Architect continues Cockefair tradition
Corey Light
Issue date: 3/16/09 Section: News
|
They were discussed in Theodore Seligson's lecture series, "Studies of Masterpieces of Western Architecture: Karnak to Le Corbusier."
Seligson is a visiting professor in the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design who is presenting his series as part of the Carolyn Benton Cockefair Chair in Continuing Education Series.
"Some people ask me to give my opinion on a certain piece of architecture," Seligson said. "How can you even explain it in two words, or even in half an hour?"
Seligson has managed a Kansas City architecture firm for more than 40 years and taught at Washington University in Saint Louis for almost 20 years.
He presented his first lecture in the Plaza Room of the Administrative Building last Thursday. He aimed to give the audience an overview of some of the most important works of architecture in the western world in only an hour-and-a-half.
From the temple of Karnak to the Parthenon to the TWA Terminal designed by Aero Serinan, Seligson ran through a series of images and covered heady architectural philosophies like the definition of space.
"Space is meaningless unless it is defined by form," Seligson said. "Space is also defined through scale and size. Size is arithmetic, whereas scale is comparative. You can't have scale without size."
Seligson lamented that he still uses a slide projector for the lecture instead of a Powerpoint, but offered his reasons.
"You get up there with a Powerpoint and it all just goes wrong," he said. "Then you can't fix the thing. If my light bulb goes out on my projector, we can replace the light bulb. If the slide gets stuck, we can fish it out. We'll be alright."
Seligson was accompanied by his assistant Marcus Herman, who is a former student of Seligson's and provided some of the images for the slide show.
Among the images shown by Herman was a night shot of the Eiffel Tower.
Seligson commented on the grand scale of the tower.
"Here we see how scale can be exploded to a larger space," Seligson said. "Just look at the people in relation to the structure. They relate to the structure in scale in a very defined way. It is deliberate."
Be the first to comment on this story