The Haunted House Analysis

The house is the most familiar thing to. The uncanny is about the familiar made strange “a hidden familiar thing that has undergone repression an emerged from it” . In architecture this can relate to your initial read of the building in relation to its surroundings and our subconscious expectation of the building based on previous experiences. The expectation of the old/known/familiar but actually it isn’t really exactly as you envisaged it, something has been shifted and altered to make you question your preconceptions.

For example, in the Sugden house by the Smithson’s, on conjecture you could suppose that the building is the familiar red brick detached house that are typical to that part of Watford, but on further studying the building

“less for what was there than for what was missing, for what had vanished irretrievably- weather carried or merely rotted away”

For example, it is the void left once habitation has been removed that leads to the creation of the uncanny character of the haunted house. In architecture the act of stripping back parts of a building often results in the observer questioning their perception of that type and read it in a different way. This reductive approach when constructing a building leads to an unhomely style of architecture.

The window is a very important piece that can be manipulated to create the uncanny. Abandoned houses are often the stage for ghost stories, and I think this is linked to the windows either smashed, boarded up or missing completely. It is in this alteration or absence that first makes you question habitation, who lived there, why did they leave or is there some ghostly spirit that remains in the void. In a subtler way Tom de Paor has manipulated the window in 12 Mountjoy parade to create a similar

Can it be done at a larger scale through the familiarity of form. The ghost is a semi-transparent figure that was once human but has transcended to become very much unhuman but still retains a bodily form. Lacanton et Vassal designed an extension to an existing boat shed in Dunkerque, France to transform it into an art Gallery. The extension duplicates the original form and sits like a ghost next to the existing shed. The original shed is allowed to be a big open plan space used for bigger installations or events, while the extension houses the program of the gallery, the gallery spaces, offices, storage and services. The new build is constructed of galvanised steel and glass, the transparency adds the uncanny quality as the extension attempts to alienate itself from the old, distinctly presenting something