GEOMETRY CONCEPTS IN ARCHITECTURE Transference of Geometrical ideas from Classical Antiquity to Modern Architecture
By: Ali Hasan, Piyush Tiwari Enrollment No.: A1904018015, A1904018083 Batch: 2018 - 2023
II Year – 2019-2020 Submitted to: Ar. Anurita Bhatnagar Amity School of Architecture and Planning Amity University Uttar Pradesh Noida
“Geometry is the archetype of the beauty of the world.” - Johannes Kepler
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FACULTY GUIDE CERTIFICATE This is to certify that Ali Hasan and Piyush Tiwari bearing enrolment no’s A1904018015 and A1904018083 respectively have prepared the report for Architectural Seminar on “Geometry in Architecture” under my guidance.
___________________ Faculty Guide Signature (Ar. Anurita Bhatnagar)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The study taken by us as part of the Architectural Seminar course of Bachelors of Architecture Degree on Geometry in Architecture wouldn’t be possible without the able guidance and supervision of my Faculty Guide Ar. Anurita Bhatnagar. Her guidance in choosing this topic and in pursuing it as part of the course has helped us in timely completion of this term paper. We would like to thank our parents for their direct and indirect support throughout our life and through the span of this term paper. We would also like to thank our co-faculty member for their guidance in making this term paper. Last but not the least we would like to thank our colleagues for their support and constant words of inspiration to find more interesting things about our topic.
Signature Ali Hasan
Signature Piyush Tiwari
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Faculty Guide Certificate ........................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgement ..................................................................................................................................................4 Aim .........................................................................................................................................................................8 Objectives ...............................................................................................................................................................8 Methodology ..........................................................................................................................................................9 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................................10 The Timeline .........................................................................................................................................................11 Literature Study ....................................................................................................................................................14 Geometric Ideas ...............................................................................................................................................14 Tracing Geometric Ideas through History ........................................................................................................25 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................53
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LIST OF FIGUERS Figure 1 Parthenon .............................................................................................................................................. 11 Figure 2 Vitruvius ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Figure 3 Church of San Giorgio Maggiore ............................................................................................................ 11 Figure 4 Andrea Palladio ...................................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 5 Villa Savoye ............................................................................................................................................ 12 Figure 6 Le Corbusier ........................................................................................................................................... 12 Figure 7 Indology Institute, Ahemdabad ( B.V. Doshi) ......................................................................................... 12 Figure 8 B.V.Doshi ................................................................................................................................................ 12 Figure 9 Charles Correa ....................................................................................................................................... 12 Figure 10 Circles of presence exerted by a tree, a candle, a human body respt. ................................................ 14 Figure 11 Lines of Sight in making Doors, Windows and in the Stonehenge ...................................................... 15 Figure 12 Lines of Passage in Plans ...................................................................................................................... 16 Figure 13 Lines of Passage in making things interesting ..................................................................................... 16 Figure 14 How Human body measurements effect our perception of the world. .............................................. 17 Figure 15 Six directions with reference to human body ...................................................................................... 18 Figure 16 Six direction affecting a building Form ................................................................................................ 18 Figure 17 Social Geometry affecting furniture in Buildings ................................................................................. 20 Figure 18 Seating arrangement Of the Finnish Parliament ................................................................................. 20 Figure 19 the idea of social geometry ................................................................................................................. 21 Figure 20 Mohrmann House - Hans Scharoun : An asymmetric house with a circular dining area (circular) Plan and view respt. .................................................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 21 Geometry of making in building blocks and structural members ........................................................ 22 Figure 22 Patterns made by Geometry of making ............................................................................................... 23 Figure 23 Ideal geometry affecting Façades ........................................................................................................ 24 Figure 24 cover and pages of the book: The Ten Books on Architecture ............................................................ 26 Figure 25 Diagram showing vetruvius’s ideas and him explaining it to the crowd ............................................. 26 Figure 26 Acropolis and a Diagram showing its presence on the landscape ....................................................... 27 Figure 27 Diagram showing path people take to go to the Temple of Parthenon .............................................. 28 Figure 28 Interiors of The Temple of Parthenon ................................................................................................. 29 Figure 29 Dynamic-vision in The Temple of Parthenon ....................................................................................... 30 Figure 30 Parthenon Façade and Plan made in reference to a specific ratio ...................................................... 31 Figure 31 Parthenon Façade overlapped with the Golden Rectangle ................................................................. 32 Figure 32 The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci and Four books on Architecture by Andrae Palladio ......... 33 Figure 33 Villa Rotunda by Andrae Palladio......................................................................................................... 35 Figure 34 Line of Passage through Villa Rotunda ................................................................................................ 35 Figure 35 buildings in Bangalore, Vidhana Soudha ............................................................................................. 39 Figure 36 New Delhi, Garrison Church ................................................................................................................ 39 Figure 37 Indian Art Deco house ......................................................................................................................... 39 Figure 38 A British Raj building in comparison to a Modernist Indian Building .................................................. 40 Figure 39 Jawahar Kala Kendra ............................................................................................................................ 41 Figure 40 , Chandigarh parliament showing repetition of basic geometric shapes in planes and elevations ..... 41 Figure 41 IIM complex library by Luis Kahn and Charles Correa’s Kanchanjunga building referencing Luis Kahn ............................................................................................................................................................................. 42 Figure 42 Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal sitting on a hillside like acropolis of Athens .................................................. 43 6
Figure 43 Vidhan Bhavan’s Façade showing repeating tile pattern and simple geometric..................................44 Figure 44 Plan and schematic sketch showing zoning done with a Geometric approach ....................................45 Figure 45 Entrance for Common Public showing a temple form with an overpowering gigantic façade creating a symbol of power out of our reach. .......................................................................................................................46 Figure 46 The public waiting area with repeating geometry creating nature line complexity of a forest ...........47 Figure 47 Plan Of Vidhan Bhavan made of simple repeating 2d Geometric shapes done to create a masterful and Pleasing compositioin. ...................................................................................................................................48 Figure 48 Vip entrance : vidhan Bhavan ...............................................................................................................49 Figure 49 VIP entrance and lower house chamber created with create forward surge of movement and an ambience of modern day grandeur within our reach. .........................................................................................49 Figure 50 Vidhan Bhavan : CENTRAL HALL ...........................................................................................................50 Figure 51 Vidhan Bhavan : Entrance to the lower house chamber ......................................................................50 Figure 52 Longitudinal Section showing A form made by simple combination of Geometric Forms ..................51
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AIM To understand the manifestation of Geometry in architecture.
OBJECTIVES
To identify guiding principles of design. Understand the existence of a design language formulated through geometry. To understand the logic behind geometrically aesthetic buildings.
