Carlos Bethencourt

[pair]ing down

Meditation/celebration

During and after the World War II, Modernism was developing and growing in America. New ideas were being interpreted and new options were being considered. This period of Modernism could be classified as a period of meditation/reevaluation for the future and base of many upcoming features in architecture. At the same time, meditation created some sort of celebration within the buildings. For example, for Van der Rohe the Barcelona Pavilion, like Patrick Lucas said in class, “is itself the content of view. Rather than what is in it”. Celebrating only how the building looks like becomes true throughout the time and becomes more and more notorious not only for Rohe but for many other architects. The building is celebrated by its material, style and designs and the rest is taken as a secondary “celebration”.

In the Catholic religion the so-called “holy week” is meant to meditate the passion of Christ. This is celebrated normally when schools are in spring brake, but not every school coincides with this event. Normally private/Catholics schools tend have spring brake in that week so that people can focus on the holy week. It is a very important week for the Catholic religion because is when the people kill the son of God but then he rises and proves himself once again Jesus, the son of God. That is the day then called Easter. It has been interpreted in so many ways nowadays, but for Catholics is the celebration of the faith and a remembrance of the past.

Light/shadow

Because of the concept of meditation and celebration, one has to consider the integration of the building as a whole, that is, light and shadow as an important component for the integration and celebration of any building. But not only light and shadow but also the inside/outside, the public/private, the materials, etc. Many things can change the role of light and shadow when building a particular building. That is why for light and shadow is important to determine what type of materials, style, service is going to be used for the particular building. Massey describes a natural element where “the use of natural light [should be used] wherever possible”(Massey 120).

In my photography class we had an assignment called “lights and shadows” which consisted in taking pictures with the idea of playing with the light and shadows. Basically, before having to take the picture one should had the idea of how much light and shadows one wants in the picture. If one is thinking in a dark setting, one should then go to a darker place where light is vague. Although, if you get into a very dark setting or very luminous setting, one can over expose the picture and then not be able to develop the pictures. One must find the balance between light and shadows.

Transpose/juxtapose

The idea of transpose and juxtapose is found everywhere all the time in the theory and history of desing and architecture. The transposing of styles, ideas, materials are constantly found in architecture. From wood and mud to glass and steel. There has been a transformation since the classical to where we are now. Modernism and later on Post Modernism are a great example of creating something already with the idea of transposing it. Also building are always juxtapose to each other. You find several of different buildings stacked together or close by and they are completely different form each other. Is the idea of placing buildings side by side as close as possible and when is not possible, and then create something in the middle that looks like they are together.

In my English class we are challenged to transpose others peoples arguments to agree with ones own. To do this one has to have good rhetoric skills. To be a good at rhetoric, before talking to an audience one has to consider the ethos, the pathos, and the logos. Ethos means the credibility of the speaker. Pathos is the use of emotional characters to alter the audience’s judgments. For last, logos mean the use of reasoning to construct an argument. When one considers these aspects, most probably one will be considered a good rhetorical person. For Aristotle, rhetoric was the a important thing a citizen should be good at, and indeed the only people that participated in the ancient Greek senate were people with power and those without power in the senate were people with good rhetorical skills.

literal/abstract

The ways of interpreting things can be taken literally and also abstractly. We can find architects that literally write down a rule and live up to it. IN the case of Corbusier, he invented the five rules of architecture. He thought that the best desing was the simplest. A building that was above level supported by pilotis, with no need of supporting walls, a flat roof, large flat windows and a smooth façade would be considered literally a work followed by the rules of Corbusier. Instead other architects were more abstract, trying to set aside the general rules and create their own. This way of thinking was one factor that led Modernism have a competitor, that it, post modernism.

In my Desing Perspective class we have argued and discussed about the authenticity of structures and their role in one persons self. In order to understand the idea that one can see oneself in a building or a thing one has to forget about anything literal and think abstractly. The idea is that if one does not break the literal understanding of things one cannot find the supernatural meanings of things. One has to go beyond literal proves and expose oneself to something that has not been written down, or proved to be as it is. To see oneself in a building requires being abstract and becoming free of thought.

