Secrets behind the world's great buildings
By Jonathan Glancey, CNN
Updated 1325 GMT (2125 HKT) October
26, 2016
This is the first in a series of
special features ahead of the inaugural RIBA International Prize for the world's best building,
announced on November 24. Jonathan Glancey is a British architecture critic and
author.
(CNN)Celebrated 20th century German architect Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe said architecture began when two bricks were put together well. This might
sound simplistic, yet Mies was right -- architecture is the self-conscious act
of building, not just with common sense but also with artistry.
There will always be debate over the
origins of the art, but the first works we recognize as architecture were built
from tiers of sun-baked mud bricks in what is today's southern Iraq. Although
the buildings they formed have been rebuilt over the centuries, they were so
well conceived that some -- like the Ziggurat of Urnammu at Ur -- have endured
for millennia.
The famous Ziggurat, a three-tiered
edifice dating back to 2113 B.C., stands more than 17 meters high in the
ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq
However, there is architecture and
there is great architecture, and what constitutes the latter has
exercised the minds of generations of critics, theorists, historians and
architects themselves.
The grand jury that makes the final
decision on which building this will be is chaired by Richard Rogers, an
architect famous for two 20th century 'greats', the Pompidou Centre in Paris
and the Lloyd's Building in the City of London. He is supported by four other
architectural luminaries -- Kunlé Adeyemi,
Philip Gumuchdjian, Marilyn Jordan Taylor and Billie Tsien.
Photos: RIBA International Prize
Heydar Aliyev Centre. Zaha Hadid
Architects. 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo: Hufton + Crow)
Hide Caption
Building
greatness
Rogers and his fellow judges have
strict criteria to guide them. The chosen building has to demonstrate "visionary,
innovative thinking and excellence of execution, while making a generous
contribution to society and to its physical context - be it the public realm,
the natural environment or both," according to RIBA.
But these architects know full well
that truly great buildings -- the ones that catch our eyes, steal our hearts
and send shivers up our spines -- are rare, and that while good and even
special buildings may emerge in any one year, none might be truly great.
As
Frank Gehry, architect of the much-feted Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao says, "Architecture should speak of its time and
place but yearn for timelessness."
The Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao
We can date buildings of all eras
with remarkable precision today, yet there are those -- from the Pyramids at
Giza and the Parthenon in Athens through to Mies's Barcelona Pavilion, Le
Corbusier's pilgrimage chapel at Ronchamp and, yes, Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim
-- that will thrill people for centuries to come.
Some of these are imposing
constructions, others modest, and not all of them have been costly to build.
"Making
a great building is not about having lots of money, though you could make an
argument that money helps," says Richard Rogers. "Some of the best British architects have used the
humble barn as the basis for intelligent, sophisticated and new
buildings."
Indeed, Rogers could have mentioned
Mies, who traveled to London to receive RIBA's Royal Gold Medal for Architecture
in 1959. When asked by his hosts if he would like to visit some British
buildings, the great architect chose to visit just one -- the cathedral-like
early 14th century timber and stone tithe barn at Bradford-on-Avon in rural Wiltshire.
The 14th century Bradford-on-Avon
Tithe Barn
Whether cheap or costly, humble or
aloof, the timeless quality of great buildings has much to do with proportions,
ratios and mathematics as it does with intangible poetic qualities.
As the influential 20th century
American architect Louis Kahn put it, "a great building must begin with
the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and
in the end must be unmeasurable."
Agents
of change
As timeless as they may be, what
makes a great a building is changing and has been since the Pompidou Centre in
Paris was completed in 1977 to designs by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and
structural engineer Peter Rice.
To many at the time, this
iconoclastic public art gallery was an affront: wearing its insides on its
outside, it was portrayed as a parody of an oil refinery. Even Rogers likes to
tell the story of an elderly Parisian lady who hit him with her umbrella when
he admitted that he was one of the building's architects.
The Pompidou Centre in Paris, France
For judge Philip Gumuchdjian, the
Pompidou was striking for quite different reasons.
"The
importance of the experience for me was to suddenly turn a street corner in
Paris and to see a completely new concept of building, of public space, of
institution," he says. "For
the very first time in my life I realized that architects, architecture, a
building, could change the way society functions, changes and moves
forward."
So a great building can be an agent
of change, not purely in terms of structure or aesthetics, but socially, too.
Future
forms
In the second decade of the 21st
century, the latest developments in computer design and robotic construction
mean that the ultimate form of future buildings may morph as they emerge from
the ground. This is a complete change to traditional building design, yet it
may give us great buildings imbued with a new kind of beauty.
Photos: These spiraling skyscrapers
are some of the world's most eye-catching buildings
Twisting tall towers of the globe –
The Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has released a
comprehensive list of the world's twisting tall buildings that are either
completed or under construction. From Shanghai to Dubai, CNN takes a look at
these spectacular spiraled skyscrapers, as well as some of the other tallest
buildings in the world.
"A great building is
one that cannot have been imagined before it was created,"
Gumuchdjian notes. "It's a building that inserts inspiration into the
backdrop of our every day life, a building that pulls us together as a society,
a building that questions the way we live and empowers us to expand our
understanding of the possible."
Ultimately the judges of the first
RIBA International Prize will be looking for a building that reflects the
guiding philosophy of the studio
Billie Tsien runs with her partner Tod Williams in New York.
Tsien says that she and Williams try
to "make buildings that will last and...leave good marks upon the
earth," and names time and love as the two essential ingredients that make
a great building.
"Nothing
is immediately great, but we see architecture as an act of profound optimism.
Its foundation lies in believing that it is possible to make places on the
earth that can give a sense of grace to life -- and believing that this
matters. It is what we have to give and it is what we leave behind," she
and Tod write.
Transcendence, endurance and love.
Here are three qualities the RIBA might want to add to Roman architect
Vitruvius's famous 1st century list of essential qualities of architecture --
"commodity, firmness and delight" -- to evoke the spirit their judges
hope to find in the finest building of 2016.
It might just turn out to be truly
great architecture, too.
NB: kalimat direct yang saya “bold” ya miss.
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