COUNTERPOINT: PERSPECTIVE

For this unit we had to construct a perspective incorporating nature, people, material, and symbol. For my scale I chose to do place which was the Piazza Campidoglio, and for my form I chose to do 2d. Basically I tried to incorporate all my aspects , by cutting the edge of the drawing and when I hold it towards the ceiling it illuminates the sky and gives it an interesting effect.  Thats how I integrated nature in my perspective drawing of the piazza.

POINT: ALTERNATIVES

For the alternatives unit we started with the renaissance, which was a rebirth not only for architecture, but for furniture, science, art, and many other fields of study. During this period of time we studied how furniture furniture began to take a different shift from what we have studied on the other previous units. As furniture continued to evolve throughout the renaissance period. Two of the most popular types of furniture during this time were the chest and the bed. As evidenced by wealthy individuals would often own hundreds of chests. They were extremely versatile furniture pieces since they could be used to store items inside the home and when traveling. Chests came in all different sizes and shapes, some with legs, and some laying flat on the ground. 

We studied how this furniture was made of different precious materials like gold, silver, copper, among others. We also talked about the repetition of patters that in many of this pieces of furniture were used to create balance and harmonious patters. 

Beds had many different types of designs and constructions, the most common of which was the rope bed. The rope bed was a fine piece of furniture that consisted of a rectangular wooden frame with ropes. Sometimes individual slept directly on the ropes, while in other instances they were used to support a mattress of some type. The renaissance time is known for its major enhancements to beds and other kinds of furniture. While the most common kinds of furniture during the renaissance period were beds and chests there are many other types that existed during the era. Chairs and benches began to gain more prominence throughout this time. Public furniture, such as the benches, started popping up in more and more locations. Furniture started to have fewer jewels or stones embedded into its borders. Rather banding, paneling, and carving were the primary forms of ornamentation. Banding was simply the addition of thin strips to the borders of furniture. Furniture with paneling was slightly more complex to build. Paneling involved using recessed and raised pieces of wood to enhance the furniture’s appearance. Carving designs into the furniture, is arguably the most artistic of all types of ornamentation. Carvings included simple items such as palmettos in addition to more complex designs depicting everything from trees to animals. When thinking about the renaissance period, the topic of furniture is oftentimes overlooked. As outlined above, the people of this period created beautiful furniture using an artistic approach that was not explored by past generations. 

Biagio di Antonio and Jacopo del Sellaio's Morelli Chest illustrating repetition of patterns, balance, contrast and material. 

Renaissance revival furniture showing how gold was used in most furniture from this time period.

Then we emerged at the building level, and specifically we talked about the Palazzo medici. This building was the symbol of the economic power of the Medicis who were the virtual lords of Florence, even in the Florentine Republic at the time. The large ground floor windows were designed by Michelangelo. The below elevation shows how the building was split into three different levels, the 1st level was for store purposes, the 2nd for piano nubile, and the 3rd private. It also shows material, repetition of harmonious  patterns, and symmetry in terms of what is happening on the left is also happening on the right. Repetition of doors and windows are also a really important feature for the design of this building.

Perspective of the Palazzo Medici courtyard showing Michelangelo's ground floor windows

READING COMPREHENSION 4

[1]

A lot of this wealthy furniture style had a lot of repetition, balance, symmetry and many other principles and elements of design which we have discussed in class. Looking at thedesk/bookcase w/ chinoiseri  I noticed a lot of repetition of patters as well as the material that was used. A lot of this furniture were not just simple material, but gold or silver and precious minerals that were used to make this fancy furniture. Late 17th century southern European mirrors are usually of rectangular form, with the central plates invariably bevelled or chamfered at the edges and contained within mirrored borders; the plates are often engraved or etched with mythological or pastoral scenes. The carved frames, either giltwood or silvered, usually display a Baroque exuberance, with acanthus, putti, masks, and cornucopias. Late 17th-century northern European mirrors were often conceived of as dressing mirrors, designed en suite with matching dressing tables and torcheres candle stands. Of rectangular form, frequently with convex or cushion moulded frames and usually crowned by shaped crestings, which was often similarly carved, these late 17th-century mirrors display remarkable inventiveness in their use of materials. The production of larger plates led to the introduction of pier glasses, placed between the window piers, the culmination of which are the mirrors in the Galerie des Glaces at the palace of Versailles. Although Paris’s lead was followed throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, Britain, and Germany, with mirrored borders often enriched with coloured or engraved glass, the plates were almost always divided.

Chiswick House is a Palladian villa situated in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in London England. Its floor plan is very symmetrical and is pretty much mirrored meaning that half of the floor plan was designed and just mirrored, what's happening in the left is the same as on the right in terms of its room locations and orientations. It also has two suites of apartments around an octagonal domed saloon. The sequence of variously shaped rooms, round, octagonal and apsidal ended, reappears at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, and influenced Robert Adam. On the exterior, tastefully selected openings punctuate the neutral wall surface. The recessed Venetian windows of the rear faade were to have a long history in Palladian building

Holkham Hall is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, and severity of its design is closer to Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period. The interior of the Hall is opulently, but by the standards of the day, simply decorated and furnished. Ornament is used with such restraint that it was possible to decorate both private and state rooms in the same style, without oppressing the former. The main entrance is through the Marble Hall, which leads to the piano, or the first floor, and state room. The most impressive of these rooms is the saloon, which has walls lined with red velvet. Each of the major state rooms is symmetrical; for some, false doors are necessary to achieve this effect.


