[Illum+nat+ng H+story]

This week, I want my opus to be full to the brim with material, because that describes this week so well. We have had various types of work, new information from all of our classes + there is so much to be anticipated for the upcoming weeks. I feel as though I learned a month’s worth of material in just this one week between studio, drawing and history class, however there is so much to learn about how: “The history of architecture is primarily a history of man shaping space.”—Nikolaus Pevsner. As I stated in the first sentence, material, seems like the most fitting place to begin this second stop in my opus journey.

Material is a word meaning:

corporeal: having material or physical form or substance; "that which is created is of necessity corporeal and visible and tangible" - Benjamin Jowett.

Also, substantial: having substance or capable of being treated as fact; not imaginary; "the substantial world"; "a mere dream, neither substantial nor practical"; "most ponderous and substantial things"- Shakespeare
However, how do these definitions define our “material world” and reflect our daily lives? In studio for example, I was able to use a new material to me, chip board, to create a connected piece for “Pat” a person new to city life with a low budget who needed a connected: table/chair/server/workstation piece that served many needs at once. I was able to utilize this material to reflect the “actual” material Pat would use, MDF. Another way that material weaved its way into my life this week was through my artifact assignment that reflected my fairytale, “The White Snake”. I created a bracelet with paper hearts coming from it and used different media, or materials, to create my symbolic bracelet.
In regards to historical material, we learned about the various types of material’s that people used through the history of time. Architecture began with trees, skins and bones. Then we changed to even greater materials from the environment such as stones + rocks. There was so many materials that spanned through time that show that mankind has grown so much in the creation of forms, that even now, we are not just concerned about making a shelter, but one that embodies a power of 3: commodity, firmness + delight. Roth states on page 159 in Understanding Architecture: “The exact time that we human’s learned to build may never be known with certainty, for our earliest constructions were probably fashioned from organic material---branches, brush, hides and such—that quickly returned to the earth without a trace.” Also from Roth, “ Architecture is shelter, but it is also a symbol and a form of communication.” “Architecture is the crystallization of ideas, a physical representation of human thought and aspiration, a record of the beliefs and values of the culture that produces it.” As you can see from these examples from the reading, that architecture was not created over night and cannot be simplified down to a single word or simple system, but rather should be detailed, functional + well planned. Architecture + design, utilizing materials, has lead us to where we are today.
In drawing + drafting class, we covered watercolor + scale drawings of Pat’s furniture. Through watercolor I was able to learn about how the material of sketchbook paper reacted with the delicate watercolor + I am learning he science of too much or not enough water + the amount of paint it takes. Along with the watercolor, we learned about vignette’s and the proper way to “fade a picture” away and give it a snap shot of the area you are refrencing without giving full form the outer images. In drafting we utilized several materials: bond paper, vellum, lead weights, triangles, rulers, lead pointers, drafting tape, erasers + drafting boards to complete our assignments + multiple views of our personal furniture creation.



Moving with the idea that architecture + design must embody the three principals, I want to discuss commodity, firmness + delight. Commodity is a word meaning how something accommodates the user + how well it can be used by the average human being once created. Commodity deals with scale, form, shape + intention. Can your item be used as you intended it to be used? Firmness deals with the idea that the interior + exterior have the strength to endure the uses it will have against it, as well as the physical look of strength to the viewer. Does the building look sturdy? Some architects like to “confuse the eye” + use this idea of visual strength on the building’s exterior + make a building look heavier in the front or in the back, as if the building was off balance and so forth. Roth says the mind seeks order on page 69, “The principles of Gestault psychology suggest tat the mind seeks to find utmost order and regularity, and even that the preferred state is absolute uniformity.” A great example of an architect working against the classic, streamline + techniquely correct way to show firmness in exterior visual strength is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water [page 83]. Then finally, there is delight. Delight is what makes architecture + design pleasing to the eye + even the body, effecting the emotional response to a space. Color, ornamentation, texture, rhythm, proportion, scale, light all factor into this idea of the power of three.






To help further illuminate the weeks main focus of well rounded, historical, multi-media assignments + lessons, I want to transition into light, or the idea of illumination. Illumination is not just light, but the idea that we can “illuminate” an idea through words, ideas, + spirituality. To first + foremost discuss physical light, we learned in history about light as a way to see the world around us + to experience a space + all its parts. Roth, page 85, discusses the idea of light as a positive + a negative way of having someone experience a space; too much light + too little light can be a strain to the person’s eyes + negatively effects their experience of the space around them.



In regards to illumination as a word meaning: spiritual, verbal + mental, I learned this week in history class that Stonehenge can be placed in this category. We discussed in depth about Stonehenge + other such historical stone patterns that stood the test of time + created a spiritual + personal center where in some instances such as Stonehenge, only a single person could be at its center, whereas at Avebury, over 300 people could be at its center at a time. These stone configurations were able to shed “light” on what the history of these unique + mystifying structures could be.
In drawing class, we learned to illuminate our pages by utilizing watercolor in many different techniques. If I were to draw a scene in my sketchbook in pen, I could ten go over it in any colors I felt necessary, adding color to illuminate only certain sections of our page. In our vignette’s we were able to illuminate a section of an entire room or place or moment. I greatly enjoyed choosing what I felt were the most important moments in my week to incorporate into my sketchbook.


Throughout this week, we have covered commodity, firmness, delight, illuminate, material + finally, idiom. Idiom is a unique word meaning many things: a characteristic mode of music or art, untranslatable parts, shared by all, stylistic. Throughout history, there are many verbal + nonverbal idioms that make their way into architecture + design and help to produce commodity, firmness + delight, as well as material use + illumination. For example, hieroglyphics were used in early cave dwellings when man first made known shelter + decorated their interiors, as well as temple walls. Roth, page 191, “when the Temple of Holrus at Edfu was begun, inscriptions on the temple walls declared that great care had been taken to ensure observance of traditional architectural forms + iconography”. This quote helps us to better grasp the idea that markings, then used as a form of literacy can be considered a classic idiom. Other idioms that are verbal are, “cat got your tongue?” or “I have butterflies in my stomach!”



In conclusion of this second week’s opus journey, I want to reflect the words of the week: [commodity+firmness+delight], illuminate, idiom + material. These words work together to form our history, not just our verbal language or our daily routines, but our shelters, our dwellings, our habitats, our emotions, how we view our world + the world around us. This week has allowed me to take a step back + reflect on what it means to see the historical background of spaces, places + art.