DBADeconstructing Beauty in Architecture

SCCV 2013

Sweden’s most beautiful house?

All buildings must be executed in such a way as to take account of durability, utility and beauty.

Vitruvius

To describe a building as beautiful therefore suggests more than a mere aesthetic fondness; it implies an attraction to the particular way of life this structure is promoting through its roof, door handles, window frames, staircase and furnishings. A feeling of beauty is a sign that we have come upon a material articulation of certain ideas of a good life.

Alain de BottonThe Architecture of Happiness, 2006, p72

The IdeaThe contemporary contextAssumption of societyAssumption of the human beingA way of life

The BuildingScale, color, light, textures, materials, form, proportions, symmetryCostExpression of the ideaReferences/ associations

The MaterialUsefulness, work performed; shelter, activities

The AestheticIndividual level, experience, reactions, emotions, feelings

The SymbolicSocial level, social/ cultural context, associations, meaning, identity, communication

"Architecture is always marshalling possibilities from all directions to do something that hasn't happened before,” … "Not for the hell of it, not for your ego but to create a degree of progress and make life more adventurous and give a sense of drive to society as a whole.”

Rem Koolhaas

Experiencing architecture

Solids and cavitiesColorScale and proportionRhythmTextureDaylightHearing

Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture, 1959/ 1992

Per Åman, PhD

FORMAND

FUNCTIONSUBSTANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE

The buildings

• Chosen to represent different aspects of ’beauty’– Classicism– (Romantic)– Modernism– Post-modernism

An example

Schloss Neuschwanstein, Bavaria, Germany

Buildings assigned, in group order:

1

Villa Rotonda, Andrea Palladio, 1570, Italy

2

Villa Savoie, le Corbusier, 1929, Paris, France

3

Guggenheim Museum, Frank Gehry, 1990s, Bilbao, Spain

4

Seattle Central Library, Seattle USA, Rem Koolhaas & Joshua Prince-Ramus, 2004

Fallingwater, 1935-39, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bear Run, Pennsylvania, USA

Kölner Dom, Cologne, Germany

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson, ca 1772, Charlottesville, Va, USA

Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois, USA, Mies van der Rohe, 1945-51

The Forbidden City, Beijing, China