wagihyoussef

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture and Visual Reality

Abstract

We hardly see a building without some perspective distortion of its constant form. The constancy of form discounts all these distortions. It is difficult to imagine how difficult our thing recognition would become if we had to discount the perspective distortions and foreshortening of our viewing angle. The repression of the distortions represents an important step forward in making perception serviceable for recognizing reality. All probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation because beauty in architecture is not a quality in things themselves but exists merely in the mind which contemplates them. Architecture is a microcosm that integrates ideals of beauty into a system of proportions that corresponds to a world order and to the structure of the human body.  

Keywords: spatial thrust, proportion, distortion, sensation, prototype

Introduction

Architecture is a basic instrument in man's struggle for survival, which requires one to understand something of the nature of things by observing them and requires one to predict their behavior by what one understood of their nature. Architecture serves a similar purpose by means of images through which the nature and functioning of things can be experienced. This is because scientific thinking imposes a simple order by a few sweeping generalities according to human motivation to take care of complexities and variations, so that at times the intricate tissue threatens to hide the underlying structure under simple overall forms. We find evidence of this in the elementary symmetries of children's drawings, or the sculpture of early civilizations. Under the impact of reality, architecture developed toward more complex patterns in order to take care of the variety of appearances and the peculiarities of the individual mind. 

Architecture is compounded by ideal sensations; the question then is what in a given architectural design produces life enhancement and the kind of ideated sensations that constitute its space composition, sensations of contact, of texture, of support, of energy, and of union with our surroundings.  If all be dried up architecture will at best survive as arabesque, and color; just tactile values, volume, bulk, inner substance, and texture without understanding the concept of space, which involves other fundamental problems like point of view and time, far from solving the problem it was intended to settle. 

Ideal Proportion

Architecture is a microcosm that integrates ideals of beauty into a system of proportions that corresponds to a world order and to the structure of the human body.  Without it, it is impossible to understand the intentions of a Renaissance architect. A Renaissance mind understood what a Renaissance eye was able to see. But this conception, when and where it was adhered to in architecture, tended to lose its universal application because architecture was regarded as a mystery that has to be discovered. Otherwise, the whole structure of classical aesthetics will be overthrown from the bottom because all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation because beauty in architecture is not a quality in things themselves but exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; for each architect's mind perceives a different beauty.

Beauty had nothing to do with calculation or geometry which is indifferent to the mind. Proportion is a measure of relative quantity which is indifferent to the mind, and the human figure never supplied the architect with any ideas since no two things can have resemblance or analogy, that the one is addressed to the ear, the other to the eye. This would not only be a useless quality but the source of continual pain and uneasiness, for any abstract or ideal standard destroys the function of architecture. It is only the spontaneous stimulus of the imagination which makes a work of architecture beautiful and sublime. The sublimity of beauty of forms arises from the associations and the qualities which are expressive to us. Proportion is still alive in the minds of young architects today and they will evoke unexpected solutions for this problem.

Within the field of vision, the eye deserves more, because of its power of absorption. Architecture has become simpler and more lucid insofar as the design has been better prepared for the eye to see parts collectively and simultaneously; the power of grasping the variety of shapes in the field of vision as a single unit in which every part of the whole is felt to have its necessary place within that whole. The unified conception of space asserts itself on the very greatest scale when buildings and landscape are conceived as an effect from one viewpoint; the layout of villas and gardens, the enclosing of whole panoramas maybe called to mind as instances of this have received an impression of the noble High Renaissance. 

Synthetic Perspective

Orthogonal perspective led to an even more complex form of vision which is called synthetic perspective, described as a thorough ongoing attempt to express an experience of visual reality which is only to be gained by a process of introspection, of asking what it is that is really seen.  The architect needs a space that has much in common with the space conceived by mathematicians, a space homogeneous and diversified, finite and infinite. The eye is not confused when it sees clear forms and clear space, and objects composed of simple forms which are symmetrical, such that the eye is able to apprehend the whole in an instant.

In the architectural view the main space is large and simple, and its inherent symmetry is emphasized because the spectator is seen as standing in the center of the elevation whilst the building is set upon the axes established by the pavement. The numerous and regular indications of the change of scale give clear expression to the distance travelled into space. Thus, the imaginative eye is freed of measurement, and travels into the infinity beyond the far horizon. Strong color or lighting is another means of emphasizing depth and solidity. Strong light on a rounded form stresses its solidity by the smooth transition from an intense highlight to a deep shadow. This creates an illusion of solidity demonstrating that violent contrasts of light and shade.

The results obtainable by this means are rendered more striking if the orthogonal lines are not only clearly differentiated from any lines running parallel to the surface but are uninterrupted so that the eye may shoot unhindered into the imaginary space.  Such a building which is created by the architect's view is a major contribution to its spatial forcefulness, creating a three-dimensional space upon a flat surface. Such powerful forces of visual realism are attested by the history of the evolution of perspective. The eye is made to move in the directions established by the picture plane. An actual counterbalancing of spatial thrust can be achieved by placing the vanishing point within the confines of an object situated in the foreground.

Surface and Depth Perception

In architecture perception, there exists a dynamic tension between surface and depth perception. The architect pays attention to that which suits his unconscious urge for symbolization and tends to be not only Gestalt-free but also things-free hidden in the façades as in picture puzzles which may distort the realistic appearance of the outlines, to follow a realistic imitation of the real things. The architect is forced to reify his symbolic form which expresses the inner dream world of symbolic expression; the work of architecture is made to represent the real thing. It is not merely a covering up of his symbolic forms under a façade representing the projection of a superficial rational meaning into them. Nor is it to create illusion of constancy which builds up the external world of real things owing to changes in their illumination or our viewing angle to discount the everchanging distortions of form. 

The angles of perspective and distortion and the foreshortenings of single forms are in constant upheaval. We are hardly aware of their immobility that appears to be the same all the time due to the repression of the things’ free aspects. We hardly see a building without some perspective distortion of its constant form. The constancy of form discounts all these distortions of the real constant form.  It is difficult to imagine how difficult our thing recognition would become if we had to discount the perspective distortions and foreshortening as for our viewing angle. The repression of the distortions represents an important step forward in making perception serviceable for recognizing reality. 

Abstraction and Feeling

There existed no sharp distinction between mental imagery of real things and the imagery itself except the degree of their abstraction and the quality of feeling. The problem of space is not merely a problem of content and form but adapting content to form. The new means of making the architect dominate nature involve a complete change in the vision, and especially the spatial vision of the world and a renovation of the graphic means of denoting living forms on a fixed plastic surface. What changes in the object, not the system or figuration of which space is, is a fundamental element with good reason replacing the conceptual framework inseparable from the notion of space but of the basic problem of the relation between man and the universe. This was the problem the Impressionists tackled.

Impressionism was of discovering a new space. Some of them faced the problem of the relation between form and light, and the poly sensorial representation of space, and the representation of light that society was led to revise its traditional representation of space. Thus, the development in the 20th Century architecture parallels the deeper developments in thought and science. The main thing to understand is that no plastic representation of space can be divorced from its context of intellectual and social values. Hence, modern society has stopped existing, physically and artistically in traditional space. This is why speculations on space during the Impressionist era had a consistent system to replace the old one. This was also the problem of the Bauhaus movement. Futurists were concerned with the representation of movement.

Conclusion

The use of accident seems to be a necessity in this irrational world of our experience.  Growing complexity takes the form of increasing realism.  Now realism enhances the element of change in the relationship between the work of architecture and its ultimate purpose of moving away from the prototypical image of man which is the final subject of architecture. Architecture is not satisfied with the variety of appearances in order to present the prototypical essence, under ever new aspects.  The choice and presentation of the material is of the strictest necessity.

Now accidental forms and patterns are produced not by intent but by the degeneration of the sense of form. The desire for the imitation of nature conquered man's natural and traditional sense of form to the extent that it became hard to impose order and significance upon the multiplicity of appearances. The modern fascination with disorder produces random displays which the beholder's eye can identify but not understand. This modern taste derives historically from the new appreciation of creative architecture that developed during the Renaissance period.

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture and the revolution of the Eye

Abstract

The problem of architecture is dealing with the unfathomed depth of man's own nature. An aesthetic of fusion is what makes architecture as a specialized notion possible. Architecture is designed from what the eyes deport to the persona. The variety of responses to reality, the tragedy of all human collectives, has been their failure to pass beyond their own cultural glosses. When the senses are sundered from the wholeness of innate experiences, when the cumulative power of culture distorts perception more than it aids it, and distracts attention more than it serves it, when knowledge deludes rather than enlightens, and when social mores are used to rationalize rather than uplift, then it is inevitable that these should become civilization's most distinguishing features.

Keywords: psyche, history, impression, tradition, style, aesthetic sensation, imagination

Introduction

Architecture was generated by spiritual forces. It is a history of the human psyche and its forms of expression. Architecture is no longer a meaningless façade of facts and artifacts but an alchemical formula, a symbolic calculus, a mystery play, exacted by the collective human psyche on the planetary stage. The emphasis of architecture history extends from the objects of perception to perception itself. This ceaseless shifting in man's relation to the impressions crowding in upon him from the gamut of surrounding world forms is the starting point for all psychology on a grand scale. It seems clear that our present era is one of transition. History is a mythic cycle, the transcendence of reason, and the visionary role of the architect.  Architecture is the perfect marriage of psychic impulse and technical implementation. Should we then learn more about human nature than effects? 

An aesthetic of fusion is what makes architecture as a specialized notion possible. Architecture is designed from what the eyes deport to the persona. Imagination is denied as being irrational. As a consequence, architects lack broad-scale perspective. Without high tension there can be no great works of art. The great architect who combined both the artist and scientist archetypes in one personality is Leonardo da Vinci who stands alone. Leonardo confounded this with an inherited platonic prejudice that denigrates the body and elevates the eye for the eye is the chief organ which can view Nature and enjoy the beauty of the world. Remarkably, we do not experience reality but only our concept of it. The educated must know that architecture is not a thing done but a solution of the ego. Architecture is not anything created but a creation that is an addition to reality from the point of view of internal technology producing a transformation of reality.

The Power of Culture on Perception

When culture begins to pattern itself upon models of the past, regardless of change then decadence has set in what is illusive. It is that one moment condensed from eternity, chemically freezing the viewer into one particular space. In architectural design a mathematical perspective is in reality absurd for it not only destroys the architecture unity of the wall, but it also obliges the forms to a false foreshortening. In the same way architecture is stripped of its most subtle qualities when the purely geometric proportions of medieval art are replaced by arithmetic, and therefore relatively quantitative proportions. It loses also its likeness with the earth, with the people and with the true tradition of the crafts. For visual art then no longer functions as a divine symbol but simply as the picture of an imaginary world. Optical perception is really the subject matter of the drawing that becomes the perceptual medium and even obscures the subject matter. While the viewer is left to fill in the profound solitude with his own imagination.

The variety of responses to reality, the tragedy of all human collectives, has been their failure to pass beyond their own cultural glosses. When architecture ceases to be of greater evolutionary development, the individual becomes a parody of his labors. When culture becomes a refinement rather than an integral expression of internal necessity, it blinds and dulls the senses rather than educating them. When the senses are sundered from the wholeness of innate experiences, when the cumulative power of culture distorts perception more than it aids it, and distracts attention more than it serves it, when knowledge deludes rather than enlightens, and when social mores are used to rationalize rather than uplift, then it is inevitable that these should become civilization's most distinguishing features. The ingenuity and refinement of architecture is surpassed finally by the ingenuity and refinement of technology.  The cultivation of sense desires is outstripped by the holy owe of cities.

Mechanized Consciousness

The stage was set for the disorder of modern technological civilization. Proportion and the sequence of linear perspective lay the evolutionary more of culture, confounding, and limiting the senses of consciousness of man. The intuitive realm to what we call science left the mystery of the spirit and gave birth to science, the separation of mind from matter and the representation of the struggle to regain the intuitive vision of the scientist and the artist of Modern Western Culture. The academy of art was a stopgap cultural measure giving a sense of coherence and structure to a realm of knowing that by unconscious social agreement had been abandoned. The visual arts needed an institutional framework to help them remain pure, to preserve the distinction between fine or high and applied or low arts and crafts. Hence art became a decorative fill entirely devoid of any, social, environmental or psychological utility.  

By contrast, the arts of the pretechnological traditions derived their meaning not from the previous work done in that tradition but from a spiritual philosophy at the expense of the spirit that has given form to that tradition. This indicates how far the creative process had been separated from its psychic origins. The stylistic reaction to this ideal was the phase known as Rococo which is the art of an effect aristocracy whose pleasure, no longer contained by a spiritual regimen, only ended in debauchery. This cultural disintegration caused by mechanized consciousness was supported by the academies and rationalization into a new belief system which was the creed of progress apart from the general development of nature. The values created by this process evolved into the modern psyche mechanistic complex known as history. History as a science must begin with art which is all that remains of history because history is the superior model for human actions. Initially history is one of those arts in which psychic expression predominated over the technical rules of human beauty. 

Impressionism and Style

The visual arts responded no longer to the eye but to the printed word. Art became the byproduct of historical criticism, which became the province of pure technique. The dramatic expressions all derived from the conventions of history drawings as a new notion of art that has to arise in the midst of the industrial civilization, from the remote past by which the spiritual barrenness and confusion of the industrial civilization was kept a secret. Quite simply the death of myth is the birth of art. History became the illusion of culture in the age of anxiety deprived of their own creative initiative turning to whatever entertainment offered.  As a result, art has had little to say that is relevant or comprehensive, except to the cultured few. Form and content became separate issues to be discussed.  

The arts of the 19th c. display a profusion of styles borrowed from other times and other cultures. The intellectual acceptance is nothing but a capitalization to a protective dogma. Style in its deeper implications is denied. For that, style must be more than decoration stripped of historical context. The appearance of new forms is the reality, and the thing perceived is the reality. Because we are dealing with unity, all contradictions coexist and support each other. The reality is indeed a series of discrete psychophysiological impressions, and that it is only by mental conceptualization that the idea of concrete objects comes into existence. The impact of this general turn of events was felt by certain optical or retinal impression made on the architect. Thus, with Impressionism, what began as a revolution of the eye turned out in the end a revolution of the mind. The most outstanding quality of the Impressionist art that emerged in the past however was its fidelity to sense impressions. Impressionism followed no aesthetic percept, but pure vision.  

Impressionists reflected the emptiness of contemporary intellectual and moral beliefs, so the implications of Impressionism were most difficult to accept. The Impressionist exhibitions were actually a step toward the formation of an institutional counterculture and began with the final absorption of Impressionism into the burgeoning avant-garde. It was actually the purest reflection of a society neurotically trying to stay one step ahead if itself. The basic premise of avant-gardism is outdated style, what was in style last season is out of style this season. The significance of Impressionism is in the possibility of seeing anew what has always been, seeking and transforming spirit and becoming satisfied with art. It is seeking a realistic aesthetic in which the goal of visual art is to match an outer reality and an inner power of expression to emphasize the subjective and the psychological nature of aesthetic sensation. The aesthetic is as real as the sensory perception of a mental image in physical terms. It assumes the fundamentally psychic nature of reality to transform the materialistic viewpoint into the metaphysical and perceptual reality.

Optical Art

Optical art springs from the eye. What the eye sees is not determined by the external world but by the psychological disposition of the viewer. Despite the fact that the real world is merely a dream though, it is commonly thought of as being scientific in the positive sense supported by the artist's own declaration. Some see poetry in painting while others see only science. The whole thing is due to a single figure influence, a novel theory of form in mental abstraction, visually represented by lines. The image presented is both a wave of illusion and of contour dots in the eye of the beholder forming a union of opposites to create a synthesizing vision in a world of materialistic passions of -isms.

Simple non-representative lines, forms or colors can induce a particular psychic state. For example, by gazing at a red object for a few seconds, an after-image forms and we see a green object when we look away.  This occurs because as opposites these colors are mutually defining, one color cannot exist without the other. In the psychological view, the task of art is inseparable from the attainment of biopsychic self-regulation resulting in the coordination of individual and social reality with the cosmic whole. To them art is a pure reality of novelty where anything can happen, art for art's sake.  Art became a geometrical abstraction, minimal art and a concept art entirely academic. Both are anesthetic, merely the transplanted forms of the divided consciousness that had previously given rise to classicism and romanticism, and that culminated in the cult of the new, which is the illusion of history. 

The eclecticism of the academy was the regimentation of creative thought.  Consequently, visual perception was narrowed into a simple mode. Accordingly, the visual sensation was broken down into these components of increasing complexity by color and form, indicating the mental nature of the world. Color is called upon to represent an illumination, to produce the illusion of space. Color loses its nature because color directly suggests a source of light manifesting qualities inherent in light, turning color into nothing more than the play of an imaginary light, leading to a sort of intermediate world analogous to a dream. So, image and color become mental caprice. This affected the arts because of dramatic mediating interpretation. This emphasized the mental world of concepts that defined the visual arts.  Reliance upon concept, rather than upon the inherently visual arts.  

 Conclusion

The architecture of the 20th century has been able to deform the conventional Renaissance vision that by tradition was erased after its ritual healing function has been completed. Spending itself in the continued pursuit of novelty it has also reached an end. It was psyche in the form of the disenchanted industrial age. Architects who began the experiment were joined by the scientists who began to investigate the mushroom architecture shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception as they are apprehended directly by mind at large by the intellectual. The first who experienced that revulsion of mind and deepest consciousness are pioneers of architecture. Architecture had been subverted by techno after the second world war. The psychedelic experience was to be a deep collective force of visionary potency moving through the public imagination regardless of artistic inclination with the advent of psychedelics and proved impervious to the opened eyes. Now we are back to magic, to psychic life.  

Thus, by opening up the visionary experience, psychedelics had helped many architects see beyond history and beauty in architecture will be questioned! Because it negated the egotistic doctrine of history, an imminent new age. Tradition literally means to give over, or to hand down, not in books but by word of mouth and symbols from historical experience.  Because the ideology of history favors the collective values of competition, patriotism, and the work ethic, values that keep the individual in order to preserve his humanity. But history itself deviated from the necessity of developing an internal technology and pressed us to begin again and become ourselves with the vision of what we are to become, awaiting the proper discipline through which it might be appropriately expressed by the simultaneous transcendence of the physicalist mentality that has been modern humanity’s unique capacity for maintaining a balance between psyche and techne.

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture and the Sculpture Effect of Natural Light

Abstract

Visual form depends upon three variables: light, the position of the beholder, and the particular relation with the environment. We empirically reinterpret the image into an idea of corporeality, and this defines the form of the space within. We thus grasp its spiritual import, its content, and its meaning. Windows form the rhythmical articulation of light and dark in the façade, which determines the character more directly than the sum total of all columns, ornaments and cornices. To see architecture means to draw together into a single mental image the series of these dimensionally interpreted images that are present to us as we walk through interior spaces and round their exterior shells. It is light that first rounds out mathematical precision and space consciousness to the freedom, independence and law of architectonic creation.

Keywords: natural light, stimulus, visual attention, primary form, plastic effect, beauty

Introduction

We look at what we want or need to see, unless our visual attention is redirected by the focus selector to a distracting stimulus in the visual field. Such a stimulus need not be the brightest thing in view. The information content of the stimulus is also important in determining its relevance and consequently its inherent attractiveness to the mind’s eye.  Visual activity is highest in a very small area of the retina called the fovea. Under normal conditions patterns of light falling on the fovea are reported to the brain in much finer detail than the visual information falling on other parts of the retina. This innate differentiation between central and peripheral vision. High luminous (brightness) of the background tends to dominate the visual field causing the eye to reduce the amount of light which it lets fall onto the retina, thus interfering with the perception of the person. When lightly illuminated elements of the visual field are unrelated to our needs. They distract us from our conscious activities which can be both annoying and dangerous. Recent research on the visual cortex of the brain shows that the brain sees most clearly in terms of edges. 

Le Corbusier deliberately defined architecture not in Vitruvian terms as good planning, sound construction and pleasing appearance, but in terms of the sculptured effects of light and shade, in the masterly correct and magnificent play of masses brought together by light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; thus cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage. They are not only beautiful forms, but the most beautiful. Before 1750 it was well known that the Greeks had made their windows narrower at the top than at the bottom. This arrangement could be seen in such Roman ruins as the round temple at Tivoli. The Greek fanatics did not use windows at all but admitted light through the doors of their temple. To them, light meant brightness which had to impress. The impressionists realized the importance of ambient light, which fills the air and is reflected from objects, and radiant light, which is the province of the physicist. Monet’s paintings of the cathedral at Rouen, all depicting the same façade but under different conditions of light are as explicit an illustration of the role of ambient light in vision as one could expect to find. 

Throughout history designers have attempted to introduce light in a way that the observer will be conscious of the effect of the light while the light source itself is played down in the architecture composition. For example, windows were placed at the base of a dome to light this large structural element. The brilliant dome then became a major focal center and serving as a huge reflector. The dome, not the windows, became the apparent primary light source for the interior space. Similarly, the windows in some interiors were placed so they were somewhat concealed from the normal view of the observer and the observer’s attention was focused on a brightly lighted adjacent decorative wall. In both cases, the objective was to place the emphasis on the surfaces to be lighted while minimizing any distracting influence from the lighting system itself.

For medieval thinkers, light is the principle of order and value. The objective value of a thing is determined by the degree to which it participates in light. Seeing is not a passive response of the pattern of light, rather it is an active information seeking process directed and interpreted by the brain. Visual sensory data are coordinated with incoming contextual information from the other senses related to the past experiences of a comparable nature and given attention or not depending on whether incoming stimulus is classified as signal or noise. It is the information content and context of a stimulus not its absolute magnitude which generally determines its relevance and finally its importance. This in turn largely determines what we look at and what we perceive. The eye searches the visual environment automatically for signals which supply information relevant to the satisfaction of activity or biological needs, and figure objects with these characteristics tend to attract the visual attention automatically. 

