AESTHETICS:

THE MAINSTAY OF
EMINENT
ARCHITECTURE

BY: AYESHA
MANIKTALA
B.ARCH/S.S.A.A-
2009-’10
INTRODUCTION

ARCHITECTURE :the process and

product of planning, designing
and constructing space that,
reflects functional, social, and
aesthetic considerations

Architectural works -perceived as

cultural and political symbols and
as works of art.

So, the ARCHITECT is responsible

for designing the building
"visually" and "functionally".
AESTHETICS is a branch of philosophy
dealing with the nature of beauty, art,
and taste, and with the creation and
appreciation of beauty.
SIGNIFICANCE OF AESTHETICS IN
ARCHITECTURE
1. Vitruvian principles:
• Function
• Structure
• Beauty

2. 19th century: functionality was met

with both popularity and scepticism

3. The Design Methodology
Movement started searching for
more people-oriented designs.

4. Contemporary concepts:
Conceptual architecture
-characterized by an introduction of
ideas or concepts from outside of
architecture.
This produces an essentially different
kind of building than one produced
by the widely held 'architect as a
master-builder' model, in which craft
and construction are the guiding
principles.
 ON BEAUTY AND TASTE
Beauty is a pleasure in seeing how the
purpose is expressed in the form and
material of the object, not a pleasure in the
possession of the object or an enjoyment of
its benefits.

One cannot get rid of the practical for the

sake of the aesthetic, but must take up the
practical into the aesthetic. 

The practical problems which the architect

has to solve are so complex and difficult,
and the materials which he uses are so
refractory, that there is inevitably a sacrifice
of the beauty of appearance to utility.

“Beauty or deformity in an object, results

from its nature or structure. Because of the
highly complex natures or structures of
many beautiful objects, there will have to
be a role for reason in their perception.
But perceiving the nature or
structure of an object is one
thing. Perceiving its beauty
is another.” -Reid
 AESTHETIC JUDGMENT
We tend to appeal to properties that are
inherently positive, such as grace, or
balance, or dramatic intensity. To say that
a property is inherently positive is not to
say that any work having it is so much the
better, but rather that its tout
court attribution implies value.

AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE
Aesthetic experience aims first at
understanding and appreciation, at taking
in the aesthetic properties of the object.
The object itself is valuable for providing
experience that could only be an
experience of that object... Part of the
value of aesthetic experience lies in
experiencing the object in the right way, in
a way true to its non-aesthetic properties,
so that the aim of understanding and
appreciation is fulfilled.
AESTHETIC LAWS, PRINCIPLES
AND PROPERTIES
Aesthetic qualities may be sub-divided into
a number of basic elements:
• Unity
• Proportion
• Scale
• Balance
• Symmetry
• Rhythm
THE NEED FOR AN AESTHETICALLY
PLEASING CHARACTER OF SPACE
The avant- garde insisted that architecture
should be appreciated not in terms of its
economic, religious, or intellectual worth,
but in terms of its artistic value alone.

It seemed to follow that there must be a

pure artistic value, a value entirely
different from, and untainted by, economic,
intellectual, religious, political, gender or
moral values.
EXPRESSION OF THE ARCHITECT
Imitation is mimesis, which means replicating
an already existing object or process.

Representation, however, is not mimesis. It is

a means of abstraction created by the
architect in order to propose an idea or
emotion.

By using representation, the architect tries to

deviate from the real issue. He/she makes
the space act and perform differently.

For creating distraction from the existing

issues, a conventional system of symbols is
used by the designers.

If we assume that artists express emotion,

then this expression is one of the sources of
aesthetic value. Expression in turn, evokes
emotion in the audience
AESTHETIC TRUTH OR
AESTHETIC PLEASURE?
The idea is that if something pleases you
without answering to any conscious
appetite, need or desire, without
signalizing the achievement of some
goal – if it pleases you and you cannot
say straight off why, then your pleasure
is aesthetic.

“The beautiful is that of which the

apprehension in itself is pleasing.
Only those that are beautiful have the
capacity to please in virtue of their
aesthetic properties.”

