Sunday 27 March 2011

New movement ? Bigness

     Modernist cares about function with the simplest forms without decorative facades. Also, they do not care about the site context. On the other hand, Post-modern style brings context to their attention, their architecture deliver the message to the public by using architecture such as decorative facade etc.

     Rem Koolhaas consider mass-produce building such as shophouse, suburbia etc as a junk space, space that not incorporate with site, you can put it in any location. It does not matter where the building located. His solution to the Junk space is "Bigness" He said "Bigness is ultimate architecture. It seems incredible that the size of a building alone embodies an ideological program, independent of the will of its architecture "For example, CCTV building does not cooperate with its site; however, it does not matter because the building is already became the context itself, because of its bigness.

     Personally, I adore his break through thinking and his terms, like Bigness or S M L XL. When you are in a gigantic building, you are being attracted to its bigness so much that you could be ignoring some primary elements or contexts of the site. For instance, the light affect to the building, or the surrounding of the building itself. Indeed, being big does not always has the upsides. The downside of being too big is that the building to become hard to control in term of both construction method and effects to the people inside of the building.With more advance in technology like parametric program etc., it could change the ways the architect designs architectures. Bigness is primary break-through idea of architectural design. In the near future, we might found the new source of architectural movement, WHO KNOWS.
CCTV BUILDING







Seattle Central Library


Architecture without meaning is no value!

The value of the architecture is the hidden meaning. To simplify it or to take it away, devalue the architecture. Indeed, modernism try to minimize the architecture without concerning the context.All they care about how simple the building is and how the architecture like it. Personally, they are trying to set up the format for what is called a good architecture and what is not. Art supposed to be many dimensions for the viewers to think as well as architecture. That is what post-modern architecture does.

For example, This is the building by John Nuwell "Cartier Foundation". You may the notice the reflection of the facade contain the meaning. Some part of the glass facade has a void. Thus the ones who see the reflection doubt the meaning what is real, What is Hyperreal? Those thing make that architecture a interesting to look. Not just straight forward architecture.

These a example of the simple object, that had been giving value to it. It is the fountain. The art work by Marcel Duchamp. He is try question what is art and what is not art. By using every day object, and exhibit in the exhibition. People cannot denied that it is not art, because here it is exhibited in the room and treated like art.

Cartier Foundation _ John Nuwell

Sunday 20 March 2011

Post Modern, Modern What 's next ?!

      Language is the method of human communicationeither spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional. Representation is the way the language represent itself.  You cannot said that this language is bad or good. Meaning change and transform of language from one meaning to other meaning is occurred through time. Architecture is like a language. It could transformable and adaptable. Change in architecture From Egyptian to Greek and Roman, Post modern to Modern. It is like a change in language. It is still language with try to communicate to people in different way and different element.


     Post-modern being from the 1950s, however it is not yet a style until 1970s. 
"Postmodern architecture has also been described as "neo-eclectic", where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles." In Post-modern, according to Venturi "Architects can bemoan or try to ignore them (referring to the ornamental and decorative elements in buildings) or even try to abolish them, but they will not go away. Or they will not go away for a long time, because architects do not have the power to replace them (nor do they know what to replace them with)."


     Ornamental and decorative is necessary for communication. It give the meaning of the building to the public There is no one meaning. Communication can be interpreted in many way so does architecture. The good architecture for post-modern should have many dimensions and layering of meanings.


Front facade of the Vanna Venturi house, one of the first major works of post modern architecture, known especially for the facade and its split gable. The signs tell the function of the house
House VI / Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman said "Loss in Integrity" of nowadays architecture". 






Modernism try to present function.
On the other hand, according to Modernists Post modern is "the democratization of the culture under industrialism" "Post-Modern is aimless, anarchic, amorphous, self-indulgent, inclusive, horizontally structured and aims for popular".



Sunday 6 March 2011

QUESTIONING WHETHER MODERNISM A GOOD LIVING PLACE?

Mies said "LESS IS MORE" OR "LESS IS BORE"

(1951 Mies van der Rohe designed Farnsworth House)


The simplicity is the best?





May be, when the architect force his architecture to be what he want so much, in this case force himself  with phrase "Less is more".  Is it good for living? Is it comfortable? Personally, I feel that Modern house is not lively.  In the movie in 1967, Play time. It is a mock-modernism film which show how modernism affect and force people to be the way they were.  People are dress the same way in the same color tone. It is story of a man who unfamiliar with the place and how he react to them. His behavior create compare and contrast between one who knows the place and one who did not. The building use glass facade and in rectangular shape.All the geometry shape of the building, the rectangular interior decoration with concrete, all place looks rigid and not lively. Even though the building look manifest but undoubtedly not comfortable to live as if you live in your non-modern house. On the other hand, and I would feel more comfort live in non-mordern home. It feel that there is no limitation or so much program that force habitant to live.