The relationship of macro to micro is demonstrated well in the normal process of creating almost every piece of art or design I create with the use of COMPOSITION sketches. In the image above you see a composition sketch I did in a note pad of a large light box piece of wall art I have been planning on building for almost a year now. As you can imagine, I started small, (the sketch is only about 5 inches wide total) with a thumbnail sketch. While the drawing is small, it is telling of all of the information I needed to build a scale model COMPOSITION that I built shown in the right side of the image. This is just a study I did with some scraps in the wood shop, (about 20 inches wide) to try to get the desired proportions of the final piece, which will be about 36 inches wide. Now that I have the shapes of each element of the piece figured out, I can begin to study the colors and types of materials I will use for the final piece. This process is long but necessary in order to end up with a solid COMPOSITION that really does what I want it to. With the rise of the Christian churches, architects had to rethink the COMPOSITION of the Roman structures that came before them to try to end up with a structure that really did what they wanted it to. “Constantine and Church officials looked to secular public buildings, and the type they selected was the basilica. The basilica had originally been devised for public gatherings and its symbolic connotation, having to do with the equitable administration of earthy justice was positive. It was a simple matter to replace the small altar devoted to the emperor with one at which the Eucharist or ritual communal meal, could be celebrated” (Roth, p. 280)
It can be argued that the first structure to make use of the three elements of the PORCH : COURT : HEARTH as a system for defining how a building should work was the Megaron in ancient Greece. This powerful yet simple example can be traced to all building forms in one way or another in all building forms from Greece forward. For example, Constantine and his architects incorporated this idea from the Greeks and then Romans into the Basilica of Saint Peter. “One of the largest basilicas in Rome, this was built by Constantine over the sport where Saint Peter was believed to be buried after his martyrdom” (Roth, p. 281.). The PORCH is the symbolic and useful entrance, the COURT is where people socialize and the HEARTH is where people gather around as a central place of importance. The ideas started by the ancient Greeks are still relevant thousands of years later in one of the most important architects in the last century, Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. Many of his buildings demonstrate an obvious importance and hierarchy of design elements in the HEARTH. This is image of a HEARTH in Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio from the book Frank Lloyd Wright Glass by Doreen Ehrlich. He chose to incorporate text above the hearth to literally point of the significance of the HEARTH in his own home.
As designers, we must be in full control of every image we convey visually. It is interesting to me that through pictorial DIAGRAMS, we can communicate universal messages that people around the world who speak all different languages can easily understand. How clear and easily understandable any diagram is has a large part to do with how successful any DIAGRAM is. Or better put by Tom Porter and Sue Goodman in the Manual of Graphic Techniques, “Although we have discussed its pictorial potential, the plan is, in essence, an analytical diagram. In this sense, the plan functions as a graphic mechanism for defining the enclosure of spatial variety.” In the image above, I attempted to DIAGRAM the CONTEXT of the Foust building. I wanted to show how the building fits in its surroundings and how human interaction surrounds the building constantly as it makes up our environment when we are on campus.
All diagrams are intended to give you an IMPRESSION of what they try to describe. The word IMPRESSION can be taken in many directions but I would like to describe it as the gesture or feeling you get that really tells you something in a way that sometimes words cannot. In the drawing above, I have done a study of different ways to try and best convey a tree from an aerial view. I know I cannot physically draw every branch and leaf of the tree, so I do my best to relate my IMPRESSION of the tree from above. These trees were to be used in my previous drawing of the FOUST building. It is obvious to me how much better the building looks with trees and foliage around it vs. a building sitting randomly in space. In the late Italian Renaissance period, an emphasis was put on gardens and trees in an effort to give a better IMPRESSION of the buildings they surrounded. “Landscape architecture had been revived early in the fifteenth century as another manifestation of Classical civilization” (Roth, p. 386.).
Attention to DETAIL applies to each of the elements of design I have discussed thus far. DETAIL is also directly related to the theme for this week’s entry in the MICRO aspect of things. It is sometimes the smallest parts of a building, or car or a painting that really help bring a piece of art together and be successful. During the renaissance period, and emphasis was put on the detail of things with the work of Michelangelo. “In every one of Michelangelo’s architectural designs, what appear at first to be standard classical architectural elements are in fact subtly manipulated in defiance to the conventions of Classical design, for Michelangelo was molding them as elements in gigantic sculpture” (Roth, p. 382.). The painting above I did is titled “The Fire Within,” and I had to focus a lot of attention on the black detail in the background of the painting. What you’re actually seeing as the black and white area was done with a paintbrush and black ink on white paint and was inspired by a photograph from a satellite of the Siberian Permafrost. I chose to use this highly detailed image as a background because in the COMPOSITION, you don’t really focus on it, however it just gives the right IMPRESSION I was going for. DETAILS are the MICRO part of everything, but would be mostly useless if not placed in context of the MACRO, the big picture. Nothing stands alone by itself, everything in the world and life is interconnected.
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