The Influence Of Architecture

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The history of architecture over the years has demonstrated that design goes beyond merely providing formal beauty through functional sculptures, but increasingly, projects are having an influence on social, environmental and economic aspects of our communities. The social responsibility of architects lies in part in believing that architecture can create better places, that architecture can affect society, and that it can even have a role in making a place civilized by making a community more livable.

The Arts District at Bay Street, Bellingham, WA and Church Street Marketplace District, Burlington, Vermont are wonderful examples of this influence. The historic Church Street Marketplace is part of a National Register Historic District, with Victorian and Art Deco architecture as well as Modern infill buildings. The concept of Market Street and Church Street originated in 1958 as part of a series of discussions of urban renewal. During the summer of 1971, a one day street fair trial was conducted in four blocks of Church Street, and approximately 15,000 people attended. The successful Street Fair was taken as a demonstration of the feasibility of a mall. Completed in 1981 with the involvement of forward-thinking architect and planners who saw a need for a strong city center for a strong identity. Building heights are restricted to preserve the appearance of historic structures and maintain great views of local landmarks and scenery. Zoning promotes ground floor retail and upper-story office and residential uses and out of this a marketplace flourished, with fountains, public art, street entertainers and vendor carts. Architecture created a central gathering place for festivals, music, and attracts nearly three million visitors a...

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...tity... [and] their relationship to fate." Frank Lloyd Wright considered the built environment to be "frozen music." Even more than that, it is frozen philosophy, a manifestation of what the community believes, values, and strives to be, as well as an archive of its own development as a civilization. The built environment is the infrastructure, civic and service centers, parks and planned open spaces, neighborhoods, landmarks, roads and walkways, and all those public and private places that compose the community and constitute a critical frontier. It is necessary to understand the interactive relationship between people and the built environment and to unite these two elements in a way that optimizes each. The actual physical medium through which sustainable communities are realized is in fact through the functional beauty of sculptures that is the built environment

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