In a world overwhelmed by objects and materials, it results in the production of architecture unconsciously and thoughtlessly; architecture today should instead dissolve into nothingness.It should attempt to reject its object-ness, attempt to distil itself down to almost nothing, and eventually form a new relationship with its surroundings to become an architecture that is thoughtful and meaningful by nature.
This ideology isn’t anti-architecture but expresses the idea of nothingness as a resistance and a pause in a chaotic world.A still point brought into the realm of experiencing through an architect’s mindfulness works.
“Nothingness” is a state where nothing is present, or where nothing exists that is important or gives meaning to life (Cambridge Dictionary)
“Fullness” is the state of having or containing a lot of something; the quality of being whole or complete (Cambridge Dictionary).
Lucy Lippard once wrote that if nothingness was “The absence of presence…it has become clear that [it] can assume a resonant presence if properly manipulated…in a Zen sort of way, [it] ends up by coming full circle into everything (fullness) … [it] is a form of utopia”Everything that is created comes out of Nothing; Without Nothingness, there cannot be Fullness; and only with Fullness can there be Nothingness.It is a perceived illusion.
All these likenesses seek to say that God dwells in emptiness.They are good in so far as they succeed in bringing “emptiness” nearer to human comprehension’ (Kitaro Nishida, Tokyo:iwanamishaoten, 1947, vol4, p219 )
Buddhist monks have long been known to contemplate nothingness.For them, the idea of ‘finding God’ is essentially finding nothing and understanding that it is nothing that is God.Michel de Certeau spoke with a monk who explained that “to see God is, in the end, to see nothing, to perceive no specific thing. It is to take part in a universal visibility which is no longer made up of the fragmented, multiple, separate, and interchangeable incidents of which our perceptions consist” (Bonardel, 2009, p. 176).This understanding comes from the path to nirvana (Nibbana – in Sanskrit translates as ‘release’), which includes seven stages of ‘purification’ – by which the monk is purified of the world and retreats deeper and deeper into a realm of nothingness.
For Nishida, one way to escape this conundrum of double binding – nothingness is either nothing or something, or it is nothing and at the same time something – is to consider nothingness as “the ultimate place” of experience, on which the subject of judgment himself stands and from which the perceiving subject and the object to be perceived emerge concurrently.Nothingness is thus an experiential horizon that embraces both the objectifying subject and the object as unified, internally transcending the dichotomy between two parties.
With our naked eye, we perceive space as Nothing… but is it nothing?
Are Fullness and Nothingness referred only to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd physical dimensions?
How about the 4th,5th, 6th, and 7th sensory dimensions?
1st dimension – between 2 Lines.
2nd dimension – between 2 Planes.
3rd dimension – between 2 Forms / Objects.
4th dimension – between 2 Times.
5th dimension – between 2 Experiences, Atmospheres, Environments.
6th dimension – pauses in-between Arts.
7th dimension – Relationship in society.
In Being and Time, Heidegger questions the same lines with the Buddhist thought; Is there an experience or a method by which the world as a whole is revealed to us? Is there a way to consciously become aware of our surroundings and question them, understand why we exist?
Alan Watts, the British philosopher spoke of nothingness as a non-literal idea, that “the most real state is the state of nothing” and if the basic reality is nothingness, then everything comes from this concept of nothingness.
For Watts, nothingness is like the nothingness of space, which contains the whole universe, all is contained in the void and everything comes from the void; the void is not as emptiness as Western philosophy would conceive of it but rather something like “fundamental clarity” which is ”void, not because there’s nothing there, but because our mind has no idea of it” (Watts, “Zen Bones” & “Mahayana Buddhism” 1994, p.155 & 21).
In Ando, the Church of Light; presents a different level of an encounter between East and West.Enacting the fusion of two horizontal of nothingness and the God of Christianity through the language of architecture leads the inter-cultural encounter to a realm of creativity that goes beyond the dichotomous framework between the two worlds.
The reason why we do not perceive nothingness as the reality of our world is because we are trained to focus on the foreground (the “somethingness”) – “We are too fascinated by whatever we, at any given moment, have selected to be the foreground” and often as a result neglect the background, “and so, we frequently can’t see the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest” (Watts, “What is Reality?” 1994, p.241).However, the reality is that we would not even know the foreground if it were not for the background, we cannot know something, without first knowing nothing.When we do see the background of nothingness instead of the foreground or “somethingness”, we fall into Heidegger’s angst and become acutely aware of our surroundings.Like Heidegger, Watts believed nothingness is what brings something into focus – it defines everything, both mentally in our minds and physically through space.As Watts claimed “that which is void is precisely formed and that which is form is precisely void” (Watts, 1974)
As Kengo Kuma asks, how can architecture be made to disappear? Is it possible to make an architecture of nothingness?
In his book Anti-Object, Kuma claims that “making architecture into an object means distinguishing between inside and outside and erecting a mass called ‘inside’in the midst of ‘outside’ (of which nature is only one version)” (Kuma, 2008, p. 77). His architecture tries to escape the conditionof being an object. However, Kuma notes that “does not deny that all buildings, as points of singularity created by humankind in the environment, are to some extent objects” (Kuma, 2008, Preface).
For Kuma, whether a building is or is not an object is not related to its architectural style but rather to its inherent character. He claims that “no skill or effort is required to turn something into an object. Preventing a thing from becoming an object is a far more difficult task” (Kuma, 2008, p. 2).
Manfredo Tafuri also refers to this concept when he claims that “the drama of architecture today is that architecture is obliged to return to pure architecture. To form without utopia; in the best cases to
sublime uselessness” and he further goes on to say that “those who attempt to give architecture an ideological dress … [are] pathetic in [their] anachronism” (Tafuri, 1976, p. ix).
As Baudrillard states, “We can’t begin with nothing because, logically, nothingness is the culmination of something” – nihilism alone is not the answer to this question (Baudrillard, 1993).
The concept of Nothingness and Fullness in space can be translated into a physical design. We seek this design interpretation in Architecture and the buildings in Kuala Lumpur and the Penang city area.
Can the fullness of an object/Building/Architecture concede to Nothingness?
We found it in Khoo Kongsi – the grandest clan temple in Penang.Khoo Kongsi is an architectural masterpiece created from a society that richly encompassed culture and tradition; and self-governing itself by building educational, financial, welfare, and social organizational institutions.It was a building that was full of purpose.
Nowadays, the Khoo Kongsi has lost its usage and has become a display for tourists and locals who only come to admire the Chinese architectural grandeur.It has lost its function, purpose, and soul; just like a piece of artefact in a museum, on display, containing the memories of the past and left alone to rot.
The FULLNESS in ‘Khoo Kongsi’ has become NOTHINGNESS through time.
The concept of Fullness and Nothingness is only a state of play in our minds.
There will never be complete fullness or complete nothingness because Nothing is permanent.The cycle will continue to evolve until it reaches the EQUILIBRIUM between both.Then only FULLNESS and NOTHINGNESS will achieve THE STATE OF BALANCE.
