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Symbolic content in the emergence of the Miesian free-plan

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602360500114957

1466-4410

Sonit Bafna,

Architecture and Computational Design

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. In ‘Six students talk with Mies’, Master Builder, Student Publication of the North Carolina State College, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1952), pp. 21–28. Reported in Richard Padovan, ‘Machines à Méditer’, in Rolf Achilles, Kevin Harrington, and Charlotte Myrhum, (eds), Mies van der Rohe: Architect as Educator (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 23. 2. Lecture notes from manuscript dated June 19, 1924. Published in Fritz Neumeyer, Die Kunstlose Wort (Berlin: Seidler Verlag, 1986), p. 309. (Thanks are due to Hyun-kyung Lee for help with the translation.) 3. For an accessible introduction to the notion of symbol and symbolic form, see Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944). For Nelson Goodman's theory of symbolism, see Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1975). 4. Most recently in ‘Formulation’ (guest editorial to this issue of The Journal of Architecture). Also, refer to J. Peponis, I. Lycourioti, and I. Mari, ‘Spatial models, design reasons, and the construction of spatial meaning’, Philosophica (2002), pp. 70: 59–90. 5. Other potential sources crop up in the writings of scholars: Alan Colquhoun, in Modern Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 174, mentions in passing the tradition of English residential planning, in which asymmetrical and often open planning of interiors had achieved a sophisticated maturity, while Wolf Tegethoff, in Mies van der Rohe: The Villas and Country Houses, Russell Stockman, tr. (New York: MoMA, 1985), p. 51, discusses limited connections with German and Dutch Expressionism, and Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (New York: Praeger, 1960), pp. 270–271, finds traces of Schinkel, German Expressionism, as well of contemporaries like El Lissitsky and Keisler. The three listed above, however, have become quite standard within Miesian scholarship. 6. Alfred Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art (New York: MoMA, 1936), pp. 154–156. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design, op. cit., pp. 270–271. For a comprehensive and insightful discussion on this, see Tegethoff, Mies van der Rohe, op. cit., pp. 49–51. 7. Colquhoun, Modern Architecture, op. cit., p. 174 (see, in particular, related endnote on p. 260). 8. Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1990). The appendix, according to the book jacket ‘presents all of the essential texts’ by Mies; it contains the entire set of Mies's formal writing and associated notes that are in collections at the MoMA (New York), the Library of Congress, and the University of Chicago. 9. Tegethoff, Mies van der Rohe, op. cit., pp. 40–42. 10. Erich Haenel and Heinrich Tscharmann, Das Einzelwohnhaus der Neuzeit (Leipzig: J. J. Weber, 1909), p. xxiv. (My translation.) 11. Tegethoff, Mies van der Rohe, op. cit., p. 38. 12. Gottfried Semper, ‘On Architectural Styles’, in The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, translated by W. Hermann and H. F. Mallgrave (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 269. The essay was a lecture delivered at the Rathaus in Zurich in 1869. 13. Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History (New York: Dover, 1939), pp. 10–11. (Translated from the original German edition of 1915.) 14. ‘Ebensowenig erstreben wir einen Stil. Auch der Wille zum Stil ist formalistisch’, in ‘Bauen’, Vol. 2 (1923), p. 1. Note, however, that Mies is arguing against developing a style (einen Stil). This is different in sense from the ‘style’ of Berlage, which is a qualifying property of buildings; some buildings have it, and some do not. 15. Hendrik Petrus Berlage, ‘Thoughts on Style in Architecture’, in Ian Boyd Whyte and Wim de Wit (tr.) Hendrik Petrus Berlage: Thoughts on Style 1886–1909 (Santa Monica CA: Getty Center, 1996), p. 136. 16. Hendrik Petrus Berlage, ‘Thoughts on Style in Architecture’, in Ian Boyd Whyte and Wim de Wit (tr.) Hendrik Petrus Berlage: Thoughts on Style 1886–1909 (Santa Monica CA: Getty Center, 1996), p. 138. 17. Strictly speaking, Theo van Doesburg's theory of Elementarism was formulated only in 1925, and is stylistically marked by his development of diagonally oriented compositions. However, the underlying ideas were being developed through the early 1920s. An excerpt from a 1924 piece: ‘New architecture is elementary, that is to say, it develops from the elements of building, in the widest sense. These elements, i.e. function, mass, plane, line, space, light, colour, material, etc. are at the same time elements of plastic expression.’ (‘Towards Constructive Architecture’, De Stijl, Vol. VI (1924) p. 78, translator unknown.) Below, I use the term ‘elementarist’ in this more general sense to characterise van Doesburg's specific attitude towards architectural composition, particularly during the period of his active architectural involvement with van Eestern beginning in 1921. 18. For instance, “Nur will ich Ihnen an einigen Beispielen erläutern, was wir unter elementarer Gestaltung verstehen,” (discussing the work of his contemporaries Bruno Taut and Hugo Häring) in a lecture manuscript dated June 19, 1924. Reported in Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word (Das Kunstlose Wort), op.cit., p. 308. 19. Piet Mondrian, Pure Art and Plastic Art and other essays (New York: Wittenborn-Schultz, 1945), p. 19. 20. Henri Poincaré, The Foundations of Science (New York: The Science Press, 1913), p. 236. For a representative philosophical view of space of the period, see Walter Smith, ‘The idea of space’, The Philosophical Review, (Vol. XIII, No. 5, 1903) XII, pp. 493–510, which describes the sense of space as the property of analytical discrimination. 21. For a representative account of this change in the conception of space, and its impact on gestalt theory, see Oliver L. Reiser, ‘Time, Space, and Gestalt’, in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1934), pp. 197–223. ‘Leibniz's definition of space as the order of co-existence of things may be restated as follows: space is the order of relatedness of positions of objects taken at any given instance from some point of view. Thus space is not a “receptacle” or “thing-in-itself”. Space might be defined as the possibility of motion of matter…’ (p. 199). 22. For an authoritative attempt to connect gestalt theory to a theory of perception of art, see Rudolf Arnheim, ‘Gestalt and Art’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 2, No. 8 (1943), pp. 71–75. Arnheim gives a clear description of the idea of perceptual space as a force field: ‘A case in which balance leads to complete symmetry is observed when a drop of oil falls into a glass of water. Mechanical forces become active, pushing and pulling, until the oil is collected in a circular shape in the middle of the water surface … Similar processes are likely to occur in the physiological field of vision when stimuli interfere with its balance.’ (p. 73.) 23. Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word, op. cit., pp. 151, 162–163 and 169. 24. For instance, ‘Baukunst is die räumliche Auseinandersetzung des Menschen mit seiner Umwelt and und der Ausdruck dafür, wie er sich darin behauptet und wie er sie zu meistern versteht. Deshalb ist Baukunst nict nur ein technisches Problem, ein Problem der Organization und der Wirtschaft. Baukunst ist in Wahrheit immer der räumliche Vollzug geistiger Entscheidungen…’ in ‘Die Voraussetzungen Baukünstlerischen Schaffens’, lecture dated February 1928. Reported in Neumeyer, The Artless Word, (Das Kunstlose Wort), op. cit., p. 362. 25. For the most detailed treatment of his theory of symbolic systems, refer to Goodman, Languages of Art, op. cit., pp. 127–173. 26. Edward Ford, The Details of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990). Ford distinguishes monolithic construction from layered construction.