FIGURE 1 THE GREAT UTOPIA - ZAHA HADID
(Zaha)
Geometry (from the Ancient Greek: geo - "earth", - metron "measurement") is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space.
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METHODOLOGY Understanding the underlying geometry Understanding the underlying Principals of Geometry in Architecture. Its aspects and effects on Architectural Design
Tracing down the use of Geometric ideas through history – Classical Antiquity, Renaissance, and the Modernist movement. Reinterpretation of Modernist ideas based on these Geometric principals for Traditional. Modernism for India.
From the ideas mentioned in the book Architectural Analysis by Simon Unwin.
From Vitruvius’s book – 10 Books on Architecture and analysis of Acropolis and Parthenon. From Palladio’s book – 4 Books on architecture and analysis of Villa Rotunda.
From Le Corbusier’s work and from the work of Charles Correa in Vidhan Bhawan, Bhopal.
Interpret the Geometric ideas in architecture to form buildings which monumentalize conceptual ideas to create architectural styles at macro level and affect the treatment of building components (like windows and doors, entrances) at micro level.
From the book by Klaus Peter Gast – Traditional Modernism in which he references buildings by Charles Correa and interprets them with references from architectural critics like Kenneth Frampton and Theorist like Gautam Bhatia. 9
INTRODUCTION Geometry plays a role in Architecture in many ways. It is a Tool for an Architect, it can be adopted to be imposed over the landscape and create monumental structures with the spirit of leaving an imprint. It can also emerge out of the conditions of being and conditions of material and site, creating structures which are humble and stand the test of the conditions posed by the surroundings. The two parallels create very contrasting examples of architecture, The Temple and The Cottage. The Temple may lie in Ancient Greece or in India, both ideally aim to create monuments, create Physical spaces inspired from abstract ideals. The humble Cottages have their own set of constraints which can be met by the use of geometric tools. Geometry is as relevant in Architecture today as it was in Classical antiquity. It is being used to make Buildings which stand for power and also solve the crisis of Low cost housing. These Geometric ideas as a subject in school suggests circles, squares, triangles, pyramids, cones, spheres, diameters, radii, and so on. In Architecture these play a multifold role; as abstract ideas they belong in the category of ideal geometries—their perfection can be imposed on the physical fabric of the world as a means for identifying place. They can even emerge is a reaction to the landscape or constraints. More so, This Geometric way of thinking can be traced from Classical antiquity in the form of books and teachings all the way to a Modern Indian context. This Term paper will try to trace this idea of Geometrical thinking through buildings and documents scripted to set in stone abstract ideas by imposing them on the architecture. These Geometries can also be quantified by dimensionally analyzing the buildings mentioned but that is beyond the scope of this paper. This is a try to Identify and List manifestation of geometric ideas and traces their transference in an effort to establish their usefulness as tool in architectural practice of present time.
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THE TIMELINE
FIGURE 2 PARTHENON (SUPERINTENDENCE, 2007)
FIGURE 3 VITRUVIUS (CIGOLA, 2014)
FIGURE 5 ANDREA PALLADIO
FIGURE 4 CHURCH OF SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE
(SEC.) (XVII)
(Bookdome, 2014)
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FIGURE 6 VILLA SAVOYE FIGURE 7 LE CORBUSIER
(User, 2010)
(Suisse, 2020)
FIGURE 8 B.V.DOSHI
(Chhaya, 2018)
FIGURE 9 INDOLOGY INSTITUTE, AHEMDABAD ( B.V. DOSHI)
(Fumarola, 2011)
FIGURE 10 CHARLES CORREA
(Dutta, 2019)
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Geometric ideas can be traced even before Classical Antiquity but a timeline can be established if we trace them in the Classical era with Greek and then Roman styles all the way to the modern world. These ideas got lost with the end of the Roman Empire and coming of the Ottoman empire, they were again studied in the Renaissance. Where the people believed that that Classical time was the Golden Age of Architecture. They studied the ideas of Classical Architecture from texts that were found again. The Book by Vitruvius was studied and reinterpreted by Andre Palladio, an Architect and write in his own account who contributed to created the Renaissance Style of architecture. One can even trace these ideas in the Islamic architecture with its geometric use of ideas and even Geometric ornamentation. Though this timeline has not been reinterpreted so freely like the roman one. Yet, it can be an alternate approach to follow these geometric ideas. Even the timeline of Geometric ideas of Classical antiquities were not always in fashion. With every peak into a geometric mindset came a fall, after Renaissance, these ideas were left as is in search for more vocal ways of expressing architecture. They were studied again by Le Cobusier when he was trying to find a style that would express the views and aspirations of people of the Modern time. Their new needs created from the technological advancements, the coming of the motorcar. He created Modernism on basis of these Geometric ideas which then was learnt by people throughout the world. It came to the India, when India was establishing its presence and looking for a new way to build buildings, different from the architecture of the British Raj. An Architecture which could create an impression on the landscape of Free India to guide the coming generations. These Geometric ideas were used with traditional Indian world views to create Civic Buildings and a way in which we as users experience our country and think about all the things it stands for.
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LITERATURE STUDY GEOMETRIC IDEAS There are many different ways in which geometry plays a part in architecture. According to Simon Unwin Geometry in architecture exists in the following ways… The word geometry, as a subject in school for example, suggests circles, squares, triangles, pyramids, cones, spheres, diameters, radii, and so on. These play an important part in can be imposed on the physical fabric of the world as a means for identifying place. But geometries emerge from our dealings with the world too; geometry can derive from an attitude of acceptance as much as it can be associated with an attitude of control. Geometries of being are inherent to the identification of places.
CIRCLES OF PRESENCE Buildings, People, even objects introduce geometry to the world just by being. Everybody has around it what might be called a ‘circle of presence’, which contributes to its own identification of place. When a body is in relationship with others, their circles of presence affect each other. When a body is put into an enclosure or cells its circle of presence is also contained and perhaps molded. Architecture uses all three: the extensive circle of visibility; the intimate circle of touchabi- lity; and the intermediate circle of place. Much architecture, from prehistoric times to the present, has been concerned with asserting, defining, amplifying, molding, or controlling circles of presence.
FIGURE 11 CIRCLES OF PRESENCE EXERTED BY A TREE, A CANDLE, A HUMAN BODY RESPT.
