Research Paper_1st Draft

Through the art works of Gertrude Goldschmidt to investigate the characteristics of fluidity and transparency in architecture

Architecture combines several factors and one of them is the art. Architecture is not only a place which can keep out the wind and rain but includes the elements of culture, technique and art. The point, line, face, mass, shape, color of architecture can create a beautiful form and more important, to reflect the profound characteristics of society or culture. There are different kinds of art in every era, and architecture usually related with the art, such as the Baroque art and architecture , Beaux -Arts and Beaux-Architecture, Art Deco and Art Deco Architecture. We can realize the concept of the architecture is usually relevant to the ideas of art. So this research is contributed to study the art works of Gertrude Goldschmidt to analyze the characteristics of fluidity and transparency in architecture

Gertrude Goldschmidt used to be known as Gego is a modern Latin American artist. She was born in a Jewish family in Hamburg 1912, and with the increasing of the Nazi control, her family escaped from their country. She studied in engineering and architecture in Germany. She arrived in Venezuela in 1933 and it was a significant place to her. She created her own style art works and devoted her self in education. She taught at the school of architecture of the Central University between 1958 and 1967 and the Institute of Design in Caracas between 1964 and 1977. She believed that students learned through the experiences can let the artists and architects gain more but not to learned only the images or theories.

The art trends during Gego creating her works are Op Art and Kinetic Art .These two kinds of art both have the characteristic about the communication between art and viewer. The art is arrayed by some order and composed the elements to present a geometric scene and create a sense of motion. The Op Art is static but made by the way of “ optical illusion” to cause the viewer has an illusion of movement. On the other hand, the works of Kinetic Art create the optical illusion because the art work moves. Gego at that time she created her own style. She believed that the ideas of motion from Kinetic Art are important. When the viewer went through the art, they could get different experience from the changing of lines. The art work created its site and area let people create a sense of motion to feel different atmosphere. During the 1980s she used concept of less geometric, more organic in spirit and the connections are nonlinear. “ In Gego’s art, her aesthetic equivalence of solid form and shadow may be the most radical. Shadows are, after all, not objects; they depend entirely upon objects and a controlled environment to become visible. At the same time they are always, potentially, present. They are the negative to the positive, the virtual to the real, and the ephemeral to the solid. Philosophically speaking neither exists without the other.”

Gego was an artist used different kinds of material such as paper and wire to present her concepts of art. She said that the most important result in her work is the idea of “Transparency” She explained:” I was interested in the transparency of volume so that a form could be appreciated fully from all angles of observation.” She didn’t traditional way to make a valid sculpture but used mediums to create her art work. The mediums express what she made to what the art work gives the audience. Take her work “The invisible dog” for example. She used a mimetic way to create an animal model. Through the bended lines of steel wire we can recognize the dog corporal relation with the work and see the faint head, body, legs, and the tail. She creates a site which “with an eye to studying its function in the actual practice and theory – the practical theory and the theory and the theoretical practice of her art.”

In the concepts of contemporary architecture, the architects release the form from the propositions of Euclidian geometry. We believe that the buildings were constructed by cubes, circles, or cylinders are the most beautiful in the scale and shape. But now the shapes and forms from the biology and nature become a source that architects start to consider their elements and components.

(Sang's comment: Why did you jump to Toyo in this paper? You made me confused on the main topic. Is it about Gego or about the importance of using transparency and fluidity Actually you can modify the paper focusing on the importance of transparency and fluidity.)

Take the famous Japanese architect Toyo Ito for example, he uses a lot of glass as the materials to create a transparent spatial characteristic. Form and shape in his buildings is fluid. He used a spiral form to design the Sendai Mediatheque. We can easily see the shape “spiral” in our living environment such as the organs of biology or human bodies. It is an unceasing opening form and has a transparent property.

Contrast with the static space constructed by the order of the propositions of Euclidian geometry it presents a dynamic atmosphere. As Bruno Bosteels said “to understand Gego’s work will be to understand how this work senses and conceives an idea of the site according to its own unique resources. Finally, let us examine the possibility of an event being produced at this site that concerns the limits of freedom, particularly in context of a burgeoning yet uneven modernity in Latin America.” Toyo Ito also believes that the spaces are not closed in a box but can expand without limits. The spaces in Sendai Mediatheque are design by three components: the plates, tubes and skins. The seven floor plates present the different ways of communication between people and people and between people and events. And there are thirteen arborescent elements to support the plates. They are also a way to make a relationship between the vertical spaces and different kinds of energy such as light, air, water and voice will pass through the tubes. Finally, the skin is an element to divide the spaces into inside and outside. There are not formal pillars, windows, doors etc. so it is a free space and can be re constructed. People in this space can experience unconstrained spatial atmosphere from their feeling.
Sang’s comment: Once again, I am lost here. Why Toyo?

It is similar like the argument of Iris Peruga that he stated the Gego’s work “drawling without paper” “its open-ended, constantly changing, and flexible nature, which has frequently been described as “rhizome”. And a rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power and circumstances relatives to the art, sciences, and social struggles. ” Through the rhizome system can create a reversible, connectable, modifiable, and multiple work.

Sang's comment: Where is the conclusion of this paper? In a conclusion, you need to provide a brief summary about what you have discussed. Then you will provide your own interpretations about what you have thought, what you have learned, or what you forecast something that will happen in the future.

◎ Bibliography ：
1. Sabiduras and Other Texts by Gego ， by Gego (Author), Maria Elena Huizi (Editor), Josefina Manrique (Editor), Mari Carmen Ramirez (Introduction)
2. Gego, 1957-1988: Thinking the Line ， by Nadja Rottner (Editor), Peter Weibel
3. Gego: Between Transparency and the Invisible (Houston Museum of Fine Art s ） by Mari Carmen Ramirez, Josefina Manrique, and Catherine de Zegher ( Paperback - Jun 15, 2006)
4. Force Fields : An Essay on the Kinetic by Guy Brett ， 2000
5. Introducing Op Art. With contributions by Theo Cowdell and David Palmer.