POINT: EXPLORATIONS

"Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space."

-Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Moving away from the reflections section of our class, we dove right into the explorations unit which is where we still lay in present day. The explorations unit was about figuring out to me who you were as a designer, figuring out what it all meant to you. What people now days call “modern”, this is where I believe we find our definition of that very word. Looking all the way back to the Bauhaus even, it was an idea that any person could come and get education in different areas of the fine arts. Not even having an established architecture program during its first years of existence, it was an idea that all of these fundamentals could be brought together under one roof. With explorations and a new century, new materials and technology arose creating debates on what was deemed appropriate and the true right way. Some of these materials were metal, glass and concrete which made way for the second/first city... Chicago. After Chicago, New York started to appear creating yet another ideal city full of architectural richness. Within the explorations unit, styles started to arrive in these cities such as art deco and post-modernism. The art deco theme that presented itself in the Chrysler Building in New York embraced influences from many different past and present styles. It looked at different styles within art such as neoclassical, cubism, modernism and more. And of course within this unit we learn about the greats such as Corb, Ludwig, Saarinen, Wright, Johnson, Kahn and many many others. Le Corbusier was one to embrace technology and to fully articulate just what he did and manipulated within the very space. He is known for saying, “a house is a machine for living in” but he also has said that “Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.” Corbusier also incorporated within many of his designs what is now called the “five points of architecture.” And those five points were: freestanding support pillars, open floor plan independent from the supports, vertical facade that is free from the supports, long horizontal sliding windows, and lastly roof gardens to replace what had been taken away on the ground. I vividly remember a day recently in history where Patrick asked us to write down the definition of “modern” and I wrote that “modern was crazy stuff.” But in all actuality I really believe that, it indeed is. Normal, average working people don’t know what modern is and we as designers all have different definitions on what exactly that word means. Blue collar people only care about their home, what they themselves occupy and most are content living in a McMansion. It’s us as designers that build and create something truly beautiful (sometimes), but whether people choose to learn about our design and about the nature of our ideas is up to them. We cannot force people to change, we can only build what we believe goes hand in hand with human beings. We don’t build for ourselves, we build to enrich the lives of people and to create a full visual experience as you move through these spaces. It’s about designing in full 360 degrees, not only considering the surface but to also heavily think through the substance that’s embedded within these walls. The explorations unit just like every other unit, is one to look backwards just as anything does, but this unit also makes way for completely new ways of building and designing and ultimately thinking.