NO REGRETS. JUST LOVE.

 “Everything happens for a reason”, that’s my life philosophy. I believe that one thing happens because destiny has a motive behind it. In everything that happens in our lives, we never fail to ask “why?” and to that question is an answer that only we can answer. It’s like a mystery that one will find out when one truly puts effort and patience just to achieve the true meaning and reason behind it. In application to my design philosophy I find that in designing, everything has a function. Even the Eiffel tower for me has a function, and it is to represent Paris. Function applies to everything.

Architecture in the 20^th should be modern to show how technology advances. As architecture becomes modernized the materials that are used in this century are also evolving.

In class, we were tasked to read and create a critic about the theories and manifestos of some architects. I learned much from their beliefs and got to know more about the –isms in architecture. Although it made my head ache, my stomach growl and my nose bled in the first time I read it, I still got the chance to understand some messages of these architects’ manifestos to their readers. I picked out some where I truly got interest, knowledge and the manifestos I got to understand better.

New York Five’s Peter Eisenman is titled a post functionalist. He said that in the 19^th century, there was a crucial shift in Western consciousness – humanism to modernism. According to him, modernism is based on the fundamental movement of man and it cannot be related to functionalism.  Post functionalism recognizes modernism as a new response in architecture.

In Bernard Tschumi’s manifesto, who taught in Architectural Association said that there is an architecture of pleasure. To him architectural of pleasure is the concept and experience of space. Utility and purpose is not necessary to give that pleasure but architecture can only act as our instrument to express our feelings in our designs. As he said “Architecture cannot satisfy one’s wildest dreams, but it may exceed the limits of it.”

According to Coop Himmelblau, “the city of the present will characterize the city of the future.”  Architecture today must be a tool to expand the life it. Our city today will be converted into amazing structures in the future. He reminded us that despite all the modernization happening in our world and in architecture, we must never forget to consider the aesthetics etc.

Manhattanism was made by Rem Koolhas. Manhattanism for him is” a world totally made by man, ie to live in fantasy”. He made a manifesto about Manhattan where his life slowly reached its goals, and for him it is a place where experimentation of urban lifestyle occurred. In there, he wrote about how to create a manifesto. He said that manifestos weaknesses is lacking of evidences.

Last February 15, 2011, one of my classmates made a report about Daniel Libeskind. His name is not new to me anymore because I think our professor is a fan of him. During my first term in architecture until now, in different subjects, his name was never missed to be mentioned by the professors. So now, I also think he’s a great architect even though I only knew one of his works which was the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany. He is a student of music. He does sketches rather than physical models.  For him, “drawing is merely an invention.”  It is like acting out one’s creativity in mind with organized thoughts of one’s imagination. It resembles like a clarification in reading a text. Like when you see a sketch or drawing, many things will come to one’s mind and slowly it will organize in one’s views explicitly. According to Daniel Libeskind, geometric structures and formalizations divide the movement of one’s imaginations. And for him the deeper level of consciousness is an important consideration when designing something.

Another manifesto of Coop Himmelblau called Architecture Must Blaze, showed how much of a modernist Himmelblau is. He doesn’t like the 70’s “super tense” architecture. He even mentioned that he doesn’t want to build “Biedemeier designs” and he’s also tired of seeing “falladio facades”. (I tried to search for both but I only found the Biedemeier designs which was furniture that look like the super old century’s design)He really wants architecture to evolve, to go with the modern flow yet it must not eliminate everything from the past.

Zaha Hadid, a unit of master form, talked about “Randomness and Arbitrariness”.  Randomness for her is a visual representation of mathematics and is guided by logic in thinking. Arbitrariness has no underlying conceptual logic. In my understanding of arbitrariness, it is like copying. For her, architects must create new dynamics of architecture rather than simply copying someone’s idea. In my opinion, Zaha Hadid is truly thinks uniquely as I see it in her designs.

In her other manifesto called “The Eighty-nine Degrees”, she discussed the accomplishment of technology in the 20^th century. She said that “revision of inventiveness” is needed; it’s like one must think about new ideas in the new context of the new century. She also said that “our task is not to resurrect them but to develop them further”. I believe that it’s true because architecture never died and the ideas of architects in design never vanished. In this new century, architectural designs should be advanced because today, technology has no more limits. She wants architecture to develop further not only aesthetically and in designs but also programmatically. She believed that this is only the beginning of architecture.

I got a lot of knowledge from them. The one that truly hit me was how they wanted architecture to evolve; I saw their desires in expanding architecture together with technology. Despite the desire of modernizing everything, they still manage to give considerations to what the past has given them. In all their manifestos, I saw that all of them pay tribute to their pasts even if they didn’t tell it.