Zemach agrees that“some aesthetic

judgments are literally true”. Zemach
goes on to say that something about the
object is the truth-marker of such
judgments.
“the object has properties in virtue of
which what is said regarding it holds or
fails to hold. These are its aesthetic
properties”.
 Orchard Building, Bedales
School, Hampshire
Architects: Walters and Cohen
The project includes three buildings – a
teaching building and an administration
block, connected via a circulation space,
all of which have been built

Design Intent:
• The overall landscape design is to
emphasize the existing beautiful
qualities of the orchard.
• Overall desire to keep the orchard as
green and soft as possible.
Response:
• The ground was remodelled to
emphasise the elevated sitting of the
music school 

• The impact of the paths and roads will

was minimised.

• A few small trees balance the removal

of the large trees that are out of
character with the orchard.

• The practice and teaching rooms are

located in a linear building adjacent to
a bank of mature trees.

• A pitched stain- less steel roof light is a

reference to the Orchard Development
roof and allows light into the internal
corridor.

• The new music school building 

features level access to all areas,
making it fully accessible for all users.

• Outside the classroom the learning is

in a less formal way with wide access
galleries, small meeting rooms etc.

• High porch clearly marks an entrance.

Expression:
Orientation, natural light and ventilation
are key design generators.

Walters and Cohen has designed a single

storey building enclosing a protected
south facing garden that opens on to the
playing fields located to the south of the
existing music school.

New pedestrian desire lines across the

orchard is created with the removal of
the gym; these will be recognized in the
overall desire to keep the orchard as
green and soft as possible.  
In the teaching block, classrooms are
placed on three stories along the
northern edge, where they are
protected from direct solar gain.
They open on to a top – lit, highly glazed
circulation space, along the south side of
the building, with staff and support
rooms and spaces for small group
teaching opening off it at ground or first
floor level.
The classroom is relatively conventional
in form as this allows for more flexibility.
With better light and ventilation than
usual they should be less strained and
fatigued.
 
 
Study areas on the top floor the design team
sought to redefine the relationship between
classrooms and shared open space. The top
floor gallery, where students can congregate
informally or work individually on small tables,
alongside smaller rooms, where staff can see
student privately.
Wide access galleries and the vertical shafts
mean staff and student can see many of their
colleagues and fellow students, while there is
also space for desks and small meeting table
for casual chats and private study.
Across the galleries from the classroom are
smaller rooms for individual or small group
teaching.
In this dynamic between casual and formal
contact, the sense of community evolves in line
with the personal development of education.
 
 
BMW PLANT - CENTRAL BUILDING,
LEIPZIG  
ARCHITECT: ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS

The Central Building is the nerve-centre

of the whole factory complex with all
the building's activities gathering and
branching out again from here.
The knot connects the three main
manufacturing departments of Body-in-
White, Paint Shop and Assembly while
serving as the entrance to the plant.
Design Intent:
• The whole expanse of this side of the
factory is oriented and animated by a
force field emanating from the central
building.

• All movement converging on the site is

funnelled through this compression
chamber squeezed in between the three
main segments of production.

• Such planning strategy applies not only

to the cycles and trajectories of workers
and visitors but also the production line,
which traverses this central point.

• This dynamic focal point of the

enterprise is visually evident in the
proposed dynamic spatial system that
encompasses the whole northern front
of the factory and articulates the central
building as a point of confluence and the
culmination of various converging flows.
Response:
The primary organising strategy is the scissor-
section connecting the ground floor and first
floor in a continuous field.

Terraced plates, like giant staircases, step up

from north to south and from south to north
capturing a long connective void between them.

One cascade commences close to the public

lobby overlooking the forum to reach the first
floor in the middle of the building.

The other starts with offices at the south end

moving up to meet the first cascade then moving
all the way up to the space projecting over the
entrance.

At the bottom of this void is the auditing area as

a central focus of everybody's attention. Above
the void 'open to view' the half-finished cars
move along their tracks between the various
surrounding production units.
Expression:
The central area as a "market place" is
intended to enhance communication by
providing staff with an area with which
to avail themselves of personal and
administrative services.
This organisation of the building exploits
the obvious sequence of front-to-back
for the phasing of public to quiet
activities.
The cascading floor plates are large
enough to allow for flexible occupation
patterns. The advantage here lies in the
articulation of recognisable domains
within an overall field. With a global
field, it opens up to visual
communication more possible than with
a single flat floor plate.
The integration of workers is facilitated
by an overall transparency of the
internal organisation.
White-collar functions are located both on
ground and first floor. Equally Blue Collar
social spaces are located on both floors thus
preventing the establishment of exclusive
domain.

