In the 6th season of “How I Met Your Mother”, a popular American series, part of the 3rd Episode shows Ted Mosby, the central character, giving a lecture to his class. He is a professor in architecture and the subject of the day is evidently one Antoni Gaudí. “Unfinished,” he says. “Of all the words you can use to describe La Sagrada Familia: brown, pointy, weird… the only one that really seems to stick is Unfinished. Why? Because on June 7th 1926 the architect Antoni Gaudí, whose beard was also brown, pointy, weird and Unfinished, was run-over by a bus.” Later on, I learnt that it was a tram, and not a bus, that ran him over, but I digress. What was really striking about this ending bit of his lecture, aside from the three word combo: “brown, pointy, weird”, was the quirkiness of it all. And “quirky” is the one word that perhaps best sums up all of Gaudí’s style. His is a style that was not only way ahead of its time, but even today, stands in a class all its own, in all its surreal splendour and beauty. The name “Antoni Gaudí” is synonymous with a particular brand of style. Although his career began in the 19th Century, and it was really as the world began its journey into a new century, the 20th, that his style really matured, and found a distinct originality that set it apart from the rest of architecture at the time. It was with this style that Gaudí made a name for himself as a pioneer of Naturalism, as well as accentral figure in El Modernisme. Characterised by the incorporation of simple elements of nature, such as flowers, tree branches and animals, it also manifested itself in the juxtaposition of geometric masses, the eye-popping animation of surfaces with patterned brick or stone, bright ceramic tiles, as well as flora... ... middle of paper ... ...ned before, he then created the type of structure known as equilibrated, and he used this for both the Casa Batlló and the Casa Milà. Antoni Gaudí was a revolutionary architect and designer, as well as a visionary. Although he was considered eccentric and strange, and was indeed initially ridiculed and put down by his peers when he fist started out, nothing speaks more about him than the legacy and heritage that he left behind. It is a testament to his skill and genius, that he has continued to encapture and enrapture our visual senses and imaginations, so many years after his death. Although his final work is far from complete, I think it is safe to say that he has come a long way from being the son of a coppersmith, and is in fact, a far more distinguished figure than a mere man with a beard that was brown, pointy, weird, and unfinished. He is truly an inspiration.
Gehry draws his inspiration from famous paintings such as the Madonna and Child which he qualifies as a “strategy for architecture” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 42) and which he used as an inspiration for a project in Mexico . Through his interpretation of the paintings and artwork, Gehry looked for a new kind of architecture. His search for a new type of architecture culminated in 1978 with his own house in Santa Monica. What was once a traditional Californian house would be redesigned to become one of the most important and revolutionary designs of the 20th century, giving Gehry international prestige and fame. Frank Gehry’s “Own House” uses a mixture of corrugated metal, plywood, chain link and asphalt to construct a new envelope for an existing typical Californian house. This house has been inspired by Joseph Cornell, Ed Moses and Bob Rauschenberg. Gehry comments on his house by saying that there was something “magical” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) about it. He admits having “followed the end of his [my] nose” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) when it came to constructing the “new” house, which led Arthur Drexler, former Director...
Antoni Gaudi was born June 25th 1852 and lived until 1926. His name is Catalan with Gaudi being the family name and Cornet being the second. Gaudi was best known for being a practitioner of Catalan Modernism. The style of Gaudi was individualism and distinctive. Architecture, nature, and religion were Gaudi’s passion in life, which influenced a lot of his work. Gaudi liked to interpret his creations into his architecture for many to see the unique ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork and carpentry. What’s interesting about Gaudi is that he did not like to plan his work out but liked to make three-dimensional scale models. Many people liked his architecture because of the organic and natural styles conceived. Gaudi’s work became interesting around 1984 because he interpret religious imagines into his work and earned himself the name “God’s Architect”. His work deserves to be globally popular and
Also know as the Man of the Eight Beattitudes, Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin, Italy on Holy Saturday, April 6, 1901. He was born to a wealthy and politically active family. His mother was the painter Adelaide Ametis. His father was an agnostic, and was also the founder of the liberal newspaper called La Stampa. His father was also Italy’s ambassador to Germany and served a term as a senator.
Antonio Vivaldi was born on March 4th, 1678, in Venice, Italy, and died on July 28, 1741, in Vienna, Austria. His father, a barber and a talented violinist at Saint Mark's Cathedral himself, had helped him in trying a career in music and made him enter the Cappella di San Marco orchestra, where he was an appreciated violinist.
Leonardo Di Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy just outside of Florence. He was the son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, and Caterina. His dad took custody of Leonardo because his mother went off and married another man and moved to a neighboring town. They kept having kids, although not with each other, so Leonardo had about 17 half sisters and brothers. Leonardo spent his first 5 years in the hamlet of anchiano, the lived in the household of his father and family. At the age of 14 Leonardo was obligated to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di clone, known as Verrocchio. His workshop was the center of the intellectual currents of Florence. Leonardo was exposed to so many technical skills and learned drafting, chemistry, metallurgy metal working plaster castling and many other. He also would learn the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling. Leonardo had collaborated with Verrocchio on his baptism of Christ which is a painting of a young angel holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was so beyond superior to his...
Leonardo de Vinci (1452-1519), considered a pioneer artesian, of the high renaissance, was best known for his art, science, and his wisdom. He believed in only what he could observe. His drawing Vitruvian Man (1490) is the balanced perfection of human anatomy. The fascinating artisanship, undertaken from a drawing, inside his mysterious notebook, illustrates, dissects, and shapes an understanding of the mechanical symmetry of humanity. His correlation between man and universe has enlightened the modern studies of medicine and machine for centuries. His prized work of the human body according to the mind of Leonardo De Vinci's Vitruvian Man has become a world-renowned icon.
