scholarly journals Passion for past and functional imperative: Belgrade interwar residential architecture by Aleksandar Deroko

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-70
Author(s):  
Milica Madanović

The name and the achievements of Aleksandar Deroko shine brightly in the constellation of Serbian architectural history. Deroko actively contributed to the Serbian twentieth-century architecture as a distinguished professor at the University of Belgrade, a prolific author, esteemed scholar, designer, and a highly driven heritage enthusiast. However, though recognised by his contemporaries and successors alike, Deroko's design activity has not yet been thoroughly examined. Exploring residential buildings designed for Deroko's Belgrade clientele, this paper widens the knowledge of his architectural production. Deroko's well-known passion for architectural history and extensive research of the Serbian vernacular buildings serve as a starting point for the study of his residential structures in Belgrade. Was Deroko's design process influenced by his deep appreciation for architectural past, and by the results of his findings? Or has he only adopted the formal characteristics of historic styles and vernacular architecture in his work? If so, to what extent? Discussing five structures built in the interwar period - house of Colonel Elezović, the Rakić villa, the Simić villa, the Marinković villa, the Stakić villa and the architect's personal villa - the paper traces transformation of Deroko's architectural inspiration, from typical academic historicist eclecticism to vernacular construction.

Author(s):  
Maryam Khatibi

The study presents the results of typological analysis and simulation modeling analysis of traditional courtyard residential houses in the cold semi-arid climate of Iran. The purpose of the research has been to analyze and evaluate traditional passive environmental strategies and their elements to provide implications for the design of sustainable residential buildings in contemporary time. Five existing traditional courtyard houses in the city of Tabriz, Iran, are used as case-studies to analyze the typology and the solar zoning conditions and to develop simulation models. The Ecotect simulation program is used to calculate the solar gains of the buildings and to analyze the effectiveness of the natural passive systems along with native design strategies in terms of potential solar gains of main and secondary living spaces. However, in the vernacular, not only the awareness of the climatic and topological considerations is important, but also the values, rituals, and beliefs that shape the design of the dwellings need to be considered. The research is based on the hypothesis that vernacular buildings (courtyard houses) of Iran have been environmentally sustainable structures. However, an important challenge of the study has been to avoid the technological bias and to consider the cultural and social aspects and embodiment of the studied houses, as well. The study also addresses the potential shortcomings that limit the reliability of Iranian vernacular architecture at present in order to arrive at a more holistic understanding of the sustainability of the vernacular architecture in the country. 


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Christina Priavolou ◽  
Nikiforos Tsiouris ◽  
Vasilis Niaros ◽  
Vasilis Kostakis

The starting point of this article is the critique on socioeconomic and environmental implications of conventional construction practices around sustainability. The focus is on exploring the sustainability dynamics of the emerging “Design Global, Manufacture Local” (DGML) configuration with emphasis on building construction. Combined with the concept of conviviality which we identify in aspects of vernacular architecture we explore how it can foster meaningful sustainability practices in the construction sector. We introduce a framework of “open construction systems”, an expression of DGML in building construction, as a way to foster the conjunctive use of the digital commons and local manufacturing technologies for the construction of buildings through three interlocked elements—modularity, sharing and adaptability. We suggest that the “open construction systems” framework may point towards more sustainability in building construction.


Author(s):  
Chanratana Chen

In December 2019, Michael Falser, of the University of Heidelberg, a specialist on heritage preservation and the art and architectural history of South and Southeast Asia, published his two-volume study, Angkor Wat: A transcultural history of heritages, which he had spent almost ten years researching. The volumes cover the history of research of the most famous monument in Cambodia, Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1992. The two volumes include more than 1,400 black-and-white and colour illustrations, including historical photographs and the author's own photographs, architectural plans and samples of tourist brochures and media clips about Angkor Wat, which has been represented as a national and international icon for almost 150 years, since the 1860s.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Renner

The article “Drawing It Out” by Haidy Geismar (2014) in Visual Anthropology Review (Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 97–113) focused on the use of images in early anthropology. The drawings by Arthur Bernard Deacon (1903–1927), which he made during his field studies in Vanuatu, New Hebrides from 1926 until his sudden death caused by blackwater fever in 1927, are the starting point of Geismar’s inquiry. The author discusses Deacon’s drawings and infers the potential of drawing as a methodology for anthropology. Deacon was a young PhD candidate who was sent to Vanuatu from the University of Cambridge. It was his intention to continue the studies of the indigenous culture of the New Hebrides at the time, which had been started by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. In contrast to his expectations, Deacon found a culture in the process of decay. The subject of his study, the indigenous culture, had been threatened by diseases and cultural influences that settlers, missionaries, and traders imported with them since they landed in the middle of the nineteenth century. Deacon described the impossibility of protecting the indigenous culture and critically reflected on his role as an anthropologist (Geismar 2014, p. 102).


