Seattle Central Library
To me, a building of the “past” is any building that’s been built for. It allows us to look at a building as a precedent, to study maybe what worked, what didn’t and how our own designs can improve upon them. Every single studio I take ALWAYS starts with precedents that let us expand the typology or idea further, because we can learn so much from what’s already been built. Seattle Central Library perfectly encapsulates this for me. I’ve always thought it was a really ugly building. The bus stop that I used to wait at everyday, on my way home from school, is right on the block next to it. However, when coming to design school, I was able to understand how to look at this building with a precedent. It might be a beautiful building from afar and its overall form might be beautiful, but I learned from this experience with this building in the past that it needs to be digestible on the street side too. My experience with this building allowed me to fill it out as a precedent, and I think wholly study of buildings that have been built before can help us enhance designs in the future,
I think that it is really important that people look at buildings as precedents to further their understanding of a piece of architecture. I think that it is so important to look at buildings in a critical lense so that we can learn what to do and what not to do just like you touched on. I think it helps people further understand elements of architecture and design from the past when they have to apply it to something modern.
This relates to how architecture evolved and continues to evolve. In lecture we talked about evolutional theories and how more modern buildings were thought of as progressive, masculine and rational. It correlated with ideologies that were being spread at the time and we can study those buildings (during the revolutionary war for example) on how architecture was influenced by these people at the time.
I think that even in todays schooling it is extremely important to study old and modern buildings as precedents to help further designs for the future. It is cool to see what you can take and digest from architecture from a certain time period and apply it to trends today. I think something that is being focused on more is pushing for sustainable design and creating eco friendly buildings due to rising concerns about the climate disaster.
The concept of using buildings as antecedents to enhance our comprehension of architecture strongly aligns with the development of architectural ideas and implementation. Through a rigorous analysis of previous architectural structures, we get vital knowledge about successful and unsuccessful elements, which informs our own design methodologies and empowers us to improve future projects. The Seattle Central Library offers as a compelling illustration, demonstrating how analyzing a structure as a precedent can result in a comprehensive comprehension of its architectural merits and flaws. This technique not only cultivates a more profound understanding of architectural features and design ideas from previous periods but also promotes the utilization of these insights in present-day situations. As mentioned in the lecture, architectural progress is frequently impacted by dominant ideologies and cultural trends, which determine the specific features of structures during various historical eras.