LEARNING ARCHITECTURE FROM MONSIUER HULOT

‘As a cultural border or boundary, the home constitutes a margin between culture and its traditional other, the natural world.’

Kathleen Anne McHugh

In the movie ‘Mon Oncle’ by Jacques Tati the main character Monsieur Hulot is wandering between the margins of culture and nature. The background of his adventure is based on architecture. A modern house defines the strict boundary of culture and Mr. Hulot faces a series of conflicts between this restricted environment and his free life. One display poster of the film gives us how trapped he feels between two life styles and how ‘architecturally’ Jacques Tati will conduct this message to his spectator.

The main character reminds me ‘the central character’ of Patricia Gruben’s short movie ‘The Central Character’. They are both living in the margins of culture and nature, however with a difference. As Gruben’s housewife plays the role of definer of that boundary, Mr. Hulot displays the contradictions they contain. Throughout the story we see him in modern environments like factories, modern houses etc. and in traditional environments. Although he can be identified with the traditional space that he is living in, he is imposed the ‘modern way of life’ by his family. Their efforts to associate him with those very man-made and sterile spaces always end up with a conflict of two margins. As he enters the factory building he brings the dust of the nature and the animals with him. They are undesirable parts of nature as Kathleen Anne McHugh also mentions in her article ‘The Metaphysics of Housework: Patricia Gruben’s the Central Character’. She discusses the duty of housewife to keep all traces of nature and outdoors out of the house. However our character Mr. Hulot carries all traces of outdoors with him and creates the paradox that is inherent in modern way of life. In order to conduct this paradox to the spectator, the director display very crucial shots (figures 1, 2&3).

figure 1 figure 2 figure 3

Architecture is the tool for constituting those paradoxical boundaries between nature and culture. Man-made environment is architectural environment and architecture is a response for mankind to escape from nature as Oscar Wilde also states as ‘If nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture…’ Architecture is our tool to define the territories of our civilization and Jacques Tati investigates the degree of the margins provided by two different architectural environments, two distinct architectures.

One architecture is the district that Mr. Hulot inhabits. It embodies a free way of life more in relation with the nature. The children are free to touch to the soil, play with the water etc. Dogs are free to run and enter any space without the fear of being kicked out. People are free to socialize in any part of the street they like. They are not imposed a specific territory to put their tables and chairs or they aren’t forced to walk through a defined path (figures 4 & 5). However in the second architecture Tati displays to us each corner is ‘designed’ specifically. The architecture condemns us to walk through a concrete strip, to step only to the stones on the grass and put our tables to a concrete square. Every detail is pre-determined by architecture; how we will walk, where we will socialize, where we will step etc. (figures 6&7).

figure 4, figure 5, figure 6, figure 7

Mr. Hulot as a man belonging to the first architecture mentioned above, the child as belonging to none of the architectures yet and the dogs belonging to nature are the key elements for Tati to display the contradictory situation. By very dramatic scenes such as the dogs looking from the door, dog following the concrete path or Mr. Hulot changing the modern chair with a usual one, director shows how architecture can be very forcing and alien to the life we get used to (figures 8, 9, 10 &11).

figure 8, figure 9, figure 10, figure 11

The reason that he chooses a house in modern style may be the very new life that modern architecture offers. This shift in lifestyle that modern architecture imposes on its inhabitants may result in alienation of people from their natural behaviors and can lead to very strange images like the effort that visitors make just for walking on the stones on the grass (figure 6). However in their non-modern way of life the neighbors of Hulot are free to choose their path to walk.

Another striking way Tati chooses to explain that forcing side of that new life style is the signs that direct people’s movement. The most interesting one of those images was ’sortie’ written on the street. Are the modern people so unconscious that they can’t find their way out even outdoor, or did they become so dependent to the manipulations of that new life style? Is it too impossible to recognize the entrance door without an arrow signing it? (figures 12,13 &14)

figure 12, figure 13, figure 14

The movie ‘Mon Oncle’ examines our boundaries and relations with nature by referring to architecture and its power to impose specific lifestyles. Tati makes his spectator to question the degree of intervention that architecture should have on our lives. Should we be the slaves of the spaces we created? Mr. Hulot’s family tells a lot about the consequences of letting architecture to manipulate our behaviors with their absurd and alienated acts. On the other hand the important lesson is to be learned from Mr. Hulot, the child and the dogs. They don’t give the control to architecture, they are not manipulated by space but they inhabit any space they want. They step on grass, they fall in water, they ride bicycle on the streets etc. As Hermann Czech also stated by saying ‘Architecture is not life, architecture is background. Everything else is not architecture. ‘ , the movie points out the importance of life-style defining our existence in spaces rather than space defining our existence in life.

REFERENCES:

1) McHugh, Kathleen Anne, ‘The Metaphysics of Housework: Patricia Gruben’s The Central Character’, Ballantyne, Andrew edited book ‘What is Architecture?’, pp. 102-11