why architecture?


"why anything? maybe the answer is in that. Because it is."

time beyond time

"Of all things, I honor beginnings. I believe, though, that what was has always been, and what is has always been, and what will be has always been...But that which made a thing become manifest for the first time is our great moment of creative happening."

the teacher

"The work of students should not be directed to the solution of problems, but rather to sensing the nature of a thing. But you cannot know a nature without getting it out of your guts. You must sense what it is, and then you can look up what other people think it is. What you sense must belong to you, and the words of teaching must not in any way belong to you, and the words of teaching must not in any way be in evidence, so completely has it been transformed into the singularity."

the architect

"Think of meaningful space and you invent an environment, and it can be your invention. Therein lies the architect."




The Glass House
Phllip Johnson
www.arcspace.com

architecture

"The only way you can build, the only way you can get the building into being, is through the measurable. You must follow the laws of nature and use quantities of brick, methods of construction, and engineering. But in the end, when the building becomes part of living, it evokes unmeasurable qualities, and the spirit of its existence takes over."


www.inhabitat.com

Institutions

"The three great inspirations are the inspiration to learn, the inspiration to meet, and the inspiration for well-being. They all serve, really, the will to be, to express. This is, you might say, the reason for living.

...the institution will die when its inspirations are no longer felt, and it operates as a matter of course."


Calatrava's City of Arts and Science
Valencia, Spain
Architect: Santiago Calatrava

Futuristic cultural center is home to a museum, theater, gardens, planetarium, and opera house. This "city within a city" allows visitors to visit the city within an architectural environment. Swooping steel structure invite all ages to learn with a hands on experience.

















www.spanish-living.com

The Wall, the Column

"Consider also the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became."



www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0702/arch2.htm

Material


"The beauty of what you create comes if you honor the material for what it really is. Never use it in a subsidiary way so as to make the material wait for the next person to come along and honor its character."



Thiel Chapel

"...simplicity, truthfulness of materials and honesty in their expression."

www.thiel.edu/campus_ministry/chapel/furniture-description.htm

The Garden and the Room

"Because the garden is a personal gathering of nature, and the room is the beginning of architecture...The architect becomes the advocate of nature, and makes everything in the deepest respect for nature."



Japanese Gardens
Having the deepest respect for nature, these structures are not disrupting nature, but engaging it by hovering above and around the natural landscape.

www.learn.bowdoin.edu/japanesegardens

The Plan

"A real plan is one in which rooms have spoken to each other."

Structure

"no light, light, not light, light, no light, light. A vault, a dome, is also a choice of a character of light." 

the repetition of organic lines form a structural element of light and dark as one experiences moving through.

guggenheim museum
graphic drawing

Space

"narrow to high,..light to dark."

Place 

"It is a decision coming from commonality that you choose a place out of all places to building, a place where others can also settle." 

Form and Design

"Form has no shape or dimension...It has no presence; its existence is in the mind. You turn to nature to make it actually present. Form precedes Design. Form is "what." Design is "how." Form is impersonal; Design belongs to the designer."

Making Something

"The greatest moment of a rule is change: when that rule comes to a higher level of realization, that leads to a new rule. To discover a new rule is to discover a new avenue of expression." 

pushing the boundaries of metal as a structural element.


Walt Disney Concert Hall
www.architypes.net

Singularity 

"Your singularity lies then in just how you are constructed as the custodian of the Spirit."

le corbusier
ronchamp
www.bc.edu

Light

"...all material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light. So Light is really the source of all being." 

Silence and Light

Edmund Sumner

Jubilee Church

by Richard Meier & Partners

www.archspace.com

Order

"Order is."

Philip Johnson Lincoln Center in New York

www.canberrahouse.com

knowledge 

"It is not how much you learn that is important, but how much you honor the position of learning in what you are doing. You must know, to feel you intuition, but you must not trust your knowing as something that can be imparted to someone else. You transfer your knowing into the work you do, and that is your best character." 

first citizen bank

greensboro, nc

friday, february 1

4:30 pm

reflection is cast on the exterior of this building from the use of glass and the position of the sun. the glass is not used for the whole building, giving only a glimpse of what the other buildings look like. 

light quotes

"There are two kinds of light- the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures"

- James Thurber

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beatuy is revealed only if there is light from within." 

-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

unmeasurable;

 

"the poet is one who starts from the seat of the unmeasurable and travels towards the measurable, but who keeps the force of the unmeasurable within him at all times...the scientist has unmeasurable qualities as a man, but he holds his line and does not travel with the unmeasurable because he is interested in knowing. he is interested in the laws of nature, so he allows nature to come to him, and then he grabs it because he can no longer stand the difficulty of holding back. he receives knowledge in full and works with this, and you can call him objective." 

"But Einstein travels like a poet...He also reaches nature or Light at its very doorstep, because he only needs a smidgen of knowledge from which he can reconstruct the universe. He deals with Order and not with knowing."

The Black Diamond, Copenhagen, Denmark

The modern edition of the Royal Library extends to the canal as a floating diamond, especially at night seen here. 

www.oresundsregionen.org

The Burj al-Arab, luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Designed by Tom Wright

the building's light blue exterior blends with the sky but the shape and material use contrasts with the natural properties. 

the world's biggest atrium

www.prepettualy15.wordpress.com

Realization 

"Your intuition is your most exacting sense, it is your most reliable sense. It is the most personal sense that a singularity has, and intuition, not knowledge, must be considered your greatest gift. Knowledge is valuable because knowning can come from it, and knowing can give you intouchness with your intuition. 

personal photograph, 

mediterranean sea at dusk

"In every thing that nature makes, nature records 

how it was made... In man is the record of how man was made. When we are conscious of this, we have a sense of the laws of the universe."

Wonder 

"The more deeply something is engaged in the unmeasurable, the more deeply it has this lasting value. So you cannot deny the Toccata and Fugue. You cannot deny the great works of art because they are born out of the unmeasurable."

the northern lights in greenland

one of nature's best materspieces 

www.greenlandholiday.com

touch + sight

"From touch there is a striving to touch, not just touch, and from this developed what could be sight. When sight came, the first movement of sight was the realization of beauty."

beijing national aquatics center
water cube

an inspiration of soap bubbles filling a space; this bubble-wrap exterior may be the reverse of touch + sight, but sight + touch. the sight of this exterior formulates the feel of bubbles, water, cells, and life. the experience is even more real once you enter the aquatic center and feel the touch of water.

joy 

"you cannot make a building unless you are joyously engaged."

school of art, design and media at nanyang technological university in singapore. 

5 story facility sweeps down in a fluid, organic form to blend with the natural green landscape. 

these images portray the natural light in the day vs. artificial light at night. the glass facade provides natural light to pour into the interior during the day, while the curved slots of light at night allows one to look towards the interior while outside.