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IMPORTANCE OF ARCHITECTURAL APPLICATION OF ARTISTIC PRACTICE FOR CULTURAL IDENTITY OF URBAN PUBLIC SPACE in the works of Santiago Calatrava
SUMMARY
This thesis researches the influence of artistic practice on the works of contemporary architecture and its role in the design of urban public spaces with the focus on the most important architectural works of Santiago Calatrava at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. It deals with cause and effect relationship between artistic approach, design approach and architectural solutions conditioned to some extent by the current practice, and with lasting cultural values of the newly formed urban identities. Basic hypothesis is that the values of art and artistic practice can have a crucial influence on cultural determination, modelling and even design of primary architectural forms of certain solutions in urban public spaces and the content of their particular components. Methodological techniques such as analysis, comparative analysis and synthesis have been used, depending on certain problems or solutions discussed. The method of comparative analysis has been used with an aim to compare the presented problems and its solutions with relevant examples at the international level. This thesis does not pretend to completely define and depict complex relationships between artistic practice and architectural expression of Calatrava’s works. It primarily aims to indicate the relevance and suggest the importance of proper study of his objects as real and practically proved clues to the understanding of true importance of the relationship between artistic practice and contemporary man. Its aim is to open a new perspective and analyze the examples of successfully realized applications of artistic practice, and to emphasize its importance for the cultural identity of urban public space and its specific components. The value of this thesis lies in the fact that it is one of the first studies dealing with structural and comparative analysis concerned primarily with artistic practice and archisculptural forms of Calatrava’s work. The conclusion primarily indicates the importance of establishment of some of the universal aesthetic principles in contemporary architecture through the symbols offered by its form inspired by art. It is therefore vital to realize the importance of artistic design of urban space as an advanced possibility of modelling ideas with an aim to express their aesthetic side with more quality in relation to the function they are meant to have. KEY WORDS: cultural identity, urban space, artistic practice, archisculpture, urban aesthetics.