35

LETTER no.35

Tuesday, January 5, 2016, Athens, Greece
on iversity / on design 1o1 redux website
Part 2 - My House / Week 01 - My Room

Greetings from Athens’ Acropolis.

Last Friday, before leaving
the Cabanon, Le Corbusier told us
to go visit his favorite building,
the Parthenon.

He was fascinated by the small
details of the temple’s doric columns:
“We recognize the artist plastic
by extrusion…. this is the place
and time that the engineer is deleted,
and the sculpture goes into action”.

What else could we do?
Here we are. We have to admit, it is pretty breathtaking…

Question of the day:
To measure?
To measure what? And why?

On one side, we like to improvise and trust our instincts.
But then, on the other side, in order to “design”,
we must be able to measure.

To achieve beauty, functionality and harmony one needs
precise measurements. And one must know how to take them.
Measuring systems, measuring tools...
How to keep track of measurements and compare?

Many people spend their whole lives trying to understand
why some things just “look” better than others.
When speaking about harmony, we relate to measures and
relationships among parts. We relate to mathematics and geometry.
We relate to nature. If you believe, we relate to God.

In the Western world, the Greeks were the first people to truly
understand foreshortening, natural forms and proportions.
They combined the standardized elements of classical architecture
to create ideal structures, timeless in their beauty,
perfect in their proportions. As we can see now, on the Acropolis.

This obsession with proportions and measuring systems travels
throughout history. The Greeks had it. Renaissance architects
had it as well. In each epoch, in each place, there was always
someone fiddling with these mysterious entities.

Once again, we meet mr Le Corbusier.
This time with his Modulor Man:
a proportional system especially devised for
designers and architects to work on those
universal elements that could, once combined,
create structures for the use of all people.

Einstein once said about it:
“It is a language of proportions which
makes it difficult to do things badly,
but easy to do them well”.

Le Corbusier agrees: “All men have the same needs”.

What will I do today?

Today you will measure your room.

To do so, you will need a measuring unit…
We are quite lucky because in a Minecraft-like world
(in which pretty much everything is made of blocks),
our measuring unit is pretty much given.

Indeed, our measuring unit will consist of one “block”.
Here, you can find a few.

Choose a block, from Google images (or from some other source).
Save it + open / paste it in some kind of note-taking
(or collage) application.

Make sure it is set on a white background.
Clean and simple: one single block on a white background.

Now, imagine: if you were in a Minecraft-like world,
how many blocks would you need to build your room’s floor?
How many blocks would you need to build your bed or window?

Do you even have a bed or window
in the Minecraft world?

Think about it.

Once you are done thinking about it,
understand the size your block would
have if you were to take in into the “real”
physical world, into your “real” physical room.

Would it measure 1 x 1 x 1 cm?
Or 50 x 50 x 50 cm? Or something else?

Then, add (in a nice and lean way) these dimensions to your
image (the one of your block placed on a white background).

Good.
You completed half of today’s homework.

Now, you will make another image.
By keeping things on a white background,
you will show us your room’s overall proportions
(length, width, height).

Our main reference for this exercise consists
in Superstudio’s Istogrammi di
Architettura.

Lean, clear, simple and powerful.
Just like your work should be.

Ready?

Once your 2 images are ready,
share them with us on Instagram
(as 2 individual posts) using the
hashtags: #UniversalElegance and
#Design1o1Redux. Then, add a short (and meaningful)
caption to accompany your images and hashtags.

What will I learn doing this?

Good design implies invisible (but powerful) ingredients
and proportions are one of them.

Some steps are visible, some other are invisible,
some are explicit, some are tacit.
Here we are climbing one step at a time.
The steps might seem infinite to you but they are not.

Like any other discipline, in design you have no more than 20,
30 relevant things to know, and all rest follow through…

Of course, remember what Le Corbusier told us on Friday:
“creation is a patient search”.

:-)

Why do we do this?

To add the layer of universal beauty and “elegance”
to our conversations.

Some things look better than others. This, we can all agree
with. But then, when you design things and share them with the
others, you need to be aware of the reasons why some things are
more “elegant” than others. Sometimes, it’s about composition,
other times it can be about colours... But one
thing you will realise through time is that
proportions are essentials. Without proper
proportions, we don’t go anywhere.

Proportions in a book, in music, movements,
tonalities… Basically, you need to become aware
that beauty and harmony is directly related to
the relationships among parts.

And the only way for you to truly understand this
is to start experiencing these relationships
yourself. Learning by doing.

Or as the great Arne Jacobsen would say:
“The primary factor is proportions.”

Something to remember:
Design is relationships
among parts

Further inspiration

“We do not imitate, but are a model to others” said Pericles
(the mastermind behind Athen’s Acropolis…)

By the way, did you know that “prefabricated” architecture came
from the Greeks? Every element of their temples was prepared
beforehand and carried to the special (and specific) place in
which the temple had to be erected.

The Romans did not need to “prefabricate” anything simply because
they did not assign precise places to gods. They could build
their temples pretty much anywhere...

Talking about prefabrication, let’s go back (one last time) to
Le Corbusier. He was so much into finding the “universal” system
that could be applied to any given (human based) space.

His Modulor (that we have on today’s postcard) evolved from
mathematical and geometrical concepts such as the Fibonacci
series and the golden ratio. Fascinating stuff to dig into...
Here’s another nice link for you to check out.

And finally, Fibonacci in Nature.

Let’s end with some
more of Pericles:

“Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to
extravagance; our love of the things of the mind
does not make us soft.”

:o

:-)

Today’s Postcard References

Modulor Man

Egg Chair by Athens and
Arne Jacobsen the Parthenon

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