Peter Zumthor Questions

1. How does Peter Zumthor talk about the "Magic of the Real" and explain how this compares, in terms of the subtleties, to Michael Benedikt's "Architecture for Reality"?

Peter Zumthor idea of “Magic of the Real” is about the experience someone has when they are inside of a building or setting. The mood building made by the space available to people. Benedikt’s “Architecture of Reality” is how a person feels in the presence a buildings, space, mass, and composition.

2. Material Compatibility, Temperature of a Space and Levels of Intimacy are some conditions that both Peter Zumthor, in “Atmospheres”, and Richard Serra, in “Weight and Measure”, make a point of articulating when consider space. Where in their explanation of these overlapping conditions are they similar and where do they differ?

Both Serra and Zumthor both deal with the weight of the materials and how it effects your structure, and how this may cause the object or structure to react with peoples sense of space. How it will effect someone’s movement around the object or how the may stand in relation to it. What differs in the ideas of both these architects is how materials temperature can change someone relation to the object.

3. Zumthor looks towards experiential conditions when creating architecture, what are other methods architects use when generating architecture and what is the corresponding building?

Other methods of experimenting and generating architecture can come in the form of modeling before building. Richard Serra for example worked modeling on a 1 - 1 scale before generating his work, so he could see someone’s reaction to a piece he had been working on.

4. For Zumthor at the end of the day, after figuring use, sound, place, light and the other listed conditions, if the coherence isn’t beautiful the process is started again. Beauty is simultaneously subjective for the individual, as held “in the eye of the beholder”, and universally recognizable. Define your subjective understanding of what beautiful architecture is.

 Beautiful architecture is something that cannot fully be explained, rather it is something that must been see in order to get a full effect of why something can be considered beautiful. As Zumthor describes it, is something that even with all the right conditions calculated and brought to a reasonable understanding, by taking a look at the building or structure you can tell if it is beautiful or not. It is something that is felt about the individual in the presence of a structure, that  something just keeps your eye or your senses fixated on it . More often than not you cannot realize if something is beautiful or not without first being able to bring it into the physical state, and then looking back on it you will be able to decide if it is considered beautiful.

Serra Interview Questions

1. What were Richard Serra's goals for the installation?

He wanted to define space with his sculptures, but he didn’t want his works to define the space already placed by the galleries. He also wanted the space to be defined by what he constructed not by the gallery. He wanted to also give each person no matter their size the same experience of scale and wieght.

2. Define the field Serra is referring to when he states that his sculptural elements need to create "enough tension within the field to hold the experience of presence in the place". How do you define "experience of presence"?

The field he is talking about is of the vertical and how his sculptures need to give off a sense of elevation and scale. The scale and dimension in proportion to their bodies is what gives people a presence of the work, so that when they remember the work or the building what they really remember is the proportion of the work to their scale.

3. How do the columns, pedestal condition, octagonal space and vertical axis challenge Serra?

The columns and pedestal gave Serra a challenge by only taking up a certain amount of space but when he used them he found the gallery limited there presence since they over shadowed its height and they didn’t occupy much horizontal space. The octagonal space was seen to have a effect where people kept wanting to stand towards the center of it.

4. What is effective in terms of the shape, scale and number of the two square elements in the Duveen Galleries?

The galleries use of shape and scale are effective in that they give a person a lasting first impression by the roofs being much higher and giving people and massive vertical experience, and there space does not take up much horizontal space so it gives each person a presence based on its vertical axis condition.

5. Describe the differences and similarities between Barnett Newman's and Richard Serra's work.

Both deal with basic geometric shapes in different proportions so that people can remember their work based on its scale rather than its color’s or positioning.

