Visiting a local church in full youth-ministry-craft-mode this week, I was reminded how a building's profile against the sky remains a key architectural element.
The young people had created two room length artworks, painted with a continuous skyline of buildings. The buildings were simple and colourful and effectively showed where in the world they were and the scale and the feeling created.
In these sketches of Montmarte, Paris and more recently, Bilbao, Spain, great Architects let their building's profile and colour create the place and emotion.
Montmarte creates a pure tone for reflection to the Paris skyline with its soft white dome shape suggesting a compassionate author.
In contrast, Frank Gehry's museum in Bilbao creates anticipation even as you emerge from the distant train station. When seen from there, its humourous reference to the agitation of an excited school of fish creates a skyline that causes you walk faster, attracted to the centre of activity.
In both cases, the materials and colours chosen help to strengthen the intent. In particular, Gehry's use of shiney titanium cladding contrasting against the stone base really worked.
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