Thursday, July 26, 2012

House Form and Culture Chapter 6 - S M Hasan

Vernacular in Modern times

    In order to achieve complete balance and harmony in our designs, we as architects have become ignorant to what has been there for centuries and which took a lot of time to develop. Things which seemingly appear to have no value to us are discarded without considering why it came there in the first place. Our focus on utilitarian purposes have blinded us from the emotional, psychological and metaphorical aspects of design. Since the advent of modernism we have  tried to develop an international language of design which can be adopted to suit different conditions. But we have failed to achieve such utopian concept of a universal design strategy, because we human beings might have the same physical appearance but the way we look at things, how we respond to our surroundings, our inner feelings and our prejudices keep changing as we move across different regions. Moreover our planet is very diverse having different climate zones which forces our design to act according to the need of that place, with the materials that they produce locally. People across the world have different living patterns and their notion of family life differ from our set criteria, so their housing will definitely reflect it in the spaces they require and the form it acquires.
    There are certain elements which have been established in our subconscious as symbols for various properties, e.g, A pitched roof over a house for security, a fence or any other feature showing territorial distribution gives us a sense of possession and so on. Apart from these visible and purposeful features of the house there are things which might not have any utility but are there because we value them as part of our cultural identities. They can be to enhance our experience of the space,  give a sense of ownership or just to please the eye and reflect the status.
    In these times we have a lot of choices at our disposal, folk art or the cultural aspects of design have merely become an option for us. But there is more to it, there's a need to study them deeply and get to the roots of it in order to understand it fully and use it for our benefit. There is no need to waste our time reinventing the wheel, we must learn from the examples available to us which are a result of synthesis of many factors which might not be visible on the surface but are present there to support the overall framework. We need to develop a style which changes to comply with the contingent human nature and suits our ever changing needs.

Syed Muhammad Hasan
B0998086

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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Monday, July 23, 2012

Surprise 1


Draw a plan from any of the five modern architects. Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Tadao Ando and Alvar Aalto. Time duration was only 30 minutes.

Barcelona Pavilion - Mies
Sketch by Faraz

 First Floor Plan

The Barcelona Pavilion (Catalan: Pavelló alemany; Spanish: Pabellón alemán; "German Pavilion"), designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. This building was used for the official opening of the German section of the exhibition. It is an important building in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials, such as marble, red onyx and travertine. The same features of minimalism and spectacular can be applied to the prestigious furniture specifically designed for the building, among which the iconic Barcelona chair. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Pavilion]

Farnsworth House (Glass House) - Mies
Sketch by Ayesha Aziz

Sketch by Shahzadi Zoha Irshad

Sketch by Mahrosh Mumtaz

Sketch by Marium Iqbal

First Floor Plan

The Farnsworth House is one of the most significant of Mies van der Rohe’s works, equal in importance to such canonical monuments as the Barcelona Pavilion, built for the 1929 International Exposition and the 1954-58 Seagram Building in New York. Its significance is two-fold. First, as one of a long series of house projects, the Farnsworth House embodies a certain aesthetic culmination in Mies van derRohe’s experiment with this building type. Second, the house is perhaps the fullest expression of modernist ideals that had begun in Europe, but which were consummated in Plano, Illinois. [Source: http://www.farnsworthhouse.org/history.htm ]

Tugendhat house - Mies
Sketch by Sabika Jamal


Villa Savoye -  Le Corbusier
Sketch by Taimoor Sheikh


Sketch by Ashhad Faquih

Unknown


Villa Savoye (French pronunciation: [saˈvwa]) is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts of Paris, France. It was designed by Swissarchitects Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931 using reinforced concrete. A manifesto of Le Corbusier's "five points" of new architecture, the villa is representative of the bases of modern architecture, and is one of the most easily recognizable and renowned examples of the International style. Originally built as a country retreat on behest of the Savoye family, the house fell into disuse after 1940, and entered a state of disrepair during World War II. It passed on to be property of the French state in 1958, and after surviving several plans of demolition, it was designated as an official French historical monument in 1965 (a rare occurrence, as Le Corbusier was still living at the time). It was thoroughly renovated from 1985 to 1997, and under the care of the Centre des monuments nationaux, the refurbished house is now open to visitors year-round. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Savoye]

Le Cabanon - Le Corbusier

Sketch by Sana Fazal

In 1952, Le Corbusier built his own 170 sq ft hideaway in Roquebrune, on theFrench Riviera. He got the idea of building the tiny cabanon after traveling ina small cabin aboard an ocean liner. “A little cell on a human scale where allactivity was provided for,” was how he described it. “My cabin in Cap-Martinis even smaller than my luxury [ship] cabin,” he once said. He spent time atthe cabanon every summer.“I have a castle on the Riviera,measuring 3.66 by 3.66 meters. ..it'sextravagantly comfortable and generous.” Le Corbusier. [Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/54348473/Cabanon-a-Cap-Martin-Le-Corbusier]

Taliesin West - Wright
Sketch by Sakina

                                  

Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Today it is the main campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and houses the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Open to the public for tours, Taliesin West is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. The complex drew its name from Wright's summer home, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. [Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliesin_West]

Imperial Hotel, Japan -Wright
Sketch by Ali


Wright had long been intrigued by Japanese culture (he was an avid collector of Japanese prints), so when the opportunity came to build a project in Tokyo, the Imperial Hotel he lobbied for the project. Commissioned in 1916, the hotel was to represent the emergence of Japan as a modern nation and symbolize Japan’s relation to the West. To that end, Wright designed the building as a hybrid of Japanese and Western architecture.

The Imperial Hotel was demolished in 1968. The entrance lobby was saved and reconstructed at the Meiji Mura architecture museum in Nagoya. [Source:  http://www.pbs.org/flw/buildings/imperial/imperial.html ]

Guggenheim Museum - Wright
Sketch by Maha Rashid Butt


The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (often referred to as "The Guggenheim") is a well-known art museum located on theUpper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a renowned and continuously expanding collection ofImpressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, the artist Hilla von Rebay. It adopted its current name after the death of its founder,Solomon R. Guggenheim, in 1952. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_R._Guggenheim_Museum]


Unity Temple - Wright
Sketch by Ahmed Khalid


Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church in Oak Park, Illinois, and the home of the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation. It was designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and built between 1905 and 1908. Unity Temple is considered to be one of Wright's most important structures dating from the first decade of the twentieth century. Because of its consolidation of aesthetic intent and structure through use of a single material, reinforced concrete, Unity Temple is considered by many architects to be the first modern building in the world. This idea became of central importance to the modern architects who followed Wright, such as Mies Van Der Rohe, and even the post-modernists, such as Frank Gehry.

Unity Temple is located at 875 Lake Street, Oak Park Illinois. (The Unitarian Universalist congregation that owns and worships in Unity Temple was formed in 1871, and has no connection with Unity Church, a religious organization founded in 1889.) [Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Temple]

Glass House - Philip Johnson
Sketch by Muahid Hasan

Sketch by M Arsalan Khan



The Glass House or Johnson house, built in 1949 in New Canaan, Connecticut, was designed by Philip Johnson as his own residence and is widely considered to be a masterpiece in the use of glass. It was an important and influential project for Johnson and for modern architecture. The building is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection. The estate includes other buildings designed by Johnson that span his career.

The house is an example of one of the earliest uses of industrial materials like glass and steel in home design. Johnson lived at the weekend retreat for 58 years, and since 1960 with his longtime companion, David Whitney, an art critic and curator who helped design the landscaping and largely collected the art displayed there. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_House ]