4.1 Identifying the ‘Novum’
Applying similar methods as used in creating a Science Fiction Architecture, implementation of a novum, analyzing the Architecture of Science Fiction film should allow identifying trends in architectural fiction and how they affect the narrative of the story. Identifying the ‘Novum’ of Science Fiction Architecture helps us understand the core ideas and concepts that affect their design decisions. Science Fiction Architecture shares similar estranging properties as Science Fiction literature. One may argue that a major component of a successful Science Fiction narrative is the portrayal of the Architecture rather than the portrayal of the characters and technology. David T. Forting in his book ‘Architecture and science-fiction film — Philip k Dick and the spectacle of home’ mentions an interesting aspect of analyzing Science Fiction film, the home. The home, according to Fortin is the most familiar physical location in an intentionally unfamiliar world. And the portrayal of home can give the readers a glimpse into the values shared by this estranged space. After all most Science Fiction is about the quest to find one’s home or simply the reason to not be in one (Fortin, 2011).
The Architecture in a fictional story conveys a great deal of information because of its cognitive properties. Architecture is everywhere and is something that everyone can identify with. Certain styles of Architecture can subconsciously convey more information about the world inhabited by the characters than words ever could. Different architectural styles over different periods evoke a certain emotional response in the audience with the use of materials, ornamentation and scale. This ability of Architecture to evoke an emotional response is why the analysis of novums used in Sci-Fi Architecture can speak volumes about the solutions that they provide to social issues projected in their sci-fi narratives.
4.2 Analysis of Sci-Fi Architecture in Film
Architecture in movies is not only the location of a story or merely a means to fill in the background in the narrative. Rather, it is a means of conveying maximum information to the audience within the least amount of time.
The establishing shot for example, is often the first visual element presented to the audience. It usually lasts from 5 to 10 seconds, accompanied with a musical score, it sets the tone for everything about to happen in the following scene. It establishes the premise of the shot.
And usually, the focus of the scene is Architecture. It could be the Architecture of a city (a skyline) or the Architecture of a building. However, this simple visual cue can convey a large quantity of information to the audience. It could convey the physical location of the story by placing identifiable buildings in the background or the economic status of the society in the narrative or even the time period that the story is set in.
By applying the concepts put forward by Suvin to analyze the novums of Architecture in Science Fiction movies we can begin to see alternative approaches to Architecture that would evolve in different (fictional) worlds, as a response to the social and cultural needs and aspirations of that society. This section of the dissertation will look at a few remarkable efforts of creating a fictional architectural framework to supplement the narrative of a story, stories, such as; the dystopian ‘Blade Runner’, the fantastical ‘Tron’, ‘Black Panther’, and the Utopian story of ‘Her’.
4.2.1 Blade Runner
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a 1982 Science Fiction film loosely based on Philip K. Dicks’ novel, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ It has amused Science Fiction fans and moviegoers alike, for almost four decades now. The film has many influences from other Science Fiction films, games, anime and television series.
Hades Landscape — Los Angeles 2019 (Scott, 1982)
The themes discussed in the world of blade runner draw inspiration from movies like Metropolis (Lang, 1927) where the Architecture played a massive role in establishing the dualities of economic inequalities as well as themes like the Prometheus of man creating life, like those discussed in Frankenstein (Shelley, 1818)
The film addressed a myriad of contemporary issues under the guise of a dystopian world. From overpopulation, decentralization, climate change, genetic engineering to the surveillance of ordinary people. All these factors can be seen reflected in the urban fabric of 2019’s Los Angeles.
The establishing shot of the Los Angeles of 2019 is one of most iconic scenes in the movie as it establishes the world of Blade Runner (Figure 11). A world of perpetual rain and gloom with grey skies hint to an unstable climate suggesting global climate change, the overpopulated streets of Los Angeles filled with mostly Latino and Asian migrants speaking different languages suggests an economic disparity. The wealthy have moved out of the inner-city into the “off-world” colonies and the cities are left to the lower class immigrant workers flooding the streets that can’t afford to escape the problems of the city. The urban visuals of this world is overpowered by large screens playing advertisements of large corporations such as ‘Coca-Cola’, ‘Pan Am’, ‘Atari’ (all cognitive brands) and the ‘Tyrell Corporation’ (an estranged one) and repeated advertisements to move to the ‘off worlds’ suggesting a ‘super consumer culture’ where citizens are encouraged to leave the planet itself with the promise of a free replicant and a world free of inner-city problems .
