The Role of the Visual in Today's Society
The role of the visual in today’s society is quite apparent. Beautiful, flashy images are everywhere in the media, and all of them serve the same purpose. The purpose of all of these images is to get you, the consumer to buy the product that is being sold, or at least buy into the idea that a particular product represents. The role of the visual in modern architecture is very much the same. The purpose of the visual in modern architecture is to publicize or privatize a building through any media necessary to create the desired representation, and thereby sell the idea.
In the case of Le Corbusier, the goal was to create a very visual and public architecture. He recognized that not everybody would be able to go and personally see his buildings, thus he decided to bring his buildings to them. Obviously Corbusier believed very strongly in the representational value of his buildings, “I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.” In this quotation Corbusier describes just how important the role of the visual is to him. Experience is not necessary, and neither is discussion, just visualization. In the case of Villa Savoye (Poissy, France 1928-1929) Corbusier created a building based upon his principles of architecture, and the idea of the house as a machine for living. These programmatic elements yielded a simple building that followed his five points of architecture (peloti, ribbon windows, a roof garden, free façade, and free plan). The way in which he composes these elements and ultimately how he represents the building are what make this a truly interesting piece of architecture, instead of a place for storing hay (as the building was once used).
The physical appearance of the building (what it would look like if we were to visit) was an attempt by Corbusier to create a truly mechanical building, “A house is a machine for living in”. The building is built in the middle of a completely flat field, upon which this foreign object is placed, described as “…looking as if a spaceship had landed…” The building itself contains many of the same elements that one would find in an ocean liner. Elements such as a roof deck, railings and the curvaceous walls of the roof deck which look like the smokestacks of a ship. While these elements help to create Corbusier’s desired image the wa...
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...sen site were an attempt to privatize architecture.
All of the photographs of the building that were taken are of the interior, and the comfortable and private spaces therein. Often the images contain furs, which were intended by Eileen Gray to personalize the experience of looking at a photograph. It was also supposed to, in effect bring the people viewing the photograph into her home. This would give them a chance to experience the building for themselves. This is shown by the very few pictures that are taken of the building as a whole, it isn’t about watching E-1027 is about experiencing. This is in direct contrast to Corbusier’s more voyeuristic beliefs about the visual.
Although the visual can be used to many different ends in modern architecture, it is used mostly to sell an idea. In the case of these two architects the ideas were very similar and yet opposite. Corbusier chose to publicize his buildings in order to gain a wide audience, which he felt was important, while Eileen Gray on the other hand chose to publicize the privacy of her building. Both interpretations of the role of the visual in modern architecture are an attempt to sell a particular idea to the public.
Many of Frank Gehry’s early works reflect a refined manipulation of shapes and structures, whereby many of his buildings present distorted shapes or apparent structures. From the Guggenheim museum to the Walt Disney concert hall, Frank Gehry’s architecture is close to none. He cleverly plays with shapes and geometries. In this essay, I shall start with a brief analysis of Gehry’s house and the influences in the design of the house. I shall then analyze the extent to which Frank Lloyd Wright has inspired and influenced Gehry in the design of his house through a comparison with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Jacob’s house.
...just the physical features. This is the same way Gothic Architecture was design to overwhelm and make feel the individual inferior to the institution behind the building. Consequently, the conceptual aspect of the building came as a secondary element in the design of the building. Such as the experience and feeling of the people coming to this building and being inside. The same way Gothic Architecture did it.
But these contrived differences give rise to esthetic difficulties too. Because inherent differences—those that come from genuinely differing uses—are lacking among the buildings and their settings, the contrivances repre...
Using the quote by Habermas as a starting point, select up to two buildings designed in the twentieth century and examine what ‘sudden, shocking encounters’ they have encountered, or created. Analyse the building’s meanings as a demonstration of an avant-garde, or potentially arriere-garde, position.
“Form follows function.” Every great Modern architect thought, designed by and breathed these very words. Or at least, their design principles evolved from them. Modern architects Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pierre Chareau, and Rudolf Schindler to name a few believed that the function determined the space whether the space was solely for a particular purpose or they overlapped to allow for multiple uses. Form didn’t just follow function, function defined the space. By focusing on the relationship between the architecture and the interior elements, Chareau’s Maison de Verre expanded the idea of functionalism to include not only the architecture but also the space it creates and how people function within that space.
An architect’s goal is to design appropriately to the time. In the mid to late twentieth century post-modernist such as Venturi found the purism and oversimplification of modernism lacking. Venturi recognized that the world is not simple in nature, but full of complexity and contradictions. Post-modernists aim for an implicit richness of meaning through complexity and contradiction rather than an oversimplified blatant clarity of meaning. A building is basically comprised of a variety of paradoxes, such as outdoor and indoor, primary spaces and secondary space and so on. In Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert Venturi states that “Blatant simplification means bland architecture” and elaborates on the necessity of complexity and contradiction architecturally appropriate for modernity (Venturi, 25).
