The Erotics of Baroque Architecture

 After our venture into the Renaissance, where the use of simpler forms and pure geometries such as squares and circles were the principles of creating the perfect architecture for human proportion. Now, moving forward to Baroque where things get a lot more details and complicated. Baroque strikes me as being very ornamented and curvy with overwhelming details to the point that through such experience, it could crate such a dramatic mood and evokes our senses once we are inside. While Renaissance architecture abandoned the secular / religious viewpoint and emphasized more on the logics and proportions, strangely Baroque seems to be the opposite with it featuring sculptures and paintings. It was when religion became powerful once again.

However, Baroque architecture evokes the idea of eroticism for me because of the mystery behind the spiritual beliefs displaying on the decoration of the building, it is also quite ambiguous and therefore, mysterious since it ceases to use the Renaissance’s pure geometries of squares and circles but emphasis on the less pure geometry such as the oval, seen in not only the elevations but also the plan of the buildings. Thus, the oval presented in Baroque architecture can almost be seen as a manipulated circle, a form of a less pure geometry.

We cannot talk about Baroque without the mentioning of the almost overwhelming details of the ornaments, which really fills and defines baroque architecture. Baroque is in fact, characterized by the grand elaboration of detail and space. Architects would take classical motifs and recombined them to create a sense of drama. The use of curves is also quite dominant as seen in Borromini’s S.Carlo alle Quattro Fontane where the façade is articulated with the alternating convex and concave surfaces, this to me, is quite erotic as it is almost an illusion which lures us in to look, wonder and even interact with the building. Similar to the ornamentation as well, since the interior of Baroque is filled with decorations from architectural elements to paintings and sculptures, our vision is bombarded with so many elaborate details that is almost overwhelming, thus, in the order to extract a total experience from such buildings, we have to really look closely, at each part, “examine” each curves and niches in the order to receive the effect which is different to each person. Hence, through this impromptu interaction (visually and physically) while we run our eyes through each of the buildings curves, we, in a way, are interacting with the architecture and thus, the rise of the idea of eroticism.

The alternating curves on the facade of S.Carlo alle Quattro Fontane seems almost like an illusion.

Say goodbye to the pure forms of circles and squares and get ready to be hypnotized by the ambiguity of ovals.

Through the use of less pure geometries which teases us to wonder and the overwhelming elaboration of ornamentation, I think Baroque is a perfect example of erotic architecture, it plays with our eyes and minds, leaving such dramatic moods and effects on the inhabitants yet does it so subtly that eventually, it is us, who would continue engaging in this “man to architecture” interaction.     

Response to the architecture of the Early Renaissance

 The name of the Renaissance period always echoes as the period where art flourished to most people. This isn’t hard to imagine since many great Italian artists such as Michelangelo created his masterpieces during this time. However, when it comes to the architecture, many including me would come up with less vivid ideas, not because that the early Renaissance architecture lacks in making an impression, but because of its simpler form yet still bearing some similarities with the style of the past, it was difficult for me to define and explain the logics behind Renaissance architecture prior to this particular lesson.

The Renaissance period occurred after the crusades had traveled to Eastern Europe, fascinated with the civilization and especially the grand architecture such as Hagia Sofia, they had also brought back ancient texts (Greek and Latin) which was then, printed and distributed through out the bourgeois of the society. In my opinion, the Renaissance period marked the birth of many intellectuals, it was when the first University of the world started, thus it also represented the growth in the intellect area as well as art. Since these unseen secular texts has been distributed, people were getting emphasized on the individual analysis rather than the analysis from medieval scholars, they believed in humanism which was the belief in the capability of human beings, that each individual can excel, along with this emphasis, came the belief in “anthropomorphism” which relates to the geometries derived from the proportions of the human body, hence, the Vitruvius man… From this belief, early Renaissance architectures featured the frequent use of simple geometries such as squares and circles – which are the shapes derived from human proportion according to the Vitruvius Man. Such others examples are the centrally planned churches such as Leon Battista Albeti’s Santa Maria Novella and Basilica di Sant’Andrea, Mantua (1462-1790) where they also exhibited the plan derived from the “sacred cut” (when a square is turned 45 degree and placed upon another unturned one), this again, is derived from the proportion of the human body seen in the Vitruvius Man. The early Renaissance also wanted to bring classical features back into architecture, however, reduced in complexity in the order to make it more temporary, for examples, the Greek orders would be put in, but not as columns but on the facades, in a way, this reminds me of Venturi’s decorated shed theory.

