Hi everyone. This is my first post as an architect! And of course, the first thing to do after graduation is preparing the portfolio. I tried to make a minimal one, here are the digital and printed version of my precious portfolio. I hope you like it. And I would be glad if you can share your opinions and comments.
Lastly, if you want to check this on Behance, here is the link; https://www.behance.net/gallery/125771659/Architectural-Portfolio
Hey! This post is a bit off topic, this is not related with architecture but I wrote this paper for my music history class and I wanted to share it with you too. Here is some information about Mozart’s life and his great unfinished work Requiem.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), full name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a composer of the Classical period. He was born in Salzburg. His father Leopold was his teacher and he started to compose at the age of 5, he wrote his first symphony at 8. Between the years 1762 and 1773, he was traveling with his family and performing with his sister Nannerl in child prodigies. During his trips, Mozart met lots of important musicians including Johann Christian Bach. In Milan, in 1770 he wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto and this led to further opera commissions. He was employed at Salzburg court between the years 1773-1777. He worked in many genres including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and also a few minor operas but he resigned in 1777 because of the bad work conditions. When he visited Vienna in 1781, he chooses to stay in Vienna where he spent his last years. He was married in Vienna to Constanze in 1782.
Vienna was the city where he composed his most well-known symphonies, concertos, and operas. Requiem was funeral music which is also composed at that time. He started to compose Requiem in Vienna in 1791, but he died on 5 December and left Requiem unfinished. When he died, only two parts of the composition were complete; the Introtious and the Kyrie. In 1792, a completed version is produced by Franz Xaver Süssmayr. The requiem was commissioned by Franz von Walsegg for his wife’s anniversary. After Sussmayr delivered the requiem to Walsegg, he was probably intended to pass the piece to himself as his composition but he was stopped by Mozart’s wife Constanze. She arranged a public concert to made Requiem performed. There are claims for Requiem such as Mozart get the commission from a mysterious messenger and wrote the requiem for his funeral. The claims probably belong to Constanze. Mozart died without finishing the Requiem but in his 35 years short life, he composed more than 600 works including symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and also choral music.
The Requiem belongs to the Classical period. The period refers to a period between 1750-1830. It comes after the Baroque period. The music of the period is less complex and more natural than Baroque music. It has a clearer texture and less ornamentation. Sonata form was the main structure of the movements. The textures were mainly homophonic with choral accompaniment. The orchestra increased in size and range. Piano replaced the harpsichord and now, the basso continuo was not commonly used as before. Now, the composers are also composed for concerts, not just for court or church. Now music belongs to the public too; and to make it so, music is more understandable, natural, and clear. The most important composers of the era were Mozart and Haydn. Mozart is considered an innovative classical composer because he experimented in all genres.
Mozart’s one of the most important piece, Requiem, is a mass for death. The word ‘Mass’ comes from history, it is the final blessing said by the priest. The mass is a piece of music which is made to be sung by a choir. A mass is one of the central elements of catholic worship, so it is one of the most important religious services. So obviously, Requiem is a piece of religious music. It was also an important musical form for the Classical period composers. There are two kinds of masses; the Ordinary and the Proper. Ordinary consists of the sections that have unchanging texts. The Ordinary consists of five sections; Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Another kind is the Proper and it has changing texts for the specific day. The Proper consists of the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Tract Offertory, and Communion. A Requiem mostly combines the sections from both Ordinary and Proper. It commonly uses Introit, Kyrie, Gradual, Tract, Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Communion. The sections are variable according to the composer. The sections of Mozart’s Requiem are Introitus, Kyrie, Sequentia, Offertorium, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Communio. The Sequence has 6 movements named Dies Irae, Tuba Mirum, Rex Tremendae Majestatis, Recordare, Confutatis Maledictis, and Lacrymosa. Also, the Offertorium part has 2 movements; Domine Jesu and Hostias.
The Requiem was first published in July 1800 and since then; it is an important piece of choral repertoire. The symphony deserves its name; the music is full of tension. While the music of the Classical Period often has homophonic texture, a primary melody accompanied by other voices, through the end of his life, Mozart assimilated polyphonic texture into his works. It is possible to hear that polyphony in Requiem too. The main concern of the music was to express emotions, and Mozart tries to do that in his Requiem too. He makes changes in instrumentation and orchestration. Also, the tone color helps him to highlight dramatic changes in emotions.
The instruments used in Requiem were a bit different at that time. There aren’t any flutes or oboes used. There are basset horns instead of clarinets. Other instruments used are 2 bassoons, 3 trombones, 2 trumpets, an organ, and timps. The trumpets are mainly used for lower and middle notes. There are no horns. But in the piece, the instrumental element was kept at the minimum; the main substance of the work was the voices. His aim was probably to write a piece that takes the voices in the center.
