Kaasaegse arhitektuuri diskursused 1-11 (0)

Kaasaegse arhitektuuri diskursused 1-11



Kodutöö 1 17.09 1. What is site-specificity and Genius Loci (spirit of place)? Site-specificity is an abstract understanding of place/site what is used to manifest “best” qualities of it. Usually this term is used when nature, vocation and all spheres what around the place are analyzed and object (art object, building or installation) fits perfect in this place. Object needs to be in harmony (balanced) with the environment. Site-specificity is place character or atmosphere what human can feel but can’t scientifically measured. As I understood site-specificity is all what surrounds it: nature as greenery, nature as weather (climate), traditions of humans, history of the place, etc. Genius Loci is the spirit of place. How I understood Genius Loci is the idea that every a human has his own place in this world and every human needs to identify himself. Before modern timeline human was in opposite with the place where he lived, he tried to identify himself by self-realization and world wandering. But in modern everything changed: Genius Loci idea is that human and his dwelling is inseparable. So as I mentioned the spirit of the place is human being comfort and secure in his dwelling. In concrete place which belongs to him and which is related to him by senses. 2. How will we apply it in the creation of architectural ideas? Any good examples. For the creation of architectural ideas I think we should analyze every place. As “analysis” I am defining an understanding of places like: vocation, surroundings, nature, history, etc. Also I think that it’s very important to understand human needs and wishes. As I mentioned before, “nowadays” humans usually belongs to concrete place and this place should identify the human himself. So, to recreate this idea in life we should to know how Humans want to identify themselves and what do humans want to show. (His best qualities of course). Usually all architects use analysis in their work, but it is too narrow(~10m area). I think for creation a good architectural idea we should watch wider and in practise this means that before putting somewhere small house you need to analyze whole city not only surrounding buildings and two streets around it. Kodutöö 2


Kodutöö 2 24.09 1. What is space? Space is abstract. Space can be described as a location which has no social connections for a human being. I learnt that space is a kind of feeling that humans can feel while being in some location and this location is limited only by human feelings. Usually space can be very different: it can be small or big, private or public, cool or warm, loud or quiet, etc. 2. How do we perceive space? So we perceive space by our five senses: hearing, smell, touch, vision, taste. But how I understood every sense is dominated by memories and by our previous experience. Also we perceive space by using it, by having activities in it. For example we perceive our house/home by cooking, eating, sleeping, playing, watching tv, etc. And while having activities in our home we understood is it good or bad space for those activities - for us. Mini conclusion: space is abstract and infinite. You can perceive it no matter what kind of experiences you have, but every human feels “their own space” in their own way, because everyone has their own possibilities, experiences, feelings, activities, traditions, etc. Kodutöö 3 1.10 Raimund Abraham, “Negation and Reconciliation” Tadao Ando “Toward new horizons of architecture” 1. What is nature for architecture? “The elements of nature - water, wind, light and sky - bring architecture derived from ideological thought down to the ground level of reality and awaken man-made life within it.” “When water, wind, light, rain, and other elements of nature are abstracted within architecture, the architecture becomes a place where people and nature confront each other under a sustained sense of tension.” As I understood nature for architecture is a starting point - architect starts to think how


to design building in some place, and how we know from previous homeworks, place has character, and character has many parts as: nature, climate, culture, etc. So, I think that nature is very important part of architecture - and Tadao Ando says that we should have balance between nature and architecture, and that human should have interrelationship with nature. I also think that architecture and nature should complement each other. “The architectural pursuit implies a responsibility to find and draw out a site’s formal characteristics, along with its cultural traditions, climate, and natural environmental features, the city structure that forms its backdrop, and the living patterns and age-old customs that people will carry into the future.” 2. How do you approach it? “While Ando seeks to draw nature into a union or association with mankind through a carefully structured confrontation, Abraham speaks of conquest and negation of the site and its topography.” Architect approach nature by understanding places character and by approaching elements of nature such as: landscape, wind, rain, forest, etc. As I understand nature is not just forest or weather it is structure what you can understand by being in forest for example and seeking human scale in it. By feeling place spirit you will see nature of the place and if the structure of nature would be clear for you, you will be able to design balance between nature and architecture. Nature is also human, who is using this place and that architecture. Kodutöö 4 8.10 Robert Venturi, “Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture: Selection form a Forthcoming Book” Demetri Porphyrios, “The Relevance of classical Architecture” 1. What is the turning point to Postmodernism? “... I have repeatedly in the past criticized the Post-Modernists as regards exactly these two points: the principle of the “decorated shed” and the aesthetics of parody. The self-paralyzing


