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  #41  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2009, 1:41 AM
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That said, once you work into the groove of things you'll not only find time for the rest of your life but you'll also enjoy what you do. The first year of architecture is normally made hyper-intensive in effect to 'weed out' people who aren't completely serious about the job.
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  #42  
Old Posted Dec 14, 2009, 11:41 PM
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I think you would be hard-pressed to find a school that specialized in teaching how to design and build Art Nouveau / Baroque buildings today. It simply isn't done anymore. We've moved beyond those styles not just aesthetically but also in technology. A building today can be made to look Baroque but it would be very inefficient to construct it in the same manner given modern construction methods.

If I were you I would go to an architecture school with excellent history classes and maybe find an internship specializing in this. You probably won't be able to find a studio class that teaches this, at least in North America (where I think you might have an easier time in than even Western Europe).
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  #43  
Old Posted Dec 16, 2009, 7:22 AM
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University of Miami also has a good, traditionally-oriented program. I got accepted there, but I decided that I didn't want to limit myself in what I thought would be a dogmatically-classical, New Urbanist-type program.

Instead, I went to a school that seems to have very little in the way of a guiding philosophy as it applies to design (the guiding philosophy would be more about community service than any particular movement in design per se).
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  #44  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2009, 7:56 PM
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Hed Kandi, you seem pretty hard headed, so I recommend that you go to any architecture school (hard headed meaning it would be difficult for an architecture school to infect your thinking). You can go with an open mind or closed one, but just get the requisite skills, and do whatever you want once you are an 'architect.' Oh, and have a good reason for why you want to be an architect.

That said, all architects are products of their schools and their working environments. They infuse you with ideas about what architecture is, and what is important and what isn't. If you go to a technical school, you'll probably place a greater importance on techtonics or integration of systems. If you go to an artsy school like say, the Bartlett, the line between architecture and art dissolves rapidly and you end up with projects that don't look like buildings. Many cultures have been building the same buildings the same way for thousands of years. It does not mean they don't have good architecture, it just means they don't value the expression of technological progression the same way the West does. Going forward Hed Kandi, what might be important to keep in the back of your mind is the role and responsibility the architect plays in cultural expression.

Last edited by natelox; Dec 18, 2009 at 8:11 PM.
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  #45  
Old Posted Dec 28, 2009, 12:59 AM
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Originally Posted by urbanlife View Post
University of Virginia.
.
i was just about to post that same thing....UVA is far from a school that promotes historic recreation, but the thomas jefferson legacy does give students from there a bit of a classical leaning.

hed kandi, you will have your love for literal historicism quickly beaten out of you if you decide to pursue architecture as an education....architecture is about far more than the surface applied decoration that is to recall some historic style....architecture today is about light and shadow, space and movement, honesty of materials and sustainability....

historic buildings were built that way for a reason....mostly because they didnt have steel.....it is dishonest to recreate an historic building as an aesthetic choice.....you are then turning your back on what is important about architecture and saying that only style is important.

you will never be able to construct a building today by laying stone on stone and then decorating with gold leaf and hand carved statues...the very things that make these buildings special.....all these neo-classical buildings use modern construction techniques, like steel frames with 4" wide stone hung from it and pre-cast concrete ornament.....they are a fraud, a deception, a forgery of a building style that is past and can not return....

celebrate old buildings by joining heritage protection groups....write letters to your newspaper about needless demolition of our built history, but do not hope to recreate it...it isnt possible and it is not responsible....

examine what it is that you like about these buildings and apply it to modern design....human scale, detailed articulation, strength, permanence...these are all valid architectural aspirations...but they dont have to happen in a literal translation of an historic style.

the only way to move forward is to embrace the future with new ideas, while learning from the good ideas of the past.

Last edited by trueviking; Dec 28, 2009 at 1:10 AM.
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  #46  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2009, 8:38 PM
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Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
University of Miami also has a good, traditionally-oriented program. I got accepted there, but I decided that I didn't want to limit myself in what I thought would be a dogmatically-classical, New Urbanist-type program.

