Using Architecture in GCSE ART??!

Question

I am just about to start my second year of GCSE art and am finding it difficult to decide what to do myself. I have started with architecture and am looking at things such as the regeneration of the docklands and at many architects, i am hoping to carry this on to looking at the design of the houses of parliment and later the pre-raphaelite era and then mystical etc etc, only the thing i am struggling with is that looking through gcse art students books i see that they have included much experimentation, this is really hard to include when i am looking at architects because i can't say 'this is how they built a building, now i am gna build a building in this way', so can someone please tell me how i can include experimentation? other ideas about using architecture for my gcse coursework would be very helpful aswell.

THANKS!

Answer 1

I am not sure how the GSE syllabus is structured, but in terms of victorian architecture you could look at the debate between the Neo-classicists and the gothic factions. A good and accessable book would be Victorian Architecture by Roger Dixon and Stefan Muthesius - it is in the "World of Art library" series by Thames and Hudson ISBN 0 500 18162 2 - also try and have a read of anything by John Ruskin, tremendously influentiual in both art and architecture. You might want to look at the similarities between the backward looking romanticism of both the neo-classicists and gothicists (is that a word?) and the art of the pre-raphs and their followers and also of poets like Tennyson.

You could compare these with the modernist (for Victorian times) use of new materials in things like the Crystal Palace and in the great engine sheds like St Pancras (coupled with the fantastic neo-gothic fantasy of the front)   There is a great Phaidon Architecture book - Lost Masterpieces ISBN 0-7148-3672-1 which has lots of detail about the Crystal Palace

Experimentation? How about designing a suitable building to replace the vile monstrosity of 1960's brutalism - the central library in Manchester, to fit in with the surrounding neo-classical and itallianate buildings .

You never know, you might turn out to be the person in the vangurd of a great gothic or itallianate revival.

There is hope yet!

Answer 2

Does it have to be about how the building were 'built' or can you concentrate on how they are conceptualized?

I haven't studied art past GCSE and have not done architecture myself, but did stumble across a couple of interesting articles on an exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. This focussed very much on conceptualization and included some rather fantastical ideas about future architecture. It seems to be more based on futuristic ideals than current viability of physically building something.

Have included a link in my source.

Hope you find something useful!