Jane Jacob- The Death and Life of Great American Cities




This article is a redefining a large city on why it exist, and what it takes to plan for its development and improvement. Jacob argued that urban planning of a city needs to take place from a street-level perspective. The objective of planning a city need to support, promote and ignite the importance of city streets. This include commercial and residential spaces and a mixture of people from a variety of economic status and background. All planning effort of a city needs to take into account of the people around the neighborhood involved regardless even if the people are poor and uneducated. Any thoughts of simplifying things to make them orderly will destroy the city and its people with it. On the other hand, a city is supposed to be an organized complexity. A city is not a work of art and cannot be treated with as if it were another form of architecture. A city, unlike a small town, is filled with people who are strangers to each other, so any plans have to find ways for strangers from within a neighborhood and from without to be able to co-exist and maybe even learn a little about each other.






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Peter Eisenman- ''Post-Functionalism''




Peter Eisenman discuss that two different exhibition centre ''Architerrura Razional'' and "Ecole des Beaux Arts" applies a different treatment of form and function nevertheless having the same definition of architecture as function and type. Humanism in architecture is always concern with program and theme or in simple way function and form. Eisenman also discuss between a French hotel with a more variation of floor plan while being masked by a well-proportioned facade on the external, while the English house on the other hand has a regular and formal floor plan and defines the external facade. I agree with the opinion program and form were once contrast design consideration. However as the development of industrialization arise, the balance between form and function was disrupted. Architects from the mid twentieth century began to understand design as form follows function. However the issue is not always about the function but some how rather modernist taste. It is believe that the relationship between form and function is based on culture. Modernist sensibility has to do with a change of thinking attitude towards artifact of the physical world.

CHUA CHYI SHYAN 1001542549

REYNAR BANHAM: ORNAMENT AND CRIME

   Ornament in architecture is any element that is added to an otherwise merely structural form, usually for the purpose of decoration added to something to make it more attractive. Ornament is a language through which architecture communicates with a broader public, for a layman’s appreciation. Ornament itself is a decorative feature by application onto any part of a building. Despite ornamentation primarily is for aesthetic and decoration purpose, it could also serve as a functional element when it is integrated as part of a building structure itself. Ornament was regarded as crime because as time goes Adolf Loos believes that ornamentation will eventually becomes unfashionable. Therefore its a waste of effort to add ornamentation onto the building. 

   Ornamentation increases budget significantly and it is also time consuming during construction work. Ornamentation that was created then, do not have meaning or relationship to us now, or perhaps even in the future. We should emphasize on the good workmanship and suitable material used, as well as making good quality works, instead of adding the ornaments without purposes. In this modern era, ornamentation has become unprogressive and uncreative. Ornament was once synonymous, but now it is inferior. 

CHUA CHYI SHYAN 1001542549

LE CORBUSIER, "THE PLAN OF THE MODERN HOUSE"

  Basically there were 5 main points in Le Corbusier's theory for plan of a modern house. In addition to that there were mainly 5 elements which revolves around his design. The elements are, "Pilotis"- in which the building is raised up on reinforced concrete pylons (Pilotis) to allow free circulation on ground level. "The Roof Terrace"- a garden on the roof. "The Free Plan"- load-bearing walls are substitute with a steel or reinforced concrete columns, so the interior can be freely designed, and interior walls can place anywhere, or left out entirely. Hence, the structure of the building is not visible on the facade of the building. "Ribbon Window"-Since the walls do not carry the load of the house, the windows can run the entire length of the house, hence all rooms can get equal amount of natural light. And "Free Facade"- Since the building is supported by columns in the interior, the facade can be much lighter and more open, or even made entirely of glass. There is no need for lintels or other structure around the windows.

   The 1st main points in Le Corbusier's theory is to identify between the biological and aesthetic experience or appearance of a building. Its basically using our 5 common senses of how we identity the mood(emotion) of a building. We need to consider the dwellers comfort in therms of sight, thermal comfort etc.

   Next, Le Corbusier ignites the idea of to dimensions the spaces within the dwellings and to find a suitable site for it. This has change the perspective of surveying the site first and to dimesion the spaces later. This is because Le Corbusier believe that a dwelling should serve the dweller"s purpose.

