Material territories exploring Disruptive applications in architecture

University of Minnesota school of architecture, 2009-2010

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Steel and its application in architecture has transformed over the last thousand years. Its versatile use has ranged from structure to skin while occasionally embracing both strength and beauty. It has traversed ironware, weaponry, smelting of iron ore into pig iron, to mass production after the discovery of the Bessemer process, to the introduction of Corten as a self-strengthening aesthetic steel, and finally to façade applications of lightweight steel. Many architects have used steel in ways that parade the impressive qualities steel has to offer, but in a more careful study, a few visionary architects have taken it a step further considering perception as a tool in the material application.

These architects think of ways in which the material can be understood in its surrounding context as well as ways in which the context can be reframed or reinterpreted by the material’s application. Mies van der Rohe and his fastidious obsession with steel along with his admiration for the natural environment as exemplified in the Farnsworth house is a great example of this typology in the late forties. A more recent comparison is RCR Aquitectes’ use of steel in the Bell Lloc Winery in a way that displays their innocent philosophy towards nature’s wild beauty. While both projects deal with a similar attitude towards steel and the observer’s perceptions, they each took nearly opposite approaches towards the application; lifted above the ground and dug into the ground, exposed to the elements and protected from them. However, the resulting effects produced may be more similar than their varying techniques built nearly sixty years apart

Left - Bell Lloc Winery, RCR Arquitectes.

Above -Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe.

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Mies van Der Rohe

It is important to note that designer’s philosophies, while significant as a starting point, may not always be devoutly followed. As soon to be revealed, the philosophies of Mies van der Rohe and RCR Arquitectes may have some loopholes, yet they are essential in understanding the core values and intentions behind the architect’s work.

Mies van der Rohe and other modernists in the early 20th century dismissed the eclectic and cluttered classical styles as irrelevant and believed in the ideology of efficient sculptural constructions using modern industrial materials. The point of departure for Mies’s philosophy stemmed from Viollet-le Duc’s “Entretiens sur l’Architecture” which demanded that purposes should be answered honestly and significantly by the means and constructional methods of the time.2 Mies’s aesthetic then intended to celebrate the industrial simplicity where form was an outcome not a catalyst. Mies expressed, “It is absurd to invent arbitrary forms, historical and modernistic forms, which are not determined by construction, the true guardian of the spirit of the times.” 3 Another belief of modernists including Mies expressed that architecture has an ability to shape the human experience which brings with it the responsibility to play an active role in molding modern society for the better.4 Mies attempted to do this with honesty in expression of construction as well as the extension of space around and beyond interior walls; its amalgamation with the natural world. Mies suggested that “we should try to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity.”5 These philosophies of bringing nature closer and making construction honest were the main goals of most of Mies’s buildings, especially the Farnsworth house.

“We recognized technology to be a civilizing force and one to be reckoned with. Advancing technology provided the builder with new materials and more efficient methods which were often in glaring contrast to our traditional conception of architecture. I believed, nevertheless, that it would be possible to evolve an architecture with these means.” – Mies van der Rohe1

Two Philosophies

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Aranda Pigem Vilalta Arquitectes

RCR Arquitectes, also referred to as Aranda Pigem Vilalta Arquitectes, have only one statement alluding to their philosophy on their website, “We close this window facing the street meanwhile we open another one to the courtyard.”6 Arguably more poetically stated than Mies, their main focus is also on bringing awareness to the natural beauty of their surrounding environment. However, RCR’s philosophy considers the act of separating the material from nature as well as becoming a complement to it; both ways which feature the surrounding environment as a material itself.

The architecture produced by the RCR team seems to correspond faithfully to these two disparate quotes.9 In one way the architecture tries to capture the nature by the use of raw materials and physical propinquity to the earth, yet as Joseph Rykwert reminds us, their architecture cannot help but be separated from nature. RCR attempts to embrace this and possibly dematerialize with over exaggeration of the fabrication of corten steel. As a means to bring the surrounding context to the forefront in most projects and especially the Bell Lloc Winery, RCR intends to apply steel in a way that upsets our expectations of its properties as well highlight Corten’s rawness.

