PA Final Manhattan Municipal Building

The Manhattan Municipal Building, built in 1912 by the architecture firm McKim Mead and White, celebrates eclectic ornament, democracy, and civic duty. The Municipal building made such an impact that during the midst of the cold war, Stalinist architects modeled their government buildings after it in order to compete through architecture. Stalinist architects purposefully made the center towers far greater in scale in order to mark their importance on the landscape and out-do such American skyscrapers as the Municipal Building.

The Municipal building however was not built necessarily to compete with Russian architecture. New York’s population increased significantly during the industrial revolution and by the late 1800s the city was in need for a much larger city hall. After various designs were turned down a design competition was held in 1893. Thirteen firms competed, each with a three-person jury, which represented the design as a whole in order for fair judging in the competition. The commissioner of bridges and the art commission would have the final approval of the building. McKim, Mead, and White’s entry won the competition mainly because their cohesive design provided the most floor space of all the competition entries.
At the intersection of Centre and Chambers street sits the early skyscraper, the first in New York to incorporate a subway station at its base. The Manhattan Municipal Building is the center for civic life in Manhattan and is one of the largest government office buildings in the world (1). Accommodating numerous offices and departments the building also includes the official CityStore of New York City. A triumphal arch at the entrance proceeds into a tunnel that goes through the middle of the building, now only open to foot traffic was once open to street traffic itself. Transportation is largely incorporated in the building through the arch of Constantine inspired tunnel and the subway station, now used only on the south side of the building. The municipal building brings people together from all five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island) and sees about 28,000 people married each year.
The building has a romantic notion about it with its eclectic foray of classical and renaissance inspired details throughout. A myriad of sculptures including the female personification of the city cover much of the façade. These Roman inspired sculptures represent civic duty, fame, and pride. The skeleton of the Municipal building was the first to go up and is built mainly with granite and concrete.
The design of the Municipal building had a resounding effect around the world. Stalin and architects of the ‘new’ soviet society modeled such buildings as the Seven Sisters and the main building of the University of Moscow after the Municipal building. All borrow from Palladio’s three-tiered system of a large tower with smaller structures flanking each side of the tower. Each building is a white marble or stone skyscraper with Roman and Renaissance inspired details. The Reichstag building in Germany is also very similar through its use of ornament and materials. McKim, Mead, and White set the tone for many governmental buildings to come since their eclectic use of civic statues and classical roots mimic the notion of democracy and justice in government.

Thousands of New Yorkers get married at court in the Municipal Building each year. Besides being used for office use, the courts, and courtroom marriages, the building brings people from all walks of life together as it caters to many different governmental needs. It may not be the tallest skyscraper or the most magnificent but it had such an impact on the world that our 'enemies' had to re-create it in order to compete. Many people ignore it's underlying greatness since next to the rest of New Yorks skyscrapers it seems somewhat insignificant. Nevertheless, the Municipal Building is a center for democracy which reflects America's ideals through classic and eclectic architecture.

My Top Ten

Looking back at my top ten I can see that I am inspired by vibrant colors, soft & curvilinear lines. I like the simple design of the mac and mid-century modern designs. I also enjoy intricate details and patterns found in oriental rugs and Indian designs. My design style would have to be a mixture of the two. Clean lines through architecture with a few intricate & noticeable details that tell story.


My parents collect oriental rugs. There are a lot of standard reproductions available that are terribly unoriginal and 'Americanized.' My parents have taught me the difference between original oriental rugs and those made in the U.S. I'm sure there can be some nice reproductions however I prefer those rugs with character. Oriental and tribal rugs tell a story through pattern, color, and figures. The best thing is that you can have one or two pieces of furniture in a room but once you add an oriental rug it seems nearly fully furnished.


I am intrigued with India and is culture, music, fashion, and religion. I am a sucker for Buddha figurines. I love bright colors such as orange, purples, greens, and blues as they use in much of Indian garb and decoration. Indian textiles and designs often have great details and patterns. These patterns sometimes tell a story, making the design of something such as a scarf into a storybook.

Vintage glasses are so fun and border on the line of fashionable and well, just plain bad. Simple and classic is always the best way to go when it comes to sunglasses.

Art inspires me in every way. Above is a painting by Edgar Degas. I could get lost in his paintings they are so rich and vivid. I love all kinds of art, whether abstract, digital, or expressionist like the painting above. Art has always been a huge passion of mine. I understand and appreciate art better than I can create it.
Mac's are designed so beautifully and their systems are so simple. I cringe every time I have to use a PC. Mac's are just the best all around.

Bamboo is one of my favorite products out on the market. I love salad bowls made out of bamboo. They are extremely light and so cute! oh yeah, and sustainable!

Eclectic mixtures of modern sleek lines and curvilinear exotic styles makes a beautiful design juxtaposition. Bringing together different design styles through art, pattern, line, and color is my approach to design.



curving staircases, especially those with a splash of color really make me drool.
The Eames Molded Plywood Chair is my favorite chair for many reasons. My grandmother has a red one and whenever I see this chair I am always reminded of her. Also I love mid-century modern and this chair is at the very top of the best designs that came out of this era. The lines and simplicity just work and the curving wood is quite appealing.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Home is one that speaks to me through weight of line and color. I think that Frank Lloyd Wright was quite arrogant yet he was very talented and his home is one of my personal favorites. I would love to live in a house such as this.