Light in Gothic Architecture

For the 12th and 13th centuries, light was the source and essence of all visual beauty. St. Victor and Thomas Aquinas both ascribe to the beautiful two main characteristics: consonance of parts, or proportion, and luminosity. The stars gold and precious stones are called beautiful because of the quality. In the philosophical literature of the terms no attribute is used more frequently to describe visual beauty than lucid, luminous, clear. This aesthetic preference is vividly reflected in the decorative arts of the time with their obvious delight in glittering objects, shiny materials and polished surfaces. According to the Platonizing metaphysis of the Middle Ages, light is the most mobile of natural phenomena, the least material, the closest approximation to pure form. Light is the mediator between bodies and bodily substances, a spiritual body, embodied and is present in the earthly substances. For as St. Bonaventure asks, do not metals and precious stones begin to shine when we polish them, are not clear window panes manufactured from sand and ashes, is not fire struck from black coal, and is not this luminous quality of things evidence of existence of light in them. In architecture history, the large stained-glass windows of the Gothic period are probably the most obvious example of this approach.

Early Gothic structure was of course closely related to the question of space, light, and plastic effects in the Gothic period we learn about. In Amiens we are not forcibly pulled to the east as is the case in Baroque churches, since the lighting is evenly diffused from one end to the other. The sanctuary is backed by an ambulatory which is lighted by the window of the radiating chapels that are barely visible from the west. In Cathedral Le Mans France, the clerestory lighting the inner aisle and the light pouring in from the side chapels all combine to produce a lavish yet organized richness which every part is necessary for either function or structural reason. The Gothic light is filtered through the pores of the walls. The stained-glass windows of the Gothic replace the brightly colored walls of Romanesque architecture. They are structurally and aesthetically not openings in the wall to admit light, but transparent walls. The stained-glass windows seemingly deny the impenetrable nature of matter, receiving its visual existence from an energy that transcends it. Light which is ordinarily concealed by matter appears as the active principle and matter is aesthetically real only in so far as it partakes of and is defined by the luminous quality of light.

The Gothic may be described as transparent diaphanous architecture. The gradual enlargement of the windows as such means that no segment of inner space was allowed to remain in darkness undefined by light. The side aisles, the galleries above them, the ambulatory and chapels of the choir became narrower and shallower, their exterior walls pierced by continuous rows of windows. Ultimately, they appear as a shallow, transparent shell surrounding nave and choir, while the windows if seen from the inside cease to be distinct. They seem to merge, vertically, and horizontally into a continuous sphere of light, a luminous foil behind the tactile forms of the architecture system. The window opening is a void surrounded by heavy, solid framing. In the Gothic window, the solid elements of the tracery float, as it were, on the luminous window surface, its pattern dramatically articulated by light.

The Window

Natural light projects natural shade. The perception of form occurs through the variation in brightness and darkness. Time in the aesthetics of architecture is the parameter which refers to the duration of the aesthetical experience, and as a consequence of that duration to the bodily movement of the beholder, who takes successively different standpoints around and through the object observed. Visual form is controlled by the polarity of one image-like perception. When the beholder is forced to take different standpoints to grasp the whole, the visual form is a result of many images. Visual form depends upon three variables: light, the position of the beholder, and the particular relation with the environment. We empirically reinterpret the image into an idea of corporeality, and this defines the form of the space within. We thus grasp its spiritual import, its content, and its meaning. From whatever side we take light we ought to make an opening for it, as it may always give us a free sight of the sky. The top of that opening ought not to be too low, because we are able to see the light with our eyes. 

Windows form the rhythmical articulation of light and dark in the façade, which determines the character more directly than the sum total of all columns, ornaments and cornices when seen from a distance. All decorative forms sink back into the mass of reflecting wall and the dark fleck of the windows which reflect no light. On the inside neither paint, wall, ceiling nor door can match the window. It stands among them like something alive among dead things and has within it the power to make the room large or small. The window is employed exclusively as a part of the façade, as if it is consisted of a kind of embellishment similar to columns or woodwork. It no longer has the shape or size which the room requires to illuminate it, but rather must attune itself to the rhythm of the façade. It is no longer positioned where it is needed in the room, but rather where it is needed in the façade.

We must not strive to increase the intensity of light, but a gentler light is worth striving for, and more colored light must be the watchword. The living quality of architecture depends upon sensuous seizure by means of touch and sight, upon the terrestrial cohesion of mass, upon the super-terrestrial liberty of light. It is light that first gives movement to mass and sublimates it to a super sensuous expression of dynamic and rhythmical agitation. It is light that first rounds out mathematical precision and space consciousness to the freedom, independence and law of architectonic creation. The outer walls collect light in order to let it penetrate fully through its openings. However, a traditional wall pierced with windows almost belongs to a past period. The transparent or opaque screen fitted between floor and ceiling is taking its place. To see architecture means to draw together into a single mental image the series of these dimensionally interpreted images that are present to us as we walk through interior spaces and round their exterior shells. 

Architecture Image

Architecture image is one unified mental image. The intensity of light must be as uniform as possible throughout the interior. Throughout the exterior, gradation of light when present are subtle. There is no sharp contrast and the darker areas are always bright enough to allow clear vision. Colors bring the structure lines into a sharp relief against the seeming wall. Strong bright reflections are avoided even when the material is bronze or gold. Painted colors spread as uniform surfaces. The color detaches ornament from its frame and separates a capital from its shafts. The colors are set down separately in small areas. Architecture image is determined as we walk through the building. The architecture image is unique. It is always the same no matter whether it is seen from many different angles. It is identical with the actual complete form. There is not temptation for us to walk around the building because we realize at once that it can offer us no surprise. Coordination of the individual images and simplicity of the total image, these are architecture produced in the interior by radiating lines of circulation. We can stand anywhere and yet feel ourselves in possession of the whole. The architecture of the first phase presents only one image. The second phase is contrast. Uniformity of illumination gives way to increasing contrast of light and dark areas. The introduction of lunettes is a result of the need of light on the vault. The need increases for a ceiling that is bright, unfolding a zone of light rather than a dark enclosure. It is a symptom of the second phase that skylights were considered for the ceiling. 

The distinction here does not lie in a different degree of intensity of light but solidity in the way light is disrupted. Such sudden transition from bright to dark to bright are also characteristic of the individual details. The uneven illumination subordinates the vague isolated vistas to those that are clear, the optically dull, the optically interesting. The corporeal forms exist only to carry the visible phenomena. They serve light not the reverse. They appear to suffer under the influence of light and shadow reflections and colors, and the distractions of the perspective view insofar as they might be separated, and they appear to be torn apart insofar as they belong together. Masses and spaces are pushed into one another, and since they always seem to be incomplete, we cannot imagine how they would be perceived from another viewpoint.

Baroque Architecture

In Bernini’s sculpture the problem of light and therefore the distribution of plastic surfaces in terms of their values as reflection of light, was from the very beginning one of his principal preoccupations. An architecture expression of the investigation of luminous values can be seen very clearly in the profiles of the base of his Apollo and Daphne and in the altar aedicula of Santa Bibiana. It is in fact from scenography that Bernini derived his effects of a closeup hidden light that makes the surfaces of his subject and that in the Baroque era was indeed defined as “Luce alla Bernina. With the memorial inscription for Urban VIII on the internal façade of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and the apse of San Lorenzo in Damaso, his use of light became revolutionary. Instead of hiding its source behind a screen, it takes its place in the visual field of the spectator. This direct incident light is used as an essential ingredient of the architectonic design. It is not adopted merely to enliven flat diagrams as were the diaphanous surfaces of stained glass in Gothic cathedrals, but rather its function is the integration of a plastic discourse. This progressive sensibility to the problems of light in architectonic terms can be traced from its first pronouncement in the altar of Santa Bibiana.

In Boromini’s work the perspective colonnade constructed in the Pallazzio Spada proved that through the geometric curves, space can be molded as a resextensa contracting and dilating it; on the other hand to rest his control over light in its function as determining factor of the effect of depth as shown in the series of embrasures originally opened in the structure to admit a direct lateral illumination through the perspective treatment of splayed openings, a theme introduced in Rome by Sangallo in the courtyard of Palazzo Farnese. The sensitizing of the mass in terms of its role as either reflection or obstruction of the light flow radically transforms the dynamics of the relationship and leads to an absolute plastic continuity of the architectonic members to a rigorously logical connection of the elements clarified in every point with insistent precision.

Conclusion

Louis Kahn said that every space intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is. Each space must be defined by its structure and the character of its natural light. The structure is synonymous with the light which gives image to the space. The glare is modified by the lighted wall and the view is not shut off. 

[wagihyoussef]

Art, Technology, Man and Architecture

Art demands a concrete historical approach to aesthetic phenomena, to the development of art.  Art follows certain general patterns which reveal themselves in each socio-economic formation.  The epistemological significance or art lies in the true artistic reflection of reality.   This is what distinguishes art from all forms, all progressives occur independently of how people evaluate them.  Every new historical epoch reveals new and wider horizons for artistic development.  The category of the beautiful reflects the subjective which finds expression in the nature of perception of the essentials.  In this sense the beautiful is described as a value.  Beauty is no longer an absolute property of an object.  Beauty manifests itself only in its relation to Man's expedient activities.  A beautiful thing is one that has a use.  It is perceived not by the senses but by the mind.  Beauty is a matter of size and order and is manifested in the sensual world as unity, proportionality, and the compatibility of parts accompanied by a certain pleasure ability of color.

Representatives of the arts and aesthetics of the Renaissance, on the whole gave a materialist interpretation of the category of the beautiful.  Alberti saw the objective foundation of the beautiful in the harmony of parts.  In the aesthetics of classicism there is a departure from the materialist of the Renaissance, but for Plato beauty is divided into three types: dead forms such as statues, buildings and the human body; forms creating forms.  However absolute beauty is based on the regular organization of systems their orderliness, measure and conformity to the law of multi-formity and uniformity.  Edmund Burke, rejected concepts which reduced beauty to proportionality, usefulness and perfection.  In his view, an object to be beautiful had first to be comparatively small, to be smooth, to have a variety in the direction of the parts, to have those parts not angular, but melted into each other, and to have its colors clear and bright.

Immanuel Kant, was interested not in objective properties of beauty but in subjective condition of its perception and the nature of aesthetical judgments.  Kant divorced the beautiful from truth, goodness and usefulness.  Hegel defined the beautiful as the sensuous expression of an idea.  In nature the idea of beauty is revealed in regularity, symmetry, law-governed character, harmony, purity of material, color and sound.  Hegel described art as the embodiment of the ideal.  Thus proportionality, perfection, orderliness, and harmony constitute the objective material basis of the beautiful.  Therefore, the presence of objective foundation and laws of beauty should not be confused with their perception, evaluation and utilization by man in his activities.   The objective basis of beauty are rooted in the very foundation of the real world; whereas others focused their attentions on the study of the beautiful as a conscious process based on rational knowledge and generalization of concrete experience based on the category of imitation with a free representation of reality in relation to both moral and natural laws with freedom in a broad and varied sense, with understanding of the purposes and functions of art to determine the content of the beautiful at the same time dynamically with regard to the category of proportion in the sphere of  morals which forms the basis for a new interpretation of culture as the substantial expression and measurement of man and the humane as a whole, using them to create a firm foundation for the new culture with its vividly expressed humanist content and values, and also to elaborate new principles for a new world outlook and the intention of the soul, against the supporters of the platonic and Neo platonic idealist traditions and against medieval obscurantism.  In fact all visible things were born of nature and these things were the source of the sciences and arts as a universal means for the expression of reason and human thought that has given meaning to architecture and perspective that pleased the eyes and free the soul from its bodily prison, and be united with nature with the world for understanding the truth and mysteries of the world, its forms and beauty of the countless creations of nature.  Human feelings are windows of the soul, windows of the intellect to influence the social mentality to rebuild the spiritual structure of man a fresh and thereby recreate him through a scientific understanding of the laws and mysteries of the universe to enrich this spiritual structure with the infinite wealth and variety of natural forms that express its substantial forces.

We are faced with the problem of restructuring the manmade environment in which we live, which would not only contribute to the development of science technology and art, but world also, prevent a one sided incomplete development of the individual.

Architecture design is a new area of activity and has a past history of its own originated time in the period in which technology and art became divided and industry grew at a tremendous rate.  In the 20th. Century this division was completed, as a result only works of art could lay claim to artistic value, while the end products of industrial manufacture were considered on their technical merits alone, because the spheres of activity separated and each had worked outs its own particular ideals, canons and norms, since beauty had become abstracted from objects, it became possible to assess them according to a concept of beauty, and the more technology and art became divided, the more people became acutely and clearly conscious that there was a divergence between aesthetic ideals and the actual organization of the manmade environment.  Towards the beginning of the 20th. Century social thought which not only contained strong criticism of the existing state of affairs but also put forward the  first preliminary outlines of practical projects intended to improve the manmade environment.  Functionalism came into being and formulated its demands, and from it originated the ideology and theoretical conception of the Bauhaus which was in essence industrial art, thus the development of architectural design led to the cooperation between the engineer and the architect, and the scientist.  This affected a change in existing methods of designing and manufacturing. The question of the value of things and the essential demands placed on them came to be seen in a new light.  Two groups of demands came to be associated with manufactured goods; the first, the technological demands, were introduced by the engineer, the second, the consumer demands, were introduced by the architect.  Manufactured goods were no longer looked upon simply as tools or objects of production, but also as elements in the physical environment and as such they had to satisfy man's material and cultural demands, and must be both utilitarian and beautiful.  This boosted the development of the design everywhere.  This has disorganized our manmade environment.  Environment as such has no life of its own.  Therefore we must begin with restructuring industrial production; otherwise the present uncoordinated system of manufacturing may produce results that run counter to our ideals.  This demand supervision and control of the development of the manmade environment. This will embrace the means and objectives of science, technology and art.  This will open up unlimited possibilities for the development of science, technology and art, in drawing up its new designs its creators will function simultaneously as engineers, artists, and scientists.   This will provide the physical environment for life, labor and leisure.

Architecture, does not directly mirror the world of human relations and needs but does not directly mirror the world of human relations and needs but does so in extremely stylized volumes and spaces, changes nothing in principle, since the spiritual reflection of peoples' mode of life is given expression in symbolic objectively sensory artistic imagery.   Despite the importance of semiotic and information approaches to the study of art, it is impossible not to see that their advocates frequently replace the image with the symbol sign.  The sign is characterized by a dissimilarity with it, denotation.  In creativity the architect focuses on the aesthetic level of consciousness arranging the work's individual parts and the whole according to social and aesthetic experience of the artistic conception.  A work of art begins its existence where the images in the o consciousness are objectivized. Emotions however comes as a result of their connection with thought and provide general ideas about things, they reflect their qualities in their meaning they reflect, because emotions have an innate tendency to merge with the object, a quality expressed in consciousness by singling out and analyses source, the cause of emotions and motivations and orientates the development of feelings.  The significance of aesthetic satisfaction is highly important as an evaluated factor in the creative process and perception of art.  Art requires this kind of criterion because the phenomena it reflects are assimilated aesthetically in life's forms.  This conditions the specifically artistic way of surmounting the opposition between the subjective and objective in the unity of the rational and emotional not only on the personal level but on the social level as well.

The work of art is transformed into an objective form of existence, through the artistic activity embodied in the material of the work.

Today the need is to use the achievement of science and technology for the development of architecture.  One important problem is establishing closer ties between science and art in accordance with the laws of beauty.  In reality there is a radically different correlation between scientific and artistic thought.  For science as art reflects and perceives the world creatively relying on the creative capacities of human mind.  In fact the influence of culture on the development of architectural thought is an important factor concerning what the growth of architecture thought is based upon. The reason for the progress of architecture thought is in the influence of external factors, including aesthetic ones in accordance with its own natural laws inherent in the evolution of scientific knowledge and of the shift in the gravitational center of the architect's activity from executive functions to creative ones.   History of architecture has shown that it is precisely in art that free creative individuality took shape and for this reason art came forth as that form of activity and cognition which stimulated the creative potentials of the architect who devoted himself to it.

It is possible to say architecture bears the imprint of the architect's individuality.  However it should be emphasized that in this case we have in mind the utilization of art by science and technology.   Scientific and technological progress should be viewed in regards to art as well.  Scientific and technological progress offers art new possibilities.

The scientific and the technological revolution has influenced the formation of present day culture and the rapid technology which have led to a serious reevaluation of past cultural, and aesthetic values which were an outgrowth of the technological culture in technology and art and especially in mass communication which have become the main source of enjoyment, and this has lead art to try to find new forms, new content and new aspects of its existence in society.

This lead to the lowering of man's active perception and lessens his ability to think for himself and to perceive art creatively with the help of scientific and empirical method of research, as certain some of the elementary artistic structures which has affected broad section of the population.  This has led to a change in man's perception, a movement toward basic forms of artistic culture, resulting in the lowering of art's spiritual content and a tendency to use the latest technological achievements and to create new artistic languages, based on a synthesis of the representational and expressive means of traditional art, as an effort to break the boundaries between art and non-art.

Present day artistic culture shows that in environments organized on functional and aesthetic principles, a person's vitality increases and he needs less time to feel fully rested and is spiritually and emotionally enriched.

In fact it is by organizing an aesthetic environment by means of different art forms leads to the disappearance of the boundaries between traditional forms of arts, their features of decorativeness are strengthened, thus creating an aesthetically pleasing environment for man involves forms and methods from all fields of both traditional and contemporary art, and also many achievements of science and technology.

Cognitive activity is part of artistic creativity is determined by the specifity of the historic development of art, and the development of the cognitive function of art depends on the historically conditioned status of art as a relatively independent form.

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture and the Formation of Spatial and Visual Impressions

Abstract

The subjective sensation of visual space is primarily a function of brightness pattern organization. The eye is involuntarily drawn to bright objects that contrast with the background. This can be effective to direct attention to detail. This assists the occupant in maintaining a sense of direction and be able to participate in an activity with a minimum of visual interference from the environment. The brightness contrast is basic in visual communication. Excessive contrast can disrupt the ability of the eye to perceive fine detail. Visual acuity is also impaired by glare and may affect the ability to orient oneself and the sense of warmth or coolness associated with the visual space. Visual field should be simplified by minimizing irrelevant cues. The designer must be concerned with the effect of light in defining the space, the structural enclosure without introducing irrelevant patterns or visual confusion.

Keywords: visual acuity, visual comfort, visual form, visual performance, spatial vitality 

Introduction

Simple geometric forms are generally more enduring than contrived forms. In architecture history, the large stained-glass windows of the Gothic period are the most obvious examples of an approach to natural lighting design. In contemporary architecture, trans-illuminated ceiling and walls are a similar dominant influence. These individual units become architectural forms and building surfaces as well as lighting elements. This helps to visually define a space and are important in the general spatial organization of the place. The subjective sensation of visual space is primarily a function of brightness pattern organization. This involves fixed focal centers on the part of the occupant. The eye is involuntarily drawn to bright objects that contrast with the background. This can be effective to direct the attention to predetermined detail.

Warm light sources like the sun tend to create a dominant impression of usual warmth. On the other hand, cool light sources, like skylight and fluorescent lamps emphasize the colors that tend to create a cool visual atmosphere, from hues of blue purple through blue and blue green to yellow-green. If the level of light is too high, surface colors will seem unnatural and if it is too low, the space will appear cold or dim. Warmer light is more acceptable when the brightness level is low. However, if a space is lighted to a uniform intensity, this would be unpleasant when experienced over an extended period of time.

Visual Acuity

Maximum acuity occurs for detail that is located in the direct line of sight. Acuity diminishes as the detail is moved to the periphery, and at about 15 degrees from the direct line of sight, acuity is 15 percent of maximum. Vision involves a narrow area of sharp central vision. Within this context, background brightness patterns tend to become initially significant because they affect the general sense of spatial orientation. To develop this further, background brightness patterns are important because fovea vision is guided by information gained through peripheral vision. Potentially significant visual patterns are initially identified and located by scanning and assimilating the total visual field. Then central fovea vision is focused on the relevant detail that has been identified in the periphery. Using fovea vision is the means through which one derives most of the information necessary for specific orientation to identify any new information cues in the environment. 

The designer must then be concerned with the effect of light in defining the space, the structural enclosure without introducing irrelevant patterns or visual confusion. Detailed central task vision which requires the designer to be concerned with the effect of light in defining significant information centers and in assisting the accurate communication of visual detail required for normal activities. These visual conditions should provide for the occupants’ needs to judge distances and recognize relevant objects. This should reflect the need to protect the occupant from meaningless visual cues that may confuse his sense of orientation.

Brightness Pattern and Contrast

The subjective sensation of visual space is primarily a function of brightness pattern organization. This involves fixed focal centers on the part of the occupant. The eye is involuntarily drawn to bright objects that contrast with the background. This can be effective to direct the attention to predetermined detail. This assists the occupant in maintaining a sense of direction and be able to participate in the activity with a minimum of visual interference from the environment. Visual field should be simplified by minimizing irrelevant cues.

Furthermore, at the low end of the general brightness scale, a slight increase in general intensity will produce a vast improvement in the individual’s ability to discriminate detail and color. As brightness increases, the rate of improvement diminishes, and the environment approaches a condition of maximum acuity regarding the spatial background. As a result, high intensities will contribute to a sense of increased activity and efficiency. If the level is too high, surface colors will seem unnatural and if it is too low, the space will appear dim.

While brightness contrast is basic in visual communication, excessive contrast can disrupt the ability of the eye to perceive detail. The after dark effect of approaching bright light reveal the nature of disability glare. This is glare of sufficient intensity to impair visual acuity and the ability to orient oneself and affect the sense of warmth or coolness associated with the visual space. Physical disability results due to unequal excitation of the retina. Glare can be corrected by reducing the source luminance by the use of baffles or diffusers to reduce luminaire brightness or by reducing the reflectance of excessive bright surfaces.

Brightness produced by diffuse reflections depends on the intensity of illumination on the surface. Glossy surfaces should be avoided in immediate vicinity of a significant spatial task. Glass covered or highly polished desktops have a very high speculator component and reflected images of overhead luminaries can become extremely distracting glare sources. Reflected images can disrupt the visual integrity of a polished wall surface.

When reducing the adverse influence of veiling reflections, the visual work surface may be tilted, but this technique involves a layout analysis that treats the work surface as a mirror and all light sources must be located outside of the reflected field of view. Perception of vertical surfaces are also affected by veiling reflections and images in this case low gloss or matte finishes are desirable where the visual integrity is to be preserved. When glossy surfaces cannot be avoided, the surface must again be analyzed as a mirror and very bright elements should be shielded or removed from the reflected field of view.

