Someone Has Built It Before

From  eliinbar’s sketchbook  2012 – Complex relations between inspiration and invention in architecture….

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In this post  I will focus on the relations between inspiration and invention in architecture….

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The next building was designed by one of the most innovative architects who worked in last two centuries….The late  Oscar Niemeyer….

Oscar Niemeyer Architect

Parish Church

 1957

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Oscar Niemeyer ‘s Parish Church ,is the South American version of the European le corbusier’s Nôtre Dame du Haut Chapel, shown in the next image. (I will go into details, in my next post)

Le Corbusier  architect

Chapel of Nôtre Dame du Haut

France 1955

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From  eliinbar’s sketchbook  2012   – Oscar Niemeyer‘s Inspiration Sources

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Notice the morphological similarity between Oscar Niemeyer ‘s Parish Church and  le corbusier’s Nôtre Dame du Haut Chapel .

1. An upturned roof like a sail billowing in the windy supported on columns embedded within the walls.

2. Notable use  of concrete in the structure .

3. The main part of the structure consists of two concrete membranes separated by a space of forming a shell which constitutes the roof of the building. 

4, The roof  is supported by struts, which form a vertical surface of concrete.

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And Here are some relevant quotes from an interview with Oscar Niemeyer By Eduardo Graça, Posted May 15, 2006:

1.” Pay attention, kids, you can’t graduate and just dedicate your life to being a good architect. That is bullshit. You need to find an original way to think and to be informed about everything daily. Read, read, read, and read”.

2.“This thing called inspiration is not important to me at all. The other day as I was drawing a project, when I sat in front of the desk I already knew what I was going to do. I thought about it for many days, about each possibility, each solution, about the fact that I wanted to do something different. Architecture, to me, is invention. Go to Brasília—you may or may not enjoy my projects, but I dare you to find something similar” 

3. “Anyone who is going to be an architect should invest part of his time in the knowledge of humanism”. 

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See the full interview with Oscar Niemeyer at METROPOLICEMAG.COM

:http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20060515/the-last-of-the-modernists

To be continued in my next post….

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Check the   NEW  CONSCIOUS  INSPIRATION  PAGE

in my Facebook

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“EPILOG”

I think that “Inspiration” or “Copy Paste” are the most dominant phenomenon of the 21st century among architects.

Most likely the “availability of information” enables the existence of the phenomenon.

The abundance of information in the Web affects us all…. I present it every week here ….We saw more than once ….The differences between “Conscious Inspiration” and “copy paste” are not so big….

And that is exactly what I intend to clarify and understand in this blog.

I believe that the natural development of architecture design is based on inspiration techniques ….I call them “Codex Rules”.

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I strive to develop a method….

 A method that will help architects and designers to cope with this phenomenon…. At this point in time, I call it the “Conscious Inspiration Method” ….

With the methodology of “conscious Inspiration”, we don’t need to be intimidated to get inspired from relevant buildings.  Once we develop our tools =“Codex Rules”, it will lead us to high quality and creative architecture.

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“Conscious Inspiration” is practicing and acquiring tools to improve observation and differentiation of details.

The abundance of information in the Web affects us all, as I illustrate in my posts.

I Believe that designing is a process formed from three main phases:  knowledge, tools and invention.

“Knowledge”:  as many said, and wrote before – Knowledge is the foundation for all designing process. We architects and designers are obliged to be informed about everything that was designed in the past and on a daily basis….

“Tools”:  develop tools to analyze buildings and “Understand” them,  tools that will cope with the abundance of architectural information… (I intend to demonstrate some of my ideas in future posts).

“Invention”:  with the methodology of “conscious Inspiration” , we don’t need to be intimidated to get inspired from relevant buildings.  Once we develop our tools, it will lead us to high quality and creative architecture.

Eli Inbar