WHAT IS “GOOD” ARCHITECTURE?

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LECTURE 10: Defining Beauty?

Caltrans District 7 Headquarters State of California, Department of General Services Morphosis 2004

“We will hold to that which is difficult, because it is difficult…and by its difficulty is worthwhile.” Thom Mayne, 2005 Pritzker Award winner in a monograph about his firm, Morphosis

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“At Morphosis, our method has always been highly intuitive and reflexive. We understand our arena of operation to be one marked by contradiction, conflict, change, and dynamism. And to that end we are interested in producing work that contributes to the conversation, that adds yet another strain to what some may hear as the cacophony of modern life. We hear it as the music of reality. Additional strains layered into the composition will not intensify a cacophony, but add to an exquisite complexity.” Thom Mayne, Firm Philosophy from the Morphosis Website

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Vitra Fire Station Weil am Rhein Germany Zaha Hadid 1994

“There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?” Zaha Hadid, 2004 Pritzker Award winner in a monograph about her work.

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Milwaukee Art Museum Santiago Calatrava 2004

“I have tried to get close to the frontier between architecture and sculpture and to understand architecture as an art.” Santiago Calatrava

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Pompidou Center Paris, France Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano 1977

"It is my belief that exciting things happen when a variety of overlapping activities designed for all people—the old and the young, the blue and white collar, the local inhabitant and the visitor, different activities for different occasions—meet in a flexible environment, opening up the possibility of interaction outside the confines of institutional limits. When this takes place, deprived areas welcome dynamic places for those who live, work and visit; places where all can participate, rather than less or more beautiful ghettos." Richard Rogers

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Beyeler Foundation Museum Basel Switzerland Renzo Piano 1997

"Architects have to dream, we have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.“ Renzo Piano, 1998 Pritzker Award winner

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A:B::B:A+B

A proportion between the two dimensions of a plane figure or the two divisions of a line, in which the ratio of the smaller to the larger is the same as the ratio of the larger to the whole. Approximately 0.618 to 1.0

Golden Section 5th century B.C. ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

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“Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected; convenience, when the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and presents no hindrance to use, and when each class of buildings is assigned to its suitable and appropriate exposure;

VITRUVIUS beauty, when the appearance of the work is pleasing and in good taste, and when its members are in due proportion according to correct principles of symmetry.”

Roman Architect, 1st century B.C. Defined Architecture as “Firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis” “Commoditie, Firmness and Delight” as paraphrased by Sir Henry Wotten, 1624

The Ten Books of Architecture,, Vitruvius

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“Symmetry is a proper agreement between the members of the work itself, and relation between the different parts and the whole general scheme, In accordance with a certain part selected as standard. Thus in the human body there is a kind of symmetrical harmony between forearm, foot, palm, finger and other small parts; and so it is with perfect buildings.” The Ten Books of Architecture,, Vitruvius

Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci 1492 Pen, ink, watercolour and metalpoint on paper, 343 x 245 mm Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

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Church of St. Denis Abbot Suger Gothic 1137-1444 Saint-Denis, France

Abbot Suger French ecclesiastic, statesman and historian 1081–1151

“Thus, when--out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God--the loveliness of the many colored gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, … then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, … in some strange region of the Universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven; …” Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, De Administratione and Scriptum Consecrationis

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Proportional Study of S. Francesco

“To have satisfied necessity is trite and insignificant, to have catered to convenience unrewarding when the inelegance in a work causes offense.”

“Beauty is that reasoned harmony of all the parts within a body , so that nothing may be added, taken away or altered, but for the worse.”

S. Francesco Alberti Renaissance 1446-50 Rimini, Italy

On the Art of Building in Ten Books, Alberti

On the Art of Building in Ten Books, Alberti

Leone Battista Alberti Italian Architect & Philosopher 1404-1472

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Nuthall Temple Thomas Wright Nottinghamshire, England Neo-Palladian

Chiswick House Richard Boyle (Lord Burlington) London, England Neo-Palladian

Villa Rotunda Andrea Palladio Vincenza, Italy Mannerist 1566-1571

Domed House John Sandserson Neo-Palladian

Serene, rational classicism as a response to the excesses of the Baroque.

English Neo-Palladian Architecture ca 1700 ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

Basilica Boullee Neoclassical

LECTURE 10: Defining Beauty?

“An artist will not win distinction by shuffling along in the footsteps of other artists” Boullee, Architecture, essai sur l'art (essay on the art of architecture)

Etienne-Louis Boullee French Visionary Neo-Classical Architect 1728-1799 ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

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“Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.” “It is very necessary , in the outset of all inquiry, to distinguish carefully between Architecture and Building.”