Brightness Control and Task Lighting

It should be noted that large area luminous elements require particular attention to the problem of brightness control because these elements consume a relatively large portion of the normal visual field and must therefore function within more restrictive brightness tolerances. The subjective impression of visual comfort also depends on the brightness relationship between task surfaces and their surroundings. Facing a window with view of a bright overcast sky can make reading a book extremely difficult because of the effects of background glare. Equally difficult is reading a brightly illuminated book when the surroundings are in darkness. Brightness relationships within the normal field of view should be controlled to allow the eye to adapt to an overall environmental brightness near the brightness of the task itself. In this case, the shock effect of bright environmental contrast as well as the strain of continual re-adaptation can be minimized.

In areas designed for prolonged work one would have to light the ceiling and walls to avoid uncomfortable working conditions produced by excessive contrast. It is generally appropriate that spatial brightness average must be no less than 0.1 and no more than 10 times the average brightness of the task. If glare is an undesirable element in the environment, then the difference between glare and sparkle is an important design consideration. If large areas of brightness are distracting to the viewer, relatively small areas of higher intensity may be the points of sparkle and highlight that contribute visual interest and spatial vitality. However, the suitability of the lighting on the task area itself will depend on its quality in assisting communication of precise visual detail. It must be noted that brightness in the peripheral areas surrounding a specific localized task has an important effect on the ability to distinguish fine task detail knowing that optimum acuity is achieved when the general brightness difference between the central task and the immediate background is from 1:1 to. 4:1, with the task area being brighter than the background. An increase in this ratio produce a reduction in acuity by 20% while high contrast focal centers can make an important contribution in the experience of space! However dark work surfaces seen against bright spatial backgrounds should be avoided when precise perception of detail is required for effective visual performance. For detail to be clearly definable against a background then there must be contrast between the two noting that acuity improves as contrast increases. The eye also perceives detail and form through color contrast.

Colored Surfaces and Shadows

Colored surfaces reflect color when the light source emits those wavelengths which the object is able to reflect. A deficient mixture will alter perception and cause the impression that specific colors are deficient or completely lacking. For instance, a green object under a red light source appears black or dark grey because the surface absorbs all colors except green, and no green is present in the red light to be reflected. In the same way, any spectral deficiencies that are inherent in the prevailing light source will cause some surface colors to be greyed. This action tends to affect contrast adversely and therefore reduces acuity. As a result, the selected light source should generally produce energy in the sole regions of the spectrum that are meaningful in the task. This suggests that visual form involves more than the physical form itself, but physical form modified by light. 

Shadow may also become an element of distraction in the immediate task center altering visual form. Shadows produced by concentrating lighting conditions may become extremely disconcerting when shadows impede communication of visual information necessary for adequate safety. The excessive concentration and constant re-adaptation required of a person in these situations can, over a period of sustained work, result in visual fatigue, accidents and errors. Thus, carefully placed brightness accents and shadow areas are useful for visual relief and interest in the interior environment. However, a diffuse condition is desirable at the task center. In cases that involve perception and judgement of objects and forms, variation in light will affect the observer’s unconscious judgment of what he is seeing. Judgement is based on perception of the physical form as modified by light. Generally, visual acuity increases with brightness. There is a particularly high rate of improvement when low initial intensities are involved. This generally reflects the increasing influence of cone vision over rod-dominated vision as brightness intensities increase from minimum conditions. Once the cones begin to approach full stimulation then acuity continues to improve as brightness increases but at a slower rate of change.

Visual Performance

Clutter in the visual field is like noise in a sonic evaluation. Visual performance decreases in proportion to the increase in random visual cues, which reflects an increase in search time. Thus, the visual field should be developed to simplify the process of orientation and spatial definition. Visual tasks appear to be less consistent in poorly organized visual spaces. When the activity involves circulation, the layout of the course of light can reinforce the sense of direction and spatial perspective. The lighting should define major surfaces which should be perceived as an integrated form, not as a form or surface intersected by patterns of light. Higher direct intensities increase the intensity of inter-reflections and tend to reduce shadow and silhouette.

As brightness intensities give a sense of increased activity and efficiency while lower general intensities reinforce an attitude of slower-paced activity. Changes in the color tone of light influence the subconscious judgement of the general environment; subtle shifts in the perception of surface tones and colors that we associate with the visual space. Warmer light is more acceptable when the brightness level is low. If the level of light is too high, surface colors will seem faded and unnatural. If it is too low, the space will appear dim or cold. This can be corrected by reducing the source luminance by the use of louvers, by source relocation outside of the normal field of view or by reducing the reflectance of excessively bright surfaces. When highly precise visual performance is required, spatial brightness differences exceeding 10:1 should be kept well outside of the more central 40-degree visual cone. A relatively moderate 20:1 will produce a reduction in acuity of 20%. 

Conclusion

Visual form is physical form modified by light. The character and quality of the light must be evaluated for its effect and visual recognition. Time for perception may be prolonged if the lighting is not typical or does not prove to be the expected or learned perception. Communication of the meaning of what we see is based on perception. Judgement is based on aesthetics which are based on aesthetic theory or on previous experience. However, aesthetic judgement may be based on unnatural perception including a sense of uncertainty, mystery, while most situations favor the development of more natural environmental situations. However, variations in light color of a certain direction will affect the observer’s unconscious judgement of what he is seeing. The eye also perceives detail and form through color contrast which involves both brightness and color. When broad beam or multidirectional devices are involved, a light source may also attract attention to itself and become a dominant factor in the design.

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture Sequences and Originality

Abstract

Time and motion are inseparable from the perception of architecture. Time and distance in architecture are functions of one another. With the passage from outdoor to indoors, one’s whole relation with the environment changes radically. The first effect upon an observer when entering a building is an abrupt shift in sense of scale.  Interest in exactly the same manner as scale impression depends upon sequence.  Interest, like energy, needs to be revived and renewed by constantly changing doses of stimulant. If the sequence of interest has been properly planned, it is unmistakable. It calls for visual imagination and ingenuity to create ever newer, fresher and an original atmosphere.

Keywords: rhythm, scale, interest, climax, receptivity, inspiration

Introduction

Time and motion are inseparable from the perception of architecture, which is the basis for my strong disagreement with Goethe's slogan on architecture as a "frozen music expression".  You first see a building as you approach it, from a greater or lesser distance.   It maybe that your eyes perceive its silhouette before anything else, or its mass.  Then as you move closer, you become aware of its most important elements, its dominant part perhaps, and its secondary ones.  This moving closer takes time, time during which your initial impression of mass or silhouette becomes part of your background knowledge, experience mood thus preparing you for the closer view. Such preparation is the essence of sequence, this sequence when used in connection with architecture means the experiences to which an observer is subjected as he moves towards, into and through a building, and such motion involves time. The mass and silhouette will have to tell the story that express the basic concept upon which the whole architecture design is founded especially when details are not distinguishable in the first view of the building from some distance. You will not be able to depend upon Façade treatment for that. 

People who are not going to use a building have quite a different attitude than people who are going to use a building. For such people the first view is the beginning and the end of the sequence. Consequently, it must be a complete experience in itself of a lesser but still satisfying nature. Their attention, both emotional and intellectual, is much less involved and their expectations are met, proportionally more easily. Perhaps this is why Frank Lloyd Wright has spoken of the tall modern building as being impersonal.  However, when visitors get nearer to the building and become aware of its elements, and its colonnade, its windows, its entrance, they have to depend on the scale treatment and the rhythm of the delineation.  If the designer estimates this point wrongly much of the design will not work. It will reach the eye of the observer too soon while still too far away, or too late, when such a visitor is already too close.  Time and distance in architecture are functions of one another.  The designer must also determine, with considerable accuracy, the moment when visitors want to know where the entrance is. There is nothing so quickly destructive of response to architecture as lack of clarity on this point.  If your client feels any doubt as to where to go in order to get into your building, you have lost the game of sequence, and you have committed an unforgivable sin for leaving out all questions of architectural technic and irritated your client.  Let me reassure you. All you need to do is put yourself in the place of the observer, approaching the building.  Up to point x your way is clear. From there on, you have something to guide you.  How far from the building is point x?  What do you want to see that will make your path unmistakable?  Is point x so far away that the main entrance must be distinguished from the minor and service entrances by columns?  Ornament? A pediment?  By a deep recess?  Steps?  Color? Texture? etc.  In any case, the expression you select will be based upon your estimate of the distance at which your observer will be ready to see it. 

Transition Inside

Very well you have survived this hazard and brought your visitor to the entrance.  Now he enters. An instant ago he was outdoors, now he is indoors.  With the passage from outdoor to indoors, one’s whole relation with the environment has changed radically and with it, as was developed in the treatment of scale. A moment ago one was in limitless space, looking at an enclosed volume preparing to penetrate.  Of course, the visitor was not feeling it on a conscious level but had a sense of free personal choices which served to condition responses to the building.  Now the visitor is inside it. The space around is no longer limitless; it is defined by walls, ceiling, and floor. Outside is the great world from which one feels, now, sheltered.  Or perhaps one feels trapped.  In either case, there is no denying that one’s physical situation, and with it a state of receptivity has undergone a radical change.  If you accept that the observer's response to architecture is determined by this receptivity, you cannot evade an examination of the state of receptivity which you yourself are imposing.

Scale

The first effect upon an observer when entering a building is an abrupt shift in sense of scale. A volume seems smaller when seen directly after the limitless outdoors when coming from another, preferably still smaller volume. Thus, if you are planning an impressive assembly hall or waiting room, you had better not let people see it as soon as they enter the building.  What you do is to provide a transitional volume a vestibule or minor lobby through which your main room may be glimpsed, perhaps, but definitely not left in its actual size.  Here the element of time appears again.  This minor lobby must take long enough to get through to allow your observer to forget the scale of sky and street and to adjust his eye to the scale of your interior.  In other words, your transitional volume cannot be too small.  For the observer looks ahead to where he sees, or glimpses, things of interest and ignores the dull space through which he is passing.  He may often not even be aware of its existence.  But if that space is increased, so that space is increased, so that it takes him longer to reach the area of interest, there comes a certain point at which he becomes annoyed and frustrated. The dull section then seems larger than it is, very much larger especially if your customer happens to be an irritable type. 

In relating your transition volume to your main volume, therefore, you are not dealing with a simple question of proportion.  You are dealing with sequence, with what came next and how long each event took, which is not merely distance, nor even measured time, but how long each element seems to have taken, which is a factor of interest.  A small space will seem longer if the eye is induced to dwell upon its elements. Alternatively, a larger volume can be too interesting, as an exposition hall with many exhibits. The eye becomes weary of being attracted so often, there is too much to see; the place seems crowded which is another way of saying that it seems too small for what it holds.

Interest

Interest in exactly the same manner as scale impression, depends upon sequence.  Just as a volume may seem larger or smaller as a result of the volume that preceded it, so factors designed to intrigue the eye will have more or less interest according to what the eye has just finished seeing. Hence the principle is simple.  Interest, like energy, needs to be revived and renewed by constantly increasing doses of stimulant.  While these doses, the points of interest in your building, may be alternated for effect with transitional periods of relative dullness, the overall plan must be of rising interest.  Each dose is stronger than the last.  In other word your sequence will be progressive.  And since your building is not without limits, the progression will be finite, there will be a stop point, beyond which there will be higher ones.  This top point, this peak of sequence, is called the climax.  Climax occurs in every art form you can think of music, dance, literature, drama and sculpture. In painting it is usually called the center of interest; it is the element to which everything else leads to the main thing, the big moment.

If a building has a proper sequence for climax, it calls for visual imagination and ingenuity to create ever newer, fresher and bold atmosphere. If the sequence has been properly planned, it is unmistakable. Sequence then, besides being a progression of elements of mounting interest, is also a preparation for the climax.  A design will be a total failure if the preparation is inadequate for the climax or if the climax does not measure up to the preparation.

Conclusion

Architecture is the most difficult of the arts in which to achieve sequence. If the architect has nothing to say, has no point of view and no vocabulary then it has no value. The architect to be original must find within oneself an idea for a novel or different expression. It is a glow, a rich awareness of fulfillment, a thrill of the creative experience a thrill which is called inspiration.  Creativity is the essence of life process itself.  Originality is faith and fulfillment; it is belief and birth when we see it, we too believe we are born again.

A good architecture is when we make new architecture without destruction of our heritage and culture, when we respect our past and be proud of it, and then we can make even the most imaginative buildings even without making our older respectable buildings suffer or hurt.  It is our role as architects to preserve what is good and to add what is better, innovate and seek what is new, it’s a cycle of life.  We should be inventors not tailors, to observe study, analyze and invent.  All approaches to architecture are affected by technology used for its imagination, visualization and realization.

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture as Appearance

Abstract

What makes a building interesting to look at and makes us continue to find it interesting purely through the balance of its lines and masses, through its shapes abstracted from any meaning, is the problematic of architectural composition and education., People judge architecture by its external appearance but when an architect judges a building its appearance is only one factor of interest. The architect works with form and mass as elements of functional art that solves practical problems and also appears beautiful as well as emotionally appealing.

Keywords: visual effect, rhythm, appeal, massiveness, lightness, organization

Introduction

Architecture might well be called an art of organization, and the architect is forced to seek a form having rhythm and attributes to the organization, which is the underlying idea of the art. People judge architecture by its external appearance but when an architect judges a building its appearance is only one factor of interest, for architecture is not produced by adding floor plans and sections to elevations. The architect works with form and mass because these are functional art. It solves practical problems. It creates tools or implements for human beings.  A building should be ahead of its time so that it keeps with the times. The architect too works with human beings who use or dwell in the spaces of a building. If they cannot thrive in the designed structure its apparent beauty will be of no avail. Good architecture means being utilized as the architect had planned. Nowadays purely through the balance of lines and masses, and through shapes abstracted from the essential qualities of character and structure is what makes a building a work of architecture, independent of the idea a building communicates and regardless of the story it tells. What makes the building interesting to look at and makes us continue to find it interesting, this is the problem of composition, and education. Therefore, if an architect wants his building to be a real experience, he must employ forms, and combinations of forms, which will not let the spectator off so easily but force him to active observation. It is a question of creating visual effects. These are all elements of architecture, and to experience architecture, one must be aware of such elements.

Boldness of Greek and Roman Architecture

The Greeks said that it makes the soul happy to work with clear mathematical ratios and therefore the tones produced by strings of simple proportions affect the ears with delight. They also found that there was some relation between simple mathematical proportions in the visual world and consonance in the audible. The triumphal arches of ancient Rome are composed of familiar elements, a vaulted archway in a framework of columns and niches. The most striking thing about this piece of architecture is the lack of ornament; it has only bold clear-cut moldings which outlines the dark shadows they cast. The appearance of buildings of the past must be complex enough to be seen often and detailed enough to be looked at from considerable distance. Its purpose is to seize the attention.  Such a building must be large, and clear in construction, bringing out a new aspect of man and nature.

Pure and Simple Style of the Renaissance 

The extraordinary transition from Gothic love of construction to Renaissance cultivation of cavities can still be experienced. It is difficult to decide what it is that gives the building its novel character. The most striking thing of Renaissance architecture is that it is without ornaments, it has only bold clear-cut shapes which outline the main forms and emphasize important lines by the dark shadows they cast.  The whole thing is done with power and imagination that the observer feels he is confronted by a great building though in reality it is only a large relief, an embellishment of the walls surrounding the building, which outline the main forms and is emphasized by the dark shadow they cast. The rhythmic alteration of striking concave and convex forms produces an effect of order and harmony. This was how the elements of classical architecture appeared to the people of the Renaissance as still today, were undoubtedly even more impressive than they have been in their original form, and all small details have disappeared. The Renaissance architectural theorists succeeded in transferring this aspect of sublimity and grandeur to the illustrations in their books on architecture, in which simple woodcuts gave the main structure alone, without any petty details. After the efforts of the Renaissance to create a pure and simple style, there followed a period in which architects threw themselves into an orgy of mannered experimentation. It came naturally that the architects worked exclusively with the same forms instead of studying the life around them. There is not the same demand today for grandeur and richness in architecture that there was during the counter–reformation.

Massiveness of the Late Renaissance

Very distant buildings seem flat, and no impression of depth. Instead of a richly sculptured block a building is transformed into figured color planes, but the late Renaissance buildings depended on massiveness and dramatic shadows, with the only impression they give is of planes. During the late Renaissance a building which appeared light was not considered real architecture. A house should be solid and look solid; otherwise it was not a house. Form can give an impression of heaviness or lightness. A smooth wall seems light. We intuitively feel that granite walls are heavier than brick ones without having any idea of their respective weights. There are monumental structures of the greatest simplicity which produce only a single effect, such as hardness or softness.  During the following decades several attempts, were made to produce lighter architecture. 

Light and Shadow for Impressionists

Academic meaning attached to an academy carried with it all the honorable associations connected with Plato, which are still taught at the academy des Beaux Arts in Paris, but the Impressionists threw overboard the whole body of academic tradition.  Cézanne used outline, solid forms, and arbitrarily imposed compositions; Van Gogh followed the forms. For the Impressionist the world is the world of eye sensations and considered the primary reality to be the objects' solid form which intercepts the light and casts a shadow: For impressionists a light cannot exist without a shadow.  The presence of the one implies the other.  What an impressionist is designing is not form but light, and one light cannot exist without another. The presence of a light does not imply a shadow. It implies the presence of another different light, lights of different strengths and colors, but nonetheless lights; even a tone of deepest shadow, stands for a colored light. It is to the Impressionists and their practices that we owe our present-day aesthetic of the equalized surface tension of continuous surfaces without accent, and upon which is based all the good building design of our time. We have taken it over for our own uses. It was the Impressionist revolution of 1870 and the Cubist revolution of 1910, which was responsible for modern architecture; and also, the inventions of our time.

Natural Light in Modern Architecture

Natural light is of decisive importance in experiencing architecture.  The same building gives different spatial impressions according to the apparent movement of the Sun so that one side receives more light while the others lie in shadow. Most people like much light while very often this does not help because the quality of light is nearly as important as its quantity. When light falls, for example, on a glass plane at almost a right angle, there will be a minimum of shadow and therefore a plastic effect. Le Corbusier has created a church interior in Ronchamps which has the emotional appeal that is based on the shadowed dimness of indirect lighting, in which form is only vaguely revealed. From a distance, the white walls and tower of the church can be seen dominating the highest summit of a mountain landscape, where the landscape seems to continue in the design of the church. As one comes nearer, one discovers that there is not one plane surface, but the entire building curves and swells into an extraordinary well integrated composition. Mies van der Rohe's architecture is cold and crisp. The light reflecting materials simply multiply the geometrical forms. When Le Corbusier designed his houses in the 1920s there were many people who could see nothing in them. They saw that something had been built but were not able to perceive it as an articulated form. Le Corbusier’s house designs were a machine to live in.

Frank Lloyd Wright has created his fantasy over cavity, rock architecture and sculpture. It is not built in a city environment but in a mountain valley in the country of Pennsylvania. Horizontal lines of the house contrast with the vertical trunks and leafy verdure of the trees. Called Falling Water, the building appears as a composition of large concrete slabs cantilevered out over a waterfall, high up against the sky. One can find it an intimate and friendly dwelling, an organic part of its environment of valley slopes and natural scenery; part of Nature's composition of horizontal elements and massive rocks in the green hollow of the valley. This house brings architecture into harmony with nature by means of overhanging eaves that cast long horizontal shadows.

Phillip Johnson built a house in Connecticut with glass walls on all four sides. It is hard to imagine that an indoor feeling can be created in such a transparent glass box.  Also, the Japanese system of sliding walls has been transferred from a house of wood and paper to one of steel and glass. In the name of cubism, the illusion of weightless elements without volume is created, as if by magic Le Corbusier liked to set his buildings on pillars so that they seem to float on air to be entirely different from those heavy architecture. Mies van der Rohe also employed simple proportions, right angles and rectangular shapes composed of, plate glass, stainless steel, polished marble, screens of a conceivable weight and thickness with no distinct separation between exterior and interior. 

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Architecture and the Education of the Eye

Abstract

It is perilous to speak only of certain states of the eye by which composition is determined according to certain notions of pleasure. The eye always impinges on other spiritual spheres. A building is not a collection of surfaces, but an assemblage of parts, in which length, width, and depth agree with one another in a certain fashion, and constitute an entirely new solid that comprises an internal volume and an external mass. Light does not only illuminate the internal mass, but also collaborates with the architecture to give it its needed form. There is a mental component in architectural form operating against all haphazard irregularities. The speculative motion of light must attempt to embrace optical and spiritual realities and experiences dialectically.

Keywords: visual field, tectonic appeal, pattern, assemblage, artistic light, architectural form

Introduction

In a reductively visual sense, architecture is a process in which a given design is made into a visual image suitable for use in a pictorial form. The concept of pictorial form is applicable to the whole visual artifice such that concepts of repose, grandeur and prominence are essentially impressions to be made without relation to feelings and states of mind, but which are the results of a more complete cultivation and education of the eye.

However, the eye desires more, the desire for ever greater variety of content within the field of vision, because its powers of absorption have been significantly increased. At the same time designs have become simpler, targeted and prepared for the eye.  The possibility of movement is constantly sought out by increasing the amount of space, to give an impression of spaciousness inside the limited boundaries of an interior design, i.e. the seeking of beauty in solidity. Superfluous space is avoided when giving the impression of compactness and solidity. The expression of a specific emotion in relation to the temper of the new age is constantly towards ever-increasing richness of the visual image of the third dimension. The intention is to make the act of perception as easy as possible for the eye to obtain a strong and emphatic effect in which no single stone could be removed without upsetting the equilibrium of the whole.  

In this respect architects ceased to regard architectural backgrounds as arbitrary enrichments, to be added on - the principle of the more the better; but came to look for inevitability in the relationship between landscapes and buildings. There has been a feeling that the dignity of human beings could be increased by an architectural accompaniment, but the buildings got out of hand. From the moment when architecture cast off its immature and playful flexibility and became mature it took over reins for all the arts.  In fact, architecture had the last word.  Composition, light, and color no longer merely serve to define form, but have their own life. 

