After reading the texts, the one that stood out the most in connection to the topic of my blog was Place and Placelessness, Edward Relph”.  This text goes through the main points with some self-interpretation of what Relph was saying in this text and points out where people in the past have misinterpreted the text that Relph wrote.  The way this text is written makes the reader to do his or her own interpretation of what was written.  By doing this, it made the concepts that were discussed impact me more, because I was forced in some sections to come to my conclusions about what this text was saying and also what Relph was saying in his original text.  One of the instences where is occurred was when the author starts talking about insideness and outsideness that is connected to my blog topic about physically entering interpreting a space.  “Relph suggests that the more profoundly inside a place a person feels, the stronger will be his or her identity with that place (p. 45).  This can be physical but also mental insideness a person can feel about the space.  In the physical realm a person being able to enter a building, plaza, or empty lot can bring them a deeper understanding of what the designer wanted to make you feel or what potential the empty lot has for a dynamic experience.  I was able to experience this when I went to Chicago this past week and went to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio for the first time.  I had seen pictures and read descriptions of what the experience of the space was but it was different and inspiring to be able to walk through the different rooms and see how Wright wanted the people who walked through his house to experience it.  The experience was the most powerful in the playroom and main entertaining room in the house.   In this room, I was able to experience the differing heights and how Wright wanted people to move and see each wall and what was on each wall.  I feel that the deep understanding that Wright had about his architecture can be drawn from when staring and moving through a design process.  I believe that Wright had what Relph would call “existential insideness” which is “a situation of deep, unself-conscious immersion in place and the experience most people know when they are at home in their own community and region” (p. 45).  This feeling was created inside Wrights home where he created a micro community and region that he had designed every part.  This deep immersion and sense of home is what is possible to achieve in every building that is designed but is impossible to achieve without being able to go the space and understand the community and what will deepen the sense of home.  The sense of home goes beyond residential buildings though, a commercial building where people go the work every day must also make those people feel part of a region of community.  By being able to go to Chicago this past week, I feel that my design of museum will deepen the identity of the community and buildings that surround it.

P. Hubbard, R. Kitchen. G. Vallentine. (2008). Place and Placessness, Edward Relph. Key Texts in Human Geography (43-51). London: Sage