Right from the opening scene of Blade Runner, we see the dystopian narrative of the film portrayed by the estrangement of the world with its futuristic technologies and Architecture as a regular occurrence. ‘Deckard’ the lead character in the story continues to eat his meal within the flying police car, a sense of normalcy is established letting the audience know that this is a normal occurrence in the film’s universe.
The film features various iconic buildings such as, the Bradbury Building (Wyman, 1893) , Union Station (Burnham, 1907) , Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House (Wright, 1924) and Bonaventure Hotel (Portman, 1976)each to depict a different narrative in the story.
The Bradbury Building for instance, a popular building for Hollywood movies, lends itself to Blade Runner as the toymaker’s house. The Building itself is inspired by a Utopian Science Fiction Novel published in 1888 Called ‘Looking Backwards’. The book described the interiors of the first twentieth-century public building that the protagonist visits. It is described as having a hall full of light, a dome — hundred feet above, frescos on the walls and ceilings and windows on all sides (Bellamy, 1888). The set for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis house too (a prime example of Mayan Revival Architecture) is full of rich history and background. These real-world architectural elements help convey the narrative of the movie because of the embodied architectural characteristics of the spaces.
The visual aesthetic of the urban environment, on the other hand, is one that projects the fear of Japan’s economic progress at the time of the movie as an inevitable convergence of cultures. Syd Mead, the concept artist of the film, is responsible for the iconic visuals in the movie that capture the landscape of “Hong Kong on bad day” (Wheale, 1995).
Historically, the dystopian film did not fare well at the box-office financially due to heavy competition from Steven Spielberg’s ‘ET’ (Gray, 2017), people did not want to confront an already grim reality through a movie about dystopia, corporate power, oppression and further challenging concepts of conscience and morality. But as the years have passed by the film has gained more relevance in an ever-changing world with increasing political and environmental unrest.
4.2.2 TRON
The 2010 film ‘Tron Legacy’(Kosinski, 2010), a sequel to the 1982 film ‘Tron’(Lisberger, 1982), explores a virtual world created by ‘Kevin Flynn’, a computer programmer and father to the movie’s protagonist. Though TRON doesn’t truly fit within the boundaries of Science Fiction, it is an excellent case study in the art of world building. The movie is set between two different worlds, the real one and the virtual one and in both of them, light is the dominating visual element. The virtual world evolves by creating a parallel universe within a simulation; this involves creating new environments and evolving technology within these environments.
Tron Legacy — Establishing shot (Kosinski, 2010)
The Architecture of ‘Tron’ relies on a novum created to achieve this alternative universe. There are no natural sources of light in the digital universe of ‘Tron’, and this is clearly represented in the Architecture of the spaces. The spaces in the movie are almost exclusively lit up by artificial LED Lights and even in the technology and clothes worn by humans and humanoids. It is almost like the lights in ‘Tron’ are not use for illuminating the surface but rather to simply wash the surface with light hence allowing for the object to be gently be acknowledged. With the absence of any natural light sources, artificial light is used in the form of a material or in the way colour is used in the real world (Patt, 2017).
The architectural aesthetic of the film is inspired by microchips, and so is the visual aesthetic of the costumes and vehicles in the Tron world. Another inspiration that the virtual world has taken from the real world is the Architecture of totalitarian governments. The film’s antagonist, Clu is a dictator that controls the universe of Tron and to represent this the Film employs the novum of Architecture inspired from computer chips and combines this with the real-world aesthetic of soviet brutalist concrete Architecture.(Lambie, 2010)
Joseph Kosinski, the director of the movie Tron Legacy, comes from an architectural background. He uses basic architectural concepts like lines and patterns infused with an estranging novum of light to create lines of light that turn into physical elements in the fictional world of Tron. The look of Tron is described as “Dark silhouetted objects bathed in atmosphere…where the dominant light source is the self-lighting of things… that is the Tron Lines”. (Patt, 2017)
The doyen of minimalism, Mies van der Rohe’s minimalist style was the guiding architectural light for Tron legacy. It gave the movie a sense of restraint. In 1982 the restraint was due to technological limits in rendering but in 2018 restraint is an art. In a world where CGI enables almost anything that the director wishes to appear on screen it can be easy to get carried away with throwing everything into the frame, instead, Kosinski makes minimalism an aesthetic choice.(Karlin, 2010)
Tron gives us an idea of how a world without natural light might go about designing a built environment, using artificial light sources to add materiality to objects and surfaces rather than simply illuminate them.
