dsa yearbook 2010 2011

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE + URBAN DESIGN

DUBlIN SCHOOl OF A R C H I T E C T U R E

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Dublin School of ArchitectureDepartment of Architecture and Urban Design

2010 / 2011

Dublin School of Architecture Press. All rights reserved. All information presented in this publication is deemed to be the copyright of the creator or the Dublin School of Architecture, unless stated otherwise.

Acknowledgements:Shane Morgan - Editor I would like to thank members of the faculty for their support and help, specifically Paul Kelly for his guidance and encouragement.

A sincere thank you to all the students for all their design work, photographs, and written works. A special thanks to Breffni Greene for his significant photographic contribution depicting the 5th years work.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the editorial group for the consistent hard work and dedication in making this publication a reality.

Contact:Dublin School of ArchitectureDublin Institute of TechnologyBolton StreetDublin 1, IrelandTel: +353 1 4023690ww.dublinschoolofarchitecture.comwww.dit.ie/architecture/urban-design/

Editors:Donnchadha GallagherSimon HarringtonNiall HowardPaul KellyPaul Maher

Head Editors:Brian JordanShane Morgan

Printer: Blurb Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-9568502-3-2

Typeface: Arial

Paper: Premium, Matte100#, 148 GSM

Assistant Copy Editor: Madeleine Kuhns

Cover Image: Patrick OConnor, Permanence

Table of Contents:

Contents Intro Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Extra Curricular

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The Dublin School of Architecture, founded more than 70 years ago has its origins in the skills and trades associated with construction. The education in Architecture and Architectural Technology has been orientated towards producing graduates who will be involved in the design and making of buildings through their respective professions. Through the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee and its earlier links with the Royal Dublin Society, which date back as far as the early 1730s, the Dublin School of Architecture has always been conscious of the fact that the Architects of today are the successors of the Master Masons of old.

The fact that the School delivers programmes in both architecture and architectural technology reinforces this position, affirms its origins and clearly aligns with the profession of the Architect and the Architectural Technologist. It is conscious of the space between Education and the Profession, and regards the shaping and understanding of this space as one of its important tasks and adopted positions.

In more recent times, particularly since the foundation of The Dublin Institute of Technology in 1992, there has been an increased emphasis on academic rigour, intellectual thought processes and the philosophies and theories that underpin the design process. The Dublin School of Architecture has developed its thinking and its approach to education so that it may function within a matrix of influences. It has been designed and developed to produce well-rounded graduates capable of combining philosophical theory and concept intellectualisation with technical excellence. The programmes have been structured to ensure that these graduates are capable of engaging immediately with the

architectural and technological issues they will encounter on taking up employment, and to enable them to immediately contribute to their responsibilities as professional Architects and professional Architectural Technologists.

This involves a vast spectrum of skills and disciplines that form the educational experience. It is well understood that the range of topics, disciplines and areas of expertise that graduates of the School of Architecture need to know greatly exceeds the teaching capacity of any School in the time period associated with this educational process. The School, therefore, aspires to teach its students how to learn so that they can continue the lifelong learning process after they have graduated and continue to develop without the support of the School or the Academic Institution. The success of this type of education can be measured by the ability of the graduate to continue their education after graduation because they have been taught how to engage in and contribute to this learning process. The graduate is therefore sustainable.

The ethos of the School, however, goes much further. The academic education is delivered in an environment which promotes responsibility, tempered by social, political and economic awareness, where students and staff are expected to engage in projects which are often of immediate relevance to both local and wider communities. These projects require an intellectual approach, coupled with a sense of pragmatism and realism and can only be realised through a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the issues involved. The poetic sits alongside the pragmatic. The reality sits alongside the vision.

Introduction: School Ethos

Prof. James F HORAN

DipArch FRIAI RIBA MIDI ARBHead of School, The Dublin School of Architecture

James F Horan

The importance of ethics is paramount. Ensuring an understanding of responsibility towards the planet, towards the Nation, towards the local society, towards their peers and towards those who will become their future clients is central to that ethic.

The hallmark of the School is one of enthusiasm and commitment. It is present in both the staff and the students. The positive outlook that stems from this can be sensed and felt in the corridors and the studios. This enthusiasm is contagious and it thrives even in these difficult times.

The School is acutely aware of the challenges and difficulties that must be faced in times where resources have diminished and will continue to diminish. The resources of the planet are finite. Therefore, the sustainability of the buildings and the impact of building on the environment forms

a central part of the students education. The resources of the Nation are severely stretched and challenged, and the resources still available to continue to provide high level education have long been under threat. With a positive outlook, these obstacles need not necessarily be seen as totally negative but more as challenges for the future. The creativity of the staff and student body of the Dublin School of Architecture can be brought to bear on the present problems and those that have yet to be encountered.

Since its foundation, The Dublin School of Architecture has been engaged in continuous change. That change has been driven by both described visions and response to challenges. I am confident that the School will continue this type of creative response, and to grow and flourish into the years ahead.

Object and Landscape. The first year course explores architecture in the rural Irish landscape. While the first six weeks operate as a primer, introducing the student to the basic skills and ideas needed for architectural exploration, the projects for the rest of the year are situated in the landscape. Emphasis is placed on supporting the students personal explorations in the field, but the fact that architecture is ultimately the design of experiences is stressed through this particular set of projects. These design projects are structured around a progression from a piece of furniture designed to hold a body in space, to a small shelter which can accommodate the bodys necessary functions of cooking, eating, resting and washing to, finally, a house and shed in which a family will live and work. The direct relationship of both plan and section to the space being designed is a central concern of the year, and model-making is used as a vehicle through which this relationship becomes apparent. Models also lend themselves to the study of light tracking through a room, a study which offers the student a tangible introduction to the sometimes ineffable notion of architectural space. Models are therefore given equal status to drawings as design tools and are requested periodically over the course of each project.

This year the bulk of the projects was set on Sherkin Island in West Cork in response to a request by its residents for an examination of the issue of waste on the island. The bounded nature of island life focuses attention on everything which is brought on and off the island. At the moment, all waste has to be shipped at a cost to the mainland for disposal (either in Ireland or, more likely, abroad). The islanders were exploring the possibility that if recyclable materials were to be processed locally, they could be later sold at a profit. Materials, seen a short time ago solely as waste, are now perceived as a resource; a problem is re-imagined as an opportunity. These hard times, leavened only perhaps by visions of a more sustainable future, demand such thinking - simultaneously local and global. Hoping to take advantage of the focus on sustainability offered by island life, two study trips were conducted to Sherkin, the first in conjunction with the Architectural Technicians. This was in preparation for the design of a shelter at the end of Semester I. The students were asked to design a shelter for a marine biologist at the waters edge on remote sites around the island. The shelter was to have one door, one window and one roof-light and particular attention was to be paid to dawn and dusk when the biologist would be leaving and entering the single room structure.

In the second semester the students were asked to design a small house and shed for a family which was moving to Sherkin in order to live sustainably off a natural resource which the island offered. The family house component of the project challenged the students to design a space in which individuals would require spaces for both solitary and communal activities, while the shed component allowed a study of the interaction between structure and space. The second trip to Sherkin allowed analysis to be done of the coastal sites adjacent to the islands main thoroughfare on which the projects were to be situated. Having seen the sites, a model-based study of exemplary modern houses introduced the students to the design of dwellings. In addition, a trip to Porto at sketch design stage allowed a study of the way in which Alvaro Sizas Matosinhos projects negotiated a similar territory between thoroughfare and sea. Visiting such buildings also allowed the students to observe first hand architecture deploying light, shade and view in the creation of poetic experience - buildings in which distinctions between architecture and landscape become blurred.

Brian Ward

1st Year Studio Tutor 1

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Architecture and Urbanism Year 1

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If first year is about coming to grips with form, concept, construction and expression, then second year should be about the process: about deepening your understanding of the craft of architecture. The primary themes are idea, concept and process. The year focuses on developing a deeper knowledge of all three. On completing first year, the students have an understanding of the importance and necessity of an architectural idea. In second year, the move from idea to concept to process forms the core of the year.