The first part, Introitus begins with an interesting opening. With the bass line and string chords, a lonely bassoon enters and it is being followed by a basset horn. The opening music makes us feel the death; the music makes us feel terrified, sad, and alone. In the Introitus part, an ancient Gregorian chant melody is also used with a soprano soloist. Then chorus enters and repeats the Gregorian chant theme with the soprano section. While listening, it is possible to feel the gradually rising tension and dark, horrifying feelings in the music.
Kyrie Eleison part is an emotionally powerful fugue. Here, there are two principal themes that Mozart uses and ups and downs in the intensity.
The next six movements belong to the part called ‘Sequence’. The first part of the Sequence is, Dies Irae. It is the part that describes the Day of Wrath. The tension of the music makes people feel the doom of the scenes described.
Then comes the Tuba Mirum. This part is a virtual opera scene with four vocal characters. This part is a great quartet. It begins with a very famous trombone solo, then the bass soloist enters in a very serious manner. After that, the tenor enters. In here, there is a passionate request for mercy. Then the third one, alto comes with a piece of more stoic music, and finally, the soprano enters with glowing humanity of hope. When the quartet is completed, they sing together and the movement ends with the feeling of hope for peace.
The next movement Rex Tremendae Majestasis is also an operatic scene like the former movement Tuba Mirum. In here, the Rex means the king and the movement starts with a call from the chorus to that king. After the part by the chorus, winds, trombones, trumpets, and timpani, a more lyric section follows. In one part, all of them come to a climax, and then everything changes, a piano comes with choir pleads.
The following Recordare contains lots of contrasting emotions blended perfectly. The contrasting sections follow each other fluently and as a result of that, the piece evokes serenity.
Confutatis Maledictis is an operatic part again. Here we see the ostinato of the strings and the tenors, basses contrasting with it. The music starts with high tension and it slowly gets lower makes us think that the section is over, but after a pause, an unexpected chord with strings comes in again and continues the story.
The next movement, Lacrymosa means ‘the day of weeping’. The weeping here is depicted with piano and violins, violas. Then the chorus comes and it gradually gets higher. The first eight measures were by Mozart but the rest of the movement was completed by Sussmayr. So the ending of the Lacrymosa, which means the end of the six movements of the Sequence section, is written by Süssmayr.
The next two movements, Domine Jesu and Hostias belong to the Offertory part. The first movement Domine Jesu contains quick contrasts. The following Hostias has an impressive melody sing by the chorus against the string accompaniment. The Hostias is more calm and simple compared to Domine Jesu and this creates an impressive contrast.
The final three movements which are Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Communio are estimated to belong to Süssmayr. There are of course people who criticize those parts but some musicians think that the parts that Süssmayr produced are also magnificent and they perfectly match with the parts that Mozart himself produced. The Requiem ends with a powerful final fugue which makes people feel that they come to the end of their human journey and make them think about mortality.
Sources
Boccara, A. (2017, November 25). Everything you always wanted to know about… Mozart’s Requiem.
Keene, D. (tarih yok). MOZART’S REQUIEM. Voices of Ascension: https://www.voicesofascension.org/program-notes-3 adresinden alınmıştır
Marco Sampaolo, T. E. (2007, October 11). Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/mass-music adresinden alınmıştır
McConnell, D. A. (2020, May 2020). Mozart – Requiem – A Beginners Guide. The Classic Review: https://theclassicreview.com/beginners-guides/mozart-requiem-a-beginners-guide/ adresinden alınmıştır
Sadie, S. (2020, December 1). Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wolfgang-Amadeus-Mozart adresinden alınmıştır
As I have shown in my previous post, we have developed an ECO-lexicon. After that step, we have defined and identified the risks and threats of our site. Our site is at Adana, Yumurtalık lagoons. Here is the list of risks for our site and their scales, if they are seasonal or not, who and where they affected, and their results.
After listing the risks, we have choosen 4 concepts from our ECO-lexicon and associated those 4 concepts with some condition couples given to us in the assignment. Lastly, we have produced the map of association of the words with the conditions, in relation with risks of our site. Here are the maps of our first 2 words; Inhospitable Salinity and Eco-Boundary. We have associated Inhospitable Salinity with assimilate/dissimilate, and Eco-Boundary with permeability/impermeability-definite/indefinite. The explanations in the left site of the maps are for explaining how we associate those words and also there is our own definition for the word that we choose from our lexicon.
