical precedents in India. Actual physical buildings are scanned using photogrammetry, generating digital models

to replicate the articulations of the precedents. Animation is used to modulate walkthrough sequences through the models and recreate the perceptual experiences of

architectural details.

Using contemporary aesthetic theory with media theory, the resolution of the architectural surface is used as a tool to generate responses of familiarity and unfamiliarity

within the perceivers mind. The perceiver’s mind is provoked to form a subjective interpretation reactionary to the amount of data consumed in relation to the amount

of data legible.

iii

Executive Summary

The architectural surface is a political instrument. Its interpretability can regroup the perceivers into those for whom the architecture makes sense and those for whom it

does not. Those who are empowered by the architecture and those who are dispossessed by it.

Historically, the physical articulation of the architectural surface in ancient India became a means for the rich and royalty to display their might, piety, cultural

inclinations and political ambitions. The strategic placement of appropriate statues, symbology, scripture or detail on various building surfaces could make for pavilions

advocating societal participation, mystical inner sanctums of temples or powerful towering monuments elaborating the industrial brilliance of the ones in power. The

way in which a building is articulated unveils political and cultural fissures between those who commission the architecture and its users. The architectural surface is

the encrustation of the culture of a people, the contemporary standardization of which has left thousands alienated.

My thesis proposes a methodology of architecture which utilizes the egalitarian legibility of the building surface as a tool to strengthen the subjective identity of the

perceiver. Through the program of a deployable voting center in the post-colonial context of New Delhi, India, the proposed architecture becomes a stage for the frayed

and varied identities of the dispossessed people to be reconciled and their collective individualities celebrated as they are empowered to redefine their alienating

contexts.

By identifying the key circulatory movements required for the program of a voting center: congregation in a waiting area, queuing, and self-isolation to cast the vote;

the architectural system choreographs a sequence where congregation is used to instill the role of the individual in a larger community, the idea of queuing behind

fellow citizens is used to instill a cognition that the communal identity consists of infinite subjective identities, and isolation is utilized to empower and legitimize each

of those individual identities.

iv

The tools I use to produce effects of legibility and illegibility of the architectural surface are: resolution of articulations, scale of articulations, duration of interaction

and repetition in interaction. The proposed architectural system modulates the delivery of said parameters on a deliberate spectrum of legibility. Not only is the

perceived surface of the architecture strategically articulated with details, it also deforms according to required programs, becoming sparse and open like a pavilion in

areas of congregation and dense and enclosed like a series of booths in areas of isolation. The architectural system sequentially choreographs the strengthening of the

subjective identity as a crucial part of the collective communal identity.

v

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………….……………….………….. x

Executive Summary………………………….……………….………….. x

Chapter 1: Aesthetics of alienation ……………………………………… 1

Chapter 2: Reading trans-resolution ……………………………… X

Chapter 3: Inter-temporal and trans-resolutionary legibility ……… X

Chapter 4: An architecture for identity generation …………………… X

Figures.…………………………………………………………………… x

Works Cited.……………………………………………………………… x

vi

1

Chapter 1

Aesthetics of alienation

Aesthetics is not referring to visual beauty.1 Aesthetics in a theoretical sense means the existence of a commonly shared experience. The aesthetic experience is the

“moment when the worker stops his arms in order to let his eyes take possession of the place.”  It is the disjunctional moment when the perceiver is torn away from the

subjugation they are in to question their surroundings. It is the redistribution of the sensible, a disassociation of the body from its work. A time when politics are turned

on its head and power is given back to the perceiver to implement the capacity that has been denied.2

Aesthetics is a mentally experienced phenomenon. It exists in the everyday life processes reactionary to the material world which is contrived by conceptual designs. It

is a subjective experience that translates the physical real world into ideas of familiarity or unfamiliarity. It is the legibility of the built form that determines the

distribution of the sensible within an urban space.

In New Delhi, India, the ability to determine an aesthetically sensible built form has been concentrated into the hands of those in power. It arms them with the ability to

dispense a sense of belonging. This ability to selectively distribute the sensible and relatable built form is political. It determines who can be a part of the context, and

who is removed from it. Capitalism has colonised urban space, privatizing the aesthetically sensible to a selected few. (Figure 1) Functionalist optimization has stripped

the sensible and relatable experience from the urban commons. The people have been made dependable on the powerful to create a sense of identity. The powerful

systematically dispossess the people, removing from them the means to create their own subjective representations.