(Unwin, 2009) 14
LINE OF SIGHT We human beings seem fascinated by the fact that we see in straight lines. This fascination is evident in the way one might vacantly line up the toe of one's shoe with a spot on the carpet, or more purposefully when one sights a distant object with the end of a finger to point it out. The fascination with lines of sight is evident in architecture too. Thinking of architecture as identification of place, a line of sight establishes contact between places. In the ancient world it was one of the ways in which architects tied places into the world around them, establishing them as fragments of matrices which centered on particular sacred sites. It is a power which is important in the design of places for performance, where engagement between actors and spectators depend on sight. It can also be important in designing art museums, where lines of sight can influence the positioning of exhibits.
FIGURE 12 LINES OF SIGHT IN MAKING DOORS, WINDOWS AND IN THE STONEHENGE
(Unwin, 2009)
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LINE OF PASSAGE Lines of passage are usually considered to be straight, unless diverted by some ‘force’. A sensible person usually moves in a straight line between a starting point and a goal, unless there is some obstacle which makes this unwise or impossible. In organizing the world into places, architecture also establishes lines of passage between those places, using them as ingredients of serial experiences.
FIGURE 13 LINES OF PASSAGE IN PLANS
(Unwin, 2009)
FIGURE 14 LINES OF PASSAGE IN MAKING THINGS INTERESTING
(Unwin, 2009) 16
MEASURING The word geometry derives from two Greek words, for earth (ge) and measure (metron). Measuring the worlds essential to life; people measure their environment all the time, and in lots of different ways. Measuring with a ruler or tape measure is only one of those ways, and an artificial one. The more immediate ways in which people measure the world is with their own bodies. When this is done, one realizes the ideas of Scale and Proportions.
FIGURE 15 HOW HUMAN BODY MEASUREMENTS EFFECT OUR PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD.
(Unwin, 2009)
SIX DIRECTIONS PLUS CENTRE A Throne room, where the position of the throne is against one of the four walls, rather than at the geometric centre of the room, allows the monarch’s forward direction to dominate the space. In this way Architecture can respond to the evocation of resonance between an enclosure and its occupant, by making it a place which responds to each of the six directions. An ordinary cell, with its four walls, ceiling and floor, conforms to this. Finding places where our six directions are in either formal accord or relaxed interplay with those of the room.
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FIGURE 16 SIX DIRECTIONS WITH REFERENCE TO HUMAN BODY
(Unwin, 2009)
FIGURE 17 SIX DIRECTION AFFECTING A BUILDING FORM
(Richters, 2018), (Unwin, 2009)
SOCIAL GEOMETRY People change the surroundings they are in, reconfigure them to their own accord, this creates a Geometry which in turn effects the shape and form of enclosure. When people congregate they identify their own places, in particular ways. In doing so they overlay a 18
social geometry where they come together. As a process of identification of place, this is architecture in its own right, but while it consists only of people its existence is transient. Works of architecture can respond to social geometri-es, order them, and make their physical realization more permanent. When schoolboys spectate at a playground brawl between two of their number, they form a circle. When there is a formalized bout between two boxers, the area of their battle is defined by a rectangular platform with rope barriers around the edge. Though square it is called a ring, and the boxers’ confrontation is represented by their possession of opposite corners. People may sit in a rough circle around a fire in the landscape. In the ingle-nook of an Arts and Crafts house that social geometry is transformed into a rectangle, accommodated within the structure of the fabric of the house. The radial arrangement of spectators on the slopes of a valley, watching sports or dramatic performances, was architecturally translated by the ancient Greeks into the amphitheatre, with its (more than semi-) circular plan, consisting of many tiers of concentric sitting steps. It may not be an example of social geometry, but the grid layout of graves in a cemetery is a function of the geometry of the human frame and the way in which the rectangular shape of the space it needs can be tessellated across the land. People arguing stand opposite each other; when they are friends, they sit next to each other. Both can have architectural manifestations . In British politics, the confrontation of the Government and the Opposition is physically represented in the benches of the House of Commons, which face each other across the chamber, with the Speaker (or chairman of the debate) sitting on the axis between them. Some chambers for discussion are designed not for argument and opposition but for collective debate. This is sometimes manifested in their architecture. Chapter houses are meeting rooms attached to cathedrals and monasteries. Often they have a circular, or perhaps polygonal, plan which, architecturally at least, is no confrontational and non-hierarchical. Even the central column, which supports the vaulted ceiling, seems to block direct,
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diametrical,
opposition
across
the
chamber.
FIGURE 18 SOCIAL GEOMETRY AFFECTING FURNITURE IN BUILDINGS
(Unwin, 2009)
It is a moot point whether such architectural arrangements affect the behavior of members of parliament or of chapters. Some countries, nevertheless, have chosen to accommodate their parliamentary debates in circular rather than confrontational debating chambers, if only for symbolic reasons. This, as one example, is the debating chamber of the Finnish parliament in Helsinki, which was designed by J.S. Siren and built in 1931. The circle is one of the most powerful symbols of human community; architecturally it seems to speak of people being equal and together in a shared experience of the world. It is the pattern made, loosely, by the people around their campfire; it is the pattern made by people sitting around a picnic; it is a pattern associated with conversation; and it is a pattern associated with spectating at some dramatic or ceremonial event.
FIGURE 19 SEATING ARRANGEMENT OF THE FINNISH PARLIAMENT
(Istumajärjestys, 2019) 20
FIGURE 20 THE IDEA OF SOCIAL GEOMETRY
(Unwin, 2009)
FIGURE 21 MOHRMANN HOUSE - HANS SCHAROUN : AN ASYMMETRIC HOUSE WITH A CIRCULAR DINING AREA (CIRCULAR) PLAN AND VIEW RESPT.
(Unwin, 2009), (yantramstudio, 2017)
Though he avoided many other types of geometry in his designs, even the German architect Hans Scharoun accepted the aptness of the circle as a frame for the social event of a meal. In 21
the Mohrmann House, built in 1939, the dining area is the only place in the plan which has a regular geometric shape: a circular table is accommodated centrally in a semi-circular bay window between the kitchen and living room.
GEOMETRY OF MAKING The geometry of making includes the geometry of structure, whether it is the timber structure of a medieval tithe-barn, or the steel structure of a micro-electronics factory. Susceptible to mathematical calculation, though there seems to be an infinite variety of ways of arranging a structure to span a particular space, some are said to be efficient if they use material economically and without redundant members; some have an added quality called elegance.
