![]() I suggest there are 4 main ways to see these differences: (i) by the time of organization (see 4, below) (ii) by the particular resources used to organize space i.e. Architects have no monopoly control over architecture because spatial organization is something that everyone does, it nevertheless helps to distinguish architectures. If everyone organizes space, how do spatial organizations – architectures – differ? If official architects i.e. Architecture) still needs defining but not on the basis of space which we can retain as a category common to all actors’ thinking and doing (even if they think and do with it in different ways – see 3, 4 and 5).ģ. The advantages of thinking in terms of architecture as space-organizing (rather than aesthetics, say) become clearer now – space is the thing and (albeit within limits) something we all participate in arranging whether teachers moving desks or students moving themselves and each other – see this excellent post by Siobahn Dytham. that kind of design which “asks eventually who the designer of space is…” ( 2009, p.134) and Elizabeth Shove et al.’s proposal to see “users and consumers as designers in their own right” ( 2007, p.10) – all ways of overcoming a static, imposed function and extending the potentials of what buildings and things are and could become. See also Jeremy Till’s discussion of “slack space” i.e. Often a space-organizer is not an official Architect: “The most important thing is that structure and form leave the greatest space for future evolution, because the real and most important designer of the school should be the collectivity which uses it.” (De Carlo 1969 p.32). Also, because any building organizes physical space, what counts as architecture does not depend on anyone deciding “This building intends to appeal aesthetically and is therefore architecture.”Ģ. Still, see footnote for a more developed explanation – these aren’t glib statements but expressions that sit on top of quite detailed modes of thinking about architecture (and its limits). I realise that, today, it could be argued if anyone ‘has’ architecture, it’s the construction industry and its financiers, not architects. Put simply, “Architecture has become too important to be left to architects” ( De Carlo 2005, p.13), there have to be means “of taking architecture away from the architects and giving it back to the people who use it” ( De Carlo 1980, p.77). We have to enter buildings and people are always situated in physical space so architecture – how space is organized – is necessarily a common concern. What needs to be the case in order for this definition to be true? What are the consequences, what must follow from this? What is missing?ġ. It’s tightly delimited as concepts go but that precision gives something solid to think with and think against. It provides ways to think seriously and helpfully about space (who organizes it? how? etc) rather than get distracted by “architecture” and whether or not a building is intended to be attractive. ![]() I’m interested in what this definition can do methodologically for the researcher of schools. It belongs to Giancarlo De Carlo, architect of many schools and universities from the early 1950s until 2005, a member of Team 10 and – though somewhat out of the architectural mainstream – ultimately a recipient of one of the establishment’s highest awards, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal. This is a definition I have found useful:Īrchitecture is – and can’t be anything but – the organization and form of physical space. Methodologically, some way of referring to all schools and their architecture would help. ![]() Lots of schools look like big bike sheds. Pevsner went on to give what’s now a well-known example: a “bicycle shed is a building Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture” (1948, p.xix) but this too is not very useful, especially for looking at educational buildings. For example, Nikolaus Pevsner’s claim that “architecture” be reserved for buildings “designed with a view to aesthetic appeal” leads us away from the building to the designer’s intentions. Some definitions of architecture obscure more than they help. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |