Painting chapter
QMRThe Erechtheion or Erechtheum (/ɪˈrɛkθiəm, ˌɛrɪkˈθiːəm/; Ancient Greek: Ἐρέχθειον, Modern Greek: Ερέχθειο) is an ancient Greek temple on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens in Greece which was dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon.
The need to preserve multiple adjacent sacred precincts likely explains the complex design. The main structure consists of up to four compartments, the largest being the east cella, with an Ionic portico on its east end. Other current thinking[3] would have the entire interior at the lower level and the East porch used for access to the great altar of Athena Polias via a balcony and stair and also as a public viewing platform.
Fig. 753 – ‘The Art of Preserving Health’ as envisaged by the English physician Robert Fludd. The illustration indicates a healthy human or ‘sound man’ (homo sanus) being attacked from four sides by diseases. He kneels within his fortress to address God (‘How great is thy goodness’, Psalm 19). The latter replies: ‘No evil shall befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling; his angels shall have charge over thee…’ (Psalm 91).
Fludd was an archetypal representative of the early seventeenth century man. He ventured, for instance, in music (De Musica Mundana, 1618). His masterwork was called ‘Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet Minoris, meta-physica, physica, atque technica Historia’ (The metaphysical, physical, and technical history of the two worlds, namely the greater and the lesser (1617 – 1621). He developed perpetual motion machines and was the first to discuss the circulation of blood – maybe earlier than his friend William Harvey (1578 – 1657), who got the credit for his work on the human heart.
The fourfold scheme of Fludd has parallels with Blake’s Zoas and Jung’s psychology and fourfold magical symbolism, according to Gareth KNIGHT (1991). This similarity might find its mutual source in a turning to the four-fold as an escape from two-fold extremism. This move was certainly very common in Fludd’s time (the seventeenth century), but could also be applicable to the conceptual setting of Blake and Jung, when they proclaimed their spiritual institutions.
It had been pointed out earlier, that the four-fold might be the result of oppositional tendencies in an evolutionary two-fold setting. The temporal positions of the users of this type of symbolism in the European cultural history were different, but the escape ‘mechanism’ could well be the same. Fludd built his magical fortress around the Second Visibility Crisis (1650), Blake constructed his Zoas at the boundary of the Third and Fourth Quadrant (1800) and Jung created his fourfold (wo)man in the first part of the Fourth Quadrant – and probably they were all searching for the way out of the confinement of lower division thinking and hope to find a solution in the tetradic.
The time between 1678 – 1688 was a period of frantic building in the Netherlands, since the Eighty Years War with Spain (1578 – 1648) had ended with the Treaty of Munster (1648) some thirty years earlier. One may wonder – and even draw some conclusions on a psychological level – why this feeling of protection suddenly surfaced after the greatest dangers had pasted. It seems that the crisis of the long war had left – after it finished – a feeling of intense uncertainty. The fourth part of the Third Quadrant (III, 4) can be qualified – in any communication? – as a time of recuperation and recovery by making (visible) defense structures. The feeling of security in Europe was damaged in the First Visibility Crisis (1350), and the material well-being became under threat in the Second Visibility Crisis (1650). The future was still open, but had to be safeguarded.
QMRThe Scoppio del Carro ("Explosion of the Cart") is a celebration of the First Crusade. During the day of Easter, a cart, which the Florentines call the Brindellone and which is led by four white oxen, is taken to the Piazza del Duomo between the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Battistero di San Giovanni) and the Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore). The cart is connected by a rope to the interior of the church. Near the cart there is a model of a dove, which, according to legend, is a symbol of good luck for the city: at the end of the Easter mass, the dove emerges from the nave of the Duomo and ignites the fireworks on the cart.
A map of the Afin Oyo (Oyo Palace) in 1937 indicated three temples and apartments for the princes, princesses and slaves. No particular geometrical form was followed in the lay-out.
Large walls, made of mud, characterized the general architectural style of the Afins. These protective measures shielded the ‘divine’ rulers from the townspeople. Some holes were made in the wall to allow the king to observe the people outside, in particular during festivals. Only one gate was made towards the direction of the market, but also some secret gates allowed the Oba (king) to leave his palace secretly.