  Le Corbusier emphasize a lot on circulations too. He believes a well planned circulation eliminates wasted space. When he explains circulation, he actually guides the reader to walk through his imagination of a circulation in which one must also practice while designing-to walk through the design as if you will be the user.

   To compose-to persuade oneself of the existance of certain things. Le Corbusier uses natural lighting to define certain spaces within the building. The different volumes of space also determines the amount of lighting entering the space.

   Le Corbusier believes proportioning exist because everything is geometrical in the vision of human. He states that proportion is like melody of music-it has to be harmony. However he also states that architectural ideas are personal experience. Le Corbusier believes simplicity also means abundant. Everyone has their own perspective and to react accordingly.

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LE CORBUSIER, EXCERPT FROM LE MODULOR

   Written by Le Corbusier, a Swiss born French architect, Le Modular is an anthropometric scale of proportion. In his article, it is based on the height of a man standing with his arm raise and was developed as a visual representative of two incompatible scales, the imperial and metric system. It was also meant to be a universal system of proportion to reconcile maths, the human form, architecture and beauty into a single system.

   The "Modular Man" is segmented into something like a grid system according to the ''Golden Ratio'', with appoximately a ratio of 1.61. Le Corbusier started from an assumed standard size of the human body and marked three intervals that are in the approximate proportions of the Golden Ratio. These segments can be scaled up or down. This system provides useful measurements in the form of door and window openings, cities development, and even in industry and mechanics according to Le Corbusier.

   In addition ''The Modular'' system resolve the issue between the Imperial users as well as the Metric users. Le Corbusier succeeded in combining human body measurements with the foot-based Anglo-Saxon measurement system and the metric decimal system. 

   

   The Modulor represents the most significant modern attempt to give architecture a mathematical order oriented to the measure of man. The basic idea is to embody harmonious proportions and a design philosophy according to which buildings derive from the human needs of the inhabitants.

Written by: Chua Chyi Shyan 1001542549

Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto For Manhattan

The articles was written by Rem Koolhaas-an architect and a writer as well as a philosopher. Delirious New York is a retroactive manifesto of Manhattan's architectural enterprise. It unfold the theories, tactics and dissimulations that allowed New York's architects to establish the desires of Manhattan's collective unconscious in the Grid that we know today. Manhattan is the arena of the terminal stage of Western Civilization, thus it’s an economy hub to one of the world’s superpower nation, The United States.

The grid arrangement of Manhattan evoke a collection of blocks: Coney Island, The Skyscraper, Rockefeller Center and The Europeans which are known as the first 4 blocks. The grid was designed for utilitarian concern and for the conduct of business.

Coney Island is a resort for Manhattan inhabitants and a laboratory of the new technologies that would be applied in Manhattan. Coney Island became a revolutionary place that is ready to subvert the long-formed traditional culture. This urbanism is based on new technology which become a permanent conspiracy against the realities of the external world. In Coney Island there was a shortage of reality of outside world and nature. The masses of culture on Coney Island is unconscious while the modernist culture is conscious. 

The Skyscraper-is considered a virgin island because the architects have no control over the specific programs. The fact that Manhattan is separated from the continent by two rivers at each side, which excludes the possibility of expansion, the skyscraper is the only choice for the growing business demand. The skyscrapers are seen as repetition or perhaps reproduction of the site.

Rockefeller Center is the combination of beauty, utility, dignity and service. It is the fulfillment of the promise of Manhattan. It represents the multi-sided civilization of that time. The significant culture represented in Rockefeller Center is optimistic and bourgeois. It denies advice from other culture and other ideology.

When Koolhaas mentions about Le Corbusier and his adversary of Manhattanism, one of Koolhaas’ purposes of writing the book is revealed. He is the apologist of the commercial and pop culture that is behind the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Thus, as his nature, he should be opposed to the modernism Le Corbusier stands for. Koolhaas spends great effort to retrospect the history of Manhattan as an island whose area is so small but had to accommodate people’s requirement for a commercial center, in which skyscrapers have to be erected. When Koolhaas talks about that Corbusier undoes the Great Lobotomy, I think according to Koolhaas, the lobotomy is, as a matter of fact, a layer of velvet that hides the delirious activities of Manhattan.

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