Opus Week 13

Self expression of architects can be seen in the monumental like structures of post modern design. Nicholas Grimshaw's work is renowned world wide and is a form of self expression juxtaposed to the simplified architecture for the masses mid century. Above is the National Space Centre in England.

Post-modern design has transposed modern architecture into a form of self expression in which the building carries a monologue from the architect himself and a dialogue between other architects and the world as a whole. This may seem like a very broad statement so lets break it down. Modern architecture of the early and mid 20th century was about the masses. Although designers were coming up with new and original ideas, their work was mass produced and therefore their work was less personalized (Roth 567). Personally I have a set of Eames style molded plywood chairs. They are not original Eames yet such items were mass produced not only by the manufacturer but also by 'knock off' companies so that design was universal. Much of post modern architecture celebrates the designer himself and his personal creation.


Mass produced modern chairs of the mid century: The Eames molded plywood dining chair

A juxtaposition is seen between the 'characterless' modern architecture of the early to mid 20th century and the creative endeavors of the post modern architecture of the late 20th century. Architects make statements through their work and they become celebrities in the world of design through their works. Frank Lloyd Wright hardly cared about the inhabitant of a house he design, he cared about his design. Wright is an example of highly personal designed architecture that does not relate to the inhabitant or the function. We see this dysfunction in the Guggenheim Museum, which is a beautiful building, but highly dysfunctional when hanging flat art work on curved walls. While modernist design was able to reach the masses critics such as Robert Venturi 'asserted that less is not more.' Modernists designs were easily universal because they were simple designs to duplicate. Venturi argues that we must recreate modern architecture in a way that we take the advancements in materials and technology and use these tools developed by early modernists in order to create modernism with 'ornament, references to the past, local tradition, social practices, and to the users' received conventional sensibilities' (Roth 568). I could not agree more because although I find early modernist architecture interesting, I would never want to live in such a characterless building. I do not think that humans work like machines and a machine for living while practical, is emotionless and does not cater to the human psyche.

The Guild House in Philadelphia was Robert Venturi's attempt to create modernist architecture incorporating ornament and other features

Venturi made a great point in his writing from the book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) yet I don't believe that his philosophy transposed itself successfully in his work. His 'first public demonstration of this philosophy' was the Guild House in Philadelphia, an apartment complex made for elderly Quakers (Roth 569). The windows are tiny and the building reminds me of the many poorly designed buildings that attempted to take modern architecture and apply ornament. There are buildings such as this all over the U.S. and especially in Greensboro. The YMCA close to downtown comes to mind, and many other buildings built throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Despite many failures, post modern design thrived in the hands of other architects such as Richard Meier. His work, the High Art Museum in Atlanta, is a beautiful white building which plays with solid volumes which play with light and shadow. The question arises with such buildings as the High Art Museum, does art=architecture? I think that architecture is a systematic and mathmatical form of art and one can see the many systems created by the forms in the High Art Museum (Roth 571).
Buildings such as the High Art Museum above paved the way for High Tech architecture such as Phillip Johnson's Pennzoil Place, or the Louvre's glass pyramid by I.M. Pei. High tech is defined by roth as being 'an extreme excentuation and exaggeration of structure and mechanical systems' (574). Architects took the beauty of industrialism and exposed systems to a whole different level making the literal workings of the building abstract forms and works of art. Architects meditated on ornament and it's connection with modernism and what resulted on one end of the spectrum was the celebration of technology and systematic parts-which became the ornamental pieces to post modern structures.

Opus Week 12

The Guggenhiem by Frank Lloyd Wright

Designers of the modernist movement began shaping and stretching the limits of a new architecture. Architects such as Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe compromised with city officials on ground space in order to stretch the Seagram Building vertically. Frank Lloyd Wright stretched the boundaries of his normally rectilinear architecture with his design for the Guggenhiem Museum. The modernist movement is defined by the machine and the stripping away of all ornament of previous eras (Massey 63).

Designers and architects of the 20th century speculated about the direction of design and many people wanted to compose a new architecture which resulted in the modernism movement and the following mid-century modern movement. Modern architects went back to basics when designer the new architecture and put a great emphasis on geometry and form. The Bauhaus, directed by Walter Gropius, fueled modernists desires and served as a creative school for the new industrial inspired architecture (Massey 67).

The Studio Wing of the Bauhaus

The Bauhaus taught a strict architectural discipline despite the it's ideas being new, this in part could be the nature of the Germans and their relation to industrialism. Lighting designs of Marianne Brandt, K.J. Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld rose in popularity from the Bauhaus. The table lamp designed by K.J. Jucker and W. Wagenfeld is an almost surrealist view of a table lamp in that it is not functional as a table however much of it's form is shaped as though it should be a table. The glass bulb takes up the entire surface which could be a table, which is humorous in my mind because the user of such a design may want to set something down on it only to be reminded that the surface is round and functions solely as a light (Massey 74).

Table Lamp by K.J. Jucker and W. Wagenfeld

Post World War II the United States experienced great prosperity in the years after the war and people all over now had access to modern design. Despite the fact that U.S. just came out of a war the U.S. was energized by their success. The cold war also led the Soviets and the U.S. to compete not only in weapons and space but through design and technology.

