Museums, paintings and history (original) (raw)

Discovering the ART in ARCHITECTURE

InSEA ART Education VISUAL Journal IMAG #3

Architecture more fully than other art forms engages the immediacy of our sensory perceptions. The passage of time, light, shadow and transparency, colour phenomena, texture, material and detail all participate in the complete experience of architecture" (Holl, 2006, p. 39). This essay contemplates the means and objectives of architecture education for children and youth. As architecture is a very complicated entity, it can be approached from various angles in architecture education for children. Architecture is much more than just physics, mathematics, geometry, economy, sociology and construction. In the only contemporary source on classical architecture to have survived, 15 BC architect Vitruvius wrote in his book De architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas, venustas -that is, it must be solid, useful and beautiful. Since the time of classical antiquity and its rebirth in Renaissance, architecture in its nature has been recognized as an esthetical form of art, considered as a means to bring delight to people, and represent the cosmic order. In this essay I discuss the immaterial aspects of architecture in relation to architecture education to children and youth.