Assignment 8.0

The students at UNCG put together a gala to raise money for the primary school being built in Ghana. Here are some pictures of students hard at work and some of the items up for bid.

Reading Comprehension 7

At the Weatherspoon Museum, I analyed an abstract work of art by Al Held. He, along with George K. Morris, use tight compositions to balance curvelinear and rectaliner forms. The word abstract also means to take away from, this is true of architecture taking elements of art during the modern movement.

In the painting ‘Giza Gate’ by Al Held, there is a relationship in contrasts similar to that comparing the past to the present in design. The dramatic contrast of black and white was the first thing that caught my eye. The severity of this contrast works equally well with the contrasting shapes. The circles and squares are opposites but they compliment each other. The sharp contrasts cause your attention to go back and forth between them. The shapes in this painting also take the form of architectural lines and space.

In the same collection was the piece Steinway Ghosts by Claribel Cone. This piece has a much less rigid composition than Giza Gate and most off the elements of the painting are free form. It is about as opposite of Giza Gate as it can get. It is full of color compared to Giza Gate, which is black and white. Steinway Ghosts was inspired from a piece of music and has many levels.

In the explorations unit we covered the arts and crafts, and art deco movements. Both of these design styles relate to and draw inspiration from art and hand craft techniques. We explored the intersection of art and architecture. We have always thought of architecture as art, now we see a direct influence in modern times. During the modern movement, many buildings are made in an artistic style as sculpture. Architects and designers incorporate new methods and experiment with new techniques. The modern movement not only incorporated new styles, it also drew upon inspiration from the past. As the modern movement took off, many women found careers as interior decorators. A prominent woman in the field at this time was Betty Joel, “her interiors reflect the geometrical inspiration of Art Deco mingled with the smoothness and glamour of the moderne” (Massey pg. 130). Many buildings have elements to them that are proportional as a work of art meaning they are small enough to fit into the overall composition while adding visual interest.

Assignment 3: seeing exploring relationships

For this assignment we had to document our building using the relationships of :

>building to site
>structure to enclosure
>unit to whole
>natural light to form/space
>circulation to use
>material to form

I switched buildings from Zagreb airport to Maxxi by Zaha Hadid. This will definitely be my permanent structure. Knowing that I will have to document this building for the entire semester, this is a much better choice. The airport is very unique and I wanted to explore it, however from the research I did for assignment one and two, Zagreb posed difficulties that slowed my work down, and limited my creative talent in documenting it. Maxxi is historically rich and on a level for me to understand and research better.

Assignment 2: Diagramming

In this assignment we had to diagram a building and discover its essence. I chose an airport by Zaha Hadid in Zagreb, Croatia.

Portfolio

Our first assignment for Visual Communication was to create a portfolio of our past work. I creating mine using all the work I did during my first year in IAR. I split everything between studio and visual communication.