RR4_2/7/11_"commoditie"

Utility, firmness, and beauty. According to Vitruvius, those are the pathway to good architecture. It must include balance through arrangement, and such arrangement in relation to its site. The foundation itself must be solid. And simply the appearance, is it visually pleasing? Doing these things well results in bringing a building to life. "When you make a building, you make it a life. It comes out of life, and you really make a life. It talks to you. When you have only the comprehension of the function of a building, it would not become an environment of a life" (Louis I. Kahn). When relating this quote to the architecture from Rome, one can discuss how they satisfied, or attempted to satisfy, commodity through diversity. One always hears how form must fit function. But if you think about it, function is always changing. Nothing is constant. Things repeat themselves in history, but the world is ever changing. This leads to the question of what we are designing for. Is the intent solely for structure within a certain site, or is it purely function? Have we seen this before, and can it be repeated? Thinking about architecture from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, the concept of appearance versus reality is seen. It makes one question the hierarchy of their thoughts. Which is more important, the function or the visual? Or is it simply the symbolism cooresponding between what we see and what we think we see. All of these things can be brought up when one designs. Questions lead to more questions. One question I came to after I allowed my thoughts to wander, manipulated by the progression from their origin concerning Vitruvius, to Greek and Roman ideals, is simply why question if the space follows firmness, beauty, and utility? Shouldn't the moment the space reveals when experiencing it be the greater factor?