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Lycée Français Charles De Gaulle Damascus, Syria
2013 On Site Review Report 4032.SYR by Wael Samhouri Lycée français Charles de Gaulle Damascus, Syria Architect Ateliers Lion Associés, Dagher, Hanna & Partners Client French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Design 2002 - 2006 Completed 2008 Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle Damascus, Syria I. Introduction The Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in Damascus, a school that houses 900 students from kindergarten up to baccalaureate level, is a garden-like school with classrooms integrated into an intricate system of courtyards and green patios. The main aim of the design was to set a precedent: a design in full respect of the environment that aspires to sustainability. Consequently it set out to eliminate air conditioning and use only natural ventilation, cooling, light/shadows and so economise also on running costs. The result is a project that fully reflects its aims and translates them into a special architectural language of forms with rhythms of alternating spaces, masses, gardens and a dramatic skyline rendered by the distinct vertical elements of the proposed solar chimneys. II. Contextual Information A. Brief historical background This is not an ordinary school, one that is merely expected to perform its educational functions although with a distinguishing characteristic: doing everything in French within an Arab country. Rather, it is a school with a great deal of symbolism and history attached to it. To illustrate this, suffice to say that this school, begun in 2006, was formally inaugurated by the French President himself. On a 2008 hot September Damascene morning, in the presence of world media, President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Syrian Minister of Education attended the formal opening of the school, in the hope of establishing a new phase of Franco-Syrian educational relations. -
The English Claim to Gothic: Contemporary Approaches to an Age-Old Debate (Under the Direction of DR STEFAAN VAN LIEFFERINGE)
ABSTRACT MARY ELIZABETH BLUME The English Claim to Gothic: Contemporary Approaches to an Age-Old Debate (Under the Direction of DR STEFAAN VAN LIEFFERINGE) The Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century in Europe aroused a debate concerning the origin of a style already six centuries old. Besides the underlying quandary of how to define or identify “Gothic” structures, the Victorian revivalists fought vehemently over the national birthright of the style. Although Gothic has been traditionally acknowledged as having French origins, English revivalists insisted on the autonomy of English Gothic as a distinct and independent style of architecture in origin and development. Surprisingly, nearly two centuries later, the debate over Gothic’s nationality persists, though the nationalistic tug-of-war has given way to the more scholarly contest to uncover the style’s authentic origins. Traditionally, scholarship took structural or formal approaches, which struggled to classify structures into rigidly defined periods of formal development. As the Gothic style did not develop in such a cleanly linear fashion, this practice of retrospective labeling took a second place to cultural approaches that consider the Gothic style as a material manifestation of an overarching conscious Gothic cultural movement. Nevertheless, scholars still frequently look to the Isle-de-France when discussing Gothic’s formal and cultural beginnings. Gothic historians have entered a period of reflection upon the field’s historiography, questioning methodological paradigms. This -
The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance
•••••••• ••• •• • .. • ••••---• • • - • • ••••••• •• ••••••••• • •• ••• ••• •• • •••• .... ••• .. .. • .. •• • • .. ••••••••••••••• .. eo__,_.. _ ••,., .... • • •••••• ..... •••••• .. ••••• •-.• . PETER MlJRRAY . 0 • •-•• • • • •• • • • • • •• 0 ., • • • ...... ... • • , .,.._, • • , - _,._•- •• • •OH • • • u • o H ·o ,o ,.,,,. • . , ........,__ I- .,- --, - Bo&ton Public ~ BoeMft; MA 02111 The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance ... ... .. \ .- "' ~ - .· .., , #!ft . l . ,."- , .• ~ I' .; ... ..__ \ ... : ,. , ' l '~,, , . \ f I • ' L , , I ,, ~ ', • • L • '. • , I - I 11 •. -... \' I • ' j I • , • t l ' ·n I ' ' . • • \• \\i• _I >-. ' • - - . -, - •• ·- .J .. '- - ... ¥4 "- '"' I Pcrc1·'· , . The co11I 1~, bv, Glacou10 t l t.:• lla l'on.1 ,111d 1 ll01nc\ S t 1, XX \)O l)on1c111c. o Ponrnna. • The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance New Revised Edition Peter Murray 202 illustrations Schocken Books · New York • For M.D. H~ Teacher and Prie11d For the seamd edillo11 .I ltrwe f(!U,riucu cerurir, passtJgts-,wwbly thOS<' on St Ptter's awl 011 Pnlladfo~ clmrdses---mul I lr,rvl' takeu rhe t>pportrmil)' to itJcorporate m'1U)1 corrt·ctfons suggeSLed to nu.• byfriet1ds mu! re11iewers. T'he publishers lwvc allowed mr to ddd several nt•w illusrra,fons, and I slumld like 10 rltank .1\ Ir A,firlwd I Vlu,.e/trJOr h,'s /Jelp wft/J rhe~e. 711f 1,pporrrm,ty /t,,s 11/so bee,r ft1ke,; Jo rrv,se rhe Biblfogmpl,y. Fc>r t/Jis third edUfor, many r,l(lre s1m1II cluu~J!eS lwvi: been m"de a,,_d the Biblio,~raphy has (IJICt more hN!tl extet1si11ely revised dtul brought up to date berause there has l,een mt e,wrmc>uJ incretlJl' ;,, i111eres1 in lt.1lim, ,1rrhi1ea1JrP sittr<• 1963,. wlte-,r 11,is book was firs, publi$hed. It sh<>uld be 110/NI that I haw consistc11tl)' used t/1cj<>rm, 1./251JO and 1./25-30 to 111e,w,.firs1, 'at some poiHI betwt.·en 1-125 nnd 1430', .md, .stamd, 'begi,miug ilJ 1425 and rnding in 14.10'. -