Essay Subjects

Section of Theme's : Borders that Control / Walls that Layer / Pockets that offer Choice and Changer

Section of Condition : Types that Recur / Orders that come and go 

Site Plan Diagrams Practice

Memory and Section Drawings Final

Plaster Shoe Exercise

Memory Drawing

Shoe Diagram Exercise

Light and Shadow Exercise

Lines and Planes and Reality Based Architecture

Stan Allen describes field conditions as “bottom-up phenomena: defined not by overarching geometrical schemas but by intricate local connections.” What are some field condition examples that can be found in the road systems of Lubbock?

Roads can subdivide the landscape and provide a unit or measurement of some kind. Stop signs could be used to show where areas intersect, where people converge at. Another condition could be the tapering of the edges of the road, sloping them slightly to keep water off.

In part 1, Allen distinguishes a geometric relationship of classical architecture from an algebraic combination of the Cordoba Mosque. How do these two architectural examples differ?

Classical architecture was seen to have a hierarchy, the Cordoba Mosque was seen to have one set condition and as it grew it was more mathematical and precise. Replication was used over and over again in the mosque, reproducing of the arch. The arch replication could be used a field condition since each arch is so big and precise. Geometric architecture is more precise where as algebraic architecture are measured using a variable.

What are some other examples of field conditions that can be observed around campus?

Paving of what is roads to what is a concrete side walk. Paths from one area to the next and how the connect to one another. Seats in a stadium could be one field condition as well as the method people move to sit down in the seat. Parking lots can also be one.

How does a field condition stand to redefine the relation between figure and ground?

It demonstrates the use of space taken up by objects against what is still open space left on the ground. For example showing where space not occupied by buildings are located against where they currently exist.

Benedikt describes degrees of reality in architecture as: Architecture of Dreams, Architecture of Games, Architecture of Illusions, Architecture of Enactments and Architecture of Jokes. What are some example buildings that fall under these categories?

Architecture of dreams is anything that is purely conceptual, a building that can only be made under perfect unrealistic conditions. Architecture of games be The Glass House as house that is assembled or designed under a condition or set of rules. Architecture of Illusions could be considered the Eiffel Tower, the tower does have arches at its base that are not supportive to the structure at all and only serve as a aesthetic purpose. Architecture of re-enactments could be the Lincoln Memorial because it uses Greek-era designs to create the buildings, where as a example of pre-enactment could be the Lloyd's Insurance Building in London because it uses a hi-tech style or architecture, as well as using materials in new ways. Architecture of Jokes could be The Crooked House since it is constructed to look as it it was a building that was falling apart or leaning over.

What is the reality Michael Benedikt writes about?

The actual physical world and what makes it up as opposed to any ideas we associate with the world or any of it. To have something exist without association.

Benedikt describes “direct esthetic experience of the real” as being moments without symbolism. Where in our environment does symbolism occur and where in our environment is symbolism absent? What is an example of this situation?

Symbolism can occur when a object reminds us of something, or we associate a object with a meaning. For example a flag we can associate with whatever nation or with patriotism. A opposite of this could be any building that severs multiple purposes or we don’t have a precognitive interpretation for what it is or how it functions. A parking lot can be a non-symbolic space.

Although Benedikt’s position pulls examples from the 70‘s and 80‘s to illustrate that an architecture of reality is polar to the post-modern architecture movement, this condition continues to exist today. Where in the city would be examples of an architecture of reality and post-modern architecture?

Parking lots, roof tops, and even highway systems could be reality based architecture as they are both modern in design and at the same time they are different. They both have not association to any pre-existing design.

The four components that define the “realness” of an architecture for reality are: presence, significance, materiality, and emptiness (in two categories). How do these components relate to architecture? and What are some examples of architectural elements that make up these conditions?

Presence can be attributed to how a building can make you feel, it should be unapologetic and give you a feeling that it is there. Significance is the importance of a building to someone or to a group of people, why is it still around. Materiality is the use of the material and having them being used in a authentic manner, more over its how you use the material not what you use it for. Emptiness is the space that while a void is instead used as something that draws you in and helps you feel that something is still there or to guide you along to a destination. 

Diagrams and Field Condtions