Opus Week One

A large theme in the book Understanding Architecture (Roth) is the idea of commodity, firmness, and delight in architecture. Firmness refers the structure and many architects like to play with the idea of buildings being firm, or the opposite of that. Curving undulating walls, glass boxed buildings, and many other tricks in architecture try to create an image of a building that is not simply four heavy walls and an entrance. Also architects and artists alike enjoy playing with the idea that a piece of the structure is just barely holding on or about to fall off the side. This can be better explained visually with looking at Paulsen and Gardner's Shapero Hall Pharmacy on the campus of Wayne State University. The "heavier" and larger elements are on top of the smaller structure and visually this makes us wonder how the top elements are held up by the smallest component. Strucurally architects can do this up to a certain point when built correctly.

My second image on this page is referring to Roth's discussion of delight in architecture. I drew the image of Notre Dame de Chartes from the book. I could look at this piece of architecture for hours because it is so complex and as Sir Henry Wotten calls it, delightful! I love how the two towers carry similar elements such as the bottom half of the towers have similar openings. However the top of each tower is drastically different and this makes the building much more interesting and I think beautiful.

The idea that architecture is not architecture unless is delights is based on people's personal opinions. What makes the delight of St. Basil's Cathedral any different from the color murals on dirty city streets? I'm sure that St. Basil's would amaze me if I saw it in person more than a simple mural would but a mother who's child helped paint this mural may find more delight in the more meek piece of architecture than the grand cathedral.






The reading from Roth also talks about proximity and negative and positive space. Positive space is one that takes up a space that was negative or bare beforehand. Negative space can be compared to hollowing out a cave for a dwelling. It takes an already existing solid and hollows it out. I am not in any studio courses so I am able to relate this part of the class to my sociology class when speaking about personal space. Architects and urban planners must always keep in mind how much personal space people need and cater to that need when planning a specific building. When on a crowded subway car many people are fine with being quite close to one another because it is the cultural norm. However, if one goes to the opera and pays a nice amount of money for the tickets he or she would not want to sit as close to the person next to them as they might on a subway car. It's all about the environment in which you are at the time that determines whether you will be comfortable being close to someone.

Finally tying back to where we started in class with the Golden section/nautilus shell I see there are many layers to architecture as a whole that we can pick apart and look at individually. We can look at the social and psychological implications, the artistic and visual aspects, or the structural and functional aspects. Some people might see a very plain building by Le Corbusier as the ideal form of architecture while others might view the Amiens Cathedral as the best. We are all entitled to our personal opinions because there are far to many layers to architecture for us all to agree upon.