Artwork: Artwork should 'grow out of idea and aims of project'
Authors
Citation
PACE Interior Architecture, v.47, 1992, pp. 119-123
Abstract
In Europe or Japan, architects are considered practitioners of an applied art. Architects and artists mix. But, in many other cultures, architecture has been hijacked by science. The process of achieving a construction has become so complex that architecture, the "mother of the arts," has been cut up into hundreds of specialist tasks.
Renaissance clients - merchants, dukes and popes - and Renaissance artists - who were also sculptors, architects, scientists, inventors and writers - would be very surprised at our modern day specialization and fragmentation of knowledge. Cheque book architecture rules out anything which cannot be rationally explained or justified in terms of financial profit.
When architecture has been reduced to functionalism and effectiveness, the arts - paintings, mobiles, sculptures, video installation art, neon light art and laser art etc. - which feed the imagination are our last link between past and present culture. On the downside, art is too often used to hide or divert attention away from bad architecture. Too much public sculpture in particular is used to fill leftover spaces or unsuccessfully revive parks where no one wants to linger for fear of getting mugged.
In Las Vegas or Disneyland art as a separate item, distinct from practical building, is not required because there is already enough on the fantasy plane to keep the public interested. In our everyday environments, howerver, what are the incentives or arguments for including artworks in architecture?
(1) Art as status
(2) Art as a definition of place
(3) Art as urban regeneration
(4) Artists and architects
(5) Art in interiors
(6) In practice
Description
Subject
Type
Article
Format
Date
1992
Language
en