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.