Architecture Portfolio by Isabela De Sousa

CATALOGUE OF

DRAWINGS &WRITINGS BY

ISABELA DE SOUSA

Southern California institute of architecture 2013-2014

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Isabela De Sousa

2015. Volume I

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

ISABELA DE SOUSA

Catalogue of Drawings

CONTENTS Semester IV a. Studio: Final Drawings & Process Drawings b. Studio: Model Photos c. Pixelism: Visual Studies d. History of Ideas: The Relationship of Philosophy & Religion Semester III a. Precedent Analysis: Studio b. History of Architecture: Paper on Neoclassicism c. Studio: Final Drawings d. Studio: Process Drawings e. Humanities: On Aestheticism & Sci-Arc f. Humanities: Oscar Wildeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Critique on the Victorian Age g. The Spiral Stair: Visual Studies Semster II a. Precedent Analysis: Studio b. Studio: Final Drawings c. Studio: Process Drawings d. History of Architecture: Disappearance of Decoration e. The Box: Visual Studies Semester I a. Studio: Final Drawings b. Icosidodecahedron: Studio c. Visual Rhetoric: Klimt d. Design Culture: The Airstream

. . . 12 . . . 27 . . . 35 . . . 47 . . . 53 . . . 57 . . . 63 . . . 81 . . . 87 . . . 91 . . . 95 . . . 105 . . . 111 . . . 117 . . . 125 . . . 131 . . . 137 . . . 143 . . . 150 . . . 151

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

INTRODUCTION

to Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

What is architecture? I turned to Wikipedia in search for some help: “Architecture” can mean: -A general term to describe buildings and other physical structures. -The art and science of designing buildings and (some) nonbuilding structures. The style of design and method of construction of buildings and other physical structures. -The knowledge of art, science & technology and humanity. -The practice of the architect, where architecture means offering or rendering professional services in connection with the design and construction of buildings, or built environments. -The design activity of the architect, from the macro-level (urban design, landscape architecture) to the micro-level (construction details and furniture). It turns out Wikipedia was just as confused as I was, and decided that architecture was everything. Architecture in it’s simplest means is a way to provide shelter, which is one of the few elements we need for survival. Through architecture needing to be created over and over through the course of history to provide shelter, it has become much more complicated. It is one of the fields that has been around the longest and through its constant state of change, it has developed into a discourse. Architecture ranges from someone building their own house board by board, to a vast argument of aesthetics and visual representation, to an academic discourse that theorizes over what architecture should do, look like, and be, to an occupation, to something that is constantly, and actively present. Something that we encounter personally every day, and because of that, should be beautiful.

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

SEMESTER IV

Intersection: A & D

Intersection: A & B

Intersection: C & D

Intersection: B & D

Matrix Drawing: Analyzes form & divides it into four The yellow pieces represent the spaces where the four overlap

Intersection: B & C

Intersection: A & C

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

STUDIO

Final Drawings

This sections shows the final drawings for my Semester IV building proposal, along with some process drawings. We were asked to design a culinary Institute which would be located in Downtown Los Angeles, towards the end of the Historic Theater District. The project developed as a culminations of things that I became interested in throughout the semester. We begun the term by doing small, group, culinary research projects, whose topics we chose from a list given to us. I was part of a group that researched ancient Roman cooking, and in my group, I was in charge of going through the Apicus cook book. When I realized how similar their recipes were to our own, I thought it would be pretty neat to have a culinary school whose practice stemmed from the study of ancient culinary traditions. I didn’t want to limit the school’s cooking to only Rome, and while analyzing the building form I’d created (Form was developed prior to program in the studio) I realized I could subdivide it into four major wings, and decided to assign four different ancient cultures to them. China, Rome, Egypt, and Meso-America. Later on, as site was introduced, I began to study, and trace the plans of the surrounding theaters. I was fascinated by how intricate the poche of the theaters was, and wanted to create a similar language in my own design. I developed the idea that there could be heavy, occupiable poche that changed size and height according to how each culture sat, ate, stood, etc. I then wrapped the building in a thinner poche made of wooden louvres, to unify the four elements.

A B

Student Lounge & Lockers

Dining

Scroll Room

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV Ground Floor Plan

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

A B

Science Lab

Administration

Scroll Room

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV First Floor Plan

A B

Stage

Multipurpose Seminar Space

Theater

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV Third Floor Plan

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Wooden Furniture

Concrete Masonry

Wooden Structure

Wooden Louvres

Catalogue of Poche: Diagrams different densities of poche through the building

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV Section

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Semester IV

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV Section

Isabela De Sousa 2B Studio Spring 2015

The History of Culinary Institute

Given Program 1/32” = 1’-0”

Total buiding interior (335,500 CFT)

Administration (10,000 CFT) Lobby (4500 CFT) Food storage (10,000 CFT) Restrooms (8000 CFT) Building facilities storage (3000 CFT)

Student lounge & lockers (12,000 CFT)

Circulation (30,000 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT) Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Science Lab (9,000 CFT)

Sensory Lab (9,000 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT) Seminar room (4,500 CFT) Meat and Fish Lab (9,000 CFT)

Seminar room (4,500 CFT) Pet Kot (MesoAmerica orchard garden) (6000 CFT) Aztec Exhibition space (4000 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total)

Yuan Lin (Garden) (9,000 CFT)

Shan Ting (Dining Hall) (12,000 CFT )

Scroll Room (Library) (15,000 CFT)

Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT)

Triclinium (Dining Hall) (24,000 CFT )

Taberna (Shop) (15,000 CFT)

Amphitheater (40,000 CFT)

Between the Cultures

Africa 30˚ E

Americas 87˚ W

Asia 116˚ E

Europe 12.5˚ E +

39,500 CFT Yellow Space

Administration (10,000 CFT) Lobby (4500 CFT) (Yellow)

91,428 CFT

Meat and Fish Lab (9,000 CFT) Sensory Lab (9,000 CFT) Science Lab (9,000 CFT) Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total) Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

119,023 CFT

79,123 Yellow Space

39,500 Scroll Room (Library) (15,000 CFT) Shan Ting (Dining Hall) (12,000 CFT ) Yuan Lin (Garden) (9,000 CFT) Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total) Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Diagrammatic axonometric 1/32” = 1’-0”

32,681 Yellow Space

4,313 CFT Yellow Space

22,500 CFT Pet Kot: (6000 CFT) Aztec Exhibition space (4000 CFT) Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total) Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

55,181 CFT

Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Triclinium (Dining Hall) (24,000 CFT ) Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total)

Taberna (Shop) (15,000 CFT)

Amphitheater (40,000 CFT)

91,500 CFT

134,633 CFT

Student lounge & lockers (12,000 CFT) (Yellow) Building facilities storage (3000 CFT)

Program Distribution by Micromorphology 1/32” = 1’-0”

Total buiding interior (400,265 CFT)

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV Program Bar Diagram

Program Distribution by Type and Volume 1/32” = 1’-0”

Total buiding interior (3335,500 CFT)

Administration (10,000 CFT) Lobby (4500 CFT) Food storage (10,000 CFT) Restrooms (8000 CFT) Building facilities storage (3000 CFT)

Student lounge & lockers (12,000 CFT)

Circulation (30,000 CFT)

Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Science Lab (9,000 CFT) Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total)

Sensory Lab (9,000 CFT)

Meat and Fish Lab (9,000 CFT)

Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total)

Pet Kot: (MesoAmerica orchard garden) (6000 CFT) Aztec Exhibition space (4000 CFT)

Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total)

Yuan Lin (Garden) (9,000 CFT)

Shan Ting (Dining Hall) (12,000 CFT )

Scroll Room (Library) (15,000 CFT)

Seminar room (4,500 CFT)

Kitchens (8,000 CFT in total)

Triclinium (Dining Hall) (24,000 CFT )

Taberna (Shop) (15,000 CFT)

Amphitheater (40,000 CFT)

Semester IV Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Elevation from Olympic Blvd.

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Elevation looking toward Olympic Blvd.

Final Project Proposal: Semester IV Circulation Diagram

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Left page: -The circulation diagram shows that most cir culation occurs in the space where the four culture wings overlap. -The small, interstitial volumes shown pre viously in the Matrix Drawing (highlighted in yellow), come together to create one space that all four cultures share. In this space occur the more public program: such as the major circulation, locker rooms, bathrooms, etc. -This drawing was made early on in the se mester and the circulation in the final building had some changes from this proposal, however the idea remained the same. -In the next chapter where model photographs are shown, you can find a photo of a physical paper model I made for this circulation proposal Right Page: -This drawing is one of the first drawings we made in the semester, and was part of a set of process drawings that were similar to it. - This process shows how we developed form: We took a series of “Micro-Morphologies,” which are simmilar to tetriminoes. We were limited to slabs, totems, donuts, and L shapes, and could preform a limited series of operations on them, given that it was done in three steps. Some of these operations consited of actions such as rotate, boolate, and chamfer. We then had our pieces cut by a cube that was used as the bounding box, or the “Macro-Morphology.” -We did this several times and made multiple study models. Then we chose a form to base our building off of. The Form on the right was the one I chose to develop as my final building. Next Page: -The following page shows a site analysis I drew for the project. - Since site was not a major factor for the semester, rather than focus on the site’s immediate surroundings, I chose to study the poche of some of the historic buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. -I was inspired to study the poche of some of the older buildings in L.A because across the street from our site was the ACE Hotel, which was originally called the United Artists Theater. There were also other nearby, beautifully ornate buildings including the Eastern Times Building and the Orpheum Thearer. -The drawing became a small Catalogue of poche of some of the historic buildings in Downtown, with some of their elevations unrolled through photograph.

Micro Morphology Used: Frame(4) Rotate Booleate

Site Analysis

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

STUDIO

Model Photographs

This section contains only photographs. The first set of photographs are of the final model I made for the building. It is a fragment model of about a quarter of the building, done at quarter scale. The model is made out of basswood, with some pieces that were to serve as the heavy masonry poche painted gray to represent concrete. Some of the up close photographs show: The kang: a Chinese lifted platform with a small stove attached for cooking and eating, the scroll room: library, also part of China. Administration: made of shelving similar to the library, but shelvings serve as partitions, with some shelves that extend to form desks in the offices. The stage and stage seating: Heavier, and more volumetric, and are found in the Roman wing of the building. The last two pages contain photographs of process models. I chose to photograph two of the morphologies I created. The first page contains photographs of an older morphology, and the photos are of two models, one done in all white to show the form, and one with the inside done in yellow, with some faces removed, to show the interior spaces. The last page shows photographs of my final morphology models. Again, one done in white, and one done with a yellow interior. There is also one photograph of a circulation model.