Monologue/dialogue

I believe that the Sydney can be a perfect example of a monologue and a dialogue. The Sydney Opera House has been an iconic piece for the people of Australia. The Opera house has created a dialogue with the people in such a way that it has become a hot point for tourists to visit. But the Opera house has one particular problem, that is, the inefficiency of the theater design. The Opera House has the particular problem the sound is not projected, as it should be, creating a monologue between the singer/presenter in regards of the real use of the building. Therefore, once again, the theory of the content rather than what is in the building is confirmed. Phillip Johnson says, “Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful…” in other words, why care about of the purpose if we just want to make it beautiful.

In my Family and Relationship class we find that communication is essential for any relationship, that is, married, dating, and friends. One has to be sure to create conversations throughout the relation in order to create a full dialogue between the relationships. The worse thing one can do in a relation is to be the promoter of a monologue. A monologue will not take you anywhere when there is a need of conversation. It creates conflict, uncertainty, doubts, in a relationship and one does not one to be in a situation where one is unhappy because of lack of communication. Communicate is simple as long as the person is able to be open and create a converse, a dialogue, otherwise the relation will not work and will got to an end.

Reflection

This week prompts really emphasizes in how is the Modern Movement taking place in our everyday lives. In a very distinct way it has been taking over every other movement and created things peculiar. But even today we are defining Modern, everyday we learn new things, everyday we meditate and celebrate. In general, we like to transpose to the future the best things we can so that other generations can create dialogues and continue experimenting like we are doing now.

Labels: Opus Project

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Action Verbs

Speculate.

The Modern Movement was about being simple and functional. Many architects had many interpretations of what exactly being “simple” and “functional” meant. In the general view the main concern was the “development of an industrialized architecture, and social responsiveness to housing needs” (Roth 525). History changes and parallel to history, architecture changes with it. Heinrich Wolfflin said, “Architecture expresses the attitude to life of an epoch”. Architects speculated many things about this idea of the new Modern Movement in where machines, technology, art, and desing were all starting to play a distinct role in this new movement. Many architects had their own ideas and speculated over many different theories. Some architects decided to go for the industrialized architecture and some other decided to take over the social needs. Mies van der Rohe, for example, had chosen the industrialized architecture; he said, “I see in industrialization the central problem of building in our time. If we succeed in carrying out this industrialization, the social, economic, technical, and also artistic problems will be readily solved”. Furthermore, one must understand that the speculation of an architect does not mean that that was the right choice for the Modern Movement.

Speculation can be a sensitive when its taken to human behavior. When someone studies human behavior it requires a lot of meditation and understanding from the action of that particular person in order to understand the personality or a particular behavior. There are hundreds of research programs  that do this kind of studies. One of them is called PREPARE which consists in the study of a couple measuring very detail, that is, heart rate, pressure, and more. This kind of programs have a almost 100% accuracy to tell you if one is subject to divorce or not. These programs not only give you information of how is your marriage going to work out but also provides the best ways to prevent that your relation falls apart. 

Stretch

Having in mind what the architects and people had to speculate, one must understand the stretch that the Modern Movement faced. I see the Modern Movement as a rubber band that is being stretched and stretched to its maximum physical ability. What I mean with this is that, from the Modern Movement so many other movement and styles emerged, such as, the Purist Movement, Constructivism Movement, Expressionist Movement, International Style, etc. And by doing so we have a mix of many different movement but still pertaining to the same essence that the “authentic” Modern Architecture provides, that is, to be functional and simple. After all, the theorists of the Modern Movement were inspired by the concepts of rationalization and standardization.

