EXPRESSIONISM

Expressionist architecture is a movement from one of the branches of Post-modernism, which is developed in Northern Europe during the first decades of the 20^th century. The expressionist architecture is an architecture that uses the form of a building as a means to express the inner sensitivities and feelings of the viewer or architect.

From the lecture about the expressionism, one of the expressionist architects that really interested me is Zaha hadid. She is one of the most prestigious architects nowadays. Her style is boldly contemporary, organic and innovative. She pushes design through new technology and materials and never does ordinary.

The JS Bach chamber music hall Manchester in Manchester is one of her expressive work.  It is designed for Johann Sebastian Bach’s house solo performances. The aim for this music hall is to create a near-perfect environment for the audience to experience some of the world’s most beautiful chamber music. She designed a voluminous ribbon swirls within the room, carving out a spatial and visual response to the intricate relationship of Bach’s harmonies. The ribbon careens above the performer, cascades into the ground and wraps around the audience. From the box; original room, to a fluid spaces that merging the ceiling, wall and ground together. I really like the idea of creating the ribbon around the room to create the sound of music in visual form. The audience can feel the sound from Bach’s harmonies with the flow of the ribbon itself.

"A single continuous ribbon of fabric swirls around itself, creating layered spaces to cocoon the performers and audience with in an intimate fluid space." said architect Hadid

REM KOOLHAAS

Rem koolhaas, a dutch architect, is considered to be the one of the most cutting-edge architect in the world. He started off his career being a filmmaker and a journalist. But one day, while he was speaking about film to a group of architect student at the University of Delft, he realized that what he truly wanted to do was build. That is the point where he turned himself to be an architect. He headed to London to study at the Architecture Association School. There, he became known for being an unconventional thinker.

Later on, Koolhaas and his friends formed their own design company called the Office for Modern Architecture (OMA). Having won many prestigious awards, OMA has built many critical projects worldwide. 

One of the architect’s most important smaller projets is Maison a Bordeaux, which is named the best design for 1998 by Time magazine, located in France. The concept for this house is to design the residence for a man who was wheelchair bound and who felt trapped by his traditionally structured home. Instead of designing the house on one floor, which would ease the movement of the wheelchair, Koolhaas surprised the owner with an idea of a house on three levels, one on top of each other. The owner can access to these levels by an elevator platform that is the size of a room.

Each of Koolhaas’s projects is unique and the architect is openly pleased that buildings are not easily identified as Koolhaas-designed. The elements that remains consistent is his use of everyday, often inexpensive materials, the walls of the gallery Koolhaas used unfinished concrete and corrugated, or ridged, plastic; metal grids serve as the floor; and tree trunks are used as pillars. He believes that “ Architecture is always the encounter of vision and circumstance. I don’t believe in spending a lot of money on buildings so there’s no choice but to build with really cheap materials”.

Rem Koolhaas style of architecture can be considered deconstructivism. It is a development of the post-modernism in the late 20th century. The idea of deconstructivism is based on the manipulation of the structure skin, distortion of the architectural elements such as the structure. This resulted in distorted and dislocated overall form.

Along with Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman was also considered as deconstructivism. Despite his role in the "Whites", deconstructivism can be considered as an extention to the rational modernism, where everything is base on ordinary geometrical form.

Rem Koolhaas maybe well known for his writing and commentaries on the future of architecture, but mant believe that Koolhaas himself is the future in the now.

'PLAY TIME' - JACQUES TATI

In this class, we have watched a film called ‘Playtime’ by Jacques Tati, who played as M. Hulot in the film. Playtime projected the life of Modernism and the people. Tati use fewer dialogs in the film, to let the audience experience more on the sound of the background and surroundings.

The film begins in the airport scene, where there is the sound of people walking; creating rhythmic footsteps, which starts off soft and soon becomes louder and louder. The different sound of people walking can also classified different kinds of people; for instance, the fast walking pace of the businessman or the VIP surrounded with photographers.

Moreover, Playtime mentioned the perspective of those repetitions in modernism, where people are wearing same style of cloth; similar tone; grayish, similar skirt length, hairstyle and bag, and the building also look the same. Apart from the clothing, the pace of their walk, and the tempo in which their shoes or high heels have against the floor are also similar. This portrays the modern life where everything seems to be so systematic. For instance, the scenes in the depressing cubical office, where the cube work space are equally and systematically divided around the room. Everything looks too much the same to me, it may be good to have things in systematic way, but yet it can be too boring. People are losing their own identity and uniqueness by wanting to be the same as everyone.

The link between the film and Louis Kahn, is maybe the architecture that look all the same in the rectangular shape and form; the use of geometric shape, like Kahn’s architecture, where most of his buildings are start from the form of geometric shape. 

Visual Acoustics - The Modernism of Julius Shulman

Visual Acoustic is a documentary film by Eric Barker, which featured Julius Shulman and his work. Julius Shulman is considered to be one of the masters of modern architectural photographer of the time. His work doesn’t only capture the existing condition of the house which is occupied by the owners only, but it includes the surrounding context which essentially affects the house itself. It can be said that reading the architecture is like reading a book, the changing of environmental conditions such as lighting or shadow movement is like turning the pages. Different lighting scape portrayed different qualities and feeling. Shulman is quite concerned with ecology and environment, these aspect create a distinctive and lively feature in his photograph.

In the case study of House #22, Shulman was able to capture it in a way that I expressed the city’s character and identity. His ideal choice of timing and placement of composition of the two women chatting in the glass box creates a great composition where everything is connected to one another telling the whole story. Despite the connotation of the modernism style which expressed itself as a machine for living, Shulman was able to create the sense of life through his placement of light and composition. His magic eventually turn a house into a “home”.