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Process Paper Models

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

PIXELISM Visual Studies

This class was done in groups of three, and the work shown is in collaboration with my team mates: Andrew Smith & Katelynn Williams. The overall class was created to study the idea of resolution, and representation. We first created a form by photographing different body motions and tracing the movements as linework. The linework then served as a framework for the making of the form. The first form we made had changes of resolution in itself, and had smoother and more pixilated areas. Photographs of this white model are shown towards the end of the section. We then created models that were entirely pixilated, and focused on the loss of resolution and what that would mean through different means of representation. We then made an animation, a model, and drawings of the form and were to understand them as completely separate ways to show the same object, or idea. The series of drawings shown are still frames of a video in which the object rotated, and changed coloring, and patterning, to explore flatness in two dimensional representation. We also created similar overlay prints in which we would run the drawings through the printer several times with different layers of information to see how the printer would limit or produce resolutions. The model photographs of this form are shown towards the end, in which the object has different gradients of color, and has different patterns projected onto each of the different voxel sides.

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Visual Studies: Semester IV Line-work to Black & White Patterning

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Visual Studies: Semester IV Change of Opacities and Patterning

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Visual Studies: Semester IV Same patterning, beginning to overlay with a gray gradient

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Visual Studies: Semester IV Color is introduced, pattern starts to leave

Visual Studies: Semester IV White model changes in resolution

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Visual Studies: Semester IV White model changes in color and pattern

History of Ideas Paper: On the Relationship Between Philosophy & Religion Photograph: The School of Athens by Raphael

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

HISTORY OF IDEAS

Renaissance to Post-Modernism

Course Description: Throughout the course we will be examining ideas generated within a variety of cultures and epochs. All of which have been selected because of their larger impact on knowledge and the creation of knowledge beyond the boundaries of their time and space. This is not a traditional history course where individual action and specif dates are the focus. Rather, we will be focusing on cases that highlight the emergence of ideas, their methodologies of transmission throughout culture, their impact, and their interconnectedness. A philosophical history of Ideas will be interwoven with an exploration of geneologies of practical ideas. A non-linear approach to history implies that we will be moving with ease through a multiplicity of time frames and regions. It is imperative that we keep in mind the purpose is to reveal the ow and structure of an idea within the system of culture. In performing this examination of history, a method of research and understanding becomes articulated, which allows for a large scale vision of development, knowledge, problem solving, and culture to be formed. The foundational contemporary ideas we will be utilizing the course to explore are communication, global economics, privacy vs. security, and private property. We were to write an open-topic paper in which we explored some philosophical topics we may have touched on in the course.

ON PHILOSOPHY This paper emerged from a question rather than from a topic at hand. I was interested in why Philosophy had such a break from religion, and presume they were both once one and the same. I think the separation of philosophy and religion was due to the reinvention of the scientific method in the mid 1200s. I am attributing this as the cause, because the scientific method revolutionized the way we think about the world. Ideas that were proven by fact and those that weren’t needed to become separate in order to further investigate them, to reveal truths in as many ideas as possible. What this did, was bring to the table the idea of specialization, taking apart fields of thought and subdividing them in order for them to be more closely studied. Thus Philosophy and Religion were divided. The divide happened in many fields, partly because of the realization that the world is more complex than we formerly thought it to be, and specialization makes discovery much easier. The arts, and the sciences became more or less, the disproven, and the proven. Philosophy, a very scholarly field, teeters between art and science and should be able to link the two. The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book by Robert M. Pirsig concerns itself a lot with the idea of science, religion, and humanism having have become very distant from one another. The author believes that these fields need to be reconciled because we’re loosing the idea that they were ever connected. Those connections, can be as rich and guileful as the contents within the different fields. Philosophy is one of the fields that has the most potential to unify the way we think of information . There have been a handful of geniuses(individuals widely recognized as being transformational in their fields) who have managed to take on the discussion of religion and have brought it into their own fields, allowing us to view the idea of God from different angles. This destabilizes the concept of them having to belong to one particular field. Some of the figures that I’ll touch on are: Descartes, Kant, Newton, Einstein and Nietzsche. As some one who is not religious, It’s curious to me that so many masterminds believed in a higher power and were able to ponder over things that were so open ended. Descartes: Explains that we can know more than we can perceive through our senses: Descartes is known to be one of the fathers of modern Western philosophy. His “Meditations” show in part, his attempt to understand God, and he uses philosophy as his vessel to do so with. He talks in great deal about the difference between complex structures, or information, and simple information: that which can be easily explained. To Descartes, Physics, astronomy and medicine are fields that still remain doubtful, while arithmetic and geometry are already very proven. He writes that “Some people would deny the existence of a powerful God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain.” This quote deterritorializes the idea that the scientific method can do anything more than prove smaller facts. It cannot seem to disprove a God, or in other terms, the grandeur of things we have not been able to understand since the beginnings of science.

The way in which Descartes structures Meditations 1&2 is by first assuming he knows nothing. Then through inquiry begins to pick out what he is sure he knows, discarding all that he is unsure of. Descartes’ process resembles that of the Socratic method, more than it does the scientific method. where instead of experiments leading to proof or disproof, conversations lead to critical thinking (in this case the conversation was internalized with himself ). This I think is more helpful with broader concepts and information, and as a method that helps link fields of thought. The scientific method works very well however, in its respective field and is the most efficient way of making scientific discovery. I find Descartes’ writings of his Meditations to be a slight mock of the assumption that the scientific method can be used as a link between fields. Philosophy and religion being the prime example in this context. He does this primarily by talking about sensory observation. He writes about his observation of a piece of wax for a couple of pages. He notes it’s color, shape, size, smell, in other words, he extracts all possible information that he can through sensory observation. He then goes on to melt the wax, and every sensory detail of it that was previously known to him disappears. He then writes that before the melting, his knowledge of the wax was very rudimentary, that an animal could have made those observations. However, the observations were so empiric that they seemed the most rational and scientific ones to make. He writes that after the wax melted he understood it through a perception that required: a human mind. That critical thinking is what makes us human. Descartes does the same thing over again with the sun. He writes that the sun appears to be very small, but his innate notions tell him otherwise. The concept of God in a sense could be like this little yellow sun. That if looked at purely empirically would be dismissed, but if looked at with critical thinking, could be considered. I want to take a moment to clarify that God does not have to be a single power with a human form as is conventional in Western religions, but any force or idea that we can not purely understand through logic. For Einstein for example, God is abstract and impersonal, and is a force that reveals itself in all that exists. Kant: Explains that we close ourselves off to knowledge, when we believe we know: through our senses: Immanuel Kant touches on Religion in The Critique of Pure Reason, many times, and also goes on to write a series of essays called “Religion within the Limits of Bare Reason.” Kant’s fundamental philosophies, God aside for now, can be read as a way to try to move past using pure empirical logic to come to conclusions about the world. He writes that objects and concepts are subject to the “principle of complete determination.” In other words, if we empirically judge something through reason, we then think we know the object and do not continue to question our knowledge of it, often times leaving it to not be fully understood. Kant writes that reason is “merely applying the formal principle of complete determination to all possible predicates and constructing an idea thereby. This construction can then be entertained by the intellect, or perhaps, used as a regular principle, as one does with other less grand ideas.”

Semester IV

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

This is the problem of applying the concept of the scientific method onto fields other than that of practical science, because it generates illusionary finite ends on topics we can not finish understanding such as God. This pure reason is also the reason that information has been so categorized and sub categorized into different fields. We more or less file information into it’s respective field, when if allowed to bleed into one another, could open up further discussion, and create more questions, which don’t necessarily always need to be answered, or understood. Kant goes on to describe his own theory of a God where he remarks that he could believe in a God who was a “Wise Author of Nature,” or a being that is responsible for nature rather than a creator. He says a creator would have us assume that there is a beginning that we would be falsely believing we are informed of. Newton: Explains we can not discard what we do not understand I will touch on Isaac Newton only briefly even though he is one of my favorite historical figures. He was however, a very devout Christian through the entirety of his life. While his religious views did not affect his mathematical genius or curiosity, I am more interested in characters who are more uncertain of their beliefs, only because the root problem I am having is with regards to certainty of information, or mis-certainty of information. However, I could not avoid putting in this beautiful quote. “Don’t doubt the Creator, because it is inconceivable that accidents alone could be the controller of this universe.” While his creator is a Christian God, I am changing it to be in regards to a force that we can not understand. Isaac Newton, along with the previous two philosophers is hinting at the fact that we should not apply closure where there is none, and that doing so is a common mistake of both science and of human nature. It is more comfortable to assume we know than to assume we do not. Einstein: Shows that humility is the best approach toward the unknown Einstein’s views on God I find to be very beautiful. His God, as I mentioned previously, is not a personal one. His idea of God is sort of similar to the idea spoken of earlier, that God is everything that we cannot understand in the universe. His humility towards the idea of a God and his claiming to not understand God, is more reassuring than the pragmatic, scientific method, closed end, approach, often given to religion. The irony is he is the first scientist, besides Newton, we’ve come across in this paper. He writes that if he has to choose, he would consider himself agnostic. “ I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.” “admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem-the most important of all human problems. “In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for their support of such views. “ “A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in

their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.” Having have grown up in a very traditional Jewish family, he turned away from religion at an early age when he says he realized that most of the things in the Bible were not plausible, and felt deceived. He writes that out of this sense of being lied to he began to mistrust authority. It was later, however that he realized he could re-write his beliefs through his own critical thinking. This critical thinking is what Descartes believes makes us intelligent beings. The deceivement that Einstein felt came from people and religion closing open ended questions. Kant calls this the ”principle of complete determination.” Through a realization of both of these elements, Einstein was able to have thoughts that penetrated past his category as a scientist through may fields of thought. The realization that there is more to understand than that which we perceive can be called wisdom. “The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. “ Nietzsche: Declares that without this discussion, philosophy begins to die Nietzsche in the late 1800s declared God to be dead. However, the phrase “God is Dead” is greatly misinterpreted. Nietzsche did not mean to say that there was a personal God who died. He was saying that people’s interest in that which we can not understand came to an end. The symptom of overlaying the scientific method onto any topic caused for a universal disenchantment. Previously I quoted Einstein for his ability to recognize the cosmic, and the fact that he knew he could not understand it himself. Nietzsche is saying that people as a whole can no longer believe in cosmic order because they no longer recognize it. The assumption of knowing once again leads to not knowing. Nietzsche believed that people had closed off to the thought of new theory and new questions and that what was actually dying was philosophy itself. It’s as if he projected the term God onto critical thinking itself. These characters were all successful in expanding their fields of thought, and in being able to incorporate that which was bigger than them into their philosophies. They all begin to blur back the line of academic categories. That is much harder to have a grasp on than factual knowledge. What we need is a bridge between Philosophy and Religion (or metaphysics if that’s what you want to call it) , and for Philosophy to once again be a present factor of society. Philosophy has been too far pushed into it’s own “category” to do its rightful task which is call into question, and critically postulate, over concepts that travel through any field of thought. The concept of maya in Hinduism is that of an uncertainty of whether something is real or illusionary. I think a thin coat of maya over what we believe to be true in academia is necessary for a better understanding of philosophy.

