Theoretical Transparency within spatial relationships. A common thread found throughout these various works is the concentration on the visual perceptions of space. Some of these concepts include abstracted spaces that create feelings similar to ones found in viewing a cubist painting where the user is constantly reassessing which spaces intertwine or relate. The relationships are formed from the basic roots in tectonic style that control how one sees a room such as heavy or light and shallow or deep. These different methods of overlaying and showing ambiguity abstractly, within spaces, merge and shift program to alter our ideas on how these spaces are associated. These perceptions not only include overlays but a sense of the beyond and the shortening and the extending of a space. Ambiguities within spaces that make associations between two or more areas are referenced to explain the phenomenal perceptions of a larger layout. The occupants assessments about a space and how they perceive it is directly associated with spatial relations, ambiguities, tectonics, and perceived barriers.
Annotated Bibliography
Blau, Eve. Transparency and the Irreconcilable Contradictions of Modernity, PRAXIS 9 (fall 2007): 50-59
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This article defines transparency through its visual and physical phenomena’s by the juxtaposition of spaces or the literal qualities of the materials. This article is written for architectural scholars to better understand the different types of transparencies and when to utilize them. Blau’s defined elements of transparency are used as tools to create and manipulate perceived spaces.
Frampton, Kenneth. Introduction to Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture Edited by John Cava (Cambridge and London: MIT Press), 1-27.
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This source is a chapter excerpt from a book focusing on tectonic meanings, origin and uses. The author presents a walk through the history of tectonics in different cultures, focusing on completed works and their building techniques in order to define a methodology in their use for the occupant. This book is written for an audience of researchers, students and architectural scholars. Frampton defines how tectonics has developed throughout cultures and how it can be used to engage the occupant in their surroundings. The tectonic elements are used to alter the feeling of a space.
Hayes, Michael. Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form MIT Press Perspecta, Vol. 21 (1984), pp. 15-29
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This source is a critical article on culture and form. This article analyzes architecture’s relationship to the changing times and the needs of new generations. They support their claim through case studies and psychological academic sources. The concepts overviewed are used to blend different spaces. Mies van der Rohe accomplished blending spaces within his buildings by merging and shifting programs and keeping an open plan that connected different areas of a person’s lifestyle.
Holl, Steven, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Alberto Perez Gomez. Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture. San Francisco, CA: William Stout, 2006.
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This source is a book composed of three essays that are thematically linked by the idea that all the senses are needed to completely experience architecture. They assert that human perception and phenomenology play the largest role in architecture. The authors provide evidence to this claim by referencing case studies and outlining the buildings to provide examples of how materials and methods are used. The essays are written for an audience of researchers, students and architectural scholars. It outlines the methods necessary to engage all of the occupant’s senses to create elements that will influence the user’s experience inside a piece of architecture.
Von Meiss, Pierre. Elements of Architecture From Form To Place. E & FN Spon (1998), pp. 101-114
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Pierre Von Meiss’s Elements of Architecture From Form To Place asserts that spatial relationships are born from what the user perceives as boundaries. He describes how forms are created by ideas about what space is and that they are defined by elements that are present and hint at boundaries or combined space. He begins his discussion by breaking down the box and the mindset of a wall and cites examples of porous walls and free plans that maintain a sense of place. These ideas are incorporated into how different spaces can relate to one another on a conceptual level in the user’s mind.
Rowe, Colin, Robert Slutzky. Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal MIT Press Perspecta, Vol. 8 (1963), pp. 45-54
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Colin Rowe’s and Robert Slutzky’s Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal asserts that architectural elements can be viewed equally from more than one point of view. To support their claim they cite buildings from influential architects that display the duality of space, planes and structure. The author’s purpose was to communicate the possible contrasting understandings of transparency in terms of it’s literal and phenomenal realities in order to add depth to a once simplified concept of design. Given the technical writing in the article the intended audience are architectural professionals, scholars and art theorists.
Rowe, Colin, Robert Slutzky. Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal Part II. MIT Press Perspecta, Vol. 13/14 (1971), pp. 287-301
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Colin Rowe’s and Robert Slutzky’s Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal Part II continues from their first discussion on transparency and extends it to encompass historical precedents. To support their claim they diagram façade organizational layouts and implied shape recognition associations showing examples of different ordering interpretations in architecture. The authors communicate the contrasting understandings of these forms of transparency in terms that the viewer can see different hierarchies in façades and forms. Given the technical writing in the article the intended audience are architectural professionals, scholars and art theorists.
Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1966)
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Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture discusses the phenomenological aspects of architecture. He analyses the complex uses of contradiction by highlighting ambiguity and relationships in spaces and forms to add depth to architectural design. These views on spatial interactions inform how to create volumes that share limits and create a sense of completeness within two different areas. The concept of contradiction in architecture can create a complex space from simple shapes and create contradictions in its form. These other interlocking spaces make a once simple shape relationship more complex and rich.