A.Sivaraman , First year-M.ARCH General ,HINDUSTAN UNIVERSITY, Chennai.
2. Introduction • This article begins by exploring the nature of the relationship between the interior and exterior design of a building. Traditionally, contrast between these two dimensions was practiced but was replaced by the idea of continuity and flow between the inside and outside in the 20th century. As the article demonstrates, the evolution between these trends was marked by numerous opinions and perspectives on the purpose of the exterior and interior of a building. • An old school of thought was that the interior of a building worked to enclose space and so should be separated by the outside. Of course, this notion ignored the importance of location and context surrounding the building, which was of equal importance. After all, if architecture is the orientation and organization of space then the community too is a space within which the building sits. • The article also explores the contrast between the interior and exterior designs of a building by way of examples. Some designs show contrast in the top and bottom of the building rather than interior and exterior and other examples show different design ways in which the distinction between the interior and exterior can be made. • Some exterior designs like large domes, outer linings, and pillars are signs of protection or power, and a few examples were of contradictory interior spaces. I found it interesting when the author said that contradictory interior spaces does not go against the idea of continuity asserted by modern architecture – it really does all point to purpose and interpretation. • One point the author mentioned was that designing from both the inside and the outside means that the wall becomes the point of change and contact between the two works and it is at this intersection or meeting where architecture takes place. • At the same time, architecture requires a balancing of our vision, that it not be too specific or too general and this requires considering all factors at play – the context, location, and purpose of the building overall and each component. It is without a doubt that each plays an equally important role because while the interior must induce a particular sentiment or mood and purpose, the exterior must withstand and open out to the personality of the city and into the ambience of the building.
3. Ten points of complexity and contradiction 1. Non straightforward Architecture : A Gentle Manifesto 2. Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Pictures queness 3. Ambiguity 4. Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon of "Both-And" in Architecture 5. Contradictory Levels Continued: The Double-Functioning Element 6. Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The Conventional Element 7. Contradiction Adapted 8. Contradiction Juxtaposed 9. The Inside and the Outside 10. The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole
4. 1.Non straight Forward Architecture : A Gentle Manifesto I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I like elements which are hybrid rather than "pure", compromising rather than "clean", distorted rather than "straight forward", ambiguous rather than "articulated", perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as "interesting", conventional rather than "designed", accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity, richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for the implicit function as well as the explicit function. More is not less.
5. 2.Complexity And Contradiction Vs. Simplification Or Picturesqueness In orthodox Modern architects' attempt to break with tradition and start all over again, they idealized the primitive and elementary at the expense of the diverse and the sophisticated. In their role as reformers, they puritanically advocated the separation and exclusion of elements, rather than the inclusion of various requirements and their juxtapositions. Modern architects with few exceptions eschewed ambiguity. August Heckscher:"...amid simplicity and order rationalism is born, but rationalism proves inadequate in any period of upheaval. Then equilibrium must be created out of opposites. Such inner peace as men gain must represent a tension among contradictions and uncertainties. " Paul Rudolph:"All problems can never be solved...indeed it is a characteristic of the twentieth century that architects are highly selective in determining which problems they want to solve. Mies, for instance, makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent." Forced simplicity results in oversimplification. Aesthetic simplicity which is a satisfaction to the mind derives, when valid and profound, from inner complexity. When complexity disappears, blandness replaces simplicity.
6. 2.Complexity And Contradiction Vs. Simplification Or Picturesqueness Forced simplicity oversimplification. results in 1. Johnson - wiley house , New cannon 3. Aalto Church, Vuoksennlska, near lrnatra Critics of Aalto’s, For instance, have liked him mostly for his sensitivity to natural materials and his fine detailing, and have considered his whole composition willful picturesqueness. ventuari do not consider Aalto's Imatra church picturesque. In the Wiley House, for instance (1), in contrast to his glass house ( 2 ) , Philip Johnson attempted to go beyond the simplicities of the elegant pavilion. He explicitly separated and articulated the enclosed "private functions" of living on a ground floor pedestal, thus separating them from the open social functions in the modular pavilion above. EXAMPLES But even here the building becomes a diagram of an oversimplified program for living-an abstract theory of either-or. Where simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. “Less is a bore”. 2. Johnson Glass house , New cannon 4.Mlcheluccl Church of the Autostrada near Florence By repeating in the massing the genuine complexity of the tripledivided plan and the acoustical ceiling pattern (3), this church represents a justifiable expressionism different from the willful picturesqueness of the haphazard structure and spaces of Giovanni Michelucci's recent church for the Autostrada (4). Aalto's complexity is part of the program and structure of the whole rather than a device justified only by the desire for expression.
7. 3.Ambiguity Ambiguity and tension are easily found in complex and contradictory architecture. Architecture is form and substance - - abstract and concrete and its meaning derives from its interior characteristics and its particular context. - An architectural element is perceived as form and structure, texture and material. These oscillating relationships, complex and contradictory, are the source of the ambiguity and tension characteristic to the medium of architecture. - The conjunction "or" with a question mark can usually describe ambiguous relationships. Villa Savoye The size of Vanbrugh's forepavilions at Grimsthorpe The Casino di Pio IV ,Vatican in relation to the back pavilions is ambiguous from a distance: are they near or far, big or small? The ornamental cove in the Casino di Pio IV in the Vatican is perverse: is it a square plan or not? Vanbrugh's fore-pavilions at Grimsthorpe is it more wall or more vault?
8. 3.AMBIGUITY • The calculated ambiguity of expression is based on the confusion of experience as reflected in the architectural program. This promotes richness of meaning over clarity of meaning. As Empson admits, there is good and bad ambiguity ". . . [ambiguity] may be used to convict a poet of holding muddled opinions rather than to praise the complexity of the order of his mind." Nevertheless, according to Stanley Edgar Hyman, Empson sees ambiguity as "collecting precisely at the points of greatest poetic effectiveness, and finds it breeding a quality he calls 'tension' which we might phrase as the poetic impact itself." • These ideas apply equally well to architecture Palazzo di Propaganda Fide Lutyens' facade at Nashdorn Luigi Moretti's Apartment in Rome, The central dip in Lutyens' facade at Nashdorn facilitates skylighting: is the resultant duality resolved or not? Bernini's pilasters on the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide : are they positive pilasters or negative panel divisions? . are they one building with a split or two buildings joined?
9. 4. Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon Of "Both-and" In Architecture "BOTH-AND" " relation of the part to the whole " Contradictory levels of meaning and use in architecture involve the paradoxical contrast implied by the conjunctive "yet". The tradition of "either-or" has characterized orthodox modern architecture: a sun screen is probably nothing else; a support is seldom an enclosure. Such manifestations of articulation and clarity are foreign to an architecture of complexity and contradiction, which tends to include "both-and" rather than "either-or". The source of the both-and phenomenon is contradiction, and its basis is hierarchy, which yields several levels of meanings among elements with varying values. An architecture which includes varying levels of meaning breeds ambiguity and tension. Kahn, "Architecture must have bad spaces as well as good spaces." The basilica, which has mono-directional space, and the central-type church, which has omnidirectional space, represent alternating traditions in Western church plans. Yet the Mannerist elliptical plan of the sixteenth century is both central and directional. The double meanings inherent in the phenomenon both-and can involve metamorphosis as well as contradiction. In equivocal relationships one contradictory meaning usually dominates another, but in complex compositions the relationship is not always constant. If you move through or arou