My Design Process

After completing all of the coursework and readings for this class, I identify my design process with the Arts and Crafts Movement. Like John Ruskin, I prefer to use a traditional craftsman tool such as a pencil, pen, and trace paper, to formulate my design and ideas. I understand my designs better when I hand draw everything down to wall sections. Plugging in design ideas into an electronic device, takes away from my understanding of how things should work, stand, or connect to other design elements, since the majority of systems and design components are given in programs like Revit, AutoCAD, or Rhino.

Even though my preference of designing deals with standard artist tools, my design process also falls in the category of Ville le Duc’s teachings of design, which uses technology to innovate designs. Once I have worked my ideas and designs on paper, I do plug them into an architectural computer program, Rhino, in order to better preserve these ideas and make it easier to fix edit them in the future. I also enjoy rendering my perspectives and sections in 3ds and editing the product renderings in Adobe Photoshop, by adding people, changing scenery, or adjusting the brightness of the perspective.

               

As far as organizing my spaces and developing a structural system and building envelope, I take the functional, social, and movement approach seen in many of Eero Saarinen’s and Rem Koolhaas’ work. I think about how a person could move about a space and what activities may take place within the site. My Professors Dan Woodfin and Olon Dotson instruct their students to approach design in this method, and with their design projects I found myself more successful in the outcome than on projects structure and system based. Dan Woodfin exhibited the functional approach through his beach house project, where I was instructed to develop a pedestrian pathway that led to the beach front but also branched off into a separate more private path leading to the living quarters, which hovered over the path and private from the public spaces. Olon Dotson addressed the functional approach through a project which required me to design an urban farm located in the inner city. His program for this project was very open, and I had to come up with activities and functions for this project which would bring the residents and other visitors into the space, requiring a lot of cultural and social research about this area.   I was extremely fascinated with these projects and their design strategies. As a result, most of the projects I have done lately center around social aspects, circulation, and activities, and their building forms and structure imitate these notions. 

Beach House (Dan Woodfin's Studio)

Agriculture in the Hood (Olon Dotson's Studio)

Open Floor Plan System

Le Corbusier

During the early 1900s, Architects started experimenting with plans, structure, tectonics, and materiality of residential housing. Among this experimentation, a new form of architecture came on the horizon known as the open floor plan system. Le Corbusier fathered this new system, which is also known as the Dom-ino frame, in efforts to celebrate industrialization and technology in architectural building process. This system consisted of an assembling process “in which the columns and the floor plates constituted a prefabricated system independent of walls and partitions (Colquhoun, 2002, pg. 143).” Its construction freed up more space, allowing the users more flexibility to design their own space, whether it is decorated with color, wall partitions, or furniture, without having to undergo the hassle of reformulating a structural system in order to fit these things in a space. Le Corbusier himself even decorated some of his buildings with colored plaster, transforming his design into an “abstract prism” (Colquhoun, 2002, pg. 144). As the years went on other, Architects such as Mies van der Rohe and the last great architect of the modern era, Louis Khan, began to pick up on this new style of architecture and manipulated its concepts to fit their own.

Le Corbusier's Dom-ino frame (open floor plan)

Mies van der Rohe

In his designs of a residential open plan, Mies van der Rohe introduces a game of juxtaposition between the functions of a column and a wall. Mies was more interested in creating architecture for residential housing, which hold necessity and genuine meaning and purpose. He was a part of the avant-garde movement of architecture, which sought to depreciate existing values of architecture in order to make room for a more critical understanding of art and society (Hartoonian, Winter, 1989, pg. 43). Mies took from Alberti’s ideas about the column being the “principal ornament in all architecture.” However, in his most famous homes, Barcelona Pavilion and the Tugendhat House, he reverses Alberti’s syntax of column and wall. In these homes, the columns read as load bearing elements while the wall displays its freedom from which the column and wall are identical in nature and purpose (Hartoonian, Winter, 1989, pg 45).