“Art (and by extension architecture) must have begun with nature itself, as a relationship between the human being and nature, from which we cannot be separated.” – Lucy R. Lippard 7

“Building, and everything involved in building, is necessarily an act against nature; it is an anti-natural act... When someone chooses a site, they separate it from nature.” – Joseph Rykwert 8

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Construction processConnection detailSouth facade

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In the Farnsworth House and the Bell Lloc Winery, private buildings located in remote and verdant locations, both architects were concerned with the building’s relationship to nature as it sits in its context. There are two ways to critique how the buildings respond to this task; the construction process, and the materiality. Both projects have different solutions to each.

In the Farnsworth House, the steel was expressed on the exterior of the building leaving the inside free for a multifunctional space. In this way, Mies wanted the construction process to become ‘instantly evident.’ However, just merely exposing the structure to the exterior does not mean the construction process is fully understood. He hinted at a revealed structural clarity and ease (following his philosophy), while in actuality, concealed the effort put into the true connections. We cannot tell how the columns anchor to the ground because their concrete pier foundations are buried; nor can we see how the columns support the floor or roof because they slip by the perimeter C-sections.10 Another camouflage in the construction process is the connections of the beams and columns. Conventional steel construction connects members with bolts or welds, but Mies chose to use plug welds, a more elaborate process, in order to omit any indication of additive connections such as bolts or mig and tig welds. Construction process is messy and difficult, yet Mies wasn’t truly honest in expressing that, he erased that process and replaced it with a sense of effortlessness. The exposed structural steel was carefully painted white after sandblasting, so that the resultant finish appears sprayed rather than brushed.11 Mies gave the house a mechanically precise finish. Ironically it took extra effort to have it be perceived the opposite.

The effect of hiding the connections and honest material application actually rendered the steel as a diagrammatic element, elegantly drawn into place like fine lines of a draft. It was no longer a harsh steel construction anymore but a set of lines placed in a natural

Perceptions Without - Farnsworth

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Process of Plug weld .Cadwell 114 Horizontal section cut of columns

environment. It was important to Mies that the steel, unlike the previous work in his time, did not try to compete with nature or mimic it in any organic or formal way. Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms, clean lines, muted use of color, and the extension of space beyond interior. The steel was meant to respectfully contrast nature in that it was quiet, white, and easily understood, where as nature was its loud, colorful, unpredictable and chaotic counterpoint that was able to be an active player. The last thing Mies wanted to do was leave the steel its harsh original color. Mies said, “One must be careful to use neutral tones in interior spaces, for outside one has all sorts of colors.”12 He also stated about the Farnsworth specifically, “Nature should also live its own life, we should not destroy it with the colors of our houses and interiors. But we should try to bring nature, houses and human beings together in a higher unity. When you see nature through the Farnsworth house, it gets a deeper meaning than outside. More is asked of nature because it becomes part of a larger whole.”13 By imposing a manufactured pristine white and beige materiality, nature can be experienced in a way that is not overcome by materials but acting as a neutral partner in an experiential relationship. The material works subtly with, not against nature.

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Perceptions Without - Bell LlocIn some ways RCR had the same stance as Mies in the construction of the Bell Lloc Winery. They also wanted nature to be an active player, a voice that spoke louder than their architecture. They however did not attempt to make the structure honest and easy to read. They manipulated the Corten steel in ways which Mies tried to make the construction process seem effortless. Where Mies’s steel no longer read as true honest materials inadvertantly, RCR intentionally defied the logic behind Corten’s properties and also rendered the materiality as thin objects and the construction process as incomprehensible. The process photos allude to a chaotic mess of steel laid about in the same fashion as a pile of trash. The experience of the building is not any more ordered than the ‘trash construction’. It is purposefully drawing the occupant underground in a long discovery of the sprawling fingers of a plan. One’s orientation can only be reassured with small slivers of light or larger windows facing the northern slope. Even then, the view is not telling of its context above. The folded plates of Corten do not reveal the weight of the dirt that is above you, nor do they allude to the weight placed on the connections like the Farnsworth. Working as cantilever in the main entrance, the Corten is allowed to be free of welds on one side and let the segmented and partially open wall breathe light and air into the building. The structure seems to defy gravity, the plate Corten steel seems to float between the bands of light and the material is thus questioned, it has dematerialized. It is a constant game of tricks to fool your understanding of steel as a structural and aesthetic element.

