Baroque

            Baroque is a style where they include the emotions and drama in it. Baroque came in during the 1600 to 1750, in that time Religion have a great influence in art. For example, Renaissance period, which most of the art is talking about Christianity and it also inspired the Baroque art.  Actually, Baroque has started at Italy and spread all around the Europe. Baroque can be in the form of architect, sculpture, painting, or even a music.

Looking into the architecture, Basillica di Santa Maria della Salute, Venice. Longhena have create this wonderful Grand Canal and the large dome that covered the church, he also work with the light and shadow which is the main thing about the Baroque style.

Furthermore, if you look into the sculpture or painting it can extremely erotic.  There was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms in those sculptures. For example, The Escatasy of St Theresa by Gian Lorenzo, which I think is very amazing, the way how he create the movement in the sculpture that can’t move and also the lighting effect.

In my opinion, Baroque is consider as erotic. This type of art is the impressing the visitor or express themselves by using the art as the media, such as architect, music, and painting. If you look into the Baroque architecture it will have a huge entrance or a grand staircase to impress the visitor.  

Fordism- Postmoderism

Fordism- Postmodernism

        In this lecture, we have learn about Fordism, known as mass production. The word Ford came from Henry Ford, the car company. Actually during that time Ford was the biggest company that producing mass production. Being mass produced is similar to repeating things.Although Ford did not invented the car himself but he is the one who started the company, Ford, and manufactured the first car that people in America can pay for. We can say that he was the one who started the mass production. So Fordism is all about flow, fast, and repeating. 

         Moving in to architect, there is so many architects in this period of Fordism, such as Zaha Hadid, Patric Schimacher. Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehy and more. The building start to me more crazy, it is free form, no more straight line like modernism. Actually I think that Postmoderism, Fordism, Expressionism, any period but modernism are more challenging and interesting compare to Moderism. It is so boring that everything is in the straignght line, such as wall, door, winder, ceiling. If you take a look in another period, where there is an ornament and free form come into place, everything seem to be “more”. After seeing so many of architecture in different period, I start to disagree with “less is more.” 

Response to Postmoderism and Venturi's theory

Say bye to modernism, now we have moved to postmodernism, which is the period where thing become more interested, no more straight line, but it start to become more organic shape. We used to familiar with the word, “form follow by function,” but during this period there still a function but with ornament in it. Some of the buildings show the idea or the concept, like what is this building for? For example, duck house, the function of the duck house is to sell duck eggs. I think the building shape, act as a sign, telling us that this building related to a ‘duck’.

In conclusion, I still like the modern style but sometime it’s too straight forward. Building can be more, I like the idea of Venturi for making the decoration or the ornament as a function too. And as architect student, I think it allow you to be more creative. Nothing is wrong in postmodernism, building can have a unique shape, compare to modernist, where everything need to be in geometry form.

Response to Expressionism Architecture

This is completely different from modernism. No more straight line, no more minimalism, and ornament come in to place.  Expressionism building have a very unqiue style, it doesn’t look boring anymore. The form and shapes is expressing the emotional feeling of the architect to the people, illustrate they feel through the building form. So in this period you will see that the buildings start to have curve line, for example Geotheanum 1 and 2, designed by Rudolf Steiner. He has express his architecture by using curved line to create the movement. This building is made up of concrete which create the smooth texture.

Another interesting building called Einstein Tower, design by Eric Mendelsohn. I think this building look a bit weird but still have a very interesting element. This is another building that has very difficulties in the construction. The exterior was all concrete, and it is not easy at all to make the concrete to become smooth and have no crack on it. Compared these two type of architect, the modernism is a lot easier to construct.

TWA building in NY, is also one of the important building in expressionism period. I saw this building before during my Structure lecture by aj Komthat. The form of this building was inspired by the bird’s wing. The concept of TWA is that, Eero wants to express the feeling of the bird flying back to its nest.

In conclusion, I think expressionism is more interest in idea and the construction. I don’t think that modernism need hard work in construction because most of it is just a geometry form, nothing fancy compare to expressionism, that have a curved concrete wall, or organic shape. I think I prefer more of expressionism. I like the idea of express the feeling by using the architecture to communicate to the people.

Le Corbusier and Play Time by Jacques Tati

Response to Le Corbusier, one of the most famous modern architecture, his work is very simple im shape and form but very functional. All of his work is very logical and straight forward. He think everything should be simple, so Jacques Tati did a film called Playtime, which to me is to making fun of Le Corbusier theory of minimalism. The film is about making the city very simple in architect form and to see how people react to it.

