MIND and HAND and EYE architecture at rice 21 A Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/mindhandeye21buck MIND and HAND and EYE architecture at rice 21 Architecture at Rice University is a serres of reports on thoughts and investigations from the School of Architecture. The series is published in the belief that education of architects can best be advanced as teachers, practitioners, students, and interested laymen share what they are thinking and doing. William Ward Watkin, first chairman of the Department of Architecture at Rice University, and one of the designers of the Rice campus, originated plans for a traveling fellowship to allow outstanding students in architecture to travel and study in Europe. The first fellowship was awarded in 1928, and since then, 27 Rice graduates have been named William Ward Watkin Fellows. Funds for the award, which allows recipients to spend from three months to one year in Europe, are partially amassed by student projects, partially contributed by interested individuals. The winner each year is determined by a juried competition on an assigned problem. Michael Buckley, winner of the competition in 1965, has recorded his travels under the fellowship in diary and drawings . . . Architecture at Rice 21. The Editor Houston, Texas June, 1967 ARCHITECTURE AT RICE, 1967, All contents are the sole possession of the contributors; partial or total reproduction of the material herein contained is prohibited by law. u iMIili W l\ II II 'Co to Paris and Rome and Ravenna and Padua. Stand alone in Sainte Chapelle, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Church of the Carmine in Florence. Know all that you can about art, and by all means have opinions. Never be afraid to become embroiled in art or life or politics; never be afraid to learn to draw or paint better than you already do — And remember that you are trying to learn to think what you want to think, that you are trying to coordinate mind and hand and eye." Ben Shahn What follows is a catalogue of impressions, excerpts from a journal, sketches off a pad — recorded in Europe while traveling as the William Ward Watkin Fellow 1965. fal%7 Arrive morning August 27 — Heatherow Airport/ riot of color at Picadilly Circus/ lorries painted racing green / those fantastic scarlet double-deckered buses / bowlers, canes and pin-stripes on Threadneedle Street / good graphics everywhere, from corner pub to Indian restaurants reeking of saffron. Pedestrian image: walk from Burlington Arcade and its Turkish cigarette shops to St. James Square, on to Trafalgar Square — its bronzed lions and breezy fountains, down Whitehall through Admiralty Arch to the Mall, then Green Park, on and on, one square of green to another — from the elegance of Georgian Bedford Square to the restrained exuberance of Soho Square — each rectangle of green tempered by the ordered rhythm of Victorian and Georgian facades. Dynamics: a Victorian city against the automobile/' raw sense of motion from the top deck of a bus as it rolls clown Charing Cross Road to Shaftsbury Avenue and swirls around Picadilly Circus /a 360° panorama of exuberant color and gigantic letters on billboards, theaters and cheap eateries / the fun of pigeons and water in Trafalgar Square /so incredibly messy yet immensely enjoyable. Must capture these kinesthetic experiences on film. A pity no one has utilized the cinema to teach urban design / no other media can portray so many aspects of space. Color and texture: color experienced by its absence / cut stone and brick prevail. Concrete pavers set in sand beds, tapped with huge wooden mallets, staggered joints set up constant metered rhythm to pavement everywhere quiet civility / broken by the dramatic kaleidoscope of Picadilly and the saucy streets of Soho. 4im K< Jet from London a return to Paris for us. Eyes seek the familiar and register the new / sweep of the Champs Elysees up from Place de la Concorde to L'Arc de Triomphe, traffic snarling about its base intersecting yet more boulevards of trees / linear axes which disappear from sight / materials textures and colors of rubble-stone and stucco walls clay chimney pots / radial granite pavers / trees set in elegant cast iron gratings the blaze of yellow, red and blue canvas awnings contrast the quilted patchwork of London. L'Opera / saw La Traviata / fresh and courageous ceiling by Marc Chagall intermission: fantastic grand stair case watching and ogling /always felt underdressed. Hausman criticized for extravagance in