Book Extract: The World's Most Audacious Modern Architecture
An extract from 'Audacious Architecture: New Aesthetics in Contemporary Building' charts the journey of building beauty
The notions of what makes a building beautiful have changed over time, as has the ability to create arresting, seemingly logic-defying structures. This edited extract from Barry Stone’s new book, Audacious Architecture: New Aesthetics in Contemporary Building, takes us on a fascinating journey through the thinking and design of envelope-pushing buildings.
Studio Libeskind’s Zhang Zhidong’s Modern Industrial Museum
By the sixth century, mathematics had become a kind of shorthand that allowed for the inclusion of symmetry into the ratios and geometric forms of buildings to define their spatial form. Mathematics, geometry, science – these disciplines were always the drivers behind the things we’ve built.
In the 1400s the Italian designer Filippo Brunelleschi discovered the principles of linear perspective, the illusion of depth drawn on a flat surface, and immediately applied it to architecture. In the late 1700s the French mathematician Gaspard Monge invented descriptive geometry, the representation on two dimensions of a real or imaginary three-dimensional object – such as a building.
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By the sixth century, mathematics had become a kind of shorthand that allowed for the inclusion of symmetry into the ratios and geometric forms of buildings to define their spatial form. Mathematics, geometry, science – these disciplines were always the drivers behind the things we’ve built.
In the 1400s the Italian designer Filippo Brunelleschi discovered the principles of linear perspective, the illusion of depth drawn on a flat surface, and immediately applied it to architecture. In the late 1700s the French mathematician Gaspard Monge invented descriptive geometry, the representation on two dimensions of a real or imaginary three-dimensional object – such as a building.
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Studio Libeskind’s Zhang Zhidong’s Modern Industrial Museum
In the 17th century Claude Perrault, the French architect best remembered for his role in the design and creation of the east facade of the Louvre Museum in Paris, wrote that what is or is not thought beautiful should be decided not by academics but by the person on the street.
Perrault, the man who ironically was responsible for the translation of Vitruvian’s Ten Books on Architecture into French, asserted that whether a building was beautiful or not was no longer dependent upon outdated notions of form that were restrictive and led to the creation of a lot of buildings many of which looked like the mirror image of each other. A building’s worth, he said, should now rest in the eye of the beholder… and its designer. For its time, it was a monumental statement.
In the early 20th century modern architects began to turn to the rectilinear geometry of the Greek mathematician Euclid in the creation of a new era of buildings that emphasised the horizontal and the vertical, with balconies, walls and roof planes that intersected each other.
The Rietveld Schröder House, designed in Utrecht in The Netherlands in 1924 by the Dutch furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld, was a radical departure from everything that came before it, its upper level an open area that could be subdivided using a system of revolving and sliding panels. A glimpse of things to come.
In the 17th century Claude Perrault, the French architect best remembered for his role in the design and creation of the east facade of the Louvre Museum in Paris, wrote that what is or is not thought beautiful should be decided not by academics but by the person on the street.
Perrault, the man who ironically was responsible for the translation of Vitruvian’s Ten Books on Architecture into French, asserted that whether a building was beautiful or not was no longer dependent upon outdated notions of form that were restrictive and led to the creation of a lot of buildings many of which looked like the mirror image of each other. A building’s worth, he said, should now rest in the eye of the beholder… and its designer. For its time, it was a monumental statement.
In the early 20th century modern architects began to turn to the rectilinear geometry of the Greek mathematician Euclid in the creation of a new era of buildings that emphasised the horizontal and the vertical, with balconies, walls and roof planes that intersected each other.
The Rietveld Schröder House, designed in Utrecht in The Netherlands in 1924 by the Dutch furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld, was a radical departure from everything that came before it, its upper level an open area that could be subdivided using a system of revolving and sliding panels. A glimpse of things to come.
Renzo Piano’s Centro Botin in Santander, Spain. It has two D-shaped blocks, curving volumes of structural glazing and stainless steel, all joined by a network of interconnected stairways and gantries that zigzag their way up to the building’s rooftop terrace. About 270,000 pearl-coloured ceramic discs clad its exterior.
In the 21st century symmetry still has a role to play, but it’s only one element in a broad palette of creative options that architects now have at their disposal. Given free rein to bring their visions to life, architects now have a capacity for inventiveness that was once the preserve of painters. The world that had once been the domain of Dalí, Klee, Miró, Chagall and Picasso – a realm of cubism, impressionism, surrealism and more – was now available in concrete, glass and steel to the likes of Koolhaas, Hadid, and Gehry.
In the 21st century symmetry still has a role to play, but it’s only one element in a broad palette of creative options that architects now have at their disposal. Given free rein to bring their visions to life, architects now have a capacity for inventiveness that was once the preserve of painters. The world that had once been the domain of Dalí, Klee, Miró, Chagall and Picasso – a realm of cubism, impressionism, surrealism and more – was now available in concrete, glass and steel to the likes of Koolhaas, Hadid, and Gehry.
Renzo Piano’s Centro Botin
Architecture has always been driven by innovation. The inherent inflexibility of concrete has led to the development of polymer microfibres, added to create a material 50 times as strong as traditional concrete but much lighter. Low-cost smart windows can vary the amount of light that enters a room.
Timber, the construction industry’s oldest ally, is being panelised and cross-laminated, a process that imbues it with incredible strength and a surprising degree of resistance. Tall wooden buildings are once again beginning to appear anew in cityscapes around the world, causing some to ask whether timber might again become the future of urban construction.
