Design Methodology Manual I. - Péter Zilahi

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Chapter I.

Human - Nature - Space

The components of human existence in space and nature are eternal issues. Urbanisation has impaired these interrelations in many ways, still we often tend to forget these components. However, it should be our top priority at every building design project. In the history of architecture the design value of the title’s triple concept has been cyclically intensified or underestimated. In his discours ’Nature and Man in the 21st century’ Ferenc Glatz says the following: „Man’s history is part of nature’s history, and, if we want it or not, its future will also be part of nature’s future.” The beginning of architecture’s continuity lies in our relationship with nature. We are parts of natural systems even if its proportins change in space and time. It is a fundamental cultural thesis how we consider man’s role in the created world. Architecture in the 18th century seems to be exaggerated comparing it to the social and industrial dimensions of the age. This exaggerated attitude in architecture was criticized by a French Jesuit priest Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713-1769). In his essay „Essai sur l’architectur” published in 1753 he explained the concept of „primitive hut” as a criticism of the exaggerated Baroque architecture. The main thesis of the study, the hut, was depicted by the French artist Charles Eisen in the second edition in 1755. Later on his illustration became an iconic image. In the foreground of the picture there is a woman sitting in idyllic natural surroundings. Her figure is supposed to be an allegorical representation of architecture. Next to the woman there is a child, a symbol of naive architecture. The woman is pointing at a simple hut, a structure reduced to basic elements of architecture. The living trees seem to be columns. The doble colonnade is closed up by an entablature. Besides marking the space, it also creates rigidity and space for the roof as the third closing element. Although the three basic elements of architecture have great emphasis in Laugier’s concept, na-

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