While the material is striving to be read as a manufactured product and disintegrate into the background of the natural elements, we cannot ignore the fact that the materiality of Corten was selected as a way to represent steel in a raw state. Where Mies decided to play down the rough, crude nature of steel and opt for a sleek white object, RCR chose Corten as a way to complement natural existing ephemera. One could argue however that both techniques are quiet responses to nature and do not compete with it. In Corten’s natural

Construction processUndulating Roof StructureEntrance to building

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state, the material is tangible, raw, heavy, and has the ability to rust and strengthen with time. Despite the fact that the Corten steel came pre-oxidized in this project in order to catalyze the protective properties, the material alludes to the temporal qualities of nature and its unrefined beauty. In some ways this contradicts what the material is trying to do structurally. The Corten structure wants to become abstract and light while its material is heavy, earth toned and responsive to the natural elements such as moisture.

For both buildings, the response may have been different for each task of construction and materiality however it is interesting to note that the results were somewhat similar. Whether intentional or not, both projects created a manufactured contradiction to nature while complementing nature with a quiet materiality that does not try to compete with its surroundings. The Jekyll and Hyde trait seem to be an appropriate response to highlighting such a complex environment. Can similar results of the two projects also be found in the internal perceptions of the context?

Vertical Section of cantilever Cortes 172 process sketches of plans and section9

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Perceptions Within - FarnsworthLike the ways in which the buildings’ exterior relationships to nature were critiqued, there are also two ways in which we can critique how the environment responds to the building from the within; the horizon line and ground relationship, and the framing of natural elements. These unique solutions may also harness underlying similarities that are not initially obvious.

Lifted above the ground on eight steel columns, the Farnsworth house situates itself within the middle-ground of a landscape. As Michael Cadwell explains, there are two definitions which need to be distinguished; the horizon line set at eye level in perspective drawing and the horizon as an occurrence in the physical world which refers to the apparent intersection of earth and sky as seen by an observer.14 In drawing, the horizon line locks observer and horizon into stable correspondence. The horizon on the other hand, is continually changing and has an ambiguous relationship with the observer. Mies uses his building to operate more like a perspective drawing does. He extends the buildings orthogonal order into the landscape, reducing the landscape to an attentive response to the building’s spatial logic.15

Mies did this in many buildings, yet in his buildings like the Tugendhat house the new horizon line was above the canopy, bridging above the landscape which took its prospect from a distance and neglected any nearby context at a human scale. This is why Mies placed the Farnsworth House in a middle ground with a nearby horizon line. The house was placed off the hill and onto the flat land abutting the Fox River, yet still slightly elevated in the bottom of the canopy so it was situated right where the house could relinquish its grasp on the adjacent landscape.

Suspended between earth and sky, the frame of the building which literally frames the landscape can be seen as acting in two ways; both distancing and approaching the environment. A deeper understanding of frames in needed to comprehend this duality.

Views framing environmentBuilding as drafted line

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In her essay Chaos, Territory, Art; Deluze and the Framing of the Earth, Elizabeth Grosz claims, “The frame is what establishes territory out of the chaos that is the earth. With no frame or boundary there can be no territory, and without territory there may be objects or things but not qualities that can become expressive.”16 This explains how Mies’s frame brings a new understanding to that which already exists outside the frame. It has placed an importance on organizing the chaotic natural environment. In this way, the frame of the building approaches nature openly.

A frame can also be a physical marker, a skeleton that outlines that which is not yet filled in. It requires substance, in this case the surrounding context, to fill it in. These are seen as constructed realities. In his book Framing Art: Introducing Theory and the Visual Image, Michael Carter states, “The presence of a boundary or frontier-like edge broadcasts representation, and urges the viewer to read this area of space under a different set of rules from the external, or ‘real’ space. One of the fundamental characteristics of a visual image is that it has an edge, that it stops. Unlike ‘reality’ which appears as unbounded, the image constantly displays to its viewer the fact that it is different from ‘reality’ by having an edge.” 17 These frames of constructed realities or representations are ways in which Mies’s frames simultaneously distance the viewer from realities of unbound nature.