FIGURE 22 GEOMETRY OF MAKING IN BUILDING BLOCKS AND STRUCTURAL MEMBERS
(Unwin, 2009)
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FIGURE 23 PATTERNS MADE BY GEOMETRY OF MAKING
(Unwin, 2009)
IDEAL GEOMETRY The Circle and the Square and there 3d forms may emerge out of Geometry of social or making, but they are also Pure, Abstract, figures. They are thought to have an aesthetic or symbolic power. Architects use them to instill their work with a discipline is independent of the various geometries of being. Ideal geometry does not only include the circle and the square and their three-dimensional forms—the cube and the sphere. It also includes special proportions, such as the simple ratios of 1:2, 1:3, 2:3 or more complex ratios such as 1:√2, and that known as the Golden Section which is about 1:1.618. These ideal geometric ideas will be talked about more in the coming texts with reference to the Parthenon. (Unwin, 2009)
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FIGURE 24 IDEAL GEOMETRY AFFECTING FAÇADES
(Unwin, 2009)
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TRACING GEOMETRIC IDEAS THROUGH HISTORY CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY The Records made by Vitruvius of Classical Architecture and the architectural practices of 1st century BC are paramount in understanding their beliefs and ideologies at the time. It also shows how they converted these ideologies into built environment. He believed that all truth lies in nature. Man is made in the image of nature that is why it has attributes like Symmetry and Proportions. He then went on to understand these human proportions through geometry with the help of diagrams. Vitruvius believed that an architect should focus on three central themes when preparing a design for a building: firmitas (strength), utilitas (functionality), and venustas (beauty). But the theory of venustas (or beauty) is a very complicated one. Vitruvius thought that a timeless notion of beauty could be learnt from the 'truth of nature', that nature's designs were based on universal laws of proportion and symmetry. He believed that the body's proportions could be used as a model of natural proportional perfection. He wrote of the way ancient scholars examined many examples of 'well shaped men' and discovered that these bodies shared certain proportions. He showed that the 'ideal' human body fitted precisely into both a circle and a square, and he thus illustrated the link that he believed existed between perfect geometric forms and the perfect body. In this way, the body was seen as a living rulebook, containing the fixed and faultless laws set down by nature. So it followed, according to Vitruvius that an architect's designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body's symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmia - a graceful and agreeable atmosphere - it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beauty. (Library, 2009)
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FIGURE 25 COVER AND PAGES OF THE BOOK: THE TEN BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
(Vitruvius, 1960)
FIGURE 26 DIAGRAM SHOWING VETRUVIUS’S IDEAS AND HIM EXPLAINING IT TO THE CROWD
(Library, 2009)
According to Unvin, Most of the buildings on the acropolis in Athens we rebuilt during the classical age of ancient Greek culture, around the fifth century BC. The top of this rocky hill in the plain of Attica had been a place sacred to the goddess since time immemorial. Such elevated places were sacred partly because they had a clear identity; they were elevated and 26
sanctuaries in times of trouble; they also possessed extensive circles of presence—they could be seen (and from them one could see) for long distances across the landscape. The hill of the acropolis retains this circle of presence over modern Athens. By their architecture the ancient Greeks manipulated the circles of presence of the sacred place of Athena. The extent of the circle of place around the sacred site was defined partly by the reasonably level area of land on top of the hill, but this was extended and established more firmly by the huge retaining walls which still define the sacred precinct—the mementos— around the temples. The shape of this mementos in plan is not circular, but represents an interaction between the circle of presence of the sacred site and the topography of the hill. There were two important statues of Athena on the Athenian acropolis. The giant Athena Promachos stood in the open air near to the entrance into the temenos, projecting its own circles of presence over the city, even to ships on the sea some miles away. The other statue was enclosed within the main temple, the Parthenon, which had (and maintains) its own circle of visibility across the city, and which amplified the hidden presence of the image whilst controlling its circle of place and protecting its intimate circle of touch-ability, both of which were probably only ever penetrated by priests.In these ways the acropolis illustrates some of the ways in which circles of presence play their parts in architecture: the retaining walls of the temenos define the ‘circle’ of the sacred site; the Parthenon amplifies the presence of the statue it contains,and its cella controls and protects the statue’s circles of place and touchability. (Unwin, 2009)
FIGURE 27 ACROPOLIS AND A DIAGRAM SHOWING ITS PRESENCE ON THE LANDSCAPE
(Unwin, 2009)
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LINE OF PASSAGE When the citizens of Athens walked up the sacred way for religious procession or festival. They encountered the west end and they walked around it either on the north or south sides to the east and the entrance. Right above the entrance in the sculptures of the pediment they could see the story of Athena and Poseidon vying to be the patron of the city of Athens. On the frieze just inside they saw themselves perhaps at least in one interpretation involved in the Panathenaic Procession, the religious procession in honor of the goddess Athena. This was a building that you walked up to, you walked around and inside was this gigantic sculpture of Athena.
FIGURE 28 DIAGRAM SHOWING PATH PEOPLE TAKE TO GO TO THE TEMPLE OF PARTHENON
(Fletcher, 1905)
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DYNAMIC VISION The Parthenon and its environments act as a complex yet rigorous viewing framework for the sculptures. Despite the static rigid form of the building, it is an architecture of process and movement. At no one point can all the sculptures be seen, they are instead revealed and hidden as you move around and through the building. Not only are they hidden or revealed, but their form and your awareness of it also changes as you pass through the space and see the same sculpture from different angles. Many discussions on the aesthetics of the marbles tend to see them as static forms or snapshots of time, that despite implying movement within themselves are otherwise rigidly frozen. The reality is quite different though, it is truly a space in four dimensions that can only be understood with the addition of time. It was an architectural promenade long before le Corbusier popularized the idea
FIGURE 29 INTERIORS OF THE TEMPLE OF PARTHENON
(Taylor, 1997)
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Here the two lines of argument have finally begun to converge again. The purely historical and the purely aesthetic approaches are unified by time. Not only does time unify these elements however, but it creates a framework in which we can understand other aspects of the sculptures.
