The first half of my first quarter is about through here at UC, and I'm sure you're all dying to know about this amazing architecture program we apparently have here.
FYI, there are 75 arch students and 45 interior design students in the first year of the program and we're all in the the same classes. The 120 of us were divided into 6 tribes (I mean studios) of 20 each and we do pretty much everything in those groups.
Anyway, I think the impression that most of us have gotten is that the program is certainly unique, if not a little odd. The first day we watched Babette's Feast. If you haven't heard of it, it's a movie made in Denmark about a famous female French chef who goes to become the maid for two sisters in Jutland. Without giving away the whole story the thematic line of the story is "an artist is never poor."
Well, our first assignment was to draw the village in the story and the dining room of the house. We watched the movie again two days later and did the same assignment. Something about seeing a movie once makes you a viewer, seeing it twice makes you a critic. The whole curriculum so far has centered around meals and dining. Our second assignment was to analyze a magazine that could have food related pieces and write an article in the style of the magazine about a restaurant. The third assignment was to pair up and go to a restuarant and analyze its atmosphere, decorating, impact of location, etc. Now we're doing a project on a specific type of meal and the events that go with it. I'm researching Oktoberfest.
We have basically 4 classes specifically in this program. The design studio is the main part, and a drawing skills class and computer class tie into the same themes. The fourth is called the Environmental Studies Seminar in which we take field trips around Cincinnati and draw buildings. On Mondays in the design studio we have a lecture relating to something. One was about the cultural aspects of meals, another about how tables represent altars.
I'm sure you're wondering how this relates to here so I'll tell you. The other day we were having a discussion/lecture in the design studio and my professor, who seems to talk very vaguely in a half-confused, mind-wandering state, began talking his discussions with some of the other faculty. He had asked one of the main organizers of the program what he thinks sets great designers apart and the response was that the best designers/ architects are avid readers. He didn't elaborate too much on this, but I'd like to know what you think about it, and what you think about the program in general. I've enjoyed it so far, but it seems so terribly strange. What do you think?
Babette'd Feast, is one of my favorite movies-- i own it. it not just about an artist never being poor, but about the giving, totally selfless giving, and how that changes your life.. the sister gave Babette a home, a safe haven, and she in return gave them her all..
Natural History magazine, for years, had a column on food.. its was about the anthropology of food.. how cultures the world over had the same problems to solve; how to make the cheap, abundant local food interesting to their families, with as little or effort as was possible. cultures all over the world come up with new ways to do the same thing..
(see buritoes, blintz, sping (egg) rolls, wraps (sandwiches),manicotti, knishes, pork pies, calzones, etc.--cheap local food, cooked, and wrapped in a dough,)
i have joked about knowing all the cultures of the world-- via a menu.. but that is wonderful way to learn about people.
good design, does the most, with the least. it meets specific cultural needs. and when its done well, it has legs.. (pizza comes to mind, for food, for design.. well industrial design, the volkswagon beetle.. and architecture, domes.. domes are a great idea.. the pantheon, and the great mosques, and the capital building, and st peters in rome..
and as for reading.. well, being well read, that contributed to everything! --
In reply to:
what he thinks sets great designers apart and the response was that the best
designers/ architects are avid readers. He didn't elaborate too much on this, but I'd like to know what you
think about it,
----
Any art is about creating patterns. Patterns are dictated by imagination. The greater the imagination the greater the ability to see patterns. Reading stimulates the imagination. Therefore reading improves art.
I've enjoyed it so far, but it seems so terribly strange.
Probably a suitably creative course, then, Jazz. Go with it and see where it takes you - then treat that as the starting point for the *real learning experience, which is always the *internalisation of all those patterns and cultural threads you encounter in the world.
I agree with what others have said (and welcome to the board, Echo!) - reading is a major stimulus to the creative process, which at heart is about patterning and connections. Good luck as the course continues - I hope you get a real buzz from at least some of it!
and you'll also have the head start of having been warned about the architectificationists trying to steal your clothing!
PS: if the food theme has got you puzzled, I suspect they have taken that as a universally accessible starting point (for groups of students initially on several wavelengths?) ~ for an examination that is designed to stretch your thinking about form and function, art and utility.
