A Defamiliarized Architecture: [RE]Iterative Readings of a Text

Abstract

This thesis explores a design methodology reflecting Viktor Shklovsky’s concept “defamiliarization”. Defamiliarization is a technique used to make something unfamiliar, or strange, in order to enhance the perceptions of the familiar. Through interpretations of Claus Bremer’s visual poem “is the text the text left out”, this project explores text as a medium to discover design methodologies for an architecture to be experienced through perception and read like the text. Bremer’s poem informs an architecture that frames and re-frames our positional perceptions of content — people, space, and objects — through an iterative process, shifting from one reading to multiple readings in a sequence: same readings of the same content; different readings of different content; different readings of the same content; and same readings of different content. This thesis proposes a defamiliarized architecture that invites people to be better readers of space, place, and socio-cultural contexts at the intersection of art, philosophy, language, and architecture.