History of Ideas Paper: On the Relationship Between Philosophy & Religion

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

SEMESTER III

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

PRECEDENT ANALYSIS

Studio

We begun the semester looking at precedent buildings for inspiration. Me and a classmate: Yves Lu, collaborated in analyzing the Laban Dance Centre by Herzog & De Meuron. We decided to analyze the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s form through plan as a starting point, because we hypothesized that was where the design had begun. We gave the plan a dialogue, and our analysis led us to tell the story of the plan as a rectangle that got obstructed by a large sphere (no longer present), which caused its outer membrane to bend and a perfect interior grid to shatter, causing larger moments of relief in the grid where circulation could happen. There was however, one line in the grid that did not shatter, but bent like the exterior, creating the most important corridor in the building. We did a similar study in section and discovered that the sectional grid was proportional to the striations of color in the facade. Along with this, we did smaller diagrams explaining: circulation, program, facade reflectivity, and some of the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s features such as its roof being a habitat for an endangered bird from the local region.

1) Orthagonal Grid inside a rectangular volume gets affected by force pushing it from either side

2) Force â&#x20AC;&#x153;pinchesâ&#x20AC;? volume onto an implied circle and causes: interior grid to disperse & envelope to bend front and back walls bulge side walls angle in 3) A more detailed depiction of the dispersed grid that will mark the placement of walls

4) The columns fall onto the grid columns on a curced path are caused by a line in the grid that did not reach its breaking point

5) Circular construction lines are gathered around the theater: the heart of the building the larger circles represent the wall that did not reach breaking point the diameter of said circle is the same as that of the original circle, outer form is repeated on interior

6) Poche falls into place

Section lies on an orthagonal grid that did not get affected by the impact of the previously stated force

Analysis in Section:

The Section also lies on a dispersed grid, similar to the one in plan

The rectangle is then acted on by the dispersedz grid which stars to cut away and shape the form of the building.

Precedent Analysis II: Laban Dance Centre Original Scale: 1â&#x20AC;&#x2122; =1/16â&#x20AC;? Collaboration with: Yves Lu

Both grids are superimposed, and the section of the building lies in this rectangle within the two grids

Major walls are defined by the grids

Poche falls into place

a a

e e

d d

a a

Semester III Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

FORMA T O

AS C

S T AT R

FACA

A O OM TR C

Site

Facade system

Force acts on rectangular volume

Orthogonal

ith an orthagonal grid

iagram

Laban Dance Centre Landscape

River Thames

Laban Dance Centre

St. Paul Church

levation proportions follo of the facade

those

Force pinches volume onto an implied circle left and right alls to angle in front and bac all to bulge grid to disperse

Column System

hich causes

Roof is a habitat for endangered bird lac Redstart

Facade color striations

rogram

artition

Relationship bet een ne dispersed grid and orthagonal grid can be seen

Circulation Floor 1

iagram

riority

ith according colors

rogram

ightlight

all is the e ception to the grid dispersion

Facade ratios

This

Circulation Floor 2

Precedent Analysis II: Conceptual Diagrams Colaboration with: Yves Lu

1 2

2 4 3

10 10

riority Circulation

iagram

dispersion point

rogram Floor 1

a curve in the line right before

1. Outdoor 2. Office Conference Room 3. Clinic 4. WC 5. Cafe inning 6. itchen 7. Studio Wor shop 8. Theater 9. ublic 10. ressing Room 11. Lecture 12. .O. 13

t stayed in this state

The Laban ance Centre is located on the Thames river The building blends in ith its environment because li e theThames river it is reflective Thus the building surroundings are reflected on the river and vice versa

1. Library (Reception) 2. Reading Area 3. Shelving Area 4. Office 5. Archive 6. Foyer 7. Theater 8. Music Room 9. Registration 10. Lecture Room 11. Tutor Room 12. Storage 13. WC 14. Spaces

This is hat the all ould loo accomplished to disperse it

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ould hav e

rogram Floor 2

li e if the force

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

Renaissance to Post-Modernism

This Course was the latter half of the discussion of the history of architecture and it covered the time span from the Renaissance to Most Modernism. Through the courses progression we had arrived at Neo- Classicism where older styles from different cultures were being repeated, and were creating a synthesis of architecture styles in the field. An argument arose within the discourse of architecture at that time, as to whether or not architecture had become stagnant, and had to be re-invented. Some argued that the older styles that were currently being collaged in architecture, had become outdated. We were asked to expand on the argument that was happening within the discipline during Neo-Classicism.

ON NEO-CLASSICISM

Neo Classicism brought about the idea that one could choose from a variety of already developed architectural styles, since so many has already been founded and studied. This idea was put to practice and bloomed in America, because the population was growing incredibly rapidly, thus architecture had to respond by growing rapidly as well. Having pre-founded architectural styles to pick and choose from created a process for making architecture that helped resolve the issue of having to mass produce architecture. This is apparent in the work by Thomas Jefferson, such as his house in Monticello which is done in a classical style. The U.S primarily chose the architectural style of ancient Greece to work from when creating new architecture because they thought it would properly capture the democratic ideals of the new of America, since they used the Greeks as a template from which to model their government.

While this was happening, some architectural theorists in Europe became concerned that in this way of working, architectural advancements in both design and technique were not being made. Some went as far as to argue that architecture needed to forget it’s predecessors and be reinvented. They felt that such a strong attachment to architectural history was holding architecture down and that the history was irrelevant to them. Historical characters that shared some of these ideas were Adolf Loos and Karl Botticher. On the other side of the spectrum were theorists that wanted to retain classical ideas that had already been founded in architecture, and they believed that architectural history had to play an important role in design, or that history had to be replicated. Claude and Charles Perault were some who argued this

theory, and architect’s like George Gilbert Scott practiced the theory. There were also those who wanted a synthesis, theses were: Friendrich Shinkle, and Gauidi who achieved a synthesis in their architecture. Much Later Kenneth Framton also writes that a synthesis of these ideas are the ideal way to work. What is typically seen in this history is that theorists tend to predict what architects will do, and architectural advancements seemingly begin on paper. The Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes, is an argument between two theorists, Blondel and Perrault who were concerned over whether we should imitate the ancients. It led the division between reproducing ancient architecture and trying to create a new style of architecture to be talked about in terms of the”ancients” vs. the “moderns.” The ancients, in this case were those who were favoring repeating classical architecture’s techniques and orders. In this way, Charles Perrault believed that architecture could easily be learned and taught. He also believed that architecture was something that could be systematized and repeated. Perrault thoroughly studied the ancient orders and wrote a treatise on the five orders of architecture, which talks about what the different Greek columns and orders were, in averaged heights, and styles so that they could be re- made. He thought that architecture was a problem that could essentially be solved, and that systematization was the answer. I believe that systematizing architecture is good for several reasons, though there is a fine line where too much systematization leads to an inability to design. The first is that people have advanced architecture in many ways already, and working from their already developed ideas, and developing them

Semester III further has a higher chance of producing good results then that of starting from nothing. The second is that with many restraints, potentially placed by the architect himself, what can be designed in the architecture becomes more specific and can be explored more thoroughly. However, over-systematization has the danger of leaving architecture in a state of stasis. Perrault was not alone in questioning whether or not aestheticism could be systematized, or taught. Edmund Burke was also interested on how inherent the understanding of aesthetics is. His stand on the matter was that people as a whole had a good grasp on what was aesthetic or sublime, and that people could all agree for the most part on beauty, or at least have similar reactions to it. He said that this was true as a whole and did not include smaller likes or dislikes and that some tastes were developed over time (he mentions how we like the effect of coffee, and we eventually like the taste of it because we associate it with its effect). The idea that aesthetics can be taught is a rather progressive idea on the side of the argument that is often seen as being less progressive. In the side of the “modernes,” Francois Blondel was the largest figurehead. He states that genius is an inherent quality that one would need to have in order to be a successful architect, and that genius cannot be taught. He was, however, an architecture professor who taught aesthetics. So from what I understand from this is that with some level of inherent talent for the arts, architecture can be taught, and with talent(which cannot be taught), and theory, and practice (which can be taught), architect’s are more likely to succeed. Blondel, while being the advocate of the “modernes” teeters toward a synthesis. He is not as previously mentioned, one of the theorists that wanted to do away with history. He was just as interested in mathematics in relation to architecture (which implies a system) and in ancient architecture and its elements as Perrault was. The difference was that Blondel believed that once a system, being mathematical proportions or the use of a precedent created a building, it was the architect’s job to correct it, and that is the part that takes inherent “genius.” This is similar to how the Greeks would blur a perfect math in architecture to address human perspective and proportions. Followers of the “moderne” philosophy also looked to Karl Botticher. Botticher was a theorist that wrote that a new architecture was going to come out of a new material in “In Which Style to Build”. The new material turned out to be iron, and as correctly predicted, when iron was introduced to architecture, it created a new style of architecture. Here we start seeing buildings such as the Bibliotheque Nationale, The Tour d’Eiffel and new bridges (such as the Brooklyn Bridge). A way in which iron changed architecture drastically is that by being a much better material structurally, for the first time, most of the structure in buildings could be moved to the its perimeters, freeing up larger interior spaces, where before columns would have been needed. Two buildings that personify the Querelle and directly relate to Botticher’s idea that a new material would create a new architecture are the Bibliotheque Ste. Genvieve and the Ste. Genvieve Pantheon. They are both experimenting in building in iron, though the the former does it in the style of the “modernes,” and the latter in the style of the “ancienes,” they happen to be directly across the street from one another. Soufflot’s Pantheon comes earlier, and he uses iron to construct the pantheon but in order to remain more conservative (this is before iron was openly celebrated) he covers all of the iron structure and gives it a more classical look. Botticher then writes