The sculptures are undergoing a process of continual evolution and metamorphosis, spread out over a period of time too long to easily comprehend. At the same time however, there is their relationship to movement, the expression of time over a short duration. There is another dimension in the supposedly frozen time implied by the figures in the sculptures themselves, both in their posture and in their symbolism. Here we have an overlay of time on three planes, each operating at different rates, successive layers of fractal complexity. In the life of the sculptures, the last two hundred years is only a minor footnote, that in another thousand years could be forgotten, yet will still in some way have left its mark on the marbles to be carried forward with them. The present is in no way less a part of history than the past. (Taylor, 1997)
FIGURE 30 DYNAMIC-VISION IN THE TEMPLE OF PARTHENON
(Taylor, 1997)
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MEASURING The Parthenon, dedicated to Athena Parthenon, is one of the most measured buildings that has survived antiquity. It has been shown by scholars to have been built with extraordinary precision. It is a Doric temple with some Ionic features. There are 8 columns along the East and West facades and 17 columns to the North and South. Though it is generally agreed that the temple’s overall proportions of width to length and height to width follow the ratio 4:9 , no one has adequately determined the temple’s underlying proportional scheme and its meaning, which was the raison d’être for such precise measurements. Anne Bulckens has addressed these questions, in her recent Ph.D thesis from Deakin University in Geelong, Australia, by her discovery of a single module of length 857.6 mm., the average width of a “theoretical triglyph”, following the writings of Vitruvius’ who stated that “Within a temple a certain part should be selected as a standard …the size of the module for Doric temples should equal the width of a triglyph.” The width of this Parthenon module is equal to the width of a “theoretical triglyph”, which was the width of a triglyph in the first design stage of the Parthenon before the frieze became shorter than the stylobate. (Kappraff, 2002)
FIGURE 31 PARTHENON FAÇADE AND PLAN MADE IN REFERENCE TO A SPECIFIC RATIO
(Kappraff, 2002)
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FIGURE 32 PARTHENON FAÇADE OVERLAPPED WITH THE GOLDEN RECTANGLE
(Bulckens, 2002)
REDISCOVERY IN RENAISSANCE Vitruvius' De architectura was "rediscovered" in 1414 by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. Leon Battista Alberti publicised it in his seminal treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria. The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome, 1486. Translations followed in Italian, French, English, German and Spanish and several other languages. The original illustrations had been lost and the first illustrated edition was published in Venice in 1511 with woodcut illustrations, based on descriptions in the text by Fra Giovanni Giocondo. Later in the 16th-century Andrea Palladio provided illustrations for Daniele Barbaro's commentary on Vitruvius, published in Italian and Latin versions. The most famous illustration is probably Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. The surviving ruins of Roman antiquity, the Roman Forum, temples, theatres, triumphal arches and their reliefs and statues offered visual examples of the descriptions in the Vitruvian text. Printed and illustrated editions of De Architectura inspired Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical architecture. Filippo Brunelleschi, for example, invented a new type of hoist to lift the large stones for the dome of the cathedral in Florence and was inspired by De Architectura as well as surviving Roman monuments such as the Pantheon and the Baths of Diocletian.
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FIGURE 33 THE VITRUVIAN MAN BY LEONARDO DA VINCI AND FOUR BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE BY ANDRAE PALLADIO
(Leonardo, 1883), (Palladio, 1965)
Tension and unease stirred in the minds of the 15th and 16th-century architects in Italy. Though surrounded by the physical remains of antiquity, they were unsure of how to make use of the most substantial treatise on architecture from ancient Rome, Vitruvius’s De Architectura. Written around 27 B.C.E., it gained fame during the Renaissance due to both the learned commitment to Ancient art and the critical new technology of the printing press . This renown increased the sense of the book’s authority, but also amplified its inadequacy. Writers such as Leon Battista Alberti, author of a 1443 treatise on architecture first printed in 1486, and Sebastiano Serlio, author of a popular treatise on architecture published in 1537, grappled with the legacy of antiquity. However not until the ascendance of Andrea Palladio in the 1550s did anyone embark on a sustained and intensive critique of Vitruvius through ruthless editing and reformatting of Vitruvius’s descriptions, and in the production of what he believed to be a perfected form of architecture. In the process, he sought to promote his own theories and practice. The concepts of aemulatio— the act of improving and building upon another’s creative production, and sprezzatura, or nonchalant expertise, were central to Palladio’s strategies. This thesis will explore Palladio’s writings, illustrations, and one of his most significant built structures to see how he purposely used the legacy of Vitruvius to complete his self-fashioning as an architect Palladio also challenged Vitruvian architecture in his built structures, when he created expanded upon ancient Roman principles through his own license. One of Palladio’s most significant commissions was La Rotonda, A Neoclassical villa just outside Vicenza in northern Italy. The villa’s correct name is Villa Almerico Capra Valmarana, but it is also 33
known as "La Rotonda", "Villa Rotonda", "Villa Capra", and "Villa Almerico Capra". The name Capra derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after it was ceded to them in 1592. In 1565 a priest, Paolo Almerico, on his retirement from the Vatican, decided to return to his home town of Vicenza in the Venetian countryside and build a country house. This house, later known as 'La Rotonda', was to be one of Palladio's best-known legacies to the architectural world. Villa Capra may have inspired a thousand subsequent buildings, but the villa was itself inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The site selected was a hilltop just outside the city of Vicenza. Unlike some other Palladian villas of the Veneto, the building was not designed from the start to accommodate a working farm. This sophisticated building was designed for a site which was, in modern terminology, "suburban". Palladio classed the building as a "palazzo" rather than a villa. The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos. The name La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome. To describe the villa, as a whole, as a rotunda is technically incorrect, as the building is not circular but rather the intersection of a square with a cross. Each portico has steps leading up to it, and opens via a small cabinet or corridor to the circular domed central hall. This and all other rooms were proportioned with mathematical precision according to Palladio's own rules of architecture which he published in I quattro libri dell'architettura. The design reflected the humanist values of Renaissance architecture. In order for each room to have some sun, the design was rotated 45 degrees from each cardinal point of the compass. Each of the four porticos has pediments graced by statues of classical deities. The pediments were each supported by six Ionic columns. Each portico was flanked by a single window. All principal rooms were on the second floor or piano nobile. Building began in 1567. Neither Palladio nor the owner, Paolo Almerico, were to see the completion of the villa. Palladio died in 1580 and a second architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi, was employed by the new owners to oversee the completion. One of the major changes he made to the original plan was to modify the two-storey central hall. Palladio had intended it to be covered by a high semi-circular dome but Scamozzi designed a lower dome with an oculus (intended to be open to the sky) inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The dome was ultimately completed with a cupola.
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FIGURE 34 VILLA ROTUNDA BY ANDRAE PALLADIO
(kolkorto, 2011)
La Rotunda has a similar circle of presence to acropolis in Athens, with its stylobate and site being on elevated from the ground. A visitor when enters is received by the grand entrance, More so, the statues on the top of temple front are visible even from the distance. This increases the circle of presence of the villa. When one enters he does not directly enters the rooms, although he can but he is greeted by the rotunda in the centre. In these ways, the circle of presence is restricted. Line of passage has also been manipulated, to create a meandering route.
