Light and Architecture

Light and Architecture

With all 5 physical senses, they allow human to see, to hear, to scent, to taste and to touch. How can we see? The answer is not only just having eyes but also, it requires “light”. So, we hardly argue that light is very important for surviving. Later on, the meaning of surviving wasn’t only capability to see foods or to avoid enemies but consume the meaning of human’s aesthetical creations, such as arts, literature and so on. From the very first purpose of light in ancient architecture, it allowed us to see properly. As mentioned, there is something more than a physical explanation. Since human try to answer where dose light come from, and yes, it comes from the sun. The appreciation of light turned into worshiping it and shows how grateful we are towards the sun; there was/were god and goddess. This might be the beginning of lighting in architecture beside only just to see things. An obvious example in the history is shown in the worshiping places, religious places or to be more specific, the Christian church. They say the light is lit by god from heaven and when you die, walk into the light and you will find god(s). As a consequence, light is matter to the Christian as much as the symbolic of heaven. That makes most of the Christian architectures contain lighting design from extremely tall drums of the domes, rose windows, which offer the colors of light, or even from the early clerestory in basilicas. Architectures, consider since the ancient Roman period, serve more for people’s needs so lighting is a good company that functioning with the building itself. Light convince our eye sights to see and understand the purpose of each building. In this case, I would like to show 2 difference Christian churches in 2 places, and 2 different periods of time but include 1 same important element that represents the spirit of Christianity.

China Pavilion

Is China Pavilion considering plagiarism? 

The china pavilion, located in Shanghai, became successfully earn the public’s satisfaction. The design was chosen from 300 entries from Chinese architectures all around the world and the award of the competition goes to the architecture that gets to show the image of China at the extravagant fair. However, the china pavilion was accused for plagiarism due to one of the structure in china pavilion is quite similar to the Japanese pavilion--The Japanese architecture for the 1992 Seville Expo in Spain, which designed by Tadao Ando.  Still, the dean of China architecture institution, JingTang refused the accusation; he insisted that he and his team have never seen the Japan pavilion that was demolished right after 1992 fair was over. Therefore the question is did China pavilion should be considering as plagiarism? According to the Japanese pavilion concepts, the Japanese pavilion was created for decorating purpose. The concept that Tadao Ando has presented came from the traditional dougong--the buckets which dated back from the ancient china history. The china pavilion also used the concept of the traditional Chinese bucket-arch architectural techniques. This might be the reason that the Japan and china pavilion design look almost similar. Moreover, the dougong was originally come from ancient china, so it shouldn’t be counted as a plagiarism. It makes some sense that Chinese people can also use the concept from their ancient traditional technique. Also, in term of the size, the color and function of china pavilion has nothing similar to Japanese pavilion. The china pavilion used red color and concrete to represent the signature of China. On the other hand, Japan pavilion was constructed from timber and was used as a decorating element in the 1992 expo. In my opinion, Japanese have no right to accused Chinese for plagiarism since Japan did not even used their traditional concept but adopted from the traditional china technique.    

Christian architecture

^{Christian architecture}

The Christianity was appeared sometimes during ancient roman period. It was illegal to be a Christian. However, during the hopeless time of peasants’ lives, Christianity offered them some hope that they would be able to have better lives, although it mentioned for the after lives with god. As a consequence, Christian architecture at the very early time, or you can say Christian “churches”, has to be secret gathering places, such as underground tombs. Later, when the Christianity was accepted, thanks to Emperor Constantine, the real Christian architectures were started to build. Simplicity is the main concept idea for them, since at least they didn’t have to hide anymore, to start with basilica churches. For example, Old St. Peter’s in Rome.  However, as the time passes, Christianity has more rule along with new buildings technologies, simplicity seems to be incorrect to describe another St. Peter which turned to the symbolic of not only Christianity but also a significant church in Rome. Although the fascinate look of the new St. Peter is obviously full of ornaments and priceless signature, the basic elements from the very first Christian church are still exactly there, from the Atrium that surrounded with Cloister then flowed by the interior order of columns in old structure, Aisle, Nave until the end of the Altar and Apse, where the high light if the church is placed.