Barcelona Pavilion

Barcelona Pavilion floor plan on the right compare to a line and plane painting on the left

Tugendhat House

Tugendhat House Floor Plan

Tugendhat House Interior view of the dinning area locate on the bottom center of the floor plan above

Louis Khan

Louis Khan used views and the illumination of natural light in a space to define his open plan. He believed that “sense of light is the giver of all precedence, light belongs to that particular space.” Khan exercised this theory in many of his works such as the Art Museum at Yale University, Jonas Salk Institute, Kimbell Art Museum, and Exeter Library. In the Jonas Salk Institute, the layout of the concrete buildings open up to the courtyard/plaza and Pacific Ocean sky as a façade, experiencing its different hue of blues. When designing the Kimbell Art Museum, he plays with natural light in open warehouse spaces, giving the museum a homier, intimate appearance than just another commercial building. Each of the rooms are 100 ft long consisting of a series of halls with high and low spaces. Slits and beams placed on the ceiling in some rooms brought in natural light, and by using curved vaults the light spread more beautifully along the ceiling and wall.

Jonas Salk Institute (showing the view in the morning from the plaza)

Jonas Salk Institute (showing the view during the day from the plaza)

Kimbell Art Museum

Kimbell Art Museum interior view

It is truly magnificent to see how one’s intentions of an open plan system to celebrate technology and encourage individualism progressed and ends with an intent as a play of lights and views. In no way, shape, or form are any of these methods or others not mentioned wrong. Like many other designs, style, and theories of architecture, one architect will develop a concept or design and other architects of his time and in later periods will try to replicate this concept and design or desecrate it and come up with their own modified version. These three men, Le Corbusier, Mies, and Khan definitely used this open floor plan to their own advantage and executed their refined ideas well in their designs; therefore making them some of the greatest architects of their time and for generations to come. I am definitely sure that architects after their era tried to modify their theories of the open plan system, but they will always be known as the men who paved the way for these refinements of the open plan.

Citations:

Colquhoun, A. (2002). Modern Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.

http://www.google.com/images

Hartoonian, G. (Winter, 1989). Mies van der Rohe: The Genealogy of Column and Wall. Journal of Architectural Education, 42(2), 43-50.

Arts and Crafts Meets Industrialization

During the 19^th century more and more machines and factories arrived on the scene mass producing items that would normally be designed and put together by a craftsman. John Ruskin felt the diminishment of the importance and need of the everyday craftsman. To solve this social concern he believed and advocated that in order to save the occupation, need, and talent of the craftsman, society needed to do away with moving forward into industrialization. He viewed machines and factories as acting as the modern day craftsman and no longer would a craftsman and his individuality be needed to design and produce great products. Spreading his philosophy to others, Ruskin was known as the father of the arts and crafts movement. Many of the following architects and their movements, Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus, Geritt Reitveld and De Stijl, and Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie Style home, agreed with his logics of the importance of craftsmanship and the individuality of an artist, but at the same time they agreed with Ville le Duc’s argument on adapting to their environment and using resources of the time to design and produce their architecture. Their integrated philosophy of both John Ruskin and Ville le Duc, helped transform the face of the arts and crafts movement; no longer would an artist or craftsman require a pen or pencil, a carving utensil, nor a paint brush but a machine to complete a project.

Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus

When Walter Gropius was commissioned to design and build a new school of Architecture and Applied Arts, not only did he design the building itself but he also used his own resources, his Bauhaus students to design and produce furniture that went into the building all the way down to the doorknob in their shop classrooms. He believed that the “artistic culture was threaded by the materialism of industrial capitalism and could only be saved by a spiritual revolution (Colquhoun, 2002, pg. 160).” In his case, the revolution would be to step back into the mentality of a craftsman in order to rebel against society’s custom of buying furniture with ornamentation of little importance just for decoration produced by a factory. He wanted the Bauhaus to display this following idea: “Let us conceive a new building of the future…architecture, painting, and sculpture rising to Heaven out of the hands of a million craftsmen, the crystal symbol of the new in the future (Colquhoun, 2002, pg. 160).” He basically wanted to create a notion that a work of art, like a simple piece of furniture, should be designed and mass produced by a factory of craftsman, people like his students, not by labored workers just trained to press a button to constantly replicate a product. Many of his design concepts were influenced by the De Stijl movement and Frank Lloyd Wright. 

