Essay 1
Most design styles in the 21st century are based off of design styles in previous centuries. This is the major way this course has changed the way I view design as a fundamental practice central to humanity. As I learned in class, design styles went from Greek to Roman to Romanesque to Gothic to Renaissance to Baroque/Rococo to Enlightenment, overlapped with Technology, overlapped with Revival, and then overlapped with Modernism. Each of these styles probably took something from the style(s) before it. For example, Roman Architecture has similar characteristics as Greek Architecture, such as massive columns and curvature.
Essay 2
The Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton in 1851, is one of the first buildings that we have talked about in class that comes to my mind. This building was built in London, England for the Great Exhibition. The Crystal Palace brought together Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Renaissance, Buroke, and Chatoesque revivals. This building was made of wrought iron and glass, and was built over existing elm trees. The Crystal Palace links forward to design practices today mainly because most modern buildings are made of glass and iron or steel. Another reason is because well designed buildings today are built to fit the land, not the land to fit the building.
Essay 3I think creating a new perspective that both embraces the past and that says something about our present circumstances is difficult. Using the same ideas but improving them is one way. Though, this is what we have been doing all along. Taking previous ideas that we can not live without and perfecting them is what has made today’s life easier. For example, the television. It was first designed with few channels that were in black and white and the only way to change the channel was to get up and turn the dial. Today’s television has more channels, is in color, has a remote.
Essay 4
There are definitely connections between design and culture. Artwork of the civil rights era is a good example of showing connections between design and culture. Because of the civil rights, artists started expressing their feelings and their views of what was going on during that time. This was there way of responding to the cultural events that were taking place. They focused on artwork that expressed human rights, discrimination, segregation, and even bring people together. Most of the artwork during this period were by African Americans responding the these experiences.
