Parts:Whole

Archetype; prototype; hybrid- Archetype, prototype, hybrid are all related in a way. An archetype is an object or building that is the example or the inspiration for something else and a prototype is a form that is the basis of something that is later made. Hybrid is related in that a hybrid is when you take information from something old but you add something new to it. In my history and theory of design class we talked about these things saying that Greek architecture and ideas was the inspiration for future buildings even to this day. “The Egyptians and the Greeks shaped powerfully evocative buildings meant to contain groups of people; public life was conducted in the out-of-doors, among these sculpted architectural objects… and this shaping of space became the essence of Roman architecture.” (Roth 247) Probably the most inspirational of all the buildings in Greece was the Parthenon the temple of Athena, buildings that have taken inspiration from it can be seen all over the world today. The Roman Empire took inspiration from the Greeks in a lot of their buildings there buildings are a great example of hybrid building because they took parts of the Greek buildings and they added their own information to them. In my other classes we talked about these things especially in our thumbnail drawings we took inspiration from an object and used it to inspire our drawings or we looked at the object and then changed it or added to it. The image here is of the Parthenon one of the most inspirational buildings from the Greek empire.

Source- The word source in definition is the beginning of something or where that thing came from. Over the past week in my classes we have been looking at sources. In my history and theory of design class we have been studying the foundations unit, this means that we have been looking at Greece the source for a lot of the architectural concepts that we are talking about this week, now that we are studying Rome. Blakemore talked a lot about this idea of source showing how other cultures have pulled ideas and concepts from the past. “Classical Greek and roman architecture has had astounding influence both structurally and decoratively in subsequent periods, especially beginning with renaissance Italy. Interpretations of classical architecture have been both literal translations and adaptations.” (Blakemore 28) In my studio class I looked at source in a way that was a little bit different, we had to come up with a pathway design based off of the story of creation that we read. The source we used were our creation stories which gave us the inspiration to take ideas from the story and create a pathway from it. In my drawing class we have been looking at sources, we were given the assignment to come up with a plan drawing of a building without looking at the plans. They are trying to get us to look at the actual source so that we can latter build off of it and eventually do an assignment from the ideas we collected. Furthermore in my drafting class sources have been important in our design of Pat’s chair. We had to go back to our model and do drawings of our ideas so that they can be used in the future as sources to build the actual pieces of furniture. The picture below is of the original model that I built that I made my thumbnails.

Entourage- An entourage in a lot of cases would be a group of people but in other cases it could be a group of buildings or drawings. According to dictionary.com an entourage in relation to architecture is the “landscaping and other nearby environmental features shown on a rendering of a building.’ In history and theory of design this past week we talked about the Greek empire and the entourage of buildings in relation to certain areas within the town. The main area in Athens was the Acropolis. In the Acropolis there is an entourage of buildings that are grouped together for one purpose. All of the buildings besides the Parthenon are there to direct your attention to the Parthenon which then directs your focus to the god’s. In my drawing class we have looked at entourage in the form of people. We have been working on drawing groups of people in interaction with one another. In my studio class as well as in the drawing class we have been studying thumbnail drawings. These drawings are basically a group or an entourage of sketches of projects and buildings. These images are of my thumbnails drawings that I did and abstracted down from the originals.

Hierarchy- Hierarchy is what you would call an arrangement or series of items. In my history and theory of design class we talked about hierarchy in reference to the Acropolis in Athens. The Acropolis was very important to the town and the most important building there was the Parthenon. “The first building to be rebuilt on the burnt Acropolis was the largest of them all, dominating the hill and the plain of Attica below; this was the temple to Athena Parthenos (the Parthenon).” (Roth 235) The order of the hierarchy here was the Parthenon which was the temple of Athena then there was the Propylaia, the Erechteion, and the Temple of Athena Nike. We also talked about how the Greeks wanted to appear higher above the rest of civilization they had “a passion for luxurious materials and techniques, a preoccupation with illusionistic devices which treated solid surfaces as transparent or otherwise optimized the dimensionality of the plane, and a predilection to elaborate any surface.” (Blakemore 55) In my studio class we looked at hierarchy in relation to our passageway projects we had to find five main points that have hierarchy over the other parts in the design and draw them. I did the same thing in my drawing class as we did in studio except in relation to the Foust building. This is an image of the Acropolis in Athens.

Order- order can be defined as a group of things or a list of things in a specific order. In my history and theory of design class we talked about the order of columns. This order was Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. We also talked about how the Romans tried to establish order in their cities with the use of paved roads and aqueducts. ”Roman engineers built a network of roads linking all parts of the empire, from the Portuguese coast to the ends of turkey and Syria.” (Roth 250) The Greeks also showed order in their buildings with the use of spacing and decorations “The dimensions of the interior were enhanced by the spatial progression of the series of spaces along the axial arrangement on which there was alteration of size of space, of light level, and of ceiling height.” (Blakemore 51) In my other classes we talked about order in the context of craft and placement. We drew people and thumbnails in relation to things defining order. These images are of the three most important columns form the five in the order.

Synopsis- Overall these words all really can be tied together. The words order, hierarchy, and entourage all really have a lot of the same things in their definition they all are talking about the way things are laid out and where they came from. The other words all really relate in that they are all words that talk about the origins of the ideas and how things and buildings became what they became today.