Architecture Class: Glass

Glass has always fulfilled it's most basic function through providing reflections or becoming windows. It wasn't until recently in the twentieth century when glass was finally being considered and used as a building material for the creation of structures. The first extensive use of glass in buildings was first developed by the Romans. Through the combination if cast and wrought iron, then later steel, the glass could become a building material and be used in the development of glasshouses, market halls, arcades, and other structures as well. For example in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris it contains so many stained windows that it gives off the vibe that heaven is this city of light. Norman Foster, a renowned architect, fulfilled the The Modernist dream of an all-glass curtain in 1975. The name of the building was the Willis Faber Dumas Building in Ipswich, England. Through glass the transparency effect has been achieved because it gave a way of revealing the "truth" in the structure.

"Broken Glass"

Architecture Class: Floor

Floors offer a surprising range of expressive opportunities. Not all floors are flat; some can extend beyond the building to form part of a raised platform. An example of when floors are used to help glorify certain pieces of architecture is in the Castelvecchio in Verona. Carlo Scarpa, the architect, designed the floors in a certain way so that the interventions appear to float in the room. Le Corbusier loved to mess with his floors as well especially in his pilgrimage chapel at Ronchamp, but in this scenario the floors were simply used to help enclose a space and provide a foundation above Mother Earth.

With Industrialization and the overall human population progressing, there is now a universal design that demands floors to be flat, horizontal, and free of frequent stepped changes of level. I don’t really like that “universal design” because I feel all parts of an architect’s building should be free-flowing if he feels so, and that one shouldn’t be confined to the simplicity of a blank, horizontal floor canvas. The floor should have life and give meaning either to it, the ground it covers, or even the room it is enclosed in.

Architecture Class: San Francisco Field Trip

On Tuesday of last week Rafael took my class and myself into the heart of San Francisco to see some very unique and beautiful architecture. First we saw Saint Mary's Church which is quite the architectural piece to come across. The building is formed into the shape of a cross, yet its sides curve inward and finally meet at the peak. The building was amazing from outside but even better from within. Once I was in I saw how the light hit the walls, how the walls seemed to endlessly reach towards the sky, and the enormous organ only 30 yards from me. The next building we saw was the Saint Ignatius Church which was also very beautiful to look at. From the outside there are four pylons reaching towards the heavens and the church itself is highly decorated, yet even more so from within the building itself. For the S.I. Church a lot of Roman ideas were used such as columns and flat roofs. I really liked this a lot because it felt as if I were returning to ancient Rome and happened to wander into a church built by them.

Architecture Class: Haikus

Instead of our normal reviews of others projects Rafael has instead chosen for us to write haikus. Haikus are Japanese poems that contain a 5-7-5 verse, where the numbers count as the number of syllables allowed per verse. I actually really prefer to write these haikus because they are very easy to write, but contain a lot of meaning through the usage of very few words. I feel that it has also helped my vocabulary as well because I constantly have to find new, better words to express myself and the ideas that I have or have seen. At first I felt a little weird and silly writing these strange poems  but I've grown to like them and find a new way of expressing my ideas. I like this exercise a lot as well because it forces me to practice my vocabulary.