Emphasis Architecture

With my recent trip to Chicago over spring break, I found a lot of inspiration in the architecture. Architecture is my favorite thing to learn about in art! I saw this project somewhere online and decided it would be a good tie in with some history about Chicago.

We talked about the Great Chicago Fire and how a clumsy ole' cow tipped over a lantern. The ensuing fire burnt down a large chunk of the city. This left architects with an open canvas to rebuild and re-design the city. Architects had to work vertically due to limited space and this was largely made possible because of the recent invention of steel.

Throughout this project, we talked about the repeated geometric shapes in buildings. We also talked about space and how size and overlapping create this feeling. I had one student ask me about Antoni Gaudi which blew me away because he is one of the few architects who uses organic shapes rather than geometric. She had read a book about him! Students drew 2-3 buildings on a colored background and then one more building on a white paper. Then they sharpie'd and erased. After gluing their white building down, we talked about why the white building was the first thing we noticed. This is called the focal point or emphasis. This is due to the contrasting color of the white building.