Frances to Michael... Your historic points are well taken. From a semiotic stance however it may also pay to consider the role signs might play in the design of architectures. If for example a thick line were used to signify a bank and a thin line were used to signify a home, both by way of formal similarity, then this would be an instance mainly of iconicity. If on the other hand a thin line were used to signify a bank, thus by way of conventional arbitrarity, then this would be an instance mainly of symbolicity. My point here is how far signs should be pushed in architecture; which is to say, how broad should iconicity be if broad at all, and how narrow should symbolicity be if narrow at all.
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Brady [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 7:24 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Architecture and utility On Jun 4, 2009, at 6:39 PM, Frances Kelly wrote: > As an example, for a construct to look like a monetary bank, at > least say to most ordinary persons in everyday common life, the > lines of such a building would usually be deemed dark and rough > and thick and made of stone or brick and loom as a big tall > edifice. The problem is that with modern building materials and > construction techniques a bank can be made of what seems to be > very flimsy stuff, yet be safer than the older traditional > edifices. Such newer banks thus no longer really glorify the > primary utility of a financial institute. But then the true and > real needs of its transactional users in being depositors can now > be satisfied remotely and automatically over the internet. It > would seem that for the design of a bank any architectural > criteria of its function being dominant over its form and its > function being correspondent to its utility is thereby obsolete > and obscure and even thwarted. Frances, this whole problem of what modern buildings "should look like" arose well over a century ago. What you posit here--that a 'monetary' bank "at least to most ordinary persons of everyday common life ... would usually be deemed dark and rough and think and made of stone or brick and loom as a big tall edifice"--has been taken up by many writers on architecture. (Who is doing all this deeming, by the way? How about using a verb in the active voice once in a while?) Up until Otis invented a practical safety elevator in 1853. Thereafter, it became increasingly practical to erect buildings taller than four or five stories, which was the practical limit of using leg power to move furniture up and down stairs or hoist heavy items with block and tackle. Long story short, with the advent of steel cage construction techniques and the Otis Elevator, taller buildings began to be feasible. Our friend Louis Sullivan is credited with designing the first two, the Guaranty Building and the Wainwright Building. When he designed them, he confronted the conceptual problem of what they should look like and how to decorate them. Both building, for example had marked vertical pilasters that defined the columns of windows, between which he applied his extraordinary floral decorations. Both buildings had very pronounced cornices and nothing above in the way of spires or finials. As big buildings spread and the era of the skyscraper burst on us, many architects were trying to figure out what big buildings "should look like," and their only models were churches--Gothic, Roman temples, etc. In short order, two major buildings applied the Gothic style to tall structures: in 1913, the 50+ story Woolworth Building opened in New York, and in the 1920s, Chicago Tribune tower opened. Tall buildings with Gothic themes. Banks and many churches in the U.S. adopted Roman or Greek temples fronts, which were more in keeping with the earlier inclinations of Jefferson and others. Neoclassicism was widely adopted in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries: Monticello, UVa, the Virginai Capitol in Richmond, all from Jefferson, are famous examples. Let's not forget that Ruskin extolled the Gothic over the Classical style, and honesty in materials; and Viollet le Duc championed the restoration of Gothic buildings, and even proposed building faux Gothic ruins, which became a bit of a vogue thing. More than that, though, he was one of the first theorists of modern approach to architecture So, the question of what buildings "should look like" has been around for a long time, and the discussions take a turn into semiotics, i.e., what does a certain style or look convey, betoken, imply, etc. These questions are at least 100 years old in practical discussions by architects, but after almost 2/3 of a century of the influence of the International Style and PostModernism in architecture, "what a building should look like" is a wide-open topic. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [email protected]
