ANALYSIS OF BANDMARKS IN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY C 2018 2019 HOUSING AND PERFORMING MODERNISM: BREUER AND MIES Master s degree Master s degree in Architectural Design Academic year 2018 2019 Module 2 Materia Analysis of bandmarks in architectural history Subject type Compulsory Credits (ECTS) 6 Language English Semester 2 Calendar January, 21 24; February, 11 14, 2019 Classroom 5 Professor Laura Martínez de Guereñu Coordinating professor Víctor Larripa INTRODUCTION The main goal of this subject of theory and critical thinking in architecture is to expand the scope of the regular formal analysis of a building and to bring that learning to a piece of architectural writing. Housing and Performing Modernism will thoroughly explore the geo political context of a building s commission, while measuring the social, disciplinary, and cultural impact of that work over time, both in architecture historiography and in the city in which it was and is inserted. The course will make an emphasis on the methodological aspects of an analysis, placing special attention on the personal experience of built works, as well as on the handling of primary documents (facilitated today through open access, due to the comprehensive digitalization of many archives). Readings and discussions of both primary and secondary writings (architects own writings and most recent reassessments) will also underpin the analyses. The course will leverage on the centenary celebration of the Bauhaus (1919 2019) and on the proximity to Pamplona of two works built by two of its masters: The ZUP Sainte Croix in Bayonne (1963 1975, 2007 2013) by Marcel Breuer (Pécs, Hungary, 1902 New York, 1981) and the Barcelona Pavilion (1928 1929, 1956 1986) by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Aachen, Germany, 1886 Chicago, 1969). Following a comparative approach between a social housing edifice and an ephemeral representative building, the course will foreground the heterogeneity and the distinct narratives of the modern project. It will compare the backgrounds of the two commissions, as well as the different lives of these buildings over time, whether they have suffered overhauls or reconstructions. The course will also critically analyze the impact of these buildings in the construction of the two architects career, as well as in the lives of the two cities over time. 1
PROGRAMME The course will be divided in two weeks, during which students will have class, from Monday to Thursday, in the format of lectures during the mornings (4 hours) and seminars during the afternoons (2 hours). Two themes will be introduced and discussed each week, alternating the days between Breuer s ZUP Sainte Croix and Mies s Barcelona Pavilion. The themes to be explored during the first week will be the geo political context of the commission and its subsequent design, as well as the ownership, endurance and life of these buildings. The themes to be explored during the second week will be the impact of the buildings on the career of these architects, as well as on the life of the cities and the broader architectural culture over time. During the first week, the afternoon seminars will be dedicated to the discussion of selected readings, which students will prepare in advance. Readings will encompass both primary sources (from Breuer and Mies themselves) as well as the latest reassessments and new interpretations. One of the afternoons will be devoted to a field trip to Bayonne, to be able to navigate through and experience Breuer s ZUP Sainte Croix on site. Students will be encouraged to travel to Barcelona on their own and to visit Mies s Barcelona Pavilion before the start of the second week of classes. During the second week, the afternoon seminars will be mostly dedicated to students paper proposal presentations. Submissions will include both written outlines (one or two pages) and oral slide presentations. Students will incorporate the feedback received during class discussions to the development of their papers, which will be graded accordingly. After the two regular weeks of classes, an additional seminar will be scheduled to provide oral feedback and to hand in corrected papers to the students. WEEK 1 COMMISSION AND DESIGN [geo politics] LIFE OF BUILDINGS [users] French late post war reconstruction Spanish dictatorship, pre Francoism monumentalization overhaul representation reconstruction *afternoons Primary sources, Secondary sources, TBD ZUP Saint Croix Primary sources, Secondary sources, TBD Barcelona Pavilion Visit 1 ZUP Saint Croix Bayonne Pamplona Bayonne Pamplona Paper assignment, outline writing Barcelona Planning of Visit 2 (to be done before the second week of classes) 2