The intrinsic problems of a large car park in

front of a building were avoided by turning
it into a dynamic spectacle in its own right.

The inherent dynamism of vehicle

movement and the 'lively' field of car
bodies is revealed in the arrangement of
parking lots which let the whole field move,
colour and sparkle with swooping
trajectories culminating within the building.
Here cars swoop underneath, setting down
visitors into the glazed public lobby
allowing views deep into the building.
The architecture they are developing is
no longer the architecture of repetition
and pre- conceived forms. Rather, it is an
organic architecture that is able to adapt
and mould itself to the peculiarities of
the terrain, to orient itself to the various
directions of access and to synthesise a
complex series of concerns into a
seamless and integrated whole. This is
made possible by the curvilinear
morphology that can incorporate a
multitude of forms and directions
without fragmentation.

The building's design facilitates a radical

new interpretation of open office
landscape, delivering an even more
engaging experience of connectivity and
transparency within the demanding
functionality.
It was the client's objective to translate
industrial architecture into an aesthetic
concept that complies equally with
representational and functional
requirements. In the transition zones
between manufacturing halls and public
space, the Central Building acts as a
"mediator" impressing a positive
permanent impact upon the eye of the
beholder in a restrained semiotic way.
.
TEL AVIV MUSEUM OF ART, ISRAEL
ARCHITECT: PRESTON SCOTT COHEN

Physical context and site layout:

Fitting the desired neutral rectangular
galleries onto the "clamorous
geometries" of the triangular site, while
avoiding a confrontation with the
orthogonal forms of the existing
museum
Design Intent:
Its distinctive form was derived directly
from Cohen’s response to the
fundamental challenge of the project: to
accommodate rectangular, flexible
gallery spaces within a nearly triangular
site.
Response:
The design features a remarkably curved
facade of faceted stone and a spiralling
atrium of reflecting light.

Entrance into the new building is through a

clear glass triangular shaped entrance
portico.

The exterior ramp down from the plaza

level to the Garden Terrace of the
restaurant.

Cohen has designed an integrative series of

galleries, liberated from columns by means
of remarkably hidden structural trusses.
Expression:
A vast, light-filled atrium at the centre
brings light into the deepest parts of the
building.

The kinetic forms of the exterior volume

and interior light well at once determine,
and are determined by, the disparate angles
of the rectangular galleries and the
triangular site configuration.

"It is a light source that becomes the

protagonist in terms of resolving the
relationship between the interior and the
exterior," he explains.
Cohen’s solution assigned key
programmatic elements to a series of
stacked and rotating levels and
connected them to a continuous
circulation space that spirals around a
dramatic central open atrium.

This space, aptly coined the “Lightfall”, is

topped by a skylight and reflects light to
the lowest reaches of the building,
endowing the building’s interior with a
unique quality of progression and
motion while, at the same time, making
the structure cohesive in formal terms.

The plan of rotated boxes produces

open, fluid, interstitial spaces that are
distinct at each level. On the exterior,
the geometrical facade stretches and
twists in order to smoothly envelop the
multitude of angled spaces enmeshed
within.

The lobby space is envisioned as a

transitional zone, giving way to
cascading bridges, cantilevered stairs
and escalators leading to the various
exhibition spaces above and below.
On the exterior, the ramp down from the
plaza level to the Garden Terrace of the
restaurant, this descending space offers an
unusual procession along the twisting stone
façade as it conforms to the path.

Overlooking the garden, visitors will

recognize how the entire building,
meticulously integrated with its
environment, produces a gateway to the
sculpture garden thus allowing for the
garden to become the centrepiece of the
museum campus.

The internal spaces for various galleries are

created with well-hidden trusses and will
ensure the capacity to support a wide range
of exhibitions.