Bauhaus School of Architecture and Art

An aerial view of the Bauhaus School

An interior view of the school and its student develope furniture

A Tea Pot designed by a Bauhaus student

Garrit Rietveld and De Stijl Movement

Before he became an architect, Garrit Rietveld started out as a furniture maker, which allowed him to design not only the exterior but also the interior of his buildings; his most prominent design project that really emphasized his design strategies and methods was the Schroder House (Emmons & Mindrup, 2008, pg. 45). This house was designed and built during the De Stijl movement, which many of the artists during this time believed that architecture and art should be expressed through “functionalism, with a severe and doctrinaire on the rectilinearity of the planes, which seem to slide across one another like sliding panels.” All surface decoration was to be eliminate except pure primary colors hues, black, and white(Jirousek, 1995). Rietveld design for the Schroder house stemmed from his red and blue chair and Piet Mondrian’s painting  Composition in red and blue. There is a really strong connection between the building and the painting as if the building and its furniture acted as a canvas for Rietveld to carry out his De Stijl ideas. Every use of color and simplicit geometric form added functional purpose to the design; he gained this influence and the inspiration to produce his own furniture from Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophies. 

A painting done by Piet Mondrian called Composition in Red and Blue

Furniture done by Rietveld

Schroder House

Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie Style Homes

For many of his commissioned projects, Frank Lloyd Wright, like the architects mentioned above, designed the structure of a building all the way down to its door handle. As a prominent leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, he believed heavily in John Ruskin ideas of upholding the individuality and raw talent of an artist and craftsman but he also believed, “Art’ still dominates, but it is now produced by the machine, not by the craftsman, and is totally controlled by the architect working at his drawing board (Colquhoun, 2002, pg 53).” The finished product of everything that is produced by a machine depends on the person who is controlling or designed the machine. These machines cannot operate and advance on its own without somebody coming to fix it or tell it what to do. Therefore, a machine would be more on a scale as a pencil, paper, or exacto knife when it comes down to designing, and that is exactly what it was for Wright.

Robie House

Robie House interior view

Another Robie House interior view

All of the architects list above where successful with their designs and methods of designing the exterior and interior of a structure using some type of machine, or in Gropius case factory; however, why did John Ruskin not receive the same success in his methods and design? If these architects would have continued to strictly commit to his philosophies, they would have not been able to meet the demand of the consumer. The world has now reach the industrial and technology age, and no longer do consumers have to wait weeks, days, or even hours for the simplest necessities and luxuries to be produced by the manufacturer. Surely the idea of a craftsman would have vanished from this society, relying specifically on John Ruskin methods. Our world needed some balance between the craftsmen and industrialization, which could meet the demands of the people but also uphold the talent of the artist, and these architects truly found this equilibrium.

Colquhoun, A. (2002). Modern Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Emmons, P., & Mindrup, M. (2008). Material Models and Immaterial Paradigms in the Rietveld Schröder House. Journal of Architectural Education, 62(2), 44-52. doi: 10.1111/j.1531-314X.2008.00239.x

www.google.com/images 

Jirousek, C. (1995). De Stijl.   Retrieved 2/28/2013, 2013, from http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/destijl/decstijl.htm

Louis Sullivan and the refinement of the Chicago School

Chicago Illinois is top on the list of my favorite cities, not because it is in the vicinity of my hometown, nor for their delicious cuisines, but for its architecture and many skyscrapers thanks to a man named Louis Sullivan, one of the fathers of the Chicago School of tall buildings. He redefined the organization and hierarchy of the exterior and interior of tall office buildings through these three words “form follows function” or “form vs. function.” He gained this ideology about architecture by studying the concepts and philosophies of Ville le Duc and his beliefs on tectonic expression, Schelling and the Schlegel brothers and their view on works of art representing the product of an inner force, and the New England philosophical school of Transcendentalism and their organic principals, “all things in nature have shape…tell us what they are…distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other (Colquhoun, 2002pg. 111).” But was the refinement of skyscrapers really a necessity or was Sullivan nit picking and trying to define himself as an architect during career?

