BUILDINGS AS FORM GENERATOR

We now look at a new Transparent Drawing Mode, Buildings As Form Generator.  In each drawing, whatever the mode, whatever the type, we end up with fresh, unique forms.  We use various sources as the starting point for our forms.  For example, we used the basic geometry of an Ellsworth Kelly plant drawing for Form Projection.  And there have been many others, such as a DeKooning painting, Islamic calligraphy, a Picasso sculpture, 36 Poetic Immortals, etc.

But what about buildings?  Can they also serve as the basis for form generation?  To answer this question, I thought it would be fun to use a penultimate neoclassical building, the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which was addressed some pages ago.

In the sketches at the very top and very bottom of this page, I tried to use the volumetric geometry and the circulation parti to generate forms.  I tried to respond to the central galleries on the two upper floors.  I tried to respond to the apse end of the building.  I used the elaborate entry stair as a component of the form generator.  I employed drawing from drawing:  I looked only at my first knowledge of the building.

How did it work?  Great. Within the armature of this famous building, I was able to knowledge a form that I would not have been able to generate otherwise. Shaping a form within a building input a fresh set of stimuli, which then knowledged something unique.

I would not categorize these as Almost Ready to Build.  Far from it.  Yet the parti of the Altes Museum did yield interesting ideas for the interior spaces as well as the exterior form.  There would certainly be a very interesting entry experience:  this calls to mind the curvilinear bridge that Gehry did in Chicago or the linear entry pathways to some of Ando’s buildings.  Yet I think that the strong calligraphic lines which suggest the forms could serve as a jumping off point for the design of an interesting building.

Bottom line, I generated forms that I absolutely would not have synthesized without the volumetric geometry of the Altes.