The Blind Architect

The Blind Architect

Without the benefit of vision, how would you re-evaluate the experience of your designs?

Architecture's Order and Proportion

It is innate in human behavior to seek order and proportion in our surroundings.  Without order and precise rhythm, music is cacophony and not harmony.  Babies are drawn to more symmetrical faces without being taught what is considered "beautiful."  Obviously, as Wittkower points out, there isn't really a universal method for ideal geometry (though the Golden Rectangle is pretty popular.  Just ask Twitter.) but it is a universal truth that order and proportion are fundamental to aesthetics.

Just like advanced mathematicians see patterns in numbers that some of us can never hope to understand (like my extremely left-brained roommate), designers can find or create a certain order and balance in an environment that others don't quite understand, but they recognize as being pleasant. Much like my scientifically-minded mom doesn't understand my desire to puncture holes in my body and get tattoos (self-expression, woman!), she also doesn't understand the logic or the "ordered chaos" of some of my designs or artwork.  Just like she accepts my increasingly less unique body modifications, she also accepts that my design is aesthetically pleasing on some level, though she can't put her finger on it.

Kahn's discussion of the room, the street, and the human agreement made me feel like a pretty insignificant part of a grand whole, much like looking up at the stars.  All in all I'm just a brick in the wall random person in a room in an apartment building on a street like so many countless other streets in the world.

Responding to Alberti, Natalini, and Palasmaa

In his work, Alberti states that architecture is created through lineaments (the outline or design of the details of the building) and structure (the actual construction and physicality of the building).  He goes on to describe how Architecture is composed by the consideration of parts, from the roof to the wall to the opening to the "compartition." To be honest I found Alberti to be quite pedantic and difficult to read.  Mostly what I got from it was "Here is a list of things that are part of a building.  In designing a building be sure to design the details of these things."  The moral of the story:  Alberti is discussing the PHYSICAL parts of architecture.

Natalini goes on to discuss in his work the different parts of the INTELLECTUAL process that goes into designing architecture.  Natalini states that "there is a lapse between the pencil and the stone" - that there is a discrepancy about what should be called architecture.  A building is not architecture because it is a building, nor is a design drawing architecture just because it is designed.  I agree with Natalini's notion that architecture does not exist unless it goes through the whole process from conception to development to fruition (even if it is only on a modeling scale).  Awesome detailed drawings aren't architecture yet.  An awesome model isn't architecture if there's nothing but chance behind its composition. Architecture does not exist in each discrete part of the process, but the process defines what can be considered architecture and what cannot. 

Palasmaa's work focuses on the SPIRITUAL or EMOTIONAL element of architecture - as he states it, the "phenomenology."  He starts out questioning why so few pieces of modern architecture leave us feeling cold while a colloquial old building (with probably very little aesthetic, I might add) will strike a resonance within us.  The average Joe (ie non-architect or architecture student) would fight tooth and nail to keep something like the Villa Savoy out of his Ruston, LA. Part of it is a lack of understanding, much like I don't really understand Rothko or that guy who painted a canvas beige and it was called "modern art."  Part of it, I feel, is that because an antebellum home, for example, has an established meaning or at least existed as a Rustonite grew up, people in Ruston know how to react to it.   It has a history that their grandparents or great-grandparents were a part of, so they know what it means.  A Rustonite wouldn't know how to react to the Villa Savoy.  It doesn't seem very comfortable, very warm, or very intimate.  It doesn't really have that "home" feel.  A lot of people don't really know how to be forward-thinkers, don't really know what feelings should be evoked from them in contemporary architecture and likely can't conceive their own reactions.  Just like I'll never really have the reaction to contemporary dance that I do to ballet.

Responding to Vitruvius: On Architecture

During this assignment I also had to read Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar," and there were many parallels between the two texts. 

According to Vitruvius, the architect must be a well-rounded person, dabbling a little in a lot of disciplines.  Because architecture is supposedly the art by which all other arts are judged, it must be the supreme art form, the culmination of many disparate parts to create a whole beautiful, functional work. In his work, Emerson says that in order to be a "whole man," a Scholar must be versed in many different areas, not highly specialized in one discipline so that the man becomes his work.  The Scholar uses books and history for inspiration (as an architect must look to precedent for inspiration), lives and learns from his own experiences (as an architect can not only copy the work of others and pass it off as his own), and thinks creatively while looking to the future (as an architect aims to create a building befitting its time that also shall stand for many ages).

The combination of these works serves to give an architect a rather large ego, as both texts insinuate that as a Renaissance Man of sorts, the Scholar and the Architect are the pinnacle of human development.  I don't necessarily agree that architecture is the art by which other arts are judged - I rather think of it as an amalgam of the various arts but not the umbrella they all fit under.  And while it is good to be a well-rounded individual so that you have a large pool of knowledge and images to pull inspiration from, it is impossible to know everything and do everything very well.  So really, the scholarly architect should be sure not to get too big for his breeches and realize that while it does take an understanding of a large array of subjects to do what he does, a mechanical engineer or a nanotechnologist can still make him feel like an idiot.

Responding to "The Problem of Architecture"

The main idea proposed in Scruton's "The Problem of Architecture" seems to be that the appreciation and aesthetics of architecture are wholly unlike those of any other art form.  While representational art forms, e.g. painting and sculpture, and sensory art forms, e.g. music, can be appreciated entirely for their "form" as an end in itself, Scruton contends that architecture cannot.

I agree with the notion that architecture requires "particular attitudes," as stated on page five, to create and enjoy it.  One needs only to look at the professional minds in the Louisiana Tech SoA to see that the architect or interior designer is a special kind of individual.  I've heard it said that architects and interior designers tend to be "eccentric."  Also, according to Mr. Caldwell during my first year in the SoA, it's pretty much prerequisite to own quirky glasses to be an architect.  It seems to me that my professors and my peers do think differently from other average people.  We see colors, geometry, organization and craft in ways that no one else seems to get.

I also agree that architecture cannot really stand on its own as strictly "pretty," but that the form MUST follow an inherent functionality to be appreciated.  The context and purpose of a building must be clearly understood before that building can then be considered beautiful architecture.  I believe it requires a certain finesse to incorporate both utility and aesthetics in a building, without sacrificing either aspect in favor of the other.  To me, the function of a building is its soul, and form without the function is merely decoration for the sake of decoration.  If someone points to a part of your design and asks you "Why?" and there is no reason beyond "it looks good," then it has failed as architecture.

My favorite quote from the passage is: "Expression is part of the realization of inner life, the making intelligible what is otherwise ineffable and confused."  Genius is worthless if it cannot be transmitted to others. Without the ability to express yourself, your ideas and intentions stay locked up inside your head.  This quote inspires me to go big this year and truly express the ideas I have rather than restrain myself for fear of rejection or criticism.