Urban spaces of self-representations are denied to the people. Ecologically fragile river flood-zone land with informal settlements are cleared in the name of

environmental conservation and then handed over to institutions who build massive temples and sports stadiums instead. Sitting right across the road from highly

compact and structurally unstable settlements, these representations of the city occupy stolen land and ticket it's neighbourhoods to grant access to their own urban

representations. The people in such unstable neighbourhoods are exploited to work on low wages to build wide freeways that split through their own neighbourhoods,

empowering further those who would seek to dispossess them.

1 Ranciere Jacques, and Gabriel Rockhill. The Politics of Aesthetics: the Distribution of the Sensible. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018

2 Ranciere, Jaques. Dissensus on Politics and Aesthetics;on Politics and Aesthetics. S.l.: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

2

It is not enough to recognize the dispossessed. Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou talk about the problems of recognition and representation of those who are

dispossessed.3 The dispossessed are interdependent on the system that oppresses them. The representation of them is necessary, but it also creates them as a target

distinctly different from others. A conscious effort to alter the system to integrate them only marginalizes them further. 

An egalitarian representation is not quantifiable. It is an emergent subjective quality, the definition of which is in constant flux. Finding commonalities amongst

identities to create a collective representation could result in the collection of few shared qualities of personality, but it would be too shallow to reverse alienation. A

recreation of representation is always weak as our mind keeps finding hypocrisies and personal inconsistencies within it. To hold most legitimacy, an identity must be

self contrived, it has to be arrived at indirectly through methods of self-discovery.

Half a century into Post-colonial India, the re-establishment of an independent identity remains within the realms of the ruling powers. The aesthetics of the urban

space alienate those who produce it. Though the people may find their selective representations sensible and relatable, it is dispensed by the state, and always does the

subjective identity give way to the established collective identity. My thesis seeks to create a methodology that redistributes the agency of self representation back into

the hands of the individuals. At a voting centre, when it is crucial to take back the power to define one’s own context, the architecture of the voting centre re-establishes

the importance of individual subjective representation.

3 Butler, Judith, and Athena Athanasiou. Dispossession: The Performative in the Political, 2013.

3

Chapter 2

Reading trans-resolutionary aesthetic

How does one then quantify a homogeneous legibility of an aesthetic?

To create an egalitarian aesthetic is difficult. A singular and definite architecture cannot be a commonly sensible and identifiable, since identity is an emergent quality

perceived in the mind of the spectator. The more definite a representation, the less flexible its interpretability. The more rigid the depiction, the more restrictive its

translation or mis-translation. To depict something, is to purposely not depict it as something else. Agency for the definition of the architectural aesthetic must be taken

away from the designers and be given to the ones who perceive it.

Antoine Picon talks about the role of the subjective in the representation of the built form.4 The built form as a tool of communication reveals the agency in the urban

production of space. Historically, people in power would commission the production of temples as a show of piety and strength, the architect would interpret their

aspirations and formulate a sequence of spaces and structures to express the sentiment, the builders or sculptors would then take the general instructions of structure

from the architect and articulate them with incredible details of their interpretation of the client’s sentiment, and finally the users of the temple would interpret the

design incentives through their own subjective reactionary interpretations of it. Through several layers of interpretation, the initial message was often distorted and

allowed to be reconfigured within the minds of the users. By making the aesthetic of architecture highly translatable, its final effect is always conclusive inside the

minds of the spectator.

According to Claude Shannon’s diagram of general communications system,5 any form of communication has an information source (the architect’s design), a

transmitter (the built architectural form), a receiver (the users of the architecture) and the destination (the users mind).

4 Picon, Antoine. Ornament: the Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity. Somerset: Wiley, 2014.

5 Shannon, Claude. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” Bell System Technical Journal, 1948.

4

Shannon's diagram of a general communications system, showing the process by which a message sent becomes the message received (possibly corrupted by noise).

A form of noise distorts the initial message dispatched by the architect and translates it into the message that is received by the perceivers. This interpretation of the

message takes the agency of defining a singular message away from the architect. By modulating this source of noise, a system can be created to orchestrate the

removal of the architect’s agency of message determination and return it back to the users of the architecture.

To look at something, immediately initiates a relation and recognition process that correlates the current perception to ones existing previously in our memories. In

instances where we find relations, memory begins to re-appropriate and assign meaning to the perceived to make it interpretable, hence blurring identities through false

associations. However, an aesthetic that actively promotes misreading allows a more flexible interpretability.

Contemporary media theory ponders on the defense of the low-resolution image.6 The low-res image is pirated, stored and continuously redistributed, mocking

restrictive proprietorship. It is easily distributed and becomes a medium for rapid communication. It blurs the distinction between the consumer and the producer. It is

appropriated, interpreted and translated until its original meaning is lost.

