Lecture 6 Architecture as Species II: Transparency space as a concept existed in late 19 th C discussed by architects the void, air, instead of walls + windows, etc that make space displaced thought on orders, proportions, harmony NB tectonics <=> structure transparency --> modern ARC: all about glass claims that modern ARC = without ornaments --> modern ARC = elimination of ornaments claims made by representatives of modern movement ornaments aren't used anymore (claims made in 1920s, 30s, 40s) Giedion (secretary of CIAM) + Colin Rowe (influential in America after war) --> influential figures in modern movement Recall: discussion of tectonics * Mies van der Rohe, Dominion Centre, Toronto, 1967-69 despite simplicity --> building conforms to grid structure --> building = complexity ARC of modern movement claims that it = always about visibility, legibility, self-evidence about Mies buildings --> were transparent in literal + figurative sense Mies, IIT Crown Hall, Chicago, USA, 1956 --> model conforms to orthogonal logic --> what you see = what you get despite legibility + visibility of structural system of Mies buildings --> structure itself = hidden * Mies van der Rohe, Seagram Building, New York City, 1958 Mies buildings --> structure = hidden ex: eyebeam - @ facades of building to make structure appearance structure = hidden inside column * Tectonics - strange tension in modern movement between: How does a building stand up? Vs. How does a building APPEAR to stand up? How does it come together? Vs. How does it APPEAR to come together? What is its structural logic? Vs. How does it EXPRESS its structural logic? ACTUAL structure APPARENT structure BEING APPEARANCE How structure IS How structure APPEARS modern architects still concerned with how things look glass house ideal transparency in modern ARC that forces inhabitants of ARC to moral rectitude transparency not only about glass (although significant material) (in modern ARC) also about legibility, clarity, visibility, implications of moral truthfulness enforces inhabitants to adapt certain behaviours *SANAA (Japanese firm), Glass Pavilion, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, USA, 2006 involves collection of glass objects Toledo once important centre of glass manufacture building = very transparent literally glass box situated in park beside 19 th C Beaux-Arts style museum (Pavilion of museum) and
houses built to house 5000 glass artifacts plan of building (walls = thin + looks like bubble diagram): has no thickness --> only simple line glass walls represented as thin lines looks like bubble diagram corners of space = rounded logic: orthogonal (can tell where columns are) spaces in rooms (making up plan) conform + depart from orthogonal logic circulation = snake-like workshops where glass = manufactured on site plan determined by program --> program what = supposed to take place in building program of building * Poche The method or result of representing the solid part of a building (as a wall, etc.) by a darkened area on an architectural plan white spaces of building of where to occupy; distinction between interior + exterior spaces elaborate pattern of poche in building poche: found in void in panels of glass * Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, CT, 1949 clear distinction between what's exterior + interior space poche logic = inverted volume has envelope of glass around it only solid mass: toilet Toledo museum ~ Beaux-Arts poche, where deep pockets between occupiable spaces = void (not solid) glass box: volume = always enveloped with surface of glass NB: interior vs. exterior solid vs. void transparency vs. opaque *SANAA (Japanese firm), Glass Pavilion, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, USA, 2006 placement of glass boxes inside large glass boxes technical explanation: layers of glass walls provide elaborate heating + cooling system building has 3 zones: hot zone glass = manufactured --> heat recovered = used elsewhere gallery specific temperatures for artifacts --> cool air from galleries = recovered --> used to cool glass production zone buffer zones (between different layers of glass panels) = thermal --> heated + cooled to avoid condensation on panels material (glass movement): Germany --> China --> USA 2 curved pieces of glass --> thermal void between them curtains: monitor + control amount of light entering building sections slicing building --> like x-ray elevation how you view faces of building from a distance architects interested in exploring sections observe how spaces work *SANAA (Japanese firm), Glass Pavilion, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, USA, 2006 * Sejima effort to make glass transparent, yet architects seek to find effects that make it opaque; illusions and reflections created by way glass panels are laid; architects seeking to create phantom effects (ex. Reflections of curtains on curved glasses)
transparency undermines its own logic + be opaque * Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, London, 1851 earliest uses of caste iron skeletal construction facade covered by glass panels intro'd way of using modules --> open system can be extended in any direction many materials made off site + assembled on site (using techniques akin to assembly line) new typology engineer built Crystal Palace * Charles Garnier, New Opera, Paris, 1863 1875 and * Gallery of Machines, Built for the Paris Exhibition of 1889 19 th C structures = too atectonic + ornamental (selon Giedion) * Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture, 1941 Transparency to see interior and exterior of building @ same time Modern ARC space-time Movement in space that has been seized and held Elements of transparency interior and exterior seen @ same time, simultaniety, interpenetration, interrelation, juxtaposition Transparency about see-through material of glass and understanding of space Not only material condition also spatial condition Gropius building = allowing viewer to see surface of building and what s inside * Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal i. Rowe + Slutzky essay = critique of Giedion Start