Rhythm



Piet Mondrian made an intensive study of linear rhythm.

For a larger scale example: the great cathedrals. Enormous spatial sequences establish a rhythm that is enriched by underlying rhythms of ribbed vaults and columns. Numerous other incidental rhythms are threaded through the whole to enrich the experience



The Rhythm, within the architectonic language, is seen like the repetition of constructive elements or ornaments that collaborate in the definition of spaces, creating in the different sensations that direct the route, and create a harmonic atmosphere in which by means of the repetition, generated differentiations of spaces. So we can establish different architectonic periods that have similar characteristics as the harmony and repetition of element.

**Greek** ornament, for example, indicates an intense love of small, regular, and perfectly studied rhythms. It is essentially linear: the relief is regular throughout and shadows count almost as purely linear elements. **The Romans**, on the other hand, love rhythms of a much freer and more plastic type, some elements project boldly and some die away into the background. **Gothic** is extraordinarily varied in its rhythmical content. Architects liked to establish many clearly defined and persistent rhythms in their ornaments such as repeated vertical lines of wall panels which develop rhythmical power and the exaggerated staccatos on the edge of spires and gables which emphasize their rhythmical richness. In developed **Baroque** architecture, the designers achieved a kind of ordered and dramatic rhythmical complexity of line, of mass, and of shape which have never been surpassed. **Modern architecture**, varies in its rhythmical ideals from the most clear-cut and regular rhythms to those in which there is a search from such free and so-called natural rhythms that the rhythmical basis is almost entirely lost and the result appears, to many people, amorphous and without meaning.  

 GUGGENHEIM BILBAO MUSEUM

The Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank O. Gehry, belongs to the Modern architecture, and its principal caracteristic is that reflect a natural rhythm through variations of linear lengths and most specificly through curvatures. The rhythm of lines and curvatures in this museum is very clear and is reflected in the planes of the façade. In this way, as others moderm architects, Gehry creates a free style in which the repetition of lines define the volumes, even when the rhythmical basis appears amorphous and without meaning. media type="file" key="gehry.wma"