Architecture Is The Physical Construct Of Humanity 's Creative Processes

In eight quasi-connected stories, Susan Vreeland delivers a fictional lesson on aesthetics. Set amidst human sorrow and historic chaos, the narrative follows an imagined Vermeer painting from the present day through 330 years of its provenance--beginning with its willful destruction in the 1990s and concluding with its inspired creation in the 1660s:

The painting Unable to Work by David Olere depicts the impact of the concentration camps on the Jewish people in a visceral, grotesque style, conveying the horrors they experienced during the events of the Holocaust. As recounted in Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, the Nazis took upon the task of eradicating an entire race in a systematic, logical fashion, exploiting the suffering and toil of their victims for their own war effort. Consequently dependants, such as women, children, and the elderly had no place in their concentration camps: Unable to extract any useful work from these individuals, the Nazis will inevitably put them to death. Their impending fate is foreshadowed clearly by the grotesque, malnourished Muselmann looming over them, seemingly

However while captivating as a civilizing and driving force, the prevailing opinion of the art’s imagery is envisioned to be on a par with that of classical Greek, Roman, and Renaissance era style. This societal banality is passionately endorsed by many including the dean of the Stanton Institute of Technology who insisted to Howard Roark that modern architecture shall “adapt the beauty of the past to the needs of the present” and that “the voice of the past” is the standard that all must collectively subordinate to (p.24). In contrast to the heroism elevated by Howard Roark, architecture has been alternatively revered as a phenomenon that invigorates collectivism as foretold by the antagonist Ellsworth M. Toohey. Penning an article entitled “Sermons in Stone” Toohey downgrades the ideal of architecture as the utmost decadence of the human spirit. Dismissing modernistic perspectives of the art, he perceives architecture in that “A great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people” (p.78). As the diabolical force that typifies affrontation to Howard Roark’s progressive ideology of heroic man-worship, Toohey is displayed by Ayn Rand as a by-product of the darkest side of the imagery of architecture.

The Bellamy Mansion has is four stories tall and has twenty-two rooms, a slave's quarters, and a garden that sits on a quarter acre of land. Upon entering the mansion, you have a long hallway that hosts four rooms, two dining rooms, a kitchen, and a breakfast room. One of the dining rooms hosts children and the other dining room is for the adults. Each room has a coal burning fireplace. All of the light fixtures are all brass gas burning. At the end of the hallway there are two rooms to the left and right. They both lead to the beautiful, white spiral staircase that

When Modernism was suppressed it created an opportunity for a replacement language of architecture, one which met the needs and aspirations of the Third Reich. The problem was the leadership of the National Socialist Party had differing views on what this language should be and “despite Hitler’s many pronouncements on the subject, Feder, Schirach, Ley, Goering and the other officials who became the regime’s principal architectural patrons never agreed upon a consistent theory of what Nazi architecture should be.” Hitler believed the art of his people should demonstrate that “Germanness equals Clarity”. Hitler did in his rhetoric specify and reinforce that “Nazi architecture must be heroic”. This was not however very precise, “Heroism in Hitler’s speeches referred to monumental scale

Leon Krier was criticised for publishing a costly monograph on Albert Speer’s architecture (1985)in which, while acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and the man, Krier nonetheless claimed the book’s only subject and sole justification was “Classical architecture and the passion of building” (cited by Jaskot, ‘Architecture of Oppression’, 2000). Discuss this claim, the controversy and the issues (historical, philosophical and ethical and possibly others) they raise. Can architecture, Classical, Modern or otherwise, be autonomous from politics and valued independently of the circumstances of politics and history that adhere to it?

Following the attacks of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty-Years War that crushed the field, demolished shells of houses of worship littered the scene as a devastate indication of the turbulent changes of the religious wars. Amusingly, Friedrich's Monastery Graveyard In The Snow ended up in Berlin's Nationalgalerie amid the Allied besieging of Berlin and, encompassed by the vestiges like those it delineates, was wrecked in a strike in 1945. Heartbreakingly the first of this grand work can never again be drawn closer, yet propagations can give a feeling of the muddling, contorting filigree of the spatial design manufactured by this artful culmination of custom and decay. This claustrophobic, Gothic space articulately mirrored the topical, expressive and formal worries of the German Romantic development in painting.

