CopyCat is the act of emulating something that's already been created and using it in a different context. Copycats can exist in music, in the arts, in design; but they are not exactly a design inspiration or a style reference, but rather a literal copy with almost no modification of the original work.
In architecture, it is as if you were inspired by an emblematic work from another space-time and placed it in a place unconnected with the original roots of the work-style.
After a prolonged period known as the Dark Ages, Europe was in dire need of a rebirth. A growing desire to both study and mimic nature itself began to emerge, with an inclination to discover and explore the world. Between 1400-1600 Europe was to witness a significant revival of the fine arts, painting, sculpture and Architecture.
Prior to the dawn of the Renaissance, Europe was dominated by ornate and asymmetrical Gothic Architecture. The period ushered in a new era of architecture after a phase of Gothic art, with the rise of notions of ‘Humanism’. The idea of attaching much importance to the essence of individualism and downplaying religious themes. The effect of Humanism included the emergence of the individual figure, greater realism and attention to detail.
![The History of Kitchens: From the Great Banquets to the Built-in Furniture, Cozinha Americana, 1946. Autor: Harris & Ewing, fotógrafo. N STREET, KITCHEN. [Entre 1905 e 1945] Fotografia. Recuperado da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA [www.loc.gov/item/2016861773/]. Imagem em Domínio Público [PD US Government]. Image via Wikimedia Commons](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/620d/1ec9/e2d8/a640/0601/6f2d/newsletter/flatwork-1946-american-kitchen.jpg?1645027019)
The discovery of fire was one of the great events that changed the social organization of human agglomerations, which gradually passed from nomadic to sedentary lifestyle. Fire, which in that context served to keep people warm and protect the group, was also being explored as a source for cooking food, which not only changed human eating habits, but also made it possible to conserve food, changing the social organization of communities. The preparation and meals were collective acts, which brought people together to feed, warm up and protect themselves. It is from this habit that we inherited the practice of large banquets and the appreciation of food and meal times. Food preparation, on the other hand, was gradually marginalized.
While the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks and Romans shared the habit of holding large banquets, the preparation gained less and less prestige, losing its collective social dimension until it was physically segregated in a specific room: the kitchen.
The bathrooms that we usually have in our homes are legacies of European colonization around the world. Its current form, however, dates back millennia and would not have been possible without investments and the evolution of basic sanitation.
The health of a population is directly related to the physical environment it inhabits, as stated by Hippocrates in his text “Ares, waters and places”, written during the 5th century BC, in which the Greek thinker known as the 'father of medicine', states that in order to properly investigate health and the cause of disease it is necessary to observe and understand the inhabited environment from the seasons, the wind, the water, its geographical position, the land and the landscape and also the habits of the people who live there. Each civilization has developed a way of dealing with what we understand by sanitation today, depending on its time and also on its geographical, cultural, political and economic context.
In November 1930, in Indiana, United States, one of the great feats of modern engineering was executed: a team of architects and engineers moved an 11,000-ton (22-million pound) telephone exchange without ever suspending its operations either basic supplies for the 600 employees who worked inside.
Emerged in a period marked by the development of the industry and the experimentation of new materials, the Art Nouveau artistic movement was opposed to historicism, favoring originality and a return to handicrafts. In this context, it is portrayed as an attempt at dialogue between art and industry, revaluing beauty and making it available to everyone through series production.
What’s so great about the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world? Probably the fact that their societies have been evolving in one unbroken series of eras, with ever-changing values and styles that have, among other things, given rise to architectural memories of their long histories. These cities aren’t like the archeological sites we visit to see how people lived thousands of years ago; they are the exact places people lived thousands of years ago, places where people are still living today, with their rich histories buried under layers of paint and concrete instead of earth.
With ancient cities found in regions around the world, the variety of architectural treasures that can be found in these cities is vast. To give you a taste of their diversity, here is a selection of 18 of the oldest continually inhabited cities from various regions of the world, ranging from youngest to oldest, with a small snippet of their various architectural puzzles.
Art Deco architecture derives from a style of visual arts of the same name that emerged in Europe in the 1920s, which also influenced the movie industry, fashion, interior design, graphic design, sculpture, painting, and other forms of art, in addition to architecture. The milestone of this style was the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925, from which it took its name.
Architecture is perhaps the most expressive forms of culture, representing the zeitgeist of a particular location, and telling the story of how it evolved over time. It allows visitors to transport themselves back in history to understand the influences that shaped the world we once lived in. Baroque architecture, in particular, was one of the most ornamental and decorative architectural styles. Translating to “curious or strange” in French, it was once used as a derogatory word, meaning noisy, eccentric, and excessive- and Baroque architecture was truly just that.
Architecture is never an accident. It is a carefully planned out scheme of patterns and styles that respond to natural surroundings, celebrate materiality, and/or are referential of stylistic movements throughout history- all a means of understanding why things are the way that they are. There are different ways to understand how to analyze architecture, through the use of diagrams, patterns, relationships, and proportions to name a few. To both architects and laypeople alike, there’s a subconscious desire for a decision-making structure in design. As a result, architecture has become an exercise in self-positioning- a microcosmic reflection of the world around us as seen in the designs we build.