The Pedestal Chair by Eero Saarinen used the new molded technology for plastic and employed one leg rather than four.


Mid-century was a time where modernist design could be design for all. One could by a house that came in parts, pre-assembly. The idea was that you could assemble your house on your own. New uses of plastics, aluminum, and other materials made much of this possible (Votolato 153). The 1950s was the beginning of the consumer age where people were presented with choices on materials and brands. The following is an excerpt from Gregory Votolato's book American Design in the Twentieth Century:

"During the early 1950's Sterling Ready-Cut-Homes advertised extensively their 'cut to fit homes' for self builders or self contractors. Sterling's color catalog shows a choice of fifty seven designs. Their kits included 'easy to follow plans,' all lumber, roofing, nails, glass, hardwar, paint, doors, and windows. The prices from 2,150 in 1952 including delivery to the building site, were made possible by economies in quantity production and bulk purchasing components."

Every time I think of house kits of the 1950s I smile because the idea is slightly rediculous, however house kits were quite popular and actually ended up making decent homes (Votolato 154).

House Kit Home by Sears The Westly Floor Plan

Modernism became the mainstream by the mid century and great works of furniture, architecture, and many products were developed due to the cold war and great prosperity in the U.S. Eero Saarinen's Pedestal chair is a great example of the beautiful work with plastics that came out of these modern years (Massey 154). During the 20th century architecture and design were inspired by industrialism, the development of new materials, and was fueled by the competition of the cold war.

Peer to Peer

Above: The Reichstag building in Germany Below: The Manhattan Municipal Building

The Reichstag Building in Germany has many connections both physically and analytically to the Manhattan Municipal Building. Aesthetically the Reichstag uses classical elements such as Corinthian columns, arcades of windows, and side flagging towers with an extravagant central entrance. This building uses concrete and stone, similar to the Municipal building. The building is horizontal while the Municipal building is an early skyscraper. The Municipal building needed to be large in order to house its many governmental offices of the growing city of New York. The Reichstag on the other hand was probably built horizontally because it represents the unification of the German government. It is similar to the U.S.’s Capital building in that its function is important, but the symbolism behind it is far greater. Although the Reichstag was built approximately twelve years before the Municipal building, it was still influenced by the classical style of governmental buildings in the U.S. Germany was experiencing many changes in their government and the Reichstag building represents a fair and democratic society through its use of classical elements. In my essay I talk about how Stalin reshaped the Russian government through the building of renaissance and classically inspired governmental buildings. He took his inspiration directly from such buildings as the Manhattan Municipal building, and one could say that the Reichstag building also influenced him.

Reflections: Unit Summary

The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton employed the use of glass and steel and has influenced building techniques well past the 19th century

Reflecting on the many revolutions that led to great change in the architectural and design world, architecture seems to skip a generation and then is later revived by the next generation. Gothic and Renaissance revivals can be found around the world from Cathedrals to private residences in America. With political change brought new ideas and while many were still reviving the past, some were looking towards the future and the exotic. New trade routes were opened from the east and a flood of asian inspired creations made their way through Europe, the U.S., and across the globe.
Revolutions brought new design styles. A new America brought new architectural and furniture styles, which differed greatly from the British imperial style. Also the revolutionary war changed design in that people were trying to set themselves apart from the past. Colonial America went from being highly influenced by the British to completely separation and that can be seen through the furniture of the time.

Revolutions and new trades routes changed architecture and design worldwide, however nothing affected the design world more than new materials of the industrial age. Glass and steel were the ultimate materials developed that changed architecture drastically. Greenhouses and arcades employed the use glass and steel initially. Joseph Paxton was inspired by the glass and metal structures of greenhouses and utilized their techniques in the Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace needed to be erected within months and still be beautiful and revolutionary in its design. The World’s Fair, an exhibition showcasing new machines and technologies around the world, would be the function for its erection and the building itself needed to reflect the new technologies of the time. Crystal Palace was erected in record time and paved the way for structures other than Greenhouses to employ the use of steel and glass.

While machines, technologies, and materials of the era inspired Joseph Paxton and other architects, Phillip Morris and many others followed the philosophy of the hand-made aesthetic. The Arts and Crafts movement, English-Free Architecture movement, and the Aesthetic movement all began in Great Britain. Phillip Morris rejected the machine and thought that well crafted, hand made furniture and design was the best way to approach design. Breathtakingly well-crafted woodwork and hand-made textiles were the direct result of these movements. Not all designers of these movements completely agreed with Morris’s strict handcrafted philosophy and they thought that machinery, if used wisely, could make a design better. These movements quickly took off in the U.S. especially in New York and Chicago, where the Arts and Crafts Movement would soon influence Frank Lloyd Wright and lead the arts and crafts style into the 20th century. These movements were very simplistic in design compared to the extravagant baroque and renaissance designs of the preceding era. These simplified designs eventually allowed for even more abstract ideas to occur in the early 20th century with the beginnings of modernism.

New materials, revolutions, design philosophies, and design movements from Great Britain define design of the 19th century. Architects were reflecting back on the past while moving forward with new technologies in building. The connection between the past and the present had not been severed and would not be severed until the modernist movement. Architects of all time periods continue to reflect on the past for inspiration. We try to find a balance between the past and the present and it will continue to be a struggle in many architects minds on whether to reject the past in order to move forward or to learn from the past in order to make better designs for the future.

