Architecture: a Concern of Beautiful Engineering, or Simply an Expression of Functional Fine Art?
I just went through the new students analysis by the Architecture Department student organization captain and found a statement that there is an unseen ‘gap’ between our department and the rest of the Faculty of Engineering.
This statement poked a part of my brain with a simple question that has been stuck in the back of my head ever since i decided to study architecture:
is it engineering-related, or purely design?
The issue of the rector moving our department to a new arts and culture faculty has also triggered this increasingly curious question.
The question might have been resolved by combining the two sufficiently. Yet, since there is no such basic discipline other than architecture that i know of that can combine the two sides of the brain as amazingly, I guess separating architecture would ideally need a new whole kind of faculty: The Faculty of Architecture.
Because unlike in overseas, developed countries where architecture is regarded as mostly a discipline of designing, Indonesians prefer to take it as engineering or better, a part of landscape or land planning.
Engineering, judging from the workload of our non-architecture fellows in the international program, is the art of applying math into things that helps the human race to improve, grow, and make the most out of the resources, possibilities and energy that is available on our limited humane world. Architecture, is a part of it, only, as our previous Visual Art lecturer used to say: with the soul. There is an unwritten power that architects possess that allow them to put beauty into what used to be only skeleton-like structures and bland cave walls. To achieve calculated visual grace.
Nevertheless, this power can only be achieved with the expertise, and therefore, good acquaintances with engineering brainiacs (especially the civil engineering people).
Then again, such thing can still be achieved without the need to stay in the same faculty and hence experience the collateral damage of studying subjects we would never really need to personally solve like, uhm, Linear Algebra and such.
So, while staying in the Faculty of Engineering can broaden our reach of possible future mathematical concerns and reliable bases,
moving on to the new Faculty of Arts and Culture might gain us the efficiency of exploring more of out of our own and others’ architectural possibilities, letting all the cals and maths be taken care of later by necessary number-related experts.
So, what do you think? Is moving to a new, more relaxed and ‘mind-opening’ faculty will help us improve, or should we stay and work out the balance with what we have evidently surviving with for the last decades of years?
Learning Architecture 
nice topic au!, but i think i chose the first approach. i believe architectural is a part of serving the community. i don’t know but the second thought is i think a little arrogant. fine arts is somehow an expression right? and i think by thinking it that way, we made our building by majorly self oriented reason. and somehow i love the “unintended beauty” of a building. meaning to say the natural beauty of a building. it is when a building is pursuing a functional achievement, then it is shaped that way, simply form follows function”. just like for motor-heads, why do they like the shape of F1 car? actually they are admiring the beauty of functional parts, not a working beautiful parts. well thats just me. Marvin! i hope to see your comment!
i think the reason why indonesia put architecture in the engineering department, because they want us to be an independent architect. I know we need other engineer like civil engineering to build a building, so we cannot totally independent, but at least we know the basic of the things. Well, i think if we stay in the engineering faculty, our design will me more make sense because we know how to make it
i think the reason why indonesia put architecture in the engineering department, because they want us to be an independent architect. I know we need other engineer like civil engineering to build a building, so we cannot totally independent, but at least we know the basic of the things. Well, i think if we stay in the engineering faculty, our design will me more make sense because we know how to make it – amira paramitha-
so, based on your last paragraph, you say that the faculty of engineering is a closed-minded faculty whereas an arts faculty is open-minded? I think they both are open-minded, they both involve politics (by both i mean engineering and design) and the social sector. but I guess its true, engineering is more objective than the arts but.. i personally think that architecture is more of ‘design’ instead of just ‘arts’ so maybe its better if they change the faculty name to ‘faculty of arts AND design’ or ‘faculty of arts, design, and the built environment’…
I think that the architecture major is still required to obtain mathematical classes so I think that moving the course in a different faculty is a good choice–it offers variety (the students will move between faculties for classes). The students will perhaps know the behaviours and habits of the people in two sides of the campus than just one..isnt that also a part of architecture?
-Sofie Januarti
to all: thanks for all the great comments, they are very — as marvin would have said — eye-opening! 😀
to bernard:
yes i love the fact that you mention form follows function. that is a very efficient principle to apply, and i think the fact that we have to combine some extravagance of our personal design charzcter with it is the real fun of being an architect. it’s like trying to make another arrangement of scattered puzzles that still shows a sensible picture in the end with matched pieces — it needs calculation, time and most importantly a widely-opened mind.
to amira:
i totally agree about the fact that being part of the engineering faculty helps a lot in making us an architect who has both side of the needed backgrounds: art and calculations. it’s like fulfilling halfway of vitruvius’ requirements already hehe.
to sofie:
you are one bank of great ideas! i would love to loan some when im in need through further future discussions. what can i say, the honorable mr Rector should read your two faculties-mingling-kind-of-fun-studying-system and really consider making it come true because that’ll be such a one-in-a-lifetime uni experience 🙂