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The Building The advent of the mordernist aesthetic has ensured that buildings can no longer be evaluated purely on their legibility. After all a building is a three-dimensional structure that is defined solely through its specific tectonic forms. How it is made is what it is. And so in the modern era the mental scope of aesthetic appreciation broadens to include the qualities imparted by the informal and reductivist constructions that are outside the family of historically consistent architecture based on the classical orders or other historical norms. Striking departures include the purist Villa Savoye, the iconic Sydney Opera House and more recently the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Since modernist constructions are devoid of motifs, the artistic intent is not explicitly stated for its reading, rather it is merely implied in the arrangement of the constructional elements. From these the aim is to elicit necessarily subjective responses from its viewers. Formal disintegration itself is evocative and even pleasant but we cannot ask specifically of exactly what or how. Gaudi's Casa Mila alluded to this but we are still mystified by free form in buildings. A modern office building or a modern shopping centre is in practice a large air-pump into which spaces have been provided for people enter and use. Working inside a modern office complex puts you in a specific physical condition and operational mindframe. It might be pleasant but you are nonetheless trapped inside a pre-programmed set of experiences. In the drama of architectural expression, by removing decoration, the properties of materials themselves are coerced into fulfilling an emotive role. This can be interesting in itself. Materials can even be attributed certain "characterial" facets but modern design harnesses materials mainly for "effect". For example, glass is transparent. It becomes a key ambiental factor in a building. Treated in a certain way, such ambiences are "sensational". It leaves you impressed in some way by the "effect". Granular or natural earth-based materials are treated as simple blocks or panels in a smoothened modular fashion. Natural Materials are reduced to the visual essence of their surfaces. Metal surfaces are very smooth and flat and provide a building with a look that is consistent with the mode of modern structural framing. It produces a machine-like "effect". Bronze and copper are heavy but warm and rough. The effect feigns a mystic experience. Aluminium has a smooth but dull surface but it is light. Lead is even duller and much heavier. Each material evokes a varying emotional sensation but there are no expressive possibilities here for connective meaning. Each building is lived at the level of pure sensations just for itself. |