The kobi or porch is a typical feature, like the projection of a veranda into the courtyard. The kobi is an architectural mark of rank, only for the houses of the Oba. Elaborately carved doors were another feature. Mud sculptures were a part of the palace architecture, symbolizing human beings, and animals like elephant, lion, leopards and snakes, pointing to the power and wisdom of the Obas. A left-hand door panel with birds and a divination tray (fig. 740) was originally designed for the entryway of an Ifa meeting-house or for the court yard within a Yoruba palace.
While there is no particular geometric layout some of the parts are made up of squares that can be seen as quadrants
QMRFig. 742 – This design for the Palace of Westminster by Charles Barry (c. 1836) indicate the basic elements of Victorian architecture.
Architects like Butterfield, Street, Scott and Seddon need a fresh appraisal. The critical tone on their involvements with Gothic Revival, established as a canonical truth in the early twentieth century, might change in the light of a modern, quadralectic approach. The design of the Palace of Westminster by Charles Barry (fig. 742) and the works of the Law Courts Competition of 1866 (fig. 743) are representatives of a ‘Fourth Quadrant’ style, which should be understood in the appropriate context.
It is made up of quadrant directing lines
QMRFig. 706 – The plan of the Basilica Santa Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa proves the point that symmetry had been an important issue for a long time. This church was designed by the architect Galeazzo Allessi, following Bramante and his design for the S. Peter in Rome. Building activities started in 1552, and the dome was raised in 1603. A renovation of the front took place in the nineteenth century by the architect Carlo Barabino.
The proclamation of Sitte’s manifesto for the appreciation of ‘chaos’ in city development might be born in a spirit of oppositional thinking. His ‘war against symmetry’ was founded on the dual notion of the regular against the irregular. The valuation in this two-division was clear, declaring the regular as ‘bad’ and the irregular as ‘good’. This aspect should not overshadow Sitte’s book. His investigation of the historical meaning of the term ‘symmetry’ can also be explained as a further exploration in the world of higher division thinking.
Camillo Sitte pointed out that the difference between the ‘classical’ (Greek and Latin) meaning of the word symmetria and its modern interpretation, as something with a mirror image likeness of right to left was significant. Vitruvius described symmetria as ‘a proper agreement between the members of the work itself, and a relation between the different parts and the whole scheme, in accordance with a certain part selected as standard’ (Book III, Chapter I). This approach includes not only the two-division (of the mirror-like image). It includes the graphic expressions of higher division-thinking, depending on the chosen standard. The quadralectic interpretation of aesthetic arrangements and the position of symmetry is given at the scheme on p. 393.
The Piazza del Duomo in Pisa (fig. 707) was chosen by Sitte as a ‘master-piece of city building’ to prove his point. All the buildings of churchly art (the cathedral, the campanile, the baptistery, and the Campo Sancto) are joined together to hold the attention of the onlooker and produce an overpowering effect. The famous Leaning Tower (C in fig. 707) might even add a touch of unintended larkishness into the sublime spatial composition.
It is set up as a four part quadrant
Fig. 709 – The oval plan by Bernini, according to KITAO (1974) (left) and the Piazza San Pietro on Nolli’s map of Rome, 1748 (right).
The history of the Capitol and the Piazza Campidoglio was extensively described by Harmen THIES (1982). He was concerned with the scientific bickering of the actual date of Michelangelo’s contribution of the design and proposed the year 1536/37. The trapezoid form, the facades, which did not face each other squarely and the ramped staircase called the ‘Cordonata’, posed difficult design circumstances. There was little room for a ‘perfect’ form. Michelangelo solved the problem with an egg-shaped square and a travertine design in the leveled pavement (fig. 710).
QMRThe role of the square as a functional ‘power element’ in city development took a huge flight in the nineteenth century, with the (re) development of the city of Paris (France) as an outstanding example. Large parts of the French capital were demolished between 1853 and 1868. A complete new city design was superimposed on the old one, mainly under the guidance of the civic planner George-Eugène Hausmann (1809 – 1891). He was hired in 1853 by Napoleon III to ‘modernize’ the city and provide better traffic flow, improved housing and a higher sanitary standard. Streets should be ‘too broad for rebels to build barricades across them’. Wide, tree-lined boulevards and gardens replaced much of the old, small streets and rundown apartment houses.
The Place de l’Etoile in Paris, at the end of the Avenue de Champs-Elysée, is a probably the apotheosis of this development and can still be regarded as one of the most impressive (although not the most beautiful) plaza’s in the world. Twelve streets intersect in a huge circular pattern (see fig. 451) and the traffic moves along the Arc de Triumph, which is situated in the middle of the circle.
