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Impact of architecture on society
Essay on the role of architecture in society
Essay on the role of architecture in society
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By the end of 18th century, with the industrialization of steel and glass, architecture began to take on a different role in the society. Architecture was no longer about building structures for an individual, but was about concerning with beauty, style, and aesthetics within the technology of space (Conway 8). The idea that building plus art equals architecture was no longer valid, as the equation undermined the true meaning of architecture. In Understanding Architecture, Hazel Conway states, “the allocation of living space is economically, socially, and culturally determined” (6), when discussing the purpose of architecture. This means that the surrounding environment of the building, also referred to as built space, is often intertwined with social relationships. Built space can be defined as the philosophical way of referring to architecture. To a certain extent, the architecture becomes about the philosophical investigation into built space, rather than establishing a single building. Through the examples of artists and architectures, such as Rachel Whiteread, Robert Smithson, Meis Van Der Rohe, and Gordon Matta-Clark, this paper will demonstrate how art pushes architecture into critical examination of built space. In doing so, it will be evident that artists and architecture define sculpture, object, prototype, installation, network, building, assemblage, and/or habitat differently.
An artist who dealt with technologies of built space is Rachel Whiteread. The core concepts of Whiteread’s work includes, playing with negative space and scale, and focusing on line and form. In the piece called Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial a.k.a. Nameless Library, Whiteread uses sculpture to represent what is not there, the empty space. By...
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...about recreating scale. When a person sees this piece from an airplane view or on a balcony, he or she will experience the massive quantity of the artificial nature that has been produced. However, when a person sees this piece from a ground level, the 14,000 translucent, white boxes just becomes a boring, everyday object. Depending on the location of the viewer’s presence, the piece symbolizes a different meaning. This piece is similar to the works of Tara Donavon, whose core concepts include playing with scale and working with multiplicity. She is known to use everyday household materials to create large-scale installations and sculptures. In the piece Styrofoam Cup Sculpture, Donavon glues countless amount of Styrofoam cups together to create a synthetic material that challenges the viewer’s to have second thoughts about the basic functions of everyday material.
Evan Penny takes a completely different approach to hyperrealism. He manipulates the space where the object resides in. This technique shows the audience that a 3D space can change with the right type of effect on a sculpture. As he distorts his works of art in the space, it has an effect with the relationship between the viewer and
“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.
(Image taken from Tranchtenberg, Marvin, Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity. Second Edition. Prentice Hall, Inc. New Jersey: 2002.)
It will discuss the different types of dwellings throughout recorded human history from the perspective of how art and culture influences building design. This will fulfill my own curiosity to understand the different influences on homebuilding and design over the years and how people have dealt with these changes.
Three dimensional art is defined as media which “occupies space, defined through the dimensions of height, width and depth” (SAYLOR). These art works can be geometric or organic in nature (NORTON). Three dimensional art forms include sculptures, crafts and architecture. Three dimensional art form is fascinating to me because of the amount of realism and beauty it embodies, as well as for its functional and aesthetic value. For this assignment, I chose two beautiful pieces that illustrated the characteristic of three dimensional art and the processes it took to produce them. The first art work I want to analyze is a sculpture done by an Iraqi artist from Kalhu (modern day Nimrud) entitled, “Assurnasirpal II Killing Lions” (Sayre, 420).
Though the interiors he designed were created to be useful spaces, his focus was more on aesthetic than function . Within his individual objects of art such as chairs, tables, drawers, staircases and many others he focused more on the form of the object than on its intended use. Instead, Kuramata appeared to want the presence of the piece to surpass its function, something that is only possible when there is a symbolic value . One of the best examples of a work of art fitting these stipulations was his design of the Miss Blanche armchair (fig. 3) in 1988 . The chair is made of acrylic resin and embedded with artificial roses and aluminum . Kuramata’s title of the work, choice of materials, color contrast, process of creation and simple aesthetic combine to create a piece of work that forces the viewer to question whether or not it can even be considered a chair. This work of art allows the functionality to disapp...
