architecture and abstraction

BEFORE MATTER

Henri CIRIANI who was my professor is known for his attachment with modernity.

Whereas my education carried me to appreciate the Italian renaissance and not the architecture of Corbusier, I think well of being placed to affirm that modernity in my professor lies primarily in his reading of architecture and especially in its manner of transmitting its knowledge. Ciriani does not say anything more than Peter Murray when this last describes the lane which borders the Gallery of the Offices like a place in length, thus being sharp with our initial, naturally amorphous vision. The process with which we were trained consists in returning meaning project to reach a total coherence in order to limit residual spaces of them. There is no preliminary formal limit, knowing on the other hand that the accumulation of matter or vacuum not producing differentiation is not felt and thus does not interest us.

Thus there is an infinity in ways of making architecture if it is not the following limit:

What is not felt by a human being is not architecture. That can appear an obviousness, however many are the projects whose deformations are uncontrolled and without impact other than visual for the users, of which free and formal. The characteristic of my work consists in trying to describe this process, to indicate the limits of them. The type of analysis in question does not replace any other form of investigation but it does not remain about it less one obliged passage of the work of the architect. Thus I do not try to state a final formula to produce architecture, I am interested primarily in the tangible part of our art, being based on the following invariants: The dimension of the man, his scope and the race of the sun.

Teaching that I received was ambitious, it claimed to replace traditional teaching, to substitute an analytical and personal process for the recipes of the Art schools. This new unfortunately luxurious promising pedagogy requires a staff in excess. However such a not thorough teaching in its term can lead to the opposite effect that desired, i.e. to create a new formalism, modern this time. The transparency of the projects becomes a prototype used without understanding and not serving the understandable character of the project. Form, space and light married in spite of any significance even if their combination can sometimes make illusion. As I endeavour to show it in my file, the transparency must be made essential to the intelligibility of the project, proportional to the overlap of the figures which underlie this one.

The type of analysis that I propose is of nothing a recipe, moreover the most contradictory solutions are always likely to reach the relevance. The method that I use makes it possible to appreciate the tangible consequences of the solutions considered knowing that an intervention such as a simple opening can reverse a project and modify its scale of it. Le Corbusier written in his book “toward an architecture” that it would never have enough “automatisms”, those is the guarantors of its autonomy and is opposed to the use of formal recipes. The recipes should be avoided but method is needed.

Example of a decomposition of a simple figure.

The way of considering the subsets guides the architect in the choice of the transparencies and opacities without preliminary formalism. This method makes it possible to review two to two the most contradictory solutions on the level of the whole of the project until in its least recesses.

Practical example illustrating my process.

Working on a project for two amphitheatres in a volume limited the majority of the architects proposed two oblique plans laid out in opposite directions supporting the expressivity of the draw with the detriment of space, crossing the matter, supporting the effects of prospect without being concerned with relation of various spaces with the unit. Conversely, I proposed to put the two amphitheatres in the same direction not by formal whim but to establish a perfectly definite space between the two thus being able to create a subset able to interact with the whole of the building. That in addition enabled me to have an impact on the scale of the building. Of a formula I will say that it was a question of gathering for better dividing.

The aptitude to break up more or less virtual subsets interpenetrating is a powerful means to perceive and share spaces. Of course the crossed solution, under certain conditions, could be perfectly relevant.

Conclusion

The process I propose is supported on a thorough knowledge of the contents of the principal reviews of architecture. The teachers often present those like changeable however, contrary to the generally accepted ideas, it exists several important reviews whose teaching role is determining. Thus many architects published in CASABELLA, LOTUS, ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, EL CROQUIS, A+U etc… have an often rigorous process. To familiarize itself with the architecture of Baldeweg, Siza, Venezia, Moneo, Koolhaas, Mateus and many others is in my opinion the best means of being diverted of a formal practice.

It is erroneous to believe that by limiting the culture of the students one can secure them against a superficial practice. To occult not mean to control.