Palladio's Influence in America
Palladio’s Influence In America Calder Loth, Senior Architectural Historian, Virginia Department of Historic Resources 2008 marks the 500th anniversary of Palladio’s birth. We might ask why Americans should consider this to be a cause for celebration. Why should we be concerned about an Italian architect who lived so long ago and far away? As we shall see, however, this architect, whom the average American has never heard of, has had a profound impact on the architectural image of our country, even the city of Baltimore. But before we investigate his influence we should briefly explain what Palladio’s career involved. Palladio, of course, designed many outstanding buildings, but until the twentieth century few Americans ever saw any of Palladio’s works firsthand. From our standpoint, Palladio’s most important achievement was writing about architecture. His seminal publication, I Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura or The Four Books on Architecture, was perhaps the most influential treatise on architecture ever written. Much of the material in that work was the result of Palladio’s extensive study of the ruins of ancient Roman buildings. This effort was part of the Italian Renaissance movement: the rediscovery of the civilization of ancient Rome—its arts, literature, science, and architecture. Palladio was by no means the only architect of his time to undertake such a study and produce a publication about it. Nevertheless, Palladio’s drawings and text were far more engaging, comprehendible, informative, and useful than similar efforts by contemporaries. As with most Renaissance-period architectural treatises, Palladio illustrated and described how to delineate and construct the five orders—the five principal types of ancient columns and their entablatures. -
Title: the Avant-Garde in the Architecture and Visual Arts of Post
1 Title: The avant-garde in the architecture and visual arts of Post-Revolutionary Mexico Author: Fernando N. Winfield Architecture_media_politics_society. vol. 1, no.3. November 2012 Mexico City / Portrait of an Architect with the City as Background. Painting by Juan O´Gorman (1949). Museum of Modern Art, Mexico. Commenting on an exhibition of contemporary Mexican architecture in Rome in 1957, the polemic and highly influential Italian architectural critic and historian, Bruno Zevi, ridiculed Mexican modernism for combining Pre-Columbian motifs with modern architecture. He referred to it as ‘Mexican Grotesque.’1 Inherent in Zevi’s comments were an attitude towards modern architecture that defined it in primarily material terms; its principle role being one of “spatial and programmatic function.” Despite the weight of this Modernist tendency in the architectural circles of Post-Revolutionary Mexico, we suggest in this paper that Mexican modernism cannot be reduced to such “material” definitions. In the highly charged political context of Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century, modern architecture was perhaps above all else, a tool for propaganda. ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY Vol. 1, no.3. November 2012 1 2 In this political atmosphere it was undesirable, indeed it was seen as impossible, to separate art, architecture and politics in a way that would be a direct reflection of Modern architecture’s European manifestations. Form was to follow function, but that function was to be communicative as well as spatial and programmatic. One consequence of this “political communicative function” in Mexico was the combination of the “mural tradition” with contemporary architectural design; what Zevi defined as “Mexican Grotesque.” In this paper, we will examine the political context of Post-Revolutionary Mexico and discuss what may be defined as its most iconic building; the Central Library at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. -
The Art of Architecture
LEARNING TO LOOK AT ARCHITECTURE LOOK: Allow yourself to take the time to slow down and look carefully. OBSERVE: Observation is an active process, requiring both time and attention. It is here that the viewer begins to build up a mental catalogue of the building’s You spend time in buildings every day. But how often visual elements. do you really look at or think about their design, their details, and the spaces they create? What did the SEE: Looking is a physical act; seeing is a mental process of perception. Seeing involves recognizing or connecting the information the eyes take in architect want you to feel or think once inside the with your previous knowledge and experiences in order to create meaning. structure? Following the steps in TMA’s Art of Seeing Art™* process can help you explore architecture on DESCRIBE: Describing can help you to identify and organize your thoughts about what you have seen. It may be helpful to think of describing as taking a deeper level through close looking. a careful inventory. ANALYZE: Analysis uses the details you identified in your descriptions and LOOK INTERPRET applies reason to make meaning. Once details have been absorbed, you’re ready to analyze what you’re seeing through these four lenses: OBSERVE ANALYZE FORM SYMBOLS IDEAS MEANING SEE DESCRIBE INTERPRET: Interpretation, the final step in the Art of Seeing Art™ process, combines our descriptions and analysis with our previous knowledge and any information we have about the artist and the work—or in this case, * For more information on the Art of Seeing Art and visual literacy, the architect and the building. -