FIGURE 35 LINE OF PASSAGE THROUGH VILLA ROTUNDA
(Google-Earth) 35
There has been a lot of thought given to the ideas of passage and movement through passage in a way that not only serves function but also creates a play of light and volume. There are steps which when one climbs, He stands in the portico, this idea has been widely replicated in America and it even exists in India, with our verandah As we move towards the building, we are greeted by the steps, we need to climb them to be received by the Lord of the house. The Lord of the house stands on the colonnade and you are greeted, not only by him but also by his Grand house. The house stands behind him like a mountain of ideology. The house isn’t just a house but a mark of wealth and culturally supremacy. The colonnade is hence a very important place, it has been repeatedly used by Americans, even in India we have had verandahs marking the entry of a house. So Palladio learns from his ancient past and takes up these ideas and places them in a residential typology. The line of passage gets a volume as we stand on this colonnade. We are standing on this raised platform, like we are above the ground. We then are move through this buffer area which was a colonnade into an even better smaller buffer area, which changes the scale from a grand scale to a human scale with doors of our height. The walls give us a bodily experience, we can grasp everything, we have a feeling of control. Now we can either enter any of the doors into rooms or we can go straight in, which most of us would do, because it is geometrically in-front of us. Unless otherwise directed. Why bother and turn, when you can go straight in?
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE The concept of “Modernism” in 20th century Indian architectural development remains difficult to grasp, as it was used within numerous stylistic developments, following the spirit of the day. According to Klaus Peter Gast in his book Modern Traditions, Starting with the efforts made by Europeans in the 1920s, the idea of “modern architecture” as a revolutionary and innovative force started to make cautious headway in India in the early 1930s. But at that time any Western thought and practice introduced as a British import was seen as “modern”, as India had no uniform independent architectural movement in the early 20th century. Ideas influenced by the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier and then brought to India were modern, and the subsequent Art Deco movement, influenced by both regional and exotic motifs, also counted as modern. Even neoclassical architecture was still pronounced modern into the 1950s and even the 1960s. But Modernism in India was more like an overall approach to life. It meant designing the world positively, improving it, doing better than the required standard, being progressive and inventive, and this certainly included great visionary minds like Tagore and Nehru. British architects in India felt themselves to be modern, because they could work within an experimental field, almost without constraints and regulations, with a unusual degree of freedom. These various trends will now be discussed in a little more detail. One consequence of the consolidation of British colonial power in the 19th century was that public buildings in particular became the centre of interest. Great educational institutions like Bombay University in 1870 or stations as gateways to the world, like Victoria Station in the former Bombay in 1887, or also important monuments like the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta in 1906, were prestigious structures by a self confident class of British architects who wanted to demonstrate the superiority of European culture. This was particularly evident when the seat of government moved from Calcutta to Delhi and in 1912 Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker were commissioned to realise the government buildings in “New Delhi.” The architects designed a monumental urban street complex that was essentially alien to Indian cities, with a grandiose geometry of axes and avenues and above all two symmetrical administrative buildings flanking the view of the viceroy’s palace. Lavish colonnades, open verandas, tall, slender windows, chhajjas (wide roof overhangs) and cornices jaalis (circular stone apertures) and chhatris (free-standing pavilions) were used at the same time as decorative elements from typical historic Indian architecture. The viceroy’s palace has a dome reminiscent of the Buddhist stupa in Sanchi. Even though Lutyens and Baker fused classical European and Indian elements, the complex seems modern for its day, with its twodimensional walls, reticent décor and austere geometry in the case of the palace in particular. The seat of government was not opened until 1931, after a building period of almost 20 years. The main neoclassical period lasted well beyond the 1930s, above all because of the influence of the Indian Institute of Architects which existed since the 1920s, a British 37
institution first headed by a Briton, Claude Batley. His theories were based on studies of Graeco-Roman, but also of Indian, classicism. His enormous influence led to the foundation of the conservative school, whose major exponents included Sudlow-Ballardie- Thompson, for example, and Ganesh Deolalikar, who worked up until the 1950s. His Supreme Court in New Delhi imitated the Lutyens-Baker buildings down to the last detail. The conservative, so-called revivalists also included B.R. Manickam with his monumental historical Vidhana Soudha government building in Bangalore built in 1952, reminiscent of Indian palace complexes. Colossal columns, Mogul domes, symmetry and monumental mass were evidence that historical European-Indian forms were being retained. But a new thinking had long since taken hold, based on the reduced formal language of the “international style,” but also attached to European abstract Expressionism, as can be seen in Arthur G. Shoesmith’s St. Martin’s Garrison Church in New Delhi of 1931, whose volumes loom like pure prisms of solid mass thrusting into one another. De Stijl, the important Dutch movement that ran parallel with the Bauhaus, had very little influence on India, however, even though Willem Marinus Dudok did realise some buildings there. In the early 1940s the austerity of what was later called classical Modernism started to be mixed with Expressionism and with decorative motifs, and above all fluent lines, often curved, markedly horizontal and vertical: the highly influential Art Deco movement, which spread over the whole of India, made a triumphant entry into the world of Indian architecture. France, but particularly America, stood model for this movement, whose architects raised Art Deco to an art form of great virtuosity. “Streamlined architecture,” as Art Deco was also known, developed its distinctive form partly from the technical achievements of its day, the rounded shapes of aircraft and cars. Then Frank Lloyd Wright discovered the decorative world of the Mexicans and of the Aztecs and Mayans. Their essentially geometrical motifs, along with associated devices like palms, aircraft and sunbeams, finally made their international début on the Art Deco stage. Indian Art Deco was also increasingly mixed with regional applications, leading to some lavishly decorated façades. In an age without television, architects were particularly fond of the generally popular cinema buildings, where they could create Art Deco designs with a monumental gesture. Many of these picture palaces have survived to the present day, providing evidence of a great architectural phase.
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FIGURE 36 BUILDINGS IN BANGALORE, VIDHANA SOUDHA
FIGURE 37 NEW DELHI, GARRISON CHURCH
FIGURE 38 INDIAN ART DECO HOUSE
(Klaus, 2007)
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FIGURE 39 A BRITISH RAJ BUILDING IN COMPARISON TO A MODERNIST INDIAN BUILDING
(Klaus, 2007)
At the time of independence in 1947, India had only about 300 trained architects in a population of what was then 330 million, and only one training institution, the Indian Institute of Architects in Bombay. Those who could afford it studied abroad, preferably in the USA, as some Modernist heroes, especially from the Bauhaus, like Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer had emigrated to America from Fascist Germany. The first generation of Indian architects came back from America with a new optimism, free of the British influence at the Bombay school, euphoric and able to offer their urgently needed services to a free country. One of them was Habib Rahman, who studied under Gropius at the MIT in Boston, another Achyut Kanvinde from Harvard and Gautam Sarabhai, who worked with Wright in Taliesin. Thus the influence of the Bauhaus masters came to India for a second time, this time directly via their pupils, whose somewhat over-functionalistic interpretations were realised by Kanvinde in particular. But at the same time a new concrete Expressionism was developing in South America, in the work of for example Felix Candela or Oskar Niemeyer, based on the technical possibility of being able to bridge large spans. These impressive constructions stimulated young Indian architects to endow the rigid rationalism of the German teachers in America with fluent form. One of the most important pupils returning from the MIT in Cambridge/Boston in the 1950s was Charles Correa. He had worked under Minoru Yamasaki in Detroit, who later designed the World Trade Center in New York. Correa came back to India in 1958, at a time when the most important architect of the first half of the 20th century, Le Corbusier, had already realised his life’s greatest project in India. Le Corbusier was invited by Nehru in person in the early 1950s and built Chandigarh, the new capital of the state of Punjab. Le Corbusier’s visionary powers, which he proved in urban developments from the 1920s onwards, seemed to be precisely the right person to Nehru, who said that India needed “a slap in the face.” Working with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and the architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, Le Corbusier realised the entire urban structure, designing himself the government building, the Capitol. His béton brut, the unrendered surfaces of the buildings, still showing the marks of the rough shuttering, and the expressive and sculptural 40
effect made by solitaire monuments spread over a large area, came as something of a shock to the Indian architects, who had found a new hero for themselves from now on.