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings that the new style needs to emerge from the new material (iron), and that iron needs to work like iron, not like stone : ie. trebulating in the style of the anciens is not the most effective way to use iron. Labrouste then follows by openly celebrating the iron the the Bibliotheque Ste. Genvieve and goes on to build the Bibliotheque Nationale which celebrates the material even more openly. The effect that this produces is creating very open spaces for the first time(as mentioned earlier). He also not only celebrates the material of the building but its construction as well, and he does this by showing the structure in the facade. Framton’s theory (another architectural theorist) is that architecture “disappears” over time. He illustrates this by showing the monumentality of “symbolic” ancient architecture (pyramids, ziggurats, etc.), and comparing it to classical architecture (Greek temples), and also Cathedrals (the lightest of the three). Being an advocate for synthesis, he favors the classical architecture, and promotes it’s middle ground stance between monumentality and disappearance. I prefer a synthesis as well, but the synthesis I prefer are cathedrals, and also some of the Neo-Classical works (Labrouste especially) (looking only at Europe). The reason I consider these the be a synthesis while Frampton considered them to be at the extreme point of his three-way time-line is that to me, architecture hadn’t disappeared yet. Architecture disappears more during modernism. I think Labrouste’s biliotheques don’t have the problem of disappearance because they still had elements of decoration , through patternings engraved into the iron structure, and through their highly rhythmic facades. Two other buildings that fall into these theoretical discussions are the St. Pancras Station and King Cross Station, also located in close proximity to each other. The train station in 1860 was a relatively new architecture to design. These architects could not look to their predecessors to teach them how to build a train station so there was again a tension: “In which Style to Build.” This ties back to Botticher saying that a new architecture was to emerge from a new material because they were made with iron. Botticher also stated that architecture had to be “truthful” in how it reflected structure and program in the exterior of the building. Cubitt took the modern approach to building his King Cross Station, and showed the structure of the building on the exterior and was projecting the essence of what a train station was and how it worked creating a more “truthful” architecture. Also in London, George Gilbert Scott made the St. Pancras Station which was looking more towards the ancients for an answer in terms of the facade. The building facade has a classical rhythm that blends in with the buildings that surround it and due to that, the modern interior program (that of a train station) is not reflected on the building’s exterior. One could argue they are both legitimate solutions to the problem at hand: building a new type of architecture. Cubitt let form follow function and Scott worked on form and function separately, this dis-junction began to appear during this time and Framton named then the 2 styles of architecture ( a synthesis being the 3rd). Architect’s still each tend to lean toward one of these styles, and the problem of whether form or function should be addressed first is still a common debate in architecture today. I think these methods of working vary in legitimacy project to project. In this case appreciate Scott’s carefulness in placing a train station in a more traditional environment. However Cubitt’s approach was progressive in the language of architecture, though I agree with Framton that when form solely follows function, architecture tends to “disappear.”

History of Architecture Paper on Neo-Classicism

60 Typically because solving function by itself is not typically hard enough of a problem to create complexity in architecture with it’s respective solution. This brings up a character who believed architecture needed to be reinvented: Adolf Loos. He writes that the orders and decorations of architecture that come from history are not relevant to a new architecture and that they need to be eradicated. He states that they are usually symbolic of pagan rituals and that they do not apply to the current population. He then makes the complexity of his buildings stem from making highly complex, personalized programs embedded inside. He keeps the outside fairly simple and is one for hiding program on the exterior, believing architecture to be personal and private. This is the most architectural complexity I’ve seen achieved by primarily focusing on program to create architecture. However, I completely disagree with his argument that decoration is primitive, and believe decoration is necessary in creating aesthetic architecture. Decoration can range as a term, I prefer lavish decorations, but it also includes elements such as Mis van de Rhoe’s interest in corner details. When the modern approach of putting program before form meets an easily resolved program, I agree with Frampton that architecture begins to disappear. And while we may not understand older decorations, including Arabic, Indian and Greek decorations, I think they hold a strong aesthetic value which we can inherently appreciate as a people without needing to understand their particular affiliations(be them religious) in every case. Both detailed rigor and structural material advancements can come together. We can see this happen in the Sagrada Familia. Touching back on the Querelle, Gauidi maintains an “older” attention to ornamentation and rigorous detail, but he also generates his own style, working from Gothic architecture as a template from which to begin working. Working from a precedent that is already highly complex and harmoniously tying that with new technological advancements both in practice and in theory, Gaudi already had a much stronger foundation from which to create complex architecture , then those who decided to start from nothing. The product was richer as a result

History of Architecture Paper on Neo-Classicism Photographs: Pantheon Ste. Genvieve

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

History of Architecture Paper on Neo-Classicism Photographs: Top: Bibliotheque Nationale Bottom: Ste. Pancras Station

History of Architecture Paper on Neo-Classicism Photographs: King Cross Station

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

STUDIO

Final Drawings

This section shows the final set of drawings I produced for my building proposal for semester III. We were asked to create a proposal for a Boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s club which would be located in Hollywood, and was to explore program, site, and formal complexity. This set of drawings includes: A site analysis, which shows the urban density of the area, A programmatic diagram, which shows how I chose to organize program, A set of plans, sections, elevations, and a few interior renderings. The patterned aperture system was created to let light come in in a playful way, given the audience that would be occupying the building. The apertures also existed only in areas with more playful program, such as the gym, the library, and the art and activity centers. The smooth geometry allowed me to work with different ceiling conditions to crate more, and less expansive areas of space.

64 S ST ASS ST

A S -Arc ALL T: sabela e Sousa M :T A T : H S TH

S T A AL S S

Site Activity determined: - Location of program: More active program was placed toward the side of the site that faved Hollywood Blvd. -The way aperatures were deployed: More public programs located near the corner of Hollywood Blvd. & Argyle Ave. received more aperatures -The way landscape was placed: Toward quiet side of site

High

ensity

Hollywood Blvd.

. Hotel

Medium

ensity

Strim Malls Theater estaurants

Medium Low

ensity

ym Smaller Stores Smaller Theater

Lowest

ensity: n relationship to the building either far or quiet -Larger urban area

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Site Analysis: regarding urban density

Semester III Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Programmatic Diagrams

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings PROGRA : E

ENTRANCE

COURTYARD O

EDUCATION L C L

TEACHERS

EDUCATION

FOOD

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

TEACHERS

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

R D

R S

PLAY G

ART P

ART

PARK

C P

CIRCULATION: ENTRANCE

Right: The top set of diagrams does three things. They categorize all of the different programs into seven major categories: Entrance, Education, Teachers, Food, Physical Education, Play and Art. They also separate program (in their respective categories) into interior program and exterior program. The striped being interior, and the patterned exterior. There is also a square diagram that shows the proportional areas alloted for exterior and interior programs, and compares them to one another.

EDUCATION

EDUCATION C

K F

ART

FOOD A

ART COURTYARD L

PHYSICAL EDUCATION D

R R

Top bottom diagram takes the information that has been gathered above and organizes it spatially in the order one would progress through this set of programs in the building and in the exterior portions of the building. Left: This takes the four major volumes of the building and classifies what goes on inside of them in terms of program in relation to the more abstract programmatic diagrams done beforehand.

PARKING

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

PLAY

P G

PRIVATE :

PLAY

TEACHERS T

e Architecture

Landscape Final Project Proposal: Semester III Landscape Design

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

21. 19.

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Roof Plan

1. 20.

22.

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

21. 19.

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Left page: Ground floor plan Right page: First floor plan

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Unfolded Elevations & Sections

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Formal Diagrams of Taxonomies

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Axonometric Drawing

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Interior Renderings

Final Project Proposal: Semester III Model Photos 78

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

STUDIO

Process Drawings

This set of drawings are the first set of concept drawings I made for the Semester III building. We began this project formally, and were asked to buy a stuffed animal and study its geometries. Mine was a flamingo. We then did a series of different diagrams where we interpreted the geometry of the animal, and continued to do a set of evolution drawings, where different elements from the starting diagrams were combined. We continued this until we had arrived at a form we were pleased with. We did a similar set of charrettes to arrive at a landscape idea. At this point in the Semester, we took site and program into some consideration.

1A/2A

1B/2B

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

1A/2A

1B/2B

Beginnings of a Project: Semester III Taxonomy Diagrams Origin: stuffed Flamingo

84 DS 1020 2A_SCI-Arc FALL 2014 STUDENT: Isabela De Sousa ASSIGNMENT: 2A INST UCT : N S UT E N

UILDING S LANSCA E

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Beginnings of a Project: Semester III Landscape Proposal

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

HUMANITIES

On The Aesthetic Movement and Sci-Arc

Course Description: This course will trace the development of literature, fine art, music and technology from the Baroque period through the Contemporary World. Instruction focuses on the arts and culture as influenced by geographic location and the cultural, religious, economic and political forces of history. Additionally, significant technological advances, as they affect art production and manufacture, will be presented. As a result, lectures will combine both a formal examination of the arts as well as providing contextual analysis. We were asked to write a paper on the Aesthetics movement, which we had primarily discussed in the course through art. The paper also had to compare the works of the Aesthetic movement to Sci-Arc, and the work we produce. In the paper I spoke of Sci-Arc as being a movement within Post-Modernism, and was interested in the constant back and forth shift of time periods that rely more heavily toward a romantic standpoint, or a rational one, and where we fall in those two categories.