The St. Jean d'Acre Pillars, Venice John Ruskin 1877 Watercolor on paper

“Let us, therefore, at once confine the name (Architecture) to that art which taking up and admitting, as conditions of its working, the necessities and commons uses of the building, impresses on its form certain characters venerable or beautiful, but otherwise unnecessary.” “No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.” John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

John Ruskin

English Art Critic and Author 1819-1900 ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

“That is to say, a building which is truly a work of art (and I consider none other) is in its nature, essence and physical being an emotional expression. This being so, and I feel deeply that is so, it must have, almost literally, a life. If follows from this living principle that an ornamented structure should be characterized by this quality, namely, that the same emotional impulse shall flow throughout harmoniously into its varied forms of expression –of which, while the masscomposition is the more profound, the decorative ornamentation is the more intense. Yet must both spring from the same source of feeling.” Louis Sullivan, The Artistic Use of the Imagination 1889

LECTURE 10: Defining Beauty?

Wainwright Building Early Modern 1890-1891 St Louis, Missouri

“He is an artist, who, gifted with a capacity to receive impressions, and to transmit them in a more or less permanent form, adds, to the body of his work, a certain quality of spirit characteristic of himself.” Louis Sullivan, The Artistic Use of the Imagination 1889

Louis Sullivan American Architect 1856-1924

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"What is architecture anyway? Is it the vast collection of the various buildings which have been built to please the varying taste of the various lords of mankind? I think not. No, I know that architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived. So architecture I know to be a Great Spirit....Architecture is that great living creative spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man, and his circumstances as they change. That is really architecture." Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright American Architect 1867-1959

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Bauhaus Modern 1925-26 Dessau, Germany

“Modern man, who no longer dresses in historic garments but wears modern clothes, also needs a modern house appropriate to him and his time” Walter Gropius, 1926

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“You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say “this is beautiful.” That is Architecture. Art enters in.” Le Corbusier, 1923

Le Corbuier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) French Modern Architect and Painter 1887-1965 ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

LECTURE 10: Defining Beauty?

“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.

“We refuse to recognize problems of form, but only problems of building. Form is not the aim of our work, but only the result. Form, by itself, does not exist “

“We do not let the function dictate the plan. Instead let us make room enough for any function”

Crown Hall, IIT Mies Modern 1950-1956 Chicago, Illinois

Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe German Modern Architect 1886-1969 ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

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Finlandia Hall Modern 1962-71 Helsinki Finland

“The architect’s task is to restore a correct order of values… it is still the architect’s duty to attempt to humanize the age of machines. But this should not be done without regard for form…” Alvar Aalto

Alvar Aalto Finnish Modern Architect 1898-1976

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Kimbell Museum Kahn Modern 1967-1972 Fort Worth, Texas

“Form is what, Design is how. Form is impersonal, but design belongs to the designer. Design is prescribed by circumstances… Form is free of conditions. In architecture , it is the realization of a harmony of spaces good for a certain activity of man. “ Louis I. Kahn

Louis I. Kahn American Modern Architect 1901-1974

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Vanna Venturi House Post-Modern 1962 Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania

“I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I do not like the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture nor the precious intricacies of picturesqueness or expressionism. Instead, I speak of a complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art.” Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

Robert Venturi Pritzker Award Winner 1991

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“Architecture must solve complex problems. We must understand and use technology, we must create buildings which are safe and dry, respectful of context and neighbors, and face all the myriad of issues of social responsibility, and even please the client. But then what? The moment of truth, the composition of elements, the selection of forms, scale, materials, color, finally, all the same issues facing the painter and the sculptor. Architecture is surely an art, and those who practice the art of architecture are surely architects.” Frank Gehry, Pritzker Award Speech, 1989

Guggenheim Museum, 1997 Bilbao, Spain

Frank Gehry Pritzker Award Winner 1989

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“I believe that architecture is not reducible to any particular climate of opinion. No abstract theory, game of forms, application of technology or pragmatics is sufficient to communicate the fact that architecture is a movement beyond the material. It is length, height and width, but also the depth of aspiration and memory. The living source of architecture is the very substance of the soul and constitutes the structure of culture itself “ Daniel Libeskind, German Architecture Prize Speech, 1989

Jewish Museum, “Between the Lines” 1997 Berlin, Germany

Daniel Libeskind ARCH 1100: INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE

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“It’s a communicative art that must convey the essence of an experience. You must reach down to the roots that are deeper than the obvious. A building must tell a story…. Of what it contains, of memory and of hope “

“You can never be a pessimist as an architect, since it’s about making the world a better place“ Daniel Libeskind,

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