Dante Alighieri was the first and best Italian poet and wrote mainly on love and religion. His Divine Comedy is considered the greatest book of the last millennium. George Steiner said, "Dante’s totality of poet form and philosophic thought, of local universality and language, remains unrivaled. At a time where the notion of culture and of European culture in particular, is somewhat in doubt, Dante is the sovereign underwriter. His are the solutions beyond logic” (Twito 5).
Because classical antiquity was revived during the Italian Renaissance, the practitioners of art and design developed new techniques for developing a structure and paved the way for future designers. Modern interior design practitioners borrow many ideas from these Italian pioneers of art and culture, such as high ceilings, ornate floors, and fresco painted walls, which are design techniques indicative of the Italian Renaissance period (Houzz.com, 2012). Being that each room should coincide with the taste and style of the resident and the cultural norms in the society, designers and architects led the way for a new era where proportion and design of the room were unified as a whole. Pieces of art and furniture of the Italian Renaissance, like the Cassapanca, would be used by artisans of the interior for many decades to come.
Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice, Italy in 1678 and he died in Vienna, Austria in 1741. He was trained in music when he was a child, but was later ordained as a priest. He was an Italian Baroque composer and musician. At the time, Baroque Music was considered very fancy and ornamental music. It was a shift from the renaissance music period before which was quite simple music. Vivaldi was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. He was a great violinist as well as a composer. He wrote quite short, memorable pieces for the time. Physically he had a chest condition that made it hard for him to breath, possibly asthma. He composed many operas, for which he may have been famous during his lifetime, but only twenty-two of these survive. His music is quite complicated with a lot of notes and often quite fast paced. Most of his music was composed for talented musical students at the orphanage where he worked. One of his most famous works is The Four Seasons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRxofEmo3HA ), played with a smaller string orchestra.
The Segrada Familia is said to be the most spectacular building ever built by man, or should we say the most spectacular which to this day remains under construction. Located in Barcelona, Spain, this ongoing architectural wonder carries a great deal of meaning, history and impact on the future architectural outcome of the Segrada Familia. Envisioned by Anthony Gaudi, an architectural genius of his time, the church was first placed under construction some 130 years prior. To this day, the Segrada Familia, while near completion on its interior, still lives and breathes construction on its exterior face. Although
”My goal, which was, I believe, shared by most italians at that time, was to unite the country and rid it of foreign powers. Those who gave Italy her freedom would earn her people’s gratitude” (Garibaldi, page 6). During the age of Italian unification, there were three men who fought for her (Italy’s) freedom. Those men were Cavour the brains, Mazzini the soul, and Garibaldi the sword (Chastain).
Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–1536) was an architect working in Rome, whose work bridges the High Renaissance and Mannerism. His Villa Farnesina of 1509, is a very regular monumental cube of two equal stories, with the bays articulated by orders of pilasters. Peruzzi’s most famous work is the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome. The strange features of this building are that its façade curves gently around a curving stre...
One of the most influential Italian cinemas film directors was Federico Fellini, who became popular after World War II. The filmography of Fellini included 24 titles; of which won him five Academy Awards including the most Oscars in history for best foreign language film (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Federico Fellini’s influences have became such an integral part of the film industry, that some of his influences are barely even credited to him in todays society such as the word “paparazzi” which originated in his film La Dolce Vita, and became the word it means today. Also high schools across the America stage perform the Broadway musical comedy Sweet Charity, which was based on the Fellini film Nights of Cabiria, which was a film about an eternally optimistic Roman prostitute (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Fellini started out as a documentary-style realist in the Neorealism movement but soon developed his own distinctive style of autobiographical films that imposed dreamlike or hallucinatory imagery upon ordinary situations and portrayed people at their most bizarre state (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Federico Fellini was a significant directors in the Neorealism movement in his early career but later left Neorealism behind and created a new style of film that’s influences are still seen today and are prominent in film and other artistic pieces of work.
Renzo stated in an interview, “Architecture is about exploring. Culturally, historically, psychologically, anthropologically, and topographically, every job is different.” Renzo is particularly well known for adapting designs to their location. He later went on to say “(architecture) should make a contribution to the contex. … you must employ a homeopathic process, ... you can easily destroy their (cities) subtle dynamics” (Archinect, 2006).
“The Temple [of The Sagrada Família] grows slowly, but this has always been the case with everything destined to have a long life. Hundred-year-old oak trees take many years to grow tall; on the other hand, reeds grow quickly, but in autumn the wind knocks them down and there is no more to be said"1. These words, spoken by Antoni Gaudi about his life-long work, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, are a means to justify the extremely long time needed for the construction of the Sagrada Família, while referencing the themes and structural concepts he borrowed from nature in his designs. While this logical explanation may give comfort to some, others doubt the temple’s eventual completion, as its construction has just passed 123 years, with roughly half of the temple completed.1 Although churches and cathedrals have always endured long periods of construction, the plan set forth by Gaudi is of such an elaborate nature as to set the temple in a league of its own. The drive of Gaudi and others involved in the project are very representative of the Catalan people. Catalonia, and specifically Barcelona, has historically been a successful and prosperous region in Western Europe, a leader in politics and trade, but lost much of its importance and independence in modern times. Catalan nationality persevered, and Barcelona sought ways to reaffirm their identity and show the world it is a city rich with life and culture. While many projects would follow, perhaps the best example of this desire to show the world the worth of Catalonia is embodied in the Sagrada Família. The grand magnitude and elaborate attention to detail involved in the construction of the Sagrada Família are a clear portrayal of the ideal of Catalan pride.