On Controversy, Guided Democracy, Self-Censorship in the Architectural Production

Liken to any architectural product and the production of any architectural works of significant in nature, be it models, completed buildings, drawings, sketches, images, discourses and writings, one cannot avoid from stepping into controversial issues.

For the matter of facts, we might revisit the remnants and the after effect on the rise and death of critical architectural discourses in the MA’s discontinued essays of “SEDAP MATA & SAKIT MATA” for the simple reason of defining the notion of self-censorship within the scope of architectural production in the studio. After all has been said and done, with legal cases against the MA and the Institute, writings of this sort proved that the architectural communities at large are not ready to cope with critical architectural discourses, unlike the essays classified as OUTRAGED & DELIGHT in the international architectural magazine called ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, which contribute towards the search for a new agenda of architectural theory world wide. In this local context the impact is so vast that even students and academician alike stay within the comfort zone of the accepted notion of architecture and architectural production that none are so willingly to break borders all for the sake of guided democracy let alone, speak up for what they actually believed in rather then what they are taught to believe in.

The showcase of the Student’s Work as published in the MA and a letter to the editor by Ar. Tan Sih Pin, whom happened to be one of the better graduates of USM, is again, the classic example that amplify the notion of self-censorship & guided democracy that has been prevailing in the context of a local school of architecture that the production of architecture has been censored to correspond to a certain acceptable standards fit within the context of the recognizable program and the recognizable form of the architectural products in a double-standards mode of publication of the work of one school, which is seems to be much superior then the others, so to speak.

Within the limits of breaking these guided democracies and self-censorships, the students are encouraged to challenge the brief, debate on the issues and see beyond the conventional means of communication of the given site, tools and the building programs. The results were astonishing and well phrased by the visiting moderator from USM as described in the following pages and which might again, a matter of controversy.