The following quotes are taken from a reading of Festival Architecture by Bonnermaison, S & Macy, C, 2007) which I believe are appropriate to consider when designing for an important and symbolic festival site.
"Festival architecture, throughout the ages, has allowed architects to experiment with new ideas, new forms and new spatial arrangements."
"From coronations to consecrations, and carnivals to world expositions, festival architecture brought vivid colour and sensory delight to the cities of the past."
"Festivals throughout history were well funded by the ruling classes in order to magnify and glorify their reign."
Distinction between solid and ephemeral architecture. Temporary architecture is no less valuable/signification of a contribution to society/culture than permanent architecture.
"The origins of architecture lay in the universal human need to create order through play and ritual."
Woodford Festival Fire event
"in the wreath, the bead necklace, the scroll, the circular dance and the rhythmic tone that attends it, the beat of an oar [...] These are the beginnings out of which music and architecture grew" From its ephemeral beginnings in the ritual movement, the ordering activity of art is embodied in the artistic motifs, which in turn are fused in works of architecture" Hvattum 2004: 66
"Work on French revolutionary festivals explains symbolism of ephemera built after the revolution. The state festivals gave physical form to new ideas about liberty, transparency, historical memory, and the role of the public, as they helped to forge a new sense of national identity in a turbulent era."
"Festivals had an effect on officials responsible for urban beautification. For a few days, festivals functioned as urban design proposals for improvements to the city. He argues that festivals worked deeply in the spatial imagination of governmental officals and citizens."
"While rites of passage may differ in detail from culture to culture and one event to another, they share certain features and a common social function. Rites of passage share a common structure, composed of three phases; separation, transistion and incorporation. This can be applied to study of large contemporary rituals, from modern pilgrimages to youth gatherings such as Woodstock. The awareness of the symbolism of space and place."
"The passage from one social status to another is often accompanied by a parallel passage in space, a geographical moment from on place to another. The may take the form of a mere opening of doors or the literal crossing of a threshold such as the groom carrying the bride over the threshold of their new home."
"The process of passage through thresholds, participants are stipped of their social status and removed from social structures."
Woodford festival fire event
image from http://www.blakeralph.com/woodford-festival
"Carnival is a possibility to present alternatives, if only fleeting, to rigid societal norms."
Visual participation. Spectacle. Being able to participate by viewing only.
Seeing, moving and sensing
Duality between permanent, relic like material such as stonehedge, colosseum and how different they become with temporary ephemeral architecture.
Can the design be flexible to become a permanent relic lost within the landscape that transforms for ritual and festival?
| “ | The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. | ” |
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754
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