Reading/unfolding architectural form: an inquiry into the venice hospital project by Le Corbusier

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2005
Çınar, Sinem
This study aims to discuss the generative possibilities of reading architectural form by focusing on selected interpretations of the Venice Hospital project by Le Corbusier. By presenting complementary and competing readings of the project, it examines different design strategies in the formal organization of the Venice Hospital. It shows that the Venice Hospital project, displaying the characteristics of both a أfieldؤ organization and a well-articulated object, demands a reconsideration of the occasionally overstated distinction between them. First, it introduces interpretations of the Venice Hospital as a field and/or mat-building phenomenon, which emphasize its relevance as a precedent for contemporary formal explorations. The complexity of the Venice Hospital project requires appealing to other reading strategies as well. Based on the discussion initiated by Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter in أThe Crisis of the Object: The Predicament of Texture,ؤ and owing to Alan Colquhoun̕s analysis of the project̕s geometrical system in أFormal and Functional Interactions,ؤ this study proceeds by exploring the way the Venice Hospital becomes أan object performing like a texture.ؤ It attempts to decipher Colquhoun̕s remarks and his diagrams concerning the geometrical system through the technique of the أplan analysisؤ introduced by Klaus-Peter Gast. The Venice Hospital project is also studied as an example of transparent spatial organization, in light of the conceptual framework developed by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky in their أTransparencyؤ articles. Starting from these interpretations of the Venice Hospital project, this study aims at bringing into discussion the nature of the devices or techniques of formal organization that can mediate between architecture and urbanism. These devices are examined in light of the framework constituted by the concepts of أdeviceؤ and

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Citation Formats
S. Çınar, “Reading/unfolding architectural form: an inquiry into the venice hospital project by Le Corbusier,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2005.