Vituvius man - human proportion in relation with simple geometries.

The plan of a centrally planned church.

Le Corbusier’s Modular Man

Overall, from what I understand, the early Renaissance period was a period of renewal, opening up to the new secular belief and no longer relying entirely upon the religious viewpoint. They were inspired from the great past, prior to the Christian era, way back to the Greek, Roman and Ottoman Empire, thanks for the texts and scripts the crusades brought back. Forms were reduced to simpler, purer geometry and the idea of “anthropomorphism” was put to use, thus, human were started to play a more important role in the creation of architecture. Interestingly, despite the obvious difference in aesthetic, I’ve found this humanism idea of the Renaissance to be applicable with the father of modernism, Le Corbusier in the way that, Le Corbusier also works with human scales and proportion, that he had created a human standard or the “modular man” as a tool for creating architecture. The only slight difference that I think is that the Early Renaissance buildings were designed FROM human proportion, while Le Corbusier was designing FOR human proportion… 

Response to "Bigness – The Problem of Large” by Rem Koolhas

The interior of Central World - endless space

Bigness is unlike the past manifesto that I’ve read, it does not burst out nor does it is clear of its support for a specific style or movement. To be honest, it is quite ambiguous but in a way, due to its uniqueness, Bigness became memorable and easily noticeable in real life once fully understood. However, in my own understanding, Koolhas and his concept of Bigness is different in that unlike Mies or Corbu, who created a particular “genre”, Koolhas didn’t create Bigness, in fact he claimed that “it is there” just like Mt.Everest.

Koolhas pointed out that there are five main points that define Bigness, 1. The building is beyond a certain mass, when a building becomes big. 2.The establishment of “mechanical connections” such as the elevator. 3. The façade can no longer reveals what happens inside, which came along with the separation of the interior and exterior. This can be sum up as “when architecture reveals, bigness perplexes”. 4. The mere size of the building and lastly 5. Bigness is no longer a part of any urban tissue, in other word, there’s no relation to the site or the context what so ever, it creates its own context.

Thus, from this, such buildings that can be associated with this concept can be found here in central Bangkok. Since Bigness has this automatic label as being “American”, countries such as Thailand, which received its strongest western influence from the U.S is bound to have some “Bigness” on display as well. For example the Paragon, a clear example of “Bigness”, from the outside, there’s no relation to the inside at all and the interior like a mystery if you’ve never enter the complex. Another real life example would be Central World where the complex would consumes you, separating you from the outside, lures you into its vast continuous space, entertaining, better yet, capturing you for hours. Once, inside, the essence of the whole building could not be captured in a single shot, the building seems endless, not only because of its physical size but also the natural structure, where it could just grow and extend further (mass-produced and simple construction of column and beams) bordering to the concept of “Junk Space” as well. There’s also the absence of time once you’re inside, this absence may due to the lack of connection between the interiors and exterior, in fact, most casinos in the U.S represent this ideology of Bigness as a way to lure its customers as well. The similarity between all of these buildings of Bigness is that they all created their own context, not the site but the architecture itself was the one that created this. While Paragon and Central World might relate to the location of being in central Bangkok, there’re nothing specific in the relationship between the architecture and the locations. In other word, Paragon and Central World are almost like their own cities in a way, they can be put anywhere, as there’s no relation to the context of the surrounding.

Siam Paragon - Bigness, no relation with the surrounding context nor does the interior and exterior have any clear connection.