The film is in colored but the idea of putting everything simple, the film look like black and white. The city is very simple and very organized. The office is just like a big box that has many small boxes inside to separate each room, which look very weird to me. And the funniest part of the film is that Hulot ( the main character) get lost very easily because the building is too simple that they can’t tell the different. And there is another part that he was lost because he saw the man that he need to meet on another side of the building, so he walk to the man, but actually it was just the reflection of the glass wall. The whole building is covered by the glass wall, so there is reflection everywhere.

After watch this film, I don’t think I want to stay in this kind of city, where we do everything the same. To have same car, same work, same office, wearing same kind of clothes. Life probably be very boring. I kind of prefer the city that I’m living right now. People should have their own way of lifestyle. We can take any kind of transportation like car, bus, or BTS. We should have freedom to choose whatever we like not everyone is all the same. It is more interesting to have different kind of size, height, stlye of building than having all building look all the same.

Response to Mies van der Roche and ornament

Mies van der Roche was a very famous architecture during the modernism period. Most of his building will show the structure and the material he use. His work was known as, “less is more.” He developed a design approach based on structural and minimalist. Even though Mies’s concept is, less is more he still use ornament is his building. If you still remember the book that Loos wrote, Ornament and Crime, the idea of modernism. Loos believe that ornament is just a waste of money, resource, labour, and space in a building. He believes that modern shouldn’t have any kind of decoration in it and think that it’s a crime. However, Mies van der Roche was also architecture during the modernism but his buildings also have an ornament on it. For example, the Seagram, it is very simple shape building that shows all the materials and structure of the building, but still there is a crime! Mies van der Roche wanted to show the structure of the building by putting the extra I beam outside the building, which it didn’t support any building structure but it just for decoration and of course these beam is a tons of money. I don’t think this should be called as “less is more”. The beam didn’t act as a structure but it also carry a tons of loads, I don’t think this is make any sense at all.

To be honest, I think Mies van der Roche should change his quote from “less is more” to “not less but more”. It is so funny when I heard about this first time. The idea of adding the extra beam that isn’t for structure but just for decoration is from the person who believes in “less is more.” 

Ornament and Crime by Adolf Loos- response

Adolf Loos was a functionalist who has a very radical in his idea; he had mentioned that, “Ornament is wasted manpower and therefore wasted health.”  He says “no” to any ornament, and come out with the idea to having more free space in the room for functionality. In my opinion, I like the simplicity and modern design but also appreciate the other ornament for decoration, such as the interior element.  Okay, it depends on what you prefer.  

Modernism did take away the color, pattern, and a beautiful ornament, somehow it reject the neo classic (old) art. But to really think about it, do we need ornament? I know it ‘unnecessary’, but nothing is wrong on it. I kind of disagree with his idea, having decoration doesn’t mean wasting the space but something it can also give a better functionality. And by “not” having any ornament doesn’t mean it will give you a better space and more function in it. Don’t get me wrong I like both style, either simple or decorative.

However, apple already prove to us that minimalist can be really trendy and good design. You can see that there is different kind of style now a day. He said that the person who has a simple style is richer than the other who likes are decorative. Today we still see people dressing in vintage and also classic black/white, so I don’t think there is any right or wrong in any kind of style and it can’t say which one is richer than the other one. But he is still right with the simple style, this article was written in 19 century but he can see what is going to happen, and it already happen today.

From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe – a book review

First of all I think this book is very hard to understand. However, in my response, I think this book is the author perspective toward the modern architecture and show his passion in modern architecture, seem like a good book for modernism lovers’. At first Wolf try to give a background of historical event in architecture on how did modern architecture started. The book gives the idea on how the modern architect have come in place and also mention a lot of architect who involved in Modernism.

In the first chapter he had mention about the system of architecture school named Bauhaus School, in Weimar. The school must produce a creative ideas and theories of classical architecture. So later Bauhaus came up with one methods and a way to practice that can be used in school, which is “art and technology”.

After the war in Europe, the architect from Bauhaus school must migrate to USA. After read this chapter, I just realize that Modern Architecture came from Europe, I always thought that it came from USA.

Wolf mentions many architect name, but there is one name that I familiar with the most is Frank Lloyd Wright. He was considering as one of the most influential architect in history, which I think it’s true. Frank was one of the very first who design the modern architecture. Most of his work might look simple plane and flat, but actually there are many meaning toward it.

In conclusion, after reading this book I appreciate the modern architecture, it’s not just a simple concrete wall, flat opening, but actually there is more things in it rather than its appearance.