Between Silence

Craft
Architecture itself must always have impeccable craft. Massey talks about Horta’s specific style of designing. When reading about his style I stop to picture it in my head and see a flawless building. One characteristic that sticks out is how he uses color “as the uniting feature of the dining room.” (Massey 37) This shows how the craft is very important because he decides to include some way of unifying everything and make it one. Detailing is very important and Horta’s attention to detailing is evident because he uses many abstract and unique things throughout his design. Everything he does he tries to unify some way. When going on the trip to Monticello and Fallingwater I saw that both building were unique in their own ways. Monticello is always being renovated and even though it has started decaying overtime you can still see that certain design characteristics are still great. In a similar way, when touring fallingwater I came across an interesting piece of information. When the tour guide mentioned the laborers that were used , she said that they really didn’t know what they were doing since this style was different. However, it was very impressive to look around after I found this out and still think of this building as a spectacular and flawless building. Also, when working on projects in class it is best to focus on the skill and time you put into making it. A project isn’t worth much if you don’t put sufficient time in it to show the care and importance in it. For example if you design something and later want to present it, you want to make it appealing to people so that this will make them focus on the overall model itself.



public/private

Many buildings that are constructed are always constructed with each room having a purpose. The main entrance, or porch, is always going to be the public space of a building. As you walk further into the building you realize that you reach the hearth of the building that is considered to be the private area. Everything that is constructed always has private and public rooms. In the development of modernism private rooms are talked about when Henry Richardson talks about the courthouse and the different public/private rooms its has. “ Its external walls are modeled with projecting towers that correspond to the alteration of courtrooms and private judges’ chambers inside.” (Roth 502) This private room is specifically for the judges. This room has a different detail that is focuses on the exterior walls are modeled with projecting towers that correspond to the private room. However, different details are used to demonstrate the public areas. Henry used Romanesque details that grace the public areas of the courthouse. On the trip to Fallingwater we learned of how Frank Wright designed his room as being private. The only public spaces were on the first floor or the guest part of the house. The Guesthouse was apart from the main house so that each could have their own privacy. As well as guest and himself, his employess also had a space for their own. This shows how he separated each space to show public/private areas.


Techniques
Throughout architectural history we come about many different kinds of styles and techniques used to create these styles. In the 19th century Roth talks about eclecticism. This was a time period that was the “creation of new building types that exploited new building materials.” (Roth 469) However, even though this epoch was being created it the architects still took techniques used in the past. For example things that a building that was built in the past had, might be taken and put into the new building but with different forms. However, Roth states that as the architects “knowledge of the architecture of the past expanded, architects began to mix historical references.” ( Roth 470) This technique was names synthetic eclecticism. By mixing historical references they created unique and unusual designs. An example would be the church of Saint-Genevieve (“Le Panthenon). This church was designed by combining both greek structure and roman design. The same way they also used the techniques that “Gothic structural techniques”. When Massey talks about art nouveau he talks about Galle and his different inspirations. These inspirations cause people to come up with new techniques. The new technique was an organic one and came from the inspiration of plants. He felt that “ all artistic inspiration should come from nature.” (Massey 42) Architecture and design require a lot of techniques to be learned. In perception and communication class we’ve learned many techniques already. These consist from different forms of drawing to different supplies used to draw. We’ve been working on perspective views where we were to “trade spaces” with a classmate and rearrange their interior. We then rendered their space with either colored pencil, prismacolored pencils, or watercolor. All these different techniques can be used in many different ways.


Language
Architecture is like human language, when you don’t understand it because it might be from a different culture. In a similar way, you might be able to point out a building and say “look at the marvelous building”, however, if you don’t know the true meaning or the translation of that building then you don’t know what it is trying to say. When Gaudi is designing his own way in Barcelona, Brussel comes in “creating a new design language.” (Roth 514) This new language was called L’art Nouveau. Instead of using past designs, the architect Victor Horta decided to come up with “ a new architectural idiom for his progressive, wealthy industrialist clients.” (Roth 514) This was by using ornamental motifs in metal and glass forms that came from plants. This would be considered a completely different change since l’art nouveau was an international style of decoration for interiors. The new language is created when it goes from modern to decorative. Massey says that “ Art Nouveau was used as an expression of new national and political aspirations.” (Massey 46) We see that two artist may have distinct meanings of the same kind of “language” but just turned into their own way of doing it. When we design its our own language. Its like when we create a model that has a certain meaning behind it, if we don’t explain it then the audience won’t understand the true meaning behind it.




Virtual
Virtual has many different meanings. When using virtuality in Iarc classes, I feel that it talks about it as something that comes from the mind. Virtual can be existing from the mind, especially caused by the imagination. This can be ideas we form in our heads that not necessarily become an actual thing but instead are a thought. Roth talks about two churches that are being constructed and the contrast between both was “ one an expression of visual illusion and the other a celebration of structural fact.” (Roth 441) To me a visual illusion is similar to virtual because they both create things that are hard to figure out and may cause a different way of looking at things.

Architecture is an impeccable work of art that with its different kinds of techniques creates a different language. I feel that it doesn’t matter what it is that you design as long as the craft is perfect then your work will be thought of as amazing.