There are cases in which absolute clarity has been partly abandoned to enhance effect, but clarity as a great all-embracing mode of representation first entered the history of art at the moment when reality was beheld with an eye towards other effects and a different attitude to the world.  In their forms, nature is seen, and art manifests its contents. But it is dangerous to speak only of certain states of the eye by which composition is determined according to certain notions of pleasure.  In fact, the eye always impinges on other spiritual spheres.

Light

Light shines before everything with its own brilliance. The idea of light includes a great many phenomena which seem to us today to have little to do with light that as a physiological sense-datum.  For example, to hold ourselves to the realm of the created world is the postulation that light is a fundamental form of matter and as such is defined as the form of everything, in so far as it is, through its form, giving mobility.  Nevertheless, it can be shown that the speculative conception of light has always remained closely in contact with palpable light experience out of which it originally grew; among all objects of perception. There can be no doubt that the medieval metaphysics of light has taken its bearings from the sensuous experienced light. The Leaded Windows in cathedrals would have been considered simply as jewels of glass. 

The light material would have been assigned a high rank within visible light, but its true element, the artistic, would not have been signified.  But this light in so far as it is artistic light must be of its elemental quality. This essential light, apparent as it is in episodes pertaining to the legend of salvation markedly alien from the usual light of the material world, so that everyone yields to it.  The speculative motion of light must attempt to embrace optical and spiritual realities and experiences dialectically. In the artistic light-world both are one, in the literal sense light is something sensuous.  Darkness is the withdrawal of illuminating light, and illuminating light is the withdrawal of darkness.  Shadow is the diminution of light. Strong lighting is a means of emphasizing depth and solidity.  In the same way strong light on a rounded form stresses its solidity by the smooth transition from an intense highlight to a deep shadow. Only if the forms become complicated, and the lighting arbitrary, is the effect destroyed, and replaced by a dazzling surface vibration.

Light and the Three Dimensions of Space

The space occupied by ornament is not the space of life.  The art of architecture exerts itself in a true space, one in which we walk and in which the activity of our bodies occupies to utilize this space, and perhaps to shape it anew.  The three dimensions of space are not simply the locus of architecture. There are also the relationships which unite them in a building, relationships that are never casual, nor predetermined. The order of proportions comes into play in the treatment, conferring originality upon the form and modeling the space according to calculated proprieties.  A perusal of ground plan and of elevation gives but a very imperfect representation of these relationships.  A building is not a collection of surfaces, but an assemblage of parts, in which length, width, and depth agree with one another in a certain fashion, and constitute an entirely new solid that comprises an internal volume and an external mass.  A ground plan can tell us a great deal. It can familiarize us with the nature of the general program and permit a skilled eye to comprehend the chief structural solutions.  The notions of plan, of structure, and of mass are indissolubly united, and it is a dangerous thing to attempt to disjoin them.  Such certainly is the case when laying stress upon mass.  

Architectural masses are determined by relationship of the parts to each other, and of the parts to the whole. Light takes possession of it uniformly and instantaneously.  On the other hand a multiplicity of lights will compromise and weaken a wall; the complexity of ornamented forms will threaten its equilibrium, and look flimsy.  Light cannot rest upon these forms without being broken apart, and when subjected to such incessant alternations, the architecture wavers, fluctuates and loses all meaning.  The space that holds evenly on a continuous mass is as immobile as that mass itself.  But the space that penetrates the voids of the mass and is invaded by the profilation of its reliefs is mobile.  In some new cities the buildings’ mass is treated as a full solid, and the architects seek for what is called the mass envelope, but the profound originality of architecture as such resides in the interiors.

Light does not only illuminate the internal mass, but also collaborates with the architecture to give it its needed form.  Light is form since its rays, streaming forth at predetermined points, are compressed, attenuated or stretched in order to pick out the variously unified and accented members of the building, for the purpose either of tranquillizing it or giving it vivacity. A work of architecture conceived as an object within the universe, lighted as other objects are by the light of day or as a universe with it, has its own inner light, constructed according to certain rules. This difference of conception is connected with the difference between techniques but does not absolutely depend upon it.  Ornamental space is the most characteristic expression of the high middle age in the western world.  It is an illustration of a philosophy that renounces development in favor of involution that surrenders the concrete world for frivolities of fantasy.

Visual Field and Visible Pattern

However, architecture does not affect us by its form alone, but also its content.  The combination of form and content gives meaning to representative art and emotional value apart from the purely formal esthetic effect. The mere attempt to represent something is to communicate an idea, one that is effective.  An artistic concept maybe presented in the mind but becomes a work of art only when it is technically perfect. The artistic work begins after the technical problem has been mastered. Otherwise, the result cannot be a work of art. Evolution means the continuous change of thought and action, or historic continuity when it is conceived as meaning the universally valid continuous development of one cultural form out of a preceding type.

There is a mental component in all architectural form operating against all haphazard irregularities. Visible pattern is an attribute of the visual field rather than of the visual world.  The visual field imposes its patterns upon the un-patterned visual world which it portrays, and the appeal of its geometric form with the interested recognition of representational content.  But in architecture, the visual field is not a fixed constant, as in a painting, but a shifting and changeful appearance because it is only a visually projected surface appearance.  As we look abroad on the world seeking to understand the content of vision, we habitually convert every total visual field into an assembly of things, each of which is set apart by a characteristic shape within a defining shape, within a defining boundary. 

This is most pertinently exemplified in Greek architecture. The exterior colonnade of a Greek temple communicates visually an expression of gravitational balance and structural stability in terms of abstractly patronized elements. The distinctively individual pattern of shapes for the component elements intelligibly fitted one to another in a fixed sequence, combined to produce the overall design of the order.

The architects of the Renaissance were fully aware of this property when they added the classic orders as ornamental cover plate to every irrelevant construction which they chose.  But this restriction of the visible building to the flat pattern of its façade was prevented from weakening the essential architectural impression of sound rational support and material strength by compensating the loss in visible depth and density with a subtle linear articulation of structural profiles and surfaces. This visual communication of weight carried in balanced support is what is intended by the expression ‘tectonic appeal’. Yet, in Greek building the superimposed pattern structurally vitalized the total design.

Gothic and Renaissance Space

Gothic space is infinite as compared with the block-like spaces in Romanesque Architecture or the Renaissance space which is organized coherently into a system of geometry dependent upon proportions.  The treatment of space and time is involved as well with light, color, and atmospheric tone, qualities that differentiate the spatial conception of Gothic and Renaissance architecture. Renaissance vision is portrayed by spatial juxtaposition in representing events separated in time, and the lack of a uniform scale in rendering objects presented within the same pictorial unit. When we see the whole our perception is instantaneous.  The Gothic approach is the opposite, it proceeds from one item to the next, taking in the content of the painting as it moves along in tandem with the intellectual movement of the viewer.

Two different modes of conception oppose one another, Gothic and Renaissance.  In Gothic the representation is deeply complex. Space and time are not separated as categories and are not yet conceivable, they fuse into a unified inseparable texture of experience. Space and time in their spatial Renaissance form of perception and conceptualization are essentially alien to the Gothic imagination. In this inseparable fusion of space with time is grounded the phenomenon of Gothic movement. This conception of space as movement is not understood in the Renaissance sense. One would be making an error if one took a Gothic structure to be an optical pictorial impression.  One cannot separate the exterior from the interior of a Gothic cathedral.  

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Architecture and the Formation of Spatial and Visual Impressions

Architecture and the Formation of Spatial and Visual Impressions

Wagih F. Youssef

Abstract

The subjective sensation of visual space is primarily a function of brightness pattern organization. The eye is involuntarily drawn to bright objects that contrast with the background. This can be effective to direct attention to detail. This assists the occupant in maintaining a sense of direction and be able to participate in an activity with a minimum of visual interference from the environment. The brightness contrast is basic in visual communication. Excessive contrast can disrupt the ability of the eye to perceive fine detail. Visual acuity is also impaired by glare and may affect the ability to orient oneself and the sense of warmth or coolness associated with the visual space. Visual field should be simplified by minimizing irrelevant cues. The designer must be concerned with the effect of light in defining the space, the structural enclosure without introducing irrelevant patterns or visual confusion.

Keywords: visual acuity, visual comfort, visual form, visual performance, spatial vitality 

Introduction

Simple geometric forms are generally more enduring than contrived forms. In architecture history, the large stained-glass windows of the Gothic period are the most obvious examples of an approach to natural lighting design. In contemporary architecture, trans-illuminated ceiling and walls are a similar dominant influence. These individual units become architectural forms and building surfaces as well as lighting elements. This helps to visually define a space and are important in the general spatial organization of the place. The subjective sensation of visual space is primarily a function of brightness pattern organization. This involves fixed focal centers on the part of the occupant. The eye is involuntarily drawn to bright objects that contrast with the background. This can be effective to direct the attention to predetermined detail.

Warm light sources like the sun tend to create a dominant impression of usual warmth. On the other hand, cool light sources, like skylight and fluorescent lamps emphasize the colors that tend to create a cool visual atmosphere, from hues of blue purple through blue and blue green to yellow-green. If the level of light is too high, surface colors will seem unnatural and if it is too low, the space will appear cold or dim. Warmer light is more acceptable when the brightness level is low. However, if a space is lighted to a uniform intensity, this would be unpleasant when experienced over an extended period of time.

Visual Acuity

Maximum acuity occurs for detail that is located in the direct line of sight. Acuity diminishes as the detail is moved to the periphery, and at about 15 degrees from the direct line of sight, acuity is 15 percent of maximum. Vision involves a narrow area of sharp central vision. Within this context, background brightness patterns tend to become initially significant because they affect the general sense of spatial orientation. To develop this further, background brightness patterns are important because fovea vision is guided by information gained through peripheral vision. Potentially significant visual patterns are initially identified and located by scanning and assimilating the total visual field. Then central fovea vision is focused on the relevant detail that has been identified in the periphery. Using fovea vision is the means through which one derives most of the information necessary for specific orientation to identify any new information cues in the environment. 

The designer must then be concerned with the effect of light in defining the space, the structural enclosure without introducing irrelevant patterns or visual confusion. Detailed central task vision which requires the designer to be concerned with the effect of light in defining significant information centers and in assisting the accurate communication of visual detail required for normal activities. These visual conditions should provide for the occupants’ needs to judge distances and recognize relevant objects. This should reflect the need to protect the occupant from meaningless visual cues that may confuse his sense of orientation.

Brightness Pattern and Contrast

The subjective sensation of visual space is primarily a function of brightness pattern organization. This involves fixed focal centers on the part of the occupant. The eye is involuntarily drawn to bright objects that contrast with the background. This can be effective to direct the attention to predetermined detail. This assists the occupant in maintaining a sense of direction and be able to participate in the activity with a minimum of visual interference from the environment. Visual field should be simplified by minimizing irrelevant cues.

Furthermore, at the low end of the general brightness scale, a slight increase in general intensity will produce a vast improvement in the individual’s ability to discriminate detail and color. As brightness increases, the rate of improvement diminishes, and the environment approaches a condition of maximum acuity regarding the spatial background. As a result, high intensities will contribute to a sense of increased activity and efficiency. If the level is too high, surface colors will seem unnatural and if it is too low, the space will appear dim.

While brightness contrast is basic in visual communication, excessive contrast can disrupt the ability of the eye to perceive detail. The after dark effect of approaching bright light reveal the nature of disability glare. This is glare of sufficient intensity to impair visual acuity and the ability to orient oneself and affect the sense of warmth or coolness associated with the visual space. Physical disability results due to unequal excitation of the retina. Glare can be corrected by reducing the source luminance by the use of baffles or diffusers to reduce luminaire brightness or by reducing the reflectance of excessive bright surfaces.

Brightness produced by diffuse reflections depends on the intensity of illumination on the surface. Glossy surfaces should be avoided in immediate vicinity of a significant spatial task. Glass covered or highly polished desktops have a very high speculator component and reflected images of overhead luminaries can become extremely distracting glare sources. Reflected images can disrupt the visual integrity of a polished wall surface.

When reducing the adverse influence of veiling reflections, the visual work surface may be tilted, but this technique involves a layout analysis that treats the work surface as a mirror and all light sources must be located outside of the reflected field of view. Perception of vertical surfaces are also affected by veiling reflections and images in this case low gloss or matte finishes are desirable where the visual integrity is to be preserved. When glossy surfaces cannot be avoided, the surface must again be analyzed as a mirror and very bright elements should be shielded or removed from the reflected field of view.

Brightness Control and Task Lighting

It should be noted that large area luminous elements require particular attention to the problem of brightness control because these elements consume a relatively large portion of the normal visual field and must therefore function within more restrictive brightness tolerances. The subjective impression of visual comfort also depends on the brightness relationship between task surfaces and their surroundings. Facing a window with view of a bright overcast sky can make reading a book extremely difficult because of the effects of background glare. Equally difficult is reading a brightly illuminated book when the surroundings are in darkness. Brightness relationships within the normal field of view should be controlled to allow the eye to adapt to an overall environmental brightness near the brightness of the task itself. In this case, the shock effect of bright environmental contrast as well as the strain of continual re-adaptation can be minimized.

In areas designed for prolonged work one would have to light the ceiling and walls to avoid uncomfortable working conditions produced by excessive contrast. It is generally appropriate that spatial brightness average must be no less than 0.1 and no more than 10 times the average brightness of the task. If glare is an undesirable element in the environment, then the difference between glare and sparkle is an important design consideration. If large areas of brightness are distracting to the viewer, relatively small areas of higher intensity may be the points of sparkle and highlight that contribute visual interest and spatial vitality. However, the suitability of the lighting on the task area itself will depend on its quality in assisting communication of precise visual detail. It must be noted that brightness in the peripheral areas surrounding a specific localized task has an important effect on the ability to distinguish fine task detail knowing that optimum acuity is achieved when the general brightness difference between the central task and the immediate background is from 1:1 to. 4:1, with the task area being brighter than the background. An increase in this ratio produce a reduction in acuity by 20% while high contrast focal centers can make an important contribution in the experience of space! However dark work surfaces seen against bright spatial backgrounds should be avoided when precise perception of detail is required for effective visual performance. For detail to be clearly definable against a background then there must be contrast between the two noting that acuity improves as contrast increases. The eye also perceives detail and form through color contrast.

Colored Surfaces and Shadows

Colored surfaces reflect color when the light source emits those wavelengths which the object is able to reflect. A deficient mixture will alter perception and cause the impression that specific colors are deficient or completely lacking. For instance, a green object under a red light source appears black or dark grey because the surface absorbs all colors except green, and no green is present in the red light to be reflected. In the same way, any spectral deficiencies that are inherent in the prevailing light source will cause some surface colors to be greyed. This action tends to affect contrast adversely and therefore reduces acuity. As a result, the selected light source should generally produce energy in the sole regions of the spectrum that are meaningful in the task. This suggests that visual form involves more than the physical form itself, but physical form modified by light. 

Shadow may also become an element of distraction in the immediate task center altering visual form. Shadows produced by concentrating lighting conditions may become extremely disconcerting when shadows impede communication of visual information necessary for adequate safety. The excessive concentration and constant re-adaptation required of a person in these situations can, over a period of sustained work, result in visual fatigue, accidents and errors. Thus, carefully placed brightness accents and shadow areas are useful for visual relief and interest in the interior environment. However, a diffuse condition is desirable at the task center. In cases that involve perception and judgement of objects and forms, variation in light will affect the observer’s unconscious judgment of what he is seeing. Judgement is based on perception of the physical form as modified by light. Generally, visual acuity increases with brightness. There is a particularly high rate of improvement when low initial intensities are involved. This generally reflects the increasing influence of cone vision over rod-dominated vision as brightness intensities increase from minimum conditions. Once the cones begin to approach full stimulation then acuity continues to improve as brightness increases but at a slower rate of change.

Visual Performance

Clutter in the visual field is like noise in a sonic evaluation. Visual performance decreases in proportion to the increase in random visual cues, which reflects an increase in search time. Thus, the visual field should be developed to simplify the process of orientation and spatial definition. Visual tasks appear to be less consistent in poorly organized visual spaces. When the activity involves circulation, the layout of the course of light can reinforce the sense of direction and spatial perspective. The lighting should define major surfaces which should be perceived as an integrated form, not as a form or surface intersected by patterns of light. Higher direct intensities increase the intensity of inter-reflections and tend to reduce shadow and silhouette.

As brightness intensities give a sense of increased activity and efficiency while lower general intensities reinforce an attitude of slower-paced activity. Changes in the color tone of light influence the subconscious judgement of the general environment; subtle shifts in the perception of surface tones and colors that we associate with the visual space. Warmer light is more acceptable when the brightness level is low. If the level of light is too high, surface colors will seem faded and unnatural. If it is too low, the space will appear dim or cold. This can be corrected by reducing the source luminance by the use of louvers, by source relocation outside of the normal field of view or by reducing the reflectance of excessively bright surfaces. When highly precise visual performance is required, spatial brightness differences exceeding 10:1 should be kept well outside of the more central 40-degree visual cone. A relatively moderate 20:1 will produce a reduction in acuity of 20%. 

Conclusion

Visual form is physical form modified by light. The character and quality of the light must be evaluated for its effect and visual recognition. Time for perception may be prolonged if the lighting is not typical or does not prove to be the expected or learned perception. Communication of the meaning of what we see is based on perception. Judgement is based on aesthetics which are based on aesthetic theory or on previous experience. However, aesthetic judgement may be based on unnatural perception including a sense of uncertainty, mystery, while most situations favor the development of more natural environmental situations. However, variations in light color of a certain direction will affect the observer’s unconscious judgement of what he is seeing. The eye also perceives detail and form through color contrast which involves both brightness and color. When broad beam or multidirectional devices are involved, a light source may also attract attention to itself and become a dominant factor in the design.

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Architecture Sequences and Originality

Architecture Sequences and Originality

By Dr. Wagih F. Youssef

Time and motion are inseparable from the perception of architecture, which is the basis for my strong disagreement with Goethe's slogan "frozen music expression".  You first see a building as you approach it, from a greater or lesser distance.   It maybe that your eyes perceive its silhouette before anything else, or its mass.  Then as you move closer, you become aware of its most important elements, its dominant part perhaps, and its secondary ones. 

This moving closer takes time, time during which your initial impression of mass or silhouette because part of your background knowledge, experience mood thus preparing you for the closer view.  Such preparation is the essence of sequence, this sequence when used in connection with architecture means the experiences to which an observer is subjected as he moves towards, into and through a building, and such motion involves time.  If the first view of the building from some distance, the details are not distinguishable, the mass and silhouette will have to tell the story that express the basic concept upon which the whole architecture design is founded.  You will not be able to depend upon Façade treatment for that.  Also the building if seen from such distance will undoubtedly be seen by many people who will not go to it at all because they merely have no business there.  For such people the first view is the beginning and the end of the sequence, consequently, it must be a complete experience in itself of a lesser but still satisfying nature.  In this connection you will do well to remember that people who are not going to a building have quite a different attitude towards it than people who are going to it.  Their attention, both emotional and intellectual, is much less involved and their expectations are met, proportionally more easily.  Perhaps this is why Frank Lloyd Wright has spoken of the tall building as being impersonal.  However the visitor when he gets nearer to the building and when he becomes aware of its elements, and its colonnade its windows, its entrance, you have to depend on the scale treatment and the rhythm of the delineation.  If you estimate this point wrongly much of your design will not work, it will reach the eye of the observer too soon while he is still too far away, or too late, when he is already too close.  Time and distance in architecture are functions of one another.  You must also determine, with considerable accuracy, the moment when you want to know where the entrance is.  There is nothing so quickly destructive of response to architecture as back of clarity on this point.  If your client feels any doubt as to where he is supposed to go in order to get into your building, you have lost the game of sequence, and you have committed an unforgivable sin, for leaving out all questions of architectural technic and irritated your client.  Let me reassure you, all you need do is put yourself in the place of the observer, approaching the building.  Up to point x your way is clear.  From there on, you have something to guide you.  How far from the building is point x?  What you want to see, that will make your path unmistakable?  Is point x so far way that the main entrance must be distinguished from the minor and service entrances by columns?  Ornament? A pediment?  By deep recess?  Steps?  Color? Texture. 

In  any case, the expression you select will be based upon your estimate of the distance at which your observer will be ready to see it.  Very well you have survived this hazard and brought your visitor to the entrance.  Now he enters an instant ago he was outdoors now he is indoors.  With the passage from outdoor to indoors, the man's whole relation with his environment has changed radically and with it, as was developed in the character on scale, a moment ago he was in limitless space, looking at an enclosed volume which he was preparing to penetrate.  Of course he was not feeling it on a conscious level, but he had a sense of free personal choices which served to condition his responses to the building.  Now he is inside it.  The space around him is no longer limitless; it is defined by walls, ceiling, and floor.  Outside is the great world from which he feels, now, sheltered.  Or perhaps he feels trapped.  In either case, there is no denying that his physical situation, and with it his state of receptivity has undergone a radical change.  If you accept that the observer's response to architecture is determined by this receptivity, you cannot evade an examination of the state of receptivity which you yourself are imposing.

The first effect upon and observer when he enters a building is an abrupt shift in his sense of scale.  A volume seems smaller when seen directly after the limitless outdoors when coming from another, preferably still smaller volume.

Thus if you are planning an impressive assembly hall or waiting room, you had better not let people see it as soon as they enter the building.  What you do is to provide a transitional volume a vestibule or minor lobby through which your main room may be glimpsed, perhaps, but definitely not left in its actual size.  Here the element of time appears again.  This minor lobby must take long enough to get through to allow your observer to forget the scale of sky and street and to adjust his eye to the scale of your interior.  In other words, your transitional volume cannot be too small.  For the observer looks ahead to where he sees, or glimpses, things of interest and ignores the dull space through which he is passing.  He may often not even be aware of his existence.  But if that space is increased, so that space is increased, so that it takes him longer to reach the area of interest, there comes a certain point at which he becomes annoyed and frustrated.  The dull section then seems larger than it is, very much larger if your customer happens to be an irritable type.  In relating your transitionable volume to your main volume, therefore, you are not dealing with a simple question of proportion.  You are dealing with sequence, with what came next and how each event took, which merely distance, nor even measured time, but how long each element sees had to take, which is a factor of interest.  A small space will seem longer if the eye is induced to dwell upon its elements.