Architectural theorist Michael Meridith in the exhibition “Low-Res houses” delves into examples of architecture that deals with relatability and interpretation.  These

buildings display certain qualities that allow a digestibility, an interpretability, a fragmentation and a legibility of the building. Examples of houses that by exposing

particular construction joints and details allows the perceiver to formulate the architecture as a physical systematic assemblage of materials. Other examples of

6 Steyerl, Hito. “In Defence of the Poor Image.” E-Flux, no. 10 (November 2009).

5

architecture that use commonly appearing elements of a home strongly associated with the domestic environment like fireplaces, porches, bay windows et cetera.

allowing the perceiver to easily interpret the building as a house. The third type of example he includes is that of buildings with minimalistic and simple spatial forms

like cubes, cylinders, hemisphere’s et cetera. to make the space easily interpretable.

The low-res allows for an increased interpretability. It is the noise that distorts the original message and allows for immediate interpretation. By controlling the

resolution of the architectural articulations of the proposed architectural system, the architecture entices the users to form their own interpretations of the architecture.

The agency is taken away from me as a designer and replaced into the minds of the users.

As is common with Indian historical precedents, the architectural system uses sculptural figures as articulations to be distributed onto the perceived built surface. The

figures chosen to be present on the surface display general everyday activities carried out by the users. The de-resolution of the figures blurs these depictions making

them further interpretable. By displaying these figures next to each other it creates a relational context for the interpretations of these figures. In other words, it is not

the meaning of the figures that the users are interpreting, but rather the meaning of each figure as a part of a narrative that includes other figures. The low-res

architectural surface choreographs the formation of subjective narratives by varying the method of delivery of the figures, bringing in ideas of dynamic perception of

the architectural surface. (Figures 2 - 5)

6

Chapter 3

Inter-temporal and trans-resolutionary legibility

Graham Harman, professor of philosophy at SCIArch, describes a new way of thinking about objects.7 Throughout history whenever we had to describe an object we

could do it in two ways. One way is by “Undermining” it, talking about what it is made of, and the other way is by “Overmining” it, talking about what it does. Object

Oriented Ontology allows us to consider a third method of arriving at a definition of an object by a process called “Duomining”.8  Duominging involves a simultaneous

Undermining and Overmining of an object, allowing its indirect definition via relations to other objects. The Duomining of an object reveals a variety of withdrawn

qualities of an object seen only when compared to other objects in an unusual sense.

Heiddeger too elaborates on the withdrawn qualities of an object which come to light only when its regular functioning is disturbed. As long as a hammer functions as a

hammer, it is difficult to see it as anything other than a tool. Once the hammer breaks, it becomes definable with qualities of weight, materiality, texture et cetera. Using

Graham Harman’s method of Duomining, tension can be created between the object and its qualities to disturb its usual definition and allow us to define it as

something else.

The act of moving to some place involves a rejection of the current space in anticipation of the next. This undermines the value of the present space and reduces it as

something purely functional and facilitation. The transient spaces (or their readings) embed into our memories and influence the interpretation of the next space.

(Figures 6 - 11)

In order not to be detrimental, the architectural reading must enhance or encourage the functional movement through it. In simpler words, the reading of architecture

has to mediate between drawing attention and completely being ignored.

The changes in the types of movement through the architecture changes the resolution of the architecture. From afar the perceiver reads the form, and as it moves closer

it reads sections of the form, and closer to read the material surface. I am keenly interested in the dynamic mediation amongst these resolutions of readings

undermining and over-mining each other. Movement through the architecture is the parameter that drives its variable reading.

7 Graham Harman and Slavoj Zizek: Talk and Debate: On Object Oriented Ontology. Parallax Conference 2018. Munich: Hochschule fur Philosophie, n.d.

8 Gage, Mark Foster. “Killing Simplicity: Object Oriented Ontology in Architecture.” Anyone Corporation, Log, no. 33 (Winter 2015): 95–106.

7

Though one might move through a space sequentially, the conclusive experience and perception of the space is not linear. The perceiver non-sequentially remembers

moments that stand out. A sudden change in experience, like a sudden contrast in perceived resolution or a sudden change in the amount of architectural surface

perceived, protrudes in memory as a moment of transaction and importance. These experiences allow the perceivers to create a series of non-linear instances from

which they can intermittently access and distort the perception of the space. These instances then undermine or over-mine other perceptual instances, creating tension in

the perceivers mind, making them aware of their interpretation of the space. These key moments are points in time from which the perceiver may inter-temporally

create a holistic perception. The movement of the perceiver through the space is what connects these instances and mediates the transition between them. Simple

movements like remaining stationary, linear or non -linear motions, temporally create relational experiences with the contexts. Paired with visual perception, being

stationary becomes waiting, non-linear motion becomes queuing, and linear motion becomes a form of wandering.

