Forms of Human Spaces I
Redefining Expectations for Form; New Visions, Materials, and Design Processes

The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain by Frank O. Gehry

"The perfect setting: architecture for art´s sake The building itself is an extraordinary combination of interconnecting shapes. Orthogonal blocks in limestone contrast with curved and bent forms covered in titanium. Glass curtain walls provide the building with the light and transparency it needs. Owing to their mathematical complexity, the sinuous stone, glass, and titanium curves were designed with the aid of computers. The glass walls were made and installed to protect the works of art from heat and radiation. The half-millimeter thick "fish-scale" titanium panels covering most of the building are guaranteed to last one hundred years. As a whole, Gehry's design creates a spectacular, eminently visible structure that has the presence of a huge sculpture set against the backdrop of the city." Compare this to the vision for the first Gugenheim Museum, on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. (See note below)

Eden Project Domes, England

Expo 67 Dome, Montreal, Canada, by Buckminster Fuller

"To avoid solar overheating, there was no plastic skin. Thousands of separate triangular plexi-glass panels were operated by 250 computer-controlled electric motors which opened or closed them according to the weather conditions. Other panels had light sensors linked to adjustable shades.

The dome was a three-quarter sphere 137ft high and with a spherical diameter of 250ft. The plans were highly unusual, as apart from a few details of the hubs connecting the struts, there were no drawings at all, just tables of figures with which to calibrate the machine tools that stamped out the stainless steel alloy components. Then it was only a matter of rivetting according to the colour code: all done with mathematics."

Proposal For a New World Trade Center

The Guggenheim in NYC by Frank Lloyd Wright

Some people, especially artists, criticized Wright for creating a museum environment that might overpower the art inside. "On the contrary," he wrote, "it was to make the building and the painting an uninterrupted, beautiful symphony such as never existed in the World of Art before."