Introduction to Architecture

1. Introduction to Architecture Acropolis to ZahaHadid

2. Introduction to Architecture Nikolaus Pevsner in his, Outline of European Architecture, says ‘a bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture’. Nearly everything that encloses space on a scale sufficient for a human being to move in is a building; the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal. Now aesthetic sensations *may be caused by a building in three different ways. First, they may be produced by the treatment of walls, proportions of windows, the relation of wall-space to window space, of one storey to another, of ornamentation such as the tracery of a fourteenth-century window, or the leaf and fruit garlands of a Wren porch. The first of these three ways is two-dimensional; it is the painter's way. Secondly, the treatment of the exterior of a building as a whole is aesthetically significant, its contrasts of block against block, the effect of a pitched or flat roof or a dome, the rhythm of projections and recessions. The second is three-dimensional, and as it treats the building as volume, as a plastic unit, it is the sculptor's way. Thirdly, there is the effect on our senses of the treatment of the interior, the sequence of rooms, the widening out of a nave at the crossing, the stately movement of a Baroque staircase. The third is three-dimensional too, but it concerns space; it is the architect's own way more than the others. What distinguishes architecture from painting and sculpture is its spatial quality. In this, and only in this, no other artist can emulate the architect. Thus the history of architecture is primarily a history of man shaping space, and the historian must keep spatial problems always in the foreground * That is thenature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.

3. The Acropolis, Athens, is high above the city on a natural prominence. The Acropolis' construction started in 447 BC and ended in 438 BC. The Parthenon was the temple of the Greek Goddess Athena.  During the Classical Period the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and the Temple of Nike were built over the old ruins on The Acropolis. 

4. London Aquatics Centre Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park's stunning London Aquatics Centre has been shortlisted by the Royal Institute of British Architects for The RibaStirling Prize whichis awarded annually to the best new building. Judges praised architect ZahaHadid'sbuilding, which was inspired by the 'fluid geometry of water in motion', as "very beautiful" and "conceptually flawless".

5. Born in Baghdad in 1950, ZahaHadidstudied at London's Architectural Association from 1972. She later taught there with RemKoolhaas, leading her own studio from 1 987. She set up her own practice in 1979, and is renowned for her stunning architectural drawings and plans, winning first prize for designs in competitions for the Kufurstendamm, Berlin (1986), for an Art and Media Centre in Dusseldorf (1989), and for the Cardiff Opera House (1994). Her work also includes two projects in Tokyo (1988) and a folly in Osaka (1990). Hadid has had several exhibitions of her paintings and drawings, notably for the Hong Kong Peak. These fused the dynamic geometry of Russian Constructivists with the new intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities of Deconstructivists. Hadid's first building was a fire station for the Vitra furniture factory at Weil-am-Rhein (1991), a thing of dramatically elongated horizontals and angular projections. In 1999 she completed an exhibition building close by for the Weil-am-Rhein landscape and gardening show which incorporates an environmental research centre dug into the ground. • She has also taught at Harvard and Columbia.