“What the word for space, Raum, Rum, indicates is clarified by its old sense. Raum means a place cleared or released to be established and stay. A space is something for which one did make of the place, something of released and free i.e. inside the limits, the Greek word will peras. A limit is not where something finish but, like the Greeks recognized it, where something starts to be present. This is why the concept is that of horismos, i.e. the horizon, the limit. Space is in its essence this why place was made, which one introduces into his limits. This why one makes place is always tuned and thus connected, i.e. joined together by the virtue of a place, i.e. that means owing to something resembling the bridge. Thus spaces receive their existence of the places and not of “space”. »

   Martin Heidegger

                                                           “to build, live, think”. 1954

EXAMPLES TO EXPLAIN A CONCEPT: SPACE

This work of synthesis of significant projects makes it possible to highlight two levels within the projects; on the one hand, the structure of spaces and on the other hand, a unit consisted the form, the texture and the structure of the buildings which reveal or contradict the first. To privilege work on space compared to strictly formal work is a decisive passage to go through. One realizes whereas the simplest forms have infinite potentialities. To make great spaces, wells of lights or effects formal is a thing, to find the adequacy between space light and form is already more complex.

Practical examples:

The drawing hereafter makes clear this concept of space. These various plans delimit a space in the most elementary way. The open angles instigate this space. These various plans are enough by their form and their provision to limit a space and to establish a relationship to surrounding space.

According to the work of CHING: Form-space-order (edict DR.)

                 

This project of Alvar Aalto shows that the design of the ground can play an essential part.

According to the work of CHING: Form-space-order (edict DR.)

 













The design of spaces requires to control the scale of the man well, the cut remaining the best method of control. The design of the ground can play an essential part. The man is put in the middle of the project.
 

                       - Stirling                       PH. Serve edict.

In the following plan one can notice that the curve is not a signal posed on the frontage. This one is inside, and returned by widening space one is dispensable place where this one becomes too narrow.

EXAMPLE Of ANALYSIS OF PROJECTS

The type of analysis carried out coincides with what B.ZEVI invites “to learn how to see architecture”. It is a question of breaking up the projects in their space and formal structures, of establishing the tensions and the hierarchies. The famous drawing of Paul Klee a cube materialized by lines synthesizes the question rather well.
According to the work of CHING: Form-space-order (edict DR.) 

As I study the projects, they appear to me as being increasingly simple because they obey a total system. To use an advanced language Anselmi, for example, often associates a centripetal and centrifugal space.

My report of diplomas consisted in studying the plans of towns of Le Corbusier and to release certain observed rules from them in a constant way, but in different forms. Le Corbusier generally establishes a virtual limit which or not blocks the sight towards the interior according to whether one is in the axis or on side. Thus at the total level it ensures the continuity of spaces while qualifying each one of them. It articulates buildings and spaces until the interior of the project, with continuities and ruptures. It creates an interior space. These plans are generally divided into four quarters more or less dense. The center is generally disturbed by a building at right angles which instigates the unit. 

Many architects currently, while working in a different formalism and apparently in contradiction, use the assets resulting from the studies of Corbusier. It is in my opinion the case for this project of G. GRASSI and B. MINARDI for a place in Ancona. All the elements have a form, a dimension and in a very precise and hierarchical place. They are in tension between them to establish a new balanced unit. One can note that the project gives a dynamic role to the existing building, which presents an angle built close to the centre of the key plan, comparable so that I indicated higher for Le Corbusier.

Samona: Theater                     CASABELLA

Analytical drawing of the Seignori Place in Florence: “Place in length” Peter Murray  Levrault edit.

    

Peter EIZENMAN: Wexner Center for the Visuals Arts - Ohio.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN - ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW

In this project two existing principal volumes, perpendicularly placed to such a degree that approach space thus overlapping by Eisenman becomes an interior space and the principal place of the building. The ramifications which result from it insert the project in its context. Thus this intervention is in extreme cases of the urban and architectural design. This project clarifies the concept of dimensional threshold of V. Gregotti (see appendix). One often insists on the inadequacy of the projectual means of architecture on the scale of the urban one. The principle of Gregotti makes it possible to widen the concept of project while avoiding establishing a limit a priori.