After reading the text it does leaves me thinking, wondering of real life examples that this “theory” of Bigness could be applied to and indeed I’ve found some and despite my early dislike of this text, I started to understand, not fully but at least, it is a start. I believed that this partially due to Koolhas way of representing his viewpoint towards Bigness. I felt that his reaction is very neutral that I could hardly recognize if he preferred the ideology or even agree to its or not, thus due to this ambiguity in his writing, my reaction and response ended up not as vivid and clear.

Further on from Post Modernism - Zaha Hadid, The Parametric Style

Zaha Hadid, love her or hate her, you have to give the woman some credits since she was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Price and is arguably one of the most influential architect of today. But what is the architecture of today? What is the style of the future? I believed that most of us would recognize the flowing, organic buildings of Zaha Hadid but few would be able to label the style in which many claimed to be the style of today’s architecture, the “Parametric” style. Known as “the great new style after modernism”, parametric style is all about “articulation” along with the idea that society is made up of differences, different forces influences us in different ways, shaped us into different forms and therefore sparks different reactions. It is a also a reaction to oppose the mass produced idea of “Fordism”, which leads on to the word “Post-Fordism” which Zaha’s partner, Patric Schumacher uses to describe the style. Despite the almost random “freeform” of Zaha’s buildings, the different curves represented the different forces of society and as you travel through her buildings, these forces changed, shaping/ manipulating us as we moved through it. The key to achieve these almost impossible forms is the use of the computer program to generate formulas and calculate to the exact pieces that will, when constructed together, create that free form, flowing buildings. Thus, this represent a contradiction, the forms of Zaha buildings might seems flowing and free, because it was all about the differences in each building that in a whole, flow together in harmony, just like the society that made up of differences but as a whole operates as one. Yet, when it comes to the way her buildings are to be built, in involved one of the most complicated, precise and laborious process as each piece of her buildings are unique and different, meaning that if one piece doesn’t exactly followed that pattern, in other word, if that piece does not come as perfect as planned, the whole system will fail and a building will not be complete. To just give you a better idea of how notoriously laborious the creation of Zaha’s buildings are, once an engineer has to make 7000 sections of a particular building in the order to understand the structure because it is indeed, different at 7000 points of the building.

Master Plan of Singapore - each building is different yet part of a flow.

As to my response whether, do I like this style or not, the answer is quite ambiguous. I appreciated her contribution to the architectural world; she has really brought the parametric into the light, and made it quite well known. I like the flow and the free form of her buildings since it has never been done in the past before, However, I felt that the complexity involved in the creation of her buildings works against her as it sparks the question; Do we really need to do this after all? Since her curves and free forms does not contributes to the main functions of the building after all, do we really need to go through all of this troubles in the order to get the aesthetics and the meaning of the building just right? Perhaps, good architecture is not only about inventive, exciting forms but also more importantly, the experience of the building and how it uses specific context of the site, the environment and the habitants to create an “experience”. Nevertheless, like I said before, it is non-arguable that Zaha has became such an influential part of today’s architecture and thus, deserves all of the credits she received.

Postmodernism – The decorated shed of Robert Venturi

After a considerable amount of time dedicated to the period of the modernists, we moved further and entered the postmodern era, the period where most of us could relate to, It is the period that shaped our concept and value, it’s the breakthrough from the conformity of the glass boxes and values the uniqueness, individuality rather than uniformity of the modern period. During the peak of the modern period, people seek for order and uniformity since all was lost during the war and there’s the need to “starting from zero” and rewrite a new history.  Postmodernism opposed this idea by looking back at the past and used them as the inspirations, the shapes and forms all which is embedded into our generation’s head, thus, when we think of a house, Mies’ glass boxes didn’t make the first image in our mind, instead, most of us with think of a rectangular houses with pinch roofs, thanks to the birth of post modernism.

