1. As the technique of detailing changed from the hands of the craftsman to the tools of the architect, how has the resulting construction of details changed? Explain in terms of scale, material and cost.
The method of detailing a building shifted from the hands of the craftsman to the drawings of the architect distinctly changing the way in which details were constructed, imagined, and perceived. Craftsmen long served as the sole possessors of the knowledge of how various details functioned, were built, etc. Through time however, architects took more control, deciding instead to draw details in plan, section, etc. This drastically changed the scale at which details were conceived. Whereas the craftsman viewed the details as full-scale constructed objects, the architect separated him/herself from the true/built detail by imagining it in scaled drawings, void of materiality.
The material of details also shifted as detailing responsibility shifted. Architects tend to think in form and geometry, and not necessarily materiality. Craftsmen, however, are only craftsman insomuch as they think and imagine in suitable and feasible materials. The craftsmen were the ones who knew what to construct the details out of - so they thought of them thusly (from a material foundation). The architects were able to identify what they wanted (perhaps) but thought of details as spawning from form and geometry - whether the shape/geometry was founded or could be founded in a feasible material.
Cost comes into play in that details are moving increasingly towards standardized parts (much cheaper than the handmade constructions of the craftsmen). The standardization of details makes craftsmen unnecessary - the architect can now simply specify and draw various details from a manufacturer's catalog. Cost is the driving force behind standardization.
2. How does "geometrical relationship" of individual details provide an understanding of the whole building if "indirect vision" localizes the viewer and "habit determines to a large extent even optical reception"?
The geometrical relationship of individual details is directly related to the phenomenon of indirect vision in that indirect vision demands the viewer perceive details through a series of visual sweeps of a site. The geometric relationship of individual details helps to unify various visual sweeps into a comprehensive understanding of the whole building. This is because as a detail moves away from the natural focus of our eye it's details become fuzzy - it is a rough sketch while what we are focusing on is a precise rendering. However, we are able to compile a more complete view of a whole building by building geometric relationships between various details after spending some time viewing the building.
3. Carlo Scarpa's details are a "result of an intellectual game" where the Open City buildings are constructed from an act of poetry. Describe what role the detail plays to "tell-the-tale" in each of these environments.
Scarpa's details "tell-the-tale" of - how they are made, where they are placed, how their dimensions are chosen. The tale of the detail is told through its functionality and appropriateness.
The details in the Open City are used as built expressions of the poetic content of the site. They serve as a graphic language that tells-the-tale of a particular poem unique to the site and building.
4. Pendleton-Jullian writes about the Open City as emerging from and being in the landscape. Does allowing landscape to initiate "the configuration of territory and space" challenge Western building notions, and how so?
Western building conventions (and on a larger scale Western concepts of private property) very much run against the idea that landscape initiate "the configuration of territory and space." In Western culture land is seen as a commodity that one possesses - not as a shared resource or something that contains intrinsic value (it is only instrumentally valuable since its value is determined by how desirable it is to humans). The human and his/her condition is seen as the initiator of "the configuration of territory and space" because humans are perceived as intrinsically valuable - while the landscape is only valuable in so much as how well it lends itself to being configured by humans for humans. The idea that the landscape initiates such a configuration would mean that a possession would be dictating the form/space a human owner would inhabit.
5. Describe some detail conditions of the Open City that convey "lightness" as Pendleton-Jullian refers to.
Pendleton-Jullian describes lightness in terms of the physical impression the building has upon the site. Not only in the way in which it was constructed and the materials it was constructed from (i.e. post and beam construction supporting a light and airy kind of cladding often perforated), but also in a metaphorical sense which is conveyed through the use of said methods and materials (i.e. the idea that various buildings can be cannabalized to create new buildings - and the thusly appropriate material choices - convey a certain ad hoc feel to the Open City as a whole...something that could be packed up and deployed at will - which infers a certain lightness as an opposite of a monumental feel).
No comments:
Post a Comment