One of the largest squares of Paris is the Place de la Concorde, situated at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. The obelisk on the square was mentioned earlier (see Ch. 3.9.2) and is part of the ten original Egyptian obelisks scattered around the world. This particular obelisk once marked the entrance to the Temple in Luxor in 1300 BC. A pair of them was given to France in 1833, but only one could technically be managed in a position in the center of Place de la Concorde in 1836.
The square was designed in 1755 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel (1698 – 1782) as an octagon between the Champs-Élysées to the west and the Tuileries Gardens to the east. It was then called the Place Louis XV, after the ruling king. Later it became the Place the Revolution and witnessed the execution by guillotine of some thirteen hundred people in the summer of 1794. Soon thereafter it was renamed Place de la Concorde under the Directory (1795-1799) in order to forget the atrocities of the French Revolution. Later attention to the square included a design by Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, which was never accomplished (fig. 712).
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Fig. 712 – The Place de la Concorde in Paris after a design by Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand.
The residential square achieved a high order of development in London, starting in the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the western portion of London had a dozen or more major squares. Maybe the best-known public gathering place in London is Trafalgar Square (fig. 713). It was constructed in the 1820s by the landscape architect John Nash and further developed and completed by Sir Charles Barry in 1845. Nelson’s Column is positioned in the centre and is guarded by four lion statues. The name of the square commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, when the British Navy defeated a French and Spanish Navy in the Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 1815) off Cape Trafalgar in southwestern Spain.
It consists of four quadrants
Fig. 713 – Trafalgar Square in London, as seen in this watercolor by Steve Greaves, is probably the most famous square in the heart of London.The history of the square is linked with the Charing Cross. The original Eleanor Cross stood at the top of Whitehall to the south side of Trafalgar Square, but was destroyed in 1647 and replaced by an equestrian statue of Charles I in 1675.
The city of Bath (England) paid much attention to a planned urban layout at the end of the eighteenth century under the direction of John Wood the Elder (1704 – 1754) and his son, John Wood the Younger (1728 – 1782). The Circus (designed by the former and completed by the latter in 1764) and Royal Crescent (1769) in Bath have a distinct geometrical clarity, which was inspired by occult and Masonic symbolism (fig. 714).
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Fig. 714 – The urban extensions of the city of Bath (England) is an example of a functional use of open space, using the natural contours as a guideline. The Circus is the enclosed circle in the middle of the plan. The Royal Crescent is an open elliptical arc to the left, while Lansdowne Crescent is the serpentine shape at the north-western part of the map.
Many places in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century had their attention focused on the city square (or market place) in the center of the towns and cities. Only one city (Karlsruhe) will be mentioned here, since it shows vividly the general trend towards the symbolism of the heart of the city, but many cities in Germany and the surrounding countries followed the same approach. Karlsruhe had been a ‘design’ city or ‘fan’ city (Fächer-stadt) from the time when the Karlsruher Schloss (Palace) was erected in 1715 by Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach. The city was planned with the tower of the palace at the centre and thirty-two streets radiating out from it like a folding fan (see also fig. 811). The attention shifted at the late eighteenth century/early nineteenth century towards the development of the market place under the guidance of the architect Friedrich Weinbrenner (LANKHEIT, 1979)(fig. 715).
QMRFig. 719 – This plan gives the That-I Sulaiman complex with the various functional buildings. The black lines represent the original walls, the grey lines are walls built in later periods and the white areas are recent completions. The central area A is a fire temple, just like the cross room B and the four-parted rooms C and D. The western rooms PA and PB could be the remains of the famous palace of Chosroes, but was not fully excavated.
The central room A in the Takht-I-Suleiman complex has a Sassanidian fire temple in the middle (fig. 719/720). The square, domed room lies on the axis of the processional way and contained the holy fire. People could circulate in four vaulted corridors and see the fire. It was thought that the cross-room B contained the holy fire in the atasgah or ‘house of fire’ and that the room was not used for water worship, as proposed by Naumann and others.
Rooms C and D (in fig. 719) were also part of the fire temple complex and were used as treasuries in which a copy of the Avesta was kept. Silver coins were found here, dating from 480 to 580 AD. The triple division of the fire temple in Takht-I-Suleiman (A – B – CD) might be a continuation of the principle of the three sacred fires called Adur Frang, Adur Gushnasp and Adur Burzin-Mehr, which were known from Parthian times (247 BC – 224 AD) and described by the Greek writers Strabo and Pausanius.