Then we have the ECO-territory map. The associated words for it are agression/regression because the water behaves agressive and it takes the land, it creates a mixture of land and water. That mixing results with reeds, we have an information page about the reeds too.
Next map is ECO-Degredation and this map is related with the fish-farming’s risks. The risks from the fish farm is being released to the sea and we have shown it in our map. Additionally, we have an information page about the fish farms and the prevailing wind direction is important for knowing the spreading direction.
Lastly, we have the word Eco-Replication which is related with the agricultural areas. We have analysed an October and an April map of the area, and as a result, we have the purple map which shows the changes in the use of the agricultural areas. Our information page contains info about agricultural products of the area, their sowing time and their water consumption according to months. With that table, we have inferences for our maps. The risk about the agricultural areas are the chemicals used, so also we have information about that.
This is the gif of agricultural areas;
Hey! This is the end of the semester, end of the project and end of our group work; this is the famous final jury! We are a bit sad because we don’t have our huge famous posters with us, we have again the presentations instead so I will share them with you. I have explained our project in my previous posts but this is the final post, so, I will introduce our project again from the start; with our firm. Let’s get started.
Here you can see the logo of our group, the principles of our group and us! You can meet with all of us above.
Then we have introduced our design approach. Our main design approach is shaped by the idea of ‘çanak’ and a crack that comes from the natural form of the topography. Then we have the 5 parts of our project placed according to the idea; the young tower, the multistorey elderly part connected with it, the commercial areas in the crack, then the stepped houses which are located in the slope and then our mega hedron. After that page, you can see the distribution of spaces and total squaremeters. Then we have the site plans. We have 6 of them from different levels, you can check them above. After that, you can see the 3D visuals, site sections and elevations. So now, let’s have a closer look to the project.
First, let’s see the elderly part. We have stepped houses and multistorey blocks for the elderly part. Firsy, you can see the stepped houses, it’s diagrams, plans and the formation of the steps. Then there is the multistorey part which is connected with the young block. The plans are rotating 60 degrees to form the blocks, you can see all the plans of the apartments and the formation of the blocks above. Also we have cool sections and close-ups. 🙂 Now, here is the fun part of our project. Here is our Young Tower!
This is the fancy part, let’s meet with our truncated octahedron modules! We have 3 different types of modules, you can see the plans above. We have 5 floor plans to be able to explain the idea of landings and entrances to the modules. The floor plans are highly complex, but it was really fun to design them and also draw them. My eyes still hurts but nevermind, the result is satisfying. At the end, we have the mega green hedron and a plan, a section of it. You can also check.
This semester was a bit hard because of working online but we have somehow managed it. Despite the high stress level, it was not a bad semester.
The Void Mag için yazdığım bu gotik mimariyle ilgili yazımı sizinle de paylaşmak istedim. 🙂 Void Mag’i ziyaret etmek isterseniz link bırakıyorum;
http://thevoidmag.com/En süslü ve en çarpıcı mimari eserler hangileridir sorusu yöneltilirse büyük ihtimalle çoğumuzun aklına gotik mimarinin eserleri gelecektir. Gotik sanki apayrıdır; milyonlarca detayı ve mükemmel süslemeleri ile bizi hayrete düşürür, mimariden anlamayan bir insan bile bir gotik yapı gördüğünde hayretle inceler. Kendinden önce gelen romaneskten ve sonra gelen Rönesans’tan farklıdır gotik, sanki bir şeylerin zirve noktasıdır. Neyin zirvesi olduğunu düşündüğümüzde ‘insanın kendini ifade etmesinin’ zirvesi olduğu sonucuna varmak çok da zor değildir. Sanki insan tarih boyu düşüncelerini yapılarla ifade etmiştir; hikayelerini, efsanelerini, hatta korkularını ve sevinçlerini bile yazmıştır yapılara, tanrılarının heykelleriyle cepheleri bezemiştir; kutsal kitabının hikayelerini kapılara işlemiştir. Sanki hikayeler arttıkça, anlatacak olaylar biriktikçe daha da çok şey yazmaya başlamışlardır yapılara. Sanki bu yüzden bezemeler artmış, anlatacak hikayeler biriktikçe romanesk yetmemeye başlamış ve gotiğe geçilmiştir; kocaman duvarlara gotikle birlikte sınırsız figür ve düşünce aktarılmıştır. Sonra birden, aniden 15. Yüzyılda bir şeyler olmuş ve gotik bitmiştir; Rönesans başlamaktadır artık. Yapılara yazılanlar azalmıştır, sanki insanlar hikayelerini başka yerlere yazmaktadırlar; sanki artık ihtiyaç kalmamıştır taşlarla milyonlarca detay eklemeye. Peki, ne oldu, ne değişti 15. Yüzyılda? Cevabı çok basit, matbaa icat edildi. Artık insanlar yazmaya başladı. Yazmak hızlıydı, ucuzdu, sadece mürekkep ve kâğıt yeterliydi; ihtişamlı bir gotik esere anlatılacakları ince ince işlemekten çok daha basitti. Victor Hugo’nun sözüyle, matbaadan önce ‘kim şair doğarsa mimar oluyordu’, fakat matbaadan sonra şair doğan şair olmaya başladı. Mimariye, yapıların duvarlarına anlatılanlar azaldı. Taştan kitaplar inşa etmek yerine kâğıttan kitaplar basılmaya başlandı. İnsan türünün ikinci Babil kulesi kitaplarla inşa edilmeye başlandı. Peki ne dersiniz, kitaplar gerçekten mimariyi öldürdü mü?
