Walls keep us safe and they keep us apart. Should we be thankful for them or fear them? Walls are boundaries, but not all walls forbid. They are walls nevertheless, there to form a curtain and a barrier behind which a different creed of people can be found. A wall always has two sides and two distinct concepts for the people on either side of it. Even the walls that constitute our homes lend our family and friends a sanctified aspect.
If a blank wall is a sign of the absurdity of life, then to decorate our walls may help us survive. The teenager who longs to be free from the confines of their parents’ house fills their bedroom walls with posters and photographs. The wall is made to dissolve into a collage of enticements, and freedom is achieved by the excitements of fantasy. The wall is no longer there. Tricks to make walls vanish are as old as the hills. The Romans decorated the interiors of their villas with illusions of outdoor spaces, verdant garden views or classical cityscapes. Later, in Renaissance Italy, artists such as Masaccio and Raphael completed exquisite paintings using a single-point perspective to give the illusion of extended space.
“Walls hide and obscure space in darkness. They create parts and pieces of something once whole.”
1. Bringing Life to walls
“Sometimes our walls exist just to see who has the strength to knock them down.”
Walls can be barriers to keep out weather and bar the unwanted. Pierced by doors and windows, a wall can nevertheless provide solitude for the loner or hide the afraid. History is visible on street-facing sides. Within, one can feel the stories that took place behind the walls.
Graffiti, street art and wheat-pasted posters and papers shout mixed messages in languages sometimes difficult to decipher as they peel and wear away. Scraped, abraded and abused walls seem to cry about past violence done. Some walls in certain places are still bullet-pocked, holding memories of past horrors. The picture was taken at Fort Kochi, Kerala perfectly showcase the cultural diversity the locality has, in comparison to the rest. It predominantly describes the distinct cultural diversity and beauty the place holds up. The picture has perfect symmetry which gives it balance all around. It predominantly describes the distinct cultural diversity and beauty the place holdup. Walls give you your space in a way but at the same time deprive you of entering new spaces too. Well, that's what walls are for. Giving us two facets of life every time on either side of them. And they leave it to our very own perspectives and outlooks as to how we look at them through the lens of our ideologies and worldview. As a place that nurtures a cultural shift in Kerala, Fort Kochi has a lot to tell. The place surely symbolizes harmony.
In the photograph, a frame is built in front of a pre-existing wall and attached at various points; there is no damage done to the building. Waterproof panels are mounted to the frame; these are rigid and provide structural support. There is a layer of air between the building and the panels which enables the building to breathe. This adds beneficial insulating properties and acts like rain-screening to protect the building envelop. This method is used because it provides a beautiful diverse living wall and allows for greater creativity in design. Hundreds upon hundreds of plant species can be grown in this way and were found to thrive on the green walls meaning that there are almost endless possibilities in design! As a result, we can create a vertical garden that is uniquely customized to your space.
"A symbol of power lines in the wall's polyvalency: it can evoke many simultaneous emotions and meanings, even contradictory ones. "
2. The Symbolism of Walls
“Walls are boundaries, but not all walls forbid”
Walls have to be climbed over, or sometimes just gone through. A wall could be an enclosure to a structure that will provide shelter and protection for its inhabitants or it can be that element that defines the perimeter of an area of ownership and are used to fortify. Walls are definite things, immovable and strong. They may provide us with safety, but just as often they are symbols of entrapment. Walls we stare at, an office wall or a prison wall, or just a sheer blank wall, seem to sum up a certain interior feeling of loneliness. Walls are not singular; they function with the landscape. Part of a building, yard, or road. Anonymously supporting the lives, we lead. Though we might not perceive them, there are walls. The space that used to be whole is divided. Even Goldsworthy’s walls that snake around trees make us wonder what happens to space when it’s divided. Especially natural, unbounded space, which should never brook such divisions, save those made by water, ice.
It is human nature to feel something about a wall because walls are decidedly human. In nature, we might find a cliff, or shelf, exhibiting a sleek vertical plane, certainly. When a wall reinforces and symbolizes conventional powers (in other words when a wall opposes its landscape) it might not be destructible to you and me, but it can be addressed, nonetheless. Walls are made piece by piece. Walls are destroyed piece by piece. They are harmless and harmful. Kinetic and staid. The thing most particular about walls is they are all around. Happening everywhere anonymously or brutally obstructive. They appear like tracks of some passing despot. The walls were not impenetrable but created an incapacitating mental and emotional condition on the people with oppression, and isolation.
And undoubtedly, it entirely depends on us either to confine ourselves within the walls or explore the unseen lying beyond our vicinity. We can be entirely contented with what we have within the walls or push ourselves beyond every periphery and limit. Walls give you your space in a way but at the same time deprive you from entering new spaces too. Well, that's what walls are for. Giving us two facets of life every time on either side of them. And they leave it to our very own perspectives and outlooks as to how we look at them through the lens of our ideologies and worldview. Either we can build them higher and higher and lock ourselves within them or we can break them and go beyond to kiss the world waiting to be embraced. Walls do teach us a lot. They teach us the determination to stand tough and not deviate in every uncertain situation or arduous time one can think of. High upright erect walls talk about unity too. The bricks come up together to give a strong and indestructible foundation to the very wall. And when even removing one brick from the wall makes it weaker and shaky. That’s how they build a way of life for us. To be determined at all walks of life no matter how unfavourable the situation is. And to live with unity with everyone we have around us because that is the only foundation to built our lives on. Alone is fragile but together is mighty.
"It is ours to notice these walls, it is ours to reason why. "
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