Visitors are guided by the Light fall as they

move from one gallery to the next.
 Half-level below the plaza features a
conference room, classroom, restaurant
and a glass-panelled enclosed
passageway that runs along the edge of
the Museum’s Sculpture Garden
connecting the new building to the
eastern end of the Museum’s existing
1970s Brutalist structure.

Finally, by descending either by means

of the open escalator or elevator to the
subterranean levels of the building,
visitors will find the multi-purpose
exhibition space and a 400-seat
auditorium, along with a Museum café.

Throughout the building, light-filled

passages create dramatic spatial
views and expansive vistas.
MARSA DUBAI RESIDENTIAL TOWERS,
DUBAI
ARCHITECT: ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS

Physical Context:
Situated with in a densely populated
enclave in Dubai, between the Persian
Gulf to the northeast and the Mariana to
the southwest.
 
Design Intent:
To create a variety of internal spatial
conditions to accommodate the
building’s diverse programmes and
allow it to respond to its site constraints.
Response:
Key to the project is an inventive
structural system that is integrated with
the surface.
The system consists of vertical concrete
tubes, one of which resides within the
other.
The interior tube contains circulation
and core building while the outer tube
forms the exterior skin of the project,
extending through the structure’s
height.
The interior floor plates split in a
scissor – like action seesaw up the
height of the structure.

The exterior skin is punctured with

opening covering up to 40 per cent of
its surface arranged to form a
gradation from a few small openings
at the tower’s base to more frequent,
larger openings at the top.

Expression:
A variety of internal spatial conditions are
created by the seesawing floor plates to
accommodate the building diverse
programmes, which include underground
and above ground parking, a swimming
pool, health club and multi-use hall, one
to three-bedroom apartments, and four
bedroom and penthouse suits.

Functionally the seesawing form creates a

greater perimeter area that allows an
increased amount of daylight to penetrate
into the circulation core while still
providing for control over the solar
intensity admitted to the occupied
spaces. Excellent daylight levels are thus
achieved throughout, reducing reliance
on artificial lighting.
Situated with in a densely populated
enclave in Dubai, the building twist to enjoy
diagonal views of the Persian gulf to the
northeast and the Mariana to the
southwest. Generated from a closed square
plan, the tower is open at ground level on
the south side to allow for public pedestrian
access from the Mariana, while on the
north side the inverse applies and the
building splits open at its top to provide
penthouse resident with spectacular views
of the gulf.

The incorporation of a gradated range of

openings, adjusted to the orientation of
each façade, minimizes the heat load within
the building.

On elevations most directly exposed to

solar intensity, the glazing is recessed
elevations; it is positioned closer to the
outside edge of the façade. Beyond
providing environmental control, this
adjustment of glazing position within the
depth of the façade visually accentuates the
building’s changing shape and form.

Tectonic inflection at this scale enhances its

overall visual interest and at the same time
contains variations within the range of a
unifying appearance.
As one moves upward there
are also an increased number
of geometrically faceted
widows whose design draws
from traditional Islamic
motifs.

The balance of openings to

opaque surface is crucial for
the project to maintain its
elegance: if the skin is
compromised, so is the
structure and as a result so is
the overall elegance of the
building. The exterior skin is
supple in that it incorporates
all of the organizational and
spatial relations of the
building.

The upward gradation of the

window pattern designs is
drawn from studies of
traditional decorative faceted
Islamic geometry.
INFERENCE AND CONCLUSION
The aesthetic expression of
eminent works of architecture
has been studied in detail. The
philosophical value system
applicable to art forms is also
applicable to every aspect of
architecture. Architecture has
evolved to successfully
represent creative arts,
encompassing form, function,
beauty, harmony of the space
within and the external
environment. The architect
creates illusions using forms in
spatial relation and with the
play of light and shadows, to
enhance the aesthetics
appeal, adaptability to
internal and external environs,
and expression of dynamic
space as well psychological
emotions.
 
THUS IT CAN BE EASILY
INFERRED THAT AESTHETICS IS
AN IMPORTANT PARAMETER
CHARACTERIZING EVERY
FORM AND FUNCTION IN
ARCHITECTURE.
THANK YOU