Baroque and Eroticism

After the period of reviving classical architecture in Renaissance, there came a time for, just like modernism and post-modernism, alteration and distortion of the existing form.  Baroque, as seen by the eyes of Renaissance architects, were preposterous and should not exist, because it also played on their beloved simple classical forms, bending and curving it.

For me, Baroque used more ornamentation than Renaissance.  The latter was also ornamented, but the former provided something more.  They provided movements, feelings, and association to religion.  As I looked at the slides last Tuesday I can’t help but thinking that sculptures and architectures cannot be separated for Baroque.  The sculptures have more movement, like the pose of human body and the flow of fabrics, and these were integrated into parts of the building, telling stories that simply only walls and façade failed to.  We can compare the sculpture ‘David’ of Renaissance and Baroque.  The former one is in the casual pose; displaying the proportion of human body, while the latter is all in action, ready to take down Goliath with intense expression on his face.

'David' by Michelangelo

'David' by Bernini

The example of how sculpture and architecture blended can be seen in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, displaying the famous ‘Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’.  The sculpture itself gives out the movement, the angel lifting Saint Teresa to heaven.  There is the interaction between them and them to the surrounding architecture, which was designed to emphasis the scenario: rays of light as the background infusing with the natural light from the opening behind the aedicule.  The pediment was bent, giving the feeling of bigness and grandness.

I feel that Baroque is erotic because it has the sense of movement, the interaction between two things.  It also associated with feelings, which would differ in each person, and strong belief, in this case, in religion.  These can provoke strong feelings for people with the same faith and that, for me, is a very good quality of eroticism.

Early Renaissance: the Rebirth of Civilization

I believe that most people would recognize the Renaissance as the golden age of art.  The revival of civilization after several hundred years of Dark Age is like a light, at last, at the end of the tunnel.  But I must admit that every time I hear the word ‘Renaissance’, I always think of the paintings and sculptures but not much of the architecture of the period, so now let’s look deeper into the architecture of the Renaissance.

We can say that it all started from the Crusades, the Great War to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem.  Crusaders from Western Europe needed to travel eastward, and while doing so, they found themselves fascinated with the civilization of the past, like the Eastern Roman Empire.  After the war, they brought back those inspirations along with ancient texts, and distributed it.  People of this period started to pay more attention to education, thus a lot of intellectuals were born, like schools, universities.  Books were more common, since printing press was invented.

People of Renaissance also developed the strong believe of human capability, and this took a huge part in art and architecture.  There was a study of human scale and proportion, the ‘anthropomorphism’, as clearly seen in Leonardo Da Vinci’s work, ‘the Vitruvian Man’.  Human body can be drawn related to simple geometrical shapes, namely circle and square, and people of Renaissance use this to create arts and architectures, which, once more, pleasing to the eyes.  Influences from Roman Architecture can be seen.  Domes, arches, columns, and basilica plans were used once again, as we can see in St. Peter’s Basilica.

I found that I really like the feel of Renaissance, and the belief of Humanity.  After years of living in darkness, revival of flourishing art and architecture must have felt really great.  They used inspiration of the Romans, even Greeks, and integrated their newfound knowledge of human proportion into it to produce even better work of their own.  This was indeed the golden age.

Beyond the Production Line

‘Fordism’, is the word that symbolizes mass production.  Henry Ford, the owner of Ford Company, formulated this procedure in his automobile factory, where each worker who specialized in each task would repetitively perform his job on the ‘production line’.  This concept is somewhat similar to modernism, with Le Corbusier’s vision of uniformity achieved through mass production.  Now, after the introduction to the newer movement of architecture, there came the ‘Post-Fordism’, the opposite of the Fordism.  Post-Fordism grants the customers the privilege of uniqueness, specification, and personalization, since it is tailor-made, flexible and customizable.  It can be categorized roughly into 2 types: deconstructivism and parametricism.

Bridge Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain
by Zaha Hadid

Walt Disney Concert Hall
by Frank Gehry

Deconstructivism, in my opinion, is trying to break all the old rules of architecture.  Using curves and non-rectilinear shapes instead of straight lines and simple geometrical shapes, deconstructivism introduces new forms that we have never seen before, flowing and connecting.  Its style is to break down structure into small parts and then reassemble it back.

Parametricism, I think we can say that it is the current style that we are using.  It uses the help of digital modeling programs such as Rhinoceros and MAYA to create organic, free- forms, coming from the imaginations of the architects.  This really changes the face of architecture and increases the possibilities since it enables us to visualize the works that look impossible to construct at first glance.

Technology combining with the style that does not restrict us to a single form, this leads us to lots of possibilities where our imaginations can come to reality.  I really believe that this kind of architecture would be lasting, since the final shapes of each project comes out differently, it doesn’t make the style grow old and boring.  This is the future of architecture.