Instead, I went to a school that seems to have very little in the way of a guiding philosophy as it applies to design (the guiding philosophy would be more about community service than any particular movement in design per se).
Miami is more or less style agnostic, the emphasis is on urbanism and the role of the building within it. There are quite a few professors there who have modernist tedencies such as Allan Shulman, as well as those in the traditional/classical direction. I plan on applying there for grad school as I'm just finishing up a four year program and am growing sick of the modernist monoculture and would like a more well rounded educational experience.
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  #47  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2009, 10:49 PM
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Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
hed kandi, you will have your love for literal historicism quickly beaten out of you if you decide to pursue architecture as an education....architecture is about far more than the surface applied decoration that is to recall some historic style....architecture today is about light and shadow, space and movement, honesty of materials and sustainability....
Not to mention that if he survives the rigors of Arch school without losing his historicist mind, that reality will force him to change his ways. Developers simply can't afford to go around building all the ornate stuff he posts in his trad architecture thread, there is no money in it. The only people who build like that are people with more money than they know what to do with.
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  #48  
Old Posted Jan 1, 2010, 4:03 AM
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historic buildings were built that way for a reason....mostly because they didnt have steel.....it is dishonest to recreate an historic building as an aesthetic choice.....you are then turning your back on what is important about architecture and saying that only style is important.
For those who live and make up the communities, style is important. No one needs snobby modernists dictating to communities what is or isn't acceptable.
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  #49  
Old Posted Jan 1, 2010, 11:59 AM
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For those who live and make up the communities, style is important. No one needs snobby modernists dictating to communities what is or isn't acceptable.
And of course no one needs faux historical architecture facades lying to them about what era they were built in, in a Disney-esque fashion either. There is obviously a balance between the two and should not be seen as one or the other.
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  #50  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2010, 6:22 AM
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For those who live and make up the communities, style is important. No one needs snobby modernists dictating to communities what is or isn't acceptable.
modernism is as dead as faux historicism....good architecture is neither.

dictating false historicism is no less snobby than dictating modernism.....but at least modernism is not pretending to be something that it cant be.


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  #51  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2010, 9:57 PM
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Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
modernism is as dead as faux historicism....good architecture is neither.

dictating false historicism is no less snobby than dictating modernism.....but at least modernism is not pretending to be something that it cant be.


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Define false historicism.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2010, 11:07 PM
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Define false historicism.


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  #53  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2010, 2:36 AM
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^^^ And especially this:


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  #54  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2010, 5:28 AM
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Define false historicism.
fake old.
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  #55  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2010, 5:31 AM
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^in response to the original post; it's NEVER the university, it's the student.

however, if you want to study traditional architecture, as opposed to the architecture that's now built from the available materials and technology and has the constraints of present labor costs, you'd be better off at some art history program.

even at the most fuddy duddy tweed wearing old school architecture school, you'll study things which will not conform to your aesthetic perspectives.
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  #56  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2010, 6:47 AM
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I just had a thought. If you appreciate historical architecture so much, what about considering studying, or having a career in historic preservation. I have taken a course in it myself. I learned more about "reading" buildings in that course than any other. It really makes you focus on what makes particular buildings significant (even if they are representative of the prosaic). Working in the field, as far as I can tell, requires one to be a champion for the historical significant and contemporary relevance of historic structures. It means liaising with architects, engineers and contractors and lending one's knowledge of historical materials, styles and what features are the most significant. Maybe this is what you are more interested in?
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  #57  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2010, 7:24 AM
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So building using an old style aesthetic is "fake old"?

Look at it this way, if all older buildings suddenly fell down...by that reasoning we should build in a modernist style.

I don't believe there is any faux historicist structures out there. Such buildings are easily identifiable as modern structures, they just employ a older architectural aesthetic.