La Défense / Zone B (1953-91): Light and Shadows of the French Welfare State Pierre Chabard
71 La Défense / Zone B (1953-91): Light and Shadows of the French Welfare State Pierre Chabard The business district of La Défense, with its luxu- The history of La Défense Zone B during the rious office buildings, is a typical example of the second half of the twentieth century gives a very French version of welfare state policy1: centralism, clear - and even caricatural - illustration not only of modernism, and confusion between public and the urban and architectural consequences of the private elites.2 This district was initially planned in French welfare state - both positive and negative 1958 by the Etablissement Public d’Aménagement - but also of its crisis, which emerged in the 1970s de la région de La Défense (EPAD), the first such and influenced the development of other types of planning organism controlled by the state. But this urban governance and planning. Therefore, Zone B district, called Zone A (130 ha), constitutes only a offers a relevant terrain for analysing relationships small part of the operational sector of the EPAD; between the political and architectural aspects of the other part, Zone B (620 ha), coincides with the this history since the end of World War II. Indeed, northern part of the city of Nanterre, capital of the this case study suggests a rather unexpected double Hauts-de-Seine district. Characterized for a long assumption: while French architecture of the 1950s time by agriculture and market gardening, this city and 1960s is generally considered by architectural underwent a strong process of industrialization history as pompous, authoritarian and subjected to at the turn of the twentieth century, welcoming a power, here it can appear incredibly free, inventive great number of workers and immigrants, a popula- and experimental. -
The Evolution of Renaissance Classicism
The Evolution of Renaissance Classicism From "World History Encyclopedia" Copyright 2011 by ABC-CLIO,LLC The term "Renaissance classicism" refers to a fundamental attribute of the period that scholars refer to as the European Renaissance, roughly 1400–1600. Renaissance classicism was an intellectual movement that sought to mimic the literature, rhetoric, art, and philosophy of the ancient world, specifically ancient Rome. Scholars, politicians, and philosophers looked to ancient literary and artistic models for inspiration, and in turn this love of the classical world is termed classicism. The interest in the classical world was not new in the fifteenth century. In fact, there were powerful classicist themes in medieval Europe’s scholarship, law, and art. However, when eighteenth- and nineteenth- century scholars sought to find the origins of their modern secular worldview, instead of pointing to the medieval classicists they pointed to the Italian (and other) classicists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Most notable among these modern scholars was the historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897). Burckhardt claimed that the model of ancient Rome sparked a more secular individualistic society in Renaissance Italy. Burckhardt’s rosy view of the Renaissance generally ignored the importance of religion, the horrors of incessant warfare, and the agonies of daily life during the period. Nevertheless, his research did point to the importance of classicism in the intellectual life of the Renaissance, a point on which later scholars elaborated. > ELEGANCES OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE Lorenzo Valla’s (1407–1457) Elegances of the Latin Language (1444) is a paean to the ancient Roman orators. In this section, Valla castigates the medieval period for what he believes to be a lack of learning and an ignorance of the classical world. -
Georgian Architecture | Higher Level Notes
Georgian Architecture | Higher Level Notes Historical Background § 1714-1830 in Ireland and Britain § Influences: Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and Palladio (Italian Renaissance architect) § Grand tours exposed people to Renaissance and Roman architecture § People began building classical mansions after these grand tours § Growing prosperity, rich society, political independence § Dublin was growing – Golden Age for architecture § Drawing school founded § 1800: Act of Union – cultural and economic decline Palladianism § Classical architectural style influenced by Palladio § Two types of Georgian architecture: Palladian and Neoclassical (Ancient Rome & Greece) § Features of Palladianism: 1. Carefully calculated proportions 2. Simple decoration 3. Symmetrical façade 4. Big central entrance hall 5. Wings on both sides § Three types of pillars: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian § Palladian houses are mansions in the countryside Edward Lovett Pearce (architect) § Anglo-Irish family § Completed a Grand Tour in France and Italy Georgian Architecture | Notes 1 § Influenced by Palladio § Met Alessandro Galilei (façade of Castletown) in Florence § Worked on Castletown in 1725 § Member of Irish Parliament from 1728 § Designed new Parliament House on College Green Castletown House § Celbridge, Co. Kildare § Oldest Palladian mansion in Ireland (built in 1720s) § Built for William Connolly (speaker in the House of Commons at the time) § Alessandro Galilei and Edward Lovett Pearce are the architects § Three-storey central block similar to Renaissance city palace -