A great number (234) of clay roles (or bullae) stamped with nine hundred impressions of early Sassanian seals were found in 1963 in Takht-I-Suleiman. Eighteen different bullae carrying the inscription ‘Magupat (Mobadh, meaning high priest) of the sanctuary of the fire Atur-I Gusnasp’ (the fire of the warriors) were collected. They were dated from the first quarter of the fifth century AD. (400 – 425). The idea that the legendary King Husrau I Anusirvan (531 – 578) was the first to start the cult of the fire temples in Takht-I-Suleiman is unlikely. SCHIPPMANN (1971; p. 354) stated that devotion during the reign of Bahram V (420 – 438) or even earlier cannot be excluded.
The complex is made up of quadrants
QMRThe donjon-type of the castle is recognized as an early specimen of tetradic defense architecture in France (fig. 748). Many donjons, like that of the castle of Vincennes, are scattered over France as a lasting reference to tetradic architecture (MESQUI, 1993).
748
Fig. 748 – An initial plan of the Chambord Castle, following a donjon-type of layout with a Greek cross division of the inner square. The plan was later extended to one of the larger and impressive chateaux of the Loire valley.
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were ages of violence and upheaval over the greater part of Europe. This human behavior caused a great activity towards the building of defenses, or at least became an abstract obsession with this subject. Henrick Ruse’s book ‘Versterckte Vesting’ (published by Johannes Blaeu in Amsterdam in 1554) was just the start of a renewed interest in ‘geometry in the service of war’ (fig. 749). The book has a pivotal position in a distinct history of defenses and the idealistic inspired ‘model town’ based on strong walls, laid out in geometric patterns.
This wider approach became necessary, because the force of the artillery had increased dramatically in this period with the introduction of gun power and iron cannon balls. The shape of the walls had to protect a city and outsmart the modern means of attack rather than the thickness of its walls. A bygone, ‘Renaissance’ element of geometry was always present.
Other castles had quadrant outlays
QMRKing Louis XIV of France (1638 – 1715) was fond of sieges. ‘He greatly preferred them to pitched battles at which he never appeared. He seems to have regarded sieges as rather exciting court picnics’ said Sir Reginald Blomfield in his book on ‘the greatest military engineer that had ever existed’, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban (BLOMFIELD, 1938). The city of Neuf-Brisach, in the Vosges (Haut-Rhin department), with plans drawn by Marquis de Vauban, can be seen as the epitome of citadel building (fig. 752). The city is situated on the left bank of the river and was built as a response to the destruction of original Breisach (on the right bank) in 1697 after the Treaty of Rijswijk.
The design started off as an octagon with tower bastions and detached bastions (the so-called ‘third system’). The street followed a grid plan with a large square at the centre. The fortifications are still in a good condition despite a Prussian siege in 1870 and defense of the town by the Nazis in 1945. A Vauban Museum is housed in the Porte de Belfort.
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Fig. 752 – The street plan of Neuf-Brisach, a city designed by ‘the un-crowned king of fortifications’, the French engineer Vauban, follows the symbolic representations of a fortress town in the eighteenth century. Atlas Novus, 1730.
The inside of the castle is composed of quadrant grids
Jacob Jordaens, The Four Evangelists, 1625–1630
The four winged creatures that symbolise the Four Evangelists surround Christ in Majesty on the Romanesque tympanum of the Church of St. Trophime in Arles
The symbols of the four Evangelists are here depicted in the Book of Kells. The four winged creatures symbolize, clockwise from top left, Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke.
Rubens, 1614
Pier Francesco Sacchi, c. 1516
Abraham Bloemaert, ca. 1612-1615, Princeton University Art Museum
all had paintings of the four evangelists
QMRSymbol facing evangelist portrait at the start of the Gospel; Egmont Gospels
Codex Amiatinus, earliest surviving complete Vulgate Bible, eighth century
Carolingian depiction from an Aachen Gospel, 820
paintings of four evangelists
A mural was painted at the wall above the fireplace depicting the ‘Fisherman and the Genii’ from The Arabian Nights. This story tells about unity and redemption represented by ‘fourfoldness’. There were four casts of the Fisherman’s net, four fishes, four islands, four hills, a foursquare fountain and the four religions of the inhabitants. Richard Wesley noted in his paper of 1988 that the eastern myth abounded in tetradic symbolism and used metaphors similar to those found in the Biblical Book of Revelation.
