My Manifesto

Architecture is subjective. There is no set of rules or reasoning that can define architecture. Some may say architecture is the science of design, or an art piece that one can walk through. Others may say architecture is the creation of space or the arrangement of forms. Some might say that only buildings can be counted as architecture while others say memorials and parks are also elements of architecture. A compound might see ornaments as beautiful whereas another sees it as a sin. None of these phrases are correct, nor are they wrong. They are all different point of view or perspective within their opinions, which creates different languages of form to the results in their design. With tens, hundreds, and thousands of languages start to appear in the world of architecture, a call for dominancy in style and form starts to appear in each architect’s compound. Each compound or style is trying to prove to the world that their theories and point of view is correct. However, with the subjectiveness of the architecture, where nothing is right or wrong, a big area is open for arguments. I see this open area as a big battlefield of mind wars. Who can provide the best reasoning and logic behind their creative design? Who can persuade the public into believing that their design is the most rational? The one that wins the debate gets the prize of establishing an era in architecture history.

            However, these mind battles do not only happen once, but we see it repetitively throughout the history of architecture. For example, the Renaissance set up a set of rules of proportion and symmetry, and then the Baroque architects come and break down these rules with their invention of the oval and its axi line. Soon later, Modernism comes back with a new set of rules of non-ornamental, non-bourgeois architecture. Then again, the Post-Modernist breaks these sets of rules with the design and with terms like “Less is a bore” and “Grey over Black and White”. The history runs in cycles over and over again like a tug-a-war fight between the “I love making rules” people and the “I love breaking rules” gang. When more people join the “love rules” group, they win, then they get bored and move over to the “hate rules” gang and get bored and move back and forth. What is interesting about this cycle is that even though they are in different time periods with different technology, the rules setters always seem to come back to a similar thinking, BUT with different point of view. Renaissance’s concepts started with the Da Vinci’s diagrammatic drawing of the Vitruvius Man. As the cycle makes the round, Le Corbusier starts another diagrammatic drawing of his Modular Man. Renaissance deals with pure geometry, squares and circles, Modernism comes back with honest forms: same concept different definitions.

            These cycles reappear with the same subject, but with different analysis and interpretations. It seems like these architects are asking history questions. “What if” the interpretation of the man can be different from how Da Vinci drew it? - (Le Corbusier) “What if” the same pure forms seen in the Renaissance mean honesty of material and structure? – (Modernism) “What if” we retort the pure shapes like the Baroque architects did? – (Post Modernist) “What if” Robert Venturi’s starting from zero means he is saying starting back at zero? “What if” the Metropolis movie and Playtime movie did not meant what we analyze? “What if” is a question of perspective and point of view. Some things have always existed, but we cannot see to it since our point of view is focused on something else. If we are going to move forward, we must use past events, or history, and existing things to determine our future. To be capable of creating something new, we must question the past and the present. Because architecture is subjective, questioning the past would not give us a right or wrong. It would only give us an opportunity to see things that previous architects have missed out or did not focus on. With different technology and culture growing and changing over time, only if we look back at history, use it well, and ask “What if … ?”, we may be exploring a whole new set of concepts that have not been seen, even if it is based on the same subject. “What if?”

Baroque-ing the Rules

Architecture, like almost everything in the world, has a beginning and an end, but what defines the end of each architectural era or phrase? We have seen many times in architectural history that in order to start a new era, someone must have the guts to break the rule. And by breaking that rule, that person must also have enough companion or followers in order for the public or the majority of the people to accept him and start mind wars with the existing era. In order to have that many people believing him, the person must have enough reasoning to mess with people's logic. Baroque architects accomplished to win that war. They challenged the Renaissance's perfect symmetry and proportion and bend it to their appreciation. An element that the Baroque was very proud to present was the form of an oval. Just by extending two sides of the circle, the Baroque architects challenged hundreds of years of theory, but because of their logical and creative reasoning, they seem to persuade many people to believe them. Shortening their reasoning for using the oval would be that ovals create an axi line which leads to something else. It was like magic at that time, at least for me if I was in that period. People realized that by being perfect, or proportional and symmetrical, was not everything, but breaking the rules might create a whole new perspective in form. And it all comes back to perspective and point of view.