To understand the concept of postmodernism, it would be crucial to mention Venturi’s theory of the “decorated shed” as counterpart of the duck house, the duck house is a house that is obvious of its purpose, it sells duck eggs, however the decorated shed represent an architecture of ambiguity, without a sign (hence, decoration), the identity of the building remains ambiguousม, Thus, the purpose, function of the shed is determined by the decoration such as the sign. This concept became a significant point in understanding postmodern architecture, as opposing to the purity and clarity of the previous era of modernism. Postmodernism avoided clarity and the “either-or” concept of modern architecture, postmodern prefers “both-and”, which overall, makes the postmodern building very broad and somewhat generic in concept. While the modernists would choose either black or white, the postmodernists would go for “black and white…or sometimes grey”, they values the ambiguity, complexity and contradiction in architecture.  Furthermore, Venturi also commented some of the modernists’ famous work to be quite complex and contradiction in its manner, basically saying that actually, these buildings fall into his categories of postmodernism, such example would be Le Corbusier’s masterpiece, the Villa Savoye, where he said, despite the plain and simplistic exterior, the plan of the interior present complexity and this is a contradiction to modern architecture overall.

Personally, I’ve found Venturi’s theory to be not as strong as Le Corbusier, not that I prefer modernism more than postmodernism but his way of getting his point across in his manisfesto is harder to understand and interpret. Saying that, I do understand his decorated shed theory and how postmodernism is all about the ambiguity in opposition to the clarity and transparency of modernism, to put it simply, I think Venturi’s architecture failed to make an impression in my head, thus I might not understand his intention fully, as I recognized Venturi’s point more strongly when he used the Villa Savoye as an example. Another reason why I might feel that Venturi’s point is weaker than most of the modernists’ might be because that we’re as a generation, so used to the idea of postmodernism already, it seems quite ordinary to the point of mundane to us, thus I felt that Venturi didn’t surprise me, or create that “realizing moment” that Le Corbusier did in “Towards new Architecture”.

Beside that, I felt quite strange when I think that an architecture that embodied Venturi’s postmodern concept of the decorated shed is the shop houses here in Bangkok, think about it, like a shed, a shop house is utterly generic and mundane in the exterior, yet the function and its purpose of it is defined by the decoration such as signage and facades similar to the decorated shed. However, the interior of shop houses and be quite different from each other, each shop house could be adjusted to be unique in its own way, thus in the interior it represents the complexity and contradiction to the exterior. Hence, this idea can also be applied to erotic architecture since I defined erotic as being mysterious and ambiguous, it draws us in and urge us to explore and investigate, which during this process, interaction and even intimacy could occur. Similarly the shop house and postmodern architectures might looks quite mundane, but the interior could represent a different story, personally, I’m always fascinated each time I got to go inside and “explore” beyond the “shop area” of a shop house. Each floors can be quite exciting and I’m in a way, always find something quite surprising during this experience. Thus, that’s why I felt that a shop house embodied this idea of a decorated shed and represent complexity and contradiction. This idea also embodies erotic architecture, the unclear and ambiguity of the architecture teases us, lures us in to explore, and while doing so, captivated us with its tightness, compact and unique quality which had become the identity of its own.

Onward From Modernism

Modernism hss been one of the main object of discuss for the past few weeks, how non-bourgeois, how (supposedly) functional, how it represent a modern era for new future. However, humans are still human, we are still fascinated with warmth and at times overridden with emotions, we don’t want to be a machine and thus, it is expressed through the obsession of bright colored automobiles which are parked close against the grey, white modern buildings. I am not against modern building; a good building is a good building whatever the style (or the lack of one). Yet I do question it, of when this conformity will be break, when will someone or something new will emerge and will be strong enough to compete with the great modernism power or at its best, stand along with modernism with no shame.

Then came along architects like Saarinen, who dares to break through the straight lines and play with curves successfully, what is particularly interesting is that these curves are not random, they are a part of the concept, they do have a purpose, they’re not for ornamentation. Then there’re also Louis Kahn, whose architecture used the past as inspiration not abandoned it, I’ve found his concept to be inspiring as a person who is also fascinated with history. I like how his building does not only occupy people nor that it’s a machine, for example, the National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which fully reflected on the Bangladesh identity, I feel that a good building should does that, it needs to care, about the context, about the occupants. Another one of my favorite, Alvar Aalto, I liked how he purposely captured the Finnish spirit in his work, how he uses local material in the order to goves out a cultural ambience which build a connection between his architecture and occupants. Thus these elements does have meanings, they do exhibits a sort of function like the ripple ceiling in the Viipuri Library, which were there for acoustic but also became a dominant aesthetical features and ultimately, the identity of the architecture as well.