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Fig. 760 – The design of the St. Mark’s Tower in New York was based on a tetradic plan. This project by Frank Lloyd Wright was abandoned in 1929, but resurfaced as the Price Tower in Bartlesville (Oklahoma) in 1954.
The St. Mark’s Tower in New York City was another design by Frank Lloyd Wright, created in 1925. It had a distinct double tetradic plan (fig. 760). ‘The St. Mark’s Tower may seem to derive from the ‘organic’ demand for the integration of space and structure; and, as fulfilling this demand, the building becomes a single, complete, and self-explanatory utterance’ (ROWE, 1976; p. 94). Frank Lloyd Wright, just as his follower La Corbusier, considered the plan to be a generator of form, which would lead to a ‘disciplined orchestration of spaces’.
The apartment tower for the vestry of St Mark’s-in-the-Bouweie in New York was never built, but Wright used the design again in 1954. The plan of the Price Tower in Bartlesville (Oklahoma) was copied from the St Mark’s tower, some twenty-five years after it was first designed. The tower is derived from a square, which is turned over forty-five degrees. Similar plans were also used in the temples of Dhobini in India (see p. 179; fig. 131). Architect Louis Sullivan (see also p. 851) had used the same tetradic symbolism much earlier (in 1914) as an eye-catcher at the brick front of the Merchants National Bank building in Grinnell (Iowa) (fig. 761). This place named itself the ‘Jewell of the Prairie’ and was nominated by the Budget Travel Magazine as ‘one of the coolest small towns in America’.
QMRFig. 762 – The Fair Building was one of Chicago’s great department stores, seen here during its construction in 1891 at the corner of State and Adams Streets. The skeleton was the determining factor in the design and the use of glass enabled the maximum quantity of light to reach the display areas. The building was closed and demolished in 1984.
The Fair Building in Chicago (1891–92), at the corner of State and Adams Streets, was the flagship of the chain of department stores founded by Ernst J. Lehmann. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney (1832 – 1907) (fig. 762). When the store was completed in 1897, it was said to be two and a half times as large as the Bon Marché department store in Paris. The success of his businesses had detrimental consequences for Lehmann’s mental health. He spent nine years in the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane in White Plains, New York and died in January 1900.
The Chicago Tribune attributed his death to the pressures of running a business and gaining sudden fortune. ‘Instead of running one large store, he was in reality running scores of them. To keep the details of this largely ramified business in his head was no ordinary task. It occupied all his time and absorbed all his energies. It gave him no time for rest…. The result was inevitable. Overwork and the weight of unaccustomed wealth broke him down physically and mentally….’ (Scott A. Newman: The Fair in: Jazz Age Chicago, 2007).
Another classic Chicago building is the McGlurg Building by the architects William Holabird (1854 – 1923, who worked in Jenney’s office in 1875) and Martin Roche (1853 – 1927). It is one of the smaller skyscrapers of Chicago built in 1899 and making a simple and uncomplicated statement. It had approximately nine thousand square feet of glass embedded in terra-cotta coated piers and spandrels. The side walls were totally windowless. It got its name from the first tenants, A.C. McClurg & Company, booksellers and stationer. A good overview of the various American skyscrapers and their history is given in a book by Joseph J. KOROM (2008).
The American ‘celebration of height’ had a slow start in Europe and had to wait until the beginning of the twentieth century. ‘Het Witte Huis’ was built in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) in 1897-1898 and qualified, for a while, as the highest office building in Europe. It’s height was forty-three meters… The ground plan was 20 x 20 meters (originally 15 x 20 meters but was changed after difficulties during the building process). In other words: no square intentions were initially present. The building has no steel skeleton and is for that reason outside the league of proper skyscrapers.
The hallmark of Liverpool, the Royal Liver Building at the Pier Head, was probably the first sky-scraper in Europe in a modern sense. Its thirteen floors and revolutionary steel and concrete structure were designed by Walter Aubrey Thomas (1859 – 1934) and completed in 1911. The total height was ninety meters.