Opus Week 11

The AEG Turbine Factory, industry as the inspiration for architecture

Picasso's self portrait, he is among the the artists that worked with abstraction and cubism

The roots of modernism lie within the arts and crafts movement, post impressionism, expressionist and cubist art, and the industrial revolution. Artists of the early twentieth century explored the abstraction and flattening of art. Architects, designers, and artists toyed with different geometric patterns and designs. The rise of industry and the invention of the automobile and airplane inspired architects and designers to find a architectural model for the future rather than following Greek, Roman, and Renaissance models (Roth 519). World War I brought the use of new materials and many advances in the industry which in turn helped the modernist movement (Roth 520).

The word congruence implies fluidity and a constant which relates to the congruence of eclectic revivals in many public buildings. The Manhattan Municipal building, which I am doing my precedent analysis on, is an example of an classic eclectic building with it's statuettes and triumphal arch. The materials used are mostly concrete but a new form of building takes place because many of the eclectic buildings in New York and other large cities at the time are skyscrapers. Technology of the 20th century is employed in order to build these skyscrapers yet designs inspired from the roots of architecture-the classical era-are used (roth). So while the classical tradition is continued with new materials and technologies the modernist movement pushed forward with the creation of the Bauhaus in Germany.

The Bauhaus's main building

Architectural training changed drastically with the creation of the Bauhaus and architects were trained across many disciplines and were later able to choose which design discipline fit them best. Sweedish modern and architects from the Netherlands were also a large part of modernist design. Their concepts for modern were less strict than those of the Bauhaus. Alvar Aalto is a large contributor to the Sweedish aesthetic that was brought to America around World War II. Aalto's work is described as a more 'humanistic scandanavian approach to modernism' (Massey 86). The Bauhaus focused on machine and like Corbusier, finding the most functional machine for living. I think that the Bauhaus created beautiful work but much of it is cold and far to utilitarian for my taste. I enjoy the less invasive scandanavian work. Artists and architects were exploring the use of the machine and how it fit into our everday lives. I think that no man works as a machine and a machine for living might sound pleasing, but in reality it is not 'humanistic'.

ApartmentTherapy.com is one of my favorite websites which features photos from modern apartments. Many of which are eclectically mixed with modern and traditional elements. Above is an example of the Tulip Chair.

The idea of compression and release is a very broad concept in the the design world. Undulating walls automatically comes to mind such as in Gaudi's work. In class we spoke about a skyscraper that used bay windows in each apartment, thus creating undulating walls across the whole building. Compression and release also speaks to the way steel and glass are molded. The 20th century brought architects to play with curvilinear walls and different forms such as molded plywood. Charles and Ray Eames were among the most renouned for their work with molded plywood, however I would like to look at Eero Saarinen's work with the Tulip Chair and his molding of plastic. The Tulip Chair was made out of one mold while many of the chairs at the time were made in parts. Without the technological advances of the war the creation of such chairs would not have been possible (Massey 155).

The new technologies brought by both of the wars in the 20th century allowed architecture and design to move forward at a rapid pace into the modernist movement. The abstraction and reduction to the basics made designers start from the beginning and build from there. Corbusier began with the basics and moved forward as did Charles and Ray Eames, both Eero and Eliel Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, and the many designers of the modernist movement. A congruence of the same revivalist architecture is seen throughout this time where architects and artists were trying to find a new architecture. The underlying factor in this is technology. Technology bound together the new concepts (modernist architecture) and the old concepts (classically rooted architecture).

PA Draft Essay

New York’s population increased significantly during the industrial revolution and by the late 1800s the city was in need for a much larger city hall. After various designs were turned down a design competition was held in 1893. Thirteen firms competed, each with a three-person jury, which represented the design as a whole in order for fair judging in the competition. The commissioner of bridges and the art commission would have the final approval of the building. McKim, Mead, and White’s entry won the competition mainly because their cohesive design provided the most floor space of all the competition entries.
At the intersection of Centre and Chambers street sits the early skyscraper, the first in New York to incorporate a subway station at its base. The Manhattan Municipal Building is the center for civic life in Manhattan and is one of the largest government office buildings in the world (1). Accommodating numerous offices and departments the building also includes the official CityStore of New York City. A triumphal arch at the entrance proceeds into a tunnel that goes through the middle of the building, now only open to foot traffic was once open to street traffic itself. Transportation is largely incorporated in the building through the arch of Constantine inspired tunnel and the subway station, now used only on the south side of the building. The municipal building brings people together from all five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island) and sees about 28,000 people married each year.
The building has a romantic notion about it with its eclectic foray of classical and renaissance inspired details throughout. A myriad of sculptures including the female personification of the city cover much of the façade. These Roman inspired sculptures represent civic duty, fame, and pride. The skeleton of the Municipal building was the first to go up and is built mainly with granite.
The design of the Municipal building had a resounding effect around the world so much so that in the midst of the cold war, Stalin and architects of the ‘new’ soviet society modeled such buildings as the Seven Sisters and the main building of the University of Moscow after the Municipal building. All borrow from Palladio’s three-tiered system of a large tower with smaller structures flanking each side of the tower. Each building is a white marble or stone skyscraper with Roman and Renaissance inspired details.

Opus Week 10

Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio is a beautiful example of the Arts and Crafts style.

