ARCHITECTURE Introduction to Humanities

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ARCHITECTUREIntroduction to Humanities

• The Humanities Through The Arts
• F. David Martin Lee A. Jacobus

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ARCHITECTURE

• Buildings are works of art that is
  architecture.
• Buildings possess artistic quality -- they make
  our living space more livable.
• They draw us to them rather than push us away or
  make us ignore them.
• They make our living space more livable.

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Centered Space

• Centered space is the positioned
  interrelationships of things organized around
  some paramount thing as the place to which the
  other things seem to converge.
• Space is the material of the architect
• Centered space has a pulling power that, even in
  our most harassed moments, we can hardly help
  feeling.

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Space and Architecture

• Architecture as opposed to mere engineering -- is
  the creative conservation of space.
• Architects perceive the centers of space in
  nature, and build to preserve these centers and
  make them more vital.
• Architects are the shepherds of space.

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Chartres

• Chartres, like most Gothic churches, is shaped
  roughly like a recumbent Latin cross p149 or
  156 Fig 6-2 6-3
• The apse ( a projecting semicircular and vaulted
  part of a building) or eastern end of the
  building contains the high altar.
• The nave (the central part of a church running
  lengthwise) is the central and largest aisle
  leading from the central portal to the high
  alter.
• But before the altar is reached, the transept
  crosses the nave. Both the northern and southern
  facades of the transept of chartres contain
  glorious rose windows.

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Living Space

• Living space is the feeling of the positioning of
  things in the environment, the liberty of
  movement, and the appeal of paths as directives.
• Space infiltrates through all our senses, as our
  sensations of everything influence our perception
  of space.

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Living Space contd

• Each of our senses helps record the positioning
  of things, expressed in such terms as up-down,
  left-right, and near-far.
• These recordings require a reference system with
  a center.
• With living space, since all the senses are
  involved, the whole body is a center.

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Contd

• when we relate to a place of special value, such
  as the home,
• , a configurational center is formed in a place
  that is a gathering point around which a field of
  interest is structured.
• To oversimplify we can say that for Romans, it
  was the city of Rome to which they most naturally
  belong, constituting their configurational
  center.

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Four Necessities of Architecture

• The architects professional life is perhaps more
  difficult than that of any other artist.
• Architecture is a peculiarly public art because
  buildings generally have a social function, and
  many buildings require public funds.
• More than other artists, the architects must
  consider the public.

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Four Necessities of Architecturecontd

• Thus architects must be psychologists,
  sociologists, economists, businesspeople,
  politicians, and courtiers.
• They must also be engineers, for they must be
  able to construct structurally stable buildings.
• Architects have to take into account four basic
  and closely interrelated necessities technical
  requirements, use, spatial relationships, and
  content.

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Four Necessities of Architecturecontd

• Of the four necessities, the technical
  requirements of a building are the most obvious.
• Buildings must stand (and withstand). Architects
  must know the material and their potentialities,
  how to put the materials together,
• and how the materials will work on a particular
  site. So architects are engineers.
• But they are something more as well - artists.

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Four Necessities of Architecturecontd p.153 /
p.162

• Functional Requirements of Architecture
• Architects must not only make their buildings
  stand but also usually stand them in such a way
  that they reveal their function or use.
• Some believe that (form must follow function).
• If form follows function in the sense that the
  form stands for the function of its building,
  then conventional forms or structures are often
  sufficient. No one is likely to mistake Chartres
  Cathedral for an office building.

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Four Necessities of Architecturecontd p.158 /
p.165

• Spatial Requirements of Architecture
• A building that is technically awry with poor
  lighting or awkward passageways or cramped rooms
  will distract from any artistic meaning,
• and so usually will a form that fails to reveal
  the function of its building, or a form that
  fails to fit into its spatial context.

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Four Necessities of Architecturecontd p.
158-163 / p. 165-169

• Revelatory Requirements of Architecture
• The function or use of a building is an essential
  part of the subject matter of that building,
• what the architect interprets or gives insight
  into by means of his form.

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Four Necessities of Architecturecontd

• Essential values of contemporary society are a
  part of all artists subject matter part of what
  they must interpret in their work, and
  this--because of the public character of
  architecture--is especially so with architects.
• The way architects (and artists generally) are
  influenced by the values of their society has
  been given many explanations.

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• To participate with a work of public architecture
  fully, we must have as complete an understanding
  as possible of its subject matter - - the
  function of the building and the relevant values
  of the society which subsidized the building.
  p.162 / p168

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• Works of architecture separate an inside space
  from an outside space.
• They make that inside space available for human
  functions.
• And in interpreting their subject matter
  (functions and their societys values),
  architects make space space.

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• They bring out the power and embrace of the
  positioned interrelationships of things.
• Architecture in this respect can be divided into
  four main types
• 1) the earth-rooted, 2) the sky-oriented,3) the
  earth-resting, and 4. earth-dominating
  architecture.

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Earth-Rooted Architecture(1)

• The earth is the securing agency that grounds the
  place of our existence, our center.
• No other thing exposes its surface more
  pervasively and yet hides its depth dimension
  more completely.
• Architecture that is earth-rooted discloses the
  earth by drawing our attention to the site of the
  building or to its submission to gravity, or to
  its raw materials, or to its centrality in outer
  and inner space.

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Sky-Oriented Architecture(2)

• Such architecture discloses a world by drawing
  our attention to the sky bounded by a horizon.
• It accomplishes this by means of making a
  building appear high and centered within the sky,
  defying gravity, and tightly integrating the
  light of outer with inner space.

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Earth-Resting Architecture(3)

• Most architecture accents neither earth nor sky
  but rests on the earth,
• using the earth like a platform with the sky as
  background.
• With earth-resting architecture - unlike
  earth-rooted architecture--the earth does not
  appear as an organic part of the building.
  Rather, the earth appears as a stage.

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Earth-Dominating Architecture(4)

• An earth-dominating building does not sit on
  (like earth-resting) but rules over the earth.
• Earth-dominating buildings generally are easily
  identified.
• Usually earth-dominating buildings are large and
  massive, but those features do not necessarily
  express earth-dominance.

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Urban Planning

• No use of space has become more critical in our
  time than in the city.
• Therefore, the issues about space and
  architecture take on a special relevance with
  respect to city planning.

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Urban Planningcontd

• Most cities are planned either sporadically in
  segments or not at all.
• Some cities have height restrictions and in some
  cases top stories have been removed from
  buildings in construction.
• Some tall buildings create dark streets in the
  middle of the day. Is it possible to make the
  city a place to dwell?