ON THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT AND SCI- ARC The Aesthetic movement was a reaction to the age of Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, the sciences and mathematics flourished and the visual arts were, for the most part, disregarded, unless they were serving the function of bringing to light social or political problems. In other words: art served only to advance intellectually. The Aesthetic movement occurred when a people tired of a purely rational state of thought, and created a revival of the arts, where the function of art was purely to be beautiful. This tension between the romantic and the rational is constant in the history of humanity, and there are always era’s where one is more prominent, and these eras are then followed by the other being more prominent. This creates a cycle of time periods where the prominence of rationality versus romanticism fluctuate. We have, on this cycle, come full circle since the Aesthetic movement, thus we share some characteristics. Postmodernism tired of Modernism as the Aesthetic movement tired of the Enlightenment, therefore the core values of the Aesthetic movement apply to us: 1. Art should be timeless 2. The goal of the artist is to create aesthetic beauty, not to instruct or to have a political message 3. Art should be made for it’s own sake As a student in an artistic major, I prefer the romantic state. I believe this to be a better state for architecture because I believe architecture’s job is to be beautiful for the sake of being beautiful. I think social and political commentaries and pragmatism are best left for other fields where they work more strongly, such as in literature. However, I do not believe this to be the greater side of the battle because the battle itself brings about progress in both fields of thought. The way this tends to happen is that one of the states, ex: romantic, eventually comes to a point of stasis where progress stops. Then the other side: the rational, questions the previous state, and takes over. Then, the sciences have a great opportunity for progress because it has been, at this point, a long time since the last rational state and they can start a new. Examples through History: II. The Enlightenment vs. Romanticism After the Rococo and other highly decorative movements ended, and many social problems came about, including the French Revolution, the rationalists retaliated against the romantics because they believed many important topics weren’t being touched on by society . Thus the Enlightenment was born. Here Sciences flourished once more with figures such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton. Whatever art was made at this time had a socio-political message or philosophical message embedded. Art pieces looked like: The Death of Socrates, by David, The Oath of Horatis, also by David. The former is the scene where Socrates drinks the poison that is given to him, which ties back to the original argument between Plato and Socrates of aesthetics vs.. rationality. The latter is depicting an ancient scene where a woman is morally obligated to stand for her country over the life of her loved ones (she doesn’t and is killed for it), which is alluding to the French Revolution, and questioning people’s loyalty to it. This went on until the Romanticism where Romantic thought took over. Pre-Raphealittes wanted to correct what they considered to be the mechanistic approach to art, that they believed stemmed from artists who succeeded Raphael, and Michelangelo, and thought that these artists were too hung up on the accuracy of anatomy and perspective in paining. During this time, they were exposed to Botticelli work, which had been hidden away for a long time, and became inspired by his flattened perspective, imperfect anatomy, and the beautiful compositions and patterns created by his depictions of nature. Their works then consisted of works such as: The Lady of Shallott, and Millai’s Ophellia, where they celebrate flora and fauna and flatten the perspective, making beauty, the soul purpose of the paintings. The Aesthetic Movement is a sub-genre of Romanticism that was inspired by these ideas. The author Oscar Wilde was a large advocate of this movement; Wilde started out as an art critic, and would give speeches where he advocated the idea that the job of art was to be visually pleasing. Also during this time period, The Art Nouveau movement, which

Humanities: Semester III Paper on the Aesthetic Movement

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings which included the members of the Vienna Secession were also making highly decorative works that also embodied the idea of “art for art’s sake”, such as Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss.” III. Modernism vs. Postmodernism This movement gets reciprocated by Modernism, after a few smaller isms ie. Neo Classicism. Here the American Architect: Louis Sullivan, writes that in architecture, function should come before form. The problems of functions then are easily solved, and form becomes plain for my taste. (In modernism as a whole, not particularly in Sullivan’s work who still decorates some of his buildings such as The Guaranty building which, I quite like). Another architect: Adolf Loos, then writes that decoration needs to be obliterated altogether. He writes that decoration is for more primitive people, and that advanced people should appreciate pure simplicity. This goes even futher with architects such as Le Corbusier where decoration has completely disappeared. Kenneth Framton writes that there are two ways to create architecture. One is where form follows function, the other where function follows form, and a third being a sythesis of both. Framton prefers a synthesis but writes that when form follows function (which I interpret as the rational way to create architecture), architecture runs the danger of “disappearing, and becoming almost nothing.” This is what I believe to have happened during modernism. However, during this era, and abundant amount of technical advances were made, including some in architecture. This time that were in now and the Southern California Institute of Architecture fall under post modernism, which tired of modernism. Here,

Above: Lady of Shalott

architecture once again is art for arts sake, or in other words, function that follows form. Therefore, the work I have done in Sci-Arc mirrors this, and the assignments are set up for me to do formal architectural experiments. These tend to be large global moves that are applied to masses in order to create interesting architectural spaces. What I am really interested in however, is ornamentation in architecture, which has still not made it back into the cycle of romanticism vs... rationalism ever since modernism rendered it useless. I am hoping there will be a rebirth of ornamentation if our state gets more comfortable in the romantic thought. But if I was born out of place in the cycle, as many often are, there are always predecessors to look at. In my case, I would like to study the ornamentation of Mosque’s and temples in India as my studies continue.

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

HUMANITIES

Oscar Wilde’s Critique on the Victorian Age

This paper was meant to be an analysis of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”. In the analysis I wrote that the play was written as a critique on the upper class in Victorian England. I was primarily interested in how Wilde was able to use humor as a tool to be able to openly criticize society.

OSCAR WILDEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CRITIQUE ON THE VICTORIAN AGE The Importance of Being Earnest is a play written by Oscar Wilde in the 1900s. Oscar Wilde depicts, in this play, the white high class society of England during the Victorian age. Here he criticizes their values openly, but gets away with it because he does it through jest. He depicts this class of people as being submissive and unaware of social problems. He also depicts them as having very superficial values that go about unquestioned. The high class in England at this time is represented as a group of people blindly following very rigid social rules, and constantly worrying about how they are viewed by society. This routine's has to it, a fakeness in the play, which is shown by the lack of genuine care for others that the characters seem to have. Mrs. Bracknell is an older character in the play, and since she is not progressing with society in terms of letting social standards go, she is the personafication of the critiques Wilde has of Victorian high class society. An example of this can be shown by Mrs. Bracknell's attitude to personal affairs, which consist of thoughts such as " To lose one parent, Mr.Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness." In this sentence, Mr. Worthing and his life does not matter, only the view through society's systematic eye matters. Society becomes a lens to observe everyone with, without caring about them or their problems. Education is also blurred by this lens. It seems people in this time are only being educated, or uneducated depending on what it may look like to others. Reading may be fashionable, to talk about politics may be fashionable but it's meanings are overlooked. Nothing is analyzed. Mrs. Bracknell points this out by describing how much she loves ignorance due to how fashionable she believes it to be. She states that " the whole theory of education is radically unsound" and goes on to say that either way, "fortunately...education in England produces no effect whatsoever." This is because, everyone is concerned over what everyone else's level of education is, and they read, or learn, to attain a certain credibility, not to attain knowledge, and especially not to do anything with the knowledge acquired. It is education without learning, because it is education through society's indifferent lens. Even professions are seen as a facade of society, and are not taken seriously. It is almost as if no one expects anyone to make any kind of advancements in any field. One of my favorite quotes in the play is one by Jack, "My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression." In this one line, the whole medical science of dentistry is rendered obsolete. It doesn't matter what dentists do, or what being a dentist may mean, what matters is the "impression" of dentists. This separation of essence and being is brought up in Immanuel Kant's "The Critique of Pure Reason". Here he analyzes this sort of mistake of society, and how we have set up such a rigorous system, to know everything, and at the same time, end up knowing nothing. He writes that life is experienced through the senses, and that the information we gather from this experience we apply to everything, a.ka reason. This he said, we have to question, because we cannot be certain of the sufficiency of reason as applied to every case. Labeling everything, gives the effect of believing one knows everything. This I think, is the worst mistake of the high class society in Victorian England. The way that Oscar Wilde openly criticized society through humor, I think is brilliant. The problem that Wilde was facing was a superficial audience, with superficial values of education. Thus had he written a paper with a more scientific critique of society, society would have most likely read it, and have thought it fashionable to talk about, not taking to heart anything it may have contained. Humor on the other hand, may have caught them off guard, because by using humor, he is automatically appealing to emotion. Emotion here is the thing that people in this society have as a whole, have stopped talking about, and have pretended not to have. This is how Oscar Wilde portrays them , and they were most likely very shocked by this portrayal of themselves. This separation of truth and essence is not only a problem in the Victorian age, but is something that tends to happen in high classes, which are typically trained to be

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings rational. In America’s middle class today, we are often trained to absorb facts, regardless of their meaning. What ends up happening is that we, for example, read the news, which may speak of a massacre or of child labor happening somewhere, we memorize it, and pat ourselves on the back for having have read the news and being aware of social problems. We are not exposed to the emotion that is tied to these problems, when an appeal to human emotion is then the only thing that could make us care. We can pretend we are too intellectual for emotions, but that is never true.

A similar thing happened during the Irish Potato famine. An author by the name of Jonathan Swift spent years trying to get the upper class to help the country. They all seemed to talk about the fact that everyone was dying from malnutrition and did nothing about it. It was not until he wrote “A Modest Proposal” where he uses humor, and says that the only thing we can do now is eat the children, that members of the higher class started to help. A country dying of hunger was no longer an interesting intellectual conversation, but something that stimulated emotions into doing something.

Humanities: Semester III Paper on the “Importance of Being Earnest”

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Course Description: In this section of the course, the spiral stair will be used as a lens to develop formal and representational techniques. The geometry of the spiral stair contains both corners that articulate steps and smooth surfaces that define a continuous space. Students will analyze historical examples of spiral stair stereotomy (the cutting and assembly of stone blocks) and develop drawing techniques for constructing complex curvature. These analytical drawings will be the basis of a designed formal translation that creates a new stair figure. At the beginning of the course we were assigned a certain precedent staircase. Mine was a tower in India called the Qtub Minar. First we drew the staircase in plan and section: I decided to include the tower in the drawings because I thought it was important to the overall staircase. I also took several plan cuts to study how the towerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perimeter changes at different elevations. The next step was to transform the staircase, For this step I applied the geometric ruffling of the tower to the actual staircase. The second to last drawing shows a detail of the treads, and how they changed after the transformation. The last drawing highlights volumes of space that would be generated by the new staircase that was produced.

