PANDArchitecture

Andy Goldsworthy, a renowned nature artist, deals with concepts in art that are very related to the characteristics of a city, even though many people would consider his work to be the exact opposite of what a city stands for. One of the main things that people recognize right away when they enter a city is the vibrant atmosphere and the energy that is related to it. This feeling can be seen all throughout any large city, from the people, to the traffic, and especially in the buildings. The buildings are usually so massive and beautiful that it can be a very humbling experience to be standing next to them. Goldsworthy’s work has a similar humbling effect, except he is usually the only one around to be humbled by it. He said that when he makes a work of art, such as the rock tear drop, he gives it as a gift to nature and lets it make more of it than he ever could. Also, like Goldsworthy’s work, a city has a particular flow and pace that it moves at. The way the people fulfill their daily routines, the traffic making its ins and outs and the movement of all kinds of information are continually flowing in a city. The city could almost be studied as an organism, but in these ways it is also much like a river. Much of the focus of Andy Goldsworthy’s work has to do with water and the way it flows. One example that comes to mind is the string of leaves that was released into the water and left at the mercy of the flow of the river. Finally, the transformation of a city is like the type of transformation that Goldsworthy is interested in nature. In a city transformation is a regular occurrence. Old buildings are torn down and new ones replace them, old streets crack and crumble and are either repaved or condemned, and people leave or die while others take their place. One major cyclic process in a city is the cycle of a company. A small business is started, it grows to an intermediate business, then to a corporate conglomerate, and all of the sudden goes bankrupt. This is much like the cycle of transformation that Goldsworthy explained while creating the red waterfall. He found the red rocks in a solid state; he would crush them into powder; then release the powder into the stream to become one with the water, and eventually the powder would settle at the bottom and restart the process of solidification. Overall, Andy Goldsworthy’s concepts are extremely applicable to the characteristics of a city.