 
Standards for Tall Office Buildings

Architects of Sullivan’s time including himself in the beginning of his career, as seen in the Auditorium Building in Chicago, was designing skyscrapers using the following method. The 1^st story, which is below ground, will usually contain the mechanical equipment such as the boilers, heating, cooling, lighting and other various machines. The 2^nd story, the ground or main floor, is normally devoted to commercial and retail use, providing an ample amount of space, lighting, and a huge entrance access. The 3^rd story, which is the second story of the building, is accessible by stairs or elevator, is usually sectioned into large subdivisions, “with corresponding liberality in structural spacing and expanse of glass and breadth of external openings (Sullivan, 1988pg. 105).” The 4^th story, consist of a couple of floors that house offices, one floor of offices stack on another floor of offices, one office looks just like all the other offices in this building. The 5^th story, the attic, was located at the very top of the tall building, normally grand expressing the metaphor of ascending and descending. This space is also normally filled with pipes, tanks, valves, sheaves, and other mechanical equipment (Sullivan, 1988pg 105). 

Sullivan's Critiques

Two buildings which Sullivan criticized about its exterior and interior designs flaws as a result of following the above design method, was the Auditorium Building by Dankmar Adler and himself and the Tacoma Building by William Holabird and Martin Roche:

Sullivan felt that if the Auditorium Building had a weakness, it would be that the building failed to reflect its programs since every floor functioned the same (Colquhoun, 2002pg. 39). This building was a mixed use building (the first mixed use building), housing a theater, hotel, and offices under one roof (University). Base off the buildings appearance you would never guess that an auditorium was in this building or where it might be located, even though most might say its location would be near the front because of the detail on the entrance but it is actually located a couple of floors below the tower, according to this section cut of the building. When comparing the building to the section, by people who pass by this building would never had guest that the building consist of these different programs, shifts, and functions. This section cut definitely is more visually interesting and upholds more information about the building than its exterior.

Auditorium Building, Chicago, IL by Adler and Sullivan

Floor plan of the Auditorium Building

Section View of the Auditorium Building

Interior View of the Auditorium's Theater

According to Sullivan, Tacoma Building suffered a fault opposite of the one seen in the Auditorium Building, the similarity of functions was expressed but it lacked this expression on the exterior of the building making it seem like it is just a succession of floors found in the interior (Colquhoun, 2002pg. 39). I agree the building really does look like a succession of floors, it has some unique qualities but it seemed like whatever the unique quality was on the first floor was replicated on all of the other floors, leaving no hierarchy among the building. The only floors that seem to be different on the exterior were the main floor and the top floor or the attic. 

Tacoma Building by William Holabird and Martin Roche, Chicago, IL

The Critics View on His Concept

Many adored Sullivan’s theories and ideas on structural organization and hierarchy, form vs. function but was not found about the facade of the building displaying all of these elements, they thought it would cause confusion to the visual eye. “the tall office building should not, must not, be made a field for the display of architectural knowledge in the encyclopedic sense; that too much learning in this instance is fully as dangerous, as obnoxious, as too little learning; that miscellany is abhorrent to their sense; that the sixteen story building must not consist of sixteen separate, distinct and unrelated buildings piled one upon the other until the top of the pile is reached (Sullivan, 1988pg 110).” For those who knew little about architecture design, felt that they would not be able to understand the visual appearance of Sullivan’s buildings. After listening to their critiques on Sullivan’s concepts, readers would infer that his design would mostly be used to define himself as an architect and not the era or to solve the social problems of society.

