Inquiry

I was 23 (now 33 years ago) when I visited Istanbul on a holiday. When I walked into the Aghia Sophia (formerly a Byzantine Church, then a Mosque, now a museum) I was literally breathless. It took me several minutes to recuperate for it scared me as well. The space was so overwhelming, it felled like being sucked into emptiness (and in those days that wasn't fun yet). I still think it is the most amazing building that was ever built and it is hard to beleive they could build it in those days.

Olaf

The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.  The shear starkness and simplicity strips your soul down to bare essentials.  Also, I was fortunate enough to have a hand helping out with the drawings for the Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Canada, which gives you a sense of man-made trying to integrate with nature;  it provides a certain gracefulness within a bustling city...a moment of peace for the eyes when driving by, or inside the Great Hall.

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Electronic Heroin - Isn't she beautiful, that box, ever-glowing and inviting - calling us from our paths of creativity and enlightenment?

A few years ago I saw the movie "My Architect" by the son of the architect Louis Kahn.  When the movie featured this complex I was breathless and speechless.  There was something transcendent about the space and light.

Here's what Kahn himself said about the building.

"In the assembly I have introduced a light-giving element to the interior of the plan. If you see a series of columns you can say that the choice of columns is a choice in light. The columns as solids frame the spaces of light. Now think of it just in reverse and think that the columns are hollow and much bigger and that their walls can themselves give light, then the voids are rooms, and the column is the maker of light and can take on complex shapes and be the supporter of spaces and give light to spaces. I am working to develop the element to such an extent that it becomes a poetic entity which has its own beauty outside of its place in the composition. In this way it becomes analogous to the solid column I mentioned above as a giver of light."

Seeing Jocho's Amida Buddha at The Phoenix pavilion, Byodoin Hodo. This temple in Kyoto, also featured on the ten-yen coin, was designed from looking at Chinese tantric paintings of heaven! But it's not just an awesome 3-D installation/reflecting pool to put you in a god mood, it's also one of the oldest wooden structures in the world, containing the only surviving sculpture by master artist Jocho. Jocho was the Michelangelo of Japan, and imagine if we only had the David left.  Well, we could say that this Amida Buddha is Japan's one and only David. 

The moment my eyes met his...I don't know what happened.. I was pulled into orbit...the mastery, the proportions and curves so balanced, so perfect, so solid, something clicked and I was stunned open. My eyes and soul raced across his body to his fingertips, the curves of his robe, the emptiness and fullness of his mind, the fiery body-mind cocoon beyond embedded with buddhas, splattered with black and gold light.  I got high as a kite, which had never really happened with a sculpture before. All intentional: Everything, from the size of its head to the size of its pedestal was designed for intimacy. No doubt the reflection pool and thousand-year old wood heaven installation piece surrounding me made a difference! But also, let’s not forget: Jocho was a master mandorla maker. Just look him up. I’m not kidding.

 No pictures aloud. I’m breaking the rules. 

One of my favorite architects is Tadao Ando. IMHO, his greatest work may be the giant complex of Awaji-Yumebutai. Among the specific features: The Chapel of the Sea, which is a variation of his Church of Light, but with the cross cut in the ceiling to allow the cross of light to shine down on the patrons, and for a greater amount of time; the Water Plaza of the Shells, in which each shell was hand created and placed; an observation platform, allowing the visitor to descend into a Circular Forum; artifical waterfalls cascading down a number of walls; and perhaps most striking is an enormous cascade on the hillside of a large series of planters with colorful flowers, mimicking hillside rice paddies, but incorporating the man-made element of order. All of the above features are either fully in the open air, or allow and encourage access of the open air, and of nature. The primary medium is concrete, as it usually is with Ando. The effect of Ando's use of the medium is an impression of purity and simplicity, coupled with permanency. The most important feature of Ando's work, as I see it, is his use of light and open space, making the total effect, I should think, one of harmony with nature, but also drawing one to higher levels of spiritual experience. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the opportunity to visit any of his work. One more for my own "bucket list," I suppose....

Ando once desc ribed the role of beauty in his work in an interview with Architectural Record:

"There is a role and function for beauty in our time. In Japan it may be translated into the concept of Uskuji, which also means a beautiful life, that is, how a person lives––his or her inner life. It’s something beyond appearance, or what only meets the eye. You can’t really say what is beautiful about a place, but the image of the place will remain vividly with you. People tend not to use this word beauty because it’s not intellectual—but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect."