A larger volume can be too interesting, as an exposition hall with many exhibits.

The eye becomes weary of being attracted so often, there is too much to see; the place seems crowded which is another way of saying that it seems too small for what it holds.

Interest in exactly the same manner as scale impression, depends upon sequence.  Just as a volume may seem larger or smaller as a result of the volume that preceded it, so factors designed to intrigue the eye will have more or less interest according to what the eye will have more or less interest according to what the eye has just finished seeing.

Hence the principle is simple.  Interest, like energy, needs to be revived and renewed by constantly increasing doses of stimulant.  While these doses, the points of interest in your building, may be alternated for effect with transitional periods of relative dullness, the overall plan must be of rising interest.  Each dose is stronger than the last.  In other word your sequence will be progressive.  And since your building is not without limits, the progression will be finite, there will be a stop point, beyond which there will be higher ones.  This top point, this peak of sequence, is called the climax.  Climax occurs in every art form you can think of music, dance, literature, drama and sculpture.

In painting it is usually called the center of interest; it is the element to which everything else leads to the main thing, the big moment.

If the sequence has been properly planned, it is unmistakable.  Sequence then, besides being a progression of elements of mounting interest, each of which is a preparation for the climax.  A design will be a total failure if the preparation is inadequate for the climax or if the climax does not measure up to the preparation.

If a building has sequence for climax, it calls for visual imagination and ingenuity to create ever newer fresher and bold atmosphere.

Architecture is the most difficult of the arts in which to achieve sequence.

Sculpture shares with architecture the ability to be read in every direction.

If the architect has nothing to say, has no point of view and no vocabulary then he has no value.  The architect to be original he must find within himself an idea for a novel or different expression.  It is a glow, a rich awareness of fulfillment, a thrill of the creative experience a thrill which is called inspiration.  Creativity is the essence of life process itself.  Originality is faith and fulfillment; it is belief and birth when we see it we too believe we are born again.

A good architecture is when we make new architecture without destruction of our heritage and culture, when we respect our past and be proud of it, and then we can make even the most imaginative building even without making our older respectable buildings suffer or hurt.  It is our role as architects is to preserve what is good and to add what is better, innovate and seek what is new, its cycle of life.  We should be inventors not tailors, to observe study, analyze and invent.  All approaches to architecture are affected by technology used for its imagination, visualization and realization.

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture Teaching and Complications

Architecture Teaching and Complications

                        Dr. Wagih Fawzi Youssef

Architects of the 21st. century are working on assumptions that are new in the recent history.  They have come to realize that architecture is an expression of the human personality.  But, if one looks at what they mean by personality, one finds too often that they take it to be the manifestation of what is wrong with people.  Architecture design cannot be effective without an appropriate notion of what architecture is for.  If architecture is a way of dealing with life, in what particular fashion does it do so?  One of the basic tasks of the architect is to scrutinize and to understand the world, to find order and law outside and within him.  At the early stages of human  development, such scrutiny is performed mainly by the senses as to what things are and how they function are derived from the visual world by means of fresh and colorful observation.  Abstract conceptions are handled by the architect.

The sensations of light and darkness, are spontaneously felt as symbols of the powers that underlie human existence, there we have the foundation of culture and the seeds of architecture.  During the past decades, psychologists have found out a good deal about perceptual process, which constitute the language of architecture.  Present day teaching neglects the modern psychology of visual perception.  Aspects of pictorial representation are still considered as manifestation of the intellect.  Also problems of visual representation are explained away by references to other senses such as the kinesthetic sense.  It is necessary to stress the cognitive aspects of the artistic process because the one sided psychological approach to personality left its mark on architectural education has led to a particular negative attitude toward the representational aspect of architecture.  All through the history of man, architecture has represented objects.  In most cultures, we find nonrepresentational patterns, notably ornament and architecture.  But abstract or pre-representative drawings are more expressive of inner feeling than are representative products because the very process of representation involves a conscious awareness of outside stimuli rather than a direct expression of self.

There is no psychological justification for the separation of the inner self from the reaction to outer reality.  Architecture goes beyond the making of drawing lacking depth and poor perspective.  The beginner uses simple shapes because he has not yet achieved full contact with reality.  The modern architect does so because he has gradually withdrawn from reality.  His work is abstract because he has abstracted himself.  His mind is not a clean state; it is full of relinquished memories and trained in all the trickeries of the civilized intellect.  Simple shapes are a refuge from unmanageable complication.  We want to develop the potentialities of the student the fullest.  Which is to say that we ask full range in the educational manuals that we want to develop the potentialities in the educational program as a whole as well as in any particular area of study.  We want to awaken in the student of architecture many ways of reacting to the various aspects of life; to the multiformity of its appearance as well as the lawfulness of its principles; to the clarity of its order as well as the mysteries of its dreams.

The architect must only look at the truth if we wish to understand what the student is after.

Modern science has raised much of our dealing with reality to such a rarefied sphere of abstraction.  Let me distinguish visual shape and visual form.  Shape is described by the spatial boundaries of objects; it is a purely visual property.  Form is not purely visual,  it is rather the relation between a shape and something it is the shape of.  Form is the shape that makes a content visible, and that content in itself may not be visible at all.  However, to distinguish between form and content is risky because the distinction is indicative of the split that has occurred in our culture between the visible and the invisible worlds.  To earlier, simpler cultures, the world as they conceived of it was totally visible.  The world was made of substances and run by forces that, if not directly given to the eye, were visually imaginable.  The infinitely large and the infinity small were represented in the guise of the physical powers.  From the seed to the nature shape, from raw material to finished product, everything was visible.  In the visible world all shape is form. All that matters is whether or not shape makes the eye understand what they see.  Just as the architect gives appearance to the protective power of shelter, the relationship of carrier to weight, etc.  This is not different in principle from the sculptors' task of making body and soul visible.  Thus the purpose of architecture is to make the world visible.  The form we seek is simply the shape that will make the nature of things comprehensible to the eyes.  Shape is supposed to be determined by practical function to give each object the appearance directly derived from its practical purpose.  It is evident that to make an object practically functional is not the same task as to its function visible.

It is enough for an object to serve its purpose smoothly.  What aspects of the world are to be make visible is a matter of philosophy.

Visual thinking will occur only if the mind is geared to ideas, for ideas will metabolize into shapes, calling on us to be given material existence, and it is this call of the inborn shapes that will lead to the form we seek.  Only by surrendering to the object will one obtain the answers to the questions that make the object speck.

The creative architect has no desire to get away from what is normal for the purpose of being different.  He is not striving to relinquish the object but to penetrate it according to his own criterion of what looks true.

The contemplation of the object is not so much a pencil lines or a scroutiny of its constituents and their possible combinations as a trying on of categories derivable from the observers' medium.

The experiences of the past, the conventional norms and references, the beliefs and expectations, wishes and fears all join in helping to shape the image of the world conceived by the creative mind.

The world of the architect is always charged with high tension because its outcome must satisfy three conditions.  It must do justice to the facts that is to the normal view.  It must also fit the particular world-view of the creator and it must present the simplest possible structure obtainable for so complex a set of conditions.  In them we either fail to recognize the properties of the objective world or we find that the conception applied is weak, distorted, or trivial, or does not provide the unity, clarity, and intensity needed to make statement comprehensive and impressive have meaning and strength.

Basic visual patterns appear with uniformity in different periods because visual conception emerge  independently from one another.  Chaotic complexity and order,  duality, the opposition of light and darkness, above and below, right and left, the unification of opposites.  These unconscious dispositions for the production of particular shapes assume that the organism with the pertinent archetypal disposition for say the production of centric figures related for which they stand as symbols directly perceivable expression to basic patterns of human existence.

The present essay is based on the contention that similar elementary visual symbols appear independently at different times and places because seeing involves perceiving the behavior of configuration of visual forces and such perceived configuration of forces are viewed spontaneously as images of the behavior of forces in significant life situation.

The sense of proportion is inherent in the experience of perception.  The sense of proportion assume that properties inherent in the perceptual patterns impinge upon us and largely account for our reactions towards orientation, balance and unity for tranquility and good functioning, variety and tension for stimulation.  A slight deviation from a simple shape is ambiguous, hard to identify.  It may be objected that such properties in geometric shapes provoke a strong reaction when they are of no conceivable biological value.  The portions' of lines or other linear distances, and the shape of rectangular surfaces impress us in telling us whether or not they are what they ought to be.  The sense of proportion is dynamic.  Well balanced shape is a main source of harmony of nature and man.  A person requires clarity and simplicity for the purpose of orientation for good functioning, and variety and tension for stimulation.  A slight deviation from a simple shape is ambiguous and hard to identify.  Geometric shapes provoke a strong reaction even when they are of no biological value.  Balance is an overall principle and is also assumed to govern the physiological forces organizing the process of vision in the brain.  According to the Pythagorean doctrine, simple geometrical figures represent the innermost secret of nature.  All existing things are made up of geometric building bricks.  This helped to make architecture respectable by demonstrating that the shape of a building is not arbitrary.  The ancient Egyptians used a network of vertical and horizontal lines to manufacture statues of specific shape.  Le Corbusier, his aim was to standardize, which is to run the risk of arbitrary choice.  He believed that a suitable set of standardized unites is offered by his modular from the human body when divided according to the golden section.  A pattern becomes more rational as the geometrical relations by which  it can be defined become simpler.  In this sense, the relation of a circle to its diameter, or of a square to its diagonal, is highly rational.  The question is then, to what extent visual objects can be reduced to rationality.  It relies on the single module.  Geometric planning was practiced by the medieval masons, they profited from the relations between the circle and its diameter or that of the golden section.  By this artifices a geometric principle of structure is forced into arithmetical shape.

Frank Lloyd Wright said that law and order are the basis of its finished grace and beauty, its beauty is the expression of fundamental condition in line, form and color according to design, and beauty is produced when utility is intended.  By beauty he meant order, harmony, balance, unity and proportion.  External expression comes about in the natural object as a by-product of physical organization.  Architects think of beauty as an additional virtue of the useful object.  Beauty is treated as an entity separate not only from function but also from expression.  However, expression is all too often either ignored or separated from function.  Instruction at the Bauhaus of Gropius consisted of technical training and the development of the sense of form and formation.  Vitruvius thought of propriety as a requirement separate from the demand of beauty.  The separation of expression from function raises the question whether symbolism is necessary in the architecture of our time.  Hegel thought of architecture as the lowest among the arts because its medium is matter, subject only to the laws of gravity therefore unsuitable for the representation of the spirit.  It arises in the brain rather than in the eye.  Every change of shape makes for a corresponding change of expression.  An object should show its purpose in the name of honesty and truth.  It must display its function.  Thus Palladio complains about Baroque architecture saying that instead of columns which are contrived to bear great weight, one ought not to place those modern ornaments which give others only a confused idea of architecture.  The social psychologist considers the function and effect of architecture is its setting, function variety and tension for stimulation.  The square and the circle are simple and balanced.  A slight deviation from a simple shape is ambiguous, hard to identify.  A rectangle of the ratio 2:1 may disturb us by implying unity and rectangularity while threatening to break up into two squares while the proportion of the golden section may successfully combine unbreakable unity with lively tension.  The balance in architecture indicates stability and vitality.  This means that a central tendency of the mind such as the need for clear distinctions, may reverberate in purely peripheral reactions as a reflection of deeper personal needs which governs organic functioning at various physical and mental levels.  The psychology of motivation interprets human striving as a need for balance, but balance is also assumed to govern the physiological forces organizing the processes of vision in the brain, by establishing a network of relations.  The Pythagorean discovery that the perceived harmony of musical intervals  is paralleled by simple numerical ratios of spatial distances on the string and the flute.  Thus harmony depends on spatial measure.  When Le Corbusier takes pains to show his studies in proportion are valid by pointing out that he comes from a family of musicians, he speaks in the same Pythagorean mood that made it imperative for Renaissance architects to study the theory of musical harmony.  For Vitruvius no temple can have a measured composition without having the exact measure of the members of a well-shaped human body.  The ancient Egyptians used a network of vertical and horizontal lines to manufacture statues of specific shape.  The question, then, to what extent architecture can be reduced to rationality.  Vitruvius analysis of the human body, the head is 1/8 of the total height.  On the other hand, the method of building the whole from multiples of one element creates a simple unity that the more complex method lacks.  Vitruvius uses modular measurement by pointing out that a body without spread limbs can be inscribed in a circle.  Geometric planning compass and ruler was practiced by the medieval masons.  They freely profited from the relations between the circle and its diameter or that of the golden section.  Le Corbusier modular represents an uncomfortable compromise between the two methods.  Being based on the golden section, it is by nature geometric.  By this a geometric structure is forced into arithmetical shape.  To the scientist, simple number and geometric shape as such are only the formal manifestation of physical forces holding each other in balance.

It may seem sensible to expect that the shape of the things around us is based on rationality.  If we try explicitly to identify geometrically or arithmetically we are left with a collection of peace's making the whole chaotic.  Simple proportions are likely to be rare and space value.  Value in designs is affected by light and position of shadows.  A dark floor and a light ceiling give a different space sensation to that created by a dark ceiling and a light floor.  It is affected by giving an illusion of greater height and a sense of greater depth instead of the proportion of the golden section.  The rectangle of the golden section and the square may be equally balanced, but they carry different expression, the one showing directed tension, the other, the square compact symmetry.  Without order, our senses could not function.  If there were no order in nature we could not profit from experience, we cannot survive.  Order and complexity are antagonistic that order tends to reduce complexity while complexity tends to reduce order.  To create order requires the elimination of what does not fit the principles determining order.  Increasing the complexity of an object, the harder object will be achieved.  Great works of architecture combine high order with high complexity, as seen in the classic and the Roman architecture.  In architecture many designs are rational while in painting rationality is an exception, because the world of the senses images are understandable only when maker and beholder share a set of conventions about visual reality, since what we see as reality depends on what we expect to see the effect of illusion is obtained when an image matches the preconception of the observer since the visual world in itself is taken to be shapeless.  The shape of the contours, the contrast of brightness, the structure of the pattern determines what is seen. 

What is seen depends on who is looking and who taught him to look.  One of the functions of art is that of discovering order and the necessity of our experience.  In art growing complexity takes the form of increasing realism of the dogmatic and the psychological.  It is necessary to distinguish between artistic representation of a state of mind and the manifestation of its symptoms. 

Art is an attribute found in all objects, namely, the capacity of making reality visible.  Visibility is brought by form.  It is not the aim in forming the structure to represent the geometric idea of space but to create for individual life.  Beauty is that property of form that makes expression pure and strong, and no beauty of form can be conceived without reference to fitness.  Psychologists tend to neglect expression when they deal with problems of aesthetics because they report only as a byproduct what people perceive when they face a work of art.  The tendency in psychology to neglect expression because expression is always a stranger in psychology.  Expression is either entirely neglected, or treated as the detached externalization of the mind, useful for diagnosis. 

Expressive behavior is described as unmotivated and useless, it is not functional, will do no harm because it plays no vital role.  Vitruvius thought of propriety as a requirement separate from the demands of beauty and economy in a building.  When perception is pure and neutral, uninfluenced by the expectations or needs of the person, the simplest possible structure will prevail.  Pure perception is an abstraction, to perceive does not mean to scrutinize objects of small interest for the sole purpose of doing some experimental psychologist a favor.  Art is said to be made and sought because it gives pleasure and art is a feeling, and that the aspects of reality inherent in the work of art are not only received as factual information but arouse states of mind that are called emotions by its mere tension level, an extra cerebral percept.

An architecture design is a synthesis of what the architect remembers by having watched the designs and buildings of this world from all sides, but is rare for designers to determine the relative size of buildings by their actual physical sizes or by the exact optical sizes they assume in projection depending on their distances.  It has been the common practice of architects through the ages to translate their observations of buildings into the language of the two dimensional medium in which the illusions of depth, volume, and the effects of foreshortening and perspective are quite alien.

Modern architecture and post-modern architecture are a return to an approach that derives from the psychology of spontaneous observation and from the inherent conditions of the media.  The present day architects, their emphasis on action and their playful experimenting with materials, their preferences for elementary shapes and pure colors are typical of the earliest phases of artistic activity.  These modern architectural designs have created a favorable climate for architecture education.  Simple shapes are a refuge from unmanageable complication.

[wagihyoussef]

النقد المعماري

"النقــــــــــد المعمــــــــــاري"

أ.د. /  وجيـــــه فــــــوزي يوســـــف

إن النقد المعماري يكون تارة تقديريا وتارة أخري تفسيريا.  وهذه الوظائف التقديرية هامة في ذاتها وعلي ذلك فإن الوظيفة الرئيسية للنقد الفني هي جعل التجربة الجمالية أكثر إرضاءا وإمتاعا ومتعة إنسانية مكتسبة لأنه يتيح لنا أن نري ما لم نكن نراه من قبل.

والنقد يعطينا إنطباعا بالمقصد الجمالي للعمل والغوامض التي تقف في طريق التذوق.  وعلي هذا النحو يكون النقد تقليميا يوجه الإدراك والفكر والشعور والخيال.  فالناقد يوجه الإدراك نحو قيم الفن الجديد غير المألوف.  إن النقد يبدأ بتصنيف العمل إلي نمط معين يعطينا إحساس بمقصده الجمالي، وإذا كان العمل خاضعا إلي حد بعيد للتقاليد السائدة فإننا نتمكن من فهم التفاصيل الهامة فيه.

النقد السياقي يعالج مادة العمل الفني ورموزه وموضوعه الفكري ومن المستحيل الإستغناء عنه في حالة أعمال معينة تنطوي علي إشارات تاريخية أو إجتماعية وفض��ا عن ذلك فإن التفسير الذي يساعد الناقد السياقي علي بنائه ينبغي أن يترجم إلي إدراكنا الحسي الذي يميز ما له أهمية أساسية مما له أهمية ثانوية ويقرر أي الأجزاء تترابط فيما بينها غير أن العمل الواحد يمكن أن يفسر علي أنحاء متباينه فليس في إستطاعة الفنان أن يملي الطريقة التي يفهم منها العمل الفني.

أما الناقد الإنطباعي فيختلف عن ذلك فهو يتجنب عمدا المعرفة السياقية ولا يقدم تفسيرا شكليا فإن نقده يستطيع أن يكون ذا قيمة تعليمية ما لم تكن إنطباعية بعيده عن الميدان الجمالي ذلك لأن أحواله النفسية وأفكاره كما يصفها يمكن أن توحي بما في العمل من ثراء.  إن الإنطباعي يستطيع أن يجعل إدراكنا أكثر مرونه والواقع أن النقد لا يكون ذا قيمة إلا في نتاجه النهائي وإذا بذل المدرك جهدا من الإنتباه والتعاطف الجمالي.  وفضلا عن ذلك فإن تطبيق القواعد يؤدي إلي إعطاء أجزاء العمل أهمية تفوق أهمية الكل لأن التذوق الجمالي يقتضي قبل كل شيء إحساسا بالكل.  وعلي هذا يتعين علينا أن نتذكر أن التجربة الجمالية تختلف إختلافا ملحوظا عن التجربة النقدية.  ذلك لأن الإدراك الجمالي سريع في مقابل السير البطيء للتحليل.

ومع ذلك فعدم إدراك الناقد لمدي تعقب العمل عندما رآه لأول مرة، هو بعينه الذي أتاح له أن يدركه بوصفه وحدة عينية، وأن يشعر بما فيه من إثارة للعاطفة والخيال، ومع ذلك فإن كل المعاني التي نتعلمها لا يمكن أن تدمج في الكيان الجمالي للعمل ويترتب علي ذلك يفقد العمل حيووته وإثارته فالناقد الذي يتشتت الإنتباه الجمالي ويحوله إلي تدريب علي المعرفة، أبعد ما يكون عن القيمة الجمالية.  وعليه يجب علي الناقد أن يتذكر الفوارق الواضحة بين التحليل وبين الإدراك الجمالي وبالتالي فإن عليه أن يتذكر حاجات الإدراك الجمالي وحدوده وأن يضع حدودا لتفسيره وعليه أن يحاول أن يجعل الإدراك أكثر وعيا وأعمق معرفة.  والواقع أن الناقد لا يمكنه أن يساعد المشاهد ويرشده إلا إذا وضع في إعتباره طبيعة الوعي الجمالي وما الذي يسعي إليه.  وهكذا فلا يكفي أن يكون الناقد ذا صلة بالناحية الجمالية بل ينبغي أيضا أن يكون له قيمة تعليمية لإمكان إندماج ما تعلمه في  التجربة الجمالية وتعميقه لها.  فالناقد الذي يشتت الإنتباه الجمالي ويحوله إلي تدريب علي المعرفة أبعد ما يكون عن القيمة التعليمية وعلي الناقد أن يتذكر الفوارق الواضحة بين التحليل وبين الإدراك الجمالي.  وبالتالي فإن عليه أن يتذكر حاجات الإدراك الجمالي وحدوده وأن يضع حدودا لتفسيره ومن واجبه ألا يثقله إلي حد لا يعود قادرا علي أداء وظيفته ويصبح الناقد مستغرقا في ذاته أو يفتتن بمناهجه أو يكون في واقع الأمر أكثر بإظهار معلوماته منه بالإستمتاع بالفن وما النقد إلا وسيله لا غايه في ذاته.  ومن هنا فإن النقد فرض لا حكما قطعيا أما الناقد الذي ينسي ذلك فإنه يدفع ثمن نقده الضيق الأفق القصير النظر.

ولا يمكن وصف المبني بأن له قيمة إلا نظرا إلي إتصا��ه بالمشاهد وهذا يتوقف عل ثقافته وبيئته علما بأن الأذواق تتغير من جيل إلي آخر وهناك صفات معينة لا بد أن تتوافر في الحكم علي التصميم إذا توافرت صفات معينة مثل الحساسية لأهداف الفن مع خبرة في الفنون مع القدرة علي الشعور بالنزوات الشخصية التي ربما تؤثر في الحكم علي الفن بيد أن الضحالة الإنفعالية والإفتقار إلي المعرفة الوثيقة بالفن هذه العوامل قد تؤدي بالهاوي إلي إصدار حكم يختلف عن حكم الشخص المدرب.  علما بأن لو كان الجمال هناك في موضوع فلماذا لا نجده جميعا فيه؟ الواقع أننا لا نختلف علي شيء بقدر ما نختلف علي الفن لأن هناك سمات معينة توجد دائما في الجمال مثل النسب المصاحبة للجمال علما بأن النسب القديمة ليست موجودة في كل الأعمال الجيدة.  ولكن للذوق السليم القدرة علي إدراك صفة القيمة الجمالية عندما تكون موجودة في موضوع ما، أما الذوق الفاسد فهو سمة من لا يملك هذه القدرة فعندما يختلف شخصان حول قيمة عمل معين فلا بد أن يكون أحدهما فقط هو المصيب أما المخطيء فهو ذلك الشخص الذي يغزو إلي العمل صفة لا يملكها هذا العمل بالفعل.  إن كثير من الناس يأبون الإعتراف بأن لديهم الفهم السليم أقل مما لدي الآخرين.

