Chairs II??
got ya on the title. there is nothing about chairs :-)
I found these readings much easier to follow. Maybe it was the break down of the text itself. Specifically, "The culture of congestion" felt like I was reading several short stories.
Maybe it is the impression of last week's assignment, but the main take away I found in this weeks reading were connected to last. Ultimately it is the driving principle that architecture is for people. That means, to survive, it must be deemed useful to said people through all the changes that they go through. The design must be made out of necessity, whether that be socio-economic or any other need.
"they speak to our condition not only aesthetically, but on many levels of necessity, from the social necessity to rehouse the poor without destroying them to the architectural necessity to produce buildings and environments that others will need and like." -Denise Scott Brown
This quote is talking about 'the forms of pop landscape' but I think it is applicable to all architecture.
What I found resonating to me in "The Culture of Congestion" is also the importance of humanity to architecture. Much of the architecture in the metropolis is a response to this. People seek privacy and a retreat into their personal spaces. Though skyscrapers feel ominous and often overbearing, skyscrapers provide layers of interior spaces that, because of the structure, are somewhat malleable. They can work sperate from the exterior (within reason) to "become two different kinds of architecture". The exterior of the buildings are providing protection from the outside elements, with whatever appearance deemed necessary. The interior is adaptable so the building is a 'necessity' for years to come.
"in the metropolis, no single function can be matched with a single place" -Rem Koolhaas
I don't know exactly what I think about skyscrapers or the metropolis as a whole, but I do believe the architecture we have now in the metropolis is an attempt to provide for the 'culture of congestion'.
It is intersting that you bring Denis Scott Brown and Koolhaas' quotes together, which nicely speak to each other. Architecture shall not only be about aesthetics, which is superfluous and beyond necessity. Neither shall architecture only be about fulfilling necessity because necessity is multi-leveled--"in the metropolis, no single function can be matched with a single place." Therefore, architecture works at the intervals of layered necessities. They create fictional senarios based on reality, as I said in my post this week.
ReplyDeleteSad this wasn't about chairs...
ReplyDeleteBut I completely agree with you that in order for architecture to stay relevant, it needs to be about and for the people. And that is kind of what a metropolis is. This lends itself to your combination of both Scott Brown's and Koolhaas' quotes combined into one blog. iF only those who Are referred to as "starkItects" could Realize that theIr dEsigns muSt stay relevant for the people, that only then they will stay relevant.
Agree with you on the fact that architecture should reflect societal needs. However, a question that trickle me also is, why is it that theoretical architecture has been living so long that it became a reflection of architecture itself. We live in an era where our capitalist minds try to find balance with the way we should build to serve the greater good. However, architecture is a rational discipline that is mainly driven by evolutionism and utopian mindsets. Although these are important to help this discipline evolve, we tend to forget that humanity should come first. Sadly, that is not the case anymore, globalization is a reality and although humanity does exist in the field, we are more and more challenged to think out of the box, and that in turn lead to what we have today, an architecture that can sustain its own without human beings in the future.
ReplyDeleteThere is something imposing and daunting about skyscrapers in the social environment. They show us humans that there is something bigger out there but it designed and built by a team of us that is human. These monumental buildings can then come off as a success of humans coming together to accomplish a goal. Yet these monumental structures can also be seen as a symbol of tyranny.
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