The Perfect Skyscraper

Sullivan thought yes architects of tall office buildings have been given a organization principal to follow while designing buildings of these sort, but why can it not be a functional maybe even a structural reason behind these standards? In his Wainwright Building in St. Louis he really executed this idea of form vs. function within the typical organization of skyscrapers. He focused on emphasizing two main stories the base, which is the main floor, and the attic and piling floors in the middle. Instead of following the structural principals of the column spacing he reduced the spacing size of the pilaster to the width size of a single window. “In doing this, he produce a phalanx of verticals that could be read simultaneously as columns and as mullions, as structure and as ornament (Colquhoun, 2002pg 41-42).” His manipulation with the columns did away with expectation of classical mathematical proportions and meaningless ornamentation among tall office buildings. His design truly made this building seems like it was ascending and descending from the heavens. By allowing the interior influencing the shape of the exterior, the building looked more structurally sound and even the people outside his profession could understand structure, materiality, and ornamentation that develop this building. 

Wainwright Building by Adler and Sullivan

ornamentation as an extension of structure

floors stacked on top of these steel columns/mullions

Was it Necessary?

Toward the end of his career he ended his partnership with Adler, who consistently brought in new business and partnerships for their firm, and as a result building commissions began coming in slow. Many of his projects reduced to smaller scale designs like banks and small shopping malls, but his ideas on form vs. function continued to live, inspiring other architects and design movements like Frank Lloyd Wright, who work for Sullivan in his early career and Art Nouveau with the Wainwright Building (first modern skyscraper) and Carson Pirie Scott building. No longer do architects design according to an exterior organization that has nothing to do with the space, function, and activities of the interior of the building. No longer will a building seem like a waste, a lost canvas full off meaningless work of art, nor unpleasing to the eye since it does not match its inner organs, its natural system. Nature is the essences of beauty to us because its organic form matches its complex functions; it tells us what it is before we know its function or story. Based off those facts, the organization and hierarchy of these extremely tall buildings needed to be redefined to become a true essence of beauty in its presence and solution to social problems when placed in our world. Sullivan was truly trying to better the social conditions of urban life through natural beauty and function; not defining himself as an extraordinary architect of his time. 

Carson Pirie Scott store, Chicago, IL by Sullivan

Citations:

Colquhoun, A. (2002). Modern Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.

www.google.com/images 

Sullivan, L. (1988). The Public Papers. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

University, R. The Auditorium Building.   Retrieved February 2, 2013, from http://www.roosevelt.edu/CampusCommunity/AuditoriumBuilding.aspx

Ruskin, Le Duc, and Semper

     As history began to approach the 19^th century, cities began to change its way of life in regards to organization, jobs, materials, and goods which called for a new style of art and architecture to define and record their new era. Industrialization was on the rise, causing an influx of people from rural areas moving to the city, unhealthy and unorganized cities, and new materials and goods unable to produce by hand. New social problems, machines, and building materials called for a new ideology and form of architecture, “modern architecture,” given by these following men: Viollet le Duc, a theorist and writer, John Ruskin, and Gottfried Semper, both architects and writers, in order to solve these problems and record these significant inventions.

Arts & Crafts Style

     John Ruskin theories on architecture kind of took the Traditionalist approach, degenerating ideas from the past styles and continue to use them in modern architecture, but they also offered new ideas for the future of architecture (Colquhoun, 2002, p. 10). Ruskin believed that the new architecture should focus on the arts and crafts of previous styles. He was fascinated with high Gothic architecture (Pevsner). He did not like the idea of industrialization; he felt that industries were taking away the craftsmanship of architecture and making it immoral, requiring less labor, appearing less significant, and needing less time (Summerson, p. 656).

