Do you love Architecture?

The beauty of Architecture! 

 There are many reasons why buildings from one era look different from buildings of another. Sometimes those differences reflect developments in materials, building processes, or other technologies. Sometimes the differences arise from cultural or economic shifts. Sometimes the differences reflect an evolution in what is happening on the inside such as the buildings’ functions.

            Iron was a product of the Industrial Revolution and it was used for civil engineering to build bridges and factories. Britain led the way in the architectural adaptation of iron. The use of iron freed buildings and civic structures from historicism because ‘form’ became determined by the material and by engineering principles. With the rise of railroads, builders employed iron for train sheds as well. The first shed was London’s Euston Station and the grandest was London’s St. Pancreas Station. Although we label this era a "revolution," its title is somewhat misleading. The movement that first took root in Great Britain wasn't a sudden burst of advancement, but rather a buildup of breakthroughs that fed off one another.

            Without all those creative minds, many of the basic goods and services we use today wouldn't exist. Therefore, the revolution changed the lives of many people. Building the infrastructure to support the Industrial Revolution wasn't easy. The demand for metals, including iron, spurred industries to come up with more efficient methods for mining and transporting raw materials. Over the course of a few decades, iron companies supplied an increasing amount of iron to factories and manufacturing companies. 

            Train sheds were nothing more than small-scale pieces of bridges and the regularized repetition of arches is itself symbolic of mass production, reflecting the ability of industry to churn out an endless supply of the same exact product at a constant rhythm. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nation was housed in the famous Crystal Palace to showcase the product development, technological advances, agriculture improvements, and fine and applied arts of the industrial nations. It celebrated Western industrialization. The building was essentially designed to be a giant greenhouse but the form resembled an English Cathedral, a cathedral of industry, which had become the new religion. Unfortunately, the building was destroyed in a fire in 1936. All that remains are the listed Italian-style terraces and they will be incorporated in the new scheme.
            Crystal Palace was named after its innovative use of plate glass, and it was a breathtaking symbol of the British Empire and the crowning achievement of the Industrial Revolution. It stood in another part of the capital, Hyde Park, where the exhibition was held. About a year ago, Chinese billionaire Ni Zhaoxing unveiled his £500million vision for a new Crystal Palace, which will put a missing piece of British history back in place. The vast glass structure, the original of which was home to the Great Exhibition of 1851, will house his priceless art collection plus a hotel, conference center and ‘other commercial space’.

            The Crystal Palace was conceived as a nontraditional building and it had a strong technological look. It hosted an exposition dedicated to technology and industry. Generally, such buildings were not built of iron; instead, they were executed in stone to be representational. Iron was reserved for industrial buildings like food markets and urban shopping malls.

Little did anyone know in 1871 that Chicago’s devastating Great Fire would launch modern architecture and make American architects for the first time the most advanced in the world. Iron is not fire-resistant and intense heat makes it soften, bend, and if hot enough, melt. Chicago had been growing rapidly and there was a need to maximize land use by building vertically. This was made possible by the invention of the safety elevator. Young designers abandoned the historicism of revival architecture and designed abstract structures as they allowed form to follow function. The abstraction of the Marshall Field Wholesale Store provided an intellectual challenge to the new generation of Chicago architects. The buildings were massive, made of stone and highly textured. They were also quite simplified, emphasizing volumetric forms.

           

Architecture is the art of designing and constructing buildings and it has always been closely intertwined with the history of art, for many reasons. First, many public works, especially religious buildings, were designed with aesthetics in mind, as well as functionality. They were built to inspire as well as serve a public function. Second, in many of these buildings, the exteriors and interiors acted as showcases for fine art painting such as the Sistine Chapel, or sculpture like European Gothic cathedrals and other artworks like mosaics and metalwork. Thirdly, public building programs typically went hand in hand with the development of visual art, and most major 'arts' movements like the Renaissance.