Authors

Boytsov Sergey F.
IMMERSION INTO COMPOSITION

Architecton: Proceedings of Higher Education №2 (46) June, 2014

The publication is addressed to those who teach "Composition" at pre-university stage in the training of architects and designers. The author describes an experiment that was carried out within the framework of the entrance tests to the Ural State Academy of Architecture and Arts. The essence of the experiment is the belief that pre-university professionalization of "Composition" as a taught discipline is not justified. An alternative idea is proposed involving "immersion" into composition through personal "everyday" experiences of integrated perception. Essentially, the idea relies on involving intuitive ideas of what the ‘whole’ is into the solution of problems of compositional balancing. To this end, special assignments are suggested, in which individual perception experiences become part of the conscious and controlled process of compositional harmonisation of form. This provides an opportunity to not only ‘wake up’ the creative potential but also to assess the ability of the student to transfer his/her ideas by non-graphic plasticity means. The article reviews the principles underlying the development of such training assignments. An original typology of training and competition exercises on composition is proposed and specimens of student works are presented.