Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Opus Project/ 5th Week Prompts

The transformation of the Roman Empire is known as an Empire that had collapse in a glance, but the real fact is that the Roman Empire had gradually changed over more than a century, basically transforming from a pagan empire to a Christian one. A new religion was emerging and also a new empire, lead by the Christian authority.

 

 

After the Roman Empire fell, there was no central government to commission buildings. But the Christian authority takes over whatever is left from the Empire and takes the lead. New buildings were made and a whole new era started growing. All the new buildings had to have a Christian presence, in fact, these buildings were created only because of the Christian church and for the need of a facility where the faithful could gather together and share the faith. For example, in the case of Constantine, he took the basilicas and changed it into the first churches ever made. Roth says, “ The basilica had originally been devised for public gatherings… It was a simple matter to replace the small altar devoted to the emperor with one at which the Eucharist, or ritual communal mean, could be celebrated” (Roth 280). I was then that the presences of Christianity made Constantine build the first basic Churches.

         

Later on, buildings started to develop and become bigger and bigger together with Christianity. So much that new buildings were created just and only for monks. These types of buildings were called monasteries.  These monasteries had a strong presence of Christian meaning since only monks and nuns lived there. Sometimes the monasteries had a duality function, that is, it also hosted the few newcomers that traveled from the outside. In other words, the monasteries were set apart of society purposely so that the monks and nuns had no contact with the outside world, but it also worked as a hotel for visitors during the middle ages.

 

Also “ these monasteries provided throughout the West the stabilizing international influence that had formally been exercised by the roman government bureaucracy”(Roth 308). This aspect was very important, because the fact that these monasteries were stabilizing international influence meant that there was finally some kind of order in the world of art and architecture. But still after that, there is a strong precedent of Roman and Greek architecture, working as a guide for the subsequent events and that is what precedent means. But since there was no specific correct way to build, a lot of experimenting was made in regard of building styles and ideas. Out of this Roman and Greek precedent, new idea emerged with time, such as Gothic, Renaissance, etc.


 

The moments of the middle ages had arrived. These moments in history are describe as Early Middle Ages (450 to 1000), the High Middle Ages (1000 to 1500), and Late Middle ages (1150 to 1500). In every moment we find different aspects of how buildings and art evolved. In the case of the early middle Ages basically “includes the end of the Roman Empire and the subsequent Dark Ages”(Roth301). Later the high middle Ages were “characterized by the development of a more stable feudal system, the gradual resumption of travel and trade across Europe”(Roth301). This era was interesting because the remarkable Carolingian renaissance had emerged trying to recapture the classical achievements. Also the Gothic had emerged in this moment. But there was also the metric standard of measurement introduced. The geometrical order was used to create a better space within the buildings. The geometrical order had only been possible with the metric measurement.

 

This week prompts we focused on the development of architecture and art after the fall of the Roman Empire. The fact that Rome had collapsed had the world in this complete darkness where people did not know what to do. The feudal system, building projects and many things more had just disappeared. But Christianity had been growing all this time and managed to take over the disaster creating a “Cesaropapism” regime.  Christianity became the presence of every building made after the Roman Empire fell and since there was no one to look for advice, there was a lot of experimenting in regard of building. New ideas of architecture emerged out of this darkness, such as, the Romanesque that later was better known as Gothic.  In short, we see that all this time art and architecture had been growing in different ways by different voices telling them what to do and nothing was wrong or right.

Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 10:32 AM | | Comments

Friday, February 20, 2009

Burj Dubai


 


This building is the tallest man-made structure ever built. The project started on september 21, 2004 and still incomplete. This building goes as tall as 2,684 ft holding 160 floors. The building not only represents the tallest building in the world but also embodies the worlds biggest aspirations. Adrian Smith, the current architect leader for the project, has the challenge to complete this building before September 2009. The Dubai tower is taken to be an individual unique oasis, using the best materials (steel and cement) and the finest architecture that includes 30,000 homes, 9 hotels, 3 hectares of parkland including a 12 hectare man-made lake and much more. Basically the building was made to diversify a form of economy trade to one that is service and tourist oriented. If we look back in time we can see that there is much connection from what this building is about and the porpoise of it towards the Romans and our ancestors. The Romans believed in an architecture that embedded power, hierarchy, social importance, materials in one whole building and that is what Dubai's tower is about. That is why I decided to pick this building because it represents human development from the Egyptians, Greek and Romans to who we are now.

Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 11:09 AM | | Comments

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Opus Project/4th Week Prompts



In the past classes of Hisotry and Theory of desing I have come to realize that Romans have adopted so much design and architecture from other societies, such as, the Greeks and Etruscans. But the magnificent thing is that the Romans have taken those aspects of each society that made them grand and made them their own, transforming those aspects into new ideas and creating new things, such as, cement, arches, coliseums, etc. Basically those societies were the head start of something big coming up, and that big thing was, as we know it today, the Roman Empire.

