Architecture And Architecture

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 The idea that building plus art equals architecture was no longer valid, as the equation undermined the true meaning of architecture.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.