Opus Project/ 8th Week Prompts
[Re]Visions
After the classical times, several ideas were emerged. The renaissance and the gothic were the leading examples of the results of the dark ages. But after Gothic started to fade, the renaissance began to rewrite the rules of architecture. One of them included the integration of water in sculptures, structures, and landscapes. This was a totally new thing and it became very common to use it for plazas, castles and many others things. In the case of sculptures, the movement of the water gave more life than the usual to these sculptures. Water became a form to reorganize the society. In the case of the castles, the kings included big pools of water in the their yards so that, with the reflection of the water, the Kings territory could look twice as big as it really was. Adding water to sculptures and structures was definitely thinking “outside the box”. It seems that in my Desing Perspective class there is a lot of thinking outside the box too. In our text, by Christopher Alexander, we read that there are fifteen properties in nature. These properties were derived from years of thinking outside the box and understanding what does a living structure consist in. All of these properties are related to every building we see today and in the ancient buildings as well. Some of the fifteen properties are the alternating repetition, positive space, good shape, local symmetries, contrast, simplicity, etc. These properties reflect a significant aspect of a living structure. Even in the ancient times, without knowing these properties, people had the idea of a living structure. Adding water and movement to sculptures and structures reflected the idea of integrating life and the properties of nature.
Rotation
From the Renaissance something called the Baroque architecture emerged. The renaissance was more about the rationality of things, but the Baroque was all about emotions. Roth says. “Baroque architecture was made deliberately complex. Instead of clarity, there was ambiguity; instead of the uniformity of elements and overall effect. There was studied variety; instead of regularity, contrast”(Roth 398). So basically, what the Renaissance was not then the Baroque was. But something they agreed with was the rotation of the style of buildings. Instead of building something vertically high (a wuwu) they decided to build horizontally long. This rotation from height to length was a new thing. The longer was the building and gardens, the more powerful the king was. The territory, like Roth says “ symbolizes the centralized focus on the person and absolute power of the king” (Roth 420).
In my English class we have talked about the subaltern and the social classes. We have come to realize that there is constant rotation on social classes. Throughout history we have learned that the subaltern changes and it rotates with other social classes. Some people are considered subaltern for decades, but the fact is that within time these groups will eventually become no more subalterns because that particular class has been rotated or substituted by some other inferior social class. So there is a constant rotation of social classes throughout life.
Illumination
Illumination has always been an important aspect for almost every structure. In the gothic era the most dramatic innovation was the virtual elimination of the structural walls. This was made in order for light to be flourishing inside the cathedral. Large scales of windows that were decorated with biblical stories substituted the walls. Roth says that light is the “’channel of communication’ between the living outside and the living within (Roth 171) The idea of the Gothic Cathedrals was to make sure that once you were inside of the chapel there was a complete different sensation of light. The idea of the colored windows also made it seem artistically unique.
Also illumination is so crucial for photography. In my class of photography we have learned how light can work for us and also against us. When one takes a picture, one has to calculate how much illumination is the camera filtering. There are some ways of you can filter the light so that you can control the amount of light. The danger of not doing this is that pictures can get exposed. When there is too much light then the picture is going to be completely white. If there was no light at all the picture is going to be entirely black. So illumination in photography is as crucial as illuminating Gothic cathedrals.
By: Thorothea Lange
Technology
Conclusion
Throughout the development of Modernisms a few things emerged. After the industrial revolution, technology had advance already and the economy started to grow stronger. The fact that there was technology, one could be informed faster of what was going on at the time. In this case, one could know how things were running in other countries, how do people live, how do the houses look like. Also the manipulation of Iron and the ability to rounded up made things even easier to build. Roth says “ The increased manufacture of consumer goods was dependent on the production of less expensive component materials, and of these, the most important one was iron” (Roth462) Indeed the iron made things happen faster and cheaper. This way a new whole idea of building was starting to become reality. The origins of Modernism had begun.
The technology used in my weight lifting class is impressively advanced. Every class we have to do at least thirty minutes of cardiovascular. The teacher provides us with a machine that counts how fast are you going, how many calories you are burning and even it calculates the heart rate. Thanks to technology we can exercise in my weight lifting class with a more accurate count of how much am I getting out of my exercise and how much more should I demand myself in order to do better and become stronger.
Conclusion
In this weeks prompts I talk about the reflection and movement in the classical world and how rotation, illumination and technology are vital movements in the architectural history. There is a strong classical influence in every little piece of who we are. We can see how technology has advanced and how easy things are when we have it handy. Photography and the position that people have in society, all has to do with the idea the movement in society in every aspect. The reflection of every little thing makes us intellectually stronger.
Labels: Opus Project
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