Ghaleb Zawde

LA 319 OL1: History of Architecture: Modernity

Laura Brugger

10.1 – Project Part 5 – Analysis of an Axonometric Drawing

November 13, 2020

Axonometric Analysis

The Art Museum of Berkeley isn’t very thoroughly documented in terms of 3-dimensional drawings and
axonometrics, the only axonometric drawings that were procurable described the outer form of the building
and would be useful in analyzing the massing of the building and the relationship between its formal
masses to its architectural concept and internal voids.

The first thing one notices by looking at the massing of the building is the way it is divided into 5 large
structures rotating around a central pivot and gradually changing in height, similar to a spiral staircase.
This organization not only reflects the interior volumetric organization of the space, but it also conceptually
maps the advancement and circulation that unfolds
within the building. The conceptual staircase begins
at a small step in the northwest corner of the
building, and then rises step by step as it pivots
around the rectangular masses. On the interior, the
same passage takes place, the visitor will enter from
the same corner and go up through the galleries,
one gallery at a time, corelating with the stepping
masses and pivoting around the admin and storage
grounds. Another way the exterior massing foreshadows and reflects the interior organization is through
the shape of each form, for instance, the stepping platforms, the “stairs”, have a dynamic shape that is not
effectively considered an ordinary shape, and they pivot around a set of masses that are essentially bland
rectangles and cuboids. This juxtaposition between dynamic forms rotating in an organic motion around a
stable and orthogonal cuboid set of masses reflect the artistic interiors of the galleries rotating around the
supporting admin and mechanical programs.

Another significant way in which the massing and exterior 3-dimensional form of the building reflects its
interior workings is through the connectivity of its different
surfaces. The way the surfaces interact with each other, the way
they are cantilevered and hanged from inside, and the way the
building sits as one large carved object supported on steel
columns, reflect its monolithic nature and its cast concrete
structure. The way it is viewed as a single monolithic object
allows it to translate into a single tool with many parts, a factory
for the appreciation and exhibition of art, its linear circulation and the multitude of different conceptual
and programmatic expressions found in its 3-dimensional massing make it shine as the great and
functionalist factory or art appreciation that served the Berkeley area for decades.