Honesty and Deception
Architecture can be separate into honesty and deception. Honesty is talk about the honesty of material, to use the real face of material without much treament or cover on it. Deception is using machine made ornament material , to cover up the ugliness of the material and giving it a clean smooth facade .In architecture today, most of the design is deception , such as the housing design nowadays most of them cover with plaster layer, tiles and ornament structure. But some of the architect nowadays also supporting the theory of honesty. That they helping on heritage building to giving them a new life .
The best example in Malaysia is seksan , he is a landscape architecture who supported the theory of honesty . He design lot of amazing design name sekeping , most of them is taking the old heritage shop house or building . To respect the old structure and introduce new structure into to enhance the supporting structure . At the same time, he giving the old space by adding in new programme , such as shop house to a home stay which at the same time can be general income for the owner and giving the old space a new life to welcome the young folk to come to the old town .
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Frank lloyrd wright also one of the best example in honesty theory, he respect the material itself as the material and he dislike machine made material . He use lot of natural material such as stone and slate which near the site. The stone cut into a square slab of same size and thickness, but it was left rough on the outward facing surface plane. The roof is covered with thick, roughly cut slates and has no gutters, to create a nature rain dripping off the roof feeling. On the interior, he did use lot of natural material too such as stone and wood. Where the wood is merely stained or finished with nothing more than sealant and a coat of wax. Where the stone are remain bare and the same the brick wall are left with no plaster . Which all the structure are expose without any covering .
Zaha hadid is one of my favourite architecture who can represent deception the best . Every of her design will be the icon building of the age . She said , is not easy for a women in the man world. But she is more success than most of the man in architecture. She love to use fluid foam and folding foam . The material she use in the building is mostly factory machine made , that very modern and futurities. The design she make sometimes can't even see a proper structure and column which hidden inside the facade or the foam itself.
In conclusion , we should use more about honestly which respect the material and structure itself . At the same time to save economy, man power and time for unwanted structure just for covering the main supported structure. Function come first before everything .