Craft defines a design that is made with skill and dexterity. The Aesthetic movement, Arts and Crafts, and the English Free Architecture movement focused on excellent handmade craft, particularly in woodwork and textile designs. Designs such as the beautiful arts and crafts interior of the Gamble House by Greene and Greene represent excellent craft in that each piece was made with care (Massey 22). Homes today exhibit the worst kind of craft in order to build them quickly and cheaply. The Arts and Crafts style is not cheap, especially if the design is completely handmade as William Morris advocated for throughout his lifetime. Many designers throughout the Arts and Crafts movement and it's various 'sister' movements incorporated both handmade and machine made elements. Morris's ideals were just that, ideals, and many realized that machines were not the enemy. What the design movements of the 19th and early 20th century focused on was detailed designs made with thought and craft.

An interior view of Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The separation between public and private spaces became less defined in the beginning of the 20th century with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and the modern movement. Frank Lloyd Wright searched for his own style as well as an American style in his work which reflects the arts and crafts style. Wright worked under Louis Sullivan and took much of his inspiration from the work he did with Sullivan and his firm. Wright came into his own however and developed a very recognizable style of his own that went far beyond the original 'Chicago-school' style of architecture. Wrights work was inspired by nature and integrated the outdoors into the interior through large windows and stone and natural materials. Through this outdoor/indoor design, Wright chose not to follow traditional home designs where living areas are specifically designed. His floor plans such as those at Falling Water have no defining walls, simply a few load bearing walls and columns (Massey 84).

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Design is a visual language. It can tell a story and evoke feelings without words as art does. Two similar examples which were designed to evoke very strong emotions in the people who walked through the spaces are the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and The Holocaust Museum in the United States. The Holocaust Museum in the US exhibits dark feelings of fear and gives the viewer the experience of being in the holocaust itself. Small doorways, sharp angles, and the use of concrete tell the viewer how cold and hard life must have been like living in the camps of the Holocaust. The use of concrete and many sharp rectangular prisms of all different sizes describes the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. It is a "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" designed by Peter Eisenman. The space is very abstract and one experiences the space through it's design language. Personally I see the many blocks as representing the coffins of each individual affected by the Holocaust. It is difficult to navigate freely through the space since the blocks are presented in grid form. Some choose to walk on top of the blocks while others weave throughout the rows. The blocks are thick and heavy which represent the weight of the deaths on the German people and all those involved (http://www.holocaust-mahnmal.de/en).

Antoni Gaudi was inspired by the techniques used by Moorish architects.

Architectural techniques are passed down to each generation. Techniques that have consistently been followed throughout time are those first developed in classical Greece and Rome. Columns and decoration inspired by classical designs some of the most popular techniques in architecture alone. Arrangement of spaces has even translated from ancient times into modern architecture. The Baths of Caracalla and their arrangement of large public space inspired Pennsylvania Station in NYC by McKim, Mead, & White (Roth 505). Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi developed his famous style through inspiration from techniques of the Moors such as the 'molded forms based on curved structural walls' (Roth 511).

An early image of UNCG's Quad. Are these buildings bringing the campus historic character or simply using too much energy and not providing enough housing for our growing campus.
Virtual renderings can be very helpful because they are detailed and precise. Although many argue that they lack character and that is why students must learn different drawing techniques. The comparison between virtual and hand-crafted harkens back to the argument between handmade and machine-made designs. One finds character in hand-made and historic designs. A local issue right here at UNCG is whether or not we should demolish the historic 1920's dormatories in the quad. There is a great need for more student housing and these dorms are using more energy and space then they need to be. Demolishing these buildings would be unsustainable and would take away the architectural character these buildings bring to the university. The dorms in the quad remind the students that UNCG is a historic school. UNCG started as a school for women and now sororities mainly live in the quad, making the quad a historic home for women students. The other issue is that the dorms are not sustainable as they are and UNCG needs more dorms. Building a new dorm in a new area means cutting down trees and interfering with the environment as well, so each option will be unsustainable, we really must find the lesser of the evils.
Virtual renderings such as the one above show a great amount of detail, yet I think that hand drawn renderings provide much more character and a designer is able to express their concept through stylistic techniques rather than computer animation that is the same for every rendering.

Craft and techniques help to create a space that is narrated through a specific design language. The 20th century gave way to the development of space planning and modernism. Whithin the latter sphere of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st we saw design become a virtual experience. Many argue that these virtual techniques, although precise, are not as personable as handcrafted renderings are. Just as handcrafted is often preferred by many, so are older buildings compared to brand new buildings. As designers we struggle between following the past and creating new forms for the future and how we build these forms can be just as important.

The New World Trade Center

I don't usually post blogs unless I have an assignment but after researching the Manhattan Municipal Building for my precedent analysis project I was curious about the new world trade center building. I was reading an article about the Municipal Building saying that it might be turned into apartments and its offices such as the department of marriages and city hall would be moved to tower 4 of the new World Trade Center. Apparently there are going to be 4 towers to the new World Trade Center. The design was unveiled three years ago! I feel so out of the loop.

Freedom Tower is the original tower planned for the site and is supposedly going to be the tallest building in the world according to it's architects Skidmore, Owings and Merril (SOM). Three more towers were then added to the site designed by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Fumihiko Maki. The order of the towers are from left to right as follows: SOM tower 1, Foster tower 2, Rogers tower 3, and Maki tower 4. The designs are breathtaking and I am very excited to see how this grand center of architecture comes about. Of course each building has the safest building technology available such as separate staircases for firefighters in case of an emergency. I think I will let these designs speak for themselves!

