I think we all have heard the word recreation, because our daily life is connected to the art of recreation, as a visual process. This process is linked mostly with the sense of vision; for example, you see a hand which is painting, but you associate it with a human, and the first impression you get is the man painting a picture. After you see the entire “panorama” you see that the man actually is a woman. Another person may see another thing and another detail. The “secret” is in the way how we perceive things, there is no such objective correct idea, only subjective impressions of it. We have dealt with different topics in this course and if I asked you: Do you remember the Opera House in Sydney Harbor? I guess you do. If you have the chance to lively see it, I bet the first thing which will draw the attention will be the shell like structure of the overall work. Why do we see this thing first? Because we are familiar to this now, we have a background. The other person may see the entrance maybe or another part of it. Staying in this example which demonstrates the impact of this process in architecture, here are some conclusions from the lessons which I liked most:

1.      People give life to objects

  I.      Supporting elements giving human form is seen in classical architecture         (Atlas=male, Caryatid=female)

                                                            II.      Entasis (optical correction) give an impression of straining muscles

2.      Portals are often described as “gapping,” and the architect of Palazetto in Rome actually formed an entrance of that building as gapping jaws of a giant. So the idea is the same, as in natural life as well as in architectural life. I think that architects imply a known concept and recreate it. In this case we all know that when the word gate/portal is spelled the image that comes into our mind is related to that of a gap, opening or somehow like these.

3.      An interesting question I faced through the reading made me think deeply: How do you experience the street when we perceive the houses as geometrical forms? First we compare the houses with each other, the sizes of windows, the pitch of the roofs, the material or the network of the tiles, but after all they give the illusion of two dimensional.  Now imagine a tall tower after the houses. The pitch changes; from the low one (that of the houses) to the high one (that of a tower). And this change in tone creates the illusion of depth or the 3d; repetition of familiar scales in different depths, as Brincmann has said.

Throughout the history of architecture, architects have played with solids and cavities. Cavity is the clearly defined space enclosed within the outer walls. It is the limited, architecturally formed space. The solids (forms) enclose and form the cavities (spaces) that we live in. In other words, solids are the containers and the cavities are the contained.

There are many ways to precept solid and cavity by using different methods: dots, lines, planes and the interaction in between these elements can give the implicity or explicity to space. The arrangement of planes such as base plane, elevated base plane, depressed base plane, overhead plane can define a simple field of space, volume of space and even reinforces the separation between its field and surrounding.

 According to the key words solid and cavity, also architects can be grouped as “solid-minded” architects and “cavity-minded” architects:

Solid-minded architects	Cavity-minded architects
They preferably work with solids.	We can say the same: they work with cavity.
Example: Gothic architecture	Example: In Carli, India, cave temples
The architects during this period they mostly worked with forms, in order to give the brilliance, the splendor of this period (in churches). And I came into conclusion that by doing so the cavity or the space inside this solid will be determined by the form it is given. Nowadays we have lots of solid-minded architects which give more importance to the form or appearance of a building. However I think that is not a good thing, because the concept today does not remain the same, even though the time has changed. Imagine the Eagle in Flight Building, designed by Libeskind; when you firstly see it you get amazed but when you try to live in you get disappointed, because the cavity inside this form is not functional, with lots of direct curves giving the room the irregular prism shape.	Have you ever imagined that what if your house would be built just like the tunnel, I mean the natural tunnel, without the intervention on the rock? To all of you who have imagined here is a big chance to learn. Cavity-minded architects give more importance to the cavity, space than the exterior or solid part. In cave temples in India it is seen this characteristic; the temples are formed by removing materials, by digging through the rock. Here we experience the unshaped rock as a background and another characteristic which I liked is that even inside the temples architects have tried to play with the forms, letting the pillars made of rock.

                                                               

But would you like to be both types of architect, 2in1? I think this is the best we can have because the importance is shared equally; for example: the client is happy with the cavity and you as an architect are happy as not only the solid is reached at the desired level, but also the client is satisfied.

            We can expand the above table by adding some other examples and characteristics, comparing to each-other.

Gothic architecture: Structural forms	Renaissance: Cavity
Forms were mostly vertical and designed as sharp pointed structures.	favorite Renaissance form is the circular, domed cavity
The transition from gothic to renaissance was a change from the shape pointed structures to cavities.
Gothic pillar was expanded on all sides into a cluster of shafts.	The Renaissance cavity was enlarged by the addition of niches.

            However the transition from gothic to renaissance can still be experienced nowadays and I think that the level will be increased in the following decades, for sure.

            Another thing which I found it attractive was the contrasting effects that solid-cavity can make. There are examples in our life that we have seen, they had an impression on us, but only today we can give explanations to these. Corridors in Rome, Porta di Santo Spirito, Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome, the church of S. Maria della Pace, Fontana di Trevi? Do they remind you something? Convex and concave forms, narrow corridors, different materials, contrast between solids and cavities; all these refers to the buildings just mentioned.

            In conclusion, I’d like to emphasize the importance of the solid-cavity relation in architecture. And in my opinion the best architects know how to relate to this relation.