scholarly journals Frank Gehry’s Self-Twisting Uninterrupted Line: Gesture-Drawings as Indexes

Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Marianna Charitonidou
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Process ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Slow Food ◽  
Architectural Drawing ◽  
Built Form ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Frank Gehry

The article analyses Frank Gehry’s insistence on the use of self-twisting uninterrupted line in his sketches. Its main objectives are first, to render explicit how this tendency of Gehry is related to how the architect conceives form-making, and second, to explain how Gehry reinvents the tension between graphic composition and the translation of spatial relations into built form. A key reference for the article is Marco Frascari’s ‘Lines as Architectural Thinking’ and, more specifically, his conceptualisation of Leon Battista Alberti’s term lineamenta in order to illuminate in which sense architectural drawings should be understood as essential architectural factures and not merely as visualisations. Frascari, in Eleven Exercises in the Art of Architectural Drawing: Slow Food for the Architects’s Imagination, after having drawn a distinction between what he calls ‘trivial’ and ‘non-trivial’ drawings—that is to say between communication drawings and conceptual drawings, or drawings serving to transmit ideas and drawings serving to their own designer to grasp ideas during the process of their genesis—unfolds his thoughts regarding the latter. The article focuses on how the ‘non-trivial’ drawings of Frank Gehry enhance a kinaesthetic relationship between action and thought. It pays special attention to the ways in which Frank Gehrys’ sketches function as instantaneous concretisations of a continuous process of transformation. Its main argument is that the affective capacity of Gehry’s ‘drawdlings’ lies in their interpretation as successive concretisations of a reiterative process. The affectivity of their abstract and single-gesture pictoriality is closely connected to their interpretation as components of a single dynamic system. As key issues of Frank Gehry’s use of uninterrupted line, the article identifies: the enhancement of a straightforward relationship between the gesture and the decision-making regarding the form of the building; its capacity to render possible the perception of the evolution of the process of form-making; and the way the use of uninterrupted line is related to the function of Gehry’s sketches as indexes referring to Charles Sanders Peirce’s conception of the notion of ‘index’.

‘Architectural literacy’: Functions of architectural drawing

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97
Author(s):  
Robin Schaeverbeke ◽  
Hélène Aarts
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Teaching Practices ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Architectural Drawing ◽  
Reflective Conversation

‘Literacy’ refers to the ability to both assign meaning to – and to create messages. Transposing this concept to ‘architectural literacy’ could refer to the assigning of meaning to architectural messages and the ability to create such messages. ‘Architectural literacy’ suggests that architects employ a distinct language to communicate, process and design spatial propositions and that the knowledge of such literacy could be of importance to a broader community. In architectural practices, drawing is used to discourse about forms and spaces. Our approach to disassemble architectural drawings in a set of functions, aims to add understanding about a specific ability to learn and understand architecture. Disassembling architectural drawing in a set of functions stems from a reflective conversation upon our practices as drawing teachers in architectural faculties. In an attempt to (re)structure the didactic foundations of our own teaching practices, we started discussing the kind of drawings architects resort to. This research gradually revealed a set of distinct, yet interrelated functions and activities. We introduce architectural drawing as a specific faculty of a large field of drawing practices, which revolves around the convergence of perception, imagination, disclosure and artistic expression. Learning about the distinct activities and abilities to process forms and spaces provides a knowledge base to explore foundations of architectural reasoning.

scholarly journals The Link Between Capital Accumulation and Increasing Wages in an Updated Version of Smith’s Theory Of Population

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinando Meacci
Keyword(s):  
Birth Control ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Control Techniques ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this paper is to focus, within Adam Smith’s system of thought, on the various aspects of the twofold link between the accumulation of capital and the demand for labor, on the one hand, and between an increasing population and increasing wages, on the other. This link is examined, first, in the light of the relationship between the principles of self-interest and competition; and, secondly, in support of the possibility (neglected by Smith) that the long-run supply of labor may fall short of the long-run demand for it. The paper’s main argument is that this possibility is peacefully implemented in advancing economies by the “uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition” which lies behind a continuous process of capital accumulation (including technical progress) along with the birth control techniques so widely used in our times.

scholarly journals Use of self-to-object and object-to-object spatial relations in locomotion.

