Proportion | Organization
For Plato, it was thought that beauty could be objectively achieved by discovering the proportions of the illusive man. Once discovered, our homes, churches and marketplaces would be equally appealing to all users at all times—in other words the holy grail of architecture. Le Corbusier, were still producing immutable human archetypes to derive architectural space. For him the Modulor was “a universal instrument, easy to employ, which can be used all over the world to obtain beauty and rationality in proportions of everything produced by man.” He described its proportions as a “range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things.” This quote from Corbusier illustrates how pervasive and clear Plato’s philosophy has remained over the years. In articles, both of them were talking about how the loggias, entrances, halls , and rooms, each of them should organize, like the organs in our bodies, and how the ways they organized helped in functioning.
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In my perspective, the role of proportion and organization in architecture today, it was never one or the other, but as in a dialectic relationship. For example, the proportion and organization of entrances are large and in the front of the houses respectively, as it were, public spaces and serves as a place where those waiting/welcoming for people. At this point, all come to the content of the spaces themselves, where the spaces they tell the stories of them to the people. Why the spaces want to be so high in height, why to be so narrow in between the wall, why to be so large scale of openings……etc.
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House N / Sou Fujimoto
The house itself is comprised with organizations of three shells of progressive size nested inside one another. The outermost shell covers the entire premises, creating a covered, semi-indoor garden. Second shell encloses a limited space inside the covered outdoor space. Third shell creates a smaller interior space. Residents build their life inside this gradation of domain. Though, the organization of spaces for each activities have no boundary as what meant by Palladio or not define with walls like others, for this house, the proportion of walls and openings with light and shadow define the spaces for each activities. Sou Fujimoto’s intention was simply about expressing the riches of what are ‘between’ houses and streets. As you can see from the section, each openings’ proportion of the wall were well designed, just to have a place inside the house that is fairly near the street; a place that is a bit far from the street, and a place far off the street, in secure privacy.
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Sekeping Victoria
Sekeping Victoria, the courtyard and kitchen area were double volume up, not just to brighten up the space with infuse day light, also increase the volume of the space visually. The dining area with tables and chairs were using small in size, it not only allow more pack of people to enjoy their meal, meanwhile, also reserve the space for the surrounding to make it looked wider. The organization here is interesting, as once the entrance is closed, the size of the courtyard minimize, while if the entrance were opened, vice-verca. Both spaces sharing an organization space which were interchangeable for each other.
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In conclusion, I will say that the proportion and organization playing the crucial role on telling the contents/stories of the buildings in architecture nowadays, as each of them bringing out the different purposes at different circumstances.