parodies they thrive on, when unwrapped from their intellectualist idiom, are but dispirated commonplaces.” - Jenks criticized Venturi for his rejection of modernism - “If you are postmodernist, please do not deny, but accept everything - and modernism too.” “... the architect, if he must be “completely committed to his particular way of seeing the universe” - that is selective in how he approaches problems - he must not select which problems to approach.” Modernism's turning point is Venturi critic and book “Complexity and Contradiction”. Modernism's turning point was when this style became too boring “less is more - less is bore”, so architects “decided” to focus on other details and did a new style Postmodernism, but Postmodernism turning point is … As we know Postmodernism's main idea was to do non selective architecture, so, Postmodernism's turning point is - when architects and critics understood that it is impossible to keep everything in mind. 2. How shall we relate with Postmodernism nowadays? “All the obvious manifestations of postmodernism are cynical and destructive of the culture of architecture” “Post-Modernism works show themselves for the contrivance they are, but in doing so they also state that everything else in life is a contrivance and that simply there is no escape from this” The “universal” claims of postmodernists were based on the acceptance of everything and, in particular, the rejection of the judgment on quality. Postmodernism says: “now there is no high, no low, all languages are used”. Postmodernism is defined as radical eclecticism, which digests everything. So, nowadays we should keep in mind Postmodernism ideas and try to do something better. I personally think that we should try to select the best qualities and main characters of a place to make architecture, but we also should keep in mind “everything” about this place. We should remember landscape, culture, nature, etc, but we also need to decide what is more important for our architecture. 3. What happened to Postmodernism as a style? “Style itself was seen as having no natural relationship to the tectonics of buildings” “.. Modernism has produced buildings but, as yet, no architecture.” Postmodernism as a style ended, but Postmodernism did not die, it simply became one of many ways of existence in architecture, ideologies, languages, part of a wider practice.


Nowadays we also have post-postmodernism and different styles which appeared from Postmodernism style. Kodutöö 5 15.10 What is context and Contextualism in architecture? Is this idea still effective? “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” - Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, “Collage city” Context is the combination of factors that make up architecture and the city. Contextualism describes this context. Factors emphasize the context in which a building or other architectural object is installed. In my opinion the main idea of contextualism is to find the character of a place and to offer a combination of its most contradictory factors. “Contextualism offers a middle-ground position between an unrealistically frozen past with no future development permitted, and urban renewal with the total loss of the urban fabric.” - Thomas L. Schumacher, “Contextualism: Urban ideals + Deformations” I think that the idea of  contextualism is still effective, because in my own work I notice how important it is to see the context in which you are going to build something. If you do not pay attention to traditions, culture and buildings around, then the building will not look organic. Which means it will not fit into the framework of the usual, and most likely will spoil the view of the city. Kodutöö 6 29.10 Are there any relationships between architecture and a certain environment? In my opinion there is always a relationship between architecture and environment, for example Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown present an analysis of relationship between architecture and the space named city in the text “Learning From Las Vegas.” In this text the


author also says that architecture is streets, parking lots and parking lines between buildings. The city has its own landscape, maybe not natural, but the space between the highway with its paving patterns, parking lines, curbs and borders also forms a landscape. Author also says that: “Sign is more important than architecture”, but in my opinion there cannot be a sign before the architecture. So I think that sign and architecture is one whole. Where can we find good architecture which is in harmony with the environment? Any good examples? As I understood by reading texts we can find good architecture which is in harmony with the
environment everywhere.
Reason for it is that: 1. good architecture means (for me) that before planning it, the architect did a giant work of understanding all around the place and tried to do architecture which would
manifest best qualities of that place, so that means that good architecture meant to be
in harmony with the place = environment. 2. Nowadays every citizen has his own necessities, so it’s hard to estimate architecture not subjectively but objectively. Architecture is also a science of putting things in the right place and this process is the
environmental harmony in itself. (It’s more about landscape architecture). If we are more idealistic than we can find good architecture which is in harmony with
environment in those places where architects thought about communication between
architecture and environment. In the texts there is given one example such as the Las Vegas Strip.
In my opinion also cities with good architecture and environmental harmony are Gdansk,
Amsterdam, Budapest, Brno and so on. As I personally name them “gingerbread cities”. Kodutöö 7 5.11 How shall architects observe the city? How can we make a strategy to deal with urban situations?


