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(This image was found at : http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Liberty+Bell&view=detail&id=8ECB4D0BFE56ECF54163350088A2F063A8E0E843

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Throughout our exploration into this most recent section of design and architecture's history, we were presented with many of the ideas people faced during their time.  Most of these ideologies centered around reviving the past, creating rules, breaking these rules, and revolution.  Strange how uttering these words essentially paints the picture that is history.  But that is what is so valuable about this class, it gives one an appreciation into how architecture/design mirrors and sculpts not just the times, but life itself and the world around it.   

Life during this time frame was about understanding.   Without understanding, revival cannot take place, much less be conceptualized.   Without understanding, rules cannot be created, because there is no definition and foundation for them to be propped upon, and without rules, there are none to break.   Obviously, revolution cannot take shape without an understanding of what is being revolted against or for.  

So the World, and its inhabitants, was finally gaining a deeper understanding of itself.  Previously, we learned how people were learning, creating, trying new things, to interpret their world, but as we learned recently in class, this time period was about shaping and reshaping continuosly as knowledge and styles were understood, shared, and modified.       

Here are some the rules the western world produced during the early section of this time : revive the past using classical language, strive for harmony and order in all things, layer groves and stacks when possible, emphasize surface through materiality, follow the rules, place man at the center, strive for position through patronage, move forward the secular, 1 point perspective, expand the physical world.   And here are some that influenced and came out of the eastern world : maintain continuity of the past, strive for harmony and order in all things, continue to layer groves and stacks, celebrate surface and materiality, follow the rules, place community needs before your own, strive for position through patronage, emphasize the spiritual, sustain systems of representation, expand your inner world.   There are certainly more similarities than differences here between the two, but I contend that at the heart of both and throughout the rest of the world, it was simply this ordering, structuring, shaping, that kicked off their connection to a deeper understanding, that was the Rennaissance.  

But as is always the case to follow when rules and order are set up, people come along and break these apart, reshaping and retooling the syles of the time.   That, was of course, exactly what the Baroque period provided.   Reordering, restructuring continuously...until eventully a revolution takes place, which is exactly what happened all over the world.  The Revolutionary period provided social and political revolutions, but the style popping up all over the world did more than the reiterate these times, it helped solidify and illicit the changes to come.   

I chose this image of the Liberty Bell not only for its more palpable and tangible illustrations of rules, breaking them, and revolutions, though it can certainly be considered synonymous with them (especially since it was created during this time frame, and is, of course, broken), but rather to discuss its significance to understanding.   Though it is often heralded as a major symbol for and during the U.S. Revolutionary War, it was possibly not even used to warn of invasion, and it was hidden away during the war, for fear that it might be used to swelt down into a cannon.   In actuality, what is know known and referred to as the Liberty Bell was donned this term during the abolitionist period of 1830, as it was to stand for all man's liberty.   It was later used as a symbol for women's suffrage in the early 1900's.   So as this class continues to help us learn and understand our past, we get a deeper sense of what structures and things meant for people during their times.   In the case of the Liberty Bell, it was to sybolize different things to different groups of people, nevertheless, it was an understanding of Liberty.