tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531343.post8636136416924996633..comments2024-03-27T06:24:30.922-04:00Comments on A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books: Book Review: Precedents in ArchitectureJohn Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14842328320680692310noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531343.post-36141136338640141662012-08-29T14:19:57.926-04:002012-08-29T14:19:57.926-04:00I've only taken a look at a selection of pages...I've only taken a look at a selection of pages that Wiley's preview ability allows, but I'm a little disappointed. The notion of collecting a number of very fine examples of architecture into one work and comparing them objectively in the same method is incredibly valuable and, frankly, priceless for students of architecture.<br /><br />That being said, the diagrams that explain each building are really worthless. The point of diagrams is to isolate perceptibly unrelated phenomena and data and to compare them in a specific way so as to synthesize a new understanding about the identity, function, and relation of the elements individually and as a whole. This inherently necessitates a dialectical position about the elements in the diagram, as well as an assertion about what the diagrams are about.<br /><br />Now, I'm looking at Alvar Aalto's town hall, and the diagrams for "Unit to Whole" and "Additive to Subtractive" are completely the same, and the diagram for "Hierarchy" uses the the same image as both but with different line weights. What insights am I to gain from these diagrams? How are these diagrams justifications for why this building is good architecture? Together, all these diagrams should tell me why this town hall is different and unique from other town halls. Further, these diagrams should tell something about what the architect was thinking, what constraints gave the architecture the form it did. The obvious aim is: given similar conditions, I should be able to learn from what Alvar Aalto did so that I can generate something new from what he accomplished while remaining completely true to the particular conditions of the present project.<br /><br />Granted, you can make a mild argument about the value of showing to students different ways of analyzing a building, but this work still fall short of teaching how to understand a building as a product of prioritized decisions, specific site conditions, and as a synthesis of established methods regarding technology, construction, materials, and light. These diagrams don't even touch on things such as the relation of inside spaces to outside spaces, or the creation of public space, or the relationship of program and form. It would be better to simply have a collection of the buildings' plans and sections so that students could generate their own diagrams, and consequently their own positions on the value of each of these buildings.Jonathan Rozenbergshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16719870399101183782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531343.post-17011163142900969092012-08-19T13:51:16.774-04:002012-08-19T13:51:16.774-04:00Yes, all such means, Clark and Pauses’s among them...Yes, all such means, Clark and Pauses’s among them, assemble one's preparation, poised on an edge, leap-ready, towards the ineffable.chaserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14582610763614134549noreply@blogger.com