Historical architecture building find one and compare to morden design Essay

Historical architecture building find one and compare to morden design - Essay Example Situated in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain the Cathedral and the Prague dancing house have certain conceptual links that make their study unique and interesting. The cathedral is the reputed burial-place of Saint James. Construction began in 1075 under the reign of Alfonso VI of Castile (1040-1109) and the patronage of bishop Diego Pelez. It was built mostly in granite. An intricate, exaggerated, and an almost capricious style of surface decoration known as the Churrigueresque developed. Among the highlights of the style, interiors offer some of the most impressive combinations of space and light in 12th-century Europe. Integrating sculpture and architecture even more radically, architects Bernard the elder, and his assistant Rotbertus, and, later possibly, Esteban was in charge of the building. The Western Faade of the cathedral has been embellished and expanded between the 16th and the 18th century in Late Baroque style (the churriguetesque style) by Fernando Casas y Nvoa between 1738 and 1750 and is flanked by two medieval towers. He also constructed and achieved striking chiaroscuro effects in his transparent effective designs.3 Perhaps the chief beauty of the cathedral, however, is the 12th century Portico da Gloria, behind the western facade. This Portico da Gloria in the narthex of the west portal is an epitome of the Romanesque period, which combines masonry, arch, piers and the addition of pure geometrical forms. Thus the Church combines development of the Baroque style in it's many odd and even phases. The Churriguera popularized the blend of religious columns and composite order, the Churrigueresque column, in the shape of inverted cone or obelisk, established as a central element of ornamental decoration and preservation of the Romanesque in its forms that were less twisted in movement or excessive ornamentation and affected a neoclassical balance and sobriety. The whole effect is one of spacious continuation and tortuous, endless in ornamentation and experimentation. The Great Curvature of walls, particularly in urban settings, is probably the most famous of all Baroque inventions for expressing infinite space in the modern buildings of Frank Gehry4. One of the earliest examples of this approach, the exterior wall takes on a convex form, which expresses, and becomes a continuation of the interior space is set by the Church. Frank Gehry's Dancing House too has this effect that resemble Baroque in their fixation on movement and spatial illusions.5 Frank Gehry reflects interest in dynamic spatial and material forms. His own home in Santa Monica is an early example of the way in which he models structural forms to suggest instability, immanence and movement. This use of structural modeling creates the effect of Baroque, both in their geometric, endless surface details, as well as in their intellectual and expressionistic effects. His goals are sheer Baroque; they impart movement and through perspectival play, set up spatial illusions, subverting the vocabulary of conventional forms while more or less leaving it in place."6 The Dancing House reflects a woman and man (Ginger Rogers and Fred Astair) dancing together. Construction is from 99 concrete panels each of different shape