Right: Richard Roger's tower 3 design

Opus Week 9

The Peacock Room in London

The culture and art of the east was illuminated to the western world when trade routes were opened up in the 1800s. Westerners loved eastern art and a flood of eastern inspired designs washed over cities such as London. The Peacock Room in London is an example of eastern inspired design in a western context. The man the room was designed worked in the Shipping industry and was obviously involved in trade, so it was only appropriate that his decor reflect his work (Massey).

Crystal Palace

New sources of materials and technologies rotated the direction of architecture completely. The 19th century saw the introduction of glass and metal into structures starting with the Crystal Palace. An expo showing the newest technologies of machines from around the world were shown off in the new machine-like technology of the glass and metal structure of the Crystal Palace (Roth).

Stained glass from Tassel House.

Floorplan of the main stairway in Tassel House showing the iron work and curvilinear details

Metalwork soon went from representing the straight geometric angles of machines to the curving organic qualities of the art nouveau movement. Movement and fluidity were beautifully captured in the metal work of such designs as the Tassel House designed by Victor Horta. One could say that art nouvaeu used the same sources of materials such as metal and glass and revised the male-like machine form of design into a colorful feminine form. Irony can be seen in art nouveau in that organic and human forms were recreated with industrial materials. (Massey)

The Stewart Building in NY now demolished.

While new design movements such as the arts and crafts and art nouvaeu were taking over the design world, buildings of the nineteenth century were still reflecting back on the past. The Stewart Building in New York, now demolished, is an example of a 19th century building with elements of the renaissance pasted on the front facade. The building employed art neavou elements along with the renaissance designs. The building is an early skyscraper/office building. If the building wasn't so hard to find information on I would have done my precedent analysis on it. In the library on campus there are a few very large books with plans of such buildings as The Stewart Building and that is where I first discovered it.

This week we've seen that architects were not fully branching out from the past and were still able to reflect upon ideas of the renaissance while they developed their work in art nouveu and the aesthetic movement. New trade routes and the very beginning of new technologies showed the beginnings of a new direction for architecture which would be later fulfilled in the 20th century.

Alternatives Unit Summary

The Ecstasy of St. Theresa by Bernini

Design movements tend to repeat themselves every other generation. This is because we desire to set ourselves apart from the previous generations in order to show that we have evolved. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity went from being the alternative religion to the religion pronounced by kingdoms throughout the European world. Christianity and Catholicism especially proved a great influence over architecture of the middle ages as seen through cathedrals. During the middles ages the world was introduced to both Romanesque and Gothic architecture. Romanesque architecture evolved into Gothic, then history repeated with Greek and Roman revivals of the Renaissance. Romanesque cathedrals were characterized by many of the same elements that characterize Gothic architecture such as groin vaults, cross plans, and pointed arches. Arcades, arches, and statuettes were ideas translated from Rome into this transitional style of architecture between Rome and the middle ages. Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture are connected through details and foundations in that details such as arches and columns were used throughout, and foundations such as cross plans are also found in each period. Each type of architecture was an alternative to its immediate predecessor.

Because mass was presented in Latin many people's religious experience was through the architecture of cathedrals. Stained glass and murals depicted religious stories such as the Crucifixion of Jesus. Michaelangelo's work for the Sistine Chapel which depicts a myriad of biblical stories and figures, may be the most well known of cathedral frescos. In addition, Bernini created a captivating sculpture, the Ecstacy of St. Theresa, for the Cornaro chapel which is a great example of story telling through imagery.

While some used literal imagery to inform the public about religion, cathedral architecture mimicked the idea of heaven as enormous and full of light. Architects of the time made cathedrals massive in scale and emphasized vertical elements and light more than anything else. Gothic Cathedrals such as Notre Dame of Amiens has breathtaking architectural details which mimic the idea of heaven. Patricks gothic cathedral website features the cathedral. The fourth image down of the vaulting at the cross depicts this exact notion of heaven in my opinion. The complexity of the vaulting also speaks to the complexity of the universe, God, and heaven itself.

Hierarchy is seen in these cathedrals where the alter is the most important place, raised up past the pews. Hierarchy of the members of the church can also be seen where the rich and most prominent people sit either in front or above the rest of the church members.
Moving on from Romanesque architecture the proceeding Gothic architecture of the middle ages can easily be found in castles. Flying buttresses, detailed wood and stonework, and dark heavy elements can describe Gothic architecture. Gothic Cathedrals however were full of light and rather than the dark and heavy architecture we imagine stone castles to be made of. The main differences are that the function and context of each piece of architecture. Castles were dwellings for Royalty and housed the main functions for government and the kingdom itself. They needed to be indestructable as to keep enemies from destroying the kingdom. They also needed to protect the King, therefore castles had many secret passages and were built with heavy stone elements. Cathedrals on the other hand, although strong, were not built to withstand battles. They were built for the communities worship and the display of the wealthy and religious.

