The Architectural Imagination [Part -4]

Fagus Factory

The dynamic state of technology had to be transformed by spirit, that architecture wasn't just building but was building raised to the level of art and that the intellectual task of the architecture in modernity was to invent new forms of new machine age that would not only understand architecture as representing a social totality, but that would also put architecture in the continuum of architecture as an art practice.

Walter Gropius worked on a part of Fagus factory early in his career just after leaving Peter Behrens office. He helped with the AEG factory and demonstrated that how seminal ideas could be transformed, elaborated, varied and even criticized. 

Detail

The factories were meant to act as a kind of advertisement for the quality of production of the corporation itself.  

This three stories high shoe lasts factory is located in Alfred a der Leine, Lower Saxony, Germany.

The material used was primarily steel, brick masonry, and glass wall. The recessed masonry gave the glass panels look like a curtain wall springing from the parapet. The glass and steel came together at a very sharp point at the corners rendering it emphatically transparent. A solid masonry block that contains the entrance to the factory pushes in this glass envelope

Seagram Building

The glass was endowed not only with material visual quality but spiritual quality, to extract the full potential of glass and steel various experiments were conducted by German Architect Mies Van Der Rohe. He designed buildings in America which became an epitome of glass and steel skyscrapers.

The Seagram Building was the administrative headquarters of the Canadian distillery and it was located on Park Avenue in downtown New York. 

He wanted the building to engage with the city and even confront the city, so as the construction site was in the mid-block he left a deep plaza in front of the building. 

Detail

The flat surface of the building comprises of bronzed glass and steel in an attempt to bring the materials closer together. The entire steel frame is encased in concrete with an I section over the glass as an ornament as a representational function for what is, in fact, a constructional and structural vocation.

Frisky Friday [Tree House]

Hiker's Shelter

Hexagon form on stilts

As a child, I always fancied constructing a tree house and spending my spare time in it or go hiking in pursuit to discover new things.

This structure is a utilitarian monument which functions as a relief for hikers and adds beauty to the landscape similar to the post-war era.

Vertical transportation in the middle

The decision to elevate the structure is to prevent contact with water and enhance its views of the surroundings.

The five-sided form featuring hooded roofs extending from each section is intended to provide focused views and sounds from various directions.

Studio Weave is the firm responsible for designing this elevated shelter on the outskirts of  Bordeaux. It was commissioned by Bruit du Frigo, which has established a series of shelter around the periphery of the French city.

It aims to encourage residents and visitors to explore the under-utilised spaces surrounding the city. it accommodates around 9 people.

The shelter is clad externally in wooden strips and is perched on top of arching pre-weathered steel pillars that recall the slender supports of existing water towers.

Roof Plan

First Floor Plan

Game Architecture [Sniper Elite 4: Abrunza Monastery]

Battle of Monte Cassino, could be the event best associated with this particular mission. 

Abrunza Monastery 

This game deals with the struggle between partisans and nazi's, refreshing the historical distress and chaos. The architecture of this monastery forced me to study a bit about it and understand its relevance.

A monastery is functionally a school of service to Lord in different possible manners.

Abrunza Monastery 

Cloister of Abrunza Monastery

Abbey of Monte Cassino

Balcony

A view from Abbey of Monte Cassino gives clarity behind the inspiration of developing this monastery. This beautiful edifice on the hill of Monte Cassino plays with the elevation, embraces the Renaissance elements and beautiful landscapes bringing the fiction to reality for me. The Benedictine monasteries used to function as self-supporting communities for rural areas. 

"Ora et Labora" meaning "Pray and Work"

Groin Vaulted Arch

Semi-Groin vaulted arch

Painting Above

The self-explanatory pictures broadly cover the architectural elements like, groin vaulted arches in the cloister and indoors. The cathedral bears elaborate columns, semi-circular arches, sculptures engrossing the romantic period. The courtyard connecting the transept to the outdoors had a perforated screen and tree housing birds.

The opening at the intersection of transept and  nave

The shadow in the courtyard

The nave

Typology of Mughal Havelis

The 200-225 years old wonderful Havelis used to be the exquisite complexes empowering the cultural and visual aspects of architecture, the epitome of Mughal Architecture. These played a major role in active development in activity which could be segmented into basic terminology like Mardana, Baithak, Zenana, Jeena, etc.