Behind the scenes of beauty

Behind the scenes of beauty

The white marble mausoleum, “Taj Mahal” was built on 42 acres along the Muna River in India and it’s known as the legend of love from Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The love story of Taj Mahal was begin when the emperor Shah Jahan who’s always look solemnly and full of sorrow, had met a girl name “Arjumand Banu Begum” which they get married after fall in love with each other instantly and the girl later on was known as Mumtaz Mahal. Even since, the emperor Shah Jahan married with Mumtaz Mahal he became a cheerful person and he’s no longer look solemn anymore. They given birth to 14 children and Mumtaz Mahal became beloved among the citizen because she was a good person and so as a good wife. However she died due to sickness during the return from Dehk Khan with her husband. The emperor was so sad that he couldn’t eat nor sleep, all he does is mourning to his wife who has passed away. He decided to build a memorial monument for Mumtaz Mahal which the name of the monument came after his wife name, it’s called Taj Mahal. During the construction of Taj Mahal, the emperor called the best architecture, engineer and artist from all around the place add up to 20,000 people to help him built Taj Mahal. It’s used 22 years to finish the construction and used 45 million rupees for this building. The monument was built from white marble which in the centre there is a white dome 72 meters height and surround by a wall made from Laterite. The entry door located on the laterite floor which has a pond made from white marble and grows many kind of flower around the entry door. The body’s of Mumtaz Mahal was laid down on the lotus podium and the coffin was craving from the white marble in beautiful picture. The story was remember as a romantic love story, still the background of Taj Mahal came from the blood of many lives similar to the famous building such as Pyramid in Egypt. The truth is that the emperor orders 20,000 men to work on Taj Mahal and force them to finish it in the given time; if they could not make it then they will be executed. However, even they manage to finish Taj Mahal the emperor still order them to be executed so that they cannot build any other beautiful building in other place.  In the end the emperor plan to build another one of Taj Mahal but change the material to black marble, but his son afraid that his father going to used all the money from the castle on the second Taj Mahal so he lock up his father in the tower where his father can see Taj Mahal and then he make himself as a new emperor.        

PROJECT PARK 51

                                                PROJECT PARK 51

There has been an issued between the leader of an Islamic group and the American society over the project of “Park  51” ,The Cordoba , an Islamic community center which is going to build nearby the ground zero where the tragedy  of 9/11 took place. The reason of the argument is because people were upset to have an Islamic church close to where many life of American citizen had died from the Islamic action. Including, they believe it to be disrespect to the family and the soul of the people who have died in 9/11 as well, therefore the government was tried to get the project “Park 51” to relocation. However, as for my belief by moving project “Park 51” doesn’t going to make the issue end, since each side both thinks weather each decision had deiced it’s will never be a fare decision. It wills just going to make each people become more outrage. As some had people said that “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. But then there are people from America living in Japan where many Japanese lives have to die in Hiroshima during WWI which cause from American people as well. In my opinion, the Islamic have the right to located project “Park 51” if they actually own the property of the land. However they can change the design of the Cordoba not to be to Islamic since it is considering as a community center, it should build to be more modernize and more international.  In addition, the Islamic should also have a memorial to show respect to the people who have died in 9/11, by doing so, it’s going to create sympathy to each other.

Byzantine or Early Christian

Byzantine or Early Christian 

Of course there are many definition and theory about each specific era in the history but there are always many problems to identify the exact boundary between each period. The physical appearance might be the easiest move to begin with. As the Early Christian period was introduced, this introduction leads to Byzantines’ development after AD 330 when Constantine established the Imperial capital at Byzantium or today known as Constantinople.

Noticeable appearance has been seen from a dome on the Greek-cross square base, which is not a new innovative structure, but the sense of the eastern influence. Around the time, new styles combined with the olds were emerged. We can see less of Greek-Roman classical order in most famous e Byzantine architecture. Hagia Sofia is one of the significant architecture of this period. It shows the quality and perfection of mathematical engineering that impressed contemporary architectures. The measurement and mathematics started to get over the emotive qualities. However, not only the change of location that interprets the architectural forms but also the change of definition in terms of beauty. Also, more than gigantic structure was used but, then, the lighting design was provided into the buildings’ aesthetic consideration. Subsequently, this period, Byzantine, had introduced at least one new element into the Church’s importance, which is the “light from heaven” to lift up Christians’ spirits even more.

              

Hagia Sophia, Contantinople

                                                          

Classical Order, Pantheon

Hagia Sophia, Interior