Parts: Whole

Our current lives are influenced by our past. New ideas are bred from past ideas that create and serve as inspiration.


Archetype⎢Prototype⎢Hybrid – although different words, have similar meanings. They are tied together through the idea of collection and compilation. Archetype meaning, “a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc.”, prototype meaning, “analogous to another thing of a later period” and “the original or model on which something is based or formed”. Hybrid meaning, a person or group of persons produced by the interaction or crossbreeding of two unlike cultures, traditions, or anything derived from heterogeneous sources, or composed of elements of different or incongruous kinds: a hybrid of the academic and business worlds and/or a word composed of elements originally drawn from different languages, as television, whose components come from Greek and Latin.”
Therefore, these words are meant to fuse together several cultures, periods, moments, and ideals to create a single idea of its own. A beautiful example of this fusion is the collosseum, which utilizes all of the various columns from different time periods and structural ideals. There are Doric columns on the 1st level and Ionic on the 2nd level and Corininthian on the 3rd level which gives the Colosseum its own unique style and historical vantage point never seen before. Blakemoore puts its well on page 28, “Classical Greek and Roman architecture has had an astounding influence both structurally and decoratively in subsequent periods, especially beginning with Renaissance Italy.” She is stating that in fact, Greek and Roman worked separately in their time of creation, but in Renaissance Italy they became a hybrid and served as an archetypal and prototypical form of design thus forward. Not only can a style work as a form of influential hybrid, prototype and archetype, but also the land, climate and culture can influence another place. Roth page 215, “As in Egypt, where the river and desert encouraged a particularly static culture, so too in Greece a specific geography and climate influenced culture, but here it fostered a much different view of mankind’s place in the world.” Roth encourages us to research and seek out how geography and climate can also serve as a canvas for a new prototype or archetype for a design. Therefore, we will continue to learn, create and transform ideas and have inspirations in which to create new surfaces and interiors for the future.

The Colusseum

Source is locating the original origin of a place or where a particular thing began. In Greece, this was an important part of life due to their trade lifestyle. Greece, because it is surrounded by water relies on other areas in bring in materials, food, and more. Blakemore pg. 27 allows us to interact with the foreign environment by describing Greece’s locality, “ Geographically, Greece was a mountainous country surrounded by three seas---Aegean, Mediterranean, and Ionian. There were essentially two implications related to these geographic features, one to competition among city-states, the other to trade.” Meaning that Greece was a difficult place to try and produce all the goods needed for every day life, so trade was vital; making the idea of outsourcing important. Greece relied on all the sources around them.
In drawing class, my group needed to draw as accurately as possible, the plan of our assigned building by just walking inside and out and drawing thumbnail sketches of what we saw. This led us to the source of our assignment---the Julius I. Foust Building. We had to see the rooms and experience the area around the building we pass each day. Find the source of a problem, where something derives from and where to cite or source a site, are all drawing back to the creator, start, beginning of something.
Source relates to entourage because without a source, there would not be surroundings and environments at all. In most modern spaces, every piece of furniture, building part and garden is full of plants, seed, trees, parts and pieces from all over the nation, if not the world. So our entourage is often shaped by outside sources. Just as in the Agora, there was a civic space for trade, religious practices, political speeches and open land for events in general. This are is overlooked by the Parthenon and allows people to look up from the Agora to see the strong, large building. This is a perfect example of visual hierarchy and order. No matter what source the products being sold in this area are from, the buyers and sellers will be overlooked by the Pantheon.

The Parthenon

The Greek trade routes

Entourage as it relates to design revolves around the idea of environment and/or surroundings. This allows for a scenery to be a scenery. In the Greek space, agora, there were trees, mountains, grasses and beautiful, strong buildings surrounding it. This was a space for many important functions and the entourage of the space was quite an attraction in and of itself. The beauty of the space gave it its importance. The same goes for the Julius I. Foust Building on campus surrounded by trees and pathways; the oldest building on campus is celebrated by the entourage. Roth spoke about entourage in Greece on pg. 216, “Everywhere, the Greek landscape is rough, a corrugated mass of limestone and marble mountain ridges extending into the sea like fingers, sheltering innumerable bays and coves.” Roth was showing us as readers how in fact there are different forms of landscape/entourages in the world. Different entourages effect architecture and can even help reflect hierarchy and order in an area and lead to new ideas and hybrids.

The Julius I. Foust Building

Columns served as a means of hierarchy in many of the architectural works of the past eras. There were Doric columns, Ionic columns, and Corinthian columns and each reflected a new idea and led to various interpretations and different hierarchal reflections. Since there were columns of different heights and widths, these were used in front of important buildings—the more and larger, the more important the building or the people or information inside of it. The Acropolis is located in Athens, Greece and contains many historically informative structures such as: Parthenon, Propylaia, Erechteion, Temple of Athena Nike. This area contained many columns because these buildings all served the societal class in their own unique way.
A great example of hierarcal intimidation is stated by Roth on pg. 218, “Set high on a limestone plateau rising from the plain of Argos and surrounded by massive cyclopean walls 20 feet thick, the city is approached by a ramp on the east side. Attackers would have been forced to approach along the eat will with their right side—the side not protected by a shield—exposed to bowmen on the parapets.” Roth is exposing the true essence of what makes a well planned, dominating building. This building truly defines hierarchy.

The Acropolis

Columns Left to Right: Doric, Ionic + Corinthian

Order is a sense of placement, linear, line. In a more abstract sense, it relates to hierarchy, such as the order of a king to a prince. The first architect that pops into my mind when I think of order is Tadao Ando . His concrete structures are so pronounced, formulated and clean line. A personal example of order was reflected in my last project where I built a wood frame wall. Every architect and contractor follows a certain code for specific walls. My wall had to have specific dimensions and every 2x4 had to be so far from the next. Blakemore pg. 28 informs us of the past, in Greek order, “The role of orders was significant in defining spaces of the Greek interior; not only did they divide spaces horizontally but they were also instrumental in creating visual interest by the attention drawn to them vertically through decorative detail in the capitals and in the entablature. The classical orders consist of the column with its base, shaft, capital, and entablature, and are classified by the capital as Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, or Composite.” To summarize, Blakemore is saying that in order to define a space, order is essential and a way that the Greeks did so, was through the use of verticality in their column configurations. Order allows for places to have a sense of balance and continuity and purpose.

Wood Wall

In closing, without order, hierarchy, prototypes, hybrids, archetypes, sources and entourages, we would not have the architecture or rich history that our buildings and structures exude today. Influence from the Greek, Roman and various eras have influenced how we trade or rather, utilize our sources and raw materials to create our new, hybrid/prototypical/archetypal buildings. The areas in which we now place our informed historical architecture, lies within entourages that have been previously attempted by our ancestors all over the world. As we examine these words in our world, there is much to be seen as new, yet previously inspired by our past. The structural elements, interiors, and exteriors all lead to our first source, our past.

All dictionary definitions are from: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Greek trade route: www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/greek_trade.jpg