Talk:Organic architecture

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The 'David Pearson' link on this page links to the wrong David Pearson. It links to David Pearson the NASCAR driver and not the theorist.

This entry on organic architecture is somewhat misleading. Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings are far from good examples of "sustainable, healthy, conserving" design solutions. Falling Water for example is built with materials high in primary energy such as as steel, reinforced concrete, masonry, glass and very limited use of renewable, low-energy content materials such as wood. The building lacks any insulation and is not really environmentally friendly in its design layout. For example, extremely low ceilings prohibit adequate light penetration and natural ventilation. One can argue that sustainability and environmental design guidelines were not established at the time; perhaps not to the degree that these standards exist today. Nevertheless if we compare Falling Water with a traditional building of the same era we can clearly establish that the latter rather than the former is by far the only environmental friendly, energy conserving, efficient design. Related concepts such as: use of wood for main structure, floors, siding, fenestration, etc., use of natural insulation materials (hay, animal hairs), use of pitch roofs for improved performance and protection from the elements, appropriate building layout and form and so on.

The organic architecture that Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered, was arguably a beautiful style that imitated naturalistic patterns and aimed at using nature as a beautiful set-up for wealthy clients who could afford the luxuries of his eclectic approach. On a pragmatic level the design style projected through architectural icons such as Falling Water has no connection to the principles of sustainability and environmental design as they are perceived and practised today. Efpalinos 08:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is the opposite of FLW's "Organic" principles. FLW was first and foremost a Romantic; his architecture is by and large a gesture of "Order over Chaos," mind over nature. It means not to seamlessly integrate into its environment or to be passive against the processes of Nature; it means to complement these -- with its presence, not the reverse. "For [FLW], what an artist is, is a person who transforms nature by looking at nature, passing it through the soul, and in the expression of what the soul experiences in nature, something more natural than nature itself emerges." --William Cronon

FLW was trying to trump nature, not disappear into it. "Your house shall not be an anchor but a mast." --K. Gibran Considerable revision required. (Renyseneb 05:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC))

I find the description of organic architecture on this page to be pretty different to that described by Wright himself, especially in his, In the cause of architecture: Second Paper (1908). Wright doesn't use words like organic or nature as people would use them today in an environmentally conscious sense. Instead he uses them to describe the process of allowing a building to develop under it's own merit without subscribing to an existing style. He also uses words like organic nature to describe a truthfulness to materials - allowing them to be used without needless ornament by being free from the predetermined rules of previous styles. But, as stated in the wiki article, Wright's writing style is extremely cryptic (especially in the second paper), it reads like an angry immature rant. 203.206.247.146 (talk) 09:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ill-defined as organic architecture may be, I'm sure not all of the architects in the lead belong there. Lautner seem misplaced, even if he did work for FLW, he made googie architecture, which may superficially resemble the worst organic architecture but is at odds with its ethos. And Gaudi is modernist, but Art Noveau. The article would be better without a lead with an array of names, but a structured body with a selection of important architects categorized by region or era, following from a description of the general style.--+|||||||||||||||||||||||||+ (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Notes SPU2A02:8421:8E0:6500:3958:58A6:931C:3FD5 (talk) 10:19, 22 May 2015 (UTC) This article is heavely misleading. "sustainable, healthy, conserving" nor formal imitation w/ curvers are not the point of organic architecture and the quote of FLW suffers a really bad interpretation. Don't know how to warn readers

List of architects

As suggested above, the list of architects is unwieldy and includes some questionable names. Bangabandhu (talk) 05:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Further reading

I see no reason for the inclusion of a further reading section, which has a list of sources only loosely related to organic architecture. I'm replicating it here.

• Aldersey-Williams, Hugh (2003). Zoomorphic: New Animal Architecture (London: Laurence King)
• Ferre, Albert, et al., eds (2007). Verb Natures: Architectural Boogazine (Barcelona; New York: Actar)
• Feuerstein, Günther (2002). Biomorphic Architecture: Human and Animal Forms in Architecture (Stuttgart; London: Axel Menges)
• Gans, Deborah, and Zehra Kuz (2003). The Organic Approach to Architecture (New York; Chichester: Wiley)
• Kolarevic, Branko (2000). "Digital Morphogenesis and Computational Architectures", in Proceedings of the 4th Conference of Congreso Iberoamericano de Grafica Digital, SIGRADI 2000 - Construindo (n)o Espaço Digital (Constructing the Digital Space) [ISBN 85-88027-02-X], Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) 25–28 September 2000, ed. by José Ripper Kós, Andréa Pessoa Borde and Diana Rodriguez Barros, pp. 98–103 (http://cumincad.scix.net/data/works/att/4077.content.pdf)
• Leach, Neil (2009). "Digital Morphogenesis", Architectural Design, 79, 1, pp. 32–37
• Menges, Achim (2007). "Computational Morphogenesis: Integral Form Generation and Materialization Processes", in Proceedings of Em'body'ing Virtual Architecture: The Third International Conference of the Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD 2007), 28–30 November 2007, Alexandria, Egypt, ed. by Ahmad Okeil, Aghlab Al-Attili and Zaki Mallasi, pp. 725–744 (http://www.ascaad.org/conference/2007/057.PDF)
• Menges, Achim (2006). "Polymorphism", Architectural Design, 76, 2, pp. 78–87
• O'Reilly, Una-May and Martin Hemberg (2007). "Integrating Generative Growth and Evolutionary Computation for Form Exploration", Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, 8, 2, pp. 163–186
• Pearson, David (2001). The Breaking Wave: New Organic Architecture (Stroud: Gaia)
• Portoghesi, Paolo (2000). Nature and Architecture, trans. by Erika G. Young (London; Milan: Skira Editore; Thames & Hudson)
• Roudavski, Stanislav (2009). "Towards Morphogenesis in Architecture", International Journal of Architectural Computing, 7, 3, pp. 345–374 (http://www.academia.edu/208933/Towards_Morphogenesis_in_Architecture)
• Steadman, Philip (2008). The Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts (New York: Routledge)
• Senosiain, Javier (2003). Bio-architecture (Oxford, England: Architectural Press)
• Tsui, Eugene (1999). Evolutionary Architecture: Nature as a Basis for Design (New York: John Wiley)

Bangabandhu (talk) 05:23, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Academic Writing II 2pm

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 March 2024 and 13 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mar1417br (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Mar1417br (talk) 08:39, 21 March 2024 (UTC)