CONCEPT AND PROCESS. Architecture is the manifestation of an idea formed from a number of encounters, Frampton discusses this interplay of three converging vectors: the topos, the typos and tectonic. Second year, through the structure of the years programme, attempts to have an exploration of all three, yet without an appropriate concept the manifestation is hollow. The year builds on the introduction to the concept introduced in first year and works towards an understanding of process. By process ,it is meant an explorative process which allows you to understand the palette with which you are working and the craft you are working within.

ETHEREAL AND PHYSICAL. The ethereal involves how the project briefs are formulated and the architectural ambition we hold for them. The physical involves how the idea is manifested, how truth, beauty and delight are brought into the way things come together. Thus, the themes are tackled by the student via site analysis, research, making, graphic presentation, technology. The methods by which the themes for the year are explored and summarised as follows:

- teaching of site and contextual analysis- keeping a good sketch book- using graphic/model making techniques appropriate to all stages of design.- developing research techniques and the presentation of that research in an appropriate format to others.- integrating material science, structural understanding and technology with studio.- combining both the ethereal and the physical in the studio programme.

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Brendan Spierin


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Declan Duffy

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Caisin Nic An Bheatha

Architecture and Urbanism Year 2Laura Carroll

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Davina Moody

Architecture and Urbanism Year 2Laura Carroll

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Dean Murphy

The Year 3 Architectural Design Studio is focused on resolving the internal and external pressures in an Architectural work. The studio is firmly based in the urban environment and takes its lead from the existing fabric, whether in Ireland or abroad. The studio fosters an observation of the tectonic and material realities of place and time. Through various analytical and synthetic techniques these observances are moulded into a suitable contextual response. The strength of the response is almost directly related to the strength of the environment that is the focus of the studio.

In the first semester the studio was grounded in the immediate fabric of the city in which the school is located, Dublin. In the mediating zone squeezed between the twin conduits: The Liffey and Luas from Hueston Station to the New Conference Centre is an area that contains evidence of the last 150 years of urban intervention. Concretised in this fabric are tectonic codes of volume, density, character, material, openness, verticality, horizontality, plot grain, access and use. Following an investigation to extrapolate these hidden rules student groups were asked to develop master plans for three specific conditions: infill, vacant brownfields and a replacement project. Within each of the four blocks a subdivision system derived from the plan brought forth individual work developed around a core of residential uses and a community related (non-residential) function. At various stages within the process the students were encouraged to develop their research and reflective faculties through a study of exemplary models whether in urban or housing design. This was further enhanced with student generated community projects of wide variety which built upon strong contextual links. Together, each individual project re-informs the collective project and furthers the collective view of the city. In turn, this experience enables the student to build on top of this method their own approach to the responsibility of designing for the urban environment.

Noel Brady / Ryan Kennihan

3rd Year Studio Tutor

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Studio

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Gottingen Model Study

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Bremen Model Study

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Lubeck Model Study

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Hilldesheim Model Study

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Rathaus Model Study

Building Conception to Completion. The Building Technology Structures (BTS) studio is intended to inspire students to consider their conceptual thinking in the context of the realisation of their Architecture. To determine the value of a theory of architecture one must measure the theoretical intention against the physical realisation. This presents the difficulty of trying to formulate a theory in advance of building. As undergraduates, students are challenged to approach their projects through critical theory and implementation. As with any pursuit, it is important to act; architecture demands a theory that develops over a period of time, and although a project can be a useful tool in this development, it ultimately denies the possibility of full assessment until the act of building has been undertaken. The ultimate challenge for a student is to convince.

All theory is dependent on action for validation, otherwise it simply remains in realm of a hypothesis. Each student must evolve a personal working method based on the range of interests that engage them. This personal working method will support the development of projects during the design stage and the ultimately inform the intentions associated with construction. Each project should be examined against the initial concept and at each stage decisions are examined in the context of the overall concept. In this context, criticism of a project can be measured against the initial intention. When the concept or thinking behind a building is challenged, then it is imperative that the project is robust and can be explained and if necessarydefended. The strength of a students working method allows for a true, robust defence of the scheme. Just as the projects success can be measured against the concept so to can the validity of any criticism. A students work should stand up to scrutiny in the context which it is proposed.

The ultimate aim is for the clarity of the concept to be evident at a glance, possessing a formal quality that the viewer can understand. To this end, the choice of materials, their relationship and detailing, are critical. Any mis-judgement at concept development stage has critical consequences for the realisation of the project.

To achieve this clarity, the project should operate on the level of the abstract, the viewer responding to the building on an intuitive level. The viewer should immediately sense a determined level of control, an influence on all aspects of the design of the building. The subtle relationship between two panels of stone, for instance, can reinforce or deny an idea about folding, mass or skin. The proper resolution of these seemingly minor matters elevates a building to the level of architecture. To paraphrase Le Corbusier, we must pass from mere construction to architecture to achieve a high aim.

The process described above is an honest and unflinching approach to architecture. The work of this studio seeks to produce unique work, modes of composition and aesthetics are eschewed to follow the path of the development of each project. The outcome at the beginning of each design is unknown; the unexpected is welcomed.

Semester 2 advanced studio module (ADS) had a strong emphasis on the integration of environmental concerns into the design projects from conceptualisation to completion and the opportunities and interdependencies offered by this approach. There were two main studio projects, one starting from a Macro point of view dealing with the outside-in, the other dealing with micro scale, concentrating on the inside-out.

Project 1, Town 2011 explored the issue of small town settlements nationally, with a view to establishing a framework for expansion suitable to 21st century living. The project was part of a competition brief set by the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) for students and dealt with analysis of place, environment and community through medium scaled sustainable development. Two contrasting towns were chosen for this purpose: Kilcock, a recently expanded town, and Abbeyleix, a heritage town, which is due to expand.

Project 2 had a strong emphasis on performance with the design of a new Conservatory of Music for the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM). The brief was compiled with the aid of the RIAM, who acted as a client. The site chosen in historic Thomas Street at the junction of St. Catherines Lane offered a great opportunity to work in section due to the constraints offered by the site. This building type offered great opportunities to use the difficulties posed by acoustical and other environmental concerns by converting them into architectural opportunities, resulting in a very individualised design response.

Ethna Walls

4th Year Studio Tutor

Paul Kelly

4th Year Studio Tutor

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I. WHAT IS ILLUSION? The architect and artist have a choice to either avoid or utilise optical illusions. They can be entertaining, useful, deceiving, disastrous or even playful depending on your point of view. They play a monumental role in how we perceive the physical world and are used to play tricks on people. We all know of the endless optical illusions popping up all over the Internet, but they have the ability to excite and frustrate us with their impossibility. We have come to trust our eyesight so much, that when our eyes deceive us we become completely baffled.

The architecture of Ancient Greece shows a great knowledge of many geometrical optical illusions and the architects were able to carefully work out how to use their knowledge to correct perspective.1 Drawings can reveal many optical illusions to the architect when the principle of perspective is understood. The fact that architecture is viewed from many different angles means that many different optical illusions may appear and disappear, depending on the location of the spectator. This means that the same relations of lines, forms and brightness in the drawings will never truly translate into reality. Sometimes this causes a problem for the architect although it is true with every case. It does not matter if a window, for example, is drawn, detailed and built perfectly square. If the eye does not perceive it to be so, it may as well not be square. The eye is only happy when the appearance is satisfactory and so the architect can take steps to counteract the optical illusion and please the eye. The extensive measures taken by the Greeks are excellent examples of how this can be achieved.1

Seeing is deceiving. As a general rule, we do not actually see things as they are or how they are related to each other. In actual fact, we do not perceive them correctly or, in other words, our conceptions and perceptions are not quite adequate. Only a part of what is perceived comes through the senses from the object and the remainder comes from within. It is the visual sense or the intellect that is responsible for optical illusions. It is our past experiences, desires, imaginings, and a whole host of other obscure influences that create visual illusions. The effects of illusions are disconcerting, although they have been practically perfected. The result is a sense that control and visual harmony have been lost. Cubism is the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce ones reading of a picture: a man made world, created and understood, a way of compensating for the fact that we cannot see around corners or see an object in its entirely at once.2 But the fact is, illusion is all around us and we encounter small tricks every day. We are not often aware of them, but, after all, the best optical illusions are cleverly concealed.

