Leave it to Ohio to let architects go wild! We visit a few kooky buildings, including one shaped like a huge basket and another super shiny building designed by world-famous Frank Ghery.
Class Discussion Questions:
1) What skills must an architect have?
2) Draw a picture of your own unique building.
Read the Script:
Most of us spend our days in pretty boxy buildings. Rooms with four walls and a flat ceiling can get pretty tiring. Luckily, though, Ohio is home to some construction with a bit more character, like this guy. Huh, seems more like a sheet of crinkled aluminum foil than a building to me.
This is the Peter B. Lewis building. It is located in Cleveland, at Case Western Reserve University. It was dreamed up by the famous architect Frank Gehry. An architect is someone who designs buildings and often oversees their construction. Gehry is known for his shiny buildings that look like waves of steel.
You might need to put on sunglasses to check out his most famous buildings, like the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California. The concert hall actually had to be sanded down so it wasn't so shiny because all the light reflecting off of it was making people living nearby too hot.
While the 2002 Cleveland building isn't quite as shiny, it does inspire the business students at work inside. Can you tell Gehry designed it with them in mind? Here are some of his initial drawings of it. The wild silver roofing stands for the changes in business that the students will need to learn to handle, while the brick walls teach the importance of solid business techniques that won't fall down.
One building in Ohio that I'd like to get inside of is this building designed by the Longaberger Company as their headquarters. The company makes — you guessed it — baskets. They opened their offices here in Newark, Ohio, in 1997. They decided to fashion the building to look like their best-selling picnic basket. It's even complete with huge handles and a Longaberger label. It is a prime example of novelty architecture, meaning it's shaped to look like something else but can still be used as a building.
Let's look at one more odd guy in Ohio. The Mushroom House popped up in Cincinnati in 1992 under the design of architect Terry Brown. It actually started out as a pretty regular house, but Brown, who was a professor of architecture at the University of Cincinnati, spent 14 years tweaking the house. You can see the siding looks a bit like the ripples on the bottom of a mushroom. Even the interior is full of waves and stained glass windows. Don't think you can move in with your whole family, though. This house only has one bedroom.
Man, all of a sudden, these straight walls in the studio are starting to feel really tight.
Find Out More
Website Article: TripAdvisor, Architectural Buildings in Ohio | Plan a visit to these unique Ohio places.
Website Article: Flavorwire, 10 Amazing Examples of Architecture Inspired by Mathematics | More fantastic buildings to check out.
Video: YouTube, How to Design Like an Architect | Get some ideas on how to design and draw a building.