The architect L. KRIER, very influential in years 75, react against the bursting of the modern cities. These projects are more static, its prospects are closed. However he knows well the plans of Corbusier of which he reproduces the plan of Didier Saint in one of his books. In the two following projects, the similarity with the projects of Corbusier is due to the existence of a line according to a regular layout, to the superposition of two spaces of hierarchical size, and to the displacement of the smallest space compared to the centre of the figure.

H. CIRIANI proposes in Chambéry a plan buckled. At this time of many architects the buildings villas (Villas - terraces) but here the objective is to solve an urban problem.

Constituting one on the sides of its plan, this alternation vacuums - full allows to open interior space without destroying it. Moreover the homogeneous nature of the vacuums between the villas a great autonomy gives to the two curved lines of the project, the unit having to ensure the hierarchy and continuity between two interior spaces, and the interior and the outside of the project

The project for the museum of Stuttgart of Stirling, in a very personal style, and of a virtuosity and a rigour of space design near to the projects of Le Corbusier. Its plan as U, by imitation with the old related project registers the project in the site. Circular space central releases the centre and highlights the plan U in a dynamic and tended manner destroying thus what would be if not a simple box. The circumference of this circular space has a thickness, it acts of a circulation. In this building apparently weighing well defined spaces are in total continuity. The glass one of the entry, by its double torsion to burst well the envelope hones some which surrounds it, revealing thus that it is indeed open space. The use of the fastened ground causes to define the contour of volumes well and thus reduces the building. Mario BOTTA speaks in the way in which STIRLING releases the building of the ground by its overlaps of plans and slopes.

           

In his project no realized for the University of Colombia one can note that the oblique building which appears rather dynamic, is registered in reality in an equilateral triangle. In addition the use of a metal structure making all the height of the building, is not a stylistic whim, it solves a problem of range, the ground being the roof of a gymnasium.













CASABELLA N° 486                                               A. NATALINI  /SUPERSTUDIO

SIT Of a BANK A ALZATE BRIANZA

“After the avant-garde, Superstudio with Brianza”

The project is in a zone of scattered villas, the only element to which to be attached being the Briantéa way.

Typical phenomenon in architecture: by dividing the ground into two, it marks the bond between the sector and the main road. The situation with 45°, this kind of inversion which the two triangles of the end constitute which wedge the gantry which itself seems raked the ground and to dig in an expressive way the bond mentioned above (access conveys, shade in withdrawal in north, buckles in the south), all working of the project and the soil stabilization seem to evoke the swivelling of the building. The drawing of the ground would be the trace left by displacement (concept typically Khanien, even the book “ after the modern architecture” of P. PORTOGHESI).

The angle of 45° supports the geometry of the project. The ends of the building are not simple oblique, but are consisted two triangles, of which identifiable forms. Thus they have a certain autonomy without which nothing of what is explained would exist (they are the stairs and the services).

The tangent cylinder with the axis of the project and whose two levels are well dissociated makes only confirm the idea of swivelling. The curve which prolongs it, slackened element, shows that one reached a state of balance.

The whole of both articulates the project and the ground, horizontal and vertical one, outside and the interior, it is of course the entry of the project. On the floor the cylinder shelters the conference room.

Although the building is transparent, the link with outside is made by this opaque space which thus dissociates both clearly. Moreover concave, opaque space of the cylinder is opposed to the vertical structure of the building. The low rectangle on the opposite frontage is during entry, it fixes the project.

The structure is treated subtly. The non carrying horizontal elements (sunvisor) do not leave any doubt about their function since they are triangular. The vertical elements are finished by a half-circle which add a horizontal orientation to the carrying structure. Finally the use of masonry of two colours tends to moderate the structure report/ratio, architecture which justifies the title of the article: “After the avant-garde: Superstudio with Brianza”.

 
CONTRIBUTION Of WORK Of ANALYSIS OF SPACE FOR INTERVENTION ON PROJECTS STUDENTS.

