Stone in a smaller scale

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Published on Thursday, 25 October 2012 14:07

Once I was talking to my friends about impressive projects by Mario Botta, a Swiss architect, and about the architecture by Tadeusz Spychala, a Polish architect. They are both the masters of simplicity and proportion, particularly sensitive to the beauty and expressive possibilities of stone. One of my interlocutors, a well-known professor of architecture, asked me in a very polite way: What do we need this pompous stone for? I think there are cheaper and better materials than stone. Do the common people really need stone in their common life?

Then we started to talk about the sense of using such expensive facings as stone, especially in the countries which are not economic leaders. Among the arguments which supported the use of stone were aesthetics and its durability. The main counter-argument was that modern architecture devaluates stylistically. Someone started to wonder if it was worth fighting for the existence of the average and whether the utility buildings which have a common aesthetics should look the same for years. This resulted in a discussion about the only correct way of designing a solid and the choice of materials – whether we should pay particular attention to the form or function. Consequently, we ended up trying to analyse the condition of Polish architecture.

According to Georg Hegel, a German Romantic philosopher, architecture originates from the attempt to create a hideout for certain social groups, and at the same time, to fulfill certain indispensable functions. Hegel divided the history of art into three long periods: the art of the East, ancient art and Christian art. However, he paid homage only to the ancient art for the ability to combine form and content. One question has remained unanswered till today: which trend of architecture, formalism or functionalism brings the art of space organisation closer to the ideal of beauty. Aesthetics, being the youngest branch of philosophy, did not define the standard of beauty and, as an idea, will remain in the sphere of theory, feelings and emotions. There is no reason to assume that classical designing, which glorifies perfect proportions and ideal form, ensures, or not, aesthetic success.We cannot say that about modernists as well for whom in the 1920s the beauty in architecture used to appear automatically as a result of the proper cubature representation of the functions satisfying the man's social needs.

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