Blog Assignment 1: Semper, Viollet and Rusken

It can be said that the modern architecture of the 20^th and now 21^st centuries is a byproduct of the theories and ideas created in the 19^th centuries.  This actually makes a lot of sense, seeing as almost nothing is truly original and, thus, what came before is merely a precedent for what is and what is to come.  Living in the age that we do, we take this for granted.  We see things as they likely have been for centuries and assume that is how and why it is and never think beyond that.  Why should we?  We should, because, when we do, it comes to reason that all these things we take for granted we once an idea that have grown up into or see something we did not expect to see at all. 

Three such people, men who couldn’t just take things for granted, turned out to be some of the greatest architectural theorists in the 1800’s.  They were Gottfried Semper, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc and John Ruskin.  The three of them had varying and similar ideas on how architecture should be created, designed and preserved, as well as what qualified as architecture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Semper

Gottfried Semper, a German architect born in 1803, was a very well traveled man.  His travels took him from London to Greece and during these times he learned a lot about architecture and it’s character.  From here, he went to on create his theories of style on architecture.  Semper believed that style is a socio-political condition, seen in the earliest stages of the hut and most pronounced in the architecture of ancient Greece.  This is where Semper and le Duc have similarities, for they see architecture as a science.  Le Duc, who will be discussed later, saw architecture in a rational state.  Architecture was as it was because it needed to be so, because it grew to be so. Semper, too, saw art and architecture as a growth (Viollet didn’t see as much the art part) into its current state.  Semper shared and age with Darwin, who wrote of natural selection and survival of the fittest.  Semper shared a somewhat similar belief in the origin and development of art and architecture.  This actually brings him close to Ruskin.  However, where Viollet tried to glorify and rationalize Gothic architecture, Semper looked more toward the dwelling.  The form and intrinsic values of the home, as Semper saw it, grew from four laws of architecture, to which he wrote about.  These were:

·      The hearth:  The hearth was the main gathering place in ancient dwellings.  Meals would be cooked there.  Bodies would be warmed and social activities would take place at the hearth.  It was the focal point of the home.

·      The platform:  This would raise the hearth from the ground, away from the mud and water.  For if the hearth is wet and cold, there can be no fire.

·      The roof:  This would protect not just those in the home from the elements, but the fire too. 

·      The enclosure:  This was to protect from the wind and cold.  Unlike the average load bearing walls, these were not to be load bearing, but merely something to span between pillars.

http://www.cheaposnobs.com/2011/07/
semper-opera-house-dresden.html

Rational, scientific, organic come to mind when looking at these elements of architecture.  These elements can even be seen in today’s homes, more so in those that actually have a fireplace.  This way of thinking, while it shared mythos with Ruskin, Ruskin wasn’t nearly as scientific.  Therefore, Semper’s work often lacked the ornamentation that Ruskin loved.  It can be seen in Opera House in Dresden.  However, it is not to be said his work lacked grandeur.  For, also unlike the beliefs of Ruskin, Semper created interiors of false marble (covered, painted and polished wood) and grand halls, beautifully worked and painted.  This is in relative contrast to the beliefs of John Ruskin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
File:John_Ruskin_-_Portrait_-_
Project_Gutenberg_eText_17774.jpg

John Ruskin, an English artist born in 1819, was a lover of the Gothic architecture and an architectural preservationist, similar to Viollet.  Unlike, Viollet, when it came to old architectural works Ruskin believed they should be left alone, allowed to crumble and ruin.  To this writer, I must say that sounds somewhat absurd for if you were never allowed to upkeep your building it would eventually decay and you’d have to build a new one somewhere else again and again and again, but enough on that.  Ruskin believed that if a brick crumbled, let it be, it is a part of the beauty.  In short, Ruskin believed the imperfectness of architecture to make the architecture great.  The more imperfect the architecture, the better it was.  Ruskin believed that ornament made the architecture and the human presence that was in the ornament.  For example, in the time of Gothic architecture, stone masonry was used to created great cathedrals.  These stones were worked by hand and the ornamentation was likewise (much like Viollet, Ruskin did not like machinery).  Depending on the workers moods that day, or the next, you could have a number of variations of similar ornaments.  This would have been good in Ruskin’s eyes, for it should that someone actually put their will into that stone and worked it with care to the best of his abilities that day and that’s how it came out.  It makes sense, for architecture is a reflection of the time period and those that lived in it.  It showed the emotion of the time and that’s what Ruskin believed in, emotion.