238 ft

Visual Studies: Semester III Qtub Minar Original Plans and Section

Semester III

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Visual Studies: Semester III Qtub Minar Transformed Plans and Section

Visual Studies: Semester III Qtub Minar Original cut Axonometric Drawing

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Visual Studies: Semester III Qtub Minar Transformed Axonometric Drawing

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Visual Studies: Semester III Qtub Minar Detail of treads Original: Left Right: Transformed

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Visual Studies: Semester III Qtub Minar Transformed Spacial Volumes

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Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

SEMESTER II

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PRECEDENT ANALYSIS

Studio

We begun this semester by looking at precedent buildings to get a better understanding of how to lay out space in plan. The building I studied was the Baths of Diocletian. Through a series of ten drawings I was asked to put together a progression of how this plan may have been developed. I saw the foundation of the plan as a set of six interlocking squares with a slightly offset center. The grid they produced then got filled in by a pattern of different ratios which corresponded to the original squares. The last steps were for the column grid to fall in place with the existing grid, and for the poche to be filled in accordingly.

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Studio: Semester II Museum Cylinder field drawing

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STUDIO

Final Drawings

This series of drawings is the final set of drawings for my Semester II building proposal. We were asked to design an art museum using geometries from a fragment of poche that we had extracted from our precedent analysis. I had taken out a rectangle with a circle subtracted from one side. In the Museum I designed, I was interested in how a large rectangle(rectangular prism) could be subtracted from, with circles, in a similar way, only in this case the circles would be coming in from different angles. To the right is the cylinder field condition that I applied to the building.

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Studio: Semester II Museum Ground floor Plan

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Studio: Semester II Museum Second floor Plan

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Studio: Semester II Museum Sections

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Studio: Semester II Museum Cone Field

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Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

STUDIO

Process

This set of drawings is a set of process drawings that show the figure that I extracted from the precedent study, and how that figure could morph or change when a field condition was applied to it. On the Left is a drawing I used to create the field , where the tip of a cone would change in deflection according to itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coordinates. The frame drawings represent the negative space that could be produced by two figures adjacent to one another in the field.

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Studio: Semester II Process Drawings Elevation Unroll of figure

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Studio: Semester II Process Drawings Figure-Field

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Studio: Semester II Process Drawings Frames

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Studio: Semester II Process Drawings Figures

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HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

The Disappearance of Decoration

Course Description: This course introduces students to the history of world architecture by examining the origins and elaboration of human settlements and architecture from prehistory to the baroque era. Particular attention is given to the evolving status and role of the architect in the ancient world as well as to the development of architecture as an autonomous category of cultural artifact. In this Paper we were asked to compare three buildings, two of which had to be in the grater Los Angeles Area.

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The Disappearance of Decoration in the West Change is a constant force in design, so much so that many eras are defined by design styles, especially architecture. It is typical too see a people borrow the design style of the previous era and change it into something new, having something to work off of. This can be seen in even a detail in gothic architecture: they changed the arc to an arc that meets at a point. Arcs had already been in use, though working from precedent architecture they made their own. When modernism came, many architects wanted to start over and “reinvent” architecture. They were however, still part of an evolution, though it had a bit of more distance from the rest of the stages of architecture that had passed because of their intent to start over. The Comparing the architecture of an ancient hindu temple, an art deco building and a modernist building seems like a distant selection of subject matter because of their vast aesthetic difference, since design had so much time to change in between them. While they need to be compared in form to get an understanding of them, I more mean to compare them as ideas representing the time frames they belonged to; How the people of these time periods thought about their architecture: who and what the buildings were for and how the resources available affected their design intent. The art of decorating buildings was affected by this change in architecture because with time it came to mean different things to different people. My belief is that the disappearance of decoration is due to the change from a more ancient hierarchical society where the god/gods are all powerful to a more modern day democratic western society that is more secular(or at least more open about the concept of different beliefs and religions). Time has taken us from ancient India that was about the masses pleasing gods and a ruler to modern day USA which is heavily based on the idea of “the individual.” Decoration seems to disappear more and more when these concepts begin to change. It almost seems as if decoration was always for the Gods and never for ourselves. Now that we make architecture primarily for ourselves, ornament is near gone. The very beginnings of America, it’s foundations and what it was to stand for created an almost inevitable doom for the decorative. When the constitution declared that “All men are created equal.” It meant a couple of things. 1: Men mattered. This was no longer saying all men are here to please the gods and that is the only purpose to their existence, it was making making rules for their sheer commodity and happiness. This is the “individual’s” aspect that changed architecture . 2: They are created equal (and should share the same commodities), no hierarchical society, this is the democratic aspect that changed architecture. The way these mid sets seemed to have drastically changed the definition of architecture was this: God was no longer who we were making architecture for so it did not need to be as lavish. Everyone is created equal therefore everyone needs a proper home. The “townsmen” no longer have time to dedicate their lives to the building of the home of a God or a ruler because they now need to cater to themselves. Everyone living for “the individual” led to a quicker pace in society that also made ornament seem a bit unnecessary. Because of this quick pace, solutions for getting jobs done faster came along with great speed. Leisure time was now a priority, and to suit this priority machines were invented that could do our job for us.

Left: Photographs of the Temple for Vishnu in Shrirangam

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Building 1: The Temple for Vishnu in Shrirangam The Temple for Vishnu in Shrirangam was made primarily built under the style of Vijayangas and Nayakas (15-17th centuries) (Michell, pg 15). It was built on an Island in Southern India under the patronage of Pandya, Vijayanga and Nayaka rulers during their respective dynasties. Because of this, The tempe for Vishnu took on the role of becoming the archetypical temple of its time: one of monumentality. The 15th century had brought with it an importance of city life and the temples became large urban sets of buildings . Before this, most of the attention and building efforts were concentrated in the building of the sanctuary, the main area of a temple that is a holy place for praying where the shines are kept. Now because of this evolution the whole complex had to be grandiose (the sanctuary still being first and foremost). During this time they began adding structures to pre-existing temples and adding enclosure walls and gateways to them. The Temple for Vishnu reflects this with its 6 layers of concentric enclosure circuits, where each layer was added during a different time period, with the oldest part being the shrine in the center, and most of it being built from 15-17th centuries. The temple became so large it spilled into the nearby Madurai town, becoming a part of people’s daily lives. This temple is almost entirely made and enveloped in statues(deities), carvings and sculptures. Its structure is essentially a series of 20 plus towers that are all devoted to Vishnu, that begin large at the base and have layers in vertical section that get smaller towards the top. It’s outer walls span to 850x 750 meters making it the largest temple in Southern India, and is counted as the first and foremost among the 108 Divya Desams. The Temple in Shrirangam was made accordingly: for Vishnu. Vishnu is the preserver of balance between the natural order and the disruptive powers of the universe. It was made for he who created the universe and sleeps on a thousand-headed serpent(Sheva), and he who is part of the triad of gods: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. It was a temple for the gods thus is had to be godly. The decoration was to impress him. Before concentrating on specific buildings I would like to step back and look at the meaning of Hindu temples as a whole. In Hinduism, human lives are only stages in a cycle toward a goal of ultimate liberation. The world of man is the symbol of countless individual life-spans bound in the cycle of rebirth (Michell,36).Inthis,thetempleisa symbol of enlightenment and a place to help the process: where man can seek divine knowledge and approach the gods. The temple is build on a goal to transcend the world of man to ultimate liberation. An early sacred text, the Brihatsamhita suggests: “Let him who wishes to enter the worlds that are reached by meritorious deeds of piety and charity build a temple to the gods.” (Michell, pg 50). This search for divinity through architecture set the stage for divine architecture to be build, which is a much different intent from what we typically have today. The Hindu temple is meant to serve as a link between god and man. In Hinduism this attempt is done through symbolism which is where such intricate decoration plays its role. Temples are meant to turn this world of illusion into the word of knowledge and truth and the use of complex symbolism is meant to break the illusion and get man closer to a higher place. The deities and gods and sacred mythical creatures found as decoration allude to this place. Sacred images of deities are also housed in the ‘womb chamber’ a sanctuary so called because it contains the ‘essence’ of the temple. The temple is understood as a temporal abode for the gods in a world of man where they appear in the forms imagined by their worshippers therefore hindu art and architecture tries to recreate the god’s celestial environment.

This is also done in a less intricate scale: through plan and elevation. The Hindu temple mirrors the celestial environment by like the universe, focusing its energy in the center and having outward radiation of energy from the center of the sanctuary, interns of its design that means that the geometries are much denser at the core and fade out. It also does this through a rotational movement that must be done through the temple. One must approach the sanctuary in a clockwise direction and the center is shown as the focus through symbolic association. The temple also needs to be in tune with nature to reflect the home of the gods and so it needs to be embedded with its landscape. The mandala plays a very big role in making the gods feel at home. The mandala is the basis for the typical sanctuary plan because the mandala’s arrangement of mirroring geometries that expand outward from a central core is said to be a microscopic image of the universe. The mandala is used in Hindu art in general for its cosmic significance. The mandala as a point of origin already demands for small intricate details in a building to be made, and many times the small and intricate is translated as decoration because it is not needed for any type of structure. Proportional measurements and divine mathematics define are also very important to the building of a temple. However, these proportional ratios mainly apply to the creation and placement of the decorative sculptures that make up the temple because decoration was the primary focus. Everything is controlled by a proportional system of measurement because only perfect proportions can invite deities to reside within the sculptures and temple.

