Hello Napkin Kin! Here is the last of my series on Architecture. Next week I will use these 4 images (among others) in a short presentation to a group of architects here in Tulsa.
Spiro Kostof – 1936-1991
Honestly, I didn’t know who Spiro Kostof was when I chose the quote. I assumed he was an architect. I liked the quote and so I used it. When I came to post this morning I looked him up and lo and behold, he is not an architect, he is an architectural historian. That sounds kind of boring compared to an actual architect, right? That’s what I thought. Then I read up on him and it turns out he was a ground breaking academic and writer on architecture who departed from the typical academic review of styles and individual pieces removed from their context. Instead he wrote about architectures place in the world of society, culture, history, and art. He explored the development of architecture in it’s greater context.
Once I learned that I reread the quote and it made even more sense. It was written by someone who studied specifically not only how it develops but how it influences the world it inhabits. Basically he seems to be saying architecture is never in isolation. It can be an actor on the human stage and can also be the stage itself.
I have found the videos from the last class he taught at UC Berkeley, where he was a Professor of Architectural History. I am thinking it would be fun to watch the videos. I will let you know how they are. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/kostof.html
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Here are the other Architects and historians I’ve written about so far:
- Julia Morgan
- Le Corbusier
- Mies van der Rohe
- Spiro Kostof
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Here is a poster of all four architecture drawings available via Zazzle.
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