Spatial and Temporal Sequence

The Movie: Cinema Paradiso
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore







I decided to study 3 different aspects of the scene.
The first one is foregroung(red), middle ground(yellow) and background(blue), to be more specific the shift of elements between those 3.
The second one is the use of flat image and perspective.
The third one would be surface and volume.
The elements I am using are the old guy and the kid, the movie and the public and their shifts as they frame scenes, work as backgrounds, or shift from surface and plane to volume.



flat image,
the public acts as a plane


perspective
the kid and the proyector frame the "movie".


flat image
the movie acts as surface against the wall which is a plane.


perspective
the window frames the view.
change of scale from enclosed to open space


perspective
the public is acting as a volume this time and has shifted to the foreground.


perspective
the public shifted to middle ground .


flat image
the public and the movie act as planes and overlap and links the next scene where the movie and the public become a volume.


perspective

Versioning - Connubial Reciprocities of Surface and Space

“ … produce ambiguous readings, blurring the distinction between the real and constructed appearances of buildings; defamiliarising the purported properties of materials and expanding the experiential and semantic effects of architecture.”

I found quite interesting the part of Versioning that talks about surface and space and the attempt of dA to reconcile them. The article gives a good analysis of the 2 traditions in history, those being the rationalist and the empirical finding middle ground in the treatment of the surface.

The rationalist tradition is found in the Renaissance and the Baroque periods with an interest in the relationship between the parts and its whole. On the other hand the empirical tradition has an interest between problems of expression and structural mechanics.

To attempt the reconciliation of surface and space dA takes the qualities of the 2 different traditions and combines them using the “ formal and structural effects of the empirical through the precision associated with that of the rationalist.”

I found the same problem I find with most of this articles, everything sounds very nice in theory but are they really like that in reality? I feel like because of the complexity of their designs and the theory behind them the experiential factor has to happen for me to actually believe what I read. I other words I have to see it and experience it to believe it. But that happens with every single building we study.

In any case the article was inspiring even though I don’t exactly see the examples given as a reflection of their attempt to reconcile surface and space. I liked the examples but for other reasons than those.
The Witte Arts building shows and interesting alternative to the contemporary use of the brick curtain wall.



The Hookah Den is another interesting approach; they use this “plywood bricks” whose dimension is directly related to structure and interior. It’s folding gives it rigidity and it’s size is determined by the banquettes set against them in the interior. This is probably the only example where I do find the reconciliation of surface and space but at the same time I think that this was possible because of the scale of the project.

After attending dA’s lecture yesterday my doubts about the disconnection between theory and execution was even clearer. Did I miss anything? For me the lecture had a strong emphasis on skin or surface, and they were the main element that guided their designs.

As a whole the article and the lecture were another good precedent of the advantages of today’s technology as one of the main tools used in the process for developing this new ideas in architecture.

Review Afterthoughts

Being honest I had no clue how that review was going to be. I thought is was going to end up being a critique of how good your animation looks because it's really hard to get the idea behind them; but like everyone else I agree that as the critique went on the responses were much better. I am still struggling to understand where this is leading me, I love the experimentation! especially how it makes me think outside the box, I guess by the end of the semester I would have a much more clearer idea. So far the readings have been helping me, even though I was pretty confused at the begging of the semester as time goes by I get a better understanding of the concepts and ideas we talk in class.

Again, I agree with everyone else about the faculty reaction, or the lack of it! It would've been nice to see the response from an outsider to this kind of process and technology.

As far as my project goes I wouldn't say I am disappointed but I wish I was more clear with my ideas. I have to simplify everything next time and concebtrate on one thing instead of a bunch of them.
what's next? I love all the ideas behind this process and I'm anxious to start using them in my studio process, although I'm still hesitant on how. I guess it's a mtter of time ....