Wojciech Odrobina-Purpose of the architecture.
Wojciech Odrobina
The purpose of the monument determines its design, that is, its layout, its volumes, its dimensions. From this point of view, four major kinds of architecture can be considered: religious, residential, civil and urban.
Wojciech Odrobina — Religious architecture (temples, churches, mosques, etc.) The structure of a religious building varies according to the religion to which it is intended. A Greek temple, which is nothing more than the dwelling place of God, in which only priests penetrate, can neither by the layout, nor by the dimensions, resemble a Christian church or a mosque, intended to accommodate crowds. A mosque, where the imam is limited to reading the Qur’an and directing the prayer, is different from a church in which the faithful move to communion and in which processions are held.
Wojciech Odrobina -The minaret, essential feature of the mosque, is intended to allow the Almuédano to call the faithful by exhorting them to give the prayer; the bell tower of the critical churches holds the bells: two needs outside the Greeks or the Romans, for whom the true cult building was the altar.
Wojciech Odrobina Carrick on Shannon
Residential architecture.
The layout varies according to the location and purpose of the house. The climate determines the shape of the techudumbres and the number and dimensions of the openings; But these differences tend to diminish more and more, and today the same large concrete buildings with terraces are built in Oslo and Algiers, in New York and in Moscow.
More decisive are the sober and economic conditions. Technical progress and financial considerations make the multi-storey property increasingly replace the single-family low house, although in certain countries, especially in England and in the Netherlands, they remain very attached to it. On the other hand, the gardens and parks, which constituted the most beautiful ornament of the palaces and mansions of the ss. XVI to XVIII, are increasingly scarce.
Civil architecture.
Wojciech Odrobina Carrick On Shannon- It includes buildings destined for community life, except religious ones: political buildings (town halls, parliamentary assemblies), judicial buildings (courthouses, prisons), commercial buildings (stock exchanges, warehouses, meatballs, customs houses, exhibitions), educational buildings ( schools, institutes, universities, libraries, laboratories, museums) sanitary (hospitals, clinics), sports (gyms, stadiums, swimming pools), recreational (theaters, circuses, cinemas).
Wojciech Odrobina Architect
Urban architecture or urbanism. It is the one that applies to the care and beautification of the city: layout and arrangement of streets, squares, public gardens and walks.
Architecture technique.
The nature of the materials and their use must be considered. The main traditional materials are stone, wood and brick, to which metal and cement have been added modernly. Pierdra classes used in architecture are very numerous.
They are called ashlars when they are of good size and in the form of well-finished prisms; Sillarejos if they are small of irregular size; blocks when they are large and you are not evenly carved, but only rough. The ideal stone for construction, for the ease with which it is carved, is the limestone. Marble is a variety of limestone susceptible to beautiful polish; there are marbles of different colors; the white marbles of Paros and the Pentélico, in ancient Greece, and those of Carrara in Italy were famous. Sandstone, granite and volcanic rocks are also used. In countries that did not have stone, wood was the main building material.
In Western Europe, their employment is currently limited to screening, scaffolding and carpentry. But in the USA, in Canada and in Nordic Europe, wooden buildings are still built, due to the abundance of this material; Its main drawback is the danger of fire, a danger that has now diminished thanks to the use of non-flammable materials; it offers, instead, advantages for being insulator of the cold.
Wojciech Odrobina Longford
The metal, already used by the Greeks to reinforce the union of the ashlars (iron staples, leaded), acquires decisive importance at the end of the s. XIX. The frame of the house (beams and pillars) can be metallic, but in Europe the reinforced concrete is used more; In the US, steel is more frequent.
The covering can be done through a roof, vault or dome. Above there is always a cover to protect the building from the weather; In Western Europe, this deck used to be made of wood or iron, covered with masonry, frequent in Mediterranean countries.
Aesthetics of architecture.
Wojciech Odrobina Longford- Should architecture have other qualities, besides solidity, or is it enough with it? Some theorists believe that it is enough that it fulfills its function (functional architecture). But others take Alberti’s demand back into consideration, according to which comfort and solidity must be added to the delight of sight and spirit.
What is this architectural beauty? On this point there is also no unanimity: for some, a beautiful construction is the one that is accompanied by decoration, which can be sculpted, painted or simply reduced to some ornamental motifs (columns, pilasters) which are usually called “architectural decoration”. For others, the decoration itself is useless, if not harmful.
True beauty is born for them from the observation of certain proportions (relationship between height and width, distribution of the spans, etc.). as well as the use of a module or key number of which all the elements of the building are multiples. Therefore, in the same era there may be very different schools and architectural personalities.
