School Update

Spatial complexity; spatial legibility; spatial coherence; spatial fluidity; spatial transparency; compositional balance; material clarity;


Writing about space, that intangible, ambiguous, amorphous air that fills crevices, flows around blocks, hangs heavy or dances freely through line, arch, mass... is hard.

This semester, despite my initial notions about program, has been (and will likely continue to be) about purity of space.
Although it's not what I expected, I can't really think of any more perfect ending to my studies at IIT. My studio is horribly time consuming, completely subjective, dependent on a keen eye, obsessive about the concept of materiality, and as vague as Visual Training.
It has reignited my respect and passion for composed space; the quietness and subtle balance of Modernist form.
I realize now that pursuing a narrative-based, research-based, environmental-based, or digital design-based studio would have been utterly inappropriate for my final semester. It means too much for me to come to terms with my education, my beliefs, and my interests after 5 years of exploration and uncertainty.

But because writing about space is hard, I'm going to try to do it every day. New Goal: reflect daily.

This weekend was Camras weekend: tons of prospective students flooded the campus to sit for interviews and tour the school. As Crown Scholar, it is my duty to go around with the prospective architecture scholars for an evening of Chicago architecture and dinner. I enjoy it every year, but this Thursday was especially good for me. When talking with people about their burgeoning interest in architecture or why they might want to attend IIT, I am inevitably reminded of my Crown interview weekend and how I felt the first time I walked into Crown Hall. All I remember thinking was "I could be so happy working here." The openness, lofty ceilings, yet strange intimacy in each section; the views, the sense of shelter contrasting the sense of freedom. It felt like a space of big ideas and collaboration.
And it's only now, after reading Colin Rowe's Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal (PDF), that I understand, architecturally, where that feeling comes from. The intimacy comes from the division of space through materiality shifts; the openness from the open ceiling and upper clear windows; the shelter from the hanging ceiling and semi-opaque walls; the space for ideas and dreaming by the height and connection between studios.
At least in Modernism, though I think in almost any great space, it is the clarity of phenomenal transparency that makes it. Even the architects who we normally consider anti-Modernist, avant-garde, or otherwise non-Miesian employ this tactic... consciously or not.
It is, in the most visually obvious sense, the continuation of datum lines.


I also feel the need to clarify. I do not mean to suggest that Modernist composition is the only good architecture. I am still fascinated by ornamentation, concept, augmented reality, and self-sustaining environments. However, clarity of composition has been somewhat abandoned in recent practice in favor of these others; pure space exists without influence of programmatic juxtaposition, environmental context, or fancy additions. It is both Utopian, achievable, and utterly real.