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A. G. Rizzoli: Architect of Magnificent Visions
July 30th, 2008
I received my A.G. Rizzoli book in the mail today. It’s an excellent book. It includes a history of Rizzoli and many hard to find drawings. Highly recommended.
I posted about Rizzoli last week with more pictures of his work.
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The Architecture of Happiness
July 17th, 2008
I was revisiting this excellent introduction to architecture today to compare it with F.L. Wright’s essays . One of my favorite things about architecture is how it marries mathematics and logic with art and humanity. But it wasn’t always this way. Botton writes:
“The principles of engineering may have brutally contradicted those of architecture, but a vocal minority of nineteenth-century architects nevertheless perceived that the engineers were capable of providing them with a critical key to their salvation — for what these men had, and they so sorely lacked, was certainty. The engineers had landed on an apparently impregnable method of evaluating the wisdom of a design: they felt confidently able to declare that a structure was correct and honest in so far as it performed its mechanical functions efficiently; and false and immoral in so far as it was burdened with non-supporting pillars, decorative statues, frescos or carvings.”
-Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness
This idea of simplification by reducing beauty and utility into the same structures is fascinating to me. In my last post I quoted Wright speaking about “useful things” and I think this is what he was talking about.
I often times find myself considering the similarities between architecture and web design. Both mediums are interactive, permeable, and require the marriage of style and function. I wonder who I am, the architect or the engineer? The graphic artist or the developer? Great designers are both.
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Frank Lloyd Wright - On Architecture
July 15th, 2008
Yesterday I picked up this book at a used book store downtown. I’ve never read Wright before so when I saw this beautiful cover looking out at me I knew that I needed to. It’s a chronological selection of his writing broken up into several sections with regards to his changing environment, philosophy, and style. So far I’ve only read his earliest works from his early 20s to early 30s, around the turn of the century.
Nearly every paragraph is quotable. Wright’s pen spews forth insight even when the subject may not be exclusively architectural in nature. Take this for example:
“Useful Things. Avoid all things which have no real use or meaning, and make those which have especially significant, for there is no one part of your building that may not be made a thing of beauty in itself as related to the whole.”
and this:
“Decoration. Decoration can tell your friends lots of things that you do not know and would not like if you did. It is of no use to you unless you do understand and appreciate it. It would not be sufficient justification for you to have it just because it looks rich or because somebody else had it.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright, Architecture and the Machine 1894
Incedently, my great great grandfather William Gates lived in Chicago and became good friends with Wright and even commissioned him to create original pottery for his Terra Cotta Company better known as TECO . I haven’t had a chance to visit Chicago yet, but my sister has recently relocated there so I am planning to go.
I hope this can be an ongoing theme of discussion here as I continue to learn about architecture and share my findings. Please feel free to send in related information.
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About
My name is Karl Peterson and I'm a designer living in Bellingham, WA. This is my life.
You can reach me at kbpeterson(at)gmail.com
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