Recently I spent time in Montreal and visited St. Joseph's Oratory of Mont-Royal. The sheer size and beauty of the cathedral was inspiring and I felt connected to artists and pilgrims who had been part of its history. On the way in, there is a display of crutches and canes left behind by those healed within its walls. There were sculptures on the walls that were more than giant-sized. I could have stretched out on a hard wooden pew and slept for days I felt very safe and secure and in the hands of God.

I find that I often get the same satisfaction from beautiful buildings as from natural beauty. The single most important structure to me is Antoni Gaudi's organic masterwork, La Sagrada Famlia in Barcelona Spain.  At the height of his success, he dedicated his life to it. He died, hit by a street car, while on an errand likely begging for alms to complete it. His own savings poured into it, he was mistaken for a homeless man and it was not until later in the morgue that he was identified as the great architect. When asked whether it disturbed him that he would never see it's completion in his lifetime, his reply was, "My client (God) is very patient." There is not a single artistic project on this scale that I am aware of, and I'm not so sure there will be another for a long time. Furthermore, it is yet to be completed. As a visitor, you can witness it in-process, and contemplate it as it takes form.

On of the buildings that do inspire me and give a sense of space and calmness when I'm there is the Municpal Museum in The Hague in The Netherlands. The museum is designed by the great Dutch architect Berlage in the 1920's. In a way there is a similar feel to his designs as to some of the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright. I just love the place and... I love the art collection there as well. It's of an astounding level for a museum of its calibre.

Architecture it's my dream.I study architecture now and this image below it's my inspiration when i am bored My biggest dream it's to create and build one like this someday :)

I think there is so many great buildings in this country that are the heart of this country. There is too many of them on my list. The list is too long for me to put down.

acai berry

I used to be learning structures within the past due 1960s (did not total), I used to be attracted towards the style with the Quarterly report Safari Home through Jorn Utzon, that referred to their eyesight for that constructing because some thing alongside the actual outlines associated with "a swan on the lake". The actual Quick weight loss diets style had been in a big way inovative, also it truly influenced me personally during my mission to become a good builder. In my experience, aside in the swan picture, in addition, it signifies a good unfolding, along with a motion in the direction of "higher/deeper" issues. As well as in addition, it retains feeling of amazement personally, within each Expedia coupon codes it's dimension as well as in the actual fact that the individual becoming may design/create as well as construct this kind of a good incredible constructing.

La Sagrada Familia is also my favorite piece of architecture. It has so unique atmosphere! Love being there. Term paper writing

Well, there's nothing like the Taj Mahal, when I first saw it I was breathless, I could have sat there for a day and watch it, it's not just the building, it's also the spirit of India that contributes and the history that contributes to the beauty of this building. I wonder how are these buildings ensured in case of a significant damage? We, the usual people pay for our own insurance, I have my own home insurance Ireland but how are these buildings protected against natural disasters? All I know is that most of them are part of national patrimonies.

emm.... according to topic at essay service , an inquiry is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ways that each type of inquiry achieves its aim.

A simple, small building using humble materials, the Xanadu Gallery invites you in, makes you pause within the entry and gives you a chance to prepare yourself for the lobby's atmosphere.  And if you can keep it together, unlike so many who tear-up at the entry for no apparent reason, you will be reworded by an atmosphere so sublime, you cannot help but feel transformed, like you have been given a new, more meaningful purpose in life.

I walked past this building as a teenager, tooling around the city.  It was closed but even the stark facade gave enough of an impression that I had to go back.  I was a wild-child and have always felt more comfortable in the wilderness then in the city.  But this building was different.  Some ten years later, I learned it was a Frank Lloyd Wright building and so became an ardent student Mr. Wright's work.  

He too felt more at home in nature.  He writes that it was Lao Tsu who was the first to make him feel not alone in his mission as an architect.  In particular, "The parable of the cup" helped him develop the confidence.  What matters in a good cup is the emptiness it contains.  So too with architecture.

So if you visit this great building, it is a chance to contemplate the meaning of atmosphere or you might say, the structure of emptiness.  This is what makes a building worth building.  Architecture is spiritual womb construction.

A similar building by Etienne Louis Boullee is his often studied yet never built temple of Nature.

I highly recommend a film on this subject called "The Belly of an Architect" directed by Peter Greenaway.  I consider his films to be integral.  He helped me to accept the beauty that can be found in The Shadow and to call this beauty sublime.  So when death and decay are accepted as aesthetic, an integral beauty is can be achieved.