Poética na Arquitectura: a revolução contínua da Arquitectura em quatro obras

Abstract

Our aim was to create a brief manual of poetics in architecture, aided by four architects, and motivated by the impact of an individual search for the continuous transformation and extension of architecture, in counterpoint to the continuity of a classic tradition. Enlighted by some key authors, like Viollet-le-Duc, Arnold Shoenberg, Le Corbusier and Robert Venturi, we studied the problem of "style" and "idea" and the dialog between the ideals of essence and continuity of the classic tradition against those of complexity and transfiguration of the individual search, understanding, simultaneously, a historic progression. We studied four works, on the following order: Alvar Aalto's Viipuri Library, Michelangelo's Laurentian Library, Francesco Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and Le Corbusier's Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut. We analyzed the context in which they set, their spatial, formal and constructive characteristics, as their meaning as a reflex of an "idea" of architecture. In their hole, we attended to demonstrate a position towards a poetic in architecture as a system of amplifications and transformation of personal character. The Library at Viipuri could have resulted with a completely classical nature; however, it was the architect's personal understanding of architecture that granted its contrasting impulses. The Laurentian Library denounces the canons of the classic renascence tradition and organizes itself in a dramatic succession, replacing the static harmony of the cosmos by a vision of the human existence as an individual problem. In San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane we find the climax of a personal interpretation of the spatial elements, resulting in a dramatic and scenic architecture which's essence is masterfully shaped. The Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut supports itself in a strong background of meanings, shaping simultaneously the new and the old - the essential form is no longer stiff and constricted. On a final and personal thought, we considered that, if the classical tradition is the result of the succession of similar contributions, there should be also a tradition of extension, the result of a personal search for the enrichment of architecture's vocabulary. As so, we conclude that what is more important in architecture's history is a collective memory and a continuity of values; the classical tradition and the tradition of extension together create a collective tradition, a cultural memory of architecture.