Opus Week 8

Mid-century Modern Furniture: A twist of modern and mid-century designs. See Phillip Starck's Ghost Chair (right)

As designers we revise our work constantly, always looking to improve upon our creations. In class this week we touched on the fact that a current generation never looks back at their parent's generation for inspiration, rather we are inspired by our grandparents era and so forth. We are not seeing the demand for avocado cabinets and orange shag rugs because that is what our parents generation made popular. Today mid-century modern is a popular twist between the style that is popular today and the mid-century designs from our grandparents era.
Relating the urge for a current generation to rebel against it's immediate forefathers, the first Americans rebelled against the British and their opposition was reflected in the furniture of the time. In class we looked at two dining chairs, one predates the American Revolution and the other was made afterward. The dining chair on the left was made before the American Revolution and reflects the heavy imperial style of Great Britain. The chair on the right is much lighter in appearance and is more clean cut in it's lines possibly represents a fresh start, rising above the heavy ruling of the King. People of the renaissance looked back not to their immediate forefathers but to their ancestors before that. Renaissance architects looked to the classically inspired Romans and endeavored to make new forms with the fundamentals of the classic world intertwined in the design (Roth 397).


Throughout history, rulers and Kings have made their mark on the landscape through elaborate building programs from the Pyramids to the royal palace at Versailles. La Chateau de Versailles, the royal Chateau grandiosely revised by Louis XIV was originally much smaller and was used as a hunting lodge. Louis XIV took his revisions to an extreme by not only adding onto the building but changing the landscape completely (Roth 418). Revisions set design apart from the norm, they make work stand out, and they have a great influence on politics and social thought for the time.

Architecture tells a story to it's audience. Architects think deeply about the context of a building when devising its plans. For whom is this building for and where is it located? An audience not only is made up of a buildings users, but also the audience is made up of viewers of the building. For example, a building represents an institution such as UNCG or a government or kingdom. The architect of such buildings should always think about what message the building projects to the world since the world is architecture's audience.

This week we were introduced to the baroque period which was an architectural movement following the renaissance in the 17th century. Focus on light, movement, color, and materials characterize the baroque period. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini was a prominent sculptor and architect of the baroque period. His most famous work includes his sculpture of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa and the Piazza Di Pietra, also known as St. Peters Basilica (Roth 410). Piazza Di Pietra is mapped out so that all points are centralized, leading us to believe that all points really do lead to Rome.

A precise transition between one style to the next in architecture has never been achieved nor ever will be. Styles and periods overlap one another and skip generations periodically. Inspiration is drawn from numerous different eras in order to achieve a certain style. Blakemore speaks of transition as being a temporary moment between two eras (290). That is exactly what a transition in design is, a temporary moment. When we design a home the transition between the outdoors and indoors is a moment where there are two different entities joined by a common ground (the outdoors joined to the indoors through the doorway). Transitions are just as important as the main components in design because without transition our story can be lost in translation.

The datum of the midevil period left architects of the renaissance with the data to devise complicated structures such as the domes in renaissance churches. Each generation leaves a bit of datum for the next to build upon and improve. The French took what the people of the Renaissance did and revised and reworked what datum was left to them. Roth and Blakemore are historians that provide us, the next generation of architects with the datum of the past so we can better create the datum of the future. Datum now has another part to its definition within architecture because now technology holds the codes and plans that create architectural forms ie AutoCAD (1).

1. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=2704278

PA Deliverables

Essay

I. Original Municipal Building
II. Design Competition
III. Winners McKim, Mead, and White
IV. Architecture of building inspired by renaissance and classicism
V. New York City Skyscrapers
VI. Stalinist architecture inspired by Municipal Building
VII. Function and resounding effects of building on New Yorkers
VIII. Connecting buildings architectural details and building materials to commodity and symbolic nature of building
IX. Conclusion pulling together buildings influence on New Yorkers and the world..

Images

3 perspectives (watercolor & ink on watercolor paper, one black, white, and gray prismacolor markers)
1 interior section elevation (pencil and ink on vellum)
1 exterior front elevation (pencil and ink on velum)
2 plan views (Colored pencil and ink on vellum)
3 architectural details (prisma color markers, and pen on white bond paper)

I have some more exact research to do to figure out the best scale for these images. We have to base these images on other scaled down renderings we find and I'm not exactly sure how to do that, or if we first must find the original dimensions of the building in order to correctly draw our buildings.

Should we have a presentation board for our images? I thought we should but I'm not sure if that would mean that we would need to determine how large our boards could be in order to fit enough in a room for presentations.

Opus Week 7

P-Week

Periphery comes from the Greek word periphéreia meaning circumference. Periphery is the external boundary of a space and can be defined in architectural terms as the planning and division of space. Tying to our class discussion of Renaissance architecture the centralized courtyard is an open public area for guests in the Renaissance home. The periphery is marked off on all four sides where the courtyard gives way to the private rooms of the home. Visually this is saying that the boundary for guests stops at the periphery of the courtyard unless they are invited further into the home. You can find courtyards and plans as so in the villas and Palazzos of Italy such as the Pallazo Farnese and Pallazo Medici (Roth 376)

As designers and artists we put together our work in a Portfolio in order to look at our work as an overall picture. We see how we've improved and what we need to work on. In a broad sense architects do the same thing over time with building forms and materials. Architects look at what was successful and build upon that. The Renaissance was very much about reviving the successful parts of ancient architecture and re-working the details. The French took the ideas of the Renaissance and revived them even further (Blakemore 97). As building materials and other factors come into play we are always searching for more advanced ways of building through looking back at old techniques and improving on techniques that could be more successful. Looking at a detail in time the arch, which was extremely popular in Roman times, was transformed into a pointed arch in medieval times. Ste. Marie Souiallac features the first renditions of a pointed arch. Later the arch became even more pointed in the middle. This earie church also has detailed sculpture built into its columns of twisted bodies of people and animals. The columns and wall reliefs remind me of the column of Trajan in that they tell a story through sculpture rather than frescos. Looking at this church sends chills down my spine.



