Inspiration

Sorry, everyone, this one's all words, no arts. If your an architect, however, prospective or legit, this statement packs quite a punch. With that in mind..

..drop some knowledge on us, Mr. Sullivan.

"And thus, when native instinct and sensibility shall govern the exercise of our beloved

art; when the known law, the respected law, shall be that form ever follows function;

when our architects shall cease strutting and prattling handcuffed and vainglorious in

the asylum of a foreign school; when it is truly felt, cheerfully accepted, that this law

opens up the airy sunshine of green fields, and gives to us a freedom that the very

beauty and sumptuousness of the outworking of the law itself as exhibited in nature

will deter any sane, any sensitive man from changing into license; when it becomes

evident that we are merely speaking a foreign language with a noticeable American

accent, whereas each and every architect in the land might, under the benign

influence of this law, express in the simplest, most modest, most natural way that

which il is in him to say: that he might really and would surely develop his own

characteristic individuality, and that the architectural art with him would certainly

become a living form of speech, a natural form of utterance, giving surcease to him

and adding treasures small and great to the growing art of his land; when we know

and feel that Nature is our friend, not our implacable enemy, that an afternoon in the

country, an hour by the sea, a full open view of one single day, through dawn, high

noon, and twilight, will suggest to us so much that is rhythmical, deep, and eternal in

the vast art of architecture, something so deep, so true, that all the narrow

formalities, hard-and-fast rules, and strangling bonds of the schools cannot stifle it in us, then it may be proclaimed that we are on the high-road to a natural and satisfying

art, an architecture that will soon become a fine art in the true, the best sense of the

word, an art that will live because it will be of the people, for the people, and by the

people."

Updates

Well, I figured, since I have so much free time*, that I'd write a blog about some recent work.

(*LIE, I'M IN STUDIO RIGHT NOW)

Turns out, second year studio is more of a part-time job that we're not getting paid for. Which isn't too big of a deal, considering my other classes aren't incredibly time consuming, or difficult*.

(*ANOTHER LIE, ENGINEERING IS HORRIFYING)

All in all, this year is turning out to be pretty good so far. In fact, it started out with the Arch school's annual Corbelletti Competition, a design competition in which we have to come up with a design (for something on campus, this year it was an art gallery in the Arts area) and present an entirely hand-drawn design board (24" x 36") in about a week. Long story short, out of over 200 people (most of the students in the school), I tied with another kid in my year for 6th/7th place, and also the best out of our year. I'll post pictures and explain my design idea once I get my board back.

Our actual studio project for this first rotation is to design a jewelry store in downtown State College, replacing The Clothesline (hypothetically):

Not surprisingly, now that we're design actual spaces (and not lamps, fuck that), I've learned more about architectural design in the past four weeks than I did in one semester last year.

Some info to know beforehand: I'm designing a store for selling crystal, and working off of the theme of fluidity in the metal molding that typically frames a piece of crystal jewelry, like these:

Anyways, here are a few progress photos of my design (past versions, and the newly updated one):

These are probably really unclear as to what exactly is happening; but fear not. I'll post a much clearer blog on the whole project once it's done in a week or two.