1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bluestone

This essay explores the Mecca, one of Chicago's largest nineteenth-century apartment houses. Designed in 1891, the Mecca's innovative plan incorporated an exterior landscaped courtyard and two monumental interior atria. The form and meaning of these spaces diverged in important respects. The exterior courtyards appropriated aspects of the single-family residential form and domestic ideology. The interior atria relied on Chicago skyscraper models and their cosmopolitan approach to the possibilities of density. Exterior courtyards later proliferated, while atria appeared in only two other local residential buildings. Nevertheless, the Mecca's atria possessed a sense of place that deeply etched the building into Chicago's cultural and political landscape. The building became the subject of 1920s blues improvisation-the "Mecca Flat Blues." In the 1940s and 1950s tenants waged a decadelong Mecca preservation campaign. Housing rather than Chicago School aesthetics provided the preservationists with their point of departure. Race interesected with space and Mies van der Rohe's vision of modern urbanism to seal the Mecca's fate. The essay's methodology develops the social and cultural meaning of form. Moreover, it demonstrates the importance of pushing architectural history beyond the nexus of meaning created by original patrons and designers. We stand to learn a great deal about architectural and urban history by studying how people have defined and redefined, valued and devalued, their buildings, cities, and landscapes.


Fulcher’s discovery of bands in the secondary spectrum of hydrogen at low pressures proved the starting point of a number of investigations, including those, based on the valuable tables of Merton and Barratt, which have been carried out in the University of St. Andrews. The application of the quantum theory to these bands has been discussed by one of us (H. S. A.), by Curtis, and in particular by Richardson who, partly in association with Tanaka, has added greatly to the number of known regularities and done much to bring them into line with the theory of band spectra. Nevertheless, apart from the Fulcher system, of which Richardson has recently given a very complete account, there remains a very large number of lines which have not yet been classified. One of the present writers (I. S.) has been engaged in a study of the secondary spectrum at higher pressures, and among the regularities which have been selected by this method is a band with head at 4582·58 A. U. and shading towards the violet, which has been described in a recent communication. This band yielded an initial moment of inertia agreeing closely with a value deduced from a static model of triatomic hydrogen, H 3 . This band has since been found to be one of a large number of similar bands which it will be the purpose of this paper to describe. We shall refer to it for convenience as “Band II A , a .”


Author(s):  
Gerardo Meneses Benítez

El trabajo que se presenta tiene como punto de partida la percepción o valoración que todos hemos realizado al finalizar un curso o programa educativo de que se ha producido, o no,  un aprendizaje a lo largo del mismo - independientemente de su carácter presencial o virtual -. Se aborda esta situación mediante el estudio de la influencia de las nuevas tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación en la enseñanza en la universidad y de forma más específica por medio de una investigación que persigue la identificación y caracterización de la interacción como elemento clave en el aprendizaje.AbstractThis paper has, as a starting point, the appreciation and assessment we all have done at the end of a course or educative program we have assesst, whether or not, there’s been a learning throughout the whole program – apart from its virtual or presencial character-. The situation has been undertaken by means of the study of the influence the new technologies of information and communication, have in the university teachings and, more precisely, through the investigation that aims at the interactivity identification as a key factor in the learnings in teaching: tools contributions, things that might changes, the nature of the interactivity accomplishment, the impact, the insertion of the different elements...


