Changes and Developments

As time pass, everything changed through time, from little things to large things like the evolution of human being or even people's perception toward things. The fact that different person has different ideas, make changes and development through time which created a historical aspect for new generation to study from. History recorded the past which included things that are right and things that are wrong, therefore human learn from history and mistakes from the past then created new theory as new period start. Anyhow, difference does not limit and indicated what is actually right and what is actually wrong, as i said, different person has different ideas as well as recorded history.

Historical aspect from the past indicated changes in many things, from the development of paper to the alteration of architecture. I believed that architecture also recorded history as history recorded architecture. Residential, building, house, or what ever architecture are, has been one of the significant factors in human's life since the time of stone age that human lived in a cave until presently of modernism and contemporary world. The development and changes write down clearly in the book as well as architecture itself. Every footmarks, colors that became pale as time pass, stone wall that eroded, or even scratches on the wall, recorded the history. Once I was in a historical monument or significant places in Italy, where Renaissance period started, I could feel the sense of memories which exploded in my mind even though I was standing on the ground in a present day. 

The development through time of architecture period from the very first beginning of classical until presently contemporary, indicated differences among themselves. Major change that seems to stands out to me is the differences between a massive stone building with details of magnificent sculpture on the exterior facade and geometrical lean shape with skeleton structure that built in a completely different material like glass and steel. For me, when talking about architecture periods from the past until present time, it seems to divided into two era: Classicism, Greek, Roman, Renaissance, Baroque, and more periods that the building look like I mentioned “massive stone building”, versus  “geometrical lean shape of glass box” of Modernism period. Nevertheless, architecture in present day as we called “Contemporary style”, use and adapt history from the past and combine into one piece which created different style for each architects to have their uniqueness in their works. It could be said that these architects learned from master then apply into their works that created various style depends on the subject architects focusing on. 

Back to the topic of changes and developments through time again, there seems to be a contradiction  or change and break down theories, and the battle of arguments in each period that somehow rejected the idea of others or accepted in some way. Starting from Renaissance period that setting up rules of proportion and symmetry, and then Baroque architects that learned from Renaissance period but somehow change and break down these rules with their complex structure that they modified from a simple geometry also with their invention of the oval and its axis line. Later on in the period of Modernism or “The White”, came up with new theories and sets of rules with the design of “Glass box” as Tom Wolfe said in his book, “From Bauhaus to our house”, or the concept of “Less is more” by Mies Van De Rohe, or as I called “Guys who created thoery”. When there are people who crated the rule and accepted the rules, there always be “Those who rejected the rule” and of course will created and modify those rule into new one like “The Grey”, which rejected the idea of perfection so they made their architecture with “imperfect” figure. It seems to be hilarious for me when studying history of each architecture period among those who created the rule and break down the rules in which I think there is no balance among them. Anyway, changes and development in each period brought us a new innovation and new ideas which may be somehow bring us to the new period of change, again. 

BAROQUE

When referring to Baroque, I always think of these key words: expressive, ambiguity, complexity, contradiction, variety, emotion, and AFFECTIVE.

The word Baroque comes from portuguese term which inspired by Mannerism's inventive and expressive reformulation of rigid renaissance principals, as best embodied in the work of Michael Angelo. Architecture in Baroque period usually "Breaking the rules" unlike Renaissance. There will be a curve or trapezoid inverse in geometry also a curvy triangle shape. For example, Church of the Gesu in Rome (1573-1577) plan designed by Giacoma da Vignola. The plan is not a clearly cross breaking the rules of the cross plan for church in Renaissance also with its facade that has more baroque style of curve and inverse the geometry, compare to Santa Maria Novela church that has a cross plan and the facade controlled by perfect square and circles.

Church of the Gesu plan compare to Santa Maria Novela plan

One of the artist in Baroque period was Gian Lorenso Bernini (1598-1680), who was a sculptor first then painter, theatre designer, play writer, and architect. Bernini was Michael Angelo-like embodiment of the Renaissance. His work compare with Michael Angelo's is David, Bernini's David has a complex action and very expressive that could makes you feel like you are in the scene while David of Michael Angelo just stand in a simple action with less expressive face. Bernini makes his marble work become alive by making the face and action expressively and complex, as well as his paintings and architecture. The painting inside Santa Maria Della Victoria is the painting of clouds that looks real and deep, very expressive that Bernini want to make it look real as much as he can. The interior and exterior of the church is in a baroque style that has a curvy triangle also complex and inverse of the geometry.

David by Michael Angelo and The David by Bernini

RENAISSANCE: MICHELANGELO

After we studying about Modernism, we went back to the time before Modernism, late Renaissance.

