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The influence of architecture
Influence in architecture
Influence in architecture
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New York City has been called “the greatest city in the world” numerous times by its own people and visitors to the city. New York is civilization’s greatest world within a city. It gives the overpowering impression of being a magnet and mirror for all of humanity and all that humanity does. For a city so young, New York is home to number of architectural classics. Two of these masterpieces of architecture are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum. Both continue the metaphor of New York being a world within a world and possess the latent fusion of form and function, one dependent on the other. The Metropolitan Museum is the epitome of neo-Classical style while the Guggenheim is a modernist powerhouse. Each museum serves the same purpose: displaying humanity’s greatest achievements. By comparing and contrasting their history, location, façade and interior, I will investigate how they arrive at this goal in contrasting styles
Location of a building is significant, often giving an insight into the edifice’s function. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is located on Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th streets (picture1). It was commissioned by Solomon Guggenheim in 1943. Guggenheim chose Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new building to house Guggenheim’s four-year-old Museum of non objective painting. Wright was reluctant on New York being chosen as the city to house the museum but he finally decided on its current location. Its proximity to Central Park was a vital factor in his decision – the park offers a respite to the hustle and bustle of the city and gets as close to nature as possible in the City (picture 2). Like Robie House and Falling Water, the museum is a product of its environment and finds its inspiration from nature. As is stated on the official website, the Guggenheim Museum is an “embodiment of Wright’s attempts to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture.” People visit the museum as much for its architecture as its art; it is an icon of modern architecture and designed specifically to showcase and complement modern art.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by wealthy American businessmen and artists of the time with the sole purpose to create a museum bringing art and education from around the world to the citizens of America. The original central pavilion was d...
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... the second floor. Surrounding this staircase is a set of parallel columns (picture 21). Just above the start of the staircase is a grand statue of Perseus with the Head of Medusa. Unlike the Guggenheim museum, the Met offers a more conventional method to view art. The art-goer walks through a number of interlocking rooms with paintings on the sides and sculptures generally in the central area of the rooms. There is an impression of class, symmetry and grandeur given by the Great Hall, viewing rooms and the architecture of the Met.
The Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of New York are both masterpieces of architecture that communicate their form and function in contrasting styles. The Met gives the viewer a sense of grandeur and hails back to classical styles and forms while the Guggenheim Museum intrigues and appeals to the aesthetic side of the viewer. Both Museum’s are products of their environment and accomplish the aesthetic effect that the art works inside them possess. If the Met is considered graceful, the Guggenheim can be characterized as simply beautiful. Both are priceless elements of the New York City architectural landscape.
With the Pantheon being built over 1700 years ago, it’s amazing that architects are still using features and techniques from this work of architecture in modern creations. The use of this type of classical architecture will continue to be used in works for public space due to its remarkable exterior appearance and it’s long lasting structural durability. When both Jesse hall and the Pantheon are compared it is possible to see their similarities from the types of domes that top each, their external facades, and their interior plan. While they share many similarities, the differences that Bell and Binder used in their creation make this work of architecture unique to many other public spaces.
New York City is known for its extensive collection of art museums ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is usually the most renowned to others such as the the Solomon R. Guggenheim or the Whitney Museum of American Art which are popular in their own rights. This abundance of art museums makes the city very attractive for foreign visitors. However, this abundance of choice can overwhelm even the most informed visitors who have a finite amount of time to explore what the city has to offer. Although all of the above mentioned museums have great collections of their own, the often unheralded Frick Collections might trump them all in terms of exceptional works which include some of the world's most celebrated Western artists, such as Goya, Manet, Monet, Rembrandt, and Renoir.
“Cleveland Museum of Art: Building,” Cleveland Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Web. 25 March, 2014.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has one of the finest Asian art collections that has enlightened and strengthened my understanding in my personal art experience. The Museum itself is an artistic architectural structure that graces the entire block on 82nd Street in Manhattan. Entering inside, I sensed myself going back into an era, into a past where people traded ideas and learned from each other. It is a past, where I still find their works of yesteryears vividly within my grasp, to be remembered and shared as if their reflections of works were cast for the modern devoted learner.
The island of Manhattan was consolidated into the greater New York City in 1898. Because of this the city was transformed from a nineteenth century seaport with cobblestone streets into a twentieth century metropolis of skyscrapers and subways. The artists of the Ashcan movement saw this changing society in human terms. They saw this in a light which depicted the interaction of so many different cultures which were being thrust together. They documented these changes on a level which the ordinary person could understand. Because of the Ashcan School we have a picture of society which one really cannot understand amidst the overpowering spectacle of overpowering buildings and increasing technology.4
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.