Author(s):  
Tigran Simyan

В статье проводится семиотически-типологический анализ университетского пространства Ереванского государственного университета (ЕГУ). Данное исследование является продолжением дискурса «Университетское пространство». Культурные артефакты ЕГУ описываются не с точки зрения культурно-исторического подхода, а с использованием семиотического метода. Детально описывается пространственное «начало» университетского экстерьера, выявляются семантические и парадигматические особенности центральной скульптуры, а также интерьерный барельеф библиотеки ЕГУ и средневековые маркеры университетского пространства. Центральное пространство Ереванского государственного университета семиотизировано различными скульптурами, памятниками, барельефами, являющимися знаками социальной и культурной памяти, отсылающей к разным культурным пластам: от Средневековья до советской эпохи. «Начало» университетского пространства маркируется ключевыми фигурами армянской письменности, ставшими культурными константами интерьерного и экстерьерного пространства ЕГУ. В визуализации истории превалируют образы видных деятелей армянской средневековой университетской традиции. Изображённые фигуры Месропа Маштоца и Саака Партева отсылают к прошлому, на прагматическом уровне указывая на древность армянского алфавита и глубокие корни армянской схоластической университетской истории. Кроме средневековых деятелей культуры, в университетском пространстве представлены также видные деятели новой и новейшей армянской литературы (Абовян, Налбандян, Туманян, Чаренц), сыгравшие важную роль в становлении общественной и литературной жизни, приведшие к европеизации армянской литературы, а также к парадигматическим культурным переходам. Анализ эмпирического материла показал, что диапазон исторических артефактов вбирает в себя также и советскую эпоху (соцреализм). Подробный анализ барельефа соцреализма показал, что он является стереотипным артефактом советской эпохи, пропагандистской визуализацией советской тоталитарной идеологии.The article is semiotic-typological analysis of Yerevan State University (YSU) interior space and external grounds. It is a part of Yerevan City discourse, which depicts separate part of Yerevan downtown, and fragments of the interior and exterior space of YSU. Moreover, this article is a continuation of the discourse “University Space”. YSU cultural artifacts are described both by culturalhistorical as well as by a semiotic method. Russian reviews have described the semiotically labeled spaces of the university mainly by a cultural-historical approach. The cultural environment has become the meta-language concept of this approach. The cultural-historical methodology does not imply a semiotic metalanguage and analysis. This reveals psychological and cultural values, different historical eras and signs of identity, etc. The article is a detailed description of the starting point of the university exterior grounds represented by the central sculpture, interior works of art and bas-relief of the YSU Library. The central space of Yerevan State University is semiotized by various sculptures, monuments, and bas-reliefs. These are signs of social and cultural memory, referring to different cultural eras: from the Middle Ages to the Soviet Empire. The principal sculpture of the university garden represents the founder of Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots and other prominent representatives of the Armenian medieval university traditions. The figures depicting Mesrop Mashtots and Sahak Partev refer to the past, pointing to the antiquity of the Armenian alphabet and the deep roots of the Armenian scholastic university tradition. Among medieval cultural figures, we see other renowned poets and writers of New and Contemporary Armenian Literature such as Abovyan, Nalbandyan, Tumanyan, and Charents. They played an important role in the formation of public and literary life, leading to the Europeanization of Armenian literature, as well as to paradigmatic cultural transitions. The analysis of empirical material demonstrated that the range of historical artifacts also incorporates the Soviet era (socialist realism). Detailed study of the basrelief of socialist realism showed that it is a stereotypical artifact of the Soviet era, a visual propaganda of Soviet totalitarian ideology.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 3472
Author(s):  
Kemal Reha Kavas

Architectural drawings, which are projections of spaces on a paper surface, can be categorized according to the projections’ directional and temporal relation with the represented space. A projection becomes a documentation when it departs from an existing spatial organization for recording it on paper. The projection serves the design process when it departs from the present to foresee a spatial proposal in the future. While the former records the present within limited interpretive range, the latter is more constructive.  While these two types of projections are known widely, there is another highly interpretive type of projection, the potentials of which, are generally underestimated. As the architectural historian’s tool, this third projection type represents bygone architecture. The task of this drawing, which is one of the least questioned issues of architectural history, is to restore an incomplete image by referring to material and textual sources. This drawing type contributes to the methodology of architectural historiography while conceiving, explaining and representing space.For illustrating this situation, this study analyzes the vernacular settlements and their environmental integration because this selected context reveals the interpretive nature of the third type of projection in a successful way. In this framework, the cut-away axonometric is considered as an appropriate drawing method for uncovering the integrity between architecture and its site or culture and nature. The outcome of this theoretical insight into the prolific relations between drawing and architectural history is coined as “environmental representation.”In history architectural products have been integral components of the environment. Then, the architectural representation of historical buildings through drawings becomes critical since the majority of architectural drawings tend to isolate buildings from their environment. This conventional representation of historical architecture has been the dominant tool of typological analysis. Typology, which is intertwined with plan drawings, categorizes historical buildings according to their spatial, structural and material organizations and disengages the buildings from their socio-cultural and environmental context. If this methodological problem of typology is regarded as a problem of drawing, a new mode of “environmental representation” can be proposed.This study proposes “environmental representation” of architecture through cut-away axonometric. This graphic proposal is based upon the theoretical references of “environmental aesthetics”, which is an interdisciplinary field analyzing the participatory human engagement in environment. “Aesthetics,” as a term, defines this bodily engagement into environment through the use of all human senses. In this theoretical framework this study challenges the assumptions of scientific theory for architectural representation of the “abstracted object” and proposes an alternative method of “environmental representation” on the basis of “aesthetics”. Within this scope, the proposed cut-away axonometric drawings produced by the author is analyzed in order to represent exemplary historical contexts of architecture selected through the vernacular settlements of the Anatolian Mediterranean.


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