Submitted as an essay competition entry on 10 September 2021.
An Old Town
The first thing I heard when I got off the bus was the familiar crashing of waves. Boisterous squawking of seagulls rang in my eardrums before the pungent iodine scent from the sea wafted into my nostrils. I was looking forward to this. You could never get this back in the city.
The wind ruffled through my aging hair, as if to welcome me back home, then went back to gossiping with her friends. It was good to be back, but none to celebrate with. No more laughing children, no more merchants shouting for attention.
Standing on market street, I took off my shoes. I shall find them later. The cobblestones felt wet and rough, different now with holes and grass in them. Subtle fragrance from wildflowers told me they are preparing for summer.
A hundred and thirty-seven steps, on the right stood our bakery. My room was on the third floor. Mother always reminded me to wash my hands before helping. I loved helping. I loved getting praised by Mother. I love the smell of baked bread. I love blueberry croissants.
Another gust of wind. In the distance, the antique weathervane on top of the bakery’s chimney creaked tiredly. Ah. Company.
I fumbled for my coffee rum in my coat. A toast to the town that had once lived…
The gulls have stopped squawking. I should get going.
This fictional descriptive essay was written from the perspective of a visually impaired man returning to the ruins of his childhood seaside town that was abandoned. The old man in the story could not have visually imagined his experiences, but that does not stop him from interacting with and enjoying his environment, reminiscing old memories.
The essay questions our over-reliance on sight to appreciate the built environment, for architecture is not just a visual transitional experience of the spaces, but a participatory one that stimulates all our senses, activating sensory thoughts1. By distributing our focus onto the other senses, we can have a more immersive, authentic, and personal experience. This is the illusion of architecture.
___________________________
- Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of The Skin: Architecture and The Senses, Third Edition (Great Britan, Wiley, 2012), 49
Afterthought:
Looking back it does seem rather paradoxical. People who are visually impaired will probably never get to have the same sensory experience as those who are not, because they can’t visually imagine things. In the essay I tried describing the character’s surroundings without using the sense of sight. The question now, is how much of a reduced appreciation, if any, does he have on his surroundings as compared to a person who is not visually impaired?
Leave a Reply