Rhythm

Rhythm in visual arts is an attribute of any object that is marked by a systematic recurrence of elements having recognizable relationships between them. In Architecture, much of the effects of a building will depend on the harmony, the simplicity, and the power of these rhythmical relationships.



There are many types of rhythm which are of special importance in buildings. First, there is the repetition of shapes: windows, doors, columns, wall areas, arches, and the like. Second, there is the repetition of dimensions, such as the dimensions between supports or those of bay spacing. In the repetitions of shapes, spacing can vary without destroying rhythmical character. In the repetition of dimensions, the units may vary in size or shape and rhythm will still remain.

A third and more complex type of rhythm is based on the repetition of differences. In this rhythmical series, the ascending and descending progressions are built up from small to large and to small again. But when the large is in the center, you experience a sense of swelling to an important element and diminishing to a small one progressing from a quiet beginning to a climax and then relaxing again.

Rhythms may be indefinite and open or definite and closed. A mere repetition of similar units equally spaced and without a defined beginning or a defined end is called an open rhythm. Its effect in architecture is usually disturbing. But if an open rhythm is closed at either end by the effect of perspective or by a definite marking of each end, this sense of confusion disappears. Rhythms can be closed by changing the shapes of the units at the ends or by changing the size of the units at the ends. It can also be closed by adding to each end a strongly marked opposing rhythm.



There is another type of rhythm of great importance in architecture: the rhythm of lines. Such rhythms can be merely systematic variations of linear lengths or curvatures. Piet Mondrian made an intensive study of linear rhythm and exercised a strong influence on modern architects, especially Mies van der Rohe. This plan has a marked rhythmical character based on repetitions of wall planes and supports, and on alternations of closed and open views.

Just as we can have rhythms of linear length, so we can have repetition of line motions in curves. Thus, the progression from a circle to an ellipse is based on a related change in the radius of the curvature. Spirals similarly have an interesting progression in the radius of the curvatures from small to large.

Of more importance to the architect are the larger rhythms of interior spaces. In complex buildings, the changing and progressive rhythm of shapes, with alternations of open and closed, big and little, wide and narrow, create an ordered variety of effect which contribute to the power of great and monumental structures. Forms which in plan are rhythmically related necessarily create a sense of motion and a sense of direction.



In exterior rhythms, the problem is in the rhythms of the masses themselves. The repeated masses of Rockefeller Center are similar to each other yet different, and all, with their subtly designed breaks form a rhythmical composition of the greatest interest. There has to be a rhythmical basis for the changing heights, widths, and setbacks. There is a rhythm in the relation of end wings to the point of central interests; there is rhythm in the outline of a good tower as it narrows from the bottom upwards.

Rhythmical relationships arise simply and naturally from constructive and functional necessities: controlled and orchestrated by the creative imagination, they become one of the chief elements in architectural beauty. Modern architecture, like modern music, 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.

In this picture we see is an old building. It is a Greek temple called Parthenon. The Parthenon is one of the main are preserved Doric temples, built between 447 and 432 a. C.,. It is dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, which the Athenians considered their protector.



The style of the Greek temple, like the other temples, is the presence of tall slender columns that form the facade of the temple. What can be seen in the Parthenon is the architectural rhythm that forms in the arrangement of the columns, all of equal size and placed equidistant from each other, being somewhat repetitive and visually is a very nice building.

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