The fall 2016 exhibit at Esker Foundation features three shows: The Traveller by Cedric and Jim Bomford, Tear Down and Rebuild by Jasmina Cibic, and CIVIC. CENTRE. by Larissa Fassler. Curated by Naomi Potter, the gallery contains approximately 18 different works by the four above named artists. The shows each have strong work in their own right and converge on themes of construction, urbanization, and ideals of nationalism. Housed within a mixed-use retail and office building, to visit the gallery one must proceed to the fourth floor via a glass staircase. Upon entering the gallery an attendant greets you with instructions that programs are available with curatorial texts to take and aid with the visit. If you continue straight ahead, at the far end of the gallery, elevated on the second level is ‘the nest’ a circular meeting space or boardroom made from overlapping grey industrial strips that hovers above the space. The didactic texts are found on the wall below ‘the nest’, which is good placement to avoid the sculptural treatment of the meeting room from being a distractor away from the work, it’s large and could be mistaken as art in and of itself.

The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) does not shy away from rousing their students through the provision of inspirational art exhibition at the SCAD museum. Each artist develops his or her own gallery space with paintings, installations, sculptures, photographs and more within a selected space at the museum. Amongst them, tucked safely away in a side gallery, hangs the breathtaking installation titled “Rorschach (Accidental IV)” by Cornelia Parker (1).

The human body is the ultimate tool for discovering the environment. Human anatomy is considered to be nature’s peak of perfection and certain features serve as inspiration for many architects. To study the relationship between the human body and architecture, one must not be limited to human body parts resemblance to architectural works but to a larger extent consider human emotions, sensory nerves, the mind and general human psychology. In essence everything that makes us human. In its simplest definition Architecture can be described as an art or practice of designing buildings. It is practiced in a way that accomplishes both practical and communicative or expressive requirements. To relate it to human body then Architecture can widely define the place, the site, the energy, the systems, the building, the flora and fauna. These components that bring aesthetic property to humanity apart from the utilitarian purpose it serves. The perfect balance of a normal human body and the proportions are incorporated into architecture from a point of view of imitation, idealized allusion and the actual human use. Evidence of such human incorporation into architecture is seen from the Ancient Greek Architectures where it was common for tower columns to take shape of a human being like in the colossus of the Ancient

Throughout the Degenerate Art: Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937, presented at the Neue Galerie these past months, one is able to have a close look at the cold battle among the German idealist artists versus the expressionist artists. The conflict between the two is caused by their individualized concept of what modernity is at the beginning of the 20th century. By standing in a gallery with both German classical art and degenerate art, degenerate being a synonym to expressionist art used by Nazis, and having them beg for attention one can feel an unexplained tension surrounding him. The most obvious contrast between the two ideals of modernity is experienced in the "German vs Degenerate Art" and the "Dresden 1945: Karl Schmidt - Rottluff"

What is life? Exploring Mies van der Rohe’s concept of architecture as a life process

The Egyptians built the pyramids as vehicles for their great leaders and their most valuable possessions to travel to the afterlife. They even planned ahead by designing secret rooms and passageways to fool potential tomb robbers. The great pyramids are still standing to this day and serve as a small window into the ancient Egyptian civilization. For thousands of years, buildings have been made primarily in masonry construction with either vaulted ceilings or wooden beams. Masonry construction is cheap, strong, and the materials are widely available; it is the single best way to build a structure, at least until the industrial revolution in the late 18th century. The industrial revolution was the start of many changes to architecture as it was known at the time. The inventions of more powerful machines and stronger materials meant architecture could reach new heights, quite literally. During this time period, the first skyscrapers towered above the cities; the first large suspension bridges spanned the rivers and gorges. Using and observing these new inventions and methods, several very important architects have documented not only structural changes throughout architecture but also their own ideas on which direction to lead architecture. These architects lived during different eras from the industrial revolution to the mid twentieth century and are responsible for many of the

Architecture can be viewed with two different types of properties. Properties that can be seen like shapes, their composition, the spaces they create and, the colours and textures that make up their appearance. These properties are considered to be visual while other properties are considered to be abstract. These properties can only be described using words; the meanings behind the architecture and the stories that can be told about it. The context, its cultural background and its function also affects how we view architecture. The question is, what

The basic concept of an international style is the five points of architecture which included pilots, flat roof terrace, open plan, ribbon window and free façades.