2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 1137-1147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengli Xiao ◽  
Weimin Mou ◽  
Timothy P. McNamara
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Use Of Self

scholarly journals From a Geometry of Vision to a Geometry of Light in Early-Modern Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline O. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Convex Surface ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Architectural Drawing ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
Built Form ◽  
Practical Tool ◽  
Modern Artists

Must the architect or artist understand how the world is perceived on the convex surface of the eye to simulate the three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional plane? For many early-modern artists, optics – defined as the science of vision – was fundamental. Yet, for architects, the integration of optical theories into two-dimensional representations of buildings remained more tenuous. Architectural drawing depended on orthographic projection and the representation of built form through plan, section and elevation, which did not seek to mimic the process of vision. If anything, architectural drawing separated itself from the illusion of vision in its attempt to account for the discrepancies between the represented and the built form. Nevertheless, the shifting science of optics would come to influence the two-dimensional representation of the built world for both architects and painters. This essay covers a broad survey of perspectival treatises from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century in order to consider how changes in the science of optics shifted the means by which artists and architects theorized the representation of space and the simulated illusion of perspective. As will be seen, the seemingly innocuously obvious geometric parts for the creation of perspectival space – the Euclidean point and line – became obsolete in the eighteenth century due to fundamental shifts in the science of optics. Whereas once optics was a study of vision through points and lines, in the seventeenth century with the works of Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and René Descartes (1596–1650), among many others, optics transformed into a study of light. As light rather than vision became the focus of optics and its geometrical laws, the connection between a geometry of vision and a geometry of spatial representation became challenged. When light – not vision – became subject to the laws of geometry, the eye became one instrument among many (lenses, camera obscuras, microscopes and telescopes) capable of deception and fault. In turn, geometry lost its intellectual and metaphysical resonances and became a practical tool of application. The influence of the visioning technology of geometry on perspectival drawing for both the built and the figurative world lost its theoretical foundation. No longer a technology of vision, the art of geometry became reduced to non-theoretical rudimentary forms for beginning draftsmen.

scholarly journals The Machine Stops

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Mining Operation ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Mining Operations ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Architectural Drawing ◽  
The Cost

<p><b>Before the discovery of gold, the majority of the South Island of Aotearoa was relatively uninhabited, until the 1860s gold rush which quickly propelled the Otago region into economic prosperity. Once the gold dried up, the mining operations were quickly abandoned, with many of the workers losing their jobs as the industry declined.</b></p> <p>The historic goldfields in the Otago region now lie in various states of decay, with the industrial remnants and environmental scarring slowly being reclaimed by ecological processes. Each mining operation centred around a stamper battery, a giant stone-crushing machine used to separate the gold from the quartz ore. Consisting of a large timber framework and a number of half-ton weights used to crush the ore, they were deemed too difficult to remove after the mining operations had ceased—abandoned to slowly decay in the irrevocably damaged landscape.</p> <p>Of these many sites, the Homeward Bound goldmining operation, located 30km northwest of Arrowtown, offers one of the most complete examples of this historical process due to the area’s dry climate—each stage of the mining process still being physically represented by a trace or fragment in the landscape. These remnants represent both the story of extracting the gold that led to the region’s prosperity, as well as the story of irreversible environmental destruction that resulted. As such, each of the man-made and natural remnants represents a different point of view regarding this complex heritage event. This design-led research investigation proposes to use speculative architectural drawing to provide a voice to each of seven unique points of view: the Mineshaft, Schist Tailings, Redirected Stream, Stamper Battery, Water Race, Aerial Cableway, and a Battery Footprint left behind when a previous stamper battery was swept away in a flood.</p> <p>E.M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops” is an example of allegorical narrative fiction that portrays a story with a similarly dialectic premise to the tale represented by the abandoned Otago stamper batteries. This design-led thesis investigation uses Forster’s short story as a literary provocateur to investigate how such a narrative can be conveyed using speculative architectural drawings. Forster’s theme of technological dominance and disregard for the natural environment is effectively a type of ‘morality play’ also represented by the Homeward Bound goldmining site—where the economic prosperity of the region came at the cost of devastating the native landscape.</p> <p>This thesis investigation proposes to preserve this heritage story though the lens of an allegorical architectural project—a way to safeguard it as a valuable lesson for future generations. It explores how orthographic drawing, architectural notation strategies, and layering techniques can be assimilated together in ways that help to reawaken and preserve a heritage story about New Zealand that is soon destined to be lost forever.</p>

scholarly journals Architecture and Living Traditions Reflected in Wooden Rafters of Śrīvilliputtūr Temple

1970 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 229-266
Author(s):  
Deepak John Mathew ◽  
Parthiban Rajukalidoss
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Architectural Drawing ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
South Asian Art ◽  
The Temple

