'Less' has ceased to be 'more'
Giancarlo De Carlo, a rebel amongst architects, didn't believe in following the rules. Modernism, focused on sterile functionality, was the law. It was a showdown of the 1960's and Giancarlo De Carlo had reached his limit.
In spite of the Modernist Style's rule over architecture, De Carlo, and his friends in CIAM's Team X, weren't buying it. He believed in people, connections, community interaction, and culture. He wanted to create places that responded to the needs and desires of the people living there. De Carlo believed in the idea of participatory design. A demonstration of his inclusion of the people who are most likely to use the space in the design process is extremely notable in his creation of Il Magistero.
Designed in Urbino, Italy, a remarkably wild city in the means of contextual architecture, De Carlo's building fit right in. The juxtaposition of steel, glass, and curves attached to a old, Italian design describe De Carlo's relationship with form perfectly. I will leave you with a quote from Giancarlo De Carlo's 'Architecture's Public' that quantifies his belief:
The period of heroes, of the born-again, of the universal solutions is over. Function no longer automatically generates form, 'less' has ceased to be 'more' and there is little probability that 'more' will again become 'less'...
De Carlo's theories of architecture were beyond his time, and have never been more relevant. Today, we are challenging the definition of "good architecture" that has been defined for us by a generation of starchitects. They have created architecture for architects. The new generation of architects must create architecture for people.
ReplyDeleteWell put both of you! So much of modern, postmodern, and contemporary architecture is about telling people what's beautiful and how buildings should be occupied instead of the opposite. It will be interesting to see how/if our generation is able to fuse beautiful and useful together.
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