Grand Vihara, Wat Prasrisanphet / Virtual interface

Grand Vihara in Wat Prasrisanphet

 As a ruin, the Grand Vihara has less clue to differentiate itself with other ruins in Ayutthaya. However, because of some specificity, such as elements, material used, location, background view, etc., that help the visitor got an imaginary image and function of the structure in the past, the past identity of the Grand Vihara.

Each element itself has its own identity, in which together they create another identity and by adding the background view, the identity get stronger as the specificity of the architectural context provide.

In the previous stage, I'm dealing with the identity of a person as a performer of a play giving the audience information. Here, the person has to wear a mask to change his or her identity. The audience and performer as they both are human can give respond. However, if the performer is not a human but an architectural structure, it is harder for the human audience to get a respond from it because the structure cannot talk. My virtual interface is a world that architecture and visitor can get respond from each other. The architecture itself will wear mask to role-play as another identity according to the reaction from the visitor. For example, at the Grand Vihara, there are many tourist from many countries around the world. The tourists have different nationality and background resulted of different perspective toward the architectural structure. The difference of perspective is the key to activate the change of the structure identity. The benefit of this ruin is that it is consisting of the basic elements like column and wall revealed material that were used. Also, as this building is the religious structure the mathematics of this building were base of some system. Same as other types of architecture from around the world such as greek temple, chinese temple, church, japanese temple,etc. that consisted of the basic structure that located according to some mathematical system and decorated with ornaments. The ornaments are mask.

Different types of pole in different countries

Every pole in the picture look different according to the shape and decoration but in the essence of the structure, it is the same, the elements in architecture too. So many style of architecture can be mask on top of the Grand Vihara ruin, in which the selection of the style come from the analysis of information from visitor.