Altough Gray admired Corbusier’s work and took inspiration from him especially from his ‘Five Points of the New Architecture’, their philosophies had fundamental differences, which became clear when Gray continued her architectural work. Gray did not agree with his famous dictum that a house should be a “machine for living”. This was evident within the E.1027 villa, a modernist structure but with playful elements. Although Corbusier was the master mind behind ‘Five points of the New Architecture’, Gray was actually the first to take action and put these points into place within the planning of her E.1027 and this is what sparked the bitter jealousy Corbusier had towards Gray. A woman in a male dominated world of design had created this fine piece of modern architecture. Gray was self thought she had no qualifications in architecture, she was known as a designer of furniture and interiors. Was Le Corbusier threatened by her?. After Gray and Badovici had separated in 1938 Badovici had invited Le Corbusier as a guest at the villa. Although her admired E.1027 and at one stage even wanted to purchase it. He ignored Gray’s wish of keeping the villa free of any decoration and vandalised the pristine walls with offensive and garish murals in an act of sabotage. The murals were a way for Corbusier to mark his territory and his presence. There is a photo of Corbusier himself painting the walls of E.1027 naked. Corbusier’s actions were spiteful and an act of jealousy. He didn’t stop there he built a prefabricated house directly behind
Gehry’s additional design of the exterior has created an unconventional model form of house. The asymmetrical form characterizes the entire external side of the house. According to Goldstein, Gehry tried to slant the house roofline, create a false perspective and cause an absurd viewer’ perception or expectation (1979, 9). The complexity of the form might also produce a relationship with the house’s elements such as door, wall, and roof. For example, those elements, which linearly constructed, were hardly noticed since the distraction of geometric form around the exterior part of the house. It’s even barely hard to find the entrance of the house as a result of the salient angles of exterior.
In his book, Precisions on the Present State of Architecture, Le Corbusier breaks down the construction of the modern house. Following functionalist ideals, he states, “There is really not a square centimeter lost here; and that’s not a small job!” (Le Corbusier 130). This idea of making the most of every centimeter ties back to functionalist thought. In Le Corbusier’s house, there is no excess space, no grandiose rooms or decoration, and no elements that are not essential for living. Each centimeter has a purpose. Later in the passage, Le Corbusier proclaims, “Monsieur will have his cell, Madame also, Mademoiselle also. Each of these cells has floors and a ceiling carried by freestanding independent columns” (130). By reducing each room to simply a cell, Le Corbusier removes the excess of a dwelling; the inhabitants do not have designated rooms or spaces, but cells. Evoking ideas of prison cells, the rooms described by Corbusier appear only large enough to sleep. There will be few extravagancies. Combining the two quotes, functionalisms influence on Corbusier’s planning and thought become strikingly
...to Renzo Piano himself, “each architecture tells a story, and the story this new building proposes is one of lightness and transparency. This building is about defying gravity. This is a building that will disappear in the air that will bring the same magic to the skyline that the neo-Gothic brings” (Piano).
Frank Lloyd Wright has been called “one of the greatest American architect as well as an Art dealer that produced a numerous buildings, including houses, resorts, gardens, office buildings, churches, banks and museums. Wright was the first architect that pursues a philosophy of truly organic architecture that responds to the symphonies and harmonies in human habitats to their natural world. He was the apprentice of “father of Modernism” Louis Sullivan, and he was also one of the most influential architects on 20th century in America, Wright is idealist with the use of elemental theme and nature materials (stone, wood, and water), the use of sky and prairie, as well as the use of geometrical lines in his buildings planning. He also defined a building as ‘being appropriate to place’ if it is in harmony with its natural environment, with the landscape (Larkin and Brooks, 1993).
nature. He called this Organic Architecture. Wright felt the relationship between the site and the building, and the needs of the client where very important. In contrast to Wright, Le Corbusier displayed industrialization rather than nature. ...
In the short reading, The Cunning of Cosmetics, by Jeffrey Kipnis, he begins by explaining what architecture is reacting to and how it effects the direction it is going in. As a result from explaining this, he starts to ponder on his job on Herzog & de Meuron and question, “When did my infatuation with HdM’s work begin?”(Kipnis 23) he starts to realize that buildings have the “Ability to insinuate itself into my psyche” without forcing itself upon someone. He is able to analyze this in the magazine he was reading Arch- Plus by Nikolaus Kuhnert and see how he separated the magazine into two sections – Ornament and Minimalism, through this he able to explore prime examples such as Signal Box and Ricola Europ, explaining how the use of their materiality and modern ornamentation can give a “Erotic allure…the sirens of the Odyssey”. Overall he is clarifying that
Jencks believes “the glass-and-steel box has become the single most used form in Modern Architecture and it signifies throughout the world ‘office building’” (27). Thus, modern architecture is univalent in terms of form, in other words it is designed around one out of a few basic values using a limited number of materials and right angles. In...
Architecture is the concept of bringing structure, materiality, form and space together as a whole, provide people with enclosed atmosphere to experience. Considering this, it is important to identify that materiality and the purpose of details has been a key methodology to bringing architectural intentions into the design in an affective manner, more over producing an architectural expression. However, this position is rather declining in architecture, reducing tectonics and materiality to being secondary to form and space. With the start of modernism, the attempt to achieve minimalistic style has caused detailing to increasingly develop into a decorative aspect of a building, neglecting its individual contribution to architecture.