The divine math and efforts was put into the deity statues leaving form secondary. The Vishnu temple formally has the appearance of a ziggurat. Ancient architecture from the middle east and eastern Europe may have had a big impact on temple architecture due to the constant invasions in Northern India by said peoples. It had a post and lintel setup which then corbelled towards the top, corbelling, being the easiest ways to support weight, was constantly seen in ancient architecture. The decoration of the Hindu temples are really what make them some of the most impressive pieces of architecture in the world. After the building and decorative statues were built they made sure they carefully crafted a color palate with which to define the statues with. They used what they thought would celebrate and please the gods the most which was an arrangement of very vibrant colors often including teals, yellows and deep reds. With these colors they were able to highlight the details. What I have extracted from this form of general information is such: Decoration is a key part of the temple, not an afterthought or add-on but a core part of its structure and construction, and that is its greatest difference from how we view decoration in architecture today which is precisely as an add-on or afterthought. The individual and their self expression is not praised in a traditional Hindu society and this creates a huge difference in architecture in the US today vs architecture in India then. The artist then is seen as a mere instrument who is guided by a force greater than himself. Architecture then was thought to be made by the gods through the artist. The sutradnara(architect) who designs the building is not important because the temple is a community effort made by guilds of architects, artisans, and workers. An impressive design in building now is done mainly to impress ourselves, and to take part in a competition(a capitalist move) where people see how beautiful they can make things, but the audience is man, not god

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Building 2: The Eastern Columbia building The Eastern Columbia building on Broadway in LA was built in 1930. It was designed by Claud Beelman (the architect’s name is known in this case because we are now in America, which praises the individual). It was made as the headquarters of the Eastern Outfitting Company, that is its direct history, however it was(like the Vishnu Temple was to Vijayanga) a part of something grander: Art Deco. Art Deco first appeared in France and was around for the 1930s and 40s. It made use of the Machine age to mass produce patterned motifs and created a large amount of ornamentation. Art Deco is also characterized by its rich colors which the teal and gold Eastern Columbia building bore proudly. The colors are still vibrant, the teals and yellows and golds and blues are all very similar to the bold Hindu color palate that floods the statues of Shrirangam. This style was very much influenced by motifs in ancient architectures from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Asia and Mesoamerica. The reason for this was the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen at the time and the excavation of Pompei. This made for an awareness of ancient architecture when building keeping a closer intent of staying true to its roots than the later modernism. In form, the Eastern Columbia building shares some of the ziggurat characteristics of the Vishnu temple. They are both composed of building blocks that get smaller towards the top through a corbelling of post and lintel. However, looking at the Eastern Columbia building one can tell this was done purely for aesthetic reasons. The vertical folds in the building show that the ziggurat shape wasn’t needed for support. Steel and cement had already been developed as a means to support large structures. Yet the Eastern Columbia building mirrors a simple ancient architecture and lays its focus on decoration. The architects of the Temple of Vishnu also had the intelligence to change the form of the temple, but for them what they really wanted was a form that could support the building that would allow them to focus on the building of the statues. The decoration is now softer and less intricate. It is also machine made: they did not have centuries worth of time to make a building in the then flourishing downtown LA, nor did they have workers willing to devote their entire lives to a building, or patrons giving lavishly to the cause. A city being built calls for quicker responses from architecture. This was the 1930s , this was the Machine age, this was the city, power, money, time. Society was now rushing and the machine could make it faster, yet they still take the time to make the carvings and metalworkings, the care and devotion begins to slip, but it is still there enough to create beautiful carvings into the Eastern Columbia building. Nietzsche by now has already declared god dead. Here, Claud Beelman wants to see his building built, and there is no immortal god waiting patiently for this building, but instead the headquarters of a clothing building, who’s needs are a bit more immediate. Around the same time, and a concept that lasted a bit longer was born : modernism: a “reinvention of architecture” whose goal was to produce pure, clean form. With all of the materials such as iron and cement, structure was not a problem, and elegant structures could be made whose beauty lied in their simplicity. It was now about space and light and the impact a small design move could make. There was something missing in modernism to the post-modern architect’s eye, who wanted to change this all together. He concluded that the point was in making interesting form. With much thought and new technologies, a building could be quickly made to keep up with society whose aesthetic values was in its overall shape, not small trinkets, but global moves.

Left page: Photos of the Eastern Columbia Building Right Page: Photos of the Getty Center

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Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Building 3: The Getty Center The Getty Center was built by Richard Meier from 19841997 in the style of modernism. It is a building complex(as is the Vishnu temple) made up of 6 buildings that create a museum on a hilltop. Richard Meier is one of the New York 5, a famous group of 5 architects of that time that chose to work almost entirely in white. Richard Meier’s style was that of pure white buildings with geometries that implied the orthogonal grid he used to make the buildings which he showed by superimposing them too his buildings by having them carve into the facades. He wanted to make sure everyone knew he had used rigorous amounts of mathematics to create his buildings, and he is well known for his mathematical precision. This was also a goal of the hindus but their results were very different from the white square grids. Meier was questioned from his beginnings for having such an inorganic style. “No. I think that it’s really a statement of what we do as architects, that what we make is not natural.” (Jodidio, pg 5) was Meier’s response when asked if his use of white geometric forms were a symbolic victory over nature. Organic form was not in the language of modernisms but rather hard, man made geometries: machine made geometries. The temples, the Rococo buildings, the gothic Cathedrals, the Mosque details had been sculpted by hand, therefore they had(and barely) human imprecision which made it have a bit of character and personality and also made these buildings more harmonious with nature for the mere reason that they were naturally made. In the case of the Hindu temple it was also very important to them that the landscape and the architecture be one. In the case of the Getty center, the building is supposed to be juxtaposed with the hilltop leaving them both in a constant battle which Richard Meier loved to see. (Jodidio, pg 13). A disconnect from nature. “White is the ephemeral emblem of perpetual movement. White is always present but never the same, bright and rolling in the day, silver and effervescent under the full moon of New Year’s eve. Between the sea of consciousness and earth’s vast materiality lies this ever changing line of white.” -Meier (Jodidio, pg 30). White has an elegant appeal that is another step towards clean simplicity. I ancient India however, the intent was to celebrate and rejoice with a warm, lively color scheme. “Modernism doesn’t have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I don’t think that everything has to be conceived as being different for differences sake. I believe that architecture is related to the past, that the present is related to the past and that we learn from the past in order to move into the future.” (Jodidio, pg 33) The fact that Meier thought this way brings him closer into the conversation of the evolution of architecture. He did not take as large a leap as other modernists who did not want anything to do with the past and I think that makes it easier to study him with the idea of an unintentional migration from decoration to no decoration. We have to go back and learn from the past; by thinking the world is always evolving and growing we forget that our ancestors were just as, if not more impressive than we are. Architecture has/is going through these stages where the art of decoration is almost completely forgotten. Not only has decoration been obliterated but given a negative connotation. In architecture school while dealing with the transformation of archimedian primitives my professor tells me I need to focus on form which is the priority now: “the transformation you’ve made feels decorative,” she says in a way to tell me to fix it. “What is wrong with decoration?” I ask genuinely for I had noticed a pattern in the professors using this word as a critique She just sort of laughed, leading me to conclude that it does not stand strongly in architecture today. The transformation happened slowly with a very American mindset. Democracy and Capitalism at its core. We took the Greek and we made it Roman by only taking the logic and engineering and becoming entrepreneurs and leaving the details behind.

The industrial age came and went, the technological era also came, and we were in a hurry to get whatever it was that we were doing done. What we were doing was important and there was no time. Watches, and cars, and phones, and 9-5 jobs to leave as soon as possible to come home to the T.V, and no time. Temporal solutions came, a lot of architecture being made without the idea of it being permanent in mind. No god to make architecture for, no reason for the divine, only for the logical. It was also a matter of equality. Everyone needs a home now that there is a massive middle class to tend to and the means of mass production to do so with. The artisinal cannot cater to the masses. It is a luxury and always has been, the only difference is that in ancient societies we would put all of our eggs in one basket: the temples, the cathedrals, the castles, etc. It is a much different world from that in which the kings and rulers and pharaohs lived respectively in their castles and monuments and palaces and every one else in slums. The white house is fit for a president and our homes adequate and efficient, but there must be a way to find the care for detail once again and something to do it for.

History of Architecture: Semester II Paper on Ornamentation

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9.44”

3.5”

2.73”

2.75”

2.25”

.5”

7.75”

6.87”

5.25” .5”

3.5”

2.75”

2.73” .5”

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7”

5.25” .5”

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10.38”

Visual Studies: Semester II Box Unrolled

3.2”

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Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

THE BOX

Visual Studies

We were asked to carefully study the construction of a cardboard box, and how detailed all of itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fillets had to be, in order for it to function at its full potential. The drawing on the left is the box unrolled, which was the first step of the box study. We were eventually asked to intersect two boxes together, and decide what that would mean in terms of the new edges conditions. We were asked to draw their intersections with a similar degree of sensibility as the original corner and edge conditions of the box we studied.

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Visual Studies: Semester II Box Elevations

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Visual Studies: Semester II Intersecting Boxes

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SEMESTER I

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STUDIO

Parking Space House

The building we were asked to design in Semester I had to be the size of a parking space with very limited height conditions. The program that had to take place in the building was simply sleeping, studying, and standing. It also was to just house one occupant (ourselves). I created a box, with a terrace carved out from the top as a starting point. I then curved and shaped the walls in order for them to become furniture that would embed itself into the building. The back wall for example, could be sat on from both inside and outside.

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Cross Section

Studio: Semester I Left: Furniture Diagrams Right: Sections

Cross Section

Semester I

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

Long S ecti on A

Studio: Semester I SectionsLong Secti on B

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A Work

plan le vel 2 B

Plan, Second Floor A

Lounge

Sleep

plan le vel 1 Action

Plan, First Floor

Studio: Semester I Top: Plans Bottom: Angle Diagrams

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Studio: Semester I Exploded Axonometric Drawing

Semester I

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Studio: Semester I Icosidodecahedron

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STUDIO

Icosedodecahedron

For the beginning of this term we were asked to first build, draw and study an original Archimedian primitive. I was assigned the icosidodecahedron. We were then asked to transform the primitive geometrically, and to repeat the process several times. In this section I have drawings of the original Archimedian primitive, and of one of my transformations.

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Studio: Semester I Icosidodecahedron Top & Elevation

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Studio: Semester I Transformed Icosidodecahedron Top & Elevation

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Studio: Semester I Icosidodecahedron Axonometric

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Studio: Semester I Transformed Icosidodecahedron Axonometric

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VISUAL RHETORIC & DESIGN CULTURES

Papers

Visual Rhetoric Course Description: This seminar provides an introduction to analysis, critical thinking, argumentation, and rhetoric through a wide range of visual media. It explores the history and theory of communication in the fine arts (painting, sculpture, drawing), theater, film, architecture, graphic design, advertising, and computer design through close analysis of seminal texts and surrounding the history of persuasive discourse, alongside varied media. From Aristotleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art of Rhetoric to Kenneth Burkeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Counter-Statement we will establish a clear understanding of the many means and methods available to engage in constructive debate surrounding any visual, graphic, or textual medium. Applying and developing skills of persuasive argumentation and discussion through in-class debate, we will analyze and explore different forms of imagery and material form in an attempt to become more aware, informed, and active in our capacities to engage in complex cultural discussions surrounding all forms of visual media. Design Cultures Course Description: This course serves as an introduction, overview and preview of the SCI-Arc curriculum, and as an introduction to the immense variety of pathways available to students as they move ahead in the world as a designer and, possibly, as an architect. The aims of the class are to expose students to a broad range of design work in the fields of furniture, architecture, interior space, set design, exhibition design, product design, and landscape, and to develop in them the eye and senses of the curious and critical observer of the products of design culture.