Donald Judd was an American artist central in the development of a movement beginning in 1963 labeled Minimalism, a term and concept, he profusely detested and rejected. His contribution to the progress of art as a whole through challenging European artistic conventions was immense, as a result he revolutionised practices and attitudes surrounding art making and the exhibition of art. After his abandonment of painting in the 1960’s, he progressed to working three-dimensionally producing simple, often repeated forms, with an intrinsic focus on the use of space. In his eyes, he was reducing painting and sculpture to its basic elements through the use of simple forms, industrial materials, solid colour on flat surfaces, and natural light. However he refused for his work to be classed as sculpture, insisting on the term ‘specific objects’, highlighting its distance from previous notions of art-making in sculpture. These were "specific" due to their carefully orchestrated shape, scale, proportions, and materiality. And they were "objects" because rather than being sculpted, they were fabricated by the artist.
The essence of modern architecture lays in a remarkable strives to reconcile the core principles of architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. However, it took “the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification, to establish modernism as a distinctive architectural movement” (Robinson and Foell). Although, the narrower concept of modernism in architecture is broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament from the structure and theme of the building, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose; the visual expression of the structure, particularly the visual importance of the horizontal and vertical lines typical for the International Style modernism, the use of industrially-produced materials and adaptation of the machine aesthetic, as well as the truth to materials concept, meaning that the true nat...
The German Pavilion, more commonly known as the Barcelona Pavilion, is one of the most recognizable buildings of the modern period during the early 20th century. It encapsulates every element of modern architecture in one structure. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the fathers of modern architecture, was the architect of this beautiful building. In this essay I will explore how Mies impacted the modern movement in architecture through his groundbreaking ideas using the Barcelona Pavilion as a case study.
The author explains architecture as an identification of place. Architecture starts with establishing a place. We define ‘place’ as a layout of architectural elements that seem to accommodate, or offer the possibility of accommodation to, a person, an activity, a mood, etc. We identify a sofa as a place to sit and relax, and a kitchen as a place to cook food. Architecture is about identifying and organizing ‘places’ for human use.
A teacher of design and history theory of architecture, Mary McLeod examines and builds an argument about what constitutes ‘otherness’ in the discipline of architecture at a time of flux in her 1996 work Every day and Other Spaces. Other can be defined as a new architecture. She starts with the underlying claim that the idea of other is greater than just doing differently. Most that advocate this idea are broken into two categories, those that side with the theorist Jacques Derrida (deconstructivists) and with Michael Foucault (heterotopia.) The political and culture implication and role remained vastly unknown at the time. This is one question put forth by McLeod, followed by the discussion of the notion of ‘everyday life’ and several other
Meijenfeldt, E. V., and Geluk, M. 2003. Below ground level: creating new spaces for contemporary architecture. Birkhauser
Conceptual art is an avant-garde art form which began in the mid-1960s and was stimulated by Marcel Duchamp’s DADA movement and the minimalist movement. It focuses more specifically towards the concept behind the artwork rather than the aesthetics and physical product whilst embodying the notion that art can exist as an idea even with the absence of a physical object to represent its’ concept. It initially instigated when artists pushed the limits to minimalism and questioned the next reduction to art – would it be no art at all, or as it turned out to be, art which exists as an idea. Duchamp’s idea was that the art process and the emotional output was far more important than the final product, influenced the development of Conceptual art and allowed artists to document their works as an input to the final outcome. As Conceptual art is rarely linked to an object, it is associated with the acknowledgement of human actions and the effects, responses and consequences. Through the close study of Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty,’ George Segal’s ‘Walk, Don’t Walk,’ and Kenneth Dewey’s ‘Museum Piece,’ reveal the ideas of Duchamp’s DADA art in their respective forms of Conceptual art.
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are two very prominent names in the field of architecture. Both architects had different ideas concerning the relationship between humans and the environment. Their architectural styles were a reflection of how each could facilitate the person and the physical environment. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, is considered one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture and Le Corbusier s Villa Savoye helped define the progression that modern architecture was to take in the 20th Century. Both men are very fascinating and have strongly influenced my personal taste for modern architecture. Although Wright and Corbusier each had different views on how to design a house, they also had similar beliefs. This paper is a comparison of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s and Le Corbusier ‘s viewpoints exhibited through their two prominent houses, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.
Charles Jencks in his book “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture “shows various similarities architecture shares with language, reflecting about the semiotic rules of architecture and wanting to communicate architecture to a broader public. The book differentiates post-modern architecture from architectural modernism in terms of cultural and architectural history by transferring the term post-modernism from the study of literature to architecture.