Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Grosz vs Eisenman?

When I was writing yesterday’s in-class assignment, I started thinking about something that I’ve heard about memory. When studying I’ve been told that its easier to recall the memory of what was learned by returning to the virtual space where the lesson was learned. I found this to be generally supported in the writings of Grosz and Vidler. After our discussion of the video of Peter Eisenman I was starting to wonder about the idea of memory and the appropriateness of a learning environment as an unconventional and even ‘disturbing’ form. Does a building like this, which challenges the norm, make it difficult for a student to return mentally to this virtual space where lessons were learned? I would agree that environments for learning should be inspiring and memorable but to accomplish this should they also be completely different from what the average person encounters on a daily basis? Does creating an alien environment also create a lesson whose memory of which is more inaccessible in an alien space? Or, is my assumption that memories are more accessible when you try to return to the space they were learned in untrue?

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