http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/photofiles/list/491/872neighborhood.jpgCommunity. Community is groups of interaction among peoples contained or defined together in a similar environment. The late 20th century brought about many forms of modernism and a lack of a sense of an international style. The European and American forms of Modernism experienced a “reaffirmation of community, of treating environments for groups of people, living and working together in ancestral traditional ways” (Roth 607). The presence of the sense of community restores a sense of comfort in individuals lives, I feel. I think this because our culture seems to be slightly shaken by change in a sense; American society becomes uncomfortable when something doesn’t seem “right” or “fit” in their eyes. When sex became a topic for discussion and scientific studies, society did not know how to react; when gay Americans were seen as not having some sort of disorder and they were normal just drawn to the similar sex, society didn’t know how to accept these people, similarly to the African Americans, and the Hispanics and Middle Easterns of today. Reestablishing the sense of community brought about a comfort to society, seeing similar designs stamped across a specific plane, individuals felt at ease feeling “normal” or “just like everyone else.” Coming from the restored sense of community came “a consistent design that results in a related family of forms, and even more important, an appropriateness of scale and an organization of spaces that arise from the ethos of those who live there” (Roth 607). This information revealed by Roth confirms my opinion that community in society brings comfort; because it brings a sense of appropriateness, society feels a sense of normality. Also because the design is around the “ethos of those who live there,” then those tied in a community will feel as if they are just like their neighbors, without much of a sense of competition. The ideas of community go back further than piazzas, and quite possibly back to Stonehenge. Stonehenge brought about a sense of community from the concentric circles and space creating a harmony and unity, bringing comfort to those peoples, no matter what the original intent was for the structure. The presence of community ties together peoples and brings to the forefront of their minds comfort and security. Another design form which promoted a forced sense of ‘community’ was critical regionalism. This brought a “reexamination of local climate and structural, formal, and stylistic traditions- a sensitive merging of the indigenous with the introduced” (Roth 603). I feel that this brought about a sense of forced community because it incorporated the idea of regionalism, or creating structures in similar likenesses based on the types of people in a specific amount of land.
http://predesign.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/cctv-sustainable.jpgStewardship. When I first hear this term, I think of a stewardess on a flight. The job of a stewardess is to supervise the distribution of other resources, food and drink, to the passengers. Stewardship goes hand in had with the term ‘sustainablility.’ The steward must be aware of her resources, or her foods and drinks, in order to meet the needs of the passengers while not running out of supplies. Sustainable architecture in essence does the same as a stewardess; this design form brought about a “concern for sustainability of the biological environment, the sustenance of the encompassing community of flora and fauna on which humans are utterly reliant” (Roth 608). Just as the stewardess, designers found the need to pay attention to their resources because it was brought to their attention the realities of global warming and depleting resources. They acknowledged the fact that humans rely on these materials, and therefore the sustainability of structures became crucial. Designers approached this by the “careful use of energy…better use of natural light and exploit the latest technology in glazing design” (Massey 222). The concept of innovation grew from the need for stewardship.
http://coolboom.net/en/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/the-brasserie1.jpgInnovation. I feel that innovation sprouting from stewardship brought about a real need for interior designers; innovation brought interior designers to a new hierarchy because innovation was based around taking what was established by the architect and altering its original intent creating another purpose for the structure. The exterior would remain, and quite often the original floor plan, yet the interior experienced a transformation. This idea of innovation was to “refit and refurbish existing buildings” (Massey 226). In sociology, using innovation was a part of Morton’s Goal-Means Gap in which the society has a certain goals and specific means or ways to achieve the goal yet the means weren’t accessible to everyone, therefore certain groups chose new ways of viewing Morton’s Goal-Means Gap. Innovation was one of four reactions to the goals and means in society in which individuals took unconventional means to achieve the culturally approved goal. I feel that this also relates to architecture in the 20th century. I feel that the unconventional means would be the remodeling of buildings as opposed to tearing them down and building a socially-fit structure that was needed to meet the goal of sustainability, or stewardship. This introduction to a new method of design brought about the possibility of sustainability. The 20th century was full of innovations when innovation is seen as introducing a new idea or method, providing the evidence that modern design was a vague term at describing numerous forms of innovation.
http://www.boracaygrill.com/images/mix_food1a_292x300.jpgAuthenticity. When I think of something being authentic, I think of materials. An authentic object is made from real materials to me. Also, when I hear authentic, I think of food…Mexican and Italian to be specific. In architecture, this would consist of the celebration of traditional forms. Yet, in architecture, authenticity was a constant debate or off-and-on trend in design in relation to the pure or original forms of design from the Greeks and Romans. I feel the Grecians and Roman designs are the authentic design forms, which compose the term ‘classical.’ Since the Greeks and Romans, the design world has held on to those natural, original ideas; while straying from them, it always seemed to be a cycle of strictly following the classical rules, to testing boundaries, to breaking the rules, to rewriting the original classical rules. The 20th century was a continuation of the cycle; Corbusier brought about the idea of breaking the rules when he first started modern design. His ideas and classical ideas are generally the two that have become either in battle or in harmony in design. Latent Classicism of the 1970s was an attempt to bring the two in harmony by “marry[ing] the technology driven aesthetic of modernism with the composition principles of Classicism” (Roth 586). This seemed to be an attempt for a truce between constant question of which was a better design form. They each gained respect in the design world, with classical having the highest. Canoic Classicism was the design form which “strove to stay close to the established standards, or canon, of forms and details, while introducing only minimal modern modifications” (Roth 589). This design form held strong to the classical design forms despite the current push for modern aesthetics. This showed that the design world was once again reverting to the classical style, yet it wasn’t an international desire, and therefore modern design forms continued to operate. Going back to my instinct when I hear the word authentic, the Deconstructivism design form celebrated the material. Deconstructivism was “’an architecture of disruption, dislocation, deflection, deviation, and distortion’”(Roth 601). I feel that this design form was a celebration of material because the central idea behind the structures was established based on the manipulation of materials. These building forms were created from the authentic material, and to me, appeared to celebrate such materials, while creating to the viewer an illusion creating discomfort. Another 20th century celebration of authenticity in another sense was the Fundamental Classicism. This design form celebrated the “purest geometrical constructs, in an effort to achieve ‘natural’ essential truth” (Roth 587). I feel that this design form celebrated the authenticity of shape. It sought to stick to geometric forms, which I feel are original and pure, creating a sense of authenticity of the structure.
This week was a blur. Being the end of the semester, everything kind of hit me all at once. Yet, all the while, this week I truly feel that we did experience ‘coming full circle.’ By reaching the present time in the design world, the perception of all design processes leading up to the present became evident. The mollusk shell was an extremely sufficient visual example of the design world from x to y. I finally got to realize how the design world truly does continue to hold the past designs on its back in a sense, and that each compartment added to the whole.
“In architecture, as in all operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building hath three conditions: commodity, firmness, and delight.”
-Sir Henry Wotton
Not necessarily my closet...but my SHOES.
My bed.
My high school football stadium.
Ground Zero, NYC.
Mosaic memorial for John Lennon, part of Strawberry Fields. Central Park, NYC.
Lucerne, Switzerland (and the Chapel Bridge).
Venice, Italy.
Bird's Nest, Beijing, China.
The Great Wall, China.
CCTV (China Central Television) Headquarters, Beijing, China.
