Week Three Opus

Life’s an Opus

The syllabus for this class describes an opus as a musical work, especially one of a numbered series by the same composer arranged to show the order in which they were written or cataloged; a creative piece of work in any field of the arts. As a Music/Psychology major, I am uniquely predispoitioned to view my life as a growing opus. I strive to take lessons each and every experience that I encounter. I seek new experiences, in hopes that they will bring new color to the story of my life. As I have a very limited background in architecture and an extensive background in music, this week’s prompts took on a different meaning for me than for many of my classmates.

Observation-Speculation- Deduction

In an attempt to make my opus a little less jarring I have formatted my response to each of the term prompts using the suggested format from our lecture. Observations include but are not limited to technical definitions and examples from class. Speculations present a use of the term that is relevant to my life (i.e. not from class) and deductions tie the concepts together.
The symphonic form makes use of sections and transitions. Modes are presented and developed through theme and variations. These are terms I understand and conceptualize with ease. Hopefully, this ease of knowledge will translate across arts and make this Opus of my life a bit more intellectually stimulating…

Scale

Le Corbusier wrote that had he “stood six feet two inches tall, his architecture might have been significantly different” (Roth 75). Scale is, by definition, how big or small something is. This seems a simple concept, until one realizes that no two people are exactly the same size, therefore no two people have exactly the same perception of any object. To an ant, an inch may be a mile and a mile, an eternity.
I often seek aide from my incredible sister in law Val. She is not only smart, but has a background in architecture and design that puts mine to shame. After completing her BA in Architecture at Yale and a MA in Product design at Stanford, she truly sees the world in a different light.

When speaking with her about scale (and how much I really didn’t see a point to it if I was not the one building the building) she showed me the above picture from her recent trip to Olympic park.

She reminded me that I should think of scale on many different levels. Depending on my view (see multiple viewpoints in previous blog posting) Olympic park has many different meanings. That scale should be discussed on multiple levels is a concept we have discussed at length in class, but I have yet to link think of that concept literally. I love the conceptual; items have meanings from individual- room- building- community-region-nation-continent-world and universe perspectives. In this situation I missed the obvious connection to my life for the love of the philosophical. Scale may be affected by one’s position, but in reality, it is standard and mathematical. A person may see the statue in Olympic Park differently from a room’s length away and a region’s length away, but the statue is still the same size.

So all of that was needed to me to make one CRUCIAL conclusion. Scale is not perception, which is to say that the meaning of an object is not its scale. Now that that is finished- it seems so simple- yet so profound!

Unity and Boundaries

I tied the concept of unity and boundaries very strongly to Egyptian culture. It seems to me that you cannot have one without the other. An Egyptian’s life is a never-ending cycle- yet there is a clear division between life and death. Roth presents the concept of the Egyptian soul as having four sections, the ka, the ba, the Akh, and the Sekham (Roth 192). This creates an odd tension for me; was an Egyptian’s life focused on death, or was an Egyptian’s death focused on maintaining life? I am not qualified to answer such a loaded question, but I can clearly observe that there is clearly a boundary here. The change between living and dead creates a pause in the cycle if not a completely new cycle itself.

Unity : Boundaries :: Continuity : Change. Everyone in this class most likely has fond memories of word exercises that were repetitively pounded into ones brain in preparation for the SAT’s. Below is a sketch that helped me focus on the continuities and changes that took place between Egypt and Greece. Egyptian society is represented within a circle. The aspects of society are inextricable from each other. Greece is represented on the scale. A line balance, the aspects of society are held apart from each other (physically) but have the ability to balance against each other and create a perfect balance.

Section

Oh how I love terms that can refer to a million unrelated things which are all worthy of discussion. For example:
- The aedicule. Enough said-it is a super simple concept that if one tried to name all of the situations of, would surely go insane!
- Egypt is split into two sections by the Nile River- The section for the land and the section for the dead.
- Greece is broken into sections that are reasonably difficult to travel between due to its mountainous land.
- Burial housing projects- called mastabas- were mini units that can be seen in larger architecture. Is it a coincidence that Zoser’s great pyramid started out as a mastaba? (Roth 195).
-Egyptian Pharaohs sequestered their living quarters from those of their subjects in life and death. They were certainly powerful as Pharaohs of the land but they did not live among the people.
- Cities in ancient Greece were organized as one large town that often sat on high, rocky mountains (Roth 222) and existed as a section of the larger empire of Greece.
- Cities the first Greek buildings developed a sectioned form. This three-section form of porch, court and hearth can be seen
-in Grecian buildings themselves
-in the city plan for the Acropolis
-in Modern day house planning
- In the City of Miletos (Roth 225) as it was mapped by Hippodamus in c479. The plan divided the city into three distinct sections, the agora, the sacred precinct and the residential corridor.
-The Acropolis- Parthenon-Propylia- Erechteion- Temple of Athena Nika (Roth 233).
-What is the background and history of the sectional sofa? Why is it called a sectional when it is really one large sofa?

Vignette

In our study of the History and Theory of design I hope to be able to create a huge vignette. It is undeniable that changes happen as time passes, yet these changes rarely come overnight. As they say, “Rome was not built in a night.” It is true, Rome was not built in a night; there was not a day that man woke up and conceptualized building. The software program Photoshop alternately describes the “vignette,” tool as a “soft fade.” So, throughout this class I hope to be able to conceptualize history of design as a series of vignettes; whilst a community may be presented in a bubble, the edges are not hard, they fade into a space from which the next vignette in time will stem.

To bring out a more artsy, visual connection…it is common to view history like this
We try and try to memorize build after building, date after date. We view every event as its own rock. But….
A single addition can create a ripple that blurs out the division of the rocks. The focus now is on the ripple that stretches over and beyond each rock, they are now the bed of stream rather than individual stones. History is a rock bed that can be seen in a totally new light if you skip a stone across the surface.


Notes:

Rock pictures borrowed from the wedding album of Valerie Maltz Green. The rock bed is located at the Carneros Inn in Napa Valley, California.