One can say Baroque is like Post Modernism or the other way around, but for me, Baroque architects seem  to be respecting the rules more than Post Modernist. Baroque architects bends the rules while Post Modernism architects does everything opposite of the rules. Baroque architects seem to be experimenting on what would happen if they distort the form, while Modernism architects breaks the form entirely.

Perspective into Physical

Now that we've come back to the Renaissance period, or rebirth, or post modernism of the ancient people, we've come to see "out of the box" architects challenge the rules set up by the majority. Similar to post modernism, which challenges the "Less is more" and "Honest" theories of the Modernist, the Renaissance architects had their debate. Since the architecture at that era were mainly based on the drawing of the proportion of the human body, Da Vinci's Vitruvian man, the arguments were mostly about symmetry and proportion. So if Classicism was the pass, why would someone start a new era repeating something that already happened? I'd say they are trying to point out some things that Classicism architects never arrived at, or in other words, giving a new perspective or point of view towards architecture. Many architects arrive at their building from diagrams and drawings, but these diagrams are things that are subjective to the person who made it. Say, why did Da Vinci only drew circle and squares with the Vitruvian man? Why cant we add a triangle, or a hexagon to the Vitruvian man? If we position the guy in another way, we we'd get new shapes. I believe this is why architecture can move on and on and on with just one main concept, but looking at it in different ways. For example, hundreds of years after the Vitruvian man was drawn, Le Corbusier drew a modular man in a different diagram showing a new aspect of the proportion of a man and used it in many of his buildings. By doing that, he is not proving Da Vinci wrong, but he is saying that he is not wrong as well. Even though diagram may seem to be arrived as facts, but the detail can be emphasized differently. That is why we see so many rebirths in the history of architecture.

Using History

"Why study history?" is a worldwide asked question. Many say that history is the past that we do not need to cover since it is just events that already happened written in a book. But, to be capable of understanding this, we must first explore the true definition of history. History, according to the dictionary, means “the knowledge, study, or record of past events” and “pattern of events determining the future” (dictionary.com)
We use history, not only to understand our past, but also to DETERMINE the future. For example, if we look at the overall picture of history through a timeline, it can be seen that history repeats itself over time. What is the difference between post-modernism and renaissance? One may say that it is totally different in which the Renaissance is ornamented and Post-modernism plays with simple forms or whatsoever, but if we look conceptually, both of it is mimicking, or playing with a concept established in an earlier date. Renaissance is using Classicism, while Post-modernism is playing with Modernism. We may be centuries away from when Burnellisky started his manifesto, but we are now creating manifestos similar to the ones that were established hundreds of years ago. Going further, what is the difference between Modernism and Classicism. In ancient Rome, there were not much technology. Human beings were the greatest invention at that time. Humans could create pyramids, cathedrals, or whatever they could think of at that time. Again, Humans were the greatest invention. Therefore, why not create architectural forms abstracted from the human form if they were the strongest at that time? That was the Roman's thoughts, which I would say, is pretty much similar to Modernism. After centuries past, humans created factories, robots, and machinery. Nowadays, what we think is the strongest invention is not humans anymore, but robots. They are stronger, can carry more, and can produce more. Why not crate architectural forms abstracted from machines?

