I don't know art history. Took an intro to art class in HS. We had to be able to regurgitate names of paintings and artists, so I got an A. I remember we looked at artists like Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, among others. Some kids said "Well, if all you have to do is stand around and throw paint on a canvas, then I can do that." The teacher found that reductionist and got mad. Since I've retained what I learned in architectural history, and enjoyed it, that would make me more cultured than the average person, who knows neither art nor architectural history.
It sure takes discussion up another notch and helps you understand "content" and "criticality" of your work better, if any, while putting it together and locating it (I am treating art and architectural history in the same vein here.)
But it is also misused like this by a frustrated professor, "you need to know history in order to design."
But it is also misused like this by a frustrated professor, "you need to know history in order to design."
Anyone can design, but having precedents is hugely important.
my take on art, design, and anything else (and its the same in engineering and science) is that its all built off of what other people have figured out and explored. the current generation's foundations are the last generations pinnacle. time periods are much more important than names. art describes an entire period of humanity, and is really all that will be left once we're 100 years gone. art is not about the individual, but the world around him.
lets be honest: someone 200 years from now is going to look at a picture of your work and say "ah, that building looks like it was designed in the 2010's-- you can tell by the way the blah blah blah"
Anyone can design, but having precedents is hugely important.
I agree. I even agreed with the professor. I think the worry is that a person may embrace literal translations of classicism or copy Renaissance works. However, even modernism has its own vocabulary, though the lexicon is shorter. Heck, one could design a building that is steeped in modernism and, if it is very linear and has a circulation spine loaded at its side, could employ an "enfilade" as was done in the main part of the chateau at Versailles. It just won't have the decorative aspects of that point in time. I learned that term and then went over there years later to celebrate passing the ARE, so I figured that sort of linear, side-loaded procession between its grand salons was the "enfilade."
Knowing history is cool but creativity comes from within not without. Maybe it makes us better architects, but looking to the past for creative ability is a non sequitur somehow.
Most kids who go off to a-school are generally more creative than other kids, like to draw, get turned on by buildings and floor plans, and seem to have more of an interest in some kind of cultural venue - be it anthropology, history, languages, et. al.
Most likely, they go in there planning on drawing what is currently being built and fawned over. So, from the get go, they are modernists.
However, both indoctrination in theory and history are necessary to know the roots and the vocabulary of the whole bowl of wax. I think it's great to have the segments of architecture presented to you - the old shit in Greece and Italy, the Ren/Bar period, and everything past the Industrial Revolution. From the old shit, you learn about town planning techniques, the agora as a focal point, and the creation of nodes. From the new shit, you can decide just how stripped down,geometric and/or volumetric you want your building to be, since modern history courses tended to view buildings are broader expressions more than as a kit of parts.
Whether it's non-sequitur or not, can anyone honestly look back at their education and say they didn't want to have a course in theory and about 3 courses in history under their belt? If anything, you can walk around wherever you live and label the components of whatever significant building you are looking at.
History is totally ignored here in Japan. It drives me nuts when talking witg students but then I see fujimotos work and I think it might be a reasonable trade off if the person is creative. Not so good for anyone who has been taught to suppress their creative side though.
In the sense described in above comments history is seen as a substitute for creativity? It seems to be the implication.
young architects are crazy terrified of going past the limits of what they know. History prolly makes it worse cuz then they know more and end up thinking nothing is new, like quondam. Nihilism is not generally the most fertile of creative soils.
I absolutely agree with the point that its hard to be creative when you don't know who you are copying.
Still doesn't mean creativity comes from a book. If it did, Leon Krier would rule the world.
The more you know, the more you...and then less you...etc
I think that the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know and have a better grasp of those parameters.
On the other hand, the most insufferable people are those who are both uneducated and stupid (separate issues, but can appear together, as in comorbid), are overly assertive in dispensing religious, political, and even medical advice, and "don't know how much they don't know."
Most famous architects trained like everyone else, had mentors, but somehow broke the mold. Some of these architects did it while historical revivals in architecture were in vogue. It's really more about that rare person than it is about how much or how little architectural history they learned. And if they weren't rare, they wouldn't be famous. Or, in some cases, they just weren't "discovered."
quondam I don't think you fit so neatly into anything like a label. Wouldn't dream of painting you with anything like a single brush, but isn't your biggest meme the one about everything being a re-enactment, ho-hum ?
