Dissymmetrical spaces
| Prequisites: | Previous lessons |
| Objectives: | As a counterpart to the previous lessons, which saw space (both concrete places and information spaces) as regular, either based on a rectangular grid or on a circular direction,the objective of the present lesson is
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| Description: | The next lessons will study irregular spaces as conceptual models: wild landscapes, ruins. |
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IRREGULAR BUILDINGS AND LANDSCAPES |
| Buildings and landscapes can be designed and viewed so as to suggest diversity of appearence and styles rather than regularity | |
- Diversity in buildings and in towns
Architecture and town design, though based on geometrical volumes, take into account the gradation from regularity to irregularity
- Wild landscapes
The taste for wild landscapes and mountains grew in the late 18th century, for instance the Lake District
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THE PERCEPTION OF IRREGULARITY |
| Irregularity may be in the object itself or in the viewer's eye. | |
- The perception of irregular landscapes
A new aesthetic value was created in the late 18th century: the theoretical definition of aesthetics based on irregularity, like the landscapes in paintings, was the 'picturesque'
- Dissymmetrical perception of regular landscapes
This late 18th century interest in wild landscapes is based on a previous evolution in aesthetic theory. In the mid 18th c, theories of aesthetic perception were developed justifying dissymmetry, and arguing that even symmetrical buildings looked better when they were perceived with a dissymmetrical effect