Dell Upton is a historian and renowned professor of architecture and Urbanism at the University of California. He has published several books on architecture; one of them is “Architecture in the United States”, published in 1998. In this book, Upton analyzes the architecture of the United States in different aspects, such as nature, money and art, thus depicting the great variety in architectural forms, and how throughout the decades, different interests have lead communities to different ways of building, different purposes and materials, thus reflecting their way of thinking and their relationship with the environment. By exploring so many different architectural styles, Upton reveals the great diversity and richness that has always, and continues to characterize American architecture.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art came about as an idea from Jon Jay in Paris, France in 1866 with the idea of “national institution gallery of art” within the United States. Once this idea was proposed, it was immediately moved forward with his return to the United States. With the help of the Union League Club in NY they began to acquire civic leaders, businessmen, artists, and collectors who aided in the creation of the museum. For over 140 years, the visitors who go here have received everything the mission of the institution states.
With exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is one of the Nation’s largest facilities devoted to the art of our time (“About the MCA”) . The mission of the MCA is to offer a direct experience to the public of modern day art and living artists. German architect Joseph Paul Kleihues designed the new building with seven times the square feet of its previous facility (“The Building”) . October of 1967 the museum opened its doors to the public for the first time. The Museum of Contemporary Art is a symbol of modern art, culture, and the artist of our time. It is a stepping stone in history and will leave footprints in the heart of Chicago for many generations to come.
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
In all, both the Glasgow Art Building and the Goldman-Schwartz Art Building have a surprising number of similarities. Although they are located on two different continents, the styles are remarkably similar especially considering their function. Their similar goals to promote creativity by designing an open and free environment are perhaps, the most significant and interesting features of the structures. By comparing these features, it gives an indication of the serious dedication to art that has existed across the world regardless of history.
The “superstar” museum gained this status by considering every important detail during its establishment and initial phases of conversion from royal palace to museum (Gombault, 2002). As the purpose of the building changed, each room addressed new functions with new requirements. Although the function of the Louvre is different from the building’s original intention, the building is still appears dignified and important enough to display priceless artifacts and painting (Steffensen-Bruce, 1998). This consideration was applied in designing the Met. The Met looked towards the South Kensington Museum (Victoria and Albert) and the “ideal role model” due to its extensive collections and international reputation (Heckscher, 1995). The Met found itself in a similar situation to the South Kensington, because it did not have a building or a collection to start with (Heckscher, 1995). When designing museums, architects strived to create monuments that “prepare and educate the mind of the visitor (Steffensen-Bruce, 1998).” Education is an essential function of a museum. Acquiring, preserving, and properly displaying materials, permits a museum to fulfill this duty (Steffensen-Bruce, 1998). For instance, lighting is a factor that affects the manner in which artwork is viewed and can be properly appreciated. When determining the proper lighting for the Louvre, Comte d’Angiviller, strongly believed that natural, overhead lighting was the most effective solution (McClellan, 1994, p. 72). The same determination impacted the decision to add skylights at the Met. During the initial phase, architects Vaux and Mould, added skylights to the upper floor, and windows to the lower floor that provided a natural light solution (Heckscher, 1995). Additionally, glass-roofed courtyards provided “unimpeded light” for displaying
...f structure, a museum. The one contradiction in the contemporary design theory that Libeskind dares to fight is that to work in the upcoming century means to work with reduced means. His works pose optimism in the sense that architecture, if filled with a satisfactory amount of reasoning, and justification with the help of the advancement in material technology, and the foremost, creativity, will be able to address the profound of any project seeking for poetic embodiment. While modern architects have tried hard to eradicate the traces of history from the forms, postmodern architects like Liberskind would embody the traces of history in between the forms. In Lisbeskind’s Jewish Museum, the invisibility, the implication, and the embodiment come first, then the advancement of material methodology assists the build of the visibility, and the physical infrastructure.
While he may not be as celebrated as Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or Louis Kahn, Venturi leaves behind a forceful intellectual legacy that is perhaps more durable than any building. By condemning the functionalism, simplicity, and orthodoxy of modernism in Contradiction and Complexity in Architecture (1966), he instigated an enduring architectural rebellion. This rebellion continues to run its course today. Notably, Venturi’s ideas sparked and profoundly influenced postmodernism, an international style whose buildings span from the beautiful to the gaudy and vulgar. Ultimately, Venturi’s alternative to modernism succeeded because he prized human experience and the interaction of individuals with architectural forms over a rigid, doctrinaire ideology.
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...