Certain students, sometimes gifted in drawing have difficulties of obtaining average critics to work out their projects. They tend to stop too quickly with solutions first. One of them came to require councils of me. I recall the essence of discussions hereafter. It was a question of conceiving with whole of residences on an agricultural land in limit of new city.

- creation by the student of a line to mark the dimension of the ground.

1 - Taking into account the difference in density, the specific building at the end of the ground would have produced the same effect. The interest of a line would be different. It wanted in addition to tally the existing villas. It was enough that other villas are established other side to remove this role to him.

Then the student traces a curve building to mark the end of sound together.

2 - It seems to me that this very free form, apparently original was actually not very convincing. This one did not modify in a significant way space. In addition a linear building can generate its clean limiting.

I showed him initially that the curved building placed close to the dense zone could establish a space of transition between the two zones and create a strong contrast on the bottom which constitutes the urbanized face.

3 - Then eager to let it proceed in his way, I will suggest to him keeping his curved building, but leaving the free ground floor in order to create a space in under face and maintaining the continuity of the ground.

It could also alternate parts built with empty spaces etc…

4 - Finally it indicated to me that it wanted to establish a density different on both sides from its line.

It is the first time that it suggested a space, this one could continue to exist in spit of the modifications of its environment. I insisted lengthily on the potentialities of such an approach by opposition to an unimportant formal play. I indicated to him that an outline drawing of square, for example, could with him only qualify a space.

It was rather anxious reducing character of this remark, being seen drawing squares all its life.

In conclusion I pointed out to him that the project of his teacher H. CIRIANI for Chambéry, if it were consisted two principal curved lines were also consisted two squares.

I believe that he then understood.

CONTRIBUTION OF RESEARCH FOR THE DESIGN OF THE PROJECT: EXAMPLE

Proposal near the town hall of Châtillon for a project of 7000 m ² of offices.

The common one determined a volume of which essence consisted in degrading the building starting from the slope to the bottom of the avenue in order to maintain the sights on this one since the dwellings in withdrawal. My objective was to show that one could respect these sights while giving to the project a certain stature able to qualify this place. Thus so avoiding having a degraded overall line, I lowered the building of two levels. In addition I laid out three blocks along the avenue according to a strongly marked datum-line.

This plan is bored of a gangway which prolongs in overhang on the avenue the high part of the ground.

These three poles being laid out, that gives me freedom to establish a space of transition between the avenue and the interior of the small island. The square center the angle of the zone, the empty part of this one ensures continuity and insulates a building which marks the line of centres of the ground. The curved building on all its height supports the third block against the slope and at the same time borders of the space of transition. I would say in conclusion that one of the stakes of this project is to make so that the avenue does not become a motorway, by giving a maximum of public space possible on this one, by connecting the interior and the outside of the small island.

There are two essential levels of intervention in architecture, the first requires a certain aptitude to radicalize the first options outlined without prejudging final solution. This toughening inevitably does not induce contrasted forms and spaces. It is about a decomposition in subsets on the level of the figure of the project. The second phase is an assessment of opacities and transparencies, this one can confirm or cancel or simply modify in terms of subsets the preceding choices. Thus a U-shaped project can become a directed line folding up itself on itself and a lengthened plan can by the addition of a space in hollow become a place.

The continuation of this file has the aim of explaining the concept of dimensional threshold.

Example: Project of E. Prikryl - Adjustment of the place of the town hall. Prague – CASABELLA

Note that the oval is built completely only on the level of its crowning.     

 

In the following draft I showed to a student that the “space hearth” of the project could be directed towards the buildings in limit of the ground in order to integrate them to give an urban dimension to the unit and especially a width which exceeds the dimension of the house.  The close frontages form integral part of the new composition.

During a correction our professors had shown as remarkable a project of urban composition where the student had raised the building angle to reach in the middle of urban piece after having taken care to saturate interior space several buildings. The act to raise the building of angle became essential and took all its direction then.

During an exercise at school my professor, H. CIRIANI showed me that in the relation of a vertical plane and a horizontal plane, solution 1 associates the vacuum and the full one with full and that thus displacements of the horizontal plane do not induce any significant upheaval of space dominating.