FIGURE 40 JAWAHAR KALA KENDRA
FIGURE 41 , CHANDIGARH PARLIAMENT SHOWING REPETITION OF BASIC GEOMETRIC SHAPES IN PLANES AND ELEVATIONS
(Klaus, 2007)
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FIGURE 42 IIM COMPLEX LIBRARY BY LUIS KAHN AND CHARLES CORREA’S KANCHANJUNGA BUILDING REFERENCING LUIS KAHN
(Klaus, 2007)
Le Corbusier’s messages became the new gospel for the next generation, who recognised a new intellectual dimension in them. Le Corbusier was commissioned to build more villas and a museum in Ahmedabad. Here he had an Indian at his side who had already worked for him in Paris, Balkrishna Vitaldhas Doshi. It was Doshi who in the early 1960s got in touch with Louis I. Kahn in order to develop the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Kahn was impressed by the offer and realised the project during a period of over 13 years. Kahn was the next significant architect for India: his structures built on pure geometry to illustrate inherent order, his turn to a pictorial language for architecture that went beyond functionalism and the use of rough brick for the façade in order to express the nature of the material, added yet another dimension to Indian architects’ experience. Charles Correa developed his work when these two towering 20th century masters were both building in India. His 1963 memorial for Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad, which is reminiscent of Kahn’s design for the Trenton Bath House, marks the beginning of his mature work. The most important buildings after that were his Kanchanjunga high-rise apartments in Mumbai, built from 1970 –1983, then the government building in Bhopal, 1980 – 1996, and the art centre in Jaipur, 1986 – 1992 where he discovered the spiritual dimension of Indian thought and integrated it into his work.
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Correa is the most important representative of his generation and still India’s most significant contemporary architect. Alongside Doshi and Correa, Anant Raje is another major architect of this generation. Raje realised the Indian Institute buildings as Kahn’s right hand and added others in the spirit of Kahn. His work is clearly shaped by Kahn’s structures, but he interpreted them independently. Raj Rewal also belongs in this group. Educated in Delhi and London, he was influenced at an early stage by the Japanese Metabolists, but later found his own identity in India’s history, pursuing the concept of a Modernism based on tradition. His parliament library is one of the outstanding Indian building projects of the last ten years. The selection of architects from the younger generation introduced here does not claim to be complete. Architects who are not mentioned in any more detail here but have certainly made a significant contribution include Laurie Baker in Kerala whose life’s work follows economical, ecological and sustainable criteria in building and is devoted above all to people in lower income groups. Similar approaches come from architects like Anil Laul, S.K. Das or the “barefoot architects” in Rajasthan who work together with many people employing their craft skills in the construction process and who use only locally available materials. (Klaus, 2007)
VIDHAN BHAWAN – BHOPAL
FIGURE 43 VIDHAN BHAVAN, BHOPAL SITTING ON A HILLSIDE LIKE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS
(Klaus, 2007)
A building as prominent as the one for the new Vidhan Bhavan in Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh had to take a form imbued with an especially timeless symbolic force
43
transcending functional considerations. Charles Correa and his colleagues actually won the competition in 1980, but building did not start until 1983. After political turmoil, completion of this major building project was delayed until 1997. Realizing this extraordinarily remarkable design demonstrated a new self-confidence not just for the individual state and its local government, but for the whole of India, even though Correa had completed his intellectual work on the project long before the phase of economic upswing, India’s economic miracle. The new sense of self-awareness was quite obviously present in a design that pulls the whole complex history of the country into focus and conveys it most impressively, in the spirit of the times and yet timelessly, in its realized form.
FIGURE 44 VIDHAN BHAVAN’S FAÇADE SHOWING REPEATING TILE PATTERN AND SIMPLE GEOMETRIC
(Klaus, 2007)
This can also be measured against the fact that it is very difficult to make a precise estimate of the date the design came into being, as it completely eschews fashionable categories and has lost none of its expressive force, indeed its magic, in 2006, 26 years after it was developed. Correa’s synthesis of elements that are deeply rooted in tradition and abstractmodern creative force does, in this intensity, indeed remain a typically Indian or even Asian phenomenony. But it could easily become a model for other cultures: here cultural history is perceived and used in the present as a process of future continuity. Correa’s design shows the very presence of history as a respected heritage in India. His design process is still intelligible: not primarily as an analysis of function optimisation generating a form almost of its own accord, but as a prefigurative approach in which the dominant form is worked out 44
first. So following Western linguistic usage, a so-called Postmodern concept was being used here. Assumingly the starting point for the design was the Navgraha Mandala, a square as a symbol of the cosmos, divided into nine additional squares to symbolise seven real and two mythological planets. This ancient motif, the Mandala mutated into a fragment: the architect throws an arc of a circle around the square, making the outer corners blunt and incomplete. Thus the circle dominates, as ultimately it forms the outer wall surrounding the building. Within this universe the functional areas are subordinated to the Mandala structure: the great parliamentary chamber for the lower house as another circular figure with foyer; the small chamber for the upper house as a diagonal square; the cabinet area with hall, courtyard and offices; the library; the administrative area with ministerial offices and a large courtyard; a multipurpose hall; the courtyard for the public and the central hall at the heart of the project. The symmetrical axes are emphasized by three main entrances for the various user groups, but also for security precautions. The main entrance for the public is on the south-east side, the VIP entrance on the north side, and the MPs’ entrance to the north-west. It becomes clear that Correa is not slavishly bound to the figure of the Mandala, but plays freely around it. The sub-sections are shaped on the basis of their necessary size in such a way that they break through the inherent square structure and in the case of the lower chamber even penetrate the outer wall of the circle. The rigidity of the scheme is broken down, the severe geometry is set in motion and the composition is enlivened by asymmetry.
