How Perspective Plays a Key Role in Architecture

Perception is a vital thing to understand for architects. Architecture wouldn’t be as broad and intricate as it is now without the perspectives, ideas, and feelings coming from within the building itself. Your perspective can help you create the best ideas that you have, and other perspectives can help you understand what other people view your projects as, and how to change it up so that you can get your desired perspective. However, that doesn’t mean that both your perspective and others’ have to align; it can still work out.

Key Example of Perspective In Chicago

Recently, I visited Chicago to visit family and got the opportunity to tour downtown, where the name “City of Architecture” derives from. Immediately, the first place that my family and I went to was Millennium Park, where we visited the Bean. Even though the Bean is world-famous for being in the shape of a bean, the sculptor, Anish Kapoor, named it Cloud Gate since the top reflects the Chicago skyline, while the underside has a walkway. As one might think, these 2 opinions don’t clash with each other and instead complement each other, with one name making the sculpture world-class while the other name gives the art piece depth

and meaning.

Marina City

There are many other unique buildings located in downtown Chicago, including Marina + River City (Finished in 1968 and 1986, respectively), with Bertrand Goldberg designing both buildings centered around two concepts: one that said, since right angles don’t exist in nature, they shouldn’t exist in architecture, and another one was creating a city within a city, which means developing mixed-use developments that can serve as residencies, workplaces, etc. They have a unique circular shape that is distinct and hard to miss, and people like to say that they look like corncobs.  Another iconic building in the Chicago area is the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, because it was used by the Sears company as their headquarters from 1973 until they left in 1992. It marks a common architecture concept called international, with buildings being built like boxes to mark a universal building technique that is currently used worldwide to signify their purpose. Even though they might look bland and people might not like the design of these buildings, these designs serve a important role all over the globe. Finally, another iconic building that will remain a part of Chicago forever is the Trump Hotel located along the Chicago River, which was designed by the same architect that designed the Burj Khalifa, Adrian Smith. This building shows unique design similarities that until recently were never used as part of a architecture phase called “Global Contextualism, which includes sustainable energy production and emphasizes 3 major aspects: functionality, beauty, and firmness, and how to balance them and use peoples’ POVs of surrounding buildings.

In conclusion, there are many buildings over the world that are unique and have different styles. These styles can all be tied back to a few topics, one of which includes perception. Perception can quite literally change the way we see the world and how architecture evolves from this point onward. 

Taneesh

Architecture Blog #3