The area that I choose for my gothic space is a house near me. Some gothic elements that I think are associated with this house are horror and fear. This house is big and beautiful in some ways however there are some aspects to this house that do not feel necessarily right. It looks a little abandon, messy, old, and demolish, there is a window that is broken and glass on the floor. The trees in front of the house also give the house a mystery Which looks like it’s hiding something. This home can look even more gothic when it’s raining or at night. I noticed some gothic architecture present which was the tower. This house is on a hill that is a few feet high above the road and has two staircases connected to it. The staircase is small and it’s shaky. I feel vulnerable on the hill because it feels like I am trapped and have nowhere to go or run.
When looking at this home, there is a sense of homesickness, I use to live in a home that was kind of like this, and the definition of homesickness states, “homesick due to comparison and recognition; the self, in the act of remembering the past home,”. Although I used to live in a house like this I feel as though something is missing from the home where it doesn’t feel homely. I don’t think I would want to live in this house. I decided to interview my sibling because they had a dislike for the house. They felt like this is a house that you would see in a scary movie and felt that the house was broken and impaired. The main reason why I feel like the house is gothic is because of the sense of Broken and so many things that are supposed to make a house a home is missing.
One reading that came to my mind when looking at this home would be “The haunting of hill house”, the way that other people were scared to go into the hill house made me think of me and my siblings, how we are afraid to walk past the house. Also, when my sister mentioned the house was broken and impaired it made me think of the “The fall of the usher house”, and that maybe this house is waiting to collapse too.
The last image Is a picture that I recently took, I went out to run some errands and as soon as I saw this house, I got a gothic sensation from it. First, the house is away from other properties, so it feels like this house is lonely and isolated. Second, this house is on top of a hill and according to Vidler “The architectural uncanny is represented by a feeling of anxiety in which there are a slippage and lack of clarity between what is homely and what is unhomely.”. The way that the hill is close to the house gives me some anxiety.
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