THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
CONTEXT’S ROLE
To be known, to be notice or to be seen.
To stand out or to fit in.
To ignore the context or to accept it and play with it.
Context in architecture today varies from this two of standing out or fitting in.Take one step back from all the crowd and you will see what architecture is today, are we doing the correct thing? You will see that some of buildings today have a very majestic form that creates a hierarchy out of the building besides it. Is it bad? Who knows.
C O N T E X T A N D B U I L D I N G
PROLOGUE
Context is probably the most important thing that you need to consider when designing a building for the community. Understanding from A to Z, history, site issues and all that is need to be know because the building purpose is to help the community and not create problems to them.
The case studies I’m going to talk about is Le Grande Louvre by I.M. Pei, a redesigned Cour Napoleon, the main court of the Louvre, in order to alleviate the congestion from thousand of daily visitors. First, the form of the Louvre is a scale of the large pyramid, which is designed to the same proportions of the famous Pyramid of Giza, does not detract from the historical nature of the museum rather the juxtaposition of the modern structure. What I’m trying to say here that the form is a respect to the historical nature of the museum and not design just for its beauty. Its like what Tom Schumacher say “ Contextualism has attempted to resolve this dilemma and made the city as we find it a viable form in a future which promises enormous expansion.” which mean the form with the historic context respect the site.
I.M.Pei also design the facade to be large glass and supported by steel structure for the Louvre. In my opinion, I think what I.M. Pei did here shows respect to the building surrounding the Louvre by creating a contrast and transparency. Glass shows a transparency between the building beside it, for example, from far you could see the Cour Napoleon but not the Louvre. In addition, I think that I.M.Pei create a simple facade to not attract all the eyes on it. With respect to the context only the design will be successful.
In previous paragraph, the essence of not blocking the view to Cour Napoleon by using the material, glass.
Lastly for the interior, he created a new underground system of galleries, storage, and preservation laboratories, as well as connection between the wings of the museum. In creating connection between wings of the museum create a link between the two museum that also create respect to the site. In my opinion, I think that he create a underground system is to really want the human to appreciate the Cour Napoleon. This is like what Le Corbusier said “ A building is like a soap bubble. This bubble is perfect and harmonious if the breath has been evenly distributed from the inside. The exterior is the result of an interior.”
PROLOGUE
To be known, to be notice or to be seen.
To stand out or to fit in.
To ignore the context or to accept it and play with it.
Context in architecture today varies from this two of standing out or fitting in.Take one step back from all the crowd and you will see what architecture is today, are we doing the correct thing? You will see that some of buildings today have a very majestic form that creates a hierarchy out of the building besides it. Is it bad? Who knows.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I personally like how architects today sees context, they understand the problem and decipher the problem one by one and solve the problem. In designing a building, one must understand the context some sort like site issues, what problem is the community having, what they need, what connection is needed then only they could design a building that serve the people.