إن تذوق الشكل يقتضي إنتباها عميقا واعيا وإن الوحدة هدف ينبغي تحقيقه وذاكرة رحبة وإلا تداعي الموضوع الجمالي.  أما إذا كان التصميم مفرطا في البساطة ففي هذه الحالة لا يعود الناقد مضطرا أن يفهم أكثر مما ينبغي لأن في التصميم أفكار ضئيلة القيمة.  يقول أرسطو من وجهة أخري أن الموضوع الضخم يجعل التصميم ضئيل القيمة لأنه لما كانت العين تعجز عن الإحاطة به فإن وحدة الشكل ومعني التصميم تضيع علي المشاهد لأن إذا زاد التعقد في الشكل فإن حدود ما يمكن فهمه وتذكره يتركنا حياري منقبضا الصدور.  ومن ناحية أخري فإذا كان التصميم غير مألوف علي الإطلاق فإن الناقد لا يعرف ما يبحث عنه لأن التصميم الجيد يرتب عناصر العمل علي نحو من شأنه إبراز قيمته التعبيرية فالشكل يضبط الإدراك ويوجه الإنتباه في إتجاه معين.  إن نظرية الوحدة في التنوع إذا كان معناها أن تغيير أي عنصر يقلل القيمة الجمالية للتصميم لكانت باطلة عادة لأنه لا يمكن أن يعود التصميم علي أداء الوظيفة التي قصد منه أداؤها لو تبدل أي عنصر من عناصره وذلك لأن قيامه بوظيفته يتوقف علي تماسكه الداخلي لأن الشكل هو الذي يجعلنا نفهم بسهولة ما الذي يقصده المصمم فالشكل يدل علي الطريقة التي تتخذ ب ها هذه العناصر موضوعها في العمل كل بالنسبة إلي الآخر، والتوازن أو التضاد بين هذه الأشكال والمساحات.  إن التصميم الجيد يتوقف علي العصر والحضارة التي يعيش فيها المعماري.

إن أشكال المباني التي نراها حولنا تشبه كأننا في مجتمع صامت وبالرغم أن المباني لا تتكلم فلها معني يمكن نفهمه بسهولة فلكل شكل من هذه الأبنية لغة نفهمها بالرغم من أن عناصرها الإنشائية تختلف من مبني إلي آخر لآننا ندرك الماضي والحاضر ولهذا تترك فينا حنين للماضي ونري العمارات العالية الحديثة في وسطها كأنها غرباء غير مرحب بها لأننا تعودنا علي العادات والتقاليد التي عشنا فيها وكذلك الحركة في شوارعها القديمة وأزقتها ولها معني خاص في قلوبنا بحيث أن كثير من تعود علي العادات والتقاليد التي ظلت موجودة لا يرغب في تركها إلي مناطق حديثة وعمارات متعددة الطوابق ولها شوارع متسعة وحدائق ومناطق لإنتظار السيارات وهواء نقي.  عجبي!!

إن الكثير من الموضوعات القديمة تكون معايرها غير صالحة للحكم علي أعمال جديدة ومختلفة وعلي ذلك علي الناقد بوصفه مدركا جماليا أن يبذل كل جهد لإدراك ما هو له قيمة في العمل كما أن عليه بوصفه ناقدا أن يختار أساليب للتحليل متنوعة لا محدودة حتي تستطيع أن تستوعب التباين الهائل للأعمال الفنية فالمشاهدون المختلفون يجدون في العمل قيما مختلفة والهدف في كل الحالات هو التجربة الجمالية ولهذا السبب لا يجب أن يكون هناك مبرر للنزعة القطعية في النقد وعلي الناقد أن يعلم أنه ما زال هناك المزيد مما ينبغي قوله ومهما بلغت كثرة ما يقوله النقاد عن العمل الفني سيظل الشيء نفسه موجودا علي الدوام.

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العمارة والحريق

العمــــارة والحريـــــق

                                د. وجيـــه فـــوزي يوســـف

photo: edcleve

كنت في إحدي الأماكن العامة عندما شب حريق طفيف فإندفع الناس إلي أبواب الخروج طلبا للنجاه ولأن الأبواب صممت لكي تفتح إلي الداخل بدلا من الخارج فلم يتمكن المندفعون من التراجع إلي الخلف لإمكان فتح الأبواب وظن بعضهم أن الأبواب مغلقة فإندفعوا إلي إتجاهات أخري للهروب من النار وتصادموا مع القادمون من أماكن أخري وساد الذعر والهرج.  وبعض الناس الساكنون أو المالكون للوحدات السكنية يعدلون في مساكنهم ويغيروا من معالمها ولا يلتفتون إلي ما راعاه المصمم لتأمين سلامتهم وحمايتهم من مصائب الحريق فيعرضون أرواحهم وممتلكاتهم للخطر.  ولعلي هنا أسلط الأضواء علي ما يراعيه المصمم حفاظا علي أرواح السكان.  أن المنشأ المفترض فيه أن يقاوم الحريق لفترة زمنية محددة تسمح للسكان بإخلاء المبني وتمكن رجال الإطفاء من القيام بمهامهم في مكافحة الحريق قبل إنهيار المنشأ.  ويعبر عن مقاومة المنشأ للحريق بالساعة وتوجد مواصفات لمقاومة مختلف مواد الإنشاء للحريق والخاصة بالهيكل الإنشائي والأرضيات والأسقف والأبواب والشبابيك وتراوح هذا المدي من 45 دقيقة إلي أربع ساعات – علما بأنه لا يوجد منشأ حديدي مقاوم للحريق وقديما كانوا يغلفون المنشأ الحديدي بالأسبستوس ولكن بعد إكتشاف أن الأسبيستوس يسبب مرض السرطان للذين يسكنون المبني فلقد منع إستخدامه. وأصبح المحتم تغليف الحديد بالخرسانة لحمايته.

والمعماري يتصدي لكم كبير من الإحتياطات لمحافظته علي حياه السكان لأنه يعلم أنه إذا لم يمكن السيطرة علي الحريق في الخمسة دقائق الأولي من إشتعال الحريق فلا فائدة وعلي الجميع الهروب ومن  هذه الإحتياطات المخارج.  إن عدد المخارج في المبني يتوقف علي عدد السكان وكذلك توزيع هذه المخارج إذ يجب ألا يعوق الحريق عند مخرج باقي المخارج في نفس الوقت.  كذلك إن عرض الطرقات والسلالم والأبواب تتوقف أيضا علي عدد السكان.  هذا بالإضافة إلي توفير الإضاءة الطبيعية والهواء وإشارات الخروج في هذه المخارج.  كذلك العناية بطول المسافة التي يقطعها الساكن للوصول إلي أقرب مخرج والمفترض فيها ألا يزيد عن 60 مترا.

وإذا كان المبني يتم تهويته بواسطة تكييف الهواء المركزي فإنه في حالة الحريق فالأجهزة بها إمكانيات تعديل دورة الهواء لشفط الهواء إلي الخارج بدلا من تدويره داخليا وإعادته للمبني حتي لا ينتشر الدخان عن طريق قنوات التكييف المركبة داخل الأسقف المعلقة بالحجرات.

هناك مشكلة سيكولوجية يحتاط لها المعماري أيضا وهي حالة الهلع والذعر التي تنتاب السكان عند عدم قدرة سكان المبني المحترق من تبين طرقات الهروب نتيجة غزارة الدخان وإنقطاع التيار الكهربائي علما بأن المصاعد إن وجدت لا تصنف ضمن وسائل الهروب ليس لأنها معرضة للتوقف نتيجة إنقطاع التيار ولكن لأن مكوناتها الإلكترونية من أزرار الغلق والفتح الأوتوماتيكية حساسة للهب والدخان ودرجات الحرارة العالية بالإضافة بأن التعليمات تقتضي أن يقوم العاملون بإستدعاء المصاعد إلي الدور الأرضي وفصل التيار عنها لحجزها لرجال الإطفاء لإستخدامها في الإنقاذ.

كذلك يلجأ المعماري إلي توفير أماكن خاصة في المبني للحماية وخاصة في المباني العالية.  هذه الأماكن يتم فصلها عن بقية أرضية الدور بواسطة عناصر إنشائية مقاومة للحريق وتصمم هذه الأماكن في إتجاه طرق الهروب ��بمساحة تجعلها تستوعب أعداد مناسبة لسكان كل دور حتي يلجأ إليها السكان لتخفيف حدة الزحام وإمكان الإنتظار فيها حتي تأتيهم النجدة.

كذلك يلجأ المعماري إلي فصل المبني إلي أجزاء بواسطة أبواب مقاومة للحريق تعزل الجزء المحترق عن بقية أجزاء المبني وتغلق أوتوماتيكيا في حالة نشوب حريق.

حتي في حالة توزيع الشبابيك علي الواجهات فإن المعماري يحتاط بحيث يمنع النيران من الأدوار السفلي أن تدخل من خلال الشبابيك العلوية إلي داخل المبني وخاصة إذا كانت هذه الشبابيك موضوعة في صفوف أعلا بعضها أي الواحد فوق الآخر.  وذلك إما يعمل مظلات خرسانية أعلا كل فتحة أو عمل برواز من المباني حول كل فتحة شباك حتي لا تنتشر النيران إلي الفتحات الأخري المجاورة للشباك المحترق بفعل إتجاهات الرياح.

هناك أيضا مشكلة المواد الموضوعة داخل الأسقف المعلقة من توصيلات كهربائية وأسلاك الإتصالات وقنوات  التكيف  وأغلفتها العازلة للصوت ومواسير الصرف الصحي وهي تشكل أيضا مصدرا للحريق ولذلك فإن تركيبات الأسقف المعلقة تراعي أن تكون من مواد مقاومة للحريق علي الأقل لمدة 15 دقيقة من تعرضها للهب.

إن المعماري يفكر دائما في مشكلة تأمين هروب الناس من المباني والتقليل من حجم الخسائر والتكلفة والخطر وعموما عدم ملائمة الخسائر الناجمة عن إشتعال الحريق وفي نفس الوقت لا يعتمد علي إمكانيات رجال الإطفاء وأجهزتهم في إنقاذ الناس من نتائج ومصائب الحريق كذلك فهو لا يفترض أنه عندما تشتعل النيران في المبني فإن ذلك يعني تفريغ المبني كله من الناس ولذلك فهو يعطي العناية الكافية بطرق النجاه وحمايتها من النار وجعلها تساعد الناس علي النجاه بدون مساعدة من أحد.  وهو يفكر أيضا في أن مبناه قد يوجد به أيضا مرضي وأنه من غير العملي تحريك المرضي وإنزالهم عن طريق السلالم لأن كثيرا من هؤلاء المرضي يعتمدون علي أجهزة تعينهم علي الحياة مثل الأكسوجين والجلوكوز أو حتي ربطهم في حالة الكسور ويعلم أن الحل الوحيد والمناسب في هذه الحالات الحرجة هو إبعاد هؤلاء المرضي عن الحريق علي مستوي الدور وتحريكهم بعيدا عن النار وعمل أماكن آمنة في كل دور يمكن لجوء هؤلاء إليها.

ولكل هذا فإن المعماري يقسم مراحل الهروب إلي ثلاثة مراحل : - المرحلـة الأولي : هي كيفية الهروب من المكان الذي يشتعل فيه النار.  المرحلة الثانية  : هي الإستمرار في الهروب من خلال طرقات عمل لها الحماية الواجبة.  المرحلة الثالثة : وهي المنطقة النهائية المحمية قبل الخروج منها في أمان إلي الخارج في الهواء المكشوف.

المرحلة الأولي:

من داخل الشقة في المكان الذي إشتعل فيه النار وغالبا ما يكون المطبخ وصالة المعيشة وهما يمثلان أعظم المخاطر وتكون المشكلة خطيرة إذا كان السكان مستغرقين في النوم.  ولذلك فإن المعماري لا يلجأ لجعل أبواب المطبخ والمعيشة بين أبواب حجرات النوم.  كذلك فهو يعمل أبواب حجرات النوم من مواد مقاومة للحريق وتغلق تلقائيا عند فتحها ويكون تصميم منطقة النوم علي مسافة محسوبة من جميع عناصر الوحدة السكنية.  فمثلا إن المسافة من أي مكان بالحجرة إلي باب الشقة لا يجب أن يزيد ��ولها عن تسعة أمتار.  كذلك لا يجب أن تزيد أطوال أي طرقة عن 5ر7 مترا.  والمسافة من المطبخ إلي باب الشقة لا تزيد عن 6 أمتار.  وعموما لا يجب أن تزيد مقاس أي فراغ من المسكن عن 9 أمتار.  هذه المسافات بين العناصر المختلفة في الوحدة السكنية وباب الشقة يجب أن تكون أقل مما ذكر لتسمح بوقت كاف لأي ساكن في حجرة تشتعل فيها النيران إلي الوصول إلي طرقة مجاورة أو مكان آخر قبل أن تصل النار في الحجرة إلي درجة لا يمكن النجاه منها.  فإذا لم يكن ذلك ممكنا فيجب أن يعمل باب آخر للهروب من إحدي الحجرات إلي الخارج وليكن عن طريق سلم من خارج البلكونة بالشقة.

المرحلة الثانية:

في اللحظة التي يصل فيها السكان إلي الطرقة الخارجية المؤدية إلي سلالم الهروب يفكر المعماري في حمايتهم من الدخان والغازات المحترقة وهذا يتم عن طريق عمل أبواب علي الطرقة تقاوم الحريق لمدة 30 دقيقة وهذه الأبواب مزودة بتركيبات تجعلها تغلق أوتوماتيكيا من تلقاء نفسها وتكون المسافة بين هذه الأبواب لا تزيد عن 30 مترا.  وعند تصميم المبني نفسه فإن المعماري لا يجعل المسافة  بين باب الوحدة السكنية والمكان الآمن تزيد عن 18 مترا بأي حال من الأحوال.  كذلك يؤمن شباك لتهوية الطرقات للتخلص من الدخان علما بأن الطرقات لم تكن في أي وقت مصدرا لإشتعال النيران ولكن مع تركيب الأبواب عليها تجعلها كاتمة للدخان.  وبالنسبة للمباني التي تتكون من أربعة أدوار فإن سلم واحد يكون مقبولا للهروب ولكن في المباني العالية يكون من الضروري عمل سلمين علي الأقل لإعطاء بديل رأسي للهروب.  وإذا كان سلم بديل مطلوب فالمستحسن أن يكون هذا السلم خارجي ولا يضير أن يكون هذا السلم حلزوني طالما أن عدد الذين سوف يستعملوه لن يزيد عددهم عن 50 فردا.  كذلك فإن المخارج النهائية لهذه السلالم لا يجب أن تكون متقاربة أو متجاورة وأن الفراغ الخارجي لا يجب أن يكون فناء محاط بأسوار ولكن مكان يسمح بإستمرار هروب السكان بعيدا عن الحريق.

إن مقاسات وعروض المخارج من أبواب وطرقات وسلالم تحسب بحيث تكفي هروب السكان من الأماكن المحددة والمختارة للهروب في خلال دقيقتين ونصف.  المعروف أن الحد المقبول لخروج السكان من بوابة هو 40 شخص في الدقيقة بمعدل 50 سم عرض فتحة.

وإذا كان في العمارة سلم واحد كوسيلة للنجاة فإن الوصول إليه من الشقق يكون عن طريق منطقة آمنة.

المرحلة الثالثة:

هذه المرحلة تختص بأمان السكان المستخدمين للطرق الرأسية للهروب من الحريق أي سلالم تؤدي من الطرقات أو البلكونات إلي خارج المبني.  يستثني من ذلك المصاعد لأنها ليس لها فائدة في حالة الحريق.  والأهداف من هذه الطرق هي:

منع الدخان أو النار من الدخول إلي أي نقطة تؤدي إلي غلق طريق هروب سكان الأدوار العليا.

تأكيد حماية الطرقات من نهايات السلالم إلي الهواء الخارجي.  ومن المفضل أن تفتح سلالم الهروب علي الهواء الخارجي مباشرة بدون المرور علي مداخل الأدوار الأرضية أو أي أماكن توزيع بها.

وكل السلالم الرئيسية يجب أن تكون داخل منشأ يحميها ويكون الدخول إليها من خلال أبواب مقاومة للحريق تغلق تلقائيا.  ولا يجب أن يكون بجانب هذه السلالم مخازن أو أي أماكن تحتوي علي مواد قابلة للإشتعال ويستثني من ذلك دورات المياه.

إن البدرومات من الأماكن التي يحتمل أن تشتعل فيها النيران وتكون مصادر للخطر ولذلك فإن سلالم الهروب لا يجب أن تتصل مباشرة بالبدرومات ويفضل الفصل التام بينهما.  وإذا كان في المبني أكثر من سلم للهروب فيمكن جعل أحد هذه السلالم يستمر إلي البدروم ولكن فقط عن طريق صالة توزيع جيدة التهوية ومزودة بأبواب تغلق أوتوماتيكيا عند فتحها.  وأبيار سلالم الهروب يجب أن تبني من موا د مقاومة للحريق لمدة ساعتان وهذا يمكن بواسطة بناء بئر السلم بالطوب الخرساني سمك نصف طوبة ومبطن ببياض المصيص أو الجبس.

ويجب منع عادة وقوف السيارات علي الآرصفة الملاصقة للمباني لأنه في حالة الحريق فإن الخطر يزداد بسبب إنفجارات السيارات عند إندلاع الحريق في هذه المباني.

ولتوجيه السكان نحو طرق الهروب في حالة الحريق يجب أن يتم تركيب لمبات لبيان مناطق الهروب وإتجاهاته بوضوح وبدون خطأ وتك��ن مضاءة طول الوقت حتي يمكن مراقبة سلامة اللمبات والدوائر والتعرف علي توقفها في حينه بدلا من إكتشاف عدم فاعليتها عند اللزوم.  بالإضافة إلي ذلك يجب وجود لمبات تضاء عند إنقطاع التيار العام في المبني.  وتحتاج هذا النوع من اللمبات إلي مصادر تيار أخري مثل المولدات والبطاريات التي تضيء اللمبات في خلال خمس ثوان من إنقطاع التيار العمومي.  إن المياه هي العامل الحاسم في إطفاء الحريق بالمساكن وعندما يحتاج إرتفاع المبني إلي ضغط مياه أكثر ما هو متاح بواسطة رجال الإطفاء فيجب أن يزود المبني بطلمبة خاصة لضخ المياه لهذه الإرتفاعات.  وهذه الطلمبات خلاف الطلمبات الخاصة بإستهلاك سكان العمارة وإذا لم يكن ذلك متاحا فيمكن تركيب صمام خاص علي طلمبة العمارة بحيث يمنع هذا الصمام المياه من الإسستعمال العادي ويحولها للإستخدام لمقاومة الحريق.  وإذا كانت الطلمبة تعمل بواسطة محرك كهربائي كما هو الحال في أغلب الأحوال فيجب أن تكون الدائرة الكهربائية الخاصة بالمحرك مستقلة عن باقي التوصيلات الأخري والمستحسن أن تعمل الطلمبة بواسطة ماكينة تدار بالجاز حتي لا تتوقف الطلمبة إذا إنقطع التيار الكهربائي أو أن النار إشتعلت في الكهرباء أصلا.  ويجب أن تدار الطلمبة من وقت لآخر حتي يمكن التأكد بأنها ستعمل عند اللزوم.

ويجب مرعاة أن المياه لا تصلح كوسيلة للإطفاء إ    ذاكانت النيران مشتعلة في أجهزة كهربائية أو غرف المصاعد لأنها توصل الكهرباء من الآلة المحترقة إلي الشخص الذي يحاول الإطفاء بالمياه ولذلك يستحسن الإطفاء بواسطة العبوات التي تضخ ثاني أكسيد الكربون أو بمواد كيميائية جافة.

ولتسهيل عملية الإطفاء للعمارات العالية فيجب تركيب ماسورة فارغة بإرتفاع العمارة وتركب بجوار مواسير الصرف الصحي للعمارة ولهذه الماسورة فتحة علي كل دور مركب عليها صمام حتي يستطيع رجال الإطفاء ضخ المياه فيها من أسفل العمارة وبالتالي تسهل عملية الإطفاء.

إن تركيب أجهزة إنذار من الحريق في الأماكن التي يحتمل أن تشتعل فيها النيران في المسكن بالإضافة إلي غلق جميع أبواب الغرف قبل الذهاب إلي النوم أمر له أهميته في حالة الحريق.

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Design Philosophy

Abstract

In the context of design, semiotics should be able to help us understand the whole complex of physical objects, needs, desires, motivations, actions, mythical representations, frustrations, and delights which are inextricably interrelated in the interface between the physical world and people. If only it helped us to do without such abstract notion as users, requirements and fit, if it helped us understand the vital importance of misfit, in a complex, conflicting, and therefore changing society, this could be enough to amount to a revolution in design theory.

Keywords: change, representation, decision-making, design-factual, use-fit

Introduction

All man-made changes affecting our lives are by design. Design is a realizing vision of the future and what it might become in the future especially in an increasingly complex and less certain society. Change has always been with us. Changing environment context results in human physiological changes which are necessary for life, and change is life. Without change there would be no growth, no self-development. However, there are limits to human adaptability and therefore limits to the rate of change with which a person can cope without suffering psychological breakdown. Designers are therefore responsible for providing sufficient change to stimulate without overloading the human system and in the meantime satisfy the society in general and think about the long-term implications of their designs on people’s lives without those damaging effects that we are still discovering, such as pollution, and decay in inner cities. Some of these are more pervasive in effect than original problem which the designers set out to solve.