4.2.3 Black Panther
In 1966, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two Jewish Newyorkers created the character of Black Panther for Marvel comics as a superhero that black comic book fans could identify with. Marvel came out with the comic book roughly the same time the black panther party was founded. To avoid confusion and connotations with the black panther party, Marvel comics briefly tried the name Black Leopard but eventually returned to the original name Black Panther.(Mitchell, 2018)
Ryan Coogler’s vision of Black Panther is one that emerged amongst tensions in the African American community against discrimination and racially charged evens in America. However, this resulted in a visual aesthetic that seemed to empower a west African architectural identity rather than the African American identity. As intentional as this may be, Wakanda has successfully created a vision for a balance between modern and traditional architectural typology for Sub Saharan Africa.
Black Panther comes from a director that is capable of turning a Hollywood movie about a fictional nation to function as an agent for many black Americans to store some of their most deeply held dreams and aspirations. The mythology of Wakanda put together with the fact that most black Americans had never in fact been to Africa caused many in the black American community to deeply connect with the movie.
Black Panther -Wakanda, Establishing Shot (Coogler, 2018)
The world of Wakanda uses the Afro-Futuristic style of world building, designed by production designer Hannah Beachler. Afro-Futurism is an artistic movement that is decidedly a black creation, intended to push beyond the boundaries of the white imagination (Wallace, 2018). Afro-Futurism according to many has been an attempt to imagine what would have been of Africa if it hadn’t been pillaged and abused over the centuries. As director Ava DuVernay puts it “what if they didn’t come… and what if they didn’t take us? What would have been?”, these are the kind of questions the Afro-Futurist style in its most basic form attempts to answer.(Wallace, 2018)
The visual aesthetic and Architecture of Wakanda are based on its fictional backstory, a land rich in ‘vibranium’ a highly sought-after rare metal that is only found in the vibranium mines in Wakanda, making it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Wakanda portrays itself to the rest of the world as another sub-Saharan African country rich in tradition but struck by poverty and refuses to involve itself in world trade and international politics to keep their vibranium mines and technology a secret and avoid unnecessary conflict with other nations.
Culturally, Wakanda is a society rooted in tradition and heavily invested up by social values. The presence of vibranium has led them to be technologically advanced in comparison to their western counterparts. This leads to the style of Architecture portrayed in the film. The intention of Hannah Beachler and her production team was not to create a realistic depiction of what a technologically advanced and financially privileged African country would look like, instead, the aesthetic of the Architecture is meant to convey as much information possible about the type of society Wakanda is.
Amidst a racially charged political dialogue in the United States, Black Panther comes in a time of social activism like the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement and several other attempts to empower the African American community in America using a simple novum of a place forgotten in time amongst the many abused, wronged and mistreated that was given the opportunities and resources that the rest weren’t fortunate enough to receive. It is remarkable that the use of a novum as simple as wealth, with the right tone, can result in inspirational forms that may go on to establish a realistic and viable architectural aesthetic.
4.2.4 Her
‘Her’ — Utopian Los Angeles (Jonze, 2014)
In complete contrast to the dystopian Los Angeles of 2019 portrayed in Blade Runner, ‘Her’ hosts a delightfully welcomed change in a genre obsessed with dark and distressing dystopias by presenting the future Los Angeles as a Utopia. But like Herman Kahn’s paradox of a ‘surprise free world’[1] (Kahn and Weiner, 1967), a Utopia can very easily turn into a dull world with no surprises.
Spike Jonez’s Los Angeles (Burman, 2014)
The future Los Angeles portrayed in ‘Her’ is one free of traffic and pollution. It is populated with eighty story high skyscrapers, and colour lead cinematic visual aesthetic.