definition with transparency based on simultaneity, interpenetration then object definition NB Giedion = interested in clarity, visibility, self-evidence of transparency Rowe + Slutzky interested in its contradiction Transparcency implies broader spatial order Space recedes + fluctuates continues in activity Defined transparency as ambiguity, shifting of registers The meaning of the image depends on the context ii. Literal transparency vs. Phenomenal transparency Clarity vs. Ambiguity Transparency as material vs. Transparency as Space Gropius vs. Le Corbusier Bad modernism vs. Good modernism iii. Argue about ARC, but turn to ARC @ end of essay Throughout most essay, talking about paintings Transparency spatial condition instead of material condition (b/c can only represent space in paintings ARC deals with actual things) Used painting to describe good + bad modernism Cezanne godfather of cubism went against Western painting (until Renaissance) Renaissance Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin, 1504, oil on panel Practice perspective, converging of lines Earliest use of systematic perspective of painting Perspective = a means to determine where things are in space (put things in space)
Perspective became important in Western Renaissance period, many paintings arranged things spatially on surface of canvas as fore-, middle-, and background Cezanne got rid of Renaissance technique Everything falls into each other in painting Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902 1906 Frontal view Suppression of depth Contraction of foreground, middleground, background foreground, middleground, background collapse Tipping forward of objects in space Comparison of Picasso and Braque (accentuated by virtue of juxtaposition): Picasso, Clarinet Player, 1911 1912 Represents literal transparency 3D figure pops out Braque, The Portuguese, 1911 Represents phenomenal transparency Uniform feel shallow space (Woelfflin, Principles of Art History, 1915) Moholy-Nagy, La Sarraz, 1930 Literal transparency illusionistic effect of a translucent object in deep naturalistic space Space that is created is deep can tell by virtue of grid-like structure what s behind what Leger, Three Faces, 1926 Phenomenal transparency frontally displayed objects in shallow abstracted space Rowe + Slutzky prefer shallow space > deep space, opaque layers > 3D objects * Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926 (literal transparency) + * Le Corbusier, Villa Stein, Garches, 1927 Similarities glass turning on corner, etc Gropius explores transparent quality of glass as a material, transparency = material things, everything = clear (see through glass) Le Corbusier concerned with planar quality of glass as maker of space, ambiguity in spatial organization of building Opaque = good, clarity = bad Spatial arrangement of opaque layers Assynometric 3D rendering of object/building such that things don t converge @ vantage point look @ distant POV lines are parallel to each other Le Corbusier painting layer opaques one after each other in shallow space Layering of surfaces in shallow space (in Corbusier buildings) iv. Identify 2 different kinds of modernism and 2 different kinds of spatial arrangement * Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926 vs. * Le Corbusier, Villa Stein, Garches, 1927 Buildings are operating with different notions of space Deep space vs. shallow space Clear space vs. ambiguous space, etc * Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926 Bauhaus = insulated Columns are in deep space * Le Corbusier, Villa Stein, Garches, 1927 Space = contained
Forced through layers v. Problems in essay Historical content is misused Mode of argumentation is flawed Transparency found in corporate modernism in post-war period = completely dropped out in essay SOM, Lever House, New York 1952 Second part of essay published 8 years later briefly mentioned high rise buildings Rowe + Slutzky aren t interested in transparency of boxes (big office buildings) Corporate modernism is almost a degenerate version of infant (?) more modernism Essay = anti-experiential (NB phenomenal transparency) (dependent on experience) Rarely discusses experiences of ARC Odd arguing about ARC through paintings Discussion of transparency leads to opacity discussion Transparency = spatial condition of comparing interior + exterior spaces + becomes opaque surfaces arranged in shallow space BUT essay was still influential used in arguments in Light Construction MoMA Exhibition, 1995 * OMA, Grande Bibliotheque de France, 1989 unbuilt project completed in 1989 synthesized both kinds of transparency translucent glass box volumes suspended in deep space of building created phantom-like transparency used glass, deep space; interested in language of modernist glass box --> neither Le Corbusier/Giedion would do --> uses phantom-like effects emphasis on cloud-like surfaces created on facade of projects --> facade sometimes transparent, translucent, opaque, etc ARC operates with deep space transparency appears as space + materials Moholy-Nagy, Construction in Enamel 2, 1923, porcelain enamel on steel Moholy-Nagy, Radio Tower Berlin, 1928 (cover for novel) Moholy-Nagy, Dynamik der Gross-Stadt from Malerei Photographie Film, 1925 * Moholy-Nagy, The Light-Space Modulator replica, 1930, Bauhaus Archive, Berlin * Moholy-Nagy, Lichtspiel: Shweiss-Weiss-Grau, 5:30 min, Germany, 1930 interested in effects that = created aspect of modern transparency neither Giedion nor Rowe paid attention to * Mies van der Rohe, Tugendhat House, Brno, 1928 1930 strange effects created by arrangement in house most material, most solid element of ARC dissolve as result of reflections created ex: walls dissolve --> becomes transparent * Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion (German Pavilion), Barcelona, Spain, 1928 1929 reflection of marble wall --> dissolving is materiality
experience ephemeral + phantom-like effects *SANAA, Glass Pavilion, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, USA, 2006 creating phantom-like effects (transparency) incorporating both literal + phenomenal transparency