Candice Edwards: 2007

1. This course has changed the way I view design dramatically. I now understand that instead of just making the world a prettier place, architecture can actually changes and reform society in ways that I had never imagined before. For example, the arts and craft style’s opposition of the Industrial Revolution not only led to another type of great design, but also a dramatic change of thought among the people.
This class has made it evident that architectural design is present in any civilization. It is something that we cannot escape. Any kind of shelter, from a cardboard box or the Taj Mahal is designed by someone. It is inevitable, and I now realize that design is one of the many factors that make a civilization who it is. For when analyzing past customs and ways, architecture is the common thread that binds the people of the past to those to come in the future.

2. Frank Lloyd Wrights’ Ward Willis House in Illinois links forward to design of today in many ways. The concept of expanding spaces with the landscape is an idea that eliminates the idea of buildings so high that the individual cannot connect with them. Also Wright almost seemed to be looking in the future when he saw the Willis House as not many separate rooms, but spaces interwoven with each other, so a person could leave on space and not know that they were entering another. This aspect of design is carrying over today, because buildings seem to be getting more and more coherently bound as a single structure, instead of many rooms surrounded by four walls.

3. It is truly evident that most all architecture is not original in the times of today. Design has been present since the creation of man, and because we have been in a culture with the knowledge of the past, design cannot be an original thought, because somewhere a building has something in common. The only way that buildings of today can speak a different language of those in the past is to use a concept that is innovative in our society alone.
The best example of an innovative approach in society today is Green Design. Sustainability is not only one of the most talked about keys in design today, it is also one of the most innovative as well. By designing to accommodate to the Earth instead of the people, architecture of today could be creating something that has truly never been done before.

4. In the Icons of Modernism assignment, design and culture of the fifties and sixties were linked in numerous ways. Military during this period was not looked on to be as noble as it was in the thirties and forties. With the tragedies of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima still engraved in their minds, most people were tired of war and just wanted their soldier’s home. Many felt that we were fighting in vain in Vietnam and Korea, and this is a common idea that Americans feel about the war in Iraq. The idea of war in the 1950’s and 1960’s greatly influenced how the people perceive war in another country. To fight on our homeland is one thing, but Vietnam and Korea brought extreme opposition to send our soldiers to another country to fight what the people see as someone else’s battle.