Exhibition Text
Title: Thriving
Medium: Wooden Sculpture
Size:31cm x 31cm
April 15, 2016
This is a urban landscape model I created using only wood blocks. I was inspired by two different architects, Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind. These two architects have two different styles of designing urban landscapes, and I thought it would be nice to combine them. With their designs and cities like Dubai and Chicago, I created my urban landscape. My intention for this sculpture is to show that a humble city like Milwaukee could be transformed into a beautiful city such as Dubai and Chicago.
Medium: Wooden Sculpture
Size:31cm x 31cm
April 15, 2016
This is a urban landscape model I created using only wood blocks. I was inspired by two different architects, Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind. These two architects have two different styles of designing urban landscapes, and I thought it would be nice to combine them. With their designs and cities like Dubai and Chicago, I created my urban landscape. My intention for this sculpture is to show that a humble city like Milwaukee could be transformed into a beautiful city such as Dubai and Chicago.
Process
Through out this whole project I was always sure of what I was going to make my landscape look like. Prior to the introduction of the project, I was doing research about the landscapes in Dubai because I was curious about how they built all this in the last 30 years and the future plans for the country. So when it was introduced I got excited because I was looking forward to taking some inspiration from Dubai. Even though at the time I decided to use Dubai as my inspiration, I still explored my options of different architects to use for more inspiration. After I was inspired, I bought my board and started to plan how I was going to split it up for the light to go through. The first picture below shows my planning sketch for the board which was later approved by the MIAD professor. Then I drew the lines I wanted on the board and Mr. Chad cut it for me. I was then ready to start gluing different wooden blocks on the board. I didn't use a planning sketch for it but I did use different pictures of my inspiration and I made it through that. When I finished the planning portion, I began to glue down the wooden blocks on the board.
This was my planning sketch for the board. Everyone had to have this done so that the MIAD professor could know what everyone was doing for their boards. This was also essential in how our building looked when it was lit.
|
This is one of the many wooden blocks that I used for building. I'm putting this block up because I mainly used a lot of it's kind when I was gluing on the block
|
This is a block that I had a hard time using because it kept falling out of my board and it wouldn't stick properly. this bothered me because it was a really nice piece to use.
|
Artist Inspiration
Like I've stated before, I was going to use Dubai as my inspiration but I decided to look into other architects to got some more inspiration. In order to do this I looked at Mr. Chads weebly and found a couple of architects that I could have used as my artist inspirations. The first architect that I found was Zaha Hadid, she was an Iraqi architect that helped create many beautiful building for different cities. She recently died in March 31st, 2016 while in Florida designing different interior designs for museums in Florida. When I looked at her structure I was inspired by how she used curves and straight lines to make futuristic looking buildings. All of the structures she has done and the ones that have not been yet built were inspiring to me because they all looked simple and clean but also sometimes complex and futuristic. I used the " Sheikh Zayed Bridge" by Zaha Hadid as an inspiration for the triangle that I have over everything else. I thought I need something like that triangle to capture peoples attention when they look at the landscape. Daniel Libeskind is another architect that I used as an inspiration to complete this project. Daniel Libeskind is a polish American architect, artist, professor, and set designer of polish Jewish descent. He is well known for designing the " One world trade center" in New York and I used that building as an inspiration for one of the building I designed. Despite the fact that these two artist helped me out, I used Chicago and Dubai as an inspiration as well. I looked up some of the famous building in both cities and I came across a lot of building that I used as my art inspiration. I was inspired by the "Willis Tower" in Chicago and for Dubai I used the " Burj Al Arab Jumeirah" as my inspiration.
Meaning
I don't really have a huge significance for this project. When I were doing this project, I was just thinking of Milwaukee in the future. So I wanted to represent that Milwaukee has a lot of potential to be just as great as Dubai and Chicago. Milwaukee is already great but it doesn't have an aesthetic aspect to it that people can enjoy when they come here. It has the art museum and that's the only building that looks different and futuristic and I think we should have more. If Milwaukee had more buildings like the art museum than it would have been a beautiful city that is thriving. I named my landscape " Thriving" because that's what I want Milwaukee to be in the future. Thriving with many beautiful building and tourism, I want to see that. I also think more people would stay in Milwaukee to pursue their career in an aesthetically pleasing city because of how it looks. So this project was made with Milwaukee in the mind and I hope that Milwaukee someday can stand with cities such as Dubai and Chicago, it's almost there but I hope it gets there in the future.
Reflection
Overall this project was fun and exciting for me because I enjoy architecture. I learned something new, and I also tried something I've never done before which was amazing in my opinion. I always wanted to design a building and I can proudly say that this project has helped me in doing that exactly that. I would do this again if I had the opportunity to do so in the future, because it's just interesting to me. Some difficulties I've had was gluing on the blocks with a wood glue at the beginning because I didn't think to try hot glue. I eventually tried hot glue after I gave up on the wood glue and I thankfully succeeded with that. I also enjoyed that we went to MIAD and presented our work to students and professors at MIAD, it really helped me prepare for future critiques that are coming my way.