It is a heart-breaking site to see the dilapidated conditions of these Havelis and a seemingly lost history only ingrained in the minds of few. But architectural imagination helps fill in the spaces and create an image out of understanding and experience. At those days Jama Masjid was visible from the roof of the Havelis, the plinth was raised to a height suitable for travelers on horsebacks interact with the retailers etc.

Type 2

Type 1

The haveli that I got an opportunity to visit was made out of wood as the structural material, red sandstone, pots (matka), and lime concrete. It was a type 2 haveli and luckily I got an opportunity to see it for the last time before its destruction.

Top view of Mardana 

Jama Masjid was visible from the roof of the havelis

Wooden beam construction

Hearth in the room connected to Zenana

The materials used for the slab

Lockers in those times

The Architectural Imagination [Part-3]

How the beginnings of architecture could influence and help conceptualize architecture practices in the present?

Gottfried Semper

Architect and historian Gottfried Semper's primary interest was to study the very beginnings of architecture.

To study those beginning he visited the great exhibition of 1851, in London, housed in the Crystal Palace.

There he saw a full-scale replica of a primitive hut from the Carribean Islands.

Elevation of the hut

Plan of the hut

The empirical fact of this primordial shelter exhibited the most advanced building of that time and it sort of prompted Semper to turn to a kind of materialist but also an anthropological model of architecture's beginnings, and a kind of model of how architecture could move from those beginnings to the present.

The four elements of a building that he devised were-

1. Fire (Ceramics,Metal)- It is a social and cultural equipment that provides both a formal centering device, but also the warmth. The protection that the group can gather around and form itself. Form like a bowl, a pot or a hearth is required to contain the fire. 
2. Base/Stereotomy (Masonry)- To hold this material a base is required. It has an inherent weight, a kind of inherent attachment to the Earth which bears on the Earth with compressive forces. 
3. Tectonics (Carpentry)- It a system composed of walls and the roof considered as an elastic frame. These elements have tensile strength connected by a knot or by tying the elements together.
4. Enclosure (Weaving)- Cloth, tapestry or some sort of woven material varying in thickness to accomplish different needs.

The Architectural Imagination [Part-2]

The development of technologies that allow the production of large sheets of glass and the materials with tensile strength like steel enormously changed the way the buildings were made shifting the architecture from heavy compressive forces in masonry to lightweight and thin structures.

Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft

In some ways, this advent of new materials resulted in architecture beginning around the end of the 19th century, and intensifying in the 20th century began to be used for commercial purposes.

One of the seminal examples of this movement is the General Electric Company, in Germany whose headquarters were on a prominent Urban site in Berlin.

Factories at this period were considered under perfunctory building type and the materials like steel and glass were basically used such that building could span large distances.

Peter Behrens was clear about his ambition to raise the factory architecture to the status of serious, profound architecture.

Bird's eye view

Interior view

In order to conceptualize this representational role that this new architecture to play, Behrens devised an architectural theory.

It has to do with the way architecture appears in history as a representation of a sort of cultural ethos, and that representational role of architecture has to change through time as history, itself moves forward.

It was clear from his work that industrial capitalism was a new authority. The architectural paradigm that was adequate to this new ethos was the factory.

Wednesday with war [A spoon full of Architecture]

Futuristic Illustration

Creativity is a relative term which could be best understood as a lucid way of presentation. According to me, it depends on the testifier.

A competition organized by DFI (Design Forum International) gave me an opportunity to express my architectural imagination of future. There is an extremely thin line between realism and possibilities always leaving room for anxiety.

Recently I got influenced by architecture in Games, there are concepts and themes which create an immersive world and interaction developed is the thing I like the most.

I composed a poem expressing my process of designing and way I felt doing this activity,

"A significant day in a cafe
ordering my favorite latte
I felt a gradual upsurge
Of creating a subversive world."

"The spoon I used to stir my drink
Food on my platter was white and pink.
the kettle, the fork, and cups I used
Grew into a form of vein infused."

"Precious elements of water and grass
Inlaid in public spaces for various class.
The centralized shaft clairvoyant from miles
Scales on facade symbolizes the rise."

"I felt a resemblance of a terracotta tile
Which could be multiplied
for an endless sight
of paradise."