The third skin

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Authors
Conway, Carol A.
Advisor
Schaller, Arthur W.
Issue Date
1991
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (B. Arch.)
Department
College of Architecture and Planning
Other Identifiers
Abstract

We can think of architecture as another layer of ourselves, as an extension of ourselves, as an extension of our person, or our persona. We can think of this layer as another skin, functioning as protection, functioning as receptor and acting as advertisement of its inner layers. This layer like the other layers has been muddled by an overt overworking of our rational side that has manifested itself in technology. We can bring the sensuality of ourselves, the adapting, changing natures of ourselves into the third skin of architecture to create a model that is more responsive to and respectful of its user and its environment. We can use our rational side and the technology that rationality wrought to unmask a new and richer inner core. Our bodies and clothing express a unique nature of the individual. Our body and our clothing will be used as vehicles for the exploration of architecture, this third layer or mask, manifested in a clothing gallery will reflect the first in terms of sensuality, structure, and knowledge thereby informing and consequently educating the first of those elusive layers that desire adjustment between divergent influences. The context will hold symbols that reflect our inner balance, sensuality, history, technology, and humanity. The river as nature is our balance and sensuality; the trestle our history for learning from our past; the railroad, a technology made obsolete; the village, a metaphor of our civilization that will combine the prior forces to create a holistic model of an inner-core rejuvinated. Architecture can live and breath, laugh and smile, stretch and moan, bristle and sweat, just as man, just as woman. Wright and Aalto have spoken of our ties to nature and our rational technical sice. Japanese architecture speaks of a spirit of man in one sense, while Rogers with his Pompidou speaks of yet another. Architecture can move and can be adaptive, can no longer be the "timeless" piece that once it was. Architecture must learn to adapt as quickly as we have learned to adapt. it must keep pace yet temper itself as our bodies temper themselves, with a deference and respect for the limits of the enivronment of our bodies, our compatriots, our earth.