Tendenza

This week’s readings were a bit of a challenge, but the one thing that caught my attention was the idea of the Neo-Rationalist movement, Tendenza, during the 1960s and 1970s. The group of Italian architects opposed the views of modernism and their main focus was to treat architecture as a commodity. They expressed the importance to redefine architecture in terms of “types” that consisted of rules for the rational combination of all its elements. By rejecting the belief that architecture begins and ends with technology, the Tendenza insisted on the social and cultural importance of urban elements, by looking at historical forms and elements as a method to create architectural forms.

One of the movement’s most important project was Aldo Rossi’s great cemetery at Modena. The design expressed new forms during that specific time period. “It [was] a work of inspiration and transformation, and contains the possibility for new types” (MODENA). Rossi defined architecture as designs or forms that carry on over time, to become “types”. These specific types make up the history of an urban environment, which tie into the culture of the present day. 

Aldo Rossi's cemetery at Modena

(MODENA). http://www.uky.edu/Architecture/wakeup/issue4/aaron/welcome.htm.

Kahn's Monumentality

Louis Kahn’s definition of monumentality was “a spiritual quality inherent in a structure which conveys the feeling of its eternity, that it cannot be added to or changed.” I believe Kahn, in his works, has created monumentality.

            Two summers ago, I had the pleasure of traveling to India and while I was there I had the opportunity to visit the Indian Institute of Management (IIM). I thought it only be fitting to talk about this Kahn project because (1) I’ve witnessed it in person and (2) it compares well to the work that Kahn did for the Exeter Library. In Wickersham’s writing of “The Making of the Exeter Library”, he explained about how Kahn sought to reduce the building to the simplest possible statement of pure geometric shapes. With the use of spheres and cubes, Kahn found that the use of geometric shapes was a more profound source of inspiration rather than using other historical forms or styles.

Exeter Library

            Kahn didn’t use geometric shapes just for the overall esthetics of the building; they also were designed to function. One of Kahn’s favorite building materials was natural light. The medium of natural light played a very important role in both the Exeter Library, as well as the IIM. At the Exeter Library, Kahn distinguished the direct “white light” and the indirect “blue light”. The “white light” would flow into the building and into the study and reading areas. The “blue light” would “filter” down from the top of the building and into the central hall. The physical display of the books acts as a storage space of knowledge, so “in Kahn’s mind the descent of the “blue light” dramatizes the student’s encounter with knowledge” (Wickersham). 

 

Indian Institute of Management (IIM)

            These same shapes and concepts were also used in designing the IIM. Once again Kahn used natural light as one of his mediums to distinguish different spaces. Whether it was in the IIM or the Exeter Library, Khan’s design using geometric shapes and natural light created a hierarchy throughout those spaces.  The hierarchy throughout Kahn’s design is what made his buildings monumental. “The student’s encounter with knowledge” is the “spiritual quality inherent in [the] structure.”