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Children's furniture is all furniture –fixed or mobile– that is designed according to the ergonomic guidelines and anatomical dimensions of children specifically. Following this definition, we can identify two types of furniture: (1) those that facilitate a relationship between the caregiver and the child, and (2) those that allow the child to use them independently.
The big difference between these two types is that the first has dimensions that mainly adapt to the ergonomics of the adult, while the second is designed to meet the ergonomic needs of the child at each stage of their development. Since the growth of children occurs relatively quickly, it is common for the furniture of this second group to be multifunctional or even extendable.
As far as written records report, “prehistory” dates back between 35,000 BCE and 3000 BCE in the Middle East (2000 BCE in Western Europe). Ancient builders had a profound understanding of human responses to environmental conditions and physical needs. Initially, families and tribes lived together in skin-covered huts and bone structures. Thousands of years later, human settlements evolved into fortified mud-brick walls surrounding rectangular volumes with pierced openings for ventilation and sunlight.
During the upcoming months, we will be publishing short articles on the history of architecture and how it evolved to set the fundamentals of architecture we know today. This week, we are going back to some of the earliest civilizations known to mankind: Megaliths, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt.
Designers have fixated on the visual culture that wrought Casio wrist watches and Superstudio. Mario Carpo explores the reasons why.
It began with a watch—actually, two. Last year I was co-tutoring two brilliant master students in a school of architecture in a European country I shall not name. They had started their thesis project with some very idealistic, “accelerationist” views of technology—assuming, in the footsteps of some improbable political theories currently in fashion, that technological change would “accelerate” the final demise of capitalism. Then one day they showed up for their tutorial sporting two identical black Casio digital watches, and I immediately realized that something had gone awry. As if struck by some illumination on their road to Damascus, they explained to me they had concluded that technology should thenceforth be their foe. From that moment, their project turned into a “critical” reinterpretation of some Superstudio projects from the early ’70s. For their final presentation, some months later, they set up an installation where everything, right down to some fresh baguettes bought from a baker’s next door, was wrapped in carefully executed Superstudio wallpaper—black grid on white background. Most of their friends in attendance were also wearing the same Casio watch, I noticed.
![Cozinha em Frankfurt, Alemanha. Autoria desconhecida. Imagem em Domínio Público [PD-old]. Image via Wikimedia Commons](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/620d/1ec9/0af3/0537/e06f/9a1e/thumb_jpg/frankfurter-kuche-via-wikimedia-commons-dominio-publico.jpg?1645027019 "Cozinha em Frankfurt, Alemanha. Autoria desconhecida. Imagem em Domínio Público [PD-old]. Image via Wikimedia Commons")
![Homens colhendo uvas, desenhadas no estilo do antigo Egito, 1878. Fonte original: Ebers, Georg. "Egypt: Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque." Volume 1. Cassell & Company, Limited: New York, 1878. p 060. Imagem sob licença Creative Commons [CC-BY-SA-2.5]. Image via Wikimedia Commons](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/620d/1ec9/e2d8/a601/65d8/2660/thumb_jpg/men-harvesting-grapes-drawn-in-the-style-of-ancient-egypvia-wikimedia-commons-dominio-publico.jpg?1645027022 "Homens colhendo uvas, desenhadas no estilo do antigo Egito, 1878. Fonte original: Ebers, Georg. \"Egypt: Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque.\" Volume 1. Cassell & Company, Limited: New York, 1878. p 060. Imagem sob licença Creative Commons [CC-BY-SA-2.5]. Image via Wikimedia Commons")
![Ave assada no espeto. Disponível em Ilustração de uma edição de “The Decameron”, Flandres, 1432. Paris, Biblioteca Nacional, Arsenal, manuscrito 5070. Imagem em Domínio Público [PD Old]. Image via Wikimedia Commons](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/620d/1ec9/e2d8/a601/65d8/265f/thumb_jpg/ilustracao-do-the-decameron-flanders-1432-paris-biblioteque-nationale-arsenal-manuscrito-5070-via-wikimedia-commons-dominio-publico.jpg?1645027019 "Ave assada no espeto. Disponível em Ilustração de uma edição de “The Decameron”, Flandres, 1432. Paris, Biblioteca Nacional, Arsenal, manuscrito 5070. Imagem em Domínio Público [PD Old]. Image via Wikimedia Commons")
.jpg?1639596820 "Escadaria Victor Horta. Via Victor Horta The Architect of Art Nouveau by David Dernie and Alistair Carew-Cox")
.jpg?1602872196 "Photo: 1931, Kaunas, Lithuania. Two children working on reading/writing words at Maria Varnienė's Children's House. The child on the left is Stasys Ragaišis, who later became a medical doctor.. Image via @montistory101")