Design process can be long and drawn out in that there are so many steps one should take in order to create something original and well thought out. First one must do research, possibly a precedent analysis. Next the designer needs to brain storm ideas making sketch models and determining which ideas are successful and scraping the ideas that do not work. Then doing a series of more final models and eventually a scale model will help the designer understand how their creation works structurally and visually overall. Once a project comes to life and a designer's creation is actually built there is a whole new process of steps that come into play when physically bringing a design to life. From a history of design standpoint the architect Brunelleschi began studying Roman architecture in order to help him with his arch designs, this is like the first part of a design process in doing research or a precedent analysis (Roth 357).

Perspective is the way one views something. Blakemore talks about optical illusions in architecture through frescoes on walls and ceilings. The Sistine Chapel painted by Michaelangelo breaks the mold of simple wall frescoes in churches. Everything from the floor to the walls to the ceiling is painted with detailed depictions of biblical figures. The way the frescos are painted on the ceiling and the curve from the arches spaning across the periphery create a curved materpiece that makes it difficult to find where the wall ends and the ceiling begins. This is all because Michaelangelo painted with the perspective that these areas should be rounded and so he didn't paint the celing as flatly as he painted the walls. Thus the perspective he created is one of the most famous pieces of art in the world (Blakemore 154).

There are numerous professional design jobs today however in the 14th and 15th centuries there were mostly tradesmen, artists, and collaborators that worked together on constructing buildings. Similar to today however there were a few professionals that were well trained in the arts such as Brunelleschi who was both an artist and architect and known for the Duomo (1). Today architects are trained in drawing and the arts and many are artists on the side from being involved in architecture, IARC's own Tommy Lambeth, Stoel Burrows, and Suzanne Cabrera are all artists in their own right. A design professional today is usually trained in a broad range of subject areas and has a main focus where they are most talented or interested in.

1. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=hgk

Opus Week 6

Macro to Micro

In the renaissance people were looking back at the foundations of antiquity and attempting to build off of and improve upon the building achievements made by the Greeks, Romans, and other ancient civilizations. They also were looking back at ancient texts such as those by Cicero, Virgil, Plato, and Aristotle. A new generation of thought emerged. The poet Petrarch from mid-fourteenth-century Florentine 'stressed the study of the ancient authors and reliance on one's own observations' (Roth 356). Juxtaposing the repugnant conditions of the medieval period, the renaissance focused on beauty and the appreciation of nature. Detail played a large role in renaissance architecture. Most notably renaissance churches were full of intricate details, complex plans, and innovative building techniques (Roth 358). These details were not only for aesthetic purposes but they also visually extended the space (Blakemore 97). Wood beams, intricate domes, and detailed frescoes reached across the ceilings and expanded buildings such as renaissance churches. Churches and cathedrals represented heaven and architects used building techniques such as large scale columns, domes, and entrance ways that would leave the impression of a space that was broad and as intricate as possible.

Salisbury Cathedral

Cathedrals were not entirely about grandiose scale and the impression of heaven, they also were a place to worship and socialize. Church was where entire communities gathered and one's hierarchy in the community was constituted by where that person sat during the service. Families who invested in the church were able to sit in their own private chapels during a service since their money went to the building of these chapels. Often these wealthy families sat in a balcony area literally looking down upon those below them in stature. Church, much like the opera in the 17th century, was a place to 'see and be seen' (Roth ...).


One can diagram the Cathedral to further clarify the 'circulation, hierarchy, and function' of each space. Renaissance cathedrals usually were built in a cross-plan, a plan that formed the shape of the Christian cross. People would enter from the bottom of the cross and would proceed down a long aisle with pews flanking either side. Balconies and private chapels lined the outer walls of the church, and were placed closest to the alter. The top of the cross where the horizontal section overlaps the vertical aisle is where the most important people sat in their private chapels at the closest place to the alter and to heaven. Because these people were wealthy and were the dominant contributors to the church they were closest to God and were pardoned into heaven before all others of the church.


Another factor of the Cathedral that can be diagrammed is the three pronged Porch-Court-Hearth. The Porch-Court-Hearth layout was formally introduced in Greek society. The porch, court, and hearth are exemplified in the Acropolis. The porch is the entrance and at the Acropolis it is the Propylaia. The court is the gathering space where people disperse after entering. The hearth is the more secluded area towards the back with a religious statue for worship (Blakemore 31). This set-up is also represented in Roman households and the cathedrals of the renaissance. In Roman homes the porch and court were quite similar to the original purpose of entrance way and gathering area. The hearth in a Roman household would be the bedrooms or private rooms in the back.


The Porch-Court-Hearth trio are parts that make up the whole composition of the building. Dictionary.com defines a composition as 'combining parts or elements to form a whole'.