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Harbor and Sydney Opera House Photographic Print Abell, Sam 24 in. x 18 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed Mounted All these considerations are of such importance because, without them, we cannot do justice to the greatest of the functional arts, the art of building, known as architecture.
Since we could include a shed, a pig-sty or a prison (buildings no one will class as art) under the broad heading of architecture, we must ask ourselves what makes architecture an art. The answer is exactly the same as in the case of the crafts. It is a matter of telling disposition, the ordering of space, mass and planes. Man has a sense of proportion.
Proportions can be expressed in numbers, and many great architects from the earliest times to the present day have based their designs on geometry. But only the artist knows what form of construction to use in any given circumstances. Relative proportions also vary with the spirit of the times. Although man is always taken as the measure of architecture, this does not mean that the scale of a building must be commensurate with the human figure. Some buildings are designed to make man feel his smallness and insignificance.
Architecture may aim to preserve bulk and monumentality, as in Romanesque art, or it may combat the solidity of the walls and make them 'dissolve', as in the Gothic cathedrals. The architect may emphasise and separate supporting and buttressing components, but he may also integrate them. As in all the arts, everything will depend on the particular cultural level attained. Unlike other works of art, buildings are monuments to an epoch rather than expressions of individual aspiration. Architecture is essentially directed towards the greater public.
Architecture has much in common with sculpture. Both favour stone, wood and clay. Even ferroconcrete has its antecedent in the iron-framed plaster cast of the sculptor. A column or pillar ranks as a piece of sculpture where it appears on its own -- as sometimes happens. Earlier wooden or stone buildings are unthinkable without the work of the sculptor or the wood-carver, even when they are not decorated with actual figures. The architect in the modern sense of one who is only concerned with the structure and so-called conveniences of a building is a product of our age. Most of the early architects were mason-sculptors.
Monumental architecture does not appear amongst the more primitive civilisations although other art forms are often very well represented. Architecture demands an advanced stage of awareness, an ability not only to visualize but to benefit by experience -- both conscious and subconscious. It does not appeal to the eye alone. Rooms need walking through and looking at from different vantage points -recourse to what might be called a 'sense of movement'. A sense of distance -- even of sound (echoing halls) -- matters as much as the sense of gravity.
Early architecture was conceived in terms of volume rather than of space. A veritable forest of pillars crowds the interior of Egyptian temples. The impressive columns of a Greek temple contrast markedly with the very modest hall, the cella; but in the Gothic cathedral the point of departure is the interior space, which the whole complicated system of supports and buttresses is there to serve.
The doors and windows of an ordinary house are obviously indispensable for daily use. Though they are functional, their proportions and disposition can be such as to result in an artistic design. Rows of windows one above the other, usually -- but by no means always ( Inigo Jones' Banqueting Hall in Whitehall) -- indicate that a building has several storeys. This inner ordering can be made still more apparent from the outside by adding continuous horizontal features -- the cornices. The existence of such cornices sometimes indicates that the walls of a building are supporting ones, i. e., that they carry for their entire length the weight of the floors above. This need not always be the case. The roof in a wooden-framed building is carried by posts and the walls merely fill the space between these posts. The walls are usually made of wattle and daub, a mixture of twigs and clay. Obviously, such a wall is not there to support but merely to enclose.
Architecture thus falls into two groups: the building with a framework or skeleton, and the solid structure. Wooden buildings belong in the main to the first category (Norwegian stave churches), though we also find solid structures built of logs. Stone buildings are most easily made with solid walls; the Gothic master-builders, however, contrived to achieve what were virtually frameworks of stone by the use of arches and flying buttresses. Not until the introduction of 'skeletal' structures in steel, concrete and glass, was it possible to dispense with such lateral supports. Solid structures are often designed in such a way as to register the distribution of weights and stresses, though this is to a certain extent symbolical. Thus, vertical components are often added to the cornices and architraves though, like pilasters, their purpose is not to carry weight. But once walls have received such additions by way of 'relief', there is a tendency to accentuate it. The vertical members are made progressively stronger until they become genuine supports, the walls recede and we witness the translation from a solid, to a frame, structure.
The simplest piece of architecture consists of two posts with a beam across the top. When the building is of stone, the posts become columns or piers and the beam the architrave. When men first learned to build an arch upon two supports, they had discovered the secret of vaulting. The means had also been found to separate an interior into rooms without isolating these completely. This led to the colonnades of the great temples, the loggias on palaces and on patrician houses, and the svalgang of the Norwegian stave church. The interior can be divided into several aisles -- in the case of a church, usually the nave and two aisles.
With such an 'open' division of the whole area the visitor can be induced to look in certain directions and even to proceed at a certain pace, merely by virtue of the way the columns have been disposed. Places for pausing -- similar to the intervals in music -- can also be achieved, mainly by placing a square pier after every second column, thereby introducing a rhythmic and harmonious design. But the design would be incomplete were one wall to be considered by itself. There is still another wall opposite, which has been similarly divided up. Responsive people will notice this association as they walk between these walls and thus become aware, not of two facing walls but of a series of rooms. Articulation of surfaces has, so to speak, led to articulation of space.
The integration of the interior area can be materially enhanced by special handling of the ceiling and roof zone. Thus, series of vaultings could be made to look like a row of canopies and so suggest movement. The cupola, on the other hand, which generally surmounts a central structure, gives such a building an appearance of great stability. Pillars, columns, ambulatories and recesses can all be used to advantage to achieve the desired effects.
To ring the changes on such designs is the architect's noblest task. The ancient Egyptians and the medieval church builders often set one hall at right angles to another. Again, a long narrow building may adjoin a central structure; they can even be merged to form an ellipse, as was done in the 17th and 18th centuries. An effect of contrast can be achieved with ceilings of different heights, whereby the light in different rooms is reduced or increased. Many 17th-century churches in Rome have brightly lit domes at the end of a long dark nave.
The size and nature of the fenestration are undoubtedly of the greatest importance for spatial effect. But the architect must not rely too much on daylight alone, since his building will also be seen by artificial light.
It is only natural that the character of a building should be expressed in its façade. The façade often reveals the interior arrangement of a building, such as a church's cruciform plan. Not until the 19th century was the façade reduced to a mere disguise. There may be good reasons, however, for making the exterior differ from the interior -- for instance, to introduce contrast and thus heighten the over-all impression. A many-turretted building may harbour very modest rooms like small caves in a huge rock. The sober, indeed almost sombre, exteriors of South German churches of the 18th century often conceal interiors of overwhelming splendour.
It must be remembered that a building is frequently seen from a distance and its outward appearance should therefore not be determined by the interior requirements. Often, it may form part of its surroundings. The arts of gardening and landscape architecture go back to early times. Paths, streets, and avenues may be planned in such a way as to lead up to a building, and form part of the lay-out. The Ancient Egyptians grouped gateway, corridor, courtyard and pyramid so as to form an integrated architectural whole. This treatment came into its own after the Renaissance; it is still much in evidence in modern architecture, of which town planning has become a separate branch.
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