The Role of the Visual in Today's Society Essay

John Marsden’s and Shaun Tan’s epic picture book, “The Rabbits”, is an allegorical fable about colonisation, told from the perspective of the natives. An unseen narrator describes the coming of ‘rabbits’ in the most minimal detail, an encounter that is at first friendly and curious, but later darkens as it becomes apparent that the visitors are actually invaders. My chosen image (above), embodies the overall style of the book which is deliberately sparse and strange. Both text and image conveys an overall sense of bewilderment and anxiety as native numbat-like creatures witness the environmental devastation under the wheels of a strange new culture, represented by the rabbits.

This photograph, taken in 1967 in the heart of the Vietnam War Protests, depicts different ideologies about how problems can be solved. In the picture, which narrowly missed winning the Pulitzer Prize, a teen is seen poking carnations into the barrels of guns held by members of the US National Guard. This moment, captured by photographer Bernie Boston symbolizes the flower power movement. Flower power is a phrase that referred to the hippie notion of “make love not war”, and the idea that love and nonviolence, such as the growing of flowers, was a better way to heal the world than continued focus on capitalism and wars. The photograph can be analyzed through the elements of image as defined by ‘The Little Brown Handbook’ on page 86. There

In Corbusier’s architecture he sought to refine the buildings to a perfect standard in with the aim of benefiting society on whole. Corbusier firmly believed in the power of architecture to effect the lives of people, in his collection of essays on modern architecture titled Vers une architecture (Toward[s] an Architecture) Corbusier claims architecture to be “A product of happy peoples and a thing which in itself produces happy peoples.” Through his publication of L’Espirit Nouveau, and through his works as an architect and artist Corbusier implemented the orderly, rational and logical aesthetics that he believed would lead towards a better world for his adopted nation of France, and the world, addressing issues of the time such as housing.

Architecture should be nurturing, responsive and alive, dynamically shifting spatial balances, organically expressive forms, subtly luminous colors and biologically healthy. To achieve such life-enhancing architecture, it has to address all the body senses simultaneously and fuse our image of self with experience of the world. By strengthening our sense of self and reality, architecture serves its all-important function of accommodation and

The “Five Points of Modern Architecture” was a manifesto for architecture written in 1926 by Charles-Edouard Jeanerette – better known as Le Corbusier - emphasizing what he believed were five principles that any building meant to be modern should have. One building which exemplifies each of these points is Corbusier’s own Villa Savoye, built 1929-31 in Poissy, France. Corbusier’s first point of modern architecture is known as inclusion of ‘pilotis’. Pilotis refers to Corbusier’s innovative idea of a vertical support system used to hold the horizontal planes of a structure. In Villa Savoye, this can be clearly seen in both interior and exterior by the rounded pillars holding up the floors and roof, essentially elevating the home and

On his book on Modern Architecture, Curtis writes that modern architecture was faulted for it’s “supposed lack of ‘recognizable imagery’” towards the end of the 1970s. This statement supports the idea of Jencks’ double coding where architects must now make

His goal was to create a building that was timeless, that could last without any imposing function. Stripping back the building to its essentials of structure, craftsmanship and style, he created not just objects, but symbols of everything Meis stood for in design “If buildings may be judged as embodiments of a viable system of ideas, the buildings of

As suggested by the title, this piece of literature attempts to highlight the importance of sensory experience in architecture. It is indeed a response to what the author terms as ‘ocularcentrism’ of Modern Architecture. Ocularcentrism is the act of prioritizing visual stimuli to all other sensory stimuli available to a human perception. He quotes famous German poet, Goethe, in his defense, “the hands want to see, the

Have you ever watched a food commercial with images of juicy burgers or rich dark chocolate and instantly desired to eat that particular food based on the picture? These are clever advertising and marketing tools used to lure consumers with enticing the imagination. These tools have been used for many years and prey on our use of visual literacy. Visual literacy is the capacity to explain what we see through images and make meaning of them. The textbook, Visual Literacy: Learning to See, and Brian Kennedy’s video, Visual Literacy and Why We Need It, explains the definition of visual literacy differently. The textbook and B. Kennedy’s video both offer an intellectual clarity on visual literacy, but the textbook gives a more accurate definition based on today’s world, seeing as there is a continuous use of images in advertisements and marketing, which rely on much more than just our sight.

“Architecture or Revolution?” in Le Corbusier’s belief was the only way to avoid class-based revolution in industrialized architecture (Quirk, 2012). Le Corbusier, born Charles Édouard Jeanneret, was born into an artistic family in 1877 in a small village in Switzerland. His mother was a pianist and his father was a designer of watch dials. Even though he learned piano and father’s trade he got interested in the architecture when he was 13 years old. He learned from L’Eplatenier, a teacher in La Chaaux-de-Fund. His teacher opened his eyes and led him to the direct observation of life. He was an instinctive genius by turning older building designs into newer more modern designs. Le Corbusier is one of the most significant architecture’s of the 20th century, and one who led architecture to the modern era.

Different architects have different styles because they are trying to get at different things. Architecture is not just about making something beautiful anymore, it is about trying to get across a set of ideas about how we inhabit space. Two of the most famous architects of the twentieth century, one from each side, the early part and the later part up until today each designed a museum with money donated by the Guggenheim foundation. One of these is in New York City, it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The other is in bilbao, Spain, and it was designed by Frank Geary. My purpose of this paper is to interrogate each of these buildings, glorious for different reasons, to show how each architect was expressing their own style.

Le Corbusier’s manifesto ‘vers un architecture’ (Towards an architecture) seemingly focuses on promoting the excellence of the machine. Corbusier quotes. ‘A house is a machine for living in’ explaining that the main principle for architects should be to create a house as well suited to its purpose as you would a machine. It also reinforced the opinion that it is better for something to be functional (functionalism) than have a good appearance. During the writing, Corbusier promotes the strong idea that there are parallels between architects and engineers and argues that engineers should be praised for their use of geometry and mathematics. The start of the writing focuses purely on this factor and explains how architects should adopt this

The five principles of architecture that Le Corbusier proposed in 1923 can be noted in, not only Le Corbusier’s work, but also in other modern architecture, because each principle contributes to the overall aesthetic of the building, as well as providing a functional use. However, all five principles don’t have to be incorporated into one design, which is what this essay will explore. It will attempt to show that one principle can prevail over the other four, but all five are needed to create a full representation of Le Corbusier’s envision of architecture. This is shown through Le Corbusier’s villas, specifically the Villa Shodhan and this essay will analyse how the principles contrast against one another. Furthermore, a small scale design project will be created alongside the essay in an attempt to produce a unique villa through the embodiment of Le Corbusier’s five principles of architecture. Through further analysis of the Villa Shodhan I will also argue that not all principles are independent and that some principles can function efficiently without the rest. Nonetheless, Le Corbusier’s most renowned villa, Villa Savoye, utilizes all five principles; therefore, it is the most accurate image of Le Corbusier’s five principles of architecture. However, after this villa had been completed it became clear that the flat roof, which served a domestic purpose as a roof garden had failed

“ Architecture organizes and structures space for us, and its interiors and the objects enclosing and inhabiting its rooms can facilitate or inhibit our activities by the way they use this language”(Lawson pg.6).

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