Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Grammar:Syntax

Revisions: The Renaissance period was a period of revisions. Gothic architecture was being rejected by the Italians. They thought of Gothic Architecture as crude and barbaric, uncivilized. The Florentine Italians began to revisit the age of antiquity of Rome and Greece.

They believed that human history was not divinely ordained as Christendom had taught during the period called the dark ages. This was a period of new architecture built and designed around mathematical science and scientific interpretation. This was a time when the thinking artists, architect, sculptor, inventor began to break away the the dominance of the Roman Catholic church. This new architecture concept of mathematical clarity and rationality in the Divine of the Universe. Roth 353 Renaissance artist firmly adhered to the Pythagorean concept " ALL is Number." Architecture is considered a mathematical study which works with spatial units where laws of perspective was discovered... (Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles of the Age of Humanism. 1949 re quoted from Roth p.353.






This new architecture was represented by Filippo Brunelleschi's Foundling Hospital in Florence Italy. This building was based on Roman sources governed by the arrangement fits parts and proportional systems. This was an example of architecture based in human intellect not conveying religious dogma but to provide for the human needs. This was a hospital that catered to orphaned children.


Renaissance was a time when man began to look at the artisan as a Humanist Scholar. Works of the ancient scholars began to be revisited, Cicero, Virgil, Greek thinkers and philosophers Plato and Aristotle. This generation of scholars were not interested so much as to how the "Church" wanted them to think and see the world about them. They wanted to see the world through their own eyes, mind and thought. The appreciation of natural landscape was on of the important contributions of the Renaissance.


As this relates to my study of History of Architecture, in Communication Art class this week we took a nature walk and looked for natural elements that related to us as individuals as we walk this journey through our lifetime. We all had to write a story that was important to us as individuals and then from our finding create a abstract design that represented this story or important moment in our lives. I chose the story about the birth of my first child, my daughter Lena.The memory of the birth of my first child was one of the most memorial times of my life. This time of year being spring I thought of the renewing of the earth a rebirth. A time when all things become new again.

I found yellow daffodils growing along the edge of the grounds of my back yard and choose this as a iteration for my new project. We are using MDF 1/4 material to create a light abstract design. This takes some thinking about how to work with this material to make a structure that is of good craft, to scale, showing original thought relating to light, balance, and relate to our vision of our story. An unusual thing happened this past Sunday. I don't always check my mail. I noticed on Friday there were sticks in my mail so I picked them out and threw them on the ground. Well, Sunday morning I went to check my mailbox before leaving the house an a whole birds nest was in my mail box what a inspiration for rebirth how appropriate.



These are objects of my inspiration for my project in Design Communication class. In Design drafting class and Communication Design class this week we are studying perspective drawing we are drawing to scale a room with furniture.



Brunelleschi creates the Dome of Santa Maris Della Flora using methods of study from ancient Rome in the creation of the Pantheon. He later created this dome in two parts a dome inside a dome. Nothing had ever been created before like this. The most striking part of this dome was the lantern he designed to cover the top of the dome. Vitruvius is revisited the architectural bible for the new generation of humanist patrons and architects was the Ten Books of Architecture. Ideal proportioned forms were derived from ideal geometric forms by straight lines and circles as well as solids created by these forms in three dimensions. (Plato called these forms "eternally and absolutely beautiful" p.359 Roth



Vitruvius believed that ideal system of proportion can be found in the human body. Also he described hoe platonic Philean shapes, the square and the circle are incorporated in the proportions of the human body. ( In drawing class we had to draw our designs to scale using the human form.) Even in drafting class we a drawing furniture which uses circles and squares-geometric forms.


Renaissance architects sought clearly expressed numerical relationship in their designs. They used Pythagoras theories. "Galileo Galiliei said that it was impossible to understand the "book"

of creation if we do not learn the language grasp the symbols in which it is written" This book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures. " I would consider this datum a set of written rules for the creation of design.
Leonado Da Vinci 's drawing of the ideal Vitruvian Man, 1485-1490 the form of the human body contained with the essence of the ideal form. ( The perfect geometry of circle and the square) as well as ideal proportional relationships. p 360 Roth.


Image of Vitruvius Man in perfect proportions.




Vitruvius also inspired Leon Battista Alberti 1404-72 to write the first architectural treatise of the Renaissance. The most important to him was the layout of interiors. In our Design class this week we are learning about the layout of the interior of a room. Andrea Polladio 1508-80 used pure architectural term in spatial relationship. Yet it's said he often broke his own rules. Fundamental to the Renaissance theory of beauty was the theory that spatial movement within spaces was enhanced by calculating mathematical ratios. Part of the equation was based on a measure of the human body, the module and multiples of it thus determining the proportional relationship. This system affects both real and fictive architectural space with in a defined scale proportion of the room.

We come to the English Renaissance 1500-1600 when King Henry VIII revised the control of the Catholic Church of Rome over England. After The pope of Rome refused to sanction the annulment of the Kings marriage to Catherine of Aragon the widow of his brother and then his marriage to Anne Boleyn King Henry VIII was excommunicated from the Church. He then made himself Papel of the Church of England. There was a major transition in Church control of government and Monarchal government. The consequences of this move dissolved the properties of the Monasteries and were sold to private families. The monasteries were transformed into palatial residences. Since secular interest cause professional men, wealthy men began to finance the building of their own homes and furnishings. Due to the emancipation of the laity education became a priority. Libraries were added to buildings by the end of the 16th Century. Henry VIII invited the Italian artisans to introduce renaissance to England.

Only minor changes were made in furniture design the main interest was on comfort and display. Homes were sparsely furnished some with multi functional. Example was the chair/table where the back of the chair served as a table top when folded down rested on arms parallel with the floor. The chest was designed for storage of valuables, linens and clothing was occasionally used for a been to table. This is the same usage for today's 21th century time. People still use chest as coffee tables and storage for valuables. Chairs, benches, stools, and settles were the primary types of setting. A special chair for the Lord of the manor as he presided over activities was the wainscot chair. This was a open armed chair in which the armrests extended beyond the arm support ending in a swirl.








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