When this lesson was being explained, it reminded me a 'pre-known' thing. It was similar with the solid-void relationship, that we took in our studio lesson.
Firstly we talked about the art of recreation as a visual process. This process is linked with the sense of vision. It all started how we precept the things. When we just see someone painting, maybe just a hand, we first link it with a human and just imagine a man painting. But when we see it like a whole, we see that it is totally different, it is a woman. Secret in this is the way how we perceive things, no wrong no correct but only subjective impressions.
It is easier to notice a thing when we know something about it before. For example, when I say Eiffel Tower, even if most of us haven't seen it directly, it is a well known example from all of us, a big tower scraping the sky. Another may see the cafes in its floors and someone else may see just the elevator etc, but the image is well perceived.
What is more interesting is the fact, of how can we experience the streets when we take the houses as geometrical shapes?
We get this by comparison. We compare the houses with each other, the sizes of windows, the roofs, the material or the network of the tiles, but after all they give the illusion of 2D. Then we imagine a tall tower next to the house. Pitch changed, from the low one, the house, to the high one, the tower. And this change the illusion of depth or the 3D, repetition of familiar scales in different depths.
In architecture, architects have played with solids and cavities, since forever. Cavity is the clearly defined space enclosed within the outer walls. It is the limited, architecturally formed space. The solids (forms) enclose and form the cavities (spaces) that we live in. In other words, solids are the containers and the cavities are the contained. There are many ways to precept solid and cavity by using different methods: dots, lines, planes and the interaction in between these elements can give the implicitly or explicitly to space. The arrangement of planes such as base plane, elevated base plane, depressed base plane, overhead plane can define a simple field of space, volume of space and even reinforces the separation between its field and surrounding.
According on the way how they design, architects are divided into two groups. Cavity-Minded & Solid-Minded.
Solid-Minded Architects : They prefer to define the solid part. Gothic architecture is one example of it. Architects during this period they mostly worked with forms, in order to give the best of this period like churches. Then by doing so the cavity or the space inside this solid will be determined by the form it is given. Nowadays we have lots of solid-minded architects which give more importance to the form or appearance of a building. Even thought they may seem unique or good in appearance, sometimes they become useless too, and the buildings start to disappoint the humans. In Tirana the Eagle in Flight Building, by Libeskind, is a good example of this. Even if it is so beautiful from outside, when it comes to put a bed in your room it becomes the ugliest one.
Cavity-minded architects - they are focused on the cavity part. For example we can mention the temples. Cavity-minded architects give more importance to the cavity, space than the exterior or solid part. In cave temples in India it is seen this characteristic; the temples are formed by removing materials, by digging through the rock. Here we experience the unshaped rock as a background and another characteristic is that even inside the temples architects have tried to play with the forms, letting the pillars made of rock.
But what if we have to choose in which group to enter? I think everyone, each client want a beautiful building with efficiency in inside. So to reach that thing we have to be solid-cavity-minded architects.
There is also a division based on periods of time.
Gothic Architecture- structural forms. These forms were mostly vertical and designed as sharp pointed structures.
Renaissance Architecture-
Cavity. The preferred renaissance form is the circular, domed cavity
Talking about the transition from Gothic to Renaissance was a change from the shape pointed structures to cavities. Gothic pillar was expanded on all sides into a cluster of shafts. The Renaissance cavity was enlarged by the addition of niches. These transition is still experienced nowadays, and it will be continued.
However every building contain both, the solid and the cavity and they are both equally important. And we can say that Architecture is the art of how an architect play with solids and cavities.
To be the best you don't have to be a solid minded or a cavity minded but to relate these two ones perfectly.