On top of the building are two towers with the mythical Liver Birds, symbol of Liverpool (fig. 763). The copper birds are a cross between an eagle and a cormorant and were produced by the German sculptor Carl Bernard Bartels (1866 – 1955). He was arrested during the First World War and imprisoned on the Isle of Man. After the war, he was sent back to Germany, despite his naturalization for twenty years, and all references to his achievements were removed. Later he returned to England and produced carvings for Durham cathedral and stately homes. He made artificial limbs during the Second World War.
The steel frames that it is made out of are quadrants
The windows of high rise buildings look like quadrants
Fig. 764 – The Van Nelle Company factory in Rotterdam, dating from 1929, is an example of Western Constructivism, which was the Russian/European answer to the American development of skyscrapers.
The number of high rise buildings took off after the Second World War and became a familiar feature of many large cities. The complex of the ‘Seven Sisters’ in Moscow (‘Stalin’s tall buildings’) was built shortly after the war (1947 – 1953). The buildings are occupied by the Hotel Ukraina, Kotel-nicheskaya Embankment Apartments, the Kudrinskaya Square Building, the Leningradskaya Hotel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow State University, and the Red Gates Administrative Building. The Moscow State University main building at Sparrow Hills was completed in 1953 and reached a height of two hundred and forty meters. The architect was Lev Rudnev (1885 – 1956). The Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw (Poland) was another post-war high rise building (1952-1955) with a height of two hundred and thirty seven meters.
However, the large cities in the United States continued their leading role in the building of skyscrapers. The German-American architect Mies van der Rohe (1886 – 1969) became one of the founding fathers of modern architecture (GOSSEL, 2006). He had worked for Peter Behrens and met Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier (1908 – 1911). He contributed to some houses for the Weissenhof Siedlung in Stuttgart and designed the German Pavilion for the World Exposition in Barcelona in 1929 (rebuilt in 1999). His Seagram Building in New York is a typical example of the International Style (fig. 765). The United Nations Headquarters, also in New York and completed in 1950 – designed by a multinational team of architects, including Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer – is another.
Its windows look like quadrants
QMR Fig. 765 – The Seagram Building in New York, by the architects Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, confirmed the leading role of the United States in building high-rise buildings. The cubic constructions (‘boxes’) of steel and glass became known as the International Style for the very reason that many countries all over the world tried this concept in their large cities.
The ideas behind this type of building in the International Style initially aimed at functionality. This aspect was emphasized by the Dutch architect J.J.P. Oud (1890 – 1963), but the intentions soon drifted into an aesthetic style concerned with simplification, clarity and a ban on decorations. The term ‘International Style’ was first used in an exhibition catalog (written by Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock) for the Museum of Modern Art in 1932. The PSFS Building in Philadelphia, completed in that very year, was a firm founding statement. The building was designed by an inter-national team of architects under the direction of George Howe and William Lescaze.
Many cities in Canada, like Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, had their skylines formed by buildings of the International Style. The city of Tel Aviv (Israel) – as described in Michael Levin’s book ‘White City, International Style Architecture in Israel’ (1984) – has an exceptional high number of buildings in this style, due to the building boom in the period 1931 – 1937. Most of the residential structures can be found in an area designed by Patrick Geddes in 1925. Geddes had drawn a master plan of Jerusalem some six years earlier (1919). His belief was that spatial form and social processes were mutual related and any change of the former could influence the latter. Geddes’ ideas of a garden city did not materialize, due to what the geographer Gideon Bigger called ‘the gangrene of the city development in the 1930’s’ (WEILL-ROCHENT, 2003).
Its windows look like quadrants
Fig. 766 – Some square and circular design elements in buildings of the International Style. To the left: Ground plan of the Pennzoil Place in Houston (Texas). To the right: Plan of the office spaces of the Thompson Center in Chicago (Illinois) with a circular atrium.
The spell of glass boxes only diminished in the 1970’s and a Postmodernist Style emerged. The unornamented buildings of the International Style, devoid of any local or historical references, were often characterized as ugly and sterile. However, these ‘boxes’ of steel and glass did have some references to the fourfold, other than their cubic character. The plans sometimes revealed elaborate variations on the theme of squares and circles (fig. 766). The gigantic black towers of the Pennzoil Place in Houston (Texas), by Phillip Johnson and John Burgee (1972-76) seem to slide past each other in a plan (fig. 766 left), while the Thompson Center in Chicago (by Helmut Jahn) has a circular central rotunda of fifty meters, which rises the full seventeen stories of the building (fig. 766 right). The inner structure of the building has similarities with the City Hall of The Hague (Nederland) by Richard Meier (fig. 767).