Production designer K.K. Barrett along with director Spike Jonez spliced together shots of the Los Angeles cityscape along with footage of Shanghai’s ultra-modern Pudong District. One of the most radical visions for Los Angeles of the future was one of a city without cars. In Jonze’s vision, inhabitants of future Los Angeles are shown using the bullet trains, taking the subway and walking. The whole novum of ‘Her’ is based on technology developing to an extent where you don’t see it anymore. (Curbed, 2013)
This is again reflected in the visual depiction of the new AI-powered operating system that the protagonist installs. The design team decided that there would be no remarkable visual difference of this operating system because it would be so well designed that it would have no visual impact on the user’s interface, instead, it would just be a seamless integration of a voice that effortlessly flows through a ‘plain vanilla earbud’. (Hart, 2013)
Another feature that is seen throughout the cityscape of high rise towers is the thriving parks on rooftops and a clean atmosphere. The green roofs coupled along with the car-free cityscape shows a vision of the future where efforts to achieve such tremendous sustainability have succeeded, not only in terms of public infrastructure but also in terms of public consciousness about sustainability. (Curbed, 2013)
However, regardless of all the technological advances and leaps in urban design, planning and Architecture, throughout the film, one can’t help but get a feeling of gloom and dullness amongst a beautiful cityscape of curvatious buildings filled with vibrant colours, fabrics, and textures.
‘There’s no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.’ — (Little, 1904).
‘Her’ is not only a movie on how someone might find love in the future, but it is also a commentary on how one will live in the future and addresses the inner-city problems of today’s bustling metropolises with a vision of what is expected of the future. The in-between is what is left to be imagined, like the solutions that lead to a car-free society with no pollution or the program that made rooftop gardens a staple to every skyscraper in Los Angeles.
4.3 Application in Contemporary Architecture
“Reading fiction is the act of asserting and dealing with the feeling of estrangement that results from being human” (Stevens, 2012),
The concepts of Science Fiction extend beyond literature to any narrative-based form of design. Any design that requires the use of a narrative to communicate a story to the user can benefit from the approach employed by Science Fiction. Understanding the logic that governs the traditional design and redefines it, gives the designer control over the interpretation of the design. Architecture is no different from this, the aim of an architect is to create remarkable spaces, spaces with transformative capabilities, spaces that tell a story.
Architecture must strive to shift the perception of the user from the chaotic and problematic world around them into an engaging narrative, even if this narrative is dark, weird or complicated. The same reasons that draw readers to Science Fiction will create curiosity towards these architectural forms and makes the process of exploring the Architecture more fulfilling once the under realizes the underlying novum behind the design.
This section of the dissertation aims to analyze three remarkable contemporary architectural projects by leading architects in different parts of the world designed at different times, identify the novum that sets them apart and the consequences on the spatial quality of the Architecture and its narrative.
4.3.1 The Jewish Museum (The Dark)
Berlin
Daniel Libeskind
Jewish Museum photo by Gunter Schneider
Opened in 2001, the museum is designed to embody the memory and trauma of the victims of a horrible tragedy[2]. Libeskind’s museum is an expression of the German — Jewish history, structured into a narrative of uncomfortable spaces using unnatural angles and avoiding air conditioners. The Architecture of the museum tries to avoid any semblance of conventional design that imparts a sense of comfort and familiarity. Instead, it tries to disengage the user from the outside world, set them on to journey where they may learn and empathize with the suffering and trauma experienced by the millions of victims that the museum commemorates.
One of the critical factors in designing the museum was Libeskind’s understanding that it is impossible to comprehend the history of Berlin without acknowledging the enormous contributions made to Berlin by its Jewish citizens, this would then help translate the erasure and void of Berlins Jewish life into form (Libeskind and Binet, 1999).
According to Libeskind, the right angle is a product of spiritual history and tectonics. In terms of spiritual history, the right angle is only relevant in specific spiritual history, and when that history is not relevant anymore, neither is what was right (Libeskind and Binet, 1999). The concept of the right angle also has much to do with the etymology of the word through language, says Libeskind. English and German amongst other languages associate the word ‘right’ with wrong, as a metaphor of the conditions we operate within. In the context of ‘Tectonics’, the right angle is simply a product of building construction. Libeskind says that the right angle has its basis in the original geometry derived from the ancient Egyptian practice of land surveying, as a means of dividing land and nothing to do with aesthetics; so changing the ‘original geometry’, as it may easily have been, by simply looking into a different state, “we would find ourselves in a completely different geometrical, social and economic world” (Libeskind and Binet, 1999).
Rectangular design is a product of tectonics and construction, instilled in the masses as a norm and hence, has come to be associated with comfortable space.
Figure 17: Sketch of Jewish Museum — Projection Elevation Study (Libeskind, 1990)
It is through tradition that humans have come to associate rectangular design as a norm of built environments. Historically aesthetic spatial-form came in all shapes, round stupas of the Buddhist, the stepped ziggurats of the Mayas or the pyramidal tombs of the Egyptians. These were the holy shapes, but then the arrival and spread of the Greek ideal of orders and design aesthetic shifted this original geometry of design to be derivatives of the right angle. Libeskind challenges this notion of traditional design by creating his own original geometry and forces the user through irregular spaces to achieve his narrative.