The organizational mechanisms of vision are best demonstrated by illusions. Illusions illustrate that perception is a creative construction that the brain makes in interpreting visual data ...Learning does not prevent us from being taken in by these illusions.1 Eric Kandel

II. OBJECTIVES. The objective of this dissertation is to explore the place of illusion in architecture. The ancient Greeks, the first to utilise optical illusions, were more concerned with correcting perspective, using optical illusions to create harmony and ultimately please the eye. In modern times illusion is being used to the opposite effect, creating spaces that trick our eyes and contradict our rational thought. Science and technology3, as well as a perfected knowledge of perspective, has allowed architects to utilise and explore the concept of illusion. What is uncertain is the impact that it can make on the individual, the psychological effect, as well as the actual quality of the spaces. These are issues that need to be explored further in order to understand whether illusion has a place in modern architecture or not. Is it dishonest? What purpose does it serve? What is it like to inhabit illusionary spaces? Or is it even possible to inhabit illusionary spaces?

III. OVERVIEW OF DISSERTATION. Through gaining knowledge of how we perceive the world through our eyes, and understand

the limitations of optical illusions and translating them into an architecture, I hope to acquire a sense of what illusion can do for architecture. Through studying the work and theory of Rem Koolhaas, I will try to discover ways in which illusionary tricks are played in Casa da Musicaintentional or otherwise and if these spaces are successful or if they enhance the architectural experience.

PERCEPTION AND SIGHT

I. OUR EYES AND SIGHT. Sight has always been considered by many humans to be the most valuable of our five senses. The ancient Greeks were the first to believe that sight and light were metaphors for knowledge, clear vision and, most importantly, truth. Plato regarded vision as humanitys greatest gift and he insisted that ethical universals must be accessible to the minds eye.2 Vision dominates our existence and there is, in fact, a great imbalance in our sensory systems. We tend to rely too much on sight to place ourselves in the world. Without our sight we would be floating around in a vast dark space. This is why, through sight, architecture (as with all other art forms), concerns itself with humanitys relationship with space and time and our sense of place. Architecture seeks to make sense of these concepts by relating the human form to the world, by creating boundaries to otherwise seemingly limited space. It is our sight that lets us recognise the fragility of human existence, how insignificant a role we play in the universe. The vast quantity of information that an eye can perceive in a millisecond far exceeds that of any other sense and it is through our eyes that we perceive and contemplate the world.3 This is why when our eyes deceive us in the form of optical tricks or other illusions we have the internal conflict of whether to believe our eyes or use our intellect, both of which we trust. It is a strange sensation that can result in random outbursts of laughter and gasps of disbelief.

I see a table. I walk around it. I see a doorway. I walk through it. Sight is essentially a way of navigating us through life; its our most basic and elemental function. However vision is not a mere recording device that records what it sees and plays it back in the brain. It is not passive, but active; it explores its surroundings, picking and choosing what it wants to see. A camera will capture every single element of a frame but the eye will pick out the most attractive elements.4 This allows the brain to deal with the most important components and skim over the uninteresting parts.

II. KNOWING TO SEE. SEEING TO KNOW. Our eyes show us a world but not the world itself. Our eyes repeat what they see but it is we who perceive and acquire a representation of the world. Some of what we see is reality and some is a reality altered by the imagination, completed or warped by our own thoughts, desires and dreams. It is our imagination and actual reality or fact that make up what a person perceives to be real. 4

Sight is known as a device for recognition, prediction and conformation.5 Architecture can use these attributes to create a balanced and harmonious experiencespaces where we feel at ease, relaxed and at home. Repetitiveness and familiarity are sometimes what people expect and prefer. We like to know what we are looking at and are often uneasy with the thought of the unknown or unfamiliar.5 This is maybe why some of our architecture has remained unchanged for centuries. Despite having made major advances in technology, we are still recreating the architecture that our ancestors built. We are creatures of habit, creatures that see to know.

The Ancient Roman scholar Pliny wrote, The mind is the real instrument of sight and observation, the eye acts as a sort of vessel receiving and transmitting the visible portion of the consciousness.6 Thus we need to know to see, as much as we believe; we see to know. To perceive something we need to know something and this can mean simply being able to recognise what we are looking at. It involves our own knowledge and consciousness. This is why sight is unique to every individual. We create our own perception bring our own thoughts, wants, believes, needs and expectations into the equation.

Essay: Architecture and Illusion


III. DISTORTION AND CORRECTION. What does distortion mean and what does it imply? Distortion occurs when an object presumed to be one way, for example, a square, gets twisted, bent or stretched. The fundamental thing about distortion is that there is always a comparison between what the object or space is and what it ought to be. This belief that something ought to be a certain way again goes back to what is learned.7 We learn that a staircase ought to be straight or that a floor ought to be flat. This derives the conclusion that these spaces are not in fact distorted but are only distorted compared to our previous experiences and expectations.6 The architect can manipulate these expectations and the learned knowledge of the participant to create unexpected experiences.

As much as sight it is a way to perceive three-dimensional objects, the spaces we see are only images that are projected on the retinas of the eyes by our lenses. They are as flat as a photograph. The retinal receptors transform light into nerve impulses and nothing more than that.

The eye wants to correct what is incorrect. In other words it wants to see what is simple rather than what is truthful. It will seek to see simplest the figure obtainable, although this may be the wrong figure. Architects can and have used this to their advantage for centuries. They can trick our eyes into believing that there is greater depth. The most obvious example of this is quite simply slanting walls, floors and ceiling to create a much deeper room. A built example of this is the Palazzo Spada in Rome7. The architect Franceso Borromini wanted a deep architectural vista and from the outside looking in it appears this way. However, upon stepping inside there is a strong feeling of wooziness that is caused by lack of spatial orientation.8 It looks one way but is actually another. The same principal has been applied in reverse to maintain a regular shape such as Michelangelos Capitol Square.8 The buildings converge to obtain balance. Plato and Vitruvius were not impartial altering of the truth to obtain a more beautiful form.

For the eye is always in search of beauty, and if we do not gratify its desire for pleasure by a proportionate enlargement in the measures and thus make compensation for ocular deception, a clumsy and awkward appearance will be presented to the beholder. 9Vitruvius

ILLUSION AND ART

I. THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST. The Arts have always been an outlet for expression, where artists and architects can explore their ideas and push boundaries. The relationship between artist and architect has always been intertwined. Throughout history they have been linked and only in the last hundred years or so have they gone their separate ways. This, in a way, has ironically allowed them to sit back and interpret each others work in ways they never could before. Art installations have become increasingly more popular and they are often heavily influenced by architecture. However, architects could learn a thing or two from the way that some artists can inject a sense of fun and excitement into their work. Although architecture cannot really be compared to art, architects have the tendency to play it a little too safe when it comes to designing innovative buildings (we always tend to be copying somebody else). Of course, architects have a greater responsibility in ensuring that their buildings stand the test of time. The artists installation after all, will be removed.

II. THE LIMITATIONS OF ART. Many artists including M. C. Escher9, Bridget Riley10 and Salvador Dali11 use illusionary tricks in their work. In M. C. Eschers famous painting Relativity12, the normal laws of gravity do not apply.10 The structure of the building does not make any sense; people are simultaneously walking upstairs on what appears to be different gravitational planes. The normal laws of physics do not apply. The most famous example of optical illusions of this kind is the Penrose Stairs.13 These stairs are impossible in three dimensions but the two dimensional drawing achieves this paradox by distorting perspective.11 Architecture cannot quite be expected to achieve such

The Penrose Stairs, also known as the impossible stairs, was invented by Roger Penrose in 1985. Pensrose was greatly inspired by Escher, so much so that he wanted to create something impossible of his own. He discovered both the continuous stairs and the tri-bar structure.

Anna Pierce

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we know, that an alien from outer space may see the mishmash of lines because a chair is not familiar to him. However, the creature would surely see the simplest possible configuration and besides, the likelihood of a crisscross of tangles ever coincidently looking like a cohesive and rational shape from one particular angle seems highly unlikely. So of course do the aliens.