Anyway, i've said much more stupid things than that!
Still, and really, with all respect, when it come to sources of creativity in architecture, history is the frame not the picture. The picture has to come from somewhere else. I don't see how that can be anything but from the leaps taken inside the architects head (or heads more likely).
precedent is very cool. un-precedented is even cooler. in that regard history is a great critical tool, i agree with you completely. but it isn't where creativity resides.
"precedent is very cool. un-precedented is even cooler."
a sincere question: if you lack the knowledge (of history): how would you know that what you are doing is not relying on - subliminally- a precedent that does exist and that has infiltrated you with its influences (for instance by way of a number of echoing designs), bypassing your critical intelligence and rendering your creativity subservient to stunted critical faculties (not because you don't have these faculties but because they don't have enough -and maybe the correct- material to work upon)?
i think the issue here is not about not knowing as much as it is about not caring to know fully/properly/ imaginatively/ livingfully what you semi-know, almost-know, mostly-don't know and don't know. its a question of whether you have curiosity and the care to know or you are happy to be knowing only what you know.
personally, i feel very ignorant but i cannot embrace that happily, if you know what i mean. I cannot give you such a simple happy go lucky answer. i think - whether i am personally ignorant or lazy- the answer should be that knowledge (art, music, technical...) not only boosts (lemme use an americanism) your creativity, but also that it makes your life richer. you will have nice things to ponder over alone and with people and on paper.a cup of coffee would be useless -gone to waste- without some sort of imaginative digression.
Art has always been my fascination. I started noticing various artists and their art works. Each work gave me some moral lessons. As time went, i got more and more interested in the field of art. I studied more about various arts. Now I am an artist.
Art History
im magically delicious.
and naturally creative.
and know lots of art and architecture history.
I don't know art history. Took an intro to art class in HS. We had to be able to regurgitate names of paintings and artists, so I got an A. I remember we looked at artists like Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, among others. Some kids said "Well, if all you have to do is stand around and throw paint on a canvas, then I can do that." The teacher found that reductionist and got mad. Since I've retained what I learned in architectural history, and enjoyed it, that would make me more cultured than the average person, who knows neither art nor architectural history.
No, history doesn't work as source of creativity for anyone I know.
I'm curious why you ask? Do you wish it did?
It sure takes discussion up another notch and helps you understand "content" and "criticality" of your work better, if any, while putting it together and locating it (I am treating art and architectural history in the same vein here.)
But it is also misused like this by a frustrated professor, "you need to know history in order to design."
I was the top student in my art history class, I loved it. Think of it as Cultural Literacy.
But it is also misused like this by a frustrated professor, "you need to know history in order to design."
Funny, because that's what my first term architectural history professor said - 'you need the vocabulary in order to design.'
Does art history play a huge role in the creative work you do, or are you naturally creative?
Interesting phrasing. It's one or the other? Both can't operate together?
But it is also misused like this by a frustrated professor, "you need to know history in order to design."
Anyone can design, but having precedents is hugely important.
my take on art, design, and anything else (and its the same in engineering and science) is that its all built off of what other people have figured out and explored. the current generation's foundations are the last generations pinnacle. time periods are much more important than names. art describes an entire period of humanity, and is really all that will be left once we're 100 years gone. art is not about the individual, but the world around him.
lets be honest: someone 200 years from now is going to look at a picture of your work and say "ah, that building looks like it was designed in the 2010's-- you can tell by the way the blah blah blah"
Anyone can design, but having precedents is hugely important.
I agree. I even agreed with the professor. I think the worry is that a person may embrace literal translations of classicism or copy Renaissance works. However, even modernism has its own vocabulary, though the lexicon is shorter. Heck, one could design a building that is steeped in modernism and, if it is very linear and has a circulation spine loaded at its side, could employ an "enfilade" as was done in the main part of the chateau at Versailles. It just won't have the decorative aspects of that point in time. I learned that term and then went over there years later to celebrate passing the ARE, so I figured that sort of linear, side-loaded procession between its grand salons was the "enfilade."
