| ACAarchitecture MAG 59 | ||
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Memories
of a Teacher/architect
by A.C.Antoniades,AIA
I will never forget the design exercises I was giving to my
design students, during the very intensive semesters of the late eighties,
just a few years prior to finalizing my thoughts and ideas for the
completion of my book "Poetics of Architecture: Theory of Design".
Projects "Exodus" from Athens to the Aegean rocks : A third year "exercise" (the first of the three during the semester) using as precedent the "Konaki", auxiliary farm pavilion for the owner's siesta and year long storage in outpost "farming" properties. This was supposed to be a settlement on the rocks of the Aegean, exploring various possibilities of materials, methods of construction overall design, communication and exploration of space via large scale foam core board models. Photos above from the exhibition of projects following the "Jury" .
Top : Conceptual sketches and final solution of project "Exodus" from Athens to the Aegean rocks.
Elevation studies, including exploration of materials and color studies if the decision was to use stucco. At this stage the beyond the Greek precedents Mexican were also shown, including projects by Luis Barragan and Ricardo Legorreta . During some of these semesters , particularly when I had been teaching
fourth year architectural design, I had some among the most talented
students that ever passed through my classes, many of which developed into highly successful - highly meritorious
and pioneering architects of international stature, pioneers in research ,
highly meritorious projects and design excellence. I believe some of
their names may hit the readers who may follow the current international
architectural scene. Not that I
taught them all the secrets of technology or what has come in early 21st
century to be known as LEED architecture and GREEN design; I was challenging
them though to "think" about the lessons on these environmental constraints as
taught to us through traditional architecture around the world, and to let
them on their own, develop these lessons further, as best as their
imagination and creative ability permitted. Although the programs I was
giving them, judged from a "canonic point of view" could be described by
those of the status quo as "making little sense", even "Weird", "ALLOPRPOSALA" as the word goes in
transliterated Greek, there was in
each and everyone of them the end goal of INCLUSIVITY, which
was given drop by drop to the studio, through personal criticism and
challenges on my part, and the final Jury by invited colleagues always
including some among the cream of the local architectural elite, some of
whom were already doing projects of international didactic significance
(all these "guests" know who they were and I thank them again greatly, as
they ought to share a pride themselves in having participated in the
transmission of experience and love for architecture to younger future
architects, to whom this piece owes its existence). .
A fourth year design project , one of the two given during the semester. the particular project was calling for a Museum/Local Archives and Cultural Center building in the historic island of Hydra-Greece, where everything was controlled by strict historic zoning ordinance. The project had absolutely real environmental constraints, including program, site and Historic zoning ordinance restrictions. Slides of existing buildings in the area were provided, Greek music was played and the group was introduced to Greek poetry by prominent Greek poets, such as Kavafy, George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis. Along with the above, a lecture was given by the instructor on "Architecture and environment in the Greek Poetry", while the group was encouraged to do further research on vernacular Greek architecture (various Greek references were reserved in the library and attention was called to the instructor's publications on Mount Athos, the Greek islands , Cretan Space , and Peoples' Palaces, in "A+U"(Architecture and Urbanism/in English and Japanese, Toshio Nakamura Editor). Projects to the lefte , from top to bottom by Mclain Carry, Khuu Quang, Christine Page, Thomas Wilkins and Park Heather.
Most of these students, when arriving to my own studios at the fourth year level, had already gone through the basic "canonical" studios, disciplined strictly on compositional issues, mostly on the lines of Colin Rowe's and Robert Slutzky's literal and phenomenal transparency, the rules followed by modernism , from the diagrammatic Bauhaus modernism of Mies and the DeStijl, to the most inclusivist synthetic plasticity and modernist form, as best exemplified by Le Corbusier's projects, particularly of his late plasticity period. I was infusing Asplund, Aalto , Eiermann and Pikionis, a group of distinctive South-North neglected European mentality , Barragan and Legorreta for color-mystery and surprise, under very clearly defined and "orchestrated" handouts and occasional informal lectures, all along with my suggestions to investigate selected precedents; and all this , with much "humor" and "non-professorial" demeanor , an attitude that permitted me to conduct my "whip", that is, my requirements for hard work, "do your thing, but also try to see what may happen if you also try this. Make up your mind only when you have all the alternatives substantially developed, with plans, sections elevations, notes, everything, and then decide. But do it"....and lines like this, " and never say in the Jury , as Tony Said...if you accepted and adopted some of what Tony said, it is yours, you take the responsibility...when you become architect , you will be liable for this or that, not "Tony" , or whoever told you or commented or suggested something you finally adopted" .....