At first sight, the geometry of the project seems unusual but the text talks about all the parameters which have affected the design and cause to result to end up with that geometry. The text talks about ‘flow of the water’ very much and this issue is one of the main things which have shaped the geometry. If somebody asked me about the parameters which shape the design, I wouldn’t think of the flow of the water. It seems like a small issue but it has a large effect on this design. Especially, the text says that the designers have tested the flow of the water and after that re-arranged the curvature of the geometry, I think this is interesting.
Another interesting point for me was the trial to design according to ‘biomimetic principles’. The pieces of the geometry were named as petals, and I think the designers tried to make them act like actual petals. So the references from nature has helped to design the geometry, I think referring to nature is really inspiring.
Also the material surprised me because we don’t generally see the concrete being used for such curvy geometries. But they were able to construct the geometry with concrete; I would like to watch the construction process.
As I have mentioned in my previous posts, we have started to work in groups, we were literally working ‘together’; mentally and physically. And then, corona happened! Now we are all staying at home. Our classes are online now, so do our group work! Now we are not physically together, but mental one is still here of course. We have zoom meetings almost everyday, we are planning what to do and then uploading all our works to google drive. So, nowadays, my life passes between Zoom and google drive. Our studio is still the same, we have critics at every tuesday and friday. Working online is of course hard for all of us; working online as a group is harder, that’s for sure but we will get through this. We are all trying to stay strong.
As you know, after the initial ideas and readings, the second step of the design is analyzing the site. This semester, our site is in Çayyolu, Ankara so we aren’t traveling this time. 🙂 We have went to see and analyze the site. Every group has their own topics to study on, our topic is the spatial structure. We are doing maps about the spatial structure of the area. Let me show you the site map first;
As you see, the area is separated into two. Our area to study is the first part. Now I will show you the maps that we made. We have mapped about characteristics of the roads in the weekends and weekdays, the density of the roads, solid-void relation, the percentages of the elements of the spatial structure, volumetric relation and zoning condition. After the analyzes, we will start designing our project according to the information that we got from those maps.
For this jury, we were expected to introduce our office with a logo, a letterhead, business cards, and social media accounts. Also, we have prepared a housing portfolio according to our design principles to present to the jury. As I have posted in my last post, we already have our logo and social media accounts. Now I will inform you about our housing portfolio. Firstly, as you can see in our design principles, one of our keywords is modularity; so we have modules connecting with each other. We have chose truncated octahedron as the form of our modules. We also made a model of it so here it is if you don’t know what a truncated octahedron is, this is me and my groupmate studying on our modules;
And let’s talk about our housing portfolio. We have offered 4 types of living areas. Type 1 is ‘adaptable space for a single person’. This type has 2 variations, but both of them are small spaces around 65-70 m2. Type 2 is called ‘comfort zone for 2 people’. This is a lot bigger than the previous ones, it’s around 135 m2. Type 3 is a family house, but not very big. It is called ‘a modest family house’. It is 175 m2. And type 4 houses are very big, they are around 200 m2 and they are called luxurious family houses. You can see the plans and sections of the houses. We didn’t design the modules formation yet, because we don’t have the site and the required square-meters.
Hey! Our ARCH302 class has started with the new semester. This term, we will be studying as a group. We will create our own firm and design principles, and we will design the project accordingly. This term, our project is to design a habitation where young people cohabitate with the elderly. We are working in a group of four and our company name is ACME. It means ‘the highest point of a structure’. The capital letters also stand for our design principles. Let me explain;
A daptability
C ontemporary
M odularity
E co-friendly
And here is our logo;
We also have an Instagram page; if you want to check, here it is; Instagram Page
And lastly, this is us! 🙂
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