Knowing history is cool but creativity comes from within not without. Maybe it makes us better architects, but looking to the past for creative ability is a non sequitur somehow.
actually, the question is kinda farkocktah.
Most kids who go off to a-school are generally more creative than other kids, like to draw, get turned on by buildings and floor plans, and seem to have more of an interest in some kind of cultural venue - be it anthropology, history, languages, et. al.
Most likely, they go in there planning on drawing what is currently being built and fawned over. So, from the get go, they are modernists.
However, both indoctrination in theory and history are necessary to know the roots and the vocabulary of the whole bowl of wax. I think it's great to have the segments of architecture presented to you - the old shit in Greece and Italy, the Ren/Bar period, and everything past the Industrial Revolution. From the old shit, you learn about town planning techniques, the agora as a focal point, and the creation of nodes. From the new shit, you can decide just how stripped down,geometric and/or volumetric you want your building to be, since modern history courses tended to view buildings are broader expressions more than as a kit of parts.
Whether it's non-sequitur or not, can anyone honestly look back at their education and say they didn't want to have a course in theory and about 3 courses in history under their belt? If anything, you can walk around wherever you live and label the components of whatever significant building you are looking at.
The more you know, the more you...and then less you...etc
In the sense described in above comments history is seen as a substitute for creativity? It seems to be the implication.
young architects are crazy terrified of going past the limits of what they know. History prolly makes it worse cuz then they know more and end up thinking nothing is new, like quondam. Nihilism is not generally the most fertile of creative soils.
I absolutely agree with the point that its hard to be creative when you don't know who you are copying.
Still doesn't mean creativity comes from a book. If it did, Leon Krier would rule the world.
The more you know, the more you...and then less you...etc
I think that the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know and have a better grasp of those parameters.
On the other hand, the most insufferable people are those who are both uneducated and stupid (separate issues, but can appear together, as in comorbid), are overly assertive in dispensing religious, political, and even medical advice, and "don't know how much they don't know."
Most famous architects trained like everyone else, had mentors, but somehow broke the mold. Some of these architects did it while historical revivals in architecture were in vogue. It's really more about that rare person than it is about how much or how little architectural history they learned. And if they weren't rare, they wouldn't be famous. Or, in some cases, they just weren't "discovered."
No lie.
quondam I don't think you fit so neatly into anything like a label. Wouldn't dream of painting you with anything like a single brush, but isn't your biggest meme the one about everything being a re-enactment, ho-hum ?
Anyway, i've said much more stupid things than that!
Still, and really, with all respect, when it come to sources of creativity in architecture, history is the frame not the picture. The picture has to come from somewhere else. I don't see how that can be anything but from the leaps taken inside the architects head (or heads more likely).
precedent is very cool. un-precedented is even cooler. in that regard history is a great critical tool, i agree with you completely. but it isn't where creativity resides.
"precedent is very cool. un-precedented is even cooler."
a sincere question: if you lack the knowledge (of history): how would you know that what you are doing is not relying on - subliminally- a precedent that does exist and that has infiltrated you with its influences (for instance by way of a number of echoing designs), bypassing your critical intelligence and rendering your creativity subservient to stunted critical faculties (not because you don't have these faculties but because they don't have enough -and maybe the correct- material to work upon)?
i think the issue here is not about not knowing as much as it is about not caring to know fully/properly/ imaginatively/ livingfully what you semi-know, almost-know, mostly-don't know and don't know. its a question of whether you have curiosity and the care to know or you are happy to be knowing only what you know.
personally, i feel very ignorant but i cannot embrace that happily, if you know what i mean. I cannot give you such a simple happy go lucky answer. i think - whether i am personally ignorant or lazy- the answer should be that knowledge (art, music, technical...) not only boosts (lemme use an americanism) your creativity, but also that it makes your life richer. you will have nice things to ponder over alone and with people and on paper.a cup of coffee would be useless -gone to waste- without some sort of imaginative digression.
Art has always been my fascination. I started noticing various artists and their art works. Each work gave me some moral lessons. As time went, i got more and more interested in the field of art. I studied more about various arts. Now I am an artist.
http://www.synarts.com/
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