There is an additive approach to detailing a Classical façade whereby the level of detailing is carefully selected. There is a tremendous range of expression available through this additive approach and therefore a certain amount of decorum is required so the building retains legibility. Factors which affect this detailing include, but are not limited to: budget, availability of materials, availability of construction skill, schedule, appropriateness, and desire. The sum of all the factors, not all of which are noted here, is what leads to a building evoking it's sense of place in the landscape and in history. The selection and application of detail and ornament are part of the art of composition. An excellent visual summary of this concept is available in Robert Adam's book Classical Architecture. Not completely unrelated is the modern concept of collage. The layering of detail and meaning of multiple planes was used to great affect by architect Michael Graves. There are excellent essays forming the introduction to Five Architects which partially reveal the concepts underpinning the design intent of not only Graves, but Meier, Gwathmey, Hejduk, and Eisenman. The resulting architecture is intellectually accessible to a relative few, thereby reducing the legibility of the buildings. This does not invalidate the theories, as they have been continually refined over the ensuing decades. The notion of an additive approach to architectural design and detailing has been handed down from antiquity until today. Yet, those that choose Classical layering over modern collage are decried for using pastiche. There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in this charge, to be sure. It must have been pointed out at some point in recent history that collage is its very own brand of pastiche. Recent architectural efforts in modernism have since focused on shape making in the extreme. Pastiche by collage has been replaced by random forms. The result is an ersatz Rorschach test writ large on the cities of the world. The populace has taken to nick-naming these erections based upon what they see in these new building forms. There is the CCTV Pants, the barbed wire Birds Nest, and of course the charitably labeled London Gherkin. It would seem that those in pursuit of form have dropped the practice of pastiche in favor of an overt pornography. Perhaps, then, collage is only applicable to decorated sheds and not ducks. Understanding the concept of collage, and ignoring its previous applications for a moment, it reveals itself as a potential tool in the humanizing of the modern aesthetic. Using the minimalist white box as a base layers of collage can be added or subtracted in order to respond to the various criteria which give shape to a building. The key is to pursue legibility and decorum in the application of this technique. Issues of type, use, spatial definition, relationship to human scale and human proportions, as well as urban condition need to be addressed and resolved. In so doing the building will necessarily take on certain traditional characteristics. This is not due to intent, but in recognition of design solutions that have stood the test of time in the laboratory of history. The net result will be an architecture that is true to its materials, method of construction, and place in time as well as true to its place along the continuum of human settlement.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
EX, DX, LX :: Pastiche and Pornography
There is an additive approach to detailing a Classical façade whereby the level of detailing is carefully selected. There is a tremendous range of expression available through this additive approach and therefore a certain amount of decorum is required so the building retains legibility. Factors which affect this detailing include, but are not limited to: budget, availability of materials, availability of construction skill, schedule, appropriateness, and desire. The sum of all the factors, not all of which are noted here, is what leads to a building evoking it's sense of place in the landscape and in history. The selection and application of detail and ornament are part of the art of composition. An excellent visual summary of this concept is available in Robert Adam's book Classical Architecture. Not completely unrelated is the modern concept of collage. The layering of detail and meaning of multiple planes was used to great affect by architect Michael Graves. There are excellent essays forming the introduction to Five Architects which partially reveal the concepts underpinning the design intent of not only Graves, but Meier, Gwathmey, Hejduk, and Eisenman. The resulting architecture is intellectually accessible to a relative few, thereby reducing the legibility of the buildings. This does not invalidate the theories, as they have been continually refined over the ensuing decades. The notion of an additive approach to architectural design and detailing has been handed down from antiquity until today. Yet, those that choose Classical layering over modern collage are decried for using pastiche. There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in this charge, to be sure. It must have been pointed out at some point in recent history that collage is its very own brand of pastiche. Recent architectural efforts in modernism have since focused on shape making in the extreme. Pastiche by collage has been replaced by random forms. The result is an ersatz Rorschach test writ large on the cities of the world. The populace has taken to nick-naming these erections based upon what they see in these new building forms. There is the CCTV Pants, the barbed wire Birds Nest, and of course the charitably labeled London Gherkin. It would seem that those in pursuit of form have dropped the practice of pastiche in favor of an overt pornography. Perhaps, then, collage is only applicable to decorated sheds and not ducks. Understanding the concept of collage, and ignoring its previous applications for a moment, it reveals itself as a potential tool in the humanizing of the modern aesthetic. Using the minimalist white box as a base layers of collage can be added or subtracted in order to respond to the various criteria which give shape to a building. The key is to pursue legibility and decorum in the application of this technique. Issues of type, use, spatial definition, relationship to human scale and human proportions, as well as urban condition need to be addressed and resolved. In so doing the building will necessarily take on certain traditional characteristics. This is not due to intent, but in recognition of design solutions that have stood the test of time in the laboratory of history. The net result will be an architecture that is true to its materials, method of construction, and place in time as well as true to its place along the continuum of human settlement.
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