Compose

From the same idea of stretching architecture to its maximum level, we can take as an example the Bauhaus which is probably the main responsible factor of many of the changes in the Modern Movement. The Bauhaus was a school that combined arts and crafts and it was well known for doing so. But the school itself had a constant change of venues and leadership that resulted a constant change in focus, technique, instructors, and politics. This was not to be necessarily bad, but it was certainly an interesting way to do things. The idea of the Bauhaus was, Massey describes, “The school aimed to teach the arts and crafts in tandem and to bridge the veer-widening gulf between art and industry”. Therefore the idea of the school was to compose in particular for the arts and crafts but later evolves into many things and it becomes an international meeting place for the development of the Modern Movement.

In photography class the way pictures are developed is with a series of chemicals that enables the paper to show the image. One of the chemicals is composed by miniature pieces of silver. This chemical cannot be thrown down the sink because it contaminates the water and people could be subject to drink from this contaminated water which contains silver. This chemical is reused several times but there is a point where the chemical has to go to waste. The process is taken care of in Alaska. When the chemical is expired some special company comes to UNCG and picks the container and then is taken up to Alaska and is treated. The process mainly is to separate the silver form the chemical. 

Energize

The idea of energizing the buildings and houses was an important factor for the Modern Movement. Le Corbusier said that the best designs were the simplest. But one wonders how can one energize a place while the best way to desing something is to have it simple. The idea was to create practical spaces where one could have flexible internal space and avoiding applied decorations. Something very interesting is the celebration of technology included as parts of desing within the structure. The idea of celebrating the air conditioning systems, or the water pipes, and other technology system as a desing component was also considered as simple but energizing.

In my weight lifting class, throughout the week, we have to keep ourselves energized so that when we lift the heavy wights our muscles are ready to lift one hundred and twenty five pounds at most. After class the trick to keep our muscles in shape is to eat an energy bar just after doing exercises. The reason for that is because when one finishes lifting weights, the muscles are asking for all the protein available in their bodies, but if your are able to provide more with an energy bar, they will have more protein to suck and as a result your muscles become stronger and stay bigger.

Shape

            Le Corbusier had came up with “Five Points of Architecture”. First, that every building must be supported above the ground level by columns (pilotis). Second, the interior must have a free plan, without the need for supporting the walls. Third, the windows should be large forming a continuous exterior wall. Fourth, the roof must be flat, some kind of terrace. Fifth, the façade should consist in a smooth surface. Basically the shape looks like a big glass box. This shape was taken as an interesting idea for large-scale buildings. These kinds of glass-box buildings had a great shape for the incoming light and are able to illuminate the inside very successfully. This buildings became very much useful for companies and such, but not very popular for houses.

In my Design Perspective class we have learned that depending of the sizes and shape of objects, buildings, mountains, etc. one can determine how much life has each object. Normally when a building has different levels of scales with different shapes it is more likely that it will have more life that a building that has no levels of scale and it has a monotonous shape. The idea is that every living structure must have a particular shape in proportions, looks, repetitions, positive space, symmetry, ambiguity, contrast, etc. These aspects mentioned, Christopher Alexander calls it "the fifteen fundamental properties".

 Reflection

The Modern Movement is a clear example of the exploration of the new ways architecture, art, craft, technology should be approached. Most people have different ideas and theories but almost everyone focuses in the same idea of functionality and practicality. I believe that all this Modern Movement is about the exploration of discovering new things. The creation of the new diverse architecture and the free ability to seek new ideas and styles to its maximum potential . 

Labels: Opus Project

Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

 

Posted by Carlos Bethencourt at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

Unit Summary : Reflections

The past unit we talked about the alternatives that architectures were shifting towards. This idea of alternating ideas and theories gave the art of architecture a whole new horizon to look at. Roth says, “ The modern epoch is characterized by several encompassing trends”(Roth 439). I believe Roth refers to “encompassing trends” as the “alternative world”.  We can say that Modernism was born from different interpretations/reflections of the classical, gothic, baroque, and many other architecture styles.