[2]
Most colonies from the United States of America were inspired and designed or I should say borrowed the designed from European architecture, even here at UNCG you see a lot of variety of European style of architecture mostly from Italy and Greece. 
As Roth estate "The Renaissance building exists to be admired in its splendid isolated perfection" from pg 397. Buildings from this era were admired because of every new building technique, symmetrical floor plans, repetition of patters and much more. 












Hand carved wooden Palladian artifact with foxed mirror and aged gold highlights manufactured by John Richard furniture. 

Palladian window and grand staircase in Massachusetts State House

Exterior view of Drayton Hall, located west of Charleston, South Carolina. The mansion is the oldest surviving example of Georgian Palladian architecture in the United States. 

[3]

Floor plan of a possible Palladian villa inspired by Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Balletto Terzo. The design was based on knowing that Palladio was known and recognized for using geometrical patterns and most of his buildings were very symmetrical like the Villa Capra

[4] The baroque period has always been characterized and defined as the dominant style of art in Europe between the Mannerist and the Rococo eras because of its dynamic movement, dramatic light and dark, dynamic figures, and so on. Most of the interiors were dramatic in terms of lighting effects just like in the altar of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale shown above. Much of its lighting  focus and go to one direction which is the altar, but the idea is not the altar, the idea is based on theater design which makes the center of the building light up and get a more sense of a theater. Perhaps lighting was used to focus on one certain object, direction  or artifact to make it stand out or bring it to life.

COUNTERPOINT: COMPASS

The idea for this project was to generate a compass composed of a 8.5" block. 1 scale, 1 form, and all aspects were to be addressed and for this project I chose the following:

Scale: Building

Form: 3d
Aspects: Nature, People, Material, Symbol

My idea was to build not a completely replica of the Pantheon in Rome, but to build parts of it and add an axis of rotation in the middle which meant to be more like a compass with Egypt located in the South, The Pantheon in the West, and The Parthenon in the East.

COUNTERPOINT: MAP

For this project I was given four buildings to work with which included The Villa Rotunda, The Empire State, New Museum of Modern Art, and The Syon House. The idea was to construct a map using 8.5" square blocks that fit together as a composition. On each block I included visual and written commentary analysis for each block. for each block we also had to explore
Scale: artifact, space, building, place
Form: 2d, 3d, word, paragraph
Aspect: nature, people, material, symbol

POINT: FOUNDATIONS

The foundations unit took us through a journey of different styles of architecture and different cultures from Greece,  France, Spain, Great Britain, and Italy. At the beginning of this unit we were introduced to the Minoan, Mycenaean, and Hellenistic cultures, this pretty much is the starting point where we began to dive in into the Greek culture and their fascinating building techniques and designs. 
Quite unlike the Minoans, whose society benefited from trade, the Mycenaeans advanced through conquest. Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. The best examples of the Mycenaean palace are seen in the excavations at Mycenae, Tyrins and Pylos. From an architectural point of view, they were the heirs of the Minoan palaces and also of other palaces built on the Greek mainland during the Middle Age. They were ranged around a group of courtyards each opening upon several rooms of different dimensions, such as storerooms and workshops, as well as reception halls and living quarters. The Mycenaean culture took us to explore the Megaron which was the heart of the palace and the throne room, laid out around a circular hearth surrounded by four columns. The throne generally being found on the right hand side upon entering the room. The staircases found in the palace of Pylos indicate palaces had two stories. Located on the top floor were probably the private quarters of the royal family and some storerooms as well as frescoes. 
The Megaron was the architectural predecessor of the classical Greek temple. It was used for poetry, feasts, worship, sacrifice, formal royal functions, councils, and is said to be where guests of the king would have stayed during their visits. Originally it was very colorful made with the Minoan architectural order, the insides were made of fired brick and a wooden roof supported on beams. The rooftop was tiled with ceramic and terracotta tiles.
As the chapter developed, we were introduced to the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian  architectural orders. Of the three columns found in Greece, Doric columns are the simplest. They have a capital or crown made of a circle topped by a square. The tall part of the column or better known as the shaft, is plain and has 20 sides. There is no base in the Doric order. The Doric order is very plain, but powerful looking in its design. Doric, like most Greek styles, works well horizontally on buildings, that's why it was so good with the long rectangular buildings made by the Greeks. These innovated building techniques were used in most if not all buildings in ancient Greece and as well as other parts of the world. There are many examples of ancient Doric buildings. Perhaps the most famous one is the Parthenon in Athens, which is probably the most famous and most studied building on Earth. Buildings built even now borrow some parts of the Doric order.

An illustrated image of The Parthenon showing the Doric architectural oder and all the descriptions that I talked in the section from above. 

The Temple of Athena Nike in Athens, shown above, is one of the most famous Ionic buildings in the world. It is located on the Acropolis, very close to the Parthenon

Temple of Zeus in Athens also known as the Olympieion showing Corinthian architecture order.


The great architectural orders were discussed and then we were introduced to great techniques of the Romans with more modern buildings and cities looking a lot more like our own civilization. Widespread use of concrete and vaulting arches were invented, this type of architecture went from structural to more decorative buildings. A lot of new building types were introduced in this section such as the bath, market forum, basilica, colosseum, arch, temple, aqueduct, villa, dome, and mosaic. 

The Aqueduct that delivered water to the city was an innovated technique that incorporated the technique of being dropped every half inch for the water to be running and delivered. 

We also talked about the Pantheon in Rome and the innovated technique of the dome being rotated on an axis and its oculus providing the only source of natural light.