CONTEXT AND BUILDING 2
Architecture in context is neither a cursory attention nor a radical innovation, it is a strong and eloquent visual relationship to the surrounding. Individual building is always seen first as a part of the whole. Architecture is the physical language of city and community building. The city is a living organism with a unique culture and a past called a “contextual history” and a future in which new buildings act as the threads that weave the cities living traditions into new and whole fabric. Architecture projects need to be perceived as part of implementing an urban design project which entails gathering insights into urban fabric and how people use urban spaces.
Here, I choose two examples of architecture to compare their context, within 100 years, what is the changing between them.
Barcelona Pavilion / Mies van der Rohe
Situated at the foot of the National Art Museum of Catalonia and Montjuic, the Barcelona Pavilion resides on a narrow site in a quiet tucked away corner secluded from the bustling city streets of Barcelona. Raised on a plinth of travertine, the Barcelona Pavilion separates itself from it context create atmospheric and experiential effects that seem to occur in a vacuum that dissolves all consciousness of the surrounding city. Unlike other pavilions at the exposition, Mies understood his pavilion simply as a building and nothing more, it would not house art or sculpture rather the pavilion would be a place of tranquillity and escape from the exposition, in effect transforming the pavilion into an inhabitable sculpture.
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In addition, the materials are what give the Barcelona Pavilion its true architectural essence as well as the ethereal and experiential qualities that the pavilion embodies. The pavilion meshes the man-made and the natural employing four types of marble, steel, chrome and glass. He respected materiality with the natural.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao / Gehry Partners
Set on the edge of the Nervion River in Bilbao, Spain, the Guggenheim Museum is a fusion of complex, swirling forms and captivating materiality that responds to an intricate program and an industrial urban context. With over a hundred exhibitions and more than ten million visitors to its recognition, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao not only changed the way that architects and people think about museums, but also boosted Bilbao’s economy with its astounding success. In fact, the phenomenon of a city’s transformation following the construction of a significant piece of architecture is now referred to as the “Bilbao Effect”.
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The riverside is on the Northern edge of the city centre. A road and railway line is to the south, the river to the north, and the concrete structure of the Salve Bridge to the east. Making a tangible physical connection with the city, the building circulates and extrudes around the Salve Bridge, creates a curved riverside promenade, and forms a generous new public plaza on the south side of the site where the city grid ends. The building alludes landscapes, such as the narrow passageway to the main entrance hall reminiscent of a gorge, or the curved walkway and water features in response to the Nervion River.
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Although the metallic form of the exterior looks almost floral from above, from the ground the building more closely resembles a boat, evoking the past industrial life of the port of Bilbao. Constructed of titanium, limestone and glass, the seemingly random curves of the exterior are designed to catch the light and react to the sun and the weather.
In conclusion, the design process should not only fulfill the designer’s desires but must take into account the surrounding contexts locally and globally. Response to the surrounding contexts is very important because it determines the success of a buildings’ design. In response to these contexts will create communication channels between buildings and people around. Sometimes people will appreciate the architecture, if designers appreciate their cultural and aesthetic values.