Classroom use

Arts & Activities, Jan, 2004 by Guy Hubbard

THINGS TO LEARN

* Architect Frank Gehry grew up in Toronto, Canada, before moving in 1949 with his family to Southern California. Even as a young boy of 10, with the help of his grandmother, he built imaginary cities out of cardboard boxes with long wood shavings as freeways. He continues to develop ideas for his sculpture-like buildings with box forms he first learned to use when he was young.

* Gehry's architecture is very much in tune with the ideas of present day painters and sculptors and he feels that what they do is not very different from what he does. He knows about their work and what he learns from them influences the designs of his buildings.

He has written, "... I have been fortunate to have had support from living painters and sculptors." He went on to write that the final decisions for all artists remain the same and include the problems of deciding the size of a work, what colors to use, and what the composition win be.

* Until about 100 years ago, buildings were limited in height and shape because of what was possible using the traditional construction materials of wood, stone and bricks. With the invention of steel girders, taller buildings became possible so that skyscrapers mark most present-day city centers.

Since then, new metals, extremely strong plastics and much-improved glass have become available to architects. Imaginative architects such as Frank Gehry have taken advantage of the opportunities provided by these new materials to create architectural designs that are quite unlike anything ever seen before.

* In addition to the invention of new building materials, architects are now able to use powerful computers that enable them to create designs that make the fullest use of the shape and strength of all kinds of materials that formerly could not be calculated. As a result, buildings can be designed with more unusual shapes than at any time in the history of architecture.

* The presence of new materials and computers to help with building design are not enough, however. Good designs require talented architects like Frank Gehry, who have rich imaginations and can use Ore best materials to create the most pleasing shapes possible. But since buildings are extremely expensive to construct, an architect's clients--the people who will own the finished building--also have to be ready to take a risk about approving an unusual design. No one wants to be responsible for a building that everyone hates. Modern architectural design is therefore a very complicated task and many different people have to give their approval before a building is started.

THINGS TO DO IN SCHOOL

* Architecture is not usually included in school art programs. This may be because art teachers often do not know much about architecture. Or it may be that architecture is not part of the art curriculum in the same way as painting, sculpture and printmaking.

Numbers of solutions are possible, however. One of them is to have the kind of experience that Frank Gehry had when he was young. Boxes can be arranged into imaginary communities or glued together to create original buildings. Finished works can be painted to better resemble actual buildings.

* Another way to include architecture in an art program is to search for pictures of good examples from various styles and historical periods. So many building designs in the United States have been influenced by medieval Gothic and classical Greece and Rome, that collecting photographs of original buildings is a good beginning.

The next stage would then be to search for local examples that show architectural influences from the collection of historical building styles. Students might then write about the local buildings and perhaps draw them or photograph them from different viewpoints. They may also find out about how and when a local building came to be constructed and for what it has been used.

* While Gehry is one of the most innovative architects alive today and students are likely to lean most about his accomplishments by collecting pictures of buildings he has designed, he is not the only distinguished architect working today. Students may also advance their understanding of modern architecture by searching for examples of buildings by other important architects. Two with international reputations are Daniel Libeskind and Rafael Vinoly.

Once students have collected a number of examples of recent buildings by leading architects, teachers may encourage them to write and talk about the similarities and differences among the designs, and also express their preferences for parts of all of some of the buildings. From these activities, students are likely to develop a more enlightened understanding of the creative problems that present-day architects face and sharpen opinions about which solutions were most successful.

* One way in which artists learn from great masters is by copying their work. They do this to find out exactly how a great artist placed paint on the canvas or how he used his pencil when drawing the human body. A certain amount of learning is possible by reading about how an artist worked. Much more can be learned by looking at original artworks by an artist. And, nothing compares with having a great artist agreeing to be your teacher. But when an artist can no longer be a teacher--perhaps because he has died--then learning from his work by trying to reproduce it is the next best thing.