Orders, Da Vinci, and Myself

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

I admired Da Vinci and his works, everybody does.. But honestly, beside my admiration to his works, I hate him as well.

Most people will ask, why? The reason is, envy, jealousy, yes it is..

We all know how great Da Vinci is, how he think far off to the future than the people from this era. But it's just unfair, all these inventions, ideas, and works he did, most of them are brilliants. And it all came from one man, Leonardo Da Vinci.

And people today always think Da Vinci as a gifted person. Maybe he is, but now, just listen..

I was working on an architectural assignment few months ago, I was tasked to design a teahouse on a hilltop in a place where most of the people, works on the tea plantations around.

Considering that most people there works on tea plantations, which the tea might have considered as treasure for them. Based on the idea of tea as treasure cued me into the idea of sinking-cantilevered teahouse on the edge of the hilltop.

I did planning based from the form of two rotated rectangles, not squares (the shape of Star of Bethlehem, like the plan idea for Petronas Twin Tower in Kuala Lumpur), and these rectangles are not actually fit into each other, I modified the geometric shape in order to solve the problem of limited space given while I'm trying to solve other problems as well.

Then I added the entrance of which inspired from the Apple Store in Madison Square, NY. The glass box structure and a staircase that leads people into the store, or my teahouse in this case.

The studio master approved this idea, but he insisted me on having symmetrical two squares planning like the Petronas Twin Tower than two rectangles planning that I did. Because the entry stairs I planned to made were spiral stairs, he said it would be much nicer if it's located in the middle of such symmetrical planning.

I believed that he is right, but he forgot the maximum space he gave for this particular building. I'm not that's stupid enough to do this kind of planning if he space weren't this limited and the terrains are fit enough for the idea he insisted me on.

Well that's not the problem.. The real problems came on the presentation day.

Okay, I wrote all the descriptions and titles not using architectural fonts, not even standard fonts, I created my own fonts that looks a bit like symbols and I inverted the title like the Da Vinci writings. I did this on purpose, because this tea house I designed came up from the idea of 'treasure'.

I remembered my studio master said that he wanted a unique presentation, not a formal one, or technical one. He even commented on other student who did the presentation board quite technically.

I was a kind of content, knowing that my presentation board is quite unique. BUT, the studio master didn't like it, he asked me on what purpose I did these writings, I told him the reasons but he didn't buy it and he even commented on the inverted title of which he cannot read. Okay, the title is my mistake then.. Lets continue first.

Then he said, it's okay for this time, but he won't see any of these fonts and writings.

There is a female part-time lecturer who also commented on my work. Okay, she did understand the idea of these writings.

She asked my why did the plan were based on these two rotated rectangles, not rotated squares (again!?).

I explained to her that it was derived from the idea of a treasure vault, the initial idea were two squares, but based on many considerations, I turned them into rectangles and..bla..bla.. (like I explained before..).

Well, she didn't buy it, simply because she didn't like the plan, not because my reason is unreasonable. I told her all considerations possible that turned the plan into these two rotated rectangles.

Then she gave such a nonsense answer. She said that I have to follow orders (not orders from a lecturer), she said that the plan should have been two rotated squares, and I cannot made it into rotated rectangles because square is the correct order, like our body made in certain order and scales, or math 1+1 is 2.

Then she said, "don't try to make something out of the orders just because you wanted to look different, like these inverted writings (Da Vinci). God has made Da Vinci's brain with such gifts that he could create his own orders".

Okay, and it's insulting me actually, does she simply means that I desperately trying to look different? And I will never be able to surpass Da Vinci? Is Da Vinci that special?? I believed, that I AM special, I can create my own orders, like Da Vinci did.

I did these inverted writings while fully knowing that Da Vinci did this kind of writings before, but I have my own reason and it has nothing to do with Da Vinci.

And orders that she said, body scale? maths? Yes, we cannot changed them, but this is just a geometric shape, we can freely changed the shape, it has nothing to do with these 'orders' she said. Even Le Corbusier, father of modern architecture ever designed an inverted roof, of which the lowest part is in the middle while roofs should have it's lowest part on their edges.

Humankind can never achieved technology like today if we never tried to create our own order!

In the end of the day, the marks for my design is C+, I asked the studio master why I only got C+?

He said, it's my writings. What the hell!? But he previously said that it was okay, but only for that particular project. And now he gave me C+ because of these writings and fonts I made? He didn't even comment anything about the building, whether the building quality is bad, I didn't follow some requirements, etc. What an unreasonable judgement!

I tried to protest, and I said "Frank Lloyd Wright (an architect) also ever did his own fonts on his presentation board"

And another word comes up of which a lecturer should never say, he said "you are not Frank Lloyd Wright". A lecturer said that to a student? Which means that if you are famous then you will be able to create things by your own. It's the same thing as Da Vinci issue that I was talking about.

Then I replied back, "so if I'm famous I can do anything sir? (even if the quality is poor, people would always said that it's great).

But he turned away from the topic by quickly talking to other lecturer nearby..

Disappointing it is, I hate the idea of 'you are famous, you are wealthy, and you can do anything'.

Let's return to Da Vinci. Maybe yes, he is gifted and his works are amazing. But why doesn't anyone ever think that these praises were made for his fame, not because that his works are really brilliant? He might have few brilliant works, where he gained his fame from, but then people would think that all of his works are brilliant. He is not all original, even he himself borrows the idea of Vitruvian Man from Vitruvius. And most people who know nothing just keep on praising him and his works.

See, the book (and film) The Da Vinci Code, why it's not The 'someone else's' Code?

Well that's how most people fascinated by fame.. Trying not to be a hypocrite, maybe even me, myself also fascinated by his fame as well..

notes: if it's possible, I would scanned my presentation board and upload it here. But it's not possible for the moment because of few problems and issues.. haha..