Architecture, Unit 3

Assignment 1, a great building

The building: Guggenheim Museum, New York City

http://i.imgur.com/Z9mmgXd.jpg

 

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, New York, U.S.A. is one of the greatest works of the renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It is also a prominent example of the style of Modern architecture. It was built from 1956 to 1959 and has since served greatly in its one and only purpose: to be the greatest art museum in America. The owners of the operation wanted a building that was intricate, unique, and interesting. It was going to be an art museum after all, the home of some of the greatest works of the day. It has been a huge success and has amassed one of the largest art collections in the world, along with the Met and the Louvre, although it has the largest collection of impressionistic and modern art in the world. In 2014, over 1.2 million people visited the museum.

 

 

Assignment 2, what is architecture?

 

I believe that architecture is the art of planning, designing, and building. The official dictionary definition of architecture is:

"The art or science of building; specifically :  the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones."

A famous Ancient Roman architect, Vitruvius, said that the essential qualities of architecture were "firmitas, utilitas, venustas," also known as firmness/solidity, commodity/usefulness, and delight/beauty. A successful example of architecture makes good use of all three of those qualities.

 

 

Assignment 3, architects defining architecture

 

I am writing about the video featuring Peter Cook

http://www.whatisarchitecture.cc/peter-cook/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cook_(architect)

I watched the videos on Donald Bates, Peter Cook, and David Porter. I am writing about the second because he was very eloquent and strong in his opinion that there is architecture in everything. It always occurred to me that architecture was the specific art of designing buildings with beauty coupled with purpose. To recap Roman architect Vitruvius's three essentials qualities of architecture: every architecture project must balance firmness/solidity, commodity/usefulness, and delight/beauty. With this solid and tight definition, I found it interesting that Mr. Cook believes that "nearly everything we encounter" includes these qualities in some form. It was not obvious to me, but I am starting to think that he is right. Building on to his thoughts, later on in the video he says that we haven't scratched the surface in the types of architectural styles that are possible. So since architecture is in everything, and everything is infinite, the amount of architecture that is possible is infinite! Another interesting realization.

(I only watched about 4 minutes of the video, but I think I got the important bits.)

 

Assignment 4, what Steve thinks

 

Steven Holl, a champion architect, seems to believe that there is a fine line between art and architecture. He places the quality of aesthetics, the third of Vitruvius' essentials, beyond the others. What caught me as most intriguing was Holl's paragraph titled "Use". He says that the "highest use" of architecture is to "greatly move us". But if this were so, architecture and art would be interchangeable. I think that architecture is like a cross between engineering and art, and that all examples of architecture must have a purpose and that is just as important as looking nice. This is Vitruvius' second essential quality of architecture: the one that Holl thinks the least of. Still, Holl is very eloquent in his description and I do not challenge his skill and success, but I am more on the side of Vitruvius than Holl.

 

 

Assignment 5, Rural Studio with Samuel Mockbee

 

I have been talking before about how architecture needs a purpose and it needs beauty. Samuel Mockbee agrees with this, his core talents are the same, but what he does with those talents are what make him different. He is an architect of the poor, using creative materials to design unique houses for those who don't have a home. For most, architecture is a high-class, high-stakes field that is mainly directed at the upper echelons of society; and that is where architectural works gain their fame. When I think of architecture, I think of buildings, both ancient and modern, but all of them are intricate or wondrous in some way. Samuel Mockbee is a hero for sacrificing fame and wealth to use his talents for the common good. He is a strong believer in Vitruvius's second point, commodity/usefulness. This is different than other top architects like Steven Holl, who create more visually pleasing but also more exclusive works.

 

 

Assignment 6, what architecture means to me

 

1. Are architecture and building the same - why or why not? The definition of "building" in the sense that it is used here is, "the process or business of constructing something." The definition of architecture, as I stated in assignment 1, is "The art or science of building; specifically:  the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones." The first thing I thought of when I saw this question was that building is putting something together, and architecture includes a process of planning and prototyping and then building, but the definition of building mentions a process as well. The main difference between the two definitions is that architecture's has the word art. At this, we come to the conclusion that architecture is building with beauty and style and so the two are different. But, we can take it a step farther and say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder - and building and architecture are identical.

 

2. Can architecture be art why or why not? Art is the application of human creativity into something like a painting or music. I think that all architecture is art because it takes thinking and effort to design and build something. One essential quality of architecture is beauty, and that is all that art is for. But, since there is more to architecture than just being aesthetically pleasing (that is, architecture needs space and commodity and a reason behind being built), all art is not architecture.

 

3. Animals build structures that protect them from the weather and predators. Can nests and burrows be considered architecture - why or why not? Part of architecture includes designing and prototyping. It can be argued that since these animals are subhuman in their intelligence, they would not be able to design before they build and thus are not making architecture. But, honestly, we can't know for sure if it's talent or instinct. In assignment 3, I watched a video featuring the architect Peter Cook. Cook said that there is architecture in almost everything around us. A bird's nest or a rabbit's burrow has a purpose, it has space, and depending on who you're talking to, it can be beautiful as well. This qualifies these works of nature as works of architecture.

 

"Architecture is the thoughtful making of place and space." Louis Kahn (American architect)

4. In this quote by architect Louis Kahn he uses the words place and space. Do these two words mean the same thing, why or why not? I don't think that Kahn would use those words separately and in that manner if they meant the exact same thing. In Unit 2, I decided that the difference between place and space was that space is broad and large, while a place is a specific point where memories and feelings are attached. When Kahn mentions place and space, he mentions them separately and boldly, as if to imply that architecture has to do with the specific and regular as well as the vague and vast. Neither of us believe that place and space are the same thing.

 

5. Is an architect necessary to create architecture? This really depends on the definition of architect. Going back to the third question in this assignment, if the answer to that question is yes, then animals can create architecture. If an architect can only be human, then no, architecture can be created without an architect. But if an architect is any force and reason behind any example of architecture, if nature can be considered an architect, and since every effect requires a cause, then all architecture requires an architect to be created.

 

Architecture is the utilization of the design process to create something with solidity, commodity, and beauty.

 

Final Project: From nature, building a shell

Images of the process: http://imgur.com/a/DWTKq

 

 

Unit Reflection:

Before I took this class and before I completed this unit, I thought that engineering was building for efficiency and architecture was building for beauty. And now, I know about the whole idea of the design process and the essential qualities of space and usefulness, to be utilized in conjunction with beauty. I've learned that architecture is more than what I originally thought it was; I've broadened my views and my thoughts have changed. That said, I do not believe that there is a solid, universal agreement on the definition of architecture. My general statement on architecture at the end of Assignment 6 is different from the other architects', whose thoughts were used as examples. I've looked into the dictionary definition of architecture, and the opinions of Vitruvius, Steven Holl, Sam Mockbee, and Peter Cook, and all are different. Some definitions emphasize a single quality (e.g. Steven Holl with beauty and space) and some are very broad (Peter Cook). The major idea to take away from all these varying opinions, the way I see it,  is that architecture is an art, a process, of building something that has a use and is aesthetically pleasing. But once again, that is just an opinion and someone else may think differently. Architecture: what it is and by extension how it is done, is more complicated than I anticipated it would be.