Late Renaissance period having the influence of greek and classical architecture style. This period mainly occur in Italy which there were three main artists, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Andrea Palladio, and Donato Bramante. 

David

I'd a chance to visit Italy last year which brought me to these great work of these great artists. I went to many places like Pantheon, Colosseum, inside Vatican City including St. Peter's Basilica and Sistine Chapel, and other places I can not remember. Anyway, among great works in these places, I was very fascinated by Michelangelo the most because I think Michelangelo was 'All in One' artist. I mean, he seems to have ability to do all kind of arts; he could be a sculptor, architects, and painting artist. 

From what i saw from his works, seems like Michelangelo's style show a lot of massiveness and trying to make a perfect figure of human body. For example, David, a very famous and master piece of Michelangelo, show human figure and also with feeling that express through the face. When I stand on the ground and turn my face up to see David closely, I could see muscle and all of the blood vessels from marble skin of David.

Later on, David was forced by the Pope to make paintings and architecture which we all know them well, paintings inside Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. Here, I found that Michelangelo is a great architect and painting artist at the same time with being a great sculptor. The paintings inside Sistine Chapel is the story in the Bible which all human figure also shows strength, and a clearly human figure  such as muscles as well as blood vessels.

Anyway, there are more paintings, sculptures, and architecture that Michelangelo did. All of his work was very magnificent, suit with the word "ALL IN ONE" artist.

The view from inside St. Peter's Basilica that I took myself. 

HISTORY, ARCHITECTURE, AND "NOT AT ALL"

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci

History always refer back to the previous and remaining in the past. In architecture, what we see in buildings nowadays, developed from the past and use history as a source. Architects use history in their work which appear in their contemporary context. Renaissance architecture like Filippo Brunelleschi may be used history direcly for his architecture but in the opposite way, some architect is "not at all" in the the use of history like Le Corbusier. 


Filippo Brunelleschi is an Italian Renaissance architect that practiced on Classical Roman architecture and studying about theories and the elements of classical architecture. He got inspiration from ancient Roman authors like Leonado Da Vinci, especially "Vitruvius" which later established new rules and theory of proportion and symmetry according to human proportions. Anyway, Brunelleschi did not create any new forms of architecture, he just borrow and use history of Classical architecture for his work but with higher perform of engineering method and construction. On the other side, modernism architects like Le Corbusier has "Starting from zero", in which he get rid out of the history and creating his own rules of architecture. As you can see from Le Corbusier's work, his architecture intruduced "Geometry" , new form, pureness, simplicity, with new materials also theory of "Golden Ratio".

Golden Ratio by Le Corbusier

However, I think each architects have different style of how they got inspiration from. Some uses the past and create present, some might create their own theory and rules. Different style and different design of architect is beautiful in its own way. It's depends on how people look trough what architects were trying to convey trough their architecture. 

BIGNESS...

As time passed, many things has grown up as well as building that came up with different structure. I am sure that everyone have been impressed once in a life time when seeing a big massive building which there are many of them in nowadays. 

Of course, the structure, form and the size, are the best things that could give attractiveness to people who saw. But for me, I am totally agree with Rem Koolhaas that the oversized and large scale building sometimes created a 'Junk Space', and also difficult to experience and get the essential thing the architects are trying to express to you. Sometimes it is hard to control in terms of light, sound, or even work and detail of building. Also, when thinking in about the concern of global warming, these huge buildings are destroying the earth we live, for example, material like steel, concrete, and the use of electricity of the building would increase. 

For me, i think architects in nowadays must concern about global warming and create architecture that won't harm the nature.  They should set the limitation of how the size of space of the building should be and 'Junk space' won't happen so people could use the space usefully.

Expressionism and Frank Gehry

Expressionism is an architectural movement that developed in Europe during the first decades of 20th century. It seems like Modernism and Expressionism were developed nearly in time. Somehow, in Modernism, form follow function. In the opposite way, in Expressionism, function follow form. Many architects in now a days have their own style in designing and creating architectures which their style and form are very complex and futuristic form. Yes, their style is Expressionism. 

Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry is one of the famous architecture who involved in Expressionism period. He is a Canadian American architecture who won Pritzker Prize award. Most of his building become tourist attractions and outstanding in form of futuristic and with a very curvy complex structure that when i firstly saw, I can't imagine how complexity the plan and the structure is. His well known architecture are Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Walt Disney concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, Dancing House in Prague and more. 

Disney Concert Hall

Frank Gehry's current home

One thing I like about Frank Gehry's architecture is the way he made his building become outstanding and very attractive from the context around, for example, Dancing House in Prague. This building has a very curvy and unusual shape that twisted like this building were dancing. If you compare this building to the context around, you'll find out how much this building attract you. 