Ames not only conducted experiments to better understand perspective but he also investigated scale and the notion that we are unable to tell what size something is unless we know its distance. This is possibly the best-known and most common form of visual ambiguity. We also cannot tell an objects size if there is not something relative to compare it to. The simple experiment Ames conducted involved placing abnormally large and small objects such as wristwatches and playing cards at differing distances. The spectators saw these objects as normal sized. The obvious outcome is that people can be easily deceived but almost as importantly, people will hazard a guess even though the object could be literally any size.

ILLUSION AND ITS ROLE IN ARCHITECTURE?

I. DELIVERING THE UNEXPECTED. This poses the questions: does illusion have a place in architecture? Should it deliver what is expected or purposely not deliver what is expected? Venturi17 believes that it should not. He believes that by using conventional elements of architecture in an unconventional

parodies as they are quite simply impossible. However, this does not mean that perspective and light cannot be manipulated to a greater extent. The irony of the situation is that the drawings are so obviously architectural that if they could be transformed into reality, they would make us feel as though we were in some parallel universe where time stands still and gravity exists on different planes. Of course, this is an impossibility, but there are other ways in which buildings can be designed to give us small thrills and make us believe we belong to a world that is extraordinary. The artist Ames14 would eventually lead the way in creating architectural space that actually distorts space in the third dimension and Dalis theories would come to influence the work of architect Rem Koolhaas.

TRANSLATING ILLUSION INTO THE THIRD DIMENSION

I. BEHOLDERS SHARE. In the final chapter of Gombrichs15 Art and Illusion, he poses the notion that Beholders Share is the collection of perceptual and psychic acts through which the spectator brings an image into existence by perceiving and understanding it.12 As mentioned earlier, the works of Escher and earlier artists such as Piranesi and Hogarth demonstrate this Beholders Share in that we have to try and work out the relationships between things and, in doing so, we realise it is a paradoxical scenario. The reality is that such a scenario cannot exist physically in the real world. Spaces are built out of planes and must have a beginning, an end, and they must join somewhere. This is why translating illusion into the third dimension is so difficult, if not impossible. Illusions are, after all, only tricks that work from a certain point of view. Illusionary tricks in Architecture tend not to completely fool the spectator only hint at an illusion. Ames was the first man who perfected illusions in the third dimension.

II. AMES ROOM. Science alone cannot truly deal with all the matters of perception. Psychology plays the most important role in investigating illusion. Albert Ames was the leading investigator in this area, who invented a number of trompe loeil16 that explained further how perspective images need us to interpret them to work.13 The Ames Room is the best-known example of how architecture can distort the world. In this clever room, through one specifically placed peephole, it looks perfectly average. From the outside or any other angle however it looks skewed and distorted. The laws of physics do not apply in this room. People appear to shrink and grow as they walk around the room, a face looking in the window appears large and in another small, balls can roll uphill and water poured from one container to another seems bizarrely displaced to the side. 4 The phenomenon is puzzling if you do not realise that the vision depends upon the projective pattern on the retina. The eye of course does not care about such indiscrepancies. If the deformed room is seen as rectangular, this needs no more and no less of an explanation than the fact that a physically rectangular room is seen how it is.

A key finding in Ames work is that even after we see what is actually reality (if we see the room from the wrong angle and understand that it is not a right angled room) when we go back to looking through the peephole we cannot undeceive ourselves. It holds us even though we know that what we perceive is not what is true. In fact, it is practically impossible to see it as a skewed angled room. We cannot un-see the illusion.

A similar scenario exists in another experiment by Ames where three configurations of a chair exist, only one of which looks how it appears. We literally cannot imagine these unlikely objects. The mishmash of lines does not have a place in our world, no name, no familiarity. However, chairs we understand, they are familiar. We can place and comprehend them. The main point that Ames was trying to make is that perceptions are not disclosures.3 What we see through the peephole does not directly or immediately reveal to us what is there. It proves the fact that we cannot possibly know what is there, all we can do is guess. Our guess is of course influenced and, in a way, limited by our expectations. Gombrich raises the point that we see what

The Ames Room, built in 1935 by the artist and scientist Adelbert Ames is a room that appears to have right angles when viewed from a particular point but is now trapezoid in shape. For this reason people appear larger and smaller because they are actually in the distance.


way, a new meaning is created. This can be applied to the use of illusionary tricks in architecture. If he uses convention unconventionally, if he organises familiar things in an unfamiliar way, he is changing their contexts, and he can use the clich to gain a fresh effect. Familiar things seen in an unfamiliar context become perceptually new as well as old.14 Anticipation should not always be fulfilled, however, they should be unfulfilled in a meaningful way, to jolt us back to reality and make us question what is real and what we have just simply learned. Architecture can question convention in an extreme way. It does not only give different meaning to materials, form and elements, but can also completely distort our perception of reality.

II. ILLUSIONS IMPACT ON PSYCHES. Vidler18 looks at two types of warped space, the first being psychological space full of phobias and neuroses and the second being the way that artists are pushing the boundaries to create new space. Architecture can inflict discomfort and panic. The way an illusionary space moves and shifts is not static, but forever changing in unpredictable ways and is unnerving. Depending on our state of mind, this can create a feeling of seasickness or oppositely a surge of excitement. The psychology of space was devoted to calibrating the endlessly shifting sensations and moods of a perceiving subject whose perception had less to do with what was objectively there than with what was projected as seen.15 Ones state of mind has a huge influence on how architecture is experienced and perceived. The experience of the building will change from person to person, day to day depending even on mood. Architecture is no longer thought of as containers for people and activities but is considered a dynamic, ever changing entity referred to by Mitchell W. Schwarzer19 as the emergence of architectural space.16

ILLUSION AND ARCHITECTURE

I. INFLUENCES. Rem Koolhaas20 has always been an observer of reality. He accepts the world, its contradictions and is utterly unsentimental about it. He favors the ugly, seeks to explore the messy social reality and certainly isnt afraid to write about it.17 Illusionary spaces, whether intentional or not are part of Koolhaas work. This may be due to the fact that he is heavily influenced by Dalis Paranoid Critical Method21, which he has adopted and attempted to translate into his architecture. How can we decipher between what is a random instinctive for the hell of it architecture and what is actually intelligent rational theory? Without rationalism the spaces created are surely not as meaningful, however, Koolhaas feels that architecture has moved on from the need to rationalise every thought and decision. He believes a more instinctive approach in some instances is just as valid:

I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual.18Rem Koolhaas

Whether he has intentionally warped space to ensue chaos and another emotions or whether this is simply a by-product of his other methods remains to be seen. He claims to approach design by conceptual and physical design thinking and tends to throw away any preconceptions of what a building is expected to be. It does appear that Koolhaas is interested in breaking down architectural conventions and exploring a new way of building architecture. These challenge peoples preconceptions and make them rethink their built environment. However he may not intentionally inflict emotions through his architecture that make spectators feel, for example, joy, fear or confusion. This is a by product of the very abstract, conceptual spaces that he creates through integrating social issues, economic issues and even political issues into his architectural thoughts.

II. THE PARANOID CRITICAL METHOD. The Paranoid Critical

Method was created by Salvador Dali in the 1930 and was adopted by Koolhaas in his architecture. Put most simply, it is a way of systemising irrational thought and viewing the world in a different way. It his paintings, Dalis landscapes melt across the page hallucinogenically. An extreme paranoid, he strived to denounce reality, creating instead these delusional images that dealt with optical illusions, splitting apart bodies and movement. He sought to systemise confusion and thus help to discredit completely the world of reality.19 The Stinking Ass22 is a manifesto by Dali that sheds crucial light on the Paranoid Critical method. Dali wants to intercept reality by imposing irrationality on the world and, in doing so, will be able to test rational and objective phenomena.

Paranoia uses the external world in order to assert it dominating idea and has the disturbing characteristic of making others accept this ideas reality. The reality of the world is used for illustration and proof, and so comes to serve the reality of the mind.20Salvador Dali

Dali points out some of the crucial elements involved in Paranoid Critical Method. To clarify, they are divided into four parts:1. He uses words such as swift, subtle and refined to describe connections made by the paranoiac. 2. These connections are then systemised but not tied together.3. Paranoia spreads, is contagious and difficult to resist.4. Reality provides illustration and proof, that come in the form of everyday objects. 21

Paranoia to Dali is not about complete irrationality, although it may appear that way. Instead it is about how things are interpreted and the style in which they are interpreted. Although Dali used the Paranoid Critical Method to exploit visual deception, the full extent of the phenomenon was not fully explored. The resultants of all of Dalis theories are simply a series of hallucinogenic images.