Modernism, also known as Age of Enlightenment, was basically promoted by a precipitated change in the social structure in society. A growth rate of population, industrial production, and transportation made an enormous influence in architecture. Roth says, “Taking together, these changes in population growth, industrial production, and transportation produced a growing middle class, the likes of which had never existed before. This social class would become significant patrons of architecture in the next century”(Roth440).  I believe that Roth is completely right in saying that the middle social class will begin itself a new form of architecture. The fact that a middle class had emerged a completely new type of buildings and houses was true. Not everybody could afford the big palaces the king had, and not everyone had the time to wait for a beautiful decorated enormous house. Then new practical, fast and simple houses and buildings were created. Architecture became simply to its purest, that is, a simple structure that could provide the fundamental human needs was more than enough.

All this change in social class was because of the Industrial Revolution. The economy became the biggest factor for people to move into cities, create families, couple with early marriages. All these people wanted to live in the city and be part of this revolution. From this reality several of people interpreted architecture in their own ways in order to fit in society. For Atienne-Louis Boullee, architecture as just a symbolic structure could evoke a sense of funtion. For some others, Roth says, “The atifice of Rococo and architecture came viewed as symptomatic of the artificiality and corruption of what was called the ancien regime” (Roth 441). Even philosophers advocated radical change in society and therefore in architecture as well. What I am trying to get to say is that many people tried to approach architecture the best way possible for the new adaptation of Modern Era. By doing so, many interesting ideas came up and also strong opposing groups emerged against these ideas. For example the Aesthetic Movement vs. Arts and Crafts Movement. The Aesthetic Movement was an alternative solution, in the middle class, for a mass production of arts and crafts made in a cheap and fast way. Arts and Crafts movement was completely against this way of doings things. They believed that anything that is good made it had to be man-made. Massey says,” He [Morris] believed strongly that good design could only be produced by men and women working creatively with their hands (Massey 12). Therefore we can see a set of arguments made by people who agreed and not agreed with this type of movements.

In short, we can see that this unit demonstrates a re-enforcement of classical ideas and also a review of the way things are viewed and made. The introduction of cast and iron, of the machine, the growth of population made everything change. Many people admired the change and many people opposed it. The reality is that we can see how dependent everything is to one another. Architecturally and artistically things changed because of the social class and the need of practicality and speed in production. We can also see even today that the quality of cars, clothes, and food changes according to how much the costumer can pay. Therefore we see that this unit is all about reflection and making sure what is right and wrong. Modernism is the basic step to resettle the rules by creating new ones and reinforcing the old ones so that later we can explore them.

Labels: Opus Project

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Teresa Carreño: Analytical Essay

The Theater Teresa Carreño was first thought to be a place for the Venezuelan Orchestra mainly to rehears and present to the public. Furthermore, that idea of a rehearsal place was developed and transformed so that it could also be a place for multiple uses for diverse presentations.

After settling the idea of the new future Cultural Complex, in September of 1970 a competition was open and the architect who came with the best idea would be the leader of the project. The competition was victorious by a group of three architects called Jesús Sandoval, Tomás Lugo Marcano y Dietrich Kunckel. They had travelled around Europe and North America to study other major theaters. Also an extra influential character for the project was George Izenour. George was internationally recognized as an engineer, theater desing, and acoustics. He was a professor at Yale University and a theater consultant for the Teresa Carreño project. George died recently in 2007. Following the competition, the construction started in 1973.

The theater still today has maintained a structural idea of a building that isolates the monotony of the outside world. It works like a hermetic musical box, providing the idea that everything that happens in the theater is about recreation without being affected by the outside world. It works like a big bubble where in the inside the arts feeds the citizens and permits the free will to dream and wonder isolating the day to day routine.

The theater holds the name of a distinguishable Venezuelan Pianist. She was born in the city of Caracas on the 22^nd of December in 1853. Teresa Carreño was known internationally as a incredible pianist performing pieces such as, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, etc. The most important thing for Teresa was that the general culture for an artist was indispensable for the specific projection of his/hers particular art. She emphasized the simple observation of nature, the study of humans as men and creators, the knowledge of architecture, from the narrative to the poetry. And the piano was itself a physical instrument of support. This was her legacy.

