The Built Environment

Question 1

Catherine Armstrong

Answer 1

Includes social groups left out of text history narrative.
Material Evidence often not used due to lack of confidence by historians.
Can find out about supply, consumption & physical nature of material.
Things/places have people in mind.
Buildings can be reused with no original link to beginning = new history

Question 2

Christine Johnson

Answer 2

Museums can become ‘ours.’
We see our identity in them and change our way we look into our past.
Arguments over ownership of material though.

Question 3

Christopher Long

Answer 3

Can look at building’s construction, materiality, functionality, and social/economic conditions when it was created.
20th c, increase interest in what buildings meant and what architect intentions were.
Styles can have meaning.
Good to study with other sources - newspapers, diaries, architect’s journal

Question 4

Beatriz Colomina

Answer 4

Architecture precedes and frames its occupants

Question 5

Built Environment pros

Answer 5

Find history of hidden social groups

Can empathise more when seeing and touching in person

Question 6

Built Environment cons

Answer 6

Meanings of style change
Usage changes
May have been changed and it not obvious
Need more technical knowledge to study
Need background research to accompany to answer simple questions

Question 7

Extra reasons to study it

Answer 7

Can date with materials and fashion used
Can see what social group used it
Can identify clues that suggests its been changed
Shows insight into surrounding area

Question 8

(Case Study) The Looshaus in Vienna

Answer 8

Built by Adolf Loos.
Commercial/residential building.
Planning began 1909
Public controversy over the finish, it was different to plans
Believed it did not match surrounding area
Loos said it matched its intended use though
1911 he made some small changes to façade
Seen as modernism building
Style/materials matched its used
eg tailor shop was marble/had brass coats of arm to show it was upperclass shoppping