It seems that for Romans, creating, building, and designing was a passion and, yet more, it was what defined them as a powerful empire. The Romans were about scale, and the only way they achieved to build in big scales was because of their advancement in resources and materials. The Romans created the concrete. Thanks to this new resource invented, a whole new window in architecture was opened for the Roman people. The spatial characteristics changed as well as the interior architecture. “Concrete, … altered the form of exterior and interior architecture as well as the manner of conceptualizing interior space” (Blakemore 46). This is true because of the creation of arches through the cement. Arches made the “post-lintel” construction a more decorative and nonstructural sense rather than a necessity as it was before.


The arch manages to alleviate the amount of columns in the inside of the buildings and houses. In the arch we find the idea of the protoype:archetype:hybrid. The arch would represent the prototype, later is introduced the vault, that is, to extend over in the manner of an arch and that leads us nowhere but to the archetype, and finally the dome, that is, a vault having a circular plan with all equal dimensions. In other words, the dome is a hybrid component of the arch and the vault all together.

Thanks to the arches and concrete, building became more economically affordable and more accessible. Therefore, people could have several houses in order to show how wealthy they were. Hierarchy meant a lot in roman society. The bigger they built and the amount of more houses the more wealthy, powerful, higher in society you were. The hierarchy was determined for how much money and political power you had. The wealthiest had 8 “villas” out of the city borders. Blakemore says, “the type of residence was, to some degree, reflection of the social position of the resident”(Blakemore 47). Therefore, hierarchy was set, in part, by the amount of houses one had. Bottom line, all this was made possible because of the accessible use of cement and the arches.

But Romans did not care where to build and how would it affect the environment. The Romans followed a particular order of straight lines and structural desing. Professor Patrick Lucas said, “if the Romans had a mountain in the middle they would cut the mountain or build a tunnel”. The Romans had such structural order for their building plans that they had no concern of their entourage. The Romans did not take advantage of the hills or surroundings, like the Greeks did. Greek theaters take advantage of the hills and build accordingly. The Romans instead, had an especific order where the building had to be situated (beside the Basilica or a specific temple) and so amphitheaters where created among others things.

 Concrete was the new source with the ability to shape forms and buildings. From concrete the arches were invented and later evolved into vault and dome, which fulfills the principles of prototype:archetype:hybrid. The concrete as a new source for building created numerous of enormous buildings and small houses. The scales of the house determined the social position of the citizen. Although, for Romans much was the desire of building and using the new ability to manipulate the sources and materials, that they build everywhere and they didn’t care much about the environment or taking advantage of it, they just build. But it was not just building everywhere; every building had a place to be and to stand according to organized structure. And I think this is a perfect example of what we are used to do today. We like to build everywhere. We like to establish a distinct class of society according to where you live, for example Beverly Hills and Greensboro. In short, I can see how connected the world is today to the Roman society. We still share the same ideas of architecture and the meaning of it. Therefore we can be considered, in a way, a Modern Roman Society. 

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Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 2:10 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Opus Project/3rd Week Prompts



Some people say that Greek architecture is remarkable and unique. I believe that we find Greece as one of the cities with more architectural significance than anything else in the world today. They lived upon a belief of religion, democracy, nobility, etc. And with these beliefs, everything single building was architecturally related with the Greek believes. When the Greeks build the Parthenon, they took in account the scale of the building, the unity and patriotism that it was going to bring, how many sections was the building going to have and what type of decorations and Vignette was going to have. 

Greeks learned much from Egypt. They adopted the post-lintel construction and their sculpture. But the Greeks moved quick and “they shaped an art and architecture distinctly their own, creating a system of values celebrating dynamic human capacities that has formed the basis of western civilization ever since. (Roth 215) The reason I quote here Roth is because although the Greeks adopted an Egyptian style and later created their own style of architecture, the Greeks and Egyptian, in a way, are still similar. 

        




Greek and Egyptian architecture are much about scale. In the case of the Egyptian, they have their pyramids. The pyramids were normally tombs made for the pharos. The biggest the pyramid were, the more remembered the pharaoh was going to be. In the other hand, the Greeks had their temples which sometimes were tombs but most of the times where temples dedicated to their goddesses. The bigger the temple was the more important was the god. In this case, scale was a very important factor for these cities. Also, in the case of Greece, scale was also very important because it provided a sense of unity to the fellow citizens. In the book Understanding architecture, Roth questions the reader followed by an immediate answer, “ Why was such extraordinary care exercised and such energy expended? One compelling reason was arête, for the home of the goddess required the most excellent materials and the most exacting workmanship. It was done because the Greeks could do it.” (Roth 240) Therefore, the fact that it was a challenge for the Greeks to build such a temple and that they can actually do it, made them more unified. The building becomes more than temple made for the goddess but also it becomes a symbol of representation for the Greek people. In the case of the Egyptians, the pyramids were made only for the pharos, therefore nobody else was permitted to have or see the pyramids. Besides the Egyptian culture was based in slavery. 






Dividing the buildings by sections was a very common thing for the Greeks to do. In every temple they divided their spaces in three sections: the porch, the court and the heart. This idea of organizing space is even applied in today’s designs. The Greeks achieved the ability of organizing a specific space within a specific measure and making it practical and comfortable for the people living in the place or visiting the place. 







