Sunday, March 15, 2009

Opus Post 7: P Week

Periphery- 
A periphery is an external boundary. The nile river for the ancient Egyptians was a periphery to the after life. The East side of the nile is afterlife where Egyptians symbolically go when they die (Blakemore 1-25). The Acropolis of Greece fulfilled a similar religious boundary in that its height as well as its wall separates religious officials from commoners. The commoners rely on the priests to communicate to the gods. The commoners protect Athens as it is a city on a hill from which lookout posts are able to see potential threats.

Portfolio- 
A portfolio is a body of work someone amasses for the purposes of presentation. Architecture is a portfolio in that each piece represents and is a progression from past developments. Our first year portfolios mostly comprise of our foundations not only in architecture but in drawing capability. By fourth year our design and drawing capabilities will be much more polished and each of us will perhaps find our own design and drawing style. Each country has its own portfolio of architecture in that it takes from other countries to create its own style and making that work public so that other countries can take from their design. When we see the "international style" skyscraper it hardly resembles pre and ancient historic architecture but all of its verticality and essential structure comes from those who came before us. 

Process-
When we enter an interior, often times parts of the structure show (whether they be dry wall sheathed engaged columns or parts of steel framing) allowing us to understand how the building stands and how it was built. The Romans perhaps had the same experience in their emulation of Greek architecture in that they made thier own progression from the idealized Greek columns to thier own iterations and composites. The ways in which the Egyptians progressed from the uncomfortable straight back chairs to eventually transforming to angled back chairs is an example how the ideal form (straight posture) is sacrificed for comfort (Blakemore 1-25). 

Perspective-
In creating our Portal project presentaions, I decided to make a claymation based around the baths of Caracalla and since the office door we had belonged to Shawn and Rich, I decided to incorporate them as well. I wanted the portal to seem like a passage/perspective to another time which Shawn and Rich unknowingly stumble upon. The portal has opened and the Romans and Spartans fight for the Baths and anyone who gets in their way is brought into the battle... 

In many ways when we enter an interior (unless it's been remodeled) we are brought into the perspective of the time. When I go to my grandmother's house everything right down to the carpet looks and smells like another time. The pictures on the old antique dressers are black and white. When you see the old dressers, tables, silver and chairs, the painstaking craft of each piece elicits an imagination of a world where things are hand made rather than mass produced in China. 

I've learned from perspective drawings recently that they help you to understand an exterior or interior space very intimately. You're observing how each line connects as well as reasoning how the structure works. The perspectives below are of the Bryan Business building and the EUC. 


Find this and my "portfolio" of other claymations under this youtube url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKbLL75WjnI




Professional-
Architecture seemed to make a large leap in its creation as it transitoned to the renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries. Patronism became a widespread resource for large public buildings rather than sole governmental funding (Blakemore 91-112). The professionalism of this era was brought on by architects such as Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Francesco Di Giorgio (1459-1501), and Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) who were often commissioned by the papacy or some private wealthy family such as the Medici (Blakemore 91-112). 


Citations-
Blakemore, R. G. (2006). History of Interior Design and Furniture. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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