     Ruskin also believed in seven values of architecture, referred to as “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life, memory, and obedience. Instead of restoring old historic buildings he thought they should preserve its ruins, because history was encoded in its decay. Restoring these buildings normally meant the use of another material would be involved to mimic the form of the original material, due to the age of the building. Ruskin believed in the truth of materials; therefore, he disagreed with the idea of restoration.

Detailed Literary Works

Detailed Border of a Page in a Literary Work 

Interior of a Residential Home during the Arts and Crafts Movement

Art Nouveau Style

      Viollet-le-Duc theories on architecture mostly disagreed with Ruskins; Le Duc took on a more Progressivist approach to architecture, wanting a style which reflected there age like the eras before them (Colquhoun, 2002, p. 10). He believed that “architects should find resources furnished by manufacturing skills and making use of these means with a view to the adoption of architectural forms adapted to our times”(Summerson, p. 656).

     Like Ruskin, Le Duc was also interested in gothic architecture (Pevsner). He was so fascinated that he analyzed how each gothic feature functioned by itself and as a whole in the structure and developed a dictionary and other literary works, Entretiens sur l’Architecture and the Dictionnaire Raisonne de l’Architecture Francaise, descriptively telling his readers how gothic buildings are made and how each component up to furniture function within the building. Through understanding the tectonics of gothic architecture, le Duc develops new ways to use the gothic style of architecture. In his later works and projects, he begins integrating steel and other metal materials into this archaic style of architecture.

Steel Structure Design done by Ville le Duc

Art Nouveau Interior Design

Many of the designs during this movement uphold this design to some certain extent

Der Still Style

     Gottfried Semper shared values of both Ruskin and le Duc, but also brings some new ideologies of architecture to the forefront. Like Ruskin, He was interested in the ornamentation of a building, not so much of the craftsmanship but the meaning and symbolism of this detailed art, and like le Duc, he was interested in the industrial production architecture could utilize in the future. Semper focused on how architecture styles could be compared in scientific and mathematical form, the taxonomy of architecture styles and form. He achieved this understanding by tracing back the history of individual art works and other influences, whether they were historical, material, or spiritual, that guided the birth and development of art. He was interested in the “formal laws and logic noticeable in the creation of architecture. “(Hvattum, Mar 2006, p. 136).

     With this idea, In 1851, He wrote The Four Elements of Architecture, which divided built forms into the following four categories: hearth, where elements of architecture group themselves like the residence flock around the fire of a house, platform, the basic level of a structure like living above ground, enclosure, the walls of a building like a fortress for protection, and the roof, which protects the unity of the elements like the roof protects the hearth from the rain.

the "Primitive Hut" or the "Four Elements of Architecture" described by Semper

Semper Speaks on Textiles and Weaving in his Literary Work "Der Still"

A painting done by Piet Mondrian during the De Stijl Movement

Conclusion

     Each of the previous writers and designers, Ruskin, le Duc, and Semper, influenced the future artistic and architecture styles of Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and De Stijl, taking with them the following characteristics to develop art and architecture. Ruskin’s ideas founded the Arts and Crafts Movement where designers were interested in the handcraftsmanship of artworks and individuality of the craftsman and not machines. Le Duc designs inspired the Art Nouveau artist to leave materials and framework of a building exposed, organize spaces according to form vs function, design organic forms, and study vernacular domestic architecture (Colquhoun, 2002, p. 15). Semper wrote a literary work called Der Still which was written to understand and clarify process, but many misinterpreted his message about art for materialism and functionalism, inspiring many De Stijl artists to focus on simplicity of forms, abstraction, and use of color (History).

Citations:

Colquhoun, A. (2002). Modern Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.

http://www.google.com/image

History, D. I. De Stijl. from http://www.designishistory.com/1920/de-stijl/

Hvattum, M. (Mar 2006). Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism. [Caroline Van Eck]. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 65(1), 136-139.

Pevsner, N. Ruskin and Villet-Le-Duc, Englishness and Frenchness in the Appreciation of Gothic Architecture. 9-43.

Summerson, J. Villet-le-Duc and the Rational Point of View in Heavenly Mansions.