Dancing House

Dancing House and context around

Rem Koolhaas and Post-Modernism

Rem Koolhaas or Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect who is the founder partner of OMA, architecture company that currently based in Rotterdam, Natherlands. As his father was a novelist, critic, and screenwriter, Rem Koolhaas became a journalist and the film maker at the early of his career life. Koolhaas first studied scriptwriting and produced 'The White Slave' in 1969 with his partner and then was a journalist for the Haagse Post before started to studied in the area of Architecture in London. In 1975, Koolhaas founded the office together with his partners and later joined by one of his students, Zaha Hadid, famous female architect who achieved Pritzker Prize award. Here, in the early work of his career life, started the inspiration of his work from post modernism architecture and produce architecture in his own style. He was getting the inspiration from the great architect in modernism world, where “Post-Modernism” are 'white' and the 'grey' which different from the very extreme concept of Modernism where there's either black or white. However, Rem Koolhaas used the theory of this and apply to his work that stands out from other architecture also much more complex and magnificent in our world of modernism today.

Bordeaux house by Rem Koolhaas

South East Asia Architecture Field Trip

coming soon....

PLAY TIME

"Play Time" was directed by French director, Jacques Tati, who himself played as a Monsieur Hulot in the movie. Tati has built an enormous set specially for the film with complex visual sound and low level of dialoge as a background noise. Here are some ideas after i watched this movie. 

As i started watching "Play time", confusion came to my mind........

The movie started with the scene at the airport where a group of american tourist arrived to Paris. The officer inside the airport acting and dressing neatly and moved orderly. There is less dialogue but more of the natural voice from the scene in the movie which let viewer a chance to guess and perceive what the director trying to show. As I started to observed the background and architecture in the movie, I found that there is a glass box building appear in the movie a lot. I can see from the interior of the building like airport, office, and the scene where there was a product sale event or something. The interior looks light with white color and glass facade, also appear to be geometry shape for the furniture. When the American tourist come to the outside of buildings, there happened to be a lot of high rise buildings around the area which all of them again, looks like a glass geometry box shape. The tone of the movie looks like it was shooting in black and white film, but it was not because i still see some color in the movie. I think it reveal the idea of modern where the object or architecture come up with natural and pure color. 

Tati has built his enormous set of background, furniture, and architecture especially for his film. The inspiration would be from modernism because when look back to the time when this movie produced, it's like the time when modernism has been effective to the world. Mies van der rohe is one of the famous architect known in modernim period. He is Mr. "Less is more", that known for simplicity, and geometry shape. Just like in the movie, architecture that appear in the film happened to be like Mr. Less is more's. Anyway, i think "Play Time" is a good and also weird movie which confused me a lot with the voice, the character, but not the architecture. It tells the story itself that it is a lovely modernism. 

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

I have a chance to watch one of the best documented film in History of Architecture class. It is a film documented the action of Julius Shulman while he was capturing the images of architecture, name Visual Acoustics, narrator by Dustin Hoffman

The film started with and old man, Mr.Shulman, intruducing himself and talking about modern architecture. He is the world's greatest architectural photographer, who brought images of modern architecture to people which also to the American mainstream. He used his sense of feeling, eyes and composition to capture architecture and make the picture look more being a warm architecture by adding context like furniture or people into the picture. 

In this documented film, the main architecture that Shulman documented and photographed was the Case study house no.22 by Pierre Koenig. It is a modernist house in the Hollywood Hills, California, where you can see magnificent view of the city down below. The house is also considered an iconic representation of modern architecture in the 20th century. Julius Schulman documented and photographing this house in a panoramic view of the city through the floor to ceiling glass walls at night with two women sitting at a corner as he was trying to make his picture looks more than just "architecture" by adding context. 

Stahl House (Case study house no.22) by Pierre Koenig

One thing that i understand in this film is the relationship between "text and context". Architecture is just architecture when not adding context like furniture and people that live in the house like what Shulman trying to say through his photograph. 

 

Modern Architecture: Le Corbusier VS Tadao Ando

When i think about “Modern Architecture”, i would think of a house or building with plain, pure, transparent, and simple form. I did mention about history of Modern architecture in “From Bauhaus to our House”, that it was started in the early 20th century and gained popularity after the second World War until now. I think Modern architecture shows the development of technology and engineering through the buildings structure, materials, and form. 

Again, when talking about modern architecture, one architect that i always think about is Le corbusier. He was the very first architect who started Modernism and well known from his famous work like Villa Savoye.