Waiting (Figure 12)

The act of waiting in a single space involves a prolonged reading of a single space, often from a single point of view. This necessarily involves an iterative reading of

the space at different scales. As the gaze interprets the architectural surface far away, and then the one closer to the point of perception repetitively, different scales and

resolutions of articulations reveal and hide themselves for interpretation. The interpretation of the single space conclusively re-establishes itself and remains in a state

of constant change.

Queuing (Figure 13)

The motion of queuing involves moving through a single space in an orthogonal or sequential manner, where continuous linear strides are broken up as the perceiver

moves into a different part of the queue. This involves a changing perception of a single space as it is repetitively viewed from different angles.

Continuous Linear Motion (Figure 14)

In this kind of motion, one perceives a continuous reading of data that may vary rapidly through the movement. The availability of data is rapidly modulated and the

reading of the space too rapidly develops and changes. The continuity in experience but the rapid transition in space allows for an opportunity of developing a single

long generative experience with change of rapid re-iterative spatial reading.

8

Chapter 4

An architecture for identity generation

Using the aforementioned categories of movements: waiting, queuing and a continuous linear path, the module of architecture can be deployed on a site sparsely or

densely and in a scattered, organized or clustered manner. These modulate the interaction between free navigable space and the interactive surface of the architecture,

choreographing the possible circulation paths through them.

The circulatory movement of waiting used as a driver for the architectural functional space of congregating. The circulatory movement of queuing used as a driver for

the orthogonal architectural space for queuing. The continuous linear path translated to a single continuous wandering motion as a driver for the architectural space for

isolation. (Figure 15)

Congregating and Waiting (Figures 16 - 19)

The architectural module heightens itself to create a tall canopy with panels opening up to let in sunlight. It bulbs out at the eye level to provide for a zone of reading

and then again at knee level to become seating. The sparse scattering of such modules allow for an open slow movement and the architectural surface itself deforms to

create a space for waiting, sitting and contemplation.

In the space of collective congregation, the emphasis on high resolution reading is placed above eye-level, moving the attention towards the large space of the canopy

above. Eye-level sees the highest density of mid-scaled medium resolution figures which flow into the perception of high density large-scale low-resolution figures on

the canopy. A large amount of data is collectively perceived through the open spaces beneath the canopies.

Here the perceiver interprets the articulations in the context of a gathered crowd , creating communal narratives and reinforcing the narrative of the individual in a

society. While sitting at the base of the canopy, the perceiver imagines how their narrative fits into the narratives of those around them. The perceiver embeds

themselves into the larger society.

Queuing and fragmenting (Figures 20 - 23)

9

The architectural module becomes somewhat symmetric around its central vertical axis with its roof becoming filleted squares. Organized orthogonally, the modules

form ordered colonnades allowing for multiple stratas of linear motions through them. The columns bulge at eye-level to create a reading zone, and then again at hand

level to create a touching zone.

In the space of queuing, the emphasis on high resolution reading is placed on the roof of the structures, placing a high amount of data in the peripheral vision as one

rapidly walks through the space. Eye-level sees a medium density of mid-scaled medium resolution figures which rapidly pass by the perceiver. The perceiver generally

walks towards empty spaces between the colonnades with repetitive columns passing in their peripheral vision.

Moving in orthogonal patterns the perceiver reads the same space from different angles, creating several distinctive but coexisting narratives of the same space. The

rapid passage by the columns instilling a cognition of the existence of several narratives and identities passing by in the peripheral vision, not all of them palpable, but

existing nonetheless. Moving behind fellow civilians, the perceiver is made aware the unknown myriad of identities and hence the uniqueness of their own.

Wandering and isolating (Figures 24 - 27)

The architectural module expands at its base becoming chambers themselves that internalize the circulatory space around them. Clustered densely, they create narrow

and wandering circulatory paths around them and the celebrated significant space becomes the one that is inside them.

In the space of isolation, the emphasis on high resolution reading is homogenized across the vertical surface. The close proximity to the surface allows for the reading

of a large amount of small scale figures. Eye-level sees the highest density of small-scaled high resolution figures merging into a wall of small scale medium resolution

figures. The continuous perception of walls allows for a holistic reading of figures as a single experience.