The present article cursorily examines the wooden images set in exterior hall of the Vaṭapatraśāyī complex. The temple priests told me these images were part of an old temple car, tēr that existed in the nineteenth century. A collection of 135 wooden sculptures is packed in this hall of which select specimens are reported. Each image is supposed to be housed in a vimāna. The unique features of the images vis-à-vis their architectural setting is investigated. It is understood the different Mūrtis appearing in the sculptural illustrations are likely to represent the presiding gods of Vaiṣṇava divyadeśas at Śrīvilliputtūr, Māliruñcōlai, Araṅkam/Śrīraṅgam, Vēṅkaṭam/Tirumala-Tirupati, Dvārakā, Śālagrāma and so on. The vimāna typologies seem to represent the models popular in South Asian art. Architectural drawing of the examined specimens is designed to facilitate better understanding of the religious traditions of the Indian subcontinent. Parthiban’s doctoral thesis on the architectural setting of the Śrīvilliputtūr includes a survey of the sculptural wealth of the Great Temple (Tamil peruṅkōyil) dedicated to Āṇṭāḷ and Vaṭapatraśāyī. A number of architectural drawings are presented to pinpoint the programme of images within the macro twin-temple and the micro maṇḍapas or other parts where icons are accommodated.

scholarly journals Drawing in Perspective: A Proposition for a Discursive Architecture in the Age of Digital Representation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Laura Coates
Keyword(s):  
Computer Aided Design ◽  
Ground Plane ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Picture Plane ◽  
Linear Perspective ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Digital Representation ◽  
Architectural Drawing ◽  
Architectural Representation ◽  
The Relationship

<p>Contemporary architectural practise has come to depend upon digital representation as a means of design and for the production of architectural drawings. The computer is common place in architectural offices, relegating the drawing board as a machine of the past. Today, the architect is more likely to draw with a mouse than a mechanical pencil. The proposition of this research suggests such a dramatic shift within representational technology will not only affect how architects design, but also, what they design. Digital modes of architectural representation are reliant on mathematical code designed to artificially simulate visual experience. Such software offers strict alliance with a geometrically correct perspective code making the construction of perspective as simple as taking a ‘snap shot’. The compliance of the digital drawing to codes prescribed by a programmer distance the architect from the perspectival representation, consequently removing the architect’s control of the drawing convention. The universality of perspectival views is enforced by computer programmes such as Google Sketch-Up, which use perspective as a default view. This research explores the bias of linear perspective, revealing that which architects have forgotten due to a dependence on digital software. Special attention is drawn to the lack of control the architect exerts over their limits of representation. By using manual drawing the perspective convention is able to be unpacked and critiqued against the limitations of the system first prescribed by Brunelleschi. The manual drawing is positioned as a powerful mode of representation for it overtly expresses projection and the architect’s control of the line. The hand drawing allows the convention to be interpreted erroneously. The research is methodology driven, focusing on representation as more than a rudimentary tool, but a component of the design process. Thus, representational tools are used to provide a new spatial representation of a site. Computer aided design entered wide spread architectural practice at the end of the 1980’s, a decade that provided an ideal setting for speculative drawn projects. Such projects proved fruitful to architects critically approaching issues of representation and drawing convention, treating the drawing as more than utilitarian in the production of architecture. Whilst the move into digital imagining is not a paradigm shift for the act of drawing, it fundamentally shifted the way architects draw, separating drawing conventions onto visually separate ‘sheets’. The architectural drawing known today was that discovered in the Renaissance, Renaissance architects, the first to conceive of architecture through representation, thus was their endeavour to produce a true three dimensional image. The Renaissance architect executed absolute control of perspective, control, which has since defined the modern architect. Positioned within research by design, the ‘drawing-out’ process is a critical interpretation of perspective. In particular the drawing of instrumental perspective is unpacked within the realm of scientific research. The picture plane, horizon line and ground plane remain constant as the positions of these are well documented. The stationary point, vanishing point (possibly the most speculative components of the drawing) or the relationship between the two, behave as independent variables. In breaking the assumptions that underlie linear perspective as a fixed geometric system we may ask ourselves if we are in control of representational methods, or if they control us. Since architects are controlled by their means of representation this question is paramount to the discipline, particularly today, when digital drawing has shifted the relationship between architect and representation. The implications of this new relationship may result in monotony across the architectural disciple, where the production of critical architecture is secondary to computer technology.</p>

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