Architecture has always been driven by innovation. The inherent inflexibility of concrete has led to the development of polymer microfibres, added to create a material 50 times as strong as traditional concrete but much lighter. Low-cost smart windows can vary the amount of light that enters a room.
Timber, the construction industry’s oldest ally, is being panelised and cross-laminated, a process that imbues it with incredible strength and a surprising degree of resistance. Tall wooden buildings are once again beginning to appear anew in cityscapes around the world, causing some to ask whether timber might again become the future of urban construction.
Renzo Piano’s Centro Botin
But nowhere has the revolution in architecture we see now owed more to innovation than in the world of computer software. In the late 20th century CAD – Computer-Aided Design – came of age. Suddenly manual drafting, the art of creating drawings using pen and paper, was in danger of becoming obsolete. Computer-assisted drafting has altered our approach to architecture every bit as much as the invention of the truss, the introduction of Roman concrete (opus caementicium), ying buttresses and the brick kiln.
But nowhere has the revolution in architecture we see now owed more to innovation than in the world of computer software. In the late 20th century CAD – Computer-Aided Design – came of age. Suddenly manual drafting, the art of creating drawings using pen and paper, was in danger of becoming obsolete. Computer-assisted drafting has altered our approach to architecture every bit as much as the invention of the truss, the introduction of Roman concrete (opus caementicium), ying buttresses and the brick kiln.
Rojkind Arquitectos’ Foro Boca in Boca del Rio, Mexico. Images by Jaime Navarro. The Foro Boco is reminiscent of neolithic examples of ‘monumental’ architecture, the carving of structures from a single piece of rock, or the cutting and placement of multiple large stones. Patterned concrete is shown to perfection here.
The CAD revolution is now considered by designers the world over to represent the single greatest advance in construction history, enabling the creation of a whole new generation of complex geometric structures and testing them in a virtual world prior to breaking ground, designs once impossible to realise from drafts or cardboard models.
Suddenly hundreds of engineers and designers could be brought together from around the world to create a new array of designs and perspectives. Mathematical formulas were being created within the spreadsheet design. Wind-tunnel tests using CAD technology, for instance, were used to test the impact of wind on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building.
The CAD revolution is now considered by designers the world over to represent the single greatest advance in construction history, enabling the creation of a whole new generation of complex geometric structures and testing them in a virtual world prior to breaking ground, designs once impossible to realise from drafts or cardboard models.
Suddenly hundreds of engineers and designers could be brought together from around the world to create a new array of designs and perspectives. Mathematical formulas were being created within the spreadsheet design. Wind-tunnel tests using CAD technology, for instance, were used to test the impact of wind on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building.
Rojkind Arquitectos’ Foro Boca
Advances in software and the refining of new materials, such as perforated polymer-concrete panels, translucent wood and pollution-absorbing bricks, coupled with the ability to calculate load-bearing stresses means anything is possible. A piece of artfully crumpled paper, a hurried sketch on a restaurant napkin – the first thoughts of an architect are no longer necessarily only an abstract concept from which something more orthodox will come. The abstract concept can now itself be realised.
Advances in software and the refining of new materials, such as perforated polymer-concrete panels, translucent wood and pollution-absorbing bricks, coupled with the ability to calculate load-bearing stresses means anything is possible. A piece of artfully crumpled paper, a hurried sketch on a restaurant napkin – the first thoughts of an architect are no longer necessarily only an abstract concept from which something more orthodox will come. The abstract concept can now itself be realised.
Rojkind Arquitectos’ Foro Boca
Good architecture should be a rejection of mediocrity. The Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, whose Museum of Zhang Zhidong appears [earlier in this story], described architecture as a kind of poetry, a poetic pursuit, and that without this poetic element architecture would devolve into something bordering on the needless. All of the architects whose work appears in this book believe buildings can change the world – one street at a time – and that by making positive change, by creating beautiful spaces, buildings have the capacity to make people happy.
Good architecture should be a rejection of mediocrity. The Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, whose Museum of Zhang Zhidong appears [earlier in this story], described architecture as a kind of poetry, a poetic pursuit, and that without this poetic element architecture would devolve into something bordering on the needless. All of the architects whose work appears in this book believe buildings can change the world – one street at a time – and that by making positive change, by creating beautiful spaces, buildings have the capacity to make people happy.
This is an edited extract from Audacious Architecture: New Aesthetics in Contemporary Building, New Holland Publishers, RRP AUD$49.99, available from all good book retailers or online at www.newhollandpublishers.com.
Your turn
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Your turn
Tell us your thoughts on these buildings in the Comments below, save the images for inspiration and like this story. Go on, join the conversation.
The only treatise on the subject of western architecture to have survived antiquity is a series of ten books titled De Arquitectura, or Ten Books on Architecture, written in the first century BCE by Marcus Vitruvius, a Roman military engineer and architect who believed a building’s integrity rested upon three fundamental principles: utilitas (functionality), rmitas (strength), and venustas (beauty).
Vitruvius believed buildings should reflect the ‘architecture of the body’, and that buildings and humans, when at their most beautiful, shared one overriding principle: symmetry. Vitruvius thought a building was made beautiful through symmetry, by the mirroring of components across a vertical or horizontal central line, or axis.
Symmetry, in Vitruvius’ time, not only helped bring structures together, to raise them into a unified whole, it also reflected a sense of logic and order, two aesthetics long held dear by the Ancient Romans and before them, the Greeks, for whom the absence of proportion and symmetry meant only one thing. Chaos.