Neoclassical Architecture 1 Neoclassical Architecture
Neoclassical architecture 1 Neoclassical architecture Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, both as a reaction against the Rococo style of anti-tectonic naturalistic ornament, and an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque. In its purest form it is a style principally derived from the architecture of Classical Greece and the architecture of Italian Andrea Palladio. The Cathedral of Vilnius (1783), by Laurynas Gucevičius Origins Siegfried Giedion, whose first book (1922) had the suggestive title Late Baroque and Romantic Classicism, asserted later[1] "The Louis XVI style formed in shape and structure the end of late baroque tendencies, with classicism serving as its framework." In the sense that neoclassicism in architecture is evocative and picturesque, a recreation of a distant, lost world, it is, as Giedion suggests, framed within the Romantic sensibility. Intellectually Neoclassicism was symptomatic of a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, the more vague perception ("ideal") of Ancient Greek arts and, to a lesser extent, sixteenth-century Renaissance Classicism, the source for academic Late Baroque. Many neoclassical architects were influenced by the drawings and projects of Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude Nicolas Ledoux. The many graphite drawings of Boullée and his students depict architecture that emulates the eternality of the universe. There are links between Boullée's ideas and Edmund Burke's conception of the sublime. Pulteney Bridge, Bath, England, by Robert Adam Ledoux addressed the concept of architectural character, maintaining that a building should immediately communicate its function to the viewer. -
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe's Richard King Mellon Hall of Science and Michael Graves's Erickson Alumni Center
Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2011 Classicism as Foundation in Architecture: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Richard King Mellon Hall of Science and Michael Graves's Erickson Alumni Center Elizabeth Stoloff Vehse West Virginia University Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Vehse, Elizabeth Stoloff, "Classicism as Foundation in Architecture: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Richard King Mellon Hall of Science and Michael Graves's Erickson Alumni Center" (2011). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 848. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/848 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Classicism as Foundation in Architecture: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Richard King Mellon Hall of Science and Michael Graves’s Erickson Alumni Center Elizabeth Stoloff Vehse Thesis submitted to the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History Kristina Olson, M.A., Chair Janet Snyder, Ph.D. -
Ottoman Baroque
© Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Introduction It is fair and accurate to say that this beautiful building and gladdening house of worship— all of solid marble and so charming— has no like or counterpart not only in the capital [Istanbul], but indeed in [all] the lands of Islam. —Ahmed efendİ, construction accountant of the nuruosmanİye mosque The mosque that Sultan Mahamout had built is, without doubt, the most beautiful that one can see in the Empire, after one has seen St. Sophia. — Jean-Claude flachat, french merchant and resident of istanbul ritten of the mid- eighteenth- century Nuruosmaniye Mosque by authors contemporary with its construction, these statements may surprise the Wmodern observer (fig. 1). So conditioned are we to locate the heyday of Ottoman architecture in the sixteenth century— and above all in the works of Sinan (d. 1588)— that it is difficult to credit that a later building could have excited such praise. If the first statement might be dismissed as mere hyperbole on the part of an Ottoman official involved in the mosque’s construction, the second— penned by a Frenchman with no connection to the project— cannot be so easily disregarded. Indeed, the widespread acclaim that greeted the Nuruosmaniye bespeaks a mo- mentous shift in the history of Ottoman architecture, one embedded in, and itself constitutive of, far- reaching sociopolitical developments. The modern focus on the period before 1600— what has come to be known as the Ottoman classical age— has obscured the decisive role of the eighteenth century in (re)shaping the Ottoman Em- Fig.