Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Unknown Encounters: Surrealist Thought Examined for Provoking Self-Reflection in Architecture

Abstract Details

2017, MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture.
The creation of architecture is often approached as a social act: many buildings are created for public consumption, and many architects believe the users’ experiences (and by association the architecture itself) are enriched through encountering public spaces and opportunities to interact with other users or with the public at large. Moments are identified within the design where potentially disparate paths will cross and the people on them will acknowledge and understand each other. This investigation argues that the same architectural tools used to engineer these moments of collision may also be employed differently to be productively disruptive of the user’s journey, creating moments of mental solitude. To that end, this thesis explores the architecture of self-reflection, solitude, and self-understanding. Rather than identifying ways to encourage interaction with others, this is an examination of how architecture might suggest that users look inward. To create architectural experiences of this nature, inhabitants’ visual and spacial perception are challenged through manipulation of form and space. In the perceptual vacuum that is created when the user’s idea of reality is denied, the inhabited space is, in a sense, Surreal. This investigation proposes that when we are unsure of the space we inhabit, and the Surreal dominates, we are given a moment to look inward. In this way, the spacial constructions informed by surrealist thought can promote meditation and reflection. Building on surrealist intentions, themes of the surreal may be applied to architecture to fulfill similar architectural intentions of this thesis: questioning the true nature of our environment to promote self-reflection. Through an iterative case study exercise, architectural form is manipulated using strategies informed by surrealist ideology to challenge the user’s perception of reality, providing an opportunity to reflect.
Christoph Klemmt, A.A. Dipl. (Committee Chair)
Aarati Kanekar, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
110 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Locke, K. (2017). Unknown Encounters: Surrealist Thought Examined for Provoking Self-Reflection in Architecture [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1491313682122901

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Locke, Kellie. Unknown Encounters: Surrealist Thought Examined for Provoking Self-Reflection in Architecture. 2017. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1491313682122901.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Locke, Kellie. "Unknown Encounters: Surrealist Thought Examined for Provoking Self-Reflection in Architecture." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1491313682122901

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)