Steen Eiler Rasmussen was a Danish architect, besides he was urban planner who was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In addition, he was also a writer. Actually more of a writer than architect. Because of his ability to use plain language that can understandable for everyone like in ‘Experience Architecture’ which we are going to discuss one chapter of it. In this book he shared and discuss his point of views about experienced the architecture with readers. Rasmussen invites us to appreciate architecture as not just an occupation, also as an art that shapes experiences of our everyday. (This book enlightened people on following the area of architecture)
Art should not be explained; it must be experienced. – Rasmussen.
He mentioned that architecture is a piece of art, ‘Fine Art’ that appeals eye but most people suppose that architecture is just consist of the external appearance, and questioned does it look beautiful. But architecture is always more than that more than art, it’s not about just looking beautiful. There are some factors that architect should consider. For example should study with sections, elevations and plans. Addition to that it’s also more than adding the sections to elevations. Also they experienced from colors, textures to create harmony. Creating harmony in itself and with its surroundings, thinking its functionality etc. So we can say architecture is the functional art. On the other hand, it should be experienced by an architect also it has possible to help occupants to experience it. These experiences can come from colors, textures
The one of interesting thing is Rasmussen calls architects as a theatrical producers. So, architects organize our live spaces that we live. But this theatrical job is not that easy he said. Because they must be aware of their natural way of acting. They must be aware of it’s own time, environment and deal with people, variable people. They should consider the next generations when they design a structure. Because if it is not suitable for people and they can not live in it as architect’s design, this means that design is unsuccessful.
Moreover, there is a very important thing that Rasmussen mentioned ; architecture is not produced by the architect himself. For instance, they work with craftsman, painters who construct and paint his building. His personal drawings and explanations about construction must be clear understandable to help craftsman. Another thing that he mentioned is related with the materials. The features of materials like hardness, softness. Thanks to previous experiences that we had in childhood and observations, we can see the differences without touching it.
In conclusion, Rasmussen point out that, in experiencing architecture, the most important thing is how we move around a building. ‘’Experience and sense’’ issues are the most important focuses on architecture. Also architect must be planned and consider such characteristics to design building more successful.
Also I can say that I agree most of the things that Rasmussen mentioned in this book. I belive that architecture is a type of an art, but it has more focuses than normal art. Architects work with craftsman, engineers etc. to construct his/her design and most of time architects stay at background as an anonymously. In addition, the role of experiences and observations that comes from childhood is the most important thing to design and understand core of architecture.
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