FIGURE 45 PLAN AND SCHEMATIC SKETCH SHOWING ZONING DONE WITH A GEOMETRIC APPROACH
(Charlse, 1983)
45
Here the open courtyards providing centres for the sub-areas remain an important ordering motif, calling the structure to mind. They form sub-centres with their own focus, the various departments grouped around them. This concentric aspect of each area shapes the essential function of the courtyard centre as an open or semi-open zone, thus relating directly to the opening above them, to the sky. This gesture clarifies Correa’s intention of making the sky and its intense light, its blueness, significant in a way that indicates the above-mentioned spiritual plane. The courtyards also take up an old Indian architectural motif whereby the courtyard provides light and air for the rooms directly in this hot climate, and people are able to spend time outside or inside according to the time of day. The courtyard is also the classical symbol of something shared, a place where people meet, spend time with each other and live together. This aspect is emphasized in the courtyard for the general public, which is placed immediately inside the entrance and constructed in the form of a Kund, a large area of stone steps. Here people spend their waiting time together almost as if in a state of communal meditation. A waiting area that would be completely inconceivable in Western culture functions as a “think tank” here, with the ambience of waiting stimulating communal reflection.
FIGURE 46 ENTRANCE FOR COMMON PUBLIC SHOWING A TEMPLE FORM WITH AN OVERPOWERING GIGANTIC FAÇADE CREATING A SYMBOL OF POWER OUT OF OUR REACH.
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FIGURE 47 THE PUBLIC WAITING AREA WITH REPEATING GEOMETRY CREATING NATURE LINE COMPLEXITY OF A FOREST
(Klaus, 2007)
Correa’s understanding of the timelessness of Indian buildings their enduring validity can be seen particularly well in his concept of alternating open and closed zones and the use of verandas and pergolas, which create a sense of lively space and climate and often become translucent foils for the sky. Creating a microclimate with light and shade and running water leads to a sequence of spaces to be experienced that links the time planes together. When strolling around the government building, the alternating light and air but also the differing levels create a stimulating vibration that reaches its climax in the central area, at the point where all the axes meet. A spiral is inscribed on the floor of the hall at the intersection of all the access routes and a circular aperture cut in the roof; these are motifs that relate to the axis mundi, the axis of the universe.
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FIGURE 48 PLAN OF VIDHAN BHAVAN MADE OF SIMPLE REPEATING 2D GEOMETRIC SHAPES DONE TO CREATE A MASTERFUL AND PLEASING COMPOSITIOIN.
(Charlse, 1983)
By using the Mandala and the significance of its centre, Correa is alluding to Hindu philosophy, the courtyards as gardens alternating from open to closed are reminiscent of the great Mogul architecture. And one outstanding motif evokes India’s Buddhist past: the hemispherical roof of the lower house chamber. It is derived from one of India’s great 48
historical monuments, only about 30 km from Bhopal, the Stupa, a stone hemisphere in memory of Buddha, who is said to have spent time meditating there. India’s spiritual complexity, expressed in its great diversity today, is woven into this building, thus suggesting that Indian society has always been an amalgam of the greatest possible variety of cultures. But this society held its ground, it allowed itself to be conquered but ultimately absorbed the alien element and made it its own. Hence India’s uniqueness and her special position in the world is expressed precisely by the government building in Bhopal, which incorporates the special quality of a country whose anti-imperial, peaceable nature has always led to the absorption of multicultural influences. It also becomes clear how naturally one’s own history can be dealt with, and how a virtuosic interpretation of old forms can lead to something new without denying itself.
FIGURE 49 VIP ENTRANCE : VIDHAN BHAVAN
FIGURE 50 VIP ENTRANCE AND LOWER HOUSE CHAMBER CREATED WITH CREATE FORWARD SURGE OF MOVEMENT AND AN AMBIENCE OF MODERN DAY GRANDEUR WITHIN OUR REACH.
(Klaus, 2007) 49
The very position of the government building on a hill in the town is comparable with a citadel, Indian and monumental, a motif from heroic but less peaceful times. And yet it is made clear almost with a twinkle in the eye that the association has been translated playfully. The earthy, brownish quality of the rough external rendering is combined with stone materials and a range from pastel to strong colours from Indian everyday life, decorative bands surround the entrances, artists designed the walls and gates. Correa builds everyday life into his buildings, including people, with their love of colour, variety and abundance. And thus, ultimately, he successfully tied the whole society into his cosmos in a varied and astonishing way, identifying the entire population with this building.
FIGURE 51 VIDHAN BHAVAN : CENTRAL HALL
FIGURE 52 VIDHAN BAHWAN : ENTRANCE TO THE LOWER HOUSE CHAMBER
(Klaus, 2007) 50
FIGURE 53 LONGITUDINAL SECTION SHOWING A FORM MADE BY SIMPLE COMBINATION OF GEOMETRIC FORMS
(Charlse, 1983)
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“Architects everywhere have recognized the need of … a tool which may be put in the hands of creators of form, with the simple aim… of making the bad difficult and the good easy.” - Le Corbusier
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CONCLUSION The Geometric ideas referred here with reference to the Literature studies can be established in ones owns mind when one rethinks about Architecture as a practice which creates the reality for people to live in and not just merely a means to an end. Geometry then becomes a tool for space building, ideology creating and for monumentalizing of ideas and virtues. These geometric ideas can be used as tools by us Architects to make our buildings more nature like, more dynamic, in solving functional requirements more efficiently, to control intangibles like human feelings when creating a built environment. They truly are tools for us to use to create a better world.
KEY LEARNING Geometry is used for taking intangible concepts and ideas and establishing them in built environment by the use of these Geometric Principals in Architecture. Geometry in architecture is also used for pattern making or using Geometric forms and shapes in Plan/ Elevation development. Geometric Principals include: Circles of Presence: Space for an object/ building/user. Line of Sight: Visual connection established by user and the environment. Line of Sight: Movement through built form. Measuring: Scale with reference to users and Proportions of forms to one another. Social Geometry: Forms with reference to the function of the space. Geometry of making: Form development by material’s Geometry. Ideal Geometry: Use of Proportions to achieve pleasing forms and shapes. These ideas are best used for making rules on which Architecture Styles can be developed. Styles like Modernism adhere to these principals while styles like Post Modernism critique them and play with them to achieve something new. These ideas are not always used as is, they have to be understood and interpreted for the age and people of that age. Referential Architectural examples can be understood with help of them. New Built Form can be developed with reference to them.
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