There are some tools which can help with drawing curves - for sketching by hand there is a thing called a flexible curve which is a wire encased in rubber - you bend it into a shape, it stays that shape, and you use it like a straight edge (a "curved edge"?). In computerized drawing you can do the same thing using a pen tool to make bezier curves. Some programs such as adobe illustrator also have gradient mesh tools, which make a bezier survace which you can warp as desired. It's certainly not as easy as making a skyscraper out of rectangles, but it's not as hard as modelling a person either. IMHO the difficult part is soaking up the art noveau style and vocabulary of design so that you can fluently create in the style - I can't do it myself because I don't have the time or ability to concentrate on just architecture.

I'm still studying the Art Nouveau trying to get the mood of it...

BTW, just realised I didn't bring back to home all my Technical Drawing stuff (the stylographes, the set square, the compass, etc) and since I'm on holidays I would not be able to do technical drawing until the next week. Anyway, as thecrow21 pointed out before, you can use some good freehand to make some prespective designs.

But there's one thing I don't catch, how is it going to be the mix of gothic-art nouveau (which is from the XIX century) with cyberpunk nanotechnology :S ?

Maybe if you could sent some designing info about the apartment (I want to try these instead of the mall) I could start with it.

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IMHO the difficult part is soaking up the art noveau style and vocabulary of design so that you can fluently create in the style - I can't do it myself because I don't have the time or ability to concentrate on just architecture

don't think that an architect is trained to design in any given style (classical, gothic, rennaisance, art nouveau etc), he merely adapts his own style. And if his style is a going-against-history, modern style, it may be more difficult for him to start designing things he was trained to avoid (ornaments), than to any other designer.

LinxMelq: are you an architect/architecture student? Spain is the 'Mecca' of today for every architect/student.

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Original post by thecrow21 Quote: IMHO the difficult part is soaking up the art noveau style and vocabulary of design so that you can fluently create in the style - I can't do it myself because I don't have the time or ability to concentrate on just architecture don't think that an architect is trained to design in any given style (classical, gothic, rennaisance, art nouveau etc), he merely adapts his own style. And if his style is a going-against-history, modern style, it may be more difficult for him to start designing things he was trained to avoid (ornaments), than to any other designer.

It's true that you have to work with your own style, but you also have to train yourself to be able to mimic different historical or cultural styles if you want your pieces to be recognizable as belonging to these styles. I design clothing, but I often have to go study a particular type of clothing to capture the style desired for a particular project.



LinxMelq - Rather than me answering your question with words, it might be easier for you to do a google image search for the manga _Clover_ by CLAMP. This is an example of a high-tech society with an art noveau style. Basically the idea is that modernism is a result of war shortages and rationing; in a society with no scarcity or capitalistic limitation on what an individual can own, people will follow their natural tribal inclinations and go for as much ornament as possible. In a society of free and instantaneous mass-production via matter sysnthsis and replication, individuality becomes highly sought-after and people will try to achieve it with ever-wilder flights of fantasy and elaborate designs. And also because this is an isolationist domed city built to keep nature out, people will get bored of being indoors and try to compensate by trying to create rooms with different vivid atmospheres.

I don't know much about the apartments in particular yet, sorry - the parts of the story which take place there aren't very important, so we haven't written them yet. About all I know is that Diamond's apartment should have art supplies because sie is a graffiti artist, and Desiderada's bedroom should be romantic/sexy/stylish because Desiderada has lots of lovers and is very stylish hirself; Desiderada's place is also where Desiderada helps Follow put on a costume to begin an elaborate deception (crassdressing).

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Basically the idea is that modernism is a result of war shortages and rationing; in a society with no scarcity or capitalistic limitation on what an individual can own, people will follow their natural tribal inclinations and go for as much ornament as possible. In a society of free and instantaneous mass-production via matter sysnthsis and replication, individuality becomes highly sought-after and people will try to achieve it with ever-wilder flights of fantasy and elaborate designs.

Now, that starts a long conversation! I agree that modernism imposed constraints on people's personalities, and it is also responsible for a great series of ugly buildings in the 50s - 60s (especially in my country), but you cannot say that it was due to war shortages. The Modern movement began to spread in the middle 1910s - early 1920s, and not only in Europe. Some admit that F.L.Wright, who built mainly in America, was one of its forefathers. Moreover, the long process that lead to modernism began at the late 17th century with the Enlightenment period and its rationalistic ideas, long before world wars or the Industrial revolution and its mass-reproduction mania.
Of course, war shortages and industrial reproduction favoured its expand in all areas of design, apart from buildings.

Hmm. Well I'm not a history buff, but I would say modernism didn't start that early - the 'roaring' 20s were definitely not about minimalism and efficiency, they were about being shocking and flamboyant, which is obvious if you look at the period's two signature clothing pieces the flapper dress and the zoot suit. In fashion the beginning of the modernist style period can actually be pinpointed to 1947 in Paris when designer Christian Dior created the "New Look" specifically as a response to fabric rationing. Although I agree it would be possible to argue that the foundations of modernism were laid earlier, during the great depression or even earlier with the invention of mass-production which pushed designs in the direction of straight lines and simplicity. IMO historical movements usually start and end gradually and overlap, so it's hard to name a year and say 'this is when modernism began'.

I'm not much of a history expert myself! However, its clear we're talking about different fields; you're talking about fashion and clothing design (which, now that I think of it, is a field with enormous history that spans across milleniums...hmm never thought of that) and I'm talking about architecture and building design. First clearly modernistic buildings appeared in the early 1920s by the Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus school in Germany. Modernism and Post-Modernism are styles (if we can call post-modernism a style or a movement) that made their first appearance in architecture.