NEXT STEP Architects

HOW DOES LANGUAGE INSPIRE LOCAL ARCHITECTURE

Like all forms of life and architecture, language is all about making connections and amplifying people’s lives. And local architecture helps in creating a channel for defining cultural and traditional expressions of natives around the world. Language is also bestowed to each person as a medium for developing one’s vague idea into a gleaming rendered outlook, similar to the evolution in the art of doodling ideas to the well-defined drafting of structures. Likewise, language extends its beautiful arms to our people to decipher the various manifolds of local architecture and influences each soul in its unique interpretations.           

 

An architect deciphering a design_©lifeofanarchitect.com
Language Tree_©greenheart.org

An Essence of Language

Communication is a core element in any community, and language is an essential factor in it. Over time as language develops, different communities share their collective understanding in the form of sounds. Each language shared by a group of individuals helps in forming a new culture. When a commonplace is found after overcoming their language barrier, a new reality emerges. People from varied communities and cultures start to get new ideas that transform into distinguishable features in their society. It can be said that the local architecture styles found in different parts of the world are derived from the shared ideas of people. These get further filtered depending on other criteria such as climatic conditions, geological terrain, locally available materials, artisan’s skill-set, and so on.

Words between Spaces

Form follows function,” the famous words said by Architect Louis Sullivan emphasize one of the basic ideas on which a building takes shape. In another context, language forms the foundation for every syllable and word to stand upon to make a meaningful sentence. A space transformed by local architecture holds a place close to a person’s heart as it invokes a personal voicing to one’s mind based on its cultural and ancestral values. Each voice commuting in our heads as words changes the perception of the local architecture imparted to each design and gifts a new meaning to that space. What each person takes away depends upon an individual’s direction of orientation.

Artwork named ‘Group of spiral men thinking’_©Smokedsalmon
Elevation of Ionic and Doric order of Greek Architecture_ ©employees.oneonta.edu

Language of Aesthetics

A design provides a solution in the allocation of space that’s required for the people. Calculating the footage of these spaces is an easy task until the aesthetic factors join the equation. Every local architecture has its own defined elements that play a crucial role in its design language. To assist this process, the architects and designers implemented terminologies to reduce complex ideas to generalized components. This vocabulary helped the project team members get a better understanding and develop more unique solutions for the design. Moreover, this helped the vast community of people define the design aspects of their local architecture as an architectural language.

Source: https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/architectural-community/a5413-how-does-language-inspire-local-architecture/