III. APPLICATION OF THE PARANOID CRITICAL METHOD TO THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT. Koolhaas is a pioneer for Paranoid Critical thinking but uses the method to form something altogether more realised. He concerns himself with similar themes, that of delusion and interpretation. Through his architecture he attempts to show the world in a different light or through fresh eyes. Although the same themes come about the outcomes are quite different. Where Dali was attempting to confuse and distort what is real, Koolhaas is literally building a built yet distorted reality. This means that Koolhaas is in fact not distorting anything only building what we perceive to be distorted. In the end, you simply cannot distort reality.

Koolhaas uses the Paranoid Critical Method as an analytical tool. In Manhattan, where he believes that the skyscraper is a highly irrational building that separates its uses onto the same and separate floors. That these buildings could become a symbol of success and power lends itself to the theory that people have a warped perception of reality. These skyscrapers are a learned and expected structure and prototype in society. Koolhaas says that the developers in New York have developed a schizophrenia that allows them simultaneously to derive energy and inspiration from Manhattan as an irrational fantasy, and to establish its unprecedented theorems in a series of strictly rational steps. 22 He discovered an irrational consciousness that no one had simply thought to think about before.

IV. BIGNESS. Koolhaas theory of Bigness, or the problem of large, began with a photograph by Bruce Bellas from 1966 of a man about to lift a prism of concrete. It was chosen to symbolise OMAs tendency to create buildings of colossal size. The concept of Bigness is a concept that absorbs that of architecture beyond the threshold of critical massto the point of overwhelming it.23 Venturi refers to the regime of complexity, where the historical and cultural nature of a project can be overlooked in favour of the new found technologies and advancements in engineering that promote Bigness. A crucial consequence of Bigness is the disappearance of logic. In the scale of the city logical planning is replaced with ever accumulating Bigness, piled upon one common metropolitan plane.

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If Bigness transforms architecture, its accumulation generates a new kind if city. []. Bigness can exist anywhere on the plane. []. Bigness no longer needs the city: it competes with the city; it represents the city; it preempts the city; or better still, it is the city. []. Bigness is the last bastion of architecture a contradiction, a hyper-architecture.24Rem Koolhaas

CASE STUDY: Casa da Musica

This building is insane. It is also brilliant.25Hugh Pearman, The Sunday Times.

I. Y2K HOUSE. Casa da Musica started out as the Y2K23 house that was originally intended to be built in Rotterdam. The house began as box that transformed into a random polyhedral solid. Koolhaas began with a series of models of a box and over time he added spaces that became increasingly protruding and grouped. At the time, Koolhaas said in an interview [I] had an instinctive notion that it would be interesting to go back to something stupid and simple, and that the Dutch context in itself would be a provocative context to do that stupid thing.26

Initially, the inclined planes on the roof were to mimic the traditional image of a pitched roof. Here began signs that Koolhaas was adapting the expected and questioning the accepted. He continued to wrap the volumes attached to the original box in a thick layer.27 This created a plane where the roof and walls we indistinguishable. The spaces beneath the skin between the additive rooms and main living area were filled with functional programmes. The original box becomes invisible and appears to be puncturing the solid polyhedral mass, almost like a tunnel. The resulting house was a formless overall mass, its rooms shaped by the inclining geometry of the facades. These spaces take on a difference shape, contracting, shifting and contorting with only the tunnel remaining unchanged. Koolhaas achieved a house that had anti-gravitational qualities. It becomes another expression of the instability frequently sought after by Koolhaas.

II. A LEAP OF SCALE. The so called, informal polyhedral solid28 was to undertake a complete transformation when it underwent gigantic enlargement29 and became the Casa da Musica in Oporto, Portugal. The building was literally translated and enlarged into the new projects brief, keeping the spaces divided into two categories; collective spaces and secondary living spaces.30 On the drawings the collective spaces are shown in white and the secondary serving spaces in black. This gigantic leap of scale is not uncommon for Koolhaas who is infamous for building unashamedly enormous structures. He believes that the solid has to isolate itself, to become an autonomous object 31 to be observed like a sculpture, an enormous object. He put it simply I like thinking big. I always have. To me its very simple: if youre going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.32 He puts into practice his theories of Bigness. Composition, scale, proportion go out the window. In a world where such rules dont apply, we are left with something unfamiliar and seemingly bizarre - a giant white polyhedral, sitting on a flat plane in the middle of a rundown area of Oporto. Up close its canted walls distort your sense of perspective and it is nearly impossible to get a sense of its dimensions. From a distance it looks like a landed spacecraft. It does not appear of this world.

III. THE ROLE OF STRUCTURE IN ILLUSION. The structure of the building is not the determining factor in the organisation and layout of space. Koolhaas was careful to ensure that the form would remain the same regardless of size or apparent physical impossibilities. The additions of struts to support the finished building are seemingly as abstract as the building itself. Koolhaas did not want the structure to get in the way of the carving of the building. Whatever had to be done to facilitate the eventual form was done. The result is a space reminiscent of Piranesis24 set of etchings, The Prisons25. This comparison demonstrates the qualities of the architecture created by Koolhaas. Whether intentional or not, the space has a similar quality to the painting;

beams that elongate and disappear seamlessly into the shadows and intrusive walls that close in around you. Piranesi, a master of perspective, paints a scene of a nightmarish dungeon. It conjures up images of improbable and terrifying scenery.

Is this a reflection on Casa da Musica? I dont believe that the same emotions were intended to be conjured up by Koolhaas, however the space does leave one pondering similar questions. In both cases we want to understand what we see and make sense of it all. The rope hanging from the pulley, where does it lead? How is the roof held up? What is the angle of the banister? What is the angle of the wall? In Casa da Musica, the reality is that these obscure angles are, in fact, all very possible, if not probable. Koolhaas has managed to build a reality that recreates only what artists such as Piranesi could have dreamt of. The question is whether the spaces that Koolhaas has created, as impressive as they are, are spaces that people actually want to occupy. It comes back to the individual, these spaces may conjure up feeling of fear and anxiety but they may very well conjure up feelings of excitement and bewilderment. No matter what way you experience it, it remains an impressive and powerful space.

The entrance lobby is a space reminiscent of Piranesis set of etchings, The Prisons. This comparison demonstrates the qualities of the architecture created by Koolhaas. Whether intentional or not, the space has a similar quality to the painting; beams that elongate and disappear seamlessly into the shadows and intrusive walls that close in around you. Piranesi, a master of perspective, paints a scene of a nightmarish dungeon.


All of the spaces are laid out without any recognisable geometric order. The result is the dizzying Piranesian scenario that Koolhaas seems to favour. The circulation, as you might expect, pervades the building, routes seemingly limitless and equally endless. It is like stepping inside Alice in Wonderland: you never really know where you are and looking at a plan of the building doesnt seem to help. Allow yourself to get lost in the building, either way that is what will happen. The glazing once again creates a surreal world. The double glazed panels, for acoustic purposes, are like giant sheets of corrugated glass, undulating to make wave like shapes. Ironically, they can also result in a feeling of seasickness. The world is perceived through this glass, enlarged to show the city in a way that has never happened before.34 The world outside moves, expanding and compressing, warped and distorted as you walk. The glass literally bends the light.

IV. REMAINING SPACES as Koolhaas refers to them, are actually the random left over spaces that are assigned different activities. Some of these activities seem absolutely pointless. One room in particular (which I cannot make out in the plans or sections) appears to have no other use apart from sliding. There is a musical installation in this room, an afterthought no doubt, but the main entertainment comes in the form of plush orange velvet carpet on a slanted floor of about 30 degrees that allows you to slowly descend down it. In actual fact it is rather difficult to get up there in the first place. Such a space is a lot of fun, if only for a while.