Garden of Exile — Jewish Museum Berlin (Teicher, 2016)
Rather than simply changing the ‘original geometry’, Libeskind challenges the ideas of normality of form. A great example of this is the E.T.A. Hoffmann garden. It represents an amalgamation of Libeskind’s various ways of completely disorienting the visitor put together to form a space that represents the order of Berlin after having a part of its history completely erased from memory. The E.T.A. Hoffmann Garden represents what is described by many to be a ‘shipwreck’ of history (Libeskind and Binet, 1999). Built on an unevenly sloped surface, the columns manage to stand straight and firm. The structures are positioned to form a square, the only geometrical shape in the entire museum representing the incredible resilience of the citizens of Berlin to be able to stand up to everything thrown at them.
An undeniable theme in the Architecture of the Jewish Museum is the intention to make the visitor uncomfortable. The novum established is that rectangular design is the norm and breaking the norm will take visitors out of their comfort zone and allow them to appreciate the normalcy in their lives and appreciate the suffering of the Jewish community in Berlin. Once this novum is understood and well established, every single design decision is informed by it.
Novum — Redefining the original geometry to stray from right angles.
4.3.2 Heydar Aliyev centre (The weird)
Baku, Azerbaijan
Zaha Hadid
Heydar Aliyev Centre (Wyss, n.d.)
Zaha Hadid is arguably one of the most well-known contemporary architects. The Zaha Architecture has an unmistakable identity in the way the forms contort and flow into one another to make up the Zaha brand. There is a clear philosophy of fluidity that Hadid’s Architecture employs and the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan. It is a prime example of this philosophy in practice. As a former part of the Soviet Union, the Architecture and planning of Baku were heavily influenced by the planning and architectural legacy imprinted by the Soviet Era. After its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan intended to break from the rigid monumental characteristics of the Soviet Architecture to establish Azerbaijan’s arrival into the modern era. (Betsky, 2018)
Following a competition held in 2007, Zaha Hadid Architects were awarded the design for the centre, a building whose objective was to become the primary example of the sensibilities of Azerbaijan’s vision to look into the future.
The intention of the design was to create a fluid form that evolves from the folding of the site itself. The fluid form remains as a single unbroken skin folding into one another and finally merging into the landscape.
In the case of Zaha Hadid, rather than looking at individual design philosophies of selected buildings in isolation one must look at her design philosophy as a whole. The fluidity of forms only appears in Zaha’s works post her 1990 Vitra Fire station, before that her projects employed sharp angles and lines. Though Zaha’s works have evolved visibly in terms of form from steep angles, the philosophy that makes her work unique has remained relatively the same.(Betsky, 2018)
Zaha Hadid’s vision for creating spaces is heavily influenced by the medium of film. She sees cinematic techniques such as close-ups and slow-motion not as something that merely reveals what was not once visible but rather as techniques that reveal entirely unknown qualities of space. A completely different nature reveals itself once the “unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by men” (Walter Benjamin quoted in Betsky, 2018)
Aaron Betskey regards Hadid as a great cinematographer who captures the latent motions of the urban environment and stitches them together into storyboards of her perceived Utopia. “ Her buildings are intensifications that lead to extensions” (Betsky, 2018)
In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Hadid claims that she does not make “nice little buildings” and shares her views on rectangular design. In Hadid’s opinion, the rectangular form is only the most efficient way to organize furniture; this is probably due to the predisposition of the furniture industry to create furniture that is meant to go into rectangular spaces. Zaha Hadid’s buildings are built around a completely different organizational pattern that allows her to resist the normalcy of design that is based on a rectangular organizational pattern. (Brooks, 2013)
Zaha Hadid’s continual pursuit of resisting rectangular design is her architectural novum. The design philosophy that justifies the explosions of spaces that she creates. Unlike Libeskind’s approach of challenging the normalcy of rectangular design to invoke a sense of discomfort, Zaha Hadid uses this novum to achieve quite the opposite; she resists the traditional organizational structure of design to prove that since almost nothing in nature is rectangular why should architectural forms be any different? (Brooks, 2013)
Novum — Resisting rectangular design
4.3.3 Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia (The complicated)
Barcelona, Spain
Antoni Gaudí
Roof of Sagrada Familia (SBA73, 2011)
“I am a geometrician, meaning I synthesise.”