The meandering motion through the space creates an effect of a singular cohesive experience where the perceiver wanders and makes their own path. In isolation, the

perceiver strengthens their own interpretations of the continuous narratives, and then empowered with self importance, they break away from the system of architecture

which was the embodiment of their culture, and place themselves inside it, becoming now the ones who have the power to change their own contexts.

10

Moving from a space of congregation, to a space of queuing to a space of isolation, the architecture choreographs the strengthening of the subjective identity of the

perceiver. The perceiver is introduced to their role as an individual in a society, then made aware of the existence of several parallel narratives that work in conjunction

to create the society, and then empowered as their subjective identities are strengthened and they are given the tools to create the society.

This architecture creates a moment of dissensus where the dispossessed alienated perceiver stops using the building for solely its functionality and is made aware of

their own social significance in the generation of the cultural context.

11

Figures Captions

1. Demonstrations of the controlled aesthetics by the ruling regime in New Delhi.

2. Figures used in the proposed architecture, showing varying resolutions.

3. An imitation of the surficial qualities of historically contextual architecture.

4. Analysis of surface resolutions of Kandariya Mahadev Temple.

5. Analysis of surface resolutions of Dilwara Temple.

6.Perspectival parallax and circulatory depiction of Modhera Sun Temple Mandala.

7.Photogrammetric analysis of surface normals in relation to movement of Modhera Sun Temple Mandala.

8.Perspectival parallax and circulatory depiction of Modhera Sun Temple outer wall.

9.Photogrammetric analysis of surface normals in relation to movement of Modhera Sun Temple outer wall.

10.Perspectival parallax and circulatory depiction of Rani ki Vav.

11.Photogrammetric analysis of surface normals in relation to movement of Rani ki vav.

12. Analysis of data perception and interpretation in a simulation of Waiting.

13. Analysis of data perception and interpretation in a simulation of Queuing.

14. Analysis of data perception and interpretation in a simulation of Continuous Linear Motion.

15. Planar diagramming of proposed modular system/

16. Module depiction in the region of Waiting and Congregating

17. Parameters for resolution determination for the module in the region of Waiting and Congregating.

18. A simulation of circulation sequence in the region of Waiting and Congregating.

19. Analysis of data perception and interpretation in the simulation of circulation sequence in the region of Waiting and Congregating.

20. Module depiction in the region of Queuing and Fragmenting.

21. Parameters for resolution determination for the module in the region of Queuing and Fragmenting.

22. A simulation of circulation sequence in the region of Queuing and Fragmenting.

12

23. Analysis of data perception and interpretation in the simulation of circulation sequence in the region of Queuing and Fragmenting.

24. Module depiction in the region of Wandering and Isolating.

25. Parameters for resolution determination for the module in the region of Wandering and Isolating.

26. A simulation of circulation sequence in the region of Wandering and Isolating.

27. Analysis of data perception and interpretation in the simulation of circulation sequence in the region of Wandering and Isolating.

28. A cumulative sequence analysis.

13

29.Figure 1

14

Figure 2

15

Figure 3

16

Figure 4

17

Figure 5

18

Figure 6

19

Figure 7

20

Figure 8

21

Figure 9

22

Figure 10

23

Figure 11

24

Figure 12

25

Figure 13

26

Figure 14

27

Figure 15

28

Figure 16

29

Figure 17

30

Figure 18

31

Figure 19

32

Figure 20

33

Figure 21

34

Figure 22

35

Figure 23

36

Figure 24

37

Figure 25

38

Figure 26

39

Figure 27

40

Figure 28

41

Works Cited

● Butler,

Judith, and Athena

Athanasiou.

Dispossession: The

Performative in the

Political, 2013.

● Elden,

Stuart. “There Is a

Politics of Space

Because Space Is

Political: Henri

Lefebvre and the

Production of Space.”

Radical Philosophy

Review, 2007.

42

● Gage, Mark Foster. “Killing Simplicity: Object Oriented Ontology in Architecture.” Anyone Corporation, Log, no. 33 (Winter 2015): 95–106.

● Graham Harman and Slavoj Zizek: Talk and Debate: On Object Oriented Ontology. Parallax Conference 2018. Munich: Hochschule fur Philosophie, n.d.

● Picon, Antoine. Ornament: the Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity. Somerset: Wiley, 2014.

● Ranciere Jacques, and Gabriel Rockhill. The Politics of Aesthetics: the Distribution of the Sensible. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018

● Ranciere, Jaques. Dissensus on Politics and Aesthetics;on Politics and Aesthetics. S.l.: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

● Shannon, Claude. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” Bell System Technical Journal, 1948.

● Steyerl, Hito. “In Defence of the Poor Image.” E-Flux, no. 10 (November 2009).