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.