Villa Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy that built between 1928-1931, by Le Corbusier. It was designed with pure geometry form and supported by a lot of columns to elevated the building from the ground and allowed the continuity of garden beneath. The roof serving as a garden and terrace to occupied nature even a person stay within the building. Villa Savoye is a free floor plan that it's structure supported by columns.

In comparison to my studio work that I choose to work on Tadao Ando's building called, 4x4 house, Villa Savoye and 4x4 house is a modernist house but yet, they are different in some way. 

4x4 house is a minimalist house with full of functions and necessities things that people need. The given site was 65.42 meter square but Ando design the house with only 22.56 meter square. Ando propose a new design in his personal remembrance of the destruction of the earthquake with a four-story high building facing toward the island. He came up with 4-by-4 meters rooms that stacked one top of another like a block and be restrict with rules of building’s height and also off-street-parking. The first and second cube were stacked on one another but the third cube were stacked shifted to the east by one meter.  4X4 house is a load bearing wall structure, meaning that there is no column inside the house to support the structure but instead, load bearing wall use a walls instead of columns to support the structure. 

These two houses are both pure and simple form. The architects designed a geometry shape like box and circle, also play with windows and lights. But Villa Savoye has been supported by column and up lifted above ground which I somehow think about Greek architecture. But for Tadao Ando's building, 4x4 house, I think it's very pure and always signify Modern Architecture. 

Responses to the Metropolis

I always love watching black and white film. Metropolis is another classics film that i had a chance to watch in History of Architecture class. The uniqueness of this film is not just it is a classics black and white film, but it is a silent film too. There is no dialogue in the movie but the action of the actors could tell all the story. 

The film is set in a futuristic city Metropolis, where the society was divided into two classes: high class and low class. High class people usually be a thinker or manager who live higher above the ground, up in a luxurious skyscrapers but in opposite way, low class people like workers who work with machines live and work desperately underground. After a while, when the scene change from the underground factory to a luxurious city above ground where everything is magnificent, a girl appeared with kids and then the son of Metropolis's master followed her to the underworld. The fact that low people live and work underground, rich people above ground could not see the poor people. The man was surprised with what he saw. At this point I started to get some point from the story which is about the differences of level of people and society.  

I think the movie is trying to tell the differences between classes of people through the society, environment, and architecture. Higher level of people usually rich and live in a high rise luxurious building while the worker living underground. Comparing to our present society, the idea of classes of people still there, through people's living and society. High rises building or skyscrapers come up more in a present day to serve anyone that have enough money to buy a tiny room in a huge building. But where are the place for poor people? Is it underground like Metropolis's workers?

From Bauhaus to Our House [History of architecture class]

In the last two decades in architecture, modern buildings occurred and spread out the trend all over the world, from a small group called “Bauhaus” in Germany. The building started to covering more with glass, aluminum, steel and concrete, as ornate buildings with the exterior decoration of stone go down.  The size and shape of the building changed, from a dome to just a box like shape as well as high rise building or skyscrapers go up, taking stranger and stranger shapes.

In From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe give the view of art to the world of architecture. Thus, the reflection of a philosophy or theory had occurred in the twentieth century of architecture. According to Wolfe, the philosophy that explains architecture is Marxism, the central vision that was translated into main form of architecture in the century. 

Tom Wolfe wrote in the introduction chapter in his book, “From Bauhaus to Our House” that, “I doubt it seriously. Every child goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse. Not even the school commissioners, who commissioned it and approved the plans, can figure out how it happened. The main thing is to try to avoid having to explain it to the parents.” Wolfe had extend his idea of opposing a modernism theory hilariously. He called building in New York city, a “Glass box”. 

Glass House, connecticut in America, by Philip Johnson

From Bauhaus to Our House started with the Bauhaus and its founder, Walter Gropius, the silver prince that took place in Weimar, Germany capital city in 1919 after World War I. Walter Gropius brought all the arts together. Young architects and artists who came to approached in this school has to “starting from zero”, which the major focus of this school was to create original and innovative ideas, along with theories. Bauhaus also invited technology to form a new unity of “art and technology”. 

Bauhaus were later fleeing Nazi Germany and brought the international style with them to America and accepted major teaching at the nation's most famous academic institution, empower them to manage generations of American architects. So later, american architecture as looking from the view of America, is fulled of “glass box”. 

This book emphasizes the movement of Modernism and the principle of architecture for being “Modern”. It is surprisingly that a 'small' group of people called “Bauhaus” built a theory, and spread it throughout the world and that changed the world, arts of architecture in a completely different way. From the exterior decorative stone or marble building that made buildings look so dense and thick, to a look-like light, soft, airy glass building. It's completely different when we compare and contrast them together.