Art closely relates to architecture. In this assignment, students were asked to analyze the formal qualities of one of three cubist paintings (L'arlesienne, Picasso). Students created a series of diagrams from the painting that corresponded to particular architectural relationships such as, regulating lines, figure ground, geometry and proportion, and repetitive to unique. The diagrams were used to abstract information, which became the topography for a site in need of a visitor’s center.
The program of the center included a volume of center and a volume of line, which could be manipulated to form the structure of the visitor’s center. Students were asked to consider at least two out of four qualities of wall (wall of entry, wall of scale/meter, wall of containment, and wall of light). The rest of the program was left vague so that students were at liberty to respond to the unique conditions generated by their analyze.
The result of my visitor’s center was created by manipulating two volumes of center, which formed a third exterior volume. The center rests along a shoreline overlooking the coast. The paintings regulating lines created the volume’s rhythm. The center’s physical form was creating by shifting along orthogonal regulating lines, while the primary path (volume of line) was constructed by utilizing a shift in the painting’s structure. The structure of the center extends past its roof planes to create semi-enclosed spaces that blend interior and exterior realms. Overall, the center was created to symbolize the tension within the landscape. The center formalizes many geometric qualities, which was shaped by the coast over time.
Groundworks (Cubist Visitor's Center)
Class: ARC 202: Environment
Instructor: Burak Erdim
Spring 2016
