Beaux-Art and Architectural Design - Essay Example

Name Tutor Course Date Beaux Art and Architectural Design Introduction Beaux-Arts has been a major contributor to modern architectural techniques and designs used to develop outstanding buildings and monumental structures. One can never understand the dynamism in the field of architect without considering the history of Beaux. As one of the oldest school that offered courses in Paris, Ecole Nationale et Speciale des Beaux-Arts established an outstanding legacy.1 Beaux Art stands out after gaining so much fame between 1880 and 1930 with the style of the building taking root in the American Architectural industry. Beaux style exhibited a unique innovation that developed a good mix of the patterns and cultures. The blends were consistent, and the school in France was famous for educating architects to achieve this feat. These groups of architects transferred the architectural technique to the United States. The technique by Beaux made use of the Greek and Roman architectural that often involved the addition of stylistic features such as sculptural elements. Ancient decorative techniques have also been used in the Beaux architectural design in the modern era. Some of the areas where the design has been applied include the designing of monuments. Public amenities, social buildings, and residential buildings have been designed using the Beaux technique. Beaux technique incorporates a high degree of symmetry and unique celebration of structures in the design. This paper will discuss the Beaux architectural designs. Training of the Beaux-Arts design methods The school of Fontainebleau provided students with an opportunity to exercise freedom and concentrate on designing without the need to pay attention to other studies offered at the school.2 The system adopted by the school aimed to get the best out of the students studying architecture by allowing them to allocate much time of the day at the respective designing rooms. The system also minimized the aspect of special supervision during the working hours, which indicates the enhanced freedom the school offered to its students. Many critics argued that the system might have some ineffectiveness especially when the fact of less supervision is considered. However, the system gave a chance for tutors to offer correctional criticism that came from both the students and the teachers. The technique of open criticism helped students to share indirectly their talents and ideas with others in an interactive learning process. The correctional forums helped students to improve the practicality in the architectural designs they develop. Most of the tutors did not provide students with the real experience of practical architecture and only allowed the student to come up with their artistic designs. The levels of critique were many and students often found the sessions more interesting and informing than the traditional methods where a tutor provided the examples by drawing. Finals critique sessions often proved the most interesting sessions as students were allowed an opportunity to explain and defend their designs.3 Occasionally, the final sessions involved invited guest architects who participated as part of the juries. The sessions adopted the Beaux-Arts custom where the results of each presentation were provided in a relatively short time accompanied by criticism from the jury. Students often got an opportunity to get clues relating to some technical aspects of architecture and specifically technical aspects to be included in the students’ projects. The Beaux-Arts approach for training architects relied on a simple aspect of competition as the best strategy for enhancing creativity and innovation in architecture. Students who presented the best projects were rewarded and with medals and special recognition. The most outstanding projects were acknowledged through a public display in the Salle du Jeu de Paume, and the feat came along with a monetary prize. The competition was often referred to as the BAID competition that purely involved students incorporating their architectural ingenuity. According to Colorado Historical Society, the presentations made by the students included fine drawings developed using a pencil, charcoal and at times enhanced using watercolors. Gournay presents some of the best architectural presentations by students of the Fontainebleau after competition and criticism.4 One example of such masterpieces is the design entitled ‘An Academy of plastic culture’ present in the 1927 catalogue of Fontainebleau. The best way to learn is by actively participating in the learning process, and that is the simple technique used to train the architects in this case. When training architects, the school recognized the fact that designs are not fixed therefore the students have to prove some levels of creativity to cope with different environments. Consider a situation where the a tutor takes the trouble to train the students the examples such tutors provide might create a fixed mind in the heads of the students. The school, therefore, allows the students to come up with their own structural ideas and develop them to realistic concepts through designing. The learning system made sure to enhance students responsibilities by depriving them specific curriculum and data.5 None of the Ecole programs provided the exact dimension of the projects hence all students were tasked with deciding the simplicity or complexities to incorporate in their projects. The tutors never bothered to provide students with what was expected from them a situation that left students with an option of only creating the best design. The aspect of architecture that this type of training was good at nurturing is the creativity part of the architects. The architects were expected to think creatively of designs that would fit in a specific location and serve specific purposes such as recreation and offices. Features Beaux Art is a unique technique that incorporates the Roman and Greece elements of architecture6. Some elements can be used to describe the uniqueness contained in the Beaux Art design. Symmetrical articulation is one unique characteristic that makes the patterns and styles have a certain rhythm that ends up creating a rhythm in the design. Symmetry makes sure that resembling parts in design have equal and precise measurements in all sections of a structure. The architectural intelligence has to ensure that the designs in the art exhibit a lavish and intensive decoration of the surfaces. The designs used in the building of structures designed by the Beaux techniques make use of intensive decoration like the ones used in fine art. Beaux architectural design prefers to use a dominant element such as gestures whose scale archways are enhanced with triple archways.7 Most of the