According to Kuilman The observatory is probably the most typical and essential product of quadralectic architecture. Its function to observe (the universe) reaches into the heart of an eternal communication between the human being and the environment. Only the universe holds the keys to an understanding of our being on this earth. The observatory can be seen as a ‘real’ quadralectic building, which has to do with visibility in its most general sense.
Libraries do have a similar function as observatories, but their field of observance is directed to a man-made universe, consisting of books and papers. The buildings, which safeguard an artistic and intellectual heritage, do not necessarily reflect this task, but their function as a public building and caretaker of cultural goods make them well suited to bring some of its contents to light.
The World Wide Web (Internet) combines the functions of an observatory and library into one source of information, from the endless cosmos to the unknown boundaries of knowledge. The Internet, as a presentation of enlightenment, has its own architecture, which is not expressed in bricks and stones. The term ‘architecture’ symbolizes in this case the process of selecting paths in a network (routing). All types of mathematical procedures (algorithms) can be applied to determine the best path to a destination.
DijkstraThe Dutch mathematician Edsger Dijkstra (1930 – 2002) (left – photo: Wikipedia) pioneered in this subject as early as 1959, when he proposed a graph search algorithm that solved the single-source shortest path problem. His so-called ‘structured programming’ became a source of inspiration for further development.
The above-mentioned phases (types) of observation – given as observatory, library, and internet – and their associated type of architecture (either real or virtual) will now be placed in a quadralectic perspective. Four phases of observation (quadrants) are distinguished:
The first phase (I) consists of an invisible invisibility, an observational area without any architecture. This stage might initially be overlooked due to its very characteristics, but is of essential importance for the communication-as-a-whole. No sense of division could ever be developed without this conceptual terrain, which offers the playground to discovery.
The second phase (II) of the invisible visibility brings in the first efforts to discover the observable. All senses are used to chart the unknown. The initial types of observatories – as division choices in the mind – are for the first time materialized in a dynamic exploration environment. Ideas, derived from observations, are fed in the communication and contribute to the establishment of boundaries (facts).
The third phase (III) comprises the inventory process in the visible visibility of reality. Observations are placed in a division environment and valued accordingly. The outcome is a ‘library’ of information. This unity (‘building’) provides a storehouse of ‘facts’ gathered in the process of observation and act as a center of communication.
The fourth phase (IV) is the dynamic interplay of ‘library’ knowledge in the virtual world of a worldwide network, the internet. A visible invisibility, or a world which is too large to grab, is the main characteristic of this modern source of information. Architecture-as-a-disciple moved from the empirical into a language of mathematics, dealing with nodes (positions) and certain algorithms to calculate the shortest paths between source and target. Quadralectic architecture might be the very subject, which combines the ‘old’ architecture of bricks and mortar (III) with the ‘new’ architecture of nodes (IV), providing the optimal protocol for the journey through life.
The Caracol in Chitzen Itza – Photo: Marten Kuilman (1988).
The reconstruction might have used preconceived ideas about its function as an astronomical observatory and a degree of creative renovation cannot be excluded. The establishment of alignments is a notorious tricky one, since any two points can be connected with a line. However, it will not be denied that Mayans were interested in measurements of all kinds. A text in the ‘Popul Vuh’ (a mythological text of the Mayas) is translated as ‘The fourfold siding, fourfold cornering, measuring, fourfold staking, halving the cord, stretching the cord in the sky, on the earth, the four sides, the four corners as it is said ‘, and leaves no doubt about their intentions.
The eternal entities of time (duration) and space (extension) were deeply rooted in the Mesoamerican classical cultures – like in most great cultures, otherwise they would not be there. A concern with movement and division are the logical derivates of this conceptual setting. Subsequently, a historical notion (of creation stories, calendars and clocks) and significance of geometric designs (of agrarian areas, fragmentation of land and cadastral systems – but also as artistic expressions on vessels, etc.) are the visible outcome of these interests.
The European cultural history has several distinct moments of an interest in the observation of the outside world, either towards nature on earth or on a cosmic level. The herb garden of the medieval cloisters led to descriptions like those of Angenis of St. Wadrille (812) and Strabo’s ‘Hortulus’ (827). Attention to nature by the abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179) marked a general tendency towards the appreciation of nature – often inspired by a reflection of this greatness as a sign of God’s power.
