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The Setting

Setting is one of the most important things that need to be consider when building a house. One of the big things that increase the beauty of the building is the setup, it means where is it located and does it well-suited with its surrounding. A building could be built nicely on the inside and on the outside, however comparing its design with the surrounding, if it looks different with no compatible outlook to them, it could ruin the beauty of the place or its beauty could be lost.

Rybczynski, the author of “-How Architecture Works-” book, describes how setting is important to a building and needs to be part of the thought process when beginning to build.  He starts to talk about his impression by giving an example of the exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art in 1938 in Bauhaus. He said that there was no information about the setting of the building while they had a lot of conversation and photos about the tools and beauty of that building. So, he didn’t satisfy by their meeting, because they didn’t provided information about the setting. The Building’s sculpture looks amazing, and it is well-matched to the surrounding. I like his point, because when we read the example that he brought about the Robie house, he saw the house and it was looking pretty nice in the inside and on the outside, and its photograph of the long brick façade stretched over two pages inspired him, but when he got a chance to visit the place he was not happy by its location and surrounding. The house was located in the urban neighborhood of Chicago’s south side; it was on a shallow lot, very close to the side walk, virtually no garden and other non-attractive things.

When I start to read and thing about how fitting is important, it reminds me the time I spent in Nairobi, Kenya to visit and looks the beautiful building in the country. They have a lot of nice and amazing hotels, entertainment places and other things. However, most of it is close to the side walk which means they are located in crowded places, not compounded with a lot of gardens. This really affects the beauty of the buildings. When the author is talking about this, he doesn’t fully appreciate the Kahn’s design for the Yale center for British Art. It is located near the Gothic Revival building, and other building that are not compatible with building style of its design. Similarly when I saw the photograph of the Walt Disney Concert hall taken from far distance, I agreed with what the author said about it. He said that inserting the building that place (urban place) was not the right one, because it has a unique features and style that has no similarity with the buildings around it. When I looked at the picture, its sail-like shapes with loose wrapping that lefts for sky light to bring natural light into the lobby and hall looks great, but I wish if it would be placed in the rural or well-fitting places in order to be more appealing.

Another interesting topic I read from Rybczynski’s written on the setting part was how many architectures worried about the future beauty of their design. Since thousands of house build every year, and the rural places looks more to urban places after sometime, if there are nice and inspiring building were built in rural areas, their beauty could no longer appear as good as what they were dues inserting different buildings, with different style and shape, around them.

Even though to expand a building not a bad idea at all, it is also very important to understand how to add a building. Architects are facing a lot of problems about the future growth of the building. Sometime they die and their future plan lost with them like Furness story about his plan in expanding the library of the University of Philadelphia. And sometimes Architects plan ignored after years when other Architects want to follow their own way. We can see one example that the author brought about the Scarborough College, a suburban satellite of the University of Toronto. The Architect of this building John Andrews linear model of cutting edge design and harbinger of the future was ignored by the later architects and they want to follow their own way like building each house in separate freestanding building. This thought is upsetting many Architects and they worried about their future outlook of the buildings they designed.

I have learned the definition of Architecture that it is the conversation between the generations. Some Architects shows their understanding to this definition by their mimicry. They bear a burden not to ruin the master work of the previous Architects when they are commissioned to expand their building. If we see Allan Greenberg commission to design an addition to Princeton’s Aaron Burr Hall, he was so careful in everything he did to make Hunt’s work still alive. Rybczynski looks very inspired by his respectful work and he said, “It is more dialogue between two architects across the years”. In contrast we see Romaldo Guirgola’s commission to expand the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas; he doesn’t look faithful to the work of his longtime friend Louis Kahn. He ruined Kahn’s masterwork by bringing some unexpected reasons.

To sum up my thought, architecture is not only how the building looks in the inside and on the outside, but also how it fit with the buildings around it or which place is better for it to show it superiority. We brought different examples about this that some building looks great, but their location or setting downfalls their beauty. And some buildings look great and again their surrounding increases their magnificence. Again it is very important to know and think how to add and expand buildings to make the surrounding looks Nice and inspiring and for the sake of the hard work of the previous Architects and the beauty of the environment every Architect should have a burden to develop respect and mimicry of another man work.