Yes, I’ll admit that I do prefer this new style that the international style as I feel that it requires more creativity, more exploration and the outcome is much wider in terms of concepts and of course, the aesthetics. I’ve mention before that besides from the “white gods”, those that claimed themselves modernist were basically conforming, copying from the book, I think that architecture is about inventing, always creating a better way, learn from the old to improve the new. I admired these people to dare break the restriction of the modern architecture, dare to invites curves back into architecture, to me, that shows the ability of a great architect; the ability to always think of the future without abandoning the past.

The one and only...Le Corbusier

Response to Le Corbusier’s “Towards a New Architecture” and “Playtime” by Jacques Tati

To every (well, most of) architectural students or architects, living in the world of Le Corbusier would be like a trip to Narnia (whether you like it or not). We’ve heard so much about him, his creation and his legacy. His works stand today, still looking as “modern” as he intended to. Thus, proving that the concept of never be “out of style” in his modern buildings true. Whether do you agree with his theory or not, you have to give the man some credits, remembering that he had achieved all of what seems today as “normal” in the first half of the 20^th century and most of the buildings nowadays inevitably had some of his influences more or less. According to his manisfesto, “a house is the machine for living” in the sense that should have been governed by calculations and “standards”. Le Corbusier was fascinated with the idea of “mass production” (remembering that this was in the early 20^th century), factories fascinated him with their simple forms and pure functions as with automobiles which were mass produced and designed to fit a certain standard. To achieve the utmost perfection, there must be a certain standards which derives from various calculations and experiments, Le Corbusier believes that all humans have a certain standards and are physically the same, he went further to the point of “objectifying” his name from “Charles-Edouard Jeanneret” to Le Corbusier, “Le” means “the”.

Why do his buildings are all so minimal, blunt?  It is because he believed in the true pure primary forms, which he believed that “they can be clearly appreciated”. Gothic buildings, are not true architecture, “the styles are a lie”. Nevertheless, architectures from the past that he did admire were the pyramids, Pont du Gard and also the Parthenon all of which he stated, to have been derived from some standards and precise calculations. Thus, it almost all of his buildings, the simple pure geometrical forms became the most recognizable feature of his architecture as eventually what we recognize in most modern building nowadays. 

        

So what would it be like to live in Le Corbusier city? Besides from moving to a little town in Northern India called “Chandigargh” where his “Radiant city” had been made into reality, a film by Jacques Tati, “Playtime” offer you quite a good idea of what would it be like if his creation and principles were made into reality. The film displays the struggle of an out-of-town man hoping to meet up with a man in Le Corbusier’s version of Paris. Here, the director’s point of view towards Corbusier was clear, that it would be a blunt, grey, boring society where everything, everywhere and everyone would sort of look the same. The modern standards and mass-produced society would erases identity to the point that we only recognize it’s Paris by the old French lady selling flowers at the street corner. I personally admired Le Corbusier who came up with all of these things that today, seems ordinary. We have to admit that without some of his theory, the world would be different today. However I think that the radiant city is a bit too far, hence, I agree to Tati’s viewpoint presented on the film. At first glance, it looks aesthetically pleasing with everything in order, nice modern high rises and the glass and steel structure but as we watched the film, I started to feel the coldness, lack of warmth in the society, in the environment. It leads to the point of becoming a bit haunting, when Hawaii, New York and London would practically look the same and we couldn’t distinguish the nationalities of people without hearing them speak various languages. I do appreciate Le Corbusier for his contribution to today’s architecture, his theory was inspiring and I do appreciate and admire his creation of the human’s standard, however, his creations should only be kept in a decent scale. As shown in Playtime, the “Radiant City” lacks warmth and identity; to the point that it was so honest that in return I felt that it decreases some of my imaginative thoughts. We do value our freedom of choice so why should we set against our individuality and become some sort a mass-produced product.