Thesis: Releasing the Tension within the Void - (edited)

There lies tension between two extreme opposites; history and its counterpart- the present. It is through the fragmentsof the past that enables mankind to trace back its early beginnings. The remains are what we hold to this day as the survivors of time. It marks our origins, a reminder of who we are as a society, as acivilization. Yet at the same time, the struggle to preserve contradicts with the will to build over and therefore erase what has been already marked.. Overtime we forget where we come from and the future marks its way to lost identities. A new society clouded by many layers of influences that has no linkage and connection. All that remains is emptiness. A region with no occupancy and importance; a solid void - a white space in a figure ground map dominated by the modern structures all hatched in deep black.

The key is to release this tension within. It was this energy that provoked certain events that marks its place for history to name. It was tension that gave it form, the development of the first
civilizations established after many years of warfare and corruption. Tension caused the birth of man, and it was also tension that provokes them to destroy. It is this struggle to link the two extremes that hinders us from progression. It paralyzes the mind from mediation. Instead we accumulate components. Layers and layers of multiple identities to spaces we find empty. We become stuck in a realm we cannot comprehend, trapped in a congested haven that no longer has function.

According to robert venturi "an architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation towards the whole - its truth must be in its totality or implications of totality. It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion." Therefore the key is to extract this void into importance and find the link that ties its extremities. The question now is, can we as a society accept that and exist within this "emptiness"? By extracting the space that links these two extreme opposites, we not only redefine what has been released, but we have also given life to a new form. This new kind of tension becomes a new derivation, a new definition...a new freedom. The next "tabula rasa" to build upon for mankind.

This thesis proposes to investigate on the very site where the first civilization of man began. Babylon is 50 miles south of modern day Baghdad, unoccupied, uninhabited yet its remains have been tampered by its own tension of warfare and layers of conquest. To this day Babylon is a site for all origins to unite. According to the ancient scriptures, it was in Babylon where we all began. It is as of now a useless void but a sacred one to occupy. Dominated by stories that speaks of the tension between man and God, the intensity. That broke us into fragments, from a unified language to diverse confusion; what we call as the birth of nations.

The program will rest on this very foundation. An enclave that activates through the experience of history and the modern interaction of its inhabitants. A place for contemplation and reverence, learning and discovery. It will be a place of release , a refuge sanctuary from what is happening beyond its existing boundaries. A city within a city that speaks of both worlds. A form that ties its origins with its future.

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