Monday, February 18, 2013

The lacking of a meaningful geometry

This is going to get a little personal. In no way should this be construed as any sort of slight against any individual and I hope that those that are not like minded are not easily offended. This is sort of aimed at any and all architecture/design students out there (as well as some practitioners) and it centers around a form that surprisingly is driven by having a center, the simple curve.

From an architectural point of view there is something about a properly proportioned curve that can make movement towards and alongside very exciting and dramatic. A slow reveal of what lay ahead as one glides along the face or the inherent grandeur of the closest point, made taller by perspective when one approaches from a tangent. They are forms that when overlapped create the most complex and potentially interesting spaces where they cross, hold and release. When juxtaposed with a harsh line or angle the area they encompass is immediately protected and deferred. They can undulate, dancing back and forth, they can diminish, creating tighter arcs until the foci is reached, they can expand to the point of becoming linear.

So what then is my problem with the curve? Well, specifically, and similar to the use of any geometry, there is an inherent requirement that the geometry is located in relation to something else. For those of you who had developed a curved form and attempting to create construction documents or a model of said shape, the one thing requisite to accuracy is the workpoint and relation of line(s) to said work point. My problem isn't with the curve, or line, or point, or plane, it is when the objects in question are arbitrary in their spatial relationship. When they are merely located, as in under the guise of night, haphazardly left strewn over sketch paper without a sense of relation or size with which to recreate. Why surely there is an intent left in the maddening scribbles, but without the logical reasoning of size and direction I cannot replicate nor grasp how these simple forms are meant to dance. Do they focus on a singular point of import? Do they create moments of specific compression and expansion with which to form moments of respite? Is there some misunderstood tension as if an old married couple who is secretly in love yet enjoys a good argument? How am I to know?

So I ask you, dear designers and such, if you are going to plop some geometry on me for whatever reason, especially something that goes completely against the function of space or requirements of construction, give me but a little explanation. It will alleviate quite a bit of cursing your name, repeatedly and vehemently and I attempt to work through was at least could be a painted word picture.

Dru- out.

No comments:

Post a Comment