Contrary in solution 2, where the vacuum and the full one are very overlapping, least displacement affects the nature of space. Thus each position corresponds to a choice and a particular direction. The whole of the project is conditioned by least displacement. The resolution of the least portion of partition is done with an accentuated conscience than it proceeds of an overall process.
                                           

The two examples according to illustrate this remark.

In this Botta house empty and full are complementary. The point of fastener off-set at the bottom is fragile. If the two parts are separated those would be incoherent so much the project can’t be dissociate. These two examples show that space work has another significance to surround a great vacuum by program. (In a traditional Architect the empty overlap full would be weak. The curves would be soft and would not create a real intrusion of the vacuum, the unit would be conceived like two related projects.)

Mario BOTTA House in Morbio A+U     
                                          

Mario BOTTA -  Library of the Convent of the Lugano Nasturtiums     A+U    LOTUS    DOMUS

Note in this project how by a work in hollow Mr. Botta established a dynamic relation between the old one and the new project. He gives a new orientation the existing building by giving a role to the arcade. The two convergent sides of the room of reading symmetry this one and its formal autonomy gives him. The left side is perpendicular to the limit of the ground, the unit creates an effect of tightening at the end of the arcade. Thus with a simple form it ensures at the same time the autonomy of the project and its insertion within the existent framework, giving again a new direction with the unit. The purpose of this diagram, useful for the comprehension of the project are to facilitate their memorizing.
       

GABETTI and ISOLA -   Law courts in Alba                    CASABELLA             DOMUS

This project can seem poor, actually it is in charge of intentions. The reading of the text which accompanies it reveals the imitation of the project with the degraded scheme of the town of Alba such as one can see it on the perspective diagram.

Thus one understands the pyramidal form of the close relation and his orientation accentuated by the tightening of one of two rectangular spaces. In plan the shift in extreme cases of the two rectangles instigates this project of static appearance. The hoods placed in quincunx charge even more the narrowest space, fewer in the largest space, their oblique position restores a little balance in term of saturation of space and strongly direct this one.

                                                  

LE CORBUSIER: Decomposition in subsets:

Villa with Vaucresson

                   

Pavillon “Esprit nouveau”

LE CORBUSIER  -  Couvent of Tourette                                     

Note how Le Corbusier, starting from a static figure reverses this one by operating transparencies. The character dynamic and balanced project is not due to free gestures but to a meticulous proportioning of full and vacuums, transparencies and opacities.
 

Tadao ANDO  -  Koshino house: Relative limit enters the interior and outside.

Mario BOTTA   Bank of the State -  Freiburg     -    Giancarlo ROSA    Residential building   -  CASABELLA

These two projects show two radically different ways to treat a figure it look like a triangle.

Mario Botta is released from the figure by a centrifugal form which orders the whole of the project whereas G. Rosa works in a linear way, inside a given contour.

                               

GEHRY - University building  -  Irvine      CA                                            DOMUS

One often associates structures modernity and formal dynamism of it. This project are characterized rather by the intensity of space creates. It is initially a question of juxtaposing several volumes saturating space so much so that it is necessary to burst one of volumes completely for the figure of the project becomes again visible. Note perception outside and inside same volume, the effect is reversed with a great economy of means.

Alvaro SIZA -  Arts centre  - Sines                                                         

LOTUS

By a simple bleeding in the plan, Siza transforms this parallelepiped into open space.

                                                 

F. VENEZIA -  Public spaces in Salaparuta                                                DOMUS

In this project where volumes are lengthened and without transparency in the medium, least boring at the ends becomes determining. The treatment of the joint of two volumes is not simply functional, it welds two volumes. It is this rigour which gives access a high level of significance. The ruptures become essential and meaning. A tilted plan disturbs one of two regular spaces and makes it thus alive, while accentuating the hierarchy between the two.