A. Gaudi quoted in Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Família (Burry, 1993)
The vision of an architect that will eventually have taken over a century to achieve is the symphony of complexity that is the Sagrada Familia. Designed by Catalonian architect Antoni Gaudi and located in Barcelona, the mammoth of architectural design stands a foot shorter than the highest peak of Barcelona in order to respect the boundaries of nature.
Gaudi was fully aware that the construction of the temple would exceed his lifespan and hence, wanted to plan the construction of the Sagrada Familia in stages and modules. The first one of these modules would be the apse and the nativity façade of the temple.
Gaudi saw flaws in the contemporary Gothic structural system[3] and hence, aimed to create a new typology of Architecture that employed self-supporting structures to support themselves. These constructional solutions were refined in his workshop where he experimented and innovated various solution to the structural problems that he came across. Gaudi worked almost obsessively with tectonic scale models of different components of the temple in his office. The Sagrada Familia was and still is one of the largest testing grounds for innovating construction technologies in the world. The temple has pushed the boundaries of technological capabilities of contemporary design as well as tectonic solutions and forced them to constantly innovate.(“Geometry — Sagrada Familia Foundation,” n.d.)
The complexity conceived in Gaudi’s mind gave rise to challenges that even exceeded solutions provided by construction technology available to him at the time the project was undertaken to the point where after a century, architects and engineers have resorted to cutting-edge computational design software and fabrication technology to do justice to the original design intent.
Gaudi had two main inspirations for his designs; the divine message from his Cristian Faith and the rules of nature. Gaudi noticed the connection between natural forms and geometry early on and took these observations from the natural world as inspirations to create forms and develop solutions to the challenges in his work. He combined Geometric forms with naturally occurring complex forms like hyperboloids, paraboloids, helicoids, ellipsoids, double-twisted columns and conoids. All these geometries were designed with nature being their driving force. Gaudi would spend much of his time experimenting with inverted models hung from his ceiling with chains and strings to develop catenary structures that could be graphically calculated. These techniques allowed Gaudi to develop revolutionary ideas such as, leaning columns that branch out like trees in a forest.
Gaudi also developed a system of proportions that he applied to all the dimensions of different modules of the Sagrada Familia; he would repeatedly use simple ratios based on factors of twelve to provide proportions of the tectonic elements of the design of the temple, such as the sizes of the columns, windows , openings and vaults. Since rectangular geometry is almost never found in the natural order of geometries, he never bothered with them. Much like the principles of Islamic Architecture and patterns, Gaudi saw a spiritual aspect of the geometric proportions based in natural forms.
Natural Inspirations for Sagrada Familia (Sagrada Familia Foundation, n.d.)
Gaudi took the contemporary Gothic style and added into this, a Novum grounded in spirituality and nature to create something uniquely Catalonian, a personalized style that cannot be categorized with any other. Rather than treat his architectural creations as a sign of defiance or triumph, Gaudi celebrates the natural form using pure unadulterated geometric interpretations of nature, a divine form that could be translated into a space that was larger than Gaudi himself.
Novum — Following geometrical organisations found in nature.
4.3.4 Exercise Conclusion
Three different architects at different points in time with different functions and locations have designed completely unique buildings using the same estranging quality, ‘resisting rectangular design’.
The design of almost every building ever created is designed with rectangular design as the guiding principle, but the three projects take this fundamental ‘truth’ of Architecture and distort it to provide three completely different narratives in their Architecture. It is this estranging quality driving the creation of these spaces that make the Architecture remarkable and add the wholeness of the architectural narrative. These spaces transport their users to another world, one completely detached from the outside world, and that is the true purpose of Architecture; to achieve the functionality of the space whilst still maintaining a unique identity. To improve human life and create timeless, free, joyous spaces for all activities in life. Even though there can be infinite variations in the functionality of these spaces they must derive the sensibilities as nature does in creating forms. (John Lautner Quoted in Hess et al., 1999)
[1] A surprise Free World is one where the greatest surprise would be the accurate arrival of the Surprise Free World itself.
[2] The Holocaust was a genocide during World War II that resulted in the systemic murder of six million Jews.
[3] The Gothic style featured predominantly in churches and institutions of authority are infamous for failure in buttresses and arches due to lateral instability. (Theodossopoulos, 2007)