creating Place de L'Opera, the space now cluttered with angry Citroens. Louvre /great double-reversed staircase focuses on Nike Samothrace / gives great sense of direction to lobby space Michelangelo's Slaves — soft forms/ Early Roman door pulls animated / a colossal section of an Egyptian foot / medieval twisted columns — precursors of Gaudi and Art Nouveau. Stroll down Boulevard St. Germain to Cafe des Flores for a cognac endless continually entertaining parade of people / Pierre Cardin cut pants and geometric hair styles/ haunts of Camus, Hemingway and Sartre, the architectural environment contributes to the intellectual A traveler once met three men wheeling wheelbar- rows: he asked of their work. The first said, "I toil from sunup to sundown — all I receive for my pains is a few francs." The second, "I am glad enough to wheel this barrow, for I have been out of work and have a family." The third replied: "I am building Chartres Cathedral." The first view of the Church looming on the horizon — faint shape over fields of yellow grain.' the mas- terful proportions /fabled Chartres blue in the glass simply a wonder. Henry Adams: "The man who wanders into the 12th century is lost, unless he can grow prematurely young." /£tv66y Thousands of bicycles pots of flowers in the Raad- husplads — the town hall square ' walk up the Strodt — a long curving street closed to automobiles / lined with exquisite craft shops people milling every- where along this commercial spine / stork fountains / glimpses of brick steeples and pocket-sized parks up side streets. Through Kongens Nytorv Square to the huge fluked anchor resting atop a thin granite disk — a compel- ling memorial to Danes lost at sea — the Anchor fronts Nyhavn, a harbor slip lined with candy-colored houses and bistros. Across the harbor to Christians- havn — older than Nyhavn but less diluted by tour- sm. Fishermen living on their boats the intimate relationship between water and structure / nimble children playing along the banks. I H // / ill! ffio I ODD BUB' ,4* P in Visited Frilandsmuseet — a unique open-air museum of expertly re-constructed homes from Danish Isles of Funen, Skaane, Jutland, and Bornholm. Feathery thatched roofs and rough-hewn timber interiors/ common climate reflected in minimum glass. The idea of this park-museum is deftly handled: no gimmicks, unnecessary signs, trash cans or concessions — instead meticulous attention to andscaping details — like encountering seagrass in sand mounds near a Skaane Fisherman's cottage, thatched with sea-weed, while 100 yards further down the artfully curved foot-path will sit a Jutland farmer's house and barn, tile roofed, with saucer-eyed cows gazing nearby in the open. Extremely low-keyed display — excellent. After tour we are treated to a huge luncheon commanded by a robust Dane determined to exhibit Danish cuisine and the taste of snaps — brewed from potato — chased with beer. October 10 — Leave Copenhagen, push down through Germany to Neudorf, Switzerland, farm village of 750 souls, one being Ben Stocker, Architecturbo, graduate of Rice University. Idyllic week, side trips to Lucerne ' story-book Engleberg with its stern monastery school and Titles Peak / the hospitable Stocker clan, their warm cosy Gausthaus / eating in the kitchen with the family, retiring to the restaurant-bar for Sauser, hot Kirsch in coffee, and talks of politics and architecture / Swiss tradition of architectural competitions furnishes a sure way for young talent. Relaxing days of cowbells at 7 a.m. — built in chimes really / misty valleys and clear mountainous heights trudging out over the back meadows to inspect Ben's first job — a masonry apartment block — simple and clean. To mass at the village church with separated congregation, men right — women left — and the cemetery outside the door where seven generations of Stockers lie. I4tuct,/tf Mhs Found a hotel right on the Canale Grande and immediately jumped a vaporetto for the trip to San Marco: puttering so slowly that the palazzos appear as paper cutouts glued to a tape and pulled past the boat. Gondolas fascinating in form and design: why this curve? and that one? Why has the profile remained so exclusive? Intoxicating rhythm of the Gondoliers — the precarious ballet of sweeping poles. Piazza San Marco — Arrival by boat: spectacular stage setting that glitters above the flat plane of water. The serenity at night is laced with intrigue as not an object is directly lit along the canal but rather catches light from