One of Chicago's great buildings, the Auditorium Theater and tower, designed by Louis Sullivan, rests on rafts. These are broad wood and concrete pods about 40 ft. down into the clay that spread the downward thrust of the building. Bedrock is about 80 feet down at that location. Among other innovations, Sullivan provided for telescoping plumbing pipes to accommodate the settling of the building. It remains a spectacular full use building, no cracks or tilting...since 1893.
I think you draw the definition to tight for architecture. But I agree it's hard to define, since it involves art. And one of the first uses of art was to adorn and be integrated with architecture. Maybe architecture is the main art form since all the other arts take place in its context. wc ________________________________ From: armando baeza <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: armando baeza <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2009 3:28:15 PM Subject: Re: Architecture and Philosophy Grounded , as, not on wheels,or on a floating platform. Most city buildings are next to each other,would they qualify as architecture? On May 7, 2009, at 10:07 AM, Frances Kelly wrote: > Frances to Armando with thanks... > The word "grounded" here as given by you is not fully clear to > me, but if by "grounded" you mean placed or built on the land or > on and in the water or in the air, then this might also > presumably include say docking stations under the sea or in outer > space. Furthermore, if the once "entrance" were later sealed by > design as in say a tomb, would the "thing" remain as architecture > in the absence of an entrance, or perhaps would it now become as > sculpture. You may have also unwittingly indicated a problem in > the English language when it comes to the term "architecture" > when commonly used only as a general class or field of activity > and study. My preference is to sometimes use it aligned with > graphic pictures and plastic sculptures and so tectonic > architectures, and thus a singular edifice would be called an > architecture. This lingual usage of the word however is not > always accepted. Allow me to search further into the origins and > sources of the word. > > You wrote... > Architecture are grounded things with an entrance.
