Unit Summary: Alternatives

For the past few weeks in my history and theory of design class we have been covering the unit called alternatives. The alternatives unit was a unit that moved us past the foundations of design and got us to more recent design. Starting out in this unit we first talked about the countries of France, Italy, and Germany. We later branched over to Spain and England, all of these countries were moving forward and advancing during these periods. When looking at this unit one of the main building forms that we started talking about was churches or places of worship. The reason that we covered churches is because of the fact that churches were places that extremely important to the people so they designed the churches with the latest inventions and the most elaborate styles. We talked about the idea of buildings reaching heavenward this was where we started talking a lot about Gothic architecture and how they built upward with domes and flying buttresses. Gothic architecture is very elaborate with arches and details all of the buildings are very well planned out with math and drawings geometry played a huge part in the gothic designs. Most of the cathedrals in the Gothic style are place on a cross shaped grid as a symbol to God. We talked about the Duomo in Florence and we used it o compare and contrast other cathedrals of the time. After moving on from gothic architecture we talked about the renaissance and Venice,” the city of floating stone” this city is a huge engineering feat because the whole entire city is literally floating on logs. The city of Venice was known for its production of lace and glassware. A lot of the buildings in Venice take inspiration from these things one of these buildings was the Doge’s palace the exterior of this building looks like lace. The next thing that we covered was the Villas in the Veneto this point in history was the point where people started putting façades and porches on the front of residential buildings which up to this point had been left to government buildings and churches. The renaissance which was a time of rebirth it was time in design where things were designed as a show buildings were big with gardens and paths all on grids and laid out in a clean manner. The renaissance was home to many famous artist and designers such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Brunelleschi. During the renaissance frescos and elaborate stairwells and sculptures were often incorporated into design. The building that I believe best represents this unit is the Duomo in Florence. The reason that I think that this building well represents this unit is because the Duomo is a prime example of gothic architecture and all of the architecture that we studied that followed the Duomo is loosely based off of and takes inspiration from gothic architecture.