He believed in them so much, he created seven laws (lamps) to explain the morals that were an integral part to making architecture.  They were:

·      Sacrifice

·      Truth

·      Power

·      Beauty

·      Life

·      Memory

·      Obedience

Because much of what Ruskin looked at, combined with his religious background, was religious, many of those “lamps” also make reference to God.  He also exalted the artist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crystal_Palace_interior.jpg

Ruskin, unlike Semper and Viollet, wasn’t much of a doer.  His writings were his main points and he was a well known critic in his day. His deep rooted love of old buildings and materials made him especially quick to show disdain for things such as the Crystal Palace of the London World Expo (and things like it, he had a particular hate of train depots).  He loathed the use of iron and steel in architecture almost as much as he did renovating old places out of the original state.  Mostly, he felt the steel and iron would bring an end to honest craftsmen.  Instead of buildings being built by people, they’d be built by machines, an idea that he and Viollet, to a certain degree, detested.

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, a French architect born in 1814, was also a Gothic enthusiast and a historic preservationist, so to speak.  Unlike Ruskin, Viollet was a doer.  He did multiple restorations in his lifetime, had many projects and worked to change the way many thought about architecture.  However, while Viollet was a writer like Ruskin, Viollet seemed to be split between writing and his work.

http://chateauroquetaillade.free.fr/English/
Historique%20du%20ch%E2teau%20-Anglais-.html

Viollet seemed to be two different people.  There was the writer, who pushed for more forward ideas such as the use of iron architecture, and there was the doer, the man who constantly looked to the past and didn’t really move forward.  Viollet was much like Ruskin in his love of Gothic architecture and restoration and like Semper in his belief in science.  Ruskin sought to understand architecture through feeling and emotion, Viollet looked at it from a scientific point of view.  He looked upon the ornamentation, the form and function of the whole structure and rationalized it from there.  For example, because the designer, whom Viollet saw as being the main proponent of architectural creation, wanted thin was he needed to find a better way of holding up the ceiling.  Thus, the arches that crossed at the ceiling were created to take all the buildings weight off the walls and into the foundation.  These arches needed a stabilizer at the top, so a decorative weight was place at the top so as to bring that stabilization.  Thus, you rationalize of the decoration and give it a scientific function.             

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cit%C3%A9_de_
Carcassonne,_woman_on_wall.jpg

Then there were the restoration projects that were highly criticized in his day.  Viollet did many castles and the like, but when he restored them, they were significantly different from what they had previously been.  For instance, Carcasonne, a French castle that Viollet was commissioned to restore was built originally around 100 BC, being added to again and again as time went on.  Over time it had fallen into disrepair and when Viollet was brought in to restore it he was lax on some things.  The original structure had low sloping roofs with tile, but Viollet used slate at a steep slope.  It was criticized, probably a lot from Ruskin, but over all is now considered a work of genius.  Why do the restoration differently?  Viollet believed that a work of restoration should bring the work into a form as good, if not better than the form before. 

Viollet had varying feelings on the use of steel.  At first he seemed to agree quite well with Ruskin, saying that iron and steel do not make architecture.  Eventually, that changed when he said that iron could be used as a covered from to construct buildings.  What he describes is exactly how modern sky scrapers are built.  A steel frame, quite often covered in something.

These three people have had an affect on how modern architecture works today.  Semper’s four elements can still be seen in today’s homes, but also his lack of ornamentation on the exterior and celebration of a building’s interior can also be seen in many of today’s great works.  Like Viollet, he believed the structure shouldn’t be the main sight, but should be hidden.  Viollet and Ruskin’s ideals can be seen in modern preservation and restoration.  Ruskin can be seen more in the preservation side, but also in the ideas that good people make good architecture and that can give back.  Viollet gave the ideas of using steel as structure and theories on how to make the architecture good through the structure.  These three men understood that the architecture of their time was reliant on the precedents of the past and created precedents for future generations, including us, to look at and to further understand the architecture we create.

Info gotten from course lecture and info.