In this text the author says that architects shall observe the city without preconceived theories, an eager liberation of a number of self-inflicted dogmas. Architects shall be sensitive to the qualities of the surrounding environment and find new ways to understand the city. Also in the text the author says that usually architects use a fragmentation of the existing city to avoid urbanistic rules which were used in this place before and manipulate with urban plans to create maximum programmatic effect. Most important part of the city is movement and dynamics. You should see all the empty spaces of the city because the author says: “A city no longer defined by its built space but by its absence or empty space”. Also the author says that you need to try not to build “empty space”, but you shall save it. To deal with urban situations, an architect should not be the architect. “This mixture of formal and informal elements and the order and disorder which this single image represents are the essential conditions of the city.” - Rem Koolhaas about Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s reconstruction of the Roman forum. Kodutöö 8 12.11 How to consider the place and the material in the globalized world? In this text, the author says that: “each detail tell us the story of its making, of its placing, of its dimensioning”, so I think that to consider the place and the material in the globalized world we should think about details and try to imagine the whole production as a composition of those details. In the text the author also shows, by Florentine schiacciato example, that the natural stone, which is used as a facade and whose shape isn’t regular, needs to be carved: “to make the detailed architecture complete and to offer its own proof”. In the essay, the author uses terms such as number, finishing and collocation, which are used for achieving beauty. The term collocation means composing details by place and by their


function. I think that it is very important to understand every detail, role and function, so collocation can be named a way to consider material and place. The author also says that: “building came to be viewed as economic investments with an intentionally planned short existence”. In my opinion, it is the wrong way of wasting materials. I am sure that building should be planned with long existence because nowadays we have a lot of ecological problems, caused by wasting too much. In the text “Prospects for a Critical Regionalism” author says that “Its salient cultural precept is “place” creation. He wants to employ the general model in all future development, is the enclave against which the ceaseless inundation of place-less, alienating consumerism will find itself momentarily checked”. In my opinion, universalization and globalization is a good way for planning, but I still think that we should always keep in mind local traditions, climate and conditions as a whole. The author says: “culture surely resides in its capacity to condense the artistic potential of the region while reinterpreting cultural influences coming from the outside”. We must consider the place and materials, paying attention to culture, politics, place and globalization. Our buildings must be durable, in harmony with the place and still original. Kodutöö 9 19.11 What is reconstruction and its ideology? How to create dialogue with history? “Reconstruction is the process of updating an obsolete facility for use in new conditions”. In the text “Reconstructions” Guillame Paoli says that: “The process of reconstruction begins at the precise moment when the past is seen as a prophetic construct. The paradox is that while reconstruction promises on one hand to revitalize the past, on the other it is an annulment of history”. In my opinion reconstruction ideology is to keep history and face up it for future generations.


Both authors Giorgio Grassi and Guillaume Paoli agree that reconstruction is a bad way to create dialogue with history, if reconstruction means to copy an existing building or to make a replica of it. Giorgio Grassi says that: “for me there is no difference between construction and reconstruction”. I think that the best way to create dialogue with history is, as the author shows by his work in the Roman theater of Sagunto, to create compositions between new and old. He keeps ruins as a part of a new building and tries to create something which is empirical as a Roman theater and at the same time is new - with all nowadays needs. I agree with him and I think that architects should construct new, without destroying history. If someone wants to keep some history, then, in my opinion, there are only two ways to do it. First - keep the building as it is now and conserve it (do everything to keep it safe longer) or second - try to do composition between old and new, and if new-modern would be in balance with old as Giorgio Grassi did, than we will keep history longer and at the same time we will use building/place. Kodutöö 10 26.11 Who and for whom are we? What is the role of an architect in society? The architect is an artist, businessman, real estate agent, designer, historian, technician, politician, engineer... The architect is for: PEOPLE Diana Ghirardo says that the role of the architect in society is: “to confront real problems in discipline and in the world.” Also, she says that the architect should: “maintain the “purity” of the world through architecture.” But at the same time, she asks why an architect doesn’t do his “work”. As I understood, while reading the texts, the reason for not doing his role is that politics usually manipulates the architect and in society the architect is more the "maid"(service) than an artist. In the text “The architecture of Deceit” an example of political manipulation is


given: “...architects avoid responsibility for issues like racism, white flights and the exploitative manipulation of land development to benefit a power elite”. In my opinion, an architect can’t be a rights activist, because his role in society is usually limited by the client's wishes and his client is usually a “powerful elite”. Kodutöö 11 3.12 What is public space before and now? Is it changing? First of all, public space is the opposite of private space. I believe that public space depends on society or rather depends on how society uses this space. As Jan Gehl says: “...public spaces had three functions in relation to the life of the cities. The public space functioned as a meeting place, market place and connection/traffic place.” I think that public space is constantly changing due to a changing society. Also, some public places are seasonal. For example, in Tallinn, no one will go outside in the rain in the autumn, rather they will find a place for communication inside the buildings. But at the same time when the weather is good then usually, people are outside, chilling near the sea or sunbathing. Also public space is changing because of the technical progress as Jan Gehl says: “the automobile occupied spaces” are not so attractive for resting, because of a gas smell and noise. Are shopping centers a public space? In my opinion, shopping malls are a semi-public space, which means that it is a public space that you can use only when the owner allows you. There are different rules for you to follow, but you can use a shopping center for all the functions which public space needs to give you (meeting, market and connection/traffic place).