The dimensions of the room are such that it plays tricks on the eye when viewed from certain angles, although it does not do this as perfectly as, for example, the Ames Room26. Even so the eye is so unused to these unconventional angles that we see people growing larger as they ascent. It, unlike the Ames Room, is contradictory in many ways. The Ames space is correct from one angle only. The illusionary trick only works in a very particular place and even when looking through the peephole, the space is much more interesting viewed from the wrong angle. With Ames you are either looking at it in the right or wrong way. In Casa da Musica you are never looking at the spaces in the right or wrong way as such. The distinguishing factor is that Casa da Musica was never intended to be observed or looked into, but instead to be experienced, inhabited and enjoyed. The geometry of the spaces and form destroy all hopes of unity and regularity, although the constructive geometries are exact. These constructive geometries allow us to generate a realistic evaluation of what is before us. There is only a split second before our mind catches up with our eyes (or our eyes catch up with our mind, which comes first I cant be sure)27, that the illusionary tricks are evident.

Why create such a space? The space was not so much created, as it just existed as left over space. All leftover spaces are of a similar scale and shape, not actually useful for anything, entertaining and yet uncomfortable to be in: a paradox, and a bit like the building as a whole. It is impossible to try and rationally critique this space or many others that Koolhaas has attempted to intellectualise; It is, after all, an accident and was never technically planned. The room is like an evolving and shifting space, caught in time in a concrete and velvet reality.

There is no plateau of resting or stabilising. Once you are interested in how things evolve, you have a kind of never-ending perspective, because it means you are interested in articulating the evolution, and therefore the potential change, the potential redefinition. Rem Koolhaas

V. SUCCESS OR FAILURE. I dont think that its possible to say that Casa da Musica is a failure. It is easy to be critical. It is self-important, looks as though it should either topple over or hover off the ground and fly away, it is impossible to navigate, wastes space at every given opportunity - the list goes on. Everything about it is completely daft. Koolhaas is daft. Or brilliant. If you abandon the compulsory need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit

that certain things are completely instinctive. In this respect it is a triumph and an excellent example of how architecture and illusion can conjure up raw emotion and challenge our naturally inquisitive nature. The building is not one that you love to hate but the contrary, a building you hate to love. Its success may have something to do with its originality, its freshness and bizarreness. How it would have worked as a house is questionable, the spaces are constricting and unstable, fun for a few hours but tedious and exhausting for any period longer than that. The illusionary tricks wear us out after in time. Our eyes are constantly battling with our mind. What we see is always contradicting itself and although we have the capability of applying known logic, our eyes dont seem to care.

CONCLUSION

Casa da Musica if proof that illusion in architecture has both its strengths and weaknesses. It can be used in many ways, from correcting perspective in Ancient Greece to distorting our perception in modern times. The way in which illusionary tricks affect our mind depends completely on how they are utilised. They can make you feel uneasy and uncomfortable, make your head hurt and eyes sore or they can excite and thrill. They can also do all of these things at once. It also depends on the person and their mood. An advantage to using optical illusions in architecture is its ability to conjure different emotions in different people but also different emotions in just one person. It can be a powerful tool that has not been explored to its full potential by modern architects.

Of course, it has its disadvantages. The spaces that I looked at are practically unusable for any real purpose. They can be impractical and downright strange. Perhaps illusions could be used in a less obvious, more practical way but diluting the strangeness would surely defeat the purpose. And so illusion finds its rightful place in buildings such as Casa da Musica, where people participate in the quirky eccentricity and then retire home to their right angles homes. It can be used successfully, but even if it does invoke hysteria and chaos, at least it invokes something.

REFERENCES1. http://www.visualillusion.net/Chap02/Page01.php2. http://www.tagate.com/optical_illusion/greek_history.shtml3. Juhani Pallasmaa, Eyes of the Skin, cit. p.15. 20054. Matte Luckiesh, A Random Illusion, cit. Chapter 13. 19225. Richard Leppert, Art and the committed eye. The cultural functions of imagery. cit. p.56. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, A psycology of the creative eye. cit. p.1537. Ibid., cit. p1578. http://www.artbabble.org/video/ngadc/empire-eye-magic-illusion-palazzo-spadas-corridor-part-59. Vitruvius, Ten Books of Architecture, Book III, cit. p.83.10. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, A psycology of the creative eye. cit. p.15311. Roger Penrose, Roger Penrose: Collected Works, Volume 6, cit. p.17312. E.H.Gombrich, Art and Illusion, Chapter VIII, Part I, cit. p.20413. Ibid., cit. p.21014. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in architecture, p.43.15. Schwarzer, The Emergence of Architectural Space, cit. p.48.16. Ibid., p.5717. Roberto Gargiani, Rem Koolhaas OMA -The Construction of Merveilles, Chapter 1.18. http://www.quotesandpoem.com/quotes/showquotes/author/rem-koolhaas/13463119. George E. Marcus, Paranoia within reason: a casebook on conspiracy as explana-tion. p.5620. Salvador Dali, The Stinking Ass, , La Femme Visible, Editions Surrealististes, Paris, 1930.21. George E. Marcus, Paranoia within reason: a casebook on conspiracy as explanation, Chapter 2, p.21.22. Koolaas, Delirious in New York. cit. p92.23. Roberto Gargiani, Rem Koolhaas OMA,- The Construction of Merveilles p. 227. 200824. Koolhaas, Bigness25. Hugh Pearman, The Sunday Times, London, 10th April 2005.26. Koolhaas, Transformations, on [email protected]+u. cit. p.107.27. Ibid. cit. p.10828. Roberto Gargiani, Rem Koolhaas OMA,- The Construction of Merveilles p. 277. 200829. Koolhaas, Delirious in New York. cit. p92.30. Koolhaas-OMA, Casa da Musica. cit. p147.31. Ibid. cit. p131.32. Katrina Heron, From Bauhaus to Koolhaas. Wired Magazine. Issue 2.07 - July 199633. E.H.Gombrich, Art and Illusion, Chapter VIII, Part I, cit. p.20734. Ibid. cit. p134.35. http://www.quotesandpoem.com/quotes/showquotes/author/rem-koolhaas/134631

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Essay: Rationalism

Preface. The purpose of this essay is driven by self inquiry. Through research, I had hoped to attain a greater knowledge of the rationalist tendency in architectural production. As a tendency that I am drawn towards, I am implored to better understand it. The issue at hand is not reinforce existing prejudice but to identify its many personas so that they may inform a creative process today. This essay notes my findings.

RationalismA Brief Introduction. Conventional wisdom dictates that there are two categories of mental activity, the scientific, depending on reason, and the artistic, depending on feeling or intuition. This simple dichotomy fails to consider, amongst many things, the role that the institution plays in scientific thought and the role that judgement forming intellect plays in artistic creation.

Of all of the arts, architecture is the least capable of excluding the idea of rationality. Utile and constructional criteria circumscribe, even if they do not determine, the field in which the imagination of the architect is said to work. Therefore, the degree to which an architecture can be said to be rational depends less on the presence or absence of these criteria and more on the importance attributed to them within the total process of architectural design and within the framework of governing ideologies. The idea of what is rational within architecture has not remained constant. It is not a static concept. It has varied according to the constellation of ideas that have dominated particular historical phases. In this way, it cannot be considered a style or an art-historical category. To better understand rationalism as an architectural phenomenon it is necessary to make clear its definition philosophically. In western philosophy the primary distinction has been between rationalism and empiricism or between reason and experience. While the opposition of reason and feeling is not synonymous with these categories, there is a relation between them. In both cases reason implies the intervention of law between the direct experience of the world and any praxis born out of it, such as architecture. It is this notion, that praxis is the result of the application of general rules governed by reason, that best provides a general understanding of rationalism in architecture. In this instance, it is important to consider the notions of a priori and a posteriori knowledge. In the case where knowledge is held to be a priori, an empiricist understanding of the world is seen to be fortuitous or incidental. Whereas when knowledge is held to be a posteriori, a rationalist understanding of the world is seen to be subject to authority or habit. The history of architectural theory during the last two hundred years is predicated on the conflict between these two categories of knowledge. A classical understanding of rationalism, for instance, dictates that the just form of activity is one that lives in closest accord with natural law. In this regard the rationalist seeks to reveal truth. But if truth is received a priori or via the authority of doctrine, then the basis for empirical critique is set. It is in this light that the origins of rationality within architectural praxis must be considered. Rationalist theory in architecture saw its origin in the Cartesian philosophy first reflected upon in the artistic doctrines of the seventeenth century. Within these doctrines were enunciated principles that were originally found in the only surviving ancient treatise on the subject at that time, that of Vitruvius. At this time artistic understanding saw itself subsumed into theories derived from Aristotlean and Platonic positions. Thus was prescribed, that art was an imitation of nature and that the art of the ancients, having successfully achieved this, was also fit to be imitated. Hence nature was chiefly approachable through the authority of the ancients.

