RSTT

=Building and context =



** M **** y magazine is about different types of architecture depending on the country, the culture, the architect or any other variable, so today I will talk you about the relationship that there are between the building and the context, and how architects of different parts of the world are working for do it better. ** Well I will show you some examples of two kinds of context: building related to the landscape and building related to the other buildings in the center of the city. ** A good example of the first one is the [|Children’s Museum] in Japan made by [|Tadao Ando] . This building is located on a mountain in front of a lake so the architect uses this opportunity to create a building that has a lot of contact with the landscape. The museum doesn’t have any other building around and it is so open. The architect plays with the natural elements doing for example a way on the mountain that connect the two main parts of the museum overlooking the lake. Other important think that Tadao Ando done for uses the landscape is the big water mirror that gives the feeling of continuity with the lake. So I think that the children’s museum is a building that has a good relationship with the context. ** Well this was an example of natural context. Now I will talk you about building that are located between others building in the core of the city. New York City is perfect to talk about that. This is the city of skyscrapers so should be a relationship between them. The most of the buildings in New York have a particular characteristic; they are bigger on first floors, and they get smaller at the top of the building. The idea to construct the building like that is for allow that the light arrive to the streets, because if the buildings were complete like a big box, the light can´t arrive to the streets and maybe we can’t see the sky. ** Well that is the relation in the top of the building but what happens on the ground? Some buildings have a lot of space around them so they don´t have problems with other buildings and they uses that space like an own square. For example the [|Seagram] is a really high building that has this space in front of it, which serve to keep it separate to the buildings around. ** But there are buildings that are very close to the other. In these cases the architect doesn’t have space around so he should make space on the ground of the building. A good example of that is the [|Citicorp Tower] ** **. Before construct this building in this place there was a church and this church is there yet because it couldn’t be demolished, so the architect had to find a form to construct his building in this place, very close to the church, and well he made space on the ground of his building giving it this particular form that looks like a “T”. Well that was some forms to relate the buildings in big cities like New York.** And there are a lot of forms to relate de building to different context creating beautiful place like the children’s museum, and impressive places like the skyscrapers in New York City. **
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