design mode: 3 CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS BY TANG YUN HAN (HEIDI)

1. Gaudi es Barcelona

Antoni Gaudí was born in the province of Tarragona in southern Catalonia in 1852. While there is some dispute as to his birthplace – official documents state that he was born in the town of Reus, whereas others claim he was born in a small village 3 miles (5 km) from Reus, – it is certain that he was baptized in Reus a day after his birth. The artist’s parents, Francesc Gaudí Serra and Antònia Cornet Bertran, both came from families of coppersmiths. It was this exposure to nature at an early age that influenced him to incorporate natural shapes into his later work.
Gaudí, as an architecture student at the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura in Barcelona from 1873 to 1877, was not particularly outstanding but did excellently in his “Trial drawings and projects”.After five years of work, he was awarded the title of architect in 1878. As he signed the title, Elies Rogent declared, “Qui sap si hem donat el diploma a un boig o a un geni: el temps ens ho dirà” (”Who knows if we have given this diploma to a nut or to a genius. Time will tell.”)

The newly named architect immediately began to plan and design and would remain affiliated with the school his entire life.

Gaudí was a devout Catholic, to the point that in his later years, he abandoned secular work and devoted his life to Catholicism and his Sagrada Família. He designed it to have 18 towers, 12 for the 12 apostles, 4 for the 4 evangelists, one for Mary and one for Jesus. Soon after, his closest family and friends began to die. His works slowed to a halt, and his attitude changed. One of his closest family members – his niece Rosa Egea – died in 1912, only to be followed by a “faithful collaborator, Francesc Berenguer Mestres” two years later. After these tragedies, Barcelona fell on hard times, economically. The construction of La Sagrada Família slowed; the construction of La Colonia Güell ceased altogether. Four years later, Eusebi Güell, his patron, died.

Perhaps it was because of this unfortunate sequence of events that Gaudí changed. He became reluctant to talk with reporters or have his picture taken and solely concentrated on his masterpiece, La Sagrada Família

Although Gaudí was constantly changing his mind and recreating his blueprints, the only existing copy of his last recorded blue prints were destroyed by the anarchists in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. This has made it very difficult for his workers to complete the cathedral in the same fashion as Gaudí most likely would have wished. It is for this that Gaudí is known to many as “God’s Architect”. La Sagrada Família is now being completed but differences between his work and the new additions can be seen.

Gaudí’s first works were designed in the style of gothic architecture and traditional Spanish architectural modes, but he soon developed his own distinct sculptural style. French architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who promoted an evolved form of gothic architecture, proved a major influence on Gaudí. But the student surpassed the master architect and contrived highly original designs – irregular and fantastically intricate. Some of his greatest works, most notably La Sagrada Família, have an almost hallucinatory power.

Gaudí spent ten years working on studies for the design, and developing a new method of structural calculation based on a stereostatic model built with cords and small sacks of pellets. The outline of the church was traced on a wooden board (1:10 scale), which was then placed on the ceiling of a small house next to the work site. Cords were hung from the points where columns were to be placed. Small sacks filled with pellets, weighing one ten-thousandth part of the weight the arches would have to support, were hung from each catenaric arch formed by the cords. Photographs were taken of the resulting model from various angles, and the exact shape of the church’s structure was obtained by turning them upside-down obtaining therefore the form, absolutely precise and exact, of the structure of the building, without having to have conducted an operation of calculation and without possibility of error. The forms of cords corresponded to the lines of tension of the prim structure and when inverting the photo, the lines of pressure of the compressed structure were obtained. An absolutely exact and simple method, giving an example of the intuitive and elementary methods that Gaudí applied in its architecture and that allowed him to obtain balanced forms very similar to which nature offers.

One can also find the same expressive power of Gaudí’s monumental works in his oddly graceful chairs and tables. Upon entering Gaudí’s architecture, one encounters the totality of his artistic contribution of integrating materials, processes and poetics. His approach to furniture design was a sinuous spatial continuum that exceeds structural expression and becomes one with the architectural idea.

Gaudí, throughout his life, studied nature’s angles and curves and incorporated them into his designs. Instead of relying on geometric shapes, he mimicked the way men stand upright. The hyperboloids and paraboloids he borrowed from nature were easily reinforced by steel rods and allowed his designs to resemble elements from the environment.

Because of his rheumatism, the artist observed a strict vegetarian diet, used homeopathic drug therapy, underwent water therapy, and hiked regularly. Long walks, besides suppressing his rheumatism, further allowed him to experience nature.

Gaudí loved for his work to be created by nature as he used concrete leaves and vine windows to create his ideas for him, so his work is not just because of him but because of nature as well.

2. Zhong Biao --Modern Chinese Art

Paintings art by Zhong Biao, The most famous contemporary Chinese artist – As a sensitive artist, Zhong Biao has captured the pulse of China’s social reforms through the visual symbols Chinese people are familiar with. He takes the visual experiences of an era as the image source of his works, including sculpture and china representing China’s past glories, the labor models of the Cultural Revolution, and such symbols of modern life as McDonalds and Boeing aircrafts. Its political, realist and full of details, Love his style

3. Rossella Jardini

NEW YORK) Why just wear it when you can live it? That's Moschino's feeling, anyway. The brand is opening the luxury hotel Maison Moschino in 2009, located in the old neoclassical railway station at Viale Monte Grappe, 12, in Milan. Rossella Jardini and the Moschino creative team are behind the hotel's design, which will include fairy tale-themed rooms, like a "Petals" bedroom and a "Dream" hall.

Each of the 54 rooms and 15 suites will be unique, and the hotel will include a bar, restaurant, garden, spa, and gym. Moschino plans to present the concept for Maison Moschino at the 45th annual TTG Incontri, and international tourism trade show in Rimini, Italy, taking place this weekend. Does this mean the Principe has competition? Time--or Fashion Week--will tell.