Back to School… This time from a different perspective!
I am excited to be part of the Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University Faculty Team!
This fall semester I am going to teach DESIGN I: Interdisciplinary Foundation Studies at the College of Architecture and the Built Environment with Carol Hermann, Andrew Hart, Lauren Gahan, Todd Rubio and Scott Sampson.
This week we've got started with a Site Specific Intervention
The students have the opportunity to experience the design and building process from beginning to end by proceeding from conceptualization to construction of a site-specific intervention on the Philadelphia University Campus.
They have been presented with some inspirational images of influential land artists (Richard Serra, Georges Rousse, Richard Schilling) some clips from the film Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time, and suggestions from a Ted talk where Theo Jansen demonstrates the amazingly lifelike kinetic sculptures to get in the right mood!
Sculpture as models for site-specific interventions
Painting functions in two dimensions, even if it suggests three or four. Sculpture works in three dimensions, but man remains apart, looking on from the outside. Architecture, however, is like a great hollowed-out sculpture which man enters and apprehends by moving about within it.
— Bruno Zevi
Every building is, by definition, a site-specific intervention, just as any change made to a site will result in a new spatial experience that is both physical and emotional. Several modern and contemporary sculptors have produced monumental works that dramatically intervene or change their chosen sites. These sculptures can be considered architectural not only because of their large scale, but also in their site-specific nature. Each was designed for a particular locale and each transforms the pre-existing spaces in unique ways. By focusing on key works by Christo, Robert Smithson, Richard Serra, Claus Oldenburg, and Maya Lin, we can analyze some strategies for site-specific interventions.
— Carol Hermann
Each of these so-called Site Works was conceived to be integral with their respective surroundings and to derive much of their content or meaning from the particulars of the site. Many comment upon environmental issues—specifically humankind’s treatment of the land—and many were intended to exist for a short time, with photographs as the main form of documentation. Generally artists sought to combine symbolic form with a given site to create new and evocative places that allow the viewer to experience a space anew.
— Carol Hermann
The outstanding work of worldwide celebrated artists (Christo and Jeanne- Claude, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Michael Heizer, Mary Smith) will be later explored and presented by teams of students.