A one family house in Hydra, as transformed into a multi-storey hotel : Issues of size, scale, methods of construction, materials and a multiplicity of environmental and cultural as well as economic repercussions were discussed and "inclusively considered" in the process of rationalization of the evolved final building. For many , such exercises were considered "weird". For the students who participated in such projects, these exercises and the class climate was a means to let them do, develop and hopefully test in the years to come, "their own thing"...!!!
From the exhibition of projects following the Jury of the Hydra cultural center. Project by Gordon Gill to the left , the cultural center under the traditional constraints to the very left and as developed to a multistorey Convention-Casino Hotel to its left and drawings below :
The traditional and historically restricted "cultural center in Hydra", as transformed by the exceptional imagination of Gordon Gill ,Spring semester of 1988 at UTA, to a high rise Convention hotel : The Site plan of the parti of the cultural center was turned upside down, to be considered as "basic vertical cross section" of the transformed multistory gigantic building, to be placed in hypothetical site...in Atlantic City, in Florida, or someplace in the up-coming those days "Arab World", perhaps in Dubai or somewhere else...! Result : A vision of a knight in armory, as resolved through the diligent sketches of the cross sections, into realistic possibilities , more disciplined and structurally simplified, yet "inclusively realized" through constant "questioning of Architecture", project by project, pioneering in GREEN care and LEED two decades later in the Arab world, as well as globally... (Slides above from the instructor's collection, taken right after the project Jury, UTA exhibition, Spring 1988) In my case, in my effort to understand Post-modernism, and all the "intangible" channels to architectural creativity this , initially reactionary movement established by my friend Charles Jencks and applied by many others, offered a challenge of an overall synthesis, which , I found out could be best achieved through an already existing architecture that historically adhered to such constraints. And this architecture was "the Historic and more so the living traditional precedent" . Being deeply immersed and rather highly knowlegible of the Greek traditional architecture, and a product of a school of architecture that utilized traditional architecture and architectural impressions as a means to the basic formal foundation of its students, at the National Technical University in Athens-Greece, and at the same time, a product of the most challenging inspirations and lessons of Victor F.Christ-Janer, and at the same time a radical critic of the contemporary architecture of my own country, which instead of furthering the lessons of its "inclusivist" tradition, immidated unquestionably whatever was created abroad, disregarding all that had been learned through the study of tradition, I decided, to attempt my own INCLUSIVIST design education model, no matter how it was perceived by any kind of cannonical modernist or post-modernis "fanatic". To me, all were fanatics, producing little that could address the whole. I knew exactly well what I was after, yet the times were hard to counter act fashion, magazines and doctrines springing out cliches, EAST or WEST school directions. Being in America, I was totally distressed that Americans has turned their backs to whatever good traditional had been developed in their own continent, while all that was appearing to be good, was Architecture in Europe, the Beaux-Arts, the Bauhaus, Classical Greece and the various historic styles.
Sketches of Joe Riley, from his "concept" evolution process for the Hydra Cultural Center project. Sketches above in the author's archive from photocopies submitted by Joe Riley following the final presentation of the project (All of the above in the ACA Archives , © the ACA archives ) So, with all of the above "boiling" inside my own teaching and creative anxieties and serious research , very hard work, personal expenses and years long dedication, my design class at the fourth year level was exactly what I need. Students , those who on their own had decided to take my own studio, especially many among them who had "suffered" by the "canonical whip" of earlier studios, and saw the opportunity to explore new horizons and be left free to "do their own thing". I was most fortunate, when some of these rather "rebel", yet highly polite and disciplined individuals, were to develop in several aspects of design and research, in knowledge of computer and CAD, and actually had drafting and drawing abilities superior, yet above all , were receptive to criticism and were there because they really wanted to work. I was extremely lucky , actually blessed by God, to have many such individuals in the many studios of the fourth year I taught.... Anthony C. Antoniades 11/10/2011............................................................................................The piece above is dedicated to Sophia Peron for her 60th Birthday
Note/request: Any omission of designer's name not appearing next to his or her project above, was due to the effects of time and the instructor's lapse of memory. Please contact the author in case you see a project which is yours and your name does not appear. It will be greatly appreciated and the name will be added immediately For more on the teaching methodologies of A.C.Antoniades, illustrated by his student works see here , here and here . Materials for all of the above from the personal archive and personally taken photographs by A.C.Antoniades © A.C.Antoniades
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