designs use columns that are coupled to make the designs more attractive. The facades in the designs are entirely made up of wall planes that are advanced in nature and have to recede. The transitional techniques between elements have been achieved with a technique of multiple corners. The roofline in the Beaux designs is characterized by the exemplary artistic design that incorporates rooftop sculptures. Special features known as the entablatures, which often advance, and at the same time recede to create unique marks on the locations below columns. Ornamentally designed sculptures are also used with uniquely decorated floor plans that rhyme with the entire design. Stylistic designs. Most of the Beaux architectural techniques make use of designer’s creativity and innovation to incorporate some stylistic designs.8 One of the designs was the Durban model that involved a combination of various artistic techniques, environmental and natural factors. The architecture used personal ingenuity to ensure that these aspects perfectly blended to reflect in the final design. The design included an open court at the center surrounded by well-designed story structures the used the Beaux-Arts technique. The designs incorporated in the story buildings are artistic in nature with high levels of consistencies and precision. The precision is in such a way that the decorations are accurately reproduced when being used. At various segments of the design. The floor of the court has been designed with a consistent pattern to make the design outstanding. The romantic and historical ideas of the modern art are adequately represented in the Duban architectural design. Composition of Beaux-Arts The complexity of the series and designs used in the Beaux-Arts was the outstanding factor that gained so much fame in 1850. The Roman classical texts have been cited as the major point of references for the designs with roman architectural pieces drawing some resemblance to the Beaux’. One aspect that was given much consideration in the Beaux-Art design is geometry. Geometry application in the Beaux-Art was in most cases circular in nature with several grids fit inside the circles. The geometrical patterns and approaches had different roles especially after the completion of the projects. For instance, some geometrical designs formed part of the beauty of the design while others formed part of the ventilations or lighting system for the building. The geometry either increased in size or decreased in such a way that it was meant to rhyme with the size of the building as well as other patterns involved. Measurements and consistency were very essential especially for the circles and the rectangular grids, which dominate the designs. The geometry patterns make use of a unique combination of nested rectangular geometry and the circle patterns. Beaux-Art design also has designs of rectangles within rectangles, which makes the decoration complex but attractive. An example of this design can be seen in the architectural work of the Duban building. Hierarchy is another stylistic pattern employed in the Beaux-Arts design, which involved enhancing interrelationships between patterns.9 In Beaux-arts competition in the training stages, these factors were closely monitored and awarded points. The scale and consistency that formed the hierarchy in the designs were highly awarded by the juries during the criticism sessions. Beaux Arts uses hierarchy to create a meaningfully unique pattern with relevance and importance to the overall design. The design was important in the Beaux designs has one major intention of developing unity of ideas in the architectural designs. One rule for developing beauty is developing a composition of ideas and developing a unique hierarchy that stands out from the rest. The elements of beauty must have characteristics that make each element subordinate to each other to make one dominant structure of beauty. Beaux Art technique makes use of the axes of symmetry to achieve the major element of hierarchy. Most important elements of the hierarchy were placed on the axes, and the axes were to be arranged to create an artistic blend. Mood and tone were another area of concern for the Beaux Arts design and involved use of correct materials and color.10 Mood and tone are very important in the Beaux designs as they form part of the beauty that describes the uniqueness of Beaux-Arts. Material choice can never be sidelined as it also plays an important role in the development of mood and tone. Mood and tone have been described by Van Zanten as tableaux of architectural designs. Conclusion Architecture has evolved over years with more creativity innovation and technology playing a greater role in the evolution process. However, according to the findings in this article, the Beaux-Arts that originated in France have played a significant role in the evolution of architectural practices. The Beaux design was unique and incorporated the aspects contained in the Greece and Roman architectural designs to achieve beauty and fulfillment of purpose. In training how to practice this architectural technique, tutors avoided direct feeding of knowledge and skills by allowing students to develop their projects. These projects were designed over time with sessions of criticism in place to help the student identify their mistakes and possible areas of improvements. The Ecole’s approach based on the principle that competition results to quality thus students were literally competing to develop designs and learning in the process. The designs have successfully been used to come up with unique buildings such as Duban building. In my opinion, the system used in training and the technique used in designing are very unique and relevant in the modern era. Beaux designs remains an important approach for designing palacious buildings, statehouses and other monumental structures. Works Cited Colorado Historical Society. "Beaux-Arts." Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. 8 April 2016 . Gournay, Isabelle. "Architecture at the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts 1923-1939." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 45, No. 3 (1986): 270-285. Grossman, Greenwell Elizabeth. "The Civic Architecture of Paul Cret." 1996. Rhode Island School of Design. 8 April 2016 . Neil, Levine. "Examples of institution with the Beaux design Examples of institution with the Beaux design Examples of institution with the Beaux design." 1982. Examples of institution with the Beaux design. 8 April 2016. Rendell, Jane. "Art and Architecture: A Place Between." 2008. 8 April 2016 . Zanzten, Van David. "Félix Duban and the Buildings of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1832-1840." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Oct., 1978) (1978): 161-174. Read More