I can see where setting you off on restaurant settings/styles/architecture makes sense. It is a concrete example (like Mav stated) of form and function, art and utility. To elaborate a bit. When you are asked to design an eatery it is important to find out what they will serve, who they anticipate their clients will be and where they will be located. You will rarely find an eatery that serves pizza, fries, hot dogs and hamburgers dressed up in rich mahogany tables, upholstered furniture and chairs and chandelier lighting. Instead they generally have inexpensive plastic or arborite tables & chairs, bright neon or spotlights and a kitchen most often in plain view. When the building is 'stand alone' it will generally be painted in bright colours, have large windows - often around three sides - and some outdoor plastic furniture.
A restaurant that serves fine cuisine will *never* be in that type of building. You might have French doors with brass handles, discreetly tinted windows that you can't see through from the outside, a foyer before entering restaurant proper, high ceilings and columns, discreet nooks and a kitchen hidden from view.
So this is just to start you off on that type of thinking...when someone asks you to design an office building you will know to ask "what do you do, who are your clients, what look do you want to project?"
AS TO READING: First, there is the accurate point that reading stimulates the mind. A mind that is stimulated is more likely to come up with ideas. Secondly, the mark of a good writer is that he can make you feel as if you are 'there' because his descriptions are that good. How often have you read a book in which the author describes the setting, building, house etc. It is a good gauge on what is considered attractive or not. If several authors are saying "gaudy pillars framed the front door" you know pillars framing doors are out of favor.
Well, Jazzo, I'm amazed no one has brought this up yet. Didn't this board prepare you for the facts of life? Everything, eventually, boils down to food, sports, and, apparently, hippopotomi. Roll with it and enjoy!
A good place for this quotation
The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about ancient history,
19th-century mathematics, manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures.
Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea.
Carl Ally
Hi, E!
Who is or was Carl Ally, please?
“Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable!”
So read the sign that hung in Carl Ally's office. Ally, a brash, heavy-hitting advertising man lived by those words. Through 27 years, his agency, Carl Ally Inc., later named Ally & Gargano, transformed corporate underdogs Federal Express and MCI, as well as foreign firms like Volvo, Saab and Scandinavian Airline Systems into American household names....
http://www.ciadvertising.org/studies/student/99_spring/theory/huey/CarlAlly/index.htm
The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about ancient history, 19th-century mathematics, manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea.
Which is of course the limit suffered by all hippopotami
Who, as they are not omnivores, must lack omnivariety.
(The hippopopoetic hippopotaMuse strikes again!)
JazzO stated:
Now we're doing a project on a specific type of meal and the events that go with it. I'm researching Oktoberfest. (Emphasis added by little ol'
moi)
Let me point out the fact that research on the ground is the
only way to get the feeling of a topic. Therefore, you should have immediately bought a plane ticket to Munich. Your theme would then have been the close examination of the bottom of beer steins. It would have been fun at the time, although I must say that three day hangovers aren't much chop!
Glad you're enjoying it, Jazz. Have fun.
Therefore, you should have immediately bought a plane ticket to Munich.Though I would have loved to do that, time constraints and the responsibilty for other classes keep me from doing that. There's plenty of German culture in Cincinnati anyway. The second largest Oktoberfest in the world is held here, there's a sister-city organization between Cinci and Munich, and there are a few German restaurants and such here. It's even German Heritage Month at the Cinci Public Library.
There's plenty of German culture in Cincinnati anyway.
Not just in Cincinnati.. Until very recently, germans made up the second largest sub group in american.. and would have been the first if English/Scots/Irish (GB) were not blended into one group.
I can see where setting you off on restaurant settings/styles/architecture makes sense. It is a concrete example (like Mav stated) of form and function, art and utility.
Restaurants also feature a lot of support spaces that the casual user rarely thinks about. Probably 1/3 of the floor plan of the restaurant I once worked in was "behind-the-scenes" space. It is important to make young architects aware of the necessity of (and relatively large amount of space needed for) things like water pipes, heating ducts and elevator shafts. I also once worked in an architectural firm with lots of fresh-out-of-school architects and I heard lots of stories about they (or their "classmates" usually) designing really spectacular houses or offices only to realize at the last minute that they had forgot the bathrooms.
Or that they don't make open spaces large enough.
Close friends of ours just bought a newly built condo. The space above the stairs leading up to second floor bedrooms was barely big/tall/wide enough to let a single bed pass - let alone a double or queen bed. The windows were not tall or wide enough either.
The contractor initially refused to do the changes since he had followed the architect's plans to the line. The estate owner finally paid for it. The contractor had to raise the ceiling above the stairs, which resulted in a wide chunk being taken out of the bedroom immediately above them.