Concerning the topic of magic I will not talk about fairytales, ghost stories, Harry Potter or vampire stories. The last days I was thinking a lot about who took over broomsticks and wands and how the meaning of magic has changed in the last decades. For me the answer seems very clear, but nevertheless not easy.
In former times magic was practiced by only a few people out there. Sorcery was forbidden and for this reason it took place mostly hidden somewhere in the underground or darkness, either fighting against bad guys or helping the poor ones. Witches and wizards were hunted and got burnt, but they remained at least in stories still told all over the world today.
If we look at children we will notice that they still believe today that magical persons exist, as long as the stories you tell them touch their minds and fantasy, but most of us, let’s say “adults” can’t or don’t want to believe any more. Most of the stories told today have been delivered mostly in written form and have survived centuries of wars and impacts as an analogue knowledge storage. Nowadays the usage of these analogue facilities looses its permission more and more. It seems that also the ability to write down certain things in an adequate way gets lost. Furthermore large numbers of people can ‘t or don’t want to concentrate on reading analogue as well as digital texts. It’s simply easier for most of them to enjoy “passive” entertainment like TV, Internet Streams or the radio. Therefore one topic to focus on could be the magic of written thoughts, maybe literature and poetry, but seen as a wide field. How could we as architects contribute to re-establish a new kind of literary euphoria, building shelters for the written magic? How could this magic regain the power it had in former times and help especially children to rediscover their own worlds of fantasy.
Now I’ve to start again right at the beginning. Who took over the magical devices? Who is riding broomsticks and has a wand to transform things from one into another? For me science in general, but especially medicine has something magical. The daemons and dragons have changed, but there are still loads of bad things to fight against. As a result the second possible field to focus on would be the magic of science.
The third magic thing for me is the world of kinetic, robotic and interactive systems. Things move, react and are even able to act on their own. There are many things to discover, but also to communicate. This kind of magic today often remains in the dark while we know it exists already out there.
Finally I must add that in my opinion no magic could ever happen without the right ambiance and surroundings, no matter if it’s a certain lightning situation or a political situation in a certain area. So one key aspect of my upcoming project should lie on these soft factors and the correlation of different systems. We have to understand magic as a complex system in which different factors like atmosphere (light, sound), people and the space (where the magic happens, or which gets magic) work directly together and are influenced by each other.
In former times magic was practiced by only a few people out there. Sorcery was forbidden and for this reason it took place mostly hidden somewhere in the underground or darkness, either fighting against bad guys or helping the poor ones. Witches and wizards were hunted and got burnt, but they remained at least in stories still told all over the world today.
If we look at children we will notice that they still believe today that magical persons exist, as long as the stories you tell them touch their minds and fantasy, but most of us, let’s say “adults” can’t or don’t want to believe any more. Most of the stories told today have been delivered mostly in written form and have survived centuries of wars and impacts as an analogue knowledge storage. Nowadays the usage of these analogue facilities looses its permission more and more. It seems that also the ability to write down certain things in an adequate way gets lost. Furthermore large numbers of people can ‘t or don’t want to concentrate on reading analogue as well as digital texts. It’s simply easier for most of them to enjoy “passive” entertainment like TV, Internet Streams or the radio. Therefore one topic to focus on could be the magic of written thoughts, maybe literature and poetry, but seen as a wide field. How could we as architects contribute to re-establish a new kind of literary euphoria, building shelters for the written magic? How could this magic regain the power it had in former times and help especially children to rediscover their own worlds of fantasy.
Now I’ve to start again right at the beginning. Who took over the magical devices? Who is riding broomsticks and has a wand to transform things from one into another? For me science in general, but especially medicine has something magical. The daemons and dragons have changed, but there are still loads of bad things to fight against. As a result the second possible field to focus on would be the magic of science.
The third magic thing for me is the world of kinetic, robotic and interactive systems. Things move, react and are even able to act on their own. There are many things to discover, but also to communicate. This kind of magic today often remains in the dark while we know it exists already out there.
Finally I must add that in my opinion no magic could ever happen without the right ambiance and surroundings, no matter if it’s a certain lightning situation or a political situation in a certain area. So one key aspect of my upcoming project should lie on these soft factors and the correlation of different systems. We have to understand magic as a complex system in which different factors like atmosphere (light, sound), people and the space (where the magic happens, or which gets magic) work directly together and are influenced by each other.
copyright by Topf Alexander, 5.11.2010, Innsbruck
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