The purpose of the Theater is to create a place where popular symphony concerts, diverse shows, operas, classic ballet, theater and more, could be performed in one place. The Cultural Complex is one of the most important theaters in Latin American and certainly the most important in Venezuela. Two major auditoriums organized the theater: Jose Felix Rivas hall and the Rios Reyna hall. The Jose Felix Rivas was inaugurated on February 1976 with the capacity of holding 440 people. The Rios Reyna hall was inaugurated 1983 with the capacity of holding 2400 people.

The materials of the Cultural Complex are mainly concrete, glass and plastic. In Venezuela concrete is a very accessible resource. It is very affordable and almost everything is build with concrete. For example, down the street of the Theater there are two skyscrapers made by concrete alone. It was at a time the tallest buildings made by concrete alone.  Glass and plastic is embedded not too much as to complete the structure but as to integrate art in it. The cultural Complex is filled with artistic values all around. Basically all this art that is with the theater is to give the environment of music and enjoyment.

Cultural Complex Teresa Carreño plays a very important role for the people in Venezuela. It represents what music and art in general means to the people. Today, the best and youngest director of orchestra is a Venezuelan and he often plays and rehearsals in the Theater Teresa Carreño. Basically this Cultural Complex is all about expressing the idea of music and joy and the Theater structurally and artistically gets across that sense of artistic value of music, art, theater, etc. 

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Concept

Roth writes about eclecticism. Eclecticism is the “informed and selective borrowing of historical building forms and details, rooted in associationalisim” (Roth 470). But from the idea of borrowing of historical buildings forms, many concepts of eclecticism had emerged. Every concept had a particular significance, such as, the Eclectic Revival, Synthetic Eclecticism, creative eclecticism, Academic Eclecticism, Romantic National Eclecticism. The Synthetic Eclecticism was about mixing historical references. Roth says, “Synthetic Eclecticism, resulting in a new amalgamation of disparate elements”(Roth470) Therefore the Eclectic Revival was born, and consisted in the idea to be more specific and precise in referring to the historical time periods. Later on the Creative Eclecticism concept emerged and it was more about mixing the historical details in a more free way but without loosing the idea of the functionalism of the building. The Academic eclectic was a “recombination of functionally driven plan analysis clothed in thoroughly and expertly understood historical architectural detail” (Roth 470). All these concepts were the leading ideas of the 19th century, making the modern architecture a more diverse style.

Materiality : Congruence

Materiality is understood as unconventional or bizarre. In the case of Modernism everything looks in a way unconventional. The reason why is because new techniques are being applied to an architecture that has been alive for ages. The idea of applying the classical architecture into the new modern architecture was a challenge. Roth says, “the problem was that ever-more-complex nineteenth-century building functions could not be squeezed into strictly prescribed historical building” (Roth 470). Therefore, when people squeezed nineteenth-century building functions into historical buildings, it made it sometimes very materialistic, very bizarre.

 

To prevent this “squeezed” historical aspects into the 19th century one had to be congruent, that is, something more corresponding to the idea of the nine-tenth century. A balance and an agreement should be found when ever one decides to mix two different things. Instead of just getting historical aspects into the new buildings by force, one should consider every aspect and be more careful with the selection of historical facts.

Compression : Release

In the modern architecture the industrial activity was very influential to the way of how building should be build. Roth says, “The greatest limitation of historical styles was in meeting the growing demand for such large public buildings”(487). Architects were perplexed when it came to build something big, practical, and fast. Basically the architects had to think of new ideas and new styles of materials. The architects had to take into account that they were not building a house, but instead a big and large facility. For this to happened they had to take into account that in some aspects they had to compress necessary details and materials in order to make the industrial facility more practical for use. That also meant that some things had to go, that is, unnecessary details, decorations, etc had to be released.

Labels: Opus Project

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