reflections of a gondola station lamp bobbing at the top of its striped pole, or a cage lantern of purple Venetian glass marking a watery intersection. Absence of neon, automobile and street lights is felt — not realized: Venice teaches you to hear sounds once forgotten — lapping of water on a palazzo's steps, the gentle knocking about of moored gondolas and the distant chug-a-lug of a vaporetto. fl0iif«&/ZL Odojkt^ Tiny, tiny streets between the Ponte Trinita and the Ponte Vecchio Dark tight walks restraining arches overhead as if the buildings themselves were infirm Heavy gloom and cold of early October dusk Wood workers in their vaulted ground floor caves constrained by masonry two feet thick One incandescent bulb illuminating. Florence has the feeling of a dark walled city without the walls. Tight urban weave relaxed unexpectedly in Piazza della Signoria scale is colossal — the crenelations atop the Palazzo Vechio are easily the height of a man, yet scan quickly down the flat uncomplicated front to the ground plane and gargantuan statutory deceives the eye — the piazza then acquires new dimensions by comparison. Scale is reversed in the Pazzi Chapel by Brunelleschi: by deft use of proportions and screen like shadows — this tiny chapel commands the visual attention of the entire courtyard. The constant visual texture of Florence is organic-rock walls stuccoed over — thick and cold — slim alleyways as streets — the piazza becomes an oasis within the twisted maze — where Italian exuberance is reflected by color and texture. Could you imagine a brightly colored church in London or Paris? The delightful S. Spirito is plastered yellow ochre — its simple unadorned front becomes the most tranquil and reassuring element in the piazza — the bustle of the daily vegetable market, the afternoon soccer game, the varied heights, and textures of the neighboring palazzos are then strong accents against this muted back- ground of yellow. Contrast: S. Maria Nouvella and S. Croce/ striking paste-on marble facades white and black marble striping/ bits of color tossed in as accents /or the prominent red and white tiled bowl of the Duomo/ brash juxtaposition of values on a cardboard face — effective urban accents like the spiky gymnastics of French gothic cathedrals. Siena — tortuous driving to approach this traditional rival of Florence. Could drive only to the back of the town hall — set out on foot to find a hotel. Narrow streets, steep stairs and brick everywhere — no place for a claustrophobic. Then around a corner, under a tight archway, down some steps and the Piazza del Campo bursts the walls, admits the sun. The huge fan-shaped piazza fronts the Palazzo Publico — we were parking in back, having no clue to this vast space in front. The three hills of Siena meet here, and their slopes give the Piazza its cockle-shell form — a monumental backyard for a choked medieval metropolis. Sat for an hour, sipping cappuchino, drawing and watching the ebb and flow of people through the eleven archwayed entry streets and the similar exodus and roosting of swallows in the thousand-odd weepholes of the 268-foot bell tower— the ejaculation point of the space. After dinner we join the great promenade up and down the central streets— no cars or buses, just the entire populace walking, greeting friends, and the constant shuffle of feet. Assisi — All Soul's day in this city of St. Francis is glutted with tourists and sweaty pilgrims. Saw Giotto frescoes, in the cathedral and retired to en|oy the fresco of the city itself from the valley floor: The Basilica squats atop the monastery whose four-story arched buttresses at one end oppose the amorphous growth of the city at the other — all sprinkled down the slopes of Monte Subasio. Reflections on the Hill Towns — Absence of automobile must be experienced to appreciate the salient quality of silence. Stone work bleeds into the hills — colors and textures mingle — one senses the mass of the entire city from the common materials, be it stone in S. Gimagnano or red-brick in Siena. Violent changes in level occur constantly, yielding frequent stairways, steps — yet this common condition is made dramatic in form, senuous, curving and compelling. Rarely can one find just ordinary steps. Forgotten cities of the twentieth century will remain for all the spaces within the walls which made them tolerable in Gothic times still exist — the developer has been shut outside the walls. m firm / 2 /VtwdtAs- "*-*-_. ■**&, SS#% •wirvs <»t>8*K »?s«,~v;.' •s.v;-Ji.-