Horizon line of Tugendhat above and Farnsworth below. Cadwell 10211

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RCR does not raise the building on a pedestal nor does it sit directly on the ground plane. Bell Lloc Winery, is immersed in the earth below any horizon line. Descending into the ground not only allows one to be even closer to the earth physically but also to acknowledge the surprising shift in landform that compresses and releases you as you move through the building.18 It is not framing a horizon in a distance like Tugendhat but it is closer to the horizon line of Farnsworth placed in the congested human scale middle ground. It is one step closer yet, placing you right next to the ground so the horizon line is in fact erased. The stones that pierce through the slits of the walls become within reach so understanding of scale is not read from a distance but tangibly understood.

While this immersion in the ground may bring you literally closer to the elements without the use of a horizon line, it simultaneously keeps the elements abstractly at a distance. Like the frame of the Farnsworth which captures a representation on a two dimensional service, so too does the framing of selective views in the Bell Lloc Winery capture only part of reality. You are shown slits of light and segments of dry earth from two meters below ground. The largest window only reveals the bottoms of trees on a steep slope. Nothing is understood in its larger context therefore making what is seen now siteless. Being literally within the site doesn’t mean you can fully understand the site.

Perceptions Within - Bell Lloc

Perception from withinView framing environment

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Again, we can see that these buildings are more alike than originally perceived. The different treatment of horizon lines and frames do not separate the fact that both buildings have a close relationship with nature as well as a distant abstracted one. There is still a duality in the perception of nature in both projects.

However, an interesting difference to note is the way in which the frames and horizon lines in both projects succeeded in their own time. In the Farnsworth house, the steel began to frame a near perfect scenery with a fixed horizon line almost as if it were a renaissance painting taking up the four walls of the house. This was done in a time when an importance was placed on replicating honesty even when it was just an impression of honesty. Jumping ahead to 2007, the Bell Lloc Winery framed a horizonless element that was only partially understood and therefore seemed to be an abstract art not alluding to a reality like the renaissance paintings, but allowing for opportunities in interpretations. This was built during a time when there was a plethora of information given to us as quickly as we need it yet we had more opportunities to chose what we wanted to absorb. It is an interesting speculation on the transformation of framing and how it is beneficial to consider the context of time.

Two transverse sections of building. 13

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one thing is certain. The idea of creating a perception of a building in its environment and the perception of the environment from within the building had the same effects even using different techniques sixty years apart. Both projects may not appear similar at first glance yet understanding how the buildings are perceived through the applications of steel makes more obvious the similarities in the effects. Weather dug into the ground or lifted above it, creating a pristine façade or accepting raw materiality, the Farnsworth House and Bell Lloc Winery have ‘re-framed’ context and building in ways which are productive in their respective time.

End Notes

1. Blaser p.8 2. Blaser p.10 3. Blaser p. 10 4. Janson p. 886 5. Cohen p. 114 6. www.rcrarquitectes.es 7. Cortes p. 7 8. Cortes p. 7 9. Cortes p. 710. Cadwell p. 11211. Spaeth p. 12512. Cohen 11313. Cohen 11414. Cadwell p. 9715. Cadwell p. 9716. Grosz p. 1117. Carter p. 14918. Cortes p. 9

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Bibliography and Images Sited

Blaser, Werner. Mies van der Rohe. Deutsche Bilbliotek Catalogin-in-Publication Data. Berlin 1997

Cadwell, Michael. Strange Details. MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. 2007

Carter, Michael. Framing Art: Introducing Theory and the Visual Image. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1990.

Cohen, Jean-Louis. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe second ed. Birkhaeuser Berlin. 2007.

Cortes, Juan Antonio. RCR Arquitectes El Croquis v.138.

Grosz, Elizabeth. Chaos, Territory, Art; Deleuze and teh Framing of the Earth. Columbia University press NY

Janson, Horst W., and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art, the Western tradition. “20th Century Architecture” Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River NJ. 2004. ch. 26

Spaeth, David. Mies van der Rohe. Rizzoli international publications, inc. New York, NY 1985

http://www.rcrarquitectes.es

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