A major ‘turn towards the contemplation of nature’, took place at the end of the twelfth century, resulting in early forms of science. This period is – in a quadralectic interpretation of the European cultural history (see fig. 267) – the beginning of the Third Quadrant (III). The French scholar Nicole Oresme (1323 – 1382), dean of Rouen, used instruments to watch the sky. His subject of commensurability (of heavenly bodies) was approached on a theoretical level and is surprisingly ‘modern’ from a quadralectic point of view. Other fields of his interests were economics and monetary questions (De origine, natura, jure et mutationibus monetarum; Treatise on Coins), musicology (Tractatus de configuratione qualitatum et motuum)’, psychology (with a ‘theory of unconscious conclusions of perception’ and a ‘hypothesis of two attentions’) and natural philosophy (De visione stellarum; On Seeing the Stars) (TASCHOW, 2003). Oresme is called, with good reason, ‘the French Einstein of the fourteenth century’.
QMRA rather curious symbolic use of a fortress was expressed by the English doctor Robert Fludd (1574 – 1637) in his book ‘Medicina Catholica’ (Frankfurt, 1629), which was two years later issued in two volumes as ‘Integrum Morborum Mysterium sive Medicina Catholica’ (1631). Fludd showed a donjon-type of the castle with a Homo Sanus in the middle (fig. 753).
753 Donjon is the four part quadrant
Music chapter
QMROnly Four You is the second and last studio album released by the girl group Mary Jane Girls. As with their debut album, Mary Jane Girls, the album was produced and written by Rick James.
The album includes their biggest hit single, "In My House" (#7 Pop, #3 R&B, #1 Dance). Other singles included "Wild and Crazy Love" (#42 Pop, #10 R&B, #3 Dance) and "Break It Up" (#79 R&B, #33 Dance). Only Four You was certified Gold by the RIAA in June 1985.[2]
Each of the other girls was also given a chance to sing lead vocals on a track from the album, with Corvette singing lead on "Girlfriend", Candi with "I Betcha" and Maxi with "Leather Queen".
There were four girls in the group
QMRPercussion is a method of tapping on a surface to determine the underlying structure, and is used in clinical examinations to assess the condition of the thorax or abdomen. It is one of the five methods of clinical examination, together with inspection, palpation, auscultation, and inquiry. It is done with the middle finger of one hand tapping on the middle finger of the other hand using a wrist action. The nonstriking finger (known as the pleximeter) is placed firmly on the body over tissue. When percussing boney areas such as the clavicle the pleximeter can be omitted and the bone is tapped directly such as when percussing an apical cavitary lung lesion typical of TB.[1]
There are two types of percussion: direct, which uses only one or two fingers, and indirect, which uses the middle/flexor finger. There are four types of percussion sounds: resonant, hyper-resonant, stony dull or dull. A dull sound indicates the presence of a solid mass under the surface. A more resonant sound indicates hollow, air-containing structures. As well as producing different notes which can be heard they also produce different sensations in the pleximeter finger.
Florence became a musical centre during the Middle Ages and music and the performing arts remain an important part of its culture. During the Renaissance there were four kinds of musical patronage in the city with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private.[59] and it was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony.
Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century.[60]
Composers and musicians who have lived in Florence include Piero Strozzi (1550 – after 1608), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) and Mike Francis (1961–2009).
Dance chapter
QMRCalcio Storico Fiorentino ("Historic Florentine Football"), sometimes called Calcio in costume, is a traditional sport, regarded as a forerunner of soccer, though the actual gameplay most closely resembles rugby. The event originates from the Middle Ages, when the most important Florentine nobles amused themselves playing while wearing bright costumes. The most important match was played on 17 February 1530, during the siege of Florence. That day Papal troops besieged the city while the Florentines, with contempt of the enemies, decided to play the game notwithstanding the situation. The game is played in the Piazza di Santa Croce. A temporary arena is constructed, with bleachers and a sand-covered playing field. A series of matches are held between four teams representing each quartiere (quarter) of Florence during late June and early July.[67] There are four teams: Azzurri (light blue), Bianchi (white), Rossi (red) and Verdi (green). The Azzurri are from the quarter of Santa Croce, Bianchi from the quarter of Santo Spirito, Verdi are from San Giovanni and Rossi from Santa Maria Novella.
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