Poor design occurs by default because the designer has fallen into one of three traps: 1) used a set of inappropriate social values as the basis for actions; 2) not understood the complexity or scale of the problem and its systemic context; 3) become so used to designing in a particular way that the designer is not aware of alternative and more appropriate way of tackling problems. Further problems of design occur as a result of a more fundamental mismatch between the deeper needs of society and the institutional powers of those who take decisions in the areas of economics and materials production. Another problem is that knowledge is not static. Knowledge grows. Therefore, to define the change agents that affect the design will generate other more thoughtful efforts. These efforts will interact with more helpful and more harmful efforts to understand.

Change Agents

I should like to focus attention on crucial problems of change in architectural design, how changes of architectural concepts come about, and how we might learn to generate more positive forms of change from understanding the nature of the process of conceptual change itself. There are three points to help defining change agents. The first of these is to address the question, what change agent? The second prerequisite, or foundation concept or maybe even assumption, about change agents is a fundamental concept of the setting and dynamics of the change in which the agent acts. Thirdly, to set the stage, it has been helpful to view change as learning.

A factor that is considered here as a change agent is technology which changes situations, attitudes, and abilities. There are also people involved. Furthermore, there are changes in the behavior of an organization. This behavior is also the culture of an organization. Cultures are maintained through the design process. Now how does the designer solve the problem of change agents? Maybe by facilitating the learning of the change agent or let him perceive that this is for his self-interest. Once these principles have been grasped by the change agent, all problems are over, or at least being facilitated. This leads to the successful implementation of innovations.

Design Education

In design studios, students work on given projects devised for them and supervised by staff members who are themselves professionally qualified designers. In this craft-like educational situation training is focused on the students’ ability to produce icons. The student is learning representation rather than making and is largely dependent upon the judgements of his tutor as to whether the translation of his icon to physical form is feasible, function, and imbued with those qualities which make it good design. The difficulties of evaluating icons in the abstracted educational environment permit not only the student but the tutor as well to dwell disproportionately upon intrinsic values of the image and the pleasures of the process of design and presentation. Educational projects are evaluated largely upon esoteric imagery of past and current examples of the genre in the real world, preferring to view them rather as expressions of artistic and cultural values. Design education is dominated by the synthesis and presentation of solutions in an abstract context using arbitrary and subjective opinions as the basis of judgement.

Architects have rejected the idea that buildings determine social behavior and individual happiness but have not accepted the responsibility which must be implied by the fact that buildings are co-producers of these. To do so would need some recognition of the complexity of the situations to which buildings are a partial response. It is frustrating to provide better housing and better environment if the people living in them do not feel happier or more satisfied. Individuals vary, moreover, in their behavior by virtue of differences in age, health, physique, expectations, attitudes, beliefs, training, and priorities and the quality of life they are used to.

Design Problems

Designing is not a problem of reduction, but of a transformation from the life-factual to the design-factual. Limits that should be determined by a designer is the understanding that his method is a predetermined and predetermining way of tackling a design problem. It is possible to view complex situations as simple, to base limited actions upon that perception with success. In such a case, the simplistic design will be confirmed. The error is to assume that the perception is truly representative of the situation. Thus, design, too, becomes as simple, and people begin to believe that reality itself is simple. Alternatively, the real world has changed whilst one’s surrogate view has remained static. Actions taken based upon this will then inevitably produce unexpected results. If we assume the world to be simple, our actions will reveal to us its complexity, often with disastrous consequences. To be able to distinguish at what point along a spectrum from the simple to the complex a problem may be effectively defined seems to be a necessary skill for designers.

Based upon the theory that design problems are complex, we must propose a list of assumptions concerning science, ecology, social psychology, political science, organizational behavior, decision theory, and design research. Designing requires the formulation of the problem it aims to alleviate and taking account of known and unknown relationships in the changing systems which generate problems to solve. The designer’s personal view of what the critical or sensitive issues are in the project will be only one of many based on illegitimate transfer of experience, unjustified assumptions, and partial information, all of which must be modified through the interactive process of design.

Having problems in the design is borne out of our capability for imagining the future, and tackling problems is a function of our ability to delay responses to current events. This delay enables us to think and choose our responses. Thinking, in this sense, is a sort of mental rehearsal of future actions. There are however limits to our thinking ability so the complexity of our plans for the future is limited. The invention, manipulation, and communication to others of symbols to our thoughts is what gives us the potential for planning and thus creating the future.

Designing is sometimes thought of in broader terms as making plans for changing a given situation into a preferred one. Thus, we have problems because we can imagine the future, and we can tackle problems because we can make plans for creating the future. However, in most design activity it is not only a matter of the designer’s involvement in designing, but also implications which the design has for others that are important. Problem-solving always involves learning something new for the problem-solver; that is, problem-solving changes the problem-solver. If the designer has formulated or solved a problem in a way that nobody has done before, then the change, if communicated of course, could have far reaching implications. Of course, not all changes in people brought about by problem-solving are innovative in the social sense. There are many problems in life that we all meet and solve and which we are expected by others to solve.

Design, Technology, and Society

Thus, anyone concerned with the fact that designing should change, needs to understand the continuous change process and its origin in the problem-causing, problem-tackling interactions of parties. It is also clear that no theory pertaining to designing can possibly ignore that designing is done by architects and that it takes place in a human context. Design influences society who have become too complex and reliant on experts who they are unwilling to trust. Inconveniently, value judgements about what should be designed and the design that results cannot be totally independent. Design requirements are formulated on the basis of past designs or reactions against them. However, this leaves considerable room for differing views of design. People often need help in formulating their own responses and requirements as well as providing such help for discussions to monitor and influence design.

Laypersons are aware that there is something known as good design. But this good design is manifested in objects that are expensive, usually not to the laypersons’ taste, inconsistent to his lifestyle, and imposed on them. The problem with this is that we don’t know enough about the relationship between design, technology, and the impact on society, and whether technology shapes society or whether society shapes its own technology. Designing, as we know, is decision-making at the interface between technology and society. But advanced technology is facing unprecedented set of crises and criticisms. If that technology seems unlikely to survive much beyond the turn of the century, then design as we know it has an equally unlikely chance to survive. Winston Churchill had indicated that “We shape our houses, and our houses shape us.” Le Corbusier had the wit to remark that too! This observation is not limited to contrived experiments in environmental psychology but applies to every detail and to the whole technological context of our everyday lives.

Design Process

At the preliminary design stage, designers are finding ways of safely defining a role for the user, by legitimating the design achievements of traditional cultures, folk design and vernacular styles, so that we find that it is quite possible to have architecture without architects. Brainstorming, synectics, and the numerous variants are used as means for exploring and opening the design situation. On the other hand, they are functioning as power instruments to investigate the thinking behavior of the designer himself. It is supported then that a comparative study between different input signals and the corresponding outputs can give the decisive answer about the operation of the design itself. A return to the typical “beaux-arts approach”. The design activity is considered an art and subsequently the designer as an artist. Intuition is the only guide through the design process. The result is an empty formalism, far from any functional use.

The strive for rationalization and for the application of scientific research to design practice seems to bump against the rich variety of a dynamic subjectivity. By handling a pseudo-harmonious model, based on eliminating conflicts by rational methods on one hand, and based on a value-free concept of science on the other hand, the designer has confronted himself willingly and knowingly with himself. The designer will go on considering himself as central. User and client, as well as designer, often get hopelessly frustrated in this kind of process. The changing objective within practical application of methods carry the seeds of questioning the theoretical reference frame itself, which has remained unchanged during the whole evolution. It seems necessary to investigate the changed reference frame and to reconsider the importance of a design theory for design practice. Every design method can only be evaluated critically on the level of the design theory.

Some of the main problems in design reside in the failure to go beyond the satisfaction of quantifiable requirements and take account of maters which depend on value and subjective judgements. Since such matters seem to be closely linked with meaning, one way to overcome the problem would appear to consist in providing the designer with an additional set of techniques, which would enable him to deal with meaning as it were: to encode convenient meanings into the final result of design, so that it may achieve a better fit within its contexts of use. And it is here where the semiotician enters with his technical ability for the analysis of meaning. Typically, semioticians are thought to be concerned only, or primarily, with analysis, interpretation, or verbal description, i.e. a posteriori activity of culturally significant objects; design theorists on the other hand work with general models for the process of design.

Design has its justification in the satisfaction of human needs throughout a teleological laddering of goals. Any theory which seeks to develop the logical form of a conception of design without considering its historical background is bound to fall into a number of traps and paradoxes in the confusion between the logical form of the definition. One is tempted to grant teleology to human behavior or to any form of life, or a pure biological basis. But Nature is not teleological itself, not even life or human behavior when considered as determined by goals. Furthermore, human behavior and its material products can be seen as self-reflectivity teleological, but even then, it is possible to distinguish between the conceptual and the natural aspects of self-conscious, goal-oriented behavior. And logical properties such as the relationship between means and goals are properties of concepts, not of natural objects.

The Concept of Use-Fit

Any logical construct may be applied to the description of the world, and to human behavior as part of the natural world. But then the validity of the construct must be questioned, not only as to its formal consistency, but also as to the conditions for its semantic use, as to assumptions that are necessary in order to translate natural properties into logical ones which the formal elements of the construct are. By thinking in terms of goals and instruments in general, rather than in terms of the concrete set of circumstances which determine needs, desires, interests, and the human conduct that emerges from them, an abstract parameter – utility or fit – begins to appear, which acts as a homogenizing category against which particular occurrences of needs, desires, and interest may be measured and compared.

In order to understand the implications of this abstraction, it is convenient to look at historical development. Although the utilitarian approach has older roots, we may take as the first important step in its development, i.e. important in this context in view of the consequences it has had on our conceptions of design. Architecture took the lead from the Modern Movement, aiming towards a unified theory of architecture and assuming that construction-fit – as illustrated this time by the processes rather than the products of technology – and use-fit were interchangeable tokens of more general and universally valid principle. In doing this the tradition of design methods has often engaged in giving concrete expression to ideas that the pioneers of the Modern Movement had expressed in vague and metaphoric terms.

Architects involved in design methods seem indifferent to the historical development of the concept of fit, especially to the fact that it was provided with a concrete sense in each period, only thanks to particular historical circumstances. Those circumstances entailed contradictions, exceptions, and in general a symbolic rather than a literal understanding of the concept itself. And so, taking it for granted as a self-evident basis, design theorists have attempted to build upon it a whole systematic construction: a science of design, endowed by the principle of logical consistency, made out of grafts and transfers from other sciences (most of them themselves entailing assumptions rooted in the same tradition of utilitarianism), and aiming at a normative content, ready to be imposed upon the actual practice of design. Such a science of design has two paradoxes. One is the attempt to abstract, for the sake of generality, objectivity, and amenability to systematic treatment, the essence of instrumental, as such, from the complexity of their particular occurrences carries with it an increasing difficulty in contrasting the instrument with its use. Theory thus faces the designer with it a dilemma: on the one hand it tells him that the design object is but an instrument for the user to achieve his own private goals; on the other hand, it asks him to conceive of the latter as external to the design process – as being, from the point of view of the design process, pure forms of intention, indifferent as such to whatever particular contents they may assume. It is as if the distinction between the instrument and satisfaction, assumed for the sake of methodological efficiency, became a property of the real world.

But then the notion of instrument becomes meaningless. Design theory tells the designer to consider the second-step goal (the actual use of the object) as a pure datum: something external given to the designer so that he can feed the algorithm of the design process; but since this datum is conceived as pure form, nothing is thereby actually given. A theory of fit, which pretends to make it into a general concept, necessarily has to consider the actual context, which is already there for instrument to fit in, as an empty form, as a whatever it may be; and this amounts to saying nothing about such context, which ultimately deprives the concept of fit of any meaning. The same remark applies to the progressive prevalence of utilitarianism in the development of design theory. It appears as if the more aware we become, in theory, of the goal-oriented nature of our design, the less we are able to achieve real satisfaction and enjoyments.

The Core of Design

Decision as opposed to representation would constitute the essential core of design since any representation would tend to be reduced to the condition of an extrinsic material. In the long run then, such science tends to empty itself of cognition content. This is the unavoidable result of the emphasis of methodology – in moving from the requirements to the solution – is achieved at the cost of screening off the landscape along the sides. The paradoxical consequences of this abstract concreteness become evident when one attempts to apply the theory to particular problems in particular situations. Then the abstract notion of strict instrumental subservience has to match a seamless fabric of interactions between needs, interests, desires, actions, preexisting conditions, and objects; the result is usually a frustrating one; a kind of time-free, discrete list of requirements which soon reveals its sheer practical inadequacy. As to the second paradox, concern amongst theorists and designers is more recent and not quite as widespread. It has to do however with the central theme: Design philosophy. In a sense, the idea of design appears to have been linked since its beginning to the idea of change – change to something better and different.

In the Renaissance, the whole concept of architectural design was permeated, given sense and glamor, by the neo-Platonic myth of the Golden Age. With the development of utilitarianism, the Golden Age jumped from the unattainable past, through the domain of Utopia, into the future; it became a driving force of progress. The paradox, here, appears to be that the more concrete the image of the future becomes, the more the change seems to dissolve into the air. The more concrete the new appears, the more it resembles the old. We have been striving towards an increasing fit in the interaction of man with the world; and we have reached far enough to feel that we have really got the future down to hand; but does it entail change, real change?

The notion of scientific knowledge

In order to examine these paradoxes, it may be useful to recall the development of the notion of scientific knowledge, which seems largely parallel to that of the notion of design. The concept of fit and the concept of truth both play similar roles in each of these developments. In both cases, it is a limit-concept which implies the match of an artefact – a scientific theory, or the end product of the mental activity of design. In both cases there has been a trend towards abstractions, starting with the Renaissance, increasingly emphasizing the concern with methodology and ending up with a straightforward avant-gardist extrapolation in the 1930s – the Modern Movement and logical positivism, respectively.

According to Feyerabend, if we consider theories as languages to describe the world, then facts do not properly fall outside, but inside that language. They do exist in themselves, but only with respect to theory. Different theories thus always have different facts. The decisive point is that scientific theories do not emerge in a virgin world of pure evidence, but always in a world where evidence is already the result of pre-existing theories – more or less scientific beliefs and ideologies. So, if we have to add our knowledge of the world – Feyerabend says that a strategy based on subtraction must be fundamentally wrong - the available evidence of facts; only by doing so will be able to discover new facts, thus enlarging the field of our experience and knowledge. This is in a few words his principle of counter induction as to be a stimulating parallel for design theory. Its attractiveness stems from the fact that it not only represents a radical departure from accepted assumption as to the role of verification, it also attacks the conception of truth as match between subjective and an objective component. Or rather, it substitutes this static conception of truth for a dynamic one, that has avowedly, according to Feyerabend himself, Hegelian roots. The proper object of theories according to him is not to match available evident, neither is it to make successful predictions: all there are but side effects of their central function, which is to enlarge our consciousness of the world. Just as Feyerabend points out in the case of scientific theories, facts do not emerge in a virgin world of pure requirements, but always in a world where requirements are the result of preexisting views, beliefs, and ideologies.

Conclusion

Particularly, in our present society, the result of ideology of utilitarianism has gained an almost universal stronghold ever since the advent of industrial revolution. If the designer has to add to our physical relationship with the world, he will have to address his intentions against to misfit rather than fit, the realm of available requirements. This is not to advocate for an extravagant doctrine of subjectivism. As with scientific knowledge (or rather more) the subjective and the objective are not in design ultimate categories, absolutely irreconcilable spheres; they are both the result of cultural processes within which the designer’s own subjective anticipations take shape alongside as well as the objective satisfaction of the users. And it is not, on the other hand, to assume that the fit occurs, anyhow, as a result of cultural determination since culture does not constitute an integrated system but a field of varied and often conflicting positions, where dissensus has a role to play as positive as that of consensus since there would be no cultural change without it.

Thus, the two important things about culture that the designer should bear in mind are as follows. First, it is always there, so it is not pure subjectivity, or pure freedom. Second, we are making it, so it is not pure objectivity, or pure necessity. Which amounts to saying it is history. History as necessity as well as History as freedom. The case now stands for the need for semiotics in the theory of design. Since the very substance of culture is to be made out of symbolism or more precisely process of signification semiosis. Semiotics, the theory of semiosis, assumes the role of a theory of culture. This means it is an attitude aiming at the consistent critique of the knowledge provided by other discipline (social sciences, humanities, including subject matter of design theory).

[wagihyoussef]

Art, Tradition, and Architecture

Abstract

Most historical causes emerge from mistakes that men make about the world, that is why those historians who were independently prepared to take subjectivity into account make so many mistakes about causes. Perceptions vary in predictable ways with time, and social status; that is why individual sets of minds lend themselves to sociological inquiry. But perceptions vary also with temperament, with unconscious conflicts, with disharmonies among the public sources of perception. An individual incorporates the shapes of his culture, his craft, and his family, but his character is a unique mixture of conformity. He is not a receptacle for external influences, not always an effect but often a cause.

Keywords: cause, thing-free, perception, functionalism,

Introduction

A tradition may be a fanciful mask for sordid motives, but it may also be a repository for precious craft, wisdom and an authentic defense of threatened standards. The historian needs a more and entirely different kind of light from psychology than this. He needs theories that will permit him to construct an explanation of all conduct and motives, rational and irrational, intelligent or realistic, and he needs those theories because he renders psychological verdicts much of the time, deriving them quite unsatisfactorily from common sense, and from bold, rationalistic interests. The historian uses psychoanalysis as a way of seeing. If history teaches anything, it is that the unexpected is to be expected. The nonrational component in human experience is quite simple and pervasive. Each historical world generates historical causes of its own, even though each of these worlds initially emerges to satisfy some elemental urge. The variety of causes for their life’s work is not of their own creating, it is an overwhelming fact of their existence. Most men do not make their world, they find it. Most of what they think, feel, perceive, and do is no more than unreflective reenactment of social habits, and cultural stereotypes. The innovator is indebted to materials that the past has provided for him. Man, without culture is not merely deficient, he is unthinkable. His very language, including the formulas with which he rejects the past, is anchored in the collective atmosphere into which he is born. Sigmund Freud said there are only two sciences: psychology, pure and applied, and natural science. Sociology, the study of human behavior of people in society was nothing more than applied psychology. The historian lives in the world of the middle range and the middle size. He is in the position of the architect who makes do with Newtonian gravity or Euclidean geometry, since the language of quantum physics and modern mathematics apply to worlds either much larger or much smaller in which he piles his trade.

Talent and Tradition

Modern artists found inspiration a highly problematic endowment. Many artists saw it as the source of their originality. And that originality defines their personal talent, their relation to the tradition. Some of the most self-assertive of modern architects have acknowledged their public’s share in the making of architectural art and sculpture. Paul Rudolph has said, “sculpture is never architecture and architecture is never sculpture.” There has to be a balance. Buildings have to be of three qualities: durability, convenience and beauty. These do not add up to an architect’s license for aesthetic willfulness, but if an architect has a distinctive forceful talent, it would offer a persuasive argument that his private vision has played a significant part in his public performance.

In architectural perception there exists a tension between surface and depth perception. Architects pay little attention to the coherent things shaped around them. They may dissect them into arbitrary fragments and region them into irrational forms to suit their unconscious urge for symbolization. In other words, architectural perception tends to be not only Gestalt-free, but also thing-free. We observe this thing-free model better in primitive or irrational types of architecture which also demonstrate the Gestalt-free modes of perception. We see how in some primitive architecture the unconscious symbolism hidden in the building’s form may distort the realistic appearance of the outlines. Real things impress us in buildings by their constancy. They appear to be the same in spite of their many varying aspects of geometrical shapes.

Mass Production and the International Style

Architecture responds to social pressures in the most conspicuous memorials to its engagement with the world. Nor do private dwellings every wholly escape the public dimension. Many seekers after shelter restrict their fantasies to domestic memories of their childhood and are satisfied with duplicating the tastes of their parents. If architects really wanted to develop a genuine historically valid form of expression, they would have to revolutionize the visual education of the young and at the same time make intensive studies of mass production in housing. Overloading and false romanticism in place of good proportions and practical simplicity have for all purposes became the tendency of our age. Mass production had proved beneficial in combining the highest quality of raw material, and labor with low prices, to treat houses as industrial products would have to employ technology in the service of cultural ends. The road to the future lay in the intelligent application of prefabrication and standardization. The noisy debate between Expressionists and Rationalists, between adversaries and advocates of the machine, between champions of the solitary genius and those of anonymous designers, between ancients and moderns was in fact anything but the clear combat that the spectacle of public discord makes it appear.

Architecture has been complicated by the proliferation of the glass cages and concrete prisons that have come to dominate the office districts in the name of the International style. The most celebrated designers of our time have given the public not what it wants but what they have been grimly confident it ought to want. Looking at the cities, the universities, the suburbs built in our century we can hardly dismiss this posture as mere pose. It is true that the architect with a new sense of space, a new grasp of material, a new perception of form needs more than the scale model to test his ideas. The innovator must offend reigning taste. The modernist slogan, functionalism, which is associated with Gropius has obscured its essential flexibility. Dogmatism in fact was its enemy. Construction of a livable space was its overriding consideration. Functionalism includes comfort, intimacy, and aesthetic satisfaction. The beautiful is always truthful. To be expressive and flexible with spaces, to deploy materials candidly, was only half of the architect’s assignment. The aesthetic, though inseparable from the useful, could not properly be reduced to it. The liberation of architecture from ornament, the emphasis on its structural functions, and the concentration on concise and economic solutions, represent the purely material side of that formalizing process on which the practical value of the new architecture depends. The aesthetic satisfaction of the human soul is just as important as the material. Both find their counterpart in that unity which is life itself.

Before modernism, symbols and signs were common cultural property. Everyone knew the meaning of art as constituting a moment of frozen history, insolently refusing to age while generations who know the way to decorative designs owe nothing to familiar shapes but discussing the possibilities of synesthesia, which playfully experimenting with color and taste of sounds, or the sound of colors and letters served to emancipate art from anecdotes, from resemblances as from natural appearances and declared that all art aspire towards the condition of music, as it were the character for abstract art rejecting the sentiment of romanticism. They were searching for the purity in art, and for universal principles of beauty not being mere sensations. They thought of Cubism for taking a step toward abstraction. Artists had them see the possibility of doing art without the natural aspect of form, using straight lines placed in rectangular positions. The adage became ‘modern art is for modern man.’

