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From: kaeding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bob Kaeding)
Subject: Fractal Architecture
Message-ID: <1993Mar3.022725.8898@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 02:27:25 GMT
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I ran across this in _Chaos_ by James Gleick (reprinted without
permission):
-----------------Begin-Quote------------------------
..Simple shapes are inhuman.They fail to resonate with the way nature
organizes itself or the way human perception sees the world. In the words
of Gert Eilenberger, a German physicist: "Why is it that the silhouette
of a storm bent leafless tree against an evening sky in winter is perceived
as beautiful, but the corresponding silhouette of any multipurpose
university building is not, in spite of all the efforts of the architect?
The answer seems to me, even if somewhat speculative, to follow from the
new insights into dynamical systems. Our feeling for beauty is inspired by
the arrangement of order and disorder as it occurs in natural objects -- in
clouds, trees, mountain ranges, or snow crystals. The shapes of all these
are dynamical processes jelled into physical forms, and particular
combinatiions of order and disorder are typical for them."
A geometrical shape has a _scale_, a characteristic size. To
Mandelbrot, an art that satisfies lacks scale, in a sense that it contains
important elements in all sizes. Against the Seagram Building, he offers
the Architecture of the Beaux-Arts, with its sculptures and gargoyles, its
quoins and jamb stones, its cartouches decorated with scroll work, its
cornices topped with cheneaux and lined with dentils. A Beaux-Arts paragon
like the Paris Opera has no scale because it has every scale. An observer
seeing the building from any distance finds some detail that draws the eye.
The composition changes as one approachs and new elements of the structure
come into play.
------------------End-Quote----------------------------
I completely agree. Things (material and otherwise) are only interesting
as long as they reveal new things to the observer. International style
boxes have less to reveal because of their simplicity. Very organic
architecture, like prairie homes and the snickelways of old European
cities, is almost inexhaustible in its revelations and therefore much more
interesting.
Bob
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From: kaeding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bob Kaeding)
Subject: Fractal Architecture
Message-ID: <1993Mar3.022725.8898@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: usenet@xxxxxxxxxxx (Mr. usenet)
Nntp-Posting-Host: kaeding.ils.nwu.edu
Organization: ILS
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 02:27:25 GMT
Lines: 38
I ran across this in _Chaos_ by James Gleick (reprinted without
permission):
-----------------Begin-Quote------------------------
..Simple shapes are inhuman.They fail to resonate with the way nature
organizes itself or the way human perception sees the world. In the words
of Gert Eilenberger, a German physicist: "Why is it that the silhouette
of a storm bent leafless tree against an evening sky in winter is perceived
as beautiful, but the corresponding silhouette of any multipurpose
university building is not, in spite of all the efforts of the architect?
The answer seems to me, even if somewhat speculative, to follow from the
new insights into dynamical systems. Our feeling for beauty is inspired by
the arrangement of order and disorder as it occurs in natural objects -- in
clouds, trees, mountain ranges, or snow crystals. The shapes of all these
are dynamical processes jelled into physical forms, and particular
combinatiions of order and disorder are typical for them."
A geometrical shape has a _scale_, a characteristic size. To
Mandelbrot, an art that satisfies lacks scale, in a sense that it contains
important elements in all sizes. Against the Seagram Building, he offers
the Architecture of the Beaux-Arts, with its sculptures and gargoyles, its
quoins and jamb stones, its cartouches decorated with scroll work, its
cornices topped with cheneaux and lined with dentils. A Beaux-Arts paragon
like the Paris Opera has no scale because it has every scale. An observer
seeing the building from any distance finds some detail that draws the eye.
The composition changes as one approachs and new elements of the structure
come into play.
------------------End-Quote----------------------------
I completely agree. Things (material and otherwise) are only interesting
as long as they reveal new things to the observer. International style
boxes have less to reveal because of their simplicity. Very organic
architecture, like prairie homes and the snickelways of old European
cities, is almost inexhaustible in its revelations and therefore much more
interesting.
Bob