Module Overview

Despite Modern Architecture’s emphasis on housing, the domestic realm (its interiority, experience and occupancy) is often a neglected area of study since attention is focused on housing as a large-scale urban form.  Furthermore, domesticity revolves around the detailed and the routine, and thus, appears in opposition to the monumental scale and specialized function of public spaces. 

Yet, domestic spaces embed important issues of gender, class, taste, ethnicity, and also shape notions of individuality, the self as well as determining social relations affiliated with family and community.

As such, artists and filmmakers recognize the domestic realm as an experimental space where new ideologies, practices and objects thrive.  This is evident in the numerous house projects by architects like Eileen Gray (E.1027), Charles and Ray Eames (Case study House no.8 ), Robert Venturi (Mother’s House ), Atelier Bow Wow (Tower House ) and Ma Qingyun (Father’s House ) for example, where issues related to technology, class, gender, politics, the family and the city are played out.  Filmmakers such as Hirokazu Koreeda (Nobody Knows ), Wong Kar Wai (Chungking Express ), and Eric Khoo (12 Storeys ) explore the voyeuristic tendencies of urban apartment living while Edward Yang (Yiyi ), Tan Pin Pin (Moving House ) and Yen Yen Woo/Colin Goh (Singapore Dreaming ) reframe the Asian home in relation to cultural and global tensions.  Artists like Judy Chicago (The Dinner Party ), Simryn Gill (Dalam ), Do-Ho Suh (348 West 22nd St), Rachel Whiteread (House ), and Gregor Schneider (Die Familie Scheider ) investigate home as a space fraught with unseen risks, emotions and biases.

This interdisciplinary elective explores the concept of domesticity – how and where we live – by examining its portrayals in three related visual disciplines, that is, architecture, art and film.  It gives a broad and critical overview by working through a series of key contemporary architectural, art and film projects drawn from Asia, Europe and the United States. The elective also examines how domesticity is ultimately related to cultural, social, economic and political contexts. 

Weekly seminars will focus on discourse and practice by discussing key theories and projects revolving around the subject of the domestic realm.  The elective will enrich the students’ conceptual understanding of ‘domesticity’ and ‘home’, by supplementing knowledge from architectural history and theory, with methodological approaches from psychoanalysis, anthropology, philosophy and sociology.

The elective is structured to give students an overview of domesticity in Western as well as Asian contexts, thus providing critical tools to analyze and compare differences and similarities in these two situations.  It also aims to develop knowledge on domestic concepts in the contemporary Asian context. 

The aims and objectives of this elective are as follow:  

Aims:  

• Provide a working knowledge of domesticity – its issues, problems, subjects and experiences –couched in the contemporary context.

• Give a broad overview of domestic concepts in both Western and Asian contexts.

• Offer an understanding of how domesticity is represented in three different visual disciplines, and how these representations intersect or differ from each other.

• Introduce studies of ‘home’ couched in different approaches – sociological, psychoanalytical, architectural, anthropological and philosophical.

Objectives:

• Enable a critical appraisal of current texts on the topics of ‘housing’ and ‘home’ by identifying the biases and limitations of these texts.

• Enable an informed comparison between domestic concepts in the Western and Asian contexts.

• Derive an enriched understanding of ‘home’ and the domestic realm by learning from three related visual disciplines.

• Develop an ability to discuss and debate on the concepts of ‘home’ and ‘domesticity’ within a wide range of research methodologies.

Students in their senior years of study (4th years and above), or those conducting postgraduate research on a related topic, should only apply. 

This module is open to cross-faculty applicants.  Students from Architecture, Geography, Literature, English, Media, Cultural Studies, for example, will find this module applicable. 

Potential students should be interested in visual culture and architecture, and are keen on reading, watching films and understanding contemporary art.

The seminars require students to contribute to reading response assignments. Students should come to class having read the assigned readings/ watch the films/ be familiar with the exhibitions listed.

·       Small group seminars

·       IVLE – websites, announcements, forum

·       Film screening, museum visits

·       Problem-based learning – weekly reading responses to assigned texts/ films/ installations

·       Final project – essay with accompanying short film or installation

15 January    Introduction

Overview, Scope and Tasks

*****

22 January    Session 1: Domesticity in Architecture (Discourse ):

Negotiating Domesticity; Occupying Architecture

29 January    Session 2: Domesticity in Architecture (Projects ):

- Eileen Gray (E.1027 )

- Charles and Ray Eames (Case study house no.8 ),

- Robert Venturi (Mother’s House )

05 February   Session 3: Domesticity in Architecture (Projects):

- Ma Qingyun (Father’s House )

- Atelier Bow Wow (Urban houses )

- SANAA (Urban houses)

*****

12 February   Session 4: Domesticity in Art (Discourse):

Not At Home; The Architectural Uncanny

13-19 February  Mid Semester Break

22-23 February  Performing Space in Asian Film Workshop at the Asia Research Institute

26 February   Session 5: Domesticity in Art (Projects):

- Judy Chicago (The Dinner Party )

- Rachel Whiteread (House )

- Martha Rosler (Kitchen Economics, Semiotics of the Kitchen)

05 March     Session 6: Domesticity in Art (Projects):

- Simryn Gill (Dalam )

- Do-Ho Suh (348 West 22nd St )

- Matthew Ngui (Home Project)

*****

12 March     Session 7: Domesticity in Film (Discourse):

Sentimental Fabulations; The Asian Modern

19 March     Session 8: Domesticity in Film (Projects):

- P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins)

- Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle )

- Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window)

26 March     Session 9: Domesticity in Film (Projects):

- Tan Pin Pin (Moving House )

- Wong Kar Wai (Chungking Express)

- Eric Khoo (12 Storeys )

*****

09 April Double session (3-6PM)       Student Presentation

For Years 4, 5 and postgraduate students only.

This is a humanities-based module with high visual and textual components.

Each week:

2 hours small-group seminar
4 hours assignment
4 hours preparatory work

Total: 10 hours