BY MOHD. HATTA ISMAIL
PAM PUBLIC LECTURE
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One of the best part of architecture course as an architecture student is you get to explore more than just sitting in the classroom and submitting assignments. Site trip, site visiting, workshops are the fun of going outdoor, gaining
outdoor lessons, learning new skills and absorb as much knowledge as we can in the real world. I personally
believe that if we need to become better in one major, efforts are crucial, but there is one factor that is also
important : Lessons from experts. I’m glad that lecturers encourage us to learn from other experts outside, and we are given task to attend a public lecture organized by PAM DLS Committee 2015/16 , PAM DLS 02 : Acquire, understanding by Mohd Hatta Ismail.
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ACQUIRE, understanding, according to the speaker, Mohd Hatta Ismail, is the idea of relating senses to objects
and spaces towards a consciousness allowing greater insights into art, object, form and space. He is an intuitive
designer and an expert in abstract concept art. He first shared his passion from early life, using bowls, some are
collected and some are made by him, then layered the surface with colour and tecture to show the orchestration of objects and spaces in a new way. Following by his canvas painting, his artworks are mostly not more than two colours, simply plain in visual but rich in meaning. I try to relate them with a lesson I learned few weeks before in
my theory class, and the way he explain his masterpieces, I am sure he is a simplicity conceptualist and a fan of
“Less is more”.
After he gave us a blink of his consciousness of art and object, his deeper appreciation of form and space, he
smoothly bring us from his imaginative deep thinking to his real life work, an interior exhibition space in Muzium Sultan Abu Bakar. He mentioned that he wants the space to be naturally fit to the exhibition, without much additive
component and decorations. He then added he don’t want to ornament the space with things, rather, he likes
taking them out. I quickly link his words to the previous theory class topic that I learned, Ornament and Crime. He
often headlines art & craft soul, working with both bare hands as an excitement, just like the Arts and Crafts
philosophy, John Ruskin.
When I started to get less excitement with his repetitively mentioned philosophy, he soon introduced The Silalima
guesthouse he worked on. Finally there’s a work about building and grabbed my fully attention. He storytelled us
a bit of his previous work as a gardener, everything is careful and not “too much”, because sometimes “too much” will damage the flowers and plants. He brought this concept to his work in Kuantan. The house is very open as he said he wanted to welcome the outdoor to the space inside. His choices of using materials showed his
appreciation of variety of materials and textures. He seemed to be very sensitive with the use of them as he likes
the smell of plywood, choosing concrete as wall materials and rough rocks like granite as floor materials.
Although his way of presentation didn’t allow his ideas to fully expressed and delivered to the audience, but his works did the talking. If “taking out” and maintaining the balance is the door to simplicity, then the art of “not too much” is the key to unlock it.
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