The Search for Order and Clarity

Those rhythmic and relentless rectangles of Cubism may speak for search of order and clarity amidst the chaos of modernity. Then the cultivated men gradually turned away from the natural and headed towards the abstract life. This made the public aware of the possibilities of pure plastic art and to demonstrate its relationship to, and its effect on, modern life in accord with the spirit of modern times. The task of plastic art was to bring clarity into the world, a matter that is of great importance to humanity. It is the task of art to express a clear vision of reality. This made the artist appear as a liberator by freeing mankind from subjectivity, from confusion and from the oppression of time. The world then is caught in a struggle between antagonistic forces, chaos, disequilibrium, confusion battling order, balance and clarity. Art and life illuminate each other, they reveal their laws according to which a real and living balance is created towards clarity and purity. Pure intuition contains a psychological component. The art of architecture exerts itself in a true space, one in which we walk and which the activity of our bodies occupies.

A building is not a collection of surfaces, but an assemblage of parts in which length, width and depth agree with one another in a certain fashion and constitute an entirely new solid that comprises an internal volume and an external mass. The architectural masses are determined by the relationship of the parts to each other, and the parts to the whole. A building moreover is rarely a single mass. It is rather a combination of secondary masses and principal masses. This treatment of space attains and extraordinary degree of power, variety, and virtuosity. The space that presses evenly on a continuous mass is as immobile as that of mass itself. But the space that penetrates the voids of the mass, and is invaded by the proliferation of its reliefs, is mobile. This architecture of movement assumes the qualities of wind, of flame, and of light; it moves within a fluid space. The architecture of stable masses defines a massive space. Mass offers the double and simultaneous aspect of internal mass and external mass, and that the relation of one to the other is a matter of peculiar interest to the study of form in space. Exterior volumes and their profiles interpose a new and entirely human element upon the horizon of natural forms, to which their conformity or harmony, when most carefully calculated, always adds something unexpected.

The unique privilege of architecture among all the arts is not that of surrounding as it were, guaranteeing a convenient void, but of constructing an interior world that measures space and light according to the laws of geometrical, mechanical, and optical theory which is necessary implicit in the natural order, but to which nature itself contributes nothing. Light not only illuminates the internal mass but collaborates with the architecture to give it its needed form. Light itself is a form, since the rays streaming forth at predetermined points are compressed, attenuated, or stretched in order to pick out variously unified and accented members of the building, for the purpose either of tranquilizing it or of giving it vivacity. Light is form.

Abstract Building Design and Misuse of Materials

Peasant architecture was swept away and replaced by a sophisticated one. Industrial revolution’s design for mass consumption improved dexterity. This explains the phenomenon of the collapse of aesthetic values, it also explains why it is that the most forward-pointing work so often came from outsiders. The reason why it came from engineers is that the century was one of materialism and of science and technology. The progress was made at the expense of aesthetic sensibility of the kind that would have granted acceptance to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The Crystal Palace met with success, but so also did the horrors of decorative art displayed in it. Nowadays, architects consider their buildings to be liberated from the local and specific demands that had shaped architecture in the past. They are directed to design buildings of simplified geometric form in the abstract, deriving its form from the symbolic sheathing of the building frame. The nature of the architectural product changed completely, and the result was a characteristic building type that used far more energy than the buildings it succeeded. This change of building design is widely accepted.

The materials of buildings changed from natural material to synthetic ones, with an increase in the amount of energy needed to produce them. The form developed from an effort to speed design and construction by making as many components as typical as possible. Architects depended on mechanical cooling to compensate for the heat gain on the outside from the sun, and on the inside from artificial lighting and body heat. Moreover, curtain walls have far weaker performance in resisting heat loss during the winter. Mies van der Rohe’s project for an all glass tall building became the holy grail for our generation of architects, even though the performance of glass as a material developed to double glazing with various coatings. The partially mirrored glass that reflects radiant heat and the sun’s heat away from the building while still allowing vision is more energy consumptive than clear glass. Misuse and overuse of materials to perform specific functions are unacceptable aesthetically as they are economically. The extensive use of plastics and synthetics in place of natural materials has also increased energy use. Today, vinyl and vinyl asbestos are the predominantly available replacement, but they tend to break down suddenly under extended ultraviolet light or sheer passage of time. Architects and engineers are now talking of total energy systems for buildings.

Conclusion

In the pursuit on the part of the historian to explain what made something happen, but is reluctant to theorize about it, he is not likely to take his instances from art, but to draw his classic examples from portentous catastrophes. Historians who have offered explanations of their causes have never commanded general assent. The arts follow civilization and spring from all its customs. Most artists are convinced that art expresses the worlds in which it was made; their argument employs openly or covertly the language of cause. It understands art to be an effect. To assign the dimensions of breadth and depth to art is only the beginning of wisdom. Each sort of human activity has its characteristic cluster and hierarchy of causes. Yet, while the distribution of causes varies in expected ways, each event contains types of causes in combinations that we can surmise but not wholly determine in advance. Art enjoys so special a status in historical analysis. And even in those rare instances in which causes prove to be principally of one sort, the kind of which the historian is likely to find by, rather than preceding, investigation. Cause is a conjurer, concealing tricks in its capacious bag that even the experienced cannot wholly anticipate. Private motives and responses can never provide the explanation of an event because an event never wholly corresponds to individual intentions, or even to the sum of their conflicts. The historic event is a compromised formation, psychological cause can provide only part of the impetus resulting in what we see. There is a cause for everything, but we do not know it. To know, to understand is happiness.

[wagihyoussef]

Art and the Trouble about Beauty

Abstract

Artists and architects found out that any imitation of real nature would never be sufficient to produce beauty that is why they went in search of a reliable recipe which would explain what makes for beauty.   They believed that they have found such beauty in the teachings of the classical writers on the proportions of the human body.  So, the search for novelty and effect may have interfered with the ordinary purpose of art and architecture. The classical solution of perfect harmony is not the only solution conceivable; natural simplicity is only one way of achieving beauty. The fact is that from the Renaissance outwards, almost to our own time architects have used the same basic forms, columns, pilasters, and moldings, all of which were originally borrowed from classical architecture; the Renaissance in particular.

Keywords: the human body, perspective, imitation, simplicity, beauty

Introduction

The industrial Revolution began to destroy the very traditions of solid craftsmanship; handiwork gave way to machine production, the workshop to the factory.  The most immediate results of this change were visible in architecture.  The lack of solid craftsmanship combined with a strange insistence on style and beauty killed it.  The rules of thumb and the pattern books were generally discarded as too simple and none artistic.  The architect was commissioned to provide a façade in the Gothic style.  Churches were built in the Gothic style because this had been prevalent in what was called the Age of Faith.  For theatres and opera houses the theatrical Baroque style was often considered suitable, while palaces and ministries were thought to look most dignified in the stately forms of the Italian Renaissance.

The trouble about beauty is that the tastes and standards of what is beautiful are also applied in expression. Some people like expression which they can easily understand and turn away from works whose expression is less easy to understand. People want to admire the artist's skill in representing the things they see which mimic reality, in which every tiny detail is recorded.  However, artists like to teach us to see in nature new beauties of whose existence we have never dreamt.  Great works of art seem to look different every time one stands before them. To enjoy these works, one must have a fresh mind to understand that there are great works of art which have none of the obvious qualities of beauty of expression or correct draughtsmanship, but who become so proud of their knowledge that they pretend to like only those works which are neither beautiful nor correctly drawn. They end up losing their true enjoyment of art, and call everything very interesting.  

In the age of reason people began to become self-conscious about style and the rules of taste which made people select the style of their building as one selects the pattern of a wallpaper.  However, the majority of architects still kept to the classical forms of Renaissance building.  They realized that what had passed as the rules of classical architecture since the 15th century was taken from a few Roman ruins of a decadent period which were different from the classical designs found in Palladio's book. Hence the neo-classical style of architecture became the style of France, where Gothic revival existed side by side with this new style of the Greek.

Ancient Egyptian Art

For ancient Egyptian artists what matters was not prettiness but completeness.  It was the artist's task to preserve everything as clearly and permanently as possible.  So, they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle, they drew from memory, according to strict rules which ensured that everything that had to go into the picture would stand out in perfect clarity.  Egyptian art is not based on what the artist could see at a given moment, but rather on what he knew belonged to a person or a scene at a given moment. The Egyptian artists found it inconceivable to represent a figure without showing each part from its most characteristic angle.  They knew what a foot, an eye, or a hand looked like, and they fitted these parts together to form a complete man.  To represent a figure with one arm hidden from view, or one foot distorted by foreshortening, would have seemed to them outrageous.

The Egyptians had based their art on knowledge, but the Greeks like to use their eyes trying to represent the human figure to look alive by bending the mouth upwards so that it appears to smile so that the smile might look like an uncomfortable grin, or less rigid stance might give the impression of affection.  They loved firm outlines and balanced design. The Greeks found freedom to represent the human body in any position or movement that could be used to reflect the inner life of the figures represented.  They should represent the workings of the soul by observing the way feelings affect the body in action.  Greek artists idealized nature, and they thought of it in terms of a photographer who touches up a portrait by deleting small blemishes which usually lack character and vigor.  

Greek Art

The Greek artists have avoided giving the heads a particular expression.  The heads of Greek statues or paintings of the fifth century are not expressionless in the sense of looking dull or blank, but their features never seem to express any strong emotion.  It was the body and its movements which were used by these masters to express the workings of the soul because they sensed that the play of features would distort and destroy the simple regularity of the head.  In the Hellenistic period ancient oriental art had no use for landscapes except as settings for their scenes of human life or of military campaigns, for Greeks in the Hellenistic period liked the charm of simple life among shepherds, and cattle in a peaceful scene.  Hellenistic artists did not know the laws of perspective.  Artists drew distant things small, and near things large.  During the centuries, Hellenistic and Roman art completely displaced the arts of the Oriental Kingdom.  Greek and Roman art helped the Indians to create an image of their savior Buddha with its expression of deep repose in the region of Gandahara.

Ideals of clarity and simplicity began to outweigh ideals of faithful imitation.  Sculptors no longer had the patience to work marble with a chisel, they used more ‘rough–and–ready’ methods like mechanical drilling trying to achieve new effects which turned out to look crude and barbaric which meant the end of the ancient world. Artists no longer checked their formula against reality.  The question of the proper purpose of art in churches proved of immense importance for the whole history of Europe.  One party was against all images of religious nature.  They were called iconoclasts or image-smashers.

Italian Renaissance Art

Brunelleschi was not only the initiator of Renaissance architecture. To him, it seems, is due another momentous discovery in the field of art, that of perspective.  He who gave the artists the mathematical means of solving this problem, and the excitement which this caused among his painter friends must have been immense. The style of Goth is known as the International style because the aims of the leading masters in Europe were all very similar.  As soon as the new concept of making the picture a mirror of reality was adopted this question of how to arrange the figures was no longer easy to solve.  In reality figures do not group themselves harmoniously; nor do they stand out clearly against a neutral background.  In other words there was a danger that the new power of the artist would ruin his most precious gift of creating a pleasing and satisfying whole.  Paintings had to be seen from a far and had to fit into the architectural framework of the whole of the space.

Brunelleschi had put an end to the Gothic style in Florence by introducing the Renaissance method of using classical motifs for his buildings. Though the forms of these buildings still contained such typical elements of Gothic architecture as the pointed arch or the flying buttress, the taste of the times had greatly changed, because the discoveries and innovations of Brunelleschi's generation in Florence had lifted Italian art on to a new plane, and had separated it from the development of art.  

The beginning of the 16th. Century, the cinquecento, is the most famous period of Italian art.  This was the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michel Anglo and many other famous masters who were born in the same period which is called the High Renaissance.  Then came the period of the great discoveries, when Italian artists turned to study the laws of perspective, and to anatomy to study the human body to explore the mysteries of nature.  At last, the artist was free since the time of Brunelleschi.  What they were asked to do was to build a city of Palaces and Churches for the beauty of their proportions, the spaciousness of their interiors and the grandeur of their ensemble.  The artist's business was to explore the visible world with great intensity and accuracy.  The artists of that generation had struggled to combine the demand of realism with that of design.

Impressionists

The struggle of the Impressionists became the treasured legend of all innovators in art, who could point to the failure of the public to recognize novel methods.  The main principles of the new movement could find full expression only in paintings, but sculpture, too, was drawn into the battle for or against modernism.

Some people may consider the Impressionists the first of the moderns, because they defied certain rules of painting as taught in the academies.  They wanted to paint nature as we see it.  The conquest of nature had become that everything that presented itself to the painter could become the motif of a picture.  Some Impressionists went in for canvases of enormous size where it is the scale that makes an impact, and this scale, too, bases its point in an illustration.  Many artists are fascinated by texture, the feel of something, smoothness or roughness, its transparency or density discarding ordinary paint for other media, such as mud, sandcast or sand.  The grain of rusty iron, the coarseness of sacking, can all be exploited in novel ways. These products stand somewhere between painting and sculpture.  This prepares one for the discovery of the picturesque beauties of nature in the raw. It was Claude Lorrain who made Roman ruins picturesque.

Artists came into contact with Impressionism in Paris. However, one called Whistler was not Impressionist. His main concern was not with the effects of light and color but rather with the composition of delicate patterns.  He stressed the point that what mattered in painting was not the subject but the way in which it was translated into colors and forms.  It is the careful balance of simple forms that gives the picture its restful quality. There are artists who have become interested in the optical effects of shapes and colors, the way they can be made to interact on the canvas to produce an unexpected dazzle or flicker which is a movement which has been dubbed "Op Art".  It is true that to command respect among younger generations an artist had to master these media in an interesting way.  

Conclusion

The tradition of the new has reduced all other traditions to triviality.  It is the interest in change that has accelerated change to its pace.  In a certain sense the new interest in the history of art is in itself a consequence of a great many factors which have changed the position of art and artists in societies.  We know of the Stone Age and the Iron Age, we know of the Industrial Revolution.  We may be aware of losses and gains in these successive formations, which have carried us into the Space Age.  Indeed art is regarded as the main expression of the age.  Today the conviction is universal that those who stick to obsolete belief and who refuse to change will reach a dead end.  We must keep an open mind and give a chance to new methods which have been proposed.  Art not only wants to keep step with science and technology it also wants to provide an escape from these monsters.  It is for this reason that artists have come to shun what is rational and mechanical

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture when it was the concern of the Carpenter and the Stone Mason

 Abstract

This essay is a very brief tracing of the architectural development of temples and churches that were constructed in wood and stone, with emphasis on Romanesque and Gothic examples. Men were involved in spiritual Oriental myths. They were seeking the irrational and wanted their architecture to represent them. The Romans surpassed the Greeks by covering their buildings with vaults, domes and cross vaults instead of flat roofs. The desire to protect the building from fire lead to the innovation of the roofing system. The most important thing that happened later in the Romanesque period is the organization of the ground plan. In Gothic churches, innovations included the addition of a triforium, shafts and tracery, as well as fan vaults and flying buttresses.

Keywords: basilica, transept, ambulatory, shaft, tracery, triforium, fan vault, memberification

Introduction

When the Greeks built their temples, the exterior was to them more important than the interior since men were not allowed to enter.  The door disappeared behind the columns which stand boldly in the exterior carrying their entablatures without apparent excessive force.  The columns are all around divorced from the walls behind. In contrary to this the Romans built massive walls with arches over piers.  When columns are called for, they are employed attached to the wall.  The Romans surpassed the Greeks by covering their buildings with vaults, domes and cross vaults instead of flat roofs.  Men were involved in the spiritual Oriental myths. They were seeking the irrational and wanted their architecture to represent them.  It was impossible to distinguish between the architecture of the cult and that of the Romans but the examples which can be demonstrated are those of Palace of Diocletian c.300 and Basilica of Maxentius c.300. Diocletian Palace was designed to look only from the exterior to the sea while in the interior it was composed of colonnades surrounding four courts.  Two of the courts contained the dwelling of the Emperor and the other two were arranged so that one of them in the west contains a small temple, and one in the east contains a mausoleum. The Basilica of Maxentius called Basilica Constantine is an oblong divided into a nave between two aisles.  The nave was covered by three main vaults and buttressed by three vaulted side bays (on each side).  The whole was decorated by coffers.  

Early Christian Basilicas

The Christians in c.313 were reluctant to use the Romans’ way of covering their buildings. They saw the vaults as being an earthly material and they advocated the basilica type for their churches.  The basilica was composed of a nave and side aisles. The aisles were separated from the nave by colonnades (arches over columns). The east end of the church contained the apse flanked by two rooms.

Only windows in one row at the external walls of the aisles and sometimes mosaic figures of saints and martyrs occupied the Nave walls between the arcade and the clerestory. Later some additions were introduced to churches such as a transept separating the apse from the nave.  In England the basilica type church like that of 8th c. was provided by two transepts; one in the place of the Narthex, and the other in its usual place before the Chancel. These transepts where higher than the Nave and carry in their centers towers of different sections. Towers containing the circular stairs were arranged so that two flanked the entrance and two flanked the apse.  It was said that this design has influenced the shape of Amiens Cathedral later on.

Romanesque Churches

The most important thing that happened in the Romanesque period is the organization of the ground plan. The plan is organized in groupings either by radiation from the apse at the eastern part of the church or by staggering. The first was by making an ambulatory around the main apse and then arranging chapels radiating from the center of the apse. In the second which is staggered, chapels were added parallel to the main apse in the east wall of the transept and by extending the side aisles passing the transept and ended by chapels flanking the main apse. The reason for such an arrangement was due to the need for more chapels to be used by the different priests who want these to be reserved for them.  Such groupings resulted in letting the church appear as a coherent unified entity.

In central Europe the plan evolved. The nave was divided in three parts to compose three squares and was emphasized by square piers as in St. Michel c.1000 at Hildesheim. There the space between the piers was occupied by arcades on round slender pillars.  The church has two transepts, and in the intersection between the nave and the transept, which is a square chancel, there they constructed arches on four sides to stress the square.  The side aisles were also divided into three squares benefitting from the pillars of the nave to stress the corner of the squares. This arrangement gave a sort of articulation to the church different than the monotony of the repeated pillars of the early Christian churches.

In England and by the influence of the Normans a new principle was employed in the church by separating a bay from a bay. This was achieved by replacing the piers of the former example by tall shafts from floor to ceiling at that time was flat.  This gave the feeling of certainty and stability which was achieved by tall shafts and massive walls, the columns of the galleries short and sturdy, the capitals are as blocks in rude forms and the overwhelming plainness of the whole interior.

Gothic Cathedrals

The desire to protect the building from fire lead to the innovation of the roofing system. Instead of flat and wooden construction they replaced it by rib vaults.  This was first tried in Durham c.1093. Durham was ornamented by decorating the columns in different shapes as zigzags, Lozenges and flutes. The tall shaft instead of meeting the flat roof now joined the ribs of the vaults and the eye was guided to follow the members of supports and that of the supported continuously uninterruptedly. This gave a third dimension to the bay and was perceived as a unit.  This also created rhythm from spatial to spatial and so on. The cathedral has Roman motifs in the interior such as pointed arches, tunnel vaults, clerestory and triforium instead of gallery. In the north the church interior becomes plainer and with the minimum decoration while towards the south elaboration of ornaments and eye-catching objects overwhelm the spaces and for the Romans the style the spatial is against the sculpture spirit of Greek and Rome.

In St. Denis’ east end they removed the partitions between the chapels and placed the buttresses in the exterior to give the interior the effect of a coherent whole and lightness. However, the articulation remained more sophisticated than the Romanesque in the interior i.e. over memberification. In the twelfth century another innovation was added to the cathedral which is the introduction of a triforium.  The division of the elevation thus became four such as in Noyon Cathedral.  The supports are alternating. The major supports are composite piers and the minor are round and accordingly the vaults are six partite.

In Laon Cathedral all the supports are round, but the ribs are distributed differently on each support.  They are arranged in groups of three or five.  The similarity of piers gives the impression of continuous movement rather than a halt in every bay.  They added shaft-rings to the ribs to emphasize the horizontality. In the Notre Dame of Paris, the piers are similar and the ribs are distributed in equal groups on every support. Instead of a triforium they inserted a row of circular windows.  The arcades of the gallery are three and this caused the pillars to be slim.

Another innovation of the high Gothic is the introduction of shafts in tracery composition in the vast openings of the clerestory windows.  The stress now rested on the lines of pattern not on the support of the wall.  The spires over the towers are a characteristic of this style. This explains why the exterior of the High Gothic Cathedrals contain so many towers and hence spires. The immense height and the translucent stained glass make a miraculous interior while the exposition of the mechanism of the exterior represented by the flying buttresses demand the power of the intellect to understand the reason of making the interior.  For the medieval mind everything was a symbol. The meaning that mattered lay behind the outward appearance.  Beauty lies only in God's creation.  Thus, the stained-glass windows were full of ecclesiastical images.

In terms of space the Bristol Cathedral (1298) is an aisled hall not a basilica in that the height of the aisles is the same as the Nave. This resulted in a unified room with piers inserted.  Some of the composite piers have capitals while the rest extend to the vault.  The ribs of the vaults neither start from the wall nor from the composite piers, which is a significant innovation. The ribs are supported by bridges below the transverse arches; where from their centers ribs sprung up to support the nave vault. It was due to the influence of the Friars that the shape of the churches tended to simplification.

It was said that side chapels between buttresses were introduced into German churches by the Friars. The tendency through simplicity and one unified space is seen in Gerona Cathedral of 1416 in Spain.  There the Nave has aisles, and this proves the change of style from High to Late Gothic, and these types of churches were called the perpendicular type. The introduction of the Fan-vault was in the college chapel in Cambridge at the east end of Westminster Abbey (1503) originated from the vault designs of chapter houses.  The Fan-vault and the perpendicular formed a unified space highly articulated. England introduced timber roofs in their Parish churches with variety of types. The boldest of these is the roof of the aisles churches of Needham Market where it rises without any visible support.  Such roof added a quality of richness to the English churches.