WEEK 2 ARCHITECT S CAREER [disciplinary] LIFE OF CITIES [culture] End of a career architect of institutions Beginning of a career credibility for teaching rebranding of a place Bauhaus two scenes Bauhaus? *afternoons Selected bibliography: MARCEL BREUER Digital archives: Marcel Breuer Digital Archive, Syracuse University http://breuer.syr.edu Marcel Breuer Papers, 1920 1986, Archives of American Art https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/marcel breuer papers 5596 The Bauhaus connection at Harvard https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/article/the bauhaus connection at harvard Primary Sources: The Breuer Lectures Collection, GSD, Harvard Special Collections Secondary Sources: Marcel Breuer, Marcel Breuer: Design and Architecture (Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2003). Kenny Cupers with Laura Martínez de Guereñu, Modernism as Accommodation, in Barry Bergdoll/ Jonathan Massey (ed.), Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions (Zurich: Lars Mueller, 2018): 264 267, 272 291. VV. AA, 4 centenarios. Marcel Breuer (Valladolid: Universidad, Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial, D.L. 2002). VV. AA, Marcel Breuer: casas americanas = american houses, 2G. Revista internacional de arquitectura = International Architecture Review (17) (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2001). Joaquin Driller, Breuer Houses (London: Phaidon, 2000). 3
Magdalena Droste (et.al), Marcel Breuer: Design (Köln: Benedikt Taschen, 1992). Robert F. Gatje, Marce Breuer: A Memoir (New York: Monacelli Press, 2000). Isabelle Hyman, Marcel Breuer, Architect: The Career and The Buildings (New York: H.N. Abrams, 2001). Laura Martínez de Guereñu, Bauhäusler on the Franco Spanish Border, in Architectural Histories 4(1): 15. Special collection: Travel, 1 23. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.191 Laura Martínez de Guereñu, Marcel Breuer en España: Peabody Terrace y ZUP de Bayonne, in: Arquitectura importada y exportada en España y Portugal (1925 1975), (Pamplona: ETSAN, University of Navarra, 2016): 35 44. Robert McCarter, Marcel Breuer (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2016). LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE Digital archives: AFB: Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona. ANC: Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya. Primary Sources: The Mies van der Rohe Archive: [an illustrated catalogue of the Mies van der Rohe drawings in the Museum of Modern Art] (New York: Garland Publishing, 1986). Exposición Internacional de Barcelona 1929: catálogo oficial de la sección alemana. (1929). Versión alemana: Internationale Ausstellung Barcelona 1929. Die Deutsche Abteilung (1929) Berlin, Reichsdr. Secondary Sources: Robin Evans, Mies van der Rohe s Paradoxical Symmetries, in Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (Londres: Architectural Association, 1997): 232 276. Laura Martínez de Guereñu, Mies, Bauhaus and Barcelona: The Pavilion as Anteroom of 16,000m2 to the Exposition, in Mies van der Rohe Barcelona 1929. Barcelona. (Tenov Books/ Fundació Mies van der Rohe): 46 79. Laura Martínez de Guereñu, The Sequence of Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona: The German Pavilion as Part of a Much Larger Industrial Presence. In: Docomomo Journal, n. 56. The Heritage of Mies, January 2017, Lisbon, 56 63. Laura Martínez de Guereñu, Mies y Reich en Barcelona: La entrada inadvertida de la modernidad, in Los años CIAM en España: La otra modernidad (Madrid: Asociación de historiadores de la Arquitectura y el Urbanismo (AhAU), 2017): 52 67. Detlet Mertins, Mies (Phaidon: Nueva York, 2014). Dietrich Neumann, The Barcelona Pavilion, in Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí (Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2006): 390 99. Fritz Neumeyer, Appendix. Manifestos, Texts and Lectures, in Fritz Neumeyer, The Artless Word. Mies van der Rohe on the Building Art (Cambridge, Massachusetts/ London, England: The MIT Press, 1991): 237 340. Fritz Neumeyer, The Secret Life of Columns, in Mies van der Rohe Barcelona 1929. (Barcelona: Tenov Books/ Fundació Mies van der Rohe, 2017): 105 124. 4
Josep Quetglas, Fear of glass : Mies van der Rohe's Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel ; Boston : Birkhäuser Publishers for Architecture, 2001) Valentín Trillo Martínez, Mies en Barcelona. Arquitectura, Representación y Memoria. (Sevilla: Editorial Universidad de Sevilla, 2017). FORMATIVE ACTIVITES: The classes are organized in groups of 15 students at most, with a teaching methodology based on theoretical lectures, seminars and discussions, which culminate with the presentation by the students of an original work or paper. The scope and extension of the paper will be decided by the professor, according to the progress of the student within the teaching planning of the Master. FORMATIVE ACTIVITY HOURS AF1 Theoretical clases lectures 120 AF3 Practical classes 55 AF4 Directed work (individual or in groups) 55 AF5 Tutorials or technical advice 30 AF6 Research in libraries or archives 60 AF7 Personal study 120 EVALUATION Minimum weighting Maximum weighting SE1 Oral presentation of work 5 15 SE2 Written presentation of a particular research ( paper) 60 80 SE3 Attendance and participation in class: the professor assesses 10 15 quantitative (number of interventions) and qualitatively (opportunity, content, clarity and accuracy in the presentation and coherence of the argument) the interventions of the students in the development of classes, debates and seminars. SE5 Tutor rating 5 10 The submission date is: Sunday, March 3, 2019 *A session will be programmed later to review the corrected papers with the students. The Student must send a digital version of the submission to mda@unav.es, with the following subject: Student s name + Professor s name 5