Introduction to Architecture 06.09.2011
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INTRODUCTION TO ARCHITECTURE 06.09.2011 Vitruvius: The Education Of The Architect extract from The Ten Books on Architecture written between 27 and 15 BC; translated by Morris Hicky Morgan, in 1914 1. The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory. Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of employment where manual work is done with any necessary material according to the design of a drawing. Theory, on the other hand, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the productions of dexterity on the principles of proportion. 2. It follows, therefore, that architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them. 3. In all matters, but particularly in architecture, there are these two points:- the thing signified, and that which gives it its significance. That which is signified is the subject of which we may be speaking; and that which gives significance is a demonstration on scientific principles. It appears, then, that one who professes himself an architect should be well versed in both directions. He ought, therefore, to be both naturally gifted and amenable to instruction. Neither natural ability without instruction nor instruction without natural ability can make the perfect artist. Let him be educated, skilful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens. www.pritzkerprize.com youtube - Charlie Rose - Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honor "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture". Founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and is considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes; it is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture. The prize is awarded "irrespective of nationality, race, creed, or ideology"; the recipients receive US$100,000, a citation certificate, and since 1987, a bronze medallion. The Latin inscription on the reverse of the medallion— firmitas, utilitas, venustas (English: durability, utility, and beauty) - is inspired by Roman architect Vitruvius. The jury, each year consisting of five to nine "experts ... recognized professionals in their own fields of architecture, business, education, publishing, and culture", deliberate early the following year before announcing the winner in spring. Inaugural winner Philip Johnson was cited "for 50 years of imagination and vitality embodied in a myriad of museums, theaters, libraries, houses, gardens and corporate structures". Philip Johnson - 1979 b. USA, 1906; d. 2005 Philip Johnson was a museum director, writer, and, most notably, an architect known for his unconventional designs. His work incorporated diverse influences such as the neoclassicism and the modernism. After graduation from Harvard in 1930, Philip Johnson became the first Director of the Department of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He coined the term International Style and introduced the work of modern European architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier to America. Johnson returned to Harvard University in 1940 to study architecture under Marcel Breuer. For his master degree thesis, he designed a residence for himself, the now famous Glass House (1949), which has been called one of the world's most beautiful and yet least functional homes. He would later collaborate with Mies van der Rohe on what is considered the most superb skyscraper in North America, the Seagram Building in New York City (1958). Philip Johnson's buildings were luxurious in scale and materials, featuring expansive interior space and a classical sense of symmetry and elegance. In 1979, Philip Johnson was honored with the first Pritzker Architecture Prize in recognition of "50 years of imagination and vitality embodied in a myriad of museums, theatres, libraries, houses, gardens and corporate structures." Peter Zumthor - 2009 b. Switzerland, 1943 Peter Zumthor is a master architect admired by his colleagues around the world for work that is focused, uncompromising and exceptionally determined. He has conceived his method of practice almost as carefully as each of his projects. For 30 years, he has been based in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss mountains, removed from the flurry of activity of the international architectural scene. There, together with a small team, he develops buildings of great integrity—untouched by fad or fashion. Declining a majority of the commissions that come his way, he only accepts a project if he feels a deep affinity for its program, and from the moment of commitment, his devotion is complete, overseeing the project‟s realization to the very last detail. His buildings have a commanding presence, yet they prove the power of judicious intervention, showing us again and again that modesty in approach and boldness in overall result are not mutually exclusive. Humility resides alongside strength. While some have called his architecture quiet, his buildings masterfully assert their presence, engaging many of our senses, not just our sight but also our senses of touch, hearing and smell. Zumthor has a keen ability to create places that are much more than a single building. His architecture expresses respect for the primacy of the site, the legacy of a local culture and the invaluable lessons of architectural history. The Kolumba Museum in Cologne, for example, is not only a startling contemporary work but also one that is completely at ease with its many layers of history. Here, Zumthor has produced a building that emerges from the remains of a bombed church in the most inevitable and lyrical of ways, intertwining place and memory in an entirely new palimpsest. This has always been the compelling character of this architect‟s work, from the singular yet universal breath of faith inscribed in the tiny field chapel in the village of Wachendorf, Germany, to the mineral mist in the thermal baths at Vals, Switzerland. For him, the role of the architect is not just to construct a fixed object but also to anticipate and choreograph the experience of moving through and around a building. In Zumthor‟s skillful hands, like those of the consummate craftsman, materials from cedar shingles to sandblasted glass are used in a way that celebrates their own unique qualities, all in the service of an architecture of permanence. The same penetrating vision and subtle poetry are evident in his writings as well, which, like his portfolio of buildings, have inspired generations of students. In paring down architecture to its barest yet most sumptuous essentials, he has reaffirmed architecture‟s indispensable place in a fragile world. For all of these reasons, Peter Zumthor is the recipient of the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize. "I believe that architecture today needs to reflect on the tasks and possibilities which are inherently its own. Architecture is not a vehicle or a symbol for things that do not belong to its essence. In a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture can put up a resistance, counteract the waste of forms and meanings, and speak its own language. I believe that the language of architecture is not a question of a specific style. Every building is built for a specific use in a specific place and for a specific society. My buildings try to answer the questions that emerge from these simple facts as precisely and critically as they can." Thinking Architecture by Peter Zumthor 1998 The 34th and most recent winners Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa were cited for "architecture that is simultaneously delicate and powerful, precise and fluid, ingenious but not overly or overtly clever". SANAA - 2010 Kazuyo Sejima (born in Japan 1956) and Ryue Nishizawa (born in Japan 1966) For more than 15 years, architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have worked together in their collaborative partnership, SANAA, where it is virtually impossible to untangle which individual is responsible for what aspect of a particular project. Each building is ultimately a work that comes from the union of their two minds. Together they have produced major commissions, such as the O-Museum in Nagano and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (both in Japan), the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum (Ohio), De Kunstline Theater and Cultural Center (Almere, the Netherlands), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, NY), and the recent Rolex Learning Center (Lausanne, Switzerland). The buildings by Sejima and Nishizawa seem deceptively simple. The architects hold a vision of a building as a seamless whole, where the physical presence retreats and forms a sensuous background for people, objects, activities, and landscapes. They explore like few others the phenomenal properties of continuous space, lightness, transparency, and materiality to create a subtle synthesis. Sejima and Nishizawa‟s architecture stands in direct contrast with the bombastic and rhetorical. Instead, they seek the essential qualities of architecture that result in a much-appreciated straightforwardness, economy of means, and restraint in their work. This economy of means, however, does not become a simple reductive operation in the architects‟ hands.