GEOMETRY Building shapes
In the following chapter geometry will be the theme. According to Alvaro Siza “Geometry is something architects need.�[12] By geometry Siza means a clear, structured organization of the building with some exceptions. He has a dislike for buildings where there is no clear path and where you feel lost. On the other hand he also has a problem with a building where everything is imposed, because by doing so a building quickly loses its meaning.[12] By making these two statements Siza sets a quite narrow area for himself as to what he defines as a good building. On the one hand a building which has too much freedom in its layout is a bad thing, but restricting users to much is also not preferable. There needs to be just enough clearness in the organization of a building that the path people supposed to take is evident, but there should still be enough freedom to give people the ability to wander through a building according to their own wishes. When looking at the exterior of the auditorium theatre, the building as a whole seems to be built up out of cube-like shapes put together in an ensemble.At first glance, there even seems to be a certain kind of randomness to it. By looking closer this feeling of randomness appears to be unfounded. It turns out there is a structure in the form of an irregular grid underlying the composition of volumes. Main spaces determine the boundaries of the other spaces with some exceptions if that exception is beneficial for the experience of the building. This way of working is quite similar as to what was concludes the functions chapter. Again, Siza establishes a rule, a guideline that makes it possible to organize a building in a rational and practical way but then uses exceptions to make spaces, compositions or even the building as a whole more interesting. Siza himself compares this way of working with another form of art, namely music. He states that �Architects need geometry because it help us to apply more rigorous discipline and organization to the teamwork and need for communication that is at the hearth of architecture. But, the ideal situation would be to arrive on the work site and be capable or have the possibility of undermining all that by 94
Auditorium Theatre