GREGOTTI A BERLIN

This urban composition in its triangular part is not simply a typical reminiscence of the urban piece of the Thirties, with its organisation as a comb. This solution strongly preserves the interiority of space in front of its environment without stopping the continuity of space. This part of the unit will make it possible to establish the bond between the city and the heart of the small island with a proportioning of the continuity adapted to the particular situation. Imagine initially the parallel buildings as being molten unit, to imagine the action then to draw aside them (to make the place: Heidegger)

Carlo AYMONINO - Paganini theatre                    Parma

In this intervention on an existing building, the project is shut on the level of the figure which organizes the composition (mass plan). The higher part of the project will remain closed thus ensuring the unit of the unit. Contrary, the ground floor is burst to maintain the continuity of spaces, thus guaranteeing the cohesion of the whole on the level of its practice. Our work of space being carried out on several levels enables us to solve apparently contradictory problems with minimal interventions. This alternation, close-to open is one of the bases of our work of originator.

ROOMS FOR OLD PEOPLE:           This example illustrates the manner of composing a plan:

Solution 1, conventional established no continuity enters the space of the room and that of the bathroom. In addition, the access to the room does not give any intimacy to this one. The spaces A and B correspond to what I call full + full, there is no interferences. Solution 2, tries to break this rigidity which characterizes the first solution. On the other hand in this program all tentative to remove the border between the two close rooms was illusory. Solution 3, ensures continuity between the space of the room and that of the bathroom, it creates a space of entry which does not reveal the totality of the room of a glance. Note in diagrams 4 and 5 that the initial proportion of the subsets takes into account of the later phase of readjustment. One closes in the middle of space then one opens. One dilates then one retracts. The process is the same one with the periphery of a project. Borings belong to this additional phase. The impact of the fringes is essential for the global design.

J.N. BALDEWEG -  Hydraulic museum       - Murcia                      ARQUITECTURA OF MADRID

This project is remarkable by the way in which just Baldeweg the spaces circumscribed in more fluid sets. As one can await it architects of this generation, Baldeweg seems to use with ease of means which refer to the Masters of the modern architecture but without redundancies.

APPENDIX: various reference works 

C. NORBERT-SCHULZ                  Significance of Western Architecture        P. Mardaga edict.

C.Norbert-Schulz shows how the closed slopes give to perception since the higher terraces a character imposing and responsible for direction.

GREGOTTI              The territory of architecture                                  Electa edict.

“An identity based on the research of the complex radical of the elementary forms which reveal and hide in the exception, the presence of the image.

The word project implies however the idea of a distance between the desire and its satisfaction, of a long effort to organize, for a goal, a series of phenomena, at one precise moment of the historical process.

What Freud calls “the over determinations and condensations of the expressive forms”.

There exists for example, of the dimensional thresholds beyond whose equal forms change significance.

H. CIRIANI                          Monograph                                                Electa Monitor edict.           

Architecture requires a homogeneous level of illumination which makes it possible to understand the way in which volumes were constituted. One insists on lightings when it is wanted that people, in a course, impregnates hierarchy of the things which are shown to them.

VIOLLET LE DUC             Talks on architecture                        Mardaga edict.

In this work Villet Le Duc gives descriptions already very abstract of buildings. It shows for example how the grooves of the columns of the Greek temples hang the light and thus detaches those of the covered bottom of painted bands of clear colors and alternate beds. It also shows how for Notre-Dame apparently decorative elements are actually used to support on propping up external.

A. FERRAN              The art of the Architectural Composition                   Fréal Vincent and Co Edict.

The Order and its Quality

The “point” is identified with the essential condition of work and becomes to some extent the symbol of its reason to be. It is of such importance that in the representation of the plan, all the Images is ordered compared to it. A horizontal line can produce the same effect only one vertical line. It results from it that a rectangle, in the plan of an architectural unit, produces a very different impression according to whether it is laid out horizontally or vertically. Vertically, it produces the effect to lead of a point to another, that it or not is wanted, while laid out horizontally, it causes an impression of parking.

 

SCHWALLER OF LUBICK   The Egyptian miracle                           edict Flammarion Fields

Crowned magic request, in addition to the knowledge of the analogues, to know to make the gesture right, in environment in conformity and at the moment cosmic coincidence.