Nothing starts absolutely from zero. New forms may be created, but the conceptual thinking has already happened years ago only in a different format. By knowing history, we can use this concept to apply it to what we face in today's society

Difficult is More .. More is too Much

In the past few lectures, we have come a long way from “Less is more”. We’ve quickly been through “Less is not more”, “Less is a bore”, and now, as I see it, we are entering an age of “More is more”, or architectural Expressionism. If Expressionism speaks, we are in a whole new language of “function follows form”, which for me is a very difficult language to grab hold of. With only one switch of wordings, I believe a whole new limitation of design is changed. When it was still “form follows function”, we have a definite limitation, or in other words, the design is created to serve a purpose. However, if “function follows form”, then the purpose is pretty much faded. How do we start the design? What is the design meant for? With the purpose fading and with the design base on form, the limitations of shapes or representation of the exterior can go beyond imagination. I believe many Post-Modernism architects, who believes in “Less is a bore”, is starting to question Expressionism as well. Both of the two manifestos are bored with the similar looking Modernism buildings, but Expressionist architects are taking it further, or maybe too far. I believe if we were to simplify Rem Koolhaas’s wordings on bigness, it would be something like “More is too much”.

I believe this approach to architectural form is pretty much telling a story of the social life and the technological advances we have accomplished. To be capable of playing with form in buildings, there must be ways keep the forms up and strong. In today’s engineering field, we have come up with many advances, which we did not have in Modernism period. This is one of the reason why today’s architects are more confident in playing with different forms. Another analysis I have from this change in era is that the society’s thinking is changing. After years and years of seeing rectangular and pure shape buildings, we are getting very bored visually. We are not happy with just enough anymore. We need something beyond the function. Something that we look at it, oohs and aahs will be heard. With this, different companies are trying to make their building look so complicated in form so that it seems like they are having a new technological advances. “Difficult is more”

            

Analyzing the Attendance Check

Just being cautious here in case I become the victim of the random blog check. In one semester, there are around 13 or 14 weeks of class. We are just through midterm week which makes us in around 8th or 9th week. From my analysis, if a student have been studious and hard-working throughout the past 9 weeks, but missed only one class, or the class on Monday March 21, in which I really have to go do business out of town and cannot attend class, he should be given another chance and not get cut 5%. Since it would be the first class he did not attend and if he hits the jackpot as the victim of the random check, it would be dreadful to see 5% go missing. This blog also acts as an apology in case I get checked and is not in class, but I will be ready to talk about post-modernism next class for sure. Hope no one get to read this

THank you

The Black The White The Grey

In the previous class of History to Architecture, we have started to explore the colors of architecture, not in the sense of ornamentation or decorating, but the color of style in post-modernism architecture. We have seen how the changes were slowly made and style were pulled away from modernism, which could be linked back to the previous posts on how Jacques Tati were explaining how the form of the international style was confusing itself with everything else that was being building according to the manifestos. With the lectures combined with readings from Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture by Robert Venturi, another big viewpoint have been opened in my understanding of architecture.

"Both-and" over "Either-or"
"Grey over Black and White"
"Less is not more" but "Less is a bore"
"Function follows From" rather than "Form follow Function"

These simple, yet strong phrases from the book is changing the phase of design. When looking at these words put side by side, it seems like post-modernist architects are a lot more optimistic than the ones have once conquered the world of design. These post-modernists are not limiting themselves to anything specific, but it seems like they are opening the eyes of people to something that was always existing, but unnoticed, which is "space and time". I would say this seems like enlightenment from a long meditation where you start to notice your breathing even though you do it all the time. (maybe a too direct analysis), but for this era, post-modernism IS the new and more practical way of looking at design. Robert Venturi, Peter Eisenmen and other new wave of architects are setting up a new writing or script for this new era. What I like most about this upcoming style is the fact that the manifesto states something like how architecture should not be created upon a limit to a certain boundary, but should have a process to it so that it creates its own way of writing according to, again, "space and time". Not a direct quotes but a phrase to this sort. This makes me better understand the history of architecture to this day of how architecture is a form of writing. The abstraction of nature in Egypt, abstraction of human form in Rome, abstraction of machine in Modernism, and now the abstraction of process in Post-Modernism. This also makes me understand the hard-work that we have to put through in studio class to make all these diagramatic analysis. This is all to create a new form of writing. A new form of character. In this new style, if function follows form, then the remake of Playtime would be people dressed up as Lady Gaga walking around post-modernist buildings.