Sidestepping the capitalist mode of defining spaces as private versus public, a collective of architects presents the Common, hereby referred to as “…the commonly-owned shared spaces of the modern project of housing…” This initiative is currently exhibited at the Tehran and Venice Biennales of Architecture, and local enthusiasts are treated to a “copy” of the exhibition with a focus on the Razak Mansions estate scheduled for demolition in 2017. These “spaces of encounter” project a uniformity which repeating patterns are aesthetically pleasing, yet restrained in its socially-binding proposition. Neighbours come and go, where common issues debated relate to the inhabited environment. Are corridors a sufficiently large space to produce useful discourse?
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| Snapshots of pictures in catalogue for Framing the Common: Kuala Lumpur |
“How do we frame Razak Mansions’ idea of the commons, as a concept that stages itself around the term “pubic”, “community”, and the “social”, as it addresses a common space? A common, as a space, indicates space, either by location or context, paved or green, owned wholly by the community. The community, inhabits these spaces, usually public in nature and are united by either a common way of life, cultural, ethnic identity or other factors. Here, the commons are physical, visible and accessible spaces of encounters outside one’s own contained and constructed realities, where the public enact rituals and make claim on the city, their right to the city.”
- from catalogue for Framing the Common: Kuala Lumpur
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| [l] Abdul Hakim Abdullah – Courtyard; [r] Nazmi Anuar – Common Space/ Common Ritual |