Architecture Set In Motion Essay, Research Paper

1. Bouffrand: Salon de la Princess, hotel de Soubise, Paris, France, begun 1730 s

Salon de la Princess, is a many sided cylindrical interior room and is part of the Rococo style that incorporates minimal architectural features and light airy decor, that develops into a profession of interior design. Rococo is the revolt against complicated Baroque that decorated the interior of Versailles, in revolt against the palace and after the death of Louis XIV, French women who had city houses in Paris inspired a new lightened airy style of decor and architecture. As seen in the Salon de la Princess, the structure of the room has virtually been covered up by white walls of wood and mirrors, and it only contains hints of the classical orders and conventions, while conveying the modern concept of space free of major structural forms. The predominate feature in the room is the gold plaster decorations that adorn the entire space and within this is seen the main curving arabesque line that flows throughout the style and characterizes it as a free flowing form of design, and makes classical references to the fantasy decorations used by the mannerist and found in the Roman villas, complete with cupids, garlands, and birds. Salon de la Princesse is the last major style before neoclassicism, but the free form of the style is a predominate feature in modern organic architecture, and redevelops in the late nineteenth century through the style of Art Nouveau, which is used by Victor Horta, in the Tassel House.

2.Hoare et al.: Stourhead, Wiltshire, England, redesign begun 1750s

The English garden is one of the greatest gifts that English designers have contributed to the world of architecture, and the gardens that surround the Stourhead estate in Wiltshire England are massed with many forms of natural origin, and as containers of natural descent they incorporate curving elements, as in the cylinder, cone and sphere, however among the natural creations are manmade structures that contradict natures verdant burgeoning display of the curve, with structures that include the cube, or squared forms that makes for a cornucopia of forms both natural and manmade. The

inspiration behind the English garden lay in the Neoclassical movement against the structural formality of the Renaissance garden landscape, and in England where reformers believed since its people had liberty, England had the best state of being, and men as in Lord Burlington who wanted to reform all the arts, succeed in bringing liberty to the English landscape as executed at Chiswick House(1724-29), and he inspired other designers as Hoare who at Stourhead, incorporated the romantic idea of the picturesque to

form a garden as if nature herself had created it. However, with the inspiration of the French landscape painter Claude, the landscape at this Palladian estate is completely manmade, with hills, lakes, trees, meant to look as nature had created it, and as in Claude s landscapes it can be divided up into three layers, incorporating a dark foreground, light middle ground and light hazy background. Stooped in classical Roman tradition the garden is a place to break the rules, and Stourhead has architectural samples from all over the world incorporated into the landscape as temples, grottoes, and classical

statues together with a Chinese bridge, and Turkish tent, which set a president from 1750 on where naughty architectural elements present themselves in architectural structures. This eclectic style is the bases of 19th and 20th century American suburbs, including new ones being built around the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia today, while also emerging in 20th century architects as Wright, who in the Robbie House(1900s) combined inspirations from many different cultures past and present.

3. Pritchard and Darby: Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale, England, 1770s

Iron Bridge is the first use of ferrous metal to provide a crossing between two land masses, and it makes use of a pure elegant curve that by wrapping with a surface material as modern day artist like the Clauds turn into an art form, it would make a rectilinear box that has been bowed by two opposing forces. Darby who owned a metal factory collaborated with Pritchard an architect to develop in metal, what would normally have been made of wood, a span to cross water without intersecting it with a support pillar that inhibits large boats to pass through, and ultimately allows factories to expand up river. This bridge expands a hundred feet across the Severn river due to the use of the ferrous metal iron, which later is proven to be faulty because of its susceptibility to fire, and is replaced by steel, a pure form of iron. Pritchard uses what is considered today primitive design techniques in that he treats the metal beams like wood in a construction similar to ones used for centuries by architects as Brunelleschi, in his construction in the

dome of the Florence, Cathedral(1420s), and also the beams are solid iron, where as today an I-Beam is used for lightness. This first glance at metal framing of bridges develops into monumental structures and at the end of the 19th century, it includes very tall structures as the Eiffel Tower(1889), expansive bridges as the Brooklyn Bridge(1883), and structures that cover large areas as the Crystal Palace(1851), and the records are still being broken

today.

4. Le Corbusier: Plan for the City of Three Million Inhabitants, 1922

The Le Corbusier plan is an outcrop of the idea behind combining formal

rectilinear functional structures, with natural curving picturesque landscapes that begun through the English landscape, and Le Corbusier took this theory and applied it to the urban design of, A Contemporary City of Three Million Inhabitants, that laid a tremendously influential bases for the future of the modern day city along with its very rectilinear box skyscrapers that sprang up in the American city during the later part of the twentieth century, and the modern skyscraper is considered the greatest form given of the twentieth century. The skyscraper is an American baby, that came about because of

the enhancements in the use of ferrous metals as iron and steel, and these buildings defined by Wisemen to be, more then five stories, that use metal, and have an elevator where first produced by American architects as Richardson, in the Marshall Field Wholesale Store(1880s), but although many were built in America, Le Corbusier and other Europeans revised the plan. These severe plain towers rooted in popular purist theories do not quote the past, and are a purely modern expression that quote a theory expressed by Gropius, who said, Modern architecture is not a few branches of an old tree. It is new growth coming right from the roots, that include towers on pilotis or stilts

with a box on top being fairly light weight and covered with a thin skin unlike the former stone covered skyscrapers. Le Corbusier looked down upon the city that surrounded him which was noisy and chaotic, therefore his plan is laid out on an organized grid, with towers hovering over green parks and functional transportation systems, that are developments executed in modern day cites as New York that houses the Seagrum Building(1954-58) which include all elements that are seen in the tower plan of Le Corbusier. However as downtown Richmond proves, the use of a natural landscape within an urban setting is not always an inviting environment and fails as a productive public space, within a setting where property is valuable.

5.Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum New York, 1943

The Guggenheim Museum is one of the boldest attempts of breaking the box, and a concept that Wright dealt with in a life time of design, while at the end of his career he designed a tubular structure with walls that wrap around it to describe in pure essence the use of the curve and freedom of form. This museum is a complete contradiction to the former Corbusier box, and was a bold attempt by Wright who is considered one of the most influential designers ever, and it comes at the end of a extensive career in avant-garde architecture, that incorporates influences from a multitude of cultures.

However with a glance away from the past eclecticism, this structure concentrates on the freedom of form, and metamorphoses of space. One main idea developed by Wright through his career is architecture set in motion and true to a living organism, like the three planes in Falling Water that seem to hover over top the water fall, as do the walls that wrap around the Guggenheim forming a structural cyclone, which is mirrored on the interior by a ramp that wraps around a central atrium and provides for displaying art work along the walls of the ramp, but proves to be quite unsuccessful because Wright as an

egomaniac made certain that the structure is the main focus and the most dynamic art piece exibited, putting architecture on the same plane as the visual arts. As many of his homes influence modern day suburban America in the Historicism movement, the Guggenheim influences the Post Modern Movement, a theory in practice that believes Modernism failed and incorporates references to the past with sculptural freedom and clarity of form, as does the latest and most dynamic display of architecture to come out of the 1990 s, and direct descendent from Wright s, New York museum, is Frank O. Gehry s Guggenheim Museum(1997) in Bilbao, Spain, that Philip Johnson called, the greatest

building of our century .