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ON KLIMT The idea of adding anything new to the world particularly pertaining to art, and how it goes about happening is something I mean to explore. From what I have gathered, for an artist to add something new to their time and place, they in theory need to be well versed in their field and know where they stand in the conversation that is art. To be relevant to their time they also should be very careful not to disregard preconceived notions but to take them and push them. There is a history they are continuing, and they must know it well before they can take it in any one direction. Balancing form and content is an important tool in this sense. It allows the artist to control the amount of controversy they are bringing to the table. Typically an artist has to show that he can do that which everyone else is doing at the time so that they can be recognized as a suitable artist. It is then that he is free to wander into the unknown wether or not society follows him there. Pablo Picasso’s early work was very traditional. It consisted of highly articulated figures and landscapes that showed he had a fine understanding of technique and form. He knew how to capture light, how to organize a composition and how to please an audience. Once he gained credibility he became a founder of cubism, where he could let go of society’s expectations and abstract his thinking and his art. He narrowed his audience(which happens when creating something new) and changed what people knew to be art. He let go of the form that was expected, and managed to make paintings like the Guernica where content was primary and form secondary. Pollock as well joined the conversation of his time, painting landscapes, understanding art, before he ever began splattering paint onto canvas. Another artist who had something to say, and something to add, and who will be the basis of my study did it with much finesse: Gustav Klimt. Gustav Klimt was born on July 1862. He was said to be caught between the past and the future. Blazing the trail of modernism. He studied art in Vienna for 7 years and one of his earliest projects and inspirations was one done with his brother Ernest Gustav and their friend Franz Matsch where they had to do a series of paintings which were intended to represent the history of art from Ancient Egypt to Florence. This “history” he maintained relevant throughout his career, always leaving glimpses of it in his pieces that were eclectic for this very reason. This is how he began. Through structuring paintings as if they were Byzantine mosaics he was able to deflect attention from the content. This is how he took content, typically being the nude female figure, and made it much more graphic over time, keeping his form something to be desired making for one very confused audience. He distracted them with the elegance of his pieces, his systematic arrangement of composition, the gold that alluded to something holy, and the way he transformed anatomy into ornamentation and vise versa. He had Vienna’s approval, this was step one, they commissioned his pieces. Now that he had been of his time and had mastered technique he broke off and left tradition behind. “Enough of censorship, I want to get away, I refuse every form of support from the state, I’ll do without all of it. (1)” It was now that he became president of the Vienna Secession whose soul purpose was to fight for “the right to artistic creativity” (Herman Bahr, Spiritual father of secessionists) (2). He crossed the boundaries of respectability set by the Viennese society in order to move on. When he had painted for Vienna he painted many portraits where he gave the women he painted a sense of passiveness. One which mirrored society’s oppression of his work. When he began painting for himself and was free it was a different woman he painted, she was dangerous and instinctual, “the daemon of

the Secession” (3). These 2 “women” have often been separated in the past. “Naked women arises either from the sea or from the bed: she is called Venus or Nini” (Renoir) (4). He was now painting Nini who didn’t abide to society’s standard of respectability, she was very naked, and very powerful and painted with the elegance and poise of Venus. “Though you cannot please all men with your deeds and with your art, yet seek to please a few. To please the multitudes is not good.” (Schiller) (5). Schiller’s words Klimt took to heart. As a semi general rule, if one is pleasing the masses it is because there is a lack of controversy, a lack of something new. Gustav Klimt was now creating something new, thus his once large audience narrowed (but it will grow and be greater than ever once he is done). A piece that was highly criticized was Philosophy. It was first seen in The World Exhibition in Paris where it received a prize. Back in Vienna however, he was charged with pornography. In this piece we have 3 concepts, on the left we have something he often explored which was the cycle of life from beginning to end, on the right the globe as a representation of mystery and from beneath a figure of light, or knowledge. This was painted during the same time as Medicine where Hygieia, the goddess of health turns her back on mankind with a poetic indifference, with a stream of life being carried away behind her which is comprised of people from all stages of life. Both these pieces shocked the viewers with their explicit nudity and their social commentary. Then there was Klimt’s golden age where he won back the hearts of the masses and heavily used the color gold. After The Kiss, he once again left his less confrontational side and made Danae. She was in this highly erotic position yet it was so innocent. You see her in fetal position like a child, sleeping, with detailed patterning all around her that heightening her softened facial features and fair skin. By having this woman drawn with such realism and having the composition so intricately crafted and the patterns so alive, it put’s into question why anything would be wrong with her or her sexuality. In one of his last works, he once again brings up the subject of death. In Death and Life he depicts a group of people on the right, from every stage of life, once again, and on the left he depicts the image of death. In this piece he is said to have left some hope, given the fact that the people do not look as if they fear death at all. It is as if they know it is there but go on disregarding it. They are at peace with the idea that death awaits each one of them, and live without paying it much mind. In these three pieces there is a constant theme which is Eros and Thanatos, or the association of sexuality and death. This was not an uncommon theme of its time and was explored by many artists in Europe. This was also the time of Freud who was very much fascinated by Eros and Thanatos. He had a lot of influence on Klimt’s work having have been qualified a doctor of medicine in Vienna. It was in Vienna where he spent a lot of time exploring libido, and as he did this through psychology, Klimt did this through his art. While the theme of sexuality and death was being explored at a greater scale, Klimt’s paintings were controversial none the less. However, by being able to take the art of the past and continue it rather than disregard it, and by exploring the concept with beautiful form, technique, and decoration, he was able to make something new. While his friend’s stayed making traditional art, he was able to move on, anger some, please others, but in the end adding something of huge scale to the repertoire of art and becoming one of the most famous painters to have lived.

Semester I

Isabela De Sousa: Catalogue of Drawings & Writings

THE AIRSTREAM “Taking it With You” is an essay by Banham where he analyzes the Airstream, its design, and what it represents. The Airstream is very much a classic American piece of design both through its physical characteristics and it being a manifestation of an American dream and lifestyle on wheels. Banham begins the essay showing an intrigue in a quote by Alison Smithson where she states that most housing isn’t as good as caravans (pg. 223, Banahm). He then begins to analyze caravans as a whole to find a meaning in Smithson’s somewhat ironic statement. Ironic given the fact that most people(especially architects) do not like caravans. They are not pleasing to the eye and are typically associated with the slums that they are found in. Even Smithson herself doesn’t seem to think anything of them visually, and this strikes curiosity in Banham. He then realizes that it is the idea behind the caravan that is iconic to America and begins to analyze one type of caravan in particular. “The shining platonic ideal of a motorhome,” (pg. 224, Banham) the Airstream. The Airstream is said to be not only a classic American design but a timeless one due to the fact that it is a design that has stayed relevant and has had few revisions since it came to be in the 1930’s. Banham’s writes about how when the Airstream came to be it was much more facetted. It had more parts, and the panels didn’t join. Over time the design developed so that the Airstream became more sounded and unified. The more it was designed the more modern it became, it looked simpler, which in terms of modernism meant it was really more complex because the design was pushed in such a way as to unify this whole mass. It represented modernism in a few ways. One being its simplistic design that focused on practicality, another being the way it was manufactured. It was made in pieces that could be put together; it was the IKEA house, what Le Corbusier sought after. It was also aluminum, a material that was often used during modernism which is apparent when looking at a progression in the tea kettle which changed form being bronze to being aluminum in this time period. The focus then was on the “dream” which the airstream represented. Even “elegant snobs” (pg. 224, Banham) were using this invention because it gave them the freedom to take with them anything they pleased i.e. their stateroom. It was “clean, efficient, highly serviced, and a totally independent living unit” (pg. 224, Banham), in other words, it was modernism incarnate. The idea was very representative of freedom. One was free to go anywhere and do anything. It was possible to “plug-in and clip-on” (pg. 223, Banham) to cities. Not even the district surveyor could get in the way. The Airstream was Manifest Destiny, with comfort. It provided the ability to explore and travel the country, and never leave home. You could “take your doorstep to the world” (pg. 225, Banham), and your television to the woods (pg 226, Banham),

whatever it was, you could literally “take it with you.” Looking at the Airstream, and Banham’s “Taking it with You”, a certain set of rules depicting what makes a design American become apparent. One of them being availability, the fact that it can be owned by most anyone. This is important in an American design because it ties back to the very foundation of this country where America was trying to rid itself of England and the very defined social classes that came with it. It was a time to start over where people could work to obtain what they wanted. The Airstream, like most American designs embodies capitalism in the way that one can work to get it, it is not all-exclusive. Another concept that makes a design American is liberty. America is known as “the home of the free” and freedom is very much what people come to this country looking for. This is why we have the Bill of Rights whose roots are so deep as to be in the longest standing Constitution yet. How can this be seen in a design? In the Airstream it is in the fact that you can take your home anywhere you please, there is not a certain culture holding you down. He who owns the Airstream gets to be Lewis and Clark. Then there is both practicality and simplicity. The Airstream serves its exact purpose and looks clean cut. The flourishing decoration died a bit in Europe, here it’s about things that do their job and do them well and that gives a different kind of aesthetic to the design because now the beauty is in its simplicity. These rules can then be inherently found in any American design. Take the Jeep Cherokee for example, it is available, practical, simple and represents freedom. The Cherokee was mass produced and any hypothetical customer could buy it if he had the means. This customer also had many other cars to choose from which is another concept that differs this country from many others. It’s also a design that doesn’t necessarily advertise what social class it belongs to because it could belong to a whole range of people, and because there came a time in this country where for the most part people stopped caring wether or not you had an intricately ornate gold heirloom form the King Louie era if it wasn’t going to be functional and save you time. It was all part of a new mindset that came about when this country was born. As for the design, its focus was its efficiency. The Jeep Cherokee is known to be one of the simplest cars ever made and its user friendliness creates leisure time. Going to the mechanic never takes long because this car, which is a car down to its bear essentials, has parts that are mass produced and easily available if they get damaged. Freedom. In this case you have your 4 wheel drive. One can go off-roading and go anywhere with all of the leisure time one has gathered through the use of efficient, American designs.

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Isabela De Sousa

CATALOGUE OF DRAWINGS & WRITINGS

2013 - 2015