The Geeks were considered to be a “city-state” style of government, that is, an independent country whose territory consists solely of a single major city and the area immediately surrounding it. That form of government was basically created because of the boundaries made between the mountains and the Greek cities. It was to hard for the cities to communicate themselves, so they decided to become a city-state. The Greeks also had their “polis” surrounded by big walls creating boundaries for the people. That meant that not everybody could come in the polis or other temples.







The sculpture and the art carved out of stones made the Greek temple unique. Every column had their style and decorative art. The famous columns called Doric, Ionic and Corinthian made the art of building. Each column meant something different and was made for different purposes. The vignettes of each column, made the column unique. The vignettes were made to tell stories or idealized images, such as people or gods. This style of art made the temples very vibrant, alive, and continually interesting, as Roth says, “the visual arts… became more elaborate, ornamental, and passionate…”(roth 241) 






Reflection:

One can realize that even today we use the same principles that the Greeks used to build. For example, Dubai has the biggest building in the world with 2,684 ft tall. We use the Statute of Liberty as a symbol that unifies the American people. In todays world everything is set in boundaries, such as, regional borders. Also, even in our house we have space divided by section: porch, court and heart. For last, we all use vignette in our own style to create art and delight. In short, the Greek architecture has been build by an Egyptian foundation, and later Romans adopt the Greek architecture. As today, we have blended a combined all these architecture styles and applied in todays world, creating enormous buildings and unthinkable things.

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Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 2:06 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Opus Project/2nd Week Prompts


From Caves to Cities...


“Architecture is shelter, but it is also a symbol and form of communication.”( Roth 159) During this second week of class we have discussed the Beginnings of Architecture and its evolution. I believe that Architecture is not only a roof or a building that provides you shelter but it also provides history, technology, believes, values, etc. That is why I strongly agree with Roth’s quote, when he says that architecture is shelter, but is also a form of different types of representation. I agree with him after coming across with Stonehenge, one can realize that there is something more that an intent for shelter.

Stonehenge is a group of gigantic stones put together in a specific pattern. Still today we do not understand why the specific pattern, and how were these massive stones, also known as megaliths, were carried. I believe that the only way to respond to these questions is to rewind to the early Hominids and their caves. These Hominids learned to create and control fire, to establish a social bond, respect for the dead, have a symbolic thought, and to fashion symbolic images and objects. Thanks to these developments these human ancestors were, in a way, indirectly tented to build shelters and huts considering how many people were going to live there, what was it going to mean symbolically, what material where they going to use. “ In using fire and building artificial shelters, these human ancestors took control of their environment, shaping it to their own convenience and requirements. The first steps toward architecture - the deliberate shaping of the living environment – had been taken.(Roth162) Therefore, I believe that Stonehenge is something that we appreciate and learn from it in today’s world because it integrates a significant amount of history and that at the end we all play a role in it. 

               


Furthermore, with these human ancestors, we have seen how the materials have advanced towards history according to the Commodity, firmness and delight of the person itself. In the past, our human ancestors used to migrate to different places starting form South Africa. Some of them left to China, Europe and other places to look for better living and to improve their commodity. Some groups were forced to use materials that protect them from the cold weather in Europe. Others instead, had to adjust to one specific material that they could use, such as stone. Parallel to the materials there is firmness that plays a big role when it comes to building, that is, what materials were they going so that the shelter or building could stand firm and not collapse at anytime. Furthermore, delight kicks in the same category. In the case of our ancestors, they had also developed a kind of believe of the after life. They even had their burials with specific indications of how should the person be buried. Therefore, that sense of believing in something and living up to it, made them create and draw on their shelters and sculptures giving them a extreme satisfaction. That is what delight means, the feeling of obtaining complete satisfaction.

The satisfaction of feeling something for a thing or a building is because there is some kind of language involve in the object. In this case, The Statue of Liberty or Stonehenge can have its own Idiom. A building normally speaks for itself, for example, the Statue of Liberty in NY, build in 1886, is an inspiration for many Americans and it will always be. Also, the Stonehenge, probably build around 373, really speaks for many people in different ways, some people think is an astronomical observatory; others believe it is a symbol of communal purpose. 

Illuminate also is a big component. For the human ancestors, they left a small hole on their tombs so that the light could come in so that there were a “ ‘channel of communication’ between the living outside and the living within”(Roth 171) in this case, illuminating the building in a specific way gave the building its own meaning and its channel of communication.



Reflection:

So as we come along in the second week of class, I realize how much influence we are exposed to, and how much meaning does everything has around us. I can conclude that Stonehenge and many other old antique constructions shows us that architecture has been around since the beginnings of human kind, and it will always change depending on the materials, Commodity, firmness and delight of the person.



Citations:

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/IMAGES/SHD/S1742.jpg
http://www.kalipedia.com/kalipediamedia/historia/media/200707/12/hisespana/20070712klphishes_7.Ies.SCO.jpg
http://www.momorialcards.com/images/rays_of_light2.jpg
http://www.theicemage.com/maps/stonehenge.jpg

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Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 12:36 PM | | Comments