Big deal.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2010, 9:05 AM
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Originally Posted by urbanlife View Post
In reference to music, first teaching one how to play and write music, you need to teach them the meaning of each note and the sound they make before teaching them any style of music...
I don't quite follow the analogy. There are many different methods for learning music, of course, as nothing is so black and white. For me, learning to play, write, and listen came first. Thus familiarity with a style or styles expanded upon emulation. The theory was secondary and came as a supplement to understanding what I had become familiar with already and also acts as a window into learning other styles. But the similarities between music and architecture are slim. Architecture isn't commonly taught from ages as low as 4 (though I guess you could argue the foundations are there in math and science, but then music must also follow the foundations of motor and aural skills which come even earlier...) I began learning music at age 8, and most of my peers even have me beat in that regard. Anyway, I'm mostly just thinking out loud here...

Back to the original topic:

Quote:
Originally Posted by trueviking View Post
historic buildings were built that way for a reason....mostly because they didnt have steel.....it is dishonest to recreate an historic building as an aesthetic choice.....you are then turning your back on what is important about architecture and saying that only style is important.

you will never be able to construct a building today by laying stone on stone and then decorating with gold leaf and hand carved statues...the very things that make these buildings special.....all these neo-classical buildings use modern construction techniques, like steel frames with 4" wide stone hung from it and pre-cast concrete ornament.....they are a fraud, a deception, a forgery of a building style that is past and can not return....

celebrate old buildings by joining heritage protection groups....write letters to your newspaper about needless demolition of our built history, but do not hope to recreate it...it isnt possible and it is not responsible....

examine what it is that you like about these buildings and apply it to modern design....human scale, detailed articulation, strength, permanence...these are all valid architectural aspirations...but they dont have to happen in a literal translation of an historic style.

the only way to move forward is to embrace the future with new ideas, while learning from the good ideas of the past.
This is EXACTLY my thinking! I originally had interests very similar to Hed Kandi's, probably when I was his/her age, and that is why I chose to study historic preservation as an undergrad instead of architecture with plans to possibly get a MArch later on. My views shifted the more I learned and came to realize these points I underlined in your quote.

I have long had an interest in design that was more open to modern theory than Hed Kandi appears to be, and definitely at odds with most preservationists, so I was as equally unsatisfied by the world of historic preservation. I think there is a happy medium between an admiration for and study of architectural history and existing structures from times and cultures past AND an interest in designing for the present and prevailing culture honestly and responsibly, as you perfectly worded it.

-----

For Hed Kandi, I think you need to study one and then the other, because you won't be 100% satisfied with either history/historic preservation nor design alone, not because of a lack of interest in one or the other, but the necessity you feel in learning BOTH. That said, I think (or at least hope) that in time you'll understand how infeasible it is to do exactly what you currently want to, and that is to completely mimic past ways of designing and building.

This is one area where you really can't have your cake and eat it too, because while you can perfectly recreate a Greek temple, you can't recreate the need for one, the culture that demanded one, the people who used one, the craftsmen and builders who constructed one, and the resources and material costs that allowed one without completely effing pulling your hair out in trying to do so. So... why do it? You really are better off to fall more toward either preserving the ones that do exist or.... designing what doesn't.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2010, 9:05 AM
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^God I'm long-winded.... or is it long-fingered?
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  #60  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2010, 10:11 AM
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fake old.
Yeah, I know what you meant, I should have been more specific for argument's sake, sorry. I should have said "Define the characteristics of work that would be considered false historicism and why its not valid as a mode of architectural expression".

Would you consider a classical temple fake, as it is essentially a composition of fictionalized elements derived from primitive timber construction? What about renaissance buildings that break tectonic rationalism or use hidden iron chains to reinforce arches and domes? Palladio's stuccoed villas that hide their masonry construction? Any number of steel framed Beaux Arts buildings? Modernist buildings with non load bearing masonry facades that don't emphasize structure, like the National Gallery?

Traditional/Classical architecture is mimetic in a sense similar to but different from representational art. To say that it is false or wrong simply on the basis of tectonic truth or adherence to the zeitgeist seems to undermine several millenia of architectural history and needlessly limits modes of expression and human experience, IMO. This is not to justify just plain kitsch garbage that lacks creative intent or physical integrity or longevity. The nouveau riche mediterranean dryvit turd CG II posted is lacking in everything obviously.

Last edited by DigitalUrbanity; Jan 8, 2010 at 10:57 AM.
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