One of the sources for this concept of imitation can be found in

Bibliothque Sainte Genevive exterior, interior, section, vestibule, plan.

Architecture and Urbanism Year 4Robert Chapman

Aristotles Physics. He says:

If a house were one of the things provided by nature, it would be the same as it is now when produced by art. And if natural phenomena were produced not only by nature but also by art, they would in this case come into being through art in the same ways as they do in atureIn short art either completes the process that nature is unable to work out fully, or it imitates nature.

The notion that an ancient treatise would hold authority over contemporary praxis is not unfamiliar, but it is perhaps counterintuitive, particularly within the context of modern sensibilities. In this regard, it is important to consider the ideological context of this conception of rationalism. The re-assertion of classical authority, when set against the background of a gothic cultural hegemony that had dominated european cultural production since the fall of the Roman empire, perhaps provides an insight into its ontological justification. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to grasp as a theory of architectural knowledge, and herein lies its conceptual ambiguity. Conversely, a utilitarian understanding of rationalism would seek justification through instrumental reason. In so doing the rationalist seeks to apply reason via organisational principles, to affect social, economic or mechanical parameters. Though this may mark a progression conceptually, it does not absolve itself from critique. It was from eighteenth century onwards, with the rise of utilitarianism, that the alliance between classicism and what was rational became increasingly tenuous. It was at this time that architecture saw itself split into its scientific or constructive and artistic or representational functions, with reason being reserved for the former and intuition for the latter. This new conceptual dualism was to seriously undermine the unitary doctrine of classicism. Here instrumental reason took precedent over metaphysics. Efficient causes replaced final causes. There was now no theory that could withstand the growth of caprice and eclecticism, whereby classicism was reduced to a specific tradition whose use was customary and justified by convention. The ideological exigency was no longer to assert the cultural dominance outright and without question, as was seen in the Baroque era that preceded this period, but to distil the architectural repetoire using empirical experience as supplementary proof of the existence of natural law. Though the conceptual split of architectures scientific and customary principles did theoretically undermine the justification of style, a weakened form of classicism was to persist throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century through to the following century. It was in France that rationalism took on the logic of structure and utility, where, for some time, architects had sought to reconcile the rational constructive principles of Gothic architecture with the customary importance of Classicism. Lonce Reynaud, a prominent classicist and proclaimed rationalist of the mid-nineteenth century, espoused a view that it was the task of the rationalist to consolidate Classical architecture with the modern sciences. In so doing, one was expected to preserve and reinforce the features of classicism that had evolved to such a perfected state that they could not be disregarded. Echoes of this same belief can be seen as late as the twentieth century in the work of Le Corbusier, amongst others within the avant-garde.An example of this consolidation can be seen in the Bibliothque Sainte Genevive by Henri Labrouste. Led by architectural historians, most twentieth-century observers have claimed to see in Labroustes first building, the Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve, a precursor to the reductive aesthetic and the beginnings of the rationalism that would help define twentieth century architectural modernism. Labroustes use of an exposed iron framework for the internal structure of the reading room and his equally rationalised system of differentiating the supporting from the supported members of its masonry faade have caused most historians to see in the building, a rejection of classical form and the premonition of has been called the engineers aesthetic.This view is expressed by Sigfried Giedion, perhaps the foremost

historian of architectural modernism.

Labroustes chief accomplishment in this building rests in the manner in which the iron construction is balanced in itself, so that it puts no stress on the walls. The achievement of just such a hovering equilibrium became the chief task of engineers in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Though this is true, to preserve the buildings proto-modernist identity, Giedion omits any mention of the buildings decorative forms by which the structure of the library makes itself manifest as art, in a word, its clothing. This, perhaps a validation of what Manfredo Tafuri referred to as operative criticism. A reading of Labroustes first building requires a more nuanced inspection. Meaningful expression was arguably the real issue facing the nineteenth century architect. The question of style was only a subset of that problem. With a seemingly endless variety of forms available and a hitherto unprecedented historical self-consciousness, the question lay with how to ascribe meaning to architecture and to ensure its comprehension. For the Classical architect the limitations placed on what forms could be considered typical and appropriate circumscribed the content of those forms and ensured their signification. This was not the case for the early modern architect. Empirical understanding presented new challenges. In light of this, Labrouste set out a course to reject many of the restrictions imposed by the then dominant ideology of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. But opposed to the disregarding of all precedent, he sought to construct an assemblage of sorts, drawing on many influences, and directing them towards a singular end.

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Since its completion, the Bibliotheque Saint Genevieve has been seen as an odd mixture of pretentious modernism clothed in retrogressively historical forms. The inscribed inset of the panels of its facade resonate with the appearance of a late Egyptian temple. The dark, open space of its vestibule is like an Egyptian hypostyle hall with its ceiling raised above piers on impost blocks. The vestibule could also be compared to a Classical Greek Stoa, with the upper spaces between the piers of its side walls filled with illusionistic paintings of trees, forming a background for a procession of busts of famous authors, artists and scientists. The reading room has a decidedly representational character. It is girded round by a continuous arcade. Its piers are perpendicularly posed to the main volume of the space, which is delineated by a single spine of cast iron columns down its centre. Given that Labrouste could have easily vaulted the entire space, his decision to divide the room in half with a central spine of columns suggests a predilection for the plan type represented by a Greek temple or a Gothic refectory. Labrouste fully intended that the use of these columns be directed towards a spatial end. In this way he made the idea of the parti central to the composition of the buildings main space and in so doing he gave the reading room a modulation that was utilitarian, symbolic and non-hierarchical in character.

The building draws unashamedly from multiple reference points. It is clear that the representational aspect of architecture was still attributed with great importance, but its reasoning was no longer metaphysical or unitary; rather, it was resolutely utilitarian.

Labroustes library could be seen as multi-faceted in its conceptual character. The pragmatic concerns over the use of cast iron do not override what is seen as an appropriate form(s), for a building of its nature. Meanwhile its warped symbolism, points to a desire to deal with realist imperatives, so pertinent with general artistic discourse at that time. One thing is certain, Labroustes Bibliotheque Saint Genevive marks a conscious re-evaluation of form and content in the light of a more self-conscious society. A modernist understanding of rationalism again posits a different conception. Much more stringently based on structural utilitarianism, the modernist is said to employ a distilled architectural repetoire towards the optimisation of construction and needs based on economy of use. But in making this distinction it is necessary to consider the ideological and theoretical context from which this conception is born out of. It is argued that it was not until the twentieth century that the seeds of positivism and structural rationalism, planted a century earlier, bore fruit. In the early 1900s , a consensus began to formulate, calling for severance with the past and the development of an architecture that draws its meaning from the objective conditions of technique and programme. Amongst the earliset practitioners of such a philisophical position were HP Berlage and Otto Wagner. Examples of their positions can be seen in two buildings of notable influence, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the Post Office Savings Building in Vienna. Both buildings display a reductive tendency now synonymous with modernism. According to the English architectural critic Alan Colquhoun, the emergence of a refined rationalist architecture was the resultant of a synergy between three conceptual models that developed at this time, namely Logical Atomism, Functionalism and Formalism.4 Each of these categories helped radically define 20th century rationalism, one that was alien in its appearance to that of its 19th century predecessor. Logical Atomism, a philosophical concept conceived by Bertrand Russell, postulated an ideal, empirically based language which would correspond to the structure of reality. Its premise proposed that the world consists of elementary entities possessing only elementary properties that were connected through elementary relations, thus our scientific world view must be composed analogically out of elementary propositions. The paradox of this view is that to satisfy an empirical truth, the world must be reduced to a set of formal components devoid of all immediacy of meaning. This elementarisation can be seen as an impoverishment of the meanings carried by cultural convention. Such philosophical notions spread to architecture quickly. The

