Sunday 1 May 2011

Final Manifesto

          One can not denied that the acknowledgment of the architectural history affect our architectural design today. The linkage still strongly bond till today. From the studying From 
Ancient architecture, Renaissance, Baroque, Neo-Classicism, Modernism to post-modernism, ones can begin to understand architecture transformation through time. The factor that influences in the movement, the belief, and the style are various: the society, technology, world war (propaganda). Generally speaking, studying history would be a lot easier if we have a person who can live for 800 year, then we would not have to guess anything, because the facts are right in front of us. However, that is impossible and that why are here using architectures, painting, sculpture as our historical reference.
I divided my manifesto in to four parts: “Are we just now modern”, “when ornamentation is crime”, “counterattack on modernism” and “recycle of history”. The rebellion in architecture is not something new. The new style emerge by bring the classical elements to further its efficient(Renaissance). Then,others came up with more breaking through and more expressive shape and from (Baroque). Then, After a century, they starting to combining them together (age of enlightenment),beauty and function. Then, after another century, the Sliver prince, Walter Gropius, came up and talk about “starting from zero”(Wolfe,8). He is as a bomb, which destroying the classicalism. He said that those ornamentation and massive decorative facade are unnecessary and create a classes and level of people in society. During the WWII, a lot of complication occurred, the idea had been sent worldwide. After the war, it became International style which first introduce in European, then American. The elements and slogan have been introduce to people by Le Corbusier ‘s principles, Mies Van de Rohe “Less is more”etc. The common elements of the modernism are clear facade, white color, glasses, steel expose structure,I-beam. Some people adore it, some are not. That give birth to post modernism emerge. The arguments by both modernism and early post modernism accuse each other ‘s notion and belief. Then, the second generation modernists,who are more expressive in shape, and concern more about site context matter. This period is a transformation period from late Modernism to high post modernism.
In my opinion of what causes that emerge of the new style is perfectness. The experiment of form, fusion in architecture, those development aims for the perfectness in beauty and uniqueness. Naturally, when something reach its maximum climate, it is start get bored by the audiences and it slowly loss attraction, so does the architecture. That period is when the new movement, the new style are becoming to the attention.There will always have some people who want to conserve the old idea, the conventional style which it is a original. They deem the original as the most perfect architecture, such as golden ratio, symmetry and proportion, they try to preserve it. As a result, there we are again at the age of restoration, bring back the old classical elements. History is a recycle. It will come back, in different form, but it still live.
Moreover, It is hard to judge whether this movement is bad or good, because we are living in the different time in different society, ritual,belief and political situation. And those things are the contributors to the architecture at different period of time. In other words, ones can see the architecture and could interpret what is going on during the period, incase of other documentation are not existed.