He asked me, what is a world?

Few and many

Every skyscraper is trying to be unique and iconic - in a densely built city it doesn't hurt because at the scale of the city they are all like perfume bottles on a dresser: the individual appearances don't really matter anymore, but rather the whole field is the impression. The more unique and impressive ones are admired individually in print (enlarged and singled out, reviewed for their merits, beauty and poetry- like perfumes) and in person.

In print, the criteria for critique is simultaneously zoomed in and zoomed out - zoomed into the engineering and architectural details and zoomed out into the object-form. It is primarily a critique of form and appearance that can be seen in print. What can be read (in words) in print is a critique of the space, but this is built on a personal experience of the space in person.

In person, the experience of the object-form is second place to the experience of immediate space. A small blank wall in print is a huge blank wall in person. In person, the sequence of rooms and the height of room ceilings, the color and texture of walls, circulation paths, the chance for encounters, the implied barriers and entries, the freedom or oppression, these become first place.

So, designing at two scales, 1) Object-form, 2) Space/function
Which is more important?
(In a small building, the two meld together much more, because there the form of a room and the sequence of spaces can actually determine to a greater extent the form of the building without contrivance, while in a large building with many rooms an over-arching form is needed (?) )

Contrast

Amiens Cathedral to Office Building Morph

To study the effect of detail, ornament, filigree and form.

Wrapping paper vs architecture

There is a confounding of roles.


A wrapping paper designer could also design the box, and vice versa, but the two roles should not be confounded. The former is primarily about affect, about pattern, fundamentally 2-dimensional, could be complex but the complexity is never spatial; the latter is about space and spatial experience.

In an analogy, designing the fabric pattern is not the same as designing the dress with its 3-d proportions.

They could both be excellent, but the fabric has no use were it not for the dress - which one is more important? Will you buy a dress designed by (insert-famous-name) made out of an anonymous, run-of-the-mill fabric or will you buy a dress designed by an anonymous, run-of-the-mill fashion designer made out of (insert-famous-name) fabric? Granted one should see the dress before deciding, but we would think the exceptional fashion designer will handle the ordinary fabric so well that the dress will be exceptional while the exceptional fabric is wasted in the hands of a mediocre dress designer.

Today, there are so many wrapped boxes that one thinks the wrapper is more important. It is for the first five seconds or ten months... and then?

On walls and space

(Semper)