Stonborough House

Moller House

German Trades Union School, Hannes Meyer


Villa Savoye

Villa Garches

Villa Malcontenta

insistence on use value in the work of Adolf Loos and Ludwig Wittgensteins Stonborough house, links the idea of logical atomism with function. The idea of functionalism is fundamental to the modern movement. The overriding idea that there is a casual relation between functions and forms within architecture is a notion that goes back to Vitruvius. This importance of function as the central generator of architectural form was capable of a highly conceptual interpretation, as seen in the works of Le Corbusier or as a scientific interpretation based on a materialist understanding, as seen in the work of Hannes Meyer. In either case this idea of justification through function still resonates today. It is possible to define formalism as a school of thought that stresses rule governed relationships, rather than relationships based on cause and effect. A formalist approach restricts the discussion of historical works of art by placing shared characteristics into formal categories whilst avoiding any deliberation on what these characteristics may mean in their historical context. From this, a universal theory may be extrapolated. The paradox central to this thesis is that while wishing to break with the rules of classical aesthetics, by establishing more general norms, formalism tended towards the establishment of ahistorical laws, laws that unwittingly resembled those of classical theory itself. In the work of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, this formalist approach is expressed in sometimes overt classical tendencies. Colin Rowe points us to this when discussing Le Corbusiers Villa at Garches in conjunction with Palladios Villa Malcontenta.5 Rowe alludes to the importance of an ideal geometry, in the work of Le Corbusier by comparing the proportional systems of both villas. In so doing he reveals a remarkable similarity in the distribution of their load bearing elements. Having said this, Rowe admits that in the Malcontenta geometry is diffused throughout the entire building, whilst at Garches it seems only to reside in the block as a whole and in the disposition of its supports. It is important to note that although Le Corbusiers villa does

take reference from Malcontenta, it is by no means slavish in its appraisal of it. In fact it is predicated on the subversion of many of its characteristics. Rowe points to this by contrasting the plan paralys in the Malcontenta to the plan librein the villa at Garches. The complexities of section and the subtleties of elevation present in the vertically articulated Malcontenta, via its use of structural walls, are transposed to plan in Le Corbusiers creation. A further example of this conscious subversion can be seen by contrasting the role of the cruciform in the plan of the Malcontenta to the apparent lack of a similar layout at Garches. Where at the Malcontenta this central axis organises the succeeding spaces around it into a readable and harmonious whole, at Garches a more sequential or decentralised sensibility is employed. It is in Corbusiers faade that we are said to get a clue to this. There are moments of apparent symmetry, but these are not directly relational to the spaces on the interior and are further offset by elements such as the ribbon window, which by stretching from end to end decentralize the faade and break down conventional symmetry. The ideal geometry postulated at the Malcontenta is afforded by the unquestioned acceptance of a metaphysical idea, an idea that goes on to permeate the whole building. Given that such a theoretical notion broke down in the eighteenth century, becoming more a matter of individual sensibility, Corbusier could not occupy such an unassailable position. Le Corbusiers Villa Garches points to a conscious attempt to dissolve and distort aspects of the classical repetoire, but for such a process to take place there must be an appropriation of these same values. In many ways Le Corbusier gives expression to the conflict between the two artistic traditions, the Cartesian a priori as expressed in the frame of the building and the empirical a posteriori as expressed through the independent arrangement of the houses volumes in accordance with practical needs. What is clear however, is that a distinct relationship is set up at Villa Garches, one that does not discard older more classical notions of rationalism completely but rather seeks to appropriate them within a modern context. Within the modern movement we see a strong predilection for ideas of transparency and progress, ideas that existed in accordance with the positivist view of history that dominated the era. It is arguable however the degree to which these ideas were realised. The movement though pivotal in the historical development of contemporary architecture, eventually began to decline into a form of dogmatism that it had initially opposed. Already in the 1930s there was set in motion a process of liberalisation. Second waves of modernism such as the New Brutalism, as well as more disparate notions of neo-realism or neo-empiricism began to propagate. Conditions were set that would eventually give rise to a range of Postmodernist positions. In the mid-1960s, new architectural

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Plans and Structural Diagrams of Villa Garches and Villa Malcontenta

Villa Garches Elevation

Berlin National Gallery

Galaratesse Housing, Milan

ideas emerged such as neo-rationalism, that sought to reclaim the representational components of rationalism that were said to have been lost in the modern movement. Architects like Giorgio Grassi and Aldo Rossi sought to bring a synthesis between the modern movements achievements and more classical elements in architecture. While the former emphasises the more ontological and tectonic aspects of the tradition, the latter stresses the subjective criticality that it can give rise to. The beginnings of which can be seen in Rossis Galaratesse housing in Milan and are more comprehensively articulated in buildings such as Grassis university buildings at Cheiti, with their emphasis on typological clarity and simplicity. As part of a more general postmodern criticality, this type of rationalism can be seen as an attempt at renewing the tradition, having grown discontented with the seemingly defunct propositions put forward by conventional positivistic thought. Their success is questionable however, and their output is small and modest in scale.

Today the problem remains as to whether or not we can use the term rationalism in architecture in the same way that it has always been used. It is clear that its meaning continues to change, and in this sense we are presented with difficulty when we are purported to allude to a supposedly universal reason. It would seem that the concept is defined, in its broadest sense, by an internal tension. The act of deciding on the undecidable. In so doing the architect must navigate a quagmire of sorts, in deciphering the aspect of the architectural repetoire that must be discarded, retained or renewed. This in itself postulates a vanguard/rearguard position that places emphasis on subjective criticality. Though this idea may seem insufficient, the idea of an exalted rationalism, as a method in which the subjective decision to produce a certain architectural composition leads to the definition of logical principles necessary for the transmission of that composition, seems to depose of any normative application of general rules. This notion may provide refuge in the future. Though this is unsure. What is certain is that rationalism as an architectural concept is not static, rather it is a tendency within the discipline. Accumulatively it has embraced notions of progress as well as conservation. The attempt to provide an emblematic presence of that reason that was once supposed to permeate universe is perhaps now not as pertinent as before, but this does not quell the desire to provide a transmissible expression of reality through architectural form. It is in this sense that it will live on.

BibliographyTheory and Design in the First Machine Age. Rayner Banham. MIT Press. The Architecture of the cole des Beaux-Arts. Arthur Drexler. Secker & Warburg.Architecture and Utopia, Design and Capitalist Development. Manfredo Tafuri. MIT Press.Collected Essays in Architectural Criticism. Alan Colquhoun. Black Dog Publishing.The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, and Other Essays. Colin Rowe. MIT Press.

The Architecture of the City. Aldo Rossi. MIT Press.

Architecture and Urbanism Year 4Luke Gleeson

PHYSICALITY BUILDING. This design used the context to become a node of activity and connection on a site previously defined by infrastructural barriers. The brief of a sports and physical activity building was chosen as the ideal brief, considering the possibilities of a site adjoining a public park. The building became the division between traditional recreational Mount Bernard park to the south east and the artificial landscape of pitches and running track to the north west.

Spaces for sport and physical activity are predefined spaces with rigid requirements. I wanted to assemble them in a different way, to create novel and impressive spatial conditions. The structural approach was generated by stacking the spaces on top of one another. Changing rooms and spaces that require less height (and smaller spans) were grouped together to create bridges that span the larger spaces of the main hall and swimming pool.

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Existing Park Geometry

Royal Grand Canal

New Hard Landscape

New Soft Landscape

MT. BERNARD PARK. A New Linear Park connects the Fassaugh Road with the new Luas station at Broombridge. Existing routes are maintained and new ones provide additional connections to and from a new community facility. The park is imagined as a series of planted strata that cover the existing feral landscape. Walkways and bike paths cut across the green areas and open up new vistas. The planting is in the form of additional trees, new reed beds for the existing canal, meadow

areas and wild berry hedges. A community building rises up from the park and reconnects the landscape back to the surrounding neighbourhoods. The brick mass is eroded to allow light to flood t

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