Bora Malko

     Here I have decided to share some of my assignments during my online certified course "Architectural Imagination" from Harvard.  Prompt 1  :  In  one to two paragraphs , reflect on how the idea of perspective orients the viewer and helps construct  a specific understanding of the Renaissance architectural imagination .  Review the prompt and the following images of Brunelleschi's church of San Lorenzo.       While considering Brunelleschi's church of San Lorenzo we can deduce that linear perspective plays a major role on its construction. Argan analyzes the church on his essay as "a construction of a succession of imaginary planes seen in perspective from the foreground to the horizon" from which we can rightfully assume that perspective was a fundamental key of this building on Brunelleschi's mind way before it came to its final state. And from Argan's own words, this perspective which is the proces...

     In this essay of Martin Heidegger we manage to get a real glimpse on the context of the time it was written in, as well as Heidegger's own philosophy of life and beliefs. Being one of the most authentic philosophers of the 20th century, Heidegger has pursued his writing on  "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" during the wake of the shortage in housing systems after the WW2. As an existentialist himself, Martin Heidegger has devoted his philosophy to the study of being,  relating it to the relationship between thinking, dwelling and building, which he believed had been severed by the modern world. He goes on through his writings trying to re-teach us the proper way of dwelling .      The essay starts off with an explanation regarding the two-way relationship between building and dwelling. It is regarded that it is a simultaneous means-end interrelation where to build does not necessarily mean to dwell, whereas dwelling is necessarily linked to b...

     In the first chapter of this book, "Architecture and the question of Technology", we are introduced with an observation of the nature of art and technology in time which in the end are synthesized in relation to architecture. Throughout the first chapter of the book, there is expressed a sense of the philosophical movement of Phenomenology (which focus on the physical individual experience). Alberto Perez-Gomez, one of the authors of this book, is himself an architectural theorist who supports the above mentioned philosophy and manages to convey it in his writing on art and technology.      At the beginning of his argument, the author aims to clarify the main knowledge misgivings, which he shall later explain in detail, regarding the nature of technology as well as the universality of instrumental thinking. It is exactly this mode of thinking which tends to generally oversimplify terms during discussions, thus reducing a complex matter of issues regar...

Here is a process work of my modified topographical model. The design was derived as a by product of two main variables: 1. the relation to the initial topography of the lake site (preserving the original values) 2. the geometrical harmony  The concept of the design was to create a most efficient area in terms of human circulation, taking advantage of the sloppy terrain, thus creating two main circulation areas:  1. The underground (Which is in constant contact with the upper part, allowing for easy access all along the area, and provides a perfect opportunity for activities as well) 2. The ground level ( It is the main circulation means in the Lake site, bringing a much more accessible terrain while never losing focus of the bigger picture; the original topography as well as the one surrounding our site.) The creation of my topographical model was thoroughly assessed so that it fit perfectly to the terrain and didn't come out as a simply pretty design whi...

     Giulio Camillo, born in 1480, was an Italian philosopher best known for his Memory Theatre in the sixteenth century. His fame knew many ups and downs after his death but was reestablished during the 1900s by the British historian Frances Yates in her book on The Art of Memory which opened up new research possibilities in these areas.       The way in which Yates approaches Camillio's Memory Theatre in her book is through his own quotations or through the words of Viglius Zuichemus, a friend of Erasmus. Such a dualism of representation makes reading the book quite interesting, as we are first hand observers of two different schools of thought which divided the Renaissance thought at the time, trying to decipher the byproduct of occult philosophy; The Memory Theatre. On the one hand we have Giulio Camillo, a Hermetist, who tries to construct a physical representation of   the sort of mental memory palaces that had been crucial to ora...