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FOURTH YEAR
ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY STUDIO
Professors Diane Lewis, Peter Schubert, Mersiha Veledar, Daniel Meridor, Dr.Daniel Sherer
TEMPLUM: Ancient in the modern
1.The single order temple form, the precinct, the pre- existing skeleton of the site, the civic still life, the orders, the approach and the span :
The studio focused on the fact that the most obvious attribute of many of the definitive structures of twentieth- century architecture such as the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Heidi Weber Pavilion and Ronchamp, is their formulation as single order structures akin to the ancient temple. This recognition opens literary and theoretical questions of order that emanate from the pursuit of the templum concept and the temple form without the pictorial aspects of the academic styles.
A consciousness of the manner by which a single order structure can exude a spatial autonomy and emit a field of measure and proportion to transform the surrounding, existing urban fabric into a still life and a dialogue across time and space is one of the founding objectives for the studio.
In addition, a study of the principles by which the “skeleton” of the Greek and Roman city plans that cradle the memorable architectural still –lives that are the art of the city, were initiated with an initial visit to Seagram's, Lever, and CBS. This experience of the templum concept in the acropolis of midtown Manhattan on the first day of the studio, was directed toward a revelation of the power of the ancient in the modern as a visceral spatial initiation to the knowledge necessary to the project at hand.
The ancient precincts composed from a succession of temples and the civic, spatial, and programmatic relationships were studied as a key to the art of determining the character for a contemporary civic domain.
As were readings of Semper’s ethnographic based derivation of architectural form which explore the genesis of the hearth to the house to the templum; the domestic to the civic. The Semperian definition of architecture, the formation of identifiable orders and distinct structural elements were considered in the drawings and scales with which the project is implemented.
A reading of Francesco Pelizzi's essay entitled Magic for the Sake of Art, published by the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, was introduction to the Semper text, in support of the ceremonial and conceptual aspects for the derivation of structural form, ambulatory, and plan.
After a sequence of studies at one quarter inch and one half inch scale, of the details of the plinths and entry conditions experienced in the Manhattan architecture we visited, a definitive entry condition and façade concept were formulated by each participant. The idea that an entry condition of the 21st century can confront the memory of the archaic temple was the objective. Oedipus Rex, Medea, Notes for an African Orestaia, and Diable in Corpo were viewed with a critical eye for a cinema of the ancient world, its literary roots, and the tragedy, in contemporary terms as an incentive for innovation.
SITE: THE COLONNADES AS TEMPLE IN THE ASTOR PLACE PRECINCT
Each of the studio participants was then asked to confront an given site plan, edited with select structures of the present and previous epochs. The La Grange Terrace structure called the Colonnades on Lafayette street is shown to be a fragment of its original length which spanned the length of the block as a Nash like urban fabric which served as counterpoint to the previously existing church façade at its north, and its frontal relation to the Astor Library, now the Public Theatre.Considering the transformation of the Colonnades from a fabric building to an object building, with its implicit structural grid etched on the site, the project must address this site area in specific, as well as the larger urban address of the Astor Place precinct in which our school sits as a key templum.
The tectonic proposal,must be verified by the civic program proposed.
Each project title must embody the spirit of the project as rooted in conceptual structure, and carry the civic and literary memory that has inspired the project author.
Orders, the literary dimension of form, civic memory, and the dialogue of the proposed to the existing, are the fulcrum of the critique.
RE-WRITING LIBRARIES, Third Year
Professors Rustow, Allin, Kallipoliti, Veledar, with Anderson, O'Donnell and Raiji
The purpose of the Third Year Studio is to introduce problems and building typologies of a greater complexity than those treated in the first two years and to develop both analytical and design skills around a comprehensive consideration of issues of site, program, structure, mechanical systems and building envelope. This year the Third Year Studio sequence will be divided into two separate but related semesters, both working with the same institutional building program. While both semesters will combine analysis and design exercises, the emphasis in the Fall will be slightly heavier on analysis, with somewhat more projective design work in the Spring. The building type/program for both semesters will be the Library. Institutional Building Programs Most of our modern institutions, and virtually all of our institutional building typologies are products of the Enlightenment. Schools, museums, libraries, hospitals, courthouses and prisons were all fundamentally (re)defined towards the end of the 18th century and a great experimentation ensued in which new building types were gradually developed, many of which persist today. Institutional buildings are public buildings and all share one basic characteristic: they are collective settings for individual experience. Their 'purpose' is to create the conditions in which each person's education or research, exposure to art, palliative care or justice, can be achieved alongside that of many others. We know and judge our institutions by how well they serve each of us but they work as public institutions only if they serve us all.
The challenge of such programs is to find a method for moving beyond the architect's personal experience and convictions about school or reading, art or health or justice to a full engagement with the public nature of the institution and the needs and desires of an unknown group of others. Thus, for the Library, at the heart of the design problem is making an architecture that perfectly supports the needs of each reader while it accommodates all of them. Size, scale and number become critical and the nature of individual experience in the collective realm is the constant frame of reference. Institutional buildings, because they are public, also have a very particular representative function. They must incarnate their public meaning in a manner which is legible and meaningful, even as our expectations of what they mean and how they mean it evolve over time. These are some of the issues we will grapple with this year.
List of Libraries (in chronological order)
Michelangelo, Laurentian Library, Florence, Italy, 1534.
Hermann Korb, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbûttel, Germany, 1710
Etienne-Louis Boullée, La Bibliothèque du Roi, 1785.
Henri Labrouste, Library of St Genevieve, Paris, France, 1850
Henri Labrouste, Biblioteque Nationale, Paris, France, 1868
McKim, Mead & White, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY, 1906
(Renzo Piano Rennovation and Expansion, 2006)
Carriere and Hastings, NY City Library Main Branch, 1911
(Norman Foster, Addition and Remodeling, current)
Gunnar Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, Stockholm, Sweden, 1928
Alvar Aalto, Viipuri Library, Vyborg, Russia, 1935
Gordon Bunshaft, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, 1972
Louis I. Kahn, Exeter Library, New Hampshire,1972.
Paul Rudolph, Library at UMass Dartmouth, 1972.
Hans Scharoun, Berlin State Library, 1978.
OMA, Très Grande Bibliotheque, Paris, France, 1989, Competition
James Stirling, Très Grande Bibliotheque, Paris, France, 1989, Competition
OMA, Jussieu - Two Libraries,1992, Competition (and other entries)
Dominique Perrault, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France, 1995
Alsop Architects, Peckham Library, London, UK, 1999
Herzog & De Meuron, Eberswalde Technical School Library, Eberswalde, Germany, 1999
Toyo Ito, Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai, Japan, 2001
Snohetta, Alexandria Library, Alexandria, Egypt, 2001
OMA, Seattle Central Library, 2004.
Foster and Partners, Free University Berlin Philology Library, 2005
Alberto Kalach, Vasconcelos Library, Mexico City, Mexico, 2007
Sou Fujimoto, Musashino Art University Library, Tokyo, Japan, 2010