Use Of Stone example essay topic

Michael Graves has been a forerunner in architecture since 1964. He has won many awards and is influenced the transformation of urban architecture from abstract to modern. He founded his own practice which can be attributed for constructing some of the most well known builds in the world such as the Miramar Hotel for the Egyptian town El Gonna on the Red Sea. The Sheraton Miramar is a 5-star resort hotel consisting of over 400 guest rooms plus public spaces such as food and beverage facilities. It sits on the Red Sea; the project is bounded on all sides by water or shoreline.

The landscaped grounds feature a numerous canals and lagoons that provide each guest room with a waterfront position. The swimming pool complex includes adult pools, an exercise pool, and a children's pool. Architecture is the practice of building design and its resulting products; customary usage refers only to those designs and structures that are culturally significant. Today it is said that architecture must satisfy its intended uses, must be technically sound, and must convey aesthetic meaning.

But the best buildings are often so well constructed that they outlast their original use. They then survive not only as beautiful objects, but as documents of the history of cultures, achievements in architecture that testify to the nature of the society that produced them. These achievements are never wholly the work of individuals. Architecture is a social art. Architectural form is inevitably influenced by the technologies applied, but building technology is conservative and knowledge about it is cumulative.

Precast concrete, for instance, has not cause brick to be outmoded. Although design and construction have become highly stylish and are often computer directed, this complex equipment rests on preindustrial traditions inherited from times in which most structures were lived in by the people who erected them. The technical demands on building remain the same, to allow people to be let in or kept out, to stand against gravity, and to avoid wear and tear caused by an excess of heat or cold, rain, wind, or animals. The availability of suitable materials advances the crafts to develop them and influenced the shapes of buildings. Large areas of the world were once forested, and their inhabitants developed carpentry. Although it has become relatively scarce, timber remains an important building material.

Many kinds of stone lend themselves to building. Stone and marble were chosen for important monuments because they are fire resistant and can be expected to last. Stone is also a sculptural material; stone architecture was often linked with stone sculpture. The use of stone has declined, however, because a number of other materials are more amenable to industrial use and assembly. Some regions lack both timber and stone; their peoples used the earth itself, compressing certain mixtures into walls or forming them into bricks to be dried in the sun. Later they baked these substances in kilns, producing a range of bricks and tiles with greater durability.

Thus, early cultures used substances occurring in their environment and invented the tools, skills, and technologies to develop a variety of materials, creating a legacy that continues to inform more industrialized methods. Building with stones or bricks is called masonry. When stone and brick join together create natural cement that combined with other substances, produced concrete. They usually finished this with materials that would give a better finish. In the early 19th century waterproof cement was developed, the key ingredient of modern concrete.

In the 19th century steel suddenly became abundant; rolling mills turned out shapes that could make structural frames stronger than the traditional wooden frames. Steel rods could also be positioned in wet concrete so as to greatly improve the versatility of that material, which gave way early in the 20th century to new forms facilitated by reinforced concrete construction. The availability of aluminum and its coatings provided surfacing material that was lightweight and almost maintenance free. Glass was known in prehistory and is known for its contributions to Gothic architecture. Its quality and availability have been enormously enhanced by industrial processing, which has revolutionized the use of natural light and transparency.

The design of the Miramar Hotel, a vividly colored resort village, is Egyptian-style. It combines Graves's post modern, classically inspired forms with traditional Egyptian design motifs and construction methods. The Miramar extends horizontally, presenting a community of linked townhouses and cottages that reach out to follow canals, circle pools and enclose gardens, and give every room a view. Besides taking design cues from the native village architecture, Graves also used the vernacular building craft to construct the Miramar. Traditional construction methods from the mid-twentieth century, once abandoned, were revived. The walls are made of kiln-baked bricks, and topped with brick domes and barrel vaults, and the domes are shaped by layering and attaching bricks so that each course leans against the one next to it as the vault or dome expands across the void.

The porches and balconies found on almost all of the structures are similar to those of traditional residences. Intimate guest suites on the top floors have a domed, vaulted, cone or pyramid shaped ceiling, often punctured by a rectangular or cylindrical light shaft. The hotel's public reception area is a two story space, with dense walls and monumental columns. When Graves's chose to use the Egyptian architecture, he chose one that differs in many ways from our cultures. Because limited tree growth prevented the extensive use of wood as a building material, and fine clay was deposited by the floodwaters of the Nile, the ceramic arts developed early. Both sun dried and kiln dried bricks were used extensively.

Fine sandstone, limestone, and granite were available for sculpture and decorative uses. A massive architecture came forward from primitive structures of clay and reeds. The Egyptians developed post and lintel construction the type exclusively used in their enormous buildings, even though the use of the arch was developed. Walls were very thick. Columns were confined to the halls and inner courts. Roofs were always flat because of the lack of rain, and